Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [38]
‘Affirmative.’ Roz started running. She was just about to emerge from the mouth of the alley when she heard a voice behind her.
‘Wait a minute, dear,’ it called breathlessly. Roz spun around to see Mrs Woodcott standing a few metres back up the alley. She looked slightly winded, but on the whole remarkably fit for a woman of advanced years who’d just run for her life.
‘It’s our chum,’ said Mrs Woodcott, panting and clutching her big ugly handbag. She jerked her thumb back over her shoulder, in the direction she’d come. Roz stared back up the alley, waiting for Jessica, the stewardess, to emerge from the patch of shadow. But she did not appear.
Where is she?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to explain if you’d just listen. She turned back.’
‘Come on!’ shouted Redmond’s voice in Roz’s ear. ‘Get out of there.’ The Irishman had been attempting to hide how close he was to losing his cool. Now he no longer bothered to conceal it. His voice had a raw ugly edge of panic that communicated itself to Roz.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ she said, ignoring Redmond, trying to concentrate on Mrs Woodcott.
‘Our chum, Jessica, suddenly turned around. She said she had to go back for something.’
‘Go back for something?’ Roz couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘She’s gone back to the house?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
Roz said nothing. She had been sweating heavily in the helmet before, but now perspiration flowed down her forehead in a smooth constant stream. The enormity of it was almost too much to comprehend. They were nearly out of the danger zone and the girl had turned around and deliberately gone back into it.
And of course she’d taken Roz back in with her.
Roz turned and jogged back into the alley. ‘Roz, what are you doing?’ said Redmond in her ear.
‘I’m going back.’ She was in the patch of shadow now, halfway up the alley again.
‘Going back?’
‘I have to fetch Jessica out again.’
‘You have to what? Oh, Christ.’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
‘Roz, don’t do it.’
‘Almost there.’ Roz was out of the alley and running up the pavement now, back towards Jessica’s house.
‘Roz, come back. Please.’
Through the garden gate. Front door still open the way they’d left it.
‘Roz!’
Into the hallway, into the kitchen. Body on the floor. The boyfriend.
Roz stood looking down at the torn remnants of what had once been a human being. In her line of work Roz had often been confronted with sudden death. This had been a particularly nasty way to go. She wondered if he had at least died quickly.
She imagined the way it must have been, the sharp teeth coming at him in the moonlight. Coming at him unstoppably.
Roz was imagining what it must have been like when she heard something.
A tiny sound.
It hadn’t come from the radio. Redmond had fallen silent.
It came from outside the kitchen. Roz turned away from the body and moved silently back towards the kitchen door.
She carefully switched her night-vision helmet back on and stepped into the darkened hallway, the Styer AUG held high.
Roz turned to the left, looking down the short hallway towards the front door. Nothing.
She turned to the right and saw a tall glowing shape move towards her. The night-vision helmet made it look like a living flame.
‘Roz.’
Roz took her finger off the trigger. It was Jessica, clutching something in her hand. A square. A picture. A small metal-framed picture. The glass and metal showed up as a cold blue on Roz’s visor.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jessica. ‘I realized that I could never come back to this place.’ She held up the picture. ‘I wanted to take this with me.’
Image enhancement on Roz’s helmet showed her the picture in the frame. A photograph. Jessica and the dead boyfriend, together on some forever-lost summer afternoon.
The image system zoomed in relentlessly, gleaning further detail. There in the background of the picture was the dog, happily snapping at a frisbee in mid-air.
‘I’m sorry,’ repeated Jessica.
‘Forget it,’ said Roz. She realized that two of the figures in the photograph were dead. Roy and the dog, both were right