"Sssh! Please don"t cough, Rita please!"
The footsteps returned to the hall and Jean almost screamed when the door to the cupboard rattled. He was trying to get in!
The door shook and shook but it did not budge. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the footsteps shuffled away again. Jean listened as they went down the hall, out the front door and on to the street.
They were safe but for how long?
Tommy, Billy and Charlie peered through the windows of the bread factory. Inside was a scene to match any horror Tommy had seen in his violent, murderous life.
More than two dozen men and women were working inside the factory. Each looked utterly exhausted, as if they had not rested for hours, even days. Their faces were sallow and drawn, black rings under their eyes. Clothes stained with sweat and blood hung from their sagging bodies. Their arms strained to move the long bread shovels and heavy wooden blades used to stir the dough.
A dozen policemen stood around inside the factory, watching the workers. If any of them slowed the pace of work, a policeman would stride forward and beat the culprit repeatedly with his truncheon. As the trio watched, one such broken body was pushed to one side and an invisible signal pa.s.sed between the police.
In one corner of the factory floor a crude cage had been constructed. Dozens more people were wedged inside, some already dead, others dying. When a worker fell, the police opened the cage and selected three people from inside. One was made to replace the missing worker. The other two were forced to pick up the body of the fallen man and place it on a conveyor belt. This propelled the body slowly towards a giant metal wheel, studded with cruel spikes. As the body was fed into the maw of the machine, the spikes began to vibrate tearing the body apart.
The unfortunate victims were still alive as they entered the machinery. None survived more than a few moments.
"Christ almighty!" Charlie whispered. His brother was too busy vomiting to speak. Tommy"s face was like stone, a muscle rippling in the jawline the only clue to his thoughts.
"This stops today," he told the brothers. "We can"t take all those police guards on our own, but maybe some of the workers will help us."
"They can hardly stand," Billy said, wiping the vomit from his chin.
"n.o.body wants to die like that," Tommy replied. "Given the chance, I reckon they"ll fight to get out of there."
"What do we do?" Charlie asked.
Tommy glanced through the window again, a.s.sessing points of entry and the enemy"s position. "You stay here. Vomit boy will come with me. When you get my signal, come in through this window shooting. Put your man down, because you"ll only get one chance. Reckon you"re up to it?"
Charlie gulped hard and nodded. "What"s the signal?"
Tommy smiled. "You"ll know when you hear it. Good luck."
He ran off along the perimeter of the building, shotgun at his side.
Billy embraced his brother before following Tommy. "See you inside."
Charlie watched him go then checked his shotgun one last time. Better safe than sorry. Seconds later he heard gla.s.s smashing and two shotguns firing. Charlie smiled as he backed up, ready to launch himself inside. Tommy had been right he knew the signal. Charlie threw himself through the window, rolled on the ground and came up shooting.
The Doctor closed the church door and leaned against it, one hand shielding his eyes from the brilliant glare. Once they had adjusted, he was able to focus on the gathering in the centre of the church.
Sarah was floating in the air, her arms held out sideways as if being crucified by invisible forces. Her face was riven with pain, each breath gasped in as if her rib cage was slowly collapsing.
Tears ran down her cheeks.
Around her floated the Xhinn Triumvirate. The creatures of light and darkness were flicking shards of energy at the suspended Sarah, each jagging into her body, making her writhe in the air. The Doctor could hear the metal upon metal rasp of Xhinn laughter in his mind.
"Where"s Father Simmons?" he asked.
The Xhinn whirled to face him, the torturing of Sarah forgotten for now.
"Doctor!"
"So kind of you to come back."
"We knew you would."
"Now we shall take your time machine and learn its secrets."
"I asked you a question where"s Father Simmons?"
"Aren"t you more interested in this human?"
"She is your travelling companion, isn"t she?"
"You care about her, don"t you?"
The Doctor did not deny it. "You already know this. You stole the knowledge from my mind to create one of your tests."
"You wouldn"t want to see her hurt, would you?"
"She seems such a fragile creature."
"Yet she has survived for several hours here."
"Why did you abandon her?"
"I didn"t, as you well know," the Doctor replied tersely.
"Release her."
"You are in no position to give orders, Time Lord."
"She came here of her own free will."
"She agreed to be our captive to save you."
"She shall be our mouthpiece on this world." The Xhinn Triumvirate turned inwards towards Sarah. "Won"t you?"
"Never!" she replied between gasps for air.
"How tiresome."
"How stubborn."
"How regrettable."
All three Xhinn gestured. Energy lanced at Sarah, stabbing her with bolts of blue light. She twisted and buckled in the air, then hung limply.
"What have you done to her?" the Doctor demanded.
"Fear not."
"She has only lost consciousness."
"For now."
"When she awakes, we shall resume."
"We can keep her alive for days, even years in this state."
"Would you like to watch?"
"No." The Doctor walked towards the Xhinn. "You really are the most petty, vindictive creatures, aren"t you?"
"You dare to question us?"
"To criticise us?"
"To mock us?"
"Why not?" the Doctor replied. He sat down in a pew, placing the satchel carefully beside him. "I mean, if this is the best you can do torturing a member of a species you have already decided is primitive and no match for the mighty Xhinn.
Hardly the work of a great and important civilisation, is it?"
The Xhinn moved away from Sarah to surround the Doctor.
He continued to taunt the triumvirate.
"I mean, you can"t even control your own kind let alone an entire planet of hostile aliens. Look at what happened with Callum, he nearly ruined your entire invasion schedule with his actions."
"An error."
"An oversight."
"Quickly corrected."
"Then there"s Father Simmons I notice you haven"t answered my question about what happened to him? He was one of the Xhinn, I presume?"
"He has been punished."
"He went too far."
"He is no longer."
"Dear, dear went native, did he? Too long mixing with this primitive species you seem to despise so much?" The Doctor smiled. "Got in with a good crowd, you might say."
"You would do well not to mock us."
"The Xhinn are a n.o.ble civilisation."
"But we are not above vengeance."
The Xhinn Triumvirate pointed at the Doctor, surrounding him with the same crippling energy shackles that bound Sarah in the air. He rose slowly up from the pew, his arms and legs straining against the invisible bondage.
"Feel the grip of the Xhinn."
"Feel it tighten around your body."
"Feel it crush the life from you."
Tommy burst through the doors into the bread factory, his shotgun ready to fire. A policeman lurched towards him. Tommy fired twice, taking both legs off the approaching guard. No point wasting bullets blowing holes in them, Tommy thought. Better to disable them from causing any more trouble sort out the living from the dead later.
Billy appeared, flying through a side window. He quickly got up off the floor and began firing, his shots concentrated on the bread-making machinery just as Tommy had suggested. A few rounds carefully aimed brought the factory to a grinding halt.
That meant the workers were now free to help them.
"We"re getting everybody out of here! But we need your help," Tommy shouted as he reloaded. Two more policemen were advancing on him. "Pick up your tools and use them on the guards!"
Charlie was last into the factory. He blew the head off the nearest policeman, then ran on to fire point blank into the chest of another. The ventilated zombie fell backwards into the bread mixing vat, disappearing into the viscous dough. Charlie was still reloading when the next policeman was upon him. The teenager was picked up off the ground and thrown across the factory. He slid into a wall and lay there, the breath knocked out of him.
Already another of the remorseless, relentless enemy was moving toward him.
The two nearest workers made weapons from their tools, attacking the oncoming policemen with their long-handled bread shovels. But both were swatted aside by the much stronger guards, propelled by the will of the Xhinn. Their necks snapped like dry kindling and the bodies were thrown aside. The policemen returned to their original quarry, Charlie. He was still lying on the ground, his shotgun just out of reach.
Tommy ran to the cage. He smashed at the padlock with his gun b.u.t.t, breaking it open. Tommy threw the padlock aside and pulled the cage apart. "Come on! Now"s your chance to escape come on!"
A few of the men and women inside got to their feet and began dragging the others out. But most inside the cage were already dead. The rescuers had arrived too late to save them.
Better to die in here than go through that mincing machine, Tommy thought. One of the captives was pointing over Tommy"s shoulder. "Look out..." he gasped.
Tommy ducked to one side as a policeman lurched at him.
Tommy clubbed it to the ground and tucked the end of his shotgun barrel into the zombie"s mouth. "Eat this," the gangster sneered, pulling the trigger.
Billy was leading the remaining workers out of the factory when he heard his brother cry out for help. Two policemen were holding his brother down on the conveyor belt as it pushed him towards the rending machine.
Billy pushed the last of the escaping workers out the door and took aim with his shotgun. But he didn"t dare shoot the policemen, for fear of hitting Charlie. His brother was only moments away from being torn limb from limb. Instead he fired at the machine, blowing a hole through its pneumatic hose pipes.
The grinding wheel slowed and stopped, with Charlie"s legs only inches away from the spikes. Billy ran to help his brother fight off the a.s.sailants.
Beyond the rending machine a metal cage was appearing, sliding up out of the floor. It was an elevator laden with more zombie policemen. Now Tommy and the two brothers were outnumbered six to one.
"Billy! Charlie! We"ve got to get out of here!" Tommy shouted. The brothers ignored him, too busy fighting to stay alive in the far corner. Tommy ran towards the main exit only to find it blocked by another half dozen policemen. Now there was no escape they were trapped inside the factory.