The Doctor (12 page)

‘An old photo from the looks of it. Strange,’ he said turning the small pieces over in his hands. I left him trying to piece it back together and looked around the room.
 

It was fairly empty apart from the papers lying in a mess on the desk, and the computer. The walls were bare and a quick search of the cupboards confirmed they were empty. There was no window in the room and the only light came from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, and the glow being emitted from the computer screen. I must have knocked the mouse when I moved past the desk.

Jack gave up with the photo, dropping it back on the floor, and he sat down at the desk to look through the computer. His fingers were tapping impatiently on the wood while he searched.

Standing on the other side of the desk, I flicked through the papers, looking for anything of interest. It’s difficult to find something when you don’t really know what you’re looking for. It mostly looked like gobbledygook to me.

Jack had gone very quiet. That was never a good sign. He was staring at the computer screen, his nose almost touching it. Walking around the desk, I stood next to him and looked at the screen too. In the background there were lots of files that didn’t look like they meant much; they had various numbers and letters on them in no particular order. But currently Jack was staring at a different document that looked like a scanned newspaper. The picture on the scan was of a young woman with curly blonde hair. I read the title; ‘Woman goes missing, mysterious disappearance’.

Jack scrolled down, but not before I noticed the date at the top of the article, and the name in the first line.

‘Is that…’ I started to speak. Jack cut me off.

‘My mother? Yeah.’ His voice was so quiet. I let him study the article for a moment before continuing.

‘Why would the Doctor have a scanned copy of a newspaper article about your mum’s disappearance?’ I asked.
 

He didn’t answer. I had a feeling he knew more than he was letting on. He moved the mouse and clicked on an icon that was blinking near the bottom of the screen, and a new window popped up. This time it was me who leant closer.
 

‘Is that a security camera?’ I asked incredulously. Considering all the suggestions Jack had made about this guy being telepathic—why would he need a security camera? Surely he could just look into people’s minds without needing to watch them.

‘Doesn’t always work like that,’ Jack said absent-mindedly, looking closely at the monitor, ‘Sometimes you need to be in the vicinity to get into people’s heads. Although the Doctor does seem to be showing advanced techniques which could negate that requirement.’ I decided not to ask—I’m not sure I wanted to know.

The video had a black and white grainy picture, but there was no mistaking the young girl sitting in the corner of the room. She couldn’t have been much older than fourteen, fifteen at the most, and she was clearly a prisoner.

‘We have to find her, we can’t just leave her locked up here with the Doctor,’ I said.

‘Agreed, and she might know a bit more about him too,’ Jack replied. He tapped the screen, pointing to the top right of the video surveillance window, ‘The camera is labelled ‘Sector 9, Room B12’.’

‘Great, and how do we figure out where Sector 9 is?’ I asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from entering my voice. This island was having a very bad effect on me. Or maybe it was the wolf—I was still trying to control him, but he was not making it easy.

Jack turned and grinned at me. ‘The Doctor has helped us with that.’ He clicked once and all the windows disappeared on the screen. We were left with the desktop background, which looked suspiciously like a map.

Jack squinted for a moment and then touched the screen with his finger. ‘We’re here,’ he said, slowly tracing along the lines until he found what he wanted. ‘That’s where we need to be,’ he said, triumphantly.

‘Let’s go then, before the Doctor realises we’ve been playing in his study,’ I said, replacing the papers on his desk in roughly the same place I’d found them. Jack lingered for another moment at the computer before clicking the mouse a few times and following me out the door.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sarah

‘Who knows what’s real and what isn’t on this island.’
 

I woke up to the sound of bolts being pushed back on the door. Scrambling into a corner, I waited for it to open. I could hear the whispered voices of two people on the other side as the door slid open cautiously.

Sitting with my knees crushed hard against my chest I waited. The first one poked his head around the door, possibly checking to make sure I wasn’t suddenly going to start attacking them. Obviously I passed the test because he smiled at me and came into the room. The other one stayed hidden in the corridor. I’d seen them before of course, but they didn’t know that.

‘Hi,’
 

The one who had entered the cell was stood in front of me. He had thick, dark hair, and deep brown eyes that seemed to be searching over me.
 

I smiled weakly back, ‘Hi.’

‘My name’s Jack,’ he said, reaching out a hand, ‘we’re here to help you.’ I hesitated for a moment then shook his hand. Standing up from the rough floor, I brushed the dirt off my clothes and stared at the newcomer with interest.
 

‘Sarah,’ I replied, glancing towards the open door, wondering why the other one was still out in the corridor. I could hear him shuffling his feet just outside the room.

‘Nice to meet you Sarah. Are you okay? Has he hurt you?’

I shook my head slowly.

‘Good,’ Jack said. He sounded nervous, clearing his throat before continuing, ‘My friend Daniel is in the corridor. I’m going to ask him to come in, but I need you to stay calm. The man who’s keeping you captive here has done a lot of bad things, and Daniel was one of his victims. He is currently stuck as a—well, as a werewolf. But I assure you he is perfectly safe.’
 

Interesting.

He seemed to be waiting for a response from me before inviting Daniel into the cell. I nodded and tried not to look too obvious whilst staring at the door waiting for him to come through.
 

He came in cautiously, clearly afraid of frightening me if he moved too quickly. He looked quite funny actually; his clothes were stretched around his body, torn in various places, and covering the fur that had sprouted over his skin. His face looked mostly human, but there was a hint of werewolf features showing through. His nose was a little pointy, his pupils were more slatted than circular, and his eyes were a bright amber colour.
 

The werewolf just nodded at me and stood near the back of the room. I turned to Jack.

‘Where did you two come from? I thought I was alone here,’ I asked.

‘To be honest, we’re not actually sure how we got here. We tracked the Doctor to an old house, and after stepping inside we found ourselves here.’ Jack looked around and I heard him mutter under his breath, ‘Wherever here is.’

‘The Doctor?’ I was genuinely confused this time.

‘It’s the name we have given to the serial killer that is holding you captive. We refer to him as the Doctor because of the things he does to his victims.’ Jack told me. He crossed the room and looked out through the little barred window.
 

‘How did you know where to find me?’
 

‘We stumbled across some kind of study,’ Jack said, ‘and the computer in there had a flashing icon, that naturally needed clicking on. It showed a video of this cell with you in it, and we just followed the location details to here.’

I looked around the cell. Jack followed my gaze, wondering where the camera was hidden. It wasn’t to be found, and there was sympathy in his eyes when we glanced back at each other.

‘Thank you for coming for me,’ I said shyly, smiling at him. ‘So what’s the plan now?’ I was keen to get out of the cell, but I was more curious to know how the boys were planning to capture him. I had a suspicion they hadn’t quite thought it through that far.

‘No idea,’ Jack said shrugging his shoulders, ‘I was hoping we would come across something that might help, but so far we’ve only seen a lot of corridors, and a study that didn’t tell us very much. Apart from how to find you of course.’

Daniel was staying very quiet in the corner. I could tell he was watching me, but I resisted staring at him too much. Jack was definitely the more talkative out of the two.

‘I might know a place that could give you some answers,’ I said turning to Jack, ‘There’s a storeroom somewhere in the building that has all sorts of files and information in it. I came across it one day, but didn’t get chance to look through it. It might just give you some of the answers you’re looking for.’

‘Can you take us there?’ Jack asked tearing his eyes away from the window. I noticed Daniel looked more interested now. If I were him I would definitely want to know what had happened to me.

‘I think so,’ I said, suddenly realising I was staring. Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I walked to the door and gestured for the boys to follow me. Listening carefully for any noises, and watching for any shadows that might suggest an unwanted intruder, I walked slowly up the corridor.
 

‘Doesn’t look like he’s around at the moment. We might be in luck,’ I said turning to Jack who was right behind me.

‘It’s strange, we haven’t seen anyone whilst we’ve been here,’ Jack said, a frown creasing into his face.
 

‘I certainly feel like we’re being watched,’ Daniel said. I looked at him. So the werewolf did speak then.

‘I’ve always thought he knew everything that was going on,’ I said. ‘You’d better come up with a really good plan if you’re going to catch him. Come on, before our luck runs out.’

We walked through the corridors swiftly, keeping an eye out for any signs that we were being followed. I wasn’t really sure exactly where I was going, I just had to hope we’d come across the storeroom eventually. As it turned out we ended up outside his study. I glanced in and smiled when I saw the torn pieces of the photo on the floor.

I whispered to Jack, ‘You said you found me when you were in the study. How? Is there a map somewhere in here?’

He moved past me into the room and headed for the desk. A few clicks of the mouse later and he was showing me the desktop background.
 

‘Perfect,’ I said, tracing the corridors with my finger, ‘I wish I’d known about this before, it would have made things much easier if I’d known the layout of the building.’

Jack was staring at me with what looked like a mixture of confusion and distrust in his eyes, so I quickly explained to him the games he liked to play with me. The ones where I’d run for my life and no matter what I did he’d find me and lock me back up.

I found the place I was looking for on the map. The building was mostly made up of corridors, so there weren’t many rooms to choose from.
 

‘Come on,’ I whispered, ‘We don’t want to stay here too long in case he comes back.’

It didn’t take much persuasion to get moving again. Clearly they were both on edge, waiting for something to happen. I knew what that felt like.

I’d memorised the route this time and I counted the corridors in my head as we went. Despite a little wobble around corridor five, when I said to Jack I couldn’t quite remember if it was left or right—we went right—we made it to a corridor I recognised. Looking for the door, I found it not far away. This was the storeroom belonging to the Doctor, as the boys called him. I thought it was quite a good name for him actually.
 

We entered the room cautiously, glancing around at all the possible hiding places in case he was waiting for us to arrive. Luckily the room was clear of crazy, deluded Doctors. It was not clear, however, of paperwork.
 

The entire room had filing cabinets pushed up against every section of free wall space, and the rest of the room was crowded by desks covered in all sorts of papers and photos. Even the floor hadn’t escaped the mess—piles of paperwork were stacked haphazardly around the room, some had even fallen over and their papers were strewn everywhere.

‘Not exactly tidy is he?’ Jack said grinning. Agreeing, I stepped into the room, careful not to trip up on the piles of folders that were lying just by my feet.

‘This place is a mess,’ Daniel said, following us inside. I had to agree, the Doctor definitely needed an assistant. I suppressed a giggle at his next comment relating to Jack’s similarities to the Doctor based on their abilities to tidy their offices. Or lack of.

‘Come on,’ Jack said determinedly, ignoring Daniel’s teasing, ‘Let’s get searching. There must be something in here that could help us.’

‘What exactly are we looking for?’ I asked.
 

‘Anything that will give us some clues on how to defeat the Doctor. Any weaknesses he has that we can use. It’s not going to be easy but there has to be something. There has to be a way to stop him,’ Jack said.
 

I’m not sure who he was trying to convince, but from what I’d experienced, the Doctor had no weaknesses. He knew everything that was going on and was always a step ahead of everything you did. That’s what gave him the most pleasure—letting you think you were winning, and then he’d come in at the last moment and destroy your hopes.

Nevertheless, I joined the boys in the search, looking through the stacks of paperwork on the desks. Jack and Daniel were systematically going through the filing cabinets. They couldn’t be finding much, as the sound of drawers being opened, and then slammed shut not long after, filled the room.

‘These files are in no order whatsoever,’ Daniel moaned, slamming another drawer shut.

‘They’re not in alphabetical order,’ Jack corrected him, ‘But they must be in some kind of order. No one would be crazy enough to have this many files and not put them in some sort of order.’

The snort I made under my breath did not go unnoticed.

The boys returned their attention to searching through the cabinets, whilst I turned back to the papers on the tables. I couldn’t help but think we were wasting our time. There was nothing here but details of all the Doctor’s victims. It wasn’t telling us anything new about the Doctor himself, and that was what we really needed to know.