Doctor Who_ Wetworld - Mark Michalowski [9]
‘A tidal wave,’ whispered the Doctor, closer to her than he’d been a moment ago. He glanced up at the sky as the rain made the forest around them hiss.
‘It just rolled in along the river – a great, black wall, moonlight catching the top edge of it.’ Candy shuddered at the memory. ‘All we could do was stand and stare at it, you know?’ She turned to the Doctor and he was there, just a couple of metres away. ‘And then everyone started screaming and running. People were grabbing their kids, grabbing bags, clothes, anything they could. It was chaos. They weren’t even all running in the right direction. Some of them headed upslope, away from the river. Others – God knows why! – were running along the bank. Maybe they thought they’d get further by staying on the flat.
Some of them. . . ’ Candy closed her eyes, but the images in her head played on. ‘Some of them just went in their houses, calm as anything, and closed the doors. We managed to meet up on the other side of the hill, after the wave had subsided.’ Candy remembered them all gathering around a pathetic fire – dry wood torn from the tops of the salt-trees where the water hadn’t reached, the smell of the sap, soapy and pungent at the same time, as it spat and crackled. She remembered the steamy smoke, coiling away into the warm night. Taking their hopes and dreams with it.
There had been people running around, still wailing and crying, asking if anyone had seen this person or that. She could still see the blank faces of some of the older people who didn’t seem to quite realise what had happened. Marj Haddon, her face even paler than usual in the firelight, sitting hugging her knees, wrapped in a soggy old blanket and not even asking about her partner, Lou. The Richlieu twins, asking their grandpa where Mum and Dad were, and the look on their grandpa’s tear-stained face as he tried to find a way to tell them. . .
‘We lost almost everything,’ Candy said after a few moments. She brushed her straggly blonde hair back from her face, slicking it against her head. The Doctor didn’t even seem to notice the rain. ‘Some of us went back the next day – to see, you know. . . ’ Her mouth was suddenly as dry as leaves.
‘The waters had fallen by then – a bit, anyway. Almost everything useful was either underwater or had been washed away. Even the ship was gone. We managed. . . ’ She broke off, feeling herself choking up at the memories her tale was bringing up. ‘Some of the buildings on the edge of the city had survived, and we managed to salvage a lot of the stuff that had floated to the surface.’ Candy had to stop again as her mind raced ahead of her mouth. She looked up into the Doctor’s eyes. ‘And then we started to find the bodies.’
Candy was suddenly aware that she was sobbing into the warm, muddy shoulder of a complete stranger. A complete stranger who held her whilst she let it all out. She barely noticed as the rain continued to fall.
She didn’t know how long he held her – silently, saying nothing, passing no judgements. No telling her not to cry, no telling her that everything would be alright. No vague, meaningless words of comfort from someone who hadn’t been there, someone who hadn’t seen what she’d seen. No trying to be a father or a brother or a friend. In a strange way, he reminded her of Ty. Eventually, she pulled away from him, and he let her.
‘Sorry,’ she said, rubbing her nose on the back of her hand. The rain was falling heavily now, and it just made her face wetter.
‘Don’t be silly,’ the Doctor said. ‘Nothing like a good cry. Lets all those brain chemicals run free, sort themselves out.’
‘Does it?’ she sniffed.
He stared at her – and shrugged.
‘Probably,’ he said, as if he’d just made it up. ‘But you stuck it out –
all of you. You stayed.’
‘Not much choice. The One Small Step – our ship – was gone. And the second wave of colonists’ll be here in a year. Can’t let ’em down, can we?’
‘Oh no,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘That’d never do. Sounds like you could do with a bit of moral support.’
Candy snorted a laugh.
‘Couldn’t we just!’
‘Well perhaps