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Nick arrived at the medical bay to see the Doctor’s body. He was sick. He felt dizzy. He felt disoriented. He collapsed. He tried to get up but his mind was dissolving in reaction to what… he… had… seen. He was sick again, but his stomach was empty and the rank juices dribbled down his chin through the stubble. He looked up again, at what had been done to the Doctor’s body. He could never have imagined something so… oh god, he had to stop looking. He had to stop looking. He tried to crawl away from the body, towards the door, without looking at the thing that had been the Doctor’s… oh god. Oh god. Interlude 8: The Crocodilemen were awkwardly trying to put on tuxedos. The ambassador’s office had supplied them with a good number, but the Crocodilemen’s tendency to rip the clothes open was making the supply run out faster than it should. Most of them had decided to wear at least three tuxedos at a time, in order to avoid having to run back and get changed a lot. ‘Finally,’ one of them said, ‘the perfect hunt has arrived.’ ‘Yes,’ another agreed, ‘now, after two hundred and thirty years, we shall finally ascend to manhood.’ ‘Hnn,’ said the last one. The other two turned to each other and shook their heads. ‘We are going to the party now,’ he said slowly, ‘you can catch us up… yes?’ ‘Hnn?’ ‘We… go. … You… catch up.” ‘Hnn.’ ‘Oh for god’s sake Mike let’s go,’ one of the other’s said. ‘If Doug can’t keep up with us, then he deserves to enter the party alone.’ Billy got a little thrill as he said this - imagine the social disgrace. Billy and Mike left Doug the Crocodileman to try and get dressed. Hence they didn’t see the strange, oily black snake slide into the room and enter Doug’s body, slipping through his nerves and bodily channels and pulping his brain. It was in control now. Later, Billy and Mike would remark to each other about the improvement in Doug’s conversation. An excerpt from the private journals of Nick, published after his death. (Edited by Oolon Coluphid):
I don’t know why I’m writing this, because it won’t change anything but I am scared. I’m so scared I don’t even know what to do any more - I just feel sick all the time. I… shit, why am I so crap at this, I… love her. Alf. Shit shit shit! What’s going on? Why won’t she talk to me about it? I know what this is, it’s because of Nicholas but I’m not him, why can’t she get over that, why can’t she see it? I’m going to fall apart without her and I don’t know if she knows, I don’t know what’ll happen I don’t… arse! Why am I so scared? How did humans do all this love shit for hundreds of years before I turned up? How shit is this? I just feel crap all the time. There’s no pretty birds, there’s nothing. How did they cope? How do I cope? I can remember the first time I kissed her. I don’t think I’d ever touched her before that, but I can remember how she felt, how it felt, to hold her. It was like proving she was real and that she wasn’t just some dream. She was real and it was incredible. It was like waking up, and everything was real for the first time. I mean, I was scared then too, scared of this, but I was so excited, I was so… I mean arse! What is going on? I can’t even tell when I stopped fancying her and just fell in love. I mean, how crap does that sound? All I know is, I was so happy then and now… shit, I’m just so scared of losing that. Shit. Nick slipped in through the door to the main conference room. His face was ashen and his eyes looked hollow. The entire guest quota was here now. They were all sitting silently, watching the Collector about to give his speech. Alf was standing somewhere in the shadows, watching everything. ° Greetings my friends, and welcome to the opening of my zoo. I hope you all have a mervellous time. ° The Collector had started his speech, in a sort of booming tone. Nick wasn’t sure how telepaths could add a booming tone to their voice, but apparently it was possible. Nick looked out at the sea of people and he could feel the tensions moving through them like strong currents, even while they outwardly fidgeted. He thought about extending his sea metaphor to make the fidgeting waves, or perhaps froth, but he decided to leave it. ° I’ve spent a lot of time, developing the plans for this wonderful endeavou… ° He was cut off as everyone in the room was knocked down flat by a psychic tsunami. Their minds were crushed and the emotional debris was sucked away by the rushing of the waves. Everyone tumbled into a chaos of doubt and guilt as the bad feelings of the wave washed over them again, like an echo. A lone figure ascended to the centre of the room. Nick managed to raise his head enough to see who it was, but it made him feel dizzy, being able to see so much. He watched as the beautiful woman in the nineteenth century dress hovered in the middle of the room. Another form started to spill from her own, like a glowing liquid. It was ectoplasm. It formed a giant monster, with no arms but with a giant gaping maw, filled with needle like teeth, and hundreds of tentacles of varying lengths. ‘I am here for the Doctor,’ she screamed. Nick was astonished as some of the people in the audience stood up. They obviously had better psychic defences than he did. He thought it would be hours before he felt well enough to stand again. The creatures launched themselves at the ectoplasmic monster, and the tentacles flailed around them, smashing them to the ground. The ectoplasm writhed its way into their brains and when it left they were twitching, quivering wrecks. ‘This zoo is now under my control,’ she announced, ‘as are you.’ She spread out the tentacles to their full width and she towered over them all. She was terrifying. There was something so incredibly alien about her Nick could not understand it. But then, that made sense. She then coiled up again and for a few moments she was still. Then the ectoplasm form exploded, the tentacles flung outwards like a shockwave across the hall, and the entire zoo shook. The tsunami flattened everyone again, and the walls cracked and chipped. When Nick looked up again, the woman was gone, but her voice echoed around his mind in hundreds of malevolent whispers, ‘The Doctor will die!’ He saw the ceiling crack straight down the middle, but the whispers were getting so loud he could barely hear it. He felt the entire room lurch as it split in two, but his mind was falling to pieces with the voices - he felt like they were going to tear his skull apart. The crack travelled towards the glass screen at the end, and the only “noise” which punctured the deafening roar of the whispers was the agonising scream the Collector released when the glass shattered and the water spilled into the room, dragging the terrified Collector with it. Nick tried to stand but he was bowled over by the waters. They knocked him down and flooded over him, and he was terrified by his lack of control. When one of the Collector’s limbs touched him he got a painful sting across his leg, but he barely noticed against the noise of the whispers. He tried to swim, to claw, for the surface of the water but he couldn’t think straight. He took in large lung-fulls of water as the level finally dropped and he was able to support himself on his hands and knees. He coughed it out on reflex, because his mind wasn’t working by now. His last conscious act was to make sure he collapsed onto his back so he didn’t drown. He lay there, unable to move as the noise of the psychic chant drummed through his body, the whispers were at an unimaginable volume now. He couldn’t think at all, just hear as the whispers became voices and resolved themselves together for one final shriek: ‘The Doctor will die!’ End of Chapter Two
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