19 Dec 2012

The Fear Factor, Chapter 6

In the stone room, Danny was busy trying to fix the large machine in front of him. Screws, nuts and bolts were strewn all over the floor and Danny bit his lip in concentration. He was determined to get this thing working even if he didn’t know how he was doing it.




The Doctor and Alex joined Tom at the cemetery. Tom was pointing his torch at one of the wooden crosses.

‘Well?’ asked the Doctor impatiently.

‘Look,’ said Tom, indicating with his torch beam.

The Doctor looked down and then back at Tom. ‘Yes, it’s a wooden cross. A grave for someone who was, no doubt, executed here.’

‘Look at the name,’ said Tom quietly.

The Doctor frowned, knelt down and then examined the clumsily scratched-in name. He froze when he read it.

‘Well?’ asked Alex who was trying to see.

The Doctor got to his feet and looked at Alex. ‘It says “Harold J Stevens”.’

‘Harold J Stevens? That’s the name that that figure said at the door; the name that Joanne kept saying.’

Tom shivered in the night air and shone his torch around. Then he noticed something. The candle light in the chapel had gone out.

‘Doctor,’ he said. ‘Look.’

The Doctor looked to where Tom was pointing. ‘The chapel. The lights have gone out.’

‘You don’t think something’s happened to them, do you?’ he asked anxiously.

‘We’ll just have to go and find out. Tom, keep looking for Danny, but be careful.’

‘Don’t worry, I will,’ said Tom as he disappeared into the shadows.

The Doctor and Alex set off as quickly as they could towards the chapel.

They found Caroline and Mark kneeling over Joanne and trying to wake her up.

Alex noticed that Kate was nowhere to be see. ‘Where’s Kate?’

‘What?’ asked Caroline.

The Doctor pushed in front and knelt beside Caroline. ‘What happened?’

‘That thing,’ said Caroline shakily. ‘It came back and we had to run.’

‘Where’s Kate?’ asked Alex again.

Caroline looked at the worried boy and shook her head. ‘I don’t know. When we ran from the chapel she was with us, but when we got out here she was gone.’

‘No,’ said Alex shakily. ‘We’ve gotta go and find her.’

‘Has there been any more movement or noises from the chapel?’ asked the Doctor.

‘No,’ said Caroline.

We need to go in there and find Kate and then gather ourselves together.’

‘And get out of here?’ asked Caroline.

‘And get out of here,’ confirmed the Doctor. ‘Mark, you come with me. Caroline, you stay and look after Alex and Joanne. Tom’s out looking for Danny.’

The Doctor and Mark set out across the prison grounds and towards the chapel. Eventually they arrived

and the Doctor grabbed the door handle, stopping and turning to Mark. ‘Be prepared for anything,’ he said solemnly.

Mark nodded grimly as they went inside the chapel.

The Doctor shone his torch beam around the room. There didn’t seem to be any sign of anything disturbed and everything was in it’s proper place. Then the Doctor’s foot hit something.

He looked down. Lying on her back was Kate, a pool of blood beneath her.

‘Oh my god,’ said Mark, backing away to the door. ‘Is she -?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid she is,’ he replied, as he examined her. He looked at the cross buried in her chest. ‘It seems like she was stabbed.’

‘By who?’ asked Mark, who still couldn’t comprehend what had happened.

‘Harold J Stevens?’ questioned the Doctor as he ran his finger through the blood-written name. He stood up. ‘Come on, we have to get out of here and call the authorities. Investigating ghosts is one thing, but a murder is another matter entirely.’




Tom had walked around the prisons perimeter walls and had stumbled across a small stone building that was situated low down in the ground. Steps led to a doorway and he decided to go down them. He pushed the door open and walked along a narrow stone corridor.

Sitting in the room at the end of the corridor was Danny. He was busy putting the final piece of the machine into place and grinned when Tom walked in.

‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Tom angrily. ‘We’ve been looking all over for you.’

‘I’ve been trying to fix this,’ said Danny happily. ‘Although I don’t know how I’ve done it.’

‘What is it?’ asked Tom, kneeling down beside Danny.

‘I guess we’ll find out in a minute.’




Loss and guilt. They were the only emotions that Alex was feeling.

The Doctor had returned from the chapel with Mark and broke the news to him gently. The girl he loved - the girl he loved more than anything else in the universe - was dead. Somehow she had ended up being stabbed with a wooden cross of all things, and now she was gone. The news hadn’t even sunk in yet.

The others had been kind. Mark and Caroline had offered their sympathy and hugged him, but the Doctor had remained cold about the whole situation. And Alex didn’t care what they thought anyway. The point was: Kate was dead. His only reason to be alive had been taken from him.

Now he sat at a distance from the others, lying down on the dry grass and looking up at the stars. He and Kate used to do that quite a lot. One day Alex had told her that he planned to travel to the stars, to discover new worlds, just like on Star Trek, but that was just a fantasy. In reality he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Kate and he hoped she had felt the same. The last few weeks - maybe even months - hadn’t gone well though. Kate had become highly critical of his hobbies, especially this ghost hunting business, and she had only come along on this trip to keep an eye on him. To make sure he was okay.

It was his fault that she had died. It was his fault and he’d never forgive himself for that.




Suddenly, without warning, the entire prison ground lit up. Alex was blinded at first, but soon his eyes began to adjust. He saw the Doctor, Caroline and Mark standing around and looking about them. Soon he became aware that the light was actually radiating from different parts of the prison grounds. Someone had turned the floodlights on.




The Doctor stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the area and looking for the person who had turned the lights on. In the distance he saw a grinning Danny who was being followed by Tom. They reached the group and Danny grinned insanely.

‘What’s going on?’ asked the Doctor. ‘Where have you been?’

‘In the generator room,’ he smiled. ‘I got us some lights.’

The Doctor broke into a wide grin, looked around and clapped Danny on the shoulder. ‘Well done young man!’ he said excitedly. ‘It’s just what we needed.’

‘But how did you do it?’ asked Caroline, her eyes were red from crying.

‘I don’t know. When the candles went out the first time I just felt the urge to run. I found myself in the generator room and began fixing it. I don’t know how I did it.’

Tom looked around him. ‘Where’s Kate?’

The others went silent and Caroline and Mark looked to the ground.

‘Kate’s dead,’ said the Doctor. ‘We found her in the chapel and we don’t know who did it.’

Tom went cold. He never liked Kate, but he hadn’t wished any harm on her. ‘How’s Alex taken it?’

The Doctor looked across to Alex who had returned to lying on the ground and staring into space. ‘Not well I’m afraid. He seems to have shut himself off from the rest of us.’

‘Well we need to get out of here,’ said Caroline. ‘We can get in the TARDIS and leave.’

‘Agreed,’ said the Doctor, ‘but first we have to go and get the authorities. We can’t just leave Kate there.’

‘Right, let’s go,’ said Danny.

As Danny marched off the Doctor looked at him suspiciously.

“What’s up?” asked Caroline, joining him at his side.

“How did Danny fix the generator?”

“No idea. Perhaps he just guessed.”

“No,” said the Doctor, his face grim. “Something made him fix it.”




The group arrived at the place where the TARDIS had been left in a matter of minutes, but something was wrong - the TARDIS was nowhere to be seen.

‘We left it right here,’ said Caroline worriedly.

‘Of course we did,’ said the Doctor. ‘But it’s gone. It’s just gone.’




In the chapel, Kate’s hand twitched and flinched. Her eyes opened and she began to breathe again.

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