Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [74]
So, none the wiser, Dodds and a couple of dozen others had been bundled into lorries and driven up to East Anglia, secretly excited at all the mystery.
The village was pretty and deathly quiet but then it was the middle of the night. Dodds felt a little foolish, patrolling a quaint English street armed with a rifle as though he were on the streets of Belfast.
He tried humming a pop song but soon gave up. He put out his fag and thought about lighting another, hoping that his relief was on the way.
Footsteps broke the silence.
Dodds peered through the darkness. Someone was coming round the corner, about three hundred yards away.
Dodds straightened up and was about to unshoulder his rifle when he realised the figure was a civilian. A middle-aged man by the look of it and shuffling along in the most extraordinary way, almost like a sleepwalker, hands slightly outstretched. Drunk, more than likely, thought Dodds.
Another man emerged directly behind the first, then two more. Then a woman and a child. They seemed to be grinning.
Dodds frowned. What was this? A family outing?
He walked forward a few steps, trying to make out details in the gloom. One of the figures appeared to be wearing a white vicar’s collar but his rumpled linen suit was filthy and stained with water. Also, there was something very wrong with his face...
Dodds swallowed anxiously and raised his rifle. The vicar-figure, shambling forward, water pooling at his feet, seemed to have some kind of creature pressed into the flesh of his face. It had a segmented body like a worm and a mass of spindly legs which pierced the man’s skin. It was almost as though the thing were controlling the vicar, squatting in his head like a pilot in a cockpit.
Dodds felt himself go very cold.
‘Sir!’ he croaked.
More figures emerged, swelling the group.
‘Sir!’ shrieked Dodds.
Two soldiers appeared from behind him and stopped in their tracks.
‘What are they?’ hissed Dodds. His comrades shook their heads.
‘Get the Sarge,’ barked one. The other soldier raced off towards Whistler’s cottage.
The strange group of villagers shuffled inexorably forward. Dodds’ hands began to shake uncontrollably. He shot a glance over his shoulder towards the cottage, then back at the vicar or, rather, at the vile, multi-tendrllled thing which was hanging from his mouth.
Then Private Billy Dodds lifted his rifle, took aim at the vicar and opened fire.
The Reverend Darnell fell to his knees and keeled over, blood pouring from his left leg.
The crackle of gunfire brought Benton, Yates and the Brigadier spilling out of Whistler’s cottage and on to the street.
‘What the hell –?’ barked Yates. He took in the situation at a glance and knocked Dodds’ rifle down.
‘Wait, Private, wait!’
The Brigadier peered at the advancing villagers. ‘Doctor!’
he bellowed. ‘Doctor!’
The Doctor came haring from the cottage, tucking the jade key into the pocket of his smoking jacket. Jo and Noah brought up the rear.
All three froze as they took in the sight of the zombie-like inhabitants of Culverton.
Jo suddenly gripped the Doctor’s arm. He and Noah peered ahead. Stumbling behind the Vicar, water sluicing through their sodden clothes, were Ted and Max Bishop.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Improvisation
The Master’s hands hovered over the flaring panels that had emerged from Bliss’s desk.
He glanced over at Whistler, who sat facing the computer, then flicked three switches in rapid succession.
Bliss stood immobile in the shadows and, despite himself, the Master found the woman’s stillness slightly unnerving.
‘The computations must be exact,’ said Bliss quietly.
The Master’s face was impassive. ‘Of course.’
He tapped part of the steel console. ‘This is where the signal would come from?’
Bliss detached