Clara watched the man carefully as he stepped into the circle, trying not to show how taken aback she was by the mask that he wore. Made of a semi-translucent white plastic material, it fitted tightly to his scalp, completely covering the left hand side of his face, and continuing down beneath the collar of his shirt. The skin visible at the edges of the mask was red and puckered and, just visible through the translucent material, she could make out dark, twisted patterns.
The man’s left hand was clad in a black leather glove. It, like everything else about him, reeked of expense.
‘Nice suit,’ said Clara, trying to recover some composure.
‘Thank you.’ The mask half obscured the smile that the man gave her, but Clara could tell that it was without warmth.
She held out her hand. ‘I’m Clara.’
Clearfield ignored her proffered hand, keeping the pistol levelled. ‘I know who you are, Miss Oswald. I had a background check run on you as you as soon as you showed up on our security cameras.’
Clara lowered her hand. ‘Of course you did.’
‘You’re a very enterprising young woman. Avoiding the insects in the village, breaking in here with such ease, sending my colleagues off on a wild goose chase.’
‘Colleagues?’ Angela gave a snort of derision. ‘Surely you mean slaves?’
‘Please.’ Clearfield winced theatrically. ‘Slaves is such a disagreeable word.’
‘So is Nazi,’ said Clara looking pointedly at the swastika emblazoned on the side of the bell-shaped machine. ‘Wartime souvenir or family heirloom?’
‘If you think that I have any sympathies for the Nazis or for what they stood for, then you are quite mistaken,’ said Clearfield, his voice hardening.
‘So the trappings of the Third Reich are just a fashion statement? A decorative decision?’ She wandered over to the machine, rubbing her chin with her hand. ‘I’m not so sure, red and black are so last year …’
‘Don’t try and pretend that you are stupid, Miss Oswald.’ Clearfield snapped. ‘I might not approve of the Nazis and their sickening regime but, like the Americans in the post-war years, I am more than happy to put my scruples to one side on order to take advantage of their scientific expertise.’
‘All right. So you’re a fan of German engineering.’
‘A very specific example of German engineering. Only two of these devices have ever been made. One was destroyed, a very long time ago. The other …’ Clearfield placed a gloved hand on the machine, caressing the surface gently. ‘The other has taken years of research, and a lot of money to track down.’
‘So this was built during the war.’ Angela watched as Clara walked around it slowly. ‘What does it do?’
‘It’s a gateway.’
‘A gateway?’
‘To another world.’
Angela gave a nervous, laugh. ‘You have got to be joking …’
Clara shot her a quick look. ‘Angela …’
‘Interesting …’ Clearfield regarded Clara carefully. ‘That concept doesn’t completely surprise you.’
‘We are wasting time, Clearfield!’
The voice that boomed around the cavernous space was low and sibilant, a wet, burbling hiss that made Clara’s skin crawl.
‘Yes, of course.’ Clearfield was immediately contrite. ‘I’m sorry.’
Clara stared at him in horror. ‘What was that?’
Clearfield took a deep breath. ‘That, Miss Oswald, was the voice of the Wyrresters.’
‘Aliens?’ Charlie Bevan stared at Robin in disbelief. ‘Aliens from another planet?’
‘Coool!’ Kevin’s eyes were shining with excitement. ‘I wish you’d told this story when you came to talk to us at school.’
‘Quiet, both of you!’ The Doctor leaned across the table eagerly. ‘What happened when you turned the machine on? What came through?’
‘Something … horrible.’ Hands trembling at the memory, Robin took a sip of tea, spilling some of it down his shirt.
‘Describe it, man!’
‘Huge … Savage … We never stood a chance!’
‘I have to know!’
Robin’s eyes suddenly widened as the Doctor leaned close. ‘Oh, my God … It’s you …’
The mug slipped from Robin’s fingers, shattering on the flagstones. Clutching at his chest he lurched towards one of the kitchen cabinets, reaching for a bottle of tablets.
Charlie scrambled from his chair and hurried to help him. ‘Leave him alone! You’re going to give him a heart attack!’ He shook several of the white tablets into Robin’s hand, and filled a glass of water from the tap.
Robin took it gratefully, slumping back into his seat and gulping down the tablets, his eyes not leaving the Doctor.
The Doctor had launched himself from his chair and was pacing around the kitchen. ‘I have to know the species! Planet of origin!’ He stopped, eyes narrowing as a thought struck him. ‘There’s no other choice,’ he muttered to himself. He spun to face Robin once more. ‘Can you remember the date? The exact date this happened?’
Robin stared at him, disbelief on his pale face. ‘The twenty-first of March 1944. It’s difficult to forget the day all your friends died.’
‘The vernal equinox …’ The Doctor snatched a quick look at the calendar handing on the wall. ‘And it can’t be a coincidence that today is also the equinox. That’s what all this is heading towards …’ He turned to Charlie Bevan. ‘We need to get to my TARDIS, right now.’
The policeman just looked at him, uncomprehending.
‘A blue box,’ explained the Doctor. ‘On the other side of the village …’
Charlie wasn’t listening, instead he was staring past the Doctor’s shoulder, his eyes widening. ‘I don’t think that’s going to possible at the moment.’
The Doctor whirled around to see a huge, grey bulk creeping slowly across the kitchen window. With a crash, the kitchen window splintered inwards and a huge leg probed the room.
The shots and raised voices had drawn attention to them.
The spider had found them.
Captain Wilson sat in silence as the Land Rover sped through the narrow country lanes. He had had a lot to take in over the last fifteen minutes or so. Nazi super-weapons, secret wartime experiments. An alien invasion of Ringstone, for God’s sake! But it was the news that followed that had really scared him.
It had puzzled him as to why they hadn’t just made a concerted effort to breach the perimeter. Giant beetle or not, he was certain that with the Spartan, and some of that experimental insecticide that he’d had delivered from the barracks at Warminster, they’d have little problem securing a defendable position within the village with relative ease.
The colonel had made it quite clear why not.
Dickinson had received direct orders from the MoD that if a Bell device was found to be operational in Ringstone, then he was to evacuate the surrounding area, pull his men back and call in an airstrike. A nuclear strike was out of the question, but permission had been given to deploy the latest generation of thermobaric tactical weapons.
An Apache attack helicopter was already being fuelled at Andover and fitted with two of the new variant Hellfire AGM-114N missiles. A cold sweat prickled over Captain Wilson’s skin. He’d seen first-hand the effects that just one of these weapons could cause. The effects of detonating two of them over a village like Ringstone …
He consoled himself with the fact that for anyone still trapped inside the perimeter it would at least be quick.
The Land Rover pulled to a stop, and Wilson followed the colonel to a lay-by that gave an elevated view of the southern part of Ringstone. A squad of half a dozen men was deployed along the low wooden fence running along the edge of the roadway, their attention focused on something happening in the field below. Wilson was pleased to see that Private Arnopp was amongst them.
The colonel noticed him too. ‘Glad to see you back on your feet, Private. How’s the leg?’
Arnopp saluted stiffly. ‘Bearing up, sir. Dobby – I mean Corporal Palmer – patched me up fine.’
The colonel nodded in approval.
Wilson stepped forward and peered over the fence at the farmhouse that nestled in the fields below them. ‘What have we got here, Private?’
‘Shots heard about ten minutes ago, sir. Civilians spotted at the farmhouse down there. Then the bug showed up.’ He handed Wilson a pair of binoculars. ‘On the roof.’
Steadying his elbows on the wooden fence, Wilson adjusted the focus. The huge spider was crouched on the roof at the far end of the farmhouse, long bristle-covered legs probing at the windows and doorways as it sought to gain entry. ‘And I thought Iraqi camel spiders were bad,’ he muttered.
He straightened, handing the binoculars to the colonel. As he did so, another shotgun blast echoed across the fields. Immediately each of the soldiers raised their weapons in anticipation. There was a blood-curdling shriek of pain and anger from the spider and it jerked backwards, sending roof tiles tumbling into the cobbled yard. Then, enraged by the things inside the building that had hurt it, it started to batter at the building with its forelegs.
‘I think that we should give a bit of help to whoever is inside there, don’t you, Captain?’ said Colonel Dickinson.
‘Yes, sir.’ Glad to finally have a chance to engage the enemy properly, Wilson turned to Private Arnopp. ‘Private. Seems only fair that you should get a bit of payback. Spider on the roof down there. Fire at will.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Arnopp grinned at him. Stepping forward he brought his SA80 assault rifle up to his shoulder and squinted through the sights. Seconds later semi-automatic gunfire shattered the late morning air as Arnopp unleashed a hail of bullets at the spider.
The Doctor, Charlie, Robin and Kevin dived for cover as the spider thrashed outside the window, sending shards of glass and timber flying.
Charlie struggled to bring the shotgun to bear again, but before he could fire there was the distant chatter of rifle fire, and the farmhouse shuddered as the ancient walls took the impact of high velocity shells. The spider fell away from the window shrieking in pain.
The Doctor sprang to his feet. ‘This is it! This is the only chance we’re going to get.’
Between them, Charlie and the Doctor dragged Robin to his feet, hauling him out of the kitchen and towards the front door. ‘No, wait … My pills. I need my pills.’
Kevin darted back into the kitchen and snatched up the old man’s bottle of pills from the wreckage strewn across the floor. As Robin leaned on the banisters for support, Kevin ran back and handed the bottle to him.
‘Thank you, lad.’ Robin looked across at the Doctor. ‘Leave the boy with me. You two lead that thing away.’
The Doctor said nothing, his mind weighing up all the alternatives.
‘We both know that I’m just going to slow you down,’ Robin insisted. ‘Once it’s gone, we can barricade the windows, make this place secure. You need to go.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘It’s not going to stay distracted for long, and on foot we’re a sitting target. If we’re going to lead it away from here, we need transport of some kind!’
Robin leaned over to the coat stand next to the door and fumbled in the pocket of a mud-spattered Barbour jacket. ‘Can you ride a motorbike?’ he asked, holding up a set of keys.
The Doctor grasped them gratefully ‘Yes!’ His face immediately fell. ‘No! I think so. Maybe.’ He glared angrily at Robin, as if this confusion was somehow his fault. ‘I don’t know! I haven’t had a proper chance to find out what this body can do yet.’
Robin just looked at him as if he was mad.
‘I can,’ said Charlie Bevan quietly. ‘Basic police training.’
The Doctor stared levelly at him. ‘Are you sure?’
Charlie shrugged. ‘You need to get to this TARDIS thing of yours. A motorbike is going to be the quickest way of getting there.’
The Doctor tossed the keys to him. ‘Good man.’ He hauled open the front door. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Captain, we have civilians in the open!’
‘Cease fire, Private!’ Wilson snatched up the binoculars and quickly located the two figures racing from the front door. The spider was still at the rear of the house, momentarily confused by Arnopp’s bullets.
As Wilson watched, the figures crossed the yard to one of the dilapidated outbuildings, one of them fumbling with the chain and padlock that secured the faded wooden doors. The chain fell away and the doors were hauled aside, and the squeal of ancient hinges was audible from even this distance. Immediately the spider tensed, obviously alerted by the noise. Cautious now, it started to crawl around the farmhouse, making its way slowly to the yard at the front.
‘Come on, come on …’ Wilson murmured as he watched the two men vanish into the gloom of the outbuilding. Whatever they were up to, they needed to do it quickly otherwise they were going to be trapped.
For what seemed like an age there was no movement other than the slow, relentless crawl of the spider. Then, suddenly, there was a loud, throaty roar from inside the building and Wilson had to stop himself giving a cry of delight as a vintage Norton Big 4 motorcycle and sidecar, still in its original military olive green, burst out of the open doors.
Aware that its prey was out in the open, the spider launched itself forward, moving at frightening speed.
‘Private!’ yelled Wilson. ‘Give those men covering fire!’
Arnopp’s assault rifle roared into life once again, and bullets raked across the farmyard, stopping the spider in its tracks.
That hesitation was all that the two men on the motorcycle needed. Tyres squealing on the cobblestones, the powerful side valve engine sent the Norton speeding across the yard and out onto the road beyond.
Bellowing with rage and pain, the spider vanished into the trees, trying to catch up with its quickly disappearing prey.
Wilson lowered his binoculars and turned to one of the waiting soldiers with a grin of triumph. ‘Get on the RT, Private. See if we can find out where those two are heading!’