Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [40]
And with a flourish, he jerked on the cord and the curtains swished apart.
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Chapter 9
‘Bugger its body language – look at the size of it.’
As monsters went, thought Trix, it was rubbish. Really rubbish. A man in a monkey suit would have been more convincing.
The creature hunkered down in the shadows, hardly moving, hardly being threatening at all. Trix wondered if her travels with the Doctor and Fitz had made her jaded to monsterdom, since the crowd around her cooed and ahhed, alternately stepping forwards for a better look, and backing away when the night beast rustled its straw.
‘Is that it?’ she whispered to Fitz, who shushed her. ‘It’s a fake,’ she insisted wearily, scanning the crowd.
‘If it is,’ said Fitz, peering into the darkness of the wheeled cage, ‘then it’s a very poor effort.’
‘Exactly,’ said Trix, feeling exonerated. Fitz was shaking his head.
‘No no no, I mean if he was going to fake it, he’d do a better job than that, surely.’
‘Look around you Fitz,’ hissed Trix. ‘This isn’t exactly Hollywood. The special-effects boffins around here probably don’t amount to much more than men with papier-mâché masks and a couple of yards of fake fur.’
‘Still. . . ’ Fitz took a step forward, and the beast in the cage adjusted itself.
Trix saw the glimmer of light reflected in two tiny, dark eyes, like blobs of tar on a summer street. They were looking straight at her.
Deel moved closer to the cage, Trix noticed, annoyance in his eyes: he’d clearly hoped that the creature would put up more of a show than this. He banged the bars with a long stick, eliciting nothing more than a low grumble from the night beast. At the sound of it, Trix felt her skin tighten – and realised that it was too similar to the noises they’d heard in the bushes earlier for it to be a coincidence.
‘Fitz,’ she whispered to him. ‘That thing. . . ’
‘I know, Trix.’ He waved his finger at her impatiently as Deel continued.
‘The creature is saving its energies,’ he improvised loudly, ‘waiting for the right moment to attack.’
No one was convinced. The crowd muttered its dissatisfaction, and Deel banged the bars again, resignedly. ‘No one should sleep soundly tonight,’ he 73
warned, trying to make his voice as deep and threatening as he could. He just sounded desperate and hammy, thought Trix. ‘Who knows what deeds this monster’s fellows might be about?’
‘Writing a better script for him,’ Fitz suggested, but Trix was too busy trying to see into the darkened cage. ‘I don’t like this, Fitz,’ she said. ‘Come on, I want to go.’
Fitz hmmed, but let Trix pull him back from the cage. As they edged their way back through the crowd, Trix realised that the two of them had become more of a draw than the creature itself. Deel’d have had a better crowd if he’d caged the two of them.
‘You hungry?’ asked Fitz as they reached the edge of the crowd.
‘How can you be hungry? Didn’t you hear that thing? Unless someone’s gone to a lot of trouble with a tape recorder, that thing in the cage was the same as whatever chased us from the bushes. And I’d put money on it being the same thing that attacked you.’ She paused, realising what she was saying.
‘And probably the Doctor, too.’ She put her hand on his arm and then realised what she was doing and pulled it away. ‘Fitz, what if the Doctor was back there? What if one of those night beast things – maybe even that one – got you and the Doctor? What if he’s wandering around the countryside, injured?
What if he’s dead, Fitz?’
‘Sorry to interrupt.’
A voice beside her made her jump, and she turned to see a small, bookish-looking man wearing glasses. He looked scared and apologetic.
‘Did I hear you say you were looking for a friend?’
‘Have you seen him?’
The man smiled. ‘There was a man earlier this evening –’
‘What?’ interrupted Fitz loudly. ‘Here? Here? ’
‘Calm down!’ said Trix. ‘Sorry about