Doctor Who - The Glamour Chase Page 2

  Wulf and Owain took both jobs very seriously.

  When the Sky Gods threw a huge dark object from the skies towards them, they real y had no idea what to do. So they both dropped to their knees and prayed to the Sky Gods that this wasn't some kind of retribution.

  The noise the object made as it ploughed into the fields beyond the village was louder than anything Wulf had ever heard before and he screamed as he covered his ears.

  Then it stopped.

  He opened his eyes, seeing his fellow villagers flood from their huts, shooing goats and dogs from the area, the womenfolk keeping the children back 20

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  whilst Village Elder Tor led his strongmen towards the crashed object. Tor reached out to touch it but pulled his hand back, burnt.

  Wulf could hear his cries of pain and fury from atop the hill. He told Owain to stay with the herd and dashed down to his fellow men below.

  'It is from the Sky Gods,' he yelled. 'It has to be.'

  Tor nodded. 'But what should we do?'

  For three days, the men guarded the object and talked at length about it. About what it meant. About whether the Sky Gods were angry or whether it was a gift.

  In the end, Tor made a decision.

  Over the next month, using the most rudimentary shovels and axes, they performed a technological miracle. They dug beneath it so it slowly sank further into the ground, and then they erected a wooden protective shell around the exposed top half. They buried that under earth meticulously carried up from the coast where it was damper and therefore softer.

  And Tor, Wulf and the others lived their lives, safe from invaders, with healthy wives and children and goats.

  After a few hundred years, the contents of the mound were forgotten. Stories and myths built up around it. It was a god. It was a warrior chieftain. It was a sacred rock from the stars.

  It stayed that way, a mystery for over four 21

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  thousand years. Until, in 1936, Mrs Enola Porter, an amateur archaeologist living in Norfolk, rammed her shovel through the mud and into the outer hull of the WSS Exalted.

  The world would never be quite the same again.

  Chapter

  2

  It was a hot summer's day in Little Cadthorpe.

  The sky had that glorious blue you believe only really happened when you were a child - when it reappears, and proves it really does exist, you can't help but be happier than usual. That amazingly strong sun that could be felt on the skin and the lack of clouds just added to the joy that was today: 14

  August 1928.

  The depression in the city was in decline and, although his family had lost much, Oliver Marks (Regimental Sgt Major, retired) was happy. His strong hand was firmly gripped around Daisy Conlan's. Or, as she had just agreed to become next spring, Daisy Marks.

  'I love you, Miss Conlan.' He grinned, pushing 23

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  aside a low-hanging tree branch that threatened to impede her walk through the woods.

  She smiled back. 'And I, 0lly, adore you.' She looked behind them, suddenly concerned. 'But 011y, where are Davey and Calleagh?'

  Oliver frowned. 'Who?'

  'Why, Mr Marks, have you forgotten our children so quickly?'

  Oliver laughed. 'Ha! So, just two children is it?

  And Calleagh? What kind of name is that?'

  Daisy stopped and wagged a finger at him. 'I will have you know, sir, that Calleagh is a good Celtic name. I had a Great Aunt called Calleagh, back in the old country.'

  Oliver feigned pensiveness for a moment before walking on. 'I fear, Miss Conlan, that I could not marry a fibber. I know your family quite well and, even when exploring the darkest ends of the Giant's Causeway, I have never come across a relative of yours called Calleagh. Alas, alack, our engagement is at an end, if you insist on naming our future offspring after imaginary matriarchs.'

  Daisy scampered after him, now looping her arm around his and pulling him closer. She kissed him on the cheek. 'Truth is... No, never mind.'

  'My dear, I shall cease conversing with you forthwith if you do not halt your prattle.'

  Daisy laughed. 'Ooh, listen to you with your big words. I did know a Calleagh who I was very deeply in love with in Ireland, and it is also a name I adore 24

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  and want our daughter to be named.'

  'Who was she?' Oliver asked, a twinkle in his eye. 'I genuinely don't remember ever hearing your father mention her. He, as you can imagine, gave me chapter and verse on the Conlan family back to the 1600s!'

  Daisy took a breath. 'Promise you won't laugh or be cross?'

  'Oh, I shall enjoy this explanation,' Oliver said.

  'Calleagh was a puppy I once had. A most beautiful chocolate brown one with lovely big, pleading eyes and a pink tongue and

  'And you expect me to agree to naming our daughter after a dog?' Oliver roared with laughter. 'I cannot wait till she is 18 and you have to explain that to her, because I most certainly shall not.' He kissed her quickly on the lips. 'But it is a wonderful name, so I shall endeavour to ignore the dog connotations and believe there really was a fearsome Great Aunt about whom your father omitted to tell me.'

  Daisy looked at him, giving his arm a squeeze to make him stop walking, and ran a hand through her auburn hair. 'I really do love you, Oliver,' she said.

  'Thank you for asking me to marry you.'

  He smiled back at her, cupping the back of her hand with his hands. 'As I recall, it was in fact you, with al your emancipation and Emmeline Pankhurst attitude, who asked me!'

  Daisy nodded. 'Well, I asked you to ask me. And why not, you silly sausage. It's not as if you were 25

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  going to get round to it otherwise, were you?'

  'I thought you'd think marriage was some antediluvian concept for oppressing women,' he said. 'Curiously, I take your beliefs and opinions very seriously, Daisy ConIan.'

  She sighed. 'God, I love you so much,' she said, and kissed him. 'I wish we didn't have to wait until March.'

  'Weddings are expensive,' Oliver said, 'and I know your father well enough to be certain that he'll want to put on the biggest and best wedding he can for his only daughter. And, with the state of the world's finances at the moment, he'll end up laying off some of the lads just to make ends meet if we try to marry this year. And that is something I won't have on my conscience at any cost.'

  Daisy understood.

  She and Oliver had met at a rally in London four years previously. He'd survived the Great War and, in doing so, had reshaped his views and allegiances drastically. He had campaigned for the Labour Party and not for the Conservatives, as his family always had. This had cost Oliver a lot: his father had all but disowned him, and many of his fellow officers had stopped talking to him. But she had been drawn to his dedication, his firm belief that so many young lives had been lost or shattered during the War due to politics. So many of the upper class had become officers, leading good, solid men during battles with no actual experience or knowledge of warfare; they THE GLAMOUR CHASE

  held their ranks purely because of who they were, or how much money their families had.

  Oliver was kicking against that - he said rank should be progressive and not a product of elitism.

  If some of the men in the trenches had been made lieutenants or captains instead of people with no field experience whatsoever, how many thousands of lives might not have fallen under German bullets and shells? Truth was, thought Daisy, no one would ever know. But she admired - no, loved - his passion on the subject and his deeply held belief that the

  'common man' deserved respect, equality and the chance for power.

  She had been at the rally to support women, who had seen their place in society rise during the War.

  So many good strong women working in factories, in hospitals, on the buses and trams, in the farms and schools. Women doing jobs that ten years earlier, only men would
have been considered fit for.

  And yet, when the War ended, they had soon found themselves facing an attitude best summed up as

  'Yes, thank you, now go back to breeding children, darning socks and making tea for the menfolk at work'.

  Women had come on in leaps and bounds since then - the vote had been such an important stride forward. But there were still those in the Government who sought to squash those achievements, reverse those policies. Daisy had seen an opportunity to move to London, become embroiled in the London 27

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  Set and work from within to keep things moving forward for women, and not back to some dark Victorian age. She had even met and spoken to Lady Astor on the subject, which was a personal achievement, she felt.

  Her reverie was broken by a whining noise from... above. It was no aeroplane, she was sure of that. Oliver had heard it too, and he was already shielding his eyes against the sun and trying to look to the heavens.

  'The trees are blocking the view,' he said, waving his hands towards the canopy. 'Let's get out into the open.'

  They hurried out of the copse and onto the vil age green. Sure enough, half a dozen other groups of people were there, all looking up, trying to discern the source of the noise.

  Oliver felt a blast of heat directly above him. He looked around, trying to trace its source, but could see no sign.

  'I don't like this, Daisy,' he said. 'I want you to get back into the woods.'

  'What for?'

  'Just... just a feeling,' he muttered.

  Suddenly a child's scream rang out.

  Oliver and Daisy turned to see a woman grabbing the child and dragging it back towards her as the air around them... shimmered. Like a haze, a mirage on a hot day.

  Out of that haze stepped... something.

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  And in less than a second, there were about twenty... somethings surrounding the green, blocking off Daisy's potential escape route back to the woods.

  More people began emerging from their homes in the village and, as they did so, more hazes appeared, and more... things.

  It didn't take Oliver long to realise that the village was now cut off entirely. Every road or pathway was blocked, guarded by strange people in dark red uniforms that seemed to be sculpted to their bodies.

  They were physically strong by the look of it: each of them stood about six foot six, heads hidden beneath black reflective helmets of a type he'd never seen.

  They had no insignia on their uniforms, but each wore a wide black belt with many pouches, and a couple had bandoliers from belt to right shoulder.

  Every single one of them carried what looked like a rifle, only far shorter and thicker. They carried them in one hand and were using them to herd the villagers towards the green.

  One man suddenly stopped - Oliver recognised him from the pub. He wasn't the landlord but he helped behind the bar. Oliver had liked him; he was like one of the men from the trenches. From the War.

  Oh God. Was this some new German atrocity in the making, ten years on? He had heard the rumours of course, but dismissed them. Why would anyone want to start another conflict after the Great War 29

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  had left Europe so utterly bereft?

  The man from the pub suddenly swung a punch at the uniformed guard pushing him forward.

  The red guard brought up his gun and fired.

  Oliver expected to hear a gunshot, that awful explosion of powder and spark propelling hot death that, at that range, would have drilled through the pub man's heart in a second. But there was no gunshot. Instead there was a roar, like a gas flame suddenly ignited at a hundred times normal volume.

  In the time it took the pub man's body to jerk back from the shot's impact, his clothing and skin had just gone. A charred skeleton took an involuntary final step backwards before starting to topple to the ground.

  Worse still, the skeleton never made it. It seemed just to fade to ash and dissipate on the breeze. Where once a human being had stood, now there was no evidence he had ever existed.

  Then hell broke loose.

  People ran, screaming. Men, women, children, tried to flee in all directions. To their homes. Away from the green. From the village. One by one they vanished, utterly vaporised by these hideous guns.

  Houses, cars, shops, all exploded as the enemy guns spat whatever death it was they spat. Huge geysers of fire erupted over the ground, the green, the roads as the guns kept firing.

  As Oliver tried to comprehend what was THE GLAMOUR CHASE

  happening, he felt Daisy tug on his arm. 'Run!' she screamed in his ear. 'The woods!'

  But Oliver had realised that running was pointless; it only aggravated these villains. 'No,' he hissed. 'Stay still.'

  He never took his eyes off the red uniformed...

  things as they walked towards him.

  He felt Daisy hit his wrist, trying to provoke him to move. But he couldn't, he was rooted to the spot as the whole village became a burning pyre, a massive enclosure of death and destruction around him. He was dimly aware that even the woods were aflame now.

  'There's no way through,' he managed to mutter to Daisy. When she didn't respond, he finally turned to look at her.

  She was gone.

  Not in a running-away sense. He felt it in his chest, in his heart.

  She was, like all the others, dead. Gone for ever.

  He knew this because, although in his head he could still remember her grabbing his arm, he realised that the thump on his wrist hadn't been her trying to get him to move. It had been the moment Daisy ConIan had been vaporised like everyone else.

  And she had taken his left hand and wrist along with her.

  In shock, in utter disbelief, he raised his left arm, staring at the cauterised stump. He wanted to laugh.

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  Even his wristwatch was gone. A gift from his late mother, six years ago on his 27th birthday.

  He wanted to scream, to cry out in anguish at her death. Instead, all that went through his mind was

  'What do I tell her father?'

  Then everything stopped. The explosions, the screams of violent death, the flashes of fire, that noise... that terrible, terrible noise, that terrible, terrible roar of the guns that echoed around in his head, that wouldn't stop, wouldn't cease. He could hear it, smell the burning flesh, see the devastated village that was already nothing more than ripped up roads, grass and shattered buildings.

  The village had been utterly devastated in less than a minute.

  Oliver was on his knees, sobbing and screaming in equal measure, his own voice in his head echoing around with the roar of the guns and the long-extinguished screams of the dying that he and he alone could still hear.

  He wasn't really aware of the red guard in front of him, that reached up and touched its helmet. The helmet shimmered and vanished, and in its place was a twisted inhuman face that seemed to be pickled, like a prune, or flesh that had been left in bathwater for many days.

  Two red eyes bore into Oliver's face. A thin slit of a mouth twisted open, and Oliver felt the breath on his face. Harsh breath, like gas and ignited petroleum in one.

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  'Where are they?' it demanded of Oliver. 'We know you are sheltering them somewhere on this planet. Where are the Weave?'

  Oliver couldn't answer. He didn't understand the question.

  'They are in this quadrant, on this island,' he heard the creature bellow suddenly, clear and distinct.

  And then Oliver's life was changed for ever.

  All he could hear were roaring guns, screaming people and skeletons burning.

  All he could smell was the creature's breath.

  All he could think about was Daisy dying by his side.

  He began to scream. Whether it was just in his head or out loud, he couldn't tell.

  His mind switched off, and the last thing he remembered was silence. Utter
silence. As if the sounds of the universe had been switched off.

  Complete silence. Other than his own hoarse screaming, of course.

  His one palm had pressed into the scorched earth of the green and he felt the heavy tread of the creatures as they moved away.

  And Oliver let everything go and allowed the darkness to take him.

  Chapter

  3

  It was so dark, so cold in the ship. How long had they been here, wherever here was? Surely the chamber should have opened by now? She'd been awake for over thirty minutes - it was designed to open after fifteen, by which time their bodies should be acclimatised.

  Something was wrong.

  She sniffed: stale air inside the chamber and...

  damp. Damp was the worst thing that could happen.

  The chambers were supposed to be protected against this.

  She realised she could move her hands and raised them, immediately discovering that she was pressed against the lid of the chamber - either she'd put on a lot of weight while asleep or the chamber DOCTOR WHO

  had shrunk. Both of these were unlikely, so there had to be another explanation.

  Slowly she started feeling around in the dark until she found the control switches, but they were dead. They had enough power to outlive aeons.

  Something was definitely wrong.

  She took a deep breath and smashed upwards with her hands, and the chamber's lid flew straight upwards, which gave her her first shock. Her second shock came when she started to follow the lid, realising as her body started to lunge forward that the chamber hadn't shrunk at all: it was suspended upside down or at an angle of some sort. About seventy degrees was the estimate that shot though her mind as she fell the short distance to the floor.

  The lid clattered noisily onto the far wall that now acted as the floor. The ambient yellow light suggested that, although the controls had failed, there must still be emergency lighting. She looked for its source and saw a jury-rigged lamp had been suspended from another open casket at the same angle. 3's. Good for him - up and about already, and using his brain.