Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [53]
There wasn’t time to think. In one fluid movement, Chris threw himself forward into a well-practised dive. He cursed himself for leaving his armour and his gun in the TARDIS. He was going to have to face his attacker with his bare hands.
Weaponless and alone. He was an Adjudicator’s nightmare. If you’ve no partner then you’ve no back-up. You’re vulnerable. Exposed.
He came out of the dive in a fighting stance, facing the direction in which the spear had come, and praying to the Goddess that he was going to be lucky.
Something hit him in the face. Hard. The force of the blow knocked him backwards and off his feet. He felt himself crash into something metal and heavy – the hospital trolley. It toppled over, straps breaking, sending its occu-89
pants flying. One of its sharp metal edges dug painfully into the small of his back, making his eyes water.
He was clambering to his feet, blinking away tears when the second attack came. His knees crumpled beneath him. It felt more like being run over than being punched.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t human.
Gotta get up, gotta get away, gotta run. But the pain in his head was completely disorientating. His body would only allow him to lie still and take shallow breaths.
Something rolled him on to his back. Chris opened his eyes and it swam drunkenly into his vision. It was crouched over him, its blank face only inches away from his own.
Blank face. No features. Just flat cream flesh.
Blank hands reached for his face. For his throat. Smooth pale fingers with no fingernails.
Blank.
The Doctor scrambled to his feet, scraping his hands on the tarmac in his desperation to get after the cab. He was sure of only one thing. That he wasn’t going to lose anyone else. Not tonight. Not ever.
It had been a terrible risk to use Jack as bait. Secretly it had terrified him.
If he’d been better prepared, if he’d had more time, then he could have put together a tracking device. He could have hunted it down alone and put a stop to its macabre work. But he hadn’t been able to find a trace of the vehicle. He hadn’t been able to find a solution on his own. As ever, he needed people to help him put his plans into action. People who trusted him, who were willing to risk themselves for his plans to succeed.
Fragile companions to lure the monsters out of the shadows, while the Doctor activated the trap.
But there hadn’t been a trap tonight. Tonight he’d been improvising. And the show wasn’t working out the way he’d envisaged it.
He barely noticed the iron railings as he jumped them. Soho Square was in darkness. The light from the streetlamps was heavily filtered out by the tall, overgrown trees.
‘Come on,’ he hollered, standing in the city garden. ‘Show yourself!’
Nothing. There was a small structure in the middle of the square. Fake Tudor beams and a pointed roof. Its place in the architectural history of the planet escaped the Doctor for the moment. He circled it, hoping to find the creature on the other side.
No luck.
Was it possible that the cab had left the square? No. It couldn’t have passed 90
through the railings with Jack inside it. Not if it planned on keeping him in one piece. The Doctor grimaced. Best not to follow that line of thought.
He still knew nothing about the nature of the creature. His arm was coated in a thin film of grey slime, which smelt faintly of aniseed and hospitals. An anaesthetic perhaps? Or was that just wishful thinking? Was he just clutching at any sign that Jack might still be alive inside that creature?
He had one trick left. The oldest in the book. It never failed with power-mad conspirators hell bent on ruling the Universe. Time to see how it worked on monstrous cars.
‘Scared to come out and face me?’ The Doctor goaded, filling his voice with as much contempt as he could manage. ‘Scared of a man with only an umbrella to defend himself?’
Silence. Perhaps the creature was cleverer than it looked.
A voice called out to him. For one crazy moment he thought that it might be the creature itself. It was Harris. The policeman was still on the other