Doctor Who BBCN04 - The Deviant Strain Page 7

  Come on, if you’re coming.’

  Alex stood up as well. ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I thought not.’

  They were perhaps halfway back to the inn. With no light, it was hard to tell how far they had come and to Rose’s untrained eye all the submarines looked the same.

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  ‘What will you tell them?’

  Sofia seemed preoccupied, lost in her thoughts, and Rose had to ask twice before she got an answer.

  ‘To stay indoors as much as possible and not to go out alone. Even in daylight.’

  ‘Let’s hope that’s enough.’

  Sofia did not reply. She stopped and raised her hand for Rose to be quiet. They were both hardly more than silhouettes against the snowy harbour road. Rose was about to ask what was wrong, but then she heard it too.

  A slithering, scraping sound. Like something heavy being dragged across the road somewhere ahead of them. There was a faint mist now. The breeze had dropped and the cold night air was damp and clammy. It seemed to seep through Rose’s coat and clothes and into her skin.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked in a whisper.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Sofia was looking round, trying to identify exactly where the sound was coming from. ‘You wait here.’ She shone her torch into the misty darkness, though to little effect.

  ‘Not likely,’ Rose told her.

  But then Sofia did something odd. Odd and strangely unsettling.

  She scratched at her ear – a rapid movement, jerky, like a dog irritated by fleas. There was no reason why she shouldn’t do it, nothing strange about the gesture at all. But it made Rose feel suddenly cold and alone. She wished she’d stayed with Jack and the soldiers. And when Sofia walked cautiously into the mist, in the direction of the sound that was now fading into the night, Rose stayed exactly where she was.

  Sofia Barinska’s muffled footsteps faded into the mist, just as her shape had moments earlier. Rose was left alone on the quayside, hugging her arms round her body in an effort to keep warm. She stamped her feet and blew out long breaths of air that added to the thickening mist.

  After what seemed like an age, Rose called out, ‘Sofia? Sofia! Are you there? Stop mucking about and come back here, I can’t see a 63

  thing.’

  The sound was from behind her this time. The same slippery sound, like a weight of seaweed being pulled across the quay. Rose peered into the mist, but she could hardly even see the ground at her feet now that the moon was obscured. She moved slowly, cautiously, towards the sound.

  Something was glowing faintly ahead of her. The light was blurred and unfocused in the mist. A torch, maybe? Jack and the soldiers returning? But if so, why hadn’t the lights come back on? Or maybe they had. Rose remembered how few of the lights on the dock actually worked anyway. With the mist as well, the power might have come back on without her knowing. She continued to move cautiously forwards. The sound was still there, the light was getting brighter – blue, pulsing, eerie.

  ‘Do I want to do this?’ she asked herself quietly. The answer was probably no, but she kept going. Until her foot met something and she almost lost her balance.

  Rose knelt down, partly to see what was lying at her feet and partly to stop herself from falling over it. Even so, she could barely make out the dark shape. She prodded gently with her hand. Even through her thick glove she could feel that whatever it was seemed soft and slightly springy. Like a deflating balloon.

  Like jelly.

  With a sharp intake of cold breath, Rose was on her feet and backing away.

  In front of her the pulsing, throbbing pale-blue light moved suddenly forwards – coming straight at her.

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  Whatever the light was, it made a slippery, slithering sound as it came. Something slapped past Rose, brushing her shoulder before flopping down on the ground at her feet. There was another sound now – something dragging. The body she had found being pulled back, towards the light that was now brighter, pulsing more rapidly. A tendril of glowing blue swept in front of Rose, making her dodge sideways and stagger backwards.

  She didn’t wait to see any more of the creature. She turned and ran. Straight into a dark shape that solidified out of the mist and held her tight.

  ‘What is it?’ Sofia demanded as Rose pulled away.

  ‘There’s. . . something. Back there.’

  ‘What sort of something?’

  Rose gave a short laugh. ‘A nasty something. I didn’t hang around to find out any more. And another body, I think.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got the torch.’

  The slithering sounds seemed to have stopped and Rose led the way cautiously back towards where she had seen the glowing creature.

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  ‘Like a blobby blue jellyfish or something. With, like, tentacles, you know.’

  ‘I don’t think I do.’ Sofia sounded nervous too.

  But there was nothing there. The faint torchlight picked out the trail in the snow where something had dragged itself up onto the quay and along the roadway. And the deeper trail where something heavy had been pulled away.

  ‘One of the soldiers?’ Rose wondered. ‘Jack couldn’t get them on the radio.’

  ‘If so, this man wouldn’t have been alone,’ Sofia pointed out.

  ‘More than one, then. Maybe. Oh, I dunno, do I?’ Rose protested.

  ‘We should be getting back to the inn.’

  Sofia was shining the torch along the trail. It was little more than an impression in the snow – no distinctive markings or footprints. Almost as if someone had rolled a snowball along.

  ‘You say it was glowing?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But the snow hasn’t melted.

  It’s just been pushed aside and

  crushed.’

  ‘So, it glows but it doesn’t get hot. It was sort of bluish.’

  ‘Not even warm. A few degrees above freezing is hot round here.’

  Sofia clicked her tongue, considering. ‘That’s why we need the generator working again, and quickly. Not for light so much as for heat.

  Though the institute has its own power supply if we get really desperate.’

  ‘Jack’ll sort it.’

  ‘I hope so.’ She shook her head. ‘Too much,’ she muttered. ‘Too much, too soon. I’m not ready for this.’

  ‘Who is?’ Rose wondered.

  Sofia seemed to gather herself and come to a decision. ‘I want to look at the stone circle again, where we found poor Pavel’s body.’

  ‘What, now? In this fog?’

  ‘It may be clearer up on the cliff. This is a sea mist. It won’t be so thick higher up.’

  ‘Even so.’

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  ‘I want to see if there’s a similar trail up there. If we wait, the snow may obscure it.’

  ‘It probably already has,’ Rose pointed out. ‘And if it hasn’t, the soldiers have been trampling all round the place anyway.’

  ‘You don’t have to come,’ Sofia said. She turned away. ‘Go back to the inn and keep warm and safe there, if you like.’

  Rose sighed. ‘I’ll come,’ she said. ‘You’ll need someone to keep an eye out for angry blobs while you go poking about in the snow.’

  A light came on about ten metres away. Its glow was dissipated by the fog. It flickered as if struggling to stay alight, then brightened slightly. It wasn’t much, but it was a comfort. Rose could see that Sofia was smiling. But the way the shadows and the mist obscured her face, for a moment she looked almost grotesque. Like a grinning skull. Then she moved and the moment was gone.

  ‘Come on, then,’ Sofia said.

  They took one of the Jeeps from the institute. Minin drove, silent for most of the journey. It was more than just his concentrating on getting through the thickening mist.

  ‘You got a problem with this?’ the Doctor asked at last.

  ‘Several.’

  ‘I’ll tak
e the blame.’

  ‘That’s only one of the problems.’

  ‘So what are the others?’

  ‘Least of our problems will be digging through frozen ground. More of a problem is knowing where to dig.’

  ‘Someone must know. We’ll get directions.’

  Minin wiped at the inside of the windscreen with the back of his hand. It made little difference. They had slowed almost to a walking pace.

  ‘Fedor Vahlen will know. He digs the graves.’

  ‘How’s he do that?’

  ‘He’s a builder. Mainly repairing leaks and shoring up the older buildings. But he’s got a digger.’

  ‘That’s OK, then.’

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  ‘Pavel was his son,’ Minin said quietly.

  ‘Oh. Right.’ The Doctor thought about this. ‘He should be glad to help, then.’

  ‘Might be glad to help you. Vahlen and I. . . he doesn’t like me.’

  The Doctor turned to look at Minin. ‘No one likes you,’ he pointed out. Then he grinned. ‘He’ll like me, though. Everyone does. Guaranteed.’

  Razul was rubbing his oily hands on a rag. ‘There was a blockage in the main feed from the larger fuel tank. No wonder they had to keep topping it up. Should run for a couple of days now without needing any attention.’

  ‘Fingers crossed,’ Jack said. ‘Well done.’

  Sergeyev nodded, which seemed to be as close as he would come to congratulating his comrade.

  ‘Right, let’s get back to the institute and see who’s checked in. We can’t do much more till morning and this mist burns off.’

  ‘If it does,’ Sergeyev said glumly.

  ‘Oh, you’re a bundle of joy,’ Jack told him.

  Sergeyev scowled back.

  Razul was smiling with amusement at their antagonism. But his smile froze as he tossed the oily rag into a corner. ‘What was that?’

  ‘What?’ Jack asked.

  ‘A sound. Just then. Listen.’

  They all stood silently, listening. There was a scuffling, scraping sound from behind the generator, barely audible above its steady throb of power.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Sergeyev said. ‘Just the machinery.’

  ‘Or rats, maybe,’ Jack suggested.

  But Razul was not convinced. ‘It sounded like something outside, on the hull. Sliding across the outer shell of the submarine.’

  Sergeyev gave a dismissive laugh. ‘That’s not possible,’ he said. ‘We are below the waterline.’

  Vahlen took some persuading to leave his distraught wife and bring 68

  his digger to the graveyard. He glared at Minin, refusing point blank to talk to the man, and so the Doctor had to work his charm.

  It only went so far before the Doctor lost his patience. ‘Will you stop feeling so sorry for yourself and do something to help?’ he demanded.

  ‘Pavel’s gone, and I’m sorry. But if you want to prevent anyone else having to suffer what you’re going through, then I suggest you get off your backside and give us a hand.’ He took a deep breath before continuing more quietly, ‘There’s something going on here that’s wrong and dangerous. You know that. Everyone knows that. You ignore it or give it a mythical name because you think you can’t stop it. But now that’s got to change. It’s time to make a stand. I can stop it. I will stop it. But I need your help. All right?’

  The huge mechanical shovel bit into the frosted earth. It struggled to penetrate, the main body of the digger lifting off the ground. But then it cut through suddenly, the digger thumping back down as the shovel came up. Its arm swung round, dropping the dark earth onto the snowy ground. Tendrils of mist played round the scene, the exhaust from the digger thickening the air.

  The older graves had proper headstones: all identical, all arranged evenly in neat rows – like soldiers on parade. But the more recent ones were marked by small wooden crosses and positioned haphazardly across the landscape.

  ‘He was the last to die under similar circumstances,’ Minin said as they watched the pile of earth growing. ‘He’s been in the ground for two years. You sure you want to do this, Doctor?’

  ‘ Why doesn’t he like you?’ the Doctor said in reply.

  ‘As you said, no one likes me.’

  ‘Yeah. But he really doesn’t like you.’

  The digger backed away. It drew level with Minin and the Doctor, and Vahlen leaned out of the cab. He spoke to the Doctor, ignoring Minin altogether.

  ‘The casket’s exposed now. You do what you have to. I’ll get out of your way and fill it in again when you’re done. I’d rather no one else knew about this.’ The engine revved and the digger lurched forwards again. Then it stopped and Vahlen’s head reappeared. ‘You’ll stop 69

  this? You’ll make sure it doesn’t ever happen again?’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘It might take a while. There may be some cost.

  But I’ll stop it. Promise.’

  Vahlen’s head disappeared back into the cab, then the digger disappeared back into the mist.

  ‘He used to work with a man called Chedakin,’ Minin said.

  They walked slowly across to the open grave. The Doctor had a spade over his shoulder. They looked down into the blackness.

  ‘They were the best of friends. But Chedakin had a big mouth.’

  ‘Careless talk costs lives,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘It cost him his, certainly.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘They found him with a gun in his hand and a hole in the back of his head. Shot himself rather than be recalled to Moscow to explain his actions. That’s the theory.’

  ‘Suicide?’

  Minin nodded.

  ‘And Vahlen and the others blame you for that?’ The Doctor jumped down into the grave. ‘People are so short-sighted, aren’t they,’ he said.

  ‘Right, let’s get the lid off this coffin.’

  The cold of the ground had helped preserve the wood and it took the combined efforts of the Doctor and Minin to lever the top from the plain wooden box that served as a coffin. Immediately, the stench from inside made them both gag.

  ‘Well, we know he’s still here,’ the Doctor said.

  Minin had a handkerchief clamped over his nose and mouth. ‘Quick as you can,’ he said, his voice muffled. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  They wrenched the lid away and looked inside.

  The coffin was empty.

  ‘He’s gone! Then where’s the smell coming from?’ Minin said.

  The Doctor was stooped down beside the coffin. He had a test tube in one hand and a metal spatula from Catherine’s lab in the other.

  ‘He’s still here, I’m afraid.’ The Doctor was scooping something up from the bottom of the coffin and scraping it into the test tube. He 70

  stuck a rubber bung in the top and handed it to Minin. ‘Hang on to this a mo.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The clothes have rotted, probably an accelerated process. As with the body. Whatever did it drained the binding energy from everything, not just the bone and cartilage.’ He tapped the test tube that Minin was now holding. ‘That’s what’s left of the body.’

  Minin stared at it in horrified disbelief. Inside was what looked like a lump of pale, colourless jelly. ‘This was once a person?’

  The Doctor pushed the lid back on the coffin and hauled himself out of the grave. ‘Yep.’

  ‘But how can someone end up like this?’

  ‘Dunno. But –’ he reached down and helped Minin climb out to join him – ‘unless we find out soon, we might all end up the same way.’ He took back the test tube and shoved it into his jacket pocket. ‘Cheering thought, isn’t it?’ he said happily, waving through the mist for Vahlen to come and fill in the hole.

  The sound of the generator was a gentle throbbing from behind them as they made their way back towards the main hatch. They had almost reached it when they heard the noise again. Slithering, sliding, scraping – from somewhere up ahead.

  ‘I
don’t like this,’ Razul whispered. He checked his Geiger counter, but the reading was the same as ever.

  ‘It’s ahead of us,’ Sergeyev said.

  ‘It does sound as if it’s inside the boat now,’ Jack agreed. ‘Must be some machinery, or something loose shifting as the sub moves in the water.’

  ‘It isn’t moving in the water,’ Sergeyev pointed out.

  ‘Clever clogs,’ Jack muttered. ‘OK, then,’ he said out loud, ‘let’s get out of here as quick as we can, agreed?’

  The other two nodded. The ladder up into the conning tower was just ahead of them now, the whole metal world lit in blood red as only the emergency lighting seemed to work.

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  Razul reached the ladder first. He reached out for it, then pulled his hand away. ‘It’s slippery,’ he said in a hushed voice.

  ‘It’s just rusty, that’s all,’ Sergeyev said. He reached out to check, then he too pulled his hand away. ‘No, it’s. . . it’s as if it’s been smeared with oil or grease or something.’

  ‘Something cold,’ Razul agreed. ‘Icy. But sticky.’

  ‘It’s the only way out,’ Jack said quietly. ‘Do we debate what’s happened or leg it?’

  They were all three clustered round the ladder now. Sergeyev shone his torch at the rungs in front of them. ‘Colourless,’ he said. He moved the torch up, and they could now all see that something clear and viscous was coating the ladder. The beam of light reached the top of the ladder, illuminating the open hatch. And with a cry of surprise and fear, Sergeyev dropped the torch.

  A glowing tendril, like pale seaweed, dropped down towards them, thrashing across the bottom of the ladder.

  ‘Come on!’ Jack led the way, running from the pale, glowing, gelatinous mass of the creature that was oozing down the ladder behind them.

  ‘We should have headed back for the generator,’ Razul gasped.

  ‘There is no way out back there either,’ Sergeyev said.

  ‘No. But up here, we heard. . . ’ His voice tailed off.

  They slowed to a halt. Their faces were pale even in the red of the lights. From behind them came the slithering sound as the creature dragged itself after them down the main corridor.