The Nightmare of Black Island

by Mike Tucker

  Morton rolled to a halt in front of a heavy oak door and pushed it open, gesturing for the Doctor and Rose to enter. They stepped through into a large, gloomy office. The walls were mostly lined with bookcases that groaned under the weight of heavy tomes and dust motes glinted in the shafts of weak sunlight that cut across the room.

  Wheeling himself across to a large wooden desk, Morton shuffled papers to one side. Rose glanced around the room nervously. The walls that were free of books were hung with huge, ugly paintings. Jars with strange twisted forms stood on glass-fronted cabinets and trays of surgical instruments gleamed on tables.

  'Sit down please, Dr... Jones, Miss Evans, and tell me what I can do for you.' Morton regarded them balefully.

  The Doctor slid into one of the old leather chairs, seemingly quite at home.

  'We're interested in the work you're doing here, Mr Morton. And the effect it might be having on the local community.'

  'This is a rest home for the elderly, Doctor, nothing more.'

  'An unusual place for a retirement home, surely? A bit out of the way?'

  'The clients in my care are wealthy. They have a desire for solitude, somewhere they can spend the twilight years of their life without prying eyes and unwelcome questions.' The threat in his voice was obvious. 'As for any effect on the community, I'm sure I don't know what you mean.'

  'One of the locals seems to think that whatever you're doing here is affecting the well-being of their children. You don't exactly seem to have gone out of your way to fit in. I can't really see you and Miss Peyne joining in the local darts night down at the Red Lion.'

  'This community is averse to change, Doctor, to anything new. And forgive me, but if I wish to keep myself to myself that is hardly any concern of yours.'

  And the noise of ravenous creatures roaming the hills doesn't disturb the rest of your clients at all?' Rose chipped in.

  Morton gave a blustering laugh. 'Creatures? Really, young lady...'

  And the death of a young man on the shore, that's no worry to you either?' The Doctor's voice was harsh now.

  Morton's smile faded.

  'If there had been such a death, then it would be a matter for the police and not for a doctor.'

  The two men glared at each other across the desk for a moment, then the Doctor broke into a broad smile.

  'Quite right!' He rose from his seat. 'Well, thank you for your time, Mr Morton. Most helpful. I hope that we haven't disturbed you too much with our unwelcome questions. Miss Evans...'

  The Doctor hauled Rose from her seat and thrust her towards the door. Morton struggled to extricate his wheelchair from behind the desk. The Doctor waved a hand at him.

  'Please don't bother showing us out. I'm sure we can find our own way.' He bundled Rose out of the door into the hallway. 'This is right, isn't it?' he called back over his shoulder.

  They hurried along the dark passage, heading past the staircase and down another corridor. In the distance they could hear the ringing of a bell – a relic of the time when the house was full of servants, no doubt – and Morton's voice calling for Miss Peyne.

  'Did you see which door those two in the masks went into?' asked the Doctor.

  'This one, I think.' Rose pointed at an ornate oak door.

  'That's what I thought too.'

  There was a flare of blue light and a high-pitched whine as the Doctor pressed his sonic screwdriver to the lock. The door swung open and they slipped through into the room beyond.

  Rose stared in horror at the room before her. It was long and high-ceilinged. Tall windows lined one wall and an elaborate chandelier hung from an elegant ceiling rose. It had obviously been a dining room of some kind for the rectory's previous owners, but Nathaniel Morton had found another use for it.

  The tall windows were shuttered and dark, the chandelier disused and covered in cobwebs. Beds lined the walls, bathed in pools of soft light from concealed sources. Stacks of gleaming medical machinery hummed and bleeped quietly, while transparent tubes and arm-thick cables snaked their way across the scuffed and faded parquet floor and along the peeling skirting.

  But it was the figures in the beds that made Rose stop and stare.

  Six of them, silent and motionless, faces pale even against the white of the sheets and pillows, their breathing shallow and faint. Four men, two women: old, no, ancient, their skin almost transparent, their hair wispy and silver. Thin, positively skeletal hands rested on the blankets covering them, while needles protruded obscenely from their veins. The entire room smelt antiseptic, clinical.

  White-coated figures padded softly from bed to bed, adjusting tubes, peering at machines, their faces masked and anonymous. The Doctor and Rose walked between the beds, watching as one of the nurses – if that's what they were –jotted down a set of readings from one of the machines.

  'What are they doing to them?' Rose whispered.

  The Doctor shook his head. 'I'm not sure.'

  When he moved as if to examine a sleeping figure, the white-coated attendants immediately turned as one, pushing him backwards.

  The Doctor held his hands up. 'All right, all right, I was only looking. I wasn't going to touch.'

  The door behind them swung open again and Rose turned to see Miss Peyne pushing Morton down the length of the room. The old man had a face like thunder.

  'What are you doing in here?' he hissed.

  The Doctor tried his best to look apologetic. 'Took a wrong turn. Sorry about that. Thought we were heading for the front door and ended up here.'

  'You have no right to be in here. No right at all!' Morton was almost shaking with fury. 'You could have caused incalculable damage.'

  Rose suddenly felt guilty. Perhaps this was just a nursing home after all.

  'Look, we didn't touch anything. But what's going on here? Who are these people?'

  'No business of yours!' snapped Morton. 'As I told you, we came here for seclusion and that is what we want. Seclusion. Now, get out! Both of you!'

  The Doctor shot a quick glance at Rose, then nodded.

  'Of course. Sorry for the intrusion.'

  Morton just glowered at him.

  The Doctor shrugged and, with a final glance round the room, ushered Rose back out into the hallway.

  Miss Peyne followed, closing the door behind them. She gestured to her left and when she spoke, her voice was like ice. 'The front door is this way, Doctor. Miss Evans.'

  The Doctor smiled at her. 'So easy to get lost in these big houses, isn't it?'

  'Yes, indeed. They can be dangerous places if you're not careful.'

  They walked in silence to the front door. When they got there, Miss Peyne pulled a heavy key from a chain around her neck, unlocked the door and slid back the bolts.

  'I trust you'll be able to find your way to the end of the drive without any further assistance.'

  The Doctor and Rose stepped back out into the morning light, blinking after the gloom of the rectory. The door slammed with a loud thump and they could hear the bolts being slid back into place.

  The Doctor looked at Rose with indignation. 'Was that a threat? It sounded like a threat. I'm not sure we deserved to be threatened, are you?'

  'Oh no, not at all.' Rose rolled her eyes. 'We did a runner from his office, unlocked his secret hospital ward and had a nose about without his permission. Don't see what he was getting all worked up about.'

  'Exactly! And you know another thing? I've got no idea what he saw in the psychic paper. Not a clue. Normally I get some kind of after-image, but this time, not a sausage. Odd. Definitely odd.'

  'So, d'you think it's got something to do with the creatures?'

  'Do I think?' The Doctor turned and looked back at the rectory. 'Oh, I'm certain of it.'

  Nathaniel Morton watched from his office window as the Doctor and his companion turned away from the house and trudged down the drive and out of sight. He heard the door open behind him and Miss Peyne joined him at the window.

  'You were fooli
sh, Morton, letting him get into the ward like that.'

  'You think I had a choice?' Morton snapped. 'You think I could have done anything more to stop him?'

  'Who was he?'

  'He claimed to be a government inspector, but.

  'But what?'

  'The credentials he showed me. The paper. It was a mind trick of some kind.'

  'You think he's on to us?' Peyne's voice was anxious.

  'If he was, he'd never have been so direct. No, this one is something different.'

  'We should dispose of him.'

  'We can't risk it! Another death so soon after the last one will attract attention. And this one would be missed. No, we'll bide our time with the mysterious Dr Jones. By the time he does figure out what's going on it will be too late, and if he does return to the house, well, next time we won't be so accommodating.'

  FOUR

  The Doctor sat on the harbour wall, eating an ice-cream cone and staring out at the lighthouse. The brief glimpse he'd got of the equipment at the rectory had convinced him that there was far more going on in that ward than just caring for six elderly people, but he needed more time to study it and there was no way that Morton was going to let them in again in a hurry. Hopefully Rose would help in that regard.

  The two of them had headed back to the pub for lunch, working out their best plan of attack. The Doctor had been determined to get a fix on whatever was jamming the phone lines. The signal was complex and it had taken him some time to pin down its source.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seemed to be coming from the lighthouse, but it was a waste of their resources for them both to go out there. Instead, Rose could do a bit of snooping at the rectory while he concentrated on the lighthouse and its mysterious transmissions. So, after finishing lunch, she had set off in search of Ali and the other kids.

  The Doctor took another mouthful of his ice cream, checked the readings on his sonic screwdriver and regarded the island in the bay. It had seemed such a simple plan earlier. Make his way down to the harbour, hire or borrow a boat from some friendly fisherman, head out for a quick shufty, sorted.

  Unfortunately, there were no boats out in the harbour. The fishing boats were all out catching fish and late September wasn't exactly tourist season, so all the boats that offered trips round the bay and visits to Black Island were beached for the winter.

  Bob Perry, the harbour master, had a little motorboat – the Doctor could see it tied up at the end of the jetty – but Bob had made it perfectly plain that the boat was for 'official business only' and he wasn't in the mood to discuss the matter further. In the end, the Doctor had just bought a postcard and an ice cream off him instead, the harbour master's office seemingly doubling as a gift shop.

  Wandering back along the harbour wall, the Doctor had toyed with the idea of unchaining one of the little pleasure boats from the prom and trying to launch it himself, but the chances of getting it unlocked and into the water without being challenged by someone were remote. He had even thought about taking one of the swan-shaped pedal boats from the duck pond in the local park, but upon reflection they had looked less than seaworthy.

  He gave a deep sigh and scanned the horizon, looking for further options. A glint of colour on the far side of the harbour caught his eye. He stuffed the remnants of his ice-cream cone into his mouth and pulled out his opera glasses, adjusting the fingertip controls on either side and bringing the little LCD screens into sharp focus.

  On a short stretch of shingle beach the prow of a small fishing boat protruded from beneath a faded tarpaulin, the name Jimmy picked out in red paint.

  'Gotcha.'

  Popping the glasses back into his pocket, the Doctor hopped down off the wall and headed back to the harbour master's office.

  Bob Perry looked up from his paper suspiciously as the Doctor rapped cheerfully on his door.

  'Oh, it's you again. Wanting another ice cream, are you? Still not cold enough?'

  He reached for a large chest freezer under the counter, the signs for ice creams and ice lollies and the racks of picture postcards incongruous among the port authority notices and life-saving equipment.

  'No, no, no. No more for me. I'll spoil my dinner. I was wondering if you knew who the boat on the beach just over there belongs to.' The Doctor pointed at the little shingle beach. 'Boat called Jimmy.'

  Bob settled back down into his chair. 'That'll be Bronwyn Ceredig's boat.'

  'Is it for hire?'

  'Still trying to get out to Black Island, are you? Well, you can ask, but I can't promise you'll get a sensible answer from her.'

  'She didn't seem the most popular lady last night in the pub.'

  'Popular?' Bob gave a contemptuous laugh. 'She's mad as a box of frogs, that one. Lives in a right mess of a house on the west beach. Local council's been trying to move her on for years. Bad for the tourist business, see? So she's about as popular as a fart in a spacesuit.'

  'Yeah, that is unpleasant.' The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. 'Think there's any chance she'd hire the boat to me?'

  'For a price, maybe, if she likes your face. But whatever happens, don't let her offer to take you out there herself. I've had enough trouble with her and that boat over the last year, and I really don't want to have to leave my nice cosy office to tow her back to shore again because she's put herbal shampoo instead of engine oil in her outboard motor again.'

  'Shampoo?' The Doctor's hearts began to sink.

  'Herbal shampoo. Lavender and tea tree oil, I think it was. Thought it would be better for the environment. She's very concerned about the seals.'

  'The seals...'

  'Colony of them out on the island. You might see them if you're lucky. Have a nice trip.'

  Bob raised his paper again, settling back into his chair, smirking.

  The Doctor gave a deep sigh. The day was getting on and he had to make his way out to the lighthouse and back before darkness fell. He was running out of options.

  'Bronwyn it is, then. Let's just hope she's out of shampoo.'

  Rose was starting to get frustrated. The visit to the rectory had piqued the Doctor's curiosity and he wanted to know more about both the ward and the mysterious masked figures that operated it. He had asked Rose to find the gang of kids they had met earlier. They had obviously seen more goings-on at the rectory than they cared to talk about, but it was becoming clear that Ali wanted to tell them something and the Doctor was certain that if she was going to talk to anyone, then it was going to be Rose.

  It had suited Rose fine. She liked it when the Doctor relied on her. Besides, how tricky could it be? Finding half a dozen bored kids in a place as small as Ynys Du? No problem.

  The trouble was they were nowhere to be seen. Rose was baffled. When she was that age, she and her friends had hung about the shops, or the cinema, or that scrap of waste ground round the back of the estate that someone had tried to turn into a kid's playground. Ynys Du was a very different place from the Powell Estate, though. The only shops to speak of sold groceries or catered for the tourist trade. There was no cinema and the playground was desolate, windswept and locked. She had been wandering around the village for nearly an hour now. What the hell did kids do in a place like this when there was no school?

  Having exhausted all the possibilities in the village, Rose started to think about where else they might have gone. Her mind drifted back to the modern estate that she and the Doctor had come through when they first arrived. Perhaps some of the kids lived up there and they were playing football in one of the gardens. None of the little terraced houses in the village had gardens, so it was a possibility.

  Pleased with her logic, Rose set off at a brisk pace, trying to get some warmth back into her bones. It wasn't raining but the air was damp and the wind off the sea was threatening to bring more bad weather as the day went on. The sooner she found those kids and got back to the warmth of the pub the better.

  The road winding up from the village was steeper than she remembered and soon she ha
d to unzip her heavy parka despite the chill air. She crested the hill panting. God, you'd have thought with all the corridors she'd had to run down over the last few months she'd be fitter than this!

  Catching her breath, she wandered towards the cul-de-sac where the Doctor had frightened off the monsters the previous night. It all looked so different in daylight. A normal, boring housing estate, the same as thousands of others across the country; well kept, quiet and disappointingly free of the sound of children playing.

  Rose cursed under her breath. A man out in his driveway, cleaning his car, was watching her suspiciously. She smiled at him in what she hoped was a disarming and friendly way and kept walking. She'd do a quick circuit of the area, just in case.

  A gust of wind sent a ripple through the trees at the edge of the estate, dead leaves swirling across the road. Rose struggled with the zip of her parka again. Daylight had had no friendly, softening effect on the wood, which still clung to the hillside, dark and ominous. Rose peered into the darkness. Surely the kids weren't stupid enough to be playing in there?

  She turned away, intending to head back down to the village, when she caught the sound of laughter through the trees. The kids ?were playing in the woods!

  Suddenly the prospect of exploring the lighthouse with the Doctor seemed the better option to Rose. Wishing that she had a couple of his everlasting matches with her, Rose stepped into the wood, straining to hear where the laughter was coming from. She crept forward, wincing at each rustle of leaves or crack of dead branches. The laughter had been replaced by whispered conversation and loud ssshhs now, and Rose could smell wood smoke.