‘It’s very faint,’ he said. ‘I need to get her to the TARDIS to run some tests.’
‘Wait,’ said her mum. ‘What’s happened? She needs an ambulance.’
‘The hospital won’t be able to help her,’ said the Doctor, picking her up into her arms.
‘But she’s sick. She needs to go to the hospital.’
‘Mrs Parker,’ said the Doctor, sternly, ‘your daughter is in need of medical help. Help that she can only receive from me. She has just suffered from an alien attack. Now if you don’t allow me to leave with her then she may well die,’
‘Then I’m coming with you,’ said Cath, grabbing her coat from the peg in the hallway.
‘No. I need you to stay here. The less you know the better.’
‘But she’s my daughter!’
‘Mrs Parker,’ said Sophie, ‘the Doctor knows what he’s doing. Believe me, it’s for the best.’
‘How can you expect me to sit by while my daughter is taken away by a strange man?’
The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes. ‘Sophie, stay with her. Make sure she doesn’t leave.’
‘But you need my help,’ said Sophie.
‘Sophie,’ said the Doctor, moving closer to her, ‘Caroline’s entire existence hangs in the balance here. I need to get her to the TARDIS and make her better. Then I need to make sure she doesn’t wake up. Can you imagine the implications of her meeting me now? What would happen to my Caroline?’
Sophie nodded, realising she couldn’t argue with that.
‘Stay here,’ he said again, holding a finger up to the two women.
Back in the radio studio Lee was looking frustrated. He pulled the headphones off his head and leant back in the chair.
‘Did it work?’ asked Gaz, checking on the almost-zombie-like state that Danny had entered.
‘No,’ said Lee. ‘One of them tried to break through again, but somebody stopped it.’
‘Who?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ asked Lee, rounding on Gaz. ‘What a stupid bloody thing to ask!’
Lee got up and walked over to Danny. He crouched down in front of him and looked him in the eyes. He flicked the side of Danny’s face with his finger and frowned.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Gaz.
Danny managed a half-hearted smile.
‘If you’ve got one in you, mate, then you need to help the others. They’re trapped in their own world and they want to come out.’
Danny didn’t respond this time.
‘It’s a waste of time,’ said Gaz, crossing over to the mixing desk and sitting down. ‘We should never have gotten involved in this. You’ve melted his brain.’
‘They promised me power.’
‘You? Power? Don’t make me laugh.’
Lee was about to get up and beat the living crap out of Gaz when Danny’s hand quickly snatched at Lee’s arm.
Lee tried to break free but couldn’t.
Danny turned his head to look at Lee, his eyes blank. ‘It is too early.’
‘What do you mean it’s too early? Let me go!’
‘It is too early. You will not succeed.’
‘Let go!’ said Lee, finally breaking free of Danny’s grip. ‘We’ll do things how I want them done. You will help and you will do as a I say.’
Down Devonshire Avenue, Phil was just leaving his house. Caroline was waiting on the pavement outside his front garden and gave him a little wave when he turned onto the street.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Phil. ‘I missed you this morning.’
‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ said Caroline. ‘And I certainly didn’t want to wake your mum.’
Phil grinned. ‘She’d be thinking all sorts of things. And with a woman your age-’
‘Hey,’ said Caroline, ‘I’m not that old. Thirty isn’t old nowadays.’
‘You look good for it,’ smiled Phil. ‘Anyway, why didn’t you knock on the door?’
‘I don’t like disturbing people, but I figured you’d be out eventually anyway.’
The two of them continued to walk the tree-lined avenue.
‘Where are you heading?’
‘The station,’ said Phil. ‘I’m due on in an hour.’
‘Good,’ said Caroline. ‘I couldn’t find my friends this morning, so I’m going to tag along with you instead.’
‘The more the merrier,’ said Phil, ‘but try and stay out of Lee’s way, won’t you?’
‘I intend to,’ said Caroline, ‘and I also intend to get to the bottom of what happened at Gulliver’s last night.’
‘What do you think happened?’ asked Phil, inquisitively.
Caroline sighed. ‘I don’t know. Something coming from your radio station killed those people.’
‘But how can a radio station kill people?’ laughed Phil.
‘When you’ve been doing this for as long as I have you start to believe that anything is possible.’
‘Doing what?’
Caroline turned and smiled. ‘Fighting aliens.’
Phil simply stood there, opened mouthed, whilst Caroline continued.
She turned to look back at him. ‘Come on. I’ll tell you on the way.’
She opened her eyes. Everything was out of focus. There was a sound. A humming sound coming from all around her. And her out of focus surroundings seemed to have a green glow to them. She felt around. She was on something soft. It was a sofa. She was aware of movement in the room and she tried to sit up. She felt like her brain had become dislodged in her head and was floating around, making her feel dizzy.
She heard a man’s voice.
‘No, no, no,’ he said anxiously.
She felt his hand on her forehead and she lay back down again.
‘You must rest, Caroline. You’ve had an accident, but I’m going to help you. Try and sleep,’ came the man’s voice.
‘I…I don’t want to…sleep,’ she said, dozily.
‘This can’t happen. This can’t happen,’ she heard the man say as he walked away from her.
She heard him come back and then felt something sharp prick the side of her neck.
‘No!’ she said, panicking and pushing the man away.
‘Trust me,’ said the man, ‘this is the best for everyone.’
‘I don’t even know you,’ said Caroline, sitting up, clambering off the sofa and falling onto her hands and knees.
Her vision was becoming more and more sharper and she could make out some sort of mushroom-shaped console in the middle of the room. A glass cylinder rose from it towards what looked like a high-ceiling. An almost church-like ceiling.
‘You must rest,’ came the man’s voice again. ‘Please, Caroline, you don’t know what you’re doing.’
Caroline scrambled backwards until she hit the console behind her. The shape of the man was coming into focus. He had a bald head and wore a long, black jacket with a blue shirt. He looked extremely worried and was holding a syringe.
‘What are you going to do? Drug me?’
‘You can’t be here. Not now. You had an accident.’
‘Yes,’ said Caroline, remembering, ‘there was some sort of sound from my headphones.’
‘What were you listening to?’
‘Town FM,’ said Caroline, rubbing the back of her neck. ‘What does it matter to you?’
‘It’s very important. It could mean the difference between life and death, but you must let me inject you.’
‘No chance, you weirdo,’ said Caroline, trying to back up and realising that she couldn’t.
‘I’m not a weirdo,’ said the man, putting the syringe down, ‘but this is all wrong. You’re not supposed to meet me now. Not yet.’
‘What do you mean? You’re not making any sense.’
The man sat down on the sofa with his head in his hands. His hand went into his jacket pocket and he pulled out a pill, swallowing it quickly.
‘Have I been kidnapped?’ asked Caroline, wondering why the man was taking pills.
‘No,’ said the man. ‘Your mum knows exactly where you are.’
Caroline scrambled to her feet. ‘Then why can’t I see her?’
Her vision was now in sharp focus as she looked around the large, stone-like room. Green, glowing circles were set a few inches into the walls in regular patterns.
The man sat there, his eyes closed in abject defeat.
‘Tell me where I am!’ yelled Caroline.
Across town at the school caretakers store room, the older Caroline had arrived with Phil. Phil knocked on the door.
A few moments later there was a voice. ‘Who is it?’
‘Rolf Harris.’
The blue double doors of the store room opened and Gaz beckoned them inside.
‘A password?’ asked Caroline.
‘Gotta have a password,’ said Phil.
Lee turned in his chair to face them and almost had a fit when he saw Caroline.
‘What the hell is she doing here?’
‘Charming!’ said Caroline.
‘How many more strays are you gonna bring in, Phil?’
‘Stray?!’
‘You’re not one of us,’ said Lee, getting up out of the chair and crossing to Caroline. ‘Get out now.’
Caroline was about to say something when she noticed out of the corner of her eye, a familiar figure sat in the dingy light in the corner.
‘Danny!’ she said, relieved.
‘Do you know him?’ asked Gaz.
Caroline crossed over to the sleeping Danny and knelt down in front of him.
‘He asked you a question,’ said Lee.
‘What have you done to him?’ asked Caroline, ignoring the question. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing,’ growled Lee.
‘It’s clearly not nothing,’ said Caroline, lifting Danny’s eyelids and staring at his pale eyes, the pupils dilated.
‘Get her out of here, Phil,’ said Lee.
‘Something’s going on here,’ said Phil, crossing over to Danny and Caroline.
‘Get them both out of here,’ said Lee to Gaz.
‘Let go,’ said Phil, shrugging off Gaz.
‘You’re sacked, Phil!’ shouted Lee. ‘Get out!’
Phil rounded on Lee, his face a look of fury. ‘You can’t sack me, this isn’t a job. It’s a bloody hobby, and you two seem to have forgotten that.’
Caroline turned to face the two men. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Where you responsible for what happened at Gulliver’s last night?’
‘What?’ asked Lee, trying to look innocent.
‘Everybody in that club was killed,’ said Phil, ‘and they were piping through Town FM, just like those people who had died. They were all listening to our station.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Caroline.
Lee looked at Gaz who looked back at his friend with fear in his eyes.
‘You might as well tell us now,’ said Phil. ‘What the hell’s been going on here?’
Lee went back to the mixing desk, sat down and flicked a few switches. A CD changed in the stereo system and then he turned back to Caroline and Phil.
‘Well?’ said Caroline.
‘I started Town FM last year. We were doing well. We got a lot of calls, a lot of e-mails. The kids of this town love us. Then I met this bloke in the White Hart. Called himself Don - probably short for Donald or something. Anyway, Don said that he wanted us to do a job for him. Just wanted us to hook up some bits of equipment and occasionally switch it on.’
‘Did you know any of this?’ asked Caroline to Phil.
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head in bewilderment.
‘So Don gave me a bit of money and we hooked it up. Then he called us about a month ago and told us to turn it on. No probs.’
‘Didn’t you ever ask why he wanted you to turn this machine on or even what it was?’ asked Caroline, arms folded.
‘Listen, love, when you’re handed 500 quid, you don’t ask questions. Anyway, he would call every now and then and we’d switch the machine on. No problem. Then one day we blew the machine and I ended up having to pay him to get a replacement. And then he kept meeting us more regularly, upgrading the device and soon we were paying him each time he did it. He said if we didn’t, he’d kill us.’
‘And how does Danny fit into this?’
‘Well the other day, Don finally gave us a bit more info. I told him I wouldn’t be doing Town FM anymore and I’d shut it all down. So he got scared and told me. He said there were creatures that lived out there, in another dimension. They were trapped and wanted to come through. Every time we switched on the machine they’d try to filter into any random person that was listening to us at the time. The only problem is that every time we did it the person would die and the aliens would be trapped.’
‘Then why keep doing it?’ asked Phil, looking distraught at what Lee was telling him.
‘Because I didn’t want to die,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Don kept telling us to adjust frequencies and try again.’ He looked across to Danny. ‘Then I found him. Just wandering the streets. He was interfering with my phone, same as what the alien signals do. Didn’t take me long to figure out that he was possessed by one of them. A real life alien living inside him.’
Caroline was becoming more and more worried. So the things that where coming through the radio waves were the same creatures - the Apparites - that she, Danny and the Doctor had faced in the future - in 2011. But she knew that they hadn’t come through in 1998. To be fair, most of this month was a hazy memory for her. She had been ill with the flu and it was a blur, but she was certain that no aliens had broken through and invaded, certainly not in the way that they were due to in 2011.
And what worried her was the confirmation that an Apparite definitely was still in Danny. She and the Doctor had known it, but this was the last bit of confirmation she needed.
‘So what happened then? You hook him up or something?’ she asked.
‘Exactly,’ said Lee. ‘He amplified their power. He helped them to come through stronger.’
‘But it still failed, didn’t it?’ asked Caroline. ‘You thought that targeting a mass group would help the Apparites - sorry, the aliens - more, but they ended up killing all of those kids in the club.’
‘A side effect,’ said Lee. ‘We’ll get there in the end.’
‘You’re just a monster,’ said Caroline.
‘And this Don? Why is he helping them? What does he want?’ asked Phil.
‘That’s a good question,’ said Gaz. ‘We don’t know much about him.’
Suddenly the door to the store cupboard was flung open. Daylight streamed in and standing there, in shadow, was a man in a long, brown mac. He wore a beanie hat and as he stepped into the room Caroline noticed he was unshaven and had small, piggy-like eyes.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Lee, getting up. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘No,’ said the man. He turned to Caroline and smiled. ‘You must be Caroline Parker. Caroline Parker aged 30, yes?’
‘Yes,’ said Caroline, a little unsure of this new man. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Donald Turner, and I know exactly who you are and where you come from.’
He smiled.
Caroline didn’t know what to think.
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