by Mark Morris
She nodded, her face set, giving nothing away. ‘I’m sure.’
‘All right,’ Mike said. ‘I’ll come with you then - that’s if you want me to, of course.’
The smile she gave him was stiff, but full of gratitude. ‘I would,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d better just tell the Brigadier what’s going on first or he’ll be wondering where I am. Is that OK?’
Charlotte did her utmost to look brave, grown-up, mature.
‘Of course,’ she said.
* * *
It was only when the Brigadier switched off the RT that he realised he had hardly taken in a word that Mike Yates had said. He had conducted the conversation on autopilot, had presumably made all the correct responses - but to what information he had no idea. His mind felt like a landscape wreathed in fog, grey and vague and difficult to negotiate. He forced himself to concentrate hard, pressed his fingertips into his forehead and closed his eyes until eventually a phrase swam up through the murk. Just before putting the phone down, he remembered himself saying, ‘All right, Yates, I’ll get the Doctor on to it straight away.’ But on to what exactly? What was it Yates had told him?
Something about... about... No, it was no good. He could recall the sound of Yates’s voice, but his Captain might as well have been talking in double Dutch for all the sense it had made.
The Brigadier was appalled. He prided himself on his decisiveness, on being able to think quickly in tough situations. Healthy body, healthy mind and all that. Perhaps he was simply tired. Overwork. But he had never allowed it to affect him like this before. No, this one went on till he dropped. Hundred per cent commitment. Always been the case, always would be. There was something... something at the back of his mind. Oh, damn it! What was it now? Think, man, think!
Something. Something the Doctor had said. Something about fish?
Absently the Brigadier rubbed at his shoulder, which had begun to itch and prickle.
‘Are you all right?’ Tegan asked.
Andy blinked and puffed out a deep breath, shook his head quickly like a character in an old black and white comedy who has been bopped with a frying pan. ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he said.
‘Just feeling a bit woozy all of a sudden.’
‘Too much sun,’ Tegan said decisively. ‘Do you want to sit down?’
‘No, honestly, I’ll be all right in a minute.’
They were by the meat counter in Asda, shopping for the picnic they planned to eat up in the hills behind the town Just as Tegan had been asking him what he wanted in his sandwiches, Andy had staggered as if he’d had one too many, and had put his hand out to the glass counter to steady himself.
‘You don’t look too well,’ said Tegan. ‘You look a bit peaky.’
Suddenly he frowned and abruptly snapped, I said I’m fine, all right? Stop fussing.’
Tegan was too taken aback to get angry herself, besides which as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Andy was apologising for them.
‘Sorry, that was uncalled for. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘That’s all right,’ Tegan said guardedly. Then, not wishing to sour the lovely morning they had had, her voice became playful. ‘Just don’t do it again, all right? I’m enough of a hothead for both of us.’
He grinned, though Tegan couldn’t help but detect a certain weariness in his expression. I hope he isn’t getting bored with me, she thought before she could help it. ‘Are you sure you still want to go on this picnic? We don’t have to if you don’t feel like it:
He looked genuinely alarmed at the thought of not going, which reassured her. ‘No, of course I want to go,’ he said.
‘Don’t you?’
‘ I want to.’
‘Well, then, let’s get on with it.’
They bought some corned beef and ham at the meat counter and moved on to the bread aisle. Although this was less than ten years before the time she had last left ‘her’
Earth with the Doctor, she was amazed at the lack of choice available and had to bite her lip to keep from saying so.
There was no vegetarian section, very few speciality or ethnic foods, no vegetables that couldn’t be grown in the British Isles, no New World wines, and only a tiny amount of brown bread amongst the loaves of Nimble and Slimcea and Mother’s Pride.
Tegan chose some crusty white and Andy grabbed a packet of jam tarts. They were at the checkout, a thin-faced girl with freckles and lank red hair grumpily running their purchases through, when Andy groaned and slumped forward as if he was about to be sick.
Everyone nearby stopped what they were doing and stared as he stumbled backwards, clutched at the edge of the checkout, missed, and thumped gracelessly down on to his backside. Some people tittered, others stared at him aggressively, as if they thought that by drawing attention to himself he was challenging them in some way. The checkout girl barely suppressed a snigger as she raised herself to peer over the end of the checkout desk; it was clearly the most fun she’d had all day. Tegan would have bitten her head off if she hadn’t been both discomfited by the all-pervasive atmosphere of hostility and concerned for Andy. She crouched down and placed a supporting hand on Andy’s back.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked for the second time in the past ten minutes.
Andy looked at her, but seemed to be having trouble focusing. ‘Feel so weird,’ he said muzzily. ‘Dizzy and sick.’
Behind the checkout a narrow aisle led to the exit, plastic chairs for pensioners and the footsore lined up along the wall. ‘Come on,’ said Tegan, ‘let’s get you on to one of these.’
With Andy helping as much as he could, she hauled him to his feet and dumped him on one of the chairs.
‘Is your husband all right, madam?’ said a voice from behind her. Tegan turned and saw a balding, fussy-looking man in a blue suit and flowery tie, his expression hovering somewhere between professional concern and disapproval.
‘He’s -’ Tegan was about to say ‘not my husband’, but decided she couldn’t be bothered to add fuel to the man’s prissy little fire – ‘got some sort of virus. Sunstroke maybe.
Would you mind bringing him a glass of water?’
Mr Prudom - his name written on the rectangular badge affixed to his breast pocket above the words STORE
MANAGER - looked slightly put out by her request, but nodded. ‘Certainly, madam.’ He turned and clicked his fingers at the gawping checkout girl. ‘Janice, bring this gentleman a drink of water, would you please?’
Janice looked disgusted, but muttered, ‘Yes, Mr Prudom,’
and wandered off on her errand.
‘And would you mind calling us a cab?’ Tegan asked.
Mr Prudom glanced around, but the other checkout girls were all busy. He looked momentarily trapped by his inability to delegate, then his shoulders slumped. ‘Certainly, madam,’
he said again. ‘I’ll see to it myself.’
The water arrived and Tegan made Andy drink it. ‘I feel such an idiot,’ he said. ‘Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.’
‘You must have picked up a bug,’ Tegan said. ‘I’m going to take you back home to bed.’
‘Sounds promising,’ he said, managing a tired grin.
‘Don’t push your luck,’ Tegan replied, but she was smiling too. ‘I’m going to tuck you in, then I’m going to head back to my hotel. We’ll go on our picnic another day.’
He sighed. ‘Sorry about this.’
She rubbed his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault.’
A few minutes later the cab arrived. ‘Can you walk?’ Tegan asked.
‘I think so.’ Andy stood up, then immediately had to clutch at her for support. ‘Whoa, my head’s spinning.’
‘Just hold on to me,’ Tegan said. ‘We’ll take it slowly.’
They were heading out of the door when Mr Prudom scuttled up behind them. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘your shopping.’
With a wicked sense of glee which she did her best to conceal, Tegan said, ‘You might as well put it all back. We won’t be needing it now.’
Prudom’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. ‘Yes, madam,’ he said.
As soon as he saw Tegan framed in the opening lift doors the Doctor hastily said his goodbyes to the Brigadier and put down the phone. He hurried across the hotel foyer with a grin on his face, calling out her name as if she was the person he most wanted to see in the entire universe.
Then he noted how unhappy she looked, saw how tightly she was clutching his message in her hand, and his face fell.
‘Oh dear,’ he murmured, managing to inject such gravity into his voice that Turlough, who was behind him playing catch-up as usual, felt his heart sink.
Tegan held up the note, looking at the Doctor almost accusingly. ‘Alien contamination?’ she said. ‘What kind of alien contamination?
‘Turlough, would you be so kind as to order some tea?’ the Doctor asked. He took Tegan’s arm gently and drew her aside. ‘Let’s sit down, shall we?’
At first Tegan looked as though she might protest, but then she nodded glumly and allowed herself to be led. The Doctor escorted her over to where he had been sitting, a seating area bordered by tall, white pillars. The seats were all black squishy leather with chrome frameworks, the coffee tables low and glass-topped. Harry Nillson was piping from the speakers, lamenting that he couldn’t live if living was without you. Didn’t that guy know any other songs? Tegan thought irritably.
They sat, the Doctor leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his legs slightly splayed, white-booted feet turned inward. To Tegan he looked like a little kid who’d been told to sit quietly, but who really wanted to run off and play.
His eyes, however, were alert, full of wisdom, windows to the awesome complexity of his thoughts.
‘Which was it?’ he asked gently.
‘What?’
‘Did you swim in the sea or eat the fish?’
‘Oh. I swam in the sea. Or at least I paddled. What’s going on, Doctor?’
The Doctor sighed, and as Turlough meandered across to join them, began to tell her exactly what was going on. He had just finished when their tea arrived.
‘Ah, tea!’ the Doctor exclaimed as if it was the answer to all their problems. As the waiter departed the Doctor reached for the teapot. ‘Shall I be mother?’
‘What’s going to happen to me?’ said Tegan miserably. ‘Am I going to turn into one of these Xaranti things?’
The Doctor glanced at Turlough as if urging him to remain silent. ‘I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ he said reassuringly.
She didn’t look convinced. ‘First the Mara, now this. I’m sick of being taken over by aliens.’
‘Yes, the novelty does wear off after a while,’ the Doctor remarked dryly.
Tegan glared at him. ‘Are you making fun of me?’
‘Of course he isn’t,’ said Turlough.
Tegan thought that one day she ought to tell Turlough that being nice didn’t suit him. Whenever he tried it, he simply ended up sounding oily and insincere. ‘Isn’t he?’ she said curtly.
‘Of course not. In fact, he’s working on a cure even as we speak.’
‘No he’s not,’ said Tegan. ‘He’s eating chocolate bourbons.’
The Doctor popped the remainder of his biscuit into his mouth a little guiltily and reached into the inside pocket of his coat. He withdrew a square, grey object that resembled a powder compact, though when he flipped open the lid with his thumb, Tegan saw that it looked more like a miniature laptop. ‘There are various diagnostic programmes running in the TARDIS,’ he told her. ‘I can analyse the data on this. It gives me up-to-the-minute reports.’
He demonstrated by pressing a pinhead-sized button and producing a scroll of figures and symbols across the screen.
Tegan held up a hand. ‘All right, all right, I believe you.’
Suddenly the look of irritation on her face changed to one of dawning horror. ‘Oh my God!’
‘What is it?’ asked Turlough.
‘I’ve just realised what might be wrong with Andy.’
‘Andy?’ enquired the Doctor.
‘Someone I met. My date. I’ve got to make a phone call.’
She leaped up and ran to the pay phones beside the main doors. The Doctor watched her with an intent expression as if he was trying to read her lips.
Two minutes later she was back, looking anxious.
‘What’s wrong?’ Turlough asked.
‘It’s Andy. He’s not answering his phone. You don’t think…’
She couldn’t go on.
The house seemed empty, though somewhere a radio was playing so faintly that Mike couldn’t make out the song. The Mayburys’ accommodation was on the landing below Mike’s attic room. He and Charlotte passed the room that Chris Maybury had never even slept in, and on to the one at the end of the landing that Charlotte’s parents shared.
Before knocking, Mike offered Charlotte a brief, reassuring smile. She twitched her lips back at him, though her eyes still retained that haunted, sunken look. He turned and rapped authoritatively on the door.
‘Mr Maybury,’ he said, ‘Mr Maybury, are you in there?’
There might have been a groan, a vague movement. Mike imagined Charlotte’s hungover father turning over in bed.
‘Mr Maybury,’ he repeated, raising his voice, ‘my name is Captain Mike Yates of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. I have your daughter, Charlotte, here with me. We have something very important to tell you.’
This time there was a definite series of groans, though Mike got the impression that they were being made regardless of, not in response to, him. He turned again to Charlotte. ‘I think we’d better go in.’ Charlotte nodded and Mike pushed the door open.
He recoiled immediately. The smell was worse than the army changing rooms at the end of the annual rugger tournament. He looked around for its source, but could see nothing. Behind him Charlotte gagged and Mike said, ‘I’ll open a window.’ Taking a deep breath, he plunged into the room.
As he threw open the curtains and fumbled with the window catch, he was only peripherally aware of Tony Maybury as a hunched shape beneath crumpled, twisted covers, tossing from side to side in his bed. The man was moaning as if in pain, and it occurred to Mike, as the catch came free and the bottom section of the casement window rattled upwards, that Charlotte’s father may have more wrong with him than a simple hangover.
Gratefully Mike gulped in several lungfuls of air that seemed as fresh as any he had ever tasted, then turned back into the room. From outside came the ubiquitous cries of gulls and the distant jingle of an ice-cream van.
‘Dad,’ Charlotte said uncertainly, taking a step forward,
‘Dad, are you OK?’
Tony gave no indication that he was even aware of their presence. Charlotte glanced pleadingly at Mike, and he strode forward from the window to the head of the bed.
All he could see of Tony Maybury was his hair, a dark, sweaty clump poking out from beneath the sheets. Mike leaned forward. ‘Mr Maybury,’ he said loudly and clearly, ‘can you hear me?’
Still no reply. Mike raised his eyebrows at Charlotte, who was standing at the foot of the bed, watching her father’s writhing form with a mixture of deep concern and anxiety.
Then he reached forward and started to pull the sheet from the upper half of the man’s body.
It did not come easily. It seemed to snag on the man’s skin, and as Mike tugged harder he actually felt it tear in several places. Remembering the man in the mortuary, Mike suddenly knew what he was going to see before he saw it. He allowed the sheet to fall back over Tony and turned to Charlotte. ‘Perhaps it might be better if -’
He got no further. At
that moment the figure in the bed sprang to its feet with an agility that seemed unnatural. It whipped the sheet from its body and hurled it aside. As the sheet fluttered to the floor, Charlotte screamed.
Tony Maybury had transformed to such an extent that he looked terrifying, despite the ridiculous pale blue Y-fronts he was wearing. His entire body, including his face, was covered with quills identical to the ones Mike had seen on the man in the mortuary. Although he moved with the quick, predatory movements of a striking spider, Maybury was hunched over, two large, grotesquely shifting growths bulging on his back between his shoulder blades. His eyes were no longer human, but completely black, his eyelids peeling back from them, making his eyes look as if they were in danger of popping from their sockets.
Mike did not even have time to reach for his gun before the creature was upon him. It sprang at him, clamping lingers that had elongated to taloned claws around his throat. Hit by its full weight, Mike stumbled and fell backwards, banging his head on the floor. A white burst of light and pain exploded behind his eyes, and for a moment he felt as if he was sinking into a treacly black liquid, unable to do anything but wave his arms in feeble protest as the creature straddled his chest and rammed fingers like knife blades into his Adam’s apple.
At first the creature’s dead-fish smell was pungent in his nostrils, its slavering, hissing breath and the rustle of its quills echoing in his head. But as consciousness ebbed away, so Mike’s senses seemed to recede, leaving only blackness to fill the gaps.
Mike’s first conscious thought when he came round was that there was no longer a weight on his chest. His throat felt thick and dry, but when he tried to swallow, sharp, hot pain lanced up into his head and down his gullet, hitting his breastbone and fanning out across his chest like heartburn.
At least the pain brought him back to life. He sat bolt upright, and saw the creature writhing on the floor beside him, growling and holding its head. Standing above it was Charlotte, looking shell-shocked and clutching a hefty-looking standard lamp in both hands.