Sweetness and Light

Chapter Fourteen

There were gashes in the light, and each of them were mouths. They blared out awful sound through the cramped cavern, which sounded nothing like screaming and yet was exactly that. One of the mouths dropped doorlike before Angles and Chris, its blackness picked out by the tainted and swirling light.

"Come through, small man and smaller child," said the mouth that was also a door, somehow completely static as it formed its words. "Come to wherever I lead, away from this sweet, doomed world." Angles grinned and rushed towards the mouth, as fast as he could over the bones that covered the distance between them.

"Look at the bones," said Chris from the madman's chest. "There's lots, from adults and from children. I don't know what they taught you at your school. But you shouldn't run into a hungry creature's mouth."

"I'll take that chance!" said Angles. "We're dead here anyway; we're all dead! I'm saving you," he said, "and if I were you I'd be damn well grateful, not moaning away like some old woman. This is what a real dream looks like! A real chance for a future, not a silly vision from kids who believe in a man made out of sweets–"

Suddenly, space and time twisted in a direction that wasn't there. Where one cavern had been, there were now two instead. With a crash three figures fell sideways through the air, knocking Angles and Chris to the ground.

"Okay," said the Doctor, "it turned out gravity worked the way you thought it did, Lip. Chris!" she said, noticing the child wriggling out from the adult on the floor. "I told you to stay on the surface away from any possible danger, and you've come to the most dangerous place on the planet instead. Got to be honest; I didn't think my bad influence would set in quite that fast–"

"The Kandyman!" said Chris in horror. "The Kandyman is here! Doctor, he's behind you!"

"What?" said the Doctor. "Oh, I suppose he is. But it's okay. I thought he was a monster, but it turned out he was a person instead. People make that mistake all the time, even me."

"Oh," said Chris. "I thought Angles was a person, but now I think he might be a monster."

"Well, that's a much more depressing mistake," said the Doctor as Angles struggled from the floor. "Or at least, a differently depressing one."

"He was going to take me into that thing's mouth!" said Chris.

"Less of the was," said Angles, now upright again. "We'll be off on our merry way," he snarled, "once this slag's taken out of the picture–"

He lunged at the Doctor, who crooked her elbow in a very particular way. Nonchalantly she caught Angles as his body swung towards her, and watched as he clattered to the ground.

"Slag," she said. "Not been called that before. That's what's exciting, these days. I get so many new insults." She leaned over Angles. "And so many people underestimating me, when they really, really shouldn't." She smiled, and pointed away from the screaming mouths. "Exit's that way. You can still get out, if that's what you want."

Angles laughed a low, crazy laugh.

"Up there? To be ruled by children? Not bloody likely! Tell you what, perhaps it's a good thing I don't have your kid in my grasp anymore. She'd only be wherever I ended up, moaning on about something or other. No, I'll just go myself, whatever the voice might say."

He looked into the void of the nearest mouth, his laugh horrible enough to be clear over the awful sound.

"I'm coming, you hear?" he screamed into the darkness. "Wherever you are! I'm coming! And I'll be damn ecstatic when I'm there, however it turns out to be!"

He ran straight into the gaping mouth— or, at least, he tried to. But he got no further than its very edge before his flesh flashed away into nothing. His skeleton smashed off the edge of the mouth, coming apart to join the bones that were strewn through the cavern.