Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [11]
Ominous clickings and scrapings among the branches below suggested that the creature was about to make dangerous progress in its relentless efforts to reach him.
Trying not to rush and get careless, the Doctor took a deep breath and tugged hard. The branch bent a little and the scarf stretched and slipped slightly. Given a choice no one in their right mind would do what he was about to do. But as the creature continued painstakingly to haul its ponderous bulk upward he had no choice. Keeping the tension on the scarf and reaching as high up it as he could, he prepared himself to climb. Abruptly, the noises from below stopped. He knew this was not a good sign. Quickly he launched himself off the branch and started to pull himself up, hand over hand, scrambling with his feet against the tree trunk in a frantic effort to take some of the weight off his fragile lifeline.
Almost immediately a pair of giant forelegs lunged upward, missing him only fractionally. Blindly feeling around, the creature found the dangling scarf. The hooks bit into it and began to wrench and tear. The branch to which the Doctor was climbing bent downward loosening the scarf, which was already stretching and ripping. He could feel it coming away in his hands. Glancing down, he could see the monster’s powerful jaws opening and closing. He fancied he could see both acid and poison glistening and drooling as the inner-mouth parts twitched and quivered.
With a last desperate surge of energy the Doctor grabbed at the thrashing branch, heaved himself on to it and pushed in as close to the trunk of the tree as he could get. The scarf finally tore away and with it half the branch broke off and fell on to the creature below. Methodically disentangling itself, the insect ripped up the debris, discarding the pieces and ignoring them as it had ignored everything that had come between it and its prey, and set about the task of climbing higher.
The Doctor looked for his next handholds and footholds and discovered that the tree tapered rapidly from this point, and though the branches were closer together and easier to reach there were precious few left that looked as though they would take his weight. He assumed that meant the louse, or whatever it was, would be reaching its own limit fairly soon.
Did that mean it would give up and go away? Or would it settle down to outwait him? Would the short-term memory of him fade if he could deny the thing the stimulus of vibrations or a moving heat source? if he could. And how long would that take?
He pushed on up through the branches until he could go no further. Perhaps something else would take its attention and draw it off. Except that he hadn’t seen another living thing since this whole unfortunate episode started. It occurred to him that, though it did not seem likely, it was just possible he was the last live food left in these woods, and if that was the case the louse creature had no choice but to keep on coming.
With little optimism, the Doctor set about tucking and weaving the smaller stems and branches around himself in an effort to dissipate his body heat, disguise his autonomic vibrations and most importantly hold him in place if he fell asleep.
She was almost unconscious and that made her heavier.
Pertanor hefted her arm slightly higher on to his shoulder and tried to jolt her awake. ‘Come on, Ri. We must keep going!’
he shouted above the screech that filled his mind and face with flashing agony and made him nauseous and aching to lie down, close his eyes and sleep. ‘Come on, Ri!’ he shouted again.
Rinandor mumbled something incoherent and slumped further into unconsciousness.