Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [73]
She is a civilian.’
‘She reckons she’s had more experience of EBEs than you and me put together son,’ said Paynter. ‘Tell her to get her knickers on and let’s get on the move, sharpish.’
A mile down the road a seemingly deserted garage emerged out of the heat haze and the dust. Milligan turned to the limping Tegan with a relieved expression.
‘See. It’s not all sand and buzzards. They have other things in Nevada!’
From a distance, however, Paynter was being cautious. ‘It looks like something out of Deliverance,’ he said caustically. ‘If there’s anybody there let me do the talking.’
‘ Achtung!’ said Tegan with a little Nazi salute that seemed to rub Paynter up in just the desired fashion.
‘Hello,’ he called out as they approached the garage.
There was no reply.
‘The pay phone’s probably round the back,’ Milligan said.
‘Stay here and keep your eyes open,’ Paynter told his colleague as he headed off around the bare concrete walls of the garage.
‘Do you reckon they have a ladies room?’ asked Tegan.
‘That’ll be round the back too, like as not.’
Tegan nodded and mouthed a barely audible ‘Thank you’ before scuttling off in the direction that Paynter had gone.
David Milligan stood alone in the baking sun for a moment before a voice from the darkness of the garage made him jump.
‘Need any help, boy?’
The man emerged from the shadows, his eyes covered by thick-rimmed mirror shades. ‘I’m afraid we had a breakdown some miles back,’ replied Milligan.
The man spat on the ground and moved into the light, the sun instantly reflecting off the shades and temporarily blinding Milligan. ‘You English?’ he asked casually in a poison-tipped Deep South accent.
Milligan smiled at him. ‘Our car . . . ’ he paused, wondering how best to describe a flying saucer attack. ‘Conked out,’ he said at last.
‘They do that,’ the man told him, moving towards the nearest petrol pump.
He bent over to retrieve something from behind it and turned with a sickly, yellow-toothed grin. ‘Especially when they’re interfered with by extraterrestrial surveillance craft, yeah?’
140
Milligan nodded. Then again, he would have nodded if he’d been asked whether he agreed that black was white. It was the barrel of the lethal-looking shotgun in the man’s hands that made him so persuasive.
‘Listen,’ he said brightly, raising both of his hands. ‘There really is nothing to get upset about. We’re just passing though.’
There was a sinister twitch in the man’s expression, as though Milligan had just said something desperately amusing. ‘On the ground,’ he ordered.
Milligan slowly lowered himself on to one knee, still holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. ‘I really don’t think you want to be doing this,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m no threat to you. None of us are. We just want to get home.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said the man. ‘You don’t know how much of a threat you are.’
The rest room was dark and cool and stank of bleach and stale urine. Tegan almost gagged. She was happy to be out of the sun, but as soon as she had splashed some water from the filthy washbasin on to her face and looked at her sunburn in the cracked and stained mirror, she decided she’d had enough hospitality. She turned and walked back through the door, blinking, into the brilliant sunlight. A little further along the wall, Paynter was on the pay phone, telling someone in UNIT headquarters about their experiences with the UFO, and their position, in cold, clinical, almost dispassionate bursts. After a moment, as Tegan watched him from the shade of the building, he replaced the receiver and gave her a confident little smile.
‘Help is on its way,’ he said.
Tegan nodded. ‘Good,’ she said, rubbing the peeling skin on her forehead.
‘You suffering?’ asked Paynter without any apparent trace of sympathy.
She scowled at him with barely concealed contempt. ‘Just a bit,’ she said at last. ‘I’m sure you’re delighted to . . . ’
Her outrage was cut short, however, by the sound of the shot from around the corner. Tegan screamed and then instantly felt ashamed of herself. A concerned expression