"Baltimore, here we come!" Peri exclaimed, leaning over the TARDIS console.

The Doctor gently brushed her aside as he rushed around the console.

"Peri, please move out of the way!" the Doctor said, "It's not often I'm asked for requests."

He was taking her back home to see her family. God knows how long they had been travelling though time. After a while, it became impossible to tell. It could be years. So to play it safe they were returning a year after the time Peri left.

That was the plan anyway. After nearly six centuries of time travel, the Doctor had still not completely mastered the TARDIS. There were always little things that he discovered now and then. It was why he was rushing around as he was. He couldn't bear the idea of Peri realising he wasn't totally sure of what he was doing.

Eventually, he initiated materialisation, convinced that he was close as he could be to the right time zone.

"Well," he said, clasping his hands together, "here we are."

"Baltimore, 1984?" Peri asked.

"Friday, September 14th to be precise," the Doctor announced, proudly.

"Alright, Doctor!" Peri smiled as she stepped outside, "Well done!"

"And just what is THAT supposed to mean, Miss Brown?" he asked, following her.

"It's just that when you say we're going someplace special, we always end up someplace horrid," Peri replied.

She suddenly noticed how dark it was. It was also incredibly cold. Everything around the TARDIS was covered in snow. She was only wearing a short dress so she wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm.

"I thought you said we'd landed in September!" Peri said.

"Of course," the Doctor said, indignantly.

"It's supposed to be fall," Peri said, "I'm freezing my butt off."

She quickly looked around the alley where the TARDIS had materialised. There was a trash can near the entrance. She skipped over to the bin, painfully aware of the freezing cold water seeping into her shoes from the snow. She reached into the bin to retrieve a newspaper.

"Perhaps it's not September after all," the Doctor suggested, feeling slightly sheepish, "or we could just be a few miles out of Baltimore."

"A few miles!" Peri exclaimed. "Look at this!"

She held up a newspaper, The Albuquerque Journal.

"We're in New Mexico!" she shouted, "We're not even close to Baltimore!"

"It's the same country," the Doctor said sulkily.

Peri sighed, fighting the urge to throttle the Doctor. She lost the fight, throwing the paper at him.

"And look, 1984 you said," Peri pointed at the date on the paper, "This says March, 1983!"

"Ah," the Doctor said, crestfallen.

"I'm going back inside," Peri said, angrily, "I can't feel my toes anymore!"

With that she slammed the door, leaving the Doctor in the cold.

'Best not follow her just yet', he thought. He breathed in the cool air and let snowflakes fall on his tongue. Enjoying his brief moment of peace, took the newspaper Peri had thrown at him, leant against the TARDIS and started reading.

It was all theft, car accidents and all sorts of terrible business. All part and parcel to life itself, even murder to a degree. Not that that ever sat well with the Doctor.

The article on the third page was particularly disturbing. It detailed the discovery of bodies across the country, most recently in Los Alamos, found hanging upside down with all the blood drained out of them. This spate of attacks had culminated in the discovery of four boys found dead at the Los Alamos Swimming Centre. All four bodies were found torn to pieces but very little blood was left at the scene. The article suggested that the blood was to be used in some kind of satanic sacrifice.

This made the Doctor's stomach turn. The things these humans did to each other. He folded the newspaper and stared into space, trying to remember the name of the killer.

It stood to reason that deaths like this never stayed under the radar. The more horrifying the slaughter, the more people wanted to know. He tried to remember if he'd heard of the perpetrator at some point in the future.

He was deep in thought when he heard a blood-curdling scream and the sound of growling. He ran in the direction of the sound, coming to a dark tunnel. A man in dark lycra gear was lying motionless on the ground with a smaller creature bent over him.

"What's going on here?" the Doctor cried.

The small creature turned around and stared at him. It looked like a little girl but its face was gnarled and deformed as though it was going through some dreadful transformation.

The Doctor barely had time to think about running before the creature leaped up at him and wrestled him to the ground. He fought with all the strength he could muster but the child was far stronger than he was. She eventually pinned his wrists to the ground, bared her teeth and prepared to bite.