Warning: This chapter contains, for want of a better word, gore. Not the most pleasant chapter to edit, as we're about to enter the room with the light on...

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Chapter 11

Amy stood, staring at the Doctor as if she couldn't quite understand what he'd just said, and as the words echoed in her head they made less and less sense. What did the Doctor mean by 'her organs were missing'? How could he tell? How could someone's organs just go missing? She stood her ground, determined to find answers, she would not have any more secrets. Her question were soon answered however as the Doctor, realising that he wouldn't be able to hide it from Amy, stood aside and let the door swing slowly open, revealing what was inside.

The room was almost completely empty. The walls were plain and there was just one large window which was covered in grime. A single light bulb dangled from the ceiling, bathing them all in a yellow light. In the centre of the room was a young woman lying on the floor, Amy guessed she couldn't be much older than herself. The woman's long, dark hair that flowed like a wave across the floor. Her eyes were closed and there was a look of peace on the girl's ghostly white fact. Her arms were close to her side and legs almost straight, they were not bent at odd, jaunted angles as Amy had expected. In fact her whole body looked quite relaxed. It was as if the girl was merely sleeping. But Amy could tell this woman was dead. It didn't a genius to work it out.

There was no blood on the floor, but the young woman's skin was white as a sheet and there was a long slice running running down her torso, the girl's throat had also neatly been slit from ear to ear, there wasn't even a sign of a struggle. There was something strange looking about the body as well, as if it had been deflated. The smell of rotting flesh had got even worse, but that was the last thing that was troubling Amy now.

The Doctor walked past Amy and Mr Wells, who were both still standing by the door staring, horrified, at the body.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," the Doctor said almost in a whisper, as he knelt down by the young woman and looked at her closely, there was a deep sorrow in his eyes that betrayed his many years of travelling and hardship. "Mr Wells, do you know this girl?"

"I recognise her face, but I cannot recall where I might have seen her from." Mr Wells replied. He looked how Amy felt as he gazed at the girl's peaceful face. He stepped a little closer, as close as he dared. Then his eyes grew wide as he remembered where he had seen her from, but at the same time he looked ashamed. "She was one of the few who said that they feared no monsters, that they would stay in this part of London, I didn't see her very often because she worked at night, down," Mr Wells paused, part of him didn't want to tell the Doctor this, but he knew he had too. "Down alleyways." He continued, "I didn't see her often, but she was so pretty, she was so bright, she had so much opportunity, but she went down the wrong road and she she needed the money so she…" Mr Wells stopped, as if she was too ashamed to say the word, but the Doctor finished his sentence for him:

"She was a prostitute."

"Yes, it was the only way for her to make enough money. She was desperate..." Mr Wells said quickly, but then sighed, what was the point in trying to defend the girl's honour? She was dead.

"Well this definitely feels like Victorian London now," Amy murmured to herself, her stomach gave a nasty lurch and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick. Her mind felt rigid with shock, but her memory managed to drift back to old school lessons when she was learning about the mysterious Jack the Ripper. But even that serial killer was not as brutal with the bodies as this murderer had been. This was 2040, how could such killings still be happening?

"Prostitutes are always the most vulnerable, that's why there have been so many attacks on them in the past," the Doctor explained. "Easy to fall into the arms of a predator." He looked closer at the wounds that the girl had sustained. "Looks like the cause of death was almost certainly slitting of the throat. But it's this I'm more worried about." The Doctor explained, his index finger followed down the long cut running along the girl's body.

The vertical wound seemed to have been made so the skin could easily be pulled back, whoever did this wanted to get inside the girl's body. The Doctor silently and carefully lifted up the skin, revealing what had been left inside of the poor woman's body.

Amy gasped, because there was hardly anything left in the body.

Thin strips of flesh dangled from the chalk white bones, bright pink in colour, sometimes stained a darker red from the now absent blood. The smell was overwhelming. Some muscle still remained and the diaphragm too was intact, but the lungs had disappeared. The rib cage had almost been torn apart in the murderer's desperation to get to the lungs and heart, which was also missing. In fact all the organs had disappeared just like the Doctor had said: the liver, the kidneys, even the stomach and intestines had been pulled out. The poor girl had become nothing but a shell with a few bones and flesh still remaining. She had been stripped clean from the inside out. For a moment, Amy felt herself sway on the spot and again thought she was going to be sick, or worse pass out, or perhaps even both. She desperately needed some fresh air and somewhere where there were no dead bodies with missing organs, but her feet remained rooted to the spot.

There was a long pause as the shock set in and everyone stared at the body, silent in their horror.

"Is this the work of an Auton?" Mr Wells asked, finally breaking the silence, his voice shaking. Amy noticed that every part of his body seemed to be shaking.

"No," the Doctor said firmly yet sadly as he examined the body a little closer, sonic screwdriver in hand, hardly blinking. "No Auton could do this, none that I have ever seen anyway. They're trained to kill, not to slit throats, not to consume."

"Are you saying," Amy had to pause for a moment, making sure she wasn't going to be sick, she could almost feel her face turning the colour green. Why doesn't she listen to the Doctor more often? She wished more than anything she had stayed on the other side of the door, or perhaps never entered the house at all. "Are you saying that whoever, or whatever, did this ate her organs?"

"Why else would they do it?" The Doctor said. "A modern day Jack the Ripper, in need of some meat, perhaps lost their own organs and needed some more. This doesn't look like it was done by human hands to me, Amy. It explains why everyone here has been so fearful, hiding away, even leaving the City. They knew that perhaps there was something was wandering about the streets with such power and desperation to do such a thing. Perhaps they were not running from the Autons, they were running from something much, much worse. Have you heard or seen such things like this before, Mr Wells?"

Mr Wells shook his head, "I've never...never heard of anything like this Doctor, not even in the darkest rumours, I had no idea this was happening. But people have been disappearing for a long time now, it could well have been this beast as well as the Autons. We all knew there was something hiding in the shadows, we just didn't want to admit it, we could just tell this place was cursed and fled before our families were affected."

"Well, it seems we have a lot more to worry about than plastic dummies. Perhaps this isn't even the first victim," The Doctor began. "I wonder why the killer left the light on, a mistake perhaps, or maybe they wanted us to find it-"

"Stop it!" Amy almost shouted suddenly. The Doctor and Mr Wells stared at her, looking as she surprised as she felt at her own outburst. But she had had enough of such words, of such thoughts. They plunged her in so much fear, and she didn't even know why. She usually felt safe around the Doctor, but this time it was the Doctor who was making her feel scared. This woman could be the same age as her and was probably feeling lost and alone in the huge City, just like Amy had the night before. She may not be a prostitute, but how close had she been to being the second victim when she was wondering around, alone? Or perhaps the tenth victim, if there were more bodies out there...

The Doctor however, seemed to understand how she was feeling, or just realised how pale and ill Amy looked, and could tell that Amy needed to leave the scene of the crime.

"We'd better go," he said, standing up. "We can't stay here, the predator may still be near."

Amy nodded, relieved, but she couldn't help shiver at the word 'predator'.

"But what are we going to do with…her?" Mr Wells asked, nodding down at the girl. "We can't just leave her like this."

"There's nothing we can do," the Doctor said sadly. And it was true, there would be nowhere to put the poor girl, they couldn't even bury her.

"Please Doctor, there must be something we can do." Mr Wells almost begged, the thought of leaving the girl here in the state she was in made him feel sick, she deserved some respect.

The Doctor paused for a moment, thinking, knowing that Mr Wells was right. He turned around suddenly and left the room. Amy could hear him clattering about in the room next door, but before she could ask him what he was doing, the Doctor returned with an old, torn curtain wrapped in his arms.

"I found this in the other room," he explained, laying it gently over the dead girl like a blanket. "This will have to do for now, perhaps when all the trouble is over we can give her a proper burial."

Satisfied with this, Mr Wells nodded. All three of them then stood around the body for a moment as if in silent vigil for the poor girl, all three feeling different emotions.

The Doctor's mind was racing, he was confused and he hated feeling confused, but he had no idea what could have possibly done this, however he also felt angry, he wanted to find out who or what had done this and stop them.

Mr Wells felt sadness and worry, he hated the thought of finding and telling the dead girl's parents what had happened, he didn't even know her name, but he knew someone out there loved her and would be wondering where she was.

Amy, on the other hand, felt nothing but pure fear.

It felt like hours before the silence was broken and all three began to leave the room one by one and make their way out of the room and into the outside world. Amy was relieved to go, but fear clung onto her like a disease even after she left the house. The Doctor was last to leave the room but just before he did, he stopped at the doorway and looked sadly once more at the girl, before turning off the light.