07 - Nightshade.pdf - Doctor Who novels - KotwGlanach

DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE

Nightshade

By Mark Gatiss

Illustrated by Daryl Joyce

The Changing face of Doctor Who: The illustrations contained

within this ebook portray the Seventh Doctor Who, whose physical

appearance was later transformed when he was fatally wounded

by gunfire.

His companion in this adventure is explosives expert Ace, a

teenager from the 1980s.

DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE

Editor’s Note

Author’s Introduction

Nightshade was originally written with a mature

audience in mind, and contains strong language. Some

characters also express racial attitudes prevalent in parts of

British society at the time the book is set. Nightshade may

therefore not be suitable for younger fans of the series.

Ah, nostalgia. So seductive. So dangerous. And so odd to

be feeling it for some of my own work. Nightshade, now

looking like the brittle-paged Tenth Planet I had as a kid, is

fourteen years old! Like a child I never had. I remember it

all so vividly. Seeing the Virgin writers’ guidelines in DWB,

writing my specimen chapters, coming home for Christmas

1991 to find the fantastically encouraging letter from Peter

Darvill-Evans, the agonising wait to see whether the New

Adventures would run beyond the initial four books...

The idea for what was originally called Nightfall came to

me on a long coach journey from Leeds to - would you

believe Cardiff? - a city that was then a long way off

becoming the centre of the Doctor Who universe. I spotted a

sci fi novel called Nightfall so the title instantly changed!

The basic concept was this, wouldn’t it be fun if an actor

from an old TV sci-fi series started to see in real life the

monsters he faced in the programme?

At that stage, before the New Adventures had been

announced, I suppose I dimly thought of it as a kind of play

idea. A Play for Today idea, really. Although such things

were extinct by the early 90s. I hadn’t long graduated from

DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE

college and was living a precariously hand to mouth

existence in a haunted house in Leeds (It really was! 97

Archery Rd. Go and have a look!).

I had yet to make any sort of mark in showbiz but, when I

read about Virgin’s plans to continue the recently defunct

Doctor Who I felt in my bones: I CAN DO THIS. What

appealed to me enormously, apart from the sheer thrill of

being published was to have a shot at writing Doctor Who

(the real thing, of course, was now impossible. Ha!). Not

only that, but to write Doctor Who as I thought it should be

done, effectively redressing what I felt to have been wrong

with the programme in its later years.

As a result, what surprises me now, re-reading the book

after so many years is how SERIOUS it is. Grim, in fact. But

you have to remember that I was reacting against the sort of

garish Who of the late Eighties that I’d found an increasing

turn-off. Things were undoubtedly getting better, just when

the programme was cancelled, but there was still a sort of

muddled quality, an almost perverse refusal to tell a straight

-forward story that I found very frustrating. So I wanted

‘Nightshade’ to be an ultra- grim and horrific adventure in

the mould of favourites such as Genesis of the Daleks, The

Caves of Androzani and Frontios.

I liked the irony also that it was a story about the dangers

of nostalgia that was in itself, nostalgic. But I’d better start at

the beginning, I suppose...

Prologue

All around the cluttered cloisters, musty rooms and high,

vaulted halls there was a deep and tangible hush. The only

light in the virtually impenetrable gloom was of a peculiarly

pellucid green, spilling out feebly from every heavy wooden

door and misaligned stone. Everywhere, there was a terrible

sense of stagnancy, imbuing the whole place with a fetid,

neglected atmosphere as though some great cathedral had

been flooded by a brackish lagoon.

From out of the cobwebbed shadows emerged a little

group of very old men, resplendent in their ornately

decorated robes.

The least ancient of the group, a white-haired individual

with piercing eyes and a down-turned, haughty mouth,

lifted the hem of his robes as he detached himself from the

others, sending little flurries of dust over the flagstones. He

murmured a few words of apology to his comrades and

melted away into the shadows.

After a time he came to a small door inset in the

crumbling stonework. He looked about him, senses alert,

and lifted his hands to grip the lapels of his robes. His

twinkling eyes darted from side to side. It was time.

DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE

A man with a face like a deflating balloon, dressed in dark

gold robes which were too big for him, crossed the corridor,

mumbling happily to himself. The white-haired man

pressed himself into a doorway until the fellow had passed.

It wouldn’t do to be discovered now.

When he was certain that he was alone, the old man

opened the door with a spindly key and squeezed himself

through into darkness.

Beyond the door was a flight of stone steps, which he

descended nimbly, leading into a huge, ink-black, domed

chamber.

Arranged in a row were eight featureless objects about the

size of horse boxes, their dull grey surfaces tinged by the

familiar underwater-green.

The white-haired man lifted the heliotrope robes from

around his shoulders and let them slip to the floor. He

steepled his bony fingers and looked up at the ceiling high

above his head. What was the night like out there? It had

been so long since he’d ventured outside, smelled fresh air,

seen the first frosts, watched the pale silver and bronze

leaves disappearing under melting snow...

But now all that would be different. It was time to go.

There was a noise from somewhere close by and the old

man hastily unlocked one of the featureless grey boxes.

‘I must be quick,’ he muttered. ‘Yes, I must be very, very

quick.’

A look of profound sadness seemed to come over his wise

old face as he gave the hall one more sweep of his searching

gaze. Then, with a heavy sigh, he vanished inside the box

and closed the door.

There was a raucous, grinding moan and, quite suddenly,

the old man and his protesting grey box simply faded away.

For a long time the seven remaining boxes stood in silence

with only the steady drip of the leaking roof to disturb the

gloom. Then the man in the dark gold robes appeared in the

doorway, tutting to himself. He regarded the seven boxes,

and the space where the eighth had been, with some

annoyance.

‘Oh no, no,’ he said. ‘This really won’t do at all.’

DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE

Chapter One

‘Same old routine isn’t it, Jack Prudhoe?’

Yes, he despaired, yes, yes. Same old bloody routine.

Jack selected his favourite walking stick. The one with the

horse’s head carved on it. The one Win had given him on

their tenth anniversary. He buttoned up his heavy raincoat

and eased his feet into a pair of Wellingtons. With two pairs

of socks on they almost fit.

‘Off you go to the pub to get tanked up. And not a

thought for me, oh no. Well, I’ve had enough. Either you

start facing up to your responsibilities...’

Jack didn’t hear the rest. He lifted the latch on the solid

front door and stepped out into the rain.

There was a dismal, slate-grey quality to the light which

did nothing to lift his spirits. A wintry dusk was creeping

remorselessly over the village in defiance of the early hour.

A short walk across the square stood The Shepherd’s

Cross, a pub in which Jack had been drinking, man and boy,

for nearly fifty years. He nearly chuckled as he remembered

his dad smuggling him his first pint.

The pub’s comforting atmosphere of red flock wallpaper,

old wood and frosted glass rarely failed to cheer him up.

Except, perhaps, on bleak days like this one.

‘Afternoon, Jack.’

Jack nodded his hello to the landlord, Lawrence Yeadon,

who stood drying glasses behind the long mahogany bar.

Lawrence tossed the teatowel on to his shoulder and

grinned. He was always grinning. Or whistling.

‘Filthy weather,’ he said cheerily. Jack grunted and looked

Lawrence up and down, noting with disapproval the

younger man’s turtleneck sweater and fashionably

exaggerated sideburns. Silly bugger was too old to be

following trends.

Perhaps the world was dreaming. Dreaming as it drifted

like an exotic butterfly through those gossamer summers

which seemed like they could never end, stretching pacific

arms around its people under a billion-dollar blue sky. And

there were those who said there’d never been a better time

to be alive. Perhaps the world was dreaming ...

Jack Prudhoe scratched his bristly chin and cleared his

throat loudly. He was in no mood to argue. Standing in the

draughty hall of his little house, he wearily ran a hand

through his thinning hair and rattled the walking sticks

which cluttered the umbrella stand.

‘Are you listening to me?’

Win’s voice stabbed at him like a needle. Jack kept his

rheumy old eyes fixed on the umbrella stand. Had it always

been like this? Dreary days. Arguments. Going to the pub.

Coming back. Apologies. Another argument. Bed. Silence.

Jack looked at Win’s angry, pinched face as she continued

to berate him in a shrill monotone. Mouth like a horse’s

back side, he thought idly. Win’s grey eyes flashed

dangerously.

07 - Nightshade.pdf

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