Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [1]
A claw raked at his guts as he stared at the chilling illustration.
Foreboding thick as lukewarm soup clogged inside him. Without knowing why he did it, only knowing that it really would be better for his peace of mind if he didn’t do it, he opened the book and began leafing through the large illustrated pages.
Dust billowed up with each turn of the page, like kisses from the dead. And with each page, his fear grew. Not conventional homely fear that eight-year-olds could understand: not fear of the 2
dark or something under the bed. This was top-gear terror that squeezed his mind black. He was crying softly to himself after the first six pages, his little pudgy hands trembling pathetically as he held the book. His embryonic sense of self shattered. The library with its ordinary everyday walls, its Tintin posters, orderly bookcases and quiet readers seated at tables was gone. He was lost. Horror stalked him, like the grim, awful thing it truly was.
The pictures in the book, luridly drawn, possessed a life of their own; they seemed to reach for him, to shriek for him, although of course he knew they didn’t. They couldn’t. And still he read, and stared, and cried.
Finally he dropped the book and staggered to his feet. The library was back around him, but it didn’t feel safe and ordinary any more. And he knew it never would again. He made for the exit, tears streaming from his wide, wide eyes. Then he was outside, almost fainting, and the air was good and clean and...
He didn’t even notice Dracula fall from under his jumper to lie forgotten on the road.
3
Side One
‘We’ve been crying now for much too long...’
5
Chapter One
It had been a lousy gig. Doc realised they should have known better than to play a sheep-pen like St Columb, population twenty-three and a half. Nobody had even applauded, let alone danced to their racket. But then where else could they get to play? The answer was only too painfully obvious. They were hardly The Rollin’ Bleedin’ Stones. More like The Sex Pistols if Malcolm McLaren had decided not to choose the yob with the meningitis stare as his singer. They were nothing. They were shit.
Next to Doc in the passenger seat of the Bedford van, Animal was dozing fitfully, despite the roar of Slaughter and the Dogs playing on the dashboard stereo. A half-empty bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale was balanced on one knee. Doc glanced at the hedgehog-haired singer in irritation as he guided the van along the twisting moor road. The dozy pillock was still wearing his shades, for Christ’s sake. Doc could hardly see where he was driving what with the rain and the dark, and that tosser was still hiding behind his wraparounds. Sham. Like the band. Sham soddin’ ‘79. As he threw the van angrily round a sharp bend, the equipment slid across the back. Winston the skinhead cursed as the amp toppled on him for the umpteenth time. Nobody laughed.
A tor reared up in the headlights ahead, bleak and ominous.
Doc suddenly drew the van to a halt alongside it, jerking the handbrake on roughly.
Animal stirred. ‘Whass ‘appenin’?’ he mumbled, beer bleeding from the bottle tilted on his knee. Doc ignored him, pushing the driver’s door open against the force of the wind. He needed to take a leak, but more than that, he needed air. Fresh air that didn’t stink of his smelly friends, of beer, cigarettes and failure.
Rain pattered on his head and slicked down his face, and the cold blasted at him from across the moors as he made his way over to the jumble of rocks beside the road. But it felt good. It felt 7
real. It was the beginning of May; yet out here on Dartmoor, it could have been November.
He paused before the rock pile that littered the base of the tor, his back to the dazzling headlights. Black snakes uncoiled and crawled amongst the boulders. His chest tightened in sudden panic; then he relaxed as he realised they were just the shadows cast by his long, straggly hair.
This was a wild place. He felt at home here, without really understanding why. This barren beauty, this emptiness.