Doctor Who_ Amorality Tale Part 25

'Where are you going?' Jack asked.

'We're taking the scenic route. Now get going!'

Jack made for the stairs, shouting for the four nearest men to come up. Tommy adjusted his tie in the mirror over the fireplace. 'It's time to take the fight to these creatures. The only way the bug-eyed monsters are taking these streets is over my dead body!'

'That can be arranged, dear,' Mrs Ramsey said. She was slowly advancing on Tommy, her knitting needles stabbing forward in short, choppy motions. It would have been comical but for the savage malevolence in her eyes...

Mary let herself be dragged out into the hallway and towards the street. One of the policemen was banging at the door of the understairs cupboard. Mary collapsed to the floor, as if overcome by the smog billowing in from outside. The three policemen pulled her upright and dragged her out into the street.

Mary climbed up into the back of a waiting van, where several of her neighbours were waiting. They looked at her with hollow, terrified eyes. 'Are you alright, love?' one woman asked.

'I'll be fine,' Mary replied, her eyes fixed on the entrance to her home. The last of the policemen emerged from the house and crossed the road to join those attacking number 15. The vehicle drove away towards Old Street. Mary slowly rocked back and forth, hugging her dead daughter's body. 'I'll be fine.'

'Mum, what are you doing?' Tommy asked. His mother was making short stabbing motions with the knitting needles as she walked towards him.

'Be a good boy and die, Thomas,' she replied, getting ever closer.

'Shoot her!' Brick shouted.

'I can't!' Tommy said. 'She's me Mum!' He raised the shotgun barrel to fire but couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. Mrs Ramsey pushed the gun aside and lunged at her son.

The Doctor lashed out with one arm, the edge of his hand chopping against the side of Mrs Ramsey's neck. The little old woman crumpled to the floor, her arms still twitching for several seconds afterwards.

'You killed her!' Tommy cried out.

'Nonsense,' the Doctor said. 'I simply rendered her unconscious and incapable of harming you. She was drugged like the policemen, probably from a communion wafer. But she seems to have resisted the drug's influence for much longer than the police.'

'She's a very strong-willed lady,' Brick observed.

'That's what saved you,' the Doctor told Tommy. 'She didn't want to hurt her own son, just as you didn't want to hurt her.

She'll recover soon enough.'

Billy and Charlie rushed into the room to see what all the commotion was about, followed by two more Ramsey men.

Tommy told them to tie up his mother. The two brothers looked bemused but followed the orders without question. They carried Mrs Ramsey out and laid the old lady down on her bed.

Tommy shouted down the stairs to Jack. 'How's it going down there?'

'They'll be through the door any second. If we're going, we've got to go now Tommy!'

'You go. Take the lads out the back. I'll see you outside St Luke's Church in an hour.'

'What about you?'

Tommy smiled. 'I'll be alright. You worry about yourself.

Now go!' Tommy went back into the living room. 'Doctor, will me Mum be safe if we leave her here? We can't risk taking her with us.'

'I believe so,' the Doctor said. 'To the policemen she will be just another drone, like themselves. They should ignore her. It's us they want.'

'That's what I'm counting on,' Tommy replied. 'Brick, get upstairs and open that skylight. You four, go help him with the ladder. Doctor, you said you needed my help you ready?'

The Doctor slung the leather satchel over his shoulder.

'Ready.'

'Then let's go!'

Downstairs Jack sent the first four men out of the back door.

They ran to the end of the long, narrow yard to a gate at the far end. Once beyond that, they signalled the all clear. Jack ran back through the kitchen into the hallway. He grabbed up his double-barrel shotgun before yelling to the two men still holding the front door shut.

'You two! Get out through the back door now!'

'But the '

'Now!' Jack shouted. The two men ran back through the house, pa.s.sing Jack and then out through the kitchen into the back yard. They were followed by the two men that had been clinging on to the door of the ground-floor parlour. As they pa.s.sed Jack, both doors opened. More than a dozen policemen surged through the two doorways.

'I hope you've got a search warrant,' Jack said, 'otherwise I shall consider this as breaking and entering.'

'We're evacuating everyone from the local area,' the leading policeman began to say. His head was blown off by a shotgun blast from Jack.

'And that's what I call a legitimate act of self-defence.' Jack blasted a hole through the chest of the first policeman, who toppled backwards. His body partially blocked the hallway, slowing the progress of those behind. Jack had time to reload both barrels.

'See, I don't like burglars horrible, furtive little men who haven't got the bottle to rob you face to face.' Jack shot twice, further blocking the hallway with another twitching corpse. He calmly reloaded as the zombie policemen got ever closer. 'Give me a dangerous villain with an iron bar any day.'

Jack got off one more shot before he was forced to start retreating back through the ground floor of the house. He glanced up the stairwell to see Tommy give him a parting wave.

'They're all yours!' Jack shouted. He turned and ran, pulling the doors shut behind him. Jack emerged from the back door at speed into the yard, yelling at the men ahead of him. 'Move it!'

Brick was first up on to the roof, followed by Billy and Charlie.

The brothers were shocked by the array of dead pigeons littering the roof.

'What happened here?' Billy asked. 'Some sap lost all their little birdies to the smog?' Brick advanced on the teenager, his fists clenching and unclenching. Charlie. remonstrated with his brother by ramming an elbow into Billy's ribs. 'Sorry, Brick I mean, Mr Brick. I didn't mean anything by it...'

The Doctor was next up through the skylight, followed by the other two Ramsey henchmen. Last came Tommy himself, pulling the ladder up behind him. He was out of breath but smiling. 'That was a close thing. Jack's leading most of the old bill out the back as a diversion, but a few came up the stairs after us.' Tommy leaned over the skylight and shot down on to the landing below. A dull thud announced that one of the pursuing police was now out of action. Tommy closed the skylight and told Billy and Charlie to carry the ladder.

'Why?' asked Billy before his brother could get another elbow jab in.

'Because we might need it to get down from another roof,'

Tommy said, rolling his eyes in despair. 'Honestly, I worry about the next generation.'

The Doctor looked over the side of the roof, down into Tabernacle Street. More than twenty police were crowding through the front door into number 15. 'The decoy is working.

If we go now, we should make it.'

Tommy nodded to Brick. 'You know these rooftops better than anybody lead on.' The big man vaulted the adjoining wall with number 17 and jumped down to the roof of the neighbouring terraced house. The Doctor went after him, followed by the four Ramsey henchmen. Tommy brought up the rear. He looked over the back sides of the houses but could not see any further because of the smog. 'I wonder how Jack and the rest of the lads are doing...'

The back gate of number 15 led out into a narrow alleyway. This ran parallel to Tabernacle Street and provided rear access to all the adjoining houses. Jack led his eight men south, towards the cross-junction with Epworth Street. Motioning for the others to keep quiet, he pulled open the gate at the end of the alleyway and peered outside. A policeman was standing directly in front of the gate, about to open it.

'h.e.l.l's teeth!' Jack exclaimed. Before he could pull his shotgun up and fire the zombie constable had pulled a whistle to its lips and begun to blow a shrill note. It was cut short by the shotgun blast, swiping the face away. But the damage had been done.

Jack yelled for everyone to retreat. 'Run! Out the north end of the alley!' The group pelted up the thin path, gasping for breath in the acrid mist. Before they reached the other end, the north gate was pulled open by another policeman. The drones began pouring into both ends of the narrow channel, cutting off the exits. The escape route had become a death trap. Jack and his men were outflanked and outnumbered.

'It's not over yet!' Jack vowed. He kicked open a back gate and ran up the path to a kitchen door. 'Open up! Now!' There was no response from inside. Jack stepped aside and called for the two largest men among the eight. 'Get this door down

now! All our lives depend on it.'

The two men began hurling themselves at the kitchen door.

Jack organised the others into three rows of two. The front pair lay on the ground, the next two kneeled and the final pair stood at the back. All six checked their guns, waiting for the lifeless foe to force its way into the tiny back yard.

One of the men started praying. 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He leadeth me '

'Shut up!' Jack snarled. 'I don't see the good lord getting us out of this. If we want to survive, we've got to stay together, stick up for each other. Everybody got that?'

The eight men murmured their a.s.sent.

'Alright, then no more b.l.o.o.d.y praying. How's that door coming?' Jack demanded. The two men throwing themselves against it shook their heads.

'It's too heavy, Jack,' one replied. 'We can't budge it.'

The zombie policemen flooded into the narrow back yard.

The six men fired, reloaded and fired again. The corpses began to pile up but still the policemen kept coming, clambering over the bodies of their fallen brothers. They were relentless and they were getting closer.

'Do I have to think of everything myself?' Jack aimed his shotgun at the door lock. He turned his head away before pulling the trigger. 'Don't want any shrapnel ruining my good looks, do I?' The door splintered inwards around the lock. Two more hefty shoves pushed it open and the trio fell inside. Several pairs of s.h.i.+ny black boots were lined up on the floor. Jack looked up to see three policemen already waiting for them in the kitchen.

They reached down towards him...

The van carrying Mary and her neighbours rolled past the Bread of Life factory and down into the tunnel beneath it. Warm air rushed past the pa.s.sengers as they descended. Mary could remember going to Bank tube station once with her father, before the war. They had gone down several escalators and spiral staircases to reach the correct platform. The journey downwards had seemed to take forever, Mary remembered. The further beneath the city they went, the warmer the air around them became. She had worried that they would end up in the centre of the Earth if they kept going, or maybe even h.e.l.l.

The priests who visited Mary's school always told the pupils to be good, lest they be sent down to burn for all eternity in the fires of h.e.l.l. The young Mary had deduced that h.e.l.l must be a very hot place, deep underground. Now it seemed she had been right all along. How she wished it were otherwise.

After an interminable journey into stifling heat, the tunnel finally levelled out and the van emerged into a vast chamber.

One by one the pa.s.sengers meekly got out and allowed themselves to be herded into lines by policemen with dead eyes and blood-splattered faces.

How very English, Mary thought. Forming an orderly queue for your own death. She was sure they were all going to die. But she felt no tears, no regrets. She just couldn't bring herself to care any more. As long as Jean and Rita survived, it didn't matter what happened to her now Mary still cradled the lifeless body of her youngest child in her arms. Bette would always be the youngest now, never grow up, never grow any older. Frozen forever as a coughing, wheezing six year old, eyes uncomprehending and confused as life left her frail body.

No, Mary didn't care what happened to herself anymore.

Like all the others, she shuffled meekly towards the tall doorway of the death chamber.

Tommy looked back along the rooftops. He saw one of the skylights open outwards and a policeman emerge on to the roof, followed by another. The trap was closing around the fugitives faster than they could escape it.

Ahead of Tommy the group was approaching the last house in Tabernacle Street. Brick was in front. He peered over the edge of the roof. The street below was clear. Brick gave a happy thumbs up sign to those following him. Billy and Charlie were labouring along beside the Doctor, who was starting to feel the weight of his satchel bearing down. The two other Ramsey men were close to Brick when the skylight just ahead of them popped up into the air. A constable pulled himself up on to the roof and lurched towards the two henchmen. They ran at him, shoving him towards the edge of the roof. But as the policeman toppled over he grabbed them by the arms. All three went over the edge together. A sickening crunch followed from the ground below.

Brick shoved the skylight back in place and sat on it until the others reached him. 'We ain't got long. Unless we get off this roof soon...'

'I know,' Tommy said. 'Let's go over the side.'

Billy and Charlie lowered the ladder over the wall. It just reached a balcony below. Charlie climbed down first while his brother held the ladder in place. The Doctor was next, followed by Tommy. Charlie grabbed a drainpipe by the balcony's edge and began sliding down it to the ground. The others followed his example, the Doctor protesting as he descended.

'You know, this is hardly dignified for a man of my age.'

'Shut your mouth and keep moving,' Tommy growled.

'Unless you fancy your chances against what's behind us.'

Brick was last off the roof, following Billy down the ladder.

As soon as the big man got off the skylight the policemen were clambering up on to the roof. Brick just pulled the ladder away from the roof in time to stop the pursuers using it for their descent.

Less than a minute later all five men were on the street. They avoided looking at the broken bodies of the fallen men, except Tommy. He crouched down to close their eyelids. 'Somebody's going to pay for this,' he vowed to himself before standing again.

'Where to now?' Charlie asked.

'St Luke's whatever's going to happen, it'll be around the church,' the Doctor replied. The five men began running west along Old Street.

Jack rolled aside, avoiding the grasping hands of the zombie policemen. Instead they grabbed the two Ramsey men who had broken down the back door into the kitchen. Jack realised the house must be filled with the enemy. The only escape was the back door. He scrambled out into the yard where the other six were fighting hand to hand with the remorseless flood of policemen coming into the narrow s.p.a.ce.

But the yard was too confined for effective combat. Sheer weight of numbers was overwhelming the six men. Jack hoisted himself up on to the roof of the outhouse. From there he could jump over the fence into the neighbouring property.

'Don't leave us behind!' one of the men cried out.

But Jack did not look back. He threw himself over the fence, falling awkwardly to the ground on the other side. A stabbing pain shot up through his right leg, making him gasp in shock.

Jack tried to stand but could not put any weight on his injured leg. Bones pushed against the cloth of his trousers in strange places. He had dislocated his knee. Already he could feel the joint beginning to throb warmly. Jack leaned against the high wooden fence, trying to catch his breath.

This was not how he planned to die, caught in some grubby back alley like a rat in a trap. His death was meant to be glorious, not long after the moment of his greatest triumph. Perhaps a million-pound robbery, or taking control of all the East End. A few days to savour the moment then a quick, painless death in his sleep. Then his body would be cast out to sea on a burning pyre, like some Viking hero. That was the way to go. Not like this...

The screams of the men in the next yard jolted Jack back to reality. He glanced around the yard for a weapon. The zombie policemen would soon find him and Jack didn't want to think about what would happen next. His eyes lit on a petrol can in a corner. He hopped over to it and picked the can up. It was half-full. Jack was planning his next move when the policemen began swarming into the narrow yard.

Mary stood in a corner, hugging her dead daughter. Her neighbours stood around the chamber, bewildered and s.h.i.+vering with fear. Mary smiled bleakly. It hadn't been much of a life. A few moments of pleasure set against so many years of work and struggle. She hoped her children would live to see a better day, a better world. She hoped she was going to a better place.

Clouds of gas began to billow from the grills high up the walls of the chamber. Mary breathed deeply, welcoming the toxic fumes into her body. She slid down the wall into a sitting position, still clutching Bette's lifeless form. Some long-forgotten words crept into Mary's mind as she was dying. The twenty-nine-year-old woman began mouthing them slowly.