Death of the Doctor

Read Death of the Doctor for Free Online Page B

Book: Read Death of the Doctor for Free Online
Authors: Gary Russell
loop thing, and the TARDIS was phasing in and out of reality. I touched it and got zapped with this Artron energy – that’s what the Doctor called it. Like I was part of the TARDIS.’
    Santiago tried to lighten the mood slightly. ‘Wow, and you two thought my life was good!’
    But before Clyde could respond, a voice at his knee started muttering.
    ‘Smelly getting stronger!’
    It was the little blue Groske from earlier.
    ‘What do you know about this stuff?’ Clyde showed him his hand, which was getting a bit less sparkly now.
    The Groske just shrugged and turned away. Then it looked back at Clyde and jabbed a finger upwards. ‘Closer and closer!’
    And it suddenly started running, really fast.
    ‘Oi, come back here, Blue Boy,’ Clyde shouted, following.
    Santiago and Rani exchanged a look, and then headed off after the other two.
    They caught up with Clyde around the corner, staring into one of the ventilation shafts at the foot of the wall. Clyde was starting to clamber into it, regardless of how tight a squeeze it would be.
    ‘Clyde?’ Rani exclaimed. ‘What are you –’
    Clyde cut her off. ‘He’s like a mouse in the skirting board.’
    And Rani realised that the Groske must have dashed in there first.
    ‘You two coming?’ Clyde asked as he vanished into the ducting.
    Rani started to follow, then looked back at Santiago.
    ‘It’ll be okay. We do this sort of thing all the time.’
    Santiago was almost pushing Rani in and followed, grinning widely. He winked a big blue eye at her. ‘My Gran once handcuffed herself to Robert Mugabe. This is nothing. I’m loving it!’
    And all three teens followed the Groske in.
    The metallic ventilation ducting was square, long and every so often jutted off in either left or right turns, meaning that every room in the base was probably linked to this central duct. Trouble was, each was identical and it was probably going to be very easy to get lost or confused if they took too many turns.
    Clyde was at the front, Rani in the middle, Santiago bringing up the rear, all of them on all fours, palms and knees being the only way they could crawl forward, although the shiny metal surface made it quite quick to get along.
    A few odd arrows stencilled on to the walls pointed in various directions, with numbers beneath them, but as they didn’t know the layout of the UNIT base, they weren’t much help.
    And they’d lost sight of the Groske.
    ‘Typical,’ Clyde muttered. And then bellowed, ‘Oi, Groskey, where are you?’
    Rani slapped his bum from behind. ‘Hey, your voice is probably echoing throughout the whole base. We don’t want UNIT shooting us as spies!’
    Although turning around wasn’t possible, Clyde was able to turn his head and give Rani a look. ‘Did you just hit my bum?’
    ‘You were making noise,’ she hissed.
    ‘Don’t hit my bum, okay?’
    ‘Keep quiet then, “okay”?’ she replied, trying not to laugh. Then she realised Clyde had stopped by another ventilation grille – a tiny one, not much bigger than his hand. ‘Oh, and now all I can see is your bum. Thanks.’
    ‘Shh a minute,’ Clyde said.
    ‘What is it?’ asked Santiago.
    But Clyde’s attention was gripped by what he was seeing through the tiny grille.
    It was the Funeral Chamber. With the three Shansheeth. And a hologram image floating in the air, showing Sarah Jane and Jo fast asleep on the floor of Jo’s room. Or unconscious. Or…
    ‘The women are named Smith, Sarah Jane and Jones, Josephine,’ Azure was saying to the others.
    Amaranth was away from his precious musical instrument now, and was standing next to Aureolin, staring at the image.
    ‘We must drain their minds completely.’
    Amaranth nodded. ‘What of their bodies?’
    Azure flexed his massive wings. ‘They will die.’ Then he gave what Clyde could only guess was a laugh. ‘Fortunately there are excellent undertakers on hand.’
    And all three Shansheeth laughed.
    Sarah Jane had been right all along

Similar Books

A Match of Wits

Jen Turano

By Way of the Rose

Cynthia Ward Weil

Born Under Punches

Martyn Waites

The Castrofax

Jenna Van Vleet

The Shark Whisperer

Ellen Prager

INFECtIOUS

Elizabeth Forkey