Doctor Who_ Time and Relative - Kim Newman [21]
'Dad, Dad,' John called.
The Captain heard something, but took a moment to realise where the noise came from and what it was.
'What are you doing up there? You should be ready to go. We're
behind schedule.'
'Dad, stay away from the snowmen.'
He had walked across the playground. He stood over the blowtorch.
'Damned dangerous, this,' he said, picking it up. 'What fool left it lying about?'
'Dad, the snowmen! Watch them.'
Captain Brent was irritated and puzzled at the same time. Then the penny seemed to drop.
'Oh yes. April first. Hah bloody hah.'
'Dad ... '
John was almost crying, trying to get through to his father.
The blowtorch cast light around the playground. Captain Brent saw the dead bodies. He whirled around. There was a scream.
The Cold Knights were attacking the Jeep.
They were like a wave, flowing over the driver. They snowmen suddenly melded, a living glacier rising up and crashing down. The driver was trapped inside, a blurred scarecrow in a semi-transparent block. I don't know if the soldier was crushed or drowned, but it was over quickly.
'Let's go,' said Gillian. 'We're no safer here.'
Tentacles of ice had twisted through the open window, and were pulsing, weaving together.
We clattered out of the classroom, down the stairs and out through the Crush Hall onto the playground. Captain Brent still held the blowtorch, perhaps the most useful weapon in the circumstances, but its flame was guttering.
The giant ice fist that had gripped the driver was around the entire Jeep, lifting it off the ground. Its bonnet buckled under the pressure, tires crushed, doors burst and broken.
Captain Brent had nothing to say.
'Dad, it's an attack,' John explained.
That got through to him.
'You little idiot,' he snapped at his son. 'What have you done now?'
John was brought up short. Behind his glasses, his eyes were watery.
'It's not my fault,' he wailed.
'Whenever there's a ruckus, you're in the middle of it, Johnno. Who else's fault would it be? You've torn it now.' A trickle ran down John's face.
There was a loud crunching noise. The Jeep was in pieces now, some forced out through the ice. The Cold Knights reformed, emerging from their morass, more human-shaped. Most had two stiff legs, and could march. They were sleek rather than tubby.
Gillian looked at the Cold Knights and at John's Dad. Captain Brent stood stiff and stern, refusing to acknowledge the ice creatures.
'You're mad,' Gillian said to the grown-up. 'Completely mad.'
'Don't you talk to my Dad like that,' said John, wiping his face with his sleeve.
Gillian looked up at dark skies in disbelief.
The Cold Knights were coming for us.
We had to pull the Captain into the Crush Hall, then barricade the entrance by hauling a heavy cabinet of sport trophies across the doormat. The grown-up wasn't any help, but didn't try to stop us. Some of the windows either side of the doors smashed. Snow blew in.
I felt tiny stings and wiped my face. My mitten came away bloody.
The snow was sharp. Each flake was a tiny, malicious razor.
We retreated from the Crush Hall into the Assembly Hall.
'I'm completely off schedule now, Johnno,' barked Captain Brent. 'This won't do at all. Your mother will have something to say. And the C.O.'
'Keep your Dad quiet,' Gillian told John, 'I need time to think.'
John's father didn't believe a child had spoken about him like that.
'Now see here,' he began.
'I know how to see off the Cold Knights,' said Gillian, interrupting, eyes shining. 'We should burn down the school!'
Instinctively, I loved the idea!
'Uh-huh, no-can-do, girlie,' said Captain Brent. 'Public property.'
Tuesday, April 2nd,1963
We slept in School. Working out that the furnace must be kept on overnight to stop the pipes freezing (some hope!), we broke into the boiler room and made shelter there.
I fetched my satchel from