Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [71]
The flier was lying at angle, nose down with both doors jammed by fallen masonry. The Doctor couldn’t see clearly but it looked as though they had crashed into an alleyway or possibly they had hit a building and were actually inside it. The cabin was filled with the sickly odour of volatile chemicals which he took to be spilt fuel and which he assumed were flammable. The lower of the two doors, the one on his side, was open but was blocked by debris. He wondered if perhaps Poul had been thrown clear when they first hit but a closer examination of the rubble showed what could be signs of digging followed by a secondary collapse. Careful to avoid striking sparks which might set off the fuel, the Doctor moved some chunks of brickwork and peered back through a narrow gap. Now he could see part of the hole the flier had smashed in the wall of what obviously was a building after all.
He could also see smoke. Something close by was burning.
The crash must have set part of the building on fire and he concluded it would only be a matter of time before the flier itself went up. Judging from the fumes a discomfitingly short time.
Quickly he began transferring masonry from the doorway into the cabin, trying to widen the gap and make it large enough to squeeze through. When he had a space he could crawl into he slid out of the cabin and gingerly started to shift rubble from in front of him to behind him, tunnelling slowly towards safety. As he worked the acrid smoke was already penetrating the cramped excavation. He could smell it getting stronger and he knew the fire was getting closer.
He tried to work faster, pulling larger lumps from the debris and shoving them back with his hands, his knees and his feet. In his rush he gradually made the space he was in smaller, leaving himself less and less room to move. Finally he found to his dismay that he was stuck. He couldn’t get enough leverage to pull out any more pieces and go forward, he couldn’t push himself back, he couldn’t turn round. He was trapped, entombed. It seemed, he thought wryly, that he had been digging his own grave.
But he wasn’t dead yet. He stopped wriggling and twisting and tried to think his way through. He couldn’t be far from breaking out of the rubble. The problem was getting enough purchase. It felt as if it was getting hotter but he knew that was probably his imagination; that and a lack of ventilation in a severely confined space. The smoke was getting thicker, though.
He pulled his legs up the few inches that he could manage and dug his toes into the masonry as far as he was able. He braced his arms out against the rubble and took a deep breath.
He pushed, shoving with his feet and his legs, straining forward with his arms and his body. Nothing moved.
He took another deep breath but this time the smoke caught in his throat and he coughed and spluttered loudly. Suddenly up by his face the rubble began to fall away. A hole appeared and a face was peering in at him through the dust and smoke.
‘Are you all right?’ Poul asked, pulling more of the rubble away.
‘All the better for seeing you,’ the Doctor said, struggling to make the hole bigger and push his head and shoulders up through it. ‘For a minute there I was afraid things were not going according to plan.’
‘Whatever the plan is,’ Poul said, ‘I think it should involve leaving soon.’
The Doctor stood up. ‘Leaving soon is one of its first priorities,’ he said and scrambled out of the debris. He brushed himself down as he took stock of the situation.
‘Theoretically,’ Poul was saying, ‘it’s an excellent idea. But. .’
‘But,’ the Doctor said, looking round at what was a storage area containing carts and wagons and trading stalls, some of which were burning fiercely,