Author's Note: Hello again! Thanks so much to the following people for their reviews on the previous chapter - Jiwa, Catelly, Romana-II, Heartwing, CJaMes12, KlinicallyInsaneKoschei, SawManiac211, Aietradaea, xxTeam-Masterxx and mericat.
I've done a bit of cover-art for this story - there's a link on my profile, so if you have time, check it out :)
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sam stared at Amy, the radio dangling loosely from his hand. His mind was blank with horror and grief at Phyllis' brutal death.
"Bob?" he whispered hoarsely, grasping on to the only thing his reeling thoughts seemed to be able to register. "The psychopathic alien killer angel is called Bob?"
Amy looked like she was about to be sick, her face shocked and as pale as paper. "What exactly were you expecting?" she shot back.
"How should I know?" he hissed. "Lucifer, Beelzebub, Darth Vader the Dark Lord of the Sith...take your pick! But not Bob!"
"The Angels have no voice. The last time I met up with them, they killed a man named Bob...a good man, not much more than a boy. One of them stripped his cerebral cortex from his body and re-animated his consciousness to communicate with the Doctor. I'm guessing this must be the same Angel. But what I don't understand is how."
Reaching out, she took the radio from Sam's slackened hold.
"Angel Bob? This is Amy Pond."
"Hello, Miss Pond," the voice responded politely. "It's very nice to talk to you again."
"Never mind that!" she snapped. "I want to know how you managed to get here. I saw you fall into that crack. The Doctor said you were erased from Time."
A loud, horrible screeching sound echoed over the radio, blasting through the hand-set like a banshee wailing.
"What the hell is that?" Sam shuddered, putting his hands over his ears to block out the spine-chilling noise.
"It's laughing," Amy said flatly. She turned back to the radio. "What's so funny, Angel Bob?"
"My apologies, Miss Pond," the Angel replied. "But it amuses me. The Doctor in the TARDIS knows many things, yet not as much as he thinks. He still doesn't realise."
"What doesn't he realise?" Amy persisted, her tone taut with urgency. "What are you talking about?"
"Within the crack were thousands of other cracks, reality itself splintering over and over again, into a myriad of different places and possibilities, like countless reflections of a reflection," the creature answered. "The Angels saw all things as we fell. Through some of the cracks we saw oblivion and the peace of non-existence...through others, we saw other worlds, filled with other people...and through yet more we saw only Silence and the end of all things. Many of my brethren chose oblivion rather than face the terrible approach of the Silence. But I chose to fall through the crack leading to this world."
Amy frowned in bewilderment. "The Silence? What is the Silence?"
There was no reply, just more waves of static hissing and crackling from the hand-set. Amy and Sam exchanged a tense glance.
"Angel Bob?" she repeated fiercely. "Angel Bob, are you still there? What is the Silence?"
After another long pause, the Angel said at last, "I'm very sorry, Miss Pond, but there are no words to explain the Silence in your language."
"Then tell me why you came here! Why did you choose this place?"
"For fun, of course, Miss," the monster stated calmly, its voice emotionless and completely devoid of compassion. "The Pandorica will open and Silence must fall. But until then, there are still many humans left to kill."
Amy closed her eyes and leaned her forehead wearily against the plastic handset. "I don't get any of this," she muttered to herself. "We need the Doctor. We really, really need the Doctor."
The radio crackled into life again. "Detective Inspector Tyler, are you there?"
The hairs rose on the back of Sam's neck at the sound of his name. Forcing himself to move, he took the handset. He had understood very little about the conversation he had just heard, but Amy's distress at the Angel's words was more than obvious. A trickle of sick anticipation rippled through his body.
"I'm here," he said tightly.
"Excuse me, Sir. I just wanted to let you know that WPC Dobbs died in a great deal of pain and fear."
Pain seemed to lance through Sam's head, the cruelty of the words stabbing through him like a knife. "What?"
"Sorry, Sir, but I thought it was important to tell you," the Angel continued with mock courtesy. "At the end, she tried to call to you for help. I think she died knowing you failed her, Sir."
"Listen, you psychopathic son-of-a-bitch..." Sam began, a painful vision of Phyllis flashing before his eyes, the red rage rising hotly in his veins at the uncaring sound of the Angel's voice.
"Don't give it the satisfaction!" Amy cut in, seizing him by the arms and forcing him to look into her eyes. "It's trying to hurt you, Sam. It wants to make you angry. It's what they do. It's how they get their kicks."
Staring into her anxious face, Sam took a deep breath, struggling to stay calm, trying to clear his mind and remember some of the negotiating techniques he had learned on his counter-terrorism courses back in 2006. Even though he knew he was dealing with something inhuman, something absolutely beyond his experience, it was still instinctive to his rational nature to fall back on his training.
"What exactly do you want, Angel Bob? There must be something we can do to work this out."
"With all due respect, Detective Inspector Tyler, there's nothing you can do. You and Miss Pond are going to die. Sorry about that, Sir," the creature replied. "The power drain is almost complete. I'll be coming for you soon. Goodbye, Sir."
With that, the radio clicked off with an air of finality.
"Shit!" Sam exclaimed furiously, kicking viciously at the wall to relieve his pent-up frustration. Sticking his head out the cell door, he peered up the long corridor leading to the front desk. There was no-one in sight. Overhead, the lights hummed and flickered ominously.
"Why doesn't it just come now?" he demanded, pulling his head back in and glaring at Amy. "It must know we're cornered here like rats in a trap."
"It's giving us time to be afraid." Her eyes were haunted with bitter memory. Even without being told, Sam could tell she was speaking from hard-won experience. "It makes the hunt even sweeter if it can enjoy our fear."
"Yeah? Well, screw that!" he growled, taking her firmly by the hand. While she was in this station, Amy was his responsibility. And he had no intention of allowing either of them to die today. "I'm not going to just meekly sit here and wait for it to kill us. And I don't think we've got time to wait for your Doctor friend to save us either. There's a fire door half way up the corridor between here and the front-desk area. We have to get to it before the lights go. It's our only chance."
To his relief, Amy didn't panic or even argue. Faced with the horror of the unnatural creature stalking them, most of the women he knew would have subsided into hysterics long ago. But it was becoming more and more clear that this was no ordinary woman. From the look in her eyes, Sam suspected that she had experienced things most human women only had nightmares about. Feeling the warmth of her hand in his own, he wondered fleetingly what his Annie would think of Amy Pond. Then he turned back towards the door.
"Ready?" he asked in a clipped tone.
"Ready," she replied, her body tensed in instant readiness, with the practised ease of someone accustomed to running.
"GO!" he yelled.
With that, they burst out into the corridor together, running as fast as they could towards the fire door. Almost immediately, the lights faded out and then surged back on again. Ahead of them, framed in the doorway leading to the front desk area, a tall, winged figure had materialised. The macabre sight struck Sam like a fist in the stomach. The Angel had changed beyond recognition from when he had seen it earlier in the Lost Property Room. It was like something out of a gothic horror movie. No longer beautiful or graceful, it now radiated a twisted evil that was almost palpable. It had pulled its hands away from its face, revealing predatory stone eyes and a savage, gaping maw filled with razor-sharp fangs. Its arms were extended towards them, its fingers curled into clawed, grasping talons.
"Don't stop!" Amy shrieked, sensing his shocked hesitation and pulling him frantically by the hand. "And don't blink, Sam! Whatever you do, don't blink!"
It took all of Sam's willpower to continue sprinting directly towards the menacing creature. Every primal instinct he owned screamed at him to turn his back and run in the opposite direction. But he knew enough now to realise that maintaining visual contact with the Angel was the only thing keeping them alive. Concentrating on keeping his eyes wide, he kept on running. Blinking was always something he had taken for granted, something he had never given much thought to – it just happened. He had never realised just how hard it was not to blink. With a chill, he realised he could feel his eyeballs drying out, his eyelids growing heavier and heavier, needing to close whether he wanted them to or not.
After what seemed like an eternity, still running full tilt, both of them keeping their eyes unwaveringly fixed on the frozen monster before them, they managed to reach the fire door.
"Keep watching it!" Sam rapped out, before spinning around and throwing himself against the metal bar latch on the door. To his relief, he heard it click and he began to shove the heavy door open.
Just then, the lights flashed off again and, behind him, Amy screamed.