Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [52]
Harris froze. Over two decades of policing the Capital had left him woefully ill-equipped for moments such as this. He had no idea what to do at all. The cab was like a fish, and the Doctor’s arm a line. But the fish was too strong and now the angler was being pulled in. Oh Christ, a shark. That was what the strange vehicle reminded Harris of. Thrashing as it bit down on its victim.
The Doctor had backed all the way to the edge of Wardour Street. Even after midnight there were still a few cars on the road. Harris shouted a warning and the Doctor whirled around to check the road for himself. As he did so the cab was swung out on a wide arc. The Doctor must have seen his chance because he continued to spin on the spot, describing a circle with the cab on the end of his arm. He spun three hundred and sixty degrees, the huge shape of the taxi pulling impossibly on the end of his arm.
The Doctor looked like a shotputter, only he was preparing to throw a car.
A whole bloody car!
The Doctor spun faster like a figure skater, carving out a delicate manoeuvre on the ice. Illuminated in the unnatural green light of the cab’s roof light, the Doctor looked like a leprechaun twirling in the eye of a hurricane. In the eerie light, Harris could see the lines of concentration etched deeply into the Doctor’s face.
A small man in a tweed jacket spinning a monster on the end of his arm.
‘Get away,’ the Doctor cried. ‘Get off the street.’
Harris climbed on to the first few steps of an office building. Jack hurried further down the road, until he reached the iron fence which bordered the gardens of Soho Square. The young lad hauled himself over the railings and then, anxiously, turned back to watch the Doctor.
Unable to compete with the centrifugal force, the cab slithered down the Doctor’s arm, hung on to his wrist for a few moments and then was flung from him, like a stone out of a catapult.
‘Bombs away!’ The Doctor cried. The huge box-shape of the cab hurtled straight down the middle of the road –
– and passed through the railings of Soho Square like a boiled egg through 88
an egg-slicer, swallowing down a surprised Jack Bartlett in a single gulp.
The Doctor fell to his knees and let out a cry of a single word. ‘No!’
Chris trudged through the forest, pulling the gurney behind him. Patsy was supposed to be pushing the other end, but he couldn’t feel her contribution.
The going was hard and every time the trolley became stuck in the under-growth, he felt anger rise in him. What the cruk was going on? What the hell was he doing liberating English mental patients? He was about to turn on Patsy, vent some of his pent up feelings, but he didn’t get a chance.
Pop let out an unearthly scream and collapsed. Chris whirled round to see blood erupting from his neck. The old man toppled forward; a long twin-pronged spear was protruding from the back of his neck. He blinked several times and opened his mouth, trying to speak, but only succeeded in vomiting volumes of thick, dark blood.
‘Oh shit!’ Patsy yelled and backed away from the fallen man. She took one look at the spear, swore again, and then turned and sprinted away through the trees.
Chris shouted after her, but if she heard him she didn’t reply. A wave of anger rose up inside him at Patsy’s desertion. Roz would never have –
Stop it, he told himself. Just stop it. Don’t start making comparisons.
He hurried over to Pop, keeping low, and scanning the surroundings for any signs of the attacker. There was nothing.
The old man was awash with blood. The wounds at the base of his neck were deep. Even if Chris had some field dressings, which he hadn’t, he doubted that he could do anything to help unless he could get the old man to a hospital.
A second spear thudded into the rotten wood of a fallen tree inches away from where Chris stood. It was clean, shining silver in the darkness, like a surgical instrument.