Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in updating this one, folks. Combination of lack of time, ill health and a massive writer's block. However, this is a nice, long chapter, so hopefully that will make up for it somewhat.

Thanks to the following people for their continued support, despite how busy everyone gets at this time of year: MayFairy, Vincenth, loulouflowerpower, SophieQueenofTheWorld, kakashifan1792, whatwouldhappenifpieswereflies, XxCupcake-AssassinxX, The Yoshinator, Drama-Queen's-Ramblings, MountainLord-92, TheWickedHeart, JMichelleW, AVENGERS-girl-ASSEMBLE, silentnightDW, Imorgen, Dragoneisha, theparthenon, skidney, GothDetective21, Raingirlkm, CrimsonDelight, Darling-Stardusted-Traverser (x 2) and Aietradaea.

To silentnightDW - Hi there, thanks for the review. No, I think I can safely say that Allie won't have one of those weird moments, so you can rest easy on that score, LOL.

Okay, this chapter turned out to be a little surreal. Then again, it was a 'dream sequence' and was meant to be surreal, so maybe that's a good thing. Or not. I don't know any more...arggghhhhh...

- Chapter Fourteen -

Cautiously, the Doctor led the way past the door bearing the Asterion script and into the room beyond. It was large, circular and completely empty. There was no sign of Larry anywhere.

"I don't get it," Allie whispered. "Where did he go? He couldn't disappear that quickly in a room this size!"

"Not unless something took him," the Doctor replied bleakly.

There was a swishing sound behind them and they both whirled around, just in time to see the door sliding firmly closed, cutting them off from the TARDIS.

"Well, that was always going to happen," the Doctor commented, squeezing Allie's hand reassuringly and trying to sound upbeat. "Bit of a no-brainer really."

Pulling out his sonic screwdriver, he prepared to scan the locking mechanism. But before he could activate the device, there was a strange sucking noise, and the outline of the door disappeared entirely as if it had never been, leaving nothing behind but a smooth, unmarked wall.

"That, on the other hand, was a bit unexpected."

Allie ran her hand over the wall, her eyes wide with shock. "But...what happened? Where did the door go? It can't just...disappear! Can it?"

The Doctor waved the screwdriver back and forth over the wall. He checked the readings and then re-scanned the wall, just to be sure, his stomach sinking in dismay.

Seeing the look on his face, Allie demanded anxiously, "What? What's wrong?"

"I'm starting to think this mightn't be a city-ship after all," he replied. "I think it's just something that has temporarily chosen to take on the form of a city-ship. These walls are organic."

"Organic?"

"It's a bio-ship of some sort. It hasn't been constructed from manufactured materials. It's been grown."

Allie snatched her hand back from the wall as if she expected it to suddenly bite her. "You mean...it's alive? We're inside some sort of...creature?"

"Alive?" the Doctor repeated. "Yes, in a sense. According to this data, it's formed from an immense collection of metamorphically-enhanced cells."

"What does that mean?"

"It's able to alter its molecular structure when required, both internally and externally," he explained. "Basically, the entire vessel is one, big, enormous shape-shifter."

"Then...why take the form of some battered old relic from centuries ago? What was the point?"

"Maybe because somebody knows exactly what it would take to pique my interest," he said grimly, repeating his scan for a third time, even though he knew the results weren't going to change. "It was an elaborately designed trap and I stupidly walked right into it. We need to find Larry and get out of here, right away."

There was no answer. The Doctor turned around. "Allie? Allie! What are you doing?"

However, the blonde-haired girl was no longer paying attention to what he was saying. Instead, she was staring out across the empty room, her expression oddly arrested. "They're so beautiful."

The Doctor frowned in confusion. "What's so beautiful?"

"The flowers, of course."

"What flowers? There's nothing there."

She took a step further forward into the room. "Can't you see them, Doctor? They're so red, just like blood. And they smell so sweet."

Her eyes were blank and unfocused, completely empty.

"Allie, stop!" he shouted, reaching out to grab her arm and pull her to a halt. "Don't!"

But his hand tangled in the fabric of his suit jacket, still draped around her shoulders, and it slipped away in his grasp.

And before he could do anything to prevent her, moving swiftly now, Allie kept on walking.

One minute, Allie was stepping forward into the field of alien poppies, the fleshy, red-petalled blooms parting to receive her into their enticingly perfumed embrace. The next minute she was somewhere else altogether. Instead of the softness of flowers beneath her feet, there was the crisp crunch of gravel. Looking around, she realised she was walking along a winding pathway, edged with closely-packed trees, intermingled with huge grey boulders. None of the trees looked healthy or normal. They were old and gnarled and black, festooned with vines and creepers, their trunks and branches twisted and distorted into hideous shapes that reminded Allie far too much of screaming faces. Here and there, she could see clumps of large, scarlet toadstools, puffy and poisonous and spotted with white. The air felt heavy and cool, with only the occasional teasing shaft of sunlight filtering through the overhead branches to bathe the ground in eerie, threatening shadows. The wind moaned through the tree-tops, rustling the leaves, and making the branches creak and groan all around her, as if the trees were conversing in a secret, malevolent language of their own.

The deep, dark wood.

The sinister words screamed inside her head as she recognised her surroundings from her childhood nightmares. She had always been deathly afraid of the woods in fairy stories when she was young. So many shadows...so many densely-crowded trees...you never knew what might be hiding in there...lurking...watching...waiting to pounce.

Monsters. Demons. Dark things, with no heart and no soul.

She had no idea how she had come to be here in this awful place. Even worse, she appeared to be completely alone.

"Doctor?" she called urgently, whirling around and trying hard to look in every direction at once. "Doctor, what's happening? Where are you?"

There was a crackling behind her in the gloomy undergrowth. Allie spun to face the source of the sound, her heart in her mouth. "Doctor? Is that you?"

There was no reply, just a heavy, patient silence, as if the hidden presence was was just waiting to see what she would do next. Allie swallowed hard, a cold sweat breaking out on her skin, as she realised that, whatever was out there, it wasn't the Doctor. Terrified, she looked frantically back and forth along the path, wanting to run, but confused as to which direction to go. Everything looked too large, wildly out of proportion, the trees towering over her like skyscrapers, the path far too wide, as if somehow she had entered a world created for giants. Or as if, somehow, she had been shrunk down to the size of a mouse.

"Wake up!" she told herself, closing her eyes tightly. This had to be a nightmare, it had to be. The Asterion script had spoken of dreams coming true, and the Doctor had guessed that they wouldn't necessarily be good ones. With all her strength, she willed herself to return to consciousness, to find herself safely back with him again. "WAKE UP!"

But when she opened her eyes, the scene was unchanged, the dark trees looming, the gravel path stretching tauntingly before her.

Suddenly, the undergrowth parted and there was a vibrant flash of orange as something jumped out in front of her. Allie screamed in shock and tumbled backwards on to the path, slicing her hands open on the jagged gravel as she tried to break her fall. An enormous fox stood over her, its eyes full of cunning intelligence, its whiskers quivering at the end of its long pointed nose, as it sniffed the scent of fresh blood. Slowly, it smiled down at her, its jaws parting to reveal sharp, pointed teeth.

"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?" it rasped. "Come and have...lunch...in my underground house."

Familiar, Allie thought wildly. That line was familiar. She had heard it before, in her childhood. This was all part of a story, she was sure of it. There was an answer, a correct answer, that she had to say, to make the fox leave. Come on, Allie, think! It's in your head somewhere, you have to remember. What was it? WHAT WAS IT?

The fox leaned over further, eyeing her hungrily, slaver dripping from its mouth, and she knew her time was running out. One snap from its powerful jaws, and she would be gone forever.

Little brown mouse. It had called her 'little brown mouse'. A mouse took a stroll through a deep dark wood...of course! That was it! It was 'The Gruffalo'! Her mother had read her this over and over again when she was tiny, back when they were all happy together as a family. In those far off days, she had been able to repeat the words by heart...

Her lacerated hands were throbbing painfully, making it difficult to concentrate. Clenching them into fists, she took a deep breath and said loudly, "It's terribly kind of you, Fox, but no – I'm going to have lunch with a Gruffalo."

To her immense relief, the hideous fox did a double-take, the expression on its face almost human in its wariness. "A Gruffalo? What's a Gruffalo?"

More confidently now, as her memory of the story came back to her, Allie answered, "A Gruffalo! Why, didn't you know? He has terrible tusks and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws."

The fox backed away nervously. "Where are you meeting him?"

Allie got to her feet and brushed herself off. "Here, by these rocks," she said, quirking her thumb towards a nearby cluster of boulders. "And his favourite food is roasted fox."

The fox's tail twitched in alarm. "Roasted fox!" it fearfully said. "Goodbye, little mouse!", and away it sped.

Watching him run, Allie found herself smiling in a superior fashion, just like the mouse in the story. "Silly old fox, doesn't he know?" she murmured. "There's no such thing as a Gruffalo!"

Something ominous shivered up her back as she heard herself saying the words, as if she was tempting fate. She had the distinct feeling that there was something she had forgotten, something about the Gruffalo, something about the end of the story. But as is often the case during a bad dream, her brain seemed to be oddly out of focus, and she couldn't bring the rest of the tale to mind, no matter how hard she tried. For one wild moment, she was tempted to curl up in a tight little ball in the middle of the path until it was all over. But somehow, she suspected the nightmare wouldn't allow her to do that. Besides, staying in one place paralysed with terror wasn't going to get her out of here and back to the Doctor. Whatever twisted game the owners of the city-ship were subjecting her to, she would just have to play along with it and hope the story came back to her as she went on – at least until she managed to wake up.

Taking a deep breath, she chose a direction at random, and began to walk swiftly along the forest path, keeping her eyes peeled for further threats, instinctively knowing that there would be more. Sure enough, before she had gone very far, she came to a small, burbling stream, and a dark, predatory shadow fell over her as something swooped down from the branches above and landed nearby. Two feathered wings folded and settled, while two cold, glowing eyes appraised her. It was a huge brown owl. Even though she knew it had to be part of the story, Allie couldn't help shuddering as she saw the creature's cruel curved beak and its sharp, vicious talons.

"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?" it inquired in a harsh voice, putting its head menacingly on one side. "Come and have tea in my tree-top house."

"It's frightfully nice of you, Owl, but no," Allie responded in a shaking voice, forcing herself to stand her ground as the next part of the script filtered back into her head. "I'm having tea with a Gruffalo."

"A Gruffalo?" the Owl squawked. "What's a Gruffalo?"

"A Gruffalo! Why didn't you know?" she recited, praying she got the order of the words right as they slowly reformed in her memory. It was so long ago since she had heard them. Not since her parents had separated when she was a small child, and her mother had stopped reading to her, or doing anything else with her, really. Forcefully, she pushed the painful thought of her parents away and tried to concentrate on what she was saying. "He has knobbly knees and turned out toes...and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose."

"Where are you meeting him?"

Defiantly, Allie stepped up on to the log that served as a bridge over the small, fast-running brook, a slender hand indicating the water below. "Here, by this stream. And his favourite food...is owl ice-cream!"

The owl flinched away and took to the air, its wings beating powerfully. "Owl ice-cream? Toowhit, toowhoo! Goodbye, little mouse!", and away it flew.

Sagging with relief, Allie made her way over the log, placing her feet carefully on the slick, slippery surface until she safely reached the other side.

"Silly old Owl," she whispered. "Doesn't he know? There's no such thing as a Gruffalo."

She walked on, deeper into the forest, leaving the tinkling of the stream far behind her. If anything, the trees seemed to be even closer together here, the air black and dank and unpleasant. Allie had to steel herself to keep moving. Somewhere at the end of this nightmare was the Doctor, she told herself, picturing his cheerful smile and drawing strength from the image. She trusted him. She knew he would never willingly abandon her. He was out there somewhere. All she had to do was find him.

Before long, the path began to wind along the shores of a large lake. The water was choked with green weed, opaque and murky. Bulrushes fringed the perimeter, standing up stiff and straight, like fingers pointing up to the sky. Here and there, large bubbles rose to the surface of the water and popped, as if something was stirring in the cloudy depths. Allie moved nervously back from the edge, putting as much distance between herself and the water as she could, wishing with all her heart she could remember what came next in the story. However, all her caution proved to be useless, since the next threat, when it came, did not come from the lake.

Vaguely, she thought she saw a movement up ahead on the path. Peering through the gloom, she noticed a large, untidy pile of logs off to one side. Something was sliding out of them, impossibly slippery, impossibly long, impossibly sinuous. Allie caught her breath in horror, realising it was the biggest snake she had ever seen.

"Ssssssssssss," it hissed, coiling its body and rearing above her, it's diamond-shaped head swaying back and forth hypnotically. "Where are you going to, little brown mousssssssse? Come for a feasssssst, in my log-pile housssssssse!"

Allie gulped and froze in fear, trying her hardest to keep from being transfixed by the snake's unblinking gaze. It wasn't easy. Her eyes kept helplessly following the intricate weaving of its head, her resistance slipping away further and further with every sway. "It's wonderfully good of you, Snake, but no..." she managed to croak. "I'm having a feast with a Gruffalo."

"A Gruffalo?" the snake demanded, refusing to release her eyes, stupefying her with its will. "What's a Gruffalo?"

"A Gruffalo!" Allie muttered sleepily. "Why didn't you know? His eyes are...orange. His..tongue is...black." She yawned, her voice trailing away as she lost track of what she was saying, her pupils shrinking almost to nothingness as a dangerous feeling of emptiness swept through her body. "He has purple...prickles...all over...his back..."

The snake pulled up sharply, the abrupt movement shattering the hypnotic connection between them. "Where are you meeting him?"

Allie nearly staggered as she was released from the insidious spell, suddenly realising how close she had come to being lulled into a deadly trance. "Here, by this lake!" she snapped, pinching herself hard on the arm to ensure she remained alert. "And his favourite food is...scrambled snake!"

The snake was disappearing almost before the words left her mouth. "Sssssscrambled ssssssnake," it hissed. "It's time I hid. Goodbye, little mouse!", and away it slid.

Thoroughly shaken by her close brush with death, Allie began to run as fast as she could, no longer caring whether she was going in the right direction, just wanting to get as far away from the snake's log-pile house as she could.

"Silly old snake," she said breathlessly. "Doesn't he know...there's no such thing as a Gruffa..."

As she spoke, she rounded a corner, and saw it. It was standing in the middle of the trail, in a small clearing, its back facing her. Even without seeing the front of the creature, somehow she knew it had terrible claws, and terrible teeth in its terrible jaws. Knobbly knees and turned-out toes and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose. Eyes that were orange, a tongue that was black...and purple prickles all over his back. And that's when she remembered what she should have known all along, the horrifying thing she had done her best to block out. That in the story, there was such a thing as a Gruffalo, and it had haunted her dreams as a child for years, long after her mother had left and there was no-one to protect her from the nightmares.

With a cry of abject fear, she scrabbled to a halt and began backing away. Slowly, very slowly, the thing began to turn around, the purple prickles rippling obscenely up and down its back. Terror rocketed through her, rising up to suffocate her, reaching out to stop her heart. In all her nightmares as a child, she had never seen the thing's face. More than anything else, she knew she didn't want to see it now, but she couldn't look away.

"Doctor!" she screamed. "DOCTOR, PLEASE! HELP ME!"

But the Doctor didn't come and the creature kept turning. Summoning all her willpower, Allie whirled around and ran back the way she had come. Panting for breath, she raced along the path, past the snake's log-pile house, past the lake, over the stream. And behind her followed the heavy, terrifying footfalls of the Gruffalo, shaking the very earth as it came after her, hunting her down like a frightened mouse. She was running as hard as she could, she could feel her feet moving beneath her, but she seemed to be getting nowhere, as if she was running through wet sand. All around her, the trees seemed to be melting into an insubstantial mist, while doom crashed and thundered behind her.

"It's just a dream," she sobbed to herself, over and over as she ran. "Just a dream, it can't hurt me. You can't die in a dream."

Without warning, she burst out into another clearing. The first thing she saw was an old ruined windmill, its broken, ragged vanes silhouetted dramatically against a turbulent sky. Black clouds churned overhead, boiling like smoke, and the sun was nowhere to be seen. In the foreground was a long table, covered in a white cloth and scattered with an assortment of tea-cups, plates and tea-pots, not one of them whole. At the end of the table sat a battered and dishevelled figure in a tall top-hat, with bright red frizzy hair, and enormous green eyes.

Despite her fear of the pursuing Gruffalo, Allie stared at the man incredulously. His hat was brown, covered in lace and trimmed with a large dusky pink ribbon, decorated with feathers and hat pins, together with a large label which read "10/6". He wore a pink, high collared shirt and a black scarf tied into a bow tie, dotted with pink and yellow blobs. His frock coat was brown, and he had white lace cuffs and brown checked fingerless gloves.

To his right sat a shabby-looking grey hare, sipping delicately from a tea cup with no bottom. To his left was a small, white mouse in a bright red tunic, with a needle-like sword on her hip.

Allie had no doubt that she was looking at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. "Oh, you have got to be joking!" she exclaimed.

The Hatter rose to his feet and inspected her minutely. "Alice?" he queried. "You're here at last! We've been waiting so long for you!"

"I'm not Alice. I'm Allie!" she said crossly.

"Alice...Allie...it's the same thing, isn't it?" he replied.

"'Course it is!" the Dormouse chimed in.

"Definitely," the March Hare agreed. "She is Alice. Alice, she is. Sit down and have a cup of tea, Alice."

"I'm not Alice!" she shouted back, stamping her foot angrily. "I should know who I am – this is my dream, after all! My name is Allison Castiel and I'm looking for my friend, the Doctor. Have you seen him?"

The Mad Hatter opened his eyes very wide. "Doctor who?"

"He isn't Doctor anything. He's just...the Doctor."

"Just the Doctor?" the Hatter mused, suddenly climbing up on to the table and walking towards her, tea-cups and plates scattering under his feet and smashing to the ground. The March Hare leaned calmly back out of his way, as if this sort of thing happened all the time, while the Dormouse took refuge behind a large tea urn. "Just the Doctor? My dear girl, he's supposed to be your friend, and you don't even know who he is. How can you expect us to?"

"I know enough to be sure that I trust him," she retorted, trying to keep her voice steady and even and free of the slightest doubt.

The Hatter leant close to her, his huge eyes lambent and curious. "Do you? Do you, really? He told you killed his own people because he didn't approve of their actions. A man that ruthless might do anything...anything at all. Why should he care about what happens to you?"

"Shut up!" Allie jammed her hands up over her ears, like a stubborn child determined not to hear what she is being told, determined not to allow them to make her doubt the Doctor. "I'm not listening! I'm not listening!"

The March Hare snickered loudly and the Dormouse did a little dance on her chair. "She's not listening!" they sing-songed together.

The Hatter shook his head sadly. "If your Doctor is so trustworthy, Alice, then tell me this...why is a raven like a writing desk?"

"My name isn't Alice!" she said, taking her hands down from her ears. "And...I have no idea."

"Neither do I," the Hatter grinned happily, grabbing a handful of crockery from the table and beginning to juggle it. "Puzzling, isn't it?"

Allie blinked in confusion. "But...that has nothing to do with the Doctor."

He abruptly stopped what he was doing and gave her a piercing look. "No," he admitted, his voice oddly solemn. "And neither...should...you."

In the distance, Allie suddenly heard heavy footfalls crashing nearer and nearer. "I haven't got time for this!" she cried. "I'm being chased by a Gruffalo! You lot obviously know a lot more about the Doctor than you're telling me. So I'll ask you one last time...which way do I need to go to find him?"

Immediately, the three of them pointed, each in a completely different direction.

"Yeah, thanks so much for your help!" she said sarcastically. "Enjoy your tea party!"

With that, she set off again, choosing the direction the Mad Hatter had indicated, for no particular reason, guessing that in this insane dream it probably didn't matter anyway.

"I wouldn't go that way!" the Hatter shouted after her. "The Wicked Witch of the West is down there!"

But Allie had experienced more than enough of his mad ramblings and ignored him completely. "Oh, shove it in your ear!" she muttered irritably under her breath.

"Silly little Alice!" she heard the Dormouse say in a patronising tone. "Doesn't she know?"

There was a smashing sound, as if they had all tossed their tea-cups up in the air and allowed them to fall to the ground.

"There's no such thing as a Gruffalo!" they all chorused gleefully.

Resolutely, Allie began to run through the obscuring mist, leaving the insanity of the Mad Hatter's tea-party far behind her. Despair began to churn in the pit of her stomach. She was starting to tire already, and she knew it wouldn't be long before her terrifying pursuer caught up with her. And then what would happen? She kept telling herself that she couldn't possibly die in a dream. But she'd never had a dream like this before. What if she could? What if the Gruffalo captured her and killed her before she found the Doctor? What would happen to her in the real world?

All at once, the mist began to turn an eerie, phosphorescent green, and cackling laughter filled the air. A dark shadow loomed up, tall and angular, blocking Allie's path.

"Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of spears!" a dry old voice crackled. "Thought you were pretty foxy, didn't you?"

As the mist cleared, Allie saw that the newcomer was an old woman, dressed in voluminous black robes, with a high, pointed hat on her head and a carved broomstick in her hand. Her face was covered in ugly warts and her skin was a bilious green colour. It seemed that, for once, the Hatter had actually been making sense. Just as he had warned, this was clearly meant to be the Wicked Witch of the West.

But as Allie stared at the old woman, something else was pulling at her memory. Something about the witch's face...something about her voice...

"Mrs...Neeson?"

"Hello, my pretty," the witch sneered. To Allie's dismay, she saw that the old woman's head was lolling forward, as if she couldn't hold it upright. As if her neck was broken. "I suppose you thought you'd gotten rid of me?"

Allie recoiled in horror and guilt at the macabre sight. "No...no, it wasn't like that!"

"Then what was it like? You did this to me. You sold me the statue. You killed me!""

"Please!" Allie begged. "You have to understand! It was an accident! I didn't know what Charlie was, I swear, I didn't know! I didn't mean to kill anyone!"

The old woman raised her gnarled hands, white lightning spitting from her fingers. "Well, my little pretty, I can cause accidents too."

Closing her eyes, Allie waited for the end, too weary to be scared. There was no point in running. The only thing back the other way was the Gruffalo, and if she had to choose, she thought she would rather Mrs Neeson killed her. At least then, maybe, their score would be even.

But at that moment, there was a peculiar whistling noise and an enormous thump. Cracking open her eyelids, Allie saw a small, picturesque cottage had crash-landed out of nowhere in the middle of the path. In keeping with the rest of Allie's dream, it was like something out of a fairytale, with warm stone walls, high gables, leaded glass windows and a thatched roof. It even had yellow roses growing around the doorway. The Wicked Witch of the West was nowhere to be seen. From what Allie could tell, it seemed the pretty little cottage had landed right on top of the horrible old woman. She found herself feeling oddly grateful that there were no legs sticking out under the house anywhere – she wasn't sure she could have handled that.

Warily, she approached the open door of the cottage. Inside, she could hear someone singing merrily.

If this is Snow White singing to a bunch of birdies, I'm going to vomit, she thought wryly. When I get out of here, I really need to see a psychiatrist.

But it wasn't Snow White, it was much worse than that. Stepping inside, Allie found herself inside an immaculate kitchen, complete with gleaming white bench-tops and sparkling appliances. A woman was bending over the oven, singing to herself as she pulled out a tray of crisp, brown biscuits. Hearing Allie arrive, she spun around, a welcoming smile on her face.

"Darling! Welcome home!"

Allie did a double-take. "Mum?"

Back in the real world, Allie very rarely saw her mother. Yvette Castiel was a bit of a New Age hippie, with flowing dark hair and bright-coloured loose clothing, far too deeply involved in a variety of environmental causes to bother with her daughter, not to mention her never-ending array of boyfriends. This woman, however, looked like the epitome of a 1950s house-wife. She was dressed in a neat, pale-blue twin-set, matched with a tweed skirt, and her hair was perfectly coiffured and rolled. The unsettling picture was completed by a ruffled apron and a strand of pearls around her throat.

"Right, now this is getting too weird!" Allie exclaimed. "The Gruffalo, I can handle. The Mad Hatter, the Wicked Witch of the West, bring it on. But my mum in an apron? That's going too far!"

"Don't be silly, darling," her mother said fondly, moving towards her. "What else would I wear when I'm baking?"

"That would probably be a fair question," Allie retorted, dodging around the table in the middle of the room, making sure she kept a safe distance between them. "Except that you never bake. You don't even know how to turn the oven on!"

Yvette Castiel gave a little trill of laughter. "Oh nonsense, Allie. I always bake at this time of the day, so that you have something nice to eat when you come home from school."

"I'm not in school any more, Mum. I haven't been for a long, long time."

"Oh, go on," her mother smiled, her eyes strangely blank as she proffered the tray. "I made jammie dodgers. They're your favourite. Have one!"

Allie looked at the little round, double biscuits and her stomach turned over with nausea. Hundreds of disgusting white maggots were crawling out of the blood-red heart-shaped centres, scattering across the tray. Yvette Castiel kept smiling at her serenely, as if nothing was wrong at all.

Reaching for the door-knob behind her, Allie pulled it open, desperate to escape. "No, thanks, I think I'll pass!"

Her mother carried the tray over to the sink. "All right, have it your way. Tell your father dinner will be in half an hour."

Dad? Allie thought incredulously. Dad's in the same house at the same time as Mum. Like that was ever going to happen!

She stumbled into the next room and slammed the door shut. It was a small, comfortable living room. An open fire burnt brightly in the hearth and an old black-and-white television was on in the corner. A middle-aged man with thinning hair sat in an armchair, wearing an old baggy grey cardigan, the evening papers spread out on his knee. He was smoking a pipe.

"Dad," Allie said huskily, staring at him in astonishment. Her elegant, fashion-conscious father would never be caught dead wearing a cardigan. And he had never smoked a pipe in his life.

"Hello, Allie-girl," he replied genially. "I'm glad you're here. You're just in time."

"Just in time for what?"

He indicated the television set with the stem of his pipe. "To watch 'Doctor Who' with me, of course."

Allie's eyes flew to the screen. She couldn't remember ever watching television with her father, not since she was eight years old. "'Doctor Who'?" She had never even heard of the show before.

"Mmmmm. Such an amazing programme. It's been going for nearly fifty years, you know. How many other shows can say that?"

The image on the screen depicted a tall, lanky man in a dark-coloured shirt and pin-striped trousers standing alone in the middle of a huge empty room. He had spiky brown hair and was wearing white Converse trainers on his feet.

Allie's heart leapt in sudden hope as she recognised him. "Doctor!" she breathed.

"He's lost his companion again," her father observed sagely. "Poor sod, they're always running off on him. I wonder where she's got to."

Disregarding him entirely, Allie threw herself down in front of the television set and began hammering on the glass screen. "Doctor! DOCTOR! It's Allie. I'm here. I'M HERE!"

The black and white picture jumped and fizzed, a series of white, jagged lines skittering across the screen. Allie saw the Doctor turn and peer into the darkness, a frown wrinkling his brow, as if he was trying to work out where her voice was coming from.

"DOCTOR!" He was walking towards her now, coming closer all the time. She hammered again on the screen, determined to make him hear her. "DOCTOR!"

A heavy hand landed on her shoulder, oddly cold and hard like stone. "Steady on, Allie-girl!" her father's voice said soothingly in her ear. "It's not going to work, you know. The Doctor's not real. He's only a story."

She shoved him hard, taking him by surprise and sending him sprawling backwards on to the worn carpet. "You're not real!" she snarled. "None of this is real! And don't call me Allie-girl! I always hated it when you called me Allie-girl!"

Whirling back to the television, she saw that the Doctor's face was close enough to fill the screen. She was staring right into his brown eyes. Static fizzed again, and suddenly, as if the station had just tuned in, she could hear his voice, "Allie! Allie, can you hear me? Allie!"

From outside in the kitchen, there came the sharp, intrusive sound of shattering glass. Allie was aware of Yvette Castiel screaming hysterically, over and over again, until the sound cut off abruptly into a choked gurgle. Heavy, ponderous footsteps approached inexorably. Allie was so panic-stricken she couldn't breathe. Feeling the ground shuddering beneath her, she glanced frantically over her shoulder at the kitchen door, her heart pounding in terror.

"Doctor!" she screamed. "It's the Gruffalo! The Gruffalo's coming for me!"

Slowly, her father sat up, a wide, fixed grin on his face. "Silly little Allie!" he said coldly. "Doesn't she know? There's no such thing as a Gruffalo!"

"Allie, listen to me, you have to look away from that door!" the Doctor's voice instructed urgently from the television set. "Look away from the door and look at me!"

But Allie couldn't. All she could hear were the terrible footfalls and the sound of her father giggling madly, as if it was the best joke in the world. Something hit the door with tremendous force, smashing it into matchsticks. A tall, imposing figure surged forward powerfully, bringing most of the wall crashing down all around it. Allie stared up at it, utterly transfixed, ice filling her veins as she saw her dreaded pursuer's face at last. Silly little Allie, doesn't she know? There's no such thing as a Gruffalo. They had all been right, and she had been wrong. The thing she was most terrified of wasn't a Gruffalo at all and never had been.

It had been Charlie all along.

"Hello, Allison Castiel," the terracotta golem said, his eyes blazing, the three-letter word 'MET' shining across his forehead like a fiery beacon. "I have come back from the dead for you. You can run and you can hide, but you will never escape me, as long as you live. I will always come for you."

Solemnly, he began to pace towards her, his arms both outstretched to seize her, and Allie began to scream. She was trapped. There was nowhere left to run.

"Allie! ALLIE!" the Doctor shouted. "Take my hand!"

Somehow, despite her crippling paralysis, she managed to turn her head away from the advancing golem to look at the television set. The black and white image was shimmering, as if it was made of water. As she watched, an arm in a royal blue sleeve emerged from the luminous surface. Dizzily, she realised the Doctor was extending his hand to her, right through the television screen.

"Don't do it!" her father shrieked from somewhere behind her. "Don't touch him!"

And all the time, Charlie's footsteps were coming closer and closer, shaking the room like an earthquake.

"Allie, if you ever trusted me, take my hand NOW!" the Doctor demanded. "PLEASE!"

Sobbing with fear and exertion, she gathered together every scrap of her will. Forcing her hand to move, she reached out and grabbed his. I trust you, Travelling Man. His fingers closed firmly over hers, she heard the sound of rushing wind and Charlie's voice howling, and then everything went black.