Doctor Who BBCN16 - Forever Autumn (2 page)

‘Freaky,’ said Scott.

Thad turned, his pale blue eyes wide behind his spectacles. ‘Let’s investigate.’

They went outside. Rick had never liked the tree. As a kid he’d been scared of it, and now that he was older he kept away from it for fear of catching something from its raddled bark. Even his parents gave the thing a wide berth. The soil down that end of the garden had always been crummy anyway, so they had no reason to go near it.

The closest any of them ever got was when his dad mowed the lawn.

Standing at the base of the tree now, Rick realised it was the nearest he’d come to it in years. Maybe ever.

‘There’s nothing here now,’ he said.

‘Not even any fungus,’ said Scott gloomily.

‘Maybe whatever made the light is underground,’ suggested Thad.

Rick pulled a face. ‘How can it be?’

4

‘I dunno, but maybe it is.’

‘Hey, maybe it’s buried treasure,’ said Scott. ‘Emeralds or something. Maybe we should dig down, see if we can find anything.’

‘Aw, c’mon guys,’ said Rick. ‘This is a waste of time. Let’s go pick up our costumes.’

‘Don’t be a wienie,’ said Scott.

‘Couldn’t we just dig down a little way?’ said Thad.

Rick sighed. ‘OK, if it’ll make you lame-brains happy. But I’m telling you, it’s pointless.’

He trudged back to the house. It had been raining on and off for the past week and the ground was a little squelchy underfoot. He reappeared a minute later with his dad’s spade from the garage, which he handed to Thad.

‘You wanna dig, you dig,’ he said.

Thad took the spade and used it to prod at the ground. Scott rolled his eyes.

‘What’re you doing? Tickling the worms? Give it to me.’

Thad handed the spade over without protest and Scott began to hack at the clay-like earth. Within a couple of minutes sweat was rolling down his face, but he had managed to create a sizeable hole.

Suddenly Thad shouted, ‘Hey, stop! I see something!’

‘What?’ said Rick.

‘I dunno. Look there.’ Thad pointed into the hole, and all at once what little colour he had seemed to drain from his face. ‘Aw, jeez, you don’t think it’s a body, do you?’

All three peered into the hole. There was something down there.

Something brownish and leathery and smooth. Was it skin, wondered Rick. Dry-mouthed, he took the spade from Scott’s slack hand and began to probe tentatively into the hole, loosening thick clots of earth from around the object. He uncovered an edge, a corner. Suddenly he relaxed.

‘It’s not a body,’ he said. ‘I think it’s an old book.’

He lowered himself to his knees in the mud and leaned into the hole. There was an unpleasant smell, like mouldy bread or rotting vegetables. Holding his breath, he leaned in further, grabbed the 5

leathery object and tried to tug it from the earth. He half-expected it to disintegrate in his hands, but it came free with a thick
schlup
sound.

The book was big, like an old Bible, and its cover was made of a weird brownish-red substance that was a bit like leather and a bit like plastic, and also, thought Rick with distaste, a bit like flesh. He straightened up and his friends crowded round to look.

‘Cool,’ muttered Thad.

‘Awesome,’ breathed Scott.

Rick produced a handkerchief and wiped away as much of the muck as he could. Emblazoned on the book’s cover, or rather carved into it, was a strange oval symbol criss-crossed with jagged lines. When Rick tilted the book, the symbol seemed to flash momentarily with a peculiar green light.

‘Did you see that?’ said Scott.

‘Reflection, that’s all,’ Rick mumbled.

There was nothing else on the book’s cover, nor on the spine. Nothing but the oval symbol. For some reason the book creeped Rick out a little. Holding it gave him a shivery feeling, as if he was holding a box full of snakes. Almost reluctantly he opened the book at random, tilting his head back as if he expected something to jump out at him.

The thick, wrinkly pages were covered in what he at first thought were random shapes, unfamiliar symbols. Then, just for a second, he felt dizzy, and all at once his eyes seemed to adjust. And he realised that the shapes were not shapes at all, but letters; letters which formed words. He tried to read the words, but they seemed jumbled up, foreign maybe. What was more they gave him the kind of prickly feeling you get when you think someone is standing behind you in an empty room.

‘Esoterica,’ said Thad.

‘Who?’ said Scott.

‘Like a secret language, known only to a small number of people.’

‘Is that what that is?’ asked Scott.

Thad shrugged. ‘That’s what it looks like.’

6

‘Hey,’ said Scott, ‘maybe this book belonged to, like, devil worship-pers, and maybe these words are spells to call up demons or something.’

‘Could be,’ said Thad.

‘So why don’t we try it? See what happens?’

Rick slammed the book shut. ‘No.’

‘Aw, c’mon, man,’ said Scott, screwing up his face, ‘don’t be such a girl. What’s the worst that can happen?’

How could Rick explain the effect the book was having on him without making it sound dumb? Maybe if his friends actually
held
the book in their hands. . .

‘Here you go,’ he said, thrusting it at Scott, ‘if you wanna call up a demon, you call up a demon. But don’t blame me if it bites your stupid head off.’

Scott rolled his eyes and took the book. Rick expected to see a change come over him, a look of unease appear on his face. But Scott just opened the book and started to read from it.

‘Belloris,’ he said, ‘Crakithe, Meladran, Sandreath, Pellorium, Can-itch, Leemanec, Freegor, Maish. . . ’

The weird thing, the really
creepy
thing, was that Scott seemed to have no trouble reading the arcane words. He read them in a strong, confident voice, almost as if he was doing a roll-call of his classmates’

names or reading out a list of the American states. Another weird thing was that almost as soon as he started to read his eyes went glassy and his body went rigid. Watching him, Rick couldn’t help thinking that the book had him under some kind of spell and, somehow or other, was bringing the words to life
through
him.

But that was nuts. Wasn’t it?

‘OK,’ he said, trying to make it sound as if he was bored, ‘you can stop now.’

But Scott carried on as if he hadn’t heard: ‘Mullarkiss, Sothor, Lantrac, Ithe. . . ’

‘I said stop!’ yelled Rick, and snatched the book from his hands.

This time when he slammed it shut sparkles of green light seemed to 7

puff up from the pages like dust. Rick blinked to clear his vision. Man, why was he getting so worked up?

Scott swayed a moment, blinking rapidly. He looked like someone coming out of a trance.

‘You OK?’ asked Thad.

Scott scowled. ‘Sure I am. Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘You turned really freaky for a minute there.’

‘And you should know,’ said Scott, sounding like his old self, ‘being Mr Freaky 24-7.’

They trudged back to the house, Rick carrying the book. He was wondering what to do with it, wondering whether he should show it to his parents. But when his dad appeared at the back door he found himself instinctively shoving it behind his back.

‘What have you reprobates been up to?’ Mr Pirelli asked good-humouredly. He was tall, a little thin on top, but he had kind of a goofy grin, which made him look younger than he was.

‘Nothing, Mr Pirelli,’ said Thad quickly.

‘Dad,’ Rick said. ‘Why aren’t you at work?’

‘I brought some stuff home to do on computer. It’s easier to concentrate here.’ Tony Pirelli noticed the state of his son’s clothes. ‘Heck, Rick, what have you been doing? Rolling in the dirt?’

Before Rick could come up with a convincing explanation, Scott blurted, ‘We’ve been digging for treasure, Mr Pirelli. Under the old tree.’

Tony Pirelli unveiled his goofy grin. ‘That so? You find anything?’

‘Yeah, a big fat zero,’ said Rick before his friends could reply.

‘Pity. Well, you guys take your shoes off before you come inside.

And Rick, get yourself cleaned up. Your mom would have kittens if she found out you’d gone to town looking like a vagrant.’

The walls of Rick’s room were covered in movie posters –
Lord of
the Rings
,
X-Men
,
Ghost Rider
, James Bond. He had a computer and a TV and his shelves were stacked with books, comics, games and plastic models of dinosaurs, robots and spaceships. It was a typical 12-year-old’s room, in other words.

8

He pushed the book under the bed, glad to relieve himself of its fleshy clamminess. He was standing in his boxers, rooting through his drawers for his favourite T-shirt and jeans, when there came a tap-tap-tap on his door.

Thad was sitting on the bed, flicking through a
Spider-Man
comic; Scott was swinging himself back and forth on the swivel chair in front of Rick’s desk. All three boys looked at each other, a moment of un-spoken tension passing between them.

Then Rick called, ‘Who is it?’

Silence.

He licked his lips, called again, and when no one answered a second time he said casually, ‘Grab that, would you, Thad?’

For a moment he thought Thad would refuse, but then he shrugged and said, ‘Sure.’

He crossed the room and pulled the door open. The landing outside was deserted.

‘There’s no one –’ Thad started to say – and then a figure with a brown, rotting face and long pointed teeth leaped into the room, screeching.

Thad dived onto the bed, Scott screamed and propelled himself backwards in the swivel chair, crashing into the desk, and Rick held his T-shirt up in front of him like a flimsy shield.

The brown-faced monstrosity started to laugh. It doubled over, slapping its thighs. Then it peeled off its face to reveal a more human one underneath – that of Rick’s 16-year-old brother, and bane of his life, Chris.

‘You should see yourselves,’ Chris hooted. ‘Man, what a bunch o’

pansies.’

‘Get lost, Chris,’ muttered Rick, but Chris stood there, relishing his victory.

‘Literally scared the pants off yer, didn’t I?’ he said, and hooted again.

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ said Rick. ‘Now go away, will you? And put the mask back on. You’re too ugly without it.’

9

Chris made an L-sign on his forehead with his thumb and forefinger.

‘So long, losers,’ he said, heading out of the room.

‘Man, your brother is such a dweeb,’ Scott told Rick after the door had closed.

Finding the book, and their encounter with Chris, had soured Rick’s mood. For a moment he felt like snapping that he’d call Chris back so Scott could tell him that to his face, but he forced himself to swallow the words. ‘Forget about him,’ he said, pulling on his T-shirt and jeans.

By the time he had tied his sneakers he was feeling a little better.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s go get our costumes.’

‘And our ice creams,’ Scott reminded him, licking his lips. ‘Triple chocolate sundae, here I come.’

Etta Helligan, known to local children as the Witch Lady, knew that something was wrong. She knew it as surely as day followed night, and night followed day. She knew it because she could feel it in her bones and her guts – an ache, a tingle, a sense of dread. A key had been turned, a door had been opened, and something. . . something
bad
, something
terrible
, had stepped out of the darkness and into the world.

‘What is it, Romeo?’ she murmured to the black cat crouched on the topmost stair, staring at her with yellow eyes. ‘What do you see?’

The cat miaowed and coiled itself round her ankles as Etta reached the upper landing. She bent to scratch its head absently, then plodded on through to her room.

There were more cats in here, Orlando sprawled on the bed, Marmalade prowling along the top of the wardrobe. Etta crossed to the window, noting how the clouds were bunching in the sky like grey fists, blotting the light from the land. She peered out, not knowing what she was looking for – and that was when she saw it.

Of course. How foolish of her not to have realised. Now that she could see the tree, black and twisted, clawing at the sky, it seemed obvious that it was the focus of her disquiet. She didn’t know
how
she knew, she just did. She had spent a lifetime
just knowing
things, and she had become used to it. Her mother had been the same, and
her
10

mother before her.

When she’d been younger, Etta had tried to help people by warning them about things, usually bad things, that she just knew were going to happen. But nobody ever thanked her for her advice. On the contrary, more often than not, they reacted angrily, thinking she was somehow responsible for the terrible events she foresaw. And as the years passed, and word got around, people started to shun her, believing she was a bad omen, a jonah. Believing that disaster clung to her like a contagion, waiting to be passed on.

Well then, she had thought finally, if they didn’t want her help, so be it. And so for the past forty years or more she had all but withdrawn from the life of the town. For Etta it was too painful to see someone walking on the sidewalk or out buying groceries and to know that they were in for a fall, yet not be able to do a thing about it.

But this was different. This, she felt sure, was something that would affect not just one person or one family, but the whole population of the Falls. She didn’t know what the
something
was yet, but she knew it meant them harm.

But how to proceed? How to warn her fellow townsfolk? She didn’t know that, but she
did
know she had to do
something
. This time she couldn’t simply bury her head in the sand.

She stared at the black tree, willing it to give up its secrets. And suddenly, as though complying with her request, she saw something drift from the tree’s base and curl around its trunk. Was it smoke?

No, it was more like mist. A greenish mist, rising out of the ground.

As Etta watched, the mist thickened and began to spread, extending wispy tendrils which crept outwards in all directions. Soon the tree was little more than a black haze in the greenish gloom.