Doctor Who BBCN08 - The Feast of the Drowned Page 14

  They would come to her. Yes, that was a lovely thought. They cared and they would come to get her out of here before the feast began.

  Keisha was drifting in and out of an uneasy sleep, totally drained. Her life felt so messed up and mixed around she had become numb to it.

  Now and then, something would jolt her awake – the sound of Jackie fussing over the parched stranger in her bed, or the grave voice of the man on the TV news.

  ‘. . . putting guards on the sewers to stop them getting into the Thames that way. The number of people drawn to the river from 136

  all over the country continues to grow, and the terrifying possibility remains that soon the army will be unable to hold them back. . . ’

  Keisha hit the mute button, a low, panicky feeling in her stomach.

  Her mum should have called by now. Had she not got the note asking her to call? What if she’d not called in, and had gone straight to the river instead? The thought gnawed at her.

  Soon she pulled out her mobile and dialled the mobile number she’d 1471ed back at the flat. The number her mum had called on.

  Just the answer phone. She hung up. Her mum sounded happy, perky on the message. She’d never sounded that way when she’d been home.

  ‘It’s all going to pot,’ said Jackie softly, joining Keisha on the sofa.

  ‘Everyone’s going out of their minds.’

  Keisha put away the phone. ‘They’re being tricked.’

  ‘And there’s not even any spaceships in the sky.’

  ‘We’ve gotta stay right here,’ Keisha told her, and Jackie nodded.

  ‘Whatever happens, we know it ain’t real.’ She paused. ‘I hope my mum gets here soon.’

  ‘I wish my mum was here,’ Jackie agreed, feeling for Keisha’s hand.

  She found it – then squeezed hard, hard enough to break fingers.

  There was a strangled gasp from the bedroom, as if the milkman could feel the pain too.

  ‘Ow! Jackie, what’re you –’

  Then Keisha saw the ghost of Rose, sad-eyed and dripping, in front of the TV. The image stared at them, saying nothing. ‘Mickey never did nothing,’ said Keisha, trembling. ‘I made it up. I was stupid, I. . . ’

  But the ghost of Rose just opened up her arms, ready to give them both a big, wet hug. ‘Please,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m coming, sweetheart,’ said Jackie, and Keisha was already getting up off the sofa, crossing to the door.

  Rose looked so grateful as she splashed away to nothing.

  ‘We’ve been crawling through these tunnels for ever,’ Mickey complained, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the confined space.

  ‘When are we gonna get somewhere?’

  137

  ‘We are somewhere,’ the Doctor retorted, ducking down a new path in this cramped maze of concrete and spaghetti wiring. ‘Junction X2, there you go, says so on the wall.’

  ‘Junction X2? What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Means we’re probably close to the decon chamber.’

  ‘Means we’re lost!’

  ‘We are not lost. I don’t do lost.’

  Mickey nodded to himself. ‘We’re lost.’

  ‘Not listening.’

  ‘Lost!’

  ‘Blah, blah, blah, can’t hear you.’

  On they went through the concrete catacombs.

  Vida was shoved into the lift after Kelper, propelled by cold, dead hands.

  ‘What the hell is happening?’ He stared in horror at the ice-white, bloated faces pressing in around them, crowding into the enclosed space, trampling the aide underfoot. ‘What are these things?’

  ‘Creatures from space,’ Vida gasped as the lift door slid closed. ‘The source of those alien proteins in the sea samples.’

  ‘We are close to the spawning time,’ said Crayshaw over the smooth whine of the lift descending. ‘And so you are needed, Vice Admiral Kelper. The ships of your navy must help to spread us. We must create new power bases. Harbours. Inlets. Great lakes. All will be as one with us.’

  Kelper sneered and shook his head. ‘You’re crazy.’

  Crayshaw replaced his dark glasses. ‘You will soon come to see things as we do.’

  Vida looked over at Kelper, feeling sick with fear. ‘He’s going to drown us.’ Then the pirate’s fingers wormed over her lips, rubbery and wet like tentacles, silencing her as the lift softly jarred to a stop.

  The Victorian woman did the same to Kelper as the doors whooshed open.

  There was a clatter, a sudden hubbub, and at once Vida saw why the building above ground had seemed so deserted. Everyone was 138

  down here in the secret labs. Soldiers, security guards, cleaners, they milled about in this vast, antiseptic landscape of gleaming tiles and plastic partitions, dwarfed by the ship cross-sections that littered the space like unlikely sculptures.

  The squad leader came forward to address Crayshaw while his fellows held back, staring uneasily as the sinister crowd spilled from the lift. ‘Sir, we’ve been waiting for your orders. Surely the protection of this building and the wreck outside should be our priority, not these labs?’

  ‘We’ve all been stuck down here for hours,’ snapped the cleaning woman, clearly too tired and angry to be afraid, ‘while you’re mucking about having a fancy-dress party. I’ve got to get on, you know!’

  Everyone jumped except Crayshaw as the doors to the decontamination room ground open. Heads craned to watch the dark hole open up like a wound in the sterile chamber. Vida tensed herself but nothing and nobody came out. She struggled in the icy grip of the pirate ghoul, tried to speak through his thick, wrinkled fingers, but it was no good.

  ‘Sir?’ The squad leader turned back to Crayshaw, edgy and uncertain. ‘Your orders, sir?’

  Suddenly, with a rushing, thundering roar, a wave of filthy water came flooding in through the decon doors. It smashed against the remnants of the Ascendant with incredible force, as if eager to pound them to nothing. And as it sped towards the horrified crowd it seemed to rear up like some impossible animal. Guns exploded in a deafening rattle as the soldiers fired wildly, uselessly into the grey, churning mass.

  ‘Your orders are to drown for us, soldier,’ called Crayshaw. ‘We no longer require your protection. But don’t fear. As the spark of life leaves your bodies, newness will awaken inside you.’

  Vida and the vice admiral were thrust forward to join the others.

  The body of the aide was thrown after them, knocking Vida to the gleaming floor. And as the water crashed down towards her, she saw Crayshaw had cracked a happy grin.

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  Vidashuthereyesasthewatercamegushingandseethingonwards.

  Then the wall above the decontamination chamber exploded.

  A welter of concrete boulders, tiles and shrapnel boomed out in an awesome dust cloud, then splashed down into the torrent of water to create an impromptu dam. The filthy wave broke over her and the others but seemed somehow robbed of its force, as if the blow had somehow weakened it.

  The echoes of the explosion and the impact spun round the enormous room with deafening force. Crayshaw gave an inhuman shriek of fury, but carrying above it came a very human-sounding voice.

  ‘Hal Now that’s what I call resonating concrete!’

  ‘Doctor!’ Vida yelled.

  He was crouched on one knee, that screwdriver thing of his clamped in one hand, laughing with the air of a man who couldn’t quite believe what he’d done. Well, neither could anybody else, but what did that matter? She was already up and running towards him.

  ‘Come on!’ she shouted to the others. ‘It’s the cavalry!’

  The ones not paralysed by fear and shock – Kelper, the cleaner, a handful of soldiers – ran after her. But Crayshaw and his barmy 141

  buddies weren’t distracted for long. The water was soon seething around their feet, thickening like wallpaper paste, sucking at their heels. We can control all moisture. . .

  ‘Come on!’ That
was Mickey, trying not to choke on the dust. ‘You can climb up the rubble, we’ll help you!’

  Vida dragged herself out of the miring water, scrambled up the rock pile, scratching her hands, bruising her legs. The Doctor reached out to her, hauled her up the rest of the way. For a giddy moment she felt safe at last, as Mickey pulled her from the precipice and into a cramped circular passage wreathed with wiring.

  Mickey looked accusingly at the Doctor. ‘This don’t look like a decontamination chamber to me.’

  ‘I was close,’ the Doctor said defensively. ‘It’s just down there!

  Wasn’t I close, Vida?’

  Vida hugged him. ‘Close enough for me.’

  Kelper pulled himself through the hole in the wall. ‘I don’t know what the hell’s going on, nor who you are,’ he spluttered, ‘but those are aliens.’

  ‘Oh, d’you think?’ The Doctor affected puzzlement. Then he noticed a red-haired soldier struggling up the pile of concrete. ‘Private Jodie North!’ he shouted. She reached frantically for his outstretched hand and he hauled her up. ‘I pinched your pass. Sorry, hope it didn’t cause you too much bother.’

  She looked down to find he’d somehow sneaked it into her palm.

  ‘No thanks,’ she said, thrusting it into Vida’s hands instead. ‘I’m going AWOL.’ She nodded briefly before retreating into the cable-strewn tunnel.

  ‘We’re going to need Torchwood,’ Kelper muttered.

  ‘We’re going to need all our wits and a lot of luck,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘And more people would be good. More recruits.’ He peered out through the smashed concrete. ‘Excuse me, your planet needs you. Any volunteers?’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Vida saw that the rest of the crowd were trapped in the water. It had frozen to ice around them. Only the cleaner stood a 142

  chance – she had managed to pull one foot clear and was working to free the other one.

  The Doctor jumped down from his precarious ledge to help her. He grabbed a lump of concrete and hammered at the ice.

  ‘Where’d all this water come from?’ Mickey wondered.

  ‘The Thames, I suppose,’ said Vida. ‘There’s a way up from the drainage pit to the river. It’s how. . . ’ She swallowed. ‘People have been sent down there, through the water. That’s how they flooded the drainage area in the first place – they must have just slooshed in more water. Like the burst tank back at the offices – they can influence water. . . ’

  ‘Yeah, I see that,’ croaked Mickey.

  Crayshaw was coming to get them. His gruesome army had burst apart like water balloons, one by one; now he rode the resultant stream of water in his shades like an aged surfer. Towards the Doctor.

  Rose stirred as the currents in the water raced past her limbs. The slipstream actually tugged her up from her knees to her feet, and for a moment she felt the terrible cold of the water around her.

  With the cold came an awful clarity. I shouldn’t be here. She struck out through the darkness, pushed against the bodies all around her.

  Keep calm. If she could only find a way out. . .

  Then a face shoved up against hers.

  The ponderous face of a

  middle-aged man.

  ‘You’re thinking,’ he said fiercely. ‘Hold on to those thoughts. New ideas. Fresh thinking, that’s what’s needed. . . ’

  ‘Who are you?’ Rose said out loud. A few bubbles came from her mouth; it felt wrong, all wrong to be speaking under water and to hear the sounds as clear as you like. That set her more on edge, focussed her further. She could see the glint of her long blonde hair as it waved slowly all about her. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘My name’s Huntley,’ the man said. ‘Your mind is being influenced, but you can fight it. Some people are trying, I help them as much as I can.’

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  ‘As much. . . as you can.’ Rose was feeling drowsy again. The faces were starting to crowd back into her head.

  ‘Stay with me, girl! What’s your name?’

  ‘Rose. . . I’m Rose.’

  ‘Yes. Well, Rose, I’m a scientist, and let me tell you – ordinarily I would dismiss something as unlikely and ludicrous as our predicament here in a moment. Only the Doctor was right, d’you see –’

  ‘Doctor?’ She felt a jolt of energy shock her awake again, grabbed hold of his arm, looked into his pearly eyes. ‘You know the Doctor?’

  ‘He’s not a GP, Rose.’

  ‘You met him in the underground labs, yeah?’

  Huntley’s eyes glimmered as they widened. ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Doctor’s my friend. He’s. . . He’s the only one who can help us, but I don’t know where he is. . . ’ Rose’s eyes felt sore and hot. ‘I wish I did. I’ve been thinking about him –’

  ‘And trying to bring him here to you.’ Huntley nodded. ‘You must stop thinking of the people you love. You’ll be bringing them to their deaths. Living deaths.’

  ‘I know. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see them, but it was just darkness. My own voice in my head, and darkness. The words fell out of my mouth.’ She squeezed Huntley’s arm, wished she could feel sensation in her dead fingers. ‘How come you could fight it?’

  Even in the thick gloom, she caught the look of shame flit across his face. ‘I’m useless to these creatures. There’s no one I can summon here, no one I’m close to. My parents are dead and I’ve never. . . ’ He looked away. ‘Well, my work is very important to me.’

  ‘That’s good. That’s fantastic,’ Rose told him. ‘Means you can help me – if I look like I’m going under again, you can pinch me or something. Now, you said there are others who can fight the effect of these things.’

  ‘A few of the Ascendant crew,’ said Huntley. ‘Perhaps because they’ve been exposed to the effects of these creatures for so long. Come and meet them. I’m hoping we can help others to fight it.’ Huntley took her hand, then paused. ‘Because the fate that awaits us awaits your loved ones too – the moment you draw them here.’

  144

  ‘Oh, God. . . ’ Rose bit her lip as the implications sank in.

  Then she frowned. ‘What d’you mean, “the fate that awaits us”?’

  She dabbed at the flaps of skin in her neck. ‘It can get worse than this?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Crayshaw told me. It’s almost time for the feast.’

  ‘What does that even mean?’

  So he told her, and Rose felt the cold grow deeper and darker inside. Then she followed him in silence, her tears mixing with the dark floodwater of the pit.

  ‘Yes!’ Vida cheered as, with a final, desperate blow, the Doctor freed the cleaner’s foot from the icy trap. He tossed aside his chunk of concrete and helped her pull herself out. The cleaner lost her trainer in the process, but she reached up for Mickey, who grabbed hold of her hands and yanked her up to the ledge.

  Crayshaw, however, was looming closer on his watery platform, arms outstretched.

  ‘Look out, Doctor!’ shouted Vida.

  The Doctor hurled the trainer at Crayshaw’s head. The surprise attack caught the old man off guard. His dark glasses were knocked clear as he twisted and fell backwards, while the Doctor climbed nimbly up the rock pile and rejoined the others.

  ‘I didn’t say “shoo”,’ he panted. ‘You know, shoe, shoo, play on words. D’you think I should’ve said “shoo”?’

  ‘No,’ said Mickey.

  Vida swallowed hard, pointed. ‘Look at Crayshaw.’

  He was lying on his front; in the fall, the scarf around his neck had come loose. Something moved, squirming beneath the fabric. Vida caught a glimpse of something bloated and hideous skulking at the top of the old man’s spine, a dead, wide eye glistening in a slimy carapace. Then Crayshaw’s body and clothes dissolved into water and started flowing sluggishly up the pile of concrete towards them.

  ‘What was that fishy thing?’ asked Mickey.

  ‘A glimpse of the real enemy. Probably plugged right into the brain stem for maximum control of the sub
ject. Now come on, help me 145

  shift this thing!’ The Doctor kicked at one of the larger chunks of concrete that bridged the gap to their vantage point. ‘Better try to leave ourselves high and dry.’

  Vida hesitated, listening to the frantic shouts for help from the other survivors. ‘Those poor people down there won’t be able to reach us!’

  The Doctor spared her a moment’s look, the anguish clear on his face. ‘There’s nothing we can do for them right now.’

  Mickey squeezed in beside him, lent his strength, until the huge slab teetered over and fell to the ice below.

  ‘Don’t leave us!’ screamed one of the soldiers. But then a wave crashed over him, the water flowing sluggishly, sticking to his face and limbs. A thick split appeared in the ice at his feet as he collapsed.

  It swallowed him up before he could make another sound. Elsewhere in the labs, the water was churning with fresh fury, knocking over those few still standing. Keeping them under.

  Vida looked down. The water flowing up the rock pile towards them had reached the new precipice. It began to hiss and bubble. In a blur, Crayshaw was back, balancing on the rock. She retreated instinctively.

  Even in human form, he couldn’t reach them. But looking at the pitted pearls in his skull-like face, she felt anything but safe here.

  ‘Return Kelper to us,’ he said calmly. ‘Or we shall destroy Rose Tyler, Andrew Dolan, all of them.’

  ‘Leave Rose alone!’ Mickey shouted, starting forwards. But the Doctor held him back.

  ‘You need those people,’ the Doctor argued.

  Crayshaw shook his head. ‘The calling goes on. So many come to answer. The number of victims increases exponentially. Soon the Thames will be choked with bodies, all awaiting our purpose.’

  ‘And what would that be?’ the Doctor breathed. ‘Just why do you need so much flesh?’

  Vida felt sick as an especially nasty penny dropped. ‘Doctor, he said that these things are nearing their time to spawn.’