The Drosten's Curse

by A. L. Kennedy

  YOU NEED HIM

  ‘Yes. I need him. I need everyone. I need all the people to stay where they are.’ Bryony reconsidered this. ‘I mean I need them to be able to move about in their normal way, and to keep on being alive…OK?’

  YOU NEED THE MANGOLD CREATURE

  ‘Yes, yes I do. I have no idea why, but I certainly wouldn’t to walk about knowing I was someone who had ordered him to be destroyed in some horrible…Are you sure the Doctor is all right?’

  YOU NEED HIM

  ‘Yes. Yes, I need him. And I need Putta Pattershaun 5, or Mr Patterson or whoever. I need them. In fact I need them here. I feel lonely without them.’

  LONELY

  I KNOW LONELY

  Bryony was scorched through with the enormous truth of this.

  DOCTOR COULD STAY WITH ME

  DOCTOR LIVES LONG TIME

  I CAN MAKE HIM LIVE LONGER

  WE CAN PLAY SOMETIMES

  WE CAN SLEEP SOMETIMES

  BUT HE HATE ME

  HE WANT ME GONE AWAY

  MUST DEFEND AGAINST BEING GONE AWAY

  WE DEFEND I AGAINST BEING GONE AWAY

  Bryony digested the sense of this and worked out that the twins were not simply the Bah-Sokhar’s way of playing and having kind of friends in the real world – they were also one of its lines of defence.

  WHILE SHE WAS WORKING this out, over at the Fetch Hotel reception desk, Kevin Mangold looked down at his hands while his heart cantered about in his chest and he felt horribly sick…then he felt calmer and calmer and began to push his forearms down into the soft, gluey something that had replaced the usual cheap-wood-made-to-look-quite-like-mahogany. He was keen to cease existing.

  Only then, while Bryony was wondering how to proceed with her talkative monster, his terror revived and became almost too much to bear – before the desk top spat out his hands and healed over as if nothing weird had ever happened.

  Mangold blinked. He shook his head.

  He decided that he was overstrained and should withdraw for a cup of tea in the Staff Office. He put out the sign that said guests should ring for IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE – he’d always thought that was an unwise promise to make – and wondered if there would be any biscuits hidden away in the office. It was probably, now he considered it, nice of Bryony to leave them for him. He needed a biscuit. And he thought he would phone his mum later. First he would fire Bryony and then he would call his mum.

  UNAWARE THAT SHE’D JUST succeeded in saving a life, Bryony was improvising – her experience as a receptionist had left her with a fair amount of experience in dealing with the unhappiness and anger of others. ‘You were Honor and Xavier, then? They weren’t children, not real children?’ There was the unpleasant possibility, of course, that the Bah-Sokhar had maybe digested the real twins and then learned enough about them to impersonate them. Or perhaps they were puppets that it worked inside – horrible idea…

  OUR GRANDMOTHER WANT CHILD

  WE GIVE CHILD

  WE GIVE TWO

  TWO IS BETTER

  GRANDMOTHER HAPPY

  GRANDMOTHER WANT HUSBAND BABY GRANDCHILD

  WE GIVE LAST IN LIST

  LAST IS LAST

  IS MOST IMPORTANT

  This made a kind of sense, Bryony supposed – the other desires of Julia Fetch could be seen as steps along the way to grandchildren. ‘Well, that was kind of you. That wasn’t about making people not be.’

  KIND

  GRANDMOTHER LOVE US KIND

  GRANDMOTHER LOVE OCTOPODES

  GRANDMOTHER LOVE OCTOPUSES

  WE MAKE EXTRA BIG FOR HER

  Bryony’s mind chilled when it remembered the grasping arms that had nearly conquered her and Putta.

  REGRET

  ‘Yes, that’s all very well, but you don’t have to regret things like that if you don’t do them in the first place.’

  BRING DOCTOR HERE

  WE BRING HIM AND BRING PUTTA CREATURE

  THEN YOU ALL STAY HERE FOR ALWAYS

  WE PLAY

  WE SLEEP

  WE PLAY

  Before Bryony could object, she could feel the approach of the tumbling, flustered virtual Putta and the mind of the Doctor – much more wary and harder to read as he approached.

  And then – it did her so much good to see them – there were the images of her two friends.

  SEE

  YOU HAPPY

  YOU BE HAPPY IF THEY BE HERE

  FOREVER HAPPY

  I MAKE PLACE FOR YOU

  Almost before the Bah-Sokhar had finished thinking this sentence, the forbidding darkness began to sprout trees, rose bushes, a neat lawn…To Bryony it looked very much like a version of the garden outside Julia Fetch’s cottage. It was just a garden that seemed to go on for ever and to sway up and down, or flicker very slightly at the corner of her eye and on the horizon. Bryony, started, ‘But even children don’t want to play all the time…I mean they want to grow up and—’

  Before she could finish the Doctor had unleashed a burst of fury – which was an achievement for someone rapidly being surrounded by a particularly attractive shrubbery. ‘Bah-Sokhar! You cannot have her. I forbid it. You cannot keep any of us. I forbid it!’

  As soon as he yelled this – or rather as soon as his mind yelled this – the shrubbery became more wiry, more and more like a cage formed or briars and locking around him.

  I AM I

  I AM WE

  I DO WHAT WE WISH

  ‘Doctor! No!’

  Bryony looked on helplessly as Putta was also wrapped in briars. The sight of his face – so shocked and sad, his eyes meeting hers – rocked her heart. Back in the TARDIS, Bryony’s body shuddered in the bath. The ceiling sank lower. It was only a foot or so away from the top edge of the bath now and still descending.

  ‘Bah-Sokhar! Please!’

  While her mind cried out, the garden the Bah-Sokhar had planted was shaken by what manifested as a strong gale – branches and leaves whipped back and forth. The sky which had been developing as umber overhead with two suns visible, faded as the Bah-Sokhar’s attention obviously turned elsewhere.

  YOU SAD

  ‘Yes, I’m sad!’ bellowed Bryony’s consciousness. ‘You bet I’m bloody sad. You’ve been doing horrible things to people I love all day, and you’ve been lying to me ever since I came here, and I’m angry!’

  ‘No, no, no!’ called the Doctor. ‘Don’t be angry. Keep being sad. We know what it does when people are angry. I think sad is altogether the better path. And being fond of people…Try and be as fond as you can of Putta. He’s completely besotted with you, I can tell you. I know all the details. I mean, you’re splendid and everything, I quite agree, but the detail when you get up close to his thinking is positively obsessive—’

  Putta – confined by unreal, but still painful thorns couldn’t stand this humiliation any longer, ‘Yes, thank you Doctor. She doesn’t love me. But I love her and I don’t care if she doesn’t love me. I don’t care if I die here – or where my body is, or…this whole situation is very confusing and I don’t like it – I don’t like anything about it, except that I know she’s all right. I know you’re all right Bryony and you’ll be all right…and if you’re the last thing I see, then that will be all right. That will be…’ His speech dwindled away in surprise as the briars withered back and then replaced themselves with dahlias. The Doctor was, likewise freed and left standing in a fantasy flowerbed, complete with butterflies.

  YOU LOVE PUTTA CREATURE

  As the creature said this to Bryony, Putta made a noise like a cat being surprised.

  YOU LOVE DOCTOR

  This produced a noise from Putta more like a cat being stepped on.

  The Doctor smoothed his way out of the flowers and onto the lawn, getting into his stride in every sense. ‘Yes, we’re all terribly fond of each other in the usual ways. You can tell that. It’s not as if we can lie to you…Bah-Sokhar, the people on this planet they also tend to love each other – a
t least some of the people love some others of the people at least some of the time. I mean, they aren’t the sanest beings in the universe and certainly they can be full of hatred and fear, but why only listen to that. You made those children, you pleased their non-grandmother with them…I’m pretty sure you’ve been keeping her alive for longer than usual…You make things. You don’t have to destroy. You can learn.’

  Learn

  Bryony

  The Bah-Sokhar became quiet, perhaps because it was thinking.

  DOCTOR YOU BIGGEST MIND

  BUT YOU NOT TELL

  BRYONY YOU TELL

  DOES YOU WANT I SHOULD LEARN

  DOES YOU WANT WE SHOULD LEARN

  Bryony tried to answer the creature without getting too excited, but she couldn’t avoid feeling optimistic. ‘Yes. Yes, the Doctor’s right. You could learn. We would help. We could. Probably. I don’t think I’ll be working here any more, but I could come to the lake or the park or something, I suppose and we could talk…I’m not sure if I could be like this very much – it’s really strange for me, but I could talk to the twins – you must have learned through them…’

  HUMANS ANGRY

  HUMANS HATE THEIR CHILDREN

  HUMANS ENVY GREEDY RAGE FEAR

  Putta felt he could contribute. ‘The whole universe knows that. And they eat things in pies.’

  ‘You’re not helping,’ Bryony hissed across to him

  ‘No, no…that’s…I just…You hear about humans and they’re supposed to be completely…monsters…well, not monsters…well, yes, mainly monsters…but then you meet them and they’re…that is…You know Bryony. They can be like her. They’re not all bad.’

  ‘Thanks for the ringing vote of confidence,’ muttered Bryony. But she was virtually smiling a virtual smile.

  Putta smiled back. ‘Well, I can’t exactly lie, can I?’

  The Doctor decided things needed to move along. ‘Yes, well, young love is attractive and so forth – although what your children would be like…you’re two completely different species you know – that takes considerable planning…It’s not as simple as her being from…Ipswich and him being from…Arbroath…’ He rubbed his face just as he would if it had been his face and he had been tired and at the end of a taxing day. ‘Bah-Sokhar, we will assist you. I will assist you. It would be possible for you to change. You already have, for goodness’ sake.’

  I CHANGE

  WE CHANGE

  I AM I

  WE ARE WE

  WE BE CHANGE

  I BE CHANGE

  And this all seemed entirely positive as a development and Bryony was full of hope about it and had time to feel thrilled that she was in a virtual world with three different alien beings and kind of helping in a significant way to save all life on Earth, which wasn’t bad, considering she’d had nothing to look forward to for today beyond a film she’d seen before on telly and thinking about a man who clearly either didn’t fancy her, or who would never be able to tell her he fancied her.

  Putta was, likewise, allowing his consciousness to thrum with what could be the inrushing of a lifetime’s suppressed optimism. He had been part of saving the day. It was all going to get better from here.

  And the Doctor…the Doctor was cautious, but he could feel that the Bah-Sokhar wasn’t lying. The universe’s greatest and most feared assassin being had – over centuries in a quiet and lonely corner of the universe – slowly changed, altered its patterns of behaviour. The possibilities for good were almost endless.

  Only then the garden disappeared in flash of utter blackness.

  A force like the howling of wolves and broken children, like the end of many worlds, clawed through Putta, Bryony and the Doctor and they found themselves flung agonisingly out of the mindspace and into a bitter reality.

  BRYONY AWOKE SCREAMING, BACK in her exhausted body, every muscle aching and her consciousness feeling torn. When she opened her eyes, she could see that the bathroom ceiling was only a hardly a hand’s breadth away from the rim of the bath. She struggled – still groggy – to scramble out of her confinement, but she was too late. There wasn’t enough of a gap for her to fit through. She was trapped in a kind of coffin as – outside in the TARDIS – the lights went out.

  ARBROATH WAS STILL DENSELY packed with people, but now they were divided into individuals and what looked like pursuing packs – or else groups of fairly similar sizes were confronting each other across roadways and little parks. Cars – apparently abandoned at the roadside with their doors wide open – were dented, their wing mirrors missing and their windscreens were smashed. Jagged holes were visible in shop fronts and house windows through which curtains fluttered mournfully. Here and there street signs were bent. Small fires blazed in the hot summer night and were left unattended. Broken glass would have crunched underfoot had anyone been moving. But nobody was moving.

  Faces contorted in pain, fear and hatred were fixed. Hands raised to strike were arrested, kicking feet, punches, attempts to deflect blows, desperate flights and desperate pursuits were all held motionless.

  And then the faces cleared, smoothed and became mainly numb. What had been a chaos of fury turned into a dream of life’s return to business as usual. Handkerchiefs were dabbed at cuts and grazes, children were dusted down, scattered shopping was gathered off pavements and put back into bags by dull-eyed and completely silent individuals. No one cried, no one complained, no one wondered what had happened to them, or their torn clothes, or their wrecked cars.

  A small seaside town simply shrugged and went back to its life without complaint – as if all its passion had been emptied out in the course of a few minutes and none was left.

  The young constable limped out from behind the dustbins which had been concealing him, set down the length of wood he had ripped from a fence and used to keep off attackers and surveyed the battered High Street – all but one of its streetlights beaten out of action. It was a shadowy and fearful place, slow-moving figures straggling along it and disappearing. He seemed to find nothing wrong.

  Paul and Martha Cluny and their son, Paul Junior, returned to their hired car and seemed not to notice that its windscreen was missing, as was one of the passenger doors. They climbed back into it without any comment, fastened their seat belts and drove away.

  PUTTA PATTERSHAUN LANDED BACK in his own body with a snapping jolt which rattled his teeth and made his eyes sting. The pair of badgers which had kept it company while he wasn’t quite using it sniffed at him, paused and then ambled back into the brush and undergrowth, their round forms blending greyly into the dark.

  He felt more exhausted and sore than he had in his life – and was also bewildered.

  Why had the Bah-Sokhar ejected them from its presence?

  It was great that it hadn’t eaten them or –

  He would have continued his analysis of the situation had the Doctor not landed halfway across him, appearing from the empty air at a point about three feet above the ground – not far, but far enough to be painful for both of the parties concerned. They’d both been spat out in roughly the same direction, but at slightly different speeds.

  ‘Hhafff!’ exclaimed Putta. ‘Doctor?’

  ‘Of course. Who else would it be? And don’t just loll about there as if we have all the time in the world – we don’t have any time. We have to get back to the TARDIS – if the TARDIS was also expelled by the Bah-Sokhar and frightened, then Bryony’s body may be in terrible danger.’ The Doctor had clambered up from his awkward position across Putta’s shins and was now standing and hauling him to his feet.

  ‘What do you mean – Bryony’s body?’

  ‘She may not even be in it. The Bah-Sokhar may have taken a shine to her consciousness and decided to keep it.’

  Putta realised he was running, stumbling and lurching fast over uneven ground both in the dark and in his socks, the Doctor pulling him along by one arm. ‘Keep it? What does that…? Well, then we have to save it, I mean her, I mean both.’


  ‘What do you think we’re doing? Honestly, Putta – keep up.’

  The Doctor plunged on and eventually brought them both to a sharp slope. It was another section of the densely overgrown rise Putta had climbed when he left the riverbank what seemed an age ago.

  ‘There’s no time, I’m afraid, for anything other than hoping that gravity will assist.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of—’

  But before Putta could suggest what he didn’t like the sound of, the Doctor gave him a healthy shove in the small of his back and sent him tumbling, sliding, thumping and cracking down the incline, hitting tree trunks and rocks as he went, feeling when his shin was cut, when his skull was clouted, when his cheek was scraped, when something almost caught him in his eye, when a tangle of creeper tugged off one of his socks as it almost put a noose around his ankle.

  While Putta rocketed downwards, he could hear the Doctor, also careering towards the river. The Doctor was talking – rather loudly, it had to be admitted – but not really in the manner of a being currently using himself as a toboggan.

  ‘Concentrate! Putta, listen to the sound of my voice! Follow me!’ the Doctor called as the din of his progress downhill moved from being behind Putta, to roughly level with him and then further out ahead.

  The Doctor cried out after heavy splash which indicated that he had reached the water. ‘Come on! Follow me! I can’t hear her!’ His words were full of anguish. ‘I can’t hear her. I can’t hear the TARDIS thinking. I’ve never known her be so still. I know she’s there, but I can’t hear a thing!’ And the Doctor battered on up the course of the river. The moonlight through the trees was able to spark on the wet rocks and to show the Doctor’s tall form thrashing forward like a man possessed.

  Then Putta remembered. ‘But the sand. We can’t go back, the sand will get us! We can’t go near your TARDIS! We can’t! Doctor, we have to stay away from the sand! Wait! Doctor!’