Doctor Who_ Wooden Heart - Martin Day [39]
She walked towards the door, but her inquisitive mind refused to let things rest there. Why had the lights come on? They didn’t seem like windows, so where was the light coming from?
‘Hello!’ she said suddenly, her tiny voice now sounding brash and loud as it echoed and rebounded off the metal walls. Obediently, the lights in the ceiling became yet more dazzling. It was like daylight, somehow captured in a room without windows.
Jude stepped up to the door, wondering how she was going to open it – she could see no lock, no handle, and she imagined it was as at least as thick as the walls and floor.
Suddenly the door opened. It slid noiselessly back into the wall, rather like the interior doors of Jude’s house, but it appeared to complete the action on its own. The shock and sudden movement was so great that Jude immediately jumped backwards.
Unbidden, the door emerged from its slot between the walls, gliding into place and clicking shut again. For the first time, Jude could hear a faint humming sound coming from the door.
Jude took a couple of deep breaths and walked forward once more.
The door immediately slid away. Jude scratched her head, puzzled. There was no one there, but the door seemed entirely capable of moving on its own.
She stepped out onto the corridor beyond – it was silver-coloured and, like the room, was very plain. It was incredibly long, stretching off in both directions – this house must be huge, she thought, the palace of some great king. The style reminded her of what she had seen in the forest. The place she had glimpsed while her father fought the dragon-creature was now her reality, and the forest might as well have been a dream.
She paused, forcing back the tide of panic that threatened to drown her, and wondered which way to turn. She could hear and smell nothing from either direction, and both corridors appeared identical.
Shrugging her shoulders, she turned left out of the cell and crept along the floor, keeping low as she had seen her father do on numerous occasions. She passed another door – which also opened as she approached – but the room beyond only contained more boxes, and no one answered her when she called out.
The corridor turned abruptly to the right. As she followed it she stopped suddenly – and shivered.
One section of the corridor was as black as midnight. The lights over her head became progressively dim until, at the far end, there was no illumination at all, and even the featureless walls flickered with shadow.
And something was moving within the darkness.
Martha ran forward, giving in to instinct and the urge to try to save Saul. ‘Oi!’ she shouted. ‘Pick on someone your own size!’ she added moments later – not the most original thing she’d ever said, but she didn’t suppose the creature would notice.
The creature quickly snapped its head to one side to examine Martha, a pair of its legs still resting on Saul’s motionless chest. Martha supposed it was like a cat playing with its – still living – food. Now Martha was providing another, equally tempting target. It hissed once, then sprang forward nimbly, wings folded flat against its body. Like an industrial piston, its face came forward – all teeth and spittle and the stench of rotting meat – and Martha ducked out of the way. Then she jumped, narrowly avoiding the great, sweeping tail that was aimed at her legs.
Next a huge leg thudded into the undergrowth like an arrow fired by some grim giant – she felt it rather than saw it and pitched backwards into some bushes – followed by another, and another. Martha rolled to her left – then right – then pushed herself