Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [99]
companion. She was gripping the arms of her chair, her Ace stroked his hair. ‘Come on, Doctor. You’ve got to help brow furrowed in concentration.
us. You’ve got to give us some ideas.’
‘Ace? What’re you doing?’ the Doctor cried, getting to his
‘I don’t know what to do, Ace! Not this time...’
feet.
Ace looked down sadly at her friend. She’d never known
‘You taught me so much, Doctor,’ she shouted, eyes him to be indecisive. Even when he was wrong, he would at clamped shut. ‘Taught me to face my fears, not run away least put his all into it. Now he sat like a broken man, his from them. Remember Gabriel Chase?’
spirit crushed by the grief and emotion of a lifetime.
‘No, Ace! You don’t know what you’re doing. It’ll destroy Robin tugged at her sleeve and led her to one side. ‘He’s you!’
lost it, Ace. Can’t you see? We can’t wait for him to get us The Doctor hared across the room and stood by her, out of this. It’s up to us. If we can get out of the village...’
hands shaking.
‘We can do what?’ spat Ace, angrily. ‘Call the police? The
‘I have to know if you’ve succeeded, Doctor. That we’ve army? Look, Robin, we haven’t a clue how to even begin to both come through it together. It’s the only way to make fight this thing. Besides...’
you see. You’re the only hope we’ve got of destroying this
‘Besides?’
bloody thing!’
‘I have to believe in the Doctor. Otherwise there’s no point
‘No! Ace!’
in going on.’
The Doctor reached out a hand to touch her but Robin lowered his eyes, defeated.
immediately swung round as light began to dance through Ace looked around the control room.
the air.
Vijay was sitting in a chair, hugging himself, Cooper with Ace smiled to herself. She had to be strong. Concentrate.
a consoling hand on his shoulder. The Doctor sat close by, Remember. She let distant images swim before her mind’s head bent, eyes closed.
eye.
There’ll be no better time, thought Ace. And this was the Yes, that would do...
only way to prove to herself it was true.
She was small. Perhaps five or six. The sun was hot and She picked a chair some distance away from the others very high in the cloudless sky. There was sea and the and closed her eyes.
reassuring tumble of the frothy waves. White horses, her Robin noticed it first, a chill spreading through the air and mum always called them. Mum...
a pungent smell which reminded him of Dr Shearsmith’s
‘Dory?’
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DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
Her mother was calling for her now. Across that stretch of Lowcock shoved a young boy down the crypt steps and yellow sand on a faraway summer’s day. And calling across looked around anxiously. There was no one left to come. No the years...
one except ...
Ace could feel gritty sand between her toes, taste warm Andrew Medcalfe was backing away from the window, a lemonade and tomato and egg sandwiches. Feel her cheeks fair-haired man in a trenchcoat advancing down the aisle burn as she was forced to change into her little swimming towards him.
costume without the camouflage of the beach towel. Feel the
‘Andrew!’ bellowed Lowcock. ‘Get down here!’
crack of her mum’s hand across her backside when she’d Medcalfe stumbled and almost fell over his own feet. He pee’d in the car on the way home...
looked over his shoulder, panic-stricken, as Lowcock
‘Mum?’
scrambled out of the crypt.
‘Dory?’
‘Get away from me, John!’ shrieked the old soldier.
The voice came to her like a rolling wave, breaking on the
‘You’re dead. You can’t be here!’
bank of her subconscious.
‘But I am here,’ purred the fair-haired apparition. ‘Just an old friend coming back to see you. It’s been so long...’
A burning, delicious yearning swept through the Lowcock swivelled his eyes and fastened his gaze on the Sentience and it rippled with pleasure. There was a radiant church’s eagle lectern. With a cry, he stormed up the aisle contact somewhere out on the moor.
and lifted it into the air.
It paused in its attack on the church and sent a portion of Cleminson