Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [48]
Graham was turning these burning issues over and over in his mind when a sharp sound from outside made his ears prick up.
Wincing, he shuffled across the bed to the window and drew back the curtains a fraction.
Someone was making their way down the garden towards the freshly creosoted shed. Graham pulled himself close to the glass to try and make out who the figure – dressed all in black
– was. The door of the shed opened and the figure slipped inside.
Graham frowned and glanced quickly at his alarm clock.
Whoever it was couldn’t be up to any good this early.
He went back to bed, sank back on to the pillows and listened to the thudding of his own heart.
What he should do, of course, was to wake his mum and dad. They’d protest at the early hour, naturally, but then his dad would swing into action. He was always so good in times of crisis. That’s what dads were for, Graham’s grandma had once told him.
Yes, Mr Allinson would be down the garden in no time, still in his pyjama bottoms, wielding a golf club, with Mrs Allinson and Graham cowering behind him.
But not this time.
Graham jumped out of bed and put on his tartan dressing gown and slippers. He went swiftly downstairs and into the back kitchen, pausing only to slip on his anorak and give his dog a pat on the head. The dog looked up sleepily from its basket but didn’t follow as Graham unlocked the door and slipped outside.
The morning was wonderfully fresh. Dew sparkled on the grass and the blossom-heavy trees but Graham didn’t notice as, with pounding heart, he picked up his cricket bat and crept towards the shed.
Nervously, he fiddled with the rubber tube that covered the bat’s handle, rolling it back and forth. As he approached the door, he lifted the bat to shoulder height, trying to remain calm and letting the smell of linseed oil drift into his nostrils.
He reached out one shaking hand and lifted the latch on the shed door. It creaked open, exposing a black rectangle of darkness. He peered inside.
Someone stepped into his line of sight and Graham yelled in terror. He swung the cricket bat high above his head and then stopped dead as he realised the figure was his father.
Mr Allinson, however, seemed oddly changed. He was dressed in a smart black uniform, boots and epaulettes shining, his eyes hidden behind chunky sunglasses. He was smiling and holding out some kind of box with both hands.
‘Dad?’ said Graham in a small voice.
His father didn’t speak, merely extending his arms so that the box was within his son’s reach.
‘What’s going on, Dad?’
Graham looked down. The box was white and seemed to be made of some kind of translucent plastic. It was glowing.
The boy was sure he could see something moving inside it.
He tried to back away, to call for his mother, to get up the nerve to smash the cricket bat down on to the box, but his father peeled it open, as smoothly as a lunch box, and the thing within leapt out and latched on to Graham’s face.
A few minutes later, Graham Allinson wasn’t worried about being bullied any more.
Constable Trickett, in his new pyjamas, swung back the bedclothes and walked slowly into the bathroom to brush his teeth.
He glanced up into the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet and his own smiling face looked back at him. His teeth were oddly stained and, as he lifted the brush towards his face, something seemed to stir in the darkness just inside his mouth.
Trickett cocked his head to one side as though listening to an instruction, then carefully laid down the brush, a bead of white toothpaste untouched on its bristles. He opened the door of the cabinet so that the mirror showed a view of the bedroom beyond. His wife Helen appeared to still be asleep but Trickett could see that she was staring into space, her eyes haunted.
She seemed to be aware that her husband was watching her and cast a quick, furtive glance towards the bathroom.
Trickett dosed the cabinet, his grinning