Chapter Eleven

Xznaal leant forward, almost dipping his head into the hologram. 'You can feel its hatred of him,' he hissed, his pincers clattering together in anticipation. 'Kill him!' he shouted, 'Kill the Doctor!'

He was at the corner of the main street. The red cloud was surging towards him like a tidal wave, breaking over the roof of Mrs Darling's little shop. It had gathered itself together, and now it was lit from within. Tiny lightning flashes revealed billowing crenellations and blossoming stegosaur spines built up from layer after layer of blood-red fumes.

There was a crashing from inside the building. There was someone in the shop, directly in the path of the cloud. Some instinct within the gas knew it too. It paused and began scuttling across the roof. It had clearly decided that it could have some sport with whoever was in the building, and then be able to return to its primary target. The Doctor jogged ahead and peered in through the window.

The door was locked, but that didn't pose a barrier to someone with a sonic screwdriver. Once inside, the Doctor closed the door behind him and switched on the light.

There was a plaintive miaow from underneath a collapsed row of shelving.

The cat had probably brought the shelves down on himself - he was a heavy old thing. It was Stevie, the big white moggie that Mrs Darling had owned for as long as the Doctor could remember, which was a very long time indeed. He was blocked in on all sides by shelves weighed down by heavy tin cans. The Doctor moved a couple of tins aside, and cleared a way through. Stevie looked dopily up at him, as though he'd been planning to bury himself alive and wouldn't tolerate such interference in his sleep patterns.

The fog was thickening outside, enveloping the building. The Doctor didn't have long.

He prompted Stevie, trying to tempt him out of the hole by smacking his lips and rubbing his fingers together. He'd never worked out why, but universally cats seemed to recognise that as meaning "come here". The cat struggled to comply, but still couldn't move. The Doctor tried to ease the shelving unit back, but it was wedged against the wall.

A sickly red mist crept past the shop window, pausing there.

If there was a chance that the Doctor could save a life, then he would always try.

He had to work around the cat, to dislodge one shelf rather than the whole unit. He began removing tins.