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Chapter 10

There was something strange about this house, Amy could tell from the moment she entered it. There was a feeling that the house was very old and abandoned as they entered a narrow, dark hallway, the only light seeping through cracks in the front door. There was a musty smell, mixed with something a lot less pleasant, but Amy couldn't quite work out what that was. Masses of cobwebs lined the stained walls, which may have once been a white colour but were now a dirty grey. The place was covered in more dust than an old library. Fungi had began to develop in some corners where the dark carpet had not quite met the wall, and in others slugs and snails lingered with slimy joy.

Amy cringed at the sights and smells, but the Doctor went ahead without a second thought, only merely glancing at the scene as if that was what every house looked like, she wondered if every house on this street was like this. Mr Wells followed slowly after him, looking around nervously, still holding the metal pipe he had carried with him when hunting Autons. Unable to see much else in the windowless hallway, Amy reached for a dust-covered light switch she spotted on the wall.

"Don't touch that!" The Doctor said suddenly, making her and Mr Wells jump.

"Why?" Amy demanded, annoyed with herself as well as the Doctor, why had she become so jumpy all of a sudden?

"I wouldn't trust the electrics in this house, and if there is something living here, we might not want to attract its attention, yet." The Doctor explained in a whisper.

"Well whatever it is isn't doing a very good job of remaining inconspicuous either, seeming as it left a light on up stairs," Amy told him.

"Amy has a point Doctor," Mr Wells piped up, trying to hide the worry in his voice. "Perhaps this is a trap."

"No, I can smell a trap a mile a way," the Doctor said, in deep thought as he sniffed the air. "Especially if the trap is made of cheese."

"Cheese? Are you ill Doctor?" Mr Wells asked after he and Amy exchanged confused glances.

"Me? A Doctor? No I'm never ill. Mad quite possibly, but never ill. I'm just trying to light up the situation." The Doctor said happily, he too felt that there was something bad about this house, but he didn't want to show Amy and Mr Wells how he felt, especially when he didn't know what was making him feel uneasy.

Preferring not to linger in the hallway for two long and with one more confused look from both Mr Wells and Amy, the Doctor headed to the staircase and took a tentative step. There was terrible crunching and creaking noise, and for a moment Amy thought that the stairs were about to collapse. But they remained motionless.

"Well that's not going to attract any attention." She hissed sarcastically, fear prickling her spine as she carefully tread over the dusty floorboards towards the Doctor, trying to make sure she didn't do the same thing.

The Doctor stood on the stair for a moment, listening out carefully for any noise upstairs, just in case he had made something stir. He carefully pulled out his sonic screwdriver from his pocket, just in case. But there was silence. The Doctor turned back to Amy and Mr Wells and tried to give them a convincing smile.

"Don't worry, the stairs aren't going to kill us, we'll be safe." He told them as he turned and began to make his way, more carefully and tentatively this time, up the stairs to the next floor.

The next floor in the house was pitch black, the windows were tightly boarded up and all the light bulbs had been taken out of the sockets. The Doctor had to use the green light of the sonic screwdriver just so he could see Amy and Mr Wells standing close behind him. The strange scent hidden within the musty smell was gradually getting worse; Amy felt like she recognised the smell, but she couldn't say why or where from. There was no need to enter the few rooms that were on the second floor; all the doors were open, revealing emptiness behind them. The Doctor gave them a quick wave with his sonic screwdriver to confirm there was nothing mysterious about them, silent with thought. They were about to move onto the third and final floor when Mr Wells stopped them.

"Look at this Doctor," he said, gazing down at the floor. The Doctor and Amy knelt down and looked closely at the floorboards.

At first Amy couldn't see anything strange about the floorboards, only that they looked too old to walk on. But as her eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness, and the Doctor brought his sonic screwdriver closer, she could see that among the layers of dust, there were footprints.

"Are those our footprints?" Amy asked, already knowing the answer.

"No, they already have a fine layer of dust upon them, these footsteps were recent, but they're still a couple of days old." The Doctor explained, reminding Amy of specks of snow settling on pavements.

"Are they Auton footsteps?" Mr Wells asked.

"Unlikely, these look like something living to me and wearing shoes, an adult human perhaps. But it's hard to tell." The Doctor added, running a finger down one of the footprints.

There followed a pause where all three peered at the footprints, questioning who might have been wandering around the house before them, the silence weighing down upon them like their fear. The house obviously hadn't been occupied for months, perhaps even years, and the way the footsteps went straight into the rooms, did a quick circle and then come out again, it seemed like they were looking for something. Amy glanced around; she didn't see any footsteps going back down the stairs.

"Do you think whoever made these footsteps is still in the house?" She suggested to the Doctor and Mr Wells.

The Doctor shrugged, "it's possible," he said. "Or they might have left the house another way."

"How?"

"There are windows aren't there?" The Doctor pointed out, but he said nothing else, as if he wanted Amy and Mr Wells to dwell on the thought and the picture of someone jumping from the top floor of a three-storey house, or perhaps even flying, if it wasn't human.

Silently, the Doctor stood up and made his way to the stairs which led up to the final floor, Mr Wells followed him after only slight hesitation. For a moment Amy thought about perhaps turning back and leaving the house, her instincts were screaming at her, telling her that something was wrong, she had to get out. But both the Doctor and Mr Wells were now heading up the creaking stairs and she didn't want to be left alone again. She hurried to join them and all three of them made the short journey up to the third floor.

The last floor was very small and narrow; the old, greying walls slanted inwards and the ceiling sloped. There was just two rooms on this floor, one only a few feet wide with the door hanging off its hinges, the Doctor checked but it lead to nothing apart from cobwebs and darkness. The other room's door was still in place, and a light coming through the cracks. The whole upper floor stunk of something vile; finally Amy remembered what it reminded her of. It was the same smell that was left in the science lab when she was still at school in Biology and they had to dissect a cow's liver. The smell was so strong Amy put her T-shirt over her mouth and nose to try and mask the smell.

"Doctor, it stinks! I don't like this one bit." She said in a muffled voice, the horrible feeling she had was growing ever more inside her. But the Doctor ignored her.

"Looks like there may have been some sort of fight up here," Mr Wells observed, looking at the door hanging of its hinges and the scuffed marks on the floorboards, these too looked only a few days old.

"Perhaps," the Doctor murmured, in deep thought once more, ignoring Amy's words. "Or perhaps someone wants us to think that there was a fight. Make us assume that whatever happened here was because of a scuffle."

The Doctor edged closer towards the closed door, the light still gently flickering inside. He paused for a moment, ear pressed to the door, then knocked; there was no reply. He tried again. "Hello? Is anyone in there?" He called softly.

Silence.

Without anything else he could think to do, the Doctor slowly opened the door and peered inside. As he gazed around the nearly empty room, Amy and Mr Wells edged forwards, desperate to know what the Doctor was seeing. Just as Amy reached the Doctor's shoulder, he suddenly slammed the door shut in her face and turned his back on it, blocking her way in.

"What's the matter Doctor? What's in there?" Amy demanded, annoyed. Pulling her T-shirt down from her face.

"Amy I think it's best that you don't go in there." The Doctor told her hastily, a little colour had drained out of his face and he looked very worried, it wasn't often she saw the Doctor acted like this. The smell seemed to have got worse.

"Why not?" Amy paused for a moment, what could make the Doctor become so scared so suddenly? "Is there something in there?" She asked.

"Yes."

"Is it...dead?"

"Yes, she's definitely dead."

"I've seen dead bodies before, thanks to you, I think I can handle another one. I don't like it when you hide things from me." Amy said, trying to push the Doctor out the way of the door. But he stayed where he was.

"Amy I really think it's best if you just leave, both of you." The Doctor said seriously, "I don't want either of you to see this."

"See what?" Amy demanded. "Who's in there? Why won't you let me see anything? What's so bad about a dead body?"

The Doctor sighed, he knew he couldn't hide anything from Amy, he looked her straight in they eye: "her organs are missing."