Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [99]
The back doors of the truck were opening. Jo sucked in her breath with expectation. The band’s music filled her head, squeezing it with vice power. Her excitement was back. The thrill of the hate. And it was quite possible in that blasting storm of sound to hate everyone. And everything. She began to dance, wildly, crazily, still clutching Sin’s hand. All around her the crowd was succumbing to the same urge. The songs told her of artifice falling and brutal honesty rising. She welcomed the beasts of anarchy with open arms, and yes, she too could hear them howl.
Wasn’t it beautiful?
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Yates had made it past the first highway robber. The killer swerved to track him and the captain felt a noose flick past the skin of his face. He threw himself to one side as the barrel of a flintlock loomed before his vision and the powder exploded. He was running, dodging, throwing himself into somersaults, leaping up again. Another ghoul barred his way, the barrel swinging up, and Yates had never seen a muzzle so huge. It became the centre of his universe. Instead of ducking aside he hurled himself directly towards that huge dark circle.
He crashed into the bony robber and together they bounced into the grass. Yates rolled frantically, twisted the flintlock from the skeletal paw and thrust the long, rusting barrel between the fleshless jaws of his assailant. He pulled the brittle trigger and the CRACK of gunpowder igniting was the most honest and exciting sound of weaponry he had ever heard.
He was crouching astride the cadaver, smoking flintlock in his hand, and he had never felt so vital, so much like a soldier in all his life. It was truly exhilarating.
Then he looked up from the shattered skull beneath him and saw the mummer standing before his stone, arms rising up into the air, and he remembered Jo and that he had a job to do.
The highwaything was still wriggling beneath him, although most of its bony head was scattered amongst the daisies. Yates leapt away from it and recommenced his dash towards Hooper’s body.
Five yards away, and he felt his left shoulder tugged violently while searing pain bit through him simultaneously. The roar of the flintlock that had inflicted the pain came an instant later, it seemed. He was slapped forward by the impact, rolling through a bed of nettles that stung his cheeks. He came to a rest lying right next to Hooper. The private’s face was turned towards him, eyes bulging, mouth open, as if to say: Get us out of this one, sir 235
Yates lay there for a moment clutching his shoulder and moaning. Sweat oozed down his face. It felt like a sharp pole had been rammed through his deltoid muscle. He wanted to just lie there and forget everything. All he could concentrate on was the pain.
Get up you wet bastard! You’ll never make major like this. GET
UP!
Yates gaped at Hooper. For a crazy second or two he was sure the private had spoken the words. Nope: just another delusion, Mikey-boy. It was his own voice, seeming so detached from him because of the pain. He struggled to sit up, and almost fainted as red agony ripped at his muscle like the claws of a panther. He screwed his eyes shut. When he opened them the highwaymen were closer.
I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got a job to do. If he kept repeating it like a mantra, he just might be able to get to his feet. Hooper’s body jerked while the captain searched through his knapsack. Yates choked: he was sure the dead private was getting up to join him; then he realised it was flintlock shot that was buffeting the corpse.
Now he was on his feet, and although the world was swaying and blurring he had a grenade in each hand. And boy, was he going to use them.
The back doors were open.
Jo looked to the horizon beyond the sparse elms marking the boundary of the field, and she could see the towers of London, situated surreally on the range of hills that normally displayed the white horse. She