Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Rose and Ten The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Eleven ( Chapter 11 )

Rose tried to scream, but no sound would come from her throat. Above the roars of the creature she thought she could hear the sound of a child laughing. Then the huge taloned hands closed around her . . . And she woke with a start, almost tumbling from the jump seat.

After chasing the Hoix in Woolwich, they'd returned to the TARDIS, and Rose remembered sitting on the jump seat, watching the Doctor tinker with the console. She must have fallen asleep, but she couldn't remember. He must have covered her with his coat at some point.

The Doctor looked up from a screen, concern in his eyes. `Are you all right?'

Rose ran a hand through her hair, her eyes flicking around the shadows that pooled in the corners of the console room. `Yeah, a dream, that's all. A nightmare.' She shivered, pulling the Doctor's coat around her shoulders.

`Not surprisin' really, is it? Considerin' the stuff we end up seein' . . .' Maybe it was the close call with the Hoix that influenced her dream. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and shuffled over to where the Doctor was prodding at the console. `What are you doin'?'

`It seems that you're not the only one who was having nightmares.' He cocked his head to one side and peered at her. `Can you remember what your dream was about?'

`Things. Creatures . . . '

`Creatures?'

`Yeah, I was at the coast. Not a beach with sand, but lots of rocks . . . and a lighthouse. There was a storm. And a kid, a little boy who kept laughing. Then this thing came out of the sea, a big sea monster sort of thing, four arms, breathing fire. It killed a man, a fisherman, and it was startin' to turn on me . . . '

The Doctor's frown deepened. `Well, isn't that strange.'

Rose was puzzled. `Why? What's up with that? It was just a dream, wasn't it?'

The Doctor nodded at the screen in front of him. `Seems like you and the TARDIS both had the same dream. We picked up some very odd readings while you were asleep. I've been tracing them back to their source.'

Rose crossed to his side, peering over his shoulder. `Oh, my God!'

On the screen was a long stretch of rocky coast, harsh and windswept. Out in the waves was a jagged lump of black rock, the long, slender shape of a lighthouse stabbing towards the heavy clouds.

`That's the place!' Rose stared in disbelief. `That's where I was in my dream!'

The Doctor looked up at her with a mysterious twinkle in his eyes. `And if the place is real, then the creature might be real as well. Shall we go and take a look?'

Before Rose had a chance to answer the Doctor darted round the console, spinning wheels and pumping energetically at some of the TARDIS's more jerry-rigged controls. With a grind of ancient engines, the TARDIS started to turn, and Rose realised with a thrill of terror that quite possibly she was about to confront the creature from her nightmare.

With a rattling of the latch, the door swung inwards and the Doctor stepped out into the cold night air, coat billowing in the wind. Rose emerged tentatively after him, looking around nervously.

The Doctor spread his arms wide and took a long, deep breath. `Come on, Rose. Get a good lungful of that fresh sea air.'

Rose pulled her parka tight around her. She was reminded of childhood holidays in Tenby with her mum. `You'll get a great lungful of fresh sea water if you're not careful. It's freezin' out here!'

`It's a bit fresh, I'll admit.' He twirled, fixing her with a piercing gaze. `Is this the place?'

Rose nodded, stepping closer to his side and shivering. `Yeah. It is. The same as I saw in my dream. It's weird.'

`Marvellous!' The Doctor smiled happily, pulling the TARDIS key from his pocket and locking the police box door. Rose turned slowly around. Everything was horribly familiar. The tall, jagged cliffs, the brooding sky. Along the coast she could see the lights from the village, tucked into the curve of the bay, a tiny harbour jutting out into the cold grey sea.

A noise made her jump, a long wail, drawn out and plaintive. On the next headland over she could see the lights of a lonely farmhouse, a trail of smoke whipped from its chimney by the driving wind. She caught the Doctor by the arm. `Listen.'

The Doctor turned from the TARDIS, head cocked to one side. The sound came again, high-pitched and almost cat-like, cutting through the sound of the wind.

Rose felt goosebumps run down her spine. `It's a baby. Poor thing sounds terrified.'

`It's not happy, certainly.' The Doctor pulled a pair of opera glasses from his coat and peered at the lights blazing from the distant farm buildings. `And keeping the house awake by the look of things.'

`Where are we exactly?' Rose asked.

`Wales, according to the instruments.' The Doctor swung his gaze out towards the horizon. `West coast, just along from Tenby, I think. Village called Ynys Du.'

`Come again?' So that's why she was reminded of her holidays as a child.

`Black Island. Not the kind of place you usually find ravening four armed creatures, I must admit, but probably very good for sea bass. Ah . . . '

`What is it?'

The Doctor nodded out to sea. `Your mysterious lighthouse?'

Rose followed his gaze. The racing clouds cleared from the moon for a moment and she could make out the tall, slender shape rising from the jagged mound of black rock in the bay.

She shivered again, though this time not from the cold. `Yeah. That's it.'

The Doctor adjusted a small dial on the opera glasses, peering intently at the lighthouse through the computer-enhanced lenses. `Doesn't look as though it's been used for years. Shame. Make a nice little home, that would. Tricky to get your milk delivered, but no problem with the neighbours.'

`Great if you like fish.'

`Exactly!' He lowered the glasses and turned to her. `Where did you see the fisherman?'

Rose nodded down the cliff. A well-worn path snaked through the gorse, winding its way to an untidy jumble of rocks at the water's edge.

`Down there, on the rocks.'

The Doctor raised his opera glasses again, scanning the coast. `No sign of any monsters . . . Hello . . . '

Rose's heart jumped. `What is it? Have you seen it?'

`I think there's someone there.' The Doctor frowned. `Thought I caught a glimpse of someone at the shoreline.'

`The creature?'

`Not unless it's taken to wearing a long white coat.' He tucked the glasses back into his pocket. `Come on. Let's take a closer look.' The Doctor set off down the rocky path, his own coat billowing out behind him.

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It turned out that the sleepy fishing village of Ynys Du, near Tenby, wasn't so much sleepy as nightmarish. When the children of the village slept, the monsters in their nightmares walked the streets and woods.

When the Doctor and Rose had arrived, they'd been chased through the woods by a variety of bizarre, alien looking monsters. They had taken refuge at the Red Lion pub, where Rose had befriended a young girl called Ali Hardy.

One of the locals, a woman called Bronwyn Ceredig, had told them about some strange goings on at the rectory. The following morning, the Doctor and Rose visited the rectory and met the owner, Nathaniel Morton and his assistant Miss Peyne.

They claimed to be running a nursing home, but earlier in the day, the Doctor and Rose had seen evidence that brought that claim into question. They had sneaked into a room and saw six patients, silent and motionless, faces pale even against the white of the sheets and pillows, their breathing shallow and faint.

Four men, two women: old, no, ancient, their skin almost transparent, their hair wispy and silver. Thin, positively skeletal hands rested on the blankets covering them, while needles protruded obscenely from their veins. The entire room smelt antiseptic, clinical. White-coated figures padded softly from bed to bed, adjusting tubes, peering at machines, their faces masked and anonymous.

That afternoon, the Doctor persuaded Bronwyn to take him out to the Black Island Lighthouse. There, in a cave, he'd found an alien spaceship, and in the lamp room, he'd found alien psychic transceivers which appeared to be giving the children nightmares and then giving those nightmares substance.

While he was in the lighthouse, Rose had gone back to the rectory to investigate the mysterious Nathaniel Morton and his assistant, Miss Peyne. Rose had been caught and strapped to a bed, where Miss Peyne drugged her and extracted her memories with a futuristic headset. Who ever these people were, they were good at getting inside peoples heads. Ali had bravely followed Rose into the rectory and helped her escape down the fire escape.

And now, Rose was in Bronwyn's ramshackle beachfront house, preparing to go back out to the lighthouse to try and disable the transceivers.

[`Rose!']

`Doctor?' Rose sprang to her feet, looking around, surprised by the Doctor's voice. Apart from Bronwyn, Ali and Butch the guard duck the room was empty. She turned in a slow circle, puzzled. `Where are you?'

[`Strapped to a bed in the rectory. Don't ask stupid questions!'] So they'd caught him and were doing to him what they'd done to her she thought.

Realisation dawned on Rose. `Are you in my head? Are you poking around inside my head with telepathy or somethin'?'

[`Yes! Now listen.']

`I don't believe this! Aren't you meant to ask or anything before you come barging in?' He'd done something like this with Reinette, and that hadn't gone well.

[`Rose, I really don't have too much time! The Cynrog got inside your dreams because their machinery operates on the same frequency that the TARDIS uses to translate languages in your head. I'm hitching a ride on the same frequencies because they've wired me into their system. They're occupied at the moment and I'm cleverer than they are, but it's taking a lot of effort and I don't have much time so I need you to shut up and listen.']

Rose sat down hard, aware of the curious looks she was getting from the others. Presumably they were only hearing one side of the conversation. She gave them an embarrassed smile.

`OK, I'm listening,' she whispered.

[`Right. And don't talk, just think. Think the words.']

Rose gritted her teeth and concentrated on forming the words in her head. [`All right.'] As she concentrated on the Doctor, she felt something . . . Loneliness, such a lonely childhood. She was brought back to the present by the Doctor's voice in her head.

[`Good. I know what the connection between Bronwyn and the boy is.']

[`Yeah. He's her son. And you were right, his name's Jimmy.'] This was the child Rose had heard laughing in her nightmare and had been seen with the monsters.

[`I'm having a chat with him now. At least, I'm with something that looks like him, something that has his memories, but it probably has a good part of something else too.']

[`Hang about . . . You're with him? But they sent him away. He got adopted. It nearly finished her. Ended her marriage. It was when he was small, but that was years ago. She doesn't even know if he's still alive.']

[`Yeah, well, this one is still about six.']

`OK, this is getting seriously creepy.' She realised that she had said this out loud when Ali gave her a puzzled look. Smiling embarrassedly, she forced herself to concentrate on her thoughts again.

[`She blames herself. Says she was a bad mother. That she's been keeping something secret all these years, in her head. I think that's what's made her a bit, you know . . . odd.']

[`Yes, well, she's got a fair chunk of an alien lodged in her brain, and not a nice one either. Must have been affecting her for years.']

[`You what?']

[`Doesn't matter. All you need to know is that she's got something the Cynrog don't know about. Let's keep it that way. Will she take you to the lighthouse?']

[`Yeah. She's just sorting out a lifejacket for Ali.']

[`Right. You're gonna have to hurry, 'cause things are going to start prowling again shortly. And there's a bit of a change with what I want you to do. Still got the sonic screwdriver?']

[`Of course.']

[`OK, then listen carefully.']

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The Doctor stood on the lawn in front of the blazing rectory. The resurrected Cynrog warlord, Lord Balor had run amok and destroyed the alien equipment, causing it to explode and start the fire. It was a feral monster, lacking one final part of it's scattered psyche.

The Doctor closed his eyes as the razor claws reached out through the rain, waiting for the killer blow from the Cynrog monster. It never came. He opened one eye cautiously. The creature was staring at its claws, turning them this way and that. It looked down at the Doctor.

`I think I chipped a nail.'

The Doctor blinked. `I'm sorry?'

`A nail. Look.' It held out a claw. `And that head. Do you think it's going to be fattening? You never know with foreign food, do you?'

The creature skittered across the lawn, staring at its reflection in the tall windows of the rectory. `Do you think I look all right in this? I'm not sure if it suits me. I'm meant to be going to Maureen's wedding next week and I'm really not convinced.'

Yes! Rose must have got Ali to the lighthouse in time. Ali had been small enough to crawl under the psychic transceiver and recalibrate it with his sonic screwdriver. Instead of the monsters being inside peoples dreams, peoples dreams were feeding back inside this monsters head.

As the Doctor watched, a flicker of energy lanced from the roof of the shattered rectory and danced around the creature's outline. Balor seemed to be shrinking. It started to scamper in circles, arms waving agitatedly.

`Oh, God. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make that mortgage payment in time. And what if I don't get that job at the chemist? He says he wants to settle down, but I know he's still seeing Pauline from the WH Smith in town. Three of Dai Williams's chickens dropped dead last week. I hope we've not got that bird flu thing here . . . '

The creature was shrinking faster and faster now, its scales fading, changing, its skin becoming pinstriped, masked, different football colours, a blur of shapes and images. The voice got more and more frantic, words blurring into each other. The Doctor could hear snatches of half-shouted fears: global warming, old age, cellulite, rent cheques, girlfriends, boyfriends, debts, affairs. The creature was a whirling blur now. And then, with a sudden pop, it vanished.

The Doctor stood in the rain in the middle of the lawn, staring at the spot where the creature had been. That was one of the finest examples of poetic justice he'd seen in a long while. Shakespeare would have loved it.

Choking clouds of black smoke billowed into the night air as more and more of the rectory succumbed to the flames. A shattering explosion sent him tumbling across the grass. That was presumably the last of the Cynrog equipment.

He picked himself up and glanced across to the wreckage of the dining room. That room too was ablaze. The husks of those people who had held the mind of Balor for most of their lives were finally free.

The last of the Cynrog technicians were rushing about in confusion. The Doctor sighed. He had work to do. He couldn't let desperate aliens wander free. He clapped his hands.

`Right, you lot. Your commander's dead, your god is gone, I'm the rightful guardian of this planet and it's time for you to sling your hook, before I get REALLY angry.'