Because You're Special - Four
Because You're Special
James Bond
"No way!" Donna hissed, sweat dripping from her forehead into her eyes. She ignored the poke in her ribs from her "James Bond" and his irritated glances and rapid motions for her to 'be quiet'. Donna leveled a look at him, equally irritated but also trying to express how troubling this all was.
She turned, from where she'd been peering into the rest of darkened kitchen from her hiding spot behind racks of flour, spices and vegetables. Donna let herself slip to the surprisingly clean floor-well considering the whole bloody business-and swallowed hard. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago, she had been wrapped in a cocoon of trouble, prepared to drink until it seemed a more manageable size and now, she wondered if there was enough booze in the universe.
"I might just throw-up." Her voice sounded tiny to her ears.
"I might too. Heat, too much alcohol and cannibals do it to me every time. But deep calming breaths," He demonstrated, with a few exaggerated inhalations, and smiled crazily, "After all, wouldn't want to ruin you blouse, now would you?"
"So…" Donna's thoughts were not on her shirt. She was still thinking about what they found. And suddenly, it really hit her. She clapped her hand over her mouth, slick tears squeezing from the corners of her eyes to mingle with the sweat. "The meat in the freezer…"
"Fraid so." He was somber, but like most of his moods it lasted shorter than Donna's last temp-job. "Wonder how many vampire-zombie stories these blokes inspired?"
"It's not funny!" She almost shouted. All those poor people, dinning at this posh restaurant and being invited to give their compliments to the chef…and ending up gracing soup-pots instead. It was such an awful, awful thought that Donna didn't know what to think after it. It just sort of lingered in full cinematic color in her brain.
She wiped at her eyes, wondering at how she could be crying, shock and nauseated all at the same time. "Look, you must have spiked my drink. I mean, zombies running a five-star restaurant in the middle of London… eating people… It's gotta be drugs or something, right?"
"Deny all you want, Donna, but the proof is in the pudding. Or the freezer."
"Stop making jokes!" The sound of her palm contacting his cheek echoed through the kitchen. Donna's hands stung but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing that.
"What is it about you dumb apes in this time?" He glared at her, continuing to mutter but otherwise unaffected by the assault. "Or is it a deficiency in my presentation of myself that humans can think they can go about abusing this body?"
"Stop it, sunshine. Just stop it." Donna rubbed hard at her eyes, trying to either wake herself up from this nightmare or at least get her thoughts together. What was she supposed to do? She just wished someone would tell her because all she could think of was the people chattering away over candlelight in the front and the great big Ziplocs in the freezer filled with previous customers.
"Oi! We laugh or cry, we smile or we weep. Nothing's ever alright…but we pretend, huh? See this daft face?" He smiled, huge and boyish. "All pretend."
And then, the strange man pulled her into a hug. "Can you pretend for me, Donna? No more fussing or moaning, just pretend it's a James Bond adventure, eh? Just to get us through tonight?"
It was a funny night. A funny horrible night, and like he said, you either had to pick feelings of horror or humor. Donna just wanted to go home and crawl into bed and wake up like she had yesterday, content with the world. She hugged him back, fiercer, tighter than she would have in any other situation and released him. Her friend, or whatever he was, need her to pull it together or they might get the chance to run out of here.
"Yeah. Not much of an actress-couldn't even play a shrub in the school play-but yeah," she swallowed, "I'll try."
"Fantastic." He said quietly, without enthusiasm. "Let's go save the Universe..world…customers."
"Does this make me a Bond girl?"
"Typical human female, fishing for compliments." But he winked at her, as if encouraging her to keep playing along.
Like it was just a game. Like the credits and theme music were going to pop up any moment and people would leave the theater jazzed on adrenaline and Pepsi, and everything would be right in the world. Donna managed a sickly chuckle, gave a bit of a smile back and crawled forward to peer through the cabbage leaves in the rack again.
"Blimey wonder they didn't hear us."
"Room's insulated-sound proof-cause they do their harvesting here. Wouldn't do to disturb the other customers, now would it? Just nod as if you're keeping up. That's right! So, I'm going to go do some jiggery-pikery magic and you keep watch for those waiter-goons." His clear blue eyes, sparkling with joy, were bright in the dim lighting that sent shadows across the planes of his face. Such a mystery, this one. His smile wide, voice sincere, he stated, "No one messes with Donna, after all."
Any feelings of fear or wonder melted away into irritation. It wasn't right. It wasn't right how he got her into this mess and could, somehow, manipulate her. It smacked off something exploitative and she was about to let him know how she felt about that when there was a clatter of metal on the tiled floor.
The man took her hand in his, squeezing it once and began to move from their hiding spot.
A waiter as pale as his dress-shirt lifted a pan from the floor and raised empty glassy eyes to meet hers. It was like staring at death.
Donna forced a smile. "Donna, since you didn't ask earlier, Donna Noble. From the Chisick Nobles. I ordered a steak, medium rare. When it passed oh, an hour, and I still was waiting for it, I decided to lodge a complaint…"
"Just keep chatting…" Her friend said in a pleasant low tone. He was dragging a chair from the wall into the middle of the room.
What a chair was going to do to prevent them from being eaten, Donna couldn't fathom. But she kept babbling. "Seen the latest X-Factor?"
The waiter stared at her with a chillingly observant glance. His eyes skimmering up and down her, as if cataloging cuts of meat on her body. "No. If you would step over here, I will get the chef."
"No thanks. Rather chat with you, sunshine. Nice warm and friendly bloke like you and all."
"Lights up your life, does he Donna?" Her friend questioned, his head buried in some work up on the ceiling. Was that the sprinkler system? What was he up to… and was that his blue-light gizmo?
"So universal remotes work on sprinklers?" Donna frowned, noting that the waiter was inching forward, slipping a large gleaming knife from the tabletop and eyeing her with a craft vile look that most zombies weren't capable of.
A sputter of sound and water splashed downward. An alarm echoed through the building, and the waiter flinched.
"Witches?" Donna theorized.
"What?" Her friend hopped down from the chair, tucked away his remote-thing and grabbed her hand. Water droplets dropped from his long nose to splash on his boots.
"Water melts witches. At least it does for Judy Garland…"
The waiter lurched forward; powdery foundation-like skin was peeling away from his demonic face in great oozy strips. Beneath it was a mottled gray face, flushing black, filled with wrath, as he gazed at them. "A little rain will not dissuade the best gathers and gourmets of the…"
Donna let go of her friend's hand, turned around to grab the chair and fling it at the monster. Darting away, she dragged her friend to the main dining room. The zombie-waiter howled, slashing wildly with the blade as he tried to reorientate himself from the head blow.
Surprisingly, Donna's adventurous friend was resisting their flight to safety. His long lanky frame lingered in the doorway, looking over his shoulder at the flailing cannibal. "Fantastic," He chided, "he was about to give the name of his species! You humans have the worst timing."
"Stop talking rubbish and move before I eat you myself!"
"Ever heard of the Upinishatim of Gilupin?" He said suddenly, blocking the swinging white door with a cart of desserts. Donna thought a blockade was a clever idea and pushed some chairs over too. It wouldn't last and there was more of them behind them, carrying water or menus. But it couldn't hurt and she was following his lead after all. Her friend was still talking. "…They have mastered threats. With your mouth, you could probably get a scholarship with them…"
"What are you on about now?"
"Not sure really." And he grinned and turned to address the startled customers and the melting-faces of the monsters. "Fire in the kitchen! Run for your lives!"
"How is that going to help?" Donna said, lowering her voice just enough so that the customers wouldn't hear.
"Simple. Hostages-who don't know their hostages-run into the night, firemen show up and upon examination recognize the remains in the freezer as human and there you have it. Another," he pulled a fob-watch from his jacket pocket, "save in under an hour. Fantastic. That's the sixth one this month!"
"Right. But what about them?" She pointed at the angry faces of the waiters.
They had all heard her friend's grand declaration of their coming doom. They were dropping the little towels from their arms and letting them fall to the soggy carpet and moving forward. But instead of like zombies, where you expect rigid and mindless walking, they acted with a dark intelligence and elegant movements.
"Them?" Her "James Bond" scoffed, "Plan A will take care of them."
"And plan A is?" Donna picked up a knife for the table, hoping it was sharper than it looked. She moved closer to him, so close that she was touching him.
He smiled down at her and she had to wonder if it was real or pretend. "What plan A always is! Run!"
Donna was certainly getting her exercise, she fled up and down flights of stairs and raced past blade welding zombies and was so filled with panic and fright that it was hard to remember to pretend to be enjoying it. She'd long ago dropped her knife. She might be scared out of her mind but she was still a regular human girl, not Jack the Ripper. And while, she didn't want to die, she wasn't about to murder anyone-even cannibals-to keep herself alive. Her adventurous friend had only smiled at her when she'd tucked the knife behind a rack of bleach-how did they keep ending up in closets-but he'd said nothing.
Donna followed her friend into another door, nearly stumbling into him when he stopped suddenly in front of her. He twirled her around, sending her skidding into the middle of the large dark space. It smelled a little musty but also of fresh paint. She couldn't see anything interesting down here.
He flashed his remote at the door and grinned, the smile so wide it actually changed the shape of his nose slightly. It reminded her of a mouse that had escaped a trap and even made it home with cheese for supper.
"Donna, do you remember what this place used to be before it got converted into the little deadly diner?" His bright eyes darted about the room, looking at the gray walls of the basement with sudden interest. "Oh, it was on the news… Art museum! One of those nice art gallery with those little shops."
"Aren't we in the basement?" Donna asked.
"Yup. Weren't you paying attention? Three flights up, two flights down, one flight up, four flights down and here we are!"
"I was running for my life!" Donna didn't like anyone making her feel stupid. So she'd lost count of where they were in this big awful place. It didn't mean he should treat her like…
"And so was I. But I didn't get lost. Good thing you've got me, isn't it?" And he beamed at her like he was her knight in shining armor, expecting a golden arrow or something medieval prize-like. The holy grail, maybe. "Are you zoning out on me?"
"What…?" Donna shook her head, her hair splashing into her eyes. If she'd known she'd be doing this much running, she'd have used more mousse. "I was trying to…" she lied, "figure out what the art gallery had to do with anything."
"Two things… one, art is valuable therefore," and he did some sort of jazz-hands-and-point to her motion which made him look more ridiculous then usual, "come on, Donna, think! Use that mind under all that ginger-hair!"
"I can't help it if it's poofy. It's been hot and I don't have a comb…" She defended, trying to pull her hair back. At her friend's exasperated look, she tried to form the answer he wanted from her. "Umm, laser-motion-beam things, guards, dogs-"
"Right, naturally, they would have left Fido behind…"
"Well, I don't know! We're in the basement…" She repeated, "so you're looking for… the security booth! Cameras!"
"Your answer is three seconds after I predicated it would come. If you hadn't go on blathering about your hair, you might have actually beat Mel's record." He took a breath, "So since it's not anywhere else in the building, it's got to be down here."
"Is that why we were running all about?"
"That and I try to run a mile everyday. Keeps me slim."
There was a rattling at the door, low guttural mutterings of their enemies came from beyond it and heavy clanging as they smashed something heavy against it.
"… pay attention to me, Donna." Her egotistical friend said, looking a bit perturbed that her attention had been diverted. "And the second thing about art galleries is…?"
The clanging grew louder and Donna watched a hefty dent form in the center of the door. She stared at it and then back at him. "We're gonna be eaten."
"Typical!" He sighed, "I'm on the edge of saving the universe and you're too worried about dying to even notice. I'll give you one more hint. Candle-light, spotlight."
"Torch-light." She added thoughtlessly. "Can you just save us already, please?"
"Humans! Fine, fine, look these butchers work in a shadowy dining hall-understandable in that situation-but then they also keep the kitchen lights low. Why? Wouldn't you want to see when you're dissecting? And then there is their eyes… put it all together, blend on high, add a dose of genius and the only conclusion left is that…"
"They must be like bats… nocturnal, right?"
"So more like Vampires than Zombies!" He was bouncing now, walking at a brisk pace away from the besieged doorway. "But all those lights weren't removed, too pricey-not when you want to open up as soon as possible and begin harvesting. So we find the light switch and blind them."
He opened up a door and was nearly knocked out by the downward arc of a mop. "Not that door."
He pulled back another and faced a row of leaning paintings, left undoubtedly from the last owners. "Not that one…"
Six doors later, he found the security center, locked them in again and sat down in a deskchair. He spun around a few times before pulling himself up to the keyboard and the mini-tv-screens, and cracking his knuckles. He tapped at the keyboard, pulling up the various screens and checking the location of every gray-skinned monster.
"Lovely." He slipped out of the chair and pushed her into it. "Just tell me what you see them doing."
"You can't leave!"
"Not leaving. Just going over there to open up those nifty looking panels." He jabbed his fingers at the wall beside them.
"Okay." Donna swallowed, troubled more than she could express at the thought he might have left her. What would she have done without him? She didn't like taking orders, never had, but she needed his expertise. She needed him to save her. And he didn't even seem to know it.
"They're almost through the basement door. One of them's got the crème-brulay blowtorch out. Does he really think he can cut through that much steel with that tiny little thing…?" She relayed the information with a bit of commentary, finding that the chatter was calming. Almost like announcing a football game over the radio with stakes no higher than a stupid trophy.
"Almost done." He said, ignoring a splutter of sparks filling the air around him. His hand hovered over the wall, letting the blue light coming from his remote-thing play over the panel's innards. "And there we are!"
Bright light flooded the monitor-screens, flashing them all white for a second. When the camera's adjusted, Donna noted with satisfaction that that the monsters were dropping to the group, burying their heads in their arms.
"Fantastic!" He bounded to her side, leaning his head over her shoulder. He tapped a screen, his finger making a tinny pinging sound on the glass. "Here come the firemen and the coppers! Won't they be getting a surprise! Aliens!"
"Aliens? Aliens don't exist. Tell me there's no aliens…"
He stared at her, absolutely dumbfounded. His words came out slowly. "What did you think they were…? Weren't you just saying a tick ago that they were witches?"
"Right, cause I know witches are real but aliens? You've got to be a proper nutter to believe in them."
"Let me tell you something, there are witches that are actually aliens and aliens that are witches and then there are witches that are not aliens and aliens that are not witches but are, in fact, foodies hungry for people flesh." With that being said, he patted her shoulder and helped her from her chair. "All clear now?"
Her strange friend unlocked the security room's door, and tucked away his wand-remote. He led her up to the main level, weaving his way past the moaning cannibal-aliens on the floor. With a flash of some ID, he was allowed to waltz right past the ring of officers and rescuers and onto the street, pulling her along with him.
"You a police officer?"
"No. Of course not. Can you imagine me in one of those hats?"
"But they just let you…" She picked up her feet, trying to keep up. "they just let you walk right past!"
"Yep. Fancy a drink? I didn't quite get as drunk as I'd like…"
Donna stopped walking. "That's it then? We've just… I mean, shouldn't we talk about it?"
"About what?" He turned, looking puzzled. "It's not a date or anything. Just two friends having a drink."
"Not that, you overgrown prawn! That! That that happened just back there! People dying and getting flambéed and you just standing there like it's not important!"
"What is it about you human women? Always have to "talk about things" "air out my feelings". It's all rubbish. Waste of time. And you, fragile little spitfire that you are, have less than you know… certainly less than I have." He looked at her, solemn and sad. "It's over Donna. We saved who we could save. What more is to be said?"
"Is it always like this with you? I mean, don't you ever, don't you ever feel it? The fear, the horror…"
"Sort of, yeah. Why do you think I keep running?" He came over and draped his arm around her shoulders. He began walking with her tucked beside him, the embrace preventing her from looking around to watch the crime-scene investigation begin.
She laughed, a plastic empty sound. "And I thought it was to keep slim."
And he laughed with her. But they both knew it was pretend.
Next Chapter: {Just the Chauffeur}