"Monochrome" - Part Two

Part Two

            Barbara calmed the mortified Susan, who regretted her decision to crank open the unsettling box, which might as well have been the casket for what was left of an innocent man. Meanwhile, Ian and the Doctor worked together in closing it.

            “What kind of sicko would do that to a dude?” Alan questioned.

            “I can think of a hundred sickos,” Candace replied. “I just hope none of them are in this dimension!”

            “What was that you said?” The Doctor snapped in attention towards her. “What do you mean by ‘dimension’? Hmm?”

            Candace slightly bit her lower lip, unnerved from her error in diction.

            “Slip of the tongue,” she covered. “I meant to say ‘this area’.”

            The Doctor wasn’t entirely convinced. Not that it would have mattered any longer, once Ian approached him and informed, “There’s a farmhouse not far from here.”

            “Ah, excellent!” The Doctor optimistically exclaimed. “Perhaps the people there can supply some answers of the strangeness we’ve encountered out in this cornfield.” He briefly turned to Candace and Alan. “Come along, you two.”

            Candace hadn’t anticipated the invitation, but she accepted nonetheless.

            As she and Alan trailed a distance behind the Doctor and his companions, Alan couldn’t help but notice how nervous Candace looked. “Are you good right now?”

            “Of course,” Candace was quick to respond. “Why you ask?”

            “No reason,” he fibbed, not wanting to embarrass her. “Don’t you know a dude who calls himself ‘Doctor’?”

            Candace nodded. “I do.”

            “And that’s him and his crew right there?”

            Again, Candace nodded. “That’s right.”

            “Aw, tight! All the times you bragged about him, I finally get to meet him! But why doesn’t he recognize you?”

            “Because this is a much earlier version of him – one that hasn’t met me yet.”

            “For real? But won’t that, like, mess up the time-space continuum or something? I mean, is it like Back to the Future and you could cease to exist or something like that?”

            “I’m not sure, sweetheart. But, for both of our sakes, don’t mention anything about me to him. As far as he and his friends are concerned, we’re total strangers they met out in an even stranger cornfield.”

            A minute later, they arrived at the farmhouse Ian sighted.

            There, they were greeted by the farmer, who was tending to his lawn upon their arrival. “Well, hello there, strangers,” he said, sounding almost overjoyed by their visitation. “Haven’t seen you all around these parts. We don’t get very many visitors in Peaksville these days.”

            “Peaksville?” Barbara frowned at the name. “I know of many areas in America, but Peaksville isn’t one of them.”

            “That doesn’t surprise me,” the farmer said. “We’re sort of…closed off from the rest of the world.” The manner of his tone was more in fear than jest. “Name’s John Fremont, by the way.”

            “Pleasure to meet you, John.” Ian shook his hand. “I’m Ian Chesterton, and this is Barbara Wright, Susan, Candace, Alan, and the Doctor.”

            “A doctor, eh?” an amused John remarked.

            “Yes, my boy,” the Doctor said. “Before we proceed any further with the formalities, I must inform you that my associates and I have come across a disturbing sight out there in that cornfield: what remains of a man’s head inside of a jack-in-the-box. Now I must ask you who on earth would have the means and disconcerting creativity to do that to a man, hmm?”

            John began to sweat profusely; either from the heat or, more presumably, his nerves. His anxiety became more evident when a little boy in overalls emerged out of the farmhouse.

            “Oh,” John said in an unnerved gasp. “Hello, Anthony. How are you, son?”

            Anthony didn’t say a word. He merely looked on the six strangers, standing in front of his father.

            “Is this your son?” Candace asked John.

            “He is. A-And he’s a very good boy. A very good boy.” There was much exuberance in his voice, clearly forced and in no way genuine. He turned back to Anthony and continued in the same voice, “These are new friends of ours, son. Some of them have come from a long way to Peaksville.”

            “That’s good, I guess,” Anthony impassively said.

            Wiping the sweat from his brow, John faced the visitors one last time. “Well, it was nice meeting you folks. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

            “Let them stay,” Anthony spoke up.

            This visibly worried John, but he managed to maintain a pleasant façade. “Why, Anthony…that’s very good of you to offer them to stay. But, uh, six strangers are a lot of people to have around in our little home. Too many mouths to feed for the night, wouldn’t ya say?”

            In response to this, Anthony turned and faced the Fremont farmhouse, which did appear as small and simple as John made it out to be. However, right at the moment Anthony pointed a finger towards the farmhouse, it suddenly transformed into a large, luxurious mansion.

            “Good heavens,” the Doctor yelped, witnessing the supernatural spectacle along with the other adults, who were just as overawed as he was.

            A middle-aged woman in a flower dress and apron rushed out of the newly-erected mansion, crying out John’s name in terror. He went right to her, holding her in his arms to calm her.

            “It’s alright, Cloris,” John told her (and, to a certain extent, himself as well). “Anthony gave us a new home…and it’s a very good home. It was a very good thing for Anthony to do.”

            Cloris cried into John’s shoulder – they just weren’t tears of joy.

------------------

            “That is not a normal child,” the Doctor stated, just as soon as he and his associates were in their own privacy within the Fremonts’ new study room.

            “Understatement of the century, bro,” Alan wittingly told the Doctor.

            “His parents are absolutely terrified of him,” Barbara noted.

            “And that could be a sign of how powerful is,” Candace said. “He could be capable of doing more than shapeshifting a house.”

            “Get away.”

            Their heads turned in the direction that the shriveled, monotone voice spoke from, finding a woman standing at the doorway. They knew her name to be Amy, having been introduced as Anthony’s aunt earlier when the visitors stepped into the mansion. She seemed like a guileless woman at first glance, barely uttering a word. This was the first instance that she spoke since they walked inside.

            “What did you say, madam?” the Doctor beseeched.

            “Get as far away as you can,” Aunt Amy resaid, “while you still value your lives.”

            And she spoke no further than that, leaving the study as swiftly as she came.

            “I think we should do what she says,” Alan suggested.

            “No!” The Doctor boldly refused. “These people are being controlled by a six-year-old with the imagination of a monster, therefore making him one. We must stop this child at whatever the cost!”

            Ian didn’t like what the Doctor was implying. “You’re not suggesting that we murder that boy, are you?”

            “At whatever the cost!” The Doctor repeated with more vigor.

            Candace could hardly believe her own ears. Here was a man that, from the time in which she knew him, was incapable of resorting to such a disquieting solution – especially not with children like Anthony. The Doctor, in his original body, was quite the hardhearted (and hardheaded) alien.

            “You can’t be serious, Doctor,” Barbara expressed her disdain of the Doctor’s cold resolve. “He’s only a little boy who’s possibly more frightened of his power than anyone else.”

            “Barbara’s right,” Candace said, only realizing the inadvertent play on the English schoolteacher’s name after the fact. “There has to be a better approach to this.”

            “It would be a useless method, I’m sure,” the Doctor immediately disproved.

            “And yours is tactless!” Barbara scolded him.

            “Uh, ya’ll?” Alan tensely muttered. “We got company.”

            They followed his gaze, which was directed back towards the doorway. Except it wasn’t Aunt Amy standing there this time. As the group had been discussing what to do with Anthony, the boy himself stood at the doorway with a look of judgmental anger on his face.

"Monochrome" - Part One

Part One

            Alan never knew a gym existed in Candace’s Type-Z TARDIS. There were a lot of places in it he hadn’t explored yet – some of which Candace often talked about and Alan sometimes doubted she’d ever been to. According to her, she was inspired to install a gym in an area she called the “Zero Room” (a tranquil space reserved for Time Lords who need relief from stress or anxiety).

            But Candace had made it into the opposite. Now she used it as a place to exert all the energy she constantly built up in her Time Lord physique. For a woman who physically looked fifty years of age, she had the body of a thirtysomething. It was virtually superhuman.

            That was clear when Alan spotted her during a round of bench-presses.

            She requested him to load on a nerve-wracking four hundred and fifty pounds, which she handled as if it were half as much.

            “What’s it like?” Alan brought himself to ask.

            “What’s what like, honey?” Candace returned in-between breaths.

            “What’s it like being a Time Lord?”

            “Well, for starters, I wasn’t always one. I was once just a normal kid like you, albeit one-half human and the other half Gallifreyan. It wasn’t ‘til I was about your age when I had the Gallifreyan half of my genes enhanced by a guy named Rassilon. Ever since, I’ve felt more and more powerful…like a superhero brought to life.”

            “Sounds pretty legit.”

            Candace racked the four-hundred-pound bar without need of Alan’s assistance. “I’ll admit it has been cool. But I am a little worried about my future in it… specifically the whole ‘regeneration’ thing.”

            “Regeneration? What does that mean?”

            “Something the Doctor said would happen to me one day. He calls it ‘cheating death’ but didn’t specify the whole process. He only said that I won’t be me anymore…that I’ll be someone else.”

            Alan noticed how much the topic unsettled her, so he decided not to press her on about it. Instead, they finished their workout and showered, making their way thereafter back to the control room. Candace had the controls on autopilot as they traversed the infinite dimensional corridor. She successfully dematerialized them out.

            From the viewscreen, they saw that they arrived in a withered cornfield.

            “We’re back on Earth?” Alan observed.

            “One of them perhaps,” Candace elucidated. She walked out into the field with Alan, a wave of nostalgia overwhelming her. “I used to run through a field like this when I was a little girl, back on my family’s Atlanta farm.”

            “You think that might be where we’ve landed?” Alan asked.

            Candace took a deep breath, her bosom expanding. A button from her tight white blouse popped, holding on for as long as it could have. It was now down to one. Alan couldn’t guess why she did it until she told him, “Nope. Not the farm. Smells too desolate to be Atlanta, Georgia.”

            “You can tell where we are by smellin’ the air?!” An impressed Alan exclaimed.

            Candace smiled at him, tapping her nose. “Senses also got enhanced.”

            As they walked further through the cornfield, they were stopped dead in their tracks once they crossed paths with another group of people: two gentlemen (an elderly one and a much younger one) and two women (a teenaged girl and a woman who looked to be the same age as the younger man). In front of them sat a large jack-in-the-box.

            “Undoubtedly, a jack-in-the-box is what it appears to be, Chesterton,” the elderly man told the young one, speaking with a discernable English accent. “Look at the design.”

            “But how could a jack-in-the-box have gotten all the way out here, Grandfather?” the teenaged girl queried, also speaking with an English accent.

            Alan moved his left foot forward and stepped on a twig. It snapped loudly enough to inadvertently draw the group of British individuals’ attention towards him and Candace. “And who might you two be?” the elder gentleman asked.

            “We might ask you the same question,” Candace countered.

            “But I asked first,” the elder argued.

            “Don’t mind him,” the young gentleman spoke up. “We’re just passing through. My name’s Ian.” He gestured to their female associates. “This is Barbara and Susan. And the old grouch here is…”

            “I’m the Doctor,” the elder defiantly intervened in his introduction whilst clasping at the lapels of his coat.

            Candace froze with astonishment upon learning of the elder’s name.

            “You’re…The Doctor?!” she reacted.

            “Yes, I am.” The old man scowled at her. “Have you heard of me?”

            Candace swallowed hard. “Y-You’re something of a legend where I’m from.”

            “Oh? And where might that be?”

            “Galli—” Candace briskly caught herself, nearly on the verge of revealing vital information to a man who (from his perspective) had never seen her before. He was one of the Doctor’s earliest incarnations. Which one exactly, she could not be certain of. She was certain of one thing: he couldn’t find out any more about her.

            “Speak up, woman,” the Doctor urged. “Where are you from? Hmm?”

            Candace shook her head. “It’s not important.” She used the oversized jack-in-the-box as a way of diverging from the topic. “What is important is what this thing is.”

            The Doctor fell for the diversion, bringing his focus back on the box.

            “Yes, my companions and I were just discussing its place of origin,” he stated. “We found it just sitting here in the middle of the field.”

            “It could be as simple as a child leaving it behind,” Barbara presumed.

            “Impossible,” the Doctor refuted. “Look at its size and density. Only a man could’ve brought it this far out in the field for the child to play.”

            “Doctor, could it be that you’re making this issue more complicated than it has to be?” Ian politely disputed with a smirk.

            While the adults debated among themselves, Susan got the yearning to turn the crank on the size of the box. She did so, much to the displeasure of her grandfather. The melody of “Pop Goes the Weasel” played to the speed of which she cranked. “It does work like an ordinary jack-in-the-box, Grandfather,” she said. “I don’t see any reason there was to—AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”

            Susan and everyone else received a huge shock – and it wasn’t the fun one related to most jack-in-the-boxes.

            It wasn’t the plastic head of a toy clown on a spring that popped out.

            It was the decapitated head of a human male.

"The Missing Face" - Part Four

Part Four

            What crazy world have I ended up in this time?!

            The thought ran across Mandy’s mind as she watched the Superior Leader’s guards rush for her. All that prevented them from carrying out his kill command was the savagely disfigured gentleman that the Superior Leader called their “missing link.”

            Mandy had no idea who he was or where he came from, which prompted her to ask Clarence, “Where did our new friend come from?”

            “He helped me get you your new face,” Clarence said. “His name’s ‘Darkman’ and he’s a superhero!”

            “I’ll say he is,” Mandy observed. “He just saved my butt!”

            Mandy, Clarence, and the Darkman escaped the Superior Leader’s domain and Superior City altogether. The Darkman disposed of any resistance along the way, though it was no question there would be more coming in pursuit of them.

            “Where’s my T.A.R.D.I.S.?” Mandy asked.

            “It’s in a village with all these beautiful-lookin’ people,” Clarence told her. “I know where it is – follow me!”

            “What is all of this?” The Darkman inquired. “What is going on?!”

            “Short version: I’m a thousand-year-old alien from another dimension who travels with an 8-year-old in a giant domino that’s bigger on the inside,” Mandy hastily explained.

            The Darkman scoffed. “Surprisingly, that makes more sense than anything else I’ve been through in the last few hours.”

            The village Clarence spoke of was not far from the city.

            On foot, he brought them there in less than an hour.

            Mandy saw an attractive man waiting for them; someone Clarence identified by the name of “Walter,” as soon as they approached him.

            “You disobeyed me, Clarence,” he scolded. “You went to the city without permission or a guide.”

            “Never mind all of that,” Mandy told him. “There are a bunch of pig-faced weirdoes that’ll be comin’ here real soon!”

            Walter disconcertedly frowned. “You mean the Superiors?”

            “Whatever it is you wanna call them,” Mandy said. “They’re on their way!”

            Smith turned to a gathering of villagers that congregated as soon as Mandy, Clarence, and the Darkman arrived. “Everyone,” he addressed them. “A slight issue has occurred: the Superiors are coming to the village.” His message invoked anxiety among the villagers. “Now, there’s no need to panic. But I do encourage you all to return to your homes, while I take care of the Superiors myself.”

            None of the villagers retreated on Walter’s insistence – not even Janet Tyler.

            “We’re standing with you,” she vowed.

--------------

            A moment later, the Superiors disembarked with their leader, as well as Dr. Douglas, in tow. They were met by an intimidating crowd of Inferiors, all of whom brandished faces of defiance.

            The Superior Leader refused to back down. “Let us have our missing link, and we’ll disappear like a nightmare before the breaking day,” he demanded, gesturing directly to Westlake.

            “You can burn,” the Darkman retorted.

            “I admire your tenacity,” the Superior Leader stated. “That’ll be the first thing I eradicate once we have set your mind right and make you believe in our cause.”

            “And what cause is that?” Mandy challenged. “Totalitarianism? Racism?”

            “We don’t expect an ugly thing like you to understand what we stand for,” the Superior Leader snapped.

            “You take that back,” Clarence shouted. “The only ugly thing here is you!”

            The 8-year-old’s words drew ire from the Superior Leader, who ordered his men, “Take the missing link by force!”

            Walter and his people stood firm, maintaining a protective wall around Westlake.

            “Neither you nor your government have control over this village,” Walter asserted. “If you break the truce, there will be war.”

            Douglas, growing nervous by the minute, recommended to his Superior Leader, “Perhaps we should leave…w-while we still have our lives.”

            “I will not be bullied by Inferiors!”

            Infuriated, the Superior Leader snatched a gun from one of his guards, taking aim at Walter.

            “If it’s war, so be it!”

            “NO!” Westlake growled, pushing past the wall of protective villagers.

            He leapt in front of Walter, taking a bullet to the shoulder, which he did not feel at all with his immunity to pain. Neither did it stop him, as he grabbed the frightened Superior Leader by his head and twisted it one-eighty degrees, snapping his neck and killing him.

            The act of violence horrified everyone on both Superior and Inferior sides.

            Even Mandy had to shield Clarence’s view of it with her body, not wishing for his innocence to be tainted.

            After their shock had worn away, Douglas and the guards bowed to Westlake.

            “You have overthrown our Superior Leader,” Douglas said. “Now you will be our new ruler…our missing link.”

            Seizing in this opportunity, Mandy rushed over to Westlake and whispered some counseling into his one good ear.

            He relayed her words to Douglas and the guards:

            “I won’t be your leader. It’s up to you now to decide how you will lead your people. Denounce your governments. Learn to live in peace with each other and accept your differences.”

            The two societies considered his (or, more precisely, Mandy’s) words.

            “How can that be possible after so many centuries?” Douglas inquired. “Where do we even start?”

            “You can start by stop tryin’ to fix how you look,” Mandy suggested. “You are all beautiful people in your own special ways.”

            She felt Clarence tug at her gown, looking down to see his doubtful face.

            “You sure about that, Mandy?” he asked, eyeing the Superiors specifically.

            “As sure as I know you’re beautiful, sweetie,” Mandy warmly told him, with a smile and a kiss planted on his forehead that made the 8-year-old blush.

------------------

            Entrusting Clarence to take her T.A.R.D.I.S. back into the infinite dimensional corridor, Mandy gave herself a moment to evaluate at her new face from a compact mirror.

            “How do you like it?” Clarence asked.

            “It’ll take some getting used to,” she admitted. “But, otherwise, I appreciate the work Dr. Douglas put into it…even if he did try to make me look like Miss Piggy.”

            She pocketed away her mirror, right when she spotted Clarence’s “Darkman” superhero, whose true name she learnt to be “Peyton Westlake,” brooding in a shadowed corner.

            “How’re you doing, Peyton?” she checked.

            “I don’t even know how to respond to that,” Westlake said. “My life has been turned upside down in more ways than one.”

            “I can fix your face, too,” she guaranteed. “Seems only justified after you helped fix mine.”

            “I’ve lost my lab and my research,” Westlake lamented.

            “You’re with an alien who travels between other dimensions,” Clarence reminded him. “If she can do that, she can fix you.”

            Westlake appreciated their willingness to help. They were both good people.

            “It’s not just my outer appearance,” he told them. “I’ve changed inside…I took a man’s life today.”

            Mandy sighed. “I understand how you feel. You may never learn to live past it.”

            “I’m learning to live with a lot of things,” Westlake remarked.

NEXT WEEK!