Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [49]
‘They would seem to be in the back garden as well,’ said Mrs Woodcott. ‘Now what’s this about the armoured car, dear?’
‘I think Redmond’s dead. I heard something growling into the microphone.’
‘But the armoured car is moving. We heard it.’
‘But I don’t think anybody is driving it,’ said Roz.
‘Well, then we’re not getting out of here,’ said Mrs Woodcott matter-of-factly. She opened the revolver and reloaded the single spent cartridge. ‘Dinnertime for Rover, I’m afraid.’
Not necessarily,’ said Roz. ‘Like I said, I think the armoured car is in motion with no one driving it. But I think it’s out of control and its headed-’
Mrs Woodcott held up her hand, motioning her urgently to silence.
‘What is it?’ said Roz.
‘Quiet, dear. To the front door. Quick.’
Mrs Woodcott darted out of the sitting room. Roz followed her into the small hallway that led first to the kitchen then to the front door. Mrs Woodcott stood by the door, listening.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the old woman. ‘But there’s something going on out front. I can’t see anything through the peephole here. Go and look through the kitchen window, would you, dear?’
Roz went into the kitchen where Roy’s brutalized corpse still lay on the floor. Roz was looking at it and thinking that they should cover it up when the kitchen window exploded inward.
The floral curtains were swept aside in a spray of broken glass as three lean dark shapes hurtled through into the kitchen.
Roz snapped the Styer AUG on to automatic and swept the room with it.
The floor of the kitchen was ceramic tile and created a potential for richochets so Roz kept the riot-gun at waist level and swept the bullets out in an arc.
The descending bodies of the three dogs entered the arc of bullets one after the other. And one after the other the dogs writhed and died. All three were dead by the time they hit the floor.
A fourth dog was scrambling over the sill of the shattered window, but before she could do anything about it she heard a blunt crashing explosion behind her and she recognized the sound of Mrs Woodcott’s revolver.
The dog spun around, its big ears flopping as the bullet took the top of its head away. It dropped back outside the house with an audible thud. There was silence outside and nothing else came through the window.
Fragments of glass tinkled musically into the sink.
‘Thank you,’ said Roz.
‘You would have got him if I hadn’t, dear,’ said Mrs Woodcott modestly.
Roz looked around. The kitchen was a mess. The bullets which hadn’t hit the dogs had torn the place to pieces.
Expensive metal cookware had been battered into strange angular shapes.
On the floor the three bodies of the dogs lay beside Roy.
The tiles were slick with blood. It looked like the work-floor of a busy abbatoire.
‘I know what you were going to say, dear,’ said Mrs Woodcott. She said it in a conversational tone as though they were two ladies sharing a cup of tea at the vicarage picnic.
‘What are you talking about?’ Roz was concentrating on listening for sound through the open window. Their security had been broken with the window. Could they repair it? It might be possible to mount a successful siege action in this small house providing they could just repair that window.
‘We were discussing the armoured car,’ said Mrs Woodcott. ‘Just before we were so rudely interrupted. And I believe I know what you were going to say.’
‘What?’ Maybe they could use the cupboard doors. Take them off their hinges and nail the plywood over the breached window. But where would they find a hammer and nails?
‘I believe you were going to say that the armoured car was headed in this direction.’
‘I was wrong,’ said Roz bluntly. ‘Even without Redmond driving it I was hoping it might come rolling across the podium and into the back wall of this garden.’
‘Yes, if it hit the wall it would crash right through