Doctor Who - 03 - The August Sky

.10. All the Stars are Falling Down

The derelict building was quiet as they entered the ground floor. There was a vast lobby there, with beautiful, twisting stairs leading to upper levels. There was no furniture, but piles of rubbish and rags cluttered the floor, and several decomposing mattresses lay by the walls. It stank of damp, and dust and urine. The night was moonless, and the house was dark.

Martha shrugged, closing her fingers on the handle of a heavy torch. In the other hand she clutched the anti-weevil spray, her index finger posed over the nozzle. She looked back at Gwen who was holding a much smaller torch alongside her gun, so that the beam of light pointed exactly where the gun's barrel was directed. Very professional, Martha thought.

"We are mad," Mickey's voice whispered in her earphone.

"Shut up, Mickey," whispered Jack's voice.

"No, but... They're nocturnal, right. So what the hell are we doing here, middle of the night? We should come here at noon. And bring along an army."

"Mickey, just shut it!"

"He's got a point, though" Ianto's voice chipped in.

"But where are they?" asked Martha. "You said the house was swarming with them."

"Maybe they've gone already."

"Now, everybody, just keep quiet!" Jack actually stomped his foot on rotten floor-boards. "Ianto, are you picking any movement?"

Ianto lifted up a motion detector and turned slowly around, the machine bleeping quietly and steadily.

"This is sooo 'Aliens'," Mickey sighed in awe. "This is sooo no good," he added on second thought.

"Nothing," Ianto said. "There's nothing. Switching to infra-red now, and... Still nothing. There's just us."

"Okay, let's spread up," Jack ordered. "Ianto and Mickey – second floor. Gwen and Martha – first floor. I'll take the basement."

There were rags and piles of rubbish on the first floor as well. The odour was almost unbearable; it smelled like a wild beast's cage. Or worse. Martha wrinkled her nose. Rooms were enormous, with rows of high windows letting in some starlight. Wallpapers were peeling from the walls, and floorboards squeaked ominously underfoot. And there was no living creature there.

"They're really gone," Martha said, half disappointed and half happy of the fact. "We're too late."

"I hope they went back home," Gwen whispered, "that they are not lost anymore. It must be so awful to get lost like that..." her voice trailed off.

"Let's go back to the others." Martha sighed and turned to the door. Gwen lowered her gun. She stood there for a while, her long hair curtaining her face.

"Owen!" she shouted suddenly. "Owen! We're here, Owen! We've came!"

Martha gasped and turned back.

"We don't even know..."

"Owen?!"

"Gwen..."

"Owen, please! Please, Owen, show yourself! Owen?!"

"What's going on there?" the intercom asked in Jack's voice.

Gwen yelled wordlessly and kicked a pile of rubbish on the floor. And then kicked it some more. Martha watched her quietly.

"Nothing," Gwen said at last. She brushed her hair off her face. "We've done here."

Defeated, they walked slowly downstairs.