R

everend Cunningham tried to back away from the corpses, and very nearly fell off the pew on which he was perched.  The strain on his heart, heavily laden with cholesterol from years of food abuse, notched up another level.  Only a few minutes earlier, he had thought the trauma couldn’t get any worse.  The sacrilege caused by the plague of mice, and the pigeons’ destruction of Saint Peter’s image in to thousands of bits of coloured glass, had rocked his sense of security in the haloed ground.  How could the Almighty allow such a blasphemy in his place of worship, by the vermin of the land and sky?  It hadn’t occurred to him that the unholy walking dead would also break in to the divine building.  That was unthinkable.  But it had happened nevertheless, and now he felt as if his head would explode.  

 

The vicar recognised all of the approaching figures, teeming through the door.  It was like a grotesque parody of the usual Sunday morning service.  Gary Ludlow and the Trent sisters filed in as usual, and wobbled down the aisle towards the front pew.  Others paraded after them, with Suzanne Sawkins and her husband Tom following up the rear.  For the first time the old rascal appeared delighted to be in the church, but that may have been due to the lack of skin on his lower jaw.  Soot blackened teeth were fixed in a wide grin, that seemed to taunt and gloat at his blasphemous presence.  None of the congregation were inclined to sit in the empty seats, and the Reverend knew that they were not here for his sermon.  They had lost their souls to the Devil.  There was no other reasonable explanation for what he saw.

 

Wallace, Victoria and Jamie backed away from the zombi, but the Reverend knew that there would shortly be nowhere else to run.  Already the corpses had blocked off the escape route to the side door.  It was fight or die.  The vicar stood frozen to the spot, still stood atop the pew.  From his vantage point, he watched Wallace step forward in an oddly casual manner and swipe at the throat of Gary Ludlow.  The knife struck deep and hard, forcing a stream of blood to gush out over the church floor.  The corpse’s moan turned in to a gurgle, but still he advanced.  Unperturbed, the scientist struck again.  This time it crashed down through the dead man’s skull, carving neatly in to the brain.  The blade remained stuck, until Wallace yanked it out with a tremendous effort.  The blacksmith’s body slithered to the floor, his head leaking crimson on to the polished wood.  To be sure that Gary wouldn’t rise again, Wallace hacked down one final time. 

 

Although he knew that Gary was just a devil-possessed shell, Reverend Cunningham couldn’t help crying out for mercy on his behalf.  The words seemed foolish in his own ears. Fortunately nobody else heard them.  They were too busy trying to stay alive than listen to an overweight vicar.  The corpses stepped over their fallen comrade, and advanced on to Wallace’s flashing knife.  More fell, but there were too many and the scientist was forced to retreat.  When Wallace finally edged away, waving the knife in a vain attempt at bullying the zombi army, the Reverend felt sick.  It was only now that he recognised the weapon as his best carving knife.  It was almost as if he had killed Gary Ludlow himself.

 

Morals and ethics, that he hadn’t contemplated since becoming a novice to his godly work, barged forward.  Principles that had sustained him when he was not in pursuit of power, surged to his heart.  At last he realised that, at least by his own standards, he had failed in his position as messenger of God.  His sight had been obscured by eighteen stone of fat and hazed by power.   He should have been humble.  He should have been praying.  He should have been helping the weak and hungry.  No longer would he worship the meat and pudding, he vowed.  He was born again.  God had shown him the way, but was there still time to make amends?

 

Out of the blue, he felt grasping hands behind him.  Cold, clammy and strong.  He lashed out in sudden fear, and struck flesh.  Then he fell.  The floor sprung forwards, as he tumbled from the pew.  Panic gripped him when he was half caught by the same cold, strong hands.  He struggled, but not for long.  The puff of protest at his resistance was the voice of a man, and not the moan of a corpse.  Regaining his balance, the Reverend pulled away from the supporting hands to find Jamie and Victoria behind him.  The girl flashed a nervous but pretty smile, whilst the kilted Scott pulled at his arm.  They were trying to get him to move to a safer place.  He followed meekly, clutching tightly in his podgy hand the small silver cross that hung from a chain around his neck. 

 

They had just reached the altar, when a hideous cry of pain caused him to look over his shoulder.  Wallace had not retreated back with them, and had remained to fight a battle that he had no chance of winning.  He had kept the hoards from progressing far down the middle aisle, but had failed to notice several corpses coming in from the side.  The result was disastrous.  Unnoticed, Suzanne Sawkins had pounced.  Her once appealing mouth had torn deep in to the scientist’s neck, causing the cry that the vicar had heard.  Wallace’s scream was now little more than a whimper.  If it wasn’t for the scarlet blood spurting from the wound, the sight had the air of a romantic couple entwined in passion.  But it wasn’t something so honest and natural.  Reverend Cunningham watched in disgust as the undead woman savoured her meal, sucking deeper and deeper in to the yielding meat. 

 

Instantly Jamie bounded to the scientist’s aid, but before he could reach him the body of Mortimer Russell took full advantage of the delay.  Whilst Suzanne continued her deadly petting, the deceased mill owner lunged at the scientist’s leg.  Dead hands gripped, and unscrewed the appendage.  There was a crack like a gunshot, and the femur was severed. Screams returned to echo and reverberate around the church.  Mortimer’s mouth reached down for the morsel in his hands, but it was filled with boot instead of food.  The zombi sprawled backwards, blocking the path of many of his comrades.  Jamie didn’t pause to admire his handiwork, but moved fluidly to kick another of the Loa’s puppets savagely in the stomach.  Then he was at Wallace’s side.  The only thing keeping the aristocrat upright was the embrace of his dead lover.   The knife hung limply from his hand.  The scientist no longer had the strength to use it.  

 

Seizing the opportunity, the Highlander grasped its handle and swung the kitchen implement with all his force.  The blade pierced the side of Suzanne’s head, spilling congealed blood and brain over her victim’s shoulder.  Her body collapsed, and with it tumbled Wallace.  The Reverend watched, as Jamie grabbed one arm and heaved the scientist’s body away from the zombi, leaving a trail of blood in its wake.  The living dead followed at their own leisurely pace.  They had nothing to rush for.  There was nowhere for the humans to escape to. 

 

To the vicar’s alarm, abruptly the Scott stopped dragging the body.   Wallace’s head reclined unnaturally, and his eyes stared ahead unseeing.  Even from this distance, it was obvious that he had passed in to the next world.  He stared transfixed, watching Jamie raise the knife above the prone man’s head.  Reverend Cunningham wrenched his eyes away, when the blade was thrust down.  Now there were only three of them.    

 

 * * * *

 

‘Time Lorddd!’

 

The croaky dry words came from the shadows encasing the mansion’s courtyard.  The articulation was less slurred than before, but the Doctor instantly recognised it as a being using another’s voice box as if it was its own.  Squinting his eyes, he looked closer in to the gloom.  The dying flames of the gutted building briefly lit up a man-sized shape.  It was partially obscured by one of the stone lions that now guarded a dead manor, but in the feeble glow of orange light a black man in slave’s garb was just about visible.  The short search was over.  He had found Toussaint.  The Doctor had been sure that the entity wouldn’t take its medium too far from the mansion.  After all, the aristocratic residence had been its home ever since it ‘arrived’ on Earth, but even so it was a relief to actually find the old slave’s hijacked body.  The entity probably felt safer here than anywhere else, but once its power was complete and its puppet army vast, the Doctor knew it would no longer skulk in the shadows.  Then and only then would the Loa roam freely around the globe, causing mayhem and destruction.  It was doubtful that the medium was alone, so the Doctor trod warily forwards.  More than likely the entity’s puppets lurked close by, ready to strike. 

 

‘Still got a bit of a speech impediment there I see,’ said the Doctor flippantly.  As he strolled closer, he casually slipped the machine from his shoulder and flicked a switch, causing it to hum with energy. 

 

‘I had hoped that when youuuu went in to your time machine youuuu were fleeing thissss planet,’ said the entity, sounding almost friendly.  The medium was still bathed in shadow, but now the whites of his eyes pierced like daggers from the darkness at the small trampish man. 

 

‘I can’t leave you here you know,’ said the Doctor, exhibiting a small grin. ‘All those dead things walking around.  It’s so unhygienic.’ 

 

‘All life is unhygienic,’ rasped the slave’s body, giving a throaty gurgle that could only have been a laugh.  ‘How clean would youuuu look to other creatures in the galaxy?  They would wrinkle their noses in disgusssst.’

 

‘Yes, well I suppose I could do with a bath, but with all the running away from the living dead… you know how it is.’

 

The outline shifted in the gloom, and the whites of Toussaint’s eyes lumbered closer.  As the hijacked body left the shadows, the Doctor at last had a clear view of the previously proud man.  His hands were a mass of blisters, no doubt caused by the fire, and his brown skin was covered in a layer of fine white ash.  The whole body was tensed, like a stretched elastic band on the verge of snapping.  The eyes were phantoms of their former self, but the power in their stare was so intense that it caused the Doctor to take an involuntary step backwards.

 

‘Youuuu should have left,’ glowered the Loa through the old man’s lips, ‘Why do youuuu stand in the way of myyy reward?’

 

‘Oh, nothing personal,’ replied the Doctor, regaining his composed appearance.  ‘It’s just that you don’t belong.  You shouldn’t be here, you know.’

 

‘But I was given this place,’ fumed the Loa.  The old slave’s body suddenly overflowed with a fury that took the Doctor by surprise.  ‘It is mine byyyy right!  I need to quench the thirsssst!’

 

‘Given?  No… no, you shouldn’t be here,’ stammered the time traveller.  Casting his mind back, he recalled the Loa mentioning about a reward before.  Surely it was just a red herring, like its adoption of the name of a Voodoo god?  But if so, why the resentment?  

 

‘If youuu took myyyy place youuu wouldn’t be so fast to judge,’ seethed the entity, ‘In the void there is no body, no memory.  Just the hunger.  Forever.  This is mine byyyyy right!’ 

 

‘What’s all this about a reward?’ said the Doctor, feeling that things were getting out of control but unable to prevent his curiosity.

 

‘As if youuu didn’t know,’ came the cryptic reply, ‘Why do youuuuu meddle with what is mine by right?’

 

‘It’s what I do I’m afraid.  I just can’t stop meddling in things and it’ll probably get me in a lot of trouble in the future, or the past.  That’s the problem with time travel - you never know quite where you are.  Or where you’ve been,’ garbled the Doctor.  Before the Loa had a chance to reply he carried on, deciding it was time to give his ultimatum before things got nasty. ‘Anyway, I’m going to have to stop you, so if you would be so good as to leave poor Toussaint’s body and never return, I can go and meddle somewhere else.’

 

The Doctor’s hand crept down to the trigger on his machine, and angled the barrel towards the old slave by ever so slightly shifting his arm.  The contraption was no longer a stun gun, but had been reworked to emit a much stronger pulse.  It was now the sort of deadly weapon the Doctor hated to be involved with, but on this occasion he had little choice.  If he pulled the trigger, it would now utterly destroy the human brain.  It would kill the medium, and banish the Loa back to where it belonged.  The Doctor knew that it was necessary, but it didn’t make it any easier.  Toussaint was still alive in his abused body, but if the bridge was not destroyed then the whole planet would suffer.  One life for many.  The medium had to go, but there was no harm in giving the Loa the chance to do the right thing before he was forced to fire.  Except he didn’t really believe the entity would listen.  Most probably it didn’t even realise the danger it was in.  The Time Lord’s index finger had already tightened on the trigger, when the entity gave an unexpected reply. 

 

‘If that is what youuuu wish, then so be it!’

 

With the end of the final croaked syllable, Toussaint’s muscles relaxed from the tenseness imposed on it by the Dimensional Entity.  Without the Loa to down tread it, the old man’s consciousness returned.  It was comparable to the strings on an old fashioned marionette being slashed, and the puppet finding that it could stand all by itself.  For a split second, he gazed at the Doctor with bewildered eyes, and then collapsed to the floor as if he realised that he was indeed only a wooden puppet after all. 

 

Discarding the machine on the courtyard’s concrete ground, the Doctor rushed to the old slave’s side.  Picking up his limp wrist, he checked for a pulse.  It was weak, but steady. Toussaint’s body had been put through so much that it needed rest, thought the Time Lord sadly.  Given a few days relaxation, it was likely that he would make a full recovery.  After checking the old man over for a second time, the Doctor felt as if a burden had been lifted off his back.  The entity had left of its own free will, and he hadn’t been forced to use the ‘gun’.  Who knows why the entity had done it, but it had.  An innocent had been saved, along with all other life on Earth.  Of course, a way needed to be found to ensure that the bridge was indeed fully destroyed, but that could wait until Toussaint was stronger. 

 

The Doctor had made a start in making the old man comfortable, when the scrape of loose gravel alerted him to the presence of someone else close by.  He stood, and looked in to the night.  The silhouette of a woman solidified out of the darkness.  Her features sharpened as she came closer, dragging one of her legs behind her.  From the angle, the Doctor surmised that it was broken.  The Doctor recognised her as the mansion’s cook.   She had most probably been attacked by one of the Loa’s corpses and was lucky to be alive.

 

‘Miss Nash, I’m so glad to see you,’ he said with concern, ‘Let me take a look at that leg.’

 

There was no reply, and then the Doctor saw the dark red blotches that soaked through her clothes.  Miss Nash opened her mouth as if to speak, and omitted a long moan.  The Doctor stared at the corpse shuffling slowly in his direction, and realised in dismay that he had been duped.  If the Loa had indeed left the medium, all the zombi would have become lifeless, unmoving hulks of flesh.  Behind him came another unearthly groan.  Another zombi. The Doctor spun around, and saw the mutilated body of Oscar Whittle stumble from the opposite direction.  By the dead butler’s ankles, lurched the corpses of the cat and dog that had ended his life so prematurely. 

 

Expecting them to attack him immediately, the Doctor dived for the machine lying a few feet away.  If he was quick, he still had a chance of killing Toussaint and destroying the bridge forever.  Scooping the machine from the dusty ground, the Doctor aimed it at the prone form of the slave.  But his line of fire was blocked by the huge sightless dog.  It glowered at the time traveller with empty sockets, drool and blood dripping across its canine teeth.  Knowing that the machine was set for human brain patterns and would be useless against this particular monstrosity, the Doctor attempted to edge around the zombi animal.  All that he required was one clean shot.  The dog gave a bubbling growl at his movements, but astonishingly the advance suddenly became unnecessary.  The cook and butler dipped out of view, and pulled Toussaint upright and in to plain view.  The slave opened his eyes, and the Doctor aimed.

 

Then the screaming began.  The Doctor’s finger froze on the trigger, as he watched Toussaint regain consciousness and yell in abject terror.  There seemed to be no sign of the Dimensional Entity in the old man, but was it another trick?  Unsure whether to fire or not, the Time Lord observed whilst Mr Whittle and Miss Nash gripped the slave’s chest, dug their nails in under the rib cage and pulled.  Too late, he realised their intension.  There was a splintering of bones, and the squelch of tissue.  Probing fingers delved inside the terrified man’s torso, and the screaming abruptly stopped.  Oscar’s hand returned with the prize. Toussaint’s heart.  The lifeless body dropped to the floor, and both the animal and human corpses turned to devour their feast.  The machine fell limply by the Doctor’s side.  There was only one explanation.  Toussaint was a decoy.  It must have taken tremendous power to possess and control him remotely, but there was no way that he could have been the medium.  And after all his promises, the Doctor had failed to save him. 

 

As the Time Lord stood bewildered, from darker and murkier shadows rang the clear voice of a young girl.  It was a voice that he recognised, and belonged to somebody whom he thought safe and secure in the company of Jamie and Victoria.

 

‘Why do you look so surprised?  It was your idea after all!’   

 

* * * *

 

If she survived, Victoria made a vow never again to wear the layers of petticoats and skirts during her wandering travels with the Doctor.  With its flowing lace and delicate embroidery, the dress may have been both appealing and modest, but it was certainly not practical.  And at the present moment it was damn right lethal.  The hooped clothing prevented her from clambering through the gap that Jamie had discovered.  A gap that may not be able to save their lives, but may at least prolong them.  It led to a small space between a statue of the Virgin Mary and the alter, that was maybe big enough for three.  Even if she could fit through, it would only provide partial cover from the walking dead, but at least in the little cubbyhole the zombi could only attack in one direction.  The hideous slurping of the gorging corpses reminded her of the danger, so yet again she tried to ram herself in to the space.  But it was to no avail.  The bamboo hoops sewn in to the dress were far too rigid.  

 

‘Jamie, there’s no way I’m going to fit in there with this on,’ she finally exclaimed, before adding as an after thought, ‘Anyway, what about the Reverend?  We can’t leave him out here alone.’

 

‘You better take it off then!’ grunted the Scott, ‘I’ll get the Rev, but I dinnie think he wants our help.’ 

 

Victoria went a bright shade of purple at Jamie’s ungentlemanly remark, but the Highlander seemed oblivious to her embarrassment.  Instead, he slipped easily back through the gap and sauntered up to the vicar.  Reverend Cunningham was kneeling where they had left him, underneath a large cross that displayed the crucified image of Jesus of Nazareth.  His hands were clasped together, and his lips moved silently in prayer.  Victoria watched her friend lightly touch the Reverend on the shoulder.  The man looked up at him with a strangely composed expression, and without a word of complaint he stood and followed the Scott to the cubbyhole.  It was as if a transformation had come over him, and he had changed in to the humble messenger of God that he claimed to be, but until now never was. 

 

Victoria had cartoon images of the fat man’s bulk becoming stuck fast in the entrance to their hiding place, with a corpse biting his backside to reveal brightly coloured underwear.  It was the sort of satirical image that she would have seen in The Times back home.  Her original home, now so far away.  However, Reverend Cunningham squeezed his massive belly in to the hiding place with only minor difficulty.  Jamie hesitated for a moment, and then joined the vicar.  Victoria realised he was giving her time to discard the dress, but even in this dangerous situation it was hard for her to comply.  Modesty was bred in to her.  It was one thing to discard a petticoat for use as a bandage, but quite another to abandon the entire carbuncle. 

 

Still unsure, she peeped nervously over at the zombi.  The undead were too close for comfort, and the gap was shrinking rapidly.  Their starter over, the corpses were again on the move, ready for the second course.  Unhurriedly, they staggered in the direction of the trapped humans.  In the aisle, Wallace’s body had been picked clean of flesh.  The scientist now resembled the remains of a gigantic roast chicken, with bones and internal organs strewn everywhere.  The only sign of the meal’s true identity was a white skull, half hidden under the front pew.  One of the Loa’s minions remained hunched over the carcass, slowly chewing on the gristle that was once part of the unfortunate man’s right foot.  Victoria realised that this lone zombi had a duel function - to finish the leftovers, and to prevent the group’s escape down the main body of the church.

   

Wrenching her mind away from the approaching menace, the young girl inspected the gap again.  She needed to fit, and the only way was to discard her Victorian modesty, and ditch the skirts.  Quickly she tore off the garment, leaving herself wearing just a thin layer of petticoats and a tight fitting corset.  Although she was more covered than she would have been in the twentieth century garb that she usually wore, standing in her underwear made her feel terribly exposed.  Quickly, she dived in to the niche.  Grabbing a piece of wood that Jamie had ripped off the alter, the young girl rammed it in the gap behind her as a makeshift door. 

 

It was put in place just in time.  Immediately she felt a heavy weight on the other side of the slab of pine.  The weight grew, as more corpses reached the gap, but for a while the wood held.  But then it began to buckle.  Victoria cowered back as far as she could, and found herself pressed firmly against Jamie’s body.  The pine bulged in the middle, and spiteful cruel splinters detached themselves from its main body.  As the buckling wood caved in further, the splinters were pushed towards the trapped humans.  Victoria tried to move her head away from the nearest splinter, but there was nowhere to retreat to.  She was as far back as she could possibly be.  To her alarm, the shard of wood was level with her face and was little by little inching forwards with each blow of the attacking zombi.  If she remained where she was, the cruel spear would puncture the delicate jelly of her eye.  There was another almighty strike, and the wooden panel lurched half an inch closer.  So near that she could see every contour of the ragged splinter, and still it advanced, ready to delve in to the vulnerable softness and snatch her eyesight from her. Too scared to even scream, she watched the sliver loom until it filled her entire vision.  

 

Then, suddenly it was gone.  Aware of her predicament, Jamie’s foot had lurched out and kicked the door several inches backwards.  The threat of the pine spears was swiftly removed, but her relief was short lived.  The Highlander’s blow had ruptured the already weakened wood, and it split in two neatly down the grain.  At once, dead clammy hands reached inside the hiding place.  Fingertips touched Victoria’s hair and gripped painfully tight to the curls.  Many more corpses stretched their cold hands through the tight space, in the direction of their second course.  Jamie tried to help, but his struggles were of insignificant force to prevent her warm living body being pulled towards a slobbering mouth.  Victoria gazed at her own immanent death, and at last emptied her lungs.  The echoes of her own screams added more fear to her heart than she had ever known. 

 

 * * * *

 

‘Maybe I should have sung that damn nursery rhyme, but I thought it would have been a bit too melodramatic.  What do you think?’  Zara’s harmonious voice sang sweetly the first few lines to labour the point, ‘Goosy Goosy Gander, Whither do I wander, Upstairs and downstairs…’

 

‘The Dimensional entity I presume,’ interrupted the Doctor.  He could see the outline of the child swamped in darkness and edged closer, keeping a wary eye on the gorging corpses as he did so.

 

‘Kindly address me as the Loa,’ came the reply in an almost playful manner. 

 

‘That’s a trifle childish, isn’t it?’ retorted the time traveller, ‘You’re not a God.’

 

‘Well I am a child.  At least this body is anyway,’ said the entity sarcastically.  The hijacked slave girl took a few steps out of the murkiness, at last giving the Doctor a full view of the Loa’s medium.  As the feeble light of the moon replaced the shadows she bathed in, the entity continued to goad the time traveller through the adolescent lips.  ‘Oh, don’t you want to sing with me then? What about a game instead?  Guess whom I’m about to consume. Three guesses.  I’ll give you a clue.  It’s not Wallace.  He’s already a pile of bones.’

 

‘What did you mean when you said it was my idea?’ asked the Doctor, doing his best to ignore the taunts. 

 

‘Wrong!  One guess down!’ said the Loa, accompanied by one of Zara’s sweet laughs.  ‘Shouldn’t play with my food really, but you know how children are.  Haven’t bitten her yet… it’s such fun to hear her scream.  It’s your name she’s screaming you know.’  

 

The words sank in, and immediately the Doctor thought of Victoria back in the church.  Was the Loa telling the truth, or was this another smoke screen to blind him?  He turned his mind away from the terrible thought.  If Victoria was in the entity’s grasp, her only chance was for him to keep it distracted.   

 

‘So, you have been with us all along.  Ever since we escaped from the fire,’ he stated, ‘You have known what we were doing, what we were planning.’

 

‘Hah, I played along with your game,’ spat the Loa viciously, ‘While I was your prisoner I kept up the charade of being this child.  Very clever getting that stupid woman to repeat those prattling rhymes to me, and discuss my overthrowing out of ear shot... Goosy Goosy Gander…’

 

The rhyme’s prose rang through the Doctor’s head, hampering his concentration as he mulled over the entity’s last words.  Words that contrasted sharply with the juvenile voice of Zara, but nevertheless put a different dimension to the whole affair.  All the time he had thought he had been looking after the little slave girl, the Loa had thought it had been taken prisoner.  It seems like they had both indeed been playing a game, except the Dimensional Entity was playing Monopoly, whilst the Doctor was playing Snakes and Ladders.  However, now the rules had been unveiled, certain things made more sense.

 

‘It was you that knocked out Victoria when we were fleeing to the church,’ the Doctor said at last, causing the Loa to blessedly halt its singing.

 

‘Of course.  You let your guard down, and I made a break for freedom.  If it wasn’t for the unexpected arrival of that fool of a mill owner, she would have died then and there. Although his bleeding body was a good diversion for my escape.’  The entity let forth a girlish giggle before continuing, ‘Anyway, what about the game.  Who am I about to bite?  I’m drooling blood over her now.  Surely you have been given enough clues… oh, don’t want to play? Well I suppose you’re all grown up, aren’t you Time Lord.’

 

‘How… how do you know my race?’ said the Doctor, taken aback.  There was no way that the entity could know that he was anything other than human.  True, the Loa had earlier mentioned his time machine, but he had assumed that it had eavesdropped on his conversations with Jamie and Victoria to acquire that nugget of information.  The reply didn’t instil any comfort.  

 

‘The change of face doesn’t fool me.  You forget I change faces at will, so it isn’t hard to spot another’s disguise.  You gave me this girl as my reward remember.  You told me of the puncture in the fabric of the universe, and in return I helped you.  I didn’t even have to return to the void, so I could hang on to all those precious memories of destruction. “Just a quick nip down the space/time continuum and you’re there,” you said… and you were right.  But you know all this, so why all the pretence?’

 

‘We’ve…we’ve met before?’

 

‘Oh, you’ve got amnesia, diddums.  It was a long way from here… not sure when.  May have been far in the future, but its all the same to me.’

 

The revelation hit the Doctor like an express train.  It was conceivable that the entity was telling the truth.  How else would it know he was a Time Lord?  Even his trusted companions had not yet been privy to such delicate information.  It was a part of his past that he wished to forget, and hoped would never catch up with him.  Although, from the few occasions he had been plucked out of his own time-stream, he knew that his wanderings wouldn’t always remain so wonderfully free of his bureaucratic race.  Even so, that was a long way off and would not be his concern for a great many years.  Was it possible that one of his future selves had run in to the Loa?  But if he had, then what on earth was he up to?  He had to know.

 

‘This other face,’ said the Doctor, ‘He wasn’t a bit of a fancy pants was he?  Tall fellow, with a beak of a nose and dressed in silly shirts.  None of my usual charm and charisma.  If so, you shouldn’t have listened to him.  He didn’t inherit any of my brains, I’m afraid.  Had to sort out his mess before, you know.’

 

‘Why do you prattle so?’ said the entity irritably through the slave’s mouth, ‘As you well recall, you dressed in a short body that time.  Cream and brown clothes, with a habit of shouting.  Accompanied by a girl with the ridiculous name of Ace.  You gave me my prize… my reward… for my assistance then.  Without it, the fleet would have wiped you both out.’

                                                                                     

‘So… you wiped out a fleet…’ 

 

His own words seemed hollow in his own ears.  Guilt was rushing across him, like a tidal wave.  He didn’t recognise the description, but it was just possible that the Dimensional Entity referred to one of him that he had not met.  But he wouldn’t have been so careless to have set these awful events in motion, would he?  If it was a future self that sent the entity to this place in space and time, then all the deaths, all the carnage, was his fault.  His fault alone.  He had known of course, that Wallace had to die.  The timeline dictated that, but was it really necessary for it to have been in such a terrible way?  Perhaps it was all predetermined, and he was just completing what needed to be done. Or was he destined to become so scheming and manipulative?  Even willing to manipulate himself, through time. Nevertheless, the questions had to wait.  The time traveller noticed with grim realisation, that the Loa was still talking, and it was getting angry.

  

‘…It’s what you wanted, is it not?  I completed my side of the bargain, so leave me to my reward.  Or die, in the same way that your companion is about to.  Ah, I can feel her warm breath on my puppet’s dead skin.’

 

‘Please… please leave her alone!’ said the Doctor urgently.  Knowing what needed to be done, he raised the machine and pointed it at Zara’s head. 

 

‘Oh, that’s no good.  I’m not a mouse.  Or a rat.  Or a vole,’ chuckled the puppet slave girl.

 

The Doctor realised that whilst in the cottage, the entity must have heard through Zara’s ears his explanation about the workings of the stun gun.  It had no notion that the machine was now deadly, and with a little pressure on the trigger the little girl’s brain would erupt in boils of yellow matter.  Within milliseconds they would proliferate, eating away the living brain tissue. And then her head would concave, as the whole contents dissolved and liquefied. The medium would be destroyed, and the bridge would collapse.  The world would be safe. The Time Lord’s finger slipped on to the trigger, and began to tighten.  But he couldn’t press it home.  The fact that it was his fault that the pretty child had been taken by the Loa refused to budge.  He had vowed to help her, but already her grandfather lay dead.  Zara was still alive in her slim body, and while there was life there was always hope.  With that in mind, could he end her life so prematurely?  Could he trade her breath to save Victoria?  Did he have that right?  

 

 * * * *

 

‘Doctor!’ whimpered Victoria piteously, knowing that he was nowhere in earshot, but hoping desperately that by some miracle he would arrive to save her in the nick of time. 

 

The mouth, encircled with rotten teeth, was now so close that she could see slithers of white meat clinging to the blackened enamel.  The remains of the puppet’s last victim.  The young woman almost expected to feel the disgusting breath of the undead, but the lungs had long since finished their final exhale.  Instead, she was treated to the sight of a mixture of saliva and blood cascading between the bulbous tongue, and tricking down the unshaven chin. The vacant eyes swivelled to look at her, as the mouth gaped ready to feast.  This time, Victoria didn’t scream.  For once her brain was too scared to react in such a way.  She always thought that one’s life flash before them at such times, but all she could see was the almost forgotten dream of her father.  Her father, with pennies on his eyes.  And she was now going to join him.

 

 * * * *

 

‘Um… you know I’m quite fond of this planet,’ said the Doctor, lowering the machine slightly, ‘If you destroy it, several of my favourite places to visit would never exist.  There’s a great little café down near the Bristol Hippodrome in the twentieth Century that I’d miss terribly. And of course there’s the twenty first century Broadway extravaganza of George Romero’s ‘Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang’ performed in zero gravity, that I’ve been meaning to see.  It would be shame to miss it.  Would you be interested in a deal?’

 

‘Deal?  Explain,’ rasped the entity.

 

‘First leave Victoria alone.’  When the Loa nodded its approval, the Doctor put forward a query. ‘I imagine it would be better… more fun to consume using deadly vicious creatures rather than mice and humans?’

 

‘They are adequate.  There will be other animal life on this planet.’

 

‘Oh… nothing bigger than a cow, or more ferocious than a dog,’ lied the Doctor blatantly, hoping that Zara had never seen or heard of anything that contradicted his falsehood.

 

‘What do you have in mind?’

 

‘Well there’s this planet, a short hop from here,’ said the Doctor, pleased that the Loa appeared to be taking the bait.  ‘Quite like this planet in prehistoric times, actually.  The creatures are vicious, but telepathic.   Should be a synch to get you there, and you’ll easily find a medium.  There’s no hole in the fabric of the universe there I’m afraid, but I can transport you in the TARDIS.’

 

‘And you will leave me and never return?  Leave me to my reward?’ 

 

The Doctor nodded, and flashed his best smile.  There was a hesitation that seemed to last for an eternity, but at last he heard the words he longed to hear for a contract that he had no right to offer.