Entanglement, or the Ghost Field - Part Two: Gallows Pole
Title: Gallows Pole, Part Two of Entanglement
Author: dracox-serdriel
Acknowledgement: A special thanks to my awesome beta reader, rince1wind
Status: Completed as part of horrorbigbang 2013
Slade checked Jeet's pulse. "You seem better," Slade commented.
"I feel like an idiot," Jeet said. "Like I've never seen blood before or had it on me."
"I think we both know it's more than that," Slade replied. "I've been collecting stories about this place for over a decade. It's not all ghosts and spooky campfire stuff."
"You think you'd be the last person here," Jeet said. "If you know all about this place."
"You're telling me?" he replied.
Rose, Molly, Gwen, and Dean trooped in, their breath visibly rising as soon as they crossed the threshold of the lobby.
"Crap," Dean said, pulling a canister out of his bag. "Everyone! Get over by the sofa with those other two!" He indicated Slade and Jeet. "Now!"
"What're you gonna do? Blow something up?" Rose asked.
"You wanna help? Take this, make a circle around that sofa," he said as he tossed her a canister of salt.
"Seriously?" Rose asked.
Dean didn't answer; he started the salt line and moved as quickly as possible. The ring needed to be big enough to contain all six of them, and he couldn't waste any because he only had four canisters. Rose hesitated at first, but after seeing Dean's dedication to the task at hand, she joined in.
When the circle was complete, Dean pulled his bag and Rose over the line. He fumbled for an iron poker from his bag.
"Listen to me," Dean said. "Whatever happens, keep inside this circle. You understand? Keep inside the circle and don't break the salt line. Can you all do that?"
"Who the hell are you?" Gwen asked. "Who is he?" she asked Rose.
"You don't remember?" he asked Gwen. "Dean. With the FBI. We met outside when the four of you were setting up camp."
"Four of us?" Molly inquired.
"You couldn't've," Jeet spoke up, still draped over the couch. "They hadn't set camp when we found them. I tried to drive them back to the station, but we had to turn back."
"Sam and I were the ones who warned you about dangerous animals in the area," Dean said, sizing Molly and Gwen up. "You agreed to pack up an leave."
"I've never seen you before in my life," Gwen said firmly.
"To be continued," Dean said curtly. He didn't have time to consider the implications, not with the lights flickering and the temperature steadily dropping.
"Why are we even listening to him?" Molly asked.
"Because I'm trying to save your lives!" Dean replied.
Then it happened. The lights gave one last rippling flicker and the room filled with odd shapes, gathering around the sofa, stopping at the line.
Each shape was a ghost, and each had a gaping wound or slash marks coupled with burns. They seemed to be soldiers. None of them were in uniform, exactly, but they all had some kind of protective gear along with empty quivers and sheaths.
"Who are you?" Rose asked the shapes calmly.
Dozens of pupils swiveled to Rose, staring blankly as if they thought they could transmit their message straight from their eye sockets.
"Well?" Rose said, moving closer. "What do you want?"
Dean put his hand on her shoulder. "Stay behind the salt line," he asserted.
"Unarmed," several ghosts chimed. "Stuck and unarmed."
"Is that what you wanted?" Molly asked. "You wanted us here stuck and unable to defend ourselves?"
"Stuck," others repeated. "Stuck. Stuck. Stuck." It became a chant that shook the room.
"What do you mean, 'stuck'?" Rose asked. "We can help you, but you need to explain."
Molly jolted. She asked, "Why're you acting like you can talk to these... things!"
Rose turned to her and said, "Whatever they are, they can speak. If they can speak, then they can think. And they clearly want something from us - "
"What if they want to kill us?" Gwen asked.
"We're not unarmed," Dean said, indicating his iron poker. "And, as I've been trying to say, ghosts can't cross a salt line."
Dean continuously checked all around the line, but none of the ghosts made any attempt to break the line. None of them seemed violent, either. He didn't know what was going on, but dozens of ghosts gathering without a move? That was bad news on any day.
"Ghosts?" Gwen echoed. "You're saying these are ghosts?"
"He's right," a male voice spoke up. It was clearer than the others. "He's right."
Molly recognized the voice. "Vince? Where are you?" she asked.
"Can't you see me?" he asked.
The others shifted in unison, as if following orders, opening a straight path to a man near the hall. Their voices dropped to a whisper, but they continued to repeat, "Stuck. Unarmed. Stuck. Unarmed."
"Vince?" Molly asked, squinting her eyes.
"Stuck," Vince said quietly. He began to approach. "Stuck and alone. It's cold."
"Tell me about it," Molly said, relief flooding her face as she smiled.
"You don't understand," Vince said. "Cold. Dark. So high up, and it's cold and dark."
"What do you mean, high up?" Gwen asked Vince.
Molly was on the edge of the salt line, and Dean grabbed her. He could feel the temperature swinging back. The ghosts were on their way out, which meant he just needed to keep everyone calm for a little while longer.
"Stay inside the circle," Dean warned.
"Why?" Molly asked. "They're not hurting Vince, are they?"
"That's not Vince," Dean replied. "Not anymore."
Molly shook her head. "Says who? You don't even know him!" she spat at Dean.
"Molly, I think you should listen to him," Rose said.
But she didn't. She shoved Dean away, hard, and stepped across the line in one smooth movement. She headed straight for Vince. "Come on, Vince, we've gotta find a place to wait out the night. Leave this lunatic behind."
Gwen started after Molly, so Dean grabbed for her, dropping the poker in the process. "Damn it!"
"Molly, come back!" Jeet raised her voice.
"Stuck," Vince said. "Dark, cold." He began to repeat, like the others, "stuck, dark, cold" sounded over the slowly evaporating sound of "stuck, unarmed."
"Vince?" Molly asked as she finally got close enough to see him. "What - "
Vince's chest bore a gaping hole; his arms were barely attached to his body, and his face! No matter the words that passed from his lips, his face remained fixed in a scream of pain and terror.
"Vince," Molly whimpered as she shrank back, but she couldn't look away from his face. Everything she knew about Vince evaporated. His body didn't even seem solid anymore.
"Molly! Get back to the circle!" Dean yelled. It took everything he had to hold Gwen back. She was built like a bear and had the ferocity of a tiger.
The other spirits wavered, and one by one they vanished, their voices echoing in despair. But Vince remained, and if anything, he seemed more solid, more real than he had before. He stepped toward Molly, who remained transfixed with wonder and fear.
"Molly! Run!" Rose yelled.
When she didn't respond, Rose snatched a canister and filled her palm with salt.
"What are you doing?" Dean asked, still using everything he had to keep Gwen in check.
Rose jumped the line and ran to Molly, throwing the salt at Vince. His body swirled into mist.
"Molly, come on," she said, taking her hand. "Molly? Can you hear me?"
"Get her back here!" Dean repeated. "You? Stay!" he snapped at Slade when he made a move to leave. "Just, stay!"
Rose didn't need to ask why. The temperature of the room had dropped again, and the lights flashed.
"Molly, listen to me!" she said. "We've got to move. He's coming back."
"He's coming back," Molly echoed. "He's... if he's... only dead people can be ghosts. That means he's dead? But he can't be dead because he's coming back."
Rose began to drag Molly, but she was over six feet tall and had at least fifty pounds on Rose.
"Rose!" Dean warned.
She turned in time to see the broken and wispy image of Vince collect itself again. His arms swung at unnatural angles as he trapped Rose's wrist, yanking her to a stop.
"Dark. Cold. Stuck," Vince continued to repeat.
BANG! Vince's form spun into shadow and disappeared. Sam dropped his shotgun and moved quickly, lifting Molly to his shoulder.
The Doctor went to Rose. She looked shocked in a way he'd never seen before. "You all right?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah," she whispered. "Yeah, I'm all right. Come on."
Sam placed Molly on the couch next to Jeet just as The Doctor and Rose arrived.
"Bit nippy in here, isn't it?" The Doctor asked. "Wasn't like that before."
"Drop in temperature and unexplained electronic interference," Sam said. "All signs of a seriously pissed-off ghost."
"More like forty," Dean said.
"Forty?" Sam asked.
"Looked like soldiers."
Slade asked, "What about them looked like soldiers? They didn't have any camo or gear or - "
"No, they had quivers and sheaths," Dean cut him off.
"So, what?" Slade prompted. "Time-traveling soldier ghosts?"
Dean rolled his eyes.
Sam replied, "Once a ghost clings to this life instead of moving on, they stick around till whatever's binding them here is ash. Usually it's their bones, their remains."
"Dead bodies decompose," Gwen said.
"Well," The Doctor chimed in. "That takes time. And under certain conditions, human bones can last for hundreds, even thousands, of years."
"You're serious," Rose said to him. "About the ghosts?"
"I don't know about the ghosts," The Doctor said. "But bones are comprised largely of minerals. Calcium phosphate. How long they last after death depends on the environment. Chemical makeup, atmospheric properties. That's how you lot dig up fossils from long-extinct species. The bones survived long enough for the minerals around them to create a cast, and that takes millions of years."
Slade's confusion was apparent.
"So, you're saying they're not time-traveling ghosts," Rose said. "They're just normal ghosts." She paused for a moment. "Whatever that means."
"Sorry, can anyone tell us why we're standing in a circle of... some kind of condiment?" The Doctor asked. He stooped down, lick his finger, and gently dabbed the line. Then he tasted it. "Salt, right."
"Don't break the line," Sam said.
"Ghosts can't cross a line of salt," Dean explained. "They can't touch iron, either."
"But if they've been around long enough and are angry enough," Sam began, "they can develop countermeasures."
"Ghostly countermeasures?" The Doctor asked. "Oh, I like that. Ghostly countermeasures. What would those be?"
"Harnessing natural forces, like the wind," Sam said, "or exerting enough force - usually with telekinetic power - to crack the floor. Both can break a salt line. Sometimes they can interact with the world physically. Inflicting their own wounds by a psychic connection, even using storms."
"We can count Vince as physical," Rose said. "He was strong." She held up her wrist to show the faint lines of bluish tinge etched into her flesh. "That's gonna bruise, that is."
The Doctor examined her wrist. "Oh, that's a live one."
"That's... Vince just died a few minutes ago. He shouldn't be that strong," Dean said.
"What do you mean, Vince is dead?" Gwen asked. "What the hell is going on?"
"I dunno," The Doctor said. "But it has to do with very unnatural temporal fluctuations."
"And it was more like two hundred years, apparently," Sam said to Dean.
"Sam, that dude was just outside," Dean asserted. "Did you two figure out how he died?"
The Doctor and Sam exchanged looks.
"If Vince is dead," Gwen said, "we have a right to know how. Especially Molly."
The Doctor hesitated for a moment. "The accelerated lifecycle of a tree intersected with him. Somehow the physical growth of the tree impaled his body from here and now - that was all the blood you found - and pulled him into its own distorted time field. That noise you heard? It was his scream, trapped, rippling back to this time."
Slade, Molly, and Gwen gaped at The Doctor and then at Sam, as if he could provide a better answer. Silence covered the room.
Thirteen hours ago in London, England. During the Great Cyber War, the Tyler Mansion served as the unofficial base of the Preachers, who eventually became part of UNIT and Torchwood. The basement was full of alien gadgets and gizmos that various members of the Tyler family deemed too dangerous to be left in the hands of the government.
So The Doctor had plenty of tinkering to do at home. He missed the TARDIS dearly, and there was nothing like her in this universe. She had been in his life for hundreds of years, and now The Doctor had only one heart and no TARDIS. It was a fitting parallel, if nothing else. Of course, he had things here that he never had in the other universe. He wondered if his newfound humanity contributed to his nostalgia or if this was just how people dealt with settling down after a life of wandering.
So on a night like this, when he couldn't sleep, he'd head down into the basement and tinker. It made him feel like he was back on the TARDIS, just a little.
"Doctor?" Rose's voice came down from the kitchen. "Doctor? Are you down there?"
"Is it morning already?" he yelled up.
Rose leaned down the stairs just far enough to see him decked out in his flame-retardant gear.
"We've got a mauve alert," she said. "Better get that off, right?"
"Mauve alert?" The Doctor asked, his mind zooming through all the possibilities. "Really?"
"Let's just say, it had better be a mauve alert," she replied. "Since it just tossed me out of bed."
The Doctor struggled with the suit. A mauve alert was exciting and terrifying, and - why on Earth was this suit so impossible to get off in a hurry?
"I mean literally," Rose continued, coming down the stairs. "The bed actually threw me onto the floor."
"Oh, right, sorry," The Doctor said genuinely. "Designed to wake me up at any cost."
"You think you can remove the throwing you in the air bit?" she asked patiently.
"Promise," he replied.
Rose took the wrists of his suit and held them in place so he could pull his arms out.
"What would I do without you?" he asked fondly.
"Go mad in a fire suit for one," Rose replied as she helped him out of the rest of his suit. "In your pajamas to boot."
"Well, I was just - "
"Doctor!" another voice echoed down the basement stairwell. "Doctor! Are you down there?"
"Yeah, Dad, we're down here," Rose replied.
"Oh, uh, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt," Pete said. "But Torchwood and UNIT are both calling. Frantically."
"Of course they are," The Doctor said to Rose. "Mauve alert. Who better to send?"
The Doctor and Rose climbed the stairs and found Pete waiting for them in the kitchen.
Pete asked, "Do I want to know? What's a mauve alert?"
Rose and The Doctor traded glances, and he opened his mouth to reply.
"Oh, no you don't," Pete cut him off. "I know that look. That's the look you both get when he's about to lie to me."
The Doctor looked at Rose apologetically, and she started to reply. "You see, Dad - "
"And that's the look you two share when she's about to lie to me," Pete interrupted.
"You're a bundle of laughs at two in the morning," The Doctor mused.
"Mauve is the universal color for danger," Rose replied.
"What happened to red?" Pete asked.
"Red is just humans," The Doctor replied. "Mauve doesn't just mean alien and dangerous. It means that the aliens themselves marked it as dangerous. Which means Rose and I are the best ones to check it out."
"Well, UNIT has that new transport - " Pete began.
"No," The Doctor interrupted. "Me and Rose. Soon as we know what it is, then we can call for the right equipment. Send too many people in with too many gadgets, it'll put us all at risk."
"You don't expect me to let you go without any UNIT forces," Pete replied. "And not just because you're my daughter," he added to Rose. "Torchwood would be tossed if I let you go off to your deaths."
"Trust us," Rose said. "The Doctor's right about this. We've dealt with a mauve alert before, and having more people involved just made everything worse."
The Doctor left to get dressed.
"You're leaving now?" Pete asked. "Should I wake your mother?"
"We can't wait for that, and we can't wait for morning, either. We'll be leaving for... where ever the signal is coming from right now," Rose said. "Dad, will you tell them we're on our way to the helipad? I've got to change."
"Be careful," Pete insisted.
The Old Parkman School in Zolfo Springs, Florida. It felt as if the circle became smaller with every passing second. Jeet and Molly took up the sofa between them. Slade stood next to Sam along the back, and the rest of them were collected in front.
Rose broke the tension. "My name's Rose, Rose Tyler. This is JD Jones. We're both with UNIT."
"What's UNIT?" Sam asked.
"Unified Intelligence Task Force," Slade replied. "They were the ones who stopped the Cybermen."
"Oh, yeah, them," Dean said when no one else so much as batted an eyebrow at the word 'Cybermen.'
"I'm Agent Sam James," Sam said, showing his badge. "This is my partner - "
"Agent Dean Hetfield," Dean added, producing his badge.
"So, to be clear," The Doctor said. "You're Agents James and Hetfield?"
"Were we unclear about our names?" Dean asked.
"Well," he said, "James Hetfield is the lead singer of Metallica."
"Yeah, we get that a lot," Sam replied.
"Why do you know that?" Rose asked The Doctor. He replied by way of smile.
"Agent Paramjeet Bindiya. Call me Jeet, though," Jeet said, showing her badge. "I'm with DPS."
"Don't you mean DHS?" Dean asked.
"DHS changed its name years ago," Jeet pointed out. "Thought you'd know that just for the sake of interagency cooperation."
"He's got dyslexia," Sam lied quickly. "What about the rest of you?"
"I'm Molly Sanderson," Molly said.
"Gwen Castleberry."
"Slade Kilgore," Slade replied.
"Oh come on," Dean said. "That - that can't be your name. You might as well have called yourself Vonnegut Fan Ninety-nine."
"It's a pen name," Slade said quietly. "I'm a writer."
"Right," Dean said. "In the name of interagency cooperation, I think it's fair to say that all of you should get the hell out of here and let us deal with this."
"Vince," Molly said weakly.
"I'm sorry about your friend," Sam said. "But - "
"No, I mean, Vince - "
Everyone became still and quiet as Molly pointed towards the lobby door. Quick footsteps echoed loudly. Gwen crowed Molly, blocking her line of sight.
"Help!" Vincent yelled. "Please we need - "
Dean grabbed Sam's shotgun and pointed it straight at him.
Vince threw up his hands in surrender as he yelled, "Agent Hetfield? What the hell!"
Navigation
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Part Three: Ghost
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Gallows Pole (Led Zeppelin)
What did you bring me, my dear friends,
To keep me from the Gallows Pole?
What did you bring me to keep me from the Gallows Pole?
Author: dracox-serdriel
Acknowledgement: A special thanks to my awesome beta reader, rince1wind
Status: Completed as part of horrorbigbang 2013
Slade checked Jeet's pulse. "You seem better," Slade commented.
"I feel like an idiot," Jeet said. "Like I've never seen blood before or had it on me."
"I think we both know it's more than that," Slade replied. "I've been collecting stories about this place for over a decade. It's not all ghosts and spooky campfire stuff."
"You think you'd be the last person here," Jeet said. "If you know all about this place."
"You're telling me?" he replied.
Rose, Molly, Gwen, and Dean trooped in, their breath visibly rising as soon as they crossed the threshold of the lobby.
"Crap," Dean said, pulling a canister out of his bag. "Everyone! Get over by the sofa with those other two!" He indicated Slade and Jeet. "Now!"
"What're you gonna do? Blow something up?" Rose asked.
"You wanna help? Take this, make a circle around that sofa," he said as he tossed her a canister of salt.
"Seriously?" Rose asked.
Dean didn't answer; he started the salt line and moved as quickly as possible. The ring needed to be big enough to contain all six of them, and he couldn't waste any because he only had four canisters. Rose hesitated at first, but after seeing Dean's dedication to the task at hand, she joined in.
When the circle was complete, Dean pulled his bag and Rose over the line. He fumbled for an iron poker from his bag.
"Listen to me," Dean said. "Whatever happens, keep inside this circle. You understand? Keep inside the circle and don't break the salt line. Can you all do that?"
"Who the hell are you?" Gwen asked. "Who is he?" she asked Rose.
"You don't remember?" he asked Gwen. "Dean. With the FBI. We met outside when the four of you were setting up camp."
"Four of us?" Molly inquired.
"You couldn't've," Jeet spoke up, still draped over the couch. "They hadn't set camp when we found them. I tried to drive them back to the station, but we had to turn back."
"Sam and I were the ones who warned you about dangerous animals in the area," Dean said, sizing Molly and Gwen up. "You agreed to pack up an leave."
"I've never seen you before in my life," Gwen said firmly.
"To be continued," Dean said curtly. He didn't have time to consider the implications, not with the lights flickering and the temperature steadily dropping.
"Why are we even listening to him?" Molly asked.
"Because I'm trying to save your lives!" Dean replied.
Then it happened. The lights gave one last rippling flicker and the room filled with odd shapes, gathering around the sofa, stopping at the line.
Each shape was a ghost, and each had a gaping wound or slash marks coupled with burns. They seemed to be soldiers. None of them were in uniform, exactly, but they all had some kind of protective gear along with empty quivers and sheaths.
"Who are you?" Rose asked the shapes calmly.
Dozens of pupils swiveled to Rose, staring blankly as if they thought they could transmit their message straight from their eye sockets.
"Well?" Rose said, moving closer. "What do you want?"
Dean put his hand on her shoulder. "Stay behind the salt line," he asserted.
"Unarmed," several ghosts chimed. "Stuck and unarmed."
"Is that what you wanted?" Molly asked. "You wanted us here stuck and unable to defend ourselves?"
"Stuck," others repeated. "Stuck. Stuck. Stuck." It became a chant that shook the room.
"What do you mean, 'stuck'?" Rose asked. "We can help you, but you need to explain."
Molly jolted. She asked, "Why're you acting like you can talk to these... things!"
Rose turned to her and said, "Whatever they are, they can speak. If they can speak, then they can think. And they clearly want something from us - "
"What if they want to kill us?" Gwen asked.
"We're not unarmed," Dean said, indicating his iron poker. "And, as I've been trying to say, ghosts can't cross a salt line."
Dean continuously checked all around the line, but none of the ghosts made any attempt to break the line. None of them seemed violent, either. He didn't know what was going on, but dozens of ghosts gathering without a move? That was bad news on any day.
"Ghosts?" Gwen echoed. "You're saying these are ghosts?"
"He's right," a male voice spoke up. It was clearer than the others. "He's right."
Molly recognized the voice. "Vince? Where are you?" she asked.
"Can't you see me?" he asked.
The others shifted in unison, as if following orders, opening a straight path to a man near the hall. Their voices dropped to a whisper, but they continued to repeat, "Stuck. Unarmed. Stuck. Unarmed."
"Vince?" Molly asked, squinting her eyes.
"Stuck," Vince said quietly. He began to approach. "Stuck and alone. It's cold."
"Tell me about it," Molly said, relief flooding her face as she smiled.
"You don't understand," Vince said. "Cold. Dark. So high up, and it's cold and dark."
"What do you mean, high up?" Gwen asked Vince.
Molly was on the edge of the salt line, and Dean grabbed her. He could feel the temperature swinging back. The ghosts were on their way out, which meant he just needed to keep everyone calm for a little while longer.
"Stay inside the circle," Dean warned.
"Why?" Molly asked. "They're not hurting Vince, are they?"
"That's not Vince," Dean replied. "Not anymore."
Molly shook her head. "Says who? You don't even know him!" she spat at Dean.
"Molly, I think you should listen to him," Rose said.
But she didn't. She shoved Dean away, hard, and stepped across the line in one smooth movement. She headed straight for Vince. "Come on, Vince, we've gotta find a place to wait out the night. Leave this lunatic behind."
Gwen started after Molly, so Dean grabbed for her, dropping the poker in the process. "Damn it!"
"Molly, come back!" Jeet raised her voice.
"Stuck," Vince said. "Dark, cold." He began to repeat, like the others, "stuck, dark, cold" sounded over the slowly evaporating sound of "stuck, unarmed."
"Vince?" Molly asked as she finally got close enough to see him. "What - "
Vince's chest bore a gaping hole; his arms were barely attached to his body, and his face! No matter the words that passed from his lips, his face remained fixed in a scream of pain and terror.
"Vince," Molly whimpered as she shrank back, but she couldn't look away from his face. Everything she knew about Vince evaporated. His body didn't even seem solid anymore.
"Molly! Get back to the circle!" Dean yelled. It took everything he had to hold Gwen back. She was built like a bear and had the ferocity of a tiger.
The other spirits wavered, and one by one they vanished, their voices echoing in despair. But Vince remained, and if anything, he seemed more solid, more real than he had before. He stepped toward Molly, who remained transfixed with wonder and fear.
"Molly! Run!" Rose yelled.
When she didn't respond, Rose snatched a canister and filled her palm with salt.
"What are you doing?" Dean asked, still using everything he had to keep Gwen in check.
Rose jumped the line and ran to Molly, throwing the salt at Vince. His body swirled into mist.
"Molly, come on," she said, taking her hand. "Molly? Can you hear me?"
"Get her back here!" Dean repeated. "You? Stay!" he snapped at Slade when he made a move to leave. "Just, stay!"
Rose didn't need to ask why. The temperature of the room had dropped again, and the lights flashed.
"Molly, listen to me!" she said. "We've got to move. He's coming back."
"He's coming back," Molly echoed. "He's... if he's... only dead people can be ghosts. That means he's dead? But he can't be dead because he's coming back."
Rose began to drag Molly, but she was over six feet tall and had at least fifty pounds on Rose.
"Rose!" Dean warned.
She turned in time to see the broken and wispy image of Vince collect itself again. His arms swung at unnatural angles as he trapped Rose's wrist, yanking her to a stop.
"Dark. Cold. Stuck," Vince continued to repeat.
BANG! Vince's form spun into shadow and disappeared. Sam dropped his shotgun and moved quickly, lifting Molly to his shoulder.
The Doctor went to Rose. She looked shocked in a way he'd never seen before. "You all right?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah," she whispered. "Yeah, I'm all right. Come on."
Sam placed Molly on the couch next to Jeet just as The Doctor and Rose arrived.
"Bit nippy in here, isn't it?" The Doctor asked. "Wasn't like that before."
"Drop in temperature and unexplained electronic interference," Sam said. "All signs of a seriously pissed-off ghost."
"More like forty," Dean said.
"Forty?" Sam asked.
"Looked like soldiers."
Slade asked, "What about them looked like soldiers? They didn't have any camo or gear or - "
"No, they had quivers and sheaths," Dean cut him off.
"So, what?" Slade prompted. "Time-traveling soldier ghosts?"
Dean rolled his eyes.
Sam replied, "Once a ghost clings to this life instead of moving on, they stick around till whatever's binding them here is ash. Usually it's their bones, their remains."
"Dead bodies decompose," Gwen said.
"Well," The Doctor chimed in. "That takes time. And under certain conditions, human bones can last for hundreds, even thousands, of years."
"You're serious," Rose said to him. "About the ghosts?"
"I don't know about the ghosts," The Doctor said. "But bones are comprised largely of minerals. Calcium phosphate. How long they last after death depends on the environment. Chemical makeup, atmospheric properties. That's how you lot dig up fossils from long-extinct species. The bones survived long enough for the minerals around them to create a cast, and that takes millions of years."
Slade's confusion was apparent.
"So, you're saying they're not time-traveling ghosts," Rose said. "They're just normal ghosts." She paused for a moment. "Whatever that means."
"Sorry, can anyone tell us why we're standing in a circle of... some kind of condiment?" The Doctor asked. He stooped down, lick his finger, and gently dabbed the line. Then he tasted it. "Salt, right."
"Don't break the line," Sam said.
"Ghosts can't cross a line of salt," Dean explained. "They can't touch iron, either."
"But if they've been around long enough and are angry enough," Sam began, "they can develop countermeasures."
"Ghostly countermeasures?" The Doctor asked. "Oh, I like that. Ghostly countermeasures. What would those be?"
"Harnessing natural forces, like the wind," Sam said, "or exerting enough force - usually with telekinetic power - to crack the floor. Both can break a salt line. Sometimes they can interact with the world physically. Inflicting their own wounds by a psychic connection, even using storms."
"We can count Vince as physical," Rose said. "He was strong." She held up her wrist to show the faint lines of bluish tinge etched into her flesh. "That's gonna bruise, that is."
The Doctor examined her wrist. "Oh, that's a live one."
"That's... Vince just died a few minutes ago. He shouldn't be that strong," Dean said.
"What do you mean, Vince is dead?" Gwen asked. "What the hell is going on?"
"I dunno," The Doctor said. "But it has to do with very unnatural temporal fluctuations."
"And it was more like two hundred years, apparently," Sam said to Dean.
"Sam, that dude was just outside," Dean asserted. "Did you two figure out how he died?"
The Doctor and Sam exchanged looks.
"If Vince is dead," Gwen said, "we have a right to know how. Especially Molly."
The Doctor hesitated for a moment. "The accelerated lifecycle of a tree intersected with him. Somehow the physical growth of the tree impaled his body from here and now - that was all the blood you found - and pulled him into its own distorted time field. That noise you heard? It was his scream, trapped, rippling back to this time."
Slade, Molly, and Gwen gaped at The Doctor and then at Sam, as if he could provide a better answer. Silence covered the room.
Thirteen hours ago in London, England. During the Great Cyber War, the Tyler Mansion served as the unofficial base of the Preachers, who eventually became part of UNIT and Torchwood. The basement was full of alien gadgets and gizmos that various members of the Tyler family deemed too dangerous to be left in the hands of the government.
So The Doctor had plenty of tinkering to do at home. He missed the TARDIS dearly, and there was nothing like her in this universe. She had been in his life for hundreds of years, and now The Doctor had only one heart and no TARDIS. It was a fitting parallel, if nothing else. Of course, he had things here that he never had in the other universe. He wondered if his newfound humanity contributed to his nostalgia or if this was just how people dealt with settling down after a life of wandering.
So on a night like this, when he couldn't sleep, he'd head down into the basement and tinker. It made him feel like he was back on the TARDIS, just a little.
"Doctor?" Rose's voice came down from the kitchen. "Doctor? Are you down there?"
"Is it morning already?" he yelled up.
Rose leaned down the stairs just far enough to see him decked out in his flame-retardant gear.
"We've got a mauve alert," she said. "Better get that off, right?"
"Mauve alert?" The Doctor asked, his mind zooming through all the possibilities. "Really?"
"Let's just say, it had better be a mauve alert," she replied. "Since it just tossed me out of bed."
The Doctor struggled with the suit. A mauve alert was exciting and terrifying, and - why on Earth was this suit so impossible to get off in a hurry?
"I mean literally," Rose continued, coming down the stairs. "The bed actually threw me onto the floor."
"Oh, right, sorry," The Doctor said genuinely. "Designed to wake me up at any cost."
"You think you can remove the throwing you in the air bit?" she asked patiently.
"Promise," he replied.
Rose took the wrists of his suit and held them in place so he could pull his arms out.
"What would I do without you?" he asked fondly.
"Go mad in a fire suit for one," Rose replied as she helped him out of the rest of his suit. "In your pajamas to boot."
"Well, I was just - "
"Doctor!" another voice echoed down the basement stairwell. "Doctor! Are you down there?"
"Yeah, Dad, we're down here," Rose replied.
"Oh, uh, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt," Pete said. "But Torchwood and UNIT are both calling. Frantically."
"Of course they are," The Doctor said to Rose. "Mauve alert. Who better to send?"
The Doctor and Rose climbed the stairs and found Pete waiting for them in the kitchen.
Pete asked, "Do I want to know? What's a mauve alert?"
Rose and The Doctor traded glances, and he opened his mouth to reply.
"Oh, no you don't," Pete cut him off. "I know that look. That's the look you both get when he's about to lie to me."
The Doctor looked at Rose apologetically, and she started to reply. "You see, Dad - "
"And that's the look you two share when she's about to lie to me," Pete interrupted.
"You're a bundle of laughs at two in the morning," The Doctor mused.
"Mauve is the universal color for danger," Rose replied.
"What happened to red?" Pete asked.
"Red is just humans," The Doctor replied. "Mauve doesn't just mean alien and dangerous. It means that the aliens themselves marked it as dangerous. Which means Rose and I are the best ones to check it out."
"Well, UNIT has that new transport - " Pete began.
"No," The Doctor interrupted. "Me and Rose. Soon as we know what it is, then we can call for the right equipment. Send too many people in with too many gadgets, it'll put us all at risk."
"You don't expect me to let you go without any UNIT forces," Pete replied. "And not just because you're my daughter," he added to Rose. "Torchwood would be tossed if I let you go off to your deaths."
"Trust us," Rose said. "The Doctor's right about this. We've dealt with a mauve alert before, and having more people involved just made everything worse."
The Doctor left to get dressed.
"You're leaving now?" Pete asked. "Should I wake your mother?"
"We can't wait for that, and we can't wait for morning, either. We'll be leaving for... where ever the signal is coming from right now," Rose said. "Dad, will you tell them we're on our way to the helipad? I've got to change."
"Be careful," Pete insisted.
The Old Parkman School in Zolfo Springs, Florida. It felt as if the circle became smaller with every passing second. Jeet and Molly took up the sofa between them. Slade stood next to Sam along the back, and the rest of them were collected in front.
Rose broke the tension. "My name's Rose, Rose Tyler. This is JD Jones. We're both with UNIT."
"What's UNIT?" Sam asked.
"Unified Intelligence Task Force," Slade replied. "They were the ones who stopped the Cybermen."
"Oh, yeah, them," Dean said when no one else so much as batted an eyebrow at the word 'Cybermen.'
"I'm Agent Sam James," Sam said, showing his badge. "This is my partner - "
"Agent Dean Hetfield," Dean added, producing his badge.
"So, to be clear," The Doctor said. "You're Agents James and Hetfield?"
"Were we unclear about our names?" Dean asked.
"Well," he said, "James Hetfield is the lead singer of Metallica."
"Yeah, we get that a lot," Sam replied.
"Why do you know that?" Rose asked The Doctor. He replied by way of smile.
"Agent Paramjeet Bindiya. Call me Jeet, though," Jeet said, showing her badge. "I'm with DPS."
"Don't you mean DHS?" Dean asked.
"DHS changed its name years ago," Jeet pointed out. "Thought you'd know that just for the sake of interagency cooperation."
"He's got dyslexia," Sam lied quickly. "What about the rest of you?"
"I'm Molly Sanderson," Molly said.
"Gwen Castleberry."
"Slade Kilgore," Slade replied.
"Oh come on," Dean said. "That - that can't be your name. You might as well have called yourself Vonnegut Fan Ninety-nine."
"It's a pen name," Slade said quietly. "I'm a writer."
"Right," Dean said. "In the name of interagency cooperation, I think it's fair to say that all of you should get the hell out of here and let us deal with this."
"Vince," Molly said weakly.
"I'm sorry about your friend," Sam said. "But - "
"No, I mean, Vince - "
Everyone became still and quiet as Molly pointed towards the lobby door. Quick footsteps echoed loudly. Gwen crowed Molly, blocking her line of sight.
"Help!" Vincent yelled. "Please we need - "
Dean grabbed Sam's shotgun and pointed it straight at him.
Vince threw up his hands in surrender as he yelled, "Agent Hetfield? What the hell!"
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Part Three: Ghost
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Gallows Pole (Led Zeppelin)
What did you bring me, my dear friends,
To keep me from the Gallows Pole?
What did you bring me to keep me from the Gallows Pole?