Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [46]
jollity, too much booze and too many false promises to keep It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.
in touch. He’d walked home that night knowing it was the It was under the yellow streetlamp just as it had been the end of an era. Things were never quite the same again.
night before.
But at least his public remembered him! Perhaps they
‘No!’ Trevithick gasped, his lopsided mouth falling open.
were planning a reunion. Or a new series? Or (he pulled up The creature was almost seven feet tall, a shiny, black-sharp at the thought) This Is Your Life!
carapaced body like a cockroach mounted on grasshopper By God, they’d have to do some detective work to find all legs. Its massive bristly head rolled back and forth the old buggers he’d worked with.
inquisitively as its mandibles juddered and clicked before it.
William Jarrold had nipped off to America to take Trevithick gawped, feeling his heart knock against his ribs Hollywood by storm. Went down like a lead balloon, like a racing engine.
according to the papers.
It was impossible.
Poor Jimmy Reynolds was dead, of course. Tragic really.
He pressed himself back against the hedge and yelled as But only the good die young. That’s why I’ve lasted so long, the creature lunged at him.
the old man laughed to himself.
It pulled back, the muscles of its neck bulging through its There was a scuttling sound nearby and Trevithick skin. Trevithick threw himself to the ground and rolled over, stopped, his ears pricked.
repeating the fall he’d learned for The Sword of Araby.
‘Hello?’
Surprised at his own agility, Trevithick struggled to his There was another sound, so like wind-rattled branches feet and pelted back the way he’d come. He could taste rust that he turned to the high hedge which grew by the in his mouth and a crippling stitch beginning to develop in pavement.
his groin as he clattered and slid across the icy pavement.
‘Who’s there?’
The creature scurried behind him, its great muscular legs His heart pumped a little faster. George Lowcock had said rippling with effort.
it might be kids who’d smashed the window. There were all It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be.
sorts of lunatics about these days and if they could tear up Trevithick saw the pub, lights ablaze in the taproom.
Grosvenor Square, why should they hesitate at attacking an There were still people in there. Had to be. Had to be.
old codger like him?
He was a few feet from the door when a brittle mandible
‘I know you’re there,’ he said firmly. The scuttling sound wrenched him backwards, slicing through his jacket and came again, like claws on glass.
waistcoat. He fell heavily and lay there, winded, as the 130
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DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
creature reared over him, its head thrashing about as if in and jammed the end of his torch into the box which triumph and sticky fluid pumping from its maw on to his exploded in a flurry of sparks. The fence slid slowly open.
face.
The Doctor smiled, lifted his hat and ushered Robin through.
Trevithick screamed.
‘After you.’
The creature flared with light as Lawrence Yeadon’s car Robin looked up at the dish dominating the sky above swung crazily around the corner. Trevithick took his chance them. He felt an unpleasant sensation of falling backwards, and rolled again. The car seemed to be almost out of control the kind of insecurity he suffered crossing suspension and screeched across the pavement, lurching to a stop bridges or gazing up at skyscrapers.
inches from the pub door.
The Doctor pushed open the double doors and they found Trevithick looked up. The creature was gone. He got themselves in a featureless corridor, its cold walls stained shakily to his feet and stumbled over to the car. The doors orange by the emergency lights. Through the glass of the opened simultaneously, Lawrence and Lowcock almost inner door they could see the frantic activity within the falling out