Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [85]
Mike holstered his gun and lifted up the wheelchair, grimacing at the schlupp sound it made as it disengaged itself from the pool of partly congealed blood in which it had been lying. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe off as much of the blood as he could.
Tegan was peering out through the windscreen when he wheeled the chair outside. As he passed her window he noticed that she was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were white as bone. Her gaze followed his progress and she licked her lips, but her face was otherwise expressionless. Smiling to compensate for the fact that she wasn’t, Mike said, ‘Tegan, would you mind giving me a hand with the Doctor?’
She blinked and nodded. Her voice sounded strained as she said, ‘Of course.’
The Doctor didn’t stir as Tegan lifted up his legs and Mike sat him up then grabbed him beneath the armpits. Mike kept a look out as they transferred him into the chair, acutely aware that for the few minutes his hands were full the three of them were extremely vulnerable. Finally, the Doctor was installed, his head lolling, blond fringe flopping over his face.
Mike drew out his gun with relief as Tegan wheeled the Doctor towards the main doors.
‘It’s not very pretty in there,’ he warned her as he pushed the doors open. ‘There are bodies.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve seen bodies before.’
He hesitated a moment longer. ‘Are you quite sure you want to go through with this?’
The indifference on her face worried him, but at least there was still a residue of bitterness in her voice. ‘Do we have a choice?’
Neither of them said anything as they wheeled the Doctor through the slaughterhouse that had been the hospital’s reception area. They proceeded slowly, cautiously, listening hard for the slightest indication of habitation. Everywhere was the same: bodies lay in the corridors in grotesquely twisted positions, most of them exhibiting appalling injuries.
There was blood on the floor and up the walls - but thankfully there was no sign of the perpetrators of this violence.
The wards were the worst. Many of the patients had been slaughtered in their beds, the juxtaposition of bright red blood and pristine white sheets like a blow to the system.
Mike had seen many people die in his time with UNIT, and to some extent had become inured to the physical shock of it, but the way in which the old and the frail and the sick had been systematically massacred here disgusted and enraged him.
He glanced at Tegan to see how she was taking it all, and was both relieved and disturbed to see the expression, or lack of it, on her face. It was as if a shutter had clanged down behind her eyes. Mike couldn’t be sure whether this was because the shock had been too much for her and her mind had decided to draw a veil over itself for a while, or whether the Xaranti infection galloping through her system was deadening her emotions.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked her, and for a moment thought she hadn’t heard him.
Then her eyes flickered in his direction and she said, ‘These subjects were unsuitable for Xaranti impregnation. Others have been taken, but these were... unsuitable.’
Her voice trailed off. Mike looked at her for a moment. ‘Yes, I gathered that.’ He allowed his gaze to roam once more around the ward. If all the beds had been occupied, around half of the patients were missing. He pictured those patients rising from their beds, Xaranti spines and legs erupting from their bodies even as they murdered their fellow patients. He thought of Charlotte up on the fifth floor, and of the foetus which had been clinging to life inside her. A sharp, unyielding block of ice seemed to have taken up residence in his stomach. Instinct made him want to rush out to the lift and jab the fifth floor button to find out the truth as quickly as possible, but he knew he had to do this thing properly, methodically, systematically.
The second and third floors