Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [68]
‘McDonald’s,’ said Ace.
‘It reminds me of a deconsecrated church.’ The Doctor walked away to stand in the centre of the restaurant. Ace slid across the counter and followed him. ‘Perhaps one that has been put to a new purpose.
‘That would be the altar over there.’ The Doctor pointed to the scorched kitchen section, with its dead campfires. ‘Those are the new decorations.’ He indicated the hex signs. ‘Spray paint instead of stained glass or carved stone.’
‘Some of it’s not spray paint,’ said Ace.
‘These are the benches for the congregation.’ The Doctor scrambled across a plastic table top. Now he was standing in the middle of a space on the restaurant floor where several tables had been torn free and removed. ‘And this would be…’
‘The dance floor.’
The Doctor looked at Ace as if he’d just remembered she was there. ‘Why not?’ he said, and smiled.
‘Because you don’t have dance floors in churches,’ said Ace.
‘Depends on the religion,’ said the Doctor. ‘What do you know about witches, Ace?’
‘Witchkids, you mean? Or real witches?’
‘What’s a real witch?’
The wind had risen outside and blew straight through the open space where the big front window used to be. It chilled Ace. One week in the sun and she’d forgotten about the English wind. ‘I just meant proper witches instead of the kids. You know. The Goths, the Witchkids, the Crows.’
‘What do you know about the Crows?’
‘They did this place over. Some people got killed.’ The wind was whistling through the roof again. The paper cup scuttled across the floor. Ace knew what it was but it still made her flinch. She picked it up and moved to one of the tan litter bins in an alcove. There was a sticker on the swinging lid with a picture of the planet printed in green ink. ‘We Care’, said the lettering on the sticker. ‘Some people never pick up after themselves.’ The Doctor took the paper cup from her before she could push it into the bin. ‘Some people never get a chance,’ he said. ‘Someone was drinking from this. Perhaps they were interrupted.’ He showed her the cup. Empty inside. Clean. But there was a lipstick print on the rim.
For the first time Ace let herself think about the night it had all happened and what it might have been like in this place.
Cars in the parking lot, families inside in the light and warmth. Looking out through the windows at the darkness. And then darkness coming in, smashing in through the window, claiming them. She shivered in the rising wind. ‘I’m not afraid of them,’ said Ace.
The Doctor smiled. ‘Let’s go, shall we?’ They pushed through the glass doors and out into the big empty parking lot. Ace looked back over her shoulder into the gutted interior of the restaurant.
‘Have a nice day,’ she said.
Behind the restaurant complex there were giant waste modules with attachments designed to link with the big lifting trucks. The modules had stood here unemptied and untouched since the place had been attacked. There was a heavy smell of old rot around them. Beyond the painted squares of the staff car park there was a wire fence with a high jagged hole cut in it. Big enough for a person to walk through. Ace wondered if this was the way the Crows had come in. The Doctor held the flap of wire for her as she stepped through. She climbed with him up a shoulder of green hillside that rose up behind the complex. The first few metres was lawn that had gone wild, growing long and invaded by weeds. But further up the slope this gave way to thick bushes, nettles and brambles. Ace couldn’t say at exactly what point it happened, but somewhere they crossed an invisible border and they were standing in the countryside. She looked back at the restaurant complex. From the brow of the hill the buildings were orderly geometric shapes. Nothing remotely strange about them. Perhaps they were still to be completed, waiting for the grand opening. But nothing bad could ever have happened there.
‘Tell me what else you know about the Crows. You know what