Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [3]
A strange glee danced inside him as he listened to the voice telling him just what he should do. Do it now, the voice seemed to whisper. Or was it the wind, was it the rain? Do it now.
Roger huddled amongst the rocks, watching the punk with the shades dragging his friends, yelling and squawking, from the Range Rover one by one. He saw the boots go in, the shrieks of pain. He didn’t notice the punk standing right behind him in the dark, rain pouring from his leather jacket, his eyes black with hate, the knife raised over his head.
Animal was laughing. One of the toffs had pulled a tyre iron from the Range Rover. Yeah right. Let’s see ya use it, rich boy.
The toff began to back away from him, across the road towards the tor.
Doc stood over the corpse, wiping the blade on the bloody tux.
Blood glistened in the grass at his feet, dripped down the partially buried boulder over which the body was draped. He considered dropping the knife, then the rage swept him again and he hacked some more. He’d done it. Just like he was supposed to. The wind laughed in his head, and at last he stopped his carnage. He tottered away from the blood, his mouth wide, the knife clasped 10
firmly in his hand. He didn’t see the rock behind him begin to flicker, begin to pulse with a sickly red glow.
‘Let’s see ya use it, rich boy!’ Animal was roaring now, the rage inside him stronger than anything he’d ever felt. ‘Come oonnn!!!’
The rich boy used the tyre iron. A glint came into his eye, and for one uncertain moment Animal recognised what it was. Hate.
He could understand that; yeah, he could appreciate that. He knew it was in his own eyes. And then, the rich boy used it. He brought the tyre iron down on Animal’s head with everything he could put into it.
Alf and Winston saw their mate drop to the grass like a slaughtered heifer. They had been standing around uncertainly, fearing Animal might just go too far this time. They hadn’t expected this. The other toffs were leaning against the Range Rover, clutching their bruised ribs where Animal had kicked them. They looked uncertain too. The sight of Animal’s blood trickling from his head, running with the sluice of rain, seemed to make them come to some sort of decision. At the same time Alf and Winston began to understand what they should do; especially when they saw Doc come stumbling out of the night, a gory knife clutched in one hand, grinning like Boris Karloff. The toffs threw themselves on Alf. One of them had a corkscrew in his hand, and he seemed to know what to do with it. Alf was screaming on the ground, and now Doc was slashing at the toffs. Winston would have laughed. It was all too crazy. He would have laughed...
But he was crazy too.
Rain.Rain and wind and darkness.
And death.
It stretched. Lifting from its bed of rock like mist rising from a lake at dawn. Mist solidifying, soaking up the blood that layered the rock, gathering form. Sniffing the air, sniffing the violence.
Two remained alive beside the wrecked vehicle now. The thing from the rock felt the rage of the two, and the rage was good. He 11
wanted more. More of this. With sinews that had once been stone, the creature raised its arms. And the two men became one.
Became none.
12
Chapter Two
If the Brigadier came in the lab just one more time ‘to see what on earth he was up to,’ the Doctor was sure he would have to kill him. He loved the man dearly, of course - although he would never have admitted it - but there were limits to any Time Lord’s patience. Jo was bad enough, knocking over his instruments and bumbling around in general, but at least she giggled her way out of his bad books. The Brig, bless him, just became bluff and flustery if he ruined one of the Doctor’s experiments with his clumsy curiosity: red in the face, and acting as though it was the Doctor’s fault for having the blasted delicate instruments in his way in the first place.
But right now, at least, peace