Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [79]
‘Are you behind all this lunacy?’ I asked. I am not sure what I expected by way of an answer – whether our immediate deaths or a spoken reply that might make some sense of this terrible situation.
Just for a moment a more familiar, more human look ran across Fern’s face.
‘I tried to repent,’ he said, his eyes fixed on mine – or, rather, on the absolute purity of the dog collar at my throat. ‘I did try. You must believe me. There is such evil coursing through my mind. . . ’
‘Part of repentance,’ I said, ‘is looking to the future. You could start now.
You could open the door, let us go.’
‘But I cannot control myself!’ He indicated the grotesque hound at his side in such a way as to imply that he was no longer sure who was master and who the servant. ‘This creature attacked me. . . ’ He held up his arm – I could see a deep, ragged bite in his arm. All around the bite the skin – down towards his hand, up towards the shoulder – writhed as if alive. It had taken on a greyish sheen, not unlike the colour of the dog. I could well believe that it had a life of its own.
‘I remained here, in this chapel. My mind was not my own. I tried to warn Dr Christie, to tell him what I had done. . . ’ He pressed his fingers hard into his temples. ‘I know I am a bad man,’ he said through ragged breaths, ‘but now. . . What lives in me is so dark, so evil. . . We are but pawns. . . Even Christie. . . ’
I tried to reason with the man. ‘Did you kill these people?’
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Fern spat out the words between gasps. ‘Jones. . . Haward. . . I had no choice!’
I wanted to say that there is always choice, but, as I looked into the man’s eyes, I was no longer so sure.
‘What has made you do these terrible things?’ I asked. ‘To what end?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Fern, his face contorted as if in great pain. ‘I know only that. . . something is telling me. . . there are now enough bodies here.’ He glanced around the chapel, at the living and the dead. ‘It is now time. . . for fire to claim us all.’
He held up a lantern for all to see. The evil intent was apparent.
‘Made mighty by madness,’ he intoned. ‘Birthed in fire, reborn in terrible destruction!’ It was a subtle variation of Christie’s refrain.
Mr Craig tried to lunge at Fern, but the huge hound placed itself between them. It bared its thick, yellow teeth at us all; Craig backed away.
‘Birthed in fire!’ cried Fern, before hurling the lantern towards one of Christie’s oil-soaked piles of cloth.
In an instant, the lantern shattered, sparking the rags into flames. Any attempt to intercede was anticipated by Fern, or the great hound. Dr Christie was motionless, his eyes unseeing.
Mr Torby tried to talk to Fern, but it was too late. All humanity had gone.
His only interest now was in ensuring that none of us interfered with the blaze he had created.
Dry panelled walls soon cracked and burst into flame. Pockets of fire pushed smoke and sparks at the ceiling, blackening plaster. Most vile of all, the corpses on their trolleys were soon like saints on pyres, blazing red fingers reaching up to envelop skin and bone and hair.
It was all too much for Mr Torby. He had seen too much – perhaps we all had, and a little madness gripped us. Torby was muttering something under his breath; only later did I understand that it was from one of Mr Haward’s doom-laden books.
‘And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.’
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Sixteen
The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum
(Kill Your Sons)
Laska watched as Smith read the two diaries, his brow furrowed in concentration. He had both open at once, urgently cross-referencing facts and statements, his thin lips drawn tighter still. Occasionally he sighed, or muttered under his breath, but for the most part he did not say anything for almost an hour.
Then suddenly he looked up, his blue eyes dazzling Laska momentarily. ‘I assume you have realised that this “Mausolus House “. . . and the Retreat. . .
are one and the same?’
‘The details seemed a bit coincidental,’ said Laska. ‘But then, that makes