'And?' asked Denman.

'Jack needs needs this,' said the Doctor mysteriously. He shook the test tube gingerly. this,' said the Doctor mysteriously. He shook the test tube gingerly.

'Jack's just a myth,' said Trevor suddenly, though his nervous eyes belied the strength of his words.

'You think so?' said the Doctor sharply. 'A myth with a predilection for human bodies and souls.' His eyes looked beyond the scared humans and out into the cosmos. 'Hakol,'

he said slowly, 'is a place of nightmares.'

'Sorry?'

'It's in the star system Rifter,' said the Doctor. 'I'm starting to see what Jack is.'

'What?' asked Denman, braking suddenly. The car came to a shuddering halt.

'Something terrifying,' said the Doctor. 'I've watched entire planets reduced to lifeless husks by creatures like this.' He stared out of the window, watching the traffic that sped past.

His forehead was creased with worry. 'A Hakolian invasion takes place in three stages. Firstly, a reconnaissance probe is sent to a likely world to check for psychic energy. If that is found in high enough measure, a battle vehicle is dispatched.

The probe and the war creature are designed to function in tandem during the second stage, enslaving numerous individuals and destroying any potential opposition. They feed on hate and fear, channelling the psychic energy of the indigenous population. The bloodshed rises to a crescendo.

Only when the conflict is over will the Hakolians arrive in person.'

'So that thing in Hodcombe you told us about...?'

'The Malus?'

'Yeah,' said Trevor. 'That was the probe?'

The Doctor nodded. 'The psychic energy released by a minor skirmish between Royalists and Cromwell's Parliamentary forces in 1643 woke it up for a while. It a.s.sessed the area, found the surrounding life forms to be full of superst.i.tion and fear, and thus suitable for the people of Hakol. It sent an invasion signal, and became dormant again.

Waiting. Forty years later the battle creature arrived. Only it missed the target by a few miles, and fell on Hexen Bridge.'

'Jack?'

The Doctor dodged the question. 'You know, I always meant to go back and find out why the Hakolians didn't invade Earth after we destroyed the Malus, but I never got around to it. A mistake on my part.' He paused, as if unused to admitting failure. 'We know that the reconnaissance probe malfunctioned at some stage. The battle vehicle, what you call Jack i' the Green, never joined with the Malus. The Hakolians must have a.s.sumed that one or both were destroyed. Perhaps they quietly abandoned any idea of conquering Earth, on the a.s.sumption that if the creatures who lived there were strong enough to defeat either their probe, or their war machine, then it wasn't worth the effort.'

The Doctor beamed delightedly. 'See, there's normally a simple explanation for everything!'

'So Jack is a... machine?' asked Rebecca.

'It's partly a living thing, just like the Malus. A creature with enormous psychic power. Ultimately, the Malus was able to convert that mental energy into a number of actual physical manifestations. Who knows what Jack is capable of...?'

Trevor scratched his head. 'But why is Jack waking up? If he - it - hasn't received any orders to invade...'

'Ah,' said the Doctor. 'Good point.' His fingers formed a steeple in front of his face, deep in thought. 'Either Jack is malfunctioning, too - blindly carrying out its original instructions, just as the Malus did...'

'Or?'

A dark look crossed the Doctor's face. "What if Jack's orders have been revised? The intent - to destroy and invade - would remain the same, but the means would change.' He swung around to Denman. 'Put your foot down,' he said.

They approached the Chinese restaurant from the rear. Even from a distance they could see that something was very wrong with A Taste of the Orient. An enormous hole gaped in the gla.s.s and metal of the conservatory, and scorch marks stretched up the walls of the main building.

'Fire,' said Ace, as the smell of burning hit her. 'Looks like it's been put out.'

'I know who did this,' said Steven with a snarl, giving Joanna an ominous glance as he led them into the restaurant.

Inside, the damage was surprisingly light. A spent fire extinguisher lay on a large patch of charred carpet. Tables had been overturned, and one wall had suffered some damage. Steven bent down to pick up a blackened piece of gla.s.s. A partly charred paper label still clung to it. He held it up to Joanna.

'A vodka bottle,' he said bitterly. Now, I wonder who in Hexen Bridge would have one of those.'

Joanna looked away, tearfully.

Behind them, someone moved over broken gla.s.s.

Ace and Steven spun around.

'Steven?' said a voice from the darkness.

'Mother?'

'I was so worried,' said the small woman, flinging herself into his arms. 'You must come with me quickly. There has been a fire.'

'I can see that. I should have been here!' Steven looked at his mother closely. 'Are you all right?'

'Yes, but Mr l.u.s.ton and his wife were badly burnt, and your father is ill.'

'Is he in hospital?'

'No, he is in the kitchen. We... We don't want to leave the building. Something's happening on the green.'

They found Mr Chen sitting on a chair, a thick pillow behind him. Both hands were covered in bandages, and his face ran with sweat. He appeared to be dozing fitfully, giving an occasional gasp of pain.

'He belongs in a hospital,' Ace told Steven.

'I belong in the grave,' said the old man, his eyes snapping open. 'But not yet.'

'Father,' said Steven, kneeling at the man's side, 'what happened?'

Chen reached out a hand towards his son. Through the strands of bandage his skin was blackened and raw. 'We have kept the spirits at bay for so long,' said the old man.

'But now...'

'I know, Father, I know,' said Steven.

Ace moved to the kitchen window and looked out into the street. 'Company,' she said.

'How do they look?' asked Steven.

'Like a gang of Millwall bootboys, out on the town,' said Ace, moving back from the window. 'They're after blood.'

As she spoke, heavy blows began to rain down on the door.

CHAPTER 14.

SACRIFICIAL BONFIRE.

'Oh my G.o.d!'

Denman's sudden cry cut through the low murmur of conversation in the car. The Doctor, Trevor and Rebecca looked up. A neat row of motionless scarecrows stretched across the road, marking the outer boundary of Hexen Bridge.

'Welcoming committee?' ventured the Doctor.

'I doubt it very much,' said Denman, changing gear and slamming his foot to the floor. With a squeal of protest the car shot forward, smashing into the line of manikins. One bore the full impact of the car, somersaulting on to the bonnet, then the roof, in a blur of straw and cloth. The creature landed on the road behind, a sickening mess of torn limbs. Rebecca and Trevor turned in time to see the thing pick itself up and resume its sentry position, apparently unharmed.

'Let's hope it's as easy to get out again,' said the Doctor.

To their left, on the village green, they could see alien tendrils writhing hungrily as the people of Hexen Bridge were consumed by the alien ma.s.s that pushed up through the earth. A pair of scarecrows crossed the road in front of the car, dragging a screaming man by his legs.

'That's Mr Tyley,' said Rebecca, reaching instinctively for the car door.

'Look out!' shouted the Doctor as Denman swerved to avoid the scarecrows. A telephone pole loomed ma.s.sively in front of them.

Time slowed as they impacted. The Doctor felt a dizzying surge of forward momentum, then the tight constriction around his chest as the seat belt did its job and the whiplash as he was thrown backward into his seat.

The heartbeat of silence after the crash was ruptured by Rebecca, who was shouting incoherently. The Doctor looked to his right and saw a smear of blood, staining the cracked windscreen. Denman was slumped in the driver's seat, a deep cut above his nose.

'We've got to get clear,' said the Doctor, throwing open the door and unsnapping his seat belt. 'Help me with Mr Denman,' he said as Trevor pulled himself from the car. The Doctor glanced towards the green and saw the scarecrows dropping Tyley into the cavernous maw of Jack. The scream was shrill and inhumanly loud.

The noise cut off suddenly. The stickmen turned towards the car.

Inside A Taste of the Orient, Ace and Joanna moved cautiously through the restaurant towards the gla.s.s conservatory as Steven and his mother helped Mr Chen out of the kitchen. The front door of the restaurant reverberated with unfeeling blows.

Ace had taken a meat cleaver from the kitchen, and she hefted it nervously in her hands. She took a couple of hesitant paces on the charred carpet. It crunched under her feet. 'Crispy deep-fried rug,' she said. 'Nah, that'll never take off.'

Without warning a straw-and-skin hand smashed through the gla.s.s inches from her face.

For the first time since she was ten, Ace let out something close to a scream. An arm followed the hand through the jagged gla.s.s, but got no further as Ace brought the full weight of the cleaver down, burying itself in the scarecrow's tweed jacket. She could almost imagine the creature's terrible, silent pain, but she felt no pity. Only anger.

'St.i.tch that, Worzel,' she said as the creature made a fruitless attempt to pull its arm back through the blackened gla.s.s. Another arm crashed through the conservatory wall and flailed around, helplessly searching for the source of its torment.

Ace and Joanna turned and ran back into the main building. The Chens had gathered just outside the kitchen.

'It's the straw-suckers, and they're not happy,' announced Ace. 'Let's try the stairs.'

They walked into the hallway, the sound of breaking gla.s.s behind them telling its own story.

The front door, to the left of the stairs, shook visibly, then ruptured completely, stopping the group in its tracks. The scarecrows poured through, masklike faces impa.s.sive, eyes burning with wordless hatred.

'Come on,' shouted Ace. 'Back to the kitchen!'

The car's engine was on fire, and the Doctor knew that the heat would soon ignite the petrol tank. He and Trevor struggled with Denman s unconscious body. The Chief Constable was a large man, and his big boots kept catching in the churned-up earth around the wrecked vehicle.

Rebecca stood some distance away from the burning car, watching the scarecrows nervously. The two stickmen who had dragged Don Tyley to his death had been joined by a number of others. Each seemed as unique as any human: one was tall and slim, with a twisted, misaligned head; another was squat and heavy-looking, a bloated stomach constantly disgorging straw. Another was like a child, its oversized face locked in a leering mockery of some playground game.

'They seem to be frightened of the flames,' Rebecca exclaimed, her voice momentarily blotting out the terrifying rending noises as the fire bit into the buckled metal of the car's bonnet.

The scarecrows were shambling around dumbly, trying to reach out for the humans, but shrinking back as the burning sparks flashed high into the air. 'Straw men,' said the Doctor through gritted teeth.

'They haven't thought about going around around the car,' said Trevor. the car,' said Trevor.