This is the last chapter. Thank you for reading. If you have the time, I would welcome some thoughts on which scenario you thought worked the best out of these, and which Doctor was written the best. I would like to develop one of these stories into something more substantial so any feedback would be much appreciated. Even if you prefer one particular setting, but with another of the Doctors.
Once again, thank you for your time.
Chapter 11 – Memories
I was sitting comfortably in the armchair when I nodded off. Something was playing on TV but it had not held my interest. I was dreaming pretty soon, and already I had come across the door. It was floating in the blue sky above me and I couldn't possibly reach it. It felt a bit of a conundrum and I was puzzling on how I would fly up there when a strange noise woke me from my slumber.
A grinding whining noise was coming from outside in the garden. From where I was sitting I could see straight out into the garden through the patio doors, and curious I got up from my seat to have a look.
I didn't get as far as poking my head outside, when a young man bounded in all fingers and thumbs and quite twitchy.
"Ahh, there you are," he said. "You called me….I'm the Doctor."
I stared at his college professor look, the bow tie and tweed jacket and decided that I was still asleep. I must be dreaming about meeting the Doctor in my own house. That was rather cool.
"So are you okay? Is everything all right?" he started flitting round my lounge, peering behind the television, round the back of the sofa. I wondered if he might be high on something.
"I'm fine," I say, watching him with interest.
"You've been calling me," he says. "Over a period of time. I'm sorry this is the first chance I've had to come to you."
"I haven't been calling you," I answer, confused. He's now standing in front of me, bobbing down to look in my eyes.
"You're subconscious has. Now why would it do that? Why would it be so insistent on requesting I come here?"
I shrug at him, faintly amused and mildly surprised.
"Anything happened recently? Any aliens landed? Any strange phenomena? Anything at all?"
"No," I answer, "not recently."
"What about last month, six months ago, last year?" He's walking around again now and I follow him out into the kitchen.
"Well there was the awful barn dance massacre, that'll be a few months back now. No survivors and the police never found the murderer."
He spun on his heel immediately. "Tell me about it."
"There's nothing to tell. The caretaker went in there the following morning to clear up and found everyone, the whole group dead. Slaughtered. It was quite horrid by all accounts, they never released any photos." My voice has reduced to a whisper.
"And where were you when this went on?"
"Here," I say. "Watching TV."
"Hmm," he's back bobbing about in front of me. "I want to take you back. Let me take you back to that day."
"Okaaaay." I answer warily, following back into the lounge again. I am not sure I want to transport back in time to this event, especially with the Doctor who in every dream so far, has not managed to help me.
I wait, expecting my surroundings to instantly change, as a dream would. Only they don't. He has placed his hands on either side of my head and he's trying to connect with my mind. It tickles and I squirm a little, if a mind can squirm that is, before I let him in.
And then he is rapidly sorting through my memories. That awful tea with Uncle Bert, the nightclub with Lizzie and the time I'd forgotten my purse in Tesco's with a trolley full of shopping. And then he is there, he's found it buried, something I'd completely forgotten. The barn dance. I was dressed up in jeans and a shirt, I'd even borrowed a Stetson for my head and I was excited because Tom would be there, and I'd fancied Tom for ages. He'd flicked through to the moment when the creature had appeared at the door, and I watched in my mind, the scenes of carnage as it flew at the guests, tearing them apart and feeding on their flesh.
I didn't want to see anymore, and I tried to pull the Doctor's hands away, but he wouldn't let me go. I thought I was going to be sick, and my breath was coming in ragged bursts.
"Stay with me Alice," he said. "I'm sorry, but just stay with me."
My tears trickled over his fingers as the scene continued and finally I realised that I was the only one left, the only one still alive with this monster. It had the face of a wolf, snarling and dribbling saliva on the floor, its body was course and had no hair, just tough brown skin. But its feet were like talons, with sharp claws, ready to rip its prey to shreds. I stood watching as it approached me, teeth bared and waiting for it to attack. And then it burst into golden light, and disappeared into a bright golden ball. I watched as it floated in front of me and then in one swoop it had flown at me and forced its way down my throat.
I was jolted away from that scene abruptly, but the Doctor still had his hands to my face, and slowly he released the most distressing of those memories back to the far part of my mind, where I could forget them again.
Once he took his hands away, I opened my eyes and stared at him. Little bits, I could still remember the shirt and the Stetson, the swooping golden ball. I knew I'd witnessed something extremely distressing but already I couldn't remember the worst of what that was.
"Sit down, Alice," he said leading me to the sofa. He sat down next to me.
"You were at the barn dance," he told me. "But you were the only survivor. Everyone else was attacked and destroyed. It needed you for reproduction. It's the only way they can, using someone else's body. It will lay a tiny seed in your body," he indicated with his fingers how small, "like a maggot. Then it will disintegrate, just shatter and disintegrate inside you." He stops as I'm quite incredulous by his story, and he waits until I close my mouth again. He takes hold of my hands and continues. "As the seed grows, it will press on your lungs and suffocate you. That's if the poison doesn't kill you first," he adds as an afterthought. "And when it's ready to be born," he hesitates. "Well it will make its own way out."
He waits now for my response and I feel quite angry.
"Okay, I want to wake up. I am sorry but I've had enough, and I don't want to do this anymore!" My voice rises as I reach the end of the sentence and by this time I am screaming at him.
"This is not a dream, Alice, this is real!"
"No. No. No. No. I will wake up soon and you'll be gone."
He is running his sonic screwdriver over me. Checking the settings, the results? I don't know, and then he runs it over me again.
"Good good. That's great, I'm in time. Okay I'm going to pop out to my Tardis," he indicates out to my garden, "and then I'll be right back."
"Fine. Fine."
When he's gone, I check the clock, the television, the calendar. Everything is the same as it should be, the time is only half an hour after I fell asleep, the same TV programme is on, the calendar has the same notes on it. I pinch myself. "Ouch."
The Doctor rushes back in with a little square box. "Medicine box," he explains. "It's you or Alfie, and although I don't agree with taking a life, Alfie didn't ask your permission."
"Who's Alfie?" I ask, exasperated now.
"The alien," he says, rummaging through the box now, not looking at me. "I just gave him a name."
"So am I pregnant?" I ask. "With an alien?"
"Not yet," he says. "It's preparing you. It takes months to get you ready. And you, your subconscious, oh it's been so clever."
"It has?"
"Yes, it found out the one thing it was scared of, this alien creature, the one thing that would make it run."
"What's that?"
"Me!"
I watch as he puts together three different liquids making something like a dark orange cocktail.
"It's scared of me! And your mind went in search of me. For days it pleaded for me to come to you. You are nearly ready Alice, but I'm here first and it won't take you."
He takes a syringe from the box, sucks up the liquid and then approaches me with it. "This is going to force it to leave you, but once it does it won't be able to change back and it will die."
"Ha-ha, I don't think so," I say, backing away.
"Trust me Alice, I will save you."
I wait as he grabs my hand and I expect him to inject this potion into my arm, but he suddenly switches tactics and I feel the needle hit my neck.
"Sorry," he says grimacing.
I wait for a few moments, and then a very strange sensation overcomes me and I faint into his arms.
When I come round I'm propped up awkwardly on the sofa feeling light headed and dizzy, but I also feel like my chest wants to turn inside out. I feel a stabbing pain when I breathe and turn back to look at the Doctor my eyes full of alarm.
"It's okay," he says, laying a hand on my shoulder to reassure me.
And then in one massive convulsion, I feel a ball rise up through my throat and I open my mouth to release it. It hovers round the Doctor for a moment, and then it vanishes.
"There, gone," he says. "How do you feel?"
"Incredible!"
"You do? I have that effect on people."
"No not you. That was incredible."
"Yes it was rather. You'll be a little weak for a couple of days as your body readjusts itself. But you'll be fine in no time."
"Thank you," I say, sinking back down onto the sofa.
If I'd remembered, I would have asked why it killed all those people, why it chose me as a host. But I didn't remember any of those scenes and the Doctor didn't offer any explanation.
"I'm…I'm just going to put this back in my Tardis," he indicates to the box and then to outside.
"Okay," I say, nodding my head, "and thank you." I know that he won't return.
"You're welcome," he says. Then he calls back to me from halfway down my garden. "Oh and by the way…Stetsons are cool!"