The Nightmare of Black Island

by Mike Tucker

  Distant muffled footsteps could be heard from overhead and there was the soft, low throb of machinery, generators of some kind, she supposed, but other than that it was silent. Rose crossed to the bag, pulling it out from under the tarpaulins. The fishing rods had been pushed in hurriedly without breaking them down properly, fishing line wound round everything in an untidy knot. Seeing the glint of fish hooks in the dim light from the bare bulb, Rose dragged the bag over to the window, determined to get a better look. Her fingers touched something sticky. She held her hand up to the light and swallowed hard. Dark red stains smeared her fingertips. Blood.

  Grimacing, she wiped her fingers on the damp canvas of the bag and opened the zipper carefully. It was what you would expect of a bag packed for a fishing trip: reels of line, cans of bait, carefully packed sections of various styles of fishing rod. A peaked cap and a stainless-steel Thermos flask were stuffed into a wide pocket at one end and there was a scrap of paper, an advert for holidays at Ynys Du.

  Rose unfolded it, looking at the cheery sunlit pictures of the harbour and the lighthouse. 'You'll never want to leave,' read the cheery headline.

  'Yeah. Right.'

  Rose stuffed the advert back into the bag, zipped it closed and dragged it back to where she had found it. She needed more evidence than this. She needed something that identified the man. It had been a vain hope that Morton and his cronies would have left anything that incriminating just lying about. She looked around the cellar in frustration. There was nothing.

  The background hum of the generators suddenly changed in pitch, deepening, the vibration setting the wine bottles rattling in their frames. Rose frowned. The noise was rhythmic and regular, almost like a heartbeat; she could feel the vibrations deep in her stomach. Another sound cut above the vibration, a high-pitched chattering and beeping.

  'That's not a generator,' Rose murmured.

  On the far side of the cellar a set of steps led up to the only door. It was slightly ajar. Rose crossed to it, climbing the short set of stone steps and pressing her eye to the gap.

  The door opened into a tall, vaulted corridor lined with pillars and arches. There was a dark wooden staircase against one end. The corridor was empty. Easing the door open, Rose slipped out. The cellars were more extensive than she had thought. Each arch led off to another room piled high with junk. Perhaps she would be lucky and find the evidence that she was looking for after all.

  The noise of machinery was louder now, almost painful. It was coming from one of the arches at the far end of the corridor. Wincing, Rose edged her way forward. There was a harsh, pulsing glow from behind the pillars that sent long fingers of light flickering across the vaulted ceiling. She could see the outlines of tall, gleaming machines ranged against the cellar walls, bundles of cables fixed clumsily to the ancient brickwork.

  She stepped down into the throbbing room in astonishment. It was full, packed floor to ceiling with technology. Tall silver cabinets were stacked against each wall, lights flickering deep inside them, while a large central console was bolted to the flagstones in the centre of the room. Cables and conduits snaked off into the shadows. Monitors showing the sleeping figures in the dining room hung in an ungainly tangle from the ceiling and huge power units throbbed in a corner.

  It was like mission control from some space shot, and certainly not the product of anything on Earth. Rose shook her head in amazement. Not the evidence she had been looking for, but certainly something that the Doctor would want to know about.

  She circled the console, trying to make sense of the flickering read-outs. Each set of controls seemed to relate to one of the sleeping figures upstairs. Heartbeat, respiration, brainwave activity.

  'What the hell are you up to Morton?' she murmured.

  The machinery suddenly shifted in pitch, the pulsing glow from the power units getting brighter, the vibrations stronger. Suddenly realising that she had been in the house longer than she had intended, Rose turned to make her way back out through the cellar window.

  And stopped dead. At the bottom of the stairs was Miss Peyne, an unfriendly smile on her face, an ugly, snub-nosed pistol in her hand.

  'Why, Miss Evans. You really have lost your way.'

  Several of the lab-coated figures appeared at her shoulder. Rose was trapped.

  The Doctor helped Bronwyn down the rickety spiral staircase, the noise from the machine in the lamp room humming in his ears. It had increased steadily over the last few minutes as more and more panels sprang to life across its surface.

  'We're going already?' Bronwyn was not happy. 'After you've dragged me all the way up here? I wish you'd make up your mind!'

  'Well, ideally I would have loved to stay and see what surprises the machine has in store, but there are dangerous amounts of power being fed through it. I have no idea what prolonged exposure to the transmissions might mean for either you or me, so better safe than sorry, eh? I suggest that we beat a hasty retreat, then collect up some of my equipment so that I can analyse what the machine was doing from a considerably safer distance.'

  They emerged on to the rocks at the base of the lighthouse. The Doctor craned his neck, looking back up the tower. A pale, sickly glow from the lamp room now lit up the darkening sky. They had been on the island longer than he thought and night was rapidly sneaking up on them.

  Bronwyn noticed it too and started back towards the cove where her boat was moored.

  'We must go. We've been here too long.' The old woman sounded genuinely scared.

  The Doctor nodded. 'I tend to agree.'

  Catching hold of her arm to steady her, the Doctor guided Bronwyn over the wet rocks towards the shore. He could see her little boat bobbing animatedly in the surf, tethered to the large craggy outcrop.

  Then suddenly there was an explosion of spray and something huge and dark burst from the ocean, its back ridged and barnacled. With a grating roar, it immediately vanished beneath the waves again.

  Bronwyn gave a moan, wringing her hands. 'Too late. We've left it too late. It's always the same. Every night, as soon as the children start to go to sleep.'

  The Doctor stared at her, open-mouthed. 'What did you say?' He slapped his hand against his forehead. 'I am a total bonehead... Every night... sleep... It's not the monsters! Those monsters don't create the nightmares. The nightmares create the monsters! And those transmitters in the machine, it's them. They're affecting the children... causing the nightmares!'

  The Doctor stared out at the churning waves. 'And now...' he said. 'Now the children are going to sleep.' He watched as, all across the island, things started to emerge from the sea.

  Rose had tried half-heartedly to make a break for it, but it had been a futile gesture. Two of the white-coated warders now held her by the arms. She struggled to shake herself loose, but they held her in a grip like steel.

  'Ow. You're hurting me.'

  Miss Peyne nodded and they relaxed their hold. Rose rubbed at her bruised arms, staring at the masked figures that surrounded her.

  'All right. You don't have to keep up the surgeon act. I'm not contagious. There's no need for the masks.'

  'Quite right, Miss Evans. I think we've worn all our masks quite long enough.'

  Each of the warders reached up in unison, grabbing their surgical masks and peeling them back. There was a horrible wet sucking noise. Rose stepped back in shock. It wasn't just the masks that the warders peeled away, but their entire faces!

  Miss Peyne gave a leering smile.

  'Now, isn't that better?'

  She grasped her own chin and pulled. Her entire face came away with the same wet sucking noise, revealing dark reptilian skin and gleaming malevolent eyes.

  Miss Peyne and all the warders were aliens!

  SEVEN

  Rose stared in horrified fascination at the aliens that surrounded her. They were without doubt among the most unpleasant-looking creatures that she had come across.

  Each of them was a dark green-grey colour, their skin wrinkle
d and ridged like decaying fruit. Short tufts of greasy hair sprouted from around a flattened, pug-like nose and their eyes were yellow slits, like a cat's. The mouths were wide and studded with sharp protruding teeth and a ridge of transparent spines ran over the tops of their heads, vanishing into the collars of their surgical gowns.

  To Rose, Miss Peyne looked the most bizarre of all. From the neck down she was still the stick-thin, prissy woman who had greeted them at the door, her tweed jacket still buttoned neatly beneath her lab coat, her shoes still clean and polished. But the head was now slimy and lizard-like, a thin tongue flicking through yellowing teeth. The effect was like that children's game where you mix up various heads, legs and torsos.

  The aliens jabbered to themselves in hissing tones, their human masks hanging grotesquely in their hands.

  Miss Peyne shot them a vicious look and instructed them to be quiet. Then she turned to Rose, her mouth widening unpleasantly.

  'Well, my dear, I'm impressed. You seem to be taking all this in your stride.'

  Rose tried to sound more blase than she felt.

  'Well, you know. When you've seen one alien species that disguises itself as human, you've seen them all. You'd get on well with the Slitheen. You can trade fashion tips.'

  'Ah, the dear Raxacoricofallapatorians. They do try so hard to integrate themselves seamlessly into society, but all that gas, it's so undignified.'

  'Who are you?'

  'Ah. Direct. Good.' The lizard tongue flickered out. 'We are the Cynrog. I am Peyne Tek Verlap, Priest Commander of the Third Cynrog Scientific Militia.'

  'Miss Peyne.' Rose snorted. 'Very good. Very original.'

  An amusement. And an identity for the necessary dealings we have with your unpleasant species.'

  And what dealings would those be, eh?' Rose was bolder now, looking Peyne full in the face. 'Kidnapping old people, drugging them up to the eyeballs. Does Morton know what you get up to in his cellar? Can't imagine he manages to get down here with his wheelchair and that. Don't think he'd be happy.'

  The wide smile faded. 'You're quite right. Nathaniel does find it difficult to get down here, so we should be polite and pay him a visit, don't you think?'

  Peyne gestured towards the stairs. 'After you, Miss Evans.'

  Ali watched from the doorway to the cellar as Rose was ushered up the stairs by the grey-skinned monsters. Her heart was hammering in her chest. Monsters. Real monsters. Not like the ones from her nightmares, not like the ones that she drew night after night, but something far more tangible and terrifying. Monsters that hid under human masks!

  Rose vanished through the door at the top of the stairs and the monster that had once been the frightening woman slammed it shut. Ali crept back down the stone steps and crouched at the bottom, leaning against the cool of the wall and wondering what to do next. She knew that she shouldn't have followed Rose, but in the end it had seemed that she didn't have much choice.

  She had waited in the lean-to for what seemed like for ever after Rose had vanished through the cellar window. Eventually she had decided that she would count to 100, then go and get the others.

  The first 100 had come and gone. Then another, followed by another. The clouds had started to close in overhead and the sky had grown darker. Night was starting to fall and Ali was getting scared.

  As the sky grew black and the rain became heavier she knew she had to make a decision. Either to go back down the tunnel and fetch the others or to find out what was happening to Rose. She peered down the tunnel, but now, in the fading light, it seemed far blacker than it had earlier. The little LEDs in her torch barely made an impression on the gloom.

  Besides, Ali reasoned, if it was getting dark, then the monsters would start to roam the woods. It was always at dusk when you first started to hear them – the roars and howls. She hoped her friends had had the sense to leave before it got too dark.

  Aware that she was probably going to be in big trouble when she got home, Ali had edged her way across the courtyard, eyes fixed on the narrow window that Rose had vanished through.

  The window was heavy and it had taken all her strength to lift it. The smell of the cellar almost made her sneeze, it was so dusty and dank.

  'Rose?' she'd whispered as loud as she dared. Are you there?'

  Silence.

  So, with a last look around the courtyard, Ali had taken a deep breath and slipped through into the dark cellar.

  The floor was further down than she had realised and she'd nearly overbalanced as the window swung shut behind her. Teetering precariously on the window sill, she swung round, lowering herself down slowly until she touched the floor with the toe of her trainers.

  The cellar was dark and empty, but Ali had heard noises coming from the door on the far side of the room, and voices. Sneaking over, she had peered through the gap into the corridor beyond, watching as a tall lady and several of the creepy masked nurses had surrounded Rose.

  Then had come the part that nearly made Ali scream, the part where they had ripped their faces off, revealing the horrible monsters underneath. She had wanted to run and hide, but she knew that if she made the slightest noise the monsters would capture her too.

  Now she waited in the dark, waited until she was certain that they had all gone, then slipped through into the corridor once again. The noise from the strange machinery was giving her a headache, so she stuck her fingers in her ears. Slowly she made her way towards the door at the top of the stairs. Holding her breath, she reached out and turned the handle. It wasn't locked and the door swung open.

  Ali paused for a moment. This was the point of no return. She thought about the tunnel and the wood full of monsters that she would have to go through if she tried to go back. Then she thought of Rose, alone and in the clutches of these new monsters. Rose was her friend. She couldn't leave without trying to help.

  With a deep breath, Ali stepped through the doorway and into the house.

  The Doctor and Bronwyn huddled at the base of the lighthouse, their backs pressed against the wet steel trying desperately not to attract the attention of the hulking monstrosity that snuffled and scraped at the ground on the other side.

  The falling of night had been like a signal for the creatures to appear. All across the island they had swarmed out of the sea, slithering and crawling over the rocks. Something huge had swept above the lighthouse on leathery wings earlier. The Doctor still hadn't managed to get a good look at that particular monster, though perhaps this was a good thing.

  The two of them had headed away from the coast and back towards the lighthouse. Bronwyn had pleaded with the Doctor to try and make it to the boat. Surely they would be safe out at sea? The Doctor had refused. Once they were out on the open ocean, they would be trapped, easy prey for any of the creatures that could swim or fly. No. They needed room to manoeuvre, not to mention time for him to formulate some kind of plan.

  The sickly glow from the lighthouse and last remnants of the dying sun had afforded them glimpses of the things that now prowled across Black Island. Some crawled on squat legs, others writhed on tentacles. Spider shapes and dinosaur shapes mixed with strange combinations of scales, feathers and fur. The creatures truly did come from the imagination of children; they conformed to no known process of evolution. Limbs and bodies had been thrust together with imaginative abandon, the colours of their hides drawn from the palette of a nursery-school painting set.

  Not that it made them any less dangerous. Each of the shambling horrors was equipped with a fearsome armoury of fangs and claws. The Doctor had watched as just one of the monsters had cut a bloody swathe through the colony of seals, wiping out dozens of them with each swipe of a razor-sharp claw.

  He had had to stop Bronwyn from rushing forward to try and save them. Instead, he had dragged the old woman away. And now they were trapped here, back at the lighthouse, hiding in the shadows, desperately trying to stay out of sight as the monsters spread out across the island.

  The fact that the c
reatures had appeared within moments of the machine in the lighthouse springing to life had connected two more pieces of the puzzle and the Doctor had started to formulate some very nasty theories. He badly needed to examine the machine more closely, disable it if at all possible, but when they had arrived at the lighthouse they found the doorway blocked by a shambling, lank-haired beast with huge tusks, gnawing on the remains of one of the unfortunate seals.

  Keeping to the scrubby gorse bushes and darting from boulder to boulder, they had managed to make it around to the far side of the lighthouse. Now the Doctor was just waiting for the right time to make a dash for the doorway.

  He peered around the base of the lighthouse. The creature had its back to him, concentrating on its meal. A thick tail, studded with wicked spikes, thrashed aimlessly. There was no chance of getting past that without being torn to pieces. The rest of the monsters were concentrated over by the decimated seal colony, feasting on the corpses that littered the rocks.

  'What are we going to do?' Bronwyn's voice was trembling. 'The things are everywhere.'

  'If we can just get back inside the lighthouse I can lock us in.' The Doctor brandished his sonic screwdriver. 'It won't take long. We just need a few seconds to get through the door.'

  'We'll never make it with that thing in the way.'

  'We need a distraction, that's all.' The Doctor took another peek around the lighthouse. 'And I think one is just arriving.'

  The distraction came in the form of another of the beasts from the children's nightmares. Gorged on seal, a spindly spider-like creature clattered towards them, mandibles dripping with gore. The thing blocking their way to the lighthouse gave a low grumbling roar, its tail smashing down on the rocks. With an ear-splitting screech, the spider thing launched itself forward and the two monsters crashed together, tumbling end over end down the slope towards the thunderous surf.