Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Times Crucible - Marc Platt [26]
The place's craziness was difficult to take in. Harder still to look at. The way it piled up around Ace was oppressive, even dizzying. She was right at its centre. The City around her dwarfed the sky overhead.
But what a sky. There was no sky like this anywhere near Earth. The constellations seen from Earth were miserable and pale. These stars were fierce like warriors. They burned in red, blue or white, green, purple or gold. A nebula of interstellar gases splashed the sky directly overhead, diffused with smoky blue and pink from the distant torches of the stars around it.
Ace was dazzled by this. It was exactly the sort of thing she had wanted the Doctor to show her. Well cosmic. As a kid she had looked up at the night sky, dull in the glare of the street lamps, and said, "Listen God, if you want to prove you exist, show me what it's like on another planet. I want to dream it tonight OK? Then I'll know you're really real."
She never dreamt it, but God might've just been playing hard to get. And now the Doctor had gone too. So it was up to her.
"You're on your own again, Ace," said God.
"Thanks for that, God. Cheers."
She knew there were others in the City. Tramps and scavengers probably. No one else would stay in this derelict bombsite. If the Doctor was here, he would have made contact with them. By now he would either be established as their new leader or be top of their Most Wanted Person list.
She could guess which side she'd land up on. She had nothing to eat and nothing to protect herself with. And she had a hell of a reputation to live up to. Everything she owned had been in the TARDIS. But what she missed most was her nitro-nine. She couldn't even guard her own back without that.
She plunged her hands through her pockets and produced two leaky biros and a packet of fluffy mints. She scraped one of the sweets off and chewed it. At least it felt like eating.
In an inside pocket she found the TARDIS key and the scroll. She had forgotten about them. But they were no good to anyone now. And only the Doctor could know what the scroll was for. That was something else she'd screwed up over. It was all her fault. She should have found him and handed over the scroll when he could have done something with it.
An involuntary shudder coursed down her spine. The street was no longer silent. She heard a choking wheeze close by and ducked back up the alley.
Something was approaching. The desperate gasp of air was followed by a dull slithering squelch and then a venomous reptilian hiss.
Wheeze. Squelch. Hiss.
The pattern slowly repeated itself again and again as its author drew steadily nearer.
Wheeze. Squish. Ssss.
Ace pushed herself into a doorway, but the handle was false and wouldn't budge. There was no time to run and she was too scared to move. What was coming was a horror. Something massively vile and evil, heaving its effortful way along the deserted street towards her alley.
The progress stopped. Ace felt faint. Her stomach gurgled like a megawatt sound system. She leaned forward slightly, hearing the short gasping breaths of the creature as it lingered just out of her sight. There was a stench like rotting potatoes.
Hiss. Rasp. Sludge.
It moved on again. Ace pressed herself flat into the recess and stared at the opening. The monster's star shadow lurched across the mouth of the alley. She turned her face away, eyes screwed tight, teeth clenched, dreading the worst.
It was right there in the opening. Then the repulsive sounds passed on, gradually fading as their owner moved away. The stench slowly dispersed. Ace breathed again. What you smell you eat, a memory reminded her. She lost her appetite. Minutes counted on her racing heart before she dared edge out of the doorway. The