The Impossible Basement
Part Six
Her feet stumbled as she rushed up behind the Doctor, his firm grip on her hand the only thing keeping her upright. They both tore up the stairs and the Doctor slammed the basement door shut behind them.
"Are there any on me?" Jane swatted at her arms, throwing down the blankets. Her skin felt like it was crawling and she had the sinking feeling that she wasn't imagining it. "Have I got any on me!"
"Shut up!" he ordered her. "Focus on running!" They ran, heading for the upstairs, but they found it was blocked. A giant Arthropoda stood between them and the stairs. The same one from the lawn. Jane's eyes darted to the door, but it was still shut, and the window was intact. Then she saw them, like smoke tendrils leaking through the cracks in the door. Wave after wave of the tiny creatures were coming in and joining the much larger one.
"Well that's not good." The Doctor said grimly. "Aaron!" He shouted up the stairs while keeping his distance. A blond head poked up near the banisters, his eyes grew wide when he saw the beast below. "Ah, hello." The Doctor smiled reassuringly. "Now, I want you to go back into the room. I want you to shut the door, and stuff one of those blankets in the crack. Can you do that for me?" Aaron nodded quickly and disappeared back down the hallway. "Good lad."
"What are we going to do?" Jane felt her heart start to thud in her throat as the giant Arthropoda started to creep toward them on its growing limbs.
"We are going to find ourselves a bomb shelter." The Doctor still had her hand tightly in his own. His head bobbed around, searching for an exit point. Already the Arthropoda were trickling out of the basement, swarming around their feet.
"Bomb shelter?" Jane's voice grew higher. "You said it wasn't dangerous!" He pulled her back through the kitchen, away from the monster that was stalking them.
"No," he scolded her. "I said it wasn't the usual sort of bomb. Of course it's dangerous. It's a bomb, Jane. Try to keep up." She might have smacked him if he didn't have her hand trapped. "Maybe a heavy table…a closet? Oh! A tub! Have you got a bathtub on this floor?" His eyes were searching hers now.
"A tub?" Jane blinked. "Er. Yeah, the guest bedroom, down the hall-" He didn't wait for her to finish before he was pulling her forward again.
"Alright then," The Doctor darted through the living room where the Iron Giant was still playing on the TV and down the hallway where he threw her into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. He had that same loony grin on his face, he brought his wrist up and the smile melted from his face. "Out of time! Geronimo!" He shouted, throwing himself forward at her. The back of her knees hit the edge of the tub and she fell backwards, her elbows hit the bottom sharply, causing her to cry out. It cut off as the Doctor's weight crushed the air out of her lungs. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see a few of the Arthropoda chasing them into the tub, prickling at her skin. She couldn't squirm away and she was starting to panic.
"Doctor?" Her voice was strained and he looked back at her, a silly smile spreading across his face.
"Hah! You used my name," he said before the world exploded. He pulled his jacket up over their heads and ducked down as the ground heaved violently underneath them. Wind was whipping around them like a hurricane and when Jane opened her eyes for a moment, little star-bursts of light were dancing above. Her ears popped and crackled as though she were submerged in deep water.
And then quite suddenly everything went silent and very still.
"There we are." The Doctor's voice sounded strange in the quiet. "Are you alright?" He leaned back and peered down at her, worry etched across his features.
"Can't breathe…" She gasped.
"What? Have your lungs been punctured? Is it the void stuff? What's happened?" He shook his head as though refusing to acknowledge that something could have gone wrong.
"Elbow…crushing."
"Oooh. Oh!" He frowned. "Right, sorry!" He scrabbled up and out of the tub in a clumsy but mercifully quick fashion. She sucked up a deep breath as soon as he did and sat up. She was surprised to see that there was no damage at all. She couldn't see any Arthropoda, but despite all the violent shaking, nothing was amiss. The soap dispenser hadn't even fallen from the sink.
"What happened?" She frowned.
"Void bomb." The Doctor answered with a grin.
"Yes, because that explains everything."
He brushed imaginary dust off his coat. "Yes. It does. Now," he snuck up to the door, opening it slowly so that he could peek outside. "The Arthropoda should be gone now that the void crack is closed."
"Should?" Jane really did not like the sound of that. "Why should? I thought you said they would all be gone!"
The Doctor closed the door and spun to Jane, crossing his arms. "I said the bomb would close the crack, not that the Arthropoda would be gone. You insinuated that."
Jane opened her mouth to retort, but was interrupted by the worst sound a babysitter could ever hear: A baby and a child screaming as if there were a monster in their room. And, in this case, there probably was.
The Doctor spun , throwing the door open, running into the hall, Jane close behind him. "Aaron! Princess Butterfly!" the Doctor shouted, taking the stairs two at a time.
Jane noted vaguely that the path to Sophie's bedroom was free of Arthropoda. But, at the top of the stairs, she slammed into the Doctor's back. Rubbing her nose, Jane moved to stand next to him.
Her hand fell back to her side and her eyes widened in terror.
A giant Arthropoda, bigger than any she had seen before, stood at Sophie's bedroom door. There had to be millions of the tiny creatures to make one that large. The limbs pressed against either side of the hallway. Thousands more Arthropoda skirted along the floor, walls, and ceiling. The whole effect made Jane think of a Salvador Dali painting, as if the creature was melting. The creature shimmered and the "head" turned to Jane and the Doctor. It opened a giant mouth filled with large fangs.
Jane didn't even know how that was possible and she couldn't believe that she was focusing on a small detail such as that.
"No!" Jane shouted. She started to run at the creature with no plan of action in mind other than getting it away from Sophie and Aaron. The children were still screaming.
The Doctor caught Jane by the arms. "No, Jane, come with me! We need to lead them away." He tugged her so that she was walking backwards. She could not tear her eyes away from the creature.
"How do we lead it away?" she asked. Her voice shook, but she managed to get a decent sentence out.
"Simple," the Doctor said. He dropped his hands from her arms, grabbing her hand in his instead. He squeezed it. "Trust me?"
Jane swallowed her panic. "Yeah," she squeaked.
"Ok," he stepped in front of her. "Get behind me. And get ready to run."
Jane's heart beat wildly and her knees felt like gelatin. She was only partially convinced that she would be able to run. She clutched the Doctor's hand as if he were her lifeline. And, in this case, he pretty much was.
"Right," the Doctor said. With his free hand, he retrieved the sonic screwdriver from his pocket. "Let's get something straight here. You can't terrorize little children, even if they are covered in void stuff."
He was so nonchalant while speaking to a giant spider made out of millions of little tiny spiders. Jane had to clench her free fist to keep from slapping him.
"We. Are. Hungry."
Jane trapped the gasp halfway up, turning it into a hiccup. It spoke. The thing spoke. In her head.
"Yes, well, be that as it may, you can't eat children," the Doctor said. He twirled the sonic screwdriver in one hand. "You'd be hungry again in half an hour."
"How about...We eat you...Bigger humans."
Jane started to back away, which the Doctor also seemed to think was a good idea, since he followed her lead, though he did slow her steps.
"Oh, I'm not human." He pointed to Jane. Jane gaped up at the Doctor in surprise. "She's the human. Small as far as humans go. Not much better than the children. No, you don't want human. Stringy things, barely any void stuff on them at all." The Doctor puffed up his chest, tightening his grip on Jane's hand, forcing her to stop moving, even as the Arthropoda lumbered closer to them. "What you want, is something like me."
"You lie. You look...Human." The voice of the creature echoed against the walls of Jane's head, giving her a sinus headache.
His eyebrows rose and he stood up a bit straighter.. "I'm a Time Lord." His angry tone was threatening. A dangerous promise. Jane gulped, glad she was on his good side. She had no idea what a Time Lord was, but apparently the Arthropoda did.
The creature, miraculously, started to laugh, large, gasping guffaws. "We have fed on the energy of Time Lords for centuries. We have come to Earth because there are no more Time Lords."
The Doctor grinned. "I'm the Doctor. The last of the Time Lords. And as they say here on Earth... Dinner is served."
The Arthropoda roared, rearing toward Jane and the Doctor.
"Jane..." the Doctor said, backing up once more.
Jane swallowed. "Yeah?"
"Time to run!" Before he could even finish the sentence, Jane started running down the stairs.