Doctor Who_ Prime Time - Mike Tucker [79]
He could hear someone calling his name.
He turned, his face flushing with anger. Briggs was trying to wave him back.
‘Chief! Come back. It’ll kill you!’
Idiot man. He could give their position away, make them an easy target for the enemy gunners. He would deal with Briggs back at the barracks.
Gurney struggled to his feet. He would have to act decisively, quickly. If the creature was alerted to their presence he would have to take it down before it had a chance to call for reinforcements.
He stepped out of the shrubbery, weapon raised.
The blow sent him sprawling on to his back. He hit the ground hard, gasping for breath, his heart pounding in his chest.
The creature loomed over him. Gurney struggled to concentrate. It had something dripping from its taloned hands, something wet and thick and dark.
Gurney’s vision started to blur. The jungle was becoming indistinct. He was cold. Still, the evac team would be here soon. They would get him back to the MASH unit, get him fixed up. He’d be out of the war, now, out of the war...
Briggs looked on in shock as the body of his chief slumped back on to the blood-soaked tarmac. The creature stood over Gurney, staring at its hands, as if unsure of what it had just done, then it turned and fled towards the main building.
Commissionaires swarmed out across the tarmac, crossing in silence to the fallen figure of Reg Gurney. He lay on his back, staring at the night sky, a serene smile on his face.
Briggs leant down, took the tape gun from his hands and laid it across his chest.
Commissionaire Rickett looked at him, pale faced.
‘Bloody hell.’
Ashby hauled open the door to the Channel 400 building and staggered into the corridor, blood dripping from his fingers.
He hadn’t meant to kill that man, he hadn’t, but this body was so unfamiliar to him, its strength so difficult to control.
He stumbled forward, shaking with anger and fear. Blindly he pushed through door after door.
Suddenly he was aware of eyes on him. Of the sharp intake of breath. He snatched his head up. Hundreds of frightened faces looked back at him. The audience, waiting patiently outside the studio, slowly turned, one by one. And then the screaming started.
Briggs and the other commissionaires had just made it to the top of the steps when the tide of humanity hit them. A stampede of terrified people pushed past, scattering them like skittles.
Briggs saw Rickett hurled backwards, tumbling down the steps in an untidy whirl of limbs. His head cracked on to the tarmac and he slumped unconscious.
Briggs started to bellow at the crowd, trying to restore some kind of order, but the rabble was hysterical and determined.
The screaming was deafening.
Briggs was swept away in the terrified tide.
Breame sat hunched over his desk picking the last remnants of red tape from his jacket. The stuff got everywhere, and it itched. He had recovered from his less-than-gentle handling at the hands of the security guards. Oh, how that Gurney loved his authority, He had taken great delight in reading the regulations.
Breame smiled. Not that they had got anything from him.
Oh no. The Master of the Questions was too clever for them.
In the end they had let him go, more out of frustration than anything else.
Another round to him.
Breame looked up from his desk as the screaming reached him.
He frowned. He was used to the roar of the crowd, but this... this was something different.
He got up from his desk. This was something new, something to investigate.
As he reached the door it swung inwards, and a horrific shape shambled into the room.
Breame stared in puzzlement.
‘Well, well, well. I wonder what questions you are the answer to?’
Gatti caught hold of Ace’s arm as Trasker crossed to Lukas’s side.
‘He must be paying you a lot of money, Trasker.’ Ace’s voice was vicious.
Trasker shrugged. ‘Enough.’
‘Dear Rennie has such a sharp mind.’ Lukos stroked her hair. ‘It was her idea to just sit here and wait for you, while