Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [23]
‘But I thought you said this “ghost detector” never worked.’
‘I’m not saying it did work – just went a bit mad. Mind you, Richard later said there were no circuits in it that could have made the noise. I still don’t know what happened. Maybe we just wished it into life.’
‘What happened next?’
38
‘We just legged it – we suddenly didn’t feel so brave! Like I say, I never did open the door. There was this weird atmosphere – real goosebumps, hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck stuff. Richard was laughing – I wondered if this was all some sort of wind-up – but when I looked in his eyes I could see how frightened he was. He didn’t think it was funny. He was hysterical.
‘We ran down the drive. I glanced back at one point – the building was just a black blob on the horizon. It was really dark by now, though I guess it wasn’t much beyond nine in the evening. But, as clear as day, I could see something moving around in the ruins – something bright, as if it had its own power source.’
‘Just a security guard with a torch?’
‘That’s what I think, now. I don’t believe in ghosts. Kids’ stuff, right? I don’t believe in anything I can’t see or touch. But at the time. . . I didn’t have a clue. I was so freaked out, by the time Richard reached the gate, I was about two hundred yards ahead of him. Didn’t half give myself a stitch,’ said James with a smile.
‘So it was definitely a guard?’
‘It’s the only thing that makes sense.’ James fumbled in his pocket, offering Trix a cigarette – she rejected it with a curt shake of the head – before lighting his own. ‘To be fair, we weren’t aware of this place being patrolled by guards, or we probably wouldn’t have come up here in the first place. And I’m not saying what I saw looked like a bloke with a torch – it just seemed like a blob of light. But. . . what other explanation is there?’ he asked.
Trix didn’t agree or disagree, but sat in silent contemplation, staring into the distance.
39
Caroline Says
(I’ve Got My TV and My Pills)
‘There’s not much in life I dislike,’ muttered Bernard Watson to himself as he clambered over the stile between Cole Street Lane and Barrow Field. ‘I reckon I’m a pretty tolerant fellow. But irresponsible dog owners, who let their animals do their business just anywhere, so that little kids can play with it and get whatsitcalled and go blind. . . Well, it just ain’t right.’
He reached down to pat Marion, his squat mongrel retriever. Marion gave him a look which, had she been human, might have implied that in reality Bernard’s pet peeves encompassed almonds, American tourists, and anglers –
and that was just the A’s. But Marion wasn’t human and, in any event, Bernard rarely looked for subtlety and subtext in anyone around him, be they human or canine.
‘It strikes me that we’re getting more and more selfish,’ he continued, tugging on Marion’s lead as she momentarily considered leaping up at a passing, low-flying sparrow. Marion shot him a disrespectful stare in return, as if not liking being part of Bernard’s generalised ‘we’. ‘City folk come out here and let their dogs off their leads – and the dogs go bonkers when they see sheep running about. People just can’t be bothered to think things through. And who gets the blame? The dog, that’s who.’
He paused for a moment, trying to remember where the old footpath went next.
‘Just look at Princess Anne,’ he added.
Marion seemed to know the route well enough, and Bernard let her lead him towards the kissing gate set into the thick hedge at the far end of the field. For some years Bernard had decided against bringing his dogs up here, for these fields skirted around the Retreat, and the trust that owned it had, for a while, tried to prevent the public from gaining access to their land. But the ancient right of way that ran around one edge of the grounds was now legally established as a matter of fact, and a few weeks ago Bernard had returned to using one of his favourite walks.
Then, not three