Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [44]
Warm night air washed over her and she took a moment to catch her breath. Turning, she looked back over her shoulder at the staircase which ascended into pitch darkness a few yards inside the hallway.
The housekeeper was leaning out through the open door to the living room, anxiously rubbing her wrinkled throat. Jo gave her a thumbs-up sign and then dashed to the stairs. She and Mrs Toovey passed each other. The old woman patted her shoulder and then Jo suddenly found herself climbing upwards.
She paused and took another deep breath. Ahead she could make out perhaps the first three stairs, their turkey-rug pattern bleached white by the moonlight. After that though, she could see nothing, just the yawning blackness of the top of the house where something might be waiting.
When she was very young, Jo had occupied a sizeable room on the second floor of her parents’ house. Inside had been the usual girl’s jumble; posters hanging haphazardly from the walls, piles of schoolbooks and unlearnt violin scores in every spare space. The room abutted her parents’ and a large landing occupied the space just in front of both, at the top of the bannistered stairs. During the day, this was Jo’s favourite playground, sometimes the sumptuous ballroom for her dolls’ elaborate parties, sometimes a rolling pasture where she exercised her imaginary horses.
At night, however, it seemed very different. Her mother would always leave the bedroom door open and, waking up in the middle of the night, Jo would peer out into that lonely darkness and imagine all kinds of horrors. She could usually make out the skeletal banisters silhouetted against the window, the moonlight spilling on to the carpet.
Regularly, she would work herself up into such a pitch of terror that every nerve in her body cried out for her to flee across that landing to the safety of her parents’ bed. But the fear of crossing the dark space was almost too much to bear.
Who knew what might reach out and grab her? A rotted hand thrust out of the night? A gaping mouth, packed full of sharp.
sharp teeth...?
Jo tried to push the memory to the back of her mind as she found herself once again in her childhood nightmare, approaching the dark landing in Whistler’s cottage.
Tentatively, she put out her hand and found the wooden post that marked the top of the stairs.
Thump.
Jo’s mouth turned dry. Her heart began to bang against her ribs and she could hear the blood pounding in her ears.
Thump.
The sound was very close by, seemingly coming from one of the three or four rooms that made up the upper storey of the house. She had only to cross the landing to find out.
Cross the landing.
Jo let out a shuddering breath and hugged herself. She wished very much that the Doctor was there. He would have strode confidently across, thrown open the door and demanded to know who – or what – was lurking there.
Jo almost smiled at the thought, but the darkness was too terrifying.
Thump.
It was coming from the room immediately to her right. She turned her whole body towards it and began to grope her way forward, hands waving about in front of her. With a burst of speed she raced across the landing.
She was doing well, she told herself. She’d got this far.
Nothing to be scared of on the landing any more. Now she just had to deal with the door and whatever was behind it...
Jo steadied herself, thrust out her hand, twisted the knob and threw the door open.
The room beyond was very small. She could sense that, even in the darkness. It took her a few moments to register that it was some kind of boxroom, and that the window to the right was open. It was swinging gently in the night breeze, the metal fastener periodically banging into the old woodwork.
Thump.
Jo gave a sigh of relief and took a step towards the window to close it.
She stopped dead. There was a rush of air and something shot out of the shadows and ran at her. Holding out her hands defensively, she immediately backed towards the door, trying to scream.
The shadow was big and bulky. As it backed Jo