Doctor Who BBCN10 - The Nightmare of Black Island Page 16

  ‘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.’

  151

  ‘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.’

  The eyes of the creature in the library flickered open. This time they weren’t dead and unseeing, but blazed with angry life. It examined its surroundings, straining at the energy field that held it suspended in the charged air.

  The energy waves that rolled across its skin had faded now and the flesh of the creature was solid and real. Hard, chitinous plates covered its back and arms, studded with wickedly barbed spines. Its back was hunched and muscular, the thick neck wreathed with writhing tentacles. Its head was flat and elongated, the brain protected by a hard, bony plate flaring out to an armoured frill, like a dinosaur. The black eyes blazed from beneath a heavy brow and row upon row of curving teeth gnashed in the wide mouth. Six powerful insect-like legs flexed under its abdomen, the claws at their tips gleaming and sharpened, and curling over its back was a segmented, scorpion-like tail, poison dripping from the spines that studded its length.

  The creature gave a bellow of anger at its confinement, lashing out with a clawed hand. Cynrog equipment shattered under the blow, tendrils of energy arcing angrily across the library. Enraged by the lightning, the creature started to lash out blindly, tearing the cables from the walls, sending books and consoles crashing to the ground.

  With a huge shower of sparks, the Cynrog machinery exploded, energy dancing wildly across the room, spitting flames in its wake. The creature crashed to the floor, released from the energy field. Its claws took huge gouges from the polished floorboards as it spread its arms wide and let out a shattering roar.

  Peyne looked up as the roar reverberated around the house.

  ‘Balor,’ she whispered.

  152

  The Cynrog technicians had stopped their work at the consoles, looking at each other in excitement. The ward was filled with reptilian hissing.

  ‘Back to your stations!’ barked Peyne. ‘Priest Technician Hadron, with me!’

  The two Cynrog marched from the room, throwing open the doors to the hallway. From upstairs came another mighty roar, coupled with the dull crump of explosions. Smoke was starting to fill the house, billowing across the once ornate ceilings.

  Peyne frowned. ‘Something is not right.’

  As they raced up the stairs, lithe and lizard-like, Peyne’s heart was pounding. To fail when they were this close. . .

  They skidded to a halt outside the library, staring in shock at the devastation that faced them. The heavy wooden doors had burst from their hinges, leaving huge, jagged splinters scattered across the floor.

  Chunks of plaster had been torn from the walls and ceiling and thick black smoke billowed out into the corridor. Another explosion shot gouts of flame through the open doorway, sending the Cynrog diving for cover.

  Through the flames Peyne could see something moving. Something huge and dark. Hadron fumbled with the disrupter at his belt.

  Peyne hissed angrily at him, ‘Fool! You think we’ve come this far just for you to shoot him down? Conduct yourself as befits a Priest Technician of the Cynrog.’

  Hadron bowed his head. ‘My apologies, Priest Commander.’

  Peyne flicked her tongue in displeasure and smoothed down the creases in her battle fatigues. She would have preferred full ceremo-nial regalia for this moment, the end of so many years of waiting.

  Head held high, she entered the library, Hadron at her side.

  ‘Lord Balor, we of the Cynrog rejoice at your coming. Lead us once more to the victory. . . ’

  The words died in her throat as the creature turned slowly to face her. She felt her skin prickle, the spines across her scalp stiffening in fear. Her hands were shaking; the creature was using its power on them.

  153

  ‘My Lord Balor?’

  Peyne stared up into the face of the towering monster, into the blazing eyes that were fixed on her, and at that moment she knew that something had gone terribly, horribly wrong. Instinctively she realised that the creature in front of her was incomplete. Somehow, something was missing. Somehow, she had missed something, and the thing that she had created was a savage, indiscriminate, uncontrolled animal.

  The soul that inhabited it had only one thought: destruction.

  The creature opened its wide mouth and let out a growl of hatred.

  ‘Commander. . . ’ Hadron had dropped to his knees, his body shaking uncontrollably.

  The monster lifted a huge claw.

  ‘No!’

  Peyne threw herself backwards as the claw slashed down, swiping Hadron into the air. She could hear the screams of the technician as the huge jaws closed around his torso, the wet crunch as the creature devoured him.

  Balor gave another deafening roar and raised himself to his full height. Wooden beams strained and splintered, and plaster shattered like glass as the monster burst up through the roof of the rectory. Cold air swept in, fanning the flames that leapt from the devastated equipment and now raged across the ancient bookcases. Masonry tumbled into the room as a chimneys tack was torn apart by the struggling monster.

  Peyne scrambled to her feet and ran for her life.

  Rose struggled up the wet rocks to the base of the lighthouse with Ali lolling in her arms. She had to keep shaking the little girl to keep her awake.

  ‘Come on, Ali. Come on! We’re nearly there. Two more minutes and this will all be over. Two more minutes.’

  ‘I’m so tired, Rose.’ Ali rubbed at her eyes.

  ‘I know, honey, I know, but I need you. Try to keep going just a bit longer, please. For me.’

  Ali nodded weakly.

  154

  Rose turned to see where Bronwyn had got to. The old woman was picking her way painfully up the slope. The ride across to the island had been terrifying. The monsters had started to emerge again, in ones and twos at first, but then things had started to flash through the water around the little boat and Rose hadn’t been sure if they would ever get here in one piece.

  When Ali had started to flag, at first Rose thought it was just due to the rigours of the day, but now it seemed certain that she was falling victim to the Cynrog machines once more.

  ‘Bronwyn, I’ve got to get Ali to the lamp room. Are you OK?’

  ‘Got to rest. Got to sit.’ Her words came between rasping breaths.

  ‘So tired.’

  ‘Not you too!’

  Rose groaned. She couldn’t keep both of them awake for ever, but at least the cold rain was helping. She looked up at the lighthouse.

  The glow from the lamp room above them was lighting up the storm clouds. She pushed open the metal door, ushering Bronwyn inside.

  ‘OK. You stay here. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  ‘You go on, dear.’ Bronwyn waved a weary hand at Rose. ‘I’m getting too old for all this running about.’ She lowered herself on to the bottom step of the winding staircase. ‘I’ll just sit here for a while.’

  With a last worried look at the slumped old lady at her feet, Rose hefted Ali in her arms and started up the stairs, her legs protesting at every step.

  She reached the lamp room breathless, her heart threatening to burst out of her chest. Lowering Ali to the floor, she fumbled in her pocket for the sonic screwdriver, then pressed it into the little girl’s hand.

  ‘You remember what you have to do?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Ali looked fearfully into the glowing room, the green light pulsating and throbbing. Rose hugged her hard.

  ‘You can do this. I know you can.’
>
  Ali took a deep breath, gave Rose a wavering smile and stepped into the lamp room.

  155

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Peyne tore the sensors from the Doctor’s brow, hurling them across the ward.

  ‘What have you done, Time Lord?’ she snarled.

  The Doctor’s eyes flickered open. ‘Morning already?’

  Peyne hauled him upright, digging her claws into the flesh of his arms. ‘I said what have you done?’

  She flinched as a mass of bricks and timber crashed into the hallway outside the door. A guttural bellow rang out from somewhere upstairs.

  ‘Oh dear.’ The Doctor gave a huge grin. ‘It does sound as though you’ve got a few problems, doesn’t it? Our Lord Balor got out of the wrong side of the bed, did he?’

  Peyne dragged the Doctor from his own bed, pressing her disrupter to his temples.

  ‘For the last time, Doctor, tell me what you have done!’ she roared.

  ‘Nothing!’ The Doctor slapped the gun away angrily. ‘I’ve done nothing, Peyne. This is your doing. Fifty years to get this right and you still messed it up!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Peyne’s eyes narrowed, her flattened nose wrinkling in anger.

  Around her the Cynrog looked at each other in concern, confused and frightened.

  ‘You didn’t do your job properly, that’s what I mean! Priest Commander of the Cynrog?’ The Doctor gave a snort of derision. ‘No wonder your pitiful little race never gets anywhere!’

  He crossed to one of the nervous technicians. ‘Gonna take orders from a commander who can’t even count, hm? From someone who thinks that she’s such a clever clogs because she found a way of using the local kids as a resource but didn’t make sure she had all the facts.’

  He dodged out of the way as a lump of plaster crashed down from the ceiling.

  ‘You’ve made a lovely big monster with huge pointy teeth, but it’s not got all its marbles, has it? You missed a bit, thicko!’

  ‘Another child,’ breathed Peyne.

  156

  ‘Yes, another child. Another poor wretch who spent the best years of her life with a fragment of your god inside her head!’ The Doctor’s voice was cold, hard. ‘And now you’ve unleashed your creature without checking that it’s in its right mind, a creature that is mentally unbalanced, unfinished, uncontrollable! All you’ve done is created another nightmare. You’ve failed, Peyne!’

  ‘NO!’ Peyne screamed in frustration and anger. She stumbled across to one of the humming consoles, pushing her milling technicians aside, claws dancing across controls. ‘It’s not too late. We can still find the child.’

  ‘It took you fifty years to find the others! What chance do you have of finding another one now?’

  ‘Because she’s close, Doctor. Here somewhere. See. The readings are almost at optimum. Almost! That means the child is close, within range of the receptors! I’m not going to fail!’ She spat the words. ‘Not now! I’m not going to have wasted my time on this miserable planet.’

  ‘Your creature will have burnt itself out long before you have time to complete the transfer, Peyne. Listen to it. It’s tearing itself apart!’

  ‘Then perhaps we need to give it some self-control.’

  Peyne started stabbing at buttons and energy flickered around the heads of Morton and the others in the beds. Old bodies twisted in pain, backs arching.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nathaniel Morton and his friends can perform one final service in the Cynrog cause. Their minds are weak, but they can still serve to calm the creature, just long enough for me to find this one last fragment.’

  ‘No!’

  The Doctor tried to pull Peyne away from the controls. She thrust him back savagely, whipping the disrupter from her pocket.

  ‘You’ve become expendable, Doctor.’

  She pulled the trigger.

  Ali lay flat on her stomach, stretched out under the crackling Cynrog machine. She flinched as fingers of glowing energy danced across her 157

  skin. It tingled. Her eyes were getting heavier and heavier; the sonic screwdriver felt like a lump of lead in her hand.

  ‘Don’t stop, Ali.’

  She could hear Rose shouting from the door. ‘Remember what I told you!’

  Ali struggled to concentrate. Ahead of her she could see the cluster of black nodules that she had to reach. She shuffled forward on her tummy. There. She could reach them now. So what was it she had to do?

  She yawned. She was so tired and it was warm here under the machine. Warm and glowing. She rested her head on her arm. A few moments wouldn’t hurt.

  ‘No! Ali, don’t!’

  Rose was banging on the metal floor. Ali could feel the vibrations.

  ‘All right, all right!’

  She struggled to lift the sonic screwdriver, holding the tip against the first nodule. There was a harsh blue light and a piercing whine and the back lump split open, revealing a single dial. Ali reached out and turned it from ‘three o’clock’ to ‘two o’clock’, as she had been told.

  The hum from the machine above changed in pitch.

  Ali moved to the next nodule. Six more to go.

  At the bottom of the lighthouse Bronwyn peered out through the open doorway and smiled at the small figure that wandered towards her from the beach.

  She was so very tired. Perhaps it was time to stop, to finally give up.

  Inside her head she could feel the thing that she had carried since her childhood struggling to be free. Perhaps it was time to let go.

  She leaned back on the steps, surrendering to unconsciousness.

  The wall of the house collapsed just as the disrupter went off. Bricks slammed into Peyne’s arm, knocking the gun aside and sending the disrupter bolt ricocheting across the room. Peyne grasped her arm in 158

  agony, watching in disbelief as one wall bulged outwards, collapsing in a heap into the once neat gardens.

  Cynrog scattered as beams and plaster rained down among them, smashing machinery.

  The Doctor darted out through the gaping hole and into the rain, ducking inside the porch and staring up at the rectory.

  ‘Now there’s something you don’t see every day.’ The huge Balor creature was on the roof, legs skittering on the wet tiles. The last ves-tiges of energy from the Cynrog generators flickered around its feet.

  As the energy field died, the creature seemed to bulge and change, increasing in size, towering over the house. Slashing claws tore huge lumps of masonry from the building and sent them crashing to the floor. Fire had caught hold of the old timbers and one wing of the house was now ablaze, smoke billowing into the night sky, lighting the clouds with a bright orange glow.

  Cynrog technicians fled from the burning house.

  The monster

  reached out with huge clawed hands and swept them up into the air, stabbing at them with its barbed tail, tearing them to pieces with its pincers. Casting the shredded bodies aside, it clambered down from the shattered roof, its movements slow and menacing, its claws digging into the stone as it clicked and clattered on to the wet lawn.

  The Doctor started to back away. With a screech of pain and anger, the creature’s head swung down to look at him. The Doctor swallowed hard.

  ‘Now might be a good time to finish that little errand I sent you on, Rose,’ he muttered.

  ‘Yes, Lord Balor. Destroy him!’

  Peyne emerged from the shattered dining room, her uniform ripped, a huge bloody gash in her scalp.

  ‘Destroy the enemies of Cynrog!’

  The creature turned slowly towards her, teeth bared. Peyne took a step backwards.

  ‘My Lord, I am not your enemy! I have given you the minds of the primitives that once housed you and the final part of you is close by.

  Please, I beg you, control yourself. Use the primitive minds to focus.

  159

  Remember who you were, who you are. . . ’

  ‘Peyne. . . ’


  The voice was low and guttural, rattling the windows. The Doctor could feel it vibrating in his gut.

  ‘I. . . remember you. . . Peyne. . . ’

  ‘My Lord!’ Peyne dropped to her knees. ‘You live!’

  ‘I remember your lies, your deceit. The years treating me like a child. . . ’

  Peyne raised her head, her eyes wide with disbelief. ‘Morton?’

  ‘Is this what I lived for, Peyne, to be your creature, your weapon?

  To plunder the universe, destroying and killing.’

  ‘My Lord, the primitive mind. . . It is stronger than I had thought.

  It has some control. I. . . ’

  ‘Another mistake, Peyne?’ The thing laughed. A horrible, bubbling cackle. ‘If this is the life you offer, so be it. If I cannot live as Nathaniel Morton the man, then I shall be Morton the Destroyer, the new god of the Cynrog. . . And you will serve me!’

  Peyne clambered to her feet, eyes blazing with anger. ‘Never.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  The Morton creature lunged forward, taking Peyne’s head off with a single bite. The body stood for a few seconds, yellow ichor foun-taining from its neck, then it collapsed in a crumpled heap.

  The creature threw its head back and bellowed in triumph. Flexing its claws, it reared back, towering over the house, staring down at the Time Lord standing in the centre of the lawn.

  ‘And now for you, Doctor.’

  Ali reached for the final switch. With every nodule she had opened her tiredness had started to leave her. She felt more alive than she had in months. She stretched out, grasped the ridged dial and turned it. It moved with a sharp click and the machine changed in pitch once more.

  ‘I’ve done it, Rose! I’ve done it!’

  She wriggled out from under the machine, sonic screwdriver held proudly in her hands.

  160

  Her smile turned to disappointment. Rose was fast asleep.

  Behind the bar of the Red Lion Beth Hardy watched as her husband slumped down across the table he was clearing, dead to the world.

  She barely had enough time to put a full glass of bitter on the bar top before she too collapsed in a heap.