Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [77]
It was like driving through a war-zone where the indigenous population was hostile and savage but thankfully unarmed. Several times hybrids had run at the jeep; some even throwing themselves at it, their fledgling Xaranti legs scraping the paintwork as they scrabbled for purchase.
Spurred by terror and desperation, Turlough had driven round them, or through them, or slewed from side to side to shake them off. Eventually, after smashing through a roadblock and taking a circuitous route through a number of quiet backstreets to avoid two more, Turlough drew up in front of the hotel. Thankfully there were no hybrids in sight and he sat for a moment trying to regain at least a modicum of composure, his hands aching from gripping the steering wheel so hard, his breathing rapid and ragged.
For a moment he honestly didn’t think he would be able to make himself get out of the jeep. Though vulnerable, the driver’s cab seemed like sanctuary. He wished the Doctor had entrusted him with a TARDIS key. If he got ripped to pieces between here and his hotel room, it would be all the Doctor’s fault.
Even when he did finally gather the resolve to make a move, Turlough looked up and down the road a dozen times first to ensure it was still deserted. Reassured, he opened the driver’s door, and winced at the meaty ‘chunk’ it made, half-expecting a screeching horde of Xaranti to emerge from all sides like the Zulu warriors in that ridiculous film he had watched with Hippo one wet Sunday afternoon. Though he had hated his time at Brendon, he wished he could be there now.
To his surprise, the ratcheting din of the opening door went uninvestigated, and so he slid out of the jeep and on to the pavement. It was only three paces to the bottom of the stone steps, and another eight up into the hotel, but Turlough felt exposed for an appallingly long time as he dashed across and up, stooped over like an old man.
The foyer sucked him into its coolness, eliciting a gasp from him as if he had just emerged from deep water. Relief mingled with apprehension. Though buildings seemed safer than the streets outside, there was no reason why they should be. Indeed, as his eyes adjusted to the dim light he saw the bodies. He flinched from the startling redness of blood and its profusion, but he had seen enough to know that the victims, two women and a man, had not died painlessly.
He scurried across to the lifts, hoping that his trembling body and crumbling nerves would survive long enough for him to reach his room. He jabbed at the lift button, then decided he didn’t like the idea of standing around, waiting, and turned towards the stairs. The staircase was wide and carpeted. Turlough had ascended no more than half a dozen steps when the lift announced its arrival with a ‘ping’.
His foot hovered above the next step as he dithered over whether or not to run back for it. Then he heard something catapult out of the lift and into the foyer. He turned and saw what had once been a tall, balding man wearing a grey suit.
Now, though, the back of the suit had burst open to accommodate a wavering, clicking mass of Xaranti legs.
Turlough neither moved nor made a sound, but the hybrid seemed to sense his presence. It spun round, hands outstretched and fingers arched like claws. Its bulging eyes gleamed like tar, and spines sprouting from its sallow face scraped together like bone as it opened its mouth in a snarling hiss. With terrifying agility it sprang towards the stairs, its obvious intention propelling Turlough up them.
His back felt wide and vulnerable, and though he was leaping three steps at a time, his breath ragged with panic, he felt he was wading through water. On the first landing the red cylinder of a fire extinguisher stood stoutly in the corner, Turlough lunged towards it, almost sprawling headlong, but managing with a pinwheeling of his arms to remain upright.
He grabbed the extinguisher and spun round.
The hybrid was only four steps below him. One good leap and it would