Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [29]
off...
‘All of them?’
He passed Hawthorne on the way to his room and the rat-It was Dr Cooper. Vijay turned from the window, once faced man shot him an inquisitive look. Cooper answered more conscious of the hum of the machinery around him.
the unasked question.
‘As far as I can tell, yes,’ he said. ‘I tried the café, I tried
‘I’m covering for Vijay tonight. He’s been out all day the pub, I tried the callbox. I even tried the surgery...’
trying to find a phone that works. How’s the...?’
‘No joy?’
Hawthorne dropped a pile of electrical components on to
‘Dr Shearsmith wasn’t there and the phone was definitely the bench and several rolled to the floor. ‘Buggered,’ he said out of order.’
and sat down.
Cooper sat down heavily. ‘Maybe it’s the weather.’
Vijay looked at his watch. Nearly four. Nearly time for Ace had barked her knuckles for the fifth time trying to Hawthorne to begin his shift. He blew air out of his cheeks scale the perimeter fence when she noticed the hole. One of noisily.
the arc lamps caught the outer edge of the torn mesh and
‘Oh, this is outrageous!’ cried Cooper, getting to her feet she ran expectantly towards it, feeling the cold air rasping and thumping the bench. ‘The biggest input of data, through her nose. The moor and sky, now just two broad however confusing, that we’ve ever had and we can’t tell strokes of darkness, bobbed around her as she jogged anyone about it! We’d be better off sending HQ a postcard.’
towards the fence. To her left, the parabolic dish blazed
‘What about the radio?’ asked Vijay, nervously stroking briefly as a circling lamp slid over its surface. Then she his moustache.
threw herself down by the hole.
‘Hawthorne’s fiddling with it. Looks like it’s gone the The wire seemed to have been wrenched apart, razor-same way as the phones.’ She strode across the room and edges folded back towards the outside. She groped her way picked up a sheaf of papers which had fallen to the floor.
through, careful to avoid the edges, and felt her knees
‘Where’s Holly?’
sinking into the peaty soil. Head through. She grasped a tuft
‘Still sleeping,’ said Vijay, and that was where he wanted of heather and pulled. Body through. Darkness pressed to be right now. Or, at least, in Holly’s embrace, resting his against her and she could feel hot, uncomfortable sweat 82
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DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
patches spreading across her back and arms. Manoeuvring She threw herself clear and hugged herself. There was a so that her feet wouldn’t catch on the wire, Ace made a final rusty taste in her mouth and she realised she’d bitten her lip effort and rolled through on to the moor beyond.
in agitation.
The black and purple landscape glowered at her like a The beam came by again and this time there was no body.
bruised eye. She tried to ignore the mournful wind, stood No uniform. Only a blackness like engine oil on summer up, put her hands in her pockets and started the long walk grass and a lingering smell of decay.
back to the village. Then she hit it.
Ace wasted no time. Urging herself to keep calm, keep Ace caught the thing with her foot and was flung calm, keep calm, she struggled back under the fence and headlong into the soil. She tasted mud and felt it soaking sprinted the distance to the station entrance. Ignoring her her clothes as she jumped back. The sweeping beam crept earlier misgivings, she thrust out her hands and barged across the moor and Ace held her breath. The light came inside.
closer, suddenly illuminating the thing with horrible Cooper and Hawthorne looked up from their work and precision.
stared at her as if she were a gunslinger entering a saloon.
It was a uniformed man, his hands pulled back behind his Ace felt overwhelmed by the light