The Doctor clamped his hands to the sides of his head, his fingers clawing through his hair as if trying to get to the millions of mouths as they feasted on his mind. His eyes met with Mae’s and he managed to nod.

‘This is the TARDIS!’ said Warren into his radio handset. ‘The Doctor is in. You are cleared to go!’

Outside in the car park, Wobblebottom checked that the clamp at the end of the long chain was firmly attached to the rear bumper of the clown car, then he jumped into the passenger seat and gave Flip Flop the signal. ‘Understood, TARDIS,’ he replied into his own radio. ‘Starting stage two now.’

Flip Flop stomped onto the accelerator pedal and drove the clown car headlong towards the hospital wall. The entrance to the living wormhole shimmered as the car plunged through and into the belly of the Shroud. Once inside, the Clowns leapt from the car, unhooked the chain and plunged its hook hard into the rough stone of the tunnel, hammering it down to ensure it stayed embedded in the rock.

‘Stage two completed!’ cried Wobblebottom into the radio.

Inside the TARDIS, Warren received the message and turned to give Clara the thumbs up as she waited at the console. She smiled, then slammed her hand down onto the Fast Return switch.

Chapter 15

The engines wheezed as the TARDIS leapt into the air and reversed back towards the Vortex. The metal links in the big, thick chain creaked in protest as it began to take the full weight of what was connected to the other end.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Mae. ‘I thought this ship couldn’t take off while the end of the wormhole was wrapped around the world.’

The Doctor slumped into the seat beside the stairs. ‘We’re not taking off,’ he said. ‘We’re rewinding to the TARDIS’s last point in space and time – the planet Venofax.’ He gripped his head with his hands. ‘And we’d better hurry up in getting there, because I’m losing memories by the second. If this goes on for much longer, I might forget how to dress so cool.’

Clara opened her mouth to comment, but thought better of it.

Suddenly, the TARDIS jolted and a terrifying screech rang out, setting everyone’s teeth on edge. The Doctor pulled himself to his feet and crossed to the console, hanging on to the monitor. ‘We’ve done it,’ he said. ‘We’ve detached the end of the Shroud from Earth. No, wait. Detached isn’t right – it sounds too … detached. Ripped? No. Unsuckered! We’ve unsuckered the Shroud from the Earth!’

Warren stood near to the open doors, watching the planet fall away below him. ‘Whatever you call it, what about the people down there, Doctor?’ he said. ‘Are they safe?’

The Doctor nodded. ‘The Shroud released them all to feed on me,’ he said. ‘Although some of the tentacles have just detached themselves from my mind.’ He ran his fingers through his hair, as if trying to locate them by touch alone. ‘And I think I know where they’ve gone …’

Inside the wormhole, thirty Clowns clung on to the other end of the chain, holding it down and ensuring the hook at the end didn’t pull free from the rock. Ahead of them, the shimmering portal began to evaporate, allowing them to see out to the blackness of space beyond.

And then the tentacles began to snake inside.

These weren’t invisible ‘mental tentacles’ like the Doctor had described, but physical tendrils of flesh, purple in colour and covered with oozing suckers.

‘OK!’ cried Wobblebottom. ‘Here we go. This is what the Doctor warned us might happen …’

The tentacles attacked, lashing out at the Clowns and trying to wrap around them. The Clowns fought back, grabbing polished swords from their props cases – swords more used to plunging through wooden caskets with glamorous assistants inside than battle – but they did the job.

Orma lopped off the end of one of the tentacles as it came for her. The severed tip dropped at her feet and writhed on the ground, leaking a viscous pink fluid. Closing her eyes, the Clown raised her foot and stomped on it.

Flip Flop was clutching a saw he’d last used to pretend to cut someone in half. He swung the serrated edge out at the nearest purple appendage, cutting deep into its flesh. The tunnel around them echoed with a horrible scream. Then another tentacle whipped over his head and quickly wrapped itself around Flip Flop’s throat. Before anyone could come to his rescue, the Clown was lifted off his feet, spun round in the air, and catapulted through the end of the tunnel and out into the blackness beyond.

Wobblebottom roared with rage and called for a fellow Clown to toss him a fire stick and bottle of fuel. Taking a big mouthful of the fluid, he spat through the flame, expelling a vast cloud of fire that enveloped the guilty tentacle, burning it to a crisp in a matter of seconds.

Briefly, the purple tendrils retreated, waving in the air near the tunnel mouth. The Clowns took the opportunity to rearm themselves.

Wobblebottom cricked his neck from side to side. ‘You’re going down,’ he snarled to the writhing tentacles. ‘You’re going down to Clown Town!’

‘There!’ said the Doctor, pressing his fingertips to his throbbing forehead and gesturing to the monitor with the other hand. ‘There’s Venofax!’

‘And what do we do when we get there?’ asked Warren.

‘Give me that sock again,’ said the Doctor.

‘I threw it in the garbage,’ Warren reminded him.

‘Then give me the other one.’

A moment later, the foot had been snipped from the end of Warren’s second sock. The Doctor took the nectarine proffered by Clara and slipped it into one end of the sock tunnel, just like before – only this time, he looped the other end round in a circle and slipped that over the nectarine as well.

‘It’s like a time loop, or a space loop,’ said the Doctor. ‘Only a worm loop.’

‘You mean you’re going to keep the Shroud trapped there for ever?’ asked Mae.

‘I promised to find it another planet,’ said the Doctor. ‘I didn’t say anything about letting it leave.’

Bong!

‘The Cloister Bell!’ announced the Doctor. ‘We’re back to our last destination …’

The TARDIS began to shake violently from side to side, forcing everyone to cling to the console to avoid been thrown to the ground.

‘… and I think the Shroud has just figured out what we’re planning to do with it.’

‘How?’ asked Clara.

‘Hello,’ said the Doctor, with a smile. ‘Millions of mental tentacles squirming around in my head. I guess it found the folder marked “Devious Plans”.’

This time, the TARDIS shook so hard that Warren and Mae did lose their balance.

‘Blimey!’ said the Doctor in amazement. ‘Look at that!’

He ran to the doorway. Outside, a three-mile-long worm was twisting and curling madly, like an eel trying desperately to free itself from a fisherman’s hook. Below, the emerald sea bubbled and frothed over the surface of the planet.

Clara joined him to watch the spectacle. ‘It doesn’t look happy,’ she commented.

‘I wouldn’t be either, most likely,’ said the Doctor. ‘Not if all I was going to get to eat for the rest of my life was a soapy avocado smoothie. However, it’s worth remembering that avocado is incredibly good at boosting your serotonin levels. It’s a natural anti-depressant.’

A smile spread across Clara’s face. ‘You’re going to feed liquid anti-depressant to a furious living wormhole that feeds on negative emotions?’

The Doctor winked. ‘Good, aren’t I?’

Clara was forced to grip the doorframe for support as the TARDIS lurched again. ‘Not unless we can find a way to get that thing down there to swallow the planet,’ she cried. ‘I doubt it will do it voluntarily.’

‘I’ve got that covered as well,’ beamed the Doctor. He spun and aimed a blast from his sonic screwdriver at the microphone switch on the console. ‘Hello again, Penny!’ he cried.