Both Cassie's and Kendra's eyes flew open at the sound. A slight rattle of the doorknob and the creek of the door swinging on its hinges. They froze, not even daring to breathe, listening. Cassie's heart began pounding so loud in her head, she was sure she wouldn't be able to hear anything else. But then...there! A muffled footstep pressing against the living room carpet.
"Who is it?" Kendra whispered so quietly that though Cassie was less than a foot away, she still could barely hear.
Cassie shook her head, the rustle of the pillow seeming impossibly loud. "I don't know," she whispered back.
"It couldn't be Mom or Dad," Kendra replied after seeming to entertain the idea for a moment. "They were both in bed when we got here. And nobody else has a key."
"Could Zach have found out?" Cassie asked, her eyes wide.
"I told you, I never have any guys over here. He doesn't know where I live."
"What about the other girls there?" Cassie persisted, grabbing Kendra's hand beneath the covers. "Did they know? Would they have told him?"
"I don't know," Kendra replied after a second. "I doubt it. They know my parents don't let boys visit me here."
Another thought occured to Cassie.
"What about your security system?"
"What about it?" Kendra asked, confused.
"Shouldn't it have gone off by now? You reset it, right?"
A frown crossed Kendra's face. "Yeah, I did."
Slowly, carefully, Cassie folded back the covers and turned onto her knees, every squeak of the mattress causing her to freeze in place, cringing. She peeked her head over the bottom of the window and folded back the blinds with one finger.
"There's no car in the driveway," she told Kendra after a moment's search.
"A robber should have a getaway car," Kendra added. "We should call the police."
"With what? I don't have a cell phone," Cassie replied. Her eyes narrowed. "Don't you?"
"Yeah," Kendra answered, looking away slightly.
Cassie frowned, leaning in close. "Where is it?"
Kendra winced helplessly. "Downstairs? Maybe?"
"What? You don't have it up here?" Cassie hissed angrily. "What kind of girl doesn't have a cell phone within arm's reach at all times?"
Kendra reached out, clapping a hand against Cassie's mouth and shushing her with a finger against her lips. Cassie blushed, realizing how loud her whispering tirade must have been. She nodded to show that she understood. Kendra nodded back and took her hand away.
"So what do we-?" Kendra started to ask, but Cassie held up a hand, turning to face the door, listening.
"Do you hear that?" she asked quietly.
Kendra leaned toward the door, cupping a hand against her ear. "Sounds like...beeping."
Cassie nodded. She could hear a high-pitched beeping, constant as a metronome. She could just barely hear it now, and as she listened it faded away. She could hear footsteps moving slowly across the living room. A few moments later, the footsteps came closer, bringing the beeping sound with them.
Cassie's heart leaped into her throat as she heard the clear thud of a footstep against the bare wood of the staircase, slowly ascending. Cassie whirled toward Kendra.
"Can we lock the door?"
Kendra quickly shook her head, her lower lip trembling. "No lock."
Seeing her friend's terror, Cassie reached out and pulled her close, resting Kendra's head beneath her chin. She looked around frantically, looking for something, anything they could use. No baseball bat or anything that heavy. There was no way she and Kendra could move the dresser against the door in time. It was a fifteen foot drop from the window to the driveway, which was possible, but likely in bare feet to break an ankle, and would be too noisy to go unnoticed. Which only left...
"Under the bed!" Cassie ordered. Kendra nodded and they rolled off the mattress on opposite sides, moving to crouch down when Cassie stopped. "Wait. Make the bed first."
Kendra's eyes widened in questioning.
"If the bed's been slept in, he'll know someone's been here, now help me!" Cassie explained rapidly.
Kendra nodded. They each bundled one corner of the sheet and comforter and flung it back into place. Cassie straightened out the pillows and Kendra tucked her hands over the blanket down beneath them to tuck them in. By then, the footsteps had reached the top of the stairs and had turned down the hallway. Kendra's was the first door and they had only seconds.
"Get down," Cassie whispered. Quickly, but careful to avoid thudding against the ground, she and Kendra lay down and shuffled beneath the mattress. The black bed skirt helped conceal them from view, and they huddled together at the center, arms around each other's shoulders. Cassie could see that Kendra was almost in tears. Rather than spare words to make her feel better, she moved her hand over Kendra's mouth and hushed quietly into her ear. Cassie took a deep breath, trying to will her pounding heart to stop beating.
The bedroom door eased open. Through the bottom of the bed skirt, Cassie could only see a pair of polished black boots. The intruder hadn't turned on any lights, and the ambient glow from outside the window was too dim to make out any features. Several pinpricks of light, red and blue, cascaded across the carpet in front of him. Cassie could hear the beeping noise clearly now. It had to be coming from something in his hand, along with those lights.
Trying not to blink, Cassie's eyes track the black boots as they moved from the doorway up to the foot of the bed, barely a foot in front of her face. He paused, turning in place to look around the room. He moved up the bedside. Cassie didn't dare turn her head to look back at him, but she could hear him leaning over, feeling at the pillows. He tossed back the bedspread all the way, draping the front edge across the back of the bed directly in front of Cassie, obstructing her view. He paused again, making a deep "Hmm" sound. Cassie then heard several loud metallic pings from above, as if he were hitting the device in his hand, but the lights and beeping remained unchanged. Finally, he stepped back, facing the window for a moment before turning back. He circled the perimeter of the room, step by step. The lights on the floor shifted rapidly as he seemed to move the device back and forth in his hand. He stopped by the door, and Cassie heard a slight click. The cascading lights and beeping both ceased. Cassie heard the door being eased closed and then silence.
She held her breath for several seconds, straining to hear anything. But there was silence. Slowly, she eased the air out of her lungs and peeled her hand away from Kendra's mouth. "I think he's-" she whispered, when suddenly the bedspread and skirt in front of her were flung away and she found herself staring into a man's grinning face not six inches away.
"Oh, hello there!" the man said.
Cassie and Kendra screamed.
* * *
Cassie and Kendra screamed.
The man screamed, startled at the sudden noise.
The girls, startled at the man's surprise, screamed again.
The man screamed yet again, shocked at the girls' redoubled shrieking.
He moved backwards, moving quickly to his feet. Cassie, sure that she was about to be dragged helpless out from under the bed, shuffled to one side and pulled herself upright. She wasn't quite sure what to do, but was sure that doing anything was better than doing nothing. The man's silhouette backed up to the door and flipped on the lightswitch, causing Cassie to squint painfully at the sudden brightness.
The man stood by the door, not coming any closer. Cassie stepped backward, blinking rapidly as the figure before her came into view.
"Dr. Bowman?" she asked in astonishment. There, standing in front of her, was Dr. Bowman, dressed in those same old-fashioned clothes she had seen him in earlier and looking like he had every right to be in a young girls' bedroom in the middle of the night. A sheepish grin was the only sign of wrongdoing, as if he'd been caught sneaking an extra cookie from the jar. By then, Kendra had crawled out from under the bed and slowly came to her feet, staring at Dr. Bowman in disbelief.
Pounding footsteps came thundering down the hall and the bedroom door burst open. Mr. Madison, Kendra's father, shot into the room and immediately caught sight of Dr. Bowman just a few feet away.
"Who the hell are you?!" he shouted, stepping forward with clenched fists.
"Ah, you must be Mr. Madison, am I right?" Dr. Bowman asked. Rather than back away, he stuck a hand out as if offering a handshake. "It's a very good pleasure to meet you. You must be very proud."
Mr. Madison brushed his hand aside and instead grabbed him by the lapels of his velvet jacket, backing him up and shoving him against the wall.
"You better start making sense before I beat some into you and give what's left to the police!" he growled.
"Oh. Well," Dr. Bowman said quietly, somewhat deflated. "If you'll allow me...?" he asked, gesturing toward his jacket. When Mr. Madison gave no answer, he slowly reached inside his jacket and withdrew a small black billfold. He flipped it open, revealing a small white piece of paper.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Dr. Bowman, Department of Education, Child Development Division."
Cassie couldn't quite see what was on the paper, but Mr. Madison's eyes seemed to linger on it for a long while, though his grip didn't slacken in the least. She figured it must have been his identification. Cassie saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned, seeing Mrs. Madison standing in the doorway, holding a phone in her hand with fingers poised over the emergency button. Neither she; nor Kendra, who turned to face Cassie with open-mouthed astonishment; nor for that matter Cassie herself, quite knew what to make of what was happening. They had planned on looking for Dr. Bowman anyway, but never imagined finding him quite this way.
"James?" Mrs. Madison asked hesitantly. "Should I call the police?"
Long moments passed as James looked back and forth between Dr. Bowman's identification and his face, which was now the picture of polite innocence.
"Not just yet, Kim," he finally answered before turning back to Dr. Bowman. "All right, Doctor. Why exactly are you making house calls in the middle of the night?"
Dr. Bowman smiled just a bit at that. "I'm very glad you should ask. As it happens I was Miss Kendra's substitute teacher earlier today and had the opportunity to speak with her and her friend about a scholarship opportunity. I turned in their profiles to the Truman Advanced Regional Development Institute for the Sciences and they both scored exceptionally well. It was such splendid news that I had to come over and share the news myself," he explained.
James shook him just a bit. "At one in the morning?"
Dr. Bowman gave him a sheepish grin. "I'm afraid I don't sleep much. And when good news comes in for my students, I get carried away sometimes." He slowly put his hands on James' wrists and gently pushed them away. "I am terribly sorry for making a scene like this."
Mr. Madison let his grip be released, but still looked suspicious.
"It's okay, daddy," Kendra said suddenly. "I asked Dr. Bowman to let us know what the results were. I just thought he's call instead of coming over in person."
Kendra's father looked back and forth between her and Dr. Bowman before finally stepping away. "Okay, so you gave us your good news. Now what?"
"I just need to go over a few details with them in private. Make sure the paperwork's in order and all that."
"Fine," Mr. Madison answered, sounding as if it were anything but. "We'll be right outside if you need us, girls." Both Kendra and Cassie nodded emphatically. Mr. Madison walked out the door, but turned to look again at Dr. Bowman.
"Oh, and doctor?"
"Yes?" Dr. Bowman answered.
"Never step foot in my house again," he replied, nearly slamming the door closed.
"Well," Dr. Bowman said, breathing deeply. "I'm fairly certain I deserved most of that."
"What are you doing here?" Cassie asked, the fear from earlier bleeding into suspicion.
"I came to check up on you, of course. I'm glad to see you both well. I found you with this," he continued, holding up a palm-sized gadget. "Phereomone tracer."
"Phereomones? What're you talking about?" Cassie asked, sweeping away a lock of hair. "How did you know what was going to happen earlier?"
"I'll be happy to explain, but there's one thing I need to take care of," he answered, reaching into a pocket and withdrawing a thick metal cyllinder. "Could I borrow you arm for just a moment?
Tentatively, Cassie raised her arm towards him. "What for?"
"Pregnancy test," he replied, pressing the cyllinder against the inside of her wrist. "Don't worry, this won't hurt a bit."
"Wait, what- ow!" Cassie yelped as a hiss of air shot out from the cyllinder. She stepped back, rubbing her wrist painfully. "What'd you do that for?"
"Just needed a small blood sample," he replied distractedly. He held the cyllinder in front of him, tuning a number of dials below a thin display attached to the base. "Should just be another . . . ah! You're not pregnant. Congraduations!"
"Why . . . what . . . ?" Cassie asked brokenly, her head spinning. There were so many questions running through her, she didn't know where to start.
"Why would she be pregnant?" Kendra asked, moving across the room to stand next to Cassie. "Nothing like that happened."
"I had to be sure," Dr. Bowman replied, pocketing the cylinder.
"Does this have anything to do with what happened with Ryan tonight?" Kendra pressed.
Dr. Bowman frowned. "Ryan, who's Ryan?"
"A boy from school," Cassie answered in a quiet voice. "I talked to him this morning and he asked me out. And the whole day, it just felt like . . . like I was in love, I guess. Kendra and I went to his house for a party and he tried to-"
Dr. Bowman put a hand on her shoulder. "You don't need to say any more." He gestured for her and Kendra to sit down on the bed. "Let me try and explain."
Once they sat down and were looking back at him expectantly, he took a deep breath and began.
* * *
"That boy you met. Ryan, his name was?" Cassie nodded. "When he talked to you earlier, he was close enough to you to douse you with a powerful pheromone his body generates. Those pheromones reacted within your body to create feelings of intense..." Dr. Bowman waved a hand, fumbling for the proper word.
"Horniness?" Kendra suggested.
"Well, I was about to say arousal or lust, but that term will suffice," Dr. Bowman answered, oblivious to Cassie's red-faced discomfort. "Anyway, that, combined with a fair amount of psychic compulsion, would have been enough to get you to do almost anything he wanted."
"I'm sorry," Cassie interjected, tentatively holding up a hand as if expecting to be called on in class. "But pheromones? Psychic powers? What are you talking about?"
"I'm sure you must have noticed something different about him," Dr. Bowman replied. "Something unusual or out of place that you'd never seen on another person."
"Yeah," Cassie said, thinking back. "He had this black...kind of tumor thing on his head, with veins running out. And his...you know," she trailed off, gesturing vaguely below her waist. "It looked the same way."
Dr. Bowman nodded. "Yes. All of these are signs that he's been taken over by a form of parasite I've been tracking down for some time."
"A parasite? What kind of parasite?" Cassie asked in a small voice.
"It's called a Tenkrul. A creature which can survive for up to several centuries in a dormant state, but once revived has only a few days to complete its mating cycle before dying. It has no sex organs of its own, so it merges with a humanoid male. It takes over his mind and body, rewriting his genetic material with its own to be passed on through intercourse to a compatible female. The female then almost certainly becomes pregnant with the Tenkrul's offspring. Within a matter of days the poor woman gives birth to dozens of Tenkrul larvae and dies. The larvae scatter, enter a dormant cocoon state, and survive to begin the process all over again."
Kendra laughed in disbelief, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Dr. Bowman, but...alien parasites? You can't really expect us to believe this, do you?"
Dr. Bowman shrugged. "It doesn't matter whether you believe me or not about where the threat came from as long as you believe there is a threat. It could be a new kind of mosquito that got into the thirty-second flavor of ice cream that's causing it, and it would still be just as dangerous. And I have to stop it before it causes any more suffering."
"How do you know all this?" Cassie asked. "Who are you?"
Dr. Bowman smiled. "I'm very glad you asked. It gives me the chance to kill two birds with one stone."
He knelt down on one knee in front of the two girls and slowly raised both hands to their faces, brushing their cheeks lightly with his fingertips.
"I'll do better than tell you," he said, closing his eyes in concentration. "I'll show you."
Before Cassie could open her mouth to reply, the bedroom, Dr. Bowman, Kendra, everything had vanished, replaced with an inky blackness. She screamed in sudden fright, but there was no sound. No movement in the void.
"I go into the dark places where no one else can follow."
Just as suddenly, tiny pinpricks of light began to burst into being, surrounding her with a dim pale glow. Faster and faster they formed, coalescing into the tapestry of galaxies twirling in the dark. They rushed past her, so near and so large she felt she could almost reach out and touch the stars in her bare hands. She laughed at the sight, and could hear it, and could see her hand brushing through the ether of space, brushing through the minature galaxy as if it were a shimmering fog.
One individual star caught her attention. It glowed brigher than the others, and as she watched, it seemed to grow and expand in her sight until it seemed she could see every detail. It's light dimmed and it seemed to retract for a moment before it exploded violently in a brilliant burst of light. She flinched, shielding her eyes against the sudden glare, but within the heart of the exploding star the harsh brightness dimmed and she could see colors she'd never imagined.
"I bring the fires of stars into the night."
Just as suddenly as it appeared, the brilliant starburst vanished and she found herself floating in midair above a massive city. All around her, the buildings seemed to stretch on forever, so tall that as she looked down she could not see the bottom. Black clouds gathered above her but the buildings remained lit with a stunning neon glow. All around her, ships and vehicles of all sides flew, passing within inches of one another yet never colliding as they trailed stardust in their wake.
It began to rain, a silver downpour that seemed to reflect everything it touched. The air around her was filled with a hundred reflected colors and as she watched, a brilliant red bolt of lightning struck a distant spire, lighting the sky for one instant with perfect clarity.
"I make people better then they were before."
A crashing ocean wave came from behind her and she turned toward it. As she did so, the glittering city vanished. She looked and saw an ocean. From side to side she turned and saw a beach stretching to the horizons. She felt her bare feet sink into the moist sand as the cool tide rushed in to pool around her ankles. A soft breeze kissed her skin as she looked around, eyes growing ever wider. The sand was a deep purple and glimmered like a precious gem in the fading ruby light of the setting sun. The ocean was a brilliant jade so vivid it seemed beyond real, as if it were painted by a master artist for just that effect.
Cassie could feel tears welling up in her eyes at the sight of it all. She laughed, threw her hands out, and fell on her back into the soft sand. The ground seemed heated from beneath her, and her hands and toes curled into it as she relished the sensation. The tide rushed in again, soaking her legs and chest and caressing her chin, and she could only laugh again at the refreshing feeling it left behind.
She looked up and saw a few wisps of cloud high above her. Just then, a shadow passed over her and her eyes widened even more as she saw a bird, followed quickly by a half dozen others, passed above her. They were larger than anything she's ever seen, with shimmering golden feathers and massive wings tipped in silver. Even at this distance, every detail about them seemed perfectly clear. Despite their size, they glided and circled above her with impossible grace. As she looked on, one of them dived toward the ocean. It's claws skimmed the water before it leaped back toward the sky, prey in hand and screeching in triumph.
"I am the Doctor."
It was all so beautiful and so overwhelming that she found herself clenching her eyes shut, just for a moment so she could catch her breath. She heard herself sniffling with tears as she slowly opened her eyes. The ocean, the beach were both gone. Dr. Bowman- no, the Doctor, was smiling warmly at her, his hand still resting against her cheek. She rested her face against it, cherishing the inner warmth it contained. As she did so, his thumb came up and brushed away the tears from her face.
"That's who I am," he said simply.
* * *
Author's Note: "If you could touch the alien sand and hear the cries of strange birds, and watch them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?" - The First Doctor