Mae and the Doctor shared a glance. This sounded very familiar.

‘They held our hands, and drained our minds,’ Wobblebottom continued. ‘We tried to rid ourselves of the Shroud, but every time we tried to save someone, they died.’ He stared into the crackling flames of the fire for a moment. ‘They ate our grief.’

‘That’s what’s happening right now on Earth,’ said the Doctor. ‘I have to find a way to stop them.’

‘You can’t,’ said Flip Flop. ‘The Shroud are unstoppable. We tried everything.’

‘But why did those people – the Wanters – act the way they did when they saw us?’ asked Mae.

‘It’s down to the human brain,’ said the Doctor. ‘When one emotion – such as grief – is completely eradicated from a person’s mind, another emotion grows to fill the gap, giving it dominance over any other feelings that person may have and utterly controlling them. With these Wanters, it appears that jealousy took over.’

‘That’s right,’ said Wobblebottom. ‘They want anything they don’t have – although when they get it, they don’t know what to do with it. They simply cast their new belongings aside and hunt for more.’

‘And I’m guessing they’re not the only “tribe”, as you put it,’ said the Doctor.

‘The Ragers are the worst,’ said Flip Flop. ‘Completely controlled by anger, they do nothing but attack and destroy. The Tremblers are terrified of them.’

‘People overrun with fear?’ said Mae.

Wobblebottom nodded. ‘They don’t give us any trouble. They stay cowering in their homes for the most part, but we still try to find a way to look after them. They can feed themselves, but that’s about all.’

‘We?’ said the Doctor. ‘How many of you are there?’

‘Almost five hundred now,’ said Flip Flop. ‘Unaffected people are gradually arriving from all over Semtis, looking for somewhere safe to live. We train them up as clowns so they can help us in our work.

‘What is your work, exactly?’ asked Mae.

‘We help people,’ said Wobblebottom. ‘It took us a while to work out how, but we’ve discovered that we can restore the emotions that Wanters and Tremblers are missing. It even works with some Ragers.’

‘So they go back to normal?’

‘As near as we can get them to it,’ Wobblebottom replied. ‘Anyone who’s been restored needs regular therapy sessions to keep their emotions in balance, but so far we’ve had very few failures. Many of our patients have now become well enough to join the Clowns and look after new arrivals.’

‘Ah, the human race!’ cried the Doctor. ‘It doesn’t matter which planet you evolved on, you all want the same thing – to help your fellow man. Splendid stuff!’

‘No, it isn’t,’ said Mae. ‘It isn’t splendid at all. Is this what’s going to happen on Earth after the Shroud have finished with us and moved on? We’ll just be planet of Ragers and Wanters?’

‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it,’ said the Doctor, snatching up his partially dry coat and slipping it back on. ‘I’d like to see one of these restorations in action.’

‘Not a problem,’ said Wobblebottom. ‘Just come back to our camp with us.’

‘Although we can’t go back empty-handed,’ Flip Flop pointed out.

‘He’s right,’ said Wobblebottom. ‘We’ve been following that gang of Wanters since first light, planning to bring one back to base with us.’

Mae gasped. ‘You mean you kidnap them?’

‘They don’t exactly volunteer for restoration,’ Wobblebottom pointed out. ‘And it’s gradually making the world safer for other people.’

‘Very true,’ said the Doctor. ‘So let’s go out and catch us a Wanter!’

Clara opened her eyes, but her vision remained blurred. Not that there was much to see. She was lying in the snow, and was very, very cold. Behind her, the ambulance – what was left of it – lay on its side, wheels spinning and the top half of a sabre-toothed polar bear sticking out from beneath. Thankfully, the bear was very dead.

I’m going to be just as dead myself if I can’t find shelter, she thought. Warren, too.

That was a point. Where was Warren? You’d think his loud suit would be easy to spot against the harsh whiteness of the snow.

Clara heard a groan, and dragged herself in its direction. She found Warren half-buried in a snowdrift, unmoving. She began to crawl over to him. She vaguely remembered the accident – Warren spinning the steering wheel as the bear attacked, then skidding into a wall of snow and the ambulance flipping over on top of the creature. The crash had scared the other bear away, but it would be back before long – especially if there was fresh meat on offer.

She reached Warren and collapsed in the snow beside him. Her head was pounding. Had she hit it on something when the ambulance turned over? She couldn’t remember. All she could hear was the thump, thump, thump of the pain behind her eyes – and something else … A squeaking sound. Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak.

Clara’s vision began to fade again, just as a huge pair of shoes came into view. They were making the squeaking noise! Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak. The owner of the giant shoes stood over her, his curly hair ruffling in the breeze.

‘Oh, no you don’t!’

There was a hiss of gas, then everything went black.

‘I haven’t played this for years!’ cried the Doctor, tooting out a rendition of ‘Three Blind Mice’ on his recorder. ‘I didn’t even realise I had it in my pocket!’

Mae crouched behind the splintered wood of the broken door with the two Clowns. ‘Are you sure the Wanters will come for it?’ she hissed.

‘Of course,’ said the Doctor. ‘I mean, who wouldn’t want a great recorder like this?’ His brow furrowed as an unpleasant thought occurred. ‘I don’t have to give it away, do I?’

‘No,’ said Wobblebottom. ‘Just get one of the Wanters close enough, and we’ll do the rest.’

And so the Doctor began to pace up and down outside the row of abandoned houses, playing tunes on his recorder.

‘Do you have to skip as well?’ asked Mae with a smile.

‘I’m not skipping,’ said the Doctor, pausing halfway through a jazz version of ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’. ‘I’m marching. Like in a marching band.’ He went back to playing, taking care to tone down his footwork.

‘There!’ said Flip Flop, pointing to a large snowdrift. ‘I saw movement.’

‘I see him, too,’ said Wobblebottom. ‘OK, Doctor, you’ve got company. Keep playing, but don’t make eye contact. Let him come to you.’

The Doctor switched from ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ to ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’.

The Wanter moved incredibly fast. One moment he was watching the Doctor warily from his hiding place and, the next, he had hold of the end of the recorder and was trying to pull it from his grasp. ‘Now!’ yelled Flip Flop.

Mae watched in amazement as the Clowns leapt out on either side of the Wanter. Before the man could react, gas poured from the oversized plastic flowers attached to the lapels of their jackets.

‘Hold your breath!’ ordered Wobblebottom. The Doctor stopped playing, his last note echoing off the walls inside the abandoned house.

The gas worked instantly, knocking the Wanter out cold. He slumped to the ground.

‘OK,’ said Wobblebottom. ‘The rest of the gas has blown away. We can all breathe again.’

The Doctor continued playing from where he’d left off.

‘He said breathe, not play,’ Flip Flop pointed out.

The Doctor reluctantly lowered the recorder. ‘I was enjoying that,’ he muttered. He slipped the instrument back into his coat. ‘Now what?’

Flip Flop and Wobblebottom grabbed the unconscious Wanter underneath his arms and hauled him to his feet. ‘We get this guy back to our camp before the others in his gang come looking for him.’

They led the Doctor and Mae back down into the underground tunnels, where Flip Flop retrieved a metal cart from one of the bedrooms. They carefully laid the Wanter down in it. Then, an oil lamp in his hand to light the way, Wobblebottom took them deeper into the passageways.