by Mark Morris
‘Have you got any proof?’ the voice asked.
Mike reached into the back pocket of his cords and located his UNIT pass, which he held up to the right-hand camera.
‘UNIT? What’s that?’
‘United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Special peace-keeping force. Affiliated to the British Army. All the information’s there if you want to read it.’
The pause was so long this time that Mike thought his credentials had been rejected. Then the voice was back, and saying reluctantly, ‘All right, you can come in.’
Turlough was not sure how long he had been sitting against the bedroom wall when he heard the sound outside in the corridor. He stiffened, clutching his coathanger to him, drawing his knees up tighter under his chin.
The sound had been like the scuff of movement that someone who was trying to be stealthy might make. Turlough tilted his head a little as if that might enable him to hear better - and almost leaped out of his skin when someone rapped loudly on his door.
He cringed, praying that whoever was out there was banging on doors at random and would move on if he failed to respond. There was silence for a moment, then a voice he recognised said, ‘We know you’re in there, son.’
It was the voice of the big, burly soldier, the Doctor’s friend: Sergeant Benton. Still Turlough said nothing, but looked around panic-stricken, wondering where he could hide, how he could possibly escape.
A second voice replaced the first, this one more clipped, authoritative; the voice of the Brigadier.
‘Be reasonable, lad,’ he said, sounding nothing but reasonable himself. ‘It’s not you we want, it’s the Doctor. We just want you to take us to his TARDIS.’
They must have missed it at the fun-fair, Turlough realised.
If his plight hadn’t been so desperate he would have found that funny. He wondered fleetingly whether he might be able to speak to the Brigadier, reason with him. The man might be infected, but he didn’t sound too far gone - though it might well have been the Xaranti themselves who were allowing the Brigadier to sound reasonable.
Yes, perhaps that was it. Perhaps the present approach was simply a ploy to lull him into a false sense of security. Or even to get him to give himself away, because, after all, they couldn’t know for certain he was in here. They could only be guessing that he was. They had probably been looking for him all over the place. If he stayed quiet they would probably go away.
Then the Brigadier said, ‘All right, young man, be it on your own head.’
There was a loud bang, and before Turlough realised what was happening a chunk of wall exploded, not two feet from his left ear. He stared at it for a moment, dumbfounded, then glanced back through the barricade of furniture piled atop his bed and spotted a ragged hole in the door, beside the lock.
They were shooting their way in - and they weren’t too worried who was on the other side. Discarding the coat hanger, Turlough scrambled to his feet and ran to the window. He looked out and to his horror saw two fully-grown Xaranti patrolling the streets below.
He ducked instinctively as a second shot blasted through the door and reduced part of the barricade to flying matchwood. Frantically he loosened the catch on the window, flung it open and stuck his head out. There was no way down, but if he could climb up on to the roof he might be able to make his way across it to the building next door.
As a third gun-blast turned more of his barricade to splinters, Turlough grasped the sides of the window frame and stepped up on to the sill.
* * *
Walking through the vault-like doors, Mike and Tegan found themselves in a small vestibule furnished with a semi-circular desk like the one in Reception. On brackets on either side of the doors were a pair of small black-and-white TV screens depicting the now-empty corridor outside.
Waiting for them just inside was a large black man dressed in the blue-grey uniform of a hospital orderly. His face was shiny with sweat and his eyes were wide and wary. As soon as they were inside, he heaved the doors shut again and locked them with bolts and a metal locking-bar as thick as a man’s wrist.
‘Thanks for this,’ Mike said, holstering his gun. ‘It’s pretty hairy out there.’
‘Don’t I know it?’ said the man and squinted at them suspiciously. ‘How did you manage to get through all them...
all them things?’
‘There are none out there now,’ said Mike. ‘I think they must have all headed down to the sea. We’ve got a truck, and I’ve got a gun. We had a few bad moments, but we managed to make it through OK.’
‘What’s wrong with your friend?’ the black man asked, looking at the Doctor slumped in the wheelchair.
‘That was one of our bad moments,’ said Mike. ‘We were attacked. He was wounded. I’m Mike Yates by the way, this is Tegan Jovanka, and the chap having a snooze there is the Doctor.’
He thrust out a hand, which the man cautiously shook.
‘Doctors are something we’re not short of here,’ the man said. ‘I’m Max Butler.’
‘So what happened here, Max?’ asked Mike. ‘You were attacked, I take it?’
‘From all sides. I’ve never seen anything like it. Those freaks had taken out two floors before we even knew what was happening. A bunch of us managed to round up the patients from the fourth floor and bring them here.’ He shook his head, sending droplets of sweat flying in all directions.
‘We’re safe enough. Not even a tank could get through those doors. But it’s a bad situation. A lot of the patients need special care - medication and stuff. We’ve got mothers with new-born babies here. The babies that were in the incubation unit we had to leave. One of the nurses stayed with ‘em. The doors there aren’t as strong as they are here, but at least they can be locked. I just hope to God those freaks didn’t break in there and find ‘em all.’
‘We saw no evidence of it,’ said Mike. ‘And as I said, it’s quiet out there now. You’d be safe going down to check on things and to get what you need. I’ll go with you if you like.’
Max nodded. ‘Thanks. But let’s sort your friend out first.’
He flipped a thumb at the doors. ‘Any idea where those things out there came from?’
Mike glanced meaningfully at Tegan, hoping she would still have enough of her wits about her to realise that they would have to be careful what they said here. ‘They’re just people,’
he said casually. ‘They’re carrying an infection which alters them physically and mentally.’
Max looked dubious. ‘It’s not like any infection I’ve ever seen before.’
‘It’s a new strain,’ Mike said vaguely. ‘We’ve got experts working on a cure for it right now.’
Max looked at him for a moment longer, then shrugged. ‘If you say so. Come on, let’s see to your friend.’
He led them out of the vestibule and into a corridor whose widely-spaced doors were linked by viewing windows. The windows looked into medical research laboratories, most of which contained equipment and apparatus whose purpose Mike could only guess at.
‘How many people have you got up here?’ Mike asked.
Max raised his eyebrows as he thought about it. ‘I’d say around two hundred.’
Mike whistled as Max turned right at the end of the corridor and pointed ahead. ‘There’s a kitchen and dormitory along here. A real home from home. It’s where the doctors sleep when they haven’t got time to go home, when they’ve got experiments and stuff they need to keep an eye on. That’s where everybody is.’
A murmur of conversation drifted to meet them as they drew closer. They passed several more labs, these ones full of people. Most of them were patients in dressing-gowns, who were standing or sitting around - talking, reading books and newspapers, playing cards, drinking tea. There was a kind of Blitz spirit in evidence, a sense of pulling together, of cheerfulness in adversity. If Mike had been wearing his uniform rather than his civvies, he had little doubt that many of the older men would have been saluting him as he passed by
.
Max led them into the dormitory area, containing around a dozen beds, all of which were occupied by the more serious cases. Most of these patients were asleep, though several were groaning in pain. Some patients were lying on the floor between the beds, draped with spare blankets, heads propped by ‘pillows’ of bundled-up dressing-gowns and other articles of clothing. Others were sitting with their backs to the walls and their knees drawn up, looking dazed or shell-shocked.
Doctors, nurses and some of the more able patients were moving between the beds, offering care and comfort where they could. Mike spotted Charlotte sitting beside a cadaverous old man who was lying on the floor like a bundle of sticks wrapped in blue and white pyjamas. With one hand she was supporting his head as he raised it, and with the other she was holding a transparent plastic cup, from which he was taking small sips of water.
Mike wanted to call to her, but thought it inappropriate.
Instead he turned to Max and Tegan and held up a finger.
‘One moment. I’ve just seen a friend of mine.’
He crossed to her and waited until the old man had finished drinking and Charlotte had lowered his head carefully back down to the floor. Then he said, ‘Hello, Charlotte.’
She looked up, startled, and her face broke into a grin.
‘Mike!’ she exclaimed. What are you doing here?’
He gestured across to the Doctor slumped in the wheelchair, behind which stood Tegan looking tense. ‘I’ve brought an injured friend here for treatment. The whole town is under attack.’
The grin slipped from her face. ‘I know. What’s happening to everyone, Mike? What’s making them change like this?
Like my dad did?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Mike said, and quickly changed the subject to avoid having to tell it. ‘How’s the baby?’
Charlotte touched her stomach and glanced quickly around, evidently not wishing her pregnancy to become public knowledge. ‘Fine, as far as I know.’
‘And your mum? How’s she?’
‘Well, she’s alive at least. She’s over there.’
Mike looked across to where she was pointing and saw a woman sitting against the wall with her face in her hands, so still that he was not sure whether she was awake or asleep.
‘Is she -’ he began, but was interrupted by a blurted word from Max:
‘Jesus!’
Mike turned and saw that whilst he had been talking to Charlotte a little group had gathered around the Doctor. As well as Tegan and Max, there was a doctor who looked young enough to be fresh out of med school and a nurse who looked old enough to be the young doctor’s mother. It was immediately evident what had caused Max to react so vehemently. The young doctor had begun to remove the makeshift dressing around the Doctor’s wound in order to take a look at the damage, when the Doctor had abruptly woken up. His eyelids had parted to reveal eyes that were completely black.
Mike caught only a glimpse of them before the Doctor closed them again in a slow blink. When he re-opened them a moment later they had returned to normal. The damage had been done, however. Stumbling back a few paces, Max pointed a fat, rigid finger at the Doctor. Fresh sweat bursting from his cheeks, making them shine like mahogany, he cried,
‘He’s one of them!’
Before Max could say anything else, Mike strode forward and grabbed his arm, screening the Doctor from the others in the room.
‘Keep your voice down. Do you want to upset everyone?’ he hissed.
Max turned on him, furiously. ‘You knew he was turning into one of them things! You knew it and you still brought him in here. You’ve put us all in danger.’
‘This is probably the only man in the entire world who can help us get out of this mess,’ Mike said calmly.
‘But he’s not a man any more. He’s one of those freaks!’
‘No, he isn’t.’
‘Don’t pull my cord, man!’ Max said. ‘I saw his eyes. We all did.’
‘Look at his eyes now,’ Mike replied reasonably. ‘They’re fine. He’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with him.’
‘Oh, I’m afraid there is,’ the Doctor muttered.
Max and Mike stopped and stared at the Doctor as if he was a chimpanzee who had just displayed an astounding aptitude for human speech.
It was Mike who found his voice first. ‘Are you... all right, Doctor?’ he asked.
‘Not entirely,’ said the Doctor, and raised a hand in Max’s direction. ‘The gentleman here is right. I’m metamorphosing.’
‘See!’ Max said, thrusting his chin aggressively at Mike.
‘The guy admits it. We should never have let you in.’
Before Mike could respond, the Doctor said almost heartily
‘Quite right. In fact, I suggest you let me out of here before I lose control and kill you all.’
Tegan, who had not spoken a word since they had entered the R and D unit, suddenly said in an anguished voice, ‘You can’t go, Doctor. We need you. You re our last hope.’
The Doctor flashed her a reassuring smile. ‘Believe me, I’ll serve you better on the outside.’
‘They’ll find you,’ Mike said. ‘There’s too many of them.
They’ll use what’s in your head and turn you into one of them.’
‘That’ll happen anyway if I stay here,’ the Doctor said, and suddenly, to Mike’s astonishment, he was holding Mike’s gun in his hand, pointing it at his own head. ‘Now,’ he said almost cheerfully, ‘are you going to let me out or do I have to kill myself so that I don’t kill you all later?’
For every second of the three minutes it took Turlough to climb up on to the hotel roof, he was petrified. Petrified of being shot at; petrified of the hotel’s old but stout metal drainpipe giving way; petrified that one of the fully grown Xaranti patrolling the streets below would spot him and scuttle up the wall after him like a spider.
The ledge below his window, along which he had shuffled to the drainpipe, had been just about wide enough, but old and a little crumbly. He sidestepped along it with his back to the sun-baked wall of the hotel, trying not to look down, trying not to rush, trying not to panic, and in the event probably doing all three.
When he reached the drainpipe, he swivelled at the hips, taking care to keep his feet firmly planted on the ledge, and grasped it gratefully with both hands. He would have liked to have rested there for a few moments, but he was afraid that if he stopped he might never start again. He was grateful that the drainpipe was sturdy and not one of the flimsy plastic variety that humans seemed to favour on their buildings in this time period. It was attached to the wall by stolid, chunky brackets which would serve as precarious foot-and handholds.
Turlough manoeuvred himself carefully round, his heart pumping fast as his left leg swung out over empty space before clanging against the pipe. He looked up to see how far he had to go, and immediately felt dizzy. The wisps of white cloud slipping beneath the horizon of the hotel roof gave him the impression that the building was toppling over. Turlough gripped the pipe even harder and squeezed his eyes tight shut for a moment, though he had seen enough to know that he had a distance of around twenty feet to climb.
It took him no more than half a minute, but it seemed like an eternity. When he finally reached the overhanging lip of the flat roof, his arms and legs were trembling and his body was drenched in sweat. This time he did have to rest in order to summon up the energy to haul himself over the ledge.
Finally, first with one hand and then the other, he reached up, grasped the edge of the roof and pulled himself up.
There was an awful moment when he didn’t think he was going to have the strength to do it, when his feet pedalled at empty air and his arms began to tremble with the effort.
Somehow, though, simply through fear of what would happen if his strength did give way, he managed to scramble up and over.
For long seconds he lay there like a beached fish, gasping for air, relief washing through him. Sooner than he would have l
iked he scrambled to his feet and staggered across to the ledge that ran along the top of the side wall of the hotel.
The building next door was a Chinese restaurant called King Prawn. The narrow alleyway ran between the two buildings, whose roofs were separated by a gap of no more than five feet. Ordinarily, this would have been a simple leap, but at this height, and given Turlough’s current state, the task seemed altogether more daunting. All kinds of possible scenarios ran through his mind as he backed up in preparation for his runup. He imagined himself slipping as he was about to leap and plunging head-first to the ground below; imagined himself falling short on the far side, scrabbling desperately for a handhold and clutching only empty air. Vertigo swept over him in a dizzying wave, and he had to squat down for a moment, squeeze his eyes shut and make himself take slow, deep breaths to calm his pounding heart. At length he opened his eyes again and slowly stood up. The day seemed piercingly bright and almost preternaturally quiet, with not even a gull’s cry to puncture it. By contrast, the gap between the buildings looked as black as the deepest abyss.
Turlough knew that the longer he thought about it the less likely he was to make the jump, so he did the only thing possible: he began to run. The air slid past him, warm and somehow slick; he moved so swiftly that his feet seemed to skim across the roofs surface like a stone over water. He gritted his teeth as he neared the edge, his stomach coiling in on itself. Every instinct screamed at him to slow down, to stop, but he simply made himself run faster, knowing that if he gave in to his fear he was lost.
As he launched himself through the air, the gap between the buildings yawned like a vast black mouth. For an instant he felt like a piece of plankton caught in the downdraft of a fish’s maw - then he was sprawling on the roof of the restaurant, having cleared the gap by a good three feet. His palms slid across the roof’s gritty surface, but Turlough’s relief far outweighed the sting of his skinned hands. He scrambled to his feet and ran towards what he had spotted from the roof of the Lombard - a raised skylight, the glass cloudy with grime.
