Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [27]
‘I see,’ said the Doctor, and stopped writing. He had been making notes all the time Bobby Prescott had been talking. Occasionally he’d asked a question, but not often.
‘But that’s not the thing to worry about. It’s what they got, what they’re protecting. That’s what you should be worrying about.’
‘But that’s exactly what I’m after, Bobby.’
‘What do you mean, after?’ Bobby Prescott didn’t like the sound of his own voice. It was so hoarse it was getting a kind of whiny sound to it.
‘I want it.’
‘What would anyone want with that?’ said Bobby Prescott. He couldn’t help it. The whiny note in his voice was getting worse. It was a familiar kind of sound. He’d heard it from enough kids, the gameboys and the bicycle gangers. After they were cornered and while they were still trying to sound tough.
‘Maybe I’d like it for my toybox,’ said the Doctor. He put his pen away and carefully tore the pages off his notepad and put them in the black envelope he was carrying. He was off the Xerox machine, jumping down and striding across the floor. The movement was so fast and unexpected that Bobby Prescott flinched, jerking back. The Doctor was right on top of him. Standing over him now. Bobby Prescott scooted back, dragging his ass back across the cold library floor. He crashed into the library checkout desks, snapping his head back on to a steel hand rail. He blinked with pain. When he opened his eyes the Doctor was bent down over him, leaning close. He was holding the black envelope, He licked it and sealed it. Then he smiled at Bobby through thin uneven teeth.
Then he moved away, deeper into the library shadows.
When the little man was out of sight Bobby Prescott climbed to his feet. The muscles in his arms and legs trembled. He had to do something. He was shaking himself to pieces. He’d lost control. For years he’d confronted his fear, faced it and defeated it and sent it away.
But now he knew it hadn’t gone far.
Bobby Prescott was moving towards the front windows of the library. Every step was an effort of will. Through those windows he would be able to see the mall on the other side of the street.
He’d be able to see McCray’s.
If he could just get to the window and force himself to look at it, look his fear in the face, that would be a starting point. If he looked at McCray’s drugstore the memories would come back. He would have to remember how Sally and Eliot and Lyndon had died. But he would be inviting the memory. Confronting the fear on his own terms.
It would be a first act of will. Like the first small stone as you began to build a wall.
But he would build that wall. And the wall would keep the fear out. Then he would walk out of this library.
The muscles in his legs began to steady. The light from the window was on his face now. Bobby Prescott wasn’t defeated yet.
He looked out the window, but he didn’t see McCray’s drugstore.
Instead he saw the bicycles moving back and forth outside the library.
Bicycles with kids on them. Maybe twenty or thirty kids. Bobby Prescott licked his lips. There were more coming in through the library gates, in groups of twos and threes. More arriving all the time. The ones nearest the building were parking their bikes and climbing off. Moving towards the front steps. Bobby Prescott turned back in to the main hall of the library and shouted into the shadows.
‘You hired them, right?’ His voice echoed through the dark building. ‘You hired them,’ yelled Bobby Prescott. ‘So you can send them away again, can’t you?’ He stood by the windows, legs shaking again, worse than ever, facing back into the heart of the library. He strained his ears, listening for the little man.
Silence. Silence in the deep shadows of the aisles, silence at the main desk and on the balconies and around the tumbled magazine racks.
Then a small sound.
Not coming from inside. Coming from outside.
Feet. Walking. A lot of feet.
Coming