With the 'London 2012' banner fluttering proudly overhead the entire street was readying themselves for the big event. Two council workers were drying the fresh tarmac they'd just laid over part of the road whilst residents of the street went about their daily business. But among the normal and happy scene a subtle reminder that all was not well was visible. A missing poster for a young girl called Jane McKillen was strapped to a lamppost. That wasn't the only bad feeling that could be felt by those who took notice of them. Maeve Griffiths was a thin elderly woman with grey hair and was out on the street with her wheeled shopping bag on her way to town when she suddenly stopped and looked around her, as if sensing something was.
"Maeve? You ok?" Trish Webber, a tall thin coloured woman, asked her as she brought out her rubbish bag to the bins.
"No love I'm not" Maeve replied slightly dreamily.
"You want me to call a doctor?" Trish asked.
"Doctor can't help," Maeve replied as she looked around the street. "Can you? Can you feel it Trish?" She then asked her.
"Can't feel anything" Trish replied. From an upstairs window in Trish's house the other resident of the home was watching as Maeve noticed two young boys playing football in the front garden of the house opposite Trish's.
"Boys get indoors! Get inside!" Maeve called over to them as she came over. "Get them inside!" She told the boy's father who was washing his car in the driveway.
"What's up with you then? They've done nothing wrong" He told her.
"It's happening again!" Maeve insisted just as Trish looked back to her house and saw her daughter watching from out of her bedroom window and quickly went back inside. Shutting the door behind Trish could hear her daughter singing a song they'd come up with together for when Chloe had needed calming down. Upstairs in her room Chloe was stood looking out of her window as she sung. She was watching in particular one of the two boys playing football who was acting as goalkeeper whilst the other one took penalties. Going over to and sitting down at her desk Chloe picked up a piece of paper and a colouring pencil and began drawing. Outside Maeve was still insisting to the boy's father that something was wrong.
"They're not safe!" She insisted.
"They're in the garden" He told her, pointing at his sons who were only meters from him.
"That's what it likes, it likes them when they're playing, get them in I'm begging you" Maeve pleaded. Chloe was done drawing the boy stood outside in and was starting to colour him in as she sung. Outside the boy's father was trying reassure Maeve and move her on at the same time.
"I've got my beady eyes on them, come on" He insisted as he steered her away from the house. The two boys had been watching this with amusement and had quickly returned to their game. But when the boy taking penalties looked up after taking a shot with the football he saw that the goal was completely empty of his brother. Maeve had also noticed this.
"No!" She cried out as the boy's father looked back.
"Dale? Dale!?" He called out in worry as he ran back over to where his son had been stood.
"What are you!?" Maeve shouted out across the street.
"Where's he gone Tommy?" The boy's father asked his other son.
What have you done!?" Maeve shouted out again. Still standing against her front door Trish heard the commotion coming from outside but didn't seem surprised by it. Instead she seemed scared as she looking upstairs where Chloe was still sat drawing Dale and and singing at her desk. Finishing colouring the image in she moved away her pencil and watch it. The drawn Dale then moved as he began silently shouting and moved towards the edges of the paper, as if trying to escape from it.
The Tardis came to land between two large blue storage containers in an empty industrial area just besides a rail road. Coming to a halt the Doctor opened the door and was about to step out when he realised that he'd parked the Tardis sideways on to the containers so that the door was face one of it's walls, blocking their way out.
"Ah" He said when he saw the problem. Quickly he step back inside and corrected his mistake as the Tardis vanished for a moment before reappearing again, this time with the door facing a way that was clear of anything. "Ah!" The Doctor said much cheerily as he stepped out again, followed by Rose and Peter. Noticing some posters on the walls of the containers that said 'Shane Ward the Greatest Hits' Rose made an educated guess of when they were.
"So near future yeah?" She asked over her shoulder.
"I had a passing fancy" The Doctor replied as he led them off.
Soon they'd reached the street with the London 2012 banner at the start of it. "Thirtieth Olympiad!" The Doctor told his companions who both grinned broadly when they realised where and when they were.
"No way!" Peter said in surprise.
"That's great! Why didn't I think of that!?" Rose said cheerily as she linked arms with the Doctor.
"Only seems like yesterday a few naked Greek blokes were tossing a discus about, wrestling with each other in the sand with crowds stood around baying..." The Doctor began to reminisce as they walked up the street. "No wait a minute, that was club Med" He joked. "Just in time for the opening doda, ceremony thought you'd like that, the last one they had in London was dynamite, Wembley 1948 I loved it so much I went back and watched it all over again," He said half absent-mindedly as Peter listened with interest, both failing to notice Rose divert to a nearby lamppost where Dale's dad had just put up a missing poster for his son to go along with the two others already there. "Fella carrying the torch, what was his name? John? Mark? Legs like pipe cleaners! But strong as a whippet" The Doctor continued to said as he and Peter carried on walking down the street even though Rose had stopped at the missing posters.
"Guys?" She called out to them. Only Peter heard her and turn around before going over and seeing the posters himself as the Doctor continued walking and talking, unaware of his companions distraction.
"And in those days everyone had a tea party to go to," He continued to say.
"Doctor" Peter called out to him. Still he didn't seem to hear either of them.
"Always had those little cakes with the crunchy ball bearings," He said.
"Doctor you should really look at this!" Rose called a little louder and was rewarded as the Doctor finally stopped and turned back around before walking over to them, though he was still talking.
"Those things? Nobody else in this entire galaxy ever even bothered to make edible ball bearings! Ingenious!" He said as he reached Rose and Peter and noticed the missing posters.
"What's taken them do you think?" Peter asked seriously, noticing all three missing persons were children. The Doctor looked around at the street.
"Snatching children from a perfectly ordinary street like this?" He questioned. "And why's it so cold?" He added, noticing the chill in the air.
"It is?" Peter asked in surprise, having not noticed due to his wolf inherited high body temperature, before he breathed out and saw his breath due to the temperature. "Oh" He added when he saw it.
"That's how you tell it's cold?" The Doctor asked him curiously.
"Well how else am I gonna tell? I can't exactly go up to a human and ask is it currently cold" Peter replied with a smile. "But it shouldn't be cold now should it? It's summer" He added, seeing the fresh green leaves on the surrounding trees.
"I don't know? Sudden reduce in the temperature?" The Doctor tried to suggest.
"Says here they all went missing this week" Rose told them as she continued to look at the posters, in particular at Dale's. "Why would a person do something like this?" She asked sadly.
"What makes you think it was a person?" The Doctor asked her, knowing there could easily be stranger things afoot. It was then that they noticed one of the residents leave their home to take out the rubbish bag. She'd hurried out and had stared back at them suspiciously as she but the bag out besides her bin before hurrying back inside with a final look at them.
"Whatever it is it's got the whole street scared to death" Peter said.
"Doctor what do you...?" Rose then began to ask as she and Peter looked back to where the Doctor had been stood but saw that he was already running up the street. He'd quickly gone to Dale's front garden and seemed to sense something as he held his hand in front of him and looked at it before crouching down and hovering his hand over the grass. Jogging up the street to catch up to the Doctor, Rose and Peter saw a Mini Copper cough to a halt in the street, just besides the council's van. As the driver tried to restart his engine the council worker who'd been re-tarmacking the road when Dale had disappeared came over to him as Rose and Peter watched.
"There you go! Fifth today! That's not natural is it?" He asked as he looked into the drivers window.
"Don't know what happened? I had it serviced less that a month ago" The driver told him.
"Na don't even try and explain it mate all the cars are doing it and you know what? It's bonkers! Bonkers!" The council worker replied as the driver got out to begin to push his car out of the middle of the road. "Come on then pal I'll help you shift it, quicker your on your way happier you'll be" The council worker told him as he went round to the back of the car before they both started to push it, obviously struggling with the weight of it. "There we go!" The council worker said in a strained voice as the car started to slowly move forward.
"Do you wanna hand?" Peter asked as he and Rose couldn't help but smile at their obvious struggle to move it.
"Na we're all right mate" The council worker wheezed back.
"But your not, here shift up" Peter told him as he came over to the back of the car next to him and started pushing. With his added strength the car was moving much more smoothly and quickly until it suddenly roared back into life. Having been leant against it the council worker had fallen to the floor as the car had pulled away whilst the driver had been forced to jump in and drive off to keep it going with a quick wave of thanks to them.
"You ok mate?" Peter asked as he offered a hand up to the council worker as Rose come over.
"Yeah cheers" He thanked as he took it and stood up. "You got some strength there" He added, indicating the car as it disappeared down the street.
"Ex military" Peter replied with a shrug. "Does this happen a lot?" He then asked, also indicating where the car had been.
"Been doing it all week" The council worker replied as he brushed the loose tarmac bits off his hands.
"Since those children started going missing?" Rose guessed.
"Yeah I suppose so" He replied with a shrug. The Doctor was still crouched in Dale's front garden looking at his hand as he smiled.
"It tickles" He said quietly to himself, failing to notice Dale's father come out of his house and stand behind him.
"What's your game?" He asked him suspiciously.
"My er?" The Doctor said as he looked round. "Snakes and ladders, quite good at squash, reasonable, I'm being phosphorous aren't I? There's no call for it" He replied nervously. Rose, Peter and the council worker were all walking down the street back towards the council van.
"Every car cuts out, council are going nuts! I mean they've given this street the works! Renamed it Dame Kelly Holmes Close, I've been tarmacking every pothole" The council worker explained as he indicated the area the car had stalled over. "Look at that! Beauty ain't it?" He added quite proudly. "Yeap and all this is because that Olympic torch is comes right by the end of this Close, just down there, everything's got to be perfect ain't it? Only it ain't" He said with a sigh as they reached the van just as Maeve walked up to them.
"It takes them when they're playing" She told them.
"What takes them?" Rose asked as they all looked to her.
"Danny, Jane, Dale, snatched in the blink of an eye" Maeve replied as Trish opened her front door and peered out whilst Dale's father followed the Doctor up the street as he had a go at him whilst the Doctor tried to explain what he'd been doing.
"I'm a police officer! That's what I am! I've got a badge and a police car you don't have to get, I can I can prove it just hold on!" He told Dale's father as he reached Rose and Peter as the council worker, Maeve, Trish and another neighbour gathered round and watched.
"We've had plenty of coppers poking round here and you don't look or sound like any of them" Dale's father accused the Doctor with a pointed finger.
"See look I've got colleges!" The Doctor told him, pointing to his companions.
"Well they look less like coppers than you do?" Dale's father told him.
"Ex military I was a Lieutenant" Peter replied as he dug out his wallet and showed them his old UNIT card that was in the display slot.
"And her?" Dale's father asked, pointing to Rose.
"Training, new recruit, it was either that or hairdressing so walla!" The Doctor replied as he dug out the physic paper and showed it to them all.
"What are you going to do?" Trish asked as they all stood in a circle in the middle of the street.
"The police have knocked on every door, no clues no leads nothing" Maeve told them all.
"Kids run off sometimes all right! That's what they do" Dale's father told him.
"Saw it with my own eyes, Dale in his own garden playing with Tommy and then gone! Right in front of me! Like he was never there" Maeve told him. "There's no need to look any further than this street its right here amongst us" She added as everyone looked around them for a moment.