Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [78]
Battle-sick.
So, so sick of it all.
No, he was not the madman.
Agat. Jayapul. Papul. Let it stop. I can make it all stop.
And the Clown laughed, without making a sound, without moving his lips.
Pan was looking into her blue eyes.
The biker had tried to be mean, tried to intimidate Pan into paying way over the going rate for his tattoo. He didn’t seem to realize Pan was the meanest there was.
There was just no way you could out-mean him.
So Pan showed him. He took the tattooist’s laser needle and he etched a Crazy Cartoon on the man’s face, dotting the eyes with black full stops. Blood red was the main colour.
It was kind of poetic, he thought.
Then be looked up from the body lying draped on the leather tattoo parlour chair and into her blue eyes.
Where was the love? Where was the desire? There only seemed to be horror now.
And that wasn’t right, was it?
He loved her. She meant...
How did the cliché go?
Oh yeah... everything.
But she really did. More than the wild of the twilight grove and the mushrooms singing to him of good peace. More than that, yeah.
He sodding loved her, man.
She was looking at him with deep, deep horror, and more.
She was looking at him with loathing.
What could he do but kill her, too?
‘Why you ever bring me to this hell of insect and animal!’
Jamie felt like ignoring her, but his irritation got the better of him. They had managed to lose the Kassowark, and in the process, managed to lose the river as well. They were stumbling along faint trails in the hope that they were heading in the right direction, it being very difficult to judge east from west when the sun was hidden from view by a thick ceiling of branches and leaves. But they could very well be going completely in the opposite direction from the river, and plunging headlong deep into the interior of the jungle, a thought that filled Jamie with horror.
This was actually exactly what they were doing.
So Jamie was no longer in the best of moods.
‘Och, you only came along to spite wee Wina,’ he bit back. ‘Because you wanted tae stop her from becoming too friendly wi’ me!’
Santi barked with laughter. ‘She soon find other man better than you! Man who not wear woman skirt!’
‘Aye,’ Jamie admitted forlornly, ‘Wemus.’ He realized Santi had won this particular battle. ‘The lucky wee devil.’
Santi was gracious in victory, however. ‘You lucky. Wina no good. She gila; like this,’ she demonstrated what ‘gila’ was by passing a finger diagonally across her forehead.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Jamie, none the wiser.
‘Always angry, look for fight. It mean she crazy!’
Not unlike someone else I know, then, thought Jamie.
They had emerged into a small glade spotlit by sunbeams. Tall silver trees surrounded them, almost as if guarding this special place. And it did feel special; Jamie had an impression of timelessness, and of having reached a point in their journey that seemed like the furthest into this wilderness they could possibly go. Weariness consumed him at this thought and, choosing a tree free of surrounding bushes, seated himself comfortably with his back against the trunk. He pulled off his soggy shoes to air his feet, rubbing them morosely.
‘This place no good, Jamie,’ Santi said, facing him and speaking very slowly and quietly.
‘Och, what is it now? I just need tae rest my weary toes for a wee minute.’ Santi said nothing, while Jamie continued to massage his feet gratefully. After a while, he glanced up, puzzled by her silence.
She was gazing at the tree against which he was resting, a look of terror on her face.
Jamie clambered to his feet and turned round.
A long and very dirty bone was wedged in a fork of the tree. The knuckle joints were large and greasy, and while it resembled a leg bone, it didn’t look at all like it had come from an animal. His gaze travelled further up, and there, positioned bizarrely in another cleft in the branches, was a human ribcage. A skull was stuffed