This was a story I wrote for a Dr. Who competition earlier in the year that failed to set the world alight, for pretty obvious reasons, I’m sure. However, I do feel that despite the lack of any real story, the characters come over quite strongly, and the very wonderful and vivid performances of that rather fabulous late-1960s lineup of Patrick Troughton, Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines seemed to speak to me very distinctly as I was writing.
It’s also very nearly 44 years since Patrick Troughton first took on the role, so I thought it might be a good thing to mark that event in my own tiny and underwhelming little way.
It does coincidentally seem to share a lot of the themes and imagery of enshrouding darkness in an earlier post, so I thought it might make a mildly interesting contrast, which is why I’m choosing to publish it here now, despite the personal sense of utter distress I feel whenever I do so.
Incidentally, the competition rules set a 2500 word limit and the pieces were intended for audio performance. I can’t imagine who I thought might get to perform it, though.
SHATTER
The sound of the glass shattering woke Zoe with a start. The TARDIS was tilted at an alarming angle and Zoe had to reach out her arms to grab desperately for the edge of her mattress and hang on for all she was worth as the ship started to right itself.
Within seconds the ship was stable again and she lay in the dark for a moment waiting to see if any further jolts were likely. Satisfied that things had calmed down for the time being she got up, shrugged on her dressing gown, staggered out into the gloomy corridor and edged her way cautiously along to the door of Jamie’s room, calling out his name in an urgent whisper.
“Jamie?”
And then more loudly…
“JAMIE!”
The young Scot’s gentle snoring coming from beyond the door proved to her that he was completely unaware that anything unusual was happening.
Zoe petulantly stuck her tongue out at the door and moved away. She was surprised to find herself shivering. The darkness of the long corridor seemed to be closing in around her. She felt a strange prickling sensation at the back of her neck and spun around, jumping slightly as she caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of the polished surfaces of the metallic corridor.
She relaxed when she realised what it was. She remembered how, as a child, sometimes when she was looking into a mirror, she would imagine seeing something move in the corner of her eye just as she turned her head away. This fond memory caused her to smile to herself, and she wondered whether she’d feel any safer back home than she did right now. Life in the TARDIS with the Doctor and Jamie was always eventful, and they did look out for her as best they could, but just once in a while she would feel a slight touch of homesickness.
She blinked herself back into the present. Had she dozed off for a second? She normally rarely noticed the constant gentle, insistent humming of the ship’s inner workings but the noise was now drumming annoyingly inside her head. She rubbed her temples and stared out into the gloom surrounding her, and shivered once again. Pulling the dressing gown tightly around her, she tried to tell herself that she was probably imagining things because she was still half asleep.
But was she imagining things?
The corridor was getting darker. She was sure of it. As she peered intently into the darkness she felt certain that, just for an instant, the darkness shifted. She looked again. The shadows ahead, just beyond where the corridor curved off to the right, moved.
Now a little frightened, she backed herself up against the wall and, not daring to look away from that patch of darkness, used her hands to feel her way along the wall until she half stumbled backwards through the control room door.
“Ah! There you are, Zoe!”
The Doctor stood in a pool of lamplight in the unexpected blackness of the control room, his dark hair danced wildly as he smiled towards her. She was immediately calmed and reassured at seeing the familiar friendly figure. She realised she’d been holding her breath for longer than was good for her and breathed out.
“Did I wake you? Sorry about that…”
“Doctor? What are you doing?” From his manner she guessed that, far from being sorry, he was secretly delighted to have some company.
The Doctor was in his shirtsleeves and braces and in front of him part of the main TARDIS control panel had been dismantled into a mess of wiring and components.
“Ah, well…” he blustered “The, er… Do you remember when we landed in that museum…?”
“Yes…”
“Well, the scanner controls seemed a little stiff. I thought I’d try and fix them that’s all…”
“In the pitch darkness?”
“Yes, well… I had to disconnect some of the electrical circuits. Safety first, eh, Zoe?”
“But all the lights have gone out!”
“Hmm! Yes, well, that was a little… unexpected…” he muttered, adding brightly “Still, not to worry! You were both asleep. And you really should look after your circadian rhythms, shouldn’t you? Especially with our lifestyle!” he beamed.
Despite herself, Zoe smiled back.
“Now - where’s Jamie?” asked the Doctor, purposefully.
“Still asleep, I think…”
“Yes, well. Sleep through anything he would!” He grinned at her. “Still, now you’re up, you can help me with this, can’t you?”
“Of course, Doctor! Only…”
The Doctor’s eyes narrowed and he murmured defensively “Yes?”
“Why did the TARDIS suddenly lurch like that?”
“Did it? Did it really?”
“Oh, Doctor you know it did!”
“Yes, it did, didn’t it? Thought I’d imagined it…” The Doctor frowned thoughtfully towards the controls. “We should have been safe enough out here… Tucked away… Gently orbiting this nice, obscure little sun…”
“But we’re not, are we Doctor?”
Suddenly resembling a naughty schoolboy, caught out by one of his teachers, he muttered thoughtfully, half to himself “You see… It’s a question of gravity…”
“Our gravity?” asked Zoe.
The Doctor’s eyes flickered with alarm. “Well I hope nothing else is out here…”
“You mean you didn’t check?”
The Doctor was momentarily flustered “How was I to know a meteor shower would come along just as soon as we got here?”
Zoe looked at him sternly. “Oh Doctor! You know perfectly well that the TARDIS’s own gravity will draw all manner of debris towards it! You can’t have forgotten!”
The Doctor was getting rather used to Zoe’s occasional lectures on Astrophysics. If he was honest, he quite enjoyed them. “Well, that explains it! That’s all it was… Just a couple of passing asteroids! The TARDIS got a couple of bumps and you got woken up! If you slept like Jamie, you’d never have known anything about it…”
“I suppose so, Doctor”, said Zoe, sceptically. “I think it was that glass breaking that actually woke me up, but…”
The Doctor beamed his most pleasant smile. “Well, there you are then! Now let’s have a look and see whether we can get this lot back together, eh?”
Before she knew what had happened, the Doctor had tucked himself back underneath the controls and was busy rummaging about within the maze of electronics.
His hand suddenly reappeared and passed her a complex looking piece of circuitry which he had extracted from within the control panel. Zoe looked at it curiously for a moment.
“Doctor?” she asked.
“Yes, Zoe?” came the distracted reply.
“You haven’t disconnected the TARDIS’s main defence circuits have you?”
“No, of course I haven’t!”
“So what’s this then?”
She handed him back the circuit.
“Well, it’s the… it’s the…” He paused. “Oh my!”
The Doctor slowly stood up and looked sadly at the component in his hand.
“Zoe…” he muttered very quietly.
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Do you think it’s getting darker?”
Zoe looked around the control room. The shadows seemed to shift and separate and recombine as she stared into them.
“What did you say woke you up?” he asked urgently, his voice barely above a whisper now.
“The glass breaking…”
“What glass? A water glass, perhaps?”
“I suppose so. I don’t know, I just heard some glass breaking and it woke me up…”
The darkness surrounding them now seemed very intense. Blacker than black. Looking all around her, she stepped instinctively back into the pool of light surrounding the Doctor.
“Now listen, Zoe. It’s very important that you remember…”
His grave tone made her aware of how desperately important this must be. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to force herself to remember.
“It wasn’t in the room, I’m sure… Further away… Like… like someone had dropped something and… and smashed it. Oh, I don’t know, Doctor. A tray of glasses, maybe… a window… or a painting…”
“Or a mirror?” the Doctor prompted.
“Yes… Maybe.” Her eyes were now wide open with alarm.
“Oh dear!” he said solemnly. He fell silent for a moment, thinking.
“Zoe?’ he asked “Did you close the control room door behind you when you came in?”
She looked out into the blackness, then back towards the Doctor “I think so. I… I can’t remember now… I was feeling… frightened.”
“Frightened? Of the TARDIS?” The Doctor tried to appear reassuring.
“No, Doctor! Not the TARDIS.” She paused. “Something else…”
“Oh dear!” said the Doctor quite gently. Then he looked over her shoulder, beyond her, into the darkness surrounding them.
“What’s the matter, Doctor?” Zoe tried to turn around and see what he had seen.
“Zoe!” he shouted, the urgency in his voice building on the sense of panic she was already feeling. “Listen to me very carefully. Whatever you do, stay in the light! Do you understand me? Don’t step out of the light!”
Zoe didn’t need telling twice, and she pressed herself tightly against the Doctor, hanging on to him for dear life as if he was her only hope. The Doctor and that tiny pool of light seemed to be the only things between her and oblivion. She stared out into the darkness all around them, now convinced she saw movement everywhere as the shadows seemed to divide, merge and divide again, the blackness becoming more and more intense the harder she looked. She could feel herself trembling now as the fear started to overwhelm her again.
“This is ridiculous!” she tried hard to convince herself “I’m supposed to be a rational, logical human being! Why am I suddenly so afraid of the dark?”
“Doctor?” she asked, trying to calm herself “Why are you so concerned about a mirror breaking? Surely you don’t believe in ‘seven years back luck’ or anything? Those sorts of ideas went out with ion rockets…”
“Well” said the Doctor slowly “The thing is…”
He paused. A soft, comforting smile crossed his wise old face.
“Fear of the dark is perfectly rational, you know, Zoe…”
Zoe’s eyes widened. Was he reading her mind?
“All kinds of terrors can hide themselves in the dark. It’s only natural to be scared of them… But sometimes they get trapped…”
“In a mirror?”
“Yes…” he said, a faraway tone in his voice, “…and sometimes they get out!”
The air crackled and fizzed as if there was a storm coming. The shadows crossed, multiplied and divided again, and Zoe noticed for the first time that the usual reassuring gentle humming of the TARDIS had now been overwhelmed by some kind of continuous low animal moaning. Zoe shivered fearfully. Then the moaning became a raging, howling scream and there was a loud thump, as if something huge had stamped their foot in a fit of rage. In response, the entire TARDIS seemed to lurch off its axis and she had to steady herself against the control panel.
“Doctor?” she asked.
“It seems our friends are getting restless…” said the Doctor, thoughtfully.
“Friends?”
“Well, maybe not friends exactly…” He paused, gathering his thoughts “I would normally suggest that we run, but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to run to…”
“We’re surrounded!”
“Yes, it looks that way…” He looked around as if seeking inspiration.
“What we need…” he murmured carefully “is to throw some light onto the subject…”
“Quickly, Zoe! You’ll have to help me…”
“Oh, I see!” said Zoe, suddenly understanding. “Oh, why did you have to disconnect the scanner, Doctor?”
“Eh?” He looked at her bemusedly.
“The light from the screen…?”
“Oh no, Zoe.” He shook his head “That wouldn’t do at all. Nowhere near bright enough!”
For a moment, Zoe looked crestfallen. The Doctor paused, as if struck by a sudden thought. He suddenly smiled at her encouragingly.
“Good thinking, though, Zoe. And, do you know…? You might be onto something…”
“Really Doctor?”
“Oh yes! Now, what we need is…”
The Doctor picked up his jacket and began busily rummaging through the pockets, pulling out a bewildering variety of objects. Each item was examined then dismissed and flung in amongst the tangle of electrical wire and other components as he frantically increased the pace of his search. He stopped for a second as if he’d just had a brainwave and tugged gently at one of the wires lying in from of him. It refused to budge and neither did any of the others when he tried them, so he returned once more to his desperate search.
“”What are you looking for, Doctor?” asked Zoe, her confusion mounting.
“A-ha!”
The Doctor beamed triumphantly and held up a battered, long forgotten yo-yo that had been lurking in one of the furthest corners of his pockets. Zoe just stared at him, wondering quite how a child’s toy was going to help them get out of their predicament. The Doctor examined the yo-yo and his face fell in disappointment.
“Oh dear!” he said sadly, holding it up for her to see. “No string!”
He tossed the now useless object aside and carried on looking.
“What is it you need, Doctor?
“A longish piece of string or rope or something like that…” he answered urgently. He twanged at his braces thoughtfully and started to unbutton them from his baggy checked trousers, a look of slight concern crossing his face as he considered the potentially embarrassing consequences.
“Oh well…” he muttered to himself “Not ideal, but these’ll have to do!”
“Would this do?”
The Doctor beamed as he saw what she was holding.
“Just the thing! Well done, Zoe!”
Zoe handed the Doctor the belt from her dressing gown and thrust her hands deep into the pockets to hold it closed and keep herself warm whilst mentally willing the Doctor to get on with whatever it was he was planning.
Very quickly he hooked the cord around one of the levers, and, holding on to both free ends dived underneath the control console. Zoe didn’t need much prompting to do the same and when the Doctor shouted across to her to close her eyes and hold on tight, she gripped the base of the hexagonal control panel, clamped her eyes shut and held on for all she was worth.
As the lever shifted down, the TARDIS doors started to open and the light from that nice, obscure little sun blazed into the control room. The air suddenly started to be filled with howls and screams of torment and the TARDIS started to jump and writhe about like a bottle in an angry sea, as if battling for its very soul.
Then, just as suddenly, it was quiet again. The doors slid closed and the familiar hum of the TARDIS was all she could hear.
“It’s all right, Zoe, you can open your eyes now. It’s all over!”
Zoe opened her eyes. The control room was lit normally again and the Doctor was standing there holding out his hand to help her to her feet. He smiled reassuringly, and seemed just about to explain everything to her when Jamie barged into the control room demanding to know what all their racket was in aid of.
THE END
I suppose I should mention that the DR. WHO characters and the TARDIS are all ©BBC, and I’m really not intentionally trying to cause them any pain by publishing this little piece. Any pain suffered by its readers, I’m afraid, I can only apologise for.
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