Doctor Who: The Death Pit

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Doctor Who: The Death Pit

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Something odd is going on at the Fetch Brothers Golf Spa Hotel. Receptionist Bryony Mailer has noticed a definite tendency towards disappearance amongst the guests. She’s tried talking to the manager, she’s even tried talking to the owner who lives in one of the best cottages in the grounds, but to no avail. And then a tall, loping remarkably energetic guest (wearing a fetching scarf and floppy hat) appears. The Fourth Doctor thinks he’s in Chicago. He knows he’s in 1978. And he also knows that if he doesn’t do something very clever very soon, matters will get very, very out of hand.

  About the Author

  A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in London.

  PAUL HARRIS WAS dying. This wasn’t something his afternoon’s schedule was meant to include. Death, as far as Paul was concerned, was one of the many unpleasant things which only happened to other people. He’d never even attended a funeral – all those miserable relatives. He’d also avoided weddings – all those smug relatives. And he’d skipped every christening to which underlings in his firm had thought they should invite him – all those sticky, noisy babies… all those sticky, noisy underlings…

  Mr Harris’s death was particularly surprising to him as it involved being eaten alive by a golf bunker. At least, he could only assume that something under the bunker was actually what was eating him alive – now he’d sunk down past his knees into the thing – and he could only assume that it wasn’t going to stop eating him because… it wasn’t stopping.

  First he’d been gripped around his ankles while he eyed a tricky shot for the 13th green. The process had involved an initial pressure, combined with a slight, but very disturbing, pain and then a type of numbness had set in. Next, he’d sunk into the sand by a few inches, before another – he tried not to think of the word bite, but couldn’t help it – before another bite was taken with a little more gentle pain and then more numbness and another tug downwards. Paul liked to think of himself as powerful and unstoppable and there was huge power and a definitely unstoppable will at work here and he would certainly have admired them both had they not been ruining his very nice pair of lime green golfing trousers and his very nice legs inside them.

  Paul was surprised to discover that he was completely unable to scream for assistance and there was no one about to even notice his rather unusual situation, never mind save him from it. His golfing partner, David Agnew, had unfortunately flounced off towards the clubhouse a short while ago. As Paul was jerked further into the sand, he reflected that Agnew had proved himself as bad a loser as he was a really irritating man. Still, it would have been helpful if Agnew had stuck around because then maybe he could have pulled Paul out of the bunker, or written down a few last requests, or got eaten too. Paul imagined that seeing David Agnew get eaten by a golf bunker would have been highly satisfying, because people like David Agnew were pretty much ideal golf bunker food, in Paul’s opinion, although he was prepared to admit that he knew nothing about bunkers which ate people and what they might prefer. If he’d had any information on them, perhaps provided by his loyal secretary Glenda, then he might not be plunged to his waist in one right now.

  The list of things that Mr Harris knew nothing about was extensive. He had never been at all curious about those aspects of the world which didn’t benefit him directly.

  Nevertheless, the most inquisitive human alive on Earth at that time still wouldn’t have known Paul was being consumed by a creature so old and so mythical the universe had almost completely forgotten it ever was. The thing had passed beyond legend and was now simply a vague anxiety at the edge of reality’s nightmares.

  In a way, it was quite wonderful that such a being should still exist. Although, of course, it wasn’t wonderful for Paul Harris, whose abilities to communicate – by signalling, crying out, or extending a subtle and sophisticated telepathic field, should he have been able to do so – had all been suppressed by his attacker. His attacker didn’t like to be interrupted when it was feeding and fortunately evolution had allowed it to develop an ability to prevent its meals from attracting any kinds of aid. Unless, that was, the beast wanted dessert to arrive in one big arm-waving, or feeler-waving, or tentacle-waving, or slave excrescence-waving, or tendril-waving crowd of would-be rescuers, all panicky and delicious. In which case screaming, pleading and pretty much anything else along those lines was permitted.

  Evolution also meant that although Paul was being injured horribly he was feeling only mild distress. Eating a struggling meal was potentially dangerous and tiring, so the creature had developed many complex and fascinating mechanisms which meant that each bite it took of its prey released soothing analgesics and sedatives into – taking this afternoon as an example – Paul’s ravaged circulatory and nervous systems.

  By this point Paul’s arms were flopping gently on the bunker’s surface and his torso was locked into the sand as far as his armpits. He wasn’t a stupid man and he was fairly sure that as much of his body as he could still peer down at and see was about as much as was still available for board meetings and games of squash or, for that matter, golf. (Although he was definitely beginning to go off golf.) It seemed strange to him that he couldn’t seem to be too upset about any of this. He was, in fact, increasingly docile and happy in a way that reminded him of once being a quite pleasant child with many exciting and generous prospects ahead, every one of which he had ignored or wasted later.

  As Paul’s head was tugged down beneath the surface of the bunker, he could still feel the gentle summer breeze tickling at the palms of his hands which were raised and therefore still vaguely free. He experienced a brief regret that he hadn’t kept up his piano lessons and that he’d gone on holiday to the Turks and Caicos Islands instead of attending his own grandmother’s funeral. Paul then thought, ‘Is that breathing? I seem to be able to hear breathing… A bit like a cow’s, or a horse’s breathing… some very big animal. I wonder what it is.’

  At which point Mr Harris stopped wondering anything.

  Anyone who had passed by the bunker at that exact moment would have seen two well-manicured hands apparently being sucked into the bunker and disappearing. They could then have watched the sand tremble and shiver until it presented a perfectly smooth and harmless surface again.

  *

  Bryony Mailer was quite possibly the most inquisitive human alive on Earth at that time, which was 11.26 a.m. on 4 June 1978. She was a slim but wiry 24-year-old female human with a great sense of humour, huge reserves of ingenuity and a degree in European History. None of these things was helping her enjoy what she had once hoped was a temporary position as Junior Day Receptionist at the Fetch Brothers Golf Spa Hotel. There wasn’t a Senior Day Receptionist, because that would have involved Mr Mangold, the hotel’s manager, in paying Senior kind of rates. So Bryony was Junior and would stay that way for as long as she was here, stuck in perhaps the most tedious place on Earth. Lately, a couple of guests had even checked in and then simply given up on the place, leaving their luggage and running away. Their accommodation had been paid for in advance – it wasn’t as if they were trying to dodge their bills – and she could only assume the sheer boredom of the Fetch had driven them out. And the wallpaper in the bedrooms was quite offensive – she didn’t think she’d want to sleep inside it, either.

  When Bryony wasn’t folding away other peoples’ abandoned pyjamas and storing thei
r unwanted spongebags (in case they came back for them), she was dealing with the health and beauty requirements of golfers’ bored wives, coordinating the coaching and playing and post-game massage and bar lunch requirements of the golfers and generally fielding every bizarre request and complaint that an old hotel full of petulant people can generate on any given day. She didn’t get a lot of down time.

  But she’d been having a quiet spell lately. For as long as six minutes, she’d been able to ponder whether she’d have her tea with or without a biscuit and whether the biscuit would be a Mint Yo Yo or an Abbey Crunch. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d been able to tease apart all the convolutions of French foreign policy under Cardinal Richelieu, but now even a choice between two biscuits was likely to give her a headache. And Mangold would probably have eaten them in the meantime, even though they were her biscuits…

  She decided to take the risk of leaving the slightly scuffed reception desk unattended and propped a small handwritten card next to the brass counter bell – PLEASE PRESS FOR ASSISTANCE – before she slipped off through the door next to the scruffy room-key pigeonholes and along the narrow passageway that led to the Staff Office.

  Bryony had never liked this passageway. It was too narrow and its wallpaper was dreadful – worse than in the bedrooms – a claustrophobic pattern of purple and red swirls which almost seemed to wriggle when you looked at them. And it was always either overly cold in here or – like today – much hotter than was pleasant. She tended to rush the journey.

  As she rushed – it wasn’t far and would take less than a minute – she wasn’t aware that behind her the wallpaper not only wriggled, but swelled in two places, heaving and stretching until it seemed there were two figures caught behind it and fighting to get out. Had she turned and seen this happening it would have made her very frightened and also slightly nauseous, but she kept on walking, hurrying, simply aware of an odd taste in her mouth, as if she’d been sucking pennies.

  When Bryony reached the office doorway she saw that both her packets of biscuits had disappeared and there was a little gathering of crumbs on the shelf where she’d left them.

  She didn’t see – because her back was turned and anyway why on earth should anyone be on the alert for such a thing? – that two figures had detached themselves stickily from the nasty wallpaper and were now padding along towards her. Each of them seemed unfinished, like rough models of small human beings made out of purple and red meat. Their outlines shifted and rippled horribly. Eyes and teeth emerged to the front of the two rudimentary heads; they showed white and shining and clever against the shifting masses of glistening flesh.

  And there was no way out for Bryony. The Staff Office was a dead end in every sense, as she’d often told herself.

  ‘Oh, bum.’ Bryony sighed. This was going to be another awful day. And she had the very distinct feeling she was being watched. There was a tingling against her neck. She was filled with an impulse to turn round and also an idea that if she did she might not like what she discovered.

  As they walked – now very close to Bryony – the figures kept altering, their outlines firming, features coming into focus and solidifying. Then four arms stretched out towards her and, as they lifted, were sheathed in fresh skin. Four hands became completely hand-like, with four thumbs and sixteen fingers and twenty fingernails, just as they reached to clutch her.

  As Bryony finally did begin to spin round she felt herself being held by both her wrists and heard the word, ‘Boo!’ being shouted by two very similar voices.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ It was the Fetch twins, Honor and Xavier, looking up at her and giggling while they squeezed her wrists. ‘You two nearly scared the life out of me.’

  ‘That would be bad. Your life should be in you,’ said Xavier, the boy twin. The Fetch twins weren’t absolutely identical, as they liked to tell everyone. They were a boy and a girl, very alike, but not the same. ‘We’re very sorry.’ Xavier didn’t currently look sorry at all.

  Neither did Honor. ‘We didn’t want to scare you… only sort of worry you a bit. To be exciting.’ She smiled and looked very sweet. ‘Excitement is nice, isn’t it?’

  Bryony forgave the little girl, as she always did. She always forgave both twins – they were just extremely… forgivable. Even though they did seem to turn up suddenly more often than not, as if they were creeping about and planning something only they understood. And it wasn’t as if Bryony didn’t need some excitement. She longed for it, in fact.

  Xavier squeezed her hand between his, tugging. ‘Grandmother says she would like you to come and visit her for tea.’

  This was sort of good news – the twins’ grandmother was Julia Fetch, the reclusive widow who owned the hotel. If she had decided to like Bryony that might make life much easier for the Permanently Junior Day Receptionist and maybe even mean Mangold didn’t eat Bryony’s biscuits. Then again, she really didn’t want to work here for much longer. Possibly it would mean she got a good reference when she resigned, though…

  The twins peered up at her, identically expectant and cute with their willowy limbs, perfect complexions and sun-bleached hair: Xavier in a blue and white striped T-shirt and blue shorts, Honor in a red and white striped T-shirt and red shorts. They were both barefoot, as usual. Bryony thought maybe she might mention to Mrs Fetch that running around with no shoes on wasn’t terribly hygienic. Then again, maybe Mrs Fetch ran around in bare feet, too. No one ever saw her and she was incredibly wealthy – she could do whatever she liked. She could just not wear anything at all, ever, if she felt like it, or dress as a pirate. Of the two choices, Bryony was strongly in favour of the pirate option.

  Honor squeezed Bryony’s hand this time. ‘Do say yes. We’d be ever so pleased and have cucumber sandwiches.’ Both twins spoke like children out of an old-fashioned story book. ‘Truly we would.’ And maybe incredibly wealthy people talked like that all the time – Bryony had no idea, being what she might have called incredibly not wealthy if it wouldn’t have depressed her to do so.

  Bryony nodded at the twins – while thinking pleasepiratecostumepleasepiratecostume – and both kids gave a cheer.

  ‘Thank your grandmother very much. When I have a break I will come over.’

  ‘This afternoon! This afternoon!’ The twins skipped and chanted as they scampered away up the passage and out of sight.

  ‘Weird little people.’ Bryony shook her head and, in the absence of biscuits, pottered back out to the reception desk. There was no sign of the twins and the grandfather clock was, as usual, not ticking. As far as Bryony was concerned, life was dusty and hot and dull, dull, dull.

  *

  Out on the golf course, now shimmering with heat under the June sun, a peculiar person struggled with his golf bag, which seemed to be much larger than was necessary. It was almost taller than him. But then, he was on the small side. Once again, his putter fell to the grass and once again a fellow golfer spotted him flailing about just where he shouldn’t be and yelled, ‘Get out of the bloody way, man! Fore, for heaven’s sake! Fore!’

  As he picked up his putter, only to watch several woods clatter onto the carefully manicured turf in a heap, the figure sighed and wondered, ‘Four of what? I don’t think I even have one of them… I don’t think…’ He was out of his depth, as he usually was, and felt distinctly hot and uncomfortable in his black woollen unsuitable suit. He peered in the direction of the Fetch Hotel and the Fetch Hotel front entrance and the Fetch Hotel reception desk and the area near to the reception desk and the precise spot – which he could only guess at longingly – where Bryony Mailer was standing at that very moment.

  He sighed again, this time from the soles of his feet, right up to the ends of each hair on his head. It was horrible being in love. It was considerably more horrible being in love with someone too beautiful for you to even look at properly – unless you knew they were looking somewhere else and you wouldn’t have to meet their eyes and blush and then want to burst into flames
or evaporate or something. It was more horrible still when you understood completely that the person you loved clearly found you far less interesting than watching a pebble. It was most horrible when your love could never be, not in any way, not ever.

  He sighed again until he felt completely hollowed out and didn’t even flinch when a golf ball sliced past him, close enough for him to hear the way its tiny dimples disturbed the air.

  ‘Fore, you moron! Fore!’ An irate voice screamed away to his left.

  He really would have to work out this four thing. He bent to gather up his clubs with a heavy and tragically romantic heart.

  *

  As a golf ball landed much further away from the 12th green than its owner had intended, Bryony thumbed through her stack of pending reservation slips while deciding – yet again – that she hated golf, hated golfers, hated golfers’ wives (did they have no lives of their own?) and that she really hated her ex-boyfriend Mick (a non-golfer) for having sapped her confidence, just when she’d been making postgraduate career decisions. A year ago, she’d thought working here would be relaxing and give her a taste of real life, and maybe she could write a book about… something… something to do with history… in her evenings off before becoming a stunningly attractive and popular young professor somewhere. Now she knew she was bored out of her mind, was never going to write anything if she didn’t get away from the horrible Fetch premises and horrible Fetch guests and the horrible Mr Mangold. Bryony was equally certain that she had no idea what came next. Her lack of clarity about what came next was scary and why she hadn’t left yet.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry terribly much about that, you know,’ said a friendly, velvety kind of voice.

  Bryony glanced up to see a very tall man studying her from the doorway. He grinned with rather more teeth than one person should have. He appeared to have been dressed by a committee, possibly a drunk committee: wing collar and something that might once have been a cravat, baggy checked trousers, brown checked waistcoat, long purple velvet frock coat with bulging pockets, raddled shoes… an immense and disreputable scarf with a life of its own…