Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [49]
Silhouetted in the doorway at the top of the stairs was a man. She lunged forwards as he stepped away from her, into the corridor.
It was Sydney. At the very last moment she pulled back, lowering the knife with a deep and disappointed sigh. ‘What the hell are you doing here Sydney? It’s the middle of the night!’ she ranted. The man turned around, as if he hadn’t known she was there, and stared at the knife in fascination and horror.
‘I heard a noise,’ he said. ‘I heard voices. Downstairs.’
‘Go back to bed Sydney. Now.’ She could barely restrain her anger – and frustration. Sydney gave a pathetic little nod, and Megan fought back an urge to slap him. She watched him shuffle away along the corridor for a few moments, the heels of his slippers flopping on the carpet, and then headed round the corner to the top staircase. There were some painkillers in her room, and boy did she need them.
‘Thank you, Sydney,’ the Doctor said, poking his head out of Sydney’s room as the man reached him.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
The Doctor could see the confusion in his eyes. Sometimes, thought the Doctor, it was easy to forget that the rest of the universe wasn’t constantly running up and down corridors being chased by killer robots or zombies. ‘It’s alright Sydney. You did well. I hate to think what Megan would have done if she’d caught me instead of you.’ He glanced up and down the corridor.
‘She had a knife,’ Sydney said, his hair catching the dim glow of the night-lighting, a snowy halo around his thin face.
‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me? I think you’d better go back to bed, Sydney. Keep out of the way for a while.’
‘What’s going on? Who are you, anyway?’ His eyes narrowed.
‘I’m the Doctor, Sydney – a friend.’
‘Are you here to make us better? Where’s Doctor Menzies?’
‘Probably in bed, Sydney, where you should be. Come on.’
The Doctor helped Sydney into his room, and whilst Sydney tugged his slippers off, the Doctor pulled aside the curtain and peered out into the pearly, grey dawn. A fine mist lay over the lawns, the heads of the statues along the edge of the loch poking through it like the ruins of some shattered city, peeking out from the surface of the sea. He turned as Sydney put his other slipper on the floor, placing it neatly alongside the first. On the chair by the bed, the Doctor noticed a large, orange scrapbook, its pages thick and crinkled with paste, dog-eared little corners of magazine and newspaper cuttings sticking out at clumsy angles.
Scrawled across the front were the words Sydneys Book Keep Out.
A skull and crossbones had been drawn underneath them. He felt an odd chill as Sydney caught him looking at it and draped a towel over it.
‘Something very disturbing is going on here, Sydney,’ the Doctor said, abstractedly. ‘Maybe I’m just imagining it...’ He let his voice tail away as he surveyed Sydney’s meagre assortment of possessions, lined up with military precision on his dressing table. ‘What do you know about a Stacy Chambers? Is she a resident here? Or a member of the staff?’
Sydney shook his head, seemingly forgetting about the Doctor’s attention to his scrapbook. ‘Hmm... the name sort of rings bells, but I don’t think there’s anyone here called Stacy. But things have seemed a bit... peculiar around here recently, if you take my meaning. People acting strangely, noises in the night –
that sort of thing. Take Doris next door, for instance,’ he gestured to the wall. ‘Making weird noises a few hours ago, she was. It’s like...’ He struggled with his words, clearly frustrated that he couldn’t enunciate this thoughts as clearly as he was once able. ‘It’s like there’s something bubbling under the surface, something bad.’ He looked up at the Doctor and shrugged. ‘I’m probably just tittle-tattling – and I’ve never been one for that –
but,’ he leaned closer and looked round the room, as if scared of being overheard,