Doctor Who_ The Awakening - Eric Pringle [56]
But the Malus was not dead, or defeated yet. At Verney’s words it opened its eyes wide and glared at them. And then, from deep inside its being, from far back in the wall and centuries back in time, a new noise began.
It moved rapidly towards the surface. They could hear if rolling forward and upward, gathering momentum and increasing in volume as it came, building and rushing like a wind, like a hurricane, like a banshee shrieking and wailing, like the end of the world ... And still the noise came on. They were transfixed by the overwhelming power of it, struck dumb and frozen to the spot as the tumult grew deafening and rolled on and on, and the church began to shake before its coming like a tree bending before a great wind.
Suddenly a massive beam was dislodged from the roof timbers and crashed into the nave behind them. Blocks of stone tumbled down in clouds of dust.
That broke the spell. Their silence became uproar as the women screamed and the men cried out in fear. ‘Now what?’ Turlough yelled, watching the eyes of the Malus flash and roll, seeing that great head shudder. Smoke billowed from it and filled the nave with a pungent fog, so that they could scarcely see the rubble and stones and beams which toppled down around them.
And the noise was still coming.
‘The Malus knows it has lost!’ the Doctor shouted at the top of his voice. ‘It’s going to fulfil its programming and clear the ground, destroy everything it can! Come on!’
He started to run for the crypt. One by one they followed him, each dodging an avalanche of falling masonry as the Malus shook the church to its foundations.
It bellowed in its death agony, writhing and twisting about as if, like Sir George, it had turned insane.
It shook and shivered, tearing itself out of the wall at last.
With the others hard on his heels the Doctor careered down the steps and across the crypt to the TARDIS. The crypt itself was shaking like the church above and pieces of the roof were breaking away.
The Doctor waited at the door of the TARDIS to count them through. One by one they ran past him – Will Chandler, Joseph Willow, Jane Hampden, Ben Wolsey, Tegan and old Andrew Verney. Turlough stayed back with the Doctor for a moment. ‘Does the Malus still have the power?’ he asked.
‘Enough to keep Will here and level the church,’ the Doctor shouted through the turmoil. ‘Come along!’
Now they too ran inside the TARDIS and followed the others into the console room. The Doctor raced to the console and immediately began to hit switches, set coordinates and adjust slide controls. The TARDIS was shaking too, with the church and the crypt; at any moment they could all go up together.
‘Close the door, would you?’ the Doctor asked Jane. As she obeyed he slammed the master power control. Motors roared into life, the time rotor began to oscillate, and the TARDIS dematerialised, just as the roof of the crypt began to cave in. Tons of stone and timber crashed down on the spot where it had been.
Inside the church whole sections of the roof were falling down. The noise was beyond human belief as the Malus choked and pulsed and screamed, bent on the destruction of everything around it. Pillars cracked across. Now the walls of the church tower split asunder, and the tower collapsed with a roaring of its own.
The walls of the nave caved in. The wall containing the Malus crashed down upon it and in a dry, nameless explosion the Malus blew up, shooting whole sections of the church high into the air and scattering debris far and wide, even into the streets of the village.
When the last piece of rubble had clattered to the ground, when the dust had settled, when the final echo had died away – then, at last, there was silence in Little Hodcombe.
Inside the TARDIS, the motors hummed quietly.
The Doctor put his hands into his pockets and announced: ‘The Malus has destroyed itself.’ His voice was quiet, exhausted.
There was a general sigh of relief, although each of them was too shattered to he visibly excited by