Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [45]
There was a scream from the hall.
9
Out of Control
Mrs Grose came down the stairs with a vase of withered roses, tutting at the trail of fallen petals she left behind her.
Halfway down she froze; there was a shape, a tall mound of greying rags, pressed against the drawing room doors. As she stepped closer, Mrs Grose heard soft growling noises and a low whine.
‘Who are you!’ she challenged.
The shape turned and hissed. Mrs Grose saw a snarling face, half covered by rags, but grey and mottled like the moon. It rushed towards her and she screamed.
The Doctor dashed out of the drawing room to find Mrs Grose, hand to mouth, standing amid the dead roses.
Across the hall, the lift gates were closing.
‘Oh, sir,’ she gasped as he and Ace helped her to a chair.
‘Oh Lord, I’ve never seen the like.’
‘Brandy,’ snapped the Doctor to Mackenzie.
The inspector produced a hip-flask from his jacket and handed it over.
‘What did you see, ma’am?’ he asked.
Mrs Grose watched the Doctor pour a large tot into the cupped top and moaned, ‘Oh, it was a horrible thing —
horrible.’ She took the cup and sipped at the brandy amid reassurances from the Doctor. Then a doleful expression came over her face. ‘Have I been wicked, sir?’ she asked.
‘Of course not,’ said the Doctor patiently. ‘Just try to tell us what happened.’
Mrs Grose forced herself to finish the brandy and then said, ‘It was waiting there by the door, all hunched up and horrible. And then it hissed and spat like a hellcat. It was a wicked, wicked thing!’
‘Control,’ guessed Ace. ‘But how did it get up here?’
‘Like the very devil itself it was, miss,’ added Mrs Grose, holding out the cup to the Doctor in hope of a recharge.
‘You like a little drop, do you Mrs Grose?’ asked the inspector.
‘I beg your pardon, sir.’
Entirely missing the proffered cup, the Doctor intervened. ‘Inspector, Mrs Grose is a god-fearing woman.
I’m sure she has told us everything she saw.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said the housekeeper. She rose from the.hair and smoothed out her apron. ‘I shan’t be staying a moment longer. I must seek employment elsewhere.’
‘Very wise,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘And when you do, give my regards to Peter Quint...’
She gave him a curious look, bobbed to both him and Ace and disappeared towards the kitchen to collect her things.
The Doctor smiled: the staff were deserting the house.
That was another turn of the screw in Josiah’s coffin.
‘Professor!’ whispered Ace urgently and pointed to the lift. The Doctor, however, shushed her to be quiet.
Mackenzie pocketed his flask and announced, ‘This madhouse needs one more good going over.’
‘Good idea,’ agreed the Doctor. shepherding him towards the stairs. ‘Try to be back by six o’clock.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because round here, the forces of darkness don’t wait until midnight to appear!’
Completely flummoxed, Mackenzie ascended the stairs and disappeared.
With relief, the Doctor turned to Ace.
‘I know, I know!’ he asserted before she could start. He could see that a grey shape was still lurking inside the closed lift. They could hear it breathing. The Doctor raised his voice especially for its benefit.
‘Climbing up the lift shaft’s very clever! I’d hoped the Control creature might bring something with it. But for that it’ll need the lift!’
There was a pause and then the clank of machinery as the lift suddenly began to descend.
Ace couldn’t understand. ‘I thought the lift was broken,’
he said.
‘I mended it.’ He walked back across the hall into the drawing room with Ace in pursuit.
‘Professor! What’s going on?’ She almost felt like crying she was so confused.
He flapped his hands to quieten her while he thought out loud. ‘Josiah and Control are afraid of it. Redvers Fenn-Cooper saw it and lost his reason. Nimrod worships it.’
‘Let there be Light?’ asked Ace.
‘It’s asleep down there in its spaceship and Josiah doesn’t want it woken.’
‘Well,