Doctor Who - Warrior No More

“Wearing a bit thin…”



He opened his eyes. He must have passed out. His face was tingling and he had a headache. One of those ones that stretches over the top of your eyes and bites down into your skull, refusing to let go.

He sat himself up and the room span around him. The bright, white room.

He tried to focus on something - anything. Things were blurry and out of focus, but he could make out some kind of mushroom-shaped control panel in front of him. The room he was in was circular and like a big, giant dome with round, off-colour-yellow circles indented into the white walls.



The TARDIS! He remembered.



Thank goodness, he thought to himself. And then more memories began to flood back to him. He had regenerated. He had been an old man, that particular body having lasted longer than many of the others. His body had become weak and he had no choice but to regenerate, his body ravaged by the effects of the War…

The War…?

The Time War…

His face fell, his racing hearts slowing to a steady rhythm. Had that really just happened? His memories were clouded. He felt like they were fading. He was sure he had been there with two other Time Lords at the end…but it couldn’t have been. He must have imagined it.

He started to piece together the events in his head. He had stolen the Moment and taken it to the barn. He had fully intended to die there. To die with his own people.

The War had raged across the galaxy, destroying whole planets and whole time lines. The Time Lords - the High Council that is - had become as bad as the Daleks. He only saw one way out of it. Skaro had already been burnt to a cinder, barely still existing, and Gallifrey had to go the same way.

So he had stood there with the Moment. His memory was still hazy, but the Moment had spoken to him…and then he pressed the button.

He remembered flying away in his TARDIS and seeing Gallifrey disappear in a devastating explosion. And then he had regenerated.

How did I manage to escape, he thought to himself. Why did I run? Am I a coward?

This was his sentence. To go on living after he had killed them. After he had killed what remained of his family. He had once been the Doctor, but that man that had committed those atrocities was not the Doctor. He had already refused to continue to call himself the Doctor during the War.

I’ll banish him, he thought to himself. He was ashamed. He couldn’t let that man be remembered. He had to start again. He had to start anew.

The Last of the Time Lords.



Later…



He closed the TARDIS door and took one more look inside. It was dark. The TARDIS had undergone some damage to its internal dimensions and he needed to let her repair herself. Her machinery groaned as he closed the door and locked her up.

He turned to see where he had landed, not even bothering to have checked the readings upon materialisation. It was snowing, his feet a few centimetres into the soft, fluffy white stuff. He smiled sadly to himself and held out a hand. A flake landed on his palm and he watched it melt away into nothing.

Nothing. Just like his people were now.

He surveyed his surroundings. The TARDIS had landed him in a park. He sighed, put his hands into his pockets to keep them warm and then trudged on through the snow. He didn’t really know where he was going, but he needed to be away from the TARDIS. He needed to clear his head.

A young couple walked past him and eyed him up with amused faces. He hadn’t yet changed his clothes. He was still wearing the long, leather coat and waistcoat complete with the bandolier. He must have looked quite strange to them.

He reached the edge of the park where a row of grand, old houses stood. Beside the road a small, blonde girl of about nine years old was busy trying to build a rather pathetic looking snowman. She looked up at him and smiled.

“Do you like him?” she said. She had an accent. He thought about it. Manchester maybe…?

“What’s his name?” he said, realising that this was his first time using his new voice. He sounded different. He sounded…rougher.

“He doesn’t have a name, silly,” said the girl.

“Everyone’s got a name,” he said.

“What’s your name then?” she queried.

“That’s enough questions, kid,” he said, trudging on past her. He didn’t want to discuss the recent events with a silly little girl.

“What’s wrong?” she said, dumping the partially rolled up snowball to side, brushing the snow from her mittens and following him.

“Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to talk to strange men?” he said, refusing to turn around.

“I don’t have any parents,” she said, catching him up.

“What?” he turned to look at her. “No parents?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head and looking up at him. “My parents died when I was young. I live in the home over there.” She pointed towards one of the big, old houses.

“What time is it?” the Doctor asked, noticing the house in darkness.

“Nearly 1 in the morning.”

He stopped and crouched down in front of her. “Did you sneak out?”

“Yep,” she said. “I do it all the time.” She went into her pocket and pulled out a toy boat. “It’s nearly Christmas. I was in trouble the other day because I went raiding for presents and found this in one of the stockings.”

“It’s the Titanic,” said the Doctor.

“I know that,” she said. “We learnt about it at school.”

“It’s dangerous out here at this time,” he said, getting up again and marching towards the house.

“You’re not taking me back,” she said. “I’ll go back when I’m ready to go back.”

“I can’t leave you out here either.”

“Then why can’t I go where you’re going?”

He frowned. “And where am I going?” he asked. It was a question he hadn’t even considered. Just what did he do now?

“The box with the funny sound. I saw it through the trees.”

“Nah,” he said. “I don’t want to go back in there.”

“Why not?” said the little girl.

He sighed and then sat down on the ground next to her. “I’ve done some…bad things.”

“So have I,” said the girl. “That’s why I’m always in trouble.”

“Not as bad as this,” said the Doctor, looking towards the darkened houses. “I hurt a lot of people.”

“So?” she said.

“So? People got hurt.”

“So make it right again,” she said, as if that hadn’t already occurred to him.

“Easier said than done I’m afraid,” he said, grabbing a handful of snow and letting it melt in his hands, oblivious to how cold his hand was feeling.

“I don’t really know you, mister, but you seem like a nice man.”

“How do you know I’m a nice man?”

“Because if you were a bad man you wouldn’t be feeling sad about hurting people.”

The Doctor smiled down at her and she gazed back up at him and broke into a grin. “You’re a smart one, kid.”

“If you can’t put right what you’ve done maybe you can try and make up for it.”

“Meaning?”

“When I’ve been naughty I always try and say sorry by helping around the orphanage. Cleaning up and things. It makes me feel better, and then and I feel like I’ve done some good.”

“But what I did-”

“You might never be able to make up for it, but you can at least try. You can try to be the good man that you know you are.”

The Doctor didn’t answer. He just sat there, his legs crossed, still looking at the little girl.

“What’s your name?” she asked again.

He sighed. “The Doctor,” he felt like it had been such a long time since he’d said that name. People had still called him the Doctor over the years, but he gave up that title a long, long time ago. He had to give it up. He wondered if he could ever reclaim it again?

“You made a mistake,” said the little girl. “You’ll always have that pain in your hearts,” she put a hand on his chest, “but you can be the Doctor again.”

He nodded, listening intently to her. Who would have thought a nine year old would have had such wisdom? he thought to himself.

“I better go in now,” she said to him, getting to her feet and brushing the cold snow off her pyjamas. “I don’t want to push my luck.” She threw him the toy Titanic and he caught it. “You can have that.”

“Where do I go?” he asked, almost laughing at himself for thinking the girl would have the answer.

She turned and looked back at him. “Go and save someone. Go and make a difference.” She turned to leave and then looked back one more time. “Live for the moment.”

He nodded to himself. He would make a change. He would save someone. He would become the Doctor again, his previous self buried firmly in the past. He would have to bare the responsibility of his actions, but he wouldn’t ever let him be a part of who he is now.

He got up to leave and then turned to say goodbye to the girl.

But she was nowhere to be seen.

He frowned and then made his way back to the TARDIS. He stopped by the door and looked back one more time in the hope that she’d be waving from a window or something. But there was nothing.

A thought occurred to him. Wait a minute...How does she know I have two hearts?



A little while later he stood at the TARDIS console. The ship had almost completed it’s regeneration and he set it in flight. He went to his pocket to retrieve a small mirror so he could look at his new features, and then stopped himself.

No. Before he could look himself in his new eyes he had to go and make that difference. He had to change something. To save somebody. Instead he pulled out the toy titanic the girl had given him and smiled at it.

He inputted one time and location into the console panel:



Southampton, April 10th 1912.



“Unsinkable,” he said to himself.



He looked down at the bandolier still strapped to himself and removed it, before dropping it to the ground with a clatter. He stared at it for a good, long time whilst the TARDIS engines signalled her materialisation.



“Warrior no more.”



The End?

This story is also available as a narrated audio reading:

Copyright © 2015 by Jim Allenby

All rights reserved. This story or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

DOCTOR WHO IS COPYRIGHT © BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION (BBC) 1963- 2022.

NO INFRINGEMENT OF THIS COPYRIGHT IS EITHER IMPLIED OR INTENDED.

Reaper on the Roof (Micro Story)

Every night the man would see the Grim Reaper sat on the roof of the house opposite his, and every night his wife would tell him he was seeing things. “It’s just the outline of the chimney stack in the dark,” she would tell him.

But he didn’t believe her. He was sure that Death had come for him at last.

So, one night, after fretting for so many days, he waited until everyone had gone to bed, and at 3am he took his ladders and climbed up onto his neighbour’s roof and to the “chimney stack”.

And there he sat, calm, pale faced and dressed head to toe in black, scythe in hand - the Grim Reaper.

“I knew it. I knew it was you! Nobody believed me!” he gasped, shivering in the crisp night air.

The Reaper turned to look at him and the man thought he saw a flash of a smile play across his thin, pale lips.

“You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?” the man whispered.

“Silly man,” the Reaper replied, “I don’t kill people. I simply take their souls when the time is right. Quite often it’s something else that kills them. Just ask the cat.”

The man looked confused for a moment and then laughed in relief. “Then I’m ok. You’re not going to kill me?!”

The Reaper shook his head.

“Then what are you doing up here? It’s bloody freezing.”

The Reaper didn’t reply.

The man climbed a little higher. “Come on. Please tell me. What are you doing here?”

The Reaper stared at him and then looked away. “Dying is such a strange beast for you mortals to understand. You came up here seeking answers when you didn’t need them, but then I had no choice but to be up here because you were too curious.”

“I don’t understand.” The man crept a little closer.

“You know what they say about curiosity, don’t you? If you hadn’t been curious, I never would have had to have waited for you tonight. And the only reason you were curious was because I was sat here waiting for you. It’s quite an interesting little loop, isn’t it?”

The man laughed. “You’re not making any sense. If you’re not going to kill me then why are you waiting for me?”

But the man didn’t get his answer. It was a cold night. The roof tiles were slippery, and all it took was one misplaced foot. The man slipped, tipping backwards, sliding down the roof before falling straight down to his death.

The Grim Reaper shook his head and sighed. “What am I waiting for? I’m not going to kill you. I’m just waiting for you to do it yourself.” He stared down at the broken man lying on the floor of his neighbour’s front garden. “Curiosity, my friend. Curiosity.”



The End

Copyright © 2022 by Jim Allenby

All rights reserved. This story or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Echo (Tales from the Ghostwood)

Let me tell you about a story from the turn of the century that tells of a young woman who came to the orphanage on Albion Road. A woman, barely old enough to be classed as one, who arrived one day in a simple white dress, stained with muck and grime.

She came with no possessions, no belongings, and no other items of clothing. Her hair was as dirty as her dress, matted and tangled. Her face was covered in soot, and she smelled as if she hadn’t washed for many weeks.

The matron took her in and bathed her. When she had finished with her, what emerged was a young woman, not exceptionally beautiful, but attractive with long, dark blonde hair, hazel eyes, a pale face, narrow nose, and perfectly white teeth.

The woman, who they had christened Emma for lack of another name, did not speak for two days after. She barely touched her food. She barely acknowledged that she was a part of this world. She would sit in the attic room staring out of the small window across at the river below, watching the barges sail in as they unloaded their produce by the docks.

It was only when the sickness came that Emma finally began to exist in this world, for want of a better word.

Peter was the first to go. A small, often grubby child with a cherubic face. He passed in the night. He was found at the foot of his bed, black blood dripping from his mouth, his eyes wide open in terror.

Doctor Forbes was called, and it was declared that the child had died through asphyxiation. No explanation could be given for the black blood.

The next child to go was Phyllis. A bonny lass of only six years old. Sweet with curly blonde hair and rosy-red cheeks. She died in the same way.

And then Norman left this world, and the Tyler twins.

And it was then that Emma spoke up. It was then that she awoke from her mental slumber. She told us that she had travelled from far away to help the children. That she had come from the light and arrived in darkness. That she had gone against the wishes of those above her to try and save the souls of our children. She was only sorry that she hadn’t been able help sooner. She told us that her trip to these lands had been particularly traumatic for her and that it had confused her. That her brain had needed time to heal.

She had heard echoes of the children, crying out in terror. She had felt compelled to come to their assistance. She said she would be punished for her transgressions, but that was not important. What was important was saving the children.

And save the children she did. To this day – and to my dying day – I will never be able to explain the manner of which she operated, but, like some sort of angel, she made her way around the orphanage, whispering strange, foreign words under her breath. She would touch each of the children’s foreheads – as if blessing them – before she finally reached a room at the back of the building. A room that had not been used in many years.

She told us that darkness lay beyond the door. That it only came out when the house was asleep. When not a soul was watching. She had a responsibility to send it back to the darkness.

She had insisted we stay back as she made her way into that blackened room. She warned us not to follow her. And so that’s where she stayed for three more days. Three days of silence. We dared not interrupt her. Then, one night, as the clock struck midnight, there came the most unearthly, terrible cry I had ever heard. There was one, single blow on the wooden door that led into the room and then nothing.

Silence.

Dawn came.

Emma exited the room, her face paler than it had seemed before. She had thanked me and the staff and then said goodbye to the children. Then she had quietly and serenely exited the building by the same doorway she had entered it. Before she left, she turned to me and gave me one more look. She explained to me that her name was not Emma, but she would always treasure it as her own.

When I asked her what her name really was, she said one, simple word – Echo.

And as the sun rose above the church across the road, the light burned bright. A light the brightness of which I had never experienced before. The sort of light that extinguishes any inch or square of darkness and burns in your eyes long after it has dispersed.

When I opened my burning eyes, Emma had gone.

The story of Emma would be told for many years to come. The story of how a mysterious girl had come to our world to save our children’s souls. How she had snuffed out the darkness and sent it back to whatever world of horror and terror it had come from.

I often wonder what Emma is doing now. Did she return to her own world? Did her people forgive her what she had done? Did she save more children? I have never seen her again and to my mind neither has anyone else, but I will die safe in the knowledge that once, in my lifetime, a true Angel walked this Earth.


The End

Copyright © 2022 by Jim Allenby

All rights reserved. This story or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The Possible Death of Bryony Jones (A Horizon Micro Story)

I knew I had done it this time. I knew I'd finally crossed the line and stepped into something I really should have left alone. Knox had warned me. Spencer had warned me. Hell, even Langley had told me not to even bother looking into this one. Did I listen?

I'll let you decide on that one.

No, I was too determined to prove them wrong, without even considering the fact that I'd proven everyone wrong time and time again. That I could handle what was out there. The shapes that moved in the darkness. The sounds that rattled through the walls of your cosy little homes late at night.

I could do this.

Unfortunately, I bit off more than I could chew. I went one step too far.

The house had tempted me in. Taken me across the threshold. Teased me with thoughts of what I'd lost. And even as I'd watched the familiar silhouettes of Mum and Dad beckoning me into the house on Ecklesby Rd, I knew something was amiss.

I cursed myself. We were trained to resist these things. Trained to block out thoughts of loved ones long gone. And my failure was now staring me in the face as I lay on the dusty, rotting floorboards, covered in cobwebs, and staring up at the haunted faces of my dead parents.

Vacant and lifeless eyes stared back at me. Eyes that weren't really eyes but dead bulbs in sunken eye sockets, their filaments long since burnt out. My father’s beard was unkempt. Ungroomed. And what little remained of his hair lay lankly over his bald head. Greasy strands threatening to slip down over his eyes like some pathetic attempt at a fringe.

My mother, once so beautiful, looked like a corpse. Her red lipstick smudged, her blonde, nearly greying hair, dry like straw. Those eyes that had once contained such wisdom now contained nothing but a void. No reason for existing. The vault of love she had once held for all those dear to her was empty.

These were not my parents. And yet, I couldn’t resist them. The allure of them. The potential that I may have stumbled upon a long-gone piece of my past. A past that called to me. Made my heart ache.

I'd lost consciousness for...God knows how long. Long enough for the cobwebs to have been woven around the lower section of my body. Whatever had done this had left my upper body free except for my arms, which were tightly bound either side of me. And then I inwardly laughed. What else spun spider webs in this world...?

And then my blood chilled. What size spiders would have to exist to weave webs this big?

Mother and Father looked down at me. Emotionless. I was about to speak. Ask them who they were. Why they were doing this to me when they opened their mouths. A thick, black substance - too greasy to be blood – had pooled inside their maws. The dark, almost oil-like liquid dripped out in great, heavy drops, staining Mother's tattered red dress, and splattering on Father's yellowing, cotton, once-white shirt. The sound they produced pierced through to my very eardrums. It was like a screech. A screech combined with a very sharp hissing of a snake. I closed my eyes. I would have put my hands to my ears had they not been bound up by the cobweb.

The scream finally stopped.

And when I opened them again my parents had stepped to the sides of the room. The shadows in the room had converged to the centre and back against the far wall. I could hear breathing and what sounded like the rustling of dead autumn leaves.

The shadow began to expand towards me. Crushed blacks creeping into the corners of the room. My parents put their hands to their faces, covering their eyes, like graveyard statues and slowly turned to face the walls behind them. Were they wishing to not see what was happening in front of them?

Or were they being ordered not to watch?

The darkness crept up the dusty floorboards and across my legs, and when it hit me, I felt my feet go cold. No, not just cold. They went numb. I panicked, my pulse increasing. My heart thumping in my chest. The shadow had now consumed the lower half of my body. My parents had been swallowed by the night. I could smell rotting flesh from somewhere. The chattering of many teeth.

I was about to open my mouth and scream when…

I don’t know what happened next.

The last thing I recall was standing in the room of the house, my parents either side of me. My clothes were tattered, my hair loosely hanging down either side of my face. I looked down at my pale, waxy arms. These were not the arms of a woman in her prime.

These were the arms of a corpse. Withered. Decayed.

And lying in the centre of the room was someone I recognised. Bound up in the same web that had bound me in what seemed like only a few minutes ago. Tied up in the web was Mark. My husband. I wanted to move. I wanted to go to his side. Be with him.

Why did they have Mark? How had they lured him here? Why had they lured him here.

And then I heard the sound again from the end of the room. The same shadows began to flood forwards. I turned to my father, and he gently shook his gaunt face. I knew not to interfere. We were caught now. Caught in a never-ending cycle of the same thing. They had lured me. Somehow, though I couldn’t remember it, I had lured Mark. And Mark would lure someone close to him. Whatever this thing was, it was gathering us together.

I felt my doomed husbands’ eyes staring at me, and I felt nothing. Instead, I simply copied my parents and put my hands to my face to hide my eyes as the darkness consumed the room once more.

Mark screamed as the haunting sound of breathing and dead leaves filled my eardrums.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to cry.

Yet all I could do…was smile.



The End

Copyright © 2022 by Jim Allenby

All rights reserved. This story or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.