Doctor Who: BBC Short Trips [002] - More Short Trips by Stephen Cole

Author:Stephen Cole
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 1999-03-30T22:00:00+00:00

Honest Living

by Jason Loborik

The service had gone on for far too long.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

Kate Forbes couldn’t take much more. She surveyed the gathering of relatives, blank faces, pale and grey, staring at a gaping hole in the ground which glistened with frost in the bitter December morning.

Some of them had already dissolved into tears, unable to comprehend the finality of the moment, but Kate just felt numb; she couldn’t cry, not yet. But what if they thought she should be sobbing her heart out too, that her composure meant she didn’t really care? She glanced at her mother. Her face was a mask, tired and drawn, white with the cold, her eyes, unblinking, fixed firmly on the hole in the ground.

Kate couldn’t stand it. She turned away and scanned the churchyard for a distraction. Anything. It offered all you’d expect: ranks of weathered, mildewed headstones, a solitary, leafless tree, patches of muddy turf, a hunched old gardener…

Her eyes flicked back to the tree. There was a man standing there, dressed in black. He hadn’t been there a moment ago and couldn’t have got there without her seeing. He was spindly and old, much like the bare, blackened tree he was standing beneath. He looked like he belonged there, as if it were perfectly natural for him to spectate at funerals.

The service had ended and the relatives were dispersing now, some embracing, some clasping each other for support. Her Aunt Claudia caught hold of her, eyes brimming with tears and sympathy, and when she finally shuffled off, Kate turned back to the tree. Her mother was there, standing next to the stranger, talking to him, her hands clasping her head. She turned away from him, but he grabbed her arm and twisted her back to face him. What the hell was he doing to her? Kate was already running towards them, gripped by sudden nausea, her heart thumping.

‘What’s going on?’ she yelled. Her mother turned to look at her, but as she tried to move away from the man, her legs buckled beneath her and she fell. Kate caught her as she collapsed, sobbing hysterically.

‘What is it, what did he say to you?’

‘He’s… he’s…’ choked her mother, tears streaking down her lined face.

Kate looked up at the gnarled tree. The man was gone. She shook her mother. ‘Tell me what he said. Who was he?’

As a group of mourners detached itself and hurried over, Annie Forbes recovered enough to finish her words. ‘Your father’s not dead,’ she gasped. ‘The man said he’s going to live again.’

The mission was a joke, Tuala knew that, but she knew she couldn’t disobey orders. She held up the night visor and scrutinised the building perimeter, noting the positions of the sentries and surveillance systems: two guards and three antiquated video cameras. Maybe the odds weren’t so bad after all.

Steeling herself, she broke cover and sprinted for the main gate, gun in one hand, immobiliser in the other. She sped past the cameras and their red lights blinked then went out.

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