"Jasmine! Run!"
Heffer roared out the command as he charged up behind the second of the advancing robots, the poker from the fireplace clutched in both fists. The breath hissing between his teeth with the effort, he drove the point of the heavy iron rod into the back of the monster's knee, causing its leg to buckle under its own weight. As the other one turned on him, Jasmine did as she was told, and ran.
Down the hall to the front door and out into the open. She stood for an instant looking wildly about her, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling with the expectation of pursuit. There was no possible help to be found nearer than the village two miles away. Hide, then. She was still attempting to consider the options when she found herself running full pelt towards the Doctor's cottage.
"Doctor!" She hammered at his front door. "Are you there? Can you hear me? You've got to let me in! Please, help!"
Nothing. She rattled at the handle but it wouldn't shift. Desperately she ran around the perimeter of the house, trying one window after another. All locked tight and, as always, obscured on the inside by heavy velvet curtains. Her growing panic lent her strength as she dragged a loose rock up off the ground and with a gasp heaved it through the window.
The glass shattered, the noise startling in the silence of the night, and she braved the murderously sharp remains to push her hand through and undo the latch. Impeded by her heavy white dress, Jasmine pulled herself up onto the window frame, and scrambled inside.
She took a moment to catch her breath, all too aware that these walls offered no protection against the unstoppable machine men she had just seen, but still relieved to be no longer out in the open. Where was the Doctor? She looked around, and as she took in her surroundings her mouth fell open and she could only stand and stare, struck dumb by the sheer incomprehensible impossibility of what she was seeing.
She had line of sight through the doorways on both sides, and ahead, so that much of the ground floor of the cottage was laid out before her. And there was nothing here. Nothing at all. Just bare floorboards, cracked, peeling paint, generations' worth of tattered cobwebs, and an inch of dust on every surface. This house was deserted, but that wasn't all. It had been deserted for years. Stunned, all thoughts of peril forgotten, she tottered forward into the hall and stood at the foot of the rotting, uneven stairway. There was the front door, but it was blocked. An eight foot high dark blue rectangular structure stood jammed up against the exit. Like everything else it was so dusty she could barely make out the baffling sign printed in large, bold letters at the top:
"POLICE BOX".
Heffer roared out the command as he charged up behind the second of the advancing robots, the poker from the fireplace clutched in both fists. The breath hissing between his teeth with the effort, he drove the point of the heavy iron rod into the back of the monster's knee, causing its leg to buckle under its own weight. As the other one turned on him, Jasmine did as she was told, and ran.
Down the hall to the front door and out into the open. She stood for an instant looking wildly about her, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling with the expectation of pursuit. There was no possible help to be found nearer than the village two miles away. Hide, then. She was still attempting to consider the options when she found herself running full pelt towards the Doctor's cottage.
"Doctor!" She hammered at his front door. "Are you there? Can you hear me? You've got to let me in! Please, help!"
Nothing. She rattled at the handle but it wouldn't shift. Desperately she ran around the perimeter of the house, trying one window after another. All locked tight and, as always, obscured on the inside by heavy velvet curtains. Her growing panic lent her strength as she dragged a loose rock up off the ground and with a gasp heaved it through the window.
The glass shattered, the noise startling in the silence of the night, and she braved the murderously sharp remains to push her hand through and undo the latch. Impeded by her heavy white dress, Jasmine pulled herself up onto the window frame, and scrambled inside.
She took a moment to catch her breath, all too aware that these walls offered no protection against the unstoppable machine men she had just seen, but still relieved to be no longer out in the open. Where was the Doctor? She looked around, and as she took in her surroundings her mouth fell open and she could only stand and stare, struck dumb by the sheer incomprehensible impossibility of what she was seeing.
She had line of sight through the doorways on both sides, and ahead, so that much of the ground floor of the cottage was laid out before her. And there was nothing here. Nothing at all. Just bare floorboards, cracked, peeling paint, generations' worth of tattered cobwebs, and an inch of dust on every surface. This house was deserted, but that wasn't all. It had been deserted for years. Stunned, all thoughts of peril forgotten, she tottered forward into the hall and stood at the foot of the rotting, uneven stairway. There was the front door, but it was blocked. An eight foot high dark blue rectangular structure stood jammed up against the exit. Like everything else it was so dusty she could barely make out the baffling sign printed in large, bold letters at the top:
"POLICE BOX".