Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [55]
There was no sound save for the songs of the summer birds but somewhere, on a higher register than Whistler could ever hope to detect, an alarm was sounding.
Captain McGarrigle straightened up, his head snapping to one side. He saw Whistler at once and began running towards the old man.
Whistler heard his booted feet on the tarmac and shot a look back. Gathering all his depleted strength he tore towards the fence, gripping the wire with both hands and hauling himself upwards.
Cursing his old age, he managed to drag himself higher.
An image flashed through his mind of an escaping prisoner of war. Imprisonment was a fate he had managed to avoid in real life and had only ever seen in those John Mills films. Now he was experiencing it first-hand, struggling over a fence with McGarrigle in pursuit. At least they didn’t seem to have machine guns trained on him. Maybe they didn’t need to...
The Captain’s hand grasped Whistler’s thick ankle and tugged hard.
Whistler immediately kicked at him, landing a heavy blow to his shoulder. An instant later, McGarrigle bore down again, this time grasping the old man’s calf with both hands.
Despite his best efforts, Whistler felt himself sinking slowly towards the ground. He forced his hands into the mesh of the fence until he could feel it cut into his skin and kicked viciously at the Captain’s exposed face. Whistler’s shoes connected with the blond man’s grinning mouth and McGarrigle gasped as the polished toe cracked into his stained teeth.
Whistler kicked again, this time landing a savage blow right in the Captain’s windpipe. McGarrigle choked and staggered, then, with a roar of rage, jumped up and dragged the old man bodily to the ground.
Whistler fell heavily and lay there on the tarmac wheezing as the Captain, clasping his throat, loomed over him.
Blood was weeping from open cuts on Whistler’s palms.
His eyes flicked up as a dozen Legion troops formed a circle around him.
Captain McGarrigle, however, seemed to be in trouble. He was breathing stertorously, his throat and chest juddering like those of an asthmatic. Saliva pumped from the corners of his wide mouth, trickling down his chin and spattering his neat black uniform.
A strange, deep, belching noise came from inside him.
He swung round to face Whistler, his dark eyes blazing like lava beneath the sea. Still clutching his throat, he advanced on the old man until he was astride him. Then, as Whistler watched, something inside the Captain began to move...
It was only a small flicker at first, reminding Whistler of the way ticks shuffled beneath the skin of his hand when he was a boy. Soon, though, there was more definition; a chunky, segmented shape, just beneath McGarrigle’s rapidly tightening skin. Something was moving upwards through his throat.
Whistler let out a shriek of disgust. The Captain staggered forward, foamy spittle dropping in clumps on to Whistler’s face. Then it came; brittle, transparent, spindly legs appearing around the sides of McGarrigle’s mouth. Clutching the flesh of his cheeks, it began to haul its way out, sliding over his gaping tongue, probing out into the air, a vile, hairless, carapaced thing somewhere between crab and worm.
McGarrigle clutched the sides of his head as the creature extruded itself like paste from a tube.
Whistler slid on his back towards the perimeter fence, gagging in horror. The thing swayed as it emerged and, for the first time, the old man saw that above its gaping maw were a pair of dark, dark, pitiless eyes.
Helen Trickett was upstairs when she heard the car arrive.
Nichola was sitting on the bed, fiddling anxiously with the dress of her favourite doll while her mother rapidly packed their suitcases. There would be no village fête today. They had to get away. Something was wrong with John, something Helen couldn’t rationally explain. All she knew was that he hadn’t been the same since he came back from that visit