I Do Not Own Doctor Who
Challenge piece for the Tardis forum.
Chapter Two
The Doctor landed in one of the sofas, coughing and spluttering as splinters of timber and dust clouds of plaster settled around him. The clouds parted for a moment and he caught a glimpse of a painting of some ancestor or another, reminding him what had had been worrying about.
"Reflection." He heard Phelks' call from outside and scrambled to his feet, running out the door to find Phelk running the other way. Phelk stopped as the Doctor ran towards him.
"Doctor there's… ugh." Phelk huffed as the Doctor continued on past him, starting a peculiar bobbing motion up and down to look in the windows, talking as he went.
"Phelk it doesn't matter for the moment, I need to find my reflection, the house stole my reflection. Water, water! That'll have my reflection, Phelk have you seen any water, a lake, a pond?" The Doctor finally stopped and turned to face Phelk, spotting the damp patch on his trouser legs. "A puddle?"
"What?" Phelk asked incredulous, before picking a chunk of plaster off the Doctors shoulder and holding it up. "What happened to you?"
"Floorboards broke, I fell through. They were probably rotten or something." The Doctor replied hurriedly before indicating at some greenery on Phelks' jumper. "What about you?"
"Ah, uh the door stuck." Phelk offered the Doctor giving a quick nod of 'ah, okay'. Phelk looked at him. "'The house stole my reflection'?" He asked disbelievingly.
"Hey, you're the one who thought you saw it move!" The Doctor replied defensively.
They looked away from each other, staring out into the trees at either side of the house. Phelk gazed at the hint of blue that filtered through the trees from the Tardis before returning his gaze to the house. The Doctor watched a bush that was rustling as someone was trying to hide behind it. He looked at Phelk who was once more gazing at the house. Feeling he was being watched Phelk quickly looked at the Doctor who guiltily shifted his gaze back to the house, Phelk following suite.
"Odd house." Phelk stated.
"Yeah." The Doctor agreed, before looking back at the bush and continuing in an overly loud voice. "It would be good if we could get some local knowledge about it." The Doctor smiled at Phelk and after a short wait the figure appeared cautiously standing up behind the bush. "Hello!" The Doctor called enthusiastically "Could you help us out? How much do you know about this house?" The Doctor beckoned the lad over and after taking a moment to haul his bike out from the undergrowth he wheeled it over, leaning on it as he looked at Phelk and the Doctor, his matching grey trackkies and hoodie giving Phelk a slight smile. These Earth types wore some strange clothes.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, almost rudely.
"We could ask you the same question." Phelk countered. "Shouldn't you be at school?" Indeed he looked about fourteen, fifteen at the most.
"You're having a laugh!" The kid replied. "It's Sunday, course I ain't got no school. Nutter."
"Hey there's no call for that!" The Doctor interjected "We just tend to lose track of what day it is because of our job. Now what can you tell us about this house? Who lives here?" The kid looked at both of them in disbelief.
"You're both nutters ain't yah?" Phelk and the Doctor glanced at each other before letting the kid continue. "No-one lives here. Ain't been anyone living here for a while."
"Why's that?" Phelk asked.
"Cus it's haunted of course! Thought you two would know that what with your job an' all."
"Really?" Phelk asked again, the Doctor quietly slipping something out his pocket.
"Yeah, you're ghost hunters aint you? No other reason you'd be up here and I saw your box of equipment- that blue shed."
"Yep, that's right, you've caught us. We're ghost hunters." The Doctor declared flashing the psychic paper in the kids face. "I'm the Doctor and this is Phil, Ghost hunters extraordinaire… s."
"Aww that's so cool! Awesome gig mate!"
"Right." Phelk replied dryly, not even bothering to try and understand, turning to the Doctor instead. "Phil? PHIL?" He hissed.
"Phelk is a bit of an odd name even for these times. Things may be changing but it's another few years before people start naming their children odder things like kitchen devices." The Doctor explained before addressing the kid again. "So what's your name?"
"Bob." He answered and the doctors' face lit up.
"Bob! Great name Bob. Love a Bob- Never met a Bob I didn't like. Nice round name Bob Bobby bob. So," the Doctor clapped his hands together and rubbed them with excitement, "What can you tell me about these hauntings Robert?" Bob winced, but still answered.
"Well it's mostly just stuff flying around." Bob shrugged. "Loud bangs, strange noises in the night, half sighted images of people in the windows." The Doctor frowned, reminded yet again of his absent reflection.
"Is there a pond or fountain around here? Preferably with running water." The Doctor asked.
"Yeah, just down this way. What d'ya need it for?" Bob asked, making his way through the trees, closely followed by the Doctor and Phelk.
"Have you seen me?" The Doctor indicated his layer of plaster dust. "This isn't for dress up you know. I've not been running round pretending to be a ghost trying to lure all the other ghosts out."
"No, he's been busy falling through ceilings instead." Phelk commented, easily ducking a branch that swung back towards his face a moment later. "That was what, or rather who the crash was." At the front Bob nodded before pointing towards some worn down masonry in the middle of a tatty lawn.
"Fountain's there. By some miracle it's still going even now." Bob cocked his head thoughtfully. "Probably fed by some underground stream or sommat."
Phelk followed the Doctor over to the fountain, where sure enough the was still a trickle of water, dripping its way down the base of a long since broken statue into the bottom of the fountain where it lay in a mucky brown puddle. Slowly the Doctor looked over the edge, seeing his reflection in the water below. Phelk looked at the Doctor, who gave no outwards indication that he had seen his reflection; instead he made Phelk jump by bursting out and half diving to get at the water, scooping it in large handfuls over his face.
"Blimey Phil! You could've told me I looked this bad." The Doctor flicked some water towards Phelk, causing him to jump away. "Stay there." The Doctor quietly asked, and out of Bobs view he buzzed the water with his sonic screwdriver.
"Water's not haunted you know." Bob told him, walking around the side of the fountain. The Doctor quickly hid the sonic but Bob continued. "You don't have to hide your ghost detector from me, it's not like I'm gonna steal the design for myself. Got no interest in ghosts."
"In that case what are you doing up here?" Phelk asked. "Said yourself there's no reason to be."
"It's quiet innit?" Bob gestured at the ground. "Big place, no-one else comes up here cause they think it's all haunted but I found that as long as I don't go into the house it's fine. Got the whole place to myself. My little patch."
"So the haunting's up at the house, not in the grounds. Interesting." The Doctor stood looking at the house. "Most hauntings extend out into grounds as well so why is it just the house?"
"Ghost might've only known the house." The Doctor ignored Bob's suggestion.
"Bob can you do me a favour and go up to the house and look in every single window and tell me what you can see." Bob took a breath to ask a question but the Doctor stopped him. "Trust me, it'll help." Bob headed off to fill the Doctors request.
"I don't think his name is Bob." Phelk confided to the Doctor, watching Bobs retreating back.
"Of course he's not a Bob. I've met Bobs he's nothing like a Bob." The Doctor almost scolded, before calming. "This house, we need to examine this house, look at all the odd bits work out what is wrong with it. We are missing something, something important, another piece of the jigsaw…" The headed up to the house, Bob coming around the corner to meet them by the kitchen door. "What did you find?" The Doctor asked.
"Everything's normal with the house." Bob said, but the Doctor shook his head.
"No no no. Normal with THIS house is odd." The Doctor grabbed Bob by the shoulders and steered him in front of the kitchen window. "Take a look at the window."
"It's just a window."
"Look at the reflections." The Doctor said, and Phelk quietly moved behind them to see for himself, and Bob noticed him, and realised what was missing, jerking away from the Doctor in alarm.
"What are you?" He asked.
"That is the houses doing, I'm no vampire Bob, I had a reflection in the water, and I have a reflection normally. The house stole my reflection." The Doctor pleaded. "It's an odd house, we need to pinpoint what is odd and work out why."
"Doctor here's another 'odd' thing," Phelk said, holding up a stone. "Earlier when you realised you had no reflection I was in this kitchen having a drink and my mug broke because Bob was chucking stones at the house. But look at it…" Phelk indicated the door and window. "How did it get inside?" The Doctor looked between Phelk and the front of the kitchen, the windows, door and wall all perfectly intact. He picked up a stone and chucked it at the wall and it bounced back, narrowly missing his head.
"Seems okay." The Doctor turned to face Bob and Phelk.
"That's odd." Bob commented, looked at where the stone had fallen.
"The stone bounced off the wall like it should, so how is that odd?" Phelk exclaimed flinging his hands up in the air, the stone slipping between his fingers and flying towards the house. There was a pause when there was the complete absence of any sign of impact and the Doctor and Phelk turned around simultaneously to see the persistently intact house.
"That's what it does normally." Bob claimed with a smirk.
"Where'd it go?" Phelk asked, the Doctor pushing past him into the house. On the floor of the kitchen was the stone. The Doctor whipped out the sonic screwdriver and scanned the whole room, gradually working his way around.
"Might've come through the wall. This," he waved his hand around, "could be a projection." The Doctor stated, before continuing to fiddle with the sonic.
"Yeah, but that mug- it had water in it." Phelk argued.
"You could have imagined you were drinking."
"It landed on me- it was cold, and wet!" Phelk exclaimed, annoyed, before rapidly calming down as another thought struck him. "You were upstairs."
"I fell through the floor and yet somehow didn't get hurt. Could have been an illusion." The Doctor flicked the sonic off. "It would fit," he pondered "but it just feels a bit too real, a bit too solid." The Doctor looked up at Bob and Phelk. "We need to find whatever is producing the projection if it is." He buzzed the ceiling with the sonic as the other two watched.
"It ain't going to be up there if it is a projection." Bob commented.
"No it probably isn't. I was more wondering why the ceiling has become more of a pebble dashed affair than before." They all looked up at the ceiling which was now drooping with pebble dashing, the layer of white paint shifting to cover it. The heavy centre bulged downwards and a singular pebble emerged through the paint, dropping to the floor with a plink!
Plink. Another stone fell, and another and then another handful.
"Ow!" Phelk exclaimed at one hit the top of his head and more pebbles fell, raining down on the three of them as they dived to the side of the kitchen to avoid the worst of the downpour.
"Everybody OUT!" The Doctor shouted as downpour became a torrent, spreading over the floor, making the way dangerously uneven as the Doctor tried to cover Bob as they battled their way to the door. Stuck across the other side of the room Phelk flung his arms over his head and made a dash for the door, swiftly getting knocked off his feet into the increasing pile of stones, and began to get buried under the mass of pebbles falling into the room.
"Doctor!"
Outside the Doctor span round to see Phelk still stuck inside. He made to go back in, but the door swung shut in front of him.
"No!" He exclaimed, giving the door a tug, then buzzing it with the sonic which failed to unlock it. "Open it up! Phelk!" The Doctor pounded on the door, letting out and Ow! As his hand met solid wall. The door had disappeared and beyond it the clink of pebbles settling on one another continued at a calmer rate. The Doctor pressed his ear against the wall, listening carefully for the sound of any other movement, but there was nothing.
"Phelk." The Doctor closed his eyes a moment, frowning before turning to Bob." This is why you don't throw stones, particularly not at houses."
"Hey, I got bored and anyway, this ain't even a proper house is it?"
"Probably not, but that doesn't make it okay. You saw what happened." They stood listening to the silence for a few minutes before the Doctor suddenly crouched down and picked up a small handful of stones, carefully dropping them one by one. "Thought so." He stated when the last one fell and turned around and pulled open the kitchen door. The kitchen was back to its normal self, empty of pebbles and Phelk. "Phelk ?" The Doctor called into the house, but there was no response and he pulled out again, carefully closing the door behind him. "Phelk's gone." He told Bob.
"Probably found another exit." But the Doctor shook his head.
"There weren't any. You saw the kitchen door. No something's taken him, the same something that's been causing the effects of the 'haunting', the pebbles, all of it."
"What sort of something?"
"Alien."
"Ha, right." Bob scoffed.
"Something that doesn't want us in there- the pebbles were used in defence, every time the house has been acting odd is when we are inside- every time it didn't like it, tried to get us to leave."
"Sick house."
"That's not a bad description. Every time we went in it reacted to us like antibodies, trying to get us out, but surely that would react far sooner- of course!" The Doctor smacked himself in the head. "The sonic! Whatever it was didn't like me using the sonic, it's reacted every time. Oooh, that's not good, that's not very useful. I need to find whatever's causing the house to act like this and I need to find Phelk."
"Phil." Bob corrected, but the Doctor ignored him.
"Finding Phelk is the priority though; anyway he's probably close or even at the cause of this whole thing. Right, Bob I need you to get a couple of things from my shed."