By Kyron Mallett
Part One
It was chaos. The air raid siren was ringing out like an insane banshee. People were running in opposite directions, seeking the shelters that lay below the streets. Two of these urban refugees - a young man and woman - dashed across one of the darkened lanes towards the entrance of a railway station. Suddenly the all to familiar sound whistling its death throes rang out and the building in front of them exploded.
Recovering first, the young man (feeling the intense heat from the dying building reaching out for his face) shook his friend. It took a few moments but she recovered enough for him to pull her to her feet and drag her away towards an adjacent alley. The alley-way was slightly illuminated by the walls of flame from across the street. Ironically there was a fire escape leading down from the top of one of the buildings that formed a part of one side of the alley, to the pavement before them. Below it was a set of windows indicating the existence of a basement. One of the sizeable street level windows was missing its glass. Behind them, out across the street, fire-fighters fought to extinguish the newly created inferno before it engulfed the entire block.
All the time, the air raid siren was still ringing out.
"What about down there?" The young woman suggested.
"We don't know how far the drop is," countered her partner.
"If we stay out here, we'll die!" She cried.
The man gave her a reassuring hug to calm her nerves. He got down on one knee and peered through the empty window pane into the abyss of the basement below.
"I think I can see the floor," he told her.
He laid himself flat on the ground and very slowly eased himself through the window space. A few blocks away they could hear another bomb strike a target.
"Hurry Tom, there's no way we can get to a shelter from here!"
But Tom had already dropped down to the basement below.
"Tom?!"
"I'm okay," he called up, "if you out your legs through Lottie, I'll help you down."
The young woman obliged and within a few moments they were both huddled together on the floor of the dark basement. They could feel each others breath on their faces but they could see nothing.
"I think its full of boxes and junk," Tom told her.
There was a rattle. Something had fallen over on the opposite side of the room.
"What was that?" Lottie whispered.
Tom didn't answer. He peered through the darkness and listen for any indication of further movement. Something was moving. There was a slight padding noise across the concrete floor, which promptly stopped.
"I think there's something down here with us. Maybe a dog or something," Tom answered as he stood up.
Tom has noticed that his eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness and the outlines of some of the larger objects were starting to become clear.
"Tom!" Lottie gasped. He saw it to: two glowing, yellow eyes peering at them.
"Is it a dog?" She asked.
The creature moved a pace forward.
"I don't think so, its too large to be a dog," he admitted in his softest voice that was beginning to shake.
"Who are you?!" Lottie demanded, losing patience.
Tom placed his hand over her mouth but removed it when a low, growl rattled across the basement. Both Tom and Lottie backed up against the wall. The yellow eyes lunged at them with a speed that seemed to defy the laws of physics.
Their screams were lost beneath the whine of the air raid siren that continued to blanket the very air above them...
The Warden stopped to check his watch. He was a tall man, middle-aged and beneath his helmet one could see stray tuffs of greying black hair. This one had lasted longer than the others he thought. There was an unearthly glow about the streets of London, making the street lighting redundant – if it had still been working. A fire truck squealed past, for a moment actually blocking out the drone of the bombers overhead, Because of the noise, the Air Warden failed to hear the groan of the TARDIS engines as the time machine eased itself into existence down an adjacent blind alleyway, as he passed.
Some moments later two rather anachronistic figures emerged from the machine, which was stuck in the shape of a blue police box. The Doctor loitered for a moment while he locked the door, but Jamie walked to the end of the alleyway with his hands over his ears. Only a block away, a number of buildings were alight.
The Doctor stepped up next to him: “The chronometer isn’t working again Jamie, otherwise I would have warned you.”
“What’s that great racket in the sky Doctor?”
“This is London, far in your own future, during a great war and it is being bombed by Germany.”
“That sound, it’s like a swarm of giant bees!”
Above them, they could see the lights scouring the sky, every now and then they could see small parachutes descending to the ground from far above. To add to the calamity was the sound of large guns somewhere distant and tell tale shrapnel rained down rattling across the open streets.
“You can hear planes Jamie and anti-aircraft fire… we’ve landed in the middle of the Blitz!”
“But aren’t they just bombing innocent people?”
“Yes, you’re right Jamie but I’m afraid in that sense there were faults on both sides. I can see why I’ve been sent on a mission here… one is likely to get killed!”
As the Doctor mouthed those words, more shrapnel rained down a few metres from them. Then there was an explosion less than two blocks away and the shockwave made them both jump back into the alleyway. It was quite a few moments before Jamie felt confident enough o stick his head out again.
“Doctor! Look over there… across the street.”
“Yes I can see him Jamie.”
Across the street in another alleyway, a tall, stooped man covered in a trench coat was lumbering out of a broken window, situated at street level.
The alleyway was too dark for either the Doctor or Jamie to make him out properly.
“What do you make of that Doctor?”
“Well, looting wasn’t unheard of during the raids as most people left their homes for the shelters.”
The figure stepped out onto the street. The only light available was from the nearby fires and it was intermittent. The figure paused for a moment, although he didn’t turn his head. He was wearing a large floppy hat and his coat reached down to his feet. When he set off, he seemed to hobble slightly as if his movements were restricted in some way.
“What was he doing?”
“If I didn’t know better Jamie, I would say he was either listening or smelling the air…”
“What are we doing here Doctor?”
“I’m not sure yet… but I think we should follow him…”
The Doctor’s voice broke off abruptly and he bustled Jamie back int the alleyway.
“What?”
“Shhhhh! The Air Warden!”
The Air Warden had reversed his route, perhaps due to the bomb strike further down the street and having spotted the figure in the trench coat, was crossing the street in order to intercept him.
“While he’s distracted, lets cross the street,” the Doctor suggested and they rushed across to the other side of the street.
“What’s the uniformed fellow want?”
“Gas mask check possibly,” the Doctor explained.
They partially hid behind the corner of the alleyway and watched the Warden grab the man in the coat by the shoulder. The man in the coat brushed his head away and shuffled on. The Warden began to blow his whistle and continued to pursue the strange figure. At the sound of the whistle the man in the trench coat turned around and with blistering speed, struck his pursuer in the throat. It was obvious from the way that he fell that he was dead before he even hit the pavement. The killer then ran in an awkward way to the end of the block and rounded the corner into the darkness.
“Stay here Jamie… I want to see if there's anything I can do for the fellow.”
The young Scot nodded, looking about him as if he was wondering exactly what type of hell he had landed himself in.
The Doctor approached the body carefully. Kneeling down he shook it gently and then rolled it over. The Doctor winced a little at the sight he beheld. A pool of blood was welling around the cadaver and running into the cracks of the pavement.
“Well, well, well…”
A police officer had heard the whistle and come to investigate.
“Let me start by saying that this is not at all what it looks like,” the Doctor began as he raised his hands above his head. As he stood up, one of his hands waved Jamie back into the alleyway.
“I can assure you that is how I found him.”
Back in the alleyway Jamie had seen the police officer approach and was becoming quite anxious. Then he heard a moan. A faint one, but one distinctly coloured by pain. He moved further into the alleyway and noticed that it was coming from the basement window from which the killer had crawled.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
There was no answer. Jamie hesitated and then took a pebble from the ground and tossed it through the open window, listening to see how long it took to hit the floor. Plink. No more than an eight-foot drop he guessed. Realising that he was dropping into the unknown and risking losing the Doctor, he looked up to see the TARDIS waiting for him in shadows of the alleyway across the street. The Doctor would sort out the matter with the police and then he would have to at some point return there, and he knew he wouldn’t leave with out him. There was another moan, which decided his course of action. Someone was hurt and in desperate need of help. He started to put himself through the window feet first…
“I’ve never seen anything like it… his throat has been virtually ripped out!”
“The Doctor nodded: “I expect the killer had claws, perhaps talons at least a couple of inches long.”
“You must be mad… he’s been attacked by some rabid dog surely!”
“One thing should be clear and that is I had nothing to do with it!” The Doctor declared, standing up and parading his spotless coat and clean hands.
“I don’t know what to think Sir but since you won’t give me a proper account of yourself, I’m afraid I’ll have to take you in for questioning.”
The bobby was a very large man, tall and portly and he sported a wide, red moustache that would have been more in vogue decades earlier.
“There’s something loose in this city that can do this and you’re worried about me!”
“We’ve only your word that what you described actually happened Sir.”
“Well… where are you going to take me?” The Doctor asked rather loudly, looking behind momentarily.
“Down to the station Sir for a little interview…”
The constable placed his rather large hands around the Doctor’s shoulders and started him down the street in the direction of the station.
Jamie landed awkwardly on some boxes, which had been piled beneath the window. There was absolutely no light in the basement and he took some tenuous steps with his hand out-stretched before him.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
There was a moan. He moved in the direction of the sound. It seemed to be coming from the far wall. He tripped on something metallic on the floor and fell on his hands.
Meanwhile the moan was growing louder.
“Hang on… I can hear you. Just give me a moment.”
Jamie very gradually crossed the floor, his eyes beginning to adjust to the darkness. Finally he found a huddled figure lying against the middle of the wall.
“Are you alright?” He asked, realising that the moaning person was not but not knowing what else to say and remain reassuring. He knelt down and touched the man’s clothes, recoiling at once as felt that the garments were wet. But they were also sticky, a sensation that a Jacobite was very familiar with… they were soaked with blood.
“Dead… she’s dead…”
Jamie could now just make out that man was holding the remains of another person, a woman.
“What happened? Look I’ll go for some help… the Doctor will know what to do…”
There was a final gargle, a shudder and then silence. Jamie knew it was too late. It was at that moment that Jamie first heard the running water. It was running quite fast and slopping against the sides of some kind of piping.
Very carefully, Jamie began to crawl towards the source of the sound. It took a full minute but he finally found what he was looking for, a circular hole with the cover slightly ajar.
“Look… you don’t understand… I have a young friend…”
“It’s not your young friend I’m interested in Sir… it’s you and what we can learn about the murder that has taken place… now come along…”
There was a squeal and the constable grabbed the Doctor and thrust him down into the middle of the street.
There was a massive explosion and a sudden wall of heat passed over the both of them. The Doctor looked up to see which building had been struck. It was the one next to the alley where Jamie was hiding.
“Oh no! Jamie!” He cried, looking away as the light from the raging fire flickered across his lined face.
Jamie emerged from a plume of smoke, coughing as he made his way further into the sewer. He had come down onto some brickwork, and was walking along a ridge, which followed the sewer below, with his back to the wall. From the aroma of the sewer he had a good idea of its constituents and did not want to take the risk of falling in. A great pile of debris fell through the hole Jamie had jumped through and created another dusty plume of black smoke, which filled the area around him. In order to escape the suffocating sensation of the smoke, Jamie worked his way further into the sewer.
A little later, the Doctor had arrived at the local metropolitan police station and had been locked in a small cell with a couple of tramps. He was busy entertaining them with a rendition of Auld Lang Syne on his recorder when the same large PC approached the cell with another, rather tall man in a brown suit. The other man was quite handsome, dark haired, immaculately groomed and sporting a neat pencil moustache.
“Hello Inspector,” the Doctor commented pulling the recorder away from his lips for a moment between bars. He rounded off his performance as the PC opened the cell doors.
The Doctor sprung to his feet, replaced his recorder into his coat and dashed out of the cell: “How do you do, I’m the Doctor!”
“So I’ve heard,” countered the Inspector, “I’m Inspector Sharp. You’ve met Constable Collins…”
“Yes, but I won’t hold that against you! Well, shall we begin?”
Having escaped the copious smoke, Jamie leaned against the wall of the sewer. His hands were black, as he assumed was the rest of him. He peered into the darkness. He estimated the width of the ramp on which he was standing, and which followed the length of the sewer along, was less than a metre. The water was gushing along below and the smell had not improved.
Jamie knew he had to get back up to the surface but he realised that moving in the near darkness was dangerous. Still he sensed that help could be a long way off as it seemed the sort of place most people would avoid. It was simultaneous with that thought that he heard… a distant murmur… like voices. Feeling somewhat relieved he moved off to investigate.
The Doctor, the Inspector and PC Collins had all retired to a dingy interview room. The Doctor looked overly relaxed and while that wasn’t worrying the Inspector, Collins seemed a little annoyed about it. He was convinced that the Doctor was trouble… and probably a nutter.
“So you’re a Doctor are you?” Sharp asked sceptically.
“Well yes, but I don’t see how that’s relevant…”
“We’ll decide what’s relevant and what’s not Doctor!” Collins interjected.
Sharp waved Collins into silence but before he could continue the questioning the Doctor got straight to the point: “Well the only thing of interest to you really is body and the injuries the poor soul sustained…”
“I’ll come to that presently Doctor. I notice you refused to give Constable Collins a proper name…”
“Well Doctor is my name…”
“I’m sure you’re aware that we’re facing an invasion at the moment Doctor and we don’t have the resources available to us to organise an identity search but I can promise you that if you don’t give a proper account of yourself you will be locked up until you can be dealt with either by the servants of His Majesty or by the Germans when they get here…”
“Perhaps I should start then by describing the attack I and… my young friend witnessed…”
“You saw the attack?!” Sharp reacted excitedly, shooting Collins a dark look for not having informed him of that fact.
“Oh yes, we saw every detail…”
“Collins you can go,” Sharp ordered.
The Doctor looked surprised when Collins got up in a huff and left the room.
“This wasn’t the first attack of this kind was it?” The Doctor asked, his eyes narrowing into a penetrating stare.
“I’m asking the questions here Doctor. And yes, you are right… although we have so far managed to keep the matter quiet and out of the papers as most of the victims have been tarts and bums but now he’s murdered a decent man…”
“If it was a man…?”
“Will you talk sense Doctor!”
“I only want to help!” The Doctor exclaimed.
“Well you can start by telling me everything.”
“Well… Jamie and I had just arrived in London when we noticed an odd looking sort of fellow climbing out of a basement window…”
Jamie had definitely concluded that it was darker in the sewer than it had been in the basement.
What I really need is a match, he thought. One false step and he was sure he would go tumbling into oblivion. Consequently he was moving at an alarmingly slow rate but at least those murmurs were getting louder. Still having learnt to be cautious in a new environment thanks to his many adventures with the Doctor, he had decided that he would see who he was sharing the sewer with before giving himself away.
Then he found that either the tunnel was getting a little brighter or perhaps his eyes were once again adjusting to the dark. As he rounded a bend he could see three large figures in the distance. But as he crept closer he began to realise that they weren’t talking, they were grunting. Jamie edged a little closer to get a better look and he realised now that there was an open drain above this part of the sewer, which was filtering in the light. Suddenly the grunting stopped. One of the figures turned around sharply as if he was sniffing the air. Instinctively, Jamie started to back up. Simultaneously all three figures began to dart up the sewer towards him. One leapt across the width of the water to the other side of the brickwork in a single leap.
Jamie ran.
“Well Doctor, I must say you did a brave but potentially foolish thing running head first into danger like that… best to leave that sort of thing to the professionals in future.”
The Doctor smiled sheepishly at that before he asked: “Is there any word about…”
“PC Collins told me about your friend. I’m afraid they are still putting out that fire, the building has, well… been virtually demolished. Even if the fire was out and there was the available manpower… it’s far too dangerous to approach during the night… and to be brutally honest, well…”
“I see,” the Doctor responded, hiding his grief and decided to change the subject, “we must find out what this… creature is loose about the city.”
The Inspector closed his file, stood up and collected his coat of the back of his chair.
“Come on Doctor, there’s someone I think you’d like to meet.”
“Really?”
“Yes, he’s a scholar like yourself… a scientist – a chemist to be exact- and a retired Professor. I consult him on occasion.”
“Well that sounds fascinating…”
“Doctor I insist. You’re the only witness I have at present and I’m not going to let you out of my sight. Not with that maniac still loose out there somewhere.”
“That’s assuming there’s just one maniac,” the Doctor commented quietly as they left.
Jamie knew he risked a broken neck or drowning but he instinctively knew the alternative would be worse, as he tore down a particularly long length of sewer. The creatures were gaining on him as he could now hear them panting.
Then, disaster: one foot became caught in a metal rod of some kind and Jamie went sprawling across the brickwork, almost into the trough of the sewer itself. He pulled himself up painfully and then realised he was holding steel railings, which led upwards. His left ankle was throbbing terribly so for the present minute running was out of the question. Instead he moved up and up and up, as fast as he could. By the time he reached the roof of the sewer, the creatures were at the base of the rails. Looking down he could see them on all fours, sniffing and mouthing the rails. He slammed the roof of the manhole but it seemed as steadfast as concrete.
The creatures below were screeching, high-pitched cries which reminded Jamie of… rats. They were rats. Enormous rats! Then there was a sickening realisation… one was climbing up after him. Tucking his feet behind the rails, he braced himself and pushed upwards with all his might. To his relief he felt the manhole cover move slightly. Realising in less than a minute the rat would be on him he made one last mammoth effort and slammed one of his shoulders against the underside of the cover and it shot up and rattled on the cobblestone street above. Jamie scrambled out like a rat himself. He could hear the rat approaching, its claws rattling against the metal railings. He grabbed the cover and as the snout of the giant rat reached the level of the street, he slammed it down, sending the shrieking rat back down into the sewer.
Looking around him in the dark street, he still felt strangely vulnerable and decided he had better put as much distance between himself and the rat as possible. His ankle still throbbed but if he took it steadily he thought he could ignore the pain. He ran off awkwardly into the darkness of the deserted street.
The Inspector had driven the Doctor to the residence of Professor Shaffer: a rather neat townhouse in an exclusive suburb. Inspector Sharp tapped with surprising authority on the large front door and within moments a podgy middle-aged woman opened it.
“Inspector! I’m afraid the Professor is locked up again in his laboratory and I’m afraid it’s worth more than my situation here to disturb him!”
“That’s fine Mrs Baker. My… associate the Doctor and I would be happy to wait for him in the drawing room.”
Mrs. Baker allowed them in, giving the Doctor a disapproving look as he followed the Inspector inside.
Jamie had run for many blocks and had clearly moved into a residential area. Occasionally though, he thought he could hear strange noises behind him. He was sure that at least one of them was hunting him now, just like animals. He paused for a moment, halfway down an alleyway, boarded both sides by eight-foot high paling fences. All he needed was a place to hide out until morning, so then he could try and find the Doctor or at least find the TARDIS and wait for him there. He pulled himself up atop one of the fences and spied a nice little garden. He jumped down as softly as he could manage.
It was then that Jamie noticed that the air-raid sirens had stopped and some noise in the yard made him duck behind a row of beans. He peeped between the vines and saw a small group of people emerging from a small shed a few yards away. They were moving up a path to the back of he main house. The porch light went out and Jamie stood up.
A plan began to form in Jamie’s head: if he could get into the shed, he might be able to barricade himself inside. Even if the rat tracked him here, it would have to leave before it was light otherwise it would be seen and the police or the army would be called. So he moved swiftly over to the shed, rounded it and inspected the entrance. Oddly he thought it wasn’t locked and he stepped inside. But then even stranger he discovered that it could be locked from the inside. Another odd thing he discovered as his eyes adjusted and some of the blackness lifted was that it was actually larger inside than it looked. There were steps that led down into an area that had clearly been dug out. Satisfied that he was as safe as he was going to be short of being inside the TARDIS, Jamie sat down at the base of the steps and took the opportunity to rub his swollen ankle.
The Inspector had sat himself down in one of the guest chairs and had nodded off to sleep by the time Professor Schaffer emerged from his laboratory. On entering the drawing room he first spied the Doctor studying a painting on the far wall. It was a portrait of a family sitting around a small radio. The room was quite small, with a single window that overlooked the street below.
“And who might you be Sir!”
“Ah, Professor Schaffer I presume, I’m the Doctor!”
The Professor was a man of average height, balding, who wore small round glasses that were surprisingly thick.
It may have been the Doctor’s calm, friendly manner, which irritated him further.
“Mrs Baker!”
“It’s alright,” the Inspector insisted, rising from the guest chair, “the Doctor is an acquaintance of mine!”
“Oh, Sharp… I’m sorry, Doctor. It was the shock.”
“Sit down and rest man,” the Inspector insisted, “it’s the bombings I know, they play on the mind…”
Schaffer sat down. He was sweating madly. Sharp poured him a drink, which he accepted readily.
The Doctor remained silent, content to watch everything from the background.
“I’ve been throwing myself into my work… I apologise again Doctor.”
“Not at all Professor. It is of course your house and I am an uninvited guest,” the Doctor replied carefully.
“I think you need to rest Professor…”
“Why are you here?” The Professor asked as if he had suddenly collected himself.
“There’s been another murder,” Sharp informed him.
“I see.”
“But this one, was seen.”
“Seen?”
“Yes, by the Doctor.”
Schaffer turned his head towards his new guest: “I see.”
“The Doctor has given us invaluable information regarding the killer…”
“Indeed!”
Mrs Baker appeared at the door with the tea tray, she entered silently and placed it on the table next to where the Doctor was standing. Instead of pouring it out though, she returned to the door and stood there, maintaining her silence.
“Will you describe the killer Doctor?” Schaffer asked.
“Well, average height, wearing a wide brimmed hat and a grey trench coat…”
The Professor stood up, and perhaps for the first time the Doctor noticed that he was wearing the very same coat.
“I thought it was odd for you to be so heavily clothed… I wondered if the basement might be a little drafty!”
The Doctor’s voice faltered as all three of his companions began to convulse, their skin crawling as if it were alive, their teeth and nails growing at an impossible rate. Their ears extended by inches, fur emerging from the pause of their skin and their eyes… they had become the glowing yellow eyes of rats.
The rat that was in truth the Professor, snorted at the Doctor and they all took a step forward.
“I think I see now… the Inspector has been tidying up after you, but for what purpose?”
The rats had begun to salivate wildly, eyeing the Doctor off, coldly…
Jamie at the same time could hear some strange scuttling noises outside the door of the shelter. He thought of searching for a light of some kind but realised that that might alert the resident family to his presence and maybe even endanger them in the process. So instead he tried to remain as still as possible, breathe as little as possible and therefore try and make the rat believe that he wasn’t there. From where he was sitting he could see top half of the door. There was a little light coming in through the gaps between it and the walls of the shelter, presumably emanating from the house beyond. There was a strange cracking noise which made Jamie even more nervous and he felt he had to creep a little further up the steps to make sure the rat wasn’t breaking the door in by leaning hard against it. What he did see made him freeze. Through the gap that existed between the bottom of the door and the ground, the rat was squeezing through. Its whole head was through and it had clearly dislocated a number of bones in order to achieve the feat. The rat opened its glowing yellow eyes and glared straight at Jamie. It was gradually working its way through and it was grinning at him, wickedly…
Part Two
PC Collins strode up to the Schaffer residence. The Duty Sergeant had told him that the Inspector had taken the prisoner there, although he had failed to sign the prisoner out! Collins lived “nearby” and decided to see to the oversight before he returned home.
Even in uniform, Collins felt self-conscious walking through that neighbourhood. Although he lacked either the breeding or ability or both to progress any further through the ranks, he had succeeded at least in being a dependable pillar of the local constabulary. The Inspector was at least a decade younger and an educated man but he sometimes forgot that there were procedures to follow. Arriving at the Schaffer residence, Collins tapped and waited. He then tapped again. Normally Mrs. Baker was at the door in an instant. And he also thought he could hear raised voices, upstairs…
There was the sound of a window shattering and then a loud crack on the veranda above and then a solid thump as the Doctor hit the garden bed behind him.
“Thinking of leaving us Doctor?” Collins asked, slightly bemused.
“I would get out of here if I were you Collins!” The Doctor groaned.
Collins stepped down to the garden to help the Doctor to his feet, when the front door flew off its hinges. Before him stood what could only be described as a human sized rat.
“What in heaven is that?!” Collins yelled.
The Doctor removed a small mirror, which had somehow survived the fall, from his interior coat pocket. Stepping between Collins and the rat, he raised the mirror. The rat caught a glimpse of it’s own reflection and shrieked, scarpering back inside the house.
“That… was a rat!” Collins mumbled.
“Oh it was human… inside at least. That’s what I was counting on. You see her DNA has been scrambled but her mind is still buried in there, somewhere…”
“Her? That was Mrs. Baker?! Where is the Inspector?”
There was some more shrieking coming from inside the house.
“I must know more…” The Doctor mumbled as he dashed back into the house before Collins could stop him.
The rat peered into the darkness of the shed, sniffing wildly as it stretched itself out to its full length. Answering any question that Jamie might have had about the creature’s intelligence, the rat reached out and pulled the light cord. Jamie stepped backwards, now that the light was on it was possible to appreciate how small the shelter was. The rat seemed to be grinning evilly at him. It was wearing nothing but a red armband. What would the Doctor do, Jamie thought?
The door to the shelter shook: “Who’s there?”
It was an angry voice coming from outside: “Come out!”
The rat turned slowly away from Jamie as if confused. There was a shaking of keys and the door swung inwards. The rat shrieked in anger and then… its head exploded.
Jamie raised his arms.
“Move!” The voice shouted from outside.
“Don’t be afraid… I’m quite human,” Jamie stuttered.
A podgy little man in his pyjamas holding an elephant gun stepped through the doorway: “Keep your hands above your head.”
Jamie complied and walked reluctantly through the remains of the creature as he ascended the steps of the Anderson shelter.
“Thank you…” Jamie mentioned as he passed through the doorway before the butt of the rifle struck the side of his head.
The Doctor led a rather shaken PC Collins through the Schaffer house and down to the basement.
“What about the rat?” Collins whispered.
“Oh, I think they probably felt that one was enough to finish me off,” the Doctor explained.
“One? You mean there’s more than one?”
“Oh, yes. Schaffer, Sharp and Mrs. Baker they are all rats… Schaffer is a little easier to distinguish from the others as he slightly larger and darker…”
“But what if…?”
“Oh, they’re still keeping a very low profile at the moment,” the Doctor assured him as they reached the door of the laboratory.
“Doctor what is this all about?”
“Have you ever visited the Professor’s drawing room?”
“Well… yes, once…”
“There’s a painting on the wall there… a painting completed by Paul Padvaa, it’s called ‘The Fuhrer Speaks’.”
“What?”
“I think it would be very worth your while to indulge me for a little while Collins,” the Doctor suggested as he tried the door handle. The door was locked.
“Why go in there, Doctor?” Collins whispered, looking around nervously.
“The Professor was the same rat Jamie and I saw after we… arrived in London,” the Doctor began as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver in order to dismantle the door lock, “so he obviously has been able to come and go unseen. I presume there was a sewer collapse due to the bombing and he was forced to take a short cut overland, before he could re-enter the sewer system.”
By this time the Doctor had finished dismantling the lock, much to the amazement of Collins. The Doctor very gently pushed the door inwards and peered in. The room was well lit and it was full of typical laboratory equipment. Tables of bubbling beakers and various other devices and substances littered the area. There were also cages with living rats inside sitting on the shelves that lined the walls. In the centre there was a large bench and at its base there was a small huddled figure, whimpering.
The Doctor approached the creature carefully. It was wearing the remains of Mrs. Baker’s dress and apron. As the Doctor rounded the creature, a hairless rodent shaped face turned to look at him.
“Go away… don’t look at me!”
“Mrs. Baker? What have you done?” Collins asked, bewildered.
“… said it was what the Fuhrer wanted…” she panted.
“What’s happened to her?” Collins demanded.
“She was so distressed when she saw herself that she attempted to reverse the process, but I’m afraid there’s not likely to actually be one, not without years of research,” the Doctor muttered, inspecting the large slivers of glass scattered around her.
“The poor woman!” Collins exclaimed as he noticed the tail protruding from beneath the remains of her dress.
“What is the Professor planning? You must tell me!”
“Heil Hitler!” Baker groaned and then fell still.
Collins crossed himself. The Doctor closed her eyes with his hands and stood up, immediately scanning the general area: “There must be some kind of access point somewhere…”
Collins made an attempt to help as well and rounding the bench slipped in a small pool of water on the floor.
“Help me move the bench!” The Doctor ordered, grasping one end and together with his companion managing to slide the large object a short distance across the floor. This act had revealed the existence of a manhole.
“This isn’t corporation made Doctor, it’s been…”
“Manufactured specifically… yes, wider than normal…”
The Doctor rotated the manhole and with Collins’ help, managed to lift it up and roll it across the floor.
“Undeniably a sewer,” Collins commented while trying not to inhale too deeply.
“They’ve cut into one of the main lines,” the Doctor observed.
“You’re not going down there?”
“I’m afraid I must Constable, the safety of the city, if not the entire country may depend on it!”
“Well… I suppose I can’t let you go by yourself…”
“Excellent! Now that’s decided, can you help me down?!”
Jaime dreamt that he was being chased by something enormous. He could hear it grunting, gaining on him as he drew closer to the TARDIS and safety. It was so close but no matter how fast he ran, it never seemed to get any closer. The rat was right behind him, so close now that he could feel its breath…
“Father, I think he’s awake!”
It was a woman’s voice, a mature woman and it was followed by the now familiar sound of a gun being cocked.
Jamie tried to sit up but he soon fell back onto the bunk, which had been provided for him. The base of his neck was throbbing.
“Where am I?” He finally managed.
“We’ll ask the questions lad!” A firm, gruff voice declared.
The world was coming into focus and there seemed to be a collection of little faces all around him. Then he realised that they were children!
“Shoot him Daddy! He’s a German!” Declared the smallest child, a rather precocious little boy wearing glasses.
“He’s not a German thickie, he’s wearing a kilt!” Retorted a little girl.
“Well?” The man asked, pointing the gun dangerously at Jamie’s face.
Jamie sat up slowly this time, taking in the pleasant but unshaven features of the man in front of him: “I’m Jamie McCrimmon, I’ve only just arrived in London with my friend the Doctor.”
“Most people are leaving London laddie!”
“Well, you’re all still here aren’t you?”
“That’s enough cheek!”
“Aye. Well, we got separated – the Doctor and I – and I was being chased by one of those hairy blighters from the sewers…”
“You mean there’s more of them!”
“You believe me!”
“Believe you? I buried it lad! Thought it must be some kind of government experiment gone wrong. Don’t want the police around here…”
“Well there’s a great bunch of them down in the sewers…”
“What were you doing in the sewers?” The little boy asked.
Jamie grinned slightly at the boy, who’s face remained stoical, indicating that he was expecting an answer.
“I was hiding in a basement when the building was hit by one of those bombs… look, it’s all a bit of a long story. I really need to find the Doctor! He’ll know what to do!”
Jamie stood up and his knees immediately buckled. Perhaps a sign that he did not regard him as a true threat, the man grabbed the boy under the shoulder.
The woman felt his head: “You’re still weak!”
“Look… I must find him…”
“What you need is some rest and a bath… not necessarily in that order!” The mistress of the household declared.
The Doctor and PC Collins had lowered themselves into the sewer beneath the Schaffer residence and were edging their way along in the darkness. The Doctor stopped and listened but the only sound audible was the rush of water below. Neither of them had dared to speak a single word and Collins particularly was wondering what they would do if they came face to face with one of the rats. After all, even if the Doctor still had his mirror there was no saying that in the near total darkness a rat would be able to see its reflection, let alone have the same kind of reaction that Mrs. Baker had.
The Doctor stopped suddenly and knelt down, rummaging around for a few moments for his pen-torch in one of his copious pockets.
“Clothes!” Collins gasped, perhaps thinking they belonged to a victim.
“They’re Inspector Sharp’s… and there’s not much left of them… hang on, what’s this…?”
The Doctor pulled out a folded piece of paper from one of the torn pockets of the Inspector’s coat…”
“It’s a map?” Collins observed.
“Yes… of the sewer system… hand-drawn but surprisingly detailed…”
“What’s that X mark for? Some kind of target?”
“Perhaps… or a meeting place…”
There was a distant shriek and both men jumped a little.
“Come on!” The Doctor declared with a determined air.
“Are you mad?! Let’s get out of here while we still have our skins on Doctor!”
“But we don’t know enough yet Collins, we need more information… King and country and all that!”
“And what if one of those creatures finds us?”
The Doctor smiled confidently: “Leave that to me…”
“Do you feel better love?”
“Aye! I can’t thank you enough Mrs. Garrett,” beaming after his bath and a change of clothes.
“You’re about the same size as my David, my eldest, he’s in the air force you see…”
“That reminds me lad,” Mr. Garrett piped up from the kitchen table as he tossed a small red rag at him.
Jamie deftly caught the object and inspected it with interest. It was an arm band but Jamie was not familiar with the symbol on it, which looked like a crooked cross.
“I found it on that creature I buried in the rose bed,” Garrett added.
“The rat was wearing it, come to think of it they all were…”
The room went quiet.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“Don’t you know what that is Lad?”
Jamie shook his head.
“Mother, the boy is daft!”
“That’s the symbol of the Nazis,” the little boy with glasses interjected.
“You mean the enemy?”
“Where are you from boy?” Garrett asked him bluntly.
“Well the Doctor and I have been travelling…”
“You must have been, and pretty far and wide to not recognise the swastika!”
Jamie seemed at a loss as to what to do with the German armband and he stuffed it into one of his pockets.
“Listen, I can’t thank you enough but…”
“Laddie I think we ought to take a trip to the local station, I know a copper there, Collins is his name. We went to school together, he’s one of the honest ones,” Garrett declared, spiting his tobacco into the fireplace.
“Do you think he’ll be able to help me find the Doctor?”
“Laddie if this Doctor is all the things you say he is, and he’s still alive, I’m sure he’ll seek them out himself. I think it’ll be worth your while to check.”
The sewer the Doctor and PC Collins were traversing opened out onto what appeared to be a main sewer drain.
“It’s actually a river!” Collins declared.
“It’s the old river fleet, we’re under Farrington Street,” the Doctor remarked.
The fleet, once a major waterway and now reduced to a subterranean storm drain travelled off into the distance. It should have been pitch black, but torches had been lit and they had been screwed onto the cement brickwork, which formed supportive arches, upon which the material covering the fleet had been laid over.
“It’s actually quite beautiful,” Collins reflected as they took in the scene.
“Yes, Christopher Wren had great plans for it but the pollution meant that it really had to be covered over… shame as it is a national treasure…”
The Doctor’s lecture faltered as he spotted something approaching in the distance.
“It’s a raft of some kind,” Collins observed, ”and it’s carrying something!”
“There’s rats’ following it down! Quietly, they can see in the dark Collins!”
The two men began to scale the brick work and perched themselves above one of the arches.
“But won’t they smell us?” Collins whispered as they drew closer.
“The smell of the fleet is pretty overpowering and they are focused on the raft.”[RAM1]
Four rats, two each side of the fleet followed the raft on its journey towards the Thames, holding ropes attached to the transport in their mouths. Still it was the contents of the raft which almost made both of them gasp.
“It’s a whopper!” Collins finally exclaimed under his breath as the rats vanished into the distance.
“Yes, it’s about a 4,000 pound bomb. It could easily wipe out an entire block, no wonder they were taking great care.”
“They must have found it… an unexploded German bomb!” Collins concluded.
The Doctor nodded: “The timer is probably faulty. I think we need to contact the authorities, immediately!”
They climbed down the crumbling brickwork, making a little more noise than they probably should have.
“I for one am getting too old for this Doctor. I fought in the last war!”
As they moved to leave back down the adjoining sewer, two yellow eyes confronted them, glowering from the darkness. The rat moved forward slightly into the light so that they could see its saliva run over its jaws and splatter on the bricks at their feet…
Part Three
“Doctor if you have anything up your sleeve… I think now it’s time to come clean,” Collins muttered as they backed off instinctively in the direction of the fleet.
“Well as a matter of fact…” the Doctor returned, pulling a small flask from the inside of his coat.
As if sensing something was wrong, the rat hesitated, raising its snout and sniffing the air. The Doctor savagely threw the beaker at the rat, causing it to shatter against the creature’s chest and spattering a smouldering solution. The rat jumped back and then began tearing at its chest with its claws, pulling out large tufts of fur. Almost insane with pain, the rat tore back up the fleet, shrieking into the darkness.
“What was that?”
“It was a beaker of the solution Schaffer developed to mutate his followers… Mrs Baker took it in the hope that she could reverse the process, although in large quantities it has the potential to make the process permanent. Hopefully such a small dose will only agitate and not be terminal.”
“I don’t suppose you have anymore?”
The Doctor shook his head grimly and headed off in the direction of the nearest exit.
“Look, I dinna think ye would make it easy, but I was’nae expecting you to be totally daft!” Jamie exclaimed.
“Giant rat-men wearing Nazi arm bands… would you like me to arrest you for wasting police time lad?” Duty Sergeant Whithers asked in a dry, calm voice.
“Look if we could just speak to PC Collins I’m sure we’d be getting somewhere,” Garrett interjected.
“He’s off-duty. May I suggest what you need is a little sobering up!”
“Oh look! This is getting us nowhere Mister Garrett, we need to find the Doctor!”
“Jamie!” The Doctor exclaimed as he made his way into the foyer of the station. The Doctor grabbed both of his hands and shook them hard as they both jumped up and down like small children. Garrett and Collins nodded at each other in a matey manner.
“Doctor am I glad to see you! This is mister Garrett, he rescued me from…”
“Rat-men Jamie? Yes, I know I’ve met them!!”
Whithers rolled his eyes and looked out the front window of the police station, past the blue lamp and across the sky-line at the full moon: “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask all of you gentlemen to leave and suggest that you all continue this meeting down at the local…”
“Just a moment Sergeant, I’d like to speak to these men!”
It was Inspector Sharp, accompanied by two, athletic looking young constables.
“If you please Sir,” Whithers replied, lifting up the end of the bench to allow Sharp and the constables to enter the foyer.
The Doctor moved cautiously in front of the other men. Collins was the only other man present who knew the truth and he was eyeing the door.
“You’re looking a little the worse for wear are you not Inspector?” The Doctor observed cheekily.
“Sergeant I’ve just received some reports of some suspicious activity in the area. A small dark haired little man in an Edwardian coat, a youth in a kilt and an armed local have been causing disturbances.”
“I see, so that’s how it is to be…” The Doctor mumbled.
“Is that so Sir,” Whithers retorted, “well I think you can safely add wasting police time to that list Sir!”
“Wasting police time?” Sharp laughed. “No my dear Whithers, these men are spies!”
“Who walked into a local metropolitan police station offering up a Nazi arm band and gave themselves away?” The Doctor added with a keen glint in his eye as he pointed to the band, which Jamie and Garrett had brought with them.
“Shut up! Arrest these three. Collins, excellent job! You and Longdon here can help me transfer these men to the nearest military outpost. They’re to be handed over to Military Intelligence for questioning.”
“Oh look this charade really isn’t necessary,” the Doctor started.
“Oh, but it is Doctor!” Sharp countered maliciously displaying with the upmost confidence that he was truly in charge of the situation.
“Langdon bring the car around to the front. Dowling, cuff them.”
“Doctor, what does he mean spies? What is going on here?” Jamie asked.
“Never mind Jamie, we’ll just play along for the moment. Just understand that the Inspector is not what he seems!”
“Shut up!” Sharp ordered.
The Doctor flashed him a hurt look.
“Carefully… carefully my children!” Schaffer cooed as the UXB was pulled up to a junction between the fleet and a large open area of the sewer. The rats were shrieking excitedly, scratching themselves and running about in circles. Schaffer tied the ropes to some brick pillars and lent down to inspect the object. He listened carefully to the area where the timing mechanism was stored.
“We are ready my children! The time has come!”
The rats seemed confused. Schaffer’s features began to distort, his face elongating and his body all at once was covered in a thick mat of dark brown fur. He let out a piercing cry as the transformation was complete. The other rats took off in every direction, screaming themselves as if they were summoning others.
The Doctor, Jamie and Garret had been securely handcuffed and along with Collins stuffed into the station car. Longdon was driving and Sharp was sitting in the front passenger seat. Soon after setting off, Sharp had directed Langdon onto Farringdon Street.
“Following the fleet Inspector?” The Doctor quipped.
“Shut up!”
Further along the route, Sharp pointed to a side street and Langdon turned obediently.
“There’s a military outpost at the old abandoned station,” Sharp explained.
The car soon pulled up among the boarded ruins of the old station.
“Looks deserted Sir,” Langdon commented.
“Well they obviously want to keep a low profile. Can’t have the general public strolling in all hours of the day can they?”
“I suppose not Sir.”
“If I were you, I’d get out now Constable!” The Doctor advised him in a low, dark tone.
Collins opened the door on his side of the car and helped the other three men out. Sharp’s body was pulsating and Langdon was watching in horror as his superior officer transformed into a giant rat in front of his very eyes.
“Get out man!” The Doctor cried.
Collins was scrambling with his keys trying to get Garrett and Jamie’s cuff off.
“Don’t worry about that now! Run!” The Doctor shouted.
As they tore off back down the road, they could hear Langdon screaming, but his voice was abruptly cut off. Then there was the sound of shattering glass and grinding metal.
“Should we split up?” Jamie asked as he huffed and puffed his way behind the Doctor.
“No! It’s better that we all stay together and that we try to find a more conspicuous area!” The Doctor cried looking back over his shoulder as his short legs pumped away. He could see that the Sharp Rat-man was now free of the car and was ambling behind them. He was taking his time, savouring the moment before he sprang into the chase. “It’s coming!” Collins warned, looking back, “Hang on, it’ gone!”
“No! Up there!” Jamie shouted, pointing up the rooftop of the building ahead of them. With amazing speed, Sharp had scaled the side of a building and overtaken them by jumping from roof to roof. Sharp seemed to defy physics as he crawled down the side of the next building and jumped out in the middle of the street, blocking their path. He rose up onto two legs and eyed them off.
“If only I still had my gun, I’d see to the sod!” Garrett muttered.
“Doctor?” Jamie asked.
“Stay perfectly still, all of you. He’s just playing with us at the moment!” The Doctor ordered.
Sharp got down on all fours and seemed to be preparing to charge them, when a fire-truck turned the corner of the block.
“Of course! That’s a plan! Get rescued!!” The Doctor yelled.
Sharp turned his neck at an impossible angle to view the approaching truck. After a moment’s indecision Sharp scaled the nearest fire escape and vanished over a nearby roof.
The truck pulled up a few feet from the group. Collins cleared his throat: “I’ll deal with this gentleman.”
At the Garrett household, Mrs Garrett was looking out the front window nervously. The little boy with glasses pulled on her apron: “Is Father coming home?”
“He’s at the station helping that young man, he’ll be home when he’s done.”
Without warning the power faltered and the lights flickered.
“You’d better get your bag ready… it looks like they might start early tonight,” Mrs Garrett noted, a hint of parental authority reasserting itself through her voice.
“What did you tell them?” Jamie asked as the fire truck drove on and Collins returned.
“I told them that you were looters and another officer had gone to fetch the car,” Collins explained as he unlocked their handcuffs.
Jamie rubbed his wrists in an agitated way: “And what if the rat comes back after us?”
“I think we need to move immediately,” the Doctor agreed, walking out into the middle of the street and studying the nearest manhole cover.
“You’re not serious Doctor?! Back down there?!” Jamie exclaimed.
“We can’t trust anyone up here and we need to do something about that bomb.”
Collins and Garrett exchanged a concerned look.
“Jamie and I have to do this…”
“Hey!” Jamie objected.
The Doctor ignored him: “But you two have done more than enough…”
“But I could lead one of those things back home couldn’t I Doctor?” Garrett noted.
“And how many Sharps are there on the force? I’d be a marked man now wouldn’t I Doctor?”
“I’m afraid you could both be right,” the Doctor admitted as he started to open the manhole.
“Well that settles it for me,” Garrett admitted.
Collins nodded in agreement as the manhole rattled on the surface of the street.
“What are they planning?” He asked the Doctor simply as he twirled the ends of his moustache.
“I suspect,” the Doctor started as he glanced over Collins shoulder at the sight of St. Pauls in the twilight, “that they are attempting to strike a blow at British morale rather than anything practical.”
The other three men exchanged quizzical looks.
“I’ll go first shall I?”
At the abandoned subterranean station, Schaffer had overseen the placement of the bomb onto a specifically reinforced baggage trolley. A swarm of rats had begun to gather, perhaps two dozen in number. The last to arrive was Sharp himself and he transformed as he approached Schaffer.
“Report!”
“The Doctor and his companions are loose but we are still in control. Their descriptions have been circulated… and Collins has seen too much to be allowed to live…”
“Unfortunate. His disposal could arouse suspicions… as for the others they are of no consequence. If they aren’t shots as spies or looters, the bombs will kill them. When our brothers arrive caution will no longer be necessary.”
“Will it be soon?”
“Tonight we break the morale of this ungrateful country!”
“Excellent!”
“Go and begin to make arrangements Sharp… I will address the rest of the order,” Schaffer ordered.
Sharp transformed back into a rat and scuttled back up the fleet.
As the renegade quartet descended into the sewers, an elderly air warden spotted them. He ran up to the manhole, huffing loudly just as Collins replaced it behind him.
“Oi! Come out of there you lot!”
Inside the sewer, the group was already metres away.
“All that racket, the rats’ll hear!”
“Hopefully not Jamie. But we must maintain absolute silence from now on. Rats have amazing abilities of smell and hearing. One of their only weaknesses is their poor eyesight. They are still awesome predators.”
“I think we’ve gathered that much already Doctor,” Collins muttered.
“We simply must find that bomb,” the Doctor returned, “otherwise the consequences could be quite dire.”
“But tinkering with those things can be dangerous in the extreme Doctor,” Collins challenged.
“The Doctor’s quite good at tinkering with things,” Jamie chimed in.
“Thank you Jamie. Constable be assured I know enough to deal with a bomb of that nature. Just try to make a mental map of the sewers as we pass through them, particularly the manholes… it could save your life. Come on and quiet now!”
Above, the Warden’s tapping on the surface of a manhole had attracted the attention of a bobby. He was a rather tall but young man who had obviously been too sickly to be accepted for active service.
“Are you all right Dad?”
“Don’t Dad me lad, I saw four men go down there… one of them was one of your lot!
“Really?”
Together, the two men were able to pull up the manhole and peer into the darkness.
“Help me down Dad.”
Reluctantly the elderly Air Warden assisted the young man into the hole. Holding the rail with one hand and his torch in the other, the bobby surveyed the scene. Convinced that the sewer was navigable, the bobby jumped down onto the brick work and made room for the small Air Warden to struggle down beside him.
“What are you doing down here?”
“Don’t get cheeky sonny!”
“How am I going to help you back up?”
“Look lad, there’s something about this that smells funny…”
“I know what smells funny, I’ll report it when I get back to the station, but I’m not wandering around here with no back up.”
“I’ve had enough of your cheek!”
“Shoosh! There’s something moving down the end of the tunnel.”
The old man blew his whistle at full pitch until the bobby slapped it out of his mouth: “What are you playing at?!”
There was a shriek and both men turned to face the figure that was fast approaching.
Further into the maze of tunnels, the Doctor and his companions froze at the sound of a distant scream. The brick-work landscape was an excellent conveyer system for sound. It also made movement difficult. Any scuffle seemed to be magnified a hundred fold.
“What was that?” Collins mouthed.
The Doctor waved them all down and motioned for silence. They had come upon the deserted train station and their only means of cover was a large pile of bricks. The sound of Schaffer’s voice made them all freeze.
“… my brothers, the day has come when we shall strike a fatal blow against the enemy. Those who rejected the greatness they were offered will be wiped from the map. Soon the armies of the Fuehrer will arrive as after tonight their resistance will fail!”
He spoke from the top of the platform and the horde of rats swarmed around the derelict tracks below. The rats shrieked in ecstasy.
The trolley holding the bomb sat at the end of the station platform at the base of a flight of steps. The Doctor pointed at Collins, asking him to accompany him despite his relative gait. Collins swallowed hard and slid, silently on his stomach across the brickwork behind the Doctor. Jamie and Garrett remained behind the brick pile, watching them anxiously.
The Doctor eventually reached the UXB and on his back, took out his sonic screwdriver and used it to remove the seal panel covering the timing mechanism.
Garrett and Jamie were so absorbed in what the Doctor was doing that they almost missed the approach of two sentry rats, which rounded the top of the platform. Garrett pulled Jamie down behind the brick pile just in time and Collins tugged on the Doctor’s coat sleeve to get him to stop dismantling the UXB while the rats watched. They soon moved away and the Doctor then proceeded to replace the seal over the timing mechanism. Much to Collins surprise, the Doctor slid past the UXB and continued down into an auxiliary tunnel and behind a solid pillar. From behind the pillar, the Doctor signalled for Garrett and Jamie to join them. They both began to set off, when something made Jamie glance behind him, where his eyes fell level with those of a man-sized rat. Garrett was about to slide off when Jamie tapped him on the shoulder.
Garrett turned his head and jolted up: “Blimey!”
Meanwhile the Doctor and Collins watched them from a distance, quite distressed.
The rat moved to make the kill when an authoritative voice interjected: “Stop!”
It was Schaffer.
Obediently the sentry rat backed off.
“Stand up!”
Jamie and Garrett obliged.
Schaffer strode over to the end of the platform: “Check the bomb.”
“You’ll never get away with it!” Jamie declared, quite impotently.
“But I am getting away with it my boy! Doctor?! I know you are there Doctor! Try and interfere again and your friends will die. Tie them to the bomb!”
As Jamie and Garrett were buffeted around by a pack of rats, they noticed that both the Doctor and Collins had vanished.
“Doctor! We can’t leave them!” Collins rasped.
The Doctor answered without stopping: “Yes we can. You heard Schaffer. He’s too smart to kill them immediately – he’ll use them as an insurance policy to keep me away. We’ll have a better chance at rescuing them later.”
“Why didn’t you defuse the bomb?”
“It’s been fitted with anti-tampering technology and without the right equipment, it’s too risky to attempt to defuse it manually. It will have to be detonated safely.”
Both men stopped to stare at the remains of the young bobby and the elderly Air Warden.
“Oh God!”
“There’s nothing that can be done for these poor fellows…” the Doctor pondered as he studied the bodies.
Collins had collected himself enough to watch the Doctor more closely: “What are you doing?”
The Doctor tore a length from what remained of the Bobby’s blood stained shirt, folded it neatly and placed it in his top pocket. Collins shot him a strange look as he got up and walked over to the manhole.
As they reached the bottom of a manhole ladder railing, Collins put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder: “Doctor! What is this all about?”
“I’ll show you…” the Doctor answered darkly as he scaled the ladder.
The two men emerged and quickly replaced the manhole cover.
“Ludgate Hill… again?”
The Doctor pointed at the spectral sight of St. Paul’s in the moonlight, partly illuminated by the fires, which were raging nearby.
“St. Pauls? You don’t mean…?”
“Symbols are just as important as practical targets… perhaps even more important!” The Doctor explained.
“They’re going to blow up St. Paul’s cathedral?!”
“So far it has survived intense bombing… look at this area Collins… it’s miraculous that it’s still standing. It gives the nation hope. It’s a symbol of its resilience.”
“I see. No I don’t… how are they going to get it there?”
“I have a suspicion and if I’m right in a short while we will not want to be standing here!”
“Can I look out Mother?”
The Garrett family were bedded down in the Anderson shelter. The little boy with the glasses snuggled into his Mother on the bunk they shared.
“When your Father comes home!” She answered as the earth trembled slightly as a result of a nearby impact.
“Is he coming home Mother?”
“Of course he is! He and Constable Collins were in the last war together, they look out for each other.”
The little boy was quiet for a moment before he posed a question his Mother couldn’t answer: “Is this the end of the world Mother?”
“The rope… it’s too tight!” Jamie gasped.
“Save your breath lad. The worst thing you can do is strain!” Garrett advised, but there was a slight crack in his own voice which suggested that he was in just as much pain as Jamie.
They had both been roped to the trolley with the UXB and pushed along the adjacent sewer tunnel relative to the abandoned station, up Ludgate Hill. It was in fact the same route taken by the Doctor and PC Collins.
The trolley stopped and the two men watched as two rats passed their entourage with smaller bombs strapped to their backs.
“They seem to have plenty of bombs, don’t they?” Jamie commented softly.
“Well lad they are hardly in short supply nowdays! Still, that doesn’t bode well…”
The Doctor and Collins had meanwhile perched themselves atop a nearby Ludgate Hill building.
“Doctor! It’s suicide being up here!” Collins objected as shrapnel rattled down around them. Searchlights were scouring the sky, planes were droning and the fires were raging around the city to the extent that some pockets of the city seemed to be illuminated like it was day. The Doctor could even see the TARDIS sitting waiting for him in a nearby alley.
“This is something you’ll remember for the rest of your days Collins… something to tell the grandchildren bout!”
“I don’t even have children Doctor… and I suspect that if we stay up here exposed as we are, that’s unlikely to change!”
“What do you know about Professor Schaffer?” The Doctor asked as a building a few blocks away exploded into flame.
“His Father was a German to be sure but even the Royal family are part German Doctor… that doesn’t make them Nazis!”
“Well, not all of them,” the Doctor jibed with a sly grin.
Collins was quiet for a moment before he spoke again: “There was some talk that the Professor’s father, he was also some kind of academic, shot himself… I think it was during the last war.”
“I thought as much…” the Doctor returned in a hollow voice.
“Doctor I’m having trouble believing all of this… giant rats which are really people!”
“Schaffer is undeniably a genius but that kind of manipulation of the genetic code is many decades away…”
“What’s that?!”
“Never mind. Schaffer is the reason I’m here, I’m sure of it. A kind of temporal aberration which has the potential to threaten the web of time.”
“I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about Doctor…”
There was suddenly an explosion quite near to the pair. A shower of debris rattled down on their rooftop.
“A bomb just hit the street below!” Collins exclaimed.
“No Collins, that explosion came from beneath the street… look at the crater… and here comes Inspector Sharp right on cue…”
“You mean…?”
“Yes… they have their access point now…”
Collins looked up the hill in the direction of St. Pauls and wondered if it would still be there in the morning.
In the sewers, the rats had soon cleared away the rubble and once again began to push the trolley further up Ludgate Hill, toward the newly opened crater. As the UXB and the hostages were pulled along, rats returning from the other way would occasionally bite both Jamie and Garrett. Garrett managed to manoeuvre one of his legs so that he kicked one in the face. It squealed and ran off.
“Filthy creatures,” Garrett shouted.
“Bring them up here!” Schaffer ordered.
The miserable payload was brought into an area that was now bathed in moonlight.
“Look, let the lad go… if I’m here there’s no way the Doctor will try to interfere,” Garrett pleaded.
Schaffer laughed manically for a moment and then suddenly became calm, his eyes narrowed: “I don’t think so.”
On the street above, Sharp and his men had erected a makeshift barrier around the rim of the crater. The Doctor and Collins had descended the fire escape of their building and had been watching proceedings from a nearby alcove, waiting for a chance to intercede. That opportunity arrived in the form of a small truck carrying a bomb disposal squad. The vehicle pulled up between the crater and the alcove where the Doctor and Collins were lurking. The young officer in charge was the first to dismount from the truck and as he gathered his bearings, the Doctor strode up to him.
“Report Lieutenant!” The Doctor demanded in his most severe, authoritative voice.
“Sir!” The young man jumped to attention almost without thinking.
“I didn’t see you there Sir,” he responded, noticing Collins behind the strange little man and perhaps wondering what kind of authority he had been confronted with.
“Name?”
“Lieutenant Davies, BDU… and you Sir?”
“Doctor… Smith. Military Intelligence. PC Collins is assisting me.”
Meanwhile Sharp had started to round the truck: “… I didn’t request the BDU… where’s the officer in charge? You!”
Davies turned to see Sharp approaching him and appeared momentarily confused by the almost bestial interjection.
“Detain those men!” Sharp ordered. Although the unit was composed of Royal Engineers, those men were still armed and Davies drew his sidearm and levelled it at the Doctor and Collins.
“Explain… Sir,” Davies insisted.
“Inspector John Sharp, Metropolitan Police. These men are wanted for questioning on suspicion of murder.”
The Doctor responded in a quiet, calm voice: “If you don’t listen to me Lieutenant, you and your men will be dead in minutes.”
Davies snorted at first as if to say look around you, but it died in his throat when he looked at the man’s eyes.
Perhaps sensing the danger Sharp interjected: “Lieutenant, this man is a lunatic, I am formally placing them under arrest!”
“The UXB is our priority Inspector,” Davies commented.
“There’s a 4,000 pound bomb and the Inspector is part of a conspiracy aimed at destroying St. Paul’s Cathedral.”
“Doctor…” Collins moaned.
Davies nodded and two of his men seized the Doctor and Collins. Sharp flashed them a menacing, triumphant look.
Davies strode over to the crater and shone his flashlight down into the hole.
“It’s a 25 foot drop… I can see the tip!”
“Lieutenant…” The Doctor called but he fell silent when one of the soldiers placed a gun in his face.
“Now steady on!” Collins remarked, his six-foot plus frame and uniform giving him some residual aura of authority.
“Your friends are dead,” Sharp whispered.
“I need to blow my nose,” the Doctor mentioned.
“What?”
“My nose… can I have my handkerchief?”
“No.”
“It’s just in my top pocket…”
“Shut up.”
“I’ll just let it run then…”
“Oh, very well!” Sharp relented, pulling out the handkerchief himself. However he dropped it as quickly as he had seized it.
“Something wrong Inspector?”
Sharp backed off.
“Are you all right Sir?” Davies asked.
“You’re looking a little pale Inspector… you see that isn’t really my handkerchief, its part of the shirt of a dead man Collins and I found in that sewer down there… it has his blood on it… why are you looking away Inspector?”
Davies was watching him with interest: “Are you well Inspector?”
Sharp was almost doubled over in pain. He then savagely grabbed the makeshift handkerchief of the street and began to lick it.
“What?!” Davies exclaimed.
“Be careful Lieutenant… he’s not completely human!”
“What do you mean?”
Sharp started to transform as if it were involuntary and he couldn’t resist the urge.
“What’s happening to him?” Davies yelled as he shrunk back behind the other armed sappers.
“He’s transforming into a rat,” the Doctor explained simply as Sharp began to shriek in anger. The creature started to crouch as if it were preparing to launch itself at the Doctor. The Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver from one of his coat pocket and activated a switch on the side. The rat cowered, running around in a small circle. One of the sappers fired and a bullet struck Sharp in the head, killing him instantly.
“That wasn’t necessary!” The Doctor growled, “and now they’ll know that we’re on to them… one doesn’t need to have superhuman hearing to hear a gun shot 25 feet away!”
“Look what is going on here?!” Davies demanded.
He had to follow the Doctor as he rushed towards the crater.
“Doctor you will explain… you don’t mean there’s a pack of them?!”
“More like a plague Lieutenant… Jamie? Can you hear me?! Hold on!”
The Doctor fiddled with his sonic screwdriver for a moment and then tossed it down the crater.
“What was that for?”
“That’s to buy us some time… we need to get down that hole… now!!!” The Doctor ordered.
Davies had completely changed his mind about the Doctor and began signalling to his men.
“It’s a four thousand pound bomb Lieutenant with anti-tampering technology and there are two men strapped to it. We need to be down in that sewer now!”
At that moment directly below them, Schaffer was watching his rats retreating.
“What is going on here? You fools!”
Schaffer then noticed how one nearby rat was rubbing its ears with its claws.
“The Doctor! Some kind of sonic signal… but how…?”
He began searching the immediate area.
Meanwhile Davies’ team had attached a rope and tackle to their truck and begun to lower it into the crater.
“No Lieutenant… I’ll need to go alone.”
“But the UXB?”
“There’s no time. We can’t let that bomb fall into the hands of Nazi sympathisers. If they get it up to street level they could take it anywhere and detonate it. At any time you might have a hundred of those rat creatures to deal with – are you prepared for that? Just lower me down and clear the street…”
“Clear the street?”
“Actually the entire block might be a good idea… it’s the only way. Now don’t argue Lieutenant just lower me down. I’ll try to give Mister Garrett and Jamie time to come up… but if I have to detonate that bomb immediately I will!”
“You’re a brave man Doctor!”
“Nonsense… just wait for Garrett and Jamie,” the Doctor ordered as he placed on the harness at the end of the rope.
“Alright, lower away!” Davies called, “and good luck Doctor!”
“Your problem is that the Doctor’s too clever for you Professor Schaffer,” Jamie mocked, trying to divert the old man’s attention from the search for the sonic screwdriver.
“I can kill you anytime boy!”
“Why not untie these ropes and we’ll test that theory then!”
“Steady on lad,” Garrett warned.
Schaffer withdrew his side-arm and walked over towards Jamie through the semi-paralysed rats. He was oblivious to the figure of the Doctor descending behind him like a man-sized spider!
“You’re a Scot aren’t you boy?!”
“Aye!”
“The fuehrer will convert all your people into slaves!” He shouted manically and then abruptly stopped when he spied the sonic screwdriver at the base of the UXB. He picked it up and began to study it.
“I think you’ll find that’s mine!” The Doctor commented from behind his shoulder, pushing him over as he swung around.
“You! I’ll take great pleasure in killing you myself!”
“Doctor watch out! He’s got a gun!” Jamie called.
Schaffer grinned evilly, but then one of the maddened rats seized him from behind.
“No! No! What are you doing?!”
The rat held Schaffer down with its tail as it shuddered; it’s ears ringing with the sonic onslaught.
“No… you mustn’t! I am your leader! Arrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhh!”
The Doctor was too busy cutting Jamie and Garrett loose to see the rat tear Schaffer to pieces.
“Now, I want the both of you up to the street immediately…”
“What about you?!” Jamie asked.
“I’m going to see to this bomb Jamie.”
“Aye, well I’m staying with you.”
Garrett by this time had already attached himself to the harness and was being pulled up to safety.
“Now Jamie I’m not going to argue with you. This sonic screwdriver could break down at any moment and it’s the only thing keeping the rats disorientated.”
“Well that may be… I don’t like that look in your eye Doctor!”
“I’m surprised you can see my eyes in this light Jamie. Look, don’t argue. I know what I’m doing. If we get separated I’ll meet you back at the TARDIS!”
Jamie eyed him sceptically: “I still think you’re up to something Doctor! Why didn’t you fix the thing before?”
The Doctor put on his most reassuring face: “Jamie, we were surrounded by rats… I needed some time and space. I have no intention of blowing myself up!”
“Well I suppose so…”
The harness had been dropped back down for Jamie and he attached himself to it with the Doctor’s help.
“You’ll be right up after me?”
“Of course Jamie!” The Doctor told him giving the rope a tug.
“I’ll see you up in a minute Doctor!”
“Of course you will,” the Doctor answered hollowly and walked back over to the bomb.
As Jamie emerged from the crater, Garrett helped him up onto the street next to Lieutenant Davies.
“Hey! Where’s everybody else?” Jamie asked.
“You two with me now. The Doctor is going to set the bomb off!” Davies ordered.
“We can’t leave the Doctor down there!”
“Come on lad – the Doctor knows what he’s doing!” Garrett assured him.
Davies levelled his pistol at Jamie: “You will accompany me Sir, now.”
Davies, Garrett and a reluctant Jamie – who kept looking over his shoulder in the direction of the crater – rushed down Ludgate Hill and out onto Faringdon Street.
“This should be far enough,” Davies commented, pushing them down into a sheltered alcove between two buildings.
Before they had even slipped inside, there was an enormous explosion, louder than any Jamie had heard yet. All the manholes along Faringdon Street, back up for a mile away from the Thames, leapt into the air simultaneously and a massive cloud of dust wafted around from Ludgate Hill.
“But the Doctor!”
“I’m sorry lad but I don’t think there’s much hope,” Garrett admitted.
Davies nodded his head in agreement. Jamie was trying to hold back tears when he was distracted by a choking cough coming from a few metres up the road. A dark little figure was clambering out of the manhole.
“It’s one of those rats!” Garrett shouted.
“No! No! It’s the Doctor!” Jamie exclaimed, racing over to help him up.
“Doctor! What happened… how did you…?”
“Well… Jamie. I used the sonic screwdriver to set off a sort of sonic pulse in order to activate the bomb. I didn’t need to be next to it… but I had to be close enough to be in range. Fortunate for me, I’m swifter than I look and there are plenty of tunnels down there… or at least there used to be.”
“And the rats?” Garrett asked.
“Where I left them… I’m afraid there was no other way!”
Collins came rushing over with a group of Sappers: “Doctor! You made it!”
The Doctor shook Collins’ hand and then Garrett’s before making an announcement, pointing Jamie further down the alley-way: “Well Jamie, I think it’s time we were on our way…”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that Sir. There will have to be an enquiry. We just blew up half of Ludgate Hill…”
“Yes, but St. Paul’s is still standing!” The Doctor noted with a smile.
Davies looked around confused and looked at the majestic figure of the landmark: “Well for now anyway.”
“Looks magnificent!” Collins remarked.
“That it does but… I’m afraid I’ll have to go. I’ll be in awful trouble with the Misses Sir. PC Collins knows my address.”
“Of course, hang on, what’s that noise?”
The three men turned around to the sound of the TARDIS dematerialising and to the realisation that the Doctor and Jamie were both gone.
“Wha…? Where did they go?” Davies demanded.
“Seems we’ve been left to carry the can,” Collins commented.
“We had better get our story straight then… what do you do for a living Garrett?”
“Well believe it or not… I’m a rat-catcher…”
Posted on the 3rd & 10th of February & 3rd of March 2007
Story set between The War Games and Spearhead from Space