by Jacqueline Rayner, Mike Tucker, Paul Magrs, et al (retail) (epub)
Ben frowned, not knowing what it was that he was looking at. ‘I don’t get it, Pol. Is it some kind of board game?’
‘Better than that!’ She scrambled to her feet, now holding out a small glass tumbler also engraved with planetary symbols. ‘It’s a Ouija board!’
Ben rolled his eyes. ‘A Ouija board. Oh, for Pete’s sake, Polly …’
‘Don’t be so mean.’ Polly snatched the board back from him. ‘After all that we’ve seen recently, I’d have thought that you’d be a little more open-minded.’
‘I’m very open-minded,’ said Ben firmly. ‘But the supernatural?’
‘Who’s to say that the supernatural isn’t as real as everything else we’ve encountered? A few weeks ago, you’d have scoffed at the idea of aliens or robots, but now you know that they’re real.’
Frustratingly, Ben didn’t have a good answer to that. He watched impatiently as Polly closed the lid of the chest and set the board down on top of it.
‘You’re not going to set that up here, are you?’ he asked.
‘Why not?’ said Polly.
‘I thought you wanted to explore.’
‘Well, we have explored,’ stated Polly. ‘Now I want to try this.’
Ben sighed. He knew from experience that once Polly got an idea in her head she wasn’t easily dissuaded.
‘OK, duchess, you win, but do me a favour – let’s do this back in the other console room, rather than here, all right?’
Polly looked at him in surprise. ‘Why?’
‘I dunno …’ Ben glanced down at the board, with its strange cosmic symbolism. There was something unsettling about it. Something that made his gut clench. He was aware of Polly’s eyes watching him, aware of how foolish it would sound if he voiced his uneasiness. More annoyed with himself than with Polly, he scooped up the board. ‘I just want to get back, OK?’
Before Polly had a chance to argue, he started towards the door, nursing the suspicion that finding the Ouija board was something that they were all going to regret.
Some time later, the three companions finally found themselves back in the familiar surroundings of the main control room. Polly would have been the last to admit it, but Ben had been right about her casual regard to exploring. If it hadn’t been for his careful remembrance of their route, they would have all been totally lost. Fortunately, Ben’s unerring sense of direction had brought them right back to where they had started.
As they entered the gleaming white control room, Polly did have to admit, though, that returning here had been an equally good idea. She would never tell Ben, of course, but she too had experienced a shiver of nervous unease when she had first set eyes on the strange decorations of the Ouija board.
‘There’s no sign of the Doctor,’ said Jamie.
‘Well, that’s probably a good thing,’ replied Ben. ‘I can’t imagine him being too happy about us doing this.’
‘Why not?’ said Polly indignantly. ‘It’s his board.’
‘Or something he took from some ferocious monster.’
‘What does it do, anyway?’ Jamie took the board from Polly and peered at it curiously.
‘It’s a means of contacting the spirit world,’ explained Polly. ‘Of communicating with the dead.’
Jamie’s face fell and he practically threw the board back at her. ‘Och, I dinnae want anything to do wi’ demons or ghosts.’
Polly rolled her eyes at him. ‘You’re as bad as Ben. Both of you are too scared to try anything new.’
‘I didnae say that I was scared,’ Jamie protested.
‘Yeah, hold your horses, duchess.’ Ben was equally put out. ‘I never said I wouldn’t try it.’
Polly stifled a smile. She knew that neither of the boys would want to look frightened in front of her. ‘Well, then, help me set it up,’ she declared.
It didn’t take long to find a small card table and a couple of battered chairs and set them up alongside the TARDIS console. Polly got them all to sit round the table in a circle, then placed the glass upside-down on the wooden board.
‘Right, we all put one finger on the glass,’ she instructed.
Sharing a dubious glance, Ben and Jamie did as they were told.
‘Now then, close your eyes.’
Ben didn’t look happy about that. ‘Hey, why do we –’
‘Just do it, Ben!’
To Polly’s satisfaction, both men obeyed. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes too. ‘Are there any spirits here in this room?’ she intoned.
Ben sniggered, and Polly opened her eyes to glare at him. ‘If you’re not going to take this seriously …’ she warned.
‘All right, all right. I’m sorry.’ Ben placed his finger back on the glass.
Polly took another calming breath. ‘I ask again, are there any spirits in this room?’
The console room suddenly became uncannily silent; the clicks and beeps that made up the constant background hum dropped in pitch until they were virtually inaudible. At the same time, Polly was aware that it had become much, much colder. She shivered.
‘Hey, I can feel the wee glass moving!’ exclaimed Jamie.
Heart pounding, Polly realised that Jamie was right. She too could feel the glass starting to slide across the board as if it had a mind of its own.
‘I don’t believe it,’ murmured Ben.
Urging him to be quiet, Polly watched as the glass slid from letter to letter.
T … A … R … D …
‘TARDIS,’ she whispered. ‘It’s spelling out TARDIS.’
‘But why?’ Jamie asked.
‘I think it’s asking if we are in a TARDIS,’ said Polly. ‘Yes! Yes we are. Where are you?’
The glass started to move again.
V … O … R …
‘VORTEX.’ Ben looked up from the board. ‘The Time Vortex?’
‘It’s not finished yet,’ Jamie said, as the glass started to move faster and faster across the board.
As Polly kept track of the letters being spelled out, a cold chill of horror rippled down her spine. The three friends stared at each other nervously.
WE WILL DEVOUR YOU.
This was a decidedly sinister turn of events, but before they could make any decisions about what to do, the glass started to jerk and jump beneath their fingers, then flew from the board and shattered against the ceiling.
Polly cried out, throwing her arms up over her head as broken glass rained down on her. Ben and Jamie were forced to scramble backwards as the Ouija board bucked and rattled violently, before launching itself from the card table and flying across the room, making a noise like a screaming animal.
Jamie ducked as the board swooped down at his head like an angry wooden bird. As he struggled desperately to stop it from crashing against his head, Ben snatched up one of the wooden chairs and smashed it hard against the floor, shattering it into fragments. He picked up one of the broken legs and swiped it at the spinning board, trying to get the board away from Jamie before it could cause serious injury.
Seemingly aware of this new attacker, the board turned its attentions towards Ben, flying directly at his face. That was exactly what Ben had wanted. Now that it was safely away from Jamie, he didn’t have to hold back. Steeling himself, he swung the chair leg at it with all his might.
There was a deafening crack and the wooden board split in two. The halves clattered to the floor. The horrible, cat-like screeching stopped and the room fell silent, apart from the hum of the console, once more.
‘How could you all be so stupid?’
Ben didn’t think that he had ever seen the Doctor so angry. The scruffy little man was pacing round and round the console, wringing his hands in agitation. Jamie was staring at his shoes. Polly looked like she was about to burst into tears.
‘Don’t you realise how incredibly dangerous this could have been?’ cried the Doctor. ‘It could have the most appalling consequences.’
‘Surely there’s no harm done?’ said Ben, trying to c
alm things down. ‘I mean, it’s only a stupid game, and, besides, it’s broken now, isn’t it?’
‘A game?’ The Doctor stared at him as if he was an imbecile. ‘You really don’t have the slightest idea of what you have done, do you?’
With a sudden shock, Ben realised that the Doctor wasn’t just angry; he was frightened. Very, very frightened.
‘We’re sorry,’ sobbed Polly, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘We didn’t mean for things to get out of hand like that.’
The Doctor’s manner changed abruptly, as though he’d just realised that his anger wasn’t helping anyone, and he placed a comforting hand on Polly’s shoulder. ‘No, of course you didn’t.’ He sighed. ‘Let’s get this mess cleaned up, hmm? We must simply hope that we haven’t attracted too much attention to ourselves.’
‘Attention?’ Ben frowned. ‘Attention from who?’
The Doctor fixed him with a piercing stare. ‘Let’s just say that we are rarely alone in our travels through the Time Vortex, and that some of our fellow travellers are things that we do not wish to become too closely acquainted with.’
Without a further word, the Doctor set about cleaning the broken glass and splintered wood from the TARDIS console.
It was only much later, when he was lying on the bunk in his quarters, that Ben really started to think about what the Doctor had said, and about the final sentence spelled out by the Ouija board.
WE WILL DEVOUR YOU.
He’d never really considered it before, but if the TARDIS was a ship of time, then the Vortex really was the equivalent of an ocean, and it stood to reason that there might be other creatures living within that ocean. While he couldn’t bring himself to accept the supernatural like Polly and Jamie could, he had to concede that his short time with the Doctor had forced him to reconsider some of his beliefs. It was more than possible that using the Ouija board might have brought them to the attention of some unimaginable alien being somewhere outside the ship – something that wanted to devour them.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside the door of his room. He stilled his breathing, trying to determine who it might be. The footsteps were soft, furtive, as if someone was trying hard not to be heard.
After the day that he had just had, Ben was in no mood for any further surprises. He slid from his bunk and quietly slipped on the shoes he had discarded earlier. He eased open the door of his room, peering out into the darkened corridor beyond. The Doctor never seemed to sleep, but was all too aware of his companions’ needs, and tended to keep the habitation sections of the TARDIS on a regular cycle of ‘day’ and ‘night’ lighting.
Although the corridor seemed deserted, Ben could still hear the steady footfall, and he was certain that he had caught a glimpse of a figure moving swiftly at the far end of the passageway. Whoever it was, they were making their way towards the control room.
Quietly pulling the door to his room shut, Ben set off after the stealthy figure. He was quite aware that this might turn out to be nothing more than the Doctor quietly wandering the corridors of his ship. Perhaps he was being deliberately quiet so as not to disturb his shipmates’ sleep?
As he approached the door to the console room, he became aware of the sound of controls being activated, and there was the all-too-familiar grind of the TARDIS engines as the ship began to materialise. Ben had pulled himself from his bed for nothing; it was just the Doctor taking them on some new adventure.
He stepped into the control room, intending to ask where they had landed this time, only to stop short in shock.
The figure standing at the hexagonal console wasn’t the Doctor at all.
It was Jamie.
‘Hey, mate. What are you doing?’ asked Ben warily. There was something wrong with the Scot’s entire manner. For starters, there was no way that he should have had the faintest idea of how to operate the ship.
Jamie’s face cracked into a horrible, leering smile at the same moment as the doors to the TARDIS shuddered under some enormous impact.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Ben clapped his hands over his ears as the deafening blows echoed around the room.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Seemingly oblivious to the tremendous battering the TARDIS was getting, Jamie stretched out a hand towards the door control.
‘Ben. Stop him! Don’t let him open the doors!’ The Time Lord, alerted by the unexpected sound of his ship materialising, had appeared in the doorway. He held a large leather-bound book in his arms.
Spurred on by the urgency in the Doctor’s voice, Ben hurled himself towards the console, grasping Jamie’s arm and pulling him away from the door control. The highlander snarled at him, his face twisted with rage.
The terrible banging on the door increased in tempo.
THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD!
‘Doctor, what’s happening?’ A terrified Polly had appeared at the Doctor’s side, woken by the strange noises from outside the ship.
‘Help Ben with Jamie!’ shouted the Doctor. ‘I have to get the TARDIS moving again.’
He hurried forward, placing the heavy book down on the console and busying himself at the controls. As he did so, Jamie gave a horrible cry of fury and struggled to release himself from Ben’s grip.
‘Duchess, I could use a hand here!’ yelled Ben.
Polly ran to help him, grabbing hold of Jamie’s other arm. Between the two of them, they managed to pin him against the wall.
The Doctor danced round the console, operating the controls like a concert pianist. As he reached for the lever that would put the TARDIS back into flight mode, Jamie arched his back and gave a huge, terrible bellow of anguish.
Ben and Polly stumbled backwards as something enormous and dark burst from Jamie’s mouth, boiling up into the air above the console like a vast swarm of bees. As the monstrous thing left him, Jamie collapsed in a heap on the floor. Polly scrambled forward to try to help him, but Ben couldn’t take his eyes from the writhing, spitting being that swirled angrily above the Doctor’s head.
Looking up in triumph, the Doctor slammed down the dematerialisation controls, and the raucous wheezing, groaning noise filled the room once more. At the same instant he snatched up the leather-bound book from the console, wrenched it open and read aloud from one of the pages.
Ben couldn’t hear what the Doctor was saying, but the words had an immediate effect on the swarm. It began to swirl ever faster. Long black tendrils reached out to swipe at the chanting Time Lord.
Undeterred, the Doctor lodged the book in the crook of one arm and raised his other hand, index and little fingers making some occult sign. Eyes closed, his lips continued to move, repeating whatever incantation it was that he had found in the book.
With a screech of alarm the boiling creature reared up, hovering like an angry, intelligent cloud. For one horrible moment, Ben thought that it was poising to attack the Doctor – but then it dived towards the console and poured itself through one of the grills that dotted the surface.
Within seconds the creature was gone and, with one final rattle of the doors, the room was silent and calm once more.
The Doctor opened one eye. Satisfied that the creature had departed, he let out a deep sigh of relief.
‘Where did it go?’ asked Polly, astonished.
‘Back out into the Time Vortex via the telepathic circuits.’ The Doctor placed the book back on the console and hurried over to help her to make Jamie comfortable.
‘Never mind where it went to. How did it get in here in the first place?’ asked Ben.
‘Oh, it came in through Jamie’s subconscious,’ said the Doctor, as though that explained everything. ‘The Ouija board opened a doorway, and the creature used Jamie’s mind as a place to hide itself, waiting for an opportunity to stop the ship and let others of its kind on board.’
‘To devour us.’ Polly shuddered.
‘Yes, I got the impression that was the general idea,’ said the Doctor with a sad smile.
‘Well, it’s a good thing you had that book of spells to drive it off,’ said Ben, clapping the Doctor on the shoulder.
‘Spells, Ben?’ The Doctor looked at him in disappointment. ‘I would have thought that you’d been travelling with me for long enough now that you didn’t believe in magic any more.’
‘But the incantation …’
‘Well, yes, ancient Gallifreyan does sound a bit like magic if spoken in the right tone. Particularly if you don’t know what it actually means.’
‘But it worked.’ Ben pointed to the vents in the console. ‘The words you spoke banished it …’
‘Well, it would seem to suggest that the universe is full of lots of different species that are prepared to believe in magic, wouldn’t it? What I recited was in fact a rather delicious recipe for Bajaxx Stew.’ The Doctor lifted the book from the console and opened it, showing Ben a list of ingredients written in an indecipherable script. ‘I had been intending to make us some for supper tomorrow evening.’
He beamed at his companions.
‘Now, I think that Jamie could do with a good, hot meal to help him recover, so shall we see if this book has a breakfast recipe that would appeal to a hungry Scot?’
‘You’re not to go knocking on all the neighbours’ doors asking for sweets!’ Mum yelled up the stairs before going to watch the end of Crossroads.
Ange was upstairs in her bedroom painting her younger brother’s face for Hallowe’en. Terry was ten and amazingly patient as she finished off his David Bowie lightning flash.
‘I want one as well!’ said Ian, who was six and desperate to be just like his big brother.
‘You’re Frankenstein’s monster, remember?’ Ange told him.
Ian looked sulky, his face already painted a noxious green.
Ange, meanwhile, was a vampire lady and, at thirteen, felt like she was lumbered with babysitting her brothers when she could have been down at the precinct with her mates. But she’d promised Mum she’d take them round the streets to show off their Hallowe’en costumes.
‘A quick walk round the estate, but no banging on doors, mind!’ their mum had said earlier.
