Author's Note: Hi there! Yep, I know, long time no typey-type! I am still alive, but I've been busy with my other stories.

Thanks to all the people who have reviewed so far (and have probably died from old age waiting for the next chapter): KlinicallyInsaneKoschei, Blues-harp Babysplit, Fallen Darkness, 3LW00D, Omniac, xxCoffee-and-Creamxx, Jiwa and Doyle0915.

Thanks also to the heaps of people who have alerted this - I apologise for the long delay. Please don't give up on me, I will try and be better about updating from now on.

CHAPTER TWO

Andy ran as fast as he could, looking back desperately every now and then to make sure Amy was following. In a matter of minutes, they came to a nearby narrow lane, framed on both sides by rows of dilapidated, soot-stained, red-brick terraced cottages, huddled closely together like shabby tramps trying to keep warm, their tiny front gardens overrun with weeds and refuse. Each cottage door bore a bright yellow sign nailed haphazardly to its peeling surface: MARKED FOR DEMOLITION.

The little boy led the way to the end terrace, closest to the wasteland they had just come from.

"In 'ere, Miss!" he gasped. "This is where Tom went!"

Amy looked at the derelict building with distaste, turning the collar of her jacket up against the rain, which was beginning to fall heavily by now. The old cottages were built in the classic two-up, two-down style common to Northern English towns, built during the late nineteenth century to house factory workers drawn to the cities during the Industrial Revolution. These particular terraces looked like they had not been inhabited for a very long time.

"In there?" she said, reluctantly eyeing the dark, gaping windows. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, Miss!" Andy replied frantically. "He went round the back! Please, Miss, please help him!"

With a sigh, Amy stepped inside the ancient gate and began to pick her way gingerly up the path to the front door. She had no intention of going around the back if she could possibly avoid it. The front of the place looked quite bad enough, thank you very much. Reaching the faded blue door, she reached out and turned the handle, not really expecting it to be unlocked. To her surprise, it swung open under her hand with a long, drawn-out creak, an eerie sound which sent a cold shiver up her spine.

Behind her, the first stripe of lightning split the earth from the sky, the stark white glare illuminating the tiny hallway inside the cottage, disclosing several interior doorways and some narrow stairs leading up to the upper regions of the house. At the same moment, a massive clap of thunder made Amy jump nearly out of her skin. Swallowing hard, she glanced back at Andy, who was still hovering near the gate.

"Well, at least it looks a bit drier in there!" she said, trying to inject some reassuring cheerfulness into her voice. "Are you coming?"

The little boy shook his head, unmindful of the rain streaming from his dark hair, his eyes huge and terrified in his pale face.

"Looks like it's just me then," Amy muttered ruefully, taking a step forward into the darkened hallway.

Then she looked back one more time. "Andy, what year is it?"

The child stared at her as if she had gone mad. "1974, Miss."

"Of course it is. How silly of me!" Amy responded wryly, silently cursing the runaway TARDIS. Not only was she in the wrong place, she was in completely the wrong time. "1974 Manchester. As good a place as any, I guess."

With that, she walked into the cottage. Immediately, she was enveloped in a foetid, stomach-turning stench. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she identified the mingled aromas of rampant mildew, stale urine and ancient boiled cabbage. Reaching into her pocket, she drew out a small torch. She had learnt the hard way to be prepared for unexpectedly entering dark places. Travelling with the Doctor, it was an occupational hazard. Flicking the thin beam of light around, she saw filthy, mildewed walls, liberally festooned with rotting wallpaper and thick curtains of grey cobweb. Here and there, scrawled words and obscenities glared out at her. Amy couldn't help smiling as she read "FRODO LIVES", emblazoned in large, red letters on the wall just inside the front door. Obviously, pointless graffiti had been just as much a problem in the 1970s as it was in her own time.

Her smile did not last for long. Somehow, the whole house had an odd feel to it, a dark sense of apprehension, as if something was lurking in the shadows, watching her. And yet, whenever she turned around and shone the light behind her, there was nothing there, just lifeless piles of dust endlessly sifting along the floor in the draft from the open door.

Come on, Amy, she told herself sternly. Pull yourself together. Of course you're nervous! You're in a derelict house in the middle of a thunderstorm!

As if on cue, another deafening crack of thunder roared directly above her and more lightening streaked across the sky. Amy shivered, the cold damp strands of her hair clinging to the back of her neck like a clammy hand. The creeping sensation nagged at the edges of her mind. It was almost familiar, as though she had felt it before.

Forcing herself to move, she walked through one of the doors into what she assumed had once been a sitting room. It was virtually empty now, furnished only by an old red velvet sofa with half the stuffing pulled out. A tiny movement caught her eye. Flashing the torch in an abrupt arc, she heard a faint squeaking sound and realised that a family of mice had made a nest in the decaying fabric and were squirming around in the stuffing.

Giving the obscenely heaving couch a wide berth, she edged into the kitchen. Here, everything was still. There was no sign of life. Ancient cupboard doors hung forlornly open, their shelves empty of contents. A single tap dripped slowly, the drops of water falling like tears into the rusted sink, the monotonous sound echoing in the silence and getting on Amy's nerves. Tattered curtains blew in the breeze admitted by the jaggedly-broken window panes. It was getting very dark outside now. The flashes of lightning were almost constant. Amy could see the minuscule backyard of the cottage through the shattered window, lighting up in harsh relief every time the bright light blazed across the heavens. The waist high weeds and the overgrown bushes waved and danced in the rising wind, but Amy could see nothing else out there.

The only other door leading from the hallway was under the stairs. Amy cracked it open and shone her torch inside. The thin beam of light seemed to be swallowed by the oppressive darkness. From the moist, dank smell rising to her nostrils, Amy guessed that this door led down to a cellar. Quickly, she pulled the door closed again with a sharp bang. Dark cellars in creepy houses were definitely not her thing. She would try upstairs first – hopefully she would find Andy's brother safe and sound up there. Then there would be no need to go down into the cellar at all. And if Tom wasn't upstairs...well, she would worry about that if it happened.

She turned towards the stairs, rubbing irritably at her left eye. This place was so rancid and dusty – she couldn't wait to get out of here. It felt a bit like she had a large piece of sandpaper embedded under her eyelid.

Cautiously, she ascended the stairs, each tread creaking under her weight, the banisters wobbling ominously. She found Tom in the first room she came to, an empty, disused bedroom. He was sprawled on his back on the floor in an inelegant tangle of limbs. With a sharp exclamation, Amy rushed over to him and dropped to her knees by his side. She was no doctor – in fact, she had very little first aid training at all, since it wasn't exactly required for her job as a kissogram. But she didn't need a medical degree to tell that Tom was dead. His eyes gazed unseeingly up at the ceiling, his face stretched in a horrifying rictus of terror. His head was twisted at an extremely unnatural angle to the rest of his body, as though a giant hand had tried to wrench it from his neck.

"Oh my God!" Amy whispered, staring at the dead boy's agonised expression, nausea rising in her stomach.

For a moment, she was paralysed with horror. What should she do? How was she going to tell the terrified child waiting downstairs that his brother was dead? She was a stranger here, she didn't belong in 1974 – she couldn't get involved. How on Earth would she explain to the authorities what she was doing here?

Oh god, where was the Doctor when she needed him?

And then she heard it - the steady, dreadful creaking of the stairs. Sudden terror coiled in her guts, her breath catching painfully in her throat. Someone...no, not someone, something...was ascending, something with slow, heavy footsteps. Again she felt it, the crushing, oppressive sense of evil; the feeling that something unnatural was nearby, ruthless and inexorable and unstoppable. Cold sweat broke out on her forehead. Without a doubt, she knew that the thing coming up those stairs was not human. Whatever it was, it had brutally murdered Andy's brother without mercy or compunction.

And now it was coming for her.