by Doctor Who
Petr seemed unconvinced. ‘We should attend to the torches, get as much sleep as we can – wait for daybreak.’
Martha imagined that the more people that slept, the more likely the world was to shut down entirely. ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea,’ she said firmly – adding, in her own mind, for me at least.
The Dazai came over, her stick clicking on the flagstones. ‘The girl may be right,’ she said firmly. ‘After the Doctor departed I consulted the legends – the source material, you might say, not what we remember of them.’ She raised a quivering hand to forestall any objections. ‘I know some of us do not accept that folk tales and ancient curses have any bearing on our lives,’ she said, ‘but consider what has happened so far. Our children have disappeared in the fog, and now they are returning – returning to enquire how well we treated them. Returning, as if to judge us: Are we fit parents? Are we fit to live? It all conforms to the tales we have told for generations. And, even if we choose not to accept the prophecies, the stories say that the fate of our village hangs in the balance.’
Martha stared out of the window, watching shapes moving through the fog. Martha blinked – just for a moment, she could have sworn she’d seen a boy, juggling shadows, but when she looked again it was just a curl of fog, animated only by a breath of wind.
‘The stories may be a. . . reverse echo. . . of all that we have seen,’
said the Dazai. ‘And what may yet come to pass.’
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Martha again. She hadn’t properly met the Dazai before, but she was impressed by the old woman’s forthright, businesslike manner. Martha remembered the last time she’d seen her father’s granny – a shrivelled old bean of a woman, mahogany-coloured and hat-wearing, but refusing to be dictated to by medical infirmity or wheelchair. The Dazai, the spiritual and philosophical heart of the village, reminded Martha of that old woman who, even when surrounded by death, was never less than full of life.
‘There is something we can do,’ said the Dazai firmly.
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‘Go back to the forest?’ suggested Martha hopefully. ‘The Doctor disappeared there, and I was thinking. . . ’
The old woman shook her head. ‘There is a better way. The island, in the heart of the lake. . . ’
‘But that’s where the children are coming from!’ exclaimed Petr –who seemed quite prepared to believe the legends now.
‘On the island, there is a cave, and within the cave, is the monster
– not those small beasts that patrol the forests, but the god-monster that drives the children towards us. The stories say that all shall not be lost if a brave hero ventures there to slay the evil.’
Saul grinned, and Martha noticed him grasp the hilt of his sword ever more tightly. The Dazai looked from Saul to Petro ‘Of course, in the original text, the number of heroes is not specified.’
And then she turned to Martha.
‘And neither is the gender.’
Abbas sat alone in the dark, his knees pulled up to his chest, and remembered. He thought of the brief moments of happiness that had punctured his life, the jealousy that had almost sent him mad – his attempt to cook a meal for Gabby Jayne. How pathetic! Then the televised trial, complete with preening judges and jurors. After the trial had come the long trip to the research station Castor, way out in neutral space and beyond the reach of any meaningful legislation.
He remembered his first day on the station – the guard who’d welcomed him to hell, the smell of fear and disinfectant that seemed to hang heavy in the air – and the unremitting torture that began moments after his arrival. It was torture, of course – there was no other way of looking at it, however hard the jailers and the scientists tried to apply the masquerade of science and research. It hurt physically, of course – each session was like a trip to the electric chair, the ‘Mercy Seat’ of old Earth penitentiaries, but without the finality – and release
– of death at its conclusion. But, worse than that, was the emotional trauma, of literally reliving every bad experience, every moment of deceit, every murderous impulse – and, in his case, every murderous action.
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And the dreams that followed. . . For weeks Abbas had dreamt of stabbing Gabby Jayne, again and again, over and over, and yet each night she was alive again, and Abbas was no longer sure what was nightmare and what was reality.
Eventually, though, progress had been made. Abbas began to forget his past, forget who he was – and it was not time that healed and erased his memories, but the machinery, the experiments. His memories – even his very personality and mind – were coming adrift, until everything in his head moved and changed position, like numerous icebergs sailing away from the landmass that had once sustained them all.
Day-to-day relationships with the other prisoners were either strained or non-existent: with each person in their own private anguish, hell wasn’t so much other people as yourself magnified. Hell was being forced forever to live in the past, to confront it – and then watch it drift away into the void of ambiguity. Hell was loneliness.
And now, as death closed in, Abbas felt more lonely than ever. He was on his own – most of the others were dead now – and he was absolutely powerless.
He looked about him – his cell door was open, either wrenched apart by some great force, or casually disengaged when the systems overloaded and fire swept through the technical areas. He could still smell the burning now – the rank bitterness of smouldering metal and flesh – and hear the screams of terror in his mind, even though that stage of the calamity had long since passed into awful silence.
Screams of terror, as one man turned on another in a frenzy of violence. Some were driven to destroy – others to strive to survive at all costs.
Despite the open door, Abbas was sanguine and passive. Through the arch he could see the great curved cylinder of cells that formed this wing of the prison area. Fires flared in some, while outside others were crumpled black shapes, angular limbs jutting upwards like the residue of a forest after a lightning strike. One or two people moved about, from corridor to room to cell, crying and pitiful – at least, they had been people, once. Now, robbed of their minds, robbed of all that 122
made them human, they were merely units of biological noise and motion, waiting only for death.
And the killer that hunted in the shadows – indeed, was shadow itself – would embrace them all soon enough.
There was another sudden, sharp cry from somewhere, throttled away to a whisper within moments. Abbas got to his feet uncertainly, walked – as if a baby taking his first steps – out of his cell and to the handrail, and looked up and down the dizzying structure.
It was silent now, and motionless. He could hardly remember his crimes, and he did not know if he was worse than the others who had died, or better – or if it was just a random twist of fate that meant he was going to be the last human to look out at research station Castor.
Castor – the drive to tame wild things, now itself consumed by uncontrollable violence.
‘Come on!’ he shouted, his voice echoing around the caged void.
‘I’m here! It’s my turn!’
Abbas didn’t want to be alone. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to be human anymore.
The angel of shadow and death ascended majestically towards Abbas, in the central space between the floors and walkways and cells.
It came towards him, illuminated by the flickering of the emergency lights. The creature was almost invisible and yet horrifyingly real.
There was a moaning sigh – the last thing Abbas realised was that he himself was making the noise – and the thing devoured him. Ben Abbas would neither live nor die nor be lonely ever again.
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JudesawtheDoctorfalloutoftheshadowandintothelight,clutching his chest and choking as if plucked from a dark sea.
Jude ran forward, wondering if she ought to clap him on the back to make sure he was breathing properly. ‘Docto
r!’ she cried. ‘Are you all right?’
The Doctor stood for a moment, obviously unsteady on his feet and breathing heavily. He looked around, sightless – and then hugged Jude tightly to him. ‘Did you miss me?’ he laughed, his face now flushed and full of colour.
‘What happened to you?’ asked Jude. ‘That shadow thing seemed to suck you up, and then. . . ’
‘Then?’
‘You were hanging there, hanging in mid air – and flailing around like you were having a bad dream!’
The Doctor took a step back, puffing his cheeks. ‘Blimey,’ he said, more quietly. ‘The things I experienced in there. . . One man in particular – his entire life flashing before my eyes. . . And I felt every emotion as he did. All the terrible things he had done. . . ’ The Doctor paused. ‘He was the last man to die. It was as if the creature was 125
trying to show me something – trying to give me an insight into what went on here. . . ’
‘I don’t understand, Doctor,’ said Jude. ‘What was that creature?’
‘It was. . . a thousand nightmares made flesh,’ said the Doctor, but then he immediately shook his head, irritated with himself. ‘No, no, no, that’s not the best way of putting it. It’s like. . . you ever watched your mum make, oh I don’t know, chicken stock or something?’
Jude found herself nodding, desperate not to interrupt the Doctor’s flow.
‘You chuck in bones and flesh and herbs and, you know, bit of white wine maybe. . . and you carefully boil it – not too hot, mind, you want to do it to last as long as possible – and then you start to filter away all the bones and the fat and gunk. . . ’
‘And you’re left with something yummy and concentrated, like chicken multiplied by chicken,’ suggested Jude, breathless.
‘Exactly,’ said the Doctor. ‘Chicken squared – the very essence of chicken.’ His face darkened. ‘Only this thing, this creature. . . It’s not good at all. It’s as if all humanity is thrown into a pot and, after decades, all that’s left. . . is evil. Pure, unthinking, unadulterated evil.’
‘But why?’
‘This is a prison ship,’ said the Doctor simply. ‘There were evil men here. . . ’
Jude still wasn’t sure she understood. ‘But what happened when the creature swallowed you?’
‘I experienced every bad feeling, every bad action ever committed by the people who were here. Memories, desires, impressions. . . It made the prisoners go mad. What was worse, I could feel it tugging at my own mind. . . My own past.’ A distant look came into the Doctor’s eyes. ‘The things I’ve seen,’ he added in a whisper. ‘The things I’ve endured, the things I felt I had to do. . . I wouldn’t want to share them with anyone.’ He managed a weak smile. ‘But this creature was just desperate for all of my memories. Didn’t ask for permission, didn’t check with me first – just went straight for the file marked Private, No Admittance.’ He paused. ‘Most people would have died.’
‘So why didn’t it kill you?’ asked Jude simply.
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‘That’s a very good question,’ said the Doctor. ‘I think there’s even more going on here than meets the eye. Something else, some. . . ’
Jude watched him look around, at the metal corridor, and the junctions and rooms that extended off from it. It seemed a little brighter again, now that the shadow creature had gone, but Jude knew that it should be night. The lights that blazed in the ceiling could not be trusted to burn forever.
‘We’ve got to find the heart of this station,’ said the Doctor. ‘Some-where, at its core, are all the answers we need.’
‘The hub you spoke of,’ said Jude.
The Doctor nodded, then stepped forward confidently. ‘It’s this way.’
‘You sure? Looks to me like you’re going the wrong way.’
‘No, it’s over here. . . ’
Moments later, he doubled back on himself. ‘We were going the wrong way,’ he said simply. ‘I reckon if we go down here we might avoid the creature.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not sure I’ll be so lucky if it attacks me again,’ said the Doctor.
‘Believe it or not, this place is like heaven to your world,’ he added, casually, a few moments later. ‘It’s the God Particle that exploded it into life. It shapes it, guides it, influences it. And if there’s a battle in heaven between – let’s not be modest! – good and evil. . . ’ He smiled again, a grim smile, like a commander on the eve of war. ‘You can guarantee there’ll be a battle in your world as well.’
The lights chose that very moment to dim, the entire corridor suddenly taking on a dusky feel.
‘Come on,’ said the Doctor. ‘We haven’t got long.’
Martha stood outside the meeting hall, grateful to be away from its oppressive heat and the almost palpable sense of anxiety and dread.
She glanced up at the sky.
‘Strewth!’ she exclaimed in surprise.
‘What is it?’ asked Saul.
Martha pointed upwards – it was like looking through a grey, misty tunnel that eventually faded away to show the dark night sky. And 127
what a sky it was-absolutely clear of cloud, and absolutely free of stars and moon. There seemed to be no substance to it whatsoever.
Beyond the village, it seemed, was absolutely. . . nothing.
‘The destruction of the village comes closer,’ said Petr.
‘We’d better get cracking, then,’ said Martha, trying to counter the leader’s melodrama with an assured tone.
Holding their lanterns aloft, they began to edge forward. The fog seemed to split apart as they neared, driven back by their presence and by the light, and then flow back into place behind them. It surrounded them always, encircling a rough cylinder of light with Martha and the two brothers at the centre. Houses appeared in the mist as dark, angular shapes. Given what had happened to the night sky, Martha wasn’t entirely convinced they’d resolve themselves into buildings if they stepped any closer.
Regardless, they stuck to the path between the buildings, which wound its way from the centre of the village and towards the lake.
They passed over a tiny bridge, arched like something from an oriental garden, and Martha noticed that it was drained of colour, the wood appearing misshapen and unfinished.
If Saul and Petr noticed any changes to their village, they said nothing, and continued walking forwards, heads bowed as if in prayer –or fear.
‘How much further?’ asked Martha.
‘It’s not far,’ said Saul.
‘There are some boats moored up behind Carlo’s home,’ said Petr, as usual less reserved than his brother. ‘He’s one of the few brave enough to fish the waters of the lake.’
‘Brave enough?’
‘The legends,’ said Saul. ‘The fog, the children. . .
The island.
They’re always linked.’
‘If the lake so terrifies you, why do you stay?’
Petr glanced at Martha, clearly puzzled. ‘You don’t have to believe in legends and stories,’ he said, ‘to treat the lake with respect.’
‘It seems calm enough,’ said Martha, though in truth it was still hidden from her by the fog, and she was simply remembering how 128
she had last seen it – and how it had seemed ever since her arrival.
It was a great mirror of a lake, flat and serene but for the occasional gust of wind that skipped over its surface.
Petr and Saul exchanged a look, though they said nothing.
Martha was about to press them on the subject when a dark form appeared in the fog in front of them. The shape of a teenager or a small adult, it was smudged and blurred by the mist that cocooned it.
Yet, somehow, Petr recognised something about the indistinct figure
– some indefinable quality that went beyond mere physical or visual recognition. ‘Thorn!’ he cried, running forward – dodging Saul’s outstretched arms and ignoring the big man’s cry of ‘No, Petr – no!’
&n
bsp; Petr, dropping his lantern in his headlong rush, threw himself into the arms of the boy – only to find himself embracing nothing more than droplets of water and air. Petr fell to his knees, sobbing.
Martha ran to Petr’s side, but Saul was motionless.
His head
scanned quickly from side to side. He was, Martha supposed, in hunting mode, his senses alert and his body tense.
Behind them – Saul was the first to notice, and he turned swiftly on the spot – the tall boy appeared again, more distinct now. The child’s eyes, full of sorrow, burned like torches in the deepening gloom. ‘Father,’ he said, his voice as fragile as autumn leaves – but he was looking at Saul, not Petr.
Martha watched as Saul recoiled and took a sudden step backwards.
The effect on Petr was almost as immediate – he jumped to his feet, his slender hands wiping away his tears. ‘I’m here, son,’ he called, but it was in vain, for the ghostly figure ignored him, staring instead at Saul. ‘Why were you never honest with Petr?’ asked the child, taking another step forward. With each movement, the figure seemed to take on form and mass, as if the very fog was thickening and shaping life itself. He appeared to be a teenager, gangling and awkward, his face fixed in a bewildered frown.
‘There are some things you don’t want to say,’ said Saul, staring only at his great hands, clasped as if in prayer. ‘Some things. . . You want to leave unspoken.’
‘Thorn,’ said Petr, naked desperation in his voice. ‘It’s me. . . Your 129
father.’
Martha stood beside Petr, a sinking feeling in her stomach. ‘You don’t know that’s Thorn,’ she said. ‘It could just be. . . something sent to trick you.’
‘You think I wouldn’t recognise my own child?’ Petr was furious now, though Martha realised he wasn’t angry with her, but with the fact that the boy – apparently his son – was still ignoring him.
Still ignoring him, and addressing Saul as his father. Saul looked up, staring into the soulless eyes of the young man before him. ‘How did you find out?’ he whispered. ‘We never told you. . . We decided it would be too. . . damaging.’