The Doctor swung the Once More With Feeling to his left, showering the people on the other side of the road with compressed joy. Among them was Dr Ellison, who sniggered happily as the merriment hit her. Orma hid her father’s features from view with a pillowcase, and the doctor staggered into the arms of a waiting serviceman. ‘Thank you!’ she called to the Doctor as he marched past.

‘We’d better pick up the pace,’ said the Doctor to Wobblebottom. ‘We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and we haven’t got much time before—’ He suddenly stopped, Wobblebottom bumping into him.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked the Clown.

‘Look at the people,’ said the Doctor, shrugging out of his harness and dashing over to the sidewalk.

Wobblebottom blew his whistle to stop the procession as the Doctor studied the people around them. Every single one of the Shroud’s victims there had stopped calling out and had dropped their heads to stare at the ground. The musicians halted their song, casting an eerie silence over the area.

‘What’s happened to them?’ asked Clara, hurrying to the Doctor’s side.

‘They’ve advanced to the next stage of grief,’ said the Doctor, scanning a woman in a smart business suit with his sonic screwdriver. ‘The Shroud has increased its rate of feeding, sending their victims into a state of depression. After this, they’ll accept their fate and then there’s no going back.’

‘But it happened to everyone at exactly the same moment,’ said Clara, stepping off the pavement to stare further down the street. ‘How can that be?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the Doctor, scanning another victim, and then another. ‘A hive mind? We already know they possess considerable psychic powers, so maybe …’ He checked the readings on his sonic.

‘Oh no,’ he said quietly.

‘What is it?’ asked Clara.

‘I’m so stupid,’ said the Doctor, slapping his palm to his forehead. ‘How can I not have seen this?’

‘Seen what, Doctor?’ Clara demanded. ‘What’s going on?’

The Doctor turned to face her, his eyes wide with fear. ‘The Shroud isn’t an alien race,’ he said. ‘It’s one single creature.’

Chapter 14

The Doctor stood with his back to the rest of the group, staring out of the window in Dr Ellison’s office. Outside, Flip Flop was leading the other Clowns in the packing away of their equipment.

‘I still don’t really understand what you mean,’ said Mae. ‘How can the Shroud be one creature? There are thousands of them. Millions.’

‘They’re the Shroud’s tentacles,’ said the Doctor. ‘The actual being is the tunnel we passed through to get to Semtis and back. It’s a living wormhole with millions of feelers at each end.’

Clara’s eyes grew wide. ‘But that means, we drove through its stomach. Twice! And those bodies we found embedded in the tunnel walls – it was still digesting them.’

‘And worse, I’m afraid,’ said the Doctor. ‘The appearance of the Shroud in this world looks human – it even scanned as human.’

‘You mean the women in the blue veils?’ asked Clara.

The Doctor nodded. ‘The Shroud is using people it has already fed on like human puppets at the ends of its tentacles.’

‘The mental tentacles?’ asked Mae.

‘It appears they can be real tentacles as well,’ said the Doctor. ‘If I’m right, the Shroud keeps hold of the last person each of its tentacles attacked, then uses that body to push through into part of its next world.’

‘But we knew the people whose faces we saw,’ Clara pointed out.

The Doctor sighed heavily. ‘The Shroud must alter the basic DNA somehow to match the faces it found in our memories. It still doesn’t alter the fact that it broke into this world using what was left of real people.’

‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ groaned Mae.

‘But that must mean the Shroud is a vast being?’ said Warren. ‘It stretched all the way from one galaxy to another.’

‘We drove through its entire length,’ said the Doctor. ‘Like a standard wormhole, it has the ability to bend time and space, allowing it to reach out over great distances.’

‘So it stretched out from Semtis to Earth, and began to feed with the other end?’ said Wobblebottom.

‘Exactly,’ said the Doctor. ‘And after it’s finished here on Earth, it will release Semtis and seek out another food source from there. My guess is that it needs to stay attached to a planet at either end to anchor itself in space and time while it feeds.’

‘But surely this gives us an advantage,’ said Clara. ‘Instead of fighting off millions of individual aliens, we’re only up against a single one.’

‘One that’s several miles long and can warp the universe to suit itself,’ Warren pointed out.

The Doctor picked up the Once More With Feeling and began to buckle himself back into the harness. ‘Clara’s right,’ he said. ‘One creature is easier to fight than a million – but now the fight is down to me.’

The Doctor stood at the top of the hospital steps, the Once More With Feeling strapped to his chest. At the opposite end of the car park stood thousands of people and their Shroud counterparts. The group stretched down the street in both directions, every single human with their heads down in silence.

‘You know what to do?’ the Doctor asked, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and making a few small adjustments to the machine in front of him.

‘Yes,’ said Clara, reaching out to squeeze the Doctor’s arm. ‘I’m just worried about you.’

The Doctor flashed her a smile. ‘No need to worry about me. This will be as easy as falling off a mushroom on Mechanus.’ He winked. ‘See you on the other side …’

As Clara hurried away, the Doctor took a deep breath and allowed the Once More With Feeling gadget to reach deep inside his own memories.

Flash!

He was still on Earth, but now in the 22nd century. He wrapped an arm around his granddaughter, Susan, and gave her a hug. ‘I er … I erm … I think I must check up on the ship,’ he said, shuffling back towards the TARDIS.

‘Will you be long?’ asked Susan, but the Doctor didn’t reply. He watched as his granddaughter walked over to David Campbell, the freedom fighter she had met while battling the Daleks, then hurried inside. He waited until Ian and Barbara had returned, then he finally made his decision and locked the TARDIS doors.

‘Grandfather!’ screamed Susan, running over to the TARDIS.

‘Listen, Susan, please. During all the years I’ve been taking care of you, you in return have been taking care of me.’

‘Grandfather, I belong with you!’ Susan cried.

‘Not any longer, Susan,’ the Doctor responded.

Flash!

Susan! The Doctor felt tears in his eyes. How he missed her. He looked up to see that several of the blue-veiled women had released their human victims and were crossing the hospital car park towards him. He was clearly a more satisfying-looking meal now that his grief was being amplified. Clara, Mae and Warren were helping the freed people to limp away.

Flash!

‘There is no escape, Doctor. Say goodbye to your friends.’

‘There must be something we can do!’ cried Zoe.

‘No,’ sighed the Doctor. ‘Not this time.’ With a heavy heart, he turned to the kilted figure of Jamie McCrimmon. ‘Well, goodbye, Jamie.’

‘But Doctor, surely …’

The Doctor shook his head. There was nothing he could do. The Time Lords had made their decision. ‘Goodbye, Jamie.’

Jamie took the Doctor’s hand – his friend’s hand – and shook it. ‘I won’t forget you, you know.’

‘I won’t forget you,’ said the Doctor. ‘Now, don’t go blundering into too much trouble, will you?’

Despite his feelings, Jamie smiled. ‘You’re a fine one to talk!’

Slowly, the Doctor turned to his other companion. ‘Goodbye, Zoe.’

Flash!

Dozens of blue-veiled women stood at the foot of the hospital steps, staring up at the Doctor.