King of the Wastelands by edzel2
The first time the Master realises that he is actually living in a pipe and feeding on human flesh, he's so shocked that he staggers from the structure and painfully vomits up every scrap of meat in his stomach. When the spasms finally cease, he paces the desolate site as he considers his position. How has he come to this? This is... intolerable. He's a higher being of superior intellect. Why on Gallifrey (or rather, not on Gallifrey) is he living like an animal?
He has a vague memory of waking in a dark room with stone walls, a group of women writhing as whatever process had awoken him draws energy from their bodies to his. Lucy had been there...slowly memory returns, and he smiles as he remembers The Secret Books of Saxon. It had been ridiculously easy to cultivate the Cult of Saxon – his rear guard, his insurance policy in case things should go wrong; as they so often do when the Doctor is involved.
When the hunger pangs strike again, as they do all too soon because his body demands that he feed it, he fights them until he can barely stand. He crawls back into the pipe and shudders through the phasing until he passes out. When he wakes, it's to hear human voices nearby. Two thoughts run simultaneously through his mind: Run! Get away! I can't control this much longer... and Blood-meat-food-food-hungry-eat-eat. The hunger pangs and phasing join with the drums to create an unholy cacophony inside his skull that blocks all sentient thought. His last conscious memory is of hearing a male voice enquiring whether he's okay and the expression on the hapless man's face as the Master struggles to a sitting position: terror.
Philip Timms sighs as he looks at the hole in the perimeter fence. Why the company wouldn't shell out for an electric fence he doesn't know – surely it'd be a damn site cheaper than paying him to patrol the place night after night. Given that there's nothing here of any real value (scrap metal, perhaps?) it doesn't make sense. Still, at least he's got a job, he probably should be thankful for that at least. But this is the third day running that he's had to report the vandalism. Twice the company has sent someone out the following morning to fix it, and that evening sure enough, the wire is broken again. Weird how it's been done though; obviously not cut through with a bolt-cutter, because the edges of the man-sized holes have been melted, as if someone has gone at them with an acetylene torch or similar. The first time it had happened he'd followed dusty footprints to an old length of piping jutting out from some defunct machine; large enough to hide a man (or several men if it came to it) and a few feet off the ground. There'd been no-one there (not the first night or the second) but there had been signs of habitation – food wrappers and stained clothing, not to mention lumps of congealed something that he had no wish to examine in any detail but which smelt revolting. He'd mentioned it when filing his report but no-one seems to be that interested. It's altogether weird.
But tonight is different. He puts the call in (the woman who logs the call sounds as bored with the whole thing as he's perplexed) then steps through the hole, using his torch to tread the route to the old pipe, just as he did the night before and the night before that. But he feels nervous this time for some reason he can't pinpoint. As he nears his destination he becomes aware of a strange feeling in the air around him. It takes him a moment or two to work out what it reminds him of – static electricity. No, it's more than that – it feels like the fairground, more specifically the dodgems, all that excess static arcing through the air as the cars zoom around the track; it makes his skin prickle and every exposed hair stand on end.
So when he gets closer and realises that tonight someone is actually 'home', he can't say that he's surprised. Concerned would be closer to it; from his angle of approach he can't see directly into the pipe but he can clearly see blue light flickering inside it. It reminds him of a television, or perhaps a failing strip light, except for the visible tendrils of light that seem to curl around the open end of the metal structure, like, like... he fails to work out just what it's like. Whatever it is though, it's giving him the creeps in a big way. He considers turning tail and has actually stopped in his tracks prior to doing just that when he hears it - a pitiful moan which makes his mouth go dry and his pulse race. Has a lamp overturned and burned someone, perhaps?
Fear forgotten, he runs forward, rounding the corner of the structure.
'What the -?' What he sees makes no sense at all: a man lays curled on his side in a foetal position, rocking backwards and forwards and moaning dreadfully as if in terrible pain. But that's not the worst of it – the blue light is caused by the flashing image of a skull which flickers on and off over the man's face. It obscures his features and the stark white of his hair. In the moments between flashes of skull, the torch reveals dishevelled hair and a face lined with the grey dust which is everywhere on this site. The man is obviously in considerable pain – his face is contorted, his teeth bared as he moans and whimpers in distress. The strange thing is (as if the skull business isn't odd enough) that the face seems somehow familiar. Philip has seen that face somewhere before, he thinks. Not the hair, that's unfamiliar, but the features... someone on telly, maybe?
The man suddenly cries out, a blood-curdling scream which almost makes Philip lose control of his bladder. Jesus wept... He steps forward and puts a hand on the man's arm, shining the torch obliquely at the tortured features so as not to blind him.
'Are you okay mate?' Stupid question, does he look okay? He berates himself, but that's about all he has time to do as the screaming suddenly stops and the man freezes. His eyes open and he pushes himself up into a sitting position and stares at Philip -
- who suddenly remembers where he's seen that face before. He opens his mouth but Harold Saxon, ex Prime Minister and madman interrupts him, his face twisting into a demented grin which finally tips Philip over the edge. As the ex-Prime Minister speaks, Philip Timms loses control of his bodily functions.
'I am so hungry!' says the Master.
End