Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [66]
Sydney suddenly saw images of people – men, women, children even - one after another, strapped into the chair, wrists and ankles bound with leather straps. And they were screaming, screaming...
He hesitated, tried to pull back, but Bernard and Claudette had him in a firm grip.
‘Come on, Sid,’ said Claudette. ‘You’ve done this before.
You know the routine.’
He stared at her, and had a sudden, sickening urge to see her in the chair howling as the instruments descended on her pretty, dark features. Cutting, gouging.
But if he’d been here before, then it must be alright, mustn’t it? A word jumped into his head: Tulk. A word full of anger and power and fear. His mouth was dry as, unsteadily, he lowered himself into the chair, feeling its damp, plastic sweatiness. He put his hands on the armrests – and was almost surprised when metal clamps didn’t spring out to trap them. He couldn’t feel any sensation in his legs.
‘The doctor will be along in a minute, Sid,’ Claudette said gently, following Bernard out of the room. He heard the key turn in the lock.
Yes, thought Sydney muzzily. The doctor will be along in a minute. And then everything will be alright. As his whole world shrank down to that cone of soft, bloody light, his scrapbook tumbled to the floor, flopping open. His last memory was of its centre pages, plastered with the bland, smiling faces of catalogue models and magazine celebrities, pasted roughly onto mismatched bodies, jumbled arms and legs. Scrawls of thick, red crayon coiled around them, staining the junctures of heads and necks, limbs and torsos, and filling up the empty eye holes from which the victims in Sydney’s head screamed out at him.
Up on the deck, Ace leaned against the railing – almost forgetting what they’d said about electric shocks. But the handrail must have been in a good mood. The pale sun was climbing in the morning sky, bleeding its light through layers of thin, grey cloud. The sea glittered, spread out around the boat, and in the distance she could see the brown smudge of the island. How could she have been so dumb as to assume that the spaceship would be close to Graystairs? That was the whole purpose of transmats – to send things over long distances. The only problem now was how was she going to get back? She’d been the one that had pestered the Doctor for some adventure, and just as she was getting into the thick of it, here she was –
unceremoniously dumped at sea. Ace heard footsteps beside her.
Alexander stood there, hands deep in his jacket pockets, apologetic and shy.
‘Don’t worry about John,’ he said. ‘I think he’s a bit scared of you.’
‘Thanks,’ Ace said heavily.
‘Not like that. It’s just that John’s PhD dissertation has been well and truly screwed up by that thing – those things – down there. And now here you are, all fresh-faced and breezy, telling him you’ve come from an alien spaceship. He likes to be in control; he feels it’s all running away from him.’
‘Can’t he just write “There’s a bloody great alien dome and a spaceship and they’re scaring the fish away.’? Anyway, if it’s his dissertation, what are you here for?’
Alexander gave a grunt. ‘Mother’s idea. “It’ll be a nice break, Alexander. It’ll b good for the two of you to spend some time together, Alexander. Give your brother a hand, Alexander. This is really important to him, Alexander”.’
‘And it’s not so important to you, eh?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t mind, really. It’s not as if I’ve got much else to do.’
They heard the angry sound of pots clattering into the tiny sink down below, the rush of water, the clomping of feet.
‘I take it John’s the golden boy, then.’
Alexander nodded. ‘He’s the hard worker, the grade-A student. He’s the one that’s going to make everyone proud. I’ve always been the lazy one, the feckless one. The one who “could do better” – but didn’t.’ Ace heard the slight tremor in his voice and suddenly wanted to hug him.
‘Parents, eh?’ she said. ‘Can’t live with ‘em, can’t murder ‘em