Chapter 9 (Stop the Cavalry)
Three days had passed. Holly hadn’t seen much of the Doctor and Lilly. She knew they were still hanging around the town, tackling the sporadic appearances by the dead and helping the blackout and vision victims to either return back to consciousness or block out the visions, but it was simply papering over the cracks. The Riders would be here. No matter how unbelievable it all sounded - and she didn’t even want to get into the whole time travel questions - it was going to happen.
Holly had returned to work but she found it difficult to concentrate, but Friday had come around again and instead Holly had decided to meet up with Roxy and Simon at the Old Fat Cat pub in the town centre. None of them really felt like drinking, and Foxy was still as nervous as hell after what had happened to him, but the three of them needed to get out.
Holly had invited Alfie to meet her friends. She had met Alfie whilst working at the library. He had kept his job. He had been sweet enough to offer up his position for her to keep hers, but Holly had flatly refused to let him jeopardise his future. Nobody would thank him for it.
Truth be told Alfie was a bit of a nerd to everyone else around him. Foxy was a bit of a nerd in his younger days, but he’d ironed out the creases and become a sharp-suited business man. Alfie was sometimes still like a college kid, but Holly liked that about him.
They weren’t exactly in a relationship, but they had gone for a few drinks together.
Alfie opened the door of the pub and scanned for Holly.
Holly spotted him and waved him over. He was wearing his favourite blue jumper, chequered shirt underneath and had even gelled his unruly curly hair down.
He waved and smiled as he sat down.
“Alfie, I’d like you to meet Roxanne Fletcher and Simon Fox. Roxy, Foxy - this is Alfie.”
“Nice to meet you,” everyone said, shaking each others hands.
“So…” said Alfie.
“So you’re clued up on everything then Alfie?” asked Roxy.
“Yeah,” nodded Alfie. “I mean, I’m not sure what to think about it really. Holly’s been telling me about all the goings on.”
“Did she tell you about me?” said Foxy. “My mum comes back to life and then I black out. I’m just waiting for the visions now, which apparently I won‘t have cos my counterpart is already dead.”
Alfie laughed, realised Foxy wasn’t laughing and then quickly stopped himself. “Sorry.”
“Ah, not to worry mate,” said Foxy.
“So what do we do?” said Alfie.
“God knows,” said Holly. “Like I said to you, it’s only a few months before they come through.”
“And this Doctor can’t do anything?”
“Nope,” said Holly. “Nothing at all.”
Lilly found the Doctor sat on a park bench eating a bar of chocolate. He turned at the sound of her footsteps and shifted across the bench, patting it for her to sit down.
“What are you doing out here?” she said.
“Thinking,” he said glumly.
“We could always pop forward five months and deal with it, you know?”
“That’s cheating,” said the Doctor. “The TARDIS would never allow it.”
Lilly sighed. “Well we can’t stick around here for five months. We should fly off, have some adventures and then come back five months later.”
“And who deals with the walking dead and the visions between now and then?”
Lilly shrugged. “Not our problem.”
“How can you be so cold, Lilly?”
Lilly smiled knowingly. “Never forget the real me, Doctor,” she said. “No matter how much you try and change me, I’m still the same girl underneath your…teachings.”
The Doctor turned to face her. “I’m not trying to change you, I’m just trying to show you a better way.”
“Have you ever considered that maybe I do things my way because they get results?”
“Are we going backwards, Lilly?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Are we going backwards? It’s a simple enough question.”
Lilly looked to the ground, her brow furrowed. She very much wanted to tell him to get lost, but she couldn’t do that to him. She looked back up and forced herself to say, “No, we’re not going backwards.”
The corners of his mouth curled up slightly. “Good.”
The two sat staring at each other for a few seconds, and then…the signal device in Lilly’s pocket started beeping.
“Another one?” sighed the Doctor.
She picked up the device. The readout was showing several dots illuminated on the screen. “More than just one.”
“How many?” said the Doctor, leaning in to look. “Oh, dear…”
Holly and Roxy were walking arm in arm together. They both of them were slightly tipsy. They had left Simon and Alfie back in the pub, but Holly was getting tired and wanted to go home. Roxy cared for her friend though, and, as Holly’s route took her past an old church graveyard, she wanted to make sure she got home safely.
As they turned into the leafy avenue on which Holly’s house was situated, they passed the small church. The walls were high and they couldn’t see into the graveyard, but Holly felt a shiver run up her spine as they passed it.
“You okay?” said Roxy.
“I’m fine,” said Holly. She let out a sigh and stopped. “Actually, no I’m not.”
“What is it?”
“I keep thinking about my granddad. I keep wondering if he’s going to show up.” She had told Roxy a few days ago about her and Agatha’s grief over the loss of him.
Roxy took her hands and smiled sadly at her. “Holly, there’s always a chance that he died in that dead world as well, you know? I don’t think he’ll be coming back to life on our side.”
“That’s not it though,” she said. “I want him to come back. So I can see him one more time.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. One set heavier than the others. The Doctor and Lilly raced around the corner, Lilly holding the tracking device as it beeped multiple sounds over and over again.
“What’s going on?” said Holly.
“We have a little bit of a situation,” said the Doctor, brushing his sweat covered hair off of his forehead.
“The device?”
“It’s reading multiple signals.”
“By multiple, you mean that more than one body is coming back to life?”
“Yes. And when we say multiple, we mean,” continued Lilly, with genuine worry on her face, “gangs. Huge gangs of corpses rising from the dead.”
“Like some kind of zombie apocalypse?” suggested Roxy, looking a little more excited than Holly thought she should be.
“For the last time, they’re not zombies,” sighed the Doctor.
“We were headed for the big cemetery,” said Lilly. “That’s where the signal is strongest.”
“I don’t understand,” said Holly. “They’ve got another five months before they come through. Why is it intensifying now?”
“I think it’s got something to do with me being here,” said the Doctor, looking away from them all and shifting around on the spot. “The walls between our reality and theirs have been….thinned.”
“Then you’ve got to leave,” said Roxy. “You’ve got to get out of the town.”
“Easier said than done,” said Lilly. “Even if we did leave now, it may already be too late.”
Holly closed her eyes. “So what do we do?”
The four of them jumped when they had an almighty crash against the gates to the small graveyard. Standing there, pushing up against the gates was a man in his 30’s dressed in a grey suit. He was covered in dirt and had face had only just started regenerating back.
“Jesus bloody Christ,” said Roxy.
The Doctor ran over and run his sonic screwdriver over the man. The man lashed out with his hand, but the Doctor stepped back. He was trapped behind the large iron gate for now.
“Why is he so feral?” said Holly. “The others weren’t like this.”
“It might have something to do with so many coming through at once,” said the Doctor. “The force that’s pushing them through is not as focused. Remember, we still don’t know exactly how the Kro’Tenk come through.”
“So they are just like zombies,” said Roxy. “Walking, mindless zombies.”
“Oh do be quiet,” said Lilly.
“I haven’t forgotten what you did to me, blondie,” said Roxy, rounding on the Scottish girl.
Lilly turned to Roxy. “Maybe you should go home. Let the professionals deal with this.”
“Not a chance,” said Roxy. “I’m not letting Holly out of my sight.”
Holly smiled. Roxy was as scared as hell, she could tell, but she was also one of the bravest people she knew.
“The signal is strongest at the cemetery,” said the Doctor, snatching the device off Lilly and making his way down the street.
“What about this one?” said Holly, pointing back to the man who was still snarling.
“What about all of the graveyards in the town. In the world!” said Lilly. “We can’t fight them all.”
The Doctor stopped himself and then turned on the spot, his eyes darted from left to right. He was considering his options. “We need to leave.”
“I already said that,” said Roxy.
“You said that if you left it would do no good.”
“I might be able to send out a blocking signal,” said the Doctor.
Lilly frowned. “How?”
Holly, who kept glancing back to the dead man at the gates, found herself becoming lost again.
Lilly stepped up to the Doctor and grabbed his arm. “Why wait five months? We can stop them now.”
“Because if they came through now it could be disastrous. No, they need to come through on schedule in five months. It’s the only way.” The Doctor tapped his head. “Think. Think.” His head looked up, his eyes bright. “A blocking signal will nullify whatever is sending them through. We’ll still have to leave, and it won’t stop them coming through full-force in five months time, but it will stop the effects until we come back.”
“Okay,” said Holly, skipping up to the Doctor. “But how do we set up a blocking signal?”
“Wait a minute…” The Doctor’s brain ticked over and over. “Not a blocking signal, but a focus signal!”
“A what?” said Holly, finding it difficult to keep up with the Doctor.
“A focus signal. Something to direct and focus the energies on.”
“And how are we going to do that?” said Lilly.
The Doctor grinned. “Richard Hicks.”
Richard’s head had still been hurting, but it was easing off now. He couldn’t remember anything from the last 24 hours, and Cheryl had not said much, but he felt his world was about to come crashing down in front of him again when a man calling himself the Doctor burst into his house.
“You can’t just push yourself in!” said Cheryl.
“Mrs Hicks, this entire planets future rests of your husbands help.”
“I thought this was over,” said Cheryl, trying not to burst into hysterics.
“So did I, but I was wrong.”
The Doctor ran through what had happened to Richard again and then sat back.
“So what exactly do you want me to do?” he said, as Cheryl sat beside him, rubbing his arm.
“You won’t like it.”
“I haven’t liked any of this.”
The Doctor leaned back in the armchair and steepled his fingers together. “I’m going to take the block off your mind. Your other self will push himself through, hopefully, at which point I try and push you over to their world. Effectively you’ll been occupying each others bodies.”
“I don’t like this,” said Cheryl.
“I know,” said the Doctor, “but it won’t be a permanent thing.” He looked back to Richard. “Once your other self is back here, I hook you up to my…device. That will send a signal between this body and the other, creating a sort of mind tunnel between this world and there’s. This will enable me to amplify whatever power is pushing through to this world and focus it on you.
“Will it last long?”
“I’m afraid you’ll need to be put into a coma for five months.”
“No!” said Cheryl, getting to her feet. “No, I absolutely refuse. You can’t do this Richard.”
“Mrs Hicks, I think it’s up to your husband at the end of the day. I can’t make you choose to do this, Richard, I can only ask.”
Richard sighed. “I won’t experience anything?”
“Both of your bodies will be unconscious. The only worry is that when you collapse and fall into a coma on the other side, the people there might not know what to do with you. You could die.”
“Richard, no,” said Cheryl.
“If I don’t do it, what will happen?”
“Over the next few days, the dead will continue to rise, becoming aggressive, more people will black out and others will have their alternate selves dragged into their bodies. After about two weeks this world will shatter and the Kro’Tenk will come through and destroy this world as they have done all the others.”
“There’s no choice, sweetheart,” he said, turning to his wife.
“But why you?” she cried.
The Doctor shook his head. “You are the only one who has had such strong side effects. The other you has crossed over. In effect you will be like a tunnel with both ends blocked, stemming the power pushing the rest through.”
Richard looked down at his coffee cup and closed his eyes. “Then I have no choice.”
“Richard….” said Cheryl.
“Can I speak with my wife alone?” said Richard.
“Absolutely,” said the Doctor, getting to his feet. “But don’t be too long. My friends may be in very grave danger.”
At the cemetery Holly, Lilly and Roxy approached the main gates. The Doctor had protested, but Lilly had made it quite clear that they had to get to the gates to make sure that they were locked. There was no telling what any of the corpses would do should they escape.
To their horror, as they walked up the road past the crematorium, they noticed that the gates were unlocked and wide open.
“Oh, balls!” said Lilly, as she quickened her pace. “Who the hell left them open?”
“Look,” said Roxy, as a man stumbled out of the cemetery between the gates. It was the same man they had seen earlier leaving the crematorium.
“What are you doing?” said Lilly, marching up to him,
The man looked startled and confused and then swallowed. “I was working late. I heard a noise on the other side and thought it might be someone breaking in.”
“Let me guess, you ffound someone trying to break out?”
“Yes,” said the man. He almost looked pleased with Lilly, and then he looked worried again. “There are people digging themselves out of graves!”
“We need to shut the gates,” said Holly, grabbing one of the gates and pushing it shut, the old iron grating against the floor.
Roxy ran to the other one and began pushing just as an arm reached out and grabbed her curly brown hair. She yelled and stepped back, her glasses falling from her face. She tripped and fell backwards as the corpse - a young woman with dirt-stained blonde hair - slowly staggered forward before landing on top of Roxy.
“Roxy!” yelled Holly, leaving the gate and running to her friends side as the corpse slowly dragged itself over her.
Lilly joined her and both woman tried to pull the corpse off her.
“Help us!” yelled Lilly to the man, but he was already halfway down the road, running for his life.
“Coward!” yelled Holly after him.
By now another corpse had begun to wander through the gates. Unlike the previous corpses that had risen, these ones seemed to be uncoordinated and stumbling, much like the zombies Holly and Roxy had seen on TV over the years.
Eventually the two girls managed to haul the blonde corpse off Roxy and help her to her feet.
“You okay?” said Holly.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” panted Roxy.
They looked up. More corpses were coming through, lumbering bodies in the middle of regenerating and re-growing back to full form. And then they heard a scraping sound from a small area to the right. The three woman crossed over to an area that houses urns of ashes behind memorial plaques. One or two of the plaques had fallen away and swirling ash remains were rising up out of their urns and coalescing in the area, twisting and forming into fully formed bodies.
“This is getting out of hand,” said Lilly.
“We need to run,” said Roxy. “We can’t fight off all of these.”
Roxy and Lilly startedfor the road, but then turned back. Holly was frozen in place, her arms outstretched beside her, her body trembling before one of the ash figures.
“Come on, Hols,” said Roxy.
“I have to see,” said Holly, her voice almost a whisper.
“What? Have to see what?” said Lilly.
Holly looked at her friend and the blonde girl. “I have to see my granddad.” And with that she darted, pushing past the almost-formed ash and running into the darkened graveyard.
“Humans!” growled Lilly as her and Roxy pushed past the lumbering corpses and headed in Holly’s direction. If the Doctor was going to do anything he was going to have to do it quickly.
To be concluded...
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