Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [30]
Yeah, they’d all wanted out of Princetown for ages, but it took something like the band to make them get up off their arses and do it. They’d all silently and unanimously agreed that this was something better than they had going for them in Princetown, which was nothing. But Jimmy had been the deciding factor; he had the camper, and it was down to him.
They’d thank him for it one day.
He took another dab of speed and snorted as his roving gaze fell on the two police-cars parked at the foot of the steep hill. They’d trailed the convoy all the way from Dartmoor. What did they think was gonna happen anyway? Maybe the end of society as they knew it?
Why not? Might be a laugh.
He hated pigs. Hated ‘em. But if anyone had ever thought to ask him why, he would have been stumped for an honest answer.
It was just the way he felt. They got in his way. Stopped him doing what he wanted. Was that good enough? It would have to do, ladies and gentlemen.
Jimmy sat on the hill in the brilliant afternoon sunlight and 76
waited for the speed to kick in.
Sin watched the band climb the hill. They were wearing their shades and carrying their instruments. Different instruments, she realised, as they threaded their way through the travellers thronging the crest of the hill. The guitarist and bass player each clutched an acoustic guitar. The drummer jingled a tambourine as he strode towards the stone tower, the childish instrument incongruous in such brutal hands. The singer carried nothing and ignored anyone who tried to talk to him. Once somebody was foolish enough to pluck at the multicoloured but grubby tatters of paper that adorned his frame. The singer dealt with this intrusion into his privacy by kicking the offender squarely in the face. No one else tried to slow his progress.
Sin glanced at Jo sitting a little to the left of Nick, on the brow of the hill. What did she want with them? She was from a different world, Sin could sense that. There was something very odd about the girl, and it troubled her. Jo had got quite friendly with Nick. That didn’t bother Sin at all, and she wondered why.
Perhaps because she didn’t care any more.
Didn’t care about anything.
Was that true?
The band moved inside the ancient tower. Anyone already inside promptly moved out.
Sin had a good view of the tor, sitting as she was barely ten yards away. She picked a daisy and crushed it in her fist as the band began to play.
This was a different kind of gig. Gone was all the manic energy and electric violence that had characterised the earlier performances. Sin sat up straight. The singer was crooning, leaning in the entrance of the tower with a sneer on his gaunt face, his voice amplified by the natural acoustics of the hollow monument. His companions stood beside him, strumming lazily, contemptuously. The cheeky jingle of the tambourine was a piss-take.
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The music was quieter, obviously, but still trembling with a skeletal attitude. The melodies were stripped raw and bleeding; chilly bones of sound in the radiant daylight. Sin felt dirty fingers slip into her soul, caress it untenderly. Perverse passions awoke in her, passions for things unhallowed, a desire to embrace the unknown and the shunned. And she found that she did care after all.
She lay back amongst the daisies, let the music wash over her.
She felt it carry her away on a breeze of ecstasy that swept her over the edge of the hill, floating in a dream, her body throbbing with sexuality. She stretched, every tendon and nerve languorous and teased by delight. Her veins ran with pleasure. Her body arched on the grass, daisies pricking her cheek as she turned her head to one side, moaning. Her tongue moistened her lips and her fingers played through her gorgeous dark hair, then crept down her body.
Night at the camp, and the fires played against the silhouette of the hill. Jo huddled beside Jimmy listening to his constant stream of bravado and nonsense and wondered, not for the first time, if the Doctor had not taken the