by Jacqueline Rayner, Mike Tucker, Paul Magrs, et al (retail) (epub)
‘Just to make sure you don’t cheat,’ said the cowboy. His mask was fixed in a permanent grin, and Steven was sure the same smug expression was spread across the real face beneath.
‘I’m not a cheater,’ Steven growled through gritted teeth. He knelt down, baring his teeth, and set his sights on an apple.
The apple also bared its teeth.
Steven yelled as a dozen pieces of fruit clamped their jaws on to his nose, his ears, his cheeks. Somehow, they were dragging him down, into the water. An apple wedged itself in his still-open mouth; he tried to breathe but his head was underwater now.
But space pilots need cool heads, and Steven was not one to give in to panic. He stopped thrashing about, relaxed, and as he was drawn deeper into the tub he raised a knee on to its rim and pressed down hard. It wasn’t an easy or elegant move, but it succeeded. Steven ended up on his back, very wet, with the upturned tub on top of him, but he could breathe again. A spreading pool carried the fanged apples across the room, and as Steven pushed himself up on to his knees he was delighted to see that some were already nipping at the toes and ankles of the vampire and the cowboy.
Then he heard a scream. Dodo!
Steven got to his feet and slipped and slid his way to the door. ‘Dodo! I’m coming!’ he shouted, before realising he had no way of opening the door with his hands still tied behind his back. ‘Hold on!’
The door was opened from the other side and Dodo stood in front of him. ‘Oh, Steven! I’m so glad to – what happened to your face?’
‘Untie me, would you?’ he said, turning round and holding up his wrists as best he could. ‘We need to find the Doctor! Something pretty odd is going on around here.’
‘You’re telling me! I just found myself holding someone’s br– Argh!’ she cried out as she was grabbed from behind by the headless horseman, his head now under his arm.
But she’d loosened the ropes enough that Steven was able to shake his hands free. He grabbed hold of one of the biting apples and flung it at Dodo’s captor. The body let go of Dodo – and let go of its head too. Shrieking, the head rolled away, as the boys from Steven’s room and the girls from Dodo’s started flinging things – mainly apples, but also the occasional body part – at the horseman, the vampire, the cowboy, the witch and the skeleton.
‘Come on, let’s get the Doctor,’ said Steven, holding Dodo’s hand to help her through the throng.
‘But the children …’ she began.
‘They seem to be coping fine. Anyway, we can help them best by finding the Doctor.’
Together, they ran out into the huge hall. To their astonishment, it was almost exactly as they’d left it. The Doctor was sipping from a goblet, chatting to a Frankenstein’s monster. Dodo and Steven hurried over to him. ‘Doctor!’
The Doctor put up a hand, as if they were children needing to be taught not to interrupt their elders. ‘In a moment, in a moment. Now, my dear sir –’
‘Doctor!’ Dodo grabbed hold of his coat sleeve. ‘It’s important!’
Tutting and shaking his head, the Doctor apologised to the monster – ‘Excuse me, my dear fellow’ – and turned to them. ‘Well? What’s so important, hmm?’
‘There’s something really scary going on, Doctor,’ said Dodo.
He looked at her with tolerant pity. ‘My child! This is a Hallowe’en party. Being scary is the whole point!’
‘Not like this,’ said Steven. ‘I was attacked by apples!’ He saw the Doctor’s face, half disbelieving, half almost-laughing. ‘It wasn’t funny! Listen.’
They told him what had happened, and were about to head off to investigate further when a voice boomed out, ‘Time for our final game!’
Everyone fell silent at the announcement and turned to the speaker, a figure covered completely by a sheet, a cartoon-like ghost.
‘Murder in the Dark!’ the ghost continued. ‘Join us, everyone!’
The far door opened and all the children ran back into the room, laughing and excited, not a hint of the confusion or chaos or fear Dodo and Steven had just been telling the Doctor about.
‘Everyone will select a role at random.’ The masked figures began circulating through the crowd of children, holding out upside-down top hats full of white discs.
‘I don’t want to play,’ said Dodo, when a hat was offered to her. The masked ghoul continued to thrust the hat at her. ‘No! I won’t!’
‘I think you’d better,’ said Steven from behind her. She turned to see two masked Roman soldiers menacing the Doctor with their all-too-real-looking short swords. He had taken a disc and so had Steven. Reluctantly, Dodo did too. She just had time to see it had no word on it, just a question mark, when all the candles went out.
There was a scream. Long, piercing, but whether a man’s, woman’s or child’s she couldn’t tell. Then she felt someone bump into her.
Almost immediately the candles spontaneously started burning again.
Now Dodo herself shrieked in horror. In those few moments, things had changed.
The three of them – herself, Steven and the Doctor – were completely surrounded by every masked figure. The gunfighter, the headless horseman, the ghost, the gypsy violinist, the skeleton, the mandarin, the one-eyed ogre – all of them. And beyond that circle …
Every single child was lying on the floor.
‘Are they …?’ Dodo whispered, unable to utter the word ‘dead’.
‘It’s just make-believe,’ said Steven. ‘It’s just part of the game. Play-victims.’ He sounded convincing, but she knew he was trying to convince himself as much as her.
‘Who is the detective?’ boomed the sheet-covered ghost.
Silently, the Doctor held up his disc. The word DETECTIVE was written clearly on it.
‘And now, Doctor, you have to find the murderer. Not too difficult. You only have two suspects.’
Dodo looked down at the disc she held, the one with the question mark on it. She turned it over. On the other side, it read MURDERER. Steven held out his. It was identical.
‘Examine your suspects, Doctor,’ said the ghost. ‘Then make your decision. But be sure of your answer. Only one of your friends can walk free.’
‘And what happens to the other, hmm?’ demanded the Doctor.
‘The guilty must be punished.’
‘This is ridiculous!’ shouted Steven. ‘Neither Dodo nor I have hurt anyone. The Doctor knows that. Everyone knows that!’
‘But it’s the rules of the game. You accepted our invitation, joined our party. That means you must play by the rules. Or else. So decide. Who killed the party guests? One of your friends must be punished; the other will walk free.’
Dodo felt sick with fear. She choked back a sob of panic, and reached in her pocket for a handkerchief.
There was something else in there. Horrified, she pulled out a small blue bottle. It had a skull and crossbones on it.
‘Was it Miss Chaplet with poison in the punch?’
‘Someone must’ve put this in my pocket when they bumped into me!’ cried Dodo. ‘It’s not mine!’
‘Or Mr Taylor with drugs in the drink?’
Steven wordlessly pulled an identical blue bottle out of his pocket.
The ghost yelled, ‘Decide, Doctor!’
The surrounding crowd took a step forward, hands outstretched, ready to grab the guilty party.
‘It was me!’ Steven suddenly said. ‘I did it. That’s your answer, Doctor. Please.’
Dodo felt an indescribable rush of gratitude, but of course she couldn’t let him do that. ‘No,’ she said urgently. ‘Doctor, it was me. I … I poisoned them.’
The Doctor looked at her, met her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, my dear.’ Then he turned to the ghost. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I have my answer. The murderer is … you!’ But it wasn’t Dodo he indicated, or Steven. He spun round to face the masked mandarin, and ripped the rubber from his face. Below was a face almost identical to the mask – a face Dodo recognised. A face they’d last s
een only a short time ago, when they’d escaped his world of toys and tricks. The Celestial Toymaker.
‘Hiding in plain sight, hmm?’ the Doctor said. ‘But who else could it be? Who else would twist games like this?’
‘Well done, Doctor,’ said the Celestial Toymaker. ‘But your answer is invalid. My toys –’ he made a gesture and all those surrounding them pulled off their masks to reveal crude dolls’ faces with dots for eyes and nose, a semi-circle for a mouth – ‘know that games must follow the rules to the very end. They are waiting for your decision. Steven or Dodo?’
‘Games must follow the rules, hmm? Well, if they must, they must. But I have a request. A music request! “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star!” ’
The Celestial Toymaker looked as though he thought the Doctor had lost his mind. So did Steven.
But Dodo suddenly got it! She grabbed fiddle and bow from the gypsy violinist, and began to frantically scrape out the only tune she knew. All the dolls took a step towards them.
‘We’re playing Musical Statues again!’ declared the Doctor. ‘And when the music stops –’ obediently (and relieved) Dodo stopped playing – ‘all the players must stop moving!’
All the dolls froze, and the Doctor cried, ‘Dodo, Steven, run!’
The three of them fled through the frozen figures, and through the children on the floor, which were now revealed to be nothing more than floppy ragdolls of cotton and thread.
‘This is not Musical Statues! This is still Murder in the Dark!’ they heard the Toymaker yelling at his creatures as they dashed through the huge wooden door. ‘Get after them!’
But the Doctor, Steven and Dodo were already on the path. The jack-o’-lanterns were still lit and they hurriedly retraced their steps away from the mansion towards the TARDIS.
‘How did we get away?’ said Dodo when they stood in safety at last. ‘Did we win the game? I thought the Toymaker destroyed his world and everything in it if he was beaten.’
‘We won Murder in the Dark,’ said the Doctor. ‘I rightly identified the killer – the Toymaker himself. But starting a new game confused things for long enough to let us get away.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Dodo, who wasn’t entirely sure she did. But being back in the TARDIS was all that mattered. ‘You know, when we beat him last time, I thought it’d keep him off our backs for a bit longer than this.’
‘For those such as him, time is nothing,’ said the Doctor. ‘He could have spent a thousand years planning this since we last met, although only days have passed for us.’
‘You’d think he’d have made a better job of it, if he’d been planning it that long,’ put in Steven. ‘A twisted kids’ party!’
‘But he nearly got us!’ Dodo pointed out.
‘Oh nonsense, nonsense,’ said the Doctor. ‘It wasn’t as near as all that. Anyway, we got away. That’s the important thing.’
Dodo shivered. ‘Let’s never come here again.’
‘Definitely not!’ agreed Steven.
But had either of them glanced at the scanner screen, they would have seen a flashing blue light, an outline of another police box appearing.
The battle between the Doctor and the Toymaker would never end …
‘Och, I dinnae believe it. How many rooms are there inside this wee box?’
Ben laughed. Jamie’s confusion at the TARDIS was understandable. Ben considered himself an up-to-date twentieth-century London man and the TARDIS perplexed him; he couldn’t imagine what a young Scottish piper from the battlefields of Culloden in 1746 must make of it.
‘We’ve stopped counting,’ said Polly. ‘Ben and I did a bit of exploring when we first came on board.’
‘And you nearly got us lost in the process!’ Ben chastised her.
Polly stuck her tongue out at him. ‘We found our way back eventually.’
‘Yeah, only because the Doctor came and got us,’ Ben replied.
‘Well, that was because it was all new then! This time I know exactly where I’m going. Come on.’
Grabbing hold of Jamie’s hand, Polly set off along another corridor, the walls peppered with the strange circular indentations that were a common feature of the TARDIS. Before he followed them, Ben took the time to get a good look at his surroundings. While he had only been teasing Polly, the truth was that she had been choosing corridors at random and had no real idea as to which way she was leading them. If Ben had been in charge of this little expedition, he would have come up with some kind of system: one left turn, one right turn, one left turn – or something like that. Polly was just choosing which corridors they went down on a whim.
Fortunately, the Doctor’s habit of collecting unusual objects from every conceivable time and place stopped the endless passageways from looking identical. Even here, a long way from the time machine’s control room, there was an antique coal scuttle propped against one wall, and what appeared to be a unicycle sticking out of a packing crate. The Doctor didn’t keep a very tidy ship.
Once he was satisfied that he had remembered enough recognisable features to be able to find the way back when the time came, Ben set off after his shipmates.
Polly’s infectious laughter rang through the corridors ahead.
By the time that Ben caught up, Polly was struggling to open a door. This door was quite unlike all the others they had tried. Where they had been uniformly metallic and flat, this one was made out of dark wood and had a fancy piece of stained glass set into a circular window.
‘It won’t budge,’ said Polly, heaving against it with her shoulder. ‘Ben, come and open it for me.’
Before he could oblige, Jamie had stepped forward and pulled Polly to one side. ‘Out of the way, lassie. You need a highlander to do this for you, not some Sassenach.’
A few weeks ago, Ben probably wouldn’t have let an insult like that pass, but travelling with the Doctor had smoothed some of his rougher naval edges. Besides, if the newcomer wanted to make a fool of himself in front of the lady …
‘All right, let’s see you do it then.’ Ben folded his arms and leaned casually against the wall of the corridor.
Jamie made a show of rubbing his hands together in preparation, then threw himself against the door. His calf muscles bulged as he pushed against it with all his strength. He failed to make any impression on the unyielding door.
Ben, who was watching in amusement, was just about to offer to show Jamie how it should be done when, to the surprise of everyone – especially Jamie – the door swung abruptly open.
Ben stifled a laugh as the young Scot tumbled through the open doorway, followed by a loud crash from the room beyond.
‘Jamie!’ cried Polly. ‘Are you all right?’
She, too, vanished through the doorway, and Ben quickly followed her. The room they found themselves in was dark and dusty. Polly was trying to haul Jamie to his feet.
‘Very elegant,’ teased Ben, giving him a helping hand.
‘Aye, well, I wasn’t expecting it to open so easily.’ Jamie looked embarrassed, brushing the dust and cobwebs from his shirt. ‘What is this place, anyway?’ He looked around curiously. ‘That desk looks like the Doctor’s control … console.’ He struggled to remember the unfamiliar word.
‘Hey, Ben, he’s right, you know.’ Polly was also staring around in astonishment. ‘It does look like a smaller version of the control room.’
Ben had to agree. It did indeed look very similar – only, instead of the familiar white walls and gleaming controls, here everything was dark wood and stained glass. Before Ben could suggest that they exercise a little caution, however, Polly had already made her way over to the central console-like desk and opened one of its six hinged panels.
There was a hum of power and the room was flooded with light.
Polly gave a squeal of delight.
Ben wasn’t quite so enthusiastic. ‘Are you sure you should be messing about with things like that, duchess?’
‘Oh, come on. It’s not like I’m going to press a
ny of the buttons now, is it?’ Polly replied.
Jamie was staring at the rows of illuminated switches that had been revealed by opening the panel. ‘What do you suppose all this is for?’ he asked.
Ben shrugged. ‘Back-up navigational controls or something. I guess that the Doctor can operate the TARDIS from either this control room or the other one.’
‘And that?’ Jamie nodded at a circular mirror set into a silver stand protruding from the top of the wooden console.
Ben frowned. ‘It looks like a shaving mirror.’
‘Do you think this is where the Doctor comes to trim his beard?’ Polly laughed.
‘The Doctor doesn’t have a beard,’ Jamie pointed out.
‘This Doctor doesn’t,’ Polly said. ‘Who knows if any of the previous ones did?’
Ben and Polly had recently witnessed the Doctor changing his entire physical appearance. Ben wouldn’t have believed such a thing to be possible, except that it had happened right in front of his eyes.
Ignoring the puzzled expression on Jamie’s face, Polly started to explore the room. Ben looked around in admiration; the TARDIS certainly wasn’t short of surprises. Trust the Doctor to have two control rooms. He wondered what else they might find if they explored the TARDIS for long enough …
‘Ben! Come and look at this.’ Polly’s excited voice brought him back to earth. She was kneeling in front of a large wooden chest on the far side of the room.
‘What have you found now, duchess?’
Leaving Jamie, who was still staring in perplexed fascination at the coloured lights blinking away inside the console, Ben wandered over to Polly. She was pulling something out of the chest and, as he approached, she held out what she had found, her eyes shining. Ben took it. It was a wooden board, its surface scuffed and faded. Each edge was decorated with crudely painted symbols depicting the sun, the moon and other unidentifiable planets. The central portion of the board was taken up with the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, the numbers zero to nine, and three words: ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘goodbye’.
