Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [29]
There was a sound outside the door.
Jessica concentrated on thoughts of that night. Thoughts of how strong the door was and what a good job Roy had done. She had made fun of him at the time. Lying in bed and telling him to forget it and leave it. Leave it until morning. To come to bed. To climb into the big bed with her.
Their bed. Jessica turned around in the darkened bedroom. She walked over to the bed and sat in a patch of pale light, hands folded on tightly squeezed-together knees.
Picture of air stewardess in moonlight, she thought. Portrait of anxious flight-attendant on bed.
Jessica invented titles for the picture in her head. She didn’t want to think about the door.
Scooter was outside the door.
Jessica realized she was still clutching the phone. She put it down on the bed beside her. She listened carefully but there was no sound outside the door. Maybe he was gone.
Maybe he’d wandered downstairs and gone into the kitchen.
No, not the kitchen. She’d closed the kitchen after she left it.
After she saw what had happened to Roy in there.
Don’t think about Roy.
Jessica sat on the bed carefully not thinking about Roy.
She sat quite still. More than anything else in the world she wanted to get up and cross the moonlit bedroom. Go to that door and listen.
But no. She mustn’t. She had to stay put.
That’s what the voices on the telephone had told her.
Stay exactly where she was until they came to get her. They would come and rescue her. She just had to stay where she was.
Sit here quietly on the bed. That wasn’t so hard to do, was it? Sit here and feel the breeze stir across your face from the bedroom window.
It wasn’t so bad. In fact it was very peaceful, sitting here with the breeze on her face in the night-time silence. Silence.
Scooter had gone.
He wasn’t outside the door. He couldn’t be. She would be able to hear him if he was. Jessica was sure she would.
Once again she repressed the urge to get up and go to the door. Stay put, they’d told her. We’ll be with you soon. But Jessica felt the persistent urge to get up and cross the dark bedroom and listen.
Listen at the door and perhaps open it just a crack.
Jessica was certain that Scooter wasn’t outside any more. He’d gone downstairs. Perhaps through the sitting room, through the French windows and right out into the garden.
It was stupid for her to be shut up in this bedroom when she could be down the stairs and safely out the front door in about three seconds flat. Scooter could never reach her in that time. He was in the sitting room, or perhaps right down the far end of the garden by now.
Hell, she could do it in two and a half seconds. Out of the bedroom, down the stairs, past the kitchen and out the door.
She would see Scooter if he was anywhere on her route.
Anywhere between here and the front door. He couldn’t be hiding in the kitchen, waiting to pounce. He couldn’t be in there because the kitchen door was shut. She had shut it herself, after seeing Roy.
Don’t think about Roy.
Jessica forced herself not to think about Roy. But as she concentrated on doing that she found herself standing up.
Getting off the bed and going to the bedroom door.
The door drew her to it with its promise of escape.
She had to get out of here. Roy was dead in the kitchen downstairs, and she had to get out of here before her head exploded with the unbearable pictures of what she’d seen.
Scooter wasn’t outside anyway. He was downstairs. In the garden. She would hear him if he was outside the door.
Jessica placed her ear against the cool smooth wood of the bedroom door. She held her breath and listened.
All she heard was a deep buzzing silence, the faint vibration of something electrical in the house, transmitted by the wood of the door. Beyond that was the tiny echo of her own blood beating.
Beyond that, total silence.
Scooter wasn’t out there.
Jessica put her hand on the doorknob. She twisted it and opened the door, just a crack. Just enough to peer out.
Scooter surged up at her from the