Doctor Who_ Time and Relative - Kim Newman [27]
Corporal Spots didn't get out of the way fast enough.
Bullets hauled him off his feet and tore him up. Friendly fire.
(I wish I hadn't seen that, but wishing is no use.)
My ears hurt with the noise and the cold.
I found myself holding hands with John, gripping tight. We were wadded together, between a fixed cement rubbish bin and a red telephone box. The phone box was almost entirely filled up with soft white snow. A pale human hand was pressed up against the glass from
inside.
Gillian tried to help Captain Brent stand up.
A couple of soldiers ran off, into the snowstorm. I thought I heard screams.
The three snowballs, each about as tall as a pony, rolled lazily out of the storm that was settling around the wreck of the armoured car. The first advanced to Gillian and the Captain and stopped, and its comrades darted around, surrounding them. The ball shifted its insides and a smile came to the surface.
The tree-bark smile I had made.
'That's our snowman,' I said.
John's father took out his gun and shot the ball. This time, the bullet speared through like a very long finger. The tunnel filled in instantly.
I stood up, tugging John, and we ran towards Gillian and Captain Brent.
The balls settled, rising like dough, forming Cold Knights.
A lot of them were on the streets.
Gillian held out her thermometer, like a charm to ward off evil. Suddenly, she was lifted off her feet.
I screamed.
But Gillian wasn't in the grip of the Cold Knights. Captain Brent had taken hold of her by the waist and held her up, above the snowy masses. He tossed Gillian into the air.
Her arms and legs cartwheeled.
She shot out of the encirclement, but the icy blocks slammed together on the Captain, smashing into clear pebbles slick with blood. John's father was down – John's hand crushed mine, forcing a yelp out of me – before Gillian came to earth. John and I tried to catch her, but instead broke her fall by being under her when she landed.
We fell in a clump and took moments to sort ourselves out.
More Cold Knights piled on Captain Brent.
He bent the wrong way at the waist. His arms kept flailing, but only with the repeated impact. The Cold Knights kept jostling around, pouring ice blows down on John's father.
'Dad,' he shouted.
'Come away, John.' said Gillian, quietly in his ear.
'But ... '
'There's no time.'
Both children were shocked by what Captain Brent had done and what happened to him. Gillian knew how to make herself calm for the moment, to get through the next minutes and think about it later, if ever. I knew she was storing up too much, that it would have to come out. John had to be helped. This wasn't the world he had expected, even waking up this morning. A world without his father.
We ran away, down the street.
Later –
A third of the way down the High Street, we were stopped. The storm threw whirls of diamond-sharp snowflakes at us, tiny razor-edged throwing stars. I could no longer feel my feet, my hands or my face – except for a light, disturbing tingle I was horribly sure was the first symptom of severe frostbite. We were walking on the spot, gaining inches only by leaning dangerously into the blizzard, then driven back by the force of the storm, slid in the grooves our trudging made in the packed snow. It was a struggle not to be tipped over and blown backwards.
We cast around for somewhere to shelter.
'The Wimpy Bar,' shouted Gillian over the roar of the storm, pointing.
I remembered the place, and saw its red sign under a dusting of white. It was an American-style hamburger restaurant, named after the character in the Popeye cartoons Malcolm loves. Wimpy Bars were popping up all over the city, replacing greasy spoon Gaffs and Lyons Corner Houses. Everything inside was brightly-coloured plastic, including the waitresses' uniforms, the tomato-shaped ketchup squeezebulbs and the squares of cheese melted