Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [132]
‘Except that the people are still here.’
‘Yes,’ said Redmond. He went over to the nearest body, a middle-aged woman collapsed on a bench, her purse lying between her feet. Redmond put a gentle hand to her throat, looking for a pulse.
‘Jack!’ he called excitedly. ‘Jack, she’s alive.’ Redmond moved quickly to the old man, on the bench nearby, who was slumped at an angle still clutching his cane. ‘This one, too.
He’s breathing.’ Redmond turned to look for Jack. think they’re all alive.’
‘What do we do?’
‘Get back inside. Let me think for a minute.’
They climbed into the car and Redmond sat, chin on the steering-wheel, peering through the windscreen. ‘None of the vehicles show any major damage,’ he mused. ‘No bullet-holes. No signs of an explosion.’ He frowned. ‘Gas?’ His eyes flickered anxiously at the open window beside Jack.
‘No,’ said Jack slowly. ‘I don’t think so. If it was gas it would have hit us by now. Wouldn’t you say? I mean, you have experience of these things, don’t you?’
Redmond didn’t reply. Jack looked across at him and saw that he was slumped in the driver’s seat, a buzzing snore beginning to ease from his pursed lips.
‘On the other hand...’ said Jack, and he reached hastily to shut the car window. Suddenly, echoing from the front of the station, he heard two almost simultaneous sounds.
A gunshot and a girl’s scream.
They were waiting when Ricky came out of the front entrance of the station.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
Ricky stood and looked down.
His sister was waiting at the bottom of the steps. Ricky walked out of the revolving doors and began to descend towards her. He had to step carefully over sleeping bodies on the way.
As Ricky came down the curving stone steps he could see that a man was standing beside his sister. He held a gun in one hand and in the other a long plastic leash with a lean black dog tethered to it.
‘I’m sorry, Ricky,’ said his sister.
‘It’s OK, Cynthia.’
She was staring up at him, eyes dark in her pale round face. She was a teenager straining to be an adult and she hadn’t looked like a child for a long time, but now she did.
She looked like Ricky’s kid-sister again. He remembered how close they had been before puberty hit; and even now, with the dog-handler pointing a gun at him, Ricky felt a little sadness for their lost childhood. Adolescence had made them enemies.
But now all that was stripped away and Cynthia was just his kid-sister again. She was looking up at him, mutely asking for forgiveness, a scared girl with a pale face and staring eyes.
‘They made me come,’ she said. She tried to step away from the dog-handler and the man immediately put his arm across her shoulders. It was like the casual possessive gesture of a guy strolling along beside his girlfriend. Except he had a gun dug in under Cynthia’s chin.
Ricky’s stomach flinched with fear and anger.
‘I understand,’ he said to Cynthia. He looked at the dog-handler. ‘Don’t hurt her.’
‘Just keep coming down the steps,’ said the man. ‘Move slowly. Keep your hands in sight.’
‘Shouldn’t you be asleep?’ said Ricky. The dog-handler glanced around for a second at the bodies scattered on the steps and the pavement outside the station.
‘They’re asleep, huh?’ he said. ‘We weren’t sure if they were dead or what.’ The black dog had become bored and now he slumped on the sidewalk at the man’s feet, long tongue hanging out.
‘You did this, huh?’ said the man, gesturing to encompass the whole strange place, the road and the station and the pavement strewn with sleeping bodies.
‘That’s right,’ said Ricky.
‘Well, whatever you’ve got, she’s immune to it.’ The dog-handler hugged Cynthia closer to him. ‘I guess because she’s a blood relative.’ He moved the gun fractionally so it was pressed against Cynthia’s jaw but aimed at Ricky. ‘And as long as I stay close to her I’m immune, too.’
‘You won’t shoot me,’ said Ricky. ‘I’m too important.’
The man extended