All in all, the time of the aliens didn't mess with me too much. I guess. That stuff with Oddbob was sure nasty, but aside from that...well, the only other thing that really effected me personally (and indeed, everyone) was the Dalek invasion of 2009. I never came face to face (or rather, eyes to eye) with a Dalek, but I well remember cowering in fear at home, as they patrolled the streets just outside the flat...

But it were funny times. Paranoid, confused times. As the years wore on, and the aliens kept coming, it became harder to tell what was a genuine threat and what wasn't. And even when the danger was there, it became difficult to say for certain whether it was alien doing...remember, there's evil aplenty right here on Earth. Over those dark, dangerous years (I repeat, circa 2005 to circa 2010, with some exceptions) there were easily as many false alarms as there were genuine alien threats. Or were there? Of those false alarms, perhaps some were genuine after all... do you see the point I'm trying to make? It became hard to know who to trust. Too easy to panic, too easy to label any random weird goings on as alien work, even though it wasn't, and likewise to label alien work as random weird goings on...

Which brings me to the Spoonhead incident.

2013, Lynsey Perron at eighteen

So it began, as a lot of my life stories do, with a bar, an angry bartender, and a state of drunken stupidity. That summer's night, I'd hit the town by myself. My mate Lauren Howle was meant to come, but bailed at the last moment. Something to do with her boyfriend. I remember getting a little angry when she texted me to let me know it was off. Remember, I was on the verge of full-on alcoholism at this stage in my life and I'd spent that whole day pining for a drink. All day, my mind had been screaming for evening to arrive, my eyes darting to the nearest clock repeatedly. I wanted a drink. I needed a drink.

And then my drinking buddy cancelled.

Most people would just shrug it off, download a movie, and have a stay-in night. But I couldn't. Well, I could. But I wouldn't be enjoying the movie. I'd spend the evening with a slight headache, craving a drink. So, powerless to resist, I went out by myself. Not a full-on night out, like we'd planned; pre-drinks at mine, taxi to the city centre, followed by more drinks in a pub, and finally onto a nightclub for a spot of dancing, a few snorts and an escort back onto the street from a furious bouncer, followed by a "lauhmb doshner", as I often called it by that stage (a lamb doner kebab, to anyone else). The kebab house worker (a perpetually unfriendly man with absolutely no experience or qualifications in catering or cooking, nor any regard for food hygiene) would glare at me, snatch the money and slam a mashed-up pile of stale naan bread, "meat" (flavored strips of salt and fat) and some rancid soggy vegetables, all drowned in some chilli sauce, opened two months after it's best before date and kept out in the heat for the entire day.

Let me go off on a tangent here, and tell you a story about that kebab shop; last year, it was closed down by the council, and the owner fined five thousand pounds. The reason - a fly had landed on the doner meat. If you've never been to a kebab shop (I wouldn't recommend it), you might not know that a kebab starts it's life as a large, pink-brown cylinder of unidentifiable matter. Fair enough, it's probably got a little meat in it. But it's also got a lot of cheap seasoning, additives, grease, oil, and flavorings. You cook it by standing it upright on a spit, where it is rotated automatically by mechanics. You can see it sweating as it cooks, it's mucus and bodily fluids dripping down it's big tube of a body, settling at the bottom of the spit. It's served in strips, which are sliced off by the kebab shop worker with a large knife. As the evening wears on, therefore, this cylinder of unknown but delicious substances gets thinner and thinner, as more and more of it is sliced off. It's meant to be thrown away at the end of the day, and a new one put up the next day. However, I believed then and I believe now that this particular kebab shop (with it's zero star hygiene rating) used the same one for days on end. I've had the food poisoning to prove it. Four times.

So where was I? Oh yeah, the fly. It landed on the doner kebab whilst it was sitting stationary in it's spit (the spit is only turned on when someone orders a kebab). Now, what would you do? Suppose for a sec that you were a kebab shop worker. You see a fly on your produce. Worse still, customers are watching. Do you -

a) turn the spit on? The fly will fly away soon enough, once the kebab heats up. Or if it doesn't, then it's extra flavour for the next idiot who orders.

or

b) splat the fly? You can (or indeed not, if you don't care about making people ill) then cut away the part of the meat that the fly's debris is now squashed onto.

or

c) simply shoo the fly away? You can (or indeed not, if you don't care about making people ill) then cut away the part of the meat that the fly was sitting on.

or

d) take out a bottle of fly-killer, and spray it directly onto the kebab, the same kebab which you know you will shortly be serving people, risking a bio-hazard incident?

I'd hope most people would answer "C" to that, and that they would indeed cut away the part of the monster that the fly had been sat on. But in this particular case, after careful consideration, Mr. Kebab Shop Man decided that the most sensible course of action would be to proceed with option "D", spraying a toxic chemical directly onto the foodstuff which he then proceeded to serve to the poor sods who came to him for dinner.

Did he make anyone ill? I don't know. Maybe. But not seriously ill, I wouldn't think; if he had, surely he'd have gone on trial for grievous bodily harm. But that didn't happen. And he might have gotten away with it. Remember, a customer did see him do it. But then it's just the customer's word against his, right? Yes - except the customer in question (a quick-thinking, pretty young lady who used to like her drink a bit too much) just so happened to have her phone out at the time. And when she saw what he was about to do, she had the sense to record it. The result - busted!

This is all by-the-by, however. Because had my friend Lauren not cancelled, that's the night I would have that. It's not the night I ended up having. Oh, I still went out. I couldn't wait another day for some drinks. But it's never as much fun on your own. I ended up at my local pub. Here, I asked for, and was given, a huge selection of drinks - four double-vodka and cokes, a beer, some white wine and a cocktail known as the mudslide. The mudslide was made with vodka Bailey's, some exotic-toxic liqueur which I didn't know, and then milk, chocolate sauce, cream and marshmallows...

Tastes good; like a choccy milkshake, with a hint of the hard stuff. But booze and milk is a ghastly mix. It tasted good going down, but once down it met the rest of the alcohol. And they had a fight. The result; my stomach was evacuated. Over the floor of the pub.

The barmaid wasn't (quelle suprise) very impressed about that. She invited me to leave at once. But unlike some people, I don't become very cheerful when I'm drunk. Instead, the opposite. I get contrary. And rude. Unpredictable, even. I decided on that particular night that actually, I'd rather stay a little longer. Have another drink, maybe...

A half-hour later, having been removed by force from the pub, I found myself alone on the streets...and that's where it happened. All I did was try and get on the internet, to book a taxi. Just that. But something else came for me. Something very bad.

It nearly got me.

I was walking through the street, quite on my own. This was about ten-thirty. It was a crossroads, in terms of a Saturday night. Too early for the pubbers to be out, who left between eleven and twelve, and too late for the clubbers, who would now be in the city centre, rather than hanging around a dingy little corner of London like this. So yes; I was quite alone on that street. Though it was indeed summer, the temperature wasn't particularly high that night. Perhaps eleven Celsius, perhaps twelve. Considering I was dressed light (miniskirt, heels, blue crop-top), I was pretty uncomfortable. I remember shivering as I staggered along, wondering where exactly to take myself next. I could go into the city. I could. Whilst sober, I wasn't brave enough to consider clubbing alone. Now bladdered, it seemed like an entirely reasonable idea. So yeah. Could do that. Hop on a bus, drink the night away, wake up feeling horrible. Or if not, I could go for a takeaway; there were no kebab shops nearby, but there was a little Chinese takeaway not so far away. I could phone ahead, have the food ready when I arrived. Could do. Might do.

Or I could simply find another pub, and start drinking again. Whilst tempting, I found myself thinking of an old saying me and my friends made a point of living by; go big, or go home. In other words, do the whole "big night" thing properly, or not at all. Although I'd have liked another drink, there was something very uncool about spending a night sitting alone in a pub, getting wrecked. Going into the city centre alone would be "going big." But truthfully, I couldn't be bothered. I didn't feel so hot. I figured that maybe, just maybe, I'd avoid a hangover tomorrow if I stopped drinking now. So really, that left one option. If I wasn't going big, then I was going home.

So that was that. What remained, and this was all that remained, was how exactly to get back. So I'd walked from the flat myself. But even smashed, I wasn't stupid enough to attempt that walk now, when it was dark. Far too dangerous, some of the places I'd need to walk through. I'd for almost certain run into some kind of trouble. And no buses ran to my home. So I needed a taxi. Huh. Easier said than done at this hour. There were none on the taxi rank. That had been just outside the pub, and it had been empty. I could call the local company, but I knew what the answer would be. No availability. However, there was an app; it would allow me to book there and then, and although here might be somewhat of a wait, I knew it would eventually turn up. So I took the iPhone from my pocket, and...

groaned. No internet.

Cursing, I looked around. I was in the middle of nowhere. Just a dark, empty town full of charity shops and closed cafe's. The road was deserted, and only a few street lights lit my way. Grimacing, I brought up the WiFi page on the phone, and studied the options. Yes, some of the premises flanking me had internet. In theory I could just hijack one of them. But I figured they'd all have passwords. You might be surprised that the proud owner of an iPhone would have these issues; what about 4G? 3G at worst? How can there be no internet?

My iPhone was (probably) counterfeit. I didn't know for sure. I'd picked it up suspiciously cheap at the local trash market. Generally, it worked acceptably. But sometimes (this time) it would play up, and refuse to co-operate. It really picked it's moments, what? Here I was, alone and sauced, no help from anyone else...and it wouldn't connect.

I was about to throw it, when I noticed something rather odd. There was a list of potential connections, right? All with five green bars indicating their strength. All had generic, computer generated gobbledegook names. Hub3WRYFET-2 etc etc. Save one; at the bottom, in large text, one was composed entirely of random figures. Dashes, chunky lines, dashes and stuff. I'd never seen it before. But it had a strong connection, standing at five bars.

And I needed to book a taxi. So I clicked on it. And it worked magnificently. Fast, lag-free connection, that enabled me to book a taxi in minutes, selecting a trusted local company, arranging a pickup at the mini-roundabout which was just five minutes up the street.

I walked there without incident. I met nobody, saw nobody. I stood alone in the unseasonably cold, the chilly wind biting at me, checking my watch every few seconds. I had a twenty-minute wait, which wasn't half as bad as I thought. It occurred to me suddenly how very thirsty I was, how very dehydrated I'd become. Alcohol, far from quenching thirst, serves only to worsen it. I shuddered to think what my headache would be like tomorrow, if I didn't have at least a pint of water between now and bedtime. In the distance, I heard sirens. Quelle suprise. Saturday night, busy city. Say no more. I thought that actually, those sirens belonged to a fire engine, which was rather more worrying than when it was police or an ambulance. Was there a serious incident somewhere nearby? I hoped not. I was just looking up the local news on the phone, when I heard a toot-toot. I smiled, and glanced at my watch. It was early! First bit of good luck the whole evening, unless you count puking on the floor as opposed to your shoes as good luck. A pair of bright headlights were approaching me from the road to the left. I squinted. It was a small car. Very small. Darn. It was a two-seater. Surely not my taxi, then? But as it rolled up, with a fresh thrill of relief, I saw the logo and name of the taxi firm scrawled on the side. But it didn't look like a taxi. It was a small green sport's car, with an open top! The driver was on the left like in other countries. But then I looked at the driver; he was wearing an Hawaiian shirt of three colours; blue, red and yellow. On his head, an old fashioned chauffeur's cap, which was tilted to the side. He wore a pair of tinted sunglasses, despite the dark, and his left arm hung out over the window, a lit cigar between his fingers, while his other hand rested gently on the wheel. He turned to me and grinned with brown rotten teeth, his face smeared with red and white makeup. It was Oddbob.

As I stared at him in sheer disbelief, a scream about to explode from my mouth, he changed quite suddenly. Even as I watched, the car melted away, and Oddbob was all that remained.

"You," I said weakly, staggering back.

"You." Oddbob repeated right back at me, advancing on me.

"How can it be you?" I whimpered, holding my arms out in front of me, ready to leather him with as many punches as I could throw. Not that, I knew, it would do any good.

"How can it be you?" Oddbob replied flatly. His voice wasn't like I remember. Not jolly, with a raspy American accent. This voice was mechanical and lifeless. I was reminded of Professor Brandywine from Monsters University, the sequel to my second favourite childhood movie, which had been released just that year. I'd secretly downloaded it online. I'd liked it, but it didn't beat the original for me. Or maybe I'd just grown up. Probably just that.

Now, Oddbob was standing up straight. He looked straight ahead, somewhere above my head. As I watched in horror, his head began to turn with a whirring noise. It turned, over his shoulder and, sickeningly, behind him. The back of his head was a hollow metal plate in the shape of a spoon. There was a weird buzzing noise coming from it. I screamed at this point, louder than I think I'd ever screamed before...

And then I was woken up, by a very frantic, skinny man of Asian heritage. "Madam?" He said. "Madam, are you all right?"

I sat up straight. I'd been lying on the pavement. There was no sign of the clown, nor the taxi in which he'd arrived. Instead, a dark-blue ford fiesta was parked on the kerb. My taxi. This guy was the driver.

"I...guess so," I said uncertainly, getting to my feet despite his protests. "Nah, I'm fine...I think I just...just had a moment...I've 'ad a lot tonight, you know."

"I can smell it on you," the driver chuckled dryly, a hint of disapproval in his voice. "Come on - let's get you home, huh? Unless you think you need medical help?"

"I don't think so," I smiled, shaking my head, ignoring the lurches of nausea my stomach was giving. "But if I say pull over, be ready to act fast, all right mate?"

The taxi driver sighed deeply, but was smiling nonetheless. He steered me into the taxi (allowing me to sit in the left side passenger seat), and took me home. I never saw Oddbob again.

So that's my story of the Spoonhead. And you see what I mean, I hope, when I describe the uncertainty that resulted from those years when the aliens just kept coming? What happened that night? Did I meet Oddbob again? Did he come back for me, the one who got away four years previously? And if so, why didn't he take me? Or was it...something else, something which plucked Oddbob from my memory? Or actually, did I pass out and dream the whole thing?

For years, I assumed it was the third of those possibilities. But then I met the Doctor. And these days, I'm more confident that it truly did happen. I don't think it was Oddbob, but it was something. To this day, I don't know why it spared me. Did the taxi driver come just in time? Was I too drunk and useless to be of any use? Or indeed, was it a drunk girl's folly?

Who can say?

I just hope I never see that clown again, nor the Spoonhead which came dressed as him. Travel with the Doctor, however, means that danger is never far away.

Everyone knows that.

The Doctor's Diary, Entry 1966

Bingo!

I've found it! Planet Yaed! Seems to like it there. Maybe it's from a cold climate in it's natural form, I don't know. But what I do know is this; we'll be on time this time. Oh yes. And don't worry about my old leg. There's medicine on the Tardis which can cure basically anything. I'll be fit as a fiddle by the time we land.

Probably.

To be honest, I'm glad it was me who got injured, rather than my new friend. She knew it was dangerous when she agreed to come. I said it would be, I made no secret of it. But I still feel that I owe her a duty of care. What child wouldn't eat a mountain of sweets if allowed? And what bored shop-worker wouldn't come for adventures in time and space if allowed? Her willingness to come, her understanding of the dangers...that doesn't excuse me from my responsibilities.

Because to be honest, if she were to die, I don't know what that would make of me...can the big bad Time Lord stand to lose yet another friend, and still retain his good hearts?

That's not something I'd bet good money on. I'm writing this diary coz it helps me vent. It helps me release the monster inside, bit my bit as opposed to all at once, a horror which the universe might not withstand a second time.

So let's make sure she lives. Probably best.

END OF CHAPTER

Authors' Note: I do hope everyone is still enjoying this. I'm not entirely convinced that the "Second Adventure" was as good as it could have been, so I'm hoping to turn it around with this chapter and the next ones. As ever, any and all reviews are welcome, complimentary or otherwise :)