Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [54]
It had been hiding in the shadows of the trees which lined the perimeter of the gardens. The creature must have seen the Doctor racing towards it, because its headlights suddenly blazed and it moved off towards him, picking up speed.
This is what happens when you don’t make plans, the Doctor told himself.
When you don’t cheat the future by leaving messages for yourself. When you chuck away the hint file and don’t take a peek at the answers page.
Then it’s just you and the monsters.
Sorry Roslyn.
The cab was almost upon him. The Doctor took a deep breath and launched himself into the air. For a second he was blinded by the bright lights of the car and then he felt the chill darkness envelope him as the creature welcomed him inside itself.
The blank-faced creature jerked suddenly, its arms flailing in the air, and then it crashed down on the ground next to him, lifeless.
Chris looked up from the brink of unconsciousness to see Patsy standing over him. She was holding the brake of the gurney in her hand.
She’d come back.
‘What?’ she asked, catching sight of the expression on his face.
‘Nothing. How’s Pop?’
Patsy just shook her head. She tossed the metal bar away. ‘We need to get out of here. Quickly. Can you walk?’
‘Do I get a choice?’
∗ ∗ ∗
91
‘Doctor!’
The cab swung around hungrily at the sound of Harris’s voice, searching him out in the darkness. For a moment he thought that it had missed him, but then it turned towards the iron railings where he stood.
Oh no.
Harris let go of the railings, turned and ran, not daring to look back. He couldn’t help imagining what would happen to the Doctor and the boy if the car decided to repeat it’s egg-slicing trick with the railings.
Its headlights illuminated the road beneath his feet. His shadow appeared in front of him, a giant stick figure stretching out wildly as the car caught up with him. He didn’t have a hope of escaping it. How could you outrun a car?
He glanced over his shoulder and gasped. The vehicle was at the edge of the gardens, racing towards the iron fence. Harris winced; he really didn’t want to see this.
And then just before it hit the fence, the creature lifted itself off the ground, and jumped the railings with the casual confidence of a prizewinning race-horse.
Harris was too stunned to move. The cab shot down the road towards him. At the last possible moment, it swerved around him, took the corner of Wardour Street at a casual fifty miles an hour and was gone.
It hadn’t wanted him. Harris was left standing alone on the suddenly quiet street.
The black cab was a solid lump of thick, dense jelly. It had invaded his body through his nose and mouth, forcing its sleepy fingers down into his lungs and stomach. Jack had tried to struggle against the antiseptic sweetness that swept through him, but how could you fight something that encased you completely?
He allowed himself to lie suspended in the gelatinous mass of the black cab.
Floating in jelly, like a sliver of orange rind in ajar of marmalade.
Give up. Just give up and let it have you.
He’d seen the monster hurtling towards him and he’d frozen, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a lorry. He hadn’t even tried to get out of its way.
Maybe he hadn’t cared enough to. Eddy was gone. They were going to put him away for the amount of money he’d stolen to pay off Gordy Scraton.
That’s if the Law got the chance. If Gordy Scraton and his psycho brother didn’t get to him first.
Better just to let the monster have him. Why not?
Because there’s work to be done, Jack Bartlett. Unfinished business that needs attending to.
Strong hands gripped his wrists through the thick swamp.
92
‘Doctor!’ Jack tried to shout out his new friend’s name, but only succeeded in vomiting up some of the goo inside of him. The Doctor had come for him.
He felt soft lips press against his own.
Doctor?
And then the Doctor blew a lungful of sweet, life-preserving