Black Aggie

A Doctor Who fanfic

Many thanks to thinkatory and my friends C. R. Hinton and Am Love for guiding me in the writing of this story and proofreading it.

At night, the figure was almost unbelievably creepy; the shroud over its head obscuring the face until you were up close to it. There was a living air about the grieving angel, as if its arms could really reach out and grab you if you weren't careful.

-From the Creepypasta wiki entry on Black Aggie

London, 2007

It was early morning when the Doctor and Martha stepped out of the TARDIS and into the cold, misty air. They had found themselves outside an old house that looked as though it had been abandoned for at least 30 years or so. The Doctor walked purposefully, with his companion trailing behind him. They were about halfway across the lawn before she was able to close the gap between them and get a few words in. "So where are we going now?" she asked. "Stopping the rise of an ancient empire? Meeting some new kind of alien nobody has seen since the dawn of time? " In any other context these guesses would have been way off base, but you could never be sure when you were with the Doctor. A normal day for him could have included any of these things, and more.

He turned around to look at her, now walking backwards but moving just as fast. "We're going to visit an abandoned house. Specifically, that one right in front of you."

"Is it haunted?" His companion asked.

"No," He replied. "It's just an old, abandoned house. No ghosts or ghouls or anything of the sort."

Martha stopped in her tracks. "That's it? We're just visiting an old house? Doesn't seem very exciting, now does it?"

The Doctor frowned slightly at her. "Well it gets better. We've been here before, you see." Noting her look of confusion, he added, "Come along, now, I'll explain on the way."

Martha hurried to catch up with him again. The air was cold against her skin, and the mist felt abnormally… oppressive. She couldn't quite tell why, but something about the cemetery that brought out a kind of fear she hadn't felt since she was much younger. That fear that comes to you as a child, when you're all alone in the dark, and just makes you want to run away, despite the fact that the rational part of you tells you there's nothing out there. She shivered and quickened her pace.

The door looked like it had been boarded up once, but the boards had been smashed in. They made their way inside, stopping in the foyer. The wallpaper was peeling off, and the entire place was in a complete state of disarray.

The Doctor pulled out a package of papers and held it aloft for her to see. "Remember this?" He asked.

She stared at him for a second before the memory came back to her. "Oh yeah, those are the papers that crazy girl gave us! On the day with that lizard thing!"

The Doctor frowned slightly. "She wasn't crazy. She knew us somehow; we just hadn't met her yet. You should know by now that things aren't always what they seem when you're a time traveler."

Martha put her hands up in resignation. "Fine. She wasn't crazy. Regardless, what did she give you? It must have been pretty important, the way she was acting."

He nodded. "Oh, it is very important. Several lives hang in the balance, including ours. Well, actually, the whole planet hangs in the balance." Her eyes widened, and he continued before she could even gather up her wits enough to respond. "You see this woman, Sally Sparrow, had an encounter with a species of alien known as the Weeping Angels, in this very house, in fact. They're these creatures that send you back in time, and then feed off of the time energy of the life you would have lived. That's one of the main things that makes them unique. The other thing is that they're quantum-locked. As long as you're directly observing them, they're just ordinary stone. You can't kill them in that form, and they can't kill you. But the problem is, you can't keep your eyes on them all the time. They're incredibly fast, and if you so much as blink-"

London, 1969

"-then they'll get you, and you'll be stuck in the past until you find some way to get back to the present." Unfortunately, it wasn't until 39 years earlier that he registered the look of fear on Martha's face. Only a few seconds too late, but a few seconds was all it took.

He sat and waited patiently for Martha to appear as well. He knew that she would; the Angels were fast, efficient and nearly unstoppable. It didn't take long; soon there was a dull thud and he heard Martha cursing a short way away. He turned to see her pulling herself off the floor, limbs shaking. She looked over at him, and understanding suddenly dawned on her face. "You knew they would be waiting for us, didn't you?" He nodded slowly. "Why on earth did we go to the house when you knew they would be waiting for you!?" She yelled at him. Fury gleamed in her eyes, and he knew that he would have to hurry up and give an explanation before someone got hurt.

"Well there are two reasons for that," The Doctor said. "The first is that Sally Sparrow, the girl who gave me the package, first saw the Angels here, and I wanted to investigate."

"And what was the second reason?" Martha asked tersely.

"I was setting up a trap," The Doctor said with a grin. "You see, it was too late for us to help that girl in the present time. She had already gone through the whole ordeal and survived because of us. But she survived because of something we did in the past; therefore we had to go back in time."

"Then why on earth didn't we just use the TARDIS!?" She shouted. "It would have been so much simpler to just go back and help her that way, as opposed to waiting around for an alien to zap us back in time! And how on earth are we going to get back to the present? Because that's where the TARDIS is, and as long as it's there we're stuck!"

"Well, like I said, I wanted to investigate. Besides, I didn't know for sure that the Angels would be waiting for us, but I did know for sure they would send us back. And I also knew that then, and only then, would we set up the tools Sally needs to get out of this alive. Besides, I knew that at some point or another they would catch us. Why go to all the trouble of going back if I knew that we would be sent there eventually anyway?"

Martha seemed a bit more confused than angry now. She sighed and walked over to sit down on the stairs that led to the second floor. "Whatever. Just do what you need to do, Doctor."

The Doctor looked down at her, trying hard to keep his grin going. "Come on, Martha. It's just another adventure, TARDIS or not. Right? Now get on your feet, we have a planet to save!"

Martha looked up. "You never quite explained that. How is it that the fate of the planet hangs in the balance?"

"Well, the Weeping Angels feed off time energy, the same energy the TARDIS runs on, and now they have it. The thing is, there's so much energy in the TARDIS that if they try to access it, it could blow out the sun." He clapped his hands together to demonstrate the point.

Martha started slightly when he did this, but she also grinned a bit. It was obvious she had calmed down a bit. "Well… you did promise me an adventure." She held out her hand, and the Doctor took it and helped her to her feet. "So! What are we doing first?"

He pulled out the packet of papers Sally had given him. "Well, since we're already here, the first step is to leave a message to Ms. Sparrow. In her time, when she faces the Weeping Angels, there's a message waiting for her. A message from me, in this time period." He walked over to a wall in a room nearby and started peeling off the wallpaper.

Within the hour, they had written the message out on the wall and covered it back up with some new wallpaper that was identical to that which already covered the walls. They made sure to leave one corner uncovered so that Sally would be able to spot it 38 years in the future. Once they were done, the Doctor hung up four pictures of the Weeping Angels that would later inhabit the house, so that she would be able to recognize them better.

Once they had done this, they went to complete their other tasks. As they left, the images of the angels in the pictures shifted, turning to watch the Doctor and his companion as they made their way away from the building.

Once they had found Billy, their task became much simpler. The Doctor was able to explain the situation to him, and in the end he was surprisingly receptive. He agreed to help them, or rather help Sally, fairly quickly. The Doctor already had the recordings on hand, so from there it was really just a matter of handing them off to Billy.

Once they had done that, he started fiddling with his "timey-wimey detector" again. "What're you doing now?" Martha asked him.

"Well," He replied calmly, "since we've set up everything Sally Sparrow needs in order to succeed, we should be getting the TARDIS back soon… I'm trying to pick up a reading on it, but nothing is showing up ye- wait, wait a minute, hold up- yes, I've got it!"

Martha perked up immediately. "That's great! Where is it?"

The Doctor stared intently at the strange device he had built. "See, that's the bad news… It would seem that the Angels were close enough to sabotage the TARDIS before it left. They weren't able to change the time period it was going to, but they were able to change where it was going to. It's in America."

Martha considered this. "Well that's not so bad. It will take us a bit longer to get to, but that's not too bad, is it?"

The Doctor turned his gaze away from the machine, and it fell on her. She wasn't sure why, but she thought she detected… fear? "Well that's the thing… It's in Druid Ridge Cemetery. "

Martha shook her head. "I don't understand. What's that got to do with anything?"

He ran a hand through his hair, then opted to sit down on the ground nearby. He seemed exhausted all of a sudden. "Druid Ridge Cemetery is home to a famous statue known as Black Aggie. According to local legend, the statue is haunted. People who see it in the daylight say it makes them feel uncomfortable or uneasy. Anyone caught with it after dark is never seen again. Nothing grows around the base of the statue, no grass, no trees, nothing. Some people even think the statue is alive… because it is. Black Aggie is a Weeping Angel."

She took a while to digest this information. "Well… If the Angels have the TARDIS, then we had better go get it back, hadn't we?" He looked up at her, and was surprised to see a smile on her face. This time, she was the one who pulled him up off the ground.

Pikesville, 1969

After a relatively short flight across the Atlantic and a relatively long taxi ride from the airport, they arrived at the gates of Druid Ridge Cemetery. It had seemed like an eternity, even to Martha, who had already become accustomed to being able to travel to any place- or time- instantaneously.

It was twilight by the time they got there, and quickly getting darker. Soon they had to use electric torches just to be able to see. Before they went in, the Doctor looked Martha in the eyes sternly and said, "Remember what I told you. The statue will be somewhat worn down, and it's going to be missing an arm. Keep your eyes open for it. This thing is nearly unstoppable. We need to just get in, get the TARDIS, and get out." He turned, but as he did, he gave her one last word of advice. "And don't forget what I told Sally in the video we recorded. Don't blink."

With that, they walked in through the gates. As soon as they had, Martha began getting that feeling again, the one she had gotten back at the house. Now that she could put a label to it, it was even more terrifying; Black Aggie was out there, watching them. Martha shivered and played the beam of her torch along the monuments around her, searching, not wanting to get caught off-guard.

They moved quickly, partly because they needed to find the TARDIS quickly, but also because of the fear that filled the air, choking them, burning through their veins. Soon they were running, dodging around gravestones, keeping as far away from the statues as they could. Now Martha kept her torch beam directly in front of her. It cut through the mist and the darkness and played along the surface of a single stone arm.

Martha screamed and backed away from the statue reaching out towards her. Its appearance was haunting, and just looking at it she felt an overwhelming sense of dread and despair. As the Doctor had said, one of its arms was missing, giving it a very lopsided look. This might have been almost funny if the remaining hand hadn't been stretched out towards her, hands ending in sharp, deadly-looking claws. It was sculpted so it appeared to be wrapped in swathes of stone "cloth", and this almost hid the statue's face. Almost, but unfortunately she caught a glimpse of its contorted features, horrible fangs protruding from a gaping mouth that looked as though it was eager to swallow her whole.

The Doctor grabbed her arm and pulled her away. "No, no, no, not that way! This way, hurry! But keep an eye on it!" Despite his warnings, she had forgotten to watch the statue, and as she turned she caught sight of it again, much closer this time, its terrible clawed hand grasping at the empty space behind them.

They kept running, always keeping one eye on the Angel. It kept following them, relentlessly, never stopping, never wavering in the slightest. Unfortunately, they were not so lucky. Although the Doctor had a lot of experience running from monsters, it was exceptionally hard to run from one you had to keep watching while simultaneously navigating through a graveyard.

Eventually they saw it over the ridge; there, in the edge of the torch beam, they could just make out the blue corner of that wonderful old box that had come to symbolize hope itself for so many people across the galaxy. They dashed towards it, hoping to make it there before the Angel caught up to them. Unfortunately, that was when Martha tripped.

She tumbled to the ground with a cry, taking the Doctor down with her. His head hit a grave marker on the way down, and he shouted in pain and fear. Martha tried to check on him with her flashlight. She looked to see if he had a concussion or some other kind of brain damage, but then she realized she was no longer watching the Angel.

She turned abruptly to find it right next to her, leaning down to touch her. She realized that if she had waited more than half a second longer, it surely would have killed her. Scrambling back, still watching the deadly statue looming over her, she pulled the Doctor up to his feet. He was mumbling something she couldn't quite comprehend, but other than that he seemed all right. She started backing away slowly with him in tow, keeping the torch beam on the Angel.

Suddenly, the torch started flickering. Continuing to back away, she started hitting it, trying to figure out what was going wrong. It was very difficult to do this as well as keep the beam on the Angel, but she managed. Still, it had no effect; the light kept flickering, and Black Aggie was getting closer.

Thankfully, the Doctor seemed to come back to his senses at this point. He took one look at the situation and shouted, "Ok, now is when we run! Don't worry about the torch, just get to the TARDIS! Now!" As he said this, the torch went out, and they were plunged into total darkness. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, hoping it would keep the Angel at bay. It did, but just barely, and it didn't give off much light to navigate by.

Stumbling over tombstones, still desperately trying to keep an eye on their pursuer, they ran through the graveyard, towards where they had last seen the TARDIS. Eventually Martha's back hit what felt like a wall, and she was almost certain it was going to catch them. But then she felt the material, realizing it was the wooden siding of the TARDIS.

"Use the key!" The Doctor shouted. "I need to keep this light on the Angel, so I need you to open the door! Now!"

Martha nodded as he handed her the key. She fumbled with the lock. She was shocked when the light from the sonic screwdriver started to flicker, so much that she jolted in shock and dropped the key. "It's ok," he said, "Aggie is just messing with my screwdriver; it's higher technology, so she shouldn't be able to do much. Just find the key!"

She stumbled around on the ground, patting the ground around her. The light from the screwdriver continued to waver. She shuddered as she thought about how close the Angel was, how quickly it would get them if the light went out, even for a second. She quickly turned her attention back to finding the key, not wanting to dwell on such awful thoughts.

After what was probably only a few seconds, but felt like an eternity, she found the key. She stood up and put it in the lock, and she finally opened the door to the TARDIS. She and the Doctor rushed in, and he closed the door behind them. They heard Black Aggie banging on it from the outside, but he raced over to the control console, twisting and punching in commands. Soon the time machine started whirring and clattering, and they were finally away.

Martha ran over to the Doctor and hugged him. They both stood there for a bit, still shaking from the whole experience. They stood there for a bit, regaining their bearings. Then eventually Martha asked, "What happens now? To the statue, I mean? We can't just leave it there to keep preying on people."

The Doctor made a face, evidently trying to remember the details. "Well, I think that after this point in the timeline, the Smithsonian buys the statue... but then it gets lost. Nobody knows where it went, but for now, I don't think we have to worry about it."

National Museum of American Art- Basement Storage, 1970

She had been down there for almost a year now. There wasn't quite as much food as there had been back in the graveyard. Still, every once in a while a hapless worker would come down into the parts of the museum that everyone else knew to keep away from.

Even as she had the thought, she heard footsteps on the stairs nearby. She assumed her normal stance, appearing to be just another slumped over statue among a hundred others. Although he could not tell, she watched the man as he passed.

As he did, she turned her head so she did not lose sight of him. He heard, as she knew he would, and turned around. If she could move, she would have smiled as she saw the look of terror spread across his face. He turned around, away from Black Aggie, and ran. It was the last mistake he ever made.