by Jacqueline Rayner, Mike Tucker, Paul Magrs, et al (retail) (epub)
The family couldn’t help but smile, even now, at the scariest of times.
The rain became heavier, as if they were under a waterfall.
The mist fluttered and turned. The rain seemed to make each purple particle swell and fall. The view started to clear.
The rain powerfully pushed the mist down, washing it from the atmosphere. A purple oil started to form on the ground and a heavy wind started to blow the fog away. This was the storm the Doctor had promised.
The Martin family stood rooted to the spot with fear. They were soaked through. They could see everything now. They were surrounded by a circle of ten Weeping Angels, all of whom were frozen like statues, staring at them, reaching for them, ready to grab or claw or bite or whatever they did.
The family didn’t take their eyes off their attackers. Not even when they heard something hitting the ground nearby hard. Not even when they heard a door creak open, spilling warm light across the valley floor.
‘This is the good bit!’ the Doctor’s voice piped up. ‘You can move!’
The family shifted on the spot, not quite believing the Doctor’s words.
‘Just don’t touch them,’ he added.
The Martins moved through the circle of Angels slowly and carefully. They avoided touching them at all costs, creating awkward shapes with their bodies and crawling along the ground in order to avoid them.
‘That’s him!’ Pip said, pointing.
The Doctor stood in the doorway of an open blue police box. He was a silhouette in front of a thousand lights that mysteriously blossomed from behind him. He looked tall and thin and a lot more bendy than they had imagined. He moved forward and bowed, before lifting his head with a wide smile.
‘Ahhh, the Martins! My favourite family that found themselves trapped in a car during a Weeping Angel feast.’
He had a young face but old eyes. He had floppy hair and a ridiculous bow-tie. There was wisdom in his features – an angry, fierce sense of everything and everyone. Then he put on a fez and all of that lifted in a second.
‘They’re locked in each other’s gazes,’ the Doctor said. ‘They won’t be going anywhere for a long time. They can’t hurt you now.’
‘Why do they do that? Why do they freeze?’ Evan asked.
‘They’re quantum locked. Some say it’s a punishment. Some say it’s evolution. Some say it’s a curse from the gods to give the rest of us a fighting chance.’
‘What do you say?’
‘I say they deserve it.’ His face became deadly serious. Then he exploded forward, and slapped his hands together and smiled nervously.
‘You’re making it rain?’ Mrs Martin asked.
‘Yes. Apparently I can control the weather! Not your holiday weather, though. That was just good old-fashioned Mother Nature.’ The Doctor laughed. ‘And, let me tell you, you shouldn’t mess with her!’
Mr and Mrs Martin smiled, taking all of this wonderful madness in.
‘It’s just a simple atmospheric excitation. Well, not simple. That mist was causing all sorts of trouble. I had to find a way to amplify my sonic screwdriver to create some seriously heavy rain. Luckily I’ve got a TARDIS full of bits and pieces with which to build some amplification tech,’ he said, gesturing at his strange blue box.
The Doctor pulled a small metal thing from his jacket pocket. It let out an electronic Vreee! and emitted a green glow. The rain stopped instantly.
The Doctor walked away from the TARDIS and Evan, Roxy and Pip moved closer towards him.
‘You are all very brave. And very, very wet. Sorry.’
‘What would have … What could have …’ Roxy stammered.
‘Best-case scenario, you would have all been sent back in time to roughly the same place and you would have lived your lives as normal. A little more carefully, perhaps. Always feeling like you had lost something you didn’t quite understand.’
‘And worst case?’
Roxy’s question caused the Doctor to look down. He covered his mouth, removed his fez and brushed his floppy hair back. ‘You would have all been scattered through time. Lost from yourselves and from each other.’
Roxy grabbed Evan and Pip and held them close.
‘How do we thank you?’ Evan asked.
‘You just say thank you.’
‘Thank you.’ Evan smiled.
‘Thank you.’ Pip smiled.
‘And keep doing this. The Martin family camping trips. Even when you’re older. Even when you’ve got your own kids and grandkids. Even when some go and more come. Make it a tradition, a bond, a pact, a promise. Be the opposite of scattered through time.’
The Doctor smiled, then appeared to remember something super-exciting and spun round, giddy. ‘I’ve heard the Martin family camping trip in 2048 is a hoot! Who even knew flying bears would make a comeback? Not me, that’s for sure … Oops! I’ve said too much.’ The Doctor put a finger to his lips. ‘Spoilers, sweetie. As an old friend of mine says.’ The Doctor looked round in a panic. ‘She’s not old. Don’t tell her I said that. She’s an old friend. A friend for a long time. Definitely not old.’
Mr Martin and Mrs Martin smiled at each other.
‘Now, you chaps are going to need a lift back. I’ve got a garage in the TARDIS and a few visiting Ood who love to tinker with ancient domestic vehicles.’
‘Ood?’ Evan looked puzzled.
The Doctor spun round again. ‘Aliens with no hair and big wiggly fronds. They mean well. Some say the more they salivate, the more they want to make you a cup of tea.’
Evan couldn’t believe it. He had wanted an adventure and he had got an adventure. As he and his family followed the Doctor towards the TARDIS, he felt like he could face anything. So long as he was with his family – and with a little help from the Doctor, of course.
They knew it was a stupid idea, but they could never say no to a challenge. They especially couldn’t say no to a challenge that the other had set, even if it meant that they were now walking through the woods in the middle of the night. The weak beams of their tiny torches revealed a forest floor covered in muddy leaves and thorny bushes. The moon was out, bold and bright, but the ceiling of twisted tree branches above blocked out its calming blue glow.
Amber and Ross were twins. They both disliked this fact very much, because they were so different. Amber was quick and curious, always sniffing out mysteries and looking for answers. Ross was gentle and thoughtful, drifting in a cloud of his own stubborn ideas. Nonetheless, they had two very identical traits: they were both very competitive and both very tall.
‘It’s a competition,’ their dad would say. ‘They’re racing each other to the stars, but keeping their feet on the ground!’
Now their feet were tearing through thorny tangles as they weaved between the dark, silent trees. Amber raced ahead, claiming she was the fastest, but Ross kept overtaking her, defiantly trying to prove he was the bravest. Both wanted to stop. Both wanted to turn round every time they heard a creak or a rustle. But this was a competition that they both wanted to win.
Three nights earlier, Amber had woken Ross up to show him something very strange. She led him to her bedroom window and pointed to the hill in the distance. Normally, they’d have seen the dormant silhouette of the abandoned doll factory on the edge of the woods, but now a grey smoke poured from the factory’s chimneys and unnaturally white lights skipped past the shattered windows. It was the same again the following night, and the night after that.
‘It’s reopened, that’s all. They’re making dolls again or something,’ Ross had said dismissively.
‘But why not tell anyone?’ Amber asked. ‘We haven’t heard Dad talking about it.’
Their dad had once worked in the doll factory. Everyone’s parents had. Then the factory had been closed down, and everybody had lost their jobs. The factory closure had made things so hard for everyone in the town. Many families had left for the nearby city in search of work, and those who had stayed in the town struggled to find j
obs and to feed their families. The town had become a sad, depressed place. If the factory was reopened, it could make everyone happy again. People would have work again, and they wouldn’t have to leave. It could save the town.
‘I’m going to go and find out!’ Amber declared proudly.
‘No. I’m going to go and find out!’ Ross declared, slightly prouder.
The twins stood side by side outside the factory and watched the smoke spiral into the night sky. They could see flashes of light behind the dirty glass of the windows. Something was off. It was all too quiet. The huge concrete building, with its giant chimneys and tall windows, vibrated with an eerie … nothingness.
It wasn’t long before the twins were inside the factory. A loose panel in a forgotten wooden door had led them straight into a storage area. The space smelled old, damp and forgotten. Their torches’ tiny spotlights danced across boxes furred with dust and a floor covered in broken dolls’ arms and legs.
Ross found a light switch and instantly regretted illuminating the single bulb that hung from the centre of the ceiling. Shelves of broken dolls watched them with empty eyes, silently poking their podgy fingers at the twins. Rows and rows of tiny toes pointed to the cobwebs on the ceiling. Amber stumbled backwards, bashing into a crate full of shiny glass eyes. The eyes spun around in confusion before settling back into place.
‘This is seriously creepy,’ Amber whispered.
‘Are you scared?’ her brother whispered back.
‘No. I said it’s creepy, not that I’m creeped out.’
‘Whatever.’
The twins spotted a wooden door at the far end of the storage room, framed by floor-to-ceiling shelves of dusty, slumped dolls. Amber and Ross looked at each other and gulped nervously.
‘Don’t be such a baby, Ross!’
‘You’re the baby!’
They ran towards the wooden door and reached it at the same time, bashing it open.
What they saw on the other side left them open-mouthed with shock.
The factory was indeed up and running again. No – more than that. It was brand-new. The ceiling and walls were white and clean. All of the machinery and conveyor belts were shiny metal. All the moving parts, the tipping vats, the grabbing claws, the churning moulds and the spray guns worked away silently with a ruthless efficiency.
‘I came to visit Dad here one time,’ Amber said. ‘It did not look like this.’
‘This is like something from the future.’ Ross gazed around. ‘Everything’s so new. What are they making?’
The twins made their way through the factory, ducking under metal pipes and pumping machines, and it soon became very clear what was being made. Hundreds of pink arms and empty heads knitted with yellow hair glided along the metal assembly lines. At the end of the lines, plump baby boys and girls in stripy red-and-white pyjamas slid off the rolling chutes and into a packing crate.
Dolls.
Ross picked up one of the little boy dolls. It had sleepy eyes, rosy cheeks and fluffy yellow hair.
‘Extra creepy,’ said Ross.
‘I’m Baby Sleepy Face!’ a metallic recording rasped from inside the doll.
Both twins jumped. Then they couldn’t help but smile at each other. They were both a little creeped out, and there was no hiding it.
‘They used to make these Baby Sleepy Face dolls here,’ Amber said. ‘They were huge. Even I had one.’
The doll suddenly opened its mouth to reveal big white teeth and bit Ross’s hand. He yelled and dropped it on the floor, where it landed on its feet in an expert crouch. The doll then straightened up and started to walk towards the twins. It let out a wail – a long, screeching cry that seemed to split the air. The other dolls in the crate nearby joined in.
Amber and Ross edged backwards as a wave of pyjama-clad dolls climbed out of the crate and off the assembly line and advanced on them, screaming and shouting. Their chants began to synch and words formed. ‘It’s time to go to sleep! It’s time to go to sleep!’
The dolls’ faces began to change. Despite their rosy cheeks, dimples and sleepy little eyes, they looked angry and hungry for a fight.
‘Evil dolls? Is this even happening?’ Ross asked.
‘We need to stop them,’ Amber said, her voice determined.
With a nod to one another, they lunged forward. Amber launched a kick at the doll that had used its teeth on her brother and sent the bedtime biter flying into the crate. Ross took off his backpack and swung it round, bashing five of the dolls across the room. Another doll jumped on to Amber’s back and started pulling her hair. She flipped it over her shoulder and whacked it on the floor. No matter how many dolls the twins kicked away, more and more kept appearing. Brand-new dolls continued to roll off the end of the assembly line, and rather than sliding along on their chubby bottoms they stood up and ran furiously down the chute, desperate for a fight.
‘I know how to stop this!’ Amber cried, turning to run away. ‘I can turn off the machines!’
‘Hurry!’ Ross replied, grabbing dolls and jamming them into the crate. He pulled a heavy lid on to the box and sat on it to keep them all trapped inside. He could hear the dolls shouting from their prison. ‘It’s time to go to sleep! It’s time to go to sleep!’
When she’d come to visit him here, Amber’s dad had showed her where everything was in the factory. She remembered a small boxed area full of switches and levers: the control room. There had been a button, a big red one, that would stop everything in case something went wrong or someone got hurt. If that control room had been restored exactly like the rest of the factory had, then she had to hit it – and quick.
‘Hurry up, Amber!’ Ross yelled, trying to keep the captured dolls in the crate while fighting off the new ones that kept appearing. They seemed to burst into life the moment they were fixed together by the machines.
Amber spotted the red button, and hit it as hard as she could.
The production line stopped. The silent machines came to a sudden halt, although the dolls carried on shrieking and twitching.
Amber ran back to Ross and together they were able to stack heavy boxes on top of the crate full of dolls. They could hear the dolls clawing to get out, but the boxes kept them safely trapped inside.
‘See.’ Amber smiled. ‘I did it.’
‘I would have done it faster.’ Ross smirked.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Amber said. There was no time to argue. ‘We need to find help.’
The twins dived back into the stale storage room. The dolls that had sat silently on the shelves were now twitching as if waking up from a long, dusty sleep.
This time, though, Amber and Ross weren’t alone in the room.
A man stood in the centre, under the single humming light bulb. Except he wasn’t really a man. He had a human body and human hands. He even wore a dark brown jacket and blue overalls. But he had a huge plastic doll’s head with cold, glassy eyes and blushed cheeks. As he stepped forward, his plastic eyelashes fluttered. A metal headset was wrapped across the side of his face, connecting his mouth and ear to what looked like a small satellite dish.
The twins grabbed each other’s hands, fear and instinct driving their movements.
‘I’m the Foreman,’ the figure said in a lifeless voice, stretching out his arms towards them. ‘This is my factory. Trespassers will be eliminated.’
‘What’s going on? What is it that you’re doing here?’ Ross demanded, instinctively stepping backwards and pulling his twin with him.
‘Building an army,’ the Foreman replied, letting out a glitchy robotic noise. ‘All of these Autons are built to fight. We’ve added essence of Sontaran to get them battle ready.’
The Foreman marched towards the twins. An unsettling metallic giggle sounded from the device on the side of his face.
‘Now, why do the bad guys always feel the need to explain everything to the good guys?’ a stranger’s voice asked. A thin man stepped forward from the shadows. He looked angry �
�� or at least his eyebrows did. He was smartly dressed in a buttoned-up white shirt and dark jacket. His curly grey hair was both tidy and unruly, and he looked both terrifying and kind, all at the same time.
‘Who are you?’ The Foreman turned towards the stranger, not lowering his arms.
‘I’m not one of those idiots who tells everyone everything straight away,’ the man said. He sounded Scottish. He thought for a second, appearing to process more thoughts than most people have in a lifetime. ‘I guess, using simple logic, that makes me one of the good guys.’
The man quickly stepped forward and pushed the Foreman, who fell backwards over the crate of beady glass eyes and into a dark corner. The strange man seemed to be on the edge of losing his temper. He turned to Amber and Ross.
‘Well, come on then, twins!’ he said. ‘You see each other all the time, so spend your time looking at something new and exciting. Me!’
Then he turned and ran through the forgotten wooden door that led outside. The twins raced to follow him, not quite knowing why, but feeling like it was the right thing to do.
‘We’re safe now,’ Amber stated when they were outside the factory.
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ the strange man proclaimed. ‘You’re not safe. You never are. And in this case you’re specifically extra not safe.’
‘But we stopped them!’ Ross replied.
‘Do you two share a brain?’ the man asked – but his insult then became a question. He curiously looked inside Ross’s ear. ‘Do you, though? I’d be very excited to run some tests if you do …’
‘Who –’ Amber started.
‘Are you?’ Ross finished.
‘The Doctor. Ancient. Alien. Amazing.’ He smiled. ‘You’re Ross. You’re Amber. You’re twins. You’re caught in the middle of an alien plan to take over the world. Most people who know me are, to be fair.’
‘I stopped the machine from making any more dolls.’ Amber was defensive. She wasn’t used to being criticised.
‘And I put all of the dolls in a crate!’ added Ross, eager to prove he had helped.
‘Yes, yes. I know all of that. I was watching very carefully.’