Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [31]
That was uncharitable. They weren’t good-for-nothings. They just hadn’t learnt how to fit in. She could understand how that felt. By God she could. But this whole set-up freaked her in a way she could not explain. Perhaps numerous gory deaths had something to do with it, she mused ruefully. But then, she was used to death, thanks to her unconventional companion. No, this special foreboding of hers ran deeper. Hadn’t the Doctor told her to keep away from the band and to be extra careful? But what was she supposed to look out for?
Jimmy was obviously wired on some drug or other; he wouldn’t keep still for a moment. One of the tin rifles that crossed on his cap was bent outwards, rather comically. It was a pointless detail 78
that she would remember long afterwards, and for no good reason
- or perhaps because it was one of the last things to occupy her mind before the mummer appeared and stole all her rational thoughts away.
She didn’t see where he came from; he was just there, strutting amongst the travellers hunched round their various camp fires, lute in hand. She watched him chatting animatedly to some punks nearby, but couldn’t hear a word of what was said. She noticed that the attention of the entire encampment was riveted on the bizarre figure. Just like in the the Devil’s Elbow, all other conversations ceased. And suddenly it was their turn.
He was striding towards them, slightly hunchbacked, his face threatening yet jovial all at once. The shark grin glinted in the firelight as he stopped beside Jimmy. He spoke.
And Jo didn’t hear a word. He was barely four feet away and she saw his mouth move and Jimmy’s head nodding frantically in response. She could see Sin smiling like a cat on the other side of the fire, pert with satisfaction. And Nick...
Nick was frowning.
Jo promptly forgot about Nick and leant closer to the singer in an effort to hear what was said.
And suddenly, as if a dial had been turned up inside her head, the words were clear as daylight.
His eyes wide and moist with intense fear, Rod stared at the wall, scarcely breathing, until he realised where he was.
‘Murder!’ he hissed, his voice clogged with ruined sleep. The moon threw a creamy blanket of light over the interior of the camper van. Snores grumbled up from Sin and Jimmy, sprawled in sleeping bags on the seats nearby. No one had heard him. His hair was slick with sweat. The nightmare that had woken him was gone, not a fragment remaining; but he knew it was a real horror. His insides were curdling, his brain seething like it was boiling with maggots. He had to get out, suck in fresh air.
He wriggled out of his smelly sleeping bag and lurched across 79
the cold floor towards the door, careful not to wake Jo who was tucked in near the driver’s seat. He pulled his leather jacket and jeans down from the baggage rack and quietly hefted the door open.
The moon was waiting for him outside, full and inherently evil; it painted the encampment with weird light, casting a surreal pall over everything. Above him the hill rose like a silver cone, topped with its strange tor. He sat on the runner and struggled into his army boots.
Murder. Prison officers kneeling in the grass at Princetown, three body bags carried out of the Oblong Box. What was he doing on this mad tour? What were they all doing? He remembered the front-page headline in a copy of the Sun, tattered and smeared with mud, lying in a thistle bed in a lay-by en route to Glastonbury. He remembered the headline clearly, because he had pissed on it: WORLD’S MOST EVIL BAND PLAYS ANOTHER
DEATH GIG. That was pretty strong stuff. How could he have forgotten it till now?
He leant against the side of the camper van, suddenly dizzy.
The moon watched him coldly, a ghost eye gloating over his horror. The passion he had felt earlier for the band was... dead?
He remembered the mummer talking, talking, and it had all made such perfect sense. Something