Doctor Who_ The Nightmare of Black Island - Mike Tucker [31]
coming from one of the arches at the far end of the corridor. Wincing, Rose edged her way forward. There was a harsh, pulsing glow from behind the pillars that sent long fingers of light flickering across the vaulted ceiling. She could see the outlines of tall, gleaming machines ranged against the cellar walls, bundles of cables fixed clumsily to the ancient brickwork.
She stepped down into the throbbing room in astonishment. It was full, packed floor to ceiling with technology. Tall silver cabinets were stacked against each wall, lights flickering deep inside them, while a large central console was bolted to the flagstones in the centre of the room. Cables and conduits snaked off into the shadows. Monitors showing the sleeping figures in the dining room hung in an ungainly tangle from the ceiling and huge power units throbbed in a corner. It was like mission control from some space shot, and certainly not the product of anything on Earth. Rose shook her head in amazement. Not the evidence she had been looking for, but certainly something that the Doctor would want to know about.
She circled the console, trying to make sense of the flickering readouts. Each set of controls seemed to relate to one of the sleeping figures upstairs. Heartbeat, respiration, brainwave activity.
‘What the hell are you up to Morton?’ she murmured. The machinery suddenly shifted in pitch, the pulsing glow from the power units getting brighter, the vibrations stronger. Suddenly realising that she had been in the house longer than she had intended, Rose turned to make her way back out through the cellar window. And stopped dead. At the bottom of the stairs was Miss Peyne, an unfriendly smile on her face, an ugly, snub-nosed pistol in her hand.
‘Why, Miss Evans. You really have lost your way.’
Several of the lab-coated figures appeared at her shoulder. Rose was trapped.
The Doctor helped Bronwyn down the rickety spiral staircase, the noise from the machine in the lamp room humming in his eats. It had increased steadily over the last few minutes as more and more panels sprang to life across its surface.
74
‘We’re going already?’
Bronwyn was not happy.
‘After you’ve
dragged me all the way up here? I wish you’d make up your mind!’
‘Well, ideally I would have loved to stay and see what surprises the machine has in store, but there are dangerous amounts of power being fed through it. I have no idea what prolonged exposure to the transmissions might mean for either you or me, so better safe than sorry, eh? I suggest that we beat a hasty retreat, then collect up some of my equipment so that I can analyse what the machine was doing from a considerably safer distance.’
They emerged on to the rocks at the base of the lighthouse. The Doctor craned his neck, looking back up the tower. A pale, sickly glow from the lamp room now lit up the darkening sky. They had been on the island longer than he thought and night was rapidly sneaking up on them.
Bronwyn noticed it too and started back towards the cove where her boat was moored.
‘We must go. We’ve been here too long.’ The old woman sounded genuinely scared.
The Doctor nodded. ‘I tend to agree.’
Catching hold of her arm to steady her, the Doctor guided Bronwyn over the wet rocks towards the shore. He could see her little boat bobbing animatedly in the surf, tethered to the large craggy outcrop. Then suddenly there was an explosion of spray and something huge and dark burst from the ocean, its back ridged and barnacled. With a grating roar, it immediately vanished beneath the waves again. Bronwyn gave a moan, wringing her hands. ‘Too late. We’ve left it too late. It’s always the same. Every night, as soon as the children start to go to sleep.’
The Doctor stared at her, open-mouthed. ‘What did you say?’ He slapped his hand against his forehead. ‘I am a total bonehead. . . Every night. . . sleep. . . It’s not the monsters! Those monsters don’t