'Right! Lowering away. . . ' The rope hummed and the Doctor positioned himself so that he dropped through the clear way. The odd thorn snagged on his clothes, but otherwise he pa.s.sed through without a hitch. The brambles closed over his head like a tangled ceiling as he descended into an altogether colder, damper darkness.

The Doctor shivered. It wasn't the cold so much as something else a deathly atmosphere completely at odds with anything he had experienced on Earth before. It was as if in pa.s.sing through the brambles he had pa.s.sed into another world.

The torchlight picked out something else growing up the brickwork; a strange, fibrous growth which stayed close to the walls and was much paler than the vegetation he'd seen so far. Some of the stems looked oddly withered, meandering in a haphazard fashion with milk-white tendrils creeping between the narrow gaps around the bricks.

There were other things down here, living things, moving in the torchlight: snails and beetles and spiders. When the light hit the snails, their translucent antennae shrank to nothing; the insects and the spiders scurried away into the cracks in the wall.

His walkie-talkie crackled and he jumped. Fumbling, he raised it to his lips. 'h.e.l.lo?'

'h.e.l.lo?'

said Martha, holding the walkie-talkie in both hands.

'h.e.l.lo? Doctor? Can you hear me, over?'

The only reply was white noise.

'I can't get anything out of it,' Martha said.

Sadie took the radio and fiddled with it, but the only sound was static now. 'He must've have pa.s.sed out of range,' she said.

Martha turned to Angela. 'Do you think we should pull him back up now?'

'The rope's still going out,' Angela said, nodding at the brake. 'He's still descending.'

'I didn't think it would be this deep.'

'There's not much more to go now. We'll play it right out.'

The Doctor pulled a face at the useless walkie-talkie and slipped it back into his pocket. He didn't think he'd come far enough to be out of range. Perhaps something was interfering with the signal.

He was still descending, which was good. He didn't want Angela to panic and start hauling him back up too soon. There was still a lot to see.

He waved the torch around the walls. The snails recoiled and the spiders ran. There was a lot of the white weed here; in some places it grew so thickly the brickwork was completely obscured. Now there were lumps of it here and there, like a sudden growth of fungus, with spindly little twigs thrusting out like fingers groping in the darkness.

The Doctor reached out and touched the twigs. They were warm.

He frowned, unable to decide if they were plant or animal in origin.

There was one particular patch where a number of thick, pallid branches had extended halfway across the shaft in a kind of fibrous web. It was almost as if the weed or whatever it was had grown around something. The Doctor took out his gla.s.ses and slipped them on for a closer look as he drew level.

He pointed the torch at the lumpy ma.s.s. There was definitely something inside the weed. Carefully he reached out and tugged at some of the fronds, and they came away quite easily. Beneath there was something small and round and dark. The light picked out a tiny face with matted fur and whiskers.

'Uh oh,' said the Doctor quietly.

The dead cat was almost overgrown with the weeds. The Doctor pulled some more fronds away, exposing the ginger ears and an old collar with a name tag. Squinting, he pulled the collar around until he could read the name on the little metal disc.

'Tommy,' read the Doctor. 'Barney Hackett's cat. So this is where you ended up, eh, puss?'

There was silence in the well-shaft as the Doctor stared sadly at the feline remains.

Then the cat's eyes snapped open and it mewed at him.[image]

'Didyouhearthat?' saidMarthasuddenly,wavingahandatAngela to stop her speaking.

'Listen!' Martha leaned right over the well, straining to hear.

'I can't hear anything,' said Sadie.

'Shush,' Angela ordered. 'What did it sound like, Martha?'

Martha swallowed. 'Well, I can't be sure. . . but. . . ' She looked back up at the two women. 'Well, it sounded like a cat mewing.'

Sadie actually laughed. 'Oh, come on! Don't tell me Barney Hackett's been telling you his ghostly cat stories!'

Angela was smiling too. 'He still reckons his little Tommy's down there, calling back up to him. . . ' She put a hand to her mouth and looked upwards, mimicking someone calling up a well-shaft. 'Miaow!'

'No, I'm serious,' Martha objected. 'Listen, I'm sure of it.'

They all listened but there was nothing.

'Pull him back up,' Martha instructed Angela.

'Don't be daft,' she said. 'He's nearly reached the end of the rope anyway.'

'I said pull the Doctor back up.'

Sadie put a hand on her arm. 'Martha, you're overreacting. It's just a story. Barney Hackett's cat fell down that well months ago. It's dead.'

'I know, he told me.' Martha ran a hand through her long black hair in exasperation. 'Listen, there's something you should know about Barney. . . '

They looked expectantly at her.

'We saw him last night, right here by the well. . . ' Martha looked at the patch of gra.s.s where the old man had turned to dust. 'It was horrible.'

'He's always hanging around the well,' Angela said. 'In fact, I'm surprised he's not here now.'

'What do you mean, it was horrible?' asked Sadie with a frown.

Martha took a deep breath. 'Something happened here last night, something terrible. You've got to believe me, the Doctor could be in real danger. Pull him back up!' Confused, but seeing the genuine fear in Martha's eyes, Angela released the handgrip on the winch. 'All right,' she said. 'I'll wind it back up. . . '

But the winch wouldn't budge. 'It's stuck,' she said. Martha joined her and added her own strength, but the mechanism might as well have been carved from solid rock.

Angela reached across the well and touched the rope. 'Ye G.o.ds, it's as taut as a bow string,' she said. 'Something's pulling on it hard!'

Martha looked back at the frozen windla.s.s and then back down the well. 'What are we going to do? Doctor!'

The cat's eyes closed again, and for a long moment the Doctor just stared at it. When the animal still didn't move, the Doctor reached out to touch it. It was cold and stiff. There had been no life in the dry, cracked eyes. The thing was dead and had been for a long time. Or at least it should have been. What was keeping it going? The weed?

Something touched his leg and he aimed the torch down at his feet.

There was a large ma.s.s of the white weed spread out below him like a gigantic cobweb stretched across the well-shaft. His plimsolls were touching some of the strands. He tried to pull his legs back up away from the tangled growth, but the uppermost fronds had somehow wound themselves around his feet. He kicked out but found the weed had got quite a grip.

'Not good,' he murmured. 'Not good at all.'

He shone the torchlight down and, to his mounting consternation, saw that the milky tendrils were actually moving, feeling their way over his ankles and up his shins. They crept under his trousers and over the material, increasing their grip.

Hurriedly he pulled out the walkie-talkie and pressed the transmit b.u.t.ton. 'h.e.l.lo? Martha? Can you hear me?' There was nothing, not even static now. He shook the radio and tried again. 'Martha?

Angela? Anyone?' With a hiss of annoyance he stowed the walkie-talkie again, but in doing so lost his grip on the torch and the lanyard slipped free of his belt. The beam of light whirled briefly as the torch fell and disappeared into the web below. For a moment the light shone directly upwards, illuminating the Doctor as he hung in the air like a puppet on a string. The weed had crawled up over his knees now, and was beginning to exert pressure pulling him down.

And then the light faded. The Doctor couldn't tell if the torch had died or if it had fallen deeper into the mora.s.s below until the light was completely lost but either way, it hardly mattered. Because suddenly the Doctor was plunged into complete and utter darkness. He couldn't see a thing.

And the weed was still pulling him down.

'It's working!' announced Angela suddenly as the winch rattled into life. 'It must have got caught on something again.'

Martha peered down the well, but she couldn't see anything. The walkie-talkie was useless. She tried calling down, but her voice just seemed to fall away into nothingness inside the shaft.

The winch was winding the rope back onto the drum at a good rate.

'Any minute now. . . ' said Sadie, and they all looked down the well, waiting for the first sign of the Doctor. The rope grew thicker on the drum as it slowly revolved and the blue line that dangled down into the shaft began to snake back and forth.

'I don't like the look of this,' said Angela after a moment. Then they saw the end of the rope as it ascended the shaft, and something dangling from it. Martha almost choked as it came into view.

It was the Doctor's climbing harness. And it was empty. Martha grabbed the webbing harness and inspected it quickly. Through the tears stinging her eyes, she could hardly see if it was damaged or not.

But it hardly mattered.

The Doctor was gone.[image]

Angela looked ashen-faced at the empty harness. 'It's not possible,'

she said, taking off her hat. All her usual brio had vanished, and suddenly she looked like the old woman she really was.

'Don't forget the bucket,' said Sadie. 'Something took that too.'

Angela was shocked. 'Are you trying to say something's taken the Doctor?'

'Let's all just stay calm,' said Martha. Out of the three of them, she was the most composed. Perhaps she was more used to this kind of thing with the Doctor, but she knew she had to stay in control. Panicking was the last thing they needed. Instinctively, she felt gripped by a desire to do the right thing, the practical thing. She had done it all her life, after all.

'But what can we do?' Angela asked. 'If he's fallen and hurt down there. . . Martha, it doesn't bear thinking about.'

'Wait a second. We don't know what's happened yet. We need to think.' For want of anything better to do, she tried the walkie-talkie, but it was useless.

'You said something happened to Barney Hackett, too,' Sadie said to Martha. 'Last night, here. Something terrible, you said. What was all that about?' Martha took a deep breath. 'It must be connected, but I don't know how, right? We were talking to Barney here last night, just by the well.

Yeah, he was telling us about his cat and the story of the highwayman.

But then he sort of. . . ' She trailed off, not really wanting to go on.

'Let me guess,' said Sadie. 'He had one of his funny turns.'

'Well. . . It was a bit more than a funny turn, actually.' Martha tried to explain what had happened, up to and including the old man's collapse into a pile of dust.

When she had finished, Angela and Sadie simply stared at her.

'I see. . . ' Angela said slowly, as if considering in minute detail what she had just been told. But Martha could tell that her whole att.i.tude had changed, and so had that of Sadie. They weren't making any eye contact with her any longer. They thought she was crazy.

'Look, I know it seems impossible,' Martha said, trying to sound reasonable, 'but it's all true, I swear. The Doctor knows about these things. It's not easy to explain. I wouldn't have told you if it wasn't important. . . but now. . . ' She tailed off again, fingering the Doctor's climbing harness.

'So the Doctor's seen this kind of thing before, has he?' said Sadie.

'Yeah.'

'I thought he was from the council,' Angela said. She took off her old bush hat and ran her fingers through her hair. 'I don't know if I can believe you or not, Martha. . . '

'But. . . ?' Martha added hopefully.

'But there's something very odd going on here,' Angela continued, 'and I'm d.a.m.ned if I know what it is.'

'If what you said is true,' Sadie offered, 'then that means Barney Hackett is dead.'

'Yes,' said Martha.

'Which would be a very serious thing indeed.'

'I'm not joking.'

'Why didn't you go to the police? Or tell anyone?'

'Well, d'uh!' Martha finally began to lose patience. 'Do you think I enjoyed telling you two? Just think what it would have been like telling a policeman!' Angela pursed her lips. 'She's got a point, Sadie.'

'Are you trying to tell me you believe her?'

'She's got nothing to gain by making it up, has she?'

Martha cleared her throat. 'I am still here, you know.'

'Unlike Barney Hackett,' Sadie remarked drily.

Somewhere near the bottom of the well, the Doctor was upside down in complete darkness.

He had been dragged into the white weed like a fly into a spider's web. The more he struggled, the more deeply he became ensnared.

The strange, fibrous roots weren't sticky, but they still managed to hold on to him, slowly curling tiny little shoots around his ankles and wrists until he was well and truly caught.

The web a.n.a.logy wasn't one of his favourites. It implied that, at the centre of the trap, there would be a large spider. And that he was lunch. He didn't care for either notion.