Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [95]
'It's descending.'
'We can't hang around,' the Brigadier said.
The cloud was drifting over the rooftops of Adisham like thick smoke. It was almost invisible in the darkness, but in the pools of light underneath the street lamps it bil owed like volcanic ash.
'All those people,' the Doctor cried out. 'All those poor people.' He jumped from of the car and began running back down the road towards the village.
'Doctor! What are you doing?' Benny screamed.
He whirled around, now he was jogging backwards. 'I have to save them if I can. Whatever you do, don't follow me. Alistair, get Bernice to safety.'
'Doctor!' Benny screamed, 'Come back! You'll be killed.'
'Goodbye!' the Doctor called.
The Brigadier grabbed her arm, prevented her from leaving the car. 'You heard what he said.'
'Do you agree with him?'
'No,' he admitted grimly as he slid across to the driver's seat. 'But I trust him. Come on!'
As Bessie sped away up the hill, Benny turned back, watching the Doctor recede into the distance. The thick cloud was engulfing the buildings now. The screaming had started.
***
'Vrgnur, report!'
The scientist was hunched over his instruments. 'My Lord, the Red Death is reacting with the increased levels of oxygen and biological activity in the Terran atmosphere. It has entered a feeding frenzy and is multiplying at an astonishing rate.'
Gerayhayvun was on his feet. 'It's attacking that village. Can't you control it?' he squealed in his own language.
Xznaal narrowed his eyes. The Death was a thick fog now, bil owing down the hil side.
'It is operating on instinct, sir, I can't restrain it.'
'Show me what it sees.'
The hologlobe switched its image, showing a disjointed view of the human settlement. It was like a compound eye: hundreds of circles, each containing a different viewpoint. Every single one was filled by images of humans and their animals running in the streets, terrified. Xznaal watched as the cloud picked them off, swirling around their heads, grasping their nostrils, forcing itself into their mouths and lungs.
'This is horrible,' Xztaynz was crying.
'It is unavoidable,' Xznaal said calmly.
***
He ran down over the village green, past the Bull's Head, keeping control of his breathing. The red mist was everywhere: hanging around the police station, wafting over the cottages on Donkey Lane and around the roof of Mrs Darling's corner shop. The Doctor shooed the ducks from the duckpond as he hurried past them.
A car had smashed into a row of cottages. The Doctor ran over, but the driver had died of suffocation long before the crash. Through the windows of every cottage the Doctor could see men and women, their dead faces lit by the flickering of their television screens. Al around him he could hear the screams of men and women, the cries of children, the barking of dogs. From the direction of Pond Hil , humans were cal ing out for help, mourning their loved ones or simply cursing the thing that had brought death to their little village. The cloud was picking them off one by one, not even letting them finish their lament.
Adisham was almost silent.
What could he do?
The Doctor stood there, listening to a whole town die. He stared up at the sky, at the red fog and the dark shape of the Martian warship far above them. Tendrils of vapour curled around walls, licked around the ground, searching with bloodhound devotion. It was a sentient gas, programmed for one purpose.
Hunting him.
It was meant for him and wouldn't stop its kil ing until he was dead.
87
That meant that there was only one thing he could do to stop it.
***
'There's the Doctor,' Greyhaven announced, clearly affected by the carnage he was watching.
'Where?' Xznaal snapped hungrily.
Greyhaven pointed out one of the images.
The picture rippled, filling with an aerial view of the Doctor half-running, half-stumbling along a main street littered with human corpses. He was running towards the cloud, waving his arms.
The Red Death was getting nearer and nearer.
'It's almost as though he wants to be found,' Staines observed.