Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [89]
That left Twist. He was hiking further up the trail to fetch the camouflaged cruiser, and then he was gonna cruise it right back to the clearing and pick up the boys. Do we really want to look inside his head? Just drug-addled ruins in there; a chemical burn-out that was truly frightening. Wasteland of distorted desires and a skewed Expressionist’s nightmare of tottering perceptions. This man was on the highway to mental hell, and if the boys ever did get to look inside his mind, they’d never let him fly them again.
Pan. We know how he works. Let’s leave him for now.
And of course, Clown was missing in action.
The bodies were collected, the long stakes sharpened and set beside the corpses in the centre of the clearing. Grave reluctantly paused the Zombie Flesh Eaters Tini-Disc and crept over to join the others.
Pan took Victoria’s arm.
‘So you were brought out here to see what the OPG are capable of, huh?’
Victoria said nothing, glaring at him with fear and anger, seeing what he was, seeing right through to his heart of emptiness.
‘Well, now me and the boys, we’re gonna show ya.’
He signalled to Saw to lift Agus’s body. The big, lumbering Dog promptly hoisted the officer up by the shoulders, the arrow still sticking out from his bloody throat.
‘Playtime!’ Pan picked up one of the large stakes and with a shocking show of strength, rammed the sharpened end through Agus’s abdomen, until the end stood out a good foot from the officer’s back. Saw yukked as blood emptied over him. Then, his huge arms betraying the fact that they contained an awful lot of muscle rather than just fat, he shoved the stake down into one of the holes especially dug earlier.
Twisting the stake into a firm position, the bloodied Goliath stood back to admire his handiwork.
Victoria hadn’t seen any of it. But she heard it. She had twisted her head around, closing her eyes. Pan let her be sick, doubled over in the grass beside him. He kept one hand around her trailing hair just in case. Now, with the grisly human
‘toffee apple’ secured in place, he yanked on her hair and bellowed at her to open her eyes.
As she did so, screaming and throwing up dry heaves of nothing, he briefly pondered what she’d be like. Nah, too pure.
Prim as a clothes-horse. No matter how pretty she was, she just wasn’t no whore.
No use to him then.
He would have killed her if Sabit hadn’t wanted her brought back alive. And they still had to find her friends as well.
So much to do, so little time to go whoring.
The rest of the Dogs concentrated on erecting more of the gruesome stakes in the centre of the clearing. Pan forced Victoria to watch each one go up, holding her hair with his right hand and prying open her eyes with the fingers of his left. She made plenty of noises, and did a lot of crying, and finally got around to making conversation, which was all right by him.
‘Why... why are you doing this?’ It was a sobbed expression of horror more than a rational question, but it would do.
‘So the world will open up its eyes, baby. Just like you are now. See the barbarity the OPG revel in. No Alliance Government in the system or beyond will criticise Sabit’s policies then.’
‘But...’ she coughed and spluttered away the last of her nausea, still on her knees. ‘You’re not Indoni. Why are you doing this?’
Pan pushed her away with an exaggerated laugh. ‘Why if that ain’t the dumbest question!’ He watched Pretty Boy and Bass levering a stake bearing its Indoni trophy into place in the ground and clapped his hands. Grave was filming the impaled corpses with a tiny hand recorder, and even leaving a broken bow next to the grisly tableaux just for added authenticity. That was it then. All done. Time to fly. And here was Twist, right on cue, the tree tops wavering under the retro blasts kicked out by the lowering cruiser.
‘Are you ready, milady?’ he asked mockingly, gesturing towards the fuel burn-streaked