Doctor Who_ Ghost Ship - Keith Topping [26]
The same small, bland, neatly laid out bed as in every other cabin stood against the back wall. The same bath tub, its white enamel surface chipped away here and there, leaving tiny black memories of accidental moments from the past, was positioned behind the door. The black spots looked like spy holes in the snow. I touched the smooth rim of the bath, perhaps hoping that something of the ship's dreadful history had been recorded for posterity within the surface.
Nothing.
This room held absolutely no secrets. At least none worth sharing. My interest in it waned and died. There was nothing for me here. Except ...
I turned my attention to the wall connecting this room to Cabin 672, drawn by some distant voice in the back of my mind that told me that it was something worth investigating. Again, the dull, off-cream wallpaper and dirty, poorly painted wainscoting suggested nothing out of the ordinary, apart from several decades of neglect. This room, like its more notorious neighbour, seemed not to have been occupied for a very long time.
Slowly, cautiously, I approached the wall. I listened from a few inches away to see if I could hear any sound emerging from behind the paper-thin barrier, but once more, there was only silence.
This entire detour had, I decided, been a waste of time.
In something approaching anger, I placed my hand on the wall and put my ear to it, almost daring the ghosts to speak to me.
Oh, what a foolish old Doctor I can be.
What I heard was the sound of people. More people than I could possibly count in a dozen lifetimes. Thousands of them, all sobbing and wailing in misery.
The sound of the damned.
The power of their voices was utterly overwhelming and I collapsed to the floor, clutching my head, which was full of the screams and the pleas. As I lay, feeling dizzy and sick on the dusty carpet, the wall seemed to distort and bend out of shape. It appeared that the faces of the screaming people were all pushing at it simultaneously, trying to break out of their prison and have their freedom through me. I groaned, wearily, closed my eyes, and slumped into a blissful unconsciousness.
When I came to, some hours seemed to have passed, judging by the shadows cast through the porthole by the now setting sun. This would be our last night at sea before New York came into view in the dawn's early light. If we ever got there, of course. Such feelings had been with me since the moment I had first stepped from the TARDIS, just three days earlier. It seemed more like three years.
I ignored my, by now almost overwhelming, terror and fought back an urge to turn and run away again. That would do no good. I knew that for certain. I picked myself up from the cabin floor and left the room, giving it a final, disgusted glance. The only secret this cabin would now have to tell was how I had been brought to my knees by a lack of judgement and by my own limitations.
Finally, now, I was going to open the door to Cabin 672. I spent some time preparing myself and gathering my fluctuating courage for the initial shock that I would feel when I touched the doorknob. My hand reached for it and, even from the distance of several inches, I could feel the electric sparks, spitting and kicking out to me. I froze and almost withdrew my hand. Then, summoning up the final vestiges of my waning courage, I grasped the bronze knob and, howling in miserable pain, twisted it.
The cold hit me first as the door opened and my hand flew to my side. An icy blast rattled through my bones, shaking me to my very core. Then, a wind. A mighty hurricane that battered my face and almost swept me from my feet.
A screaming, leering skull rushed towards me from out of the tempest. This time I really did have nowhere else to go, so I stood my ground and closed my eyes.
'I do not believe in ghosts,' I mouthed,