Forever Autumn

by Mark Morris

  It had been a dream, that’s all. Just a dumb dream.

  Chris fell back onto his bed, heart beating hard, sweat drying on his forehead. He didn’t usually have nightmares. Bad dreams were kid’s stuff. But he wasn’t a kid any more. He’d moved on from all that, he’d matured. Of course, he wouldn’t tell anyone about this, especially not Rick. Rick was still into trick-or-treating and dressing up with his loser buddies. Let him have the stupid nightmares. He deserved them.

  Chris got out of bed to fetch himself a glass of water. His nocturnal freak-out must have been something to do with this weird green mist that had descended on the town. It was cool in a way, he guessed, but at the same time it seemed to be putting everyone on edge. His dad had been snappy at dinner, and his mom had kept glancing at the window as if she expected to see someone out there, peering in at them.

  He glugged two glasses of water from the tap in the bathroom, then carried another back to his room. It was 12.30, and the house seemed encased in the kind of thick, muffled silence you usually got only with a heavy snowfall. Before getting back into bed, he stopped at his window and peered out. The mist was thicker than ever now. He could only just make out the vague shape of the black tree at the bottom of the garden.

  Then he gave a little start. There was a glowing green light down by the tree. It seemed to be hovering in the air, like a giant firefly, or maybe a candle someone was holding. But a candle with a green flame? Could that be an effect of the mist?

  He placed the glass of water on his bedside table and got back into bed. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the green light. There was something freaky about it. In truth, he didn’t think it was a firefly or a candle. So what then?

  Only one way to find out, a little voice murmured in his head.

  ‘Aw, gee,’ he groaned, as if he didn’t have a choice, and threw back his bedclothes. He pulled on jeans, sneakers and sweatshirt and went downstairs. He briefly considered waking his dad, but what would he say – ‘I saw a light in the garden’? Yeah, big deal. If there was nothing there, and Rick got to hear of it, Chris would never live it down.

  So OK, he’d check this out and then he’d go back to bed. There would be nothing there. It would just be one of those weird little mysteries, quickly forgotten. In the morning it would probably even seem unreal enough for Chris to convince himself he’d been sleepy, half-dreaming. He walked quietly through the dark house and let himself out the back door.

  The mist latched onto him straight away and curled around him like something alive. It was chilly, clammy, and now that he was down at ground level, it seemed much thicker. So thick, in fact, that he couldn’t even make out the tree from here.

  Neither could he see a light. He considered going back inside, but knew he wouldn’t settle until he’d at least trudged down to the tree to satisfy himself there was nothing there. He took a deep breath and set off. It was only thirty paces, maybe less, but in this mist he felt oddly reluctant to stray even that far from the house.

  He was maybe halfway there when the tree came into view as a vague shape through the murk. For some reason, he slowed his pace. Though Chris had never told anyone, the tree had always freaked him out, and even these days he tried to look at it as little as possible. He began to tread more carefully, trying to be as quiet as he could, though he didn’t know – or maybe he just didn’t want to know – what he thought might hear him. He was less than ten paces away when he realised there was something strange and different about the tree.

  No, not the tree itself, but the area where it stood. Next to the black tree was another tree that Chris felt sure had never been there before. It was tall and thin and there was what looked like a roundish clump of foliage at the top of it.

  Then the new tree moved. Not much, but enough to make Chris realise that it wasn’t a tree at all.

  Impossible as it seemed, it was a person. Someone very tall and thin with… no, it must be the swirling mist playing tricks with his eyes. The figure’s head couldn’t really be that big and wide, could it? Because if it was, how did the spindly neck support it?

  Chris stood motionless, watching the figure. He was pretty sure he hadn’t been spotted, and suddenly being seen by this… this thing was the last thing he wanted in the whole world. He saw the figure reach up with its hands (its impossibly long hands) and make a series of weird gestures in the air. And then it did something that made his blood run cold. It started to speak.

  It wasn’t the words that chilled Chris, though – he didn’t understand them; they sounded old, Latin or something – it was the voice. It was breathy and childlike and kind of echoey, and it sounded totally, totally mad. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Chris’s neck, made the liquid drain from his mouth. The thing – he couldn’t now think of it as anything even remotely human – raised its arms high in the air and said something that sounded like ‘Zagaraldas’.

  Instantly it began to sink into the ground. It was as if a fissure had opened in the earth and was smoothly drawing the creature down. Chris watched as it disappeared, inch by inch, almost as if it was descending in an elevator. It took maybe a minute for the thing to disappear completely. Last to go were the taloned fingertips of its upraised hands.

  Chris stood for another five seconds, looking at the spot where the creature had stood, then he turned and ran. He ran as if the thing had burst back out of the earth and was loping after him. He didn’t stop running until he was back in his room and in his bed, shuddering under the bedclothes.

  ‘About a million channels to choose from,’ Martha said, remote control in hand, ‘and not one decent thing to watch.’

  The Doctor didn’t reply. He was standing by the window of Martha’s hotel room, peering out into the darkness. His hands were in his pockets and he was rocking backwards and forwards on his heels.

  ‘Are you gonna stand there all night?’ she asked, turning off the TV.

  ‘Probably,’ he said gloomily.

  ‘Good. Well… enjoy yourself. I might as well try and get some sleep.’

  She didn’t, though. She continued to lie on top of the bedclothes, her head propped on her hand. She didn’t even take off her shoes. Being with the Doctor had taught her that she should always be ready to run somewhere at a moment’s notice.

  ‘What you thinking about?’ she asked finally.

  ‘Talk in your sleep, do you?’ he said.

  ‘All the time,’ she said. ‘Never shut up, me.’

  ‘I’ve noticed.’

  ‘My mum’s fault, that is. Never stop asking questions, Martha, she always said to me. Always have an enquiring mind. Remember, Martha, she’d say, every day’s a school day.’

  In the window reflection, Martha saw the trace of a smile flicker across the Doctor’s face.

  ‘She never said that,’ he said.

  ‘She did so.’

  ‘Your mother? I can’t imagine her saying that.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s ’cos you don’t really know her. You should get to know her better.’

  He hunched his shoulders, gave a little shudder. ‘No thanks. Been there, done that, got the bruises to prove it.’

  ‘What do you mean, “been there, done that”?’ Martha scoffed. ‘You’ve only met my mum that one time, and then it was hardly—’

  ‘It wasn’t your mother I was talking about,’ he said softly.

  Martha went quiet. Ever since accompanying the boys back to Rick’s – thankfully managing to avoid bumping into his parents and all the awkward explanations that that would have involved – only to find that the mysterious book had disappeared, they’d been at a bit of a loose end. And whenever that happened, whenever they weren’t dashing from one place to another, the conversation invariably seemed to turn towards the Doctor’s ex-companion.

  In an attempt to steer him away from that particular subject, she said, ‘So what’s our next move?’

  He made an exasperated sound with his lips. She knew how much he hated mooching aro
und, biding his time. He always had to be somewhere, doing something. She, however, was a mere mortal and, however much she loved being with him, she was glad of the occasional rest, the chance to recharge her batteries.

  ‘Back to Rick’s first thing in the morning, speak to his brother, see if he’s got this book,’ he said. He rocked forward until his head hit the window with a thump that made Martha wince. ‘It’s a jigsaw piece,’ he muttered.

  ‘The book?’

  He nodded. It looked as though he was cleaning the window with his fringe. ‘It’s a stonking great jigsaw piece. It’s probably the piece that sits right in the middle, and I bet it’s got an eye or a hat on it or something.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, thinking about the analogy, ‘but even if we had that piece we still wouldn’t have the box with the picture on it, would we?’

  ‘Nah, but we could probably work the picture out from the other pieces – the energy splurge, the tree, the defence thingies, this mist…’ He rocked himself back again and started pacing up and down like a caged animal. ‘Even with the pieces we’ve got, it should mean something.’ He whapped his forehead three times with the flat of his hand. ‘Come on, think, think, think.’

  He stopped again by the window, looked out, and suddenly became very still.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Martha.

  ‘Look at this,’ he said quietly.

  She jumped to her feet and joined him at the window. In the greenish murk below was an old man. He was staggering around in circles, one hand clamped over the lower half of his face, the other waving blindly about in front of him.

  ‘Someone’s had one too many,’ Martha said.

  ‘I don’t think he’s drunk,’ murmured the Doctor.

  As they watched, the old man spun in a final clumsy pirouette and crumpled to the ground. Suddenly the Doctor was running for the door.

  ‘Come on.’

  He thundered down the stairs, Martha in hot pursuit. Despite its name, the Falls Palace was only a small hotel, family-run, less than a dozen rooms. The owner, Eloise Walsh, a grey-haired, no-nonsense woman who wore half-moon spectacles, attached to a chain, perched on the end of her nose, was manning the front desk, and looked up in indignation as the Doctor swept past.

  ‘Hey, what’s the—’

  ‘Man down!’ yelled the Doctor, yanking open the main door without even breaking stride.

  The old man was sitting in the street, hunched forward, rocking back and forth like a distressed toddler.

  Martha saw immediately that the Doctor had been right. The man wasn’t merely drunk. It was evident from his panicky eyes that he was scared out of his wits. He still had a hand clamped over the lower half of his face, as if whatever he had seen was too terrible to speak of.

  The Doctor dropped to one knee beside him. ‘Hey there, feller,’ he said softly, reaching out. The old man flinched back and the Doctor murmured, ‘It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you.’

  ‘That’s Earl Clayton,’ said a voice from behind Martha. She looked round to see Eloise Walsh standing at her shoulder. ‘What’s wrong with him – aside from the usual?’

  The Doctor ignored her. He was speaking directly into Clayton’s ear, his voice so low that Martha couldn’t make out what he was saying. His words didn’t appear to have any effect, however, until he touched the centre of Clayton’s forehead with the tip of his right index finger.

  Instantly the old man relaxed, the tension leaving his shoulders, his hand dropping away from his face.

  When she saw what had been done to him, Martha gasped.

  ‘Merciful Father!’ blurted Eloise Walsh and swiftly crossed herself.

  The Doctor looked grimly appalled. He placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder and murmured, ‘I’m so sorry. We’ll find who did this, I promise.’

  Clayton gazed up at them and made no attempt to speak. Martha wondered whether that was simply because he couldn’t, or because he had actually realised that he no longer had a mouth.

  I AM NOT Scared, Martha told herself, I am not scared, I am not scared.

  ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’ said the Doctor.

  ‘No!’ she said, too loudly and too quickly.

  ‘Yes you are. And shall I tell you why you are?’

  ‘Is it because fear is a sign of intelligence?’ she said hopefully.

  He wrinkled his nose in apology. ‘Oh, I wish I could say yes. But no, that’s not it. The reason you’re scared is because I was wrong.’

  ‘Wrong?’ she said. ‘You?’

  He held up his hands. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know, hard to believe, genius and all that. Though when I say wrong, perhaps I’m being a bit melodramatic. It might be more accurate to say I can see more of the big picture now.’

  ‘Are we talking about jigsaws again?’ she asked.

  ‘Mm, kind of, I s’pose. Remember when you asked if the mist was toxic, and I said it wasn’t?’

  Martha didn’t like where this was leading. They were currently walking through the mist; they were surrounded by it, wreathed in it. ‘Ye-es,’ she said guardedly.

  ‘Well, that’s the bit I was wrong about.’

  ‘You mean to say it is toxic?’ She put out a hand and grabbed the sleeve of his long coat. ‘Oh, suddenly I don’t feel so well. I’m sure there’s a burning sensation at the back of my throat. That’s indicative of—’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ the Doctor butted in cheerfully, swirling a hand in the green mist. ‘Poison, this stuff is. Only it doesn’t affect your body.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’

  ‘No.’ He tapped the side of his temple with a long forefinger. ‘It affects your mind. Works its nasty way down all those primitive little channels to all those dank little rooms where we keep our phobias and fears. And then it throws open the doors and lets ’em all out. There’s the storming of the Bastille going on in that noggin of yours, Martha Jones. Though to be fair,’ he conceded wistfully, ‘the storming of the Bastille wasn’t as impressive as the French would have us believe. It wasn’t actually much of a storming, more a kind of… light drizzle.’

  ‘I think I feel a bit better now,’ said Martha.

  He gave an exaggerated wink. ‘That’s my girl!’

  ‘Still quite scared, though,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s OK,’ he replied. ‘Fear is a sign of intelligence.’

  They were retracing Earl Clayton’s steps in an attempt to discover what had happened to him. Despite her brusqueness, Eloise Walsh had taken the old man under her scrawny wing. She had told the Doctor and Martha that Earl lived in the big house at the end of Harrows Lane and that he always followed the same route home after a night’s drinking. The Doctor and Martha had been following her directions for over ten minutes, but so far all was quiet. In fact, they hadn’t come across a single soul since leaving the hotel. Martha thought that the good people of Blackwood Falls obviously had more sense than to venture out in a pea-souper like this.

  ‘Have you come across many mouth-removing aliens before?’ she asked, hoping a chat would allay her nervousness.

  ‘Not many, no,’ said the Doctor. ‘Came across one not long ago that took whole faces.’

  ‘Maybe this is that one’s little brother or something,’ she suggested.

  ‘Nah, the methodology’s completely different.’

  ‘Will Mr Clayton recover, do you think?’

  ‘He will if I have anything to do with it,’ said the Doctor grimly.

  ‘What if that thing does to us what it did to him?’ she asked.

  ‘Ha! I’d like to see it try and shut me up.’

  They were passing a pair of tall, black, wrought-iron gates. In the murk beyond, Martha could see a thread of path weaving between flanking expanses of grass, from which loomed the vague suggestions of gravestones.

  The Doctor stopped. ‘I see a light.’

  ‘Actually or metaphorically?’ asked Martha.

  He pointed through the bars of the gate. ‘In there.’
r />   ‘I can’t see anything,’ she said.

  ‘It’s gone now. But it was there. Come on, let’s have a look.’

  The gate creaked as they pulled it open.

  ‘Well,’ said Martha, ‘that was inevitable.’

  The Doctor grinned at her and strolled casually ahead, sonic at the ready. The green mist swirled around them. Martha kept seeing shapes in it, which she informed herself firmly were all in her mind. Soon the black gates were no longer visible, and she couldn’t help thinking that it was as though they’d been denied their only escape route. Suddenly, in the gloom to her right, she saw a yellowish blur.

  ‘Was that—’ she began, but the Doctor was already striding off through the grass between the gravestones. ‘Obviously it was,’ she muttered.

  The mist was like an endless series of green curtains, parting to allow them access, then closing again behind them. As they neared the place where the yellowish blur had come from, they saw it a second time, and then a third, an eerie and mysterious wraith-like glow, which gradually resolved itself into something thankfully more mundane – a cone of mist-diffused light cast by a bobbing torch.

  Seconds later they saw the vague outline of the person holding the torch. It was an old lady with straggly white hair, a long black skirt and a grey shawl like a dense swathe of cobwebs. There was a black cat prowling at her heels, and Martha’s heart skipped a beat. Not witches again, she thought. She’d had enough witches to last her a lifetime.

  The old lady had her back to them and was leaning over, looking down at something. The Doctor walked right up beside her and leaned over too.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ he said conversationally.