Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [25]
‘The Doctor?’
‘Yes. He knows the woman, the fat cow who ran you over. He’ll be looking for you, and when he finds you, he’ll believe you. Then he’ll get involved and he’ll interfere with our employer’s plans.’
The man had pulled a device from his belt – it looked like a wand.
The woman kissed Arnold on the forehead. ‘We don’t want to kill you, but Mr Gibson insists.’ She drew back.
‘Don’t worry,’ the man assured Arnold, pointing the wand at him. ‘This won’t hurt.’
The man lunged forward, stabbing the wand down through Arnold’s forehead where the woman had just kissed it. Arnold heard the bone splitting, but didn’t feel any pain. There was a low hum, then a jolt down his back, like an electric shock, then it felt as if his stomach had caught fire. Arnold tried to move, but he couldn’t. He was being surrounded in a green aura, he could see his nerves and bones. He was being eaten away.
He had only two thoughts. Indignation. Indignation that this man had told him it wouldn’t hurt and it was absolute searing agony. And serenity. A calmness that came from knowing he was right, that he’d found the extraordinary proof that he had been looking for, that he was right and everyone else had been wrong.
Arnold screamed.
* * *
Chapter Six
Talking to Strangers
Miranda sat at her desk, waiting for the Doctor to start the lesson.
The Doctor was at the back wall, examining the pictures.
‘With it being so cold and wet at the moment, we spend a lot of playtime in here, drawing.’
The Doctor nodded. The back wall was covered in old squares of computer paper, Blu-Tacked up. Almost every picture was of spaceships and alien monsters, vividly brought to life in crayons and paint.
‘What’s that?’ the Doctor asked.
Miranda wasn’t sure. ‘I think that’s Metal Mickey – it’s a robot on telly.’
The Doctor nodded, and moved on to the next picture. ‘It’s fascinating that they all come up with the same images: flying discs, death rays, green monsters.’
‘They’re just copying off the TV,’ Miranda told him. ‘They see that sort of stuff in cartoons and comics, that’s all. Or they just copy off each other.’
‘But all of them drawing spaceships and monsters.’
‘That one’s Monkey and Pigsy.’
The Doctor peered at it. ‘But all the others...’
‘It’s the UFO. All the boys think they’re Luke Skywalker or Flash Gordon.’
‘What about the girls?’
‘We have to make do with being Princess Leia.’
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘Make do with being a princess?’
‘She doesn’t do anything. Just gets captured and waits for the boys to rescue her. That’s all women do in that sort of thing. I’d rather be Luke. Or Darth Vader.’
Miranda wondered where the Doctor had gone to school. She just couldn’t see him running around a playground – she couldn’t imagine his school days at all. It was always odd to think that teachers had once been boys and girls, but it was impossible with the Doctor.
‘Why do you think the UFOs are coming here?’ he asked.
‘They could be here because they want to conquer Earth,’ Miranda suggested.
‘What makes you say that?’ the Doctor asked, genuinely wanting to know.
‘Well, that’s what they do in films. There’s that one with the flying saucer that lands outside the White House, and the army surrounds it with tanks and guns and then a giant robot comes out and blasts them.’ Miranda hesitated. ‘I don’t know why they’d start by conquering Greyfrith, though.’
‘Perhaps they are here to help,’ the Doctor suggested.
‘Help what?’
‘Tell us where people are going wrong. Stop pollution, end wars.’
Miranda looked thoughtful. ‘That would be much better,’ she concluded.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘If they were going to do that, they’d have landed, surely? They’ve not tried to make contact with us. It’s almost as if they are monitoring us, or searching for something.’ A thought struck him. ‘Perhaps they are UFO-spotter spotters.’
Miranda giggled.
* * *
The phone rang, but the girl on the other end had dialled the wrong number.
Debbie put the phone down and went back to giving Barry his tea: bacon,