Doctor Who_ Wetworld - Mark Michalowski [33]
It’s. . . It’s trying to learn.’
‘Learn what? What’s in your head, Col?’ She dropped to her knees.
‘C’mon, Col. Please. . . let’s go, let’s get out of here.’
There was another long pause.
‘We have things that it doesn’t. . . It wants to use us.’
‘Stop it, Col, you’re scaring me!’
Col gave a long sigh and his body jerked as if electrified. His mouth twitched a faint, almost curious smile.
‘Intelligence. It wants our intelligence. . . It needs it.’
Candy didn’t understand.
‘What does it want to know?’
‘No. . . no. . . It doesn’t want to know things,’ he said, his voice distant. ‘It just wants to know. It needs intelligence.’ He paused again, and a dreamy, faraway look spread across his face, despite the expressionless eyes. ‘It’s so strange, Candy.’
The torch almost slipped from Candy’s sweating hand, and, for a moment, Col’s face was swallowed up by the darkness.
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked as she found him again, still not quite understanding why Col wasn’t moving – or why she wasn’t trying to move him.
‘No pain,’ Col murmured. ‘Strange that, eh?’ A weird smile cracked his face: Candy wondered if he’d been taking drugs or something –
something he’d found on the ship. Was that why he’d been so keen to come back here?
‘Well you can tell the Doctor about it later, when we get back. Can you move? Can you sit up?’
Col gave another sigh and then, as if the urgency of the situation had finally sunk in, placed the flat of his palm against the floor and tried to push himself upright. He managed a few inches.
‘What’s that?’ Candy whispered.
There was something behind Col, something that had been hidden when he’d been lying down. It looked like black rope, a couple of inches across, dangling from the back of Col’s neck down to the floor.
‘What?’
‘Behind you, on your neck. Look, just move over here – we can worry about that later.’
Col forced himself up into a sitting position, his legs bent sideways, blocking Candy’s view of whatever it was. He reached behind his head with his free hand – and a look of puzzlement, and then fear, swept across his face.
‘What is it?’ Candy asked.
For a few seconds, Col said nothing as he felt around behind him.
And then, as if wanting to show Candy, he turned his head sideways.
Attached to the back of Col’s head, just above the nape of the neck, was the rope. Only it wasn’t rope: in the torchlight it was glossy and wet. And then Candy realised that it led to the shattered window. It was the creeper that she’d seen as she’d arrived. But the worst, most horrible thing, was that it was pulsing, very gently, as though pumping fluids. Into Col’s head. She saw his fingers splayed out around, where it joined his flesh.
‘What’s happened?’ His voice was low and cold and fearful. ‘What’s happened?’
‘It’s OK, Col,’ Candy managed to say, feeling the sick rising in her throat. She swallowed it back. ‘Just move over here and we’ll have a look at it. We’ll get it off.’
But Col didn’t move. She watched his fingers probe and explore the interface between him and the thing.
Suddenly, his body jerked and his hands fell by his sides. Candy dropped the torch and, panicked, hunted around for it with her hands, her eyes never leaving Col’s silhouette.
‘It’s learning,’ he said, and blinked. As she found the torch and brought it back up to his face, she saw that the whites of his eyes looked darker now, greener. Maybe it was just the light. Maybe.
‘Go, Candy – get away. Tell the Doctor –’ He broke off as his body arched, like he’d been given an electric shock.
‘I’m not leaving you,’ she said firmly.
‘It wants to use us. It wants us to be –’ Again he stopped, his head tipped back, mouth open. ‘I can’t stop it, Candy. It’s flicking through my head like a book. Oh. . . ’ Col paused, a frown etched onto his face.
Candy didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t leave but she was terrified of staying.
‘Col!’ she hissed again. ‘You’ve got to help me – move over here and –’
‘It’s too late,’ he said with a slow, painful exhalation of breath. ‘Too late.’
‘It’s not!’ Candy almost