He managed to clamber up and his first thought was that he’d slipped on his way back from the pub. He’d popped to the corner shop and, deciding against going back to his lonely flat, had decided to go for a quick pint in the local. The last thing he could remember was leaving after two pints and then everything going black.
He looked around him. He wasn’t where he thought he’d be. This wasn’t the street the pub was in. This was the park and it was dark. He checked his watch - 4:45pm. How had he ended up here?
Suddenly he felt himself fall back again. He yelled in fear as he felt cold hands around his ankles. He tried to kick himself free but their grip only tightened.
“Help!” he shouted out, knowing full well that nobody would be out in the park in this weather and at this time of the day.
He then felt himself being pulled along the ground. At first slowly, but soon he gathered speed, snow piling up around him.
“Help! Please!” he shouted again as his cap fell off his head.
It was pointless as the more he shouted the faster he was pulled.
Finally he came to a stop near some trees. He turned onto his front and tried to crawl away when he felt a hand around the back of his neck and he was hauled to his feet.
“What do you want?” he said, fear in his voice.
A voice came from behind him as he was slammed into the tree. “Poor Mr. Cope.”
“Who are you?” asked Mr. Cope as he felt himself pulled back again.
“Your future,” the voice cackled.
Now Mr. Cope could feel the cold hand around his neck again. It felt like his skin was burning.
“Please…please let me go…” he begged.
The voice just laughed as Mr. Cope felt his entire body start to freeze up. He could feel every joint and every bone in his body seize up as he fell to the floor. He looked down at his arms and legs. They were grey and the skin was leather-like. He opened his mouth to yell out another cry for help but instead felt his face start to seize up as the stone-like greyness crept across his head.
The voice continued to laugh as the grey colour turned to black and holes started to rip in his skin, exposing the muscles and bones inside. His clothes became ripped and shredded and hung around him like a cloak. His eyes fizzled and boiled and were replaced by glowing white spheres that burnt from deep within his skull, and his teeth became rotten and jagged. He could feel his insides twisting and turning. It felt like a great force was rushing through him and he could hear the voices of a thousand people crying out in his head. Just when he felt he was about to explode…there was silence. Everything was calm.
A cloaked figure stepped out in front of him and put it’s gnarled hand on his shoulder.
“How do you feel?”
Mr. Cope, now almost identical to the thing that was standing before him smiled. “Not alone.”
Across the large expanse of the park Danny stood next to a tree and watched on in horror. He turned and ran as fast as he could.
Caroline and her new friend were already halfway into the town centre when she received the phone call from Danny.
“Hello?” she said. “What’s up, Dan?”
Danny was out of breath and it took him some time to compose himself on the phone. “Mr Cope…”
“Danny, what’s up? What’s wrong?” she said, looking around the wintry street as if expecting to see him somewhere.
“It’s..it’s your…landlord,” he panted.
“What about him?” asked Caroline, frowning.
The Doctor, who had gotten a few metres in front realised something was wrong and span on his heel to face Caroline. “What’s wrong?”
“Hang on,” said Caroline, holding a hand up to the Doctor. “Danny, what about Mr Cope?”
“I…I saw him…in the park…they got him.”
“Who got him?” asked Caroline, automatically thinking that her kindly landlord had been mugged on his way home.
“Some…people…”
That didn’t make sense to her. “Take a deep breath,” she said, calmly. She waited a few seconds. “Feel better?”
Danny’s heavy breathing had eased off a bit. “Yeah. Sort of…”
“Right. Now, what was it that got Mr Cope?”
“These people in cloaks.”
Caroline moved the phone away from her ear and closed her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” asked the Doctor, crossing over to her.
“My landlord, Brian Cope. They got him. Your Apparite things,” she said, giving him an accusing stare.
“What? Where?” asked the Doctor, grabbing Caroline’s phone off her before she even knew it.
“The park,” she said, trying to jump for the phone. As the Doctor was considerably taller than her, she didn’t stand much of a chance.
“Hello?” he said into the speaker. “Hello, is that Danny?”
“Well, yes,” came Danny’s confused voice. “Who’s this?”
“A friend of Caroline’s.” He continued to walk around on the spot. “Tell me what you saw.”
“It’s hard to describe,” said Danny, barely understanding it himself.
Caroline finally managed to reach up and snatch the phone back from the Doctor, earning an frustrated glare from him.
“Danny?” she said. “Where are you now?”
“I was on my way round to yours.”
She shook her head. “We’re not there. We’re on our way to the town centre. This guy, the Doctor, he has something that can help us find out what these things are?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s he saying?” asked an impatient Doctor. He clicked his fingers and pointed towards the phone. “Tell him to meet us in the Barge in thirty minutes.”
The Doctor and Caroline had made there way through the snowy streets and towards the town centre. What normally would have been a fifteen minute journey had taken nearly thirty minutes. Caroline had slipped and slid on the snow a number of times, but so far had managed to keep her dignity and not fallen on her backside.
The streets were deserted and a number of the houses had been plunged into darkness. Power cuts was all Caroline could think of. She was going to ask the Doctor, but since the phone call he’d become decidedly quieter and had marched on ahead, completely oblivious to her struggling behind him. She’d suddenly got this worry that maybe she shouldn’t have gotten involved in this, but how could she have not? He knew something about these things and they’d specifically targeted her. And what had happened to her landlord? Poor Mr Cope. He was such a nice old man.
They finally reached the bus station and dock area where the Barge was waiting. Unbelievably the lights where on, although the music was much quieter now. They made their way inside the boat and into the relatively warm interior.
Surprisingly the floating pub was quite busy, full of rockers and young kids discussing how “crap the weather is” or about it “lasting for a whole month into the new year”.
The Doctor went to the bar, bought Caroline an orange juice - much to her frustration that it wasn’t a lager - and himself a glass of ice-cold water.
“Thanks,” said Caroline as she took a sip of the orange. “Any vodka for this?”
“You don’t need alcohol,” said the Doctor, his eyes darting around the pub, looking for any sign of Danny.
“I know I don’t need alcohol,” she said, “but I like alcohol.”
He didn’t respond. He was too busy looking up the wooden staircase for anybody coming in.
“I said,” continued Caroline, “I like alcohol.”
“And I like cheesecake,” said the Doctor, turning to face her suddenly. “I can’t have that anymore.”
Caroline frowned. There was no doubt about it; this guy was an odd character, and she couldn’t believe that she was sat here with him right now. Everything that she’d learnt in her thirty years of experience had taught her not to get involved with these kinds of situations, but something in her heart kept telling her to stick with it. No matter how weird the situation got, it was worth it, wasn’t it?
She was lost in her thoughts when Danny came down the stairs. He looked around for a few seconds before finally noticing Caroline and the Doctor.
“Caroline,” he said, out of breath. They embraced and sat down again. He looked at the Doctor. “You must be Caroline’s friend?”
“Yes, I’m the Doctor.” He extended his hand and Danny shook it.
“You look bloody awful,” said Caroline, noticing Danny’s white, panic-stricken face.
He shook his head, looking down at the table. “I just don’t know what I saw…”
“Well you have to describe it,” said the Doctor, eager to press for answers. “The fate of this planet rests on it.”
Danny turned and frowned at him. “Are you alright in the head?”
“It’s a long story,” sighed Caroline, giving Danny a look which told him to just run with it.
“I’m sure you’ll explain it to me eventually,” said Danny.
“So what did you see?” asked the Doctor again, this time a little more impatiently.
“I’m not 100% sure,” he said, thinking back, “I was on the other side of the park. I was just leaving my parents and thought I’d cut through the park when I saw Mr Cope up against the tree and this cloaked thing with it’s hand around his throat.” He closed his eyes, remembering. “Then Mr Cope just…turned into… one of them.”
“Fascinating!” said the Doctor, with wonder in his eyes.
“How is that fascinating?” asked Caroline in disgust.
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,” said the Doctor, slightly flustered. “I just meant that I find it fascinating that these things can turn ordinary people into their own kind.”
“But why?” asked Danny. “What are they?”
“Well there’s one thing for sure,” said the Doctor, his chin resting on his hands, “they’re human. Or at least they used to be.”
“I don’t understand,” said Danny, leaning back in his chair.
“They’re creatures from another dimension,” said Caroline, realising how stupid that sounded. Caroline suddenly thought. “But how can they be human? They’re nothing like us.”
“They’re some kind of twisted, evolved version of you,” said the Doctor, staring right through Caroline. “That’s why they can convert humans into their own.”
“But why Mr Cope?” she asked, still trying to grasp the idea.
“I don’t know. They’ve taken people before, like I said. Remember, back in 1987?”
“What’s special about 1987?” asked Danny. “What happened then?” He was feeling lost.
“Bad weather,” said Caroline dismissively.
“There’s nothing special about it. It’s just a point in time when they managed to break through into your world.”
“You talk like you’re not from ‘our world’” said Danny.
“I’m not.”
Caroline was about to respond to that new revelation, but the Doctor interrupted again.
“For some reason they’ve latched onto you, Miss Parker. And I think they went after Mr Cope because of his connection to you.”
“But why me? I’m nothing special.” She was beginning to get frustrated with the situation.
“And then there’s the baby…” trailed off the Doctor.
Before Caroline could respond there was a rumble from outside and suddenly the boat lurched forwards. Glasses and bottles were thrown to the floor and a number of customers fell off their stools whilst others were thrown across the tables.
“What the hell was that?” asked Danny, standing up and trying to look out of one of the portholes.
“They’re here,” said the Doctor quietly.
There was another lurch, and with a huge, thunderous cracking sound the boat ripped right through the middle.
People started to scream and yell as the water gushed up through the cracks in the floor. The ice-cold water poured in as people ran for the steps, clambering up them to get into the open.
Caroline couldn’t feel her legs anymore as she stumbled up out of her chair. When she was certain she was on the steps she looked back. The Doctor was right behind her, but Danny was nowhere to be seen.
To be continued...
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