Author's Note: Surprise! At last, an update! Hopefully there are still some folks out there still reading! Thank you very much to the people who reviewed the last chapter - Romana II, Omniac, Jiwa, The New Number 2, CjaMes12, katherine and Aietradaea. I appreciate your feedback very much. It would be nice if I got a few reviews on this chapter too - it might encourage me to update a little more often.
CHAPTER THREE
Thunder boomed loudly, closely followed by an eerie flash of lightning, briefly bathing the drab little room in a stark white glow. Choking back the panic, Amy ran to the window, grasping the bottom sash and frantically trying to slide it up. But no matter how hard she shoved, it wouldn't budge. Shining her torch around the window frame, she realised it had been securely nailed shut. Smashing it open wasn't an option either – the window was the old-fashioned, mullioned kind, made up of a number of smaller panels of glass, unbreakable without an extremely heavy implement of some sort.
She whirled around, her heart beating like a drum as her gaze skittered around the room, searching for an escape route. The footsteps were closer now, leaden and ominous, nearing the top of the stairs. Oh god, she was running out of time!
Across the room, a cupboard door hung lazily open, swinging slightly in an unseen draught, offering the only place of concealment in the bare little room. Without further hesitation, acting on pure instinct, Amy began to race across to it.
But, to her absolute horror, before she had taken three steps, her torch flickered and went out, enveloping her in inky darkness.
"No. No. Come on, don't do this!" she said, her lips moving in a tortured whisper, desperately slamming the torch against her thigh. It was no use – the light refused to reappear. A scream built soundlessly in her throat. She was alone in the dark with a mutilated corpse and a murderer was coming for her. Knowing she had no choice, she forced herself to keep moving through the blackness, almost expecting Tom's dead hand to clamp around her ankle at any moment.
Brilliant lightning flared again. Taking advantage of the brightness, she managed to make it safely across to the cupboard, slipping inside as quickly and as quietly as possible. Hunkering down, making herself as small as she could, she pulled the door almost closed, leaving only a tiny gap which enabled her to peer out into the room.
A rushing sound filled her ears, a sick sense of having done all this before. She could remember hiding in her wardrobe as a child, at night, just like this, when her fear of the crack in the wall grew too great to bear. Little Amelia Pond had peeked out at the malevolent fissure, shuddering as it grinned at her, praying and praying, over and over, for someone to save her. And someone had – eventually the Doctor had come.
She heard the creak of the landing, accompanied by a peculiar, spine-chilling grinding noise. The awful thing, whatever it was, had reached the top of the stairs.
Doctor, please come, she begged silently, her eye glued in terrified fascination to the gap in the cupboard door, staring out into the darkness. Please come NOW!
She blinked, rubbing at her left eye again, feeling soft, powdery grit smeared across her cheek, almost as if it was delicately sifting from her eye. The sudden roar of thunder stabbed through her like a knife, making her jump. Lightning blazed, streaking across the night sky and illuminating the room until it was brighter than day.
And in that glare of light, Amy saw it - standing in the doorway, a slender white, ethereal figure, framed by two spreading stone wings, its terrible face buried in its hands, as though it was hiding tears.
Shock screamed through her mind as the white light faded and the apparition disappeared. Terror seemed to crawl out of the shadowy recesses of her soul, a spreading disbelief numbing her entire body.
No...NO, this wasn't happening! How could it be possible? How could a Weeping Angel, one of the most frightening monsters in the Universe, be here on Earth?
Again, the thunder boomed, cracking through the air like a giant whip, accompanied by another dazzling streak of lightning. The Angel stood stock still, paralysed in the white light, as immobile as stone. But it had moved. It was much, much closer, near the middle of the room, not far from Tom's pathetically sprawled body. Its hands were no longer covering its face and its head was turned, its marble eyes fixed unwaveringly on the cupboard in which the human girl was hiding.
Agonised, Amy sucked in her breath, aware that her rasping, panic-stricken inhalations were betraying her hiding place. Her heart felt like it was about to leap out of her chest. The darkness was absolute, her fear overwhelming. There was nowhere to run, no escape route - she was completely helpless, trapped, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. What was the Angel doing? Where was the next blast of lightning? She had to see, she had to know...
Flash! The white light exploded through the window, like a thousand cameras going off at once. And now the Angel stood frozen right outside the closet door. Its arms were raised above its head, its fingers spread into menacing long-nailed claws, as if it was preparing to leap. Its face was stretched and horribly elongated, its mouth opened wide in a silent, predatory howl, its long tongue lolling over razor sharp fangs.
The deadly blackness descended again and Amy shrieked in terror, sensing the stone hands reaching for her through the dark, knowing she was doomed. The sound rent the night, reverberating with terror, long and loud and piercing.
To her utter shock, there was an answering shout from downstairs, the incredibly welcome sound of several pairs of running feet. The lightning flashed again, only to show an empty room. The Angel had vanished. Dazed with relief, Amy heard more people on the stairs, male voices yelling orders, bright arcs of torchlight bobbing around on the landing walls.
Shielding her eyes against the dancing beams, Amy managed to make out four men entering the room.
"Come on, Christopher! Stop pissing around like a prat and get that lantern going!" a rough voice ordered.
"Yes, Guv," a younger man replied. "Sorry, Guv." There was a bit of scuffling and some muffled swearing and then the room began to glow with a warm, golden light, emanating from what appeared to be a paraffin lamp.
"That's better!" the first man approved.
Amy watched from her hiding place, her heart still thumping uncomfortably. Standing in the lamplight, she saw a tall, middle-aged man dressed in a long, camel-coloured coat over an ill-fitting grey suit. The top button of his white shirt was undone, his tie hanging halfway down his chest in a dishevelled fashion and he had sandy hair swept casually back from his forehead. His stance was arrogant, reminding Amy somehow of a gunfighter at high noon in an old Western film, the keen eyes in his weathered face constantly sweeping the room, missing nothing.
The younger man, who was still fiddling clumsily with the lantern, had floppy dark hair and was dressed in a brown suit over a green woollen vest, with a maroon tie. Two other men were crouching beside Tom's body, examining it closely. One was short and chunky, with a moustache, wearing a chocolate-coloured corduroy coat, his mouth moving rhythmically as he chewed on some gum. The other had neatly-trimmed brown hair with longish sideburns and was wearing a black leather jacket.
Amy stared at the man in the leather jacket. It was hard to see his face exactly in the flickering lamplight, but she thought he looked oddly familiar. She racked her brains, trying to remember, trying to place him. Somehow she had the idea she had seen his face on television before and maybe on...posters? No, that was crazy – she had never been in 1974 before. And there was no way she could have seen him in her own time.
"This one's got a broken neck, Guv," the strange man said. "Been dead for a while, by the look of it. He's cold."
"In case you've forgotten, Tyler, someone just screamed up here," retorted the one in the camel coat. "Unless you think this bloody shack's haunted."
As if on cue, his gimlet eyes shifted sharply to the cupboard where Amy was concealed. Again, she held her breath, her body tight with tension. But this time her luck had run out. The man took three quick strides and pulled the door wide.
"Well, well, well. And just what do we have here?" he asked ironically, looking down at the crouching girl with narrowed eyes. "What's your name, love?"
She glared defiantly up at him, guessing she was in real trouble. "Amy," she answered. "Amy Pond."
"Well, Amy Pond, I'm Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt," he told her in a grim tone. "And you've got a lot of explaining to do."