Free The Nightmare Man by Joseph Lidster

her, she’d forced herself not to give up. She’d managed to get Mr Smith working and now she was attempting to fix K-9. He was only a robot dog, but he was her robot dog and, for many years, he’d been the closest thing she’d had to a real friend. She sat there, in silence, working on him. Once K-9 was up and working, then the three of them would start again. They’d find a way to rescue Luke. She wouldn’t stop until they had.
    ‘How is the –’ Mr Smith began, before stopping. In a gentler tone, he continued. ‘How is he?’
    Sarah Jane just shook her head. ‘K-9? Can you hear me?’
    There was no answer. The attic was silent. She looked over at Luke. Nothing.
    ‘What am I going to do?’ she asked Mr Smith in a quiet voice.
    ‘Mistress?’ said K-9 as he suddenly started to power up.
    ‘Oh, K-9! You’re going to be okay!’ And she gave him a big hug.
    And then, another voice sounded behind her. ‘And what about me?’
    She let go of K-9, stood up and turned around. Her son was awake. Luke was awake and he was starting to stand up. She ran over to him and hugged him so hard he could barely breathe!
    ‘Oh, thank God! I thought I’d lost you! Oh…’ She started to cry.
    ‘You’re never, ever going to lose me,’ Luke replied, with a smile. Then he pulled away from her, so grown up and confident. ‘I’m going to check on the others.’
    He ran out of the attic. Sarah Jane went to the window and saw that the sun was rising. The night was over. She turned to K-9 and smiled.
    ‘I’m going to miss you.’
    ‘Master Luke will be back at Christmas,’ he replied.
    Sarah Jane went over and sat down next to him. She rested her head on his. ‘I meant you.’
    ‘Mistress?’
    ‘For years, you were pretty much all I had. A metal dog, looking after me,’ she paused and fought back the tears. ‘But you see, he’s my son. And he’s going off on a big new adventure and…so are you.’
    K-9 understood. ‘I will look after him.’
    ‘Good dog,’ said Sarah Jane. ‘Good dog.’

Chapter Seventeen
    A new day
    ‘Luke, my darling! How are you?’
    Luke grinned. Rani’s mum, Gita, was always guaranteed to put a smile on your face. She was lovely, but also completely bonkers.
    ‘Rani!’ She called upstairs. ‘Rani, Luke’s here!’ She turned back to him. ‘You’ll never guess what happened last night!’
    He didn’t get a chance to guess.
    ‘Me and Haresh, we both had nightmares! Both of us! And I was talking to that Mrs Griffin down the road – you know the one with the eye – and she was saying she’d had nightmares as well! All of us! We all had nightmares! Did you?’
    Luke shrugged. ‘I don’t really remember.’
    ‘Rani!’ Gita shouted again before continuing. ‘Mine was about the toaster. It was broken, so I got a man in. Haresh is no good at technical things like that. So this man comes in, and he turns out to be a lizard! And he was chasing me right round the house! I didn’t know what to do. It was quite terrifying. How are you anyway, my darling? Ready to go?’
    Luke nodded. Then squeaked, as suddenly Gita wrapped her arms around him in a huge hug. ‘Oh, you look after yourself, Luke. You’re such a lovely boy. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
    She pulled back and gave him a wink. Luke suspected that there wasn’t much Gita Chandra hadn’t done. He looked up to see Rani coming down the stairs.
    ‘Laters, mum,’ she said, pushing past Gita and joining Luke outside.
    ‘Laters, my darling,’ Gita replied, closing the door.
    Rani and Luke walked to the end of her driveway, then she linked her arm with his.
    ‘You all set then?’ she asked.
    ‘Yeah,’ he replied.
    They looked both ways and crossed the road. Luke’s bright yellow car was parked in the driveway. There were suitcases strapped to the roof rack, and more bags on the back seat.
    ‘Rani,’ said Luke, as they stopped outside the front door.
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘In my nightmares,’ he said. ‘I think