by Mark Morris
‘By “tend to our needs”, do you mean the Hervoken forced the townspeople to…’ Martha began, then glanced at the boys, who were all looking at her avidly ‘… you know?’
The Doctor looked at her in polite incomprehension. Martha rolled her eyes. ‘You know,’ she said a little more forcefully.
But the Doctor simply pushed out his bottom lip and gave her a blank look. Martha sighed in exasperation and drew a finger swiftly across her throat in the hope that only he would see it. ‘You know.’
‘Ohh,’ the Doctor cried as realisation dawned, ‘offer a human sacrifice, you mean? Nah, don’t be daft. The pulse just got the people to create routes to the Hervoken ship, like the one in Etta’s cellar, so they could keep things ticking over. Now and again someone was probably chosen to wander about in the corridors so the ship could suck up a few brainwaves. Low maintenance stuff.’
‘Oh,’ said Martha. ‘Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.’
‘No, it wasn’t really. Like I said, they’re not exactly life-and-soul types, the Hervoken. They prefer to keep a low profile.’
‘So how come they’ve woken up now?’ Rick asked.
‘Well, that’s down to you lot. Couldn’t keep your noses out, could you? Had to dig up old Nelly Necris here.’
He gave them a stern look. The boys looked back, suitably shamefaced. Then the Doctor said airily, ‘Though, to be honest, if it hadn’t been you it would have been someone else. It was all planned yonks ago – alarm clock set, teasmade primed, eggs on the boil.’
‘But why now?’ Martha asked.
‘Why not now?’ replied the Doctor. ‘I’m guessing it’s taken all this time for the ship to repair itself properly and the Necris to work its way to the surface. Plus, knowing the Hervoken, there’ll have had to be the right configuration of planets and confluence of whatnots and all that palaver before they could rise again.’ He uttered these last two words in a convincingly blood-curdling Vincent Price voice.
‘So what do the Hervoken want?’ asked Thad. ‘Are they here to conquer and enslave humanity?’
‘Doubt it,’ said the Doctor. ‘They probably just want to leave.’
‘Well, that’s all right then,’ said Martha. Then she saw the look on the Doctor’s face. ‘It’s not all right, is it? There’s a catch, isn’t there?’
‘A bit of a one,’ the Doctor conceded, waggling his head from side to side.
‘Go on then,’ sighed Martha. ‘Tell us the worst.’
Apologetically the Doctor said, ‘Thing is, to take off, the Hervoken ship needs…?’ He looked at the boys and raised his eyebrows.
‘Fuel?’ said Thad.
‘Correctamundo!’ the Doctor replied, before grimacing. ‘Oh, I promised myself I’d never say that again.’ He shook his head. ‘So yeah, their ship needs fuel. But the trouble is, the fuel it uses—’
‘Oh no,’ Martha said. ‘You’re not going to say what I think you’re going to say, are you?’
‘Depends what you think I’m going to say,’ replied the Doctor.
‘It’s people, isn’t it?’ said Martha. ‘They use people as fuel.’
Again that waggle of the head. ‘We-ell… yes and no. To be specific, they use negative emotional energy – terror, pain, distress, that kind of thing – contained within the raw matter of blood, bone, brain and sinew. It’s not very nice, but at least it’s environmentally friendly.’
‘I think I’m gonna puke,’ said Scott.
‘How much of this “raw material” will they need?’ asked Martha.
‘A lot,’ said the Doctor, and his words suddenly seemed to ring ominously.
‘And when you say a lot you mean…?’
‘Oh… round about the population of a small town like this, I’d say.’
‘Great,’ said Martha. Then she thought of something and nudged the Necris with her foot. ‘But we’ve got their starter motor. Won’t that scupper their plans?’
The Doctor wrinkled his nose. ‘Oh, I wish I could say yes. But us having the Necris won’t stop them fuelling up. They’ll be planning something. Something major.’
‘What sort of something?’ asked Rick.
‘Great big cull, I should think. Night of the Long Knives, death and disaster on a massive scale, you know the kind of thing. And I’ll give you three guesses when the fun and frolics will start.’
‘Tonight?’ ventured Thad. ‘At the Halloween Carnival?’
‘Correcta—’ began the Doctor, then stopped. Less emphatically he said, ‘That’s right.’
‘So what will they do?’ asked Martha. ‘Cast spells? Hypnotise everyone into that mincing machine of a spaceship?’
‘Oh no, it’ll be far nastier than that,’ the Doctor said. ‘They want the terror, remember. The meat’s no good without the flavour.’
‘So what will they do?’ asked Rick. ‘Launch an attack?’
‘I’d like to see ’em try,’ said Scott. ‘If we can get everyone ready—’
‘Shush,’ said the Doctor rudely. ‘It won’t be that either. The Hervoken might be big and scary, but they aren’t physically strong. They’ll use agents.’ He picked up the book and brandished it. ‘Just like they’ll use agents to try and get this back.’
‘What kinds of agents?’ asked Martha.
‘Like the leaves,’ said the Doctor. ‘Like the cats.’
‘Something wicked this way comes?’
He nodded grimly. ‘Exactly.’
TWENTY MINUTES LATER the five of them were sitting in Harry Ho’s. The boys were shovelling ice cream into their faces as if it was the last meal they would ever have. Martha was nursing a cappuccino and staring at the Doctor, who had gone into brooding mode. He had ordered a banana split, but it was sitting untouched and melting in front of him. Scott finished his strawberry sundae in half a dozen quick bites and asked in an ice-cream-muffled voice, ‘You gonna eat that?’ The Doctor gave no indication that he’d heard him, but, as if acting independently, his hand reached out and pushed the bowl across the table.
Loath though she was to break his scowling reverie, Martha finally asked, ‘Couldn’t we offer them an alternative?’
The Doctor looked up. ‘What?’
‘The Hervoken. Isn’t there something else they could use as fuel?’
‘Ever been buried in the sand?’ the Doctor asked.
Martha was getting more accustomed to the Doctor’s conversational curveballs and took this one in her stride. ‘When I was a kid,’ she said, ‘Leo and Tish once buried me up to my neck on Cromer beach – not that I wanted them to.’
‘Imagine being buried in the sand and having a handful of pebbles placed on your stomach. What would happen when you stood up?’
She shrugged. ‘The pebbles would fall off.’ Then her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I get it. The pebbles are Blackwood Falls and I’m—’
‘The Hervoken ship,’ confirmed the Doctor. ‘Even if there was a fuel alternative, the ship would incinerate the town when it took off.’
‘In that case,’ said Martha, ‘why don’t we destroy that thing?’ She nodded at the Necris, which had been placed on the edge of the next table.
‘Indestructible,’ said the Doctor. ‘Or as good as. Chucking it into the middle of an exploding sun might just about do it, but it’s infused with so many Hervoken protective doo-dahs that nothing on this planet would even come close to scratching its surface.’
‘Why is nothing ever simple?’ Martha sighed. Then she sat up straight and slapped her hands decisively on her thighs. ‘So come on then, what we gonna do?’
The Doctor tapped his head. ‘Think,’ he said.
She sat back, lapsing into silence. Then she said, ‘Why don’t you do what you did last time? Attack them with your blood? Send them loopy?’
‘Once bitten, twice shy,’ he said. ‘They won’t fall for that trick a second time.’
‘So what are we gonna do?’ Martha asked, exasperated.
Abruptly the Doctor stood up, his chair s
creeching backwards. ‘There’s only one thing to do.’
‘Which is?’
‘I’m going to talk to them.’
Everyone looked at him. ‘Cool,’ said Thad. ‘Can I come too? I want to see what these alien dudes look like.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘This is strictly a solo mission. I need you lot to look after Martha, make sure she goes easy on the cappuccinos. She has a tendency to run around naked when she’s got too much caffeine inside her.’
The boys all looked at Martha expectantly. She rolled her eyes. ‘He is, of course, joking.’
The Doctor was already striding towards the door. Martha stood up. ‘Hey, you’re not going without me.’
The Doctor turned back. His face was deadly serious. ‘Yes I am.’
‘No way,’ she said. ‘You need me to watch your back.’
‘No, I need you to watch the book.’ He pointed at the Necris. ‘I’m trusting you to keep that safe while I’m gone. Don’t forget, the Hervoken agents will be after it. You’ll have to keep on your toes.’
‘Anything we can do?’ Rick asked.
‘Yes, you can go home, lock yourselves in, batten down the hatches. Don’t answer the door to funny-looking men, and don’t take sweets from strangers.’
He pulled the door open, admitting a few tendrils of green mist.
‘Are you sure you’ll be OK?’ Martha called.
He glanced back once more and grinned at her. ‘I’ll survive. I always do. See you later.’
Then he stepped out into the mist, closing the door behind him.
It was only lunchtime on his last day of business, but already Jim Tozier was thinking of shutting up shop. He’d done a steady trade in Halloween costumes this morning, but not a roaring one. The weird green mist, which was still hanging about the town, seemed to be discouraging people from venturing out of their houses. The reason Jim didn’t shut up shop was because some folks still hadn’t collected the costumes they’d ordered for tonight’s Carnival, and would no doubt be in this afternoon to claim them. He guessed he could always put a note on the door, informing them to call him on his cell phone, but somehow he knew he wouldn’t do that. Somehow he knew that, out of a sense of duty and also a sense of closure, he’d stick it out to the end.
The real reason he wanted to close up was nothing to do with business, however. Maybe it was simply because he was so tired after a broken night’s sleep of weird dreams and disturbing thoughts, but whenever he was alone in the shop Jim couldn’t help but feel uneasy. He kept thinking he could see things out of the corner of his eye – costumes stirring, masks turning to face him. He knew it was crazy, but however many times he told himself that, it didn’t help. Try as he might, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.
He sat at the counter, stolidly munching his way through his lunchtime sandwich – ham and salad on rye, with plenty of mustard – and wishing someone else would call by. If they did he would offer them coffee, encourage them to stay a while and shoot the breeze. Part of his edginess, he told himself, could be attributed to the isolating effect of the mist. It crowded against his window like mould, obliterating his view of the usually busy square and plunging the town into perpetual twilight.
Popping his last piece of sandwich into his mouth, Jim was just reaching for the cafetière to pour himself a third coffee – after his night of disturbed sleep he needed the caffeine buzz – when he noticed an odd glow coming from the front of the shop. He paused, his hand hovering in mid-air. What was that? A firefly? Someone shining a torch onto the window from outside?
He licked his lips, once again feeling uneasy, though without knowing why. The glow was green, and hard to pin down. It seemed to drift, to flicker. Jim placed his hands on the counter, needing the reassuring solidity of it. Suddenly his sandwich felt heavy as a brick in his stomach. Almost unwillingly he circled the counter and walked towards the front of the shop.
His feet clumped ominously on the wooden floor. The costumes whispered and stirred in what Jim told himself firmly was nothing but the passing breeze from his body. Cautiously he approached the Halloween window display, an arrangement of pumpkins and masks sprayed with fake cobwebs, in the centre of which stood Sam the Mannequin sporting the Evil Clown costume.
Even when he was close enough to confirm where the glow was coming from, Jim tried to tell himself that what he was seeing couldn’t be real. A strange green light was skittering and flickering over the Evil Clown like electricity. Jim told himself it must be an atmospheric thing, some weird but natural phenomenon, like St Elmo’s Fire. Maybe a storm was on the way.
Then the hideous rubber clown mask, its empty eye sockets glowing bright green, twisted in his direction.
Jim tried to scream, but his throat was locked. Though the clown’s expression was fixed – wide, grinning mouth full of jagged teeth, bulbous green nose, a mass of spiky orange hair – it nonetheless seemed to leer at him. Jim began to back away as the green light in the empty eye sockets intensified. Then, without warning, the light leaped out at him, like thick, gloopy ropes of ectoplasm. It clamped itself to his face, filled his mouth and eyes. Jim felt a moment of sheer panic and horror, an instant of white-hot pain…
… and then the pain and the panic passed, and all at once he felt calm and serene – and what was more, he felt purposeful. Suddenly he knew without a doubt what he needed to do.
Reaching out, he plucked the Evil Clown mask from the head of Sam the Mannequin and pulled it over his face.
‘Why don’t you come back to mine?’ said Rick.
Martha had been umming and ahhing about what to do, where to go. Should she stay put and wait for the Doctor, or head back to her hotel room and lock herself in? She didn’t want to put anyone in danger, but at the same time it might be better, from the point of view of protecting the book, if she had people around her. And besides, from a purely human standpoint, she hated the thought of sitting tight on her own, not knowing how long the Doctor would be or even if he would come back at all. She hesitated for maybe five seconds, and then, not sure whether she was doing the right thing, she said, ‘Well… OK. Are you sure your parents won’t mind?’
‘No way,’ said Rick. ‘They’ll be stoked.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Martha, ‘but cheers for the offer. You ready to go now?’
Rick nodded and the boys rose to their feet. Martha picked up the Necris and tucked it under her arm. Thad, small and bespectacled, said determinedly, ‘You stick with us, Martha. We’ll protect you.’
Martha laughed, but she felt a little scared inside – scared for them rather than herself.
‘Lead the way, Sir Lancelot,’ she said.
Jim stepped into the Evil Clown costume and zipped it up. It was a one-piece, like a set of overalls, patterned in multicoloured harlequin diamonds. There were lacy ruffs at the wrists and ankles, and a long Velcro flap at the front studded with pompom-like buttons that covered the central zipper. Completing the ensemble were a pair of enormous black shoes and ridiculously large white gloves with fat, rounded fingers.
The disquiet that Jim had been feeling last night and today had now disappeared completely. Since the green light had sluiced through his mind he had been feeling good – great, in fact; better than he could remember feeling in a long time. He was calm and clear-headed… and yet despite this he wasn’t entirely sure why he was dressing himself in the Evil Clown costume. He simply felt a compulsion to do so, that was all. It felt normal. It felt right.
Fully kitted out, he clomped over to the full-length mirror beside the counter to see how he looked. It was awkward walking in the giant shoes. He had to lift his feet quite high off the ground, bending his knees so they were virtually at right angles with each step. He couldn’t imagine wearing this costume for a long time. As well as becoming quickly exhausted with all the exaggerated walking, it would also be only a matter of time before he would start to feel claustrophobic in the hot, rubbery mask.
He couldn’t deny he looked good, though. He filled the costume out well. This was one occasion, Jim thought ruefully, when his paunch actually enhanced the sartorial effect.
He admired himself for a few seconds longer, then decided it was time to take the mask off. It was getting hot; already he could feel sweat trickling down his face. To remove the mask, though, he first had to remove the big white gloves. He tucked one of them into his armpit and tried to yank his hand out of it. But for some reason the hand was stuck; it wouldn’t budge. He tried the other hand, with the same result.
Ridiculous, he thought, and tried again. But his hands were well and truly stuck. It was as though they had been super-glued into the white gloves. He started to feel a bit panicky. His head was full of the stifling smell of rubber. He was finding it difficult to breathe.
Maybe he could pull the mask off with the big white sausage fingers. It was only loose rubber, after all. But as soon as he raised his hands, he felt the mask sealing itself to his face.
His panic didn’t build slowly this time, but leaped into his head, fully formed. Gone was the serenity he had experienced minutes before, the sense that he was doing the right thing. He clawed at the clown face, but it was no use. He could feel it tightening on his skin, suffocating him. Even worse was the sense that somehow, contained within the rubber, was a vast and evil intelligence. Jim felt it forcing its way into his mind, subsuming his thoughts. He struggled against it, fought to regain control, but it overwhelmed him, crushed him. He felt his thoughts changing, a new personality taking over. In the instant before he was swamped completely, he sensed the nature of this new personality and was horrified by it. It was alien, murderous, utterly deranged…
As soon as they set foot on the pavement outside Harry Ho’s, the mist closed in around them. Immediately Martha’s head began to dart left and right. She even looked up at the sky, wondering where the first attack would come from. She was hugging the Necris to her chest, both arms wrapped around it. The iron band that the Doctor had fashioned with the sonic and secured snugly around the book seemed to be keeping it quiet for now, for which she was grateful. It was creepy the way the Necris had been contracting and expanding before – like holding a lump of living flesh in her hands. The Doctor had told her that iron was an effective defence against the Hervoken’s power, even better than salt. It blocked and deflected their energy or something. Though to be honest, Martha wasn’t too bothered what it did as long as it worked.
