Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [70]
careful.
The scream from inside the Ghost Train shattered his thoughts. Turlough sat bolt upright in his seat, half-expecting the doors to burst open and disgorge either a fleeing line of terrified soldiers or the Xaranti creature itself.
It struck him that if the creature did appear ahead of anyone else, he would be its only possible target. With this in mind, he stood up, intending to shift into the driver’s seat for a quick getaway if necessary.
As he stood, two things happened simultaneously. He registered slight movement some distance behind him and a sudden eruption of gunfire exploded from within the building, of such duration and ferocity that it sounded like one long, unbroken roar.
Turlough hunched his shoulders and glanced in that direction. As yet there was nothing to see. He turned and looked behind him. What he saw made his stomach clench, his throat tighten and his legs turn to water.
About twenty Xaranti hybrids, in various stages of transformation, were shuffling towards him. At their head he recognised the UNIT sentry - Corporal Manning - who had been on the gate. He was still in the early stages of transformation, his eyes staring, his expression zombie-like.
Behind him was a policeman in uniform, his eyes black and starting to bulge. A young man in a pair of denim shorts displayed a chest and shoulders covered in Xaranti spines; a girl of no more than thirteen had a hump on her back swelling and squirming beneath a pink Osmonds T-shirt.
They were all moving slowly as if in a trance. It was if they were being summoned, drawn towards the Ghost Train like metal filings towards a magnet. They seemed oblivious to their surroundings, which Turlough hoped meant they would be oblivious of him too.
Part of Turlough wanted to stay still in the hope that the hybrids would not notice him. However, the greater part - the cowardly part, Tegan would have said - wanted to put as much distance between himself and these... these things as possible. He took a deep breath and jumped to the ground, little clouds of dust puffing up around his feet. The instant he moved, the hybrids reacted, as he had feared they might.
The girl in the pink T-shirt hissed, her head darting to follow his progress with an almost snake-like swiftness. Her back bulged more intensely, and then, with a ripping of cloth and a wet tearing of flesh, burst open, to release a thrashing, bloody mass of glistening crablike legs.
Turlough made an involuntary whimpering noise in the back of his throat. He didn’t want to see any more. Panic made his movements jerky as he ran to the driver’s side of the jeep and wrenched open the door. He threw himself inside, the smell of hot leather mingling with his fear to make him feel sick. For an awful moment it struck him that the driver of this vehicle might have taken the keys with him, but no, there they were, dangling from the ignition. He leaned over, grabbed the handle, slammed the door shut and locked it. He turned the ignition key and the engine revved into life.
Only now did he look up through the windscreen. He had had a vague idea that he could escape down the route dead ahead, but his heart sank as he saw a crowd of hybrids approaching from that direction.
His stomach turned over and his mouth went dry.
Desperately he looked to his left, praying that the aisle directly opposite would be clear.
It was not. The leading hybrid approaching from this direction, no more than twenty yards from the back of the truck, had black, thorn-like bristles sprouting from his face, and was already hunched over and propelling himself grotesquely along on his newly-sprouted Xaranti limbs.
Again, Turlough’s panic seemed to intensify the hot claustrophobic stink of leather inside the driver’s cab, making him feel faint and nauseous. If he didn’t want to be either ripped apart or infected with the Xaranti virus, he had no alternative but to drive forward and hope that the hybrids would move out of his way. He couldn’t be half-hearted about it either.