Doctor Who BBCN16 - Forever Autumn (20 page)

Martha followed the direction of his finger.

Something was happening to the mist. Slowly it was beginning to spin, like water running down a plughole. The eye of the vortex was maybe thirty metres above them, but at its centre, instead of darkness, she could see a pulsing, rhythmic glow. It was faint at first, but as she watched it grew steadily brighter and began to expand outwards. It was as though something was coming, some celestial visitation, approaching through a tunnel of light.

Everyone had seen it now. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to stare up, awestruck and fearful. The only movement came from the fairground rides on the far side of the field. The only sound was the music still blasting from the loudspeakers, an inane accompaniment to a spectacle as breathtaking as it was ominous.

The glow increased until it was a ball of blazing light, a miniature sun, which illuminated the night sky and cast a sickly pallor across the proceedings below. The townsfolk began to murmur in fear, to gather their children close.

All at once, multiple tendrils of green light erupted from the centre of the vortex like an exploding firework. Each of the tendrils sought out a different child, encircling their victims in crackling loops of luminescence.

As the green fire skittered up and down their bodies, the children stood rigid, their faces (those that weren’t concealed behind masks) 137

expressionless, their eyes staring ahead. Some parents screamed or began to cry. Martha heard a mother shouting ‘Jeb!’ over and over again. She heard another woman screech, ‘No! Leave my girl alone!’

She even heard one father say angrily, ‘Come on, Jason, quit fooling around,’ as if this was some mass practical joke concocted by the children themselves.

The kids, however, seemed oblivious to the anguish of their parents. Martha looked around, helpless and horrified, wishing there was something she could do. She half-turned to speak to the Doctor, but then felt a hand tugging at the sleeve of her leather jacket, an anxious voice calling her name. Turning in the opposite direction, she looked into Rick’s wide-eyed face.

‘Look at Thad,’ he said.

Like most of the other kids, Thad was encased in a funnel of shimmering light. Also like the others, he was standing immobile, his expression slack, mouth hanging open. But as Martha looked at him, she realised something else was happening too. Slowly, subtly, Thad was beginning to change. His face was becoming wizened, his skin turning to parchment. The bandages around him were tightening, ageing, acquiring a patina of mould and dust. The very shape of his body was altering – his bones elongating, his hands twisting into claws.

His skull was stretching, his brow getting heavier. He was starting to hunch forward like an ape.

‘Doc–’ Martha began. And then she realised a similar transformation was overcoming all the other children. Kids dressed as were-wolves were growing taller, more bestial, their fingers lengthening into talons, real fur springing up on their bodies; those dressed as witches were turning into withered crones, their hideous, bent-nosed faces developing warts and boils; those who had come as vampires were becoming sallow, their incisors lengthening to sharp points.

It was happening all around the showground. Children were actually turning into the creatures they had dressed up as. They had just one common factor: the eyes of each were glowing a vivid, putrescent green.

The changes took maybe fifteen seconds. Then the lassoes of light 138

round the children’s bodies withdrew, snapping back into the blazing eye of the vortex, like a vast creature retracting its tentacles. Horrified parents backed away from their kids. The monsters began to snarl and roar and hiss as they straightened up. They stretched their transformed muscles and shook their heads, as though throwing off the effects of a deep sleep. Some raised their claws and looked around, taking a renewed and deadly interest in their surroundings.

‘Oh my God,’ Martha said, feeling sick, ‘they’re going to get the kids to kill their parents, aren’t they?’

‘Their parents and then each other,’ said the Doctor grimly. ‘They need the terror
and
the blood.’

‘That’s
horrible
.’

‘To the Hervoken, it’s just like pulling in at the petrol station and filling up the tank.’

‘How do we stop it?’ Martha asked.

‘Stay alive for a start,’ said the Doctor.

Before she could respond, he grabbed the collar of her jacket and yanked her backwards. The transformed Thad’s claw-like hand swiped through the space where her head had been a split second before. Martha caught a glimpse of Thad’s snarling, green-eyed, utterly inhuman face. Then she and the Doctor were tumbling backwards over the low counter of a home-made jewellery stall, scattering the carefully arranged displays of earrings and brooches and bracelets.

The owner of the stall, a young woman with henna-red hair and a baggy jumper, had already taken refuge beneath the counter, and screamed as the Doctor and Martha sprawled before her. Like a cat, the Doctor sprang upright in an instant.

‘Shh,’ he said. ‘It’s OK. You stay there. You’ll be fine.’

Crouching low, he peered over the counter and was joined seconds later by Martha. The scene before them was one of sheer pandemo-nium.

Adults were running, screaming, from their children, who were pursuing them with murderous intent; a huge spider (probably the girl she had given the orang-utan to, Martha realised with a thrill of horror) was scaling the metal framework of the now-motionless Ferris 139

wheel to reach the terrified adults trapped in the upper cars; over by the main marquee, a group of adults were fending off a ravening horde of monsters with tables and chairs; nearby, Rick was lying on the ground with Thad’s hands round his throat, whilst Chris had his arms wrapped round Thad’s chest and was trying to drag him away.

Martha scrambled over the counter to give Rick and Chris a hand.

Thad was drooling and snapping, his teeth long and yellow. If Chris hadn’t been holding him, Martha had no doubt he would be trying to rip Rick’s throat out. She looked around for something to use and spotted a second-hand bookstall. She crossed to it, grabbed the biggest hardback she could find, then ran back over to the three boys and swung the book at Thad’s head. It connected with a hefty thunk and Thad’s grip loosened on Rick’s throat. She was about to deliver another blow when a voice shouted, ‘Stop!’

It was the Doctor. ‘Don’t hurt him,’ he said. ‘Whatever they look like, remember they’re still only children.’

‘What are we supposed to do?’ gasped Chris, still struggling with the half-dazed Thad. ‘Reason with him?’

‘Let me,’ said the Doctor, dropping to his knees beside Rick’s prone body and facing the bandaged ghoul that Thad had become. He reached out with both hands, then quickly snatched one back as Thad twisted and snapped at his fingers like a dog. He blew in Thad’s face to distract him, then tried again, both hands snaking in to grip Thad’s thrashing head. He pressed his thumbs into Thad’s temples, and immediately the ferocious expression slipped from the boy’s face. His eyes closed and he slumped forward in Chris’s arms.

‘Lower him to the ground gently,’ said the Doctor, then swiftly examined Rick’s throat. ‘You OK, Ricky boy?’

Rick swallowed and winced, then nodded groggily.

‘Fine,’ he

croaked.

‘Good man.’

Chris was looking at Thad, who was now snoring gently. ‘What was
that
?’ he marvelled. ‘Vulcan death-grip?’

‘Lepscillian massage technique,’ said the Doctor. ‘He’ll feel refreshed and bountiful when he wakes up.’

140

‘Bountiful?’ queried Martha.

‘Lepscillians’ favourite word. It’s all bountiful this and bountiful that on Lepscillia. Drives you bonkers after a while.’

He stood up and looked around, his jaw clenching as he took in the scene around him. Fifty metres away a group of demons, most of them horned and red-skinned, were laying siege to a burger van. The beleaguered members of staff were throwing whatever they could find at the attacking creatures: cutlery, cooking utensils, frozen burgers, even bread rolls. The demons, lithe and agile as apes, were shaking the van, leaping onto the roof, clawing at the staff through the side opening.

‘No,’ breathed the Doctor as one of the staff members panicked and made a break for it out of the back doors. He was a skinny guy of around twenty, with curly hair and a scrappy beard. Although fear lent him an impressive turn of speed, he was no match for the trio of demons which broke away from the larger pack to pursue him. They fell on him like a pride of lions upon a gazelle. As the man began to scream, the Doctor looked away, his face furious, and swung his rucksack from his back.

‘
Chris!
’ shouted Martha as a zombie came shambling up behind him, arms outstretched. Chris threw himself forward, rolling over and springing to his feet. The Doctor tore open the rucksack and lifted out the Necris. With one blast of the sonic the iron band securing it broke into two pieces and fell to the ground. The Doctor held the Necris above his head.

‘This stops
now
!’ he yelled, pressing the still-active sonic against the Necris’s cover. The fleshy material began to ripple and shudder as though in pain. ‘Show yourselves, Hervoken, or your precious book gets it.’

There was a bubbling and a boiling from the centre of the vortex, and suddenly there they were, a dozen or more Hervoken, material-ising out of thin air. They hovered ten metres above the ground, in a wide circle around the Doctor, tall and spindly, like great black carrion crows.

Rick gasped at his first sight of the aliens and dropped to his knees.

141

Chris moaned and cowered in fear. Martha clenched her fists, but stood her ground, shoulder to shoulder with the Doctor.

Hair still blowing around his head, arms raised aloft, the Doctor shouted, ‘Right, this is the deal. Listen carefully. I’m not open to negotiation. You put an end to this slaughter
now
or I’ll destroy the Necris.

And don’t think I can’t or I won’t, because I can and I will. I’ve broken through everyone of its defences, and all I have to do is increase the sonic frequency by another few levels, and your indispensable little starter motor will be dust. And don’t think you can snatch it away with your spells either. The sonic field has been configured to deflect any rescue attempt. You try to trans mat this beauty and your energy will bounce right back atcha. As long as
my
sonic is in contact with
your
Necris, you can’t do a thing, you can only listen.’

He paused briefly and looked around the circle of Hervoken, his expression steely. Then he said, ‘OK, what’s going to happen is this.

The people of Blackwood Falls want you out of their town and off their planet. So you put an end to this
now
and I’ll find you another source of fuel – one that doesn’t involve killing people. I can do it, easy. I’m good with engines. Soon as the ship’s ready, we’ll clear the town and you can vamoose. All right, you’ll wreck a few houses, but so what? Houses are just
things
, aren’t they? They’re not
important

– like people, like lives. This way you get your Necris back and you get to keep your ship. Course, you’ll have to keep an eye out for the Eternals whilst you’re up there, but that’s your problem. Once you’re off this planet, our association ends.’

Despite the continuing screams and cries and roars, not to mention the still-blaring music, the echoes of the Doctor’s voice seemed to ring out around the showground. The Hervoken regarded him impassively, not responding.

‘Well, come on,’ the Doctor shouted, ‘I haven’t got all –’

Something swooped from the sky, seeming to appear from nowhere.

Martha ducked, thinking it was a huge bird, an eagle perhaps. The flying creature snatched the book from the Doctor’s hand before he had a chance to alter the frequency of the sonic. Martha saw that it was some kind of sprite or evil fairy – doubtless another of the 142

transformed children. She looked back at the Doctor, still not entirely sure what had happened, and saw an expression of horror on his face.

‘
No!
’ he shouted.

The Hervoken leader gave a triumphant hiss and performed a magician-like flourish whose meaning was patently obvious:
You lose.

The Doctor and Martha could do nothing but watch as the sprite delivered the Necris into the Hervoken leader’s hands. The alien opened its mouth wide in what Martha could only think of as a gloating grin and muttered a quick incantation. A fizzing green light enveloped the Necris, and it faded away. . .

. . . to reappear seconds later in the hollow on top of the central dais in the main chamber of the Hervoken ship. Instantly the mass of claw-like roots fringing the hollow clamped into place over the book, like the jaws of a Venus fly trap closing on an unsuspecting insect.

Martha felt numb. They had lost. The Doctor had made the silliest, most fundamental mistake by not looking behind him, and suddenly it was all over.

As some of the hideous creatures that had once been children closed in on them, Martha thought of her family: her mum and dad, and her brother Leo and her sister Tish. She thought of her flat and her job back in London, thought of how her life had changed so irrevocably in such a short time, of all the amazing things she’d done. She’d seen Shakespeare’s England and 1930s New York; she’d been on the prison planet Volag-Noc and travelled on real-life spaceships; she’d survived encounters with Plasmavores and Daleks, real-life witches and giant, pollution-guzzling crabs. And now it was all going to end here, ripped apart by a bunch of possessed children. As though he sensed her thoughts, the Doctor took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze.

She looked up at him. His face was sombre, almost wistful. ‘You really shouldn’t have done that,’ he murmured to the Hervoken. Then he held up his sonic screwdriver.

∗ ∗ ∗

143

The Necris convulsed, sending a shock wave through the Hervoken ship. Then, like a giant sponge, it began to absorb energy, to suck the already thin life-blood from the veins of the vessel at an incredible speed. Ripples of energy flowed from the thrashing vines. The central dais pulsed and shimmered as the ship’s entire stock of reserve power converged on it.