From a room at the very top of the building, the Doctor and his friends were being watched. Observed. Studied. Camera-like equipment threaded throughout the house was feeding images of the time travellers back to a round-edged screen on the top floor. A series of dark eyes stared, unblinking at the footage, admiring their latest catch – the last of the Time Lords. And his TARDIS.
On the ground floor, the Doctor was pacing around the entrance hall, his attention fixed on the sonic screwdriver.
"None of this makes sense. Power readings are in a state of constant binary-level simultaneous flux!"
"In English, Doctor…?" Rory requested.
"The power is both incredibly high and at absolutely nothing at the same time! It's impossible!"
"How can the power be high and not there at the same time?"
"Well, that's the thing Rory, it can't! It's a scientific impossibility; none of this makes sense! Which is good – hate it when things make sense!"
Smiling, he hurriedly plunged the sonic back into his inside pocket and started looking around the building, examining all the details. Looking at every doorway, every design on every wall, every piece of furniture, every single feature within the dark, cavernous hallway.
"Doctor…" Amy said, nervously.
"What is it, Pond?" he asked, distracted by a vase of dead roses. "Dead… like the grass. Why is it all dead?" he muttered to himself.
"Doctor! What's with the creepy butler statues?"
The Doctor looked up, his eyes wide open, looking in the same direction as Amy.
On either side of the door stood a wax model of a butler. The same wax models that had terrified James Walton a few days ago. The distorted features reminded Amy of the creepy clown masks that could be found at Halloween. The eyes were large, bulging orbs; inhuman smiles stretched halfway up their faces and the noses were pointed and bent upwards. Their skin was pale, their hair thin, grey and wiry and there were slightly too many wrinkles set deep into the wax skin.
"Ooh, scary statues. Always something slightly worrying about scary statues in a house that makes no sense on a hilltop full of dead grass." the Doctor babbled, as he walked slowly closer to the wax models, his back hunched over and his eyes never blinking, constantly taking in every detail of the butlers.
His light footsteps issued loud creaks on the ancient wooden floorboards. The dark air that surrounded them made it evermore difficult to see the distorted features of the wax models, both standing perfectly still, a threatening picture frame to the image of the dark doorway.
Then, with a terrible screeching noise, echoing throughout the darkened hall, the deformed heads of the statues slowly began to turn, tilting and focussing on the Doctor, Amy and Rory. Amy clasped her hands to her mouth, concealing a silent scream. Rory nervously began to edge back from the wax creatures. Suddenly jolting into life, their arms shot out, grabbing at the air, hungry for victims. The Doctor remained very still, watching every movement that the butlers made. With a terrible cracking sound, their backs began to arch over, giving the butlers a hunched, brutish posture. Then their legs, moving without grace or elegance, began to lurch forward, slowly at first, but gathering speed. They stepped away from the door, their inhuman smiles fixed on the Doctor and his companions.
"Ah. Right. This might not be good." the Doctor said quietly; worry starting to bite at his tone. He stood up straight, giving himself a welcoming posture. "Hello, fellers! Don't suppose either of you could put some tea on? Or any Jammy Dodgers, per chance?" he asked them, in a friendly voice. Their threatening, maddened expressions remained unchanged, their heads simply tilting to the side with another horrific screeching noise, like iron fingernails scraping against a hardened blackboard.
The Doctor started backing away, motioning to Amy and Rory to do the same.
"Er, okay, I suggest a different tactic." he said nervously. "Run!"
The trio all turned on their heels, running to the other end of the hall, where the sweeping staircase was located, dusted with cobwebs. No sooner had their feet touched the first few steps than two more wax butlers had appeared at the top of the stairs, their bulging eyes glaring down upon the time travellers.
"Okay, maybe not!" said the Doctor, jumping back off the stairs and into the hall.
Doors lined the walls of the spacious room – at least one of them had to be a suitable escape route. Avoiding the original pair of butlers, which were now moving with animal like speed and brutality, the Doctor approached the nearest pair of double doors. His hands gripped the handles tightly, feeling something on the other side, pushing back. The doors flung open. From the darkened room that lay beyond them, four more of the deformed butlers tore into the hall.
"Doctor! What are these things?" Amy called out, as she was forced to roll across the floor to avoid one of them.
"Animated models. Possibly robotic, possibly psychic control. Either way, whatever's controlling them hasn't exactly taken a shine to us!" the Doctor shouted back, still running, ducking and dodging the sweeps of the butlers' arms.
"Well how do we get away from them?" Rory shouted, both angry and fearful.
"Keep trying the doors!" the Doctor replied, before jumping over a table, to avoid a butler that had leapt like a wild beast at him. It turned its head back to face him, its features still frozen in that grotesque smile, visible wisps of breath flowing from its mouth.
Rory punched another one of the room's doors open, finding a long dark corridor on the other side.
"Doctor! Through here!"
The Doctor smiled, pushing his way past another pair of the animated wax figures, running towards where Rory was standing.
"Amy! This way!" he called out as he leapt towards the narrow doorway.
With a loud scream, Amy forced herself to run past the butlers, heading towards the Doctor and Rory. Finding her way across the room, Amy was so close to the door, so close to her husband and to the Doctor, when…
Leaping out of nowhere, a wax butler landed squarely in front of her. She stopped, shocked, scared. Its distorted smile started to twist, reversing itself into an elongated frown, the extended edges of the thing's thin lifeless lips started to stretch down either side of its face, the eyebrows furrowing in anger, causing even more deeply set wrinkles to form on its forehead. Its joints made that awful screeching as it leaned towards Amy, more of the wax creatures now starting to gather around it, surrounding her.
"Amy!" Rory shouted, starting to run towards her, propelling himself forward.
"Stay where you are!" Amy shouted back. She could get out of this. She didn't need Rory endangering himself too. Slowly, she started to back away from the gathering butlers. They all stalked her slowly, creeping closer and closer. Amy's breathing was getting harder and harder, her fear and her panic building up more and more. There were so many of the wax things, but she had to find enough courage to get away. Taking a deep breath, she spun around and ran, as fast as her long legs could move. The butlers instantly leapt into life, running after her, some moving on all fours, all of them deadly silent apart from the bloodcurdling screeches that issued out from within them.
Amy carefully but quickly manoeuvred her way around the room. The butlers may have been powerful, but she had agility on her side. Running towards the Doctor and Rory meant having to run straight past the wax army. She pushed herself away from the wall, making herself keep running, having to swerve and swing her way around the tips of solid hands as the butlers lashed out. She could see the Doctor clearly now, but was so aware of the monsters behind her. Pushing herself more and more, she threw herself against the wall next to the doorway the Doctor and Rory were stood at.
"Blimey, can we not do that again?" she asked, exhausted.
The Doctor smiled at her and looked back up. The butler's loss of a victim seemed to have left them slightly confused. They were huddled on the far side of the room, slowly turning to face the Doctor, Amy and Rory again.
"Okay, no time to waste! Come along Ponds!" the Doctor blurted at them hurriedly.
"I am not Mr. Pond!" Rory insisted.
"Just get through the door!" the Doctor shouted back, not taking much notice of what he had said.
Sighing in irritation, though the fear still present in his mind, Rory jumped through the doorway into the corridor, landing with a heavy thud. As soon as he had done so, the doorway was illuminated with a bright blue crackling of light.
"Doctor, what's it doing?" Amy asked, concerned, her eyes on the wall of light separating her from Rory.
"Ah, well, it's sort of a forcefield. Stopping us from getting in. Stopping Rory from getting out." the Doctor replied slowly, becoming worried again.
"Why would it do that?" Amy asked.
"I don't know." the Doctor admitted, a little reluctantly.
Just then, the entire corridor began to move, sliding to the left, out of sight of the doorway, taking Rory with it.
"Doctor!" he shouted, running back to the sealed off entrance.
"Rory!" the Doctor and Amy shouted in unison.
As soon as the corridor was out of sight, another one had taken its place.
"Oh, I see…" the Doctor said with a smile. "You next, Pond!"
He shoved Amy through the open door, into the new passageway.
"Doctor?"
Before she had time to say anymore, that corridor had slid out of view as well. The Doctor turned his attention back to the butlers. They were staying still. Just watching, allowing this to happen.
"Why aren't you attacking me?" the Doctor inquired quietly.
Another corridor slammed into place behind him. Moving like lightning, the Doctor threw himself through the doorway, landing safely in the corridor. He looked back up, just as the corridor started to shift again, the open doorway being replaced by a solid stone wall.
"Trapped." the Doctor whispered. "Someone's making a big mistake."