Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [4]
Harry Sullivan
Died 28 November 1936
„Deliver us from Evil‟
„Oh, God, no,‟ she mouthed, no idea if the words came out or not.
Harry. Harry who irritated her because he treated her like she was made of glass; Harry who bumbled and stumbled and tripped his way through adventures on alien worlds; Harry who was never quite sure what was going on but was damn well going to see that the bad guys didn‟t win, the blighters.
Harry with whom she‟d shared so much, who was a good, good person, who had a beautiful smile - who she‟d wrapped a scarf around only half an hour ago, and now he was in the ground below her, no thoughts any more, not a person any more, with beetles in his hair and maggots eating his face, crawling up the blood vessels, bone showing beneath the wriggling skin, and this was actually happening six feet below her, Harry was there but it wasn‟t Harry. She heaved and heaved but couldn‟t be sick; the world was spinning until the Doctor grabbed her shoulders and spun her into his chest. She rested her forehead against his thick coat and waited for the pain to subside. But just at the moment, she didn‟t think it would.
Chapter Two
Adrift in Time
Harry didn‟t quite understand.
He wouldn‟t claim to know the Doctor very well, but he‟d never struck Harry as the sort of chap who‟d leave one stranded if there was any way around it. He was the captain of the ship, and stood by his crew till the very end. Perhaps it had slipped the Doctor‟s mind that Harry didn‟t have one of those time ring jobbies to take him back to the TARDIS.
The sensible course would be to wait exactly where he was.
When the Doctor realised that Harry wasn‟t in the TARDIS
any more - and even if the Doctor could be a bit absent minded, Sarah was there and would set him straight - he would come back for him. Surprised he wasn‟t back already, actually, what with time travel and all. So all Harry had to do was sit tight. Hoped it wouldn‟t be for too long, though, a chap could get bored - not to mention peckish - if he had to hang around for a few hours.
Harry found a tree stump, and sat down. Which is why he didn‟t fall over with shock when he heard the piercing scream of a girl coming from almost directly behind him. No one could ever call Harry Sullivan a coward; no sooner had his brain digested what he had heard than he was up and running towards the noise. As close as it had sounded, finding the place from where the scream had come was not easy. It was some minutes before Harry found the young girl.
The moon, nearly full, shone through the winter-bare trees and let him see her clearly. Even with the moonlight bleaching all colour from the work), though, Harry knew that what was surrounding her was glistening red blood. Her eyes were open and he was sure she was dead, but he couldn‟t stand back and do nothing; he knelt by the body and checked her pulse, ridiculously muttering soothing words as he did so.
She had been pretty once, a slender girl of perhaps twenty.
Her fair hair was bobbed and freckles stood out on her unnaturally pale skin, across her nose and up her angled cheekbones. Harry, no stranger to death, felt shocked and saddened, and reached out to shut her eyes.
It was only as they were nearly upon him that he took in what his ears had been telling him for several seconds - that there were people running towards him through the wood, angry people. He jumped up, staring in horror as they began to surround him. Every angry mob he had ever seen in a film was personified in this one, as pitchforks were raised and waved and threats shouted at the top of harsh, country voices. And, of course, he knew what was going to happen now, standing over a body with blood on his hands...
„Please!‟ he shouted. „I‟m a doctor! I was trying to help!‟
He didn‟t know if they didn‟t hear, didn‟t understand, or didn‟t care.
„She was dead when I found her! I‟m sorry!‟
At least the mob was behaving like its filmic counterparts, massing around but not - so far - attacking. If they charged him with