Doctor Who: Plague of the Cybermen

by Justin Richards

  ‘So,’ the Watchman went on, ‘shall we make a start?’

  The answer came from the other side of the room – a sibilant, almost monotone voice unlike anything or anyone that Olga had ever heard before. It was hesitant, laboured, as if whoever was speaking was in pain.

  ‘People … were here.’

  The Doctor’s arm tightened slightly round Olga’s shoulder.

  ‘Worm and Drettle. They brought the body.’

  The Doctor’s grip relaxed again.

  ‘No … Others.’ The words sounded forced out.

  ‘Impossible. No one else knows about this place. Unless … You saw them?’ the Watchman demanded.

  ‘I heard them.’

  ‘Of course, you can’t see anything, can you … So what did you hear?’

  The Doctor motioned for Olga to follow him as he crawled along under the table, careful not to bump into anything. They made their way towards the side closest to the door.

  ‘I heard …’ the voice said, and there was a slight hesitation now. ‘Checking data … I heard … the Doctor.’

  In front of Olga, the Doctor stopped abruptly. He raised his head at the sound of his name.

  And cracked the back of it hard into the table above.

  ‘The Doctor,’ the Watchman echoed, just as the equipment and machinery on the table jumped and rattled. ‘And he is still here!’

  Chapter 5

  The Doctor shot out from under the table, pulling Olga after him. They ran for the door.

  ‘Doctor!’ the Watchman shouted after them. ‘What are you doing? Come back here at once.’

  The Doctor was tempted. He had a lot of questions that the Watchman might be able to help him with. But he wasn’t sure he’d like the answers. If he’d been on his own, he’d have risked it. But he couldn’t put Olga in danger. Who knew what weapons the Watchman might have recovered. And the Watchman wasn’t alone, as they now knew. Slamming the laboratory door behind them, the Doctor headed off down the tunnel, Olga close behind.

  ‘Wrong way!’ she gasped. ‘We came from back there.’

  ‘Not going back to the castle,’ the Doctor told her as they skidded round a corner.

  ‘Then – where?’

  They paused for breath.

  ‘Your friends Drett and Wormall didn’t come from the castle.’

  ‘Worm and Drettle,’ Olga corrected him.

  ‘Really – are you sure? Anyway, they must have come from down here. Look – the lamps are lit, so this passage is used.’

  ‘They could still have come the other way.’

  The Doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘Carrying a dead woman through the castle might just attract unwanted attention.’ He frowned as a thought occurred to him. ‘Unless Lord Ernhardt is in on it, of course.’

  ‘You think he might be?’

  ‘That cyber-hand of his … Could smash through the bottom of a coffin. Or strangle a gravedigger.’

  Olga’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t think …?’

  ‘No, actually, I don’t. But it’s a possibility we can’t ignore. For the moment – onwards!’

  The tunnels sloped gently downhill. The lamps were fewer and further between as they made their way through the tunnels. There was damp in the air, and the walls became darker and slick to the touch.

  ‘Deeper and deeper,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘I hope you know where we are,’ Olga told him.

  ‘No. But I’m pretty sure where we’re going to end up.’

  They passed junctions and turnings, open areas with other passageways off. But each time, the Doctor took the route that was lit.

  ‘Even easier than following a piece of string.’

  They seemed to have been walking for ever, when there was a noise ahead of them in the tunnel. The Doctor put his finger to his lips, and they moved forward slowly and carefully.

  ‘What is it?’ Olga whispered. ‘Sounds like voices.’

  They turned a corner, carefully peering round into the gloom. The lamps were few and far between. The nearest was guttering and spitting as it burned down towards the end of its reservoir of oil.

  Further down the tunnel, two figures were making their slow way onwards.

  ‘We’ve caught up with our bodysnatchers,’ the Doctor whispered. ‘They’re obviously in no hurry. Let’s follow them and see where they go.’

  ‘Can’t we just get out of here?’ Olga asked.

  ‘I suspect that’s where they’re heading. Let’s see.’

  The Doctor waited until the figures were a good way ahead, and almost out of sight. Then he stepped round the corner, gesturing for Olga to follow. He took her hand, and together they crept after Worm and Drettle.

  The murmur of the two men’s conversation drifted back down the tunnel, but it was impossible to make out what they were saying. Worm’s almost constant whine was counterpointed by the gruff, abrupt responses from Drettle. They disappeared downwards as the tunnel sloped sharply away again, as if they were being swallowed up by the earth, feet first.

  Following at a safe distance, the Doctor and Olga saw that the tunnel dipped down to a wooden door. They were in time to see it close behind the two grave robbers.

  ‘We’ll give them a minute, then follow,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘What’s behind that door?’ Olga asked nervously.

  ‘You’ll see. Tell me about the church.’

  ‘The church?’

  ‘You mentioned a legend, or someone did. Thunderstorm and lightning, very very frightening. Sort of thing.’

  ‘It’s just a legend,’ Olga said. ‘A story.’

  ‘I love stories. Don’t you tell the children stories?’

  ‘Of course I do. But they’re children.’

  The Doctor was grinning in the half-light. ‘Aren’t we all, deep down? Or maybe not so deep, some of us. Anyway, you never grow out of stories. So – tell me.’

  There was a storm, or so the story went. Quite how long ago it was supposed to have happened, no one knew. Storms were hardly unusual, but this one was. It was ferocious, clawing and sweeping its way across the valley like a ball of fire. So much lightning that it turned night to day.

  The villagers saw it, high above them, before they heard it. Then there was an almighty clap of thunder, a roar of sound, as the lightning bolt tore through the sky.

  No one was outside because the rain was already torrential. Lightning and thunder stabbed and echoed through the night. But the ball of lightning was something else – never seen before, and never repeated.

  It struck the church tower, ricocheting into the main structure and ripping off the roof. Or so the story said. Then it burrowed into the ground behind the graveyard leaving nothing but scorched, bare earth.

  When morning came and the rain eased, the villagers came out to inspect the damage. The church was the main casualty. The tower was shattered, the whole of the top sheared off. The church itself was missing most of a wall and its roof. What was left of the beams and timbers still burned. The ground was so hot where the lightning bolt had struck that no one could get near without burning the soles of their shoes.

  ‘It was just a storm,’ Olga said. ‘And it’s just a story.’

  ‘Wrong on both counts. It wasn’t just a storm, and it’s not just a story.’ The Doctor grasped the handle of the wooden door. ‘Ready?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She wasn’t. Olga had no idea what might be waiting for them the other side of the door. If she was lucky, it was just Worm and Drettle. But she had a feeling that would be nothing compared with what the Doctor thought he might find.

  The door opened onto darkness. Blackness that moved and shimmered as if it was alive. The Doctor reached out and shoved it aside – and Olga realised that the darkness was just heavy material. A faded, dusty tapestry covering the doorway.

  The other side really was dark. The Doctor’s metal wand lit up, illuminating the area with a pale glow.

  Olga almost laughed with relief when she saw that b
eyond the tapestry was just a room – just another stone-lined chamber. Rubble was strewn across the floor. Behind them the tapestry fell back into place hiding the door.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ Olga realised. ‘I know where we are.’

  The Doctor was nodding. He had the same sort of expression as Olga herself reserved for a child who was not especially bright but had made sudden progress.

  The room joined the crypt. They were beneath the ruins of the church. Olga couldn’t help looking at the stone table in the centre of the chamber. But it was bare – Stefan’s body had gone.

  ‘Do you think Worm and Drettle took Stefan as well?’

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘Too obvious. They work in the shadows and the night. They’d want him buried and out of the way before they take him.’

  ‘So – where is he?’

  ‘Buried and out of the way, I expect. Your friend Klaus didn’t waste time digging another grave.’

  ‘He’s not—’ She was going to say that Klaus wasn’t her friend. But of course, he was. He always had been. She just hadn’t thought of him like that before.

  The Doctor led the way through the crypt. Light was spilling down the steps from the church above, and he put the glowing metal wand away again.

  ‘Can we find Klaus? We should tell him what’s happened. And Old Nicolai too.’

  ‘Soon. First I want to go up the tower.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I like church towers. Church towers are cool. Especially this one,’ he added. ‘Draughty and cold with the top missing, I should think. Come on.’

  The church floor had been cleared of debris decades before. On the rare religious occasions when it wasn’t raining, the villagers gathered to worship in the ruins. Olga told the Doctor how beautiful the church could look, lit by burning torches held by the villagers. How amazing the singing sounded echoing off the broken walls.

  At the back of the church, a flight of steps led up into the remains of the tower. Like the tower itself, they were broken off prematurely. Undaunted, the Doctor started up them. The remains of the tower still stood above the original height of the walls. The steps were surprisingly wide, curling up through the structure.

  Holes had been ripped in the tower walls. Moss and ivy was growing in over the torn edges. The Doctor stared down through one, not apparently worried by the height. Olga stood behind him, grateful for the breeze on her face. A fine mist of rain sprayed in through the hole in the wall, refreshing and cool. It was dusk – they had been down in the tunnels for so long that night was falling. The lights were coming on in the village, tiny points of illumination in the distance.

  Level with where the roof of the church had once been, the stairs opened onto a platform that had been a room. The wooden floor had mostly fallen away, but the beams were still intact, with the broken remains of the floorboards still attached in places. Arched windows were cut into the walls on each side. One had collapsed, the mullions giving way.

  The stairs continued upwards, but the Doctor stopped. ‘What’s that?’

  There was something against the far wall. It was difficult to make out in the fading light from the windows. It looked like something from the Watchmaker’s table – a collection of metal components held together with curls of wire and piping.

  ‘Interesting,’ the Doctor pronounced.

  Olga cried out as the Doctor took a step forward. She thought he was going to crash down through the floor. But he skipped onto a nearby beam. Then, arms out wide, he made a rapid but precarious journey across to another beam, before hopping onto a surviving section of floor close to the apparatus.

  ‘Joining me?’

  Olga shook her head. Her heart was thumping so loud she could only just hear him. The Doctor had his wand-thing out again and waved it at the metal and pipes and wires. Olga didn’t believe in witchcraft, well not really. But she crossed herself just in case.

  ‘Glorified lightning conductor,’ the Doctor announced. ‘I think. Though it’s a bit complicated. I wonder what else it does. And who put it here.’ He turned to stare across at Olga. ‘Who put it here?’ he demanded.

  ‘I really don’t know. I’ve never seen it. I’ve never even been up here before.’

  ‘So who has?’ he wondered.

  ‘No one, so far as I know. It’s not safe. You can see it’s not safe,’ she said as he skipped back towards her.

  ‘Safe as houses. Houses that have been hit by a …’ His voice tailed off. He was looking past Olga, up the next flight of stairs.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I thought I saw someone. In the shadows.’ He raised his voice to call: ‘Hello? Anyone there? Is this your lightning conductor?’

  ‘Worm and Drettle?’ Olga suggested.

  ‘Too tall for Worm, too narrow for Drettle,’ the Doctor said quietly. He looked anxious.

  It was contagious. ‘Why are you whispering?’ Olga asked.

  ‘Not sure. But maybe because I’ve just thought what it might be, hiding in the shadows. They like the shadows.’

  She was genuinely spooked now. ‘What like the shadows?’

  ‘Well, you know them …’

  A patch of darkness on the staircase moved. It detached itself from the others and stepped down onto the landing in front of them.

  ‘… as Plague Warriors.’

  It was huge – as broad as Drettle, despite what the Doctor had said. And taller than Klaus. The last rays of sunlight glinted on the pitted, rusty metal of its armour. The whole head was encased in a helmet fixed with bracing struts on either side. One of the struts was bent out of shape. The warrior took another clanking step forward, reaching out an arm. A human hand clenched and unclenched spasmodically.

  Olga and the Doctor backed away. Olga felt the ground give way behind her. She cried out, then realised she had reached the top of the stairs.

  ‘Should we talk to it?’ she gasped.

  ‘Doubt it would help.’

  The warrior tilted its head slightly as if listening. A faint blue glow shone from inside the slit covering the mouth. A sound came out, but it wasn’t words, more like a metallic rattle.

  ‘Doubt it could reply. It’s damaged.’ The Doctor gently eased Olga down the first step. ‘Still deadly dangerous, but damaged. Let’s hope it’s slowed him down a bit.’

  They turned together and charged down the stairs, feet echoing on the stonework.

  ‘It’s just a man in armour,’ Olga said as they ran. ‘He might need help. He was in pain.’

  ‘He doesn’t know what pain is,’ the Doctor told her. ‘That’s sort of the point. The pain of others, maybe, as a weapon or a tool. But his own pain? Not a clue.’

  ‘Is he infected, with the plague?’

  They reached the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘They don’t get sick or ill. Cybermen don’t get plague. They are plague.’

  ‘Cybermen?’

  ‘Later!’

  They ran hand in hand across the church towards the south door. But the shadows were alive. Something moved in front of them. Not a Cyberman, but smaller, and low to the ground. Olga was sure she heard it growl.

  The Doctor changed course without slowing, yanking at Olga’s arm, pulling her after him. They clattered down the steps into the crypt.

  ‘We’re trapped!’

  ‘No,’ the Doctor said. ‘We get out the way we came in.’

  They ran through the crypt. The Doctor pulled the tapestry back from the door.

  ‘Back to the castle?’

  ‘I know a shortcut.’ He glanced back as he opened the door, and saw her expression. ‘No, really. A proper real actual shortcut this time. Honest. Although,’ he added, ‘you may not like it.’

  The only light came from the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. And for once, that was a good thing. They had taken a narrow side tunnel off the main passageway.

  ‘Knew it’d be here,’ the Doctor boasted.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because I am just so brillia
nt.’

  ‘No, I mean what is the reasoning behind the brilliant assumption?’ Olga asked.

  ‘There had to be a way through to the graveyard. It’s probably the remains of old burial catacombs – look.’

  He waved the sonic screwdriver helpfully so that Olga could see better.

  She didn’t want to see better. The walls were lined with shelves hewn from the rock and earth. On each lay the bodies of the dead – decayed skeletons staring back at Olga through sightless sockets. Black holes where once there had been character and thought, love and passion … Now, nothing.

  Some of the skeletons looked almost complete. Most were not. The remains had been scavenged or looted over centuries. Broken fragments of bones crunched underfoot.

  ‘Cybermen use whatever they can get their metal hands on,’ the Doctor said as they pushed through the narrow passage. Fleshless skeletal fingers clutched and tugged at Olga’s clothes. She stared straight ahead, trying not to think about it.

  ‘Then there are natural, indigenous scavengers of course,’ the Doctor went on brightly. ‘You know, wolves and suchlike.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Something in her sharp tone seemed to give him the clue that he wasn’t helping.

  ‘Not far now,’ he said instead. He stopped, licked his index finger and held it up. ‘Yes – nearly there.’

  There was light ahead now – a flash like lightning. But underground? Olga fancied she could make out the smell of rain on the grass. She was sure she heard thunder. It must be her imagination – her mind playing tricks.

  ‘Here we are.’ The Doctor stopped.

  ‘But, we’re nowhere.’ They seemed to have stopped in the middle of the tunnel. A crushed skull watched from the shadows, its jaw missing and one eye socket smashed open.

  Another flash of lightning, right above them. Olga wasn’t quite quick enough blinking her eyes shut, and saw the full horror of the bodies strewn either side of them. Some of them didn’t seem so very old. Some of them, she was sure she recognised – at least, their clothes.

  ‘They drag them down here and take what they need,’ the Doctor said. ‘Fascinating. But macabre – sorry.’ He stuffed away his sonic screwdriver and laced his fingers together making his hands into a step. ‘Give you a leg up.’