Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [39]
The Doctor stood on the ridge staring into the darkness. Behind him lay the oasis of light that was the village; and beyond that, up a gently sloping hill through the wood, was Graystairs. But his attention was focused in the other direction, on the cottage squatting in the shadow of the slope beneath him. A thin snail-trail of smoke, smeared out by the wind, coiled away into the sky. There were no lights.
Cats and dogs and sheep and wolves, he thought to himself.
These are a few of my favourite things. He tensed as he heard soft footsteps behind him – footsteps that spoke of injury, and trepidation. Without turning, he spoke into the night.
‘You do know that we almost saw you back at Graystairs, don’t you?’ He looked back slowly, his eyes narrow and hard. ‘I think we need to have a little chat.’
It took the Doctor about half an hour to reach the decrepit cottage, his sense of unease growing as he approached. And as he swung the rusted gate aside, the unease was exacerbated by a faint, sickly scent. He paused at the door, eyes narrowed, every sense stretched. With just a little effort, he tuned out the thin soughing of the wind, but all he could hear from within the cottage was a dark, echoey silence. His nostrils wrinkled and he knew instantly what had become of the missing sheep and pets.
The door was open, and the Doctor flinched as he turned the handle and the smell of putrefaction curled through the widening crack. His night-acclimatized eyes took in the tatty furniture, blankets and cushions, limned by the soft, winking glow of a grid of lights set in the broad, bevelled edge of something that, grotesquely, resembled a coffin. Its side was yellowed and stained.
The Doctor glanced back into the night before stepping over the threshold and closing the door behind him. The stench that surrounded him was thick, almost palpable, and spoke of the depravity of the place more than simply death and decay. As he made his way gingerly towards the coffin, his foot caught something small and hard which skittered and spun away across the floor. The almost denuded skull of a sheep, a few bloody, tattered remains of flesh still clinging to the blood-washed bone, fetched up against the coffin with a bump. He shook his head in sorrow and disbelief and placed the palms of his hands against the lid. He didn’t need to open it. He knew exactly what it was –
a fleshsuit tank – a fairly new development from the Fleshsmiths. Could there be Fleshsmiths around here? It didn’t seem their sort of thing, really: their forte was in supplying prosthetics, devices – bodies – to others; they worked from behind the scenes, selling their services to those who could afford them. At least now he knew what had happened to the missing animals. He pulled his hands away from the device, rubbing the oily residue from the lid between his fingers.
Someone was walking around in a suit made from living, recycled biomatter.
Ace felt slightly light-headed from Michael’s brandy. But after what seemed like hours of getting nowhere with him, she’d decided that there were more important things to do than to sit in awkward silence while he steadfastly refused to talk about anything of interest. Their entire conversation had been about Scotland, the weather and the Falklands conflict. Every time she’d tried to bring it back to UNIT, Joyce or the Doctor, Michael had steered it away again. Maybe she’d been trying too hard. Finally, heaving herself to her feet and wobbling rather uncoolly, she’d announced she was off. The relief in his eyes was almost insulting, but she knew how he felt: if he didn’t want to talk, then he didn’t want to talk. The brandy had imbued her with a certain bravado, and she decided she ought to get off her backside and do something.
As they said their goodnights – awkward and devoid of the flirtations that Ace was beginning to wonder whether she’d imagined earlier – and she tramped back across the field, she remembered that the Doctor had said to meet her at the hotel.
She presumed that the plan was