UNIT:X (Chapter 4)

Chapter 4 (Dream Catcher)

A UNIT soldier had brought Holly and the Doctor a cup of tea and a plate of custard creams. Faith waited until the two of them had settled into a couple of chairs and then walked over to the whiteboard with the map of Huxley.

“This town,” she started, “has had a hell of a lot done to it over the past few months what with the Kro’Tenk coming through and the damage to the town centre.” She turned to look at the map. “Unfortunately that has caused it to become noticed.”

“Noticed?” said the Doctor as he dunked a custard cream into his tea.

“It’s almost like a swarm of ants around a can of pop,” said Benton, taking over from Faith. “You leave a can of pop out on a warm day and pretty soon you’ll find the ants swarming around it.”

“We were here,” continued Faith, “you were here, Doctor with your TARDIS and the spatial disruption with the Kro’Tenk made this place a curiosity to alien life, and we suspect that the Dream Catcher is the first of many.”

“Dream Catcher?” said Holly, frowning. “Back up a bit.”

“Yes, sorry,” smiled Faith. “The Dream Catcher is what we named it.”

“I came up with it,” said Beth, smiling. “It’s a very good song by Newton Faulkner.”

Faith raised her eyebrows at the young woman and Beth smiled sheepishly.

“As I was saying, the Dream Catcher is what we named it. We don’t know what species it is. We’ve barely scratched the surface, but we know what it can do.”

There was a crackle from Taggart’s walk-talkie. “This is Foster to Swift, over.”

“Sorry,” said Taggart, putting the walkie to her mouth. “Go ahead, Foster.”

“Ma’am, we haven’t been able to find any sign of Richard Hicks anywhere.”

The Doctor and Holly looked over to the liaison officer. She looked back at them and then spoke into the walkie. “Are you sure, Foster.”

“Absolutely. We’ve looked everywhere he could have gotten to within running distance and he’s nowhere to be seen.”

“Did you check his house again?” asked the Doctor, getting to his feet.

“Blindingly obvious question, Foster, but did you check his house a second time?”

“He’s not there, but the door was unlocked and the back door was open.”

Taggart looked at Faith who put a hand to her forehead.

“What?” asked the Doctor. “What’s going on?”

Taggart looked up at Faith. “Orders, Sentinel?”

“Call them in,” said Faith. “There’s nothing we can do now.”

“What do you mean?” asked Holly, putting her mug of tea down. “What do you mean there’s nothing that you can do? Where is he?”

“Please, sit down Miss Dangerfield.”

“No,” said Holly, crossing over to the Doctor. “What are they on about?”

“Perhaps you should finish your little story,” suggested the Doctor, staring at her with angry eyes.

“Of course,” said Faith. She looked flustered and then returned to the map. “Well, about two weeks ago it was reported that people were going missing from the town. Normally we wouldn’t have investigated, but the numbers were growing.”

Benton pulled out a clipboard with numerous readings on it. “Initially just myself and Beth came up here.” He smiled at the young woman. “We detected some strange readings coming from the centre of the town.”

Faith pointed to a black sticky dot that had been placed near the vicinity of the town hall. “Benton and Beth alerted the rest of the team.”

“It was pointless to go it alone,” said Benton.

“More and more people were beginning to disappear.” Faith folded her arms. “We began to evacuate the town and set up camp here.”

Taggart put her walkie down on the table and walked over to Faith. “I went in with a troop.”

“Went in? Went in where?”

“Underneath the town hall,” said Taggart. She exhaled, remembering what had happened. “I didn’t see anything, but it began taking out my troops. They just disappeared into the darkness. I barely made it out of there alive.”

“So there’s something down there under the town hall causing people to disappear wherever they are in the town?” said the Doctor.

“Exactly,” said Faith.

“But where does the Dream Catcher name come into it?” asked Holly.

“Well, we can’t be certain,” said Benton, “but a number of people have been witnessed as seeing things. It looks like they’re talking to thin air, and then they just...poof...vanish.”

The Doctor rubbed his chin. “Interesting.”

“And you think that’s what’s happened to Richard?” asked Holly.

“I hope to goodness it isn’t,” said Faith, “but I’m very much afraid that it’s a possibility.”



Something wasn’t quite right. Richard was certain it had been dark. No, he wasn’t certain...it had been dark. Most definitely. But now he was standing in front of a barbeque with an apron on and it was broad daylight. It was also a warm, sunny day. He could smell the cooking meat on the barbeque and smiled.

He looked across his garden Cheryl was sat with Molly on her knee whilst Liam was reading a comic book.

“Don’t burn the food!” said Cheryl.

“Oh,” said Richard, quickly using his tongs to take the meat off the grill, “sorry.”

“You’ve done this a thousand times before,” said Cheryl, smiling.

“I know. I know. I just felt a little bit...out of it.”

“You haven’t touched the beer yet, have you?” she said with an inquisitive look at him.

“No, not while I’m cooking, sweetheart,” he said. He squinted his eyes. What was going on here? Why didn’t he feel right? He took the last of the meat off the barbeque and then put the tongs down. “Just gonna make sure the doors unlocked for when our friends get here.”

“Okay, love,” said Cheryl.

He made his way into the kitchen and turned back to face the kitchen window overlooking the garden. Something just wasn’t right. He had been in the dark. The food in the fridge had gone mouldy. Cheryl hadn’t been here. It wasn’t summer. He turned away from the window and jumped. Right in front of him, filling his entire field of vision was a huge, black face. It looked almost triangular in appearance with no visible mouth or nose – just two, burning red eyes glaring down on him. He panicked and stumbled back.

“This is what is real. This is your life,” came the deep, gravelly voice from somewhere within the thing.

Richard turned to his side and then...everything seemed to feel okay again. He turned to where he’d seen the creature and there was nothing there. He frowned as memories of the creature faded away. By the time he had reached the front door to greet Denise and Colin he had forgotten about anything else other than this life.

This was what was real. This was his life.



“Okay,” said the Doctor, sat in the chair, his elbows resting on the central tables, “so this thing, this Dream Catcher, has come to Huxley and is making people disappear, and it does that by, what, projecting their dreams? Enticing them in?”

“That’s about what we can work out,” said Faith. “But other than that we don’t know much more.”

“Has anyone attempted to go in and find the Dream Catcher again?”

“Uh-uh,” said Osborne, sipping on a glass of water, “we’ve stayed out of the centre. I don’t even feel safe here. We were even cautious about going to find you three.”

“But you haven’t lost anyone else since the initial first contact?”

“No,” said Taggart. “Us and our troops are pretty well trained to resist psychic suggestion.”

“Yeah,” said Beth, looking into the distance, “but every now and then I can feel it prodding away at me.”

Holly frowned. “In what regard?”

“It’s there. All the time,” said Beth, pointing to her temple. “Every now and then I’ll see something out the corner of my eye, trying to distract me. You just have to carry on. If I pay it any attention whatsoever it’ll take me.”

“It’s the same for all of us,” said Osborne. “I can hear my dad talking to me, telling me to go outside and talk to him, but I know it’s not real. Dad’s not even in the country at the moment.”

“Then why are you all here?” said the Doctor, arms outstretched. “You need to be as far away from Huxley as possible.”

“Because someone needs to protect it,” said Faith. “Someone needs to find a way of stopping this thing.”

“Fair point,” said the Doctor, nodding at her.

“The affects are worse the closer you get to the centre though,” said Osborne. “Hence why we haven’t been back.”

“But we need to go and find Richard,” said Holly.

“How?” asked Beth. “We don’t even know where these people go when they disappear.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” said Faith.

“Meaning?” asked the Doctor.

“There was one person who came back,” said Faith.

“Then let me speak to him,” said the Doctor.

“That may be a little difficult,” said Faith, “as he’s gone completely and utterly mad.”

To be continued...