Menagerie - Martin Day [52]
'Ah,' said Zoe. 'A good experiment, but rather too successful. The creature appears to like the torch.'
The animal clambered down off the wreckage of cloth and wood and stalked towards them, its movements slow and playful.
'So?' asked Reisaz, as they retreated back into the now deserted main tent.
'So,' said Zoe, 'its vision might be biased towards the infrared end of the spectrum. This primitive device gives off more energy in heat than in light.'
'And?' asked Diseaeda as they worked their way through the backstage area.
And heat is common to all living things, and it's very difficult to disguise.'
The creature ripped into the tent just as Zoe and the others reached the centre of the circus ring.
'Which means, very simply,' continued Zoe, 'that we can't hide.'
After a grim journey in complete darkness the Doctor sensed that they were now in the creatures' more usual surroundings. Sound was muffled and dull, the air musty, reminding him faintly of an animal house at a zoo.
The Doctor was thrown to the floor. There was great activity around him as he was dragged roughly across the ground. The Doctor tried not to cry out. Something soft but very strong wrapped around his feet. Then his knees were bound together.
With a sudden dizzying rush the Doctor's feet were hauled upwards, his face now swinging above the ground, although he could see nothing.
It was then that he realized that he was being cocooned.
Zoe, Diseaeda and the twins fled across the ring, sawdust flying high into the air. They dared not turn to watch the progress of their pursuer, although the sound of its claws as it paced after them was clear enough.
'We need,' panted Zoe, 'to get somewhere hot. That might interfere with its infrared vision.'
'I can't think of anything,' said Diseaeda, holding his chest and beginning to slow already. 'Perhaps if I sacrifice myself to the creature it'll give you all the chance to escape.'
'Diseaeda,' hissed Raitak. 'Concentrate on running.'
'Leave the thinking to Madam Zoe,' said Reisaz. 'Besides, you'd be barely a mouthful.'
Zoe glanced behind and saw the creature stalking after them, following them down the canvas-covered tunnel that led to the tent's main entrance. It could have caught them by now if it had really wanted to. She could only imagine that it was playing with them, waiting for their exhausted bodies to collapse or trip. She hoped that the creature's enormous, brutal confidence would be its undoing.
'What's the biggest animal in the circus?' she asked.
'The savannah walker,' said Raitak as they ran across the rain-sodden turf of the circus site.
The creature stepped out of the tent and lunged at a terrified horse that ran past. The animal's head blurred as the neck twisted and snapped. Only the horse's momentum carried it forwards but by the time it crashed into the earth in a mass of splayed legs it was very still.
The creature jumped on the horse's back, checking that it was dead, and then set off again after the torchlight.
'I have an idea,' said Zoe. 'Which direction is the savannah walker?'
Diseaeda stabbed a blunt finger towards a collection of temporary animal houses towards the edge of the site. They started to run in that direction, rounding trailers, jumping over tent ropes, all the while screaming warnings to the people that passed them by.
Some of the men and women they watched were almost motionless with shock, their lips quivering, their eyes glazed over at the butchery they had witnessed. Others ran crazily in different directions, senseless with fear and numbed by the desire to survive. Those with slightly cooler heads had gone towards the town, seeking help.
'Let's hope we get there before this thing gets bored with the chase,' said Zoe.
Jamie tried to rest but found that the bunk-like bed in the cell offered little encouragement. His mind turned over and over the fate of his friends, Cosmae and the girl. With every minute that passed his subconscious painted more and more gruesome images behind his closed eyes.