by Doctor Who
Or what had once been the Doctor.
Now there was a mass of writhing white weed surrounding his wide, brown eyes, the lips drawn back from his teeth in a feral cry.
The Land-Rover punched right through the thorn barrier, ripping the long wire-like stems apart. The thorns scratched at the vehicle, almost as if they were reacting to its intrusion and were determined to stop it. They dug deep into the metal hide of the car, forcing a series of screeching protests from the old, worn bodywork. The engine roared and the wheels clawed at the ground, churning into the white weed.
Angela kept her foot hard down on the throttle and dropped down a gear, forcing the engine into a metallic shriek. Her knuckles were bone-white on the steering wheel as the veteran Land-Rover bucked and rattled under her grip.
‘Keep going!’ bellowed Gaskin. ‘We’re getting through!’
He was holding on to the dashboard, willing the machine on. The Land-Rover reared and then surged forward, the last of the brambles scraping the dark green paint off in strips.
But it was free.
‘Ha!’ barked Angela gleefully. ‘Take that, you blasted alien mon-strosity! This isn’t just Earth you’re trying to invade. It’s England!’
The Land-Rover slewed around as it skidded on the weed, narrowly avoiding the large, gnarled growth containing the barmaid Lucy. Angela swung the wheel and the Land-Rover turned, tipping onto two wheels before crashing back down and speeding towards the well.
It was an eerie, twilight world of pale, alien weed. It was almost like a giant snow globe containing the well and the monster squeezing itself out of it like an enormous worm.
And in front of it, lit by a halo of putrescent green light, were the Doctor and Martha.
‘They’re still alive!’ Duncan said, pointing.
172
‘Are you sure?’ Gaskin asked as the Land-Rover came to a stop.
Without thinking, he was already opening the passenger door to step outside.
Angela had climbed down from the driver’s seat. ‘Of course he’s sure! Look!’
Martha and the Doctor were crouched in front of the Vurosis, hands clasped together. The Doctor was clearly in a bad way, but he still looked up at Angela as she approached. His eyes looked white and cold. ‘Trying to. . . hold it back. . . ’ he croaked. A pained smile appeared on his lips. ‘Could do. . . with a hand. . . ’
Angela nodded immediately and said, ‘Come on, Henry!’
Gaskin stepped forward a little uncertainly. ‘What can we do?’
‘Help them, of course!’ Angela grabbed hold of Martha’s free hand and held out her other hand towards Gaskin.
He reached out and took it. Her hand felt warm and dry in his. She smiled back at him and said, ‘It’ll be just like making a wish.’
Duncan joined them, looking up in disgust at the Vurosis. ‘That thing bullied its way into my mind, made me kill my best friend!’ He grabbed hold of Gaskin’s other hand. ‘Let’s do it!’
The Vurosis suddenly twisted and released a ferocious hiss of annoyance. Green light crackled around the well, discharging into the five people gathered around it in a semi-circle.
The Doctor got to his feet, shakily, but the veins were now settling beneath his skin, and his eyes were shining with renewed determination. ‘Keep fighting it,’ he said. ‘It can’t change all of us! That’s why it was trying to keep you out!’
The green glow of the telekinetic energy flowed over them, winding around their arms and legs, sparking and crackling but unable to settle. There were too many minds to infiltrate at once.
–i must grow–
‘I’m sorry,’ the Doctor said. He was looking more like his usual self again, tall, thin, standing up straight as the light flickered over him, his hair moving wildly as the telekinetic force scratched and scraped at his head. He looked directly up at the Vurosis brain, which was now shining with a desperate, blinding green light.
173
Then the electrical storm of energy surged up and around the well, up the Vurosis itself, concentrating on the brain. Long, jerking fingers of green light stabbed out of the brain, lashing at the humans assembled around it, but without actually connecting. Instead, the wild arcs of light zig-zagged back towards the creature itself. Suddenly it was illuminated from within, so brightly that its internal organs were visible through the fibrous outer hide.
The Vurosis thrashed from side to side like a wounded snake. A horrible scream filled the air, tearing through the dome of thorns.
Everyone inside and outside covered their ears with their hands, but the noise reverberated inside their heads.
‘Look!’ shouted the Doctor. Martha couldn’t actually hear him over the shrieking, but there was no mistaking what he was pointing to.
Cracks were appearing all over the Vurosis, and through the cracks a brilliant, dreadful green light was shining. Its scream reached a terrifying peak and then suddenly the creature blackened, and as it whipped from side to side in its death throes it broke itself apart, crumbling under its own weight. Its skin shredded into nothing, the alien guts inside unravelling and splitting, before finally turning to dust.
The fire spread out through the white weed, searing it away, leaving nothing but ash behind.
‘We did it!’ Martha yelled, whooping and jumping.
‘What did we do?’ Gaskin demanded.
‘Turned the Vurosis’s own power back on itself,’ said the Doctor as they watched the weed wither and die. ‘It wasn’t strong enough to take on all of us. It turned the power right up, but all that happened was that it got caught in its own telekinetic energy field. The transmutation process was accelerated beyond anything it could cope with.’
The last of the weed blackened and faded, revealing the figures of the people that had been caught up in the initial growth. They fell to the ground as soon as the supporting weed disappeared, and Martha instantly ran to help.
The Doctor caught up with her as she knelt by Lucy’s prostrate form.
Martha looked up at him. ‘I don’t know if she’s alive or not.’
174
‘Let’s move her and the others away from here,’ he told her. ‘It’s not over yet.’
There was no time to ask any more questions. The Doctor lifted Lucy onto one shoulder and carried her off the village green, his trainers slipping and sliding in the mud. Several onlookers helped him as he reached the pavement, lifting Lucy down onto a bench. Gaskin and Duncan were carrying another man out between them.
‘What’s happening now?’ Angela asked.
The ground was trembling beneath their feet once more. People were started to panic again, and there was talk of an earthquake.
‘The Vurosis had its roots deep underground,’ explained the Doctor calmly. ‘It’s spread out all under the village. It’s dying, but the chain reaction is carrying on all the way to its deepest parts.’
People were pulling the thorn brambles away, using gloves or spades or broom handles. The stems simply snapped and broke, crumbling to flakes. Soon the entire dome had caved in as if it were made from straw.
A weak green light shone from the well. It flickered and pulsed as the remainder of the alien being that had been growing for so long beneath the village finally burned away. There was a last, long moan from deep inside the earth and a final, bright flare. Soil and debris spewed out of the well, trailing bits of glowing weed which quickly turned to ash. Slowly the green light died away and all was still and dark.
The village green looked like a battlefield, and there were casual-ties.
‘Stand back, let’s have some air here, please. . . ’
said Martha,
cradling Lucy. The barmaid looked deathly pale and a number of people were crowding around. Martha laid her down and concentrated on clearing the girl’s airways, making sure there was nothing left inside her mouth to stop her breathing normally. ‘Lucy! Lucy! Can you hear me?’
Lucy’s eyes flickered open and she gave a sudde
n cough, doubling up as if she was choking. Her mouth gagged and she spat out the last bits of weed and soil. The weed crumbled to nothing.
175
‘This one’s alive too!’ called Duncan, sitting with one of the other men who had been caught in the weeds. He was spluttering too, but holding up a hand to indicate that he would be all right.
The Doctor had wandered back towards the well, which now stood in the middle of a field of churned mud and ash. He picked around in the dirt until he found a small rock no bigger than a lump of coal. It was grey and weighed next to nothing.
Gaskin joined him. ‘What is it?’
‘The remains of the Vurosis brain.’ The Doctor clenched his fist and the rock crumbled into powder. ‘Gone for ever.’ He dusted his hands, and the last fragments of the Vurosis blew away on the night air like smoke across a battlefield.
Scattered all around the vicinity of the well were lump of soil and rock and general debris thrown up when the Vurosis died.
‘This is a right old mess, isn’t it?’ Gaskin said quietly.
‘Oh, the grass will grow back all right,’ replied the Doctor. ‘And it looks like the well-shaft is still intact.’
‘I’m talking about the people who didn’t make it. Nigel Carson, Ben Seddon. . . Old Barney Hackett.’
‘Oh, yes, I see.’ The Doctor heaved a sigh, as if he had experienced this kind of thing before. ‘You have to think of the people who did make it,’ he said. ‘The people whose lives were saved. And there are an awful lot of those, you know.’
Angela arrived, picking her way carefully through the mud with the help of a borrowed torch. ‘Martha’s checking over the walking wounded, Doctor,’ she said. ‘And I’ve had a call from Sadie Brown.
She says she’s woken up with a terrible hangover in Henry Gaskin’s bed. I think she’s more traumatised by that than being turned into an alien monster. Or very nearly, at any rate. She says to thank you and can she turn off that blasted screwdriver thing as it’s making her headache worse and driving Jess up the wall. Oh, and she says the manor looks like it’s been hit by a bomb.’
‘Oh, blast,’ said Gaskin. ‘I’d forgotten about that!’
‘It’s going to cost you a fortune to get that repaired,’ Angela told him bluntly.
176
He nodded wryly at the remains of the wishing well. ‘And what about this? Bit of a setback for the Creighton Mere Wishing Well Restoration Committee, I should say.’
‘Oh, blow,’ Angela sighed, looking at the well properly. ‘Look at the state of it. Sadie will go bonkers.’
The parapet wall was scorched black and the uprights were no more than pieces of splintered wood. Angela peered down the well-shaft and sighed. ‘Not much point in making a wish now, is there?’
‘Wait a minute. What’s this?’ The Doctor was prodding at something in the mud with his toe. It was glinting in the light of Angela’s torch near the base of the well.
Gaskin picked it up. ‘It’s a coin, I think.’ He rubbed the mud off with his thumb. ‘Good grief. It’s gold – look!’ They all peered closely at the coin. ‘That’s an eighteenth-century gold sovereign,’ said the Doctor carefully.
‘And there’s more, look,’ said Angela excitedly, playing the beam of the torch over the ground by their feet. Golden lights reflected all around them.
‘Great Scott!’ cried Gaskin. ‘I don’t believe it!’
Martha came running over at the sound of their excited shouts. The Doctor was bending down, brushing soil from a large, leathery object.
‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said, holding up an old, dirty leather bag. It was mud-stained and rotted, but clearly full and very heavy. As they watched, more gold coins tumbled out of a hole in the ancient stitching.
‘It’s the treasure!’ yelled Martha. ‘It’s the highwayman’s treasure! It really was down there all the time!’
‘No, it’s not the treasure,’ said Angela happily. ‘It’s the Creighton Mere Well and Gaskin Manor Restoration Fund!’
177
The Doctor and Martha stayed on through the night to help collect all the gold sovereigns. Angela used her bush hat to store the coins, and somebody else managed to get their hands on a metal detector to track down the last few pieces lost in the mud. It was an exciting time for everybody, and helped take most people’s minds off the terrible events of the evening, at least for a while.
When the police finally arrived, there was little they could do except stare at the muddy village green and scratch their heads. The two constables took statements from a number of people who claimed to be eyewitnesses to an attempted alien invasion of the Earth, starting with Creighton Mere, but in truth the policemen were more confused by the various different accounts of the evening and eventually, finding no actual crime to investigate, they gave up and went away.
And after that, most people did what came naturally: they went back to the pub. Many of them had left drinks unattended, and found them exactly as they had left them.
Henry Gaskin ordered the largest bottle of fizzy white wine the pub stocked – it would have to do instead of champagne – and paid for drinks all round. Even Jess was treated to a bowl of water by the bar.
179
Gaskin was elected as Treasurer, a title almost everybody found un-accountably hilarious, and it was unanimously agreed that the proceeds should indeed be used to help rebuild those parts of Gaskin Manor destroyed by the Vurosis, along with a complete re-turfing of the village green, and of course the full and proper restoration of the wishing well.
Sadie Brown decided to put her share towards the setting up of a small tea room adjacent to the village green.
‘We’ll come back and be your first customers,’ Martha assured her happily.
‘Make sure you do!’ Sadie laughed, making a note of Martha’s mobile number and promising to call her as soon as she was ready to open.
Sadie returned the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver along with a pot of her Thick-Cut Tawny. She thanked him quietly but honestly for saving her life and kissed him on the cheek. Many people in the pub roared and raised their glasses.
‘We really think you ought to take a cut of the loot, you know,’
Angela said to the Doctor and Martha. ‘After all, if it wasn’t for you two. . . ’
‘It belongs to the village,’ said the Doctor. ‘We don’t.’
‘Take this as a souvenir, then,’ Angela said to Martha. She pressed a single gold sovereign into her hand and then closed Martha’s fingers over it like a grandmother giving a child pocket money. ‘Keep it for luck!’
Martha gaped. ‘I can’t take this! It’s worth a fortune.’
‘So are you, dear, so are you.’ She looked meaningfully at the Doctor and winked. ‘Take care of her, Doctor, won’t you?’
He said that he would, and then, with many more hugs and kisses and handshakes, they took their leave. On the way out of the pub, Martha bumped into Duncan again.
‘I thought we had a date?’ he said, smiling. ‘Or are you just teasing me now?’
She could see that he was smiling through some very grim memories. She took him to one side. ‘How are you feeling? Really?’
180
‘I can’t believe Ben and Nigel are gone.’
‘Nigel brought it all on himself, you know. There was nothing you could do.’
‘And Ben?’
‘Not your doing. None of it was.’ Martha held his hand. ‘Do you remember much about it?’
‘Nothing after that skeleton, no.’
‘It’s probably best that way.’
‘I do remember asking you out, though.’ He smiled at her. ‘And as much as I know you can’t resist me, I’ll have to ask you to hold out for a bit longer. I think I’ll need a little while to get over all this.’
‘Good idea.’
‘Angela Hook said I can stay here for as long as I want, and help out with the well restoration,’ Duncan added. ‘I think I’d like that.’
>
Martha kissed him goodbye and went out.
Once again, she found the Doctor waiting for her by the well. He was watching the sunrise.
‘I can’t keep this,’ she said, showing him the gold sovereign Angela had given her.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s too valuable. I mean, it would feel like stealing. I’ve never owned anything so valuable in all my life.’
The Doctor pulled a face. ‘I dunno. There’s a planet called Yoga that’s made from solid gold. They wouldn’t be impressed with you there.’
She laughed. ‘Maybe not. But all the same. . . ’
He watched her carefully, hands in his pockets, the tails of his long brown coat blowing out behind him. ‘So, what are you going to do with it, then?’
‘I’m going to make a wish,’ she said, holding it out over the well.
‘That’s a gold sovereign,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s got to be one heck of a wish.’
‘We’ll make it a double. Have you thought of what you’d wish for yet?’
181
He shook his head. ‘Nah.’
‘Go on,’ she said, stepping closer. ‘There must be something.’
‘Nope. Nothing.’ His eyes held that faraway look that Martha knew so well. Whatever he was thinking, whatever it was the Doctor secretly wished for, she would never find out. He was, and always would be, a mystery to her.
‘Well,’ she said eventually, ‘looks like I’m going to have to wish for both of us.’
She closed her eyes tight and let go of the coin. Seconds later there was a distinct, echoing plop as it hit water.
She opened her eyes in delight. ‘Did you hear that?’
The Doctor was already leaning over the well-shaft, peering down.
There’s water down there! The underground springs must be filling it again. Perhaps the Vurosis had been blocking them for all these years.’
‘That’s brilliant!’
He grinned at her. ‘I love a happy ending, don’t you?’