Short Story: Dreams of Boats

No new Who? Wrong!

The Keepers of Croydon is proud to present a series of short stories; each one was entered in the recent Big Finish competition but sadly didn't make it. The writers would love to read your constructive criticism and hope you enjoy the ride!

Dreams of Boats

By Matthew Brooke

Christopher Macklin scooped the mail from his doormat and sorted through it with shaking hands. Was today going to be a normal day, with the usual junk mail and bills, or would it happen again? Would he get another one of those letters? His heart lurched when he saw the familiar blue-grey envelope. As he had done many times before Chris checked for clues to its origin. There was nothing – just his name and address, hand printed in a precise cursive script.

Chris considered throwing the envelope away unopened. He had done this with several of the previous envelopes, thinking that he could continue with his life if he just ignored them. But every time the compulsion to read the letters grew until he gave in and retrieved them from the bin.

Chris sat at his kitchen table and opened the envelope. Inside were five sheets of lined notepaper - always five sheets – filled on each side with the same neat hand. Chris’s eyes were drawn to the capital letters at the head of the first page and he started to read:

DOCTOR WHO IN AN EXCITING ADVENTURE WITH THE XANTRAX

With a wheezing groaning sound the TARDIS materialised in a verdant glade. The doors to the battered Police Box swung open and out stepped the Doctor, closely followed by his travelling companion Christopher Macklin…

*

The first time it happened Chris assumed it was a practical joke. Dave and Gary at work loved to play pranks on him. On his first day at the call centre, Chris returned from his orientation to find his coffee mug glued to his desk, his pens replaced with Twiglets, and a half-naked picture of David Hasselhoff loaded as a screensaver on his PC. Two years of rolling with the punches, yet Chris remained their butt monkey. So when the first envelope landed on his doormat he read the story with a familiar sense of annoyance and resignation.

This first story was set on a cruise ship and started with Chris – it was strange to think of himself in third person – feeling seasick. What should have been a routine visit to the infirmary for sickness tablets turned nasty when the ship’s doctor was revealed as an eight-foot tall green monster with flatulence problems. The monster attacked, but Chris was saved by a mysterious traveller who introduced himself only as the Doctor. The Doctor explained that the cruise was run by alien monsters intent of kidnapping young people. Together, the Doctor and Chris defeated the alien’s scheme. This rather fanciful plot was incidental to the central theme of the story; with no girlfriend and a dead-end job, Chris was bored with life. The Doctor offered him the chance to travel and see the wonders of the universe. The story ended with Chris entering the Doctor’s space/time machine and being whisked off to Who Knows Where.

Chris did not find the story amusing. He had booked a holiday on a cruise ship last summer, but cancelled when his mum fell ill. He decided he wouldn’t have enjoyed himself if he was worrying about her the whole trip. And he did sometimes feel that his life was going nowhere, but didn’t everyone?

The following morning Chris brought the story in to work and tossed it to Dave and Gary in the next cubicle. "Very funny guys," he said. "But can I make a request for next time? If I have to travel through time and space in a blue box I’d rather be with a hot chick than a dandy in a frockcoat. Someone like Cathrine Zeta-Jones. Come on, one for the dads and all that."

Dave read the story and burst out laughing. He passed it to Gary who read it through carefully then looked at Chris with a quizzical frown. "What the hell does ‘dimensionally transcendental’ mean?"

"You tell me Gary, you wrote it."
"Sorry mate, you’ve got the wrong guy."
"Dave?"
"You know me Chris, the only joined-up letters I do are the ones I write in the snow."
"Well who wrote it then?"
Gary shrugged. "Search me mate. You must have a secret admirer."
By the time the fourth envelope arrived, Chris’s annoyance had turned to anger.
"Look Dave, are you sure you don’t have anything to do with this?"
"For the last time Chris, my handwriting is shocking. That story looks like it was written with a quill or something. It’s a bloody work of art. I couldn’t do that if my life depended on it."

The following week the fifth envelope arrived. When Chris picked it up from the doormat and recognised the handwriting and the same blue-grey envelope he felt a strange chill. The chill changed to actual fear when he realised for the first time that the envelopes had not been stamped. That meant…

Chris yanked open his front door and peered up the cul-de-sac. There was no one there. A small voice told him that the culprit was probably hiding just out of view, watching him, laughing at him. Chris slammed the door and stood for several minutes with his heart pounding and mind racing with a thousand possibilities.

Eventually he snapped out of his reverie and tore open the envelope. He pulled out the five sheets of paper and read them quickly through. It was another fantastic tale of alien schemes scuppered by the Doctor and Christopher Macklin - the Doctor and himself.

That night Chris studied the story many times, searching for any clue to its authorship. When he finally slept he dreamt fitfully of nebulae, spaceships and robotic killing machines.

Weeks passed and with each envelope that fell on his doormat Chris’s anxiety grew. Every time he opened his front door he thought that he would catch his stalker slipping another letter through his box. As he walked to work he would suddenly stop and turn, convinced he heard shuffling footsteps following him.

Unable to think about anything other than his unknown stalker, Chris’s work suffered. He lost his temper on the phone to customers and snapped at Gary and Dave when they offered to help. After three formal warning letters, he was summoned to his boss’s office and she insisted that he take leave without pay, "to think about your future."

Then the eighth envelope arrived, changing everything. The story started predictably enough with the Doctor and Chris once more pitted against an alien threat. This time the aliens manifested as the ghosts of the dearly departed, manipulating the recently bereaved in order to gain a foothold on the Earth. As the story approached its climax the leader of the aliens assumed the guise of Chris’s dead twin brother and spoke those four terrible words that had haunted the real Chris for twenty years:

"It’s all your fault."

Chris nearly dropped the pages. How could they know? How could anybody know? Chris’s brother Jason had died and those final words, that hateful accusation, had died with him. Unmentioned – unmentionable – for twenty lonely years.

This was no prank, no sinister obsession. This was something else, something other. From the moment he read those four words, Chris knew that somehow these stories were real. Somewhere these events were happening – perhaps in the future, perhaps in some strange other dimension. And the tragedy was that this other Chris was braver, nobler and more resourceful than he could ever hope to be.

*

"There is nothing you can do Timelord," hissed the Xantrax Queen. "Your pitiful sonic device is powerless against the Xantax’ superior technology. You are now in my power and will be my plaything throughout eternity."

The Doctor winced as the Xantrax guards clamped his arms in their giant pincers and dragged him towards their hideous Queen. He struggled, but to no avail. There was only one hope left; the future of planet Earth now rested squarely on the shoulders of young Christopher Macklin. If only he could get here in time…

Chris paused. There was something, some itch in the back of his mind.

If only he could get here in time…

Something he had missed. He flipped back to the first sheet and started to read again.

DOCTOR WHO IN AN EXCITING ADVENTURE WITH THE XANTRAX
With a wheezing groaning sound the TARDIS materialised in a verdant glade. The doors to the battered Police Box swung open and out stepped the Doctor, closely followed by his travelling companion Christopher Macklin.

"Well Doctor, where has the TARDIS landed us this time?"
"Planet Earth."
"Again?"
"Yes. London. Hampstead Heath to be precise. And judging by the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, I’d say sometime in the early 21st century."

Chris bent down and picked up a newspaper that was blowing around his feet.

"July 17th 2007. And look at this headline: ‘Prime Minister Denies UFO Reports’…"

July 17th 2007. Chris had not been to work for two months; he had not even been out of the house for a week, but July 17th? Surely that was today. Chris glanced at the wall clock. The digital readout confirmed it.

Eagerly, Chris flipped forward a page.

"The TARDIS has triangulated the signal. Ah! We finally know where the Xantrax Queen is laying her eggs. She’s been in the crypt beneath St Paul’s Cathedral all along."

Chris banged his fist on the console in frustration. "Right under our noses!"

"Yes. Now there’s very little time. I will go and distract her. You know what to do?"
Chris sighed. "Yes Doctor, I have to reverse the polarity of the temporal normaliser and disconnect the time vector generator."
"Good man. Let’s see how she stands up to Gallifreyan technology. But remember, timing is everything. You must be at St Paul’s with the time vector generator at precisely sixteen-hundred hours."
"Trust me."

Chris blinked, and in a flash it hit him. This was happening right now. The Doctor and the other, better Chris were out there fighting against the Xantrax today, in London. Chris looked again at the wall clock – 3:07 pm – just under an hour before the Doctor’s deadline.

Chris dropped the story and grabbed his Oyster Card, wallet and keys. Jamming on his trainers, Chris threw open the front door and ran all the way to the Perivale tube station. He had missed the boat too many times before and he wasn’t going to let this opportunity sail by.

By the time the train hit zone 1 the Central Line was packed. As the crowd jostled Chris he noted that unlike the TARDIS these tube trains seemed smaller on the inside. He glanced at his watch – 3:42.

Chris alighted at St Paul’s at 3:54. He tore towards the exit, pushing past a young couple on the escalator. He stepped out into Newgate St and looked up at the dome of St Paul’s to his left. Heedless of the traffic, Chris ran towards the Cathedral, his watch counting towards his destiny.

On the steps of the Cathedral Chris noticed a small door to the side forced off its hinges. For the first time since leaving the house he paused, but only for a moment and then plunged through the doorway.

Chris found himself in a dark corridor. He had to proceed slowly and feel his way to avoid tripping on the uneven stone slabs. After a few minutes he came to a large wooden door. His heart told him that this was the door to the crypt and behind it he would find the Doctor.

Chris pressed his ear to the door and listened.

"So Dok-tor," came the rasping voice of the Xantrax Queen. "How does it feel to know that the Timelords have finally run out of time?"
"Oh I don’t know," said the Doctor nonchalantly. "My friends and I have always been complimented on our sense of timing."

Chris looked down as his watch clicked over to 4:00. Now or never. He took a deep breath and heaved open the heavy door.
"Christopher!" beamed the Doctor. "Perfect timing!"

Chris watched as a mirror image of himself burst through a door at the opposite end of the crypt. This other Chris – Christopher – held aloft a long metallic instrument that emitted a rainbow of indescribable colours and seemed to twist the air around it. The Xantrax Queen swivelled her corpulent frame and shrieked in horror as Christopher leapt onto the podium where the Doctor was chained.

"Hi Doctor," he said. "Did I miss much?"
"KILL THEM!" shrieked the Xantrax Queen. Her chitinous guards moved towards the Doctor and Christopher.
"Not today thank you," said the Doctor. He took the time vector generator from Christopher, tapped a complex rhythm on its side with his finger, and pointed it towards the Xantrax Queen.
"Leave this planet in peace, or face the consequences!"
The Xantrax Queen raised herself on her hind legs and shrieked, "Never!"
"So be it," said the Doctor sadly and tapped out the final stanza of the rhythm. The rainbow of colour expanded until it covered the Xantrax Queen and her guards. From his vantage point by the wooden door Chris covered his eyes. When the glare died down he looked again and the aliens were gone.
"Well, that’s over," said the Doctor. "Now for the real problem."

And Chris realised that the Doctor was looking directly at him.

*

When Chris arrived home later that evening he noticed the story lying on the kitchen table where he had left it. He picked it up and turned to the last page:

"We’ve jumped a time track," said the Doctor. "We really shouldn’t be here at all. As soon as the time vector generator realigns we’ll be gone. You’ll never hear from us again."
Chris looked at the other Chris – Christopher the hero, Christopher the saviour of the world.
"This life you lead, I don’t think I could do it."
The other Chris smiled and shook his head. "We are the same person. We’re both capable of exactly the same things. There’s just one difference. You missed the boat. I caught it."
The Doctor placed his hand on his Chris’ shoulder. "Time’s up," he said.
The time vector generator hummed, space twisted in on itself, and the Doctor and the other Chris were gone, leaving Chris alone in the empty crypt.

Chris placed the story on the table in front of him. Tomorrow he would go in to work, make up with Gary and Dave and square things with his boss. If she didn’t want him back he didn’t mind. He could always get another job, or go travelling, or anything he put his mind to. Chris went to bed that night and slept soundly for the first time in months.

He dreamt of boats.