Doctor Who_ Psi-Ence Fiction - Chris Boucher [54]
It was then that she saw the horror. In the darkest corner of the darkened control room there was a tall sliver of blankness. It was the same blankness she had seen gathering itself in the wood. Blankness that was a darkness that sucked everything into itself. For a moment she felt the ghostly wind of it tugging icily at her. She stepped forward, looking for something to brace herself against, and abruptly the darkness folded in on itself and vanished. In the control room the screens began to flicker into life and tiny bright lights began to blink and flash.
Leela found she was still pressed against the wall, but she could not remember stepping back to it. Something else about what she was looking at had changed too. What was it? What had changed without her seeing it change? It was the blood. The blood was gone. The bodies were no longer soaked in their own gore. What was spattered about the room was a sort of reddish colour, but it had only a very slight resemblance to blood. For anyone with any experience, it was nothing like the blood that spilled from wounds. And there was less of it. She could not see as much of it as she thought she had seen at first. Most of the liquid was on the floor too, not splashed over other surfaces and splattered up the walls. Why had she thought it was blood when she could see so clearly now that it was not?
She hesitated to move from the wall. Had she been tricked then or was she being tricked now? There was only one way she could think of to find out for sure.
She left the wall and walked slowly towards the man lying across the box.
She could see he was alive before she reached him. She lifted him off the box and dragged him clear of the pool of congealing slime which was underneath it. She laid him on the floor and turned him on his side so that he would not choke. Next she checked the box itself. She had no intention of having it behind her without knowing what was in it or what was likely to come out of it. The man had been slumped over what looked like a sort of lid. She put her hand on it and found that it moved at the slightest of pushes. Leaning back slightly to give herself room for a full cutting arc with her knife, she slid the lid open. Nothing reared up or leapt out at her. Knife turned for a close-quarters thrust, she ducked forward to take a look.
Chloe tore the blank goggles away from her face and stared up at Leela.
Her eyes were wide with horror. 'I was having a nightmare. I thought I'd drowned in my own blood.' She sat bolt upright and then yawned copiously.
'You're that girl. I wondered where you'd got to,' she said, and began to cough. Choking and spluttering she wiped red-tinged scum from her arms and breasts. 'What is this shit?'
'I do not know what it is,' Leela said. 'I know it is not blood.'
'I said it was a nightmare.' Chloe tried to smile. 'So what are you doing in my nightmare?'
'I am looking for the Doctor,' Leela said. 'He was coming to talk to Doctor Ghostbuster Bazzer Hitchins.'
He wasn't here when I got into this bloody tank. Thanks for getting me out of it by the way. I couldn't make anyone hear me. Could you hear me? I couldn't make anyone hear me and I couldn't get it open.' She shook her head as if in disbelief. 'It wouldn't move.'
Leela nodded towards the man on the floor who was just beginning to stir.
'There was a body lying on top of it.'
Chloe looked around. 'My God, what's going on? What's happened to everyone?' She struggled to pull herself up and clamber out of the tank but she slipped and flopped back into the water and scum. Bugger,' she spluttered and started