The Nightmare of Black Island

by Mike Tucker

  Peyne started stabbing at buttons and energy flickered around the heads of Morton and the others in the beds. Old bodies twisted in pain, backs arching.

  'What are you doing?'

  'Nathaniel Morton and his friends can perform one final service in the Cynrog cause. Their minds are weak, but they can still serve to calm the creature, just long enough for me to find this one last fragment.'

  'No!'

  The Doctor tried to pull Peyne away from the controls. She thrust him back savagely, whipping the disrupter from her pocket.

  'You've become expendable, Doctor.'

  She pulled the trigger.

  Ali lay flat on her stomach, stretched out under the crackling Cynrog machine. She flinched as fingers of glowing energy danced across her skin. It tingled. Her eyes were getting heavier and heavier; the sonic screwdriver felt like a lump of lead in her hand.

  'Don't stop, Ali.'

  She could hear Rose shouting from the door.

  'Remember what I told you!'

  Ali struggled to concentrate. Ahead of her she could see the cluster of black nodules that she had to reach. She shuffled forward on her tummy. There. She could reach them now. So what was it she had to do?

  She yawned. She was so tired and it was warm here under the machine. Warm and glowing. She rested her head on her arm. A few moments wouldn't hurt.

  'No! Ali, don't!'

  Rose was banging on the metal floor. Ali could feel the vibrations.

  'All right, all right!'

  She struggled to lift the sonic screwdriver, holding the tip against the first nodule. There was a harsh blue light and a piercing whine and the back lump split open, revealing a single dial. Ali reached out and turned it from 'three o'clock' to 'two o'clock', as she had been told. The hum from the machine above changed in pitch.

  Ali moved to the next nodule. Six more to go.

  At the bottom of the lighthouse Bronwyn peered out through the open doorway and smiled at the small figure that wandered towards her from the beach.

  She was so very tired. Perhaps it was time to stop, to finally give up.

  Inside her head she could feel the thing that she had carried since her childhood struggling to be free. Perhaps it was time to let go.

  She leaned back on the steps, surrendering to unconsciousness.

  The wall of the house collapsed just as the disrupter went off. Bricks slammed into Peyne's arm, knocking the gun aside and sending the disrupter bolt ricocheting across the room. Peyne grasped her arm in agony, watching in disbelief as one wall bulged outwards, collapsing in a heap into the once neat gardens.

  Cynrog scattered as beams and plaster rained down among them, smashing machinery.

  The Doctor darted out through the gaping hole and into the rain, ducking inside the porch and staring up at the rectory.

  'Now there's something you don't see every day.'

  The huge Balor creature was on the roof, legs skittering on the wet tiles. The last vestiges of energy from the Cynrog generators flickered around its feet. As the energy field died, the creature seemed to bulge and change, increasing in size, towering over the house. Slashing claws tore huge lumps of masonry from the building and sent them crashing to the floor. Fire had caught hold of the old timbers and one wing of the house was now ablaze, smoke billowing into the night sky, lighting the clouds with a bright orange glow.

  Cynrog technicians fled from the burning house. The monster reached out with huge clawed hands and swept them up into the air, stabbing at them with its barbed tail, tearing them to pieces with its pincers. Casting the shredded bodies aside, it clambered down from the shattered roof, its movements slow and menacing, its claws digging into the stone as it clicked and clattered on to the wet lawn.

  The Doctor started to back away. With a screech of pain and anger, the creature's head swung down to look at him. The Doctor swallowed hard.

  'Now might be a good time to finish that little errand I sent you on, Rose,' he muttered.

  'Yes, Lord Balor. Destroy him!'

  Peyne emerged from the shattered dining room, her uniform ripped, a huge bloody gash in her scalp.

  'Destroy the enemies of Cynrog!'

  The creature turned slowly towards her, teeth bared. Peyne took a step backwards.

  'My Lord, I am not your enemy! I have given you the minds of the primitives that once housed you and the final part of you is close by. Please, I beg you, control yourself. Use the primitive minds to focus. Remember who you were, who you are...'

  'Peyne...'

  The voice was low and guttural, rattling the windows. The Doctor could feel it vibrating in his gut.

  'I... remember you... Peyne...'

  'My Lord!' Peyne dropped to her knees. 'You live!'

  'I remember your lies, your deceit. The years treating me like a child...'

  Peyne raised her head, her eyes wide with disbelief. 'Morton?'

  'Is this what I lived for, Peyne, to be your creature, your weapon? To plunder the universe, destroying and killing.'

  'My Lord, the primitive mind... It is stronger than I had thought. It has some control. I...'

  'Another mistake, Peyne?' The thing laughed. A horrible, bubbling cackle. 'If this is the life you offer, so be it. If I cannot live as Nathaniel Morton the man, then I shall be Morton the Destroyer, the new god of the Cynrog... And you will serve me!'

  Peyne clambered to her feet, eyes blazing with anger. 'Never.'

  'As you wish.'

  The Morton creature lunged forward, taking Peyne's head off with a single bite. The body stood for a few seconds, yellow ichor fountaining from its neck, then it collapsed in a crumpled heap.

  The creature threw its head back and bellowed in triumph. Flexing its claws, it reared back, towering over the house, staring down at the Time Lord standing in the centre of the lawn.

  And now for you, Doctor.'

  Ali reached for the final switch. With every nodule she had opened her tiredness had started to leave her. She felt more alive than she had in months. She stretched out, grasped the ridged dial and turned it. It moved with a sharp click and the machine changed in pitch once more.

  'I've done it, Rose! I've done it!'

  She wriggled out from under the machine, sonic screwdriver held proudly in her hands.

  Her smile turned to disappointment. Rose was fast asleep.

  Behind the bar of the Red Lion Beth Hardy watched as her husband slumped down across the table he was clearing, dead to the world. She barely had enough time to put a full glass of bitter on the bar top before she too collapsed in a heap.

  Across the village children woke from their nightmares and watched in disbelief as their parents slumped back in chairs and on to carpets as sleep overtook them.

  The village of Ynys Du reverberated to the sounds of heavy snoring.

  The Doctor closed his eyes as the razor claws reached out through the rain, waiting for the killer blow.

  It never came.

  He opened one eye cautiously.

  The creature was staring at its claws, turning them this way and that. It looked down at the Doctor.

  'I think I chipped a nail.'

  The Doctor blinked. 'I'm sorry?'

  'A nail. Look.' It held out a claw. 'And that head. Do you think it's going to be fattening? You never know with foreign food, do you?'

  The creature skittered across the lawn, staring at its reflection in the tall windows of the rectory. 'Do you think I look all right in this? I'm not sure if it suits me. I'm meant to be going to Maureen's wedding next week and I'm really not convinced.'

  As the Doctor watched, a flicker of energy lanced from the roof of the shattered rectory and danced around the creature's outline. Balor seemed to be shrinking.

  It started to scamper in circles, arms waving agitatedly. 'Oh, God. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make that mortgage payment in time. And what if I don't get that job at the chemist? He says he wants to settle down, but I know he's still seeing Pauline from
the WH Smith in town. Three of Dai Williams's chickens dropped dead last week. I hope we've not got that bird flu thing here.

  The creature was shrinking faster and faster now, its scales fading, changing, its skin becoming pinstriped, masked, different football colours, a blur of shapes and images. The voice got more and more frantic, words blurring into each other. The Doctor could hear snatches of half-shouted fears: global warming, old age, cellulite, rent cheques, girlfriends, boyfriends, debts, affairs.

  The creature was a whirling blur now. And then, with a sudden pop, it vanished.

  The Doctor stood in the rain in the middle of the lawn, staring at the spot where the creature had been. Choking clouds of black smoke billowed into the night air as more and more of the rectory succumbed to the flames.

  A shattering explosion sent him tumbling across the grass. That was presumably the last of the Cynrog machinery.

  He picked himself up and glanced across to the wreckage of the dining room. That room too was ablaze. The husks of those people who had held the mind of Balor for most of their lives were finally free.

  The last of the Cynrog technicians were rushing about in confusion. The Doctor sighed. He had work to do. He couldn't let desperate aliens wander free.

  He clapped his hands. 'Right, you lot. Your commander's dead, your god is gone, I'm the rightful guardian of this planet and it's time for you to sling your hook, before I get really angry.'

  FOURTEEN

  The young woman lay peacefully on the stretcher, blankets tucked protectively around her. The Doctor brushed a strand of auburn hair gently from her forehead.

  The woman's eyelids flickered open briefly to reveal sparkling grey eyes. The Doctor smiled at her. She caught hold of his hand and squeezed it.

  'Thank you,' Bronwyn whispered. 'For setting me free.'

  The Doctor shook his head. 'Your boy set you free. Your Jimmy. He showed me what you had seen. What I needed to do.'

  Bronwyn smiled. 'He was such a good boy.'

  'Who loved his mother. Always.'

  A hurrying paramedic manoeuvred the Doctor firmly to one side, catching hold of the stretcher's handles. His colleague took the other end and they hoisted Bronwyn off the beach and into the waiting ambulance.

  The Doctor closed the doors behind them and watched as the ambulance roared off through the village, lights whirling. Bronwyn's rejuvenation had been an unexpected bonus. As he had hoped, Ali's readjustment of the Cynrog transmitters had tapped into the fears and neuroses of the adults of Ynys Du, not the children. Instead of fantastic monsters, the nightmares were of a far more mundane nature. 'Tainted by the trivia of the real world,' as Peyne had put it. Without the imagination of the children to sustain it, the monster had simply ceased to exist.

  He glanced up at the smudge of grey smoke that trailed into the blue sky from the cliff top. The fire in the rectory had raged all night. There would be no traces of the Cynrog machinery by now.

  He crossed to where Rose sat on the sea wall, shaking her head in disbelief. Ali was perched next to her.

  'I just came down the stairs and she was sitting there, fast asleep.'

  'How did old Bronwyn become pretty again?'

  Ali had her head cocked to one side, squinting at the Doctor.

  He tried to look casual. 'Well, the Cynrog transmitters were still working flat out until the moment they blew up. As soon as the monster was finally solid, they were designed to switch frequencies and suck the life force out of you lot to rejuvenate Mr Morton and his friends. When Peyne started to triangulate on Bronwyn's psychic signature, looking for the final piece of Balor, the machinery somehow got its polarity reversed. Instead of rejuvenating Morton and the others, it look their life force and rejuvenated Bronwyn instead.'

  Ali frowned and nudged Rose. 'Does he always talk like that or do you get him to speak English sometimes?'

  Rose laughed. 'Nah, he's always like this.'

  'Of course, the machinery was also operating on similar frequencies to the TARDIS, so there's a possibility that she had a hand in it somewhere...'

  'The TARDIS...' Rose looked at him quizzically.

  'Yeah, well, she does like to... interfere sometimes.'

  'Right. I wonder where she gets that from.'

  'I'll tell you another thing...' The Doctor hopped up on to the wall next to Rose, whispering into her ear. 'Bronwyn's pregnant.'

  'No way? Another Jimmy?'

  'Could be.'

  'But isn't everything gonna just start up all over again? Doesn't she still have a bit of that Balor thing inside her mind?'

  'Not any more.' The Doctor tapped the side of his head. 'In here. Ooh, nasty little bit it is, all buzzy and angry like a big wasp. Gonna have to give myself a mental enema when we get back to the TARDIS.'

  'Eeergh!' Rose and Ali both grimaced.

  'Come on, Ali!' The Doctor bounded off the wall, catching her by the hands. 'Rose and I have got equipment to strip out of a lighthouse and some Cynrog to send on their way, and I want to buy you an ice cream before we go.'

  Dai Barraclough puffed and panted as he took the final few steps on to the cliff top.

  'What have you dragged us all the way up here for, Hardy?'

  Ali glared at him. 'I told you. I've got something special to show you.'

  'It'd better be worth it.'

  'Shut up, Dai.' Billy Palmer threw him an angry glare. If Ali says it's special, then it'll be special'

  Ali smiled at him. She liked Billy Palmer.

  The rest of the gang were squatted down on the grass at the cliff edge, staring out at the jagged rocks of Black Island. The sun was high in the sky, sending silver highlights dancing over the waves. A fresh breeze blew in from the sea, swaying the tall grass and flecking the rocks far below with foam.

  'What are we looking for, Ali?' asked one of the twins.

  Ali glanced at her watch. 'You'll see. Any moment now...'

  With a loud rumble, something emerged from behind the lighthouse in a blaze of light, a silver shape skimming over the water before lifting higher and higher into the blue sky.

  The children watched open-mouthed as it curved above them and then, with a flare of dazzling light, streaked away towards the horizon, the roar of its engines sending seagulls shrieking into the brilliant blue.

  Ali shielded her eyes from the sun and smiled.

  The Doctor and Rose stood in the console room of the TARDIS, eating their ice cream cones, watching on the scanner screen as the silver shape of the Cynrog ship slowly made its way out of orbit, accelerating away from the Earth.

  'You've sent them back to their war, then?' Rose sounded disapproving.

  'Yeah, but by the scenic route.'

  'How scenic?'

  'Oh... about.... forty or fifty parsecs out of their way. Should take them a couple of years at that speed.'

  'A couple of years.' Rose looked shocked. 'Can they survive that long in that sardine tin?'

  'Course they can! Lovely little stasis capsules in that thing. They'll sleep all the way home! Mind you...' He tailed off.

  'What?'

  They might have a few bad dreams on the way.'

  'Dreams?' Rose raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  'Well, nightmares if you want to be strictly accurate. Just enough to ensure that they won't fancy coming back.'

  'Oh yeah, and what do creatures like the Cynrog have nightmares about?'

  The Doctor just smiled.

  Acknowledgements

  Grateful thanks are due to Justin, my editor, for refusing to take no for an answer and for endless encouragement and problem-solving during the writing of this book. And to Ian Grutchfield for convincing me that saying yes was the right thing to do. Thanks also to the usual suspects, who kept me sane during the process:

  Karen Parks (x)

  Sue Cowley and Steve Roberts (and their pussy cat)

  Steve Cole (for belly-dancing)

  Moogie and Andy Tucker (Baz lives again!)

  Robert Pe
rry (where are you?)

  The Boys from the Model Unit (for Beers, Badgers and BAFTAs)

  Soph and Sylv (without whom...)

  and

  Christopher, David and Billie (for bringing it back for a new generation).

  About the Author

  Mike Tucker is a visual effects designer who, after twenty years at the BBC, now runs his own company, The Model Unit, out of Ealing Studios. Having worked as an effects assistant on the original series of Doctor Who, he has been the Miniature Effects Supervisor on the first two seasons of the new series, overseeing the team responsible for (among other things) the destruction of Big Ben, the Daleks (and their Emperor) and K-9.

  His previous books for the BBC have mostly been written with long-time colleague Robert Perry and have all revolved around the characters of the seventh Doctor and Ace. This is his first full-length novel for a different Doctor/companion team. One day he'd love to write a Dalek novel. Please . . .

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