Doctor Who: The Many Hands (8 page)

Martha hovered by the coffin trying to decide what
she should do. Part of her said she should open
it, but she couldn't think of any sane reason why
she would want to. All the same, her hand started to
stretch out to it, almost of its own accord. She turned
her face away from the inevitable, as if by not seeing it
she could be sure that she wasn't doing it.

'Don't touch that!'

Martha jumped, feeling a strong urge to run and
run and never stop. Instead, she snatched her hand
away and turned.

Alexander was there, his face filled with an anger
so fierce that it might well be able to melt metal. His
hands were covered with heavy leather gloves, and
an apron covered him from shoulder to toe: Martha
realised with a jolt that this was him dressed for
surgery.

He was holding the two disembodied hands.

'How did you get out?' he asked, stepping closer.

Martha should have run, but instead she hesitated.

The older Monro entered the room through
another doorway, still dressed in his everyday clothes
but carrying two of the pottery batteries that he had
used in her cell. They looked heavy, but such was his
surprise at seeing Martha that he didn't put them
down. He just stood there, staring at her. Alexander
took another step forward.

'Don't just gawp,' he snapped. 'Help me catch her.'

'And what then?' Martha asked.

Alexander simply glared.

'Hold her,' he growled.

Martha looked to Monro.

'No,' the old anatomist said.

'No?'

'This isn't what we wanted, Alexander,' he said
simply.

'So what did you want?' Martha asked.

Monro looked at her so sadly.

'My father was a great man,' the old man said
quietly. 'He died when he still had so much he could
offer. To the world: the whole world was lessened
when he passed away, do you understand?'

Monro looked to the coffin on the table. Martha
remembered the brass plaque: John Monro. For a
moment, she thought of her own father. Leaving her
mother and advertising his midlife crisis to the whole
of London with the help of Annalise. What would she
do, when the time finally came? Beg the Doctor to
take her back and change it all? She knew she'd give
anything to have him back.

Then she remembered the pale highwayman.

'Look, I know you miss your dad,' Martha said.
For a moment, Monro looked like he might cry. 'But
this isn't right. You know it isn't. I don't think they're
even the same people they were when you bring them
back. Do you?'

Monro paused, just for a moment.

'Why are you listening to her?' Alexander yelled.

He threw down the hands he was about to
experiment on. As the hands dropped onto the
operating table, he tugged his heavy leather gloves
off, letting them fall to the floor. A moment later,
Alexander was nearly on her. The look on his face
almost made Martha sick: there was so much of his
father's gentleness there, but the anger twisted it and
made it so ugly. She took a breath and a step back,
bringing her arms up to defend herself.

Alexander was hit clean in the chest by a clay
battery.

He flew backwards, his body twitching as the
electricity earthed itself through him. As if in
sympathy, the hands lay twitching violently on the
operating table. Alexander seemed to fly for several
long seconds before he landed hard behind the table
with a loud thump. Martha looked at Monro, but
Alexander's father was just standing holding the
other battery as if he expected someone else to admit
that they had hit his son.

'Mr Monro?' she asked.

He blinked, twice. 'Mary,' he said, looking at her.
'He was going to hurt you. Are you all right?'

Martha looked over to the table. 'I think we should
worry about your son.'

Monro just looked at her like a small child. 'My
son?' he said. 'Alexander isn't my son.'

But it was too late for questions: Alexander rose
silently from behind the operating table. His nose
was bloody, and he was smiling a grim smile that
really didn't bode well. His leather apron had swung
around to one side as he'd fallen, and Alexander just
casually reached out and plucked it off. It fell to the
floor, revealing that his shirt had opened almost to
the waist.

Martha gasped.

She could see Alexander's pale white chest.
Underneath the skin around his heart, there were
five lumps poking out. It was only as they flexed
convulsively that she realised they were the fingertips
of a hand that was growing beneath the skin. Martha
took a step back; she could still run, there was no one
behind her. But Alexander's father was just standing
there meekly, waiting to be caught.

'Mr Monro,' she said urgently. 'It's all right. Don't
be afraid. You just need to come with me, OK? It'll be
all right.'

Alexander laughed coldly at that. 'Do you think
you can turn him against me?'

Martha held her hand out to Monro. 'Mr Monro,'
she hissed. 'Please! He's not your son.'

Monro just blinked dull-wittedly. 'I know,' he said.

'You don't understand,' Alexander said flatly. 'How
could you? I didn't. You haven't looked, have you?
Those hands: don't they look familiar to you?'

Martha looked at them, the two hands flapping on
the floor as they tried to right themselves. Pale white
hands cut off at the wrist, both with the same wart on
the index fingers, each with the same pattern of scars
on the fingertips. They were, she suddenly realised,
the hands of someone who worked with knives every
day.

'Let us show you four more,' Alexander said,
holding up his own.

They were pale white hands, with a wart growing
at the base of the index finger on his left hand. Every
finger had a faint etching of white scars criss-crossed
across it. They were a surgeon's hands, used to
working with knives every day.

Martha looked to Monro for some kind of
explanation, but the old man couldn't meet her eyes.
Instead, he just held up his own hands: the fingers
were criss-crossed with scars, and the left index finger
had a wart growing at its base.

'I am going to bring back my father,' said Alexander
firmly.

'Because I miss him so very much,' said the other,
older Alexander.

The Doctor heard the sound of muskets cocking
before he was anywhere near the door, and he
knew that McAllister would give the order without
hesitation. Probably even if the Doctor was in the
line of fire – possibly even because. Even so, he dived
forward, jumping over pews and trying very hard not
to knock down parishioners as he went.

'Don't shoot!' he shouted as authoritatively as he
could.

McVicar just stood there framed in the open
doorway, looking straight ahead and not breathing.
Even old Thomas looked like he was having second
thoughts about the minister's miraculous return.
He said the minister's name once, and then backed
slowly away. The creature didn't even look up, just
stood there blinking slowly, as if not quite sure what
it wanted to do now that it was here.

'Take aim!' McAllister bellowed.

'No!' the Doctor said firmly.

He placed himself directly in front of the dead
minister. The creature looked up slowly, as if seeing
him from a great distance. It blinked again. Its eyes
were clear and grey.

'Move out of the way,' McAllister shouted.

He ran across the room, clearly intending to drag
the Doctor out of the line of fire. He did have some
redeeming human features, then.

'I think it would be a better idea to shut that door,'
the Doctor said, not taking his eyes from the minister.
'Don't you?'

McAllister didn't say anything, but suddenly all
eyes turned to the door that was still hanging open.
Through it, they could see the churchyard, filled with
hundreds of pale, blank-eyed figures. They just stood
there, swaying, as if they were waiting for McVicar to
do something on their behalf. Perhaps they were, the
Doctor considered: perhaps he was an envoy of some
sort. A negotiator.

The churchyard was getting fuller. Some of the
creatures out there were digging up the ground with
their bare hands. This wasn't caused by anything in
the waters in the Loch, the Doctor decided, unless
they had seeped through into the churchyard.

The Reverend Yarwood edged quickly around
the creature and slammed the door shut, taking a
key from his robes and locking it. He couldn't help
but peer out of the small window at the mass of
bodies waiting outside. He looked over to the Doctor
nervously. McAllister scowled and looked to his men;
he motioned for one to join him, putting a ring of
armed men around McVicar. The Doctor ignored
him and held his hand out to the creature.

'Can you hear me?' he asked.

The eyes seemed to flicker.

'I'm the Doctor,' he pressed on. 'I can help you.'

The Doctor could feel the silence pressing down
on him. Everybody in that little tumbledown church
was staring at him, waiting for something to happen.
They all stood perfectly still, as if afraid that even
the slightest movement might suddenly spark off a
murderous rampage. But the creature had come in
here for something, and it had come in alone: if the
walking dead had just wanted to kill, they would have
attacked en masse and torn the church apart with
their bare hands.

What was this one looking for, he wondered.

'Are you Gelth?' the Doctor tried. Still McVicar
looked at him blankly. 'All right then, not Gelth.
That's good: you don't seem very Gelthish, and I don't
remember there being a rift in Edinburgh. So... just
hold very still, this won't hurt a bit.'

The Doctor reached inside his jacket and very slowly
pulled out his sonic screwdriver. The creature didn't
react, but McAllister gave him a questioning look.
Behind them, the blonde girl gave a little frightened
gasp and buried her face in Ralph Williamson's side.
The Doctor smiled as charmingly as he could manage,
and flicked the sonic screwdriver on: its warbling cry
filled the church, and there was a sharp intake of
breath from the congregation.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at what he was
seeing.

'Now that's interesting,' he said to himself.

'What?' McAllister asked.

'He's dead,' the Doctor announced.

'He died twelve years ago, Doctor,' the Reverend
Yarwood said helpfully.

'No, I mean he's dead,' the Doctor said, shaking his
head. 'Just a normal dead body. No abnormal readings
whatsoever.'

'Except that it's walking,' McAllister countered.

'Yes.' The Doctor flashed him a smile. 'Odd, isn't
it?'

McAllister scowled, but the Doctor concentrated
on his sonic screwdriver as the rest of the church
just watched him. He needed to be quick. So far the
creature hadn't decided that it wanted more of a look
around: if it did, he wasn't sure that he could stop
McAllister from having his men shoot it. It hadn't
been the best thing to do when they were outside and
could run. Inside, it would be fatal.

'Aha!' the Doctor cried suddenly.

'What?' McAllister asked again. His patience was
wearing thin.

'That's why I wasn't picking anything up,' the
Doctor explained, waving the screwdriver over
the creature again. 'It's static electricity. The sonic
screwdriver doesn't automatically look for static.'

'Why not?' McAllister snapped.

'Well, because it's sonic,' the Doctor answered.
'And static's static.'

Sometimes, people did ask stupid questions.

'This creature's riddled with it,' the Doctor said. 'And
in much higher concentrations than you normally get
in humans. It's a good thing you haven't got a nylon
carpet in here.'

'The Reverend Neil McVicar,' the Reverend
Yarwood said.

The Doctor looked up at him.

'You said "this creature",' the Reverend Yarwood
said sternly. 'He is not a creature. He was a man, and a
minister in this church. He is not a creature.'

'I'm sorry,' the Doctor said.

And then he went back to the screwdriver.

'The whole body is flooded with static, that's what's
keeping it...' The Doctor paused for a moment,
glancing at the Reverend Yarwood. 'That's what's
keeping him moving. It's flowing all through his
central nervous system, but there seems to be an
unusual concentration of it.'

The Doctor waved the sonic screwdriver all over
the creature's body, tracing the flow of the static. As
he brought it up to the chest, he reached out carefully
and flicked open the long black coat it was wearing.
Beneath it, the shirt had been torn and was hanging
open in flaps.

'Here,' the Doctor said, pointing at the heart.

Directly over it sat what seemed to be a human
hand.

The Reverend Yarwood stood next to Captain
McAllister, his back to the door. He didn't want to
have to look out of that window again and see what
the poor souls outside his church were doing to the
graveyard. Instead, he stood facing his illustrious
predecessor's back, the Doctor's naked scientific
curiosity and his congregation. He felt he should be
among his parishioners, not addressing them on high
from the pulpit but here on the ground with them.
One or two were looking at McVicar or the soldiers,
but most were looking to him. They wanted him to
tell them what was happening, and how they could
be saved from it.

'Don't move,' the Doctor said, holding up his hand.
'It's a hand. It looks like a human hand. And it's what's
making the bodies walk. I wonder why?'

The Reverend Yarwood felt queasy.

'What do they want?' Captain McAllister asked.

'Hold on,' the Doctor checked his wand again. 'Oh,
it doesn't say.' He glared at the Captain.

'Then I shall have to assume they have hostile
intentions,' McAllister said calmly. 'Step aside or be
shot down with it.'

The Doctor's head snapped up at that.

'Don't you understand, McAllister?' he said. 'Look
at it. Him. He's just standing there. He's not attacking;
he's not hurting any one of us. He isn't interested.
The only thing that made them attack before was that
your men opened fire on them. They fought back to
protect themselves. They obviously didn't come here
to attack us, so they must want something else. If we
can find out what it is and give it to them... nobody
else has to die today, Captain.'

'And what if the price is too high?' McAllister
countered.

The Reverend Yarwood could see his congregation
looking to him, waiting for him to throw down his
coat and challenge both men to settle it by fighting
him. The Reverend kept his coat firmly buttoned up,
but that didn't mean that he would let this go on any
longer.

'Captain McAllister,' he said firmly. 'Ask your men
to lay down their arms. I will not have them firing
muskets on this sacred ground. Not until lives are at
risk.'

'Lives
are
at risk!' McAllister rounded on him, spittle
flying. 'What do you think that is standing there? They
killed my man. They
killed
my man!'

'I am sorry,' the Reverend Yarwood said, as calmly
as he could.

Suddenly, every member of the congregation felt
something that made them jump. Even the Doctor,
calm and rational as he was, took a step backwards.
He put his arms in the air and ordered the soldiers
not to open fire. They managed to hold their trigger
fingers for that moment, possibly because their
Captain was momentarily too busy trying to move to
give the order.

McVicar turned on his heel.

'Doctor?' the Reverend Yarwood asked.

McVicar was standing only inches from him: if he
had been breathing, the Reverend would have been
able to feel it on his face. Instead, he could just feel the
chill coming from the minister's pale grey flesh.

'Of course!' the Doctor cried.

Yarwood was pleased that at least one of them was
happy.

'There are more hands than there are bodies in the
Loch,' the Doctor was saying. The Reverend Yarwood
was staring deep into McVicar's grey eyes. 'They need
more bodies, and we led them right here.'

McVicar pushed by Yarwood without even noticing
him, walking back towards the door he had come
in by. The soldier guarding the door didn't let out a
sound but, as Yarwood spun around, he saw that the
man had his musket raised.

'No, don't stop him!' the Doctor shouted. 'He's just
going back out to join his friends. As long as they're
not being attacked, they don't care about the living,
see? They only want the dead.'

'I feel profoundly comforted,' McAllister snapped.

The soldier on the door wasn't moving. The
Reverend Yarwood could see his finger shaking
as it hovered over the trigger. He knew that he was
standing so close to McVicar that he might well get hit
himself. Then he remembered the important thing.

'I locked the door!' he cried out.

The key was in his hand, but McAllister snatched
it away.

'Stay back!' the soldier cried.

McVicar didn't listen: why would he?

'Wait!' the Doctor shouted.

But the Reverend Yarwood could see the soldier
squeezing the trigger.

So he closed his eyes.

McAllister saw that Howkins' nerve had given way.
There was a cold sweat on his brow, and his eyes
were two black pinpricks in his face. There were only
two options: either he could be brought down, or he
could be given his head. One would definitely lose
him a soldier, but the other might let the young boy
steady himself and come back. Either way, there was
no point in giving an order which Howkins wouldn't
obey in this state. That would only leave McAllister
looking weak.

The Captain decided then that he would let
Howkins shoot, and see if he could be calmed once
the corpse was safely dead again. After all, what loss
was it to him?

'Wait!' the prisoner shouted.

That blue-tipped wand was in his hand again, and
suddenly McAllister found his ears aching. He closed
his eyes in pain and thought how, in less enlightened
times, the prisoner would have been called a witch
and safely douked in the Nor' Loch by now. Perhaps
there was something to be said for the old ways after
all.

The earache abruptly passed and, as McAllister
opened his eyes, he saw the pale corpse suddenly
crumple to the floor. A murmur somewhere between
relief and dismay travelled through the congregation,
and McAllister knew that it was time to act. He stepped
forward and raised his arms authoritatively.

'Don't trouble yourselves,' he barked. 'You are safe
now.'

He nodded to his men to ready themselves. Just in
case the churchgoers weren't as comforted by that
thought as they should have been.

The prisoner was on the floor by the time McAllister
turned again, kneeling by the corpse. Suddenly, it
was nothing more than another fallen body, ready
to be returned to the earth from which it had come.
This was a strange day indeed, and McAllister wasn't
looking forward to having to explain it to the Lord
Provost. Perhaps some kind of mass delusion could
be blamed. The townsfolk would believe that if it
made life easier for them.

'It's all right,' the prisoner was saying.

In his hands, he cupped something small and
trembling. The hand's fingers twitched convulsively,
but it didn't make any move to escape. McAllister
could see dusty flesh under its sharp nails, where it
had evidently been clinging tight to the minister's
dead chest. The Captain considered knocking it from
the Doctor's grip and grinding it under his boot, but
he didn't. Until it proved itself still a threat.

'See?' the prisoner was saying. 'It's just like a friendly
tarantula. No trouble at all.'

'We should move the Reverend McVicar's body
to a more suitable place,' the bald minister said. 'Is it
safe?'

'Perfectly,' the prisoner answered. 'Without this
little fellow.'

The Reverend nodded, and McAllister stood back
as Yarwood called to two of the parishioners to
help move the body. One was the old man who had
originally opened the door; someone that McAllister
would need to talk to once this was all over. The
minister simply laid a hand on the man's arm and
said something McAllister didn't hear. The old man
nodded, and then the three of them carefully lifted
the body and carried it away.