Doctor Who_ Psi-Ence Fiction - Chris Boucher [22]
'Nothing!'Josh scoffed from the shadows.
In truth there was nothing, but Joan would never have admitted that. She continued to stare deep into the brightly illuminated ball. 'Show me what you want me to see,' she implored. 'I await your purpose.'
Suddenly in the centre of the sphere there was a tiny black speck. For a moment it hung there like a blemish in the glass and then it began to expand and inflate, a dark sphere growing within the transparent sphere, a total blackness absorbing light as it came, and leaving nothing. When the dark had filled the globe and seemed about to cross the boundary and flood out beyond the rim and into the room itself, a swirl of glowing beads appeared in it. They whirled and danced and slowly came together, coalescing into something almost but not quite recognisable.
On the Ouija board the pointer was moving again. It rattled as it raced to the letters. U D-E-D U D-E-D U-D-E-D-B-I-C-H U-D-E-D-B-I-C-H-J-O-A-N
J-O-A-N-B-I-C-H-D-E-D.
'All right. Who's doing that?' Tommy demanded, but it was not clear whether he was talking to the others or to the unseen presence.
Meg half rose from the floor cushion. 'I'm going to put the light on.'
'Don't do that,' Josh warned.
Meg protested, This is sick.'
'Look at her'
Joan had not taken her eyes from the crystal ball and she was now bent so close to it that her nose was almost touching the surface. Within the glass a face was taking shape as spots of power met and melted into each other.
The face was ugly, hollow-eyed and twisted with sneering hate. The mouth, wide and filled with the darkness, shaped a silent scream of madness.
Without warning the face lunged upwards filling the ball. Involuntarily Joan jerked back away from it.
On the Ouija board the little planchette rattled and tapped as it flashed between the letters. B-I-C-H-D-E-D B-I-C-H-D-E-D B-I-C-H-D-E-D B-I-C-H-D-E-D.
Joan stared at the board in startled horror. 'It's Chloe's demon,' she whispered. 'It wants to kill me too.'
As if responding to her words the pointer steadied abruptly and, very slowly and deliberately, spelt out: J-O-A-N C-O-X D-I-E-S N-E-X-T.
'Who are you?' Tommy demanded, leaning forward and talking directly at the planchette. 'Tell us your name you piece of shit!'
With a crack of static electricity the pointer leapt off the board and smacked him on the forehead. The board itself upended and spun away into the darkness, hitting the wall with a loud slap. Both the halogen desk lamps exploded simultaneously, showering small shards of glass across the table and plunging the room into total darkness.
Joan screamed and then the main light switched itself on. No one had moved except Joan. She was lying on the floor, huddled up into the foetal position, and she was sobbing with fear. The crystal ball was unmoved on its small stand but inside what had been perfectly clear glass there was now a blemish: a small sphere of opaque, smoke-grey colouring. It looked a lot like a very large marble.
The Doctor lay on the narrow bed in the guest quarters and pondered the wisdom of his decision to stay over until the next day and talk to this Kellerfield Research Fellow fellow.
There was no real evidence that anything was seriously amiss here. There was nothing that actually warranted his attention. The study of parapsychology was not in itself a matter for concern.
He folded his coat more comfortably around himself and tilted his hat over his eyes.
He had allowed Leela's sour mood and the hysteria of a stressed young student to affect him, and his imagination had got the better of him. He was not normally so suggestible. Perhaps he was tired. He didn't feel particularly tired but that was no guarantee he wasn't.
He yawned.
Of course, it was possible that there might be some sort of field effect operating in this area, which could be why there was research going on into parapsychology here. He had come across such phenomena before though he himself had never been directly affected by them. Naturally occurring multiverse overlaps,