Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [73]
like ectoplasm, condensing all over me.’
‘What is it?’
Trevithick put down his cup suddenly. ‘Your young Holly scanned the screen. ‘Power’s coming back. Slowly.
lady’s late fiancé, you say?’
There’s the same data from the Bellatrix nova. And
‘Yes.’
something else. A sort of... pulse. Steady pulse in the
‘That’s interesting.’
background. Like interference. But with a pattern.’
Vijay put his head on one hand. ‘What is?’
‘Getting stronger,’ stated Vijay, flatly.
‘Miss Kidd saw her dead friend. I saw the creature from my old series. Mrs Yeadon believed that the ghost of her late Medway changed gear and slammed his foot on the brother appeared to her.’
accelerator.
204
205
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
The car had spent several agonising minutes stuck in the Suddenly there was someone in his headlights, looming marshy ground by the station’s security fence before he’d into view like a spotlit statue, her hands flying to her mouth persuaded it on to the road.
as she screamed and threw herself off the road.
Ahead, the monastery seemed to burn like a Roman Medway spun the wheel to avoid her but the road ahead candle, but, when he looked again, the old building was had vanished in a mist of pain and nausea. There was just invisible against the night sky.
the moor now, somersaulting into his mind’s eye as the car He was getting out. Away from this strange place with its rolled and rolled.
missing persons and stinking corpses. Back to London and Medway’s last thoughts were of the old tinselly Christmas safety, somewhere he knew well, where there were people tree, now dazzlingly bright and beautiful. Then he screamed to love him. No, even better, he would go home. Home for and rammed his head under the dashboard as the car Christmas, just as he had been promising himself all these erupted in flame.
years.
Home.
Jill Mason ducked down as the explosion lit up the night, He would make the tea tomorrow morning. Hold his chunks of red-hot metal whooshing across the moor. She parents tight and tell them how much he loved them.
stood up, her legs almost buckling with exhaustion and fear, Home.
as the skeleton of Medway’s car burned before her.
Medway’s stomach lurched as if he’d been punched, a wave of dizziness flooding through him. There was a dull,
‘Bloody hell!’ Robin pulled Ace to the tower window and thumping ache at the back of his neck. Sickly pain shot both their faces flashed orange as the car exploded out on across his temples and over his eyes. He took one hand off the moor.
the wheel and rubbed his forehead which was prickled with
‘We’d better try and find the Doctor,’ said Ace, turning icy sweat. His stomach heaved involuntarily and vomit back. ‘We’re no use to anyone stuck up here.’
trickled down his chin.
‘No!’ barked Robin. Ace looked at him.
The car jerked as he took his foot off the accelerator. He
‘No,’ he said more softly, ‘I don’t want you to. We still couldn’t stop now. He had to get out. Had to.
don’t know what’s down there, do we? Let’s stay where Then there was a wild, appalling sickness spinning we’re safe, at least till it’s light.’
through him and he cried out, almost losing control of the Ace checked her watch. It was close to five in the morning.
car as his hands twitched and shook. The road ahead was a
‘Yeah. I suppose you’re right.’ She looked at him steadily.
dark black ribbon, shifting and blurring as he fought to keep
‘I’m really sorry about your mum.’
a grip on his senses.
Robin nodded. ‘I was too old to think of her as my mother.
Never really got to know her, I suppose. But we were good friends. I can’t believe she’s gone, I just can’t.’
206
207
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
‘Maybe that’s good,’ said Ace quietly.