Forever Autumn

by Mark Morris

  The walls of Rick’s room were covered in movie posters – Lord of the Rings, X-Men, Ghost Rider, James Bond. He had a computer and a TV and his shelves were stacked with books, comics, games and plastic models of dinosaurs, robots and spaceships. It was a typical 12-year-old’s room, in other words.

  He pushed the book under the bed, glad to relieve himself of its fleshy clamminess. He was standing in his boxers, rooting through his drawers for his favourite T-shirt and jeans, when there came a tap-tap-tap on his door.

  Thad was sitting on the bed, flicking through a Spider-Man comic; Scott was swinging himself back and forth on the swivel chair in front of Rick’s desk. All three boys looked at each other, a moment of unspoken tension passing between them.

  Then Rick called, ‘Who is it?’

  Silence.

  He licked his lips, called again, and when no one answered a second time he said casually, ‘Grab that, would you, Thad?’

  For a moment he thought Thad would refuse, but then he shrugged and said, ‘Sure.’

  He crossed the room and pulled the door open. The landing outside was deserted.

  ‘There’s no one—’ Thad started to say – and then a figure with a brown, rotting face and long pointed teeth leaped into the room, screeching.

  Thad dived onto the bed, Scott screamed and propelled himself backwards in the swivel chair, crashing into the desk, and Rick held his T-shirt up in front of him like a flimsy shield.

  The brown-faced monstrosity started to laugh. It doubled over, slapping its thighs. Then it peeled off its face to reveal a more human one underneath – that of Rick’s 16-year-old brother, and bane of his life, Chris.

  ‘You should see yourselves,’ Chris hooted. ‘Man, what a bunch o’ pansies.’

  ‘Get lost, Chris,’ muttered Rick, but Chris stood there, relishing his victory.

  ‘Literally scared the pants off yer, didn’t I?’ he said, and hooted again.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ said Rick. ‘Now go away, will you? And put the mask back on. You’re too ugly without it.’

  Chris made an L-sign on his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. ‘So long, losers,’ he said, heading out of the room.

  ‘Man, your brother is such a dweeb,’ Scott told Rick after the door had closed.

  Finding the book, and their encounter with Chris, had soured Rick’s mood. For a moment he felt like snapping that he’d call Chris back so Scott could tell him that to his face, but he forced himself to swallow the words. ‘Forget about him,’ he said, pulling on his T-shirt and jeans. By the time he had tied his sneakers he was feeling a little better.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s go get our costumes.’

  ‘And our ice creams,’ Scott reminded him, licking his lips. ‘Triple chocolate sundae, here I come.’

  Etta Helligan, known to local children as the Witch Lady, knew that something was wrong. She knew it as surely as day followed night, and night followed day. She knew it because she could feel it in her bones and her guts – an ache, a tingle, a sense of dread. A key had been turned, a door had been opened, and something… something bad, something terrible, had stepped out of the darkness and into the world.

  ‘What is it, Romeo?’ she murmured to the black cat crouched on the topmost stair, staring at her with yellow eyes. ‘What do you see?’

  The cat miaowed and coiled itself round her ankles as Etta reached the upper landing. She bent to scratch its head absently, then plodded on through to her room.

  There were more cats in here, Orlando sprawled on the bed, Marmalade prowling along the top of the wardrobe. Etta crossed to the window, noting how the clouds were bunching in the sky like grey fists, blotting the light from the land. She peered out, not knowing what she was looking for – and that was when she saw it.

  Of course. How foolish of her not to have realised. Now that she could see the tree, black and twisted, clawing at the sky, it seemed obvious that it was the focus of her disquiet. She didn’t know how she knew, she just did. She had spent a lifetime just knowing things, and she had become used to it. Her mother had been the same, and her mother before her.

  When she’d been younger, Etta had tried to help people by warning them about things, usually bad things, that she just knew were going to happen. But nobody ever thanked her for her advice. On the contrary, more often than not, they reacted angrily, thinking she was somehow responsible for the terrible events she foresaw. And as the years passed, and word got around, people started to shun her, believing she was a bad omen, a jonah. Believing that disaster clung to her like a contagion, waiting to be passed on.

  Well then, she had thought finally, if they didn’t want her help, so be it. And so for the past forty years or more she had all but withdrawn from the life of the town. For Etta it was too painful to see someone walking on the sidewalk or out buying groceries and to know that they were in for a fall, yet not be able to do a thing about it.

  But this was different. This, she felt sure, was something that would affect not just one person or one family, but the whole population of the Falls. She didn’t know what the something was yet, but she knew it meant them harm.

  But how to proceed? How to warn her fellow townsfolk? She didn’t know that, but she did know she had to do something. This time she couldn’t simply bury her head in the sand.

  She stared at the black tree, willing it to give up its secrets. And suddenly, as though complying with her request, she saw something drift from the tree’s base and curl around its trunk. Was it smoke? No, it was more like mist. A greenish mist, rising out of the ground. As Etta watched, the mist thickened and began to spread, extending wispy tendrils which crept outwards in all directions. Soon the tree was little more than a black haze in the greenish gloom.

  THE DOCTOR CATAPULTED from the TARDIS, sonic screwdriver held out in front of him. He pivoted on his heels, turning a full circle. ‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered.

  Martha stepped out of the TARDIS behind him, a look of gleeful expectation on her face. When she saw she was in a backyard between a couple of smelly bins, rather than on some alien planet with pink skies and purple grass, she frowned.

  ‘Is this where the signal was coming from?’ she asked.

  ‘It wasn’t a signal,’ he said absently, ‘more a sort of… splurge. A big fat splurge of power.’

  ‘But what kind of power? I mean, what made it so special?’

  ‘It was old,’ he said, still not looking at her.

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Oh… very, very, very, very, very, very old, I’d say. Old enough to make my teeth itch. And my palms.’ He examined the palm of his left hand thoughtfully. ‘Maybe I’m allergic.’

  ‘You’d better avoid Keith Richards then,’ said Martha. ‘He’d bring you out in hives.’

  The sonic screwdriver didn’t bleep or shine brighter or anything, but suddenly the Doctor shouted, ‘You beauty! Go on, girl!’ Next second, he was running towards a gate in the high fence surrounding the yard, all bony knees and elbows, his spiky, tousled hair seeming to fizz with energy.

  Martha ran after him. She both loved and hated it when he was like this. She found it exhilarating and frustrating at the same time. He was a bit like a brilliant but temperamental racehorse. Sometimes all you could do was hang on for dear life and hope you wouldn’t fall off and be left on the track, coughing and spluttering in his wake.

  ‘So where are we?’ she shouted as he yanked back the bolts on the gate and threw it open.

  ‘Somewhere in New England,’ he called over his shoulder.

  ‘Is that New England on New Earth or New England in old America?’

  ‘The second one,’ he said.

  They followed whatever signals the Doctor was getting from the sonic for maybe fifteen minutes. To Martha’s relief they didn’t run the whole time. The Doctor alternated his pace between sprinting, jogging and strolling, depending on the strength or accuracy of the signal. A few times he stopped completely and cast about i
n a circle; on one occasion he even pointed the sonic straight up at the darkening sky before shaking his head.

  During their search, Martha looked around as much as she was able, drinking in her surroundings. It turned out they had landed behind an ice cream parlour called Harry Ho’s, which was one of numerous stores and eating places fringing the main, tree-lined square of a small, picturesque town called Blackwood Falls. She got the name of the place from a big banner strung across the main street advertising the Blackwood Falls Halloween Carnival. Even without the banner she would have guessed the time of year, simply from the profusion of window displays featuring carved pumpkins, witches, ghosts, skeletons and the like. She thought the green mist which began to envelop them as they moved out from the town centre and into the suburbs was taking things a bit too far, though. The mist was odourless but chilly. It felt like someone caressing her cheeks with cold fingers.

  ‘Doctor, what is this stuff?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. He’d slowed to a walking pace now, which he seemed, for the moment, content to maintain. ‘One thing it’s not is of this earth.’

  ‘It’s alien, you mean?’ She linked her arm with his. She didn’t want him to bolt off again and lose her in the fog. ‘Is it sentient?’

  ‘Nah. It’s just a by-product of the energy…’

  ‘Splurge?’

  He grinned. ‘That, yeah.’

  ‘It’s not toxic, is it?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Least I’m not picking up anything.’

  Three minutes later he stopped outside the gate of what appeared to be a big clapboard house with a long front porch. It was hard to tell because the mist seemed to be at its thickest here, reducing the building to a dark blocky haze.

  ‘It’s here,’ he said.

  ‘In the house?’

  ‘Behind it. Come on.’ He vaulted the fence and ran across the lawn and up the side of the house, Martha in tow. She felt a tingle of excitement, wondering what marvels were in store for her this time.

  ‘A dead tree?’ she said. ‘Is that it?’

  The Doctor prowled around the base of the tree, his hands in his trouser pockets. He produced a pair of black-rimmed spectacles and slipped them on, then bent over to peer at something. ‘Ooh, look,’ he said, ‘a hole.’

  Martha stood beside him, wrinkling her nose. The mist might not smell of anything, but the tree, or something close to it, did. It was the smell of something dead.

  ‘A burrow?’ she ventured.

  ‘I’d say it’s more likely someone’s been digging,’ said the Doctor. ‘Look how smooth the sides are. I wonder what they found.’

  ‘You think something old and alien was lying dormant under here, and that when it was dug up, it came alive and sent out that… power splurge?’

  The Doctor gave her one of his heart-melting grins. ‘That’s what I love about you, Martha Jones!’ he cried. ‘You use your brain!’

  Martha tried not to look flattered. She watched as the Doctor examined one of the black warty growths that covered the tree. He put his face up so close to it she expected him to sniff it, or maybe even give it a lick. Instead he whipped out his trusty sonic again, pointed it at the growth and turned it on.

  The result was spectacular. The growth, plus another dozen or so close to it, unfurled and launched itself from the tree. All at once Martha found herself fighting off squealing, fist-sized creatures, which appeared to be composed of a spindly, thrashing tangle of black roots. She felt them scratching her hands and scuttling lopsidedly up the sleeves of her jacket to reach her face. Repulsed, she batted and clawed at them, but each time she managed to fling one away, it propelled itself back into the fray.

  Beside her, the Doctor was fighting a similar battle. He tried zapping the creatures with his sonic, but that only seemed to enrage them. Martha became vaguely aware that he was fighting off the rooty things with one hand whilst scrabbling in a jacket pocket with the other. It wasn’t until she saw a jet of flame, however, that she allowed herself to glance across at what he was doing.

  He had taken a candle from his coat pocket and somehow turned it into a mini-flamethrower with the aid of his sonic screwdriver. He was sweeping it in an arc in front of him now – and it was working! Terrified of the fire, the root-creatures were retreating, scuttling back to the tree and burrowing into the soft earth at its base, like baby chicks seeking security beneath the soft, warm body of their mother.

  Within thirty seconds the last of the creatures had disappeared. Martha stood on shaky legs, breathing heavily, trying to rid her mind of the scratchy, crawly feel of their bodies on her skin.

  ‘Well,’ said the Doctor conversationally, ‘that was unexpected.’

  Martha gave one last almighty shudder. ‘What were those things?’

  ‘Some kind of defence system, I’d say, protecting the big mamma here.’

  He blew out the candle. Martha gave him a wry look. ‘I can’t believe the amount of stuff you’ve got in your pockets.’

  He flipped the candle over his shoulder, caught it neatly behind his back without looking and slipped it back into his pocket. ‘Left over from a Barry Manilow concert. Madison Square Garden, 1990. Great gig.’ He began to warble the opening bars of Mandy.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ said Martha quickly.

  The Doctor gave a wistful smile. ‘Brings a tear to your eye, does it?’

  ‘Yeah, but not in a good way.’

  ‘Hey,’ a voice called behind them, ‘do you mind telling me what you’re doing on my property?’

  The Doctor and Martha turned to see a tall man striding towards them through the green mist. He looked, thought Martha, like a nice, ordinary bloke, albeit a bit disgruntled.

  ‘We’re trespassing,’ said the Doctor cheerfully.

  The man looked taken aback. ‘OK,’ he said slowly, ‘well, do you mind telling me why you’re trespassing?’

  The Doctor flashed a look at Martha. ‘Ah. Actually we’re not trespassing, we’re…’ he produced his psychic paper and held it up in front of the man’s face ‘… whatever it says here.’

  The man took the psychic paper and peered at it. ‘Environmental Health and Safety Operative,’ he murmured.

  ‘Yep,’ said the Doctor, ‘that’s me.’ He leaned forward and suddenly seemed to become very serious. ‘Are you aware, Mr…?’

  ‘Pirelli.’

  ‘Are you aware, Mr Pirelli, that you possess a very dangerous tree?’

  The man looked up at the tree uncertainly. ‘Dangerous?’

  ‘Lethal,’ said Martha.

  The man licked his lips. ‘In what way?’

  The Doctor put a reassuring hand on Mr Pirelli’s shoulder. Instead of answering his question he said, ‘Tell me, Mr Pirelli, has anyone, to your knowledge, dug anything up here recently?’

  ‘Well… my son and his friends were digging here earlier. They said they were looking for buried treasure. You know how boys are.’

  ‘And where’s your son now, Mr Pirelli?’ the Doctor asked, his gaze intense, his eyes appearing almost black.

  ‘Um… they headed into town, to get their costumes for tomorrow night. Tozier’s Costume Emporium.’

  Martha thought the Doctor’s next question would be to ask where that was, but he surprised her by saying, ‘Across from Harry Ho’s ice cream place? Big clown in the window?’

  Mr Pirelli nodded.

  ‘Cheers, Mr P. Come on, Martha.’ The Doctor began to stride away.

  Martha gave the bemused man a sympathetic smile and followed the Doctor.

  ‘My son’s not in trouble, is he?’ Mr Pirelli called after her.

  Crossing her fingers, Martha said, ‘Don’t worry, Mr Pirelli, we’ll sort it out. I’m sure everything will be fine.’ She was about to break into a jog when something occurred to her. ‘What’s your son’s name, by the way?’

  ‘Rick,’ he said.

  She caught up with the Doctor on the pavement heading back into town. He was in brooding mode, hands i
n pockets, head down. He murmured something as she came abreast of him.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  He stopped, licked a forefinger and held it up as though testing the wind direction. ‘Can you feel that?’ he asked.

  She could. There was a sense of oppressiveness in the atmosphere, like someone pressing down on her shoulders. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but what is it?’

  He looked into her eyes. His face was set and serious. So quietly that it made her shiver, he muttered, ‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…’

  RICK WAS A werewolf, Scott was Frankenstein’s monster and Thad was some sort of cross between a mummy and a ghoul. Or at least, that was what they were going to be tomorrow. Having tried his costume on in the shop, Rick could now hardly wait for the Halloween Carnival. His sour mood of an hour before had evaporated, and he was back to laughing and joking with his friends.

  They were crossing the town square to Harry Ho’s, each of them carrying a bulging plastic bag emblazoned with the logo for Tozier’s Costume Emporium, when Scott elbowed Rick in the ribs.

  ‘Hey, look out, guys,’ he muttered, ‘here comes old C-C-C-Clayton.’

  Rick looked up. Staggering towards them was an old man in a rumpled, food-stained suit and a grubby shirt. His grey hair was sticking up in knotty tufts on one side, as if he’d slept on it, and his sagging jowls were rough with several days’ growth of white stubble. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, his nose as bulbous and purple as a plum.

  ‘Afternoon, b-b-b-boys,’ he called, raising his arm in a clumsy wave.

  Scott and Thad both sniggered, but Rick felt an ache of sorrow in his belly. Earl Clayton had once been the town’s doctor. According to Mom, Dr Clayton had brought not only Rick into the world, but Rick’s dad too. He had been well respected in Blackwood Falls, and Rick himself remembered how kind he’d been when Rick had fallen off his bike six years ago and broken his collar bone. And then there had been the time when Gramma had died – Dr Clayton had visited the old lady every night in the last month of her life, and had even come to the funeral.