Caroline was now sat in her living room on the sofa contemplating what had just happened. She looked across to the window. The sun was setting now and she was sure she was awake despite all of this feeling like a nightmare. She snapped her head forward and stared straight ahead at the electric fire glowing brightly.
She wasn’t quite sure what had just happened to her outside, but she was sure that it hadn’t been something normal. That thing wasn’t normal, and what it had done to her wasn’t normal. She put her hand to her throat. Her skin felt cold, but the red rash that it had left was now starting to fade.
After the bald man had introduced himself as the Doctor, he’d helped her back up the fire escape and inside. He’d sat her down and gone to the kitchen to make her and himself a cup of tea. She hadn’t argued. He was a complete stranger, but he’d been the one who had saved her from that…monster. That’s the word she was looking forward - a monster. It’s the only thing it could have been.
She was snapped back to reality when the clinking of mugs came from the kitchen and the Doctor, stepped into her living room.
“Tea,” he said, smiling and handing her the mug.
She took it quickly and had a quick sip. “Thanks,” was all she could manage.
He sat down on the arm chair which faced the TV, took a sip of his steaming hot tea and then turned to look at her. After a while he spoke. “How do you feel?”
Caroline laughed. “How do I feel?” her tone of voice betrayed the laugh. “I feel like I don’t know what the hell is going on!”
“That’s to be expected,” he said calmly. “It happens a lot I’m afraid.”
Caroline closed her eyes. “You mean this has happened before?”
“Yes. Unfortunately. To many people.” He waited but Caroline never said anything else. “The first thing you need to know is that nothing is as it seems.”
Caroline shook her head and frowned. “What’s that meant to mean?”
He took a sip from his tea and held the cup in both of his hands. His face looked old, yet there seemed to be youthful energy behind his eyes. He looked to be in his late 50’s, maybe early 60’s, yet Caroline had the feeling he was a lot older and yet younger at the same time.
“It means that you have to accept what I’m about to tell you as the truth. Right now everything you’ve ever been told about the world is a lie.”
“You’re still being vague,” she said, exasperated.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that aliens exist.”
“Well I guessed that,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
The Doctor looked a little despondent. “Oh, so you believe in them?”
“Well, kind of,” she said. “I mean, there are things happening all the time these days. What about that time all those planets appeared in the sky?” said Caroline. A few years back the Earth has supposedly been moved to another part of the galaxy. It was difficult for Caroline to swallow, but what other plausible explanation could there have been?
“Yes, well-”
She interrupted him. “I know what the government say. They say it’s rogue-group scientific experiments or drugs in the water or something, but they can’t keep a lid on it much longer.”
The Doctor nodded his approval. “It makes a change to meet someone who believes.”
“Well I wouldn’t say I necessarily believe everything,” she said, “but there’s got to be some truth in it.”
“And there is,” he said, his voice lowering slightly.
“So that thing was an alien?” she asked, nodding towards the kitchen door.
He put his mug down and clasped his hands together, interlocking his fingers. “Well, not exactly.”
“Then what?”
“They’re called Apparites.”
“Apparites?”
The Doctor looked pleased with himself. “A name I came up with myself. They’re like apparitions, and they come from another dimension.”
“So…aliens, yeah?” Caroline was confused.
“They’re not from another planet,” said the Doctor quickly. “Not as far as I know anyway. They’re from a dimension that exists separately from our own.”
I should just walk away from this, Caroline thought to herself. This sounds even crazier than aliens.
“I’ve been tracking them down for sometime…” he trailed off and closed his eyes. He put a hand to his chest and winced in pain.
“Are you alright?” asked Caroline.
“I’m fine,” he said, rummaging around in his coat pocket. He pulled out a small, plastic container and tipped two dark blue tablets into his hand. He popped them in his mouth and took a swig of his tea to wash them down.
“Headache tablets?” queried Caroline.
The Doctor turned and smiled. “I wish,” he said as he went in his inside pocket and pulled out a Dictaphone. He checked the time on Caroline’s clock and then the time on an overly-complicated watch on his wrist. He then spoke into the tape recorder.
“Aleena, the time is 3.52pm local and it’s been 25.4 days since the last dosage. That’s a drop off of five since the last lot.” He paused and looked visibly worried. “I’m going to need more.” He switched off the tape recorder, put it back into his pocket and then turned back to Caroline with a smile on his face. “Now, where were we?”
“What was that all about?” she asked, wondering if things could get any more confusing.
“Just a little problem I’ve got,” he said, brushing it away with a wave of his hand.
“Well you were telling me about you following these Apparote things-”
“Apparite,” he corrected.
“Yeah, Apparite things.” She took the hint from him not to continue pressing about the tablet situation.
“I first became aware of them when I noticed unusual weather patterns in the area. England has been getting more and more snow recently and I think it’s these things getting stronger and trying to break through.”
“But it’s just bad weather,” said Caroline, unable to make the connection.
“Well, I don’t really know how the snow and Apparites are connected, but what I do know is that there’s a pattern. When the snow gets really bad, people start disappearing or dying.”
“They must be lost in the snow or dying from the cold,” said Caroline, determined to find a less-fantastic reason for what was happening.
“No. People don’t just vanish. The last time it was really, really bad was January 1987. Forty-five people died or disappeared that year.”
Caroline got up and crossed over to the window. The snow looked worse than she’d ever seen it. Now not even Mr Ross was outside. Everything was silent and the only signs of life were the patches of golden light shining from the houses down the street.
“We would have known about it, surely?”
The Doctor looked down at his empty mug of tea. “Without wanting to insult you, Caroline, Human beings have an enormous capability for self-deception. Not only that, but the authorities would have covered it up. That’s what they always do with regards to these things.”
She turned back to him. “I still don’t get what I’ve got to do with any of this. Why are they in the back garden?”
“I really don’t know what they want with you. That’s why we need to find out.”
Caroline was suspicious. “And how do we do that?”
“First of all we need to find out where they’re coming from. Where they’re breaking through.”
“You can’t just walk us into the lions den,” she said, laughing, “not without something to protect us. And anyway,” she continued, “I might not want to go with you.”
“Oh, but I think you do,” he said, standing up and crossing over to her. “You hate your life.”
Caroline span around and looked him right in his pale, grey eyes. “I do not hate my life. How dare you!”
“Forgive me, Miss Parker,” he said, smiling again, “but you are stuck in this flat with nothing but your job, which you don’t even want. Your friends don’t care, and the one friend you could always rely on, Danny - that’s his name, isn’t it? - has moved away.”
Caroline was taken aback and edged away from him. “You’ve been spying on me?”
“No,” he said, “I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I’ve seen them watching you and they were there, lurking in the shadows the other day when you met with your friend. I overheard your conversation.”
“In the Barge?!” laughed Caroline. “You’ve got good hearing. And anyway I never saw you.”
“Funny what alcohol does to people, isn’t it?” He arched his eyebrows. “Makes you oblivious to what’s going on around you.”
She shook her head, frustrated and went back to the sofa. “Okay, so you’ve been spying - sorry, keeping an eye on me - for my own benefit. Thank you,” she said sarcastically, “but it still doesn’t mean I’m gonna follow you because I ‘hate my life’”. She quoted with her fingers.
He then walked to the window and looked outside. “Believe me, I wish I didn’t have to even get involved with your life. I just want people to be able to live up to the best of their abilities. I don’t really want to get involved, but I will if I have to.”
“I don’t even know who you are,” she said, quietly. She knew she was fighting a losing battle here. He was right, she did hate her life and she wanted nothing more than something exciting to come along, but she remained to be convinced that going off and fighting some dimension-hopping ghost was “exciting”. She didn’t want to die.
“All you need to know is that I’m a very, very old man who has been fighting things like this for such a long, long time. And it’s not safe. None of what I do is safe.” He crossed back over to her. “And anyway, who says it’s a permanent thing? All I want to do is make sure you and everyone else on this planet is safe. Then we’ll see what happens after that.”
Caroline sighed and leaned back on the sofa. “Okay then. You win. Save me. That’s all I want. Then I’ll change my life around. I do want to do more.”
The Doctor sat down next to her and grinned the widest grin she’d ever seen. “Then you’ll do more. There’s such a wonderful world out there. Don’t spend the next 30 years of your life locked in an upstairs flat in Thornsby.”
Caroline drained the last of her tea, and smiled. “I remain to be convinced in all of this yet,” she said, “but we might as well try and work it out.”
“Excellent,” said the Doctor, hopping up and heading towards the door.
“And after this is all over you can leave me alone.”
To be continued...
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