Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [44]
Meteorites screamed down all over the field, crashing into the bales of barbed wire. The second soldier fell with a cry, clutching his face in agony.
As Ran and the Doctor neared the lip of the dug‐out, the familiar face of Priss appeared over the edge. He flapped his claws encouragingly and grabbed at Ran’s uniform, almost toppling his superior officer into the trench.
The Doctor grabbed a handful of mud and stuffed it into his pocket, then scurried down the ladder, his shoes slipping on the rotten wood.
‘This way,’ called Ran. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘When it’s clear, Priss, see if you can get out and help those men.’
Priss saluted and pulled himself gingerly up the ladder. He peered out onto the surface which was now covered in large, steaming craters.
The dead soldier’s body, slumped in the mud, jumped occasionally at the impact of yet another projectile. His injured colleague, blood streaming from a wound in his face, held up his arms in an effort to fend off the deadly rain.
Priss found his breath coming in agitated bursts. He had to get out there and help the soldier, but the bombardment continued unabated. The jungle beyond was blurred by the drizzled atmosphere and the almost solid curtain of fist‐sized missiles slamming into the ground. The air was alive with a high‐pitched squealing sound.
Priss crawled from the trench, his boots scraping on the duck‐boards. He jerked back his arm as a meteorite landed close by, its red‐hot surface hissing with steam.
The wounded soldier was sitting upright now, but swaying dazedly, one claw clapped to his wound. The course fabric of his uniform was spattered with dark blood.
Priss looked up at the sky and decided to try for a rescue.
He vaulted onto the surface, boots whacking into the saturated soil. Mud shot up his uniform.
He zig‐zagged across the battlefield towards his injured comrade, avoiding the bales of wire and fresh craters alike. He was almost there when the ground before him erupted in a plume of mud as though a Cutch shell had exploded.
Priss was thrown backwards.
He felt his legs ramming into the ground and then a horrible, sickening snap as he went over on his ankle. He screeched in pain and bit savagely into his lower lip, rolling over and over into the mud. Vomit rose in his throat and he clutched at his leg with his claws.
Reeling with shock and pain, Priss looked up and gasped at what he saw.
The wounded soldier and his dead friend were sliding slowly backwards through the soil, carving a muddy trench towards the jungle. All around them billowed a strange, miasmic haze. A sickly yellow, ectoplasmic thread wormed from inside it and slipped over the contours of the soldiers’ hides. With a sudden rush, it shot down their snouts and over their eyes.
The wounded Ismetch cried out in alarm and tried to pull himself away. The corpse next to him was flung violently over and rolled into a ball, the dead limbs snapping and constricting as the vile yellow contagion spread over it.
Priss caught the wounded soldier’s eyes in hopeless appeal. He tried to move his broken leg but it hung, slack and useless, in the mud.
Whimpering with fear, the wounded man began to claw his way towards the trench but was whipped backwards with tremendous force. The strange gossamer was forming a sticky sheen over his body.
He thrust out a claw towards Priss, trying to form words as his mouth filled with the yellow ooze. He screamed silently as it bit into his flesh.
Priss shuddered and pushed himself backwards as far as his leg would allow. He made out the wounded soldier’s claws flying to his agonized face before the substance covered him completely.
In an instant, caught and enveloped in the retracting tentacle, the bodies of the two soldiers vanished into the jungle.
There was a sudden and awful silence.
Priss looked about in agitation. The hail of meteorites had ceased. But what had happened to his comrades? And what was that thing?
Priss had heard the rumours. The men were telling old, old stories about the return of the Keth. Could