Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [10]
I’ve never seen anything like it. Tons of the stuff.’
‘What?’
Vijay shook his head as if to clear it and opened his eyes
‘I said, where’s it coming from? Which quadrant?’
wide.
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‘Why’s the klaxon...?’
Out of the corner of his eye, Vijay saw something move; a Holly turned him towards the double-doored exit and hunched shape scuttling just out of the reach of his torch-patted his backside affectionately. ‘I don’t know. Why don’t beam. He shuddered. There it was again. Just out of sight you find out?’
like a glimpse of summer lightning. He began, Vijay sniffed resignedly and pulled on one of the thick unconsciously, to chew his fingernails.
parkas which hung by the doors. The klaxon’s screech was In the light from the torch, a huge rent was visible in the beginning to get on his nerves. Why hadn’t Shaun done mesh of the fence, the steel wire peeled back like the skin of something about it? It was his job to see to the thing, after all.
an orange.
Privately, Vijay sympathised with the security man. It couldn’t be much fun patrolling the perimeter fence every night. Things were so quiet he often wondered why they had security at all.
‘It’s just that nothing ever happens around here, Mr Degun,’ Shaun’s predecessor used to say. ‘And what’s the point of me walking around when we all know that no one would dream of breaking in?’
He’d finally left and gone off to work in an open prison somewhere down south. Very much the same line of work, Vijay thought, smiling.
Vijay opened the doors and stepped out into the hallway.
Within a moment, he was outside. The icy wind blasted him full in the face. Darkness swallowed him whole.
Freezing rain was once again lashing across the moor in great, sweeping waves. There were still a few lights on in
‘Shaun?’
the village and Vijay recognised the bedroom light in The His voice sounded feeble and strained. The rain hissed Shepherd’s Cross. Distractedly, he wondered whether Betty back at him.
Yeadon was having another of her sleepless nights. There Vijay began to move back towards the station but didn’t was a lot of gossip about how ill she’d been looking.
feel able to turn his back on the fence. The wind howled Lawrence, though, never said a word. Just grinned.
through the gaping hole.
Vijay swung round his torch in an arc and the perimeter There it was again. A definite shape this time, bunched up fence loomed into view, gobs of rain splashing off its and knobbly. There was a strange smell too, like bad meat.
barbed-wire top.
Vijay turned up his nose and, without a second thought, ran 30
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back to the station. The darkness seemed to chase him all
‘Well, boys and girls,’ she said. ‘It looks as though our the way like the collapsing walls of a tunnel.
waiting has paid off.’
He pulled open the doors and stumbled gratefully inside.
With theatrical timing, the chattering of the computers The klaxon was still blaring away.
and the scratching of the ink tracers stopped. There was a
‘Can’t we shut that thing up?’ It was Dr Cooper’s voice.
slow, mournful whine as the machinery eased up. The harsh Vijay was grateful she’d arrived, however bad-tempered, lights in the long room flickered briefly and then flared into because she could always keep the loathsome Hawthorne at full life again.
bay. He strode into the control room.
It was over.
‘Well?’ said Hawthorne gruffly.
Cooper laughed. ‘Plenty to get on with, anyway!’
‘The fence has been breached. Great big hole torn in it.’
Vijay slid gratefully into a chair whilst Holly went to the Cooper looked up from the still-chattering computers.
phone. Cooper and Hawthorne were deep in conversation
‘See someone?’
like schoolkids cramming for an exam. There would be time
‘I saw something,’ said Vijay pointedly.
enough, Vijay decided, to get excited about all this. Time Cooper furrowed her brow and dug her hands into her enough. In the morning. He felt his heavy lids closing.
pockets. She was a big, middle-aged