Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [1]
others, sending little flurries of dust over the flagstones. He murmured a few words of apology to his comrades and melted away into the shadows.
After a time he came to a small door inset in the crumbling stonework. He looked about him, senses alert, and lifted his hands to grip the lapels of his robes. His twinkling eyes darted from side to side. It was time.
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DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
A man with a face like a deflating balloon, dressed in dark For a long time the seven remaining boxes stood in silence gold robes which were too big for him, crossed the corridor, with only the steady drip of the leaking roof to disturb the mumbling happily to himself. The white-haired man gloom. Then the man in the dark gold robes appeared in the pressed himself into a doorway until the fellow had passed.
doorway, tutting to himself. He regarded the seven boxes, It wouldn’t do to be discovered now.
and the space where the eighth had been, with some When he was certain that he was alone, the old man annoyance.
opened the door with a spindly key and squeezed himself
‘Oh no, no,’ he said. ‘This really won’t do at all.’
through into darkness.
Beyond the door was a flight of stone steps, which he descended nimbly, leading into a huge, ink-black, domed chamber.
Arranged in a row were eight featureless objects about the size of horse boxes, their dull grey surfaces tinged by the familiar underwater-green.
The white-haired man lifted the heliotrope robes from around his shoulders and let them slip to the floor. He steepled his bony fingers and looked up at the ceiling high above his head. What was the night like out there? It had been so long since he’d ventured outside, smelled fresh air, seen the first frosts, watched the pale silver and bronze leaves disappearing under melting snow...
But now all that would be different. It was time to go.
There was a noise from somewhere close by and the old man hastily unlocked one of the featureless grey boxes.
‘I must be quick,’ he muttered. ‘Yes, I must be very, very quick.’
A look of profound sadness seemed to come over his wise old face as he gave the hall one more sweep of his searching gaze. Then, with a heavy sigh, he vanished inside the box and closed the door.
There was a raucous, grinding moan and, quite suddenly, the old man and his protesting grey box simply faded away.
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DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
‘Same old routine isn’t it, Jack Prudhoe?’
Yes, he despaired, yes, yes. Same old bloody routine.
Jack selected his favourite walking stick. The one with the horse’s head carved on it. The one Win had given him on Chapter One
their tenth anniversary. He buttoned up his heavy raincoat and eased his feet into a pair of Wellingtons. With two pairs of socks on they almost fit.
‘Off you go to the pub to get tanked up. And not a thought for me, oh no. Well, I’ve had enough. Either you start facing up to your responsibilities...’
Jack didn’t hear the rest. He lifted the latch on the solid front door and stepped out into the rain.
Perhaps the world was dreaming. Dreaming as it drifted There was a dismal, slate-grey quality to the light which like an exotic butterfly through those gossamer summers did nothing to lift his spirits. A wintry dusk was creeping which seemed like they could never end, stretching pacific remorselessly over the village in defiance of the early hour.
arms around its people under a billion-dollar blue sky. And A short walk across the square stood The Shepherd’s there were those who said there’d never been a better time Cross, a pub in which Jack had been drinking, man and boy, to be alive. Perhaps the world was dreaming ...
for nearly fifty years. He nearly chuckled as he remembered his dad smuggling him his first pint.
Jack Prudhoe scratched his bristly chin and cleared his The pub’s comforting atmosphere of red flock wallpaper, throat loudly. He was in no mood to argue. Standing in the old