Doctor Who_ The Bodysnatchers - Mark Morris [3]
Tom made his way there now, shivering with the cold wind blowing off the water. Although he could hear the gentle lap of water against the flood wall below, he could not see it, for the thick fog muffled what little light there was from the intermittent gas lamps along the riverbank.
He climbed the steps. There were only a dozen or so, but by the time he reached the top his head was swimming with hunger, fatigue and the as yet only slight delirium of his pain. He paused, panting, holding his injured and aching hand, wrapped in the soiled rag that served as a bandage, to the hollow of his chest for a moment, curling himself around it like a mother protecting her young.
Eventually, able to dredge a scrap more energy from deep within his rapidly failing reserves, he straightened up. Back here, behind the factory, was a jumble of outhouses - storage facilities, equipment sheds, stables for the factory's half-dozen horses.Tom was tempted to make his way straight to one of the stables now, lie down in the sweet, warm hay and go to sleep.
He told himself that if Mr Seers was not here, then that was exactly what he would do.
He began to shuffle across the cobbled yard between the outhouses towards the factory. It was even darker here than it had been on the riverbank, damp colourless fog coiling around him, blending shadows and solids into a single shifting black stew. He walked with his good hand outstretched and questing from side to side. After a half-dozen steps his hand thumped against the wooden wall of a stable that had appeared to loom out of the fog as if it had crept up on him. He realised he had been veering to his left and realigned himself accordingly. A few steps further, and his feet became entangled in a discarded coil of sodden rope which almost brought him to his knees. Staggering, he managed to remain upright, though couldn't prevent himself from uttering a muffled cry that sounded in his own ears disconcertingly close to despair.
Regaining his balance, he moved forward again, and suddenly saw the faint, diffuse glimmer of a light ahead. He judged it to be a lamp affixed to the back of the factory, and moved towards it eagerly. He had taken no more than five steps, however, when he became conscious of a sound permeating the silence, a dull, irregular thunk... thunk.
He halted a moment, listening. Where was the sound coming from? It was hard to tell, for the fog seemed to distort his perceptions, to carry the sound hither and thither. He tilted his head to one side, then pushed his nose into the air like a hunting dog and turned a complete circle until he was facing the blurred light once again. He was not entirely sure, but the source of the sound seemed to be the light itself. A little more cautiously now, he crept forward.
Eventually the light grew larger, more distinct, and though it did not dispel the fog, it at least thinned it a little.Tom realised to his surprise that the source of the light, and indeed the sound -which was louder now - was not the factory, after all, but another outbuilding, this one a long, low shed where,Tom knew, various items of equipment used to repair and maintain the factory's machinery were stored. He realised that after colliding with the stable and realigning himself he must have over-compensated, veered too far to his right - or perhaps it had been after tripping over the rope that he had done this. In truth, the whys and wherefores of his misdirection were unimportant. What was important was the fact