'But in return it provides that host with something.'

'Life after death?' Sir Anthony asked with a frown.

'That may be a side effect.' Another pebble splashed down impressively far away. 'Perhaps the genetic material keeps the body healthy, repairs it.'

'Like the fisherman's arm,' Peri realised.

'Exactly. But if the body is too damaged...' The Doctor picked up another pebble and hefted it in his hand, testing the weight. 'Or, no!' He dropped the pebble again and leaped to his feet, stumbling slightly as he caught his balance. 'If the brain dies. Like a drowning, oxygen starvation. Whatever.'

'Then, what?' Peri asked as she pulled herself to her feet beside him.

The Doctor was staring out to sea. Sheldon's Folly was a small dark smudge on the misty horizon. 'If the material doesn't have any effect on the brain,' he said slowly, 'if it has no control, then it might simply just not know that the host is dead. And it keeps repairing the body.'

'But why would it up and walk away?' Sir Anthony wanted to know. 'It was quite active and insistent, as I recall.'

The Doctor waved his arms in annoyance. 'I don't know. I can't answer everything. Look, it's just a guess, that's all.

Maybe there is some inherent cerebral influence. Or maybe that comes later.' His voice was rising as he got frustrated and angry with himself at not knowing the answer.

'Most animals have a survival instinct,' Sir Anthony offered. 'Something similar, perhaps?'

'But why do it?' Peri asked as they started towards the boat again.

'What, survive?'

'No, this experiment. Whatever it is?'

Sir Anthony laughed. 'Any idea what the health service costs?' he asked.

'Then there's the licensing,' the Doctor added. 'Imagine the appeal of a material like this. One simple injection perhaps, and then you're cured of everything. For life. Never be ill again. Even recover from the most horrendous and crippling injuries.'

'And the deaths we heard about?' Peri asked.

'Experimental errors,' the Doctor said, 'initial problems.

What is it?'

Peri had stopped. Her hand at her mouth. 'I've just thought,' she said. 'The chickens.'

'Chickens?' Sir Anthony asked.

The Doctor walked back to where Peri was still standing.

'Would you care to enlighten us a little further?' he asked with exaggerated calm.

'At the pub, that first evening,' Peri told him. 'One of the men, a farm hand, he was talking about killing a chicken.' She looked straight into the Doctor's eyes as she spoke. 'He said that after he cut the chicken's head off it kept running. Not just a reflex, not just for a few moments. It kept running until he chopped it into tiny pieces.' She looked away, out to sea, towards the black mark in the distance. 'I thought he'd made it up,' she said quietly.

The Doctor and Sir Anthony Kelso looked at each other.

Then they both turned as well, so that all three of them were staring out at Sheldon's Folly.

Dave Madsen's body lay on the bare wooden floor of Old Jim's living room. The wood was stained with blood, the walls spattered and discoloured in the dusty light. The back of Madsen's head was a mangled ma.s.s of tissue and splintered bone. The front of his skull was almost intact, though the top of his head was a shattered mess. Blood had run down from his staring eyes and out of the remains of his nose and mouth.

Everything was silent. Except for the scratching. One of Madsen's hands was twitching, sc.r.a.ping fingernails across the wooden floor, scrabbling for a purchase. The shattered head turned slowly towards the door. Then slowly, stiffly, the bloodied body of Dave Madsen sat up.

Third Generation

Chapter Ten.

Hosts The school was quiet with so many children off. There seemed to be a bout of something going round. Not enough for anyone to call out the doctor, it seemed. Miss Devlin was not feeling so good herself. Headache. Two aspirins usually did the trick but not today. She had kept her eye on the surgery over the road, Dr Madsen's house. She had seen it was closed in the morning, and had seen him go out in the afternoon. House calls, perhaps?

'I think we'll read quietly this afternoon,' she told the children who were there. The tiny cla.s.s seemed lost in the Victorian school room. 'Get out your reading books. I want to be able to hear a pin drop.'

There was absolute silence for about five minutes before Timmy Crespin asked impatiently: 'When are you going to drop it, Miss?'

She managed a weak smile. Her headache was not easing.

'I think I'll lie down for a bit, before the evening,' Liz told her father. She was worried about Dave and she was feeling distinctly under the weather.

'Not too swift?' Bob Trefoil asked his daughter. He patted her hand resting on the banister rail as she stood on the third step. 'It does seem a bit close today. I've got a bit of a headache myself.' He went through to the bar. 'I'll give you a shout if I need you,' he called back. But she had already gone to her room. Her head felt as if it was splitting.

Trefoil looked round the bar. Most of the lunch time customers had left. Just a few hangers-on and the woman from Sheldon's Folly still sitting with her mineral water, going through a sheaf of papers.

Hilly Painswick usually found that five minutes' peace and a gla.s.s of fresh milk sorted her out when she was a bit low or run down. G.o.d knew it was often enough. Since her husband Geoff had died three years ago she had had hardly a moment to herself. No days off, and the young lads who helped were the ones who weren't up to fishing. Only Benji, her oldest sheepdog, seemed to understand when she was tired and needed a rest. The border collie rested its damp muzzle on her lap. Her eyelids fluttered and Mrs Painswick drifted into an uneasy sleep despite her headache.

'If this genetic material, this life form whatever it is, were in some form of communication with itself, keeping in touch so to speak,' the Doctor was reasoning, 'that might explain the children.'

'The children?' Sir Anthony asked. They were almost at the boat now. Peri was leading the way, slightly ahead of them, straining to hear the conversation.

'Yes, it seems as though you can teach one of them something, something physical, something requiring manual dexterity for example, and then they all have an apt.i.tude for it.'

'Good Lord!' Sir Anthony exclaimed. But it was not clear whether he was commenting on the Doctor's words or what was happening to Peri.

As she reached the boat, several yards ahead of the Doctor and Sir Anthony, Peri could see what looked like a bundle of cloth behind it. Or clothing. Or someone crouching down.

Even as she worked out what it was, the bundle unfolded and Mike Neville rose into sight above the boat. Peri froze in surprise and shock. He reached out, grabbing her arm and dragging her to him. Peri gave a shriek and struggled to break free. But he had his arm tight round her neck, was dragging, pulling her round so that he was behind her.

Then she felt the point of the knife at her throat.

'You two!' Mike shouted, his voice hoa.r.s.e and tense. 'Just back off, all right!'

Sir Anthony took a few steps backwards. The Doctor by contrast made to step forwards, reaching out his hand.

'Back!' Mike screamed, pulling Peri even closer to him.

She could feel his chest against her back and struggled to pull forwards, but without success. 'Let go of me,' she demanded, trying to sound in control. But her throat was being squeezed tight, and the words came out as a strangled squeal of noise.

'No, no,' Mike told her. His breath was oily warm on her ear. 'You're coming with me.' The smell of fish was ripe in her nostrils, and she suddenly wished her cold was still developing. 'You and me, we've got some unfinished business. Things to talk about.'

'Let her go,' the Doctor said gently. He was still reaching out. 'You don't want to do this.'

'Don't you tell me what I want to do, you weirdo!'

'Weirdo?' The Doctor seemed upset at the description.

'Weirdo!? I'll have you know I'm the sanest person I know.'

He leaned towards Mike and Peri. 'Which I grant you is not much of a boast in the present company.' His voice hardened.

'Now let her go before we force you to.'

'Force me?' He laughed, a nervous high-pitched sound.

'Think I can't handle a whiney girl and two old men?'

The Doctor straightened up immediately. 'Old men?' he said quietly. Then louder: ' Old men Old men?' And suddenly he was shouting: 'Old men!'

Mike seemed surprised and worried by the sudden outburst. He pulled the knife from Peri's neck and pointed it at the Doctor. It wavered in his nervous grip.

His hold on Peri also slackened. Slightly. But it was enough. She twisted out from under his arm and started to run.

But her feet were slipping and sinking in among the pebbles. Mike leaped after her, reached out and grabbed her back by her hair. Peri screamed. The Doctor was still shouting.

Mike was waving the knife in one hand, still dragging Peri by the hair with the other. Sir Anthony took a step forwards and swung hard with his walking stick, holding it in both hands like a batsman. It connected with the side of Mike's hand and the knife went spinning away.

Mike cried out and let go of Peri. She staggered back, falling sideways on to the pebbles and rolling desperately away from him as Mike yelled and clutched his hand. She kept rolling, crawling, clawing her way down the beach. Towards the sea.

The Doctor and Sir Anthony were backing away, leaving Mike to rant and shout. Peri managed to pull herself to her feet at last. She kept going, backing away down the slope, watching him as he retrieved the knife with his good hand, and backed away in turn from Sir Anthony who was hefting the stick. He was edging away, slowly, deliberately, he was coming down the beach after Peri. Keeping between her and the Doctor, between her and safety.

She kept going until she felt the wet cold of the wave sloshing round her ankles. Surprised, she turned to find she was at the water's edge. And then she saw the shapes rising up from the waves in front of her. And screamed.

There were two of them, their heads cresting the waves.

Peri knew at once that they must be the fishermen, the men who had been out in the boat with Mike Neville's brother. And they were every bit as dead as he was. Their clothes clung to their bodies, moulded on by the sea water. Their hair was lank and matted across their heads. Water was pouring out of the open mouth of one of them as he surfaced, as if his lungs were full of it. It splashed like a stream of bile into the sea.

The skin was pale and puffy, misshapen from the days spent under water. But the eyes were the worst - huge, staring, almost completely white. No hint of a pupil, irises barely discernible. They waded onwards, through the waves, as if drawn to the beach, as if drawn towards Peri as she stood, helpless, rooted, screaming.

Mike was close beside her now, the knife angled towards the hideous forms that were forcing their way through the water, getting ever closer, arms stretched out like sleepwalkers.

The Doctor was shouting at Peri to run. Sir Anthony was retreating in horror up the beach. Mike was waving the knife, crossing himself with the broken claw of his right hand, his own eyes wide and afraid. The Doctor was running now, stumbling, jumping, down the beach towards her.

Only when the Doctor grabbed Peri's hand and dragged her back, only as the first of the dead men stepped on to the pebbles and she heard the crunch of the stones beneath its feet, did Peri stop screaming. And then she ran. She let the Doctor drag her, hold her upright. She was looking back with morbid, terrified fascination the whole stumbling way.

Behind her Mike was swinging the knife frantically, apparently unwilling or unable to run. As the corpse reached him, he jabbed the knife violently at it, sinking the blade deep into the man's dead chest.

For a moment the fisherman paused, staring down with his bulging eyes at the haft of the knife projecting from his sodden woollen jersey. Then slowly, as if with great care, he reached down and pulled the knife from his dead chest. A stream of discoloured water followed the blade as it emerged.

Mike screamed then, a wailing, terrified screech of sound.

Peri finally turned away as the dead man's hands closed round Mike Neville's neck and the screaming stopped.

Janet was not really sure what she was supposed to be doing, other than keeping an ear open for any talk about the resurrected fisherman who had come knocking at Sheldon's Folly. Her own concerns were rather deeper than whether any of the villagers had seen a zombie walking through the midnight mist. Since it was not a subject she thought she could discreetly bring up in conversation, she was not sure how useful she was being.

She had finished going through the latest batch of results, and they gave her further cause for concern. There were anomalies, out of line readings, nothing concrete or substantial. But there was significant deviation from the projections. She would go over them just once more. To be certain.

When she went to the bar to get another bottle of water, she knew there was a problem.

Robert Trefoil was leaning heavily on the bar, his head bowed, rubbing at his temples with his fingertips. Janet could see the top of his head as she approached. She could see the thin streaks of red spreading out through his steel grey hair from the crown. A negative image of how he must have greyed years ago.

And as she stood staring, his left hand clenched into a sudden claw. It was shaking, almost in spasm. He looked up, worried and surprised, did not see Janet as she stood watching.

He brought his right hand round and clasped his shaking fist, drawing it into his chest. As he held it tight, tried to stop it shaking, he caught sight of her and attempted a thin smile.

'Can I get you another?' he asked. His voice was shaking too. 'Must have caught a nerve or something,' he added, looking down at his claw-like hand. 'Lost the feeling. Pins and needles.'

Janet put the gla.s.s and the empty bottle down on the counter. She tried to keep her own hand from trembling.

'That's all right, I'm finished.'

'Must be a nerve.' Trefoil said. 'It'll stop in a minute.' His shoulder twitched suddenly. He blinked.

'Yes,' Janet said. She was already heading for the door.

Trying not to seem in too much of a hurry. 'Yes, I'm sure it will.'

As soon as she was outside she started running towards the quay.

Running across the shingle was like the nightmare where her feet got stuck in glue or treacle. Peri's feet sank into the shifting pebbles as she tried to hurry. The Doctor was dragging her onward, his own feet pushing the pebbles aside, sending them scattering and slipping down the slope under his weight. Sir Anthony was already at the base of the cliff, at the track that wound lazily up and away from the beach.

The two grotesque fishermen were also having difficulty negotiating the beach, but they were still following, making their inexorable way after the Doctor and his friends. Their arms were stretched out in front of them, sea water dripping from their hair and clothes, their eyes staring blankly ahead as they stumbled onwards.