Happy World Book Day!
As a special treat, below you’ll find Sleep Tight – a Doctor Who short story written for the Sixth Doctor and Peri, as played by Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant. I wrote it almost exactly a year ago as a submission for the Short Trips Audio Series by the brilliant Big Finish Productions, who have the licence to produce classic Doctor Who audio adventures. Sleep Tight didn’t make the cut, and it’s been sitting in a corner of my hard drive ever since. So, I thought I’d give it a little air…
Hope you enjoy it!
Tommy
Sleep Tight
by Tommy Donbavand
“Here, at last!” said the Doctor as he stepped out of the TARDIS, his mop of blond curls blowing in the warm breeze.
Peri kicked off her shoes and felt her toes sink into the hot, welcoming sand. “It’s a beach!” she cried, happily.
“Not just any beach!” the Doctor exclaimed. “The only beach on the planet Rematonia; it circles the entire equator. Plus – two suns for consistent heat, and an atmosphere so dense there’s no chance of getting burned while you tan. Rematonia is officially the second most relaxing holiday destination in this galaxy.”
“The second most relaxing?” questioned Peri. “What’s wrong with the first?”
“I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with it,” the Doctor replied, “although it does have a policy of keeping its location a secret from anyone who hasn’t paid a rather hefty booking fee.” Shrugging off his multi-coloured coat, he swung it nonchalantly over his shoulder and strode off along the sand.
Peri pushed on her sunglasses and hurried to catch up. “What you mean is, you can’t find it!”
“I could find it anytime I want!” insisted the Doctor. “I thought I had once, too – but it turned out to be a rather nasty world created almost entirely out of nose hair.” Despite the heat, he shuddered at the memory.
“Second best or not, I’ll just be glad for the chance to chill out,” admitted Peri.
“And chill out you shall,” beamed the Doctor. Peri followed his gaze to discover the most perfect oasis she could ever imagine ahead of them. Gently swaying palm trees provided shade for dozens of wooden loungers where guests lay basking in the heat of the twin suns or enjoyed a relaxing massage. Intricate glass sculptures glinted in the flickering flames of a sizzling barbecue. Crystal blue waves crashed up against an open-air bar from which smartly dressed waiters ferried drinks to the holiday-makers on shining silver platters.
“It’s beautiful!” Peri breathed.
The Doctor nodded. “And all ours for the next 48 hours…”
“We’re staying for two days?” smiled Peri.
“At least,” replied the Doctor, pulling a thick book from beneath the folds of his coat. “I gave Dostoevsky some notes on his first draft of Crime and Punishment a while back, and I want to see how the finished product reads. With any luck, he’ll have followed my advice and taken out all that stuff with the fire-breathing dragons…”
An immaculately dressed waiter scuttled in their direction with a tray of drinks. “My name is Servile, and I am, er…”
“…delighted to meet us, I’m sure,” interrupted the Doctor. “Now, my companion and I will each require a lounger, although not necessarily side by side. I shall be immersing myself in the machinations of the Slavic criminal mind while I suspect Peri would prefer to simmer on a low heat until brown and tender.”
“I beg your pardon,” responded Servile with a bow, “but I meant to say that I am sorry, the resort is closed.”
The Doctor frowned. “Nonsense!” he scoffed. “The place is practically full.”
“That is true,” Servile admitted, “but there is, er… a problem…”
“A problem?” asked the Doctor, his eyes twinkling.
Peri sighed. “Of course there’s a problem. There’s always a problem!” She pulled off her sunglasses. “Please don’t get involved, Doctor. We can go and find the third most relaxing planet – I don’t mind…” But the Doctor was already marching across the sand to the nearest sun lounger.
“Doesn’t seem much of a problem to me,” announced the Doctor as he peered down at the snoring occupant – a large, middle-aged man with a receding hairline. “He’s just having a snooze in the sun.”
“Indeed,” agreed Servile, “but he has been, er… ‘snoozing’ for ten rotations…”
“Ten rotations?” demanded the Doctor, glancing up at the suns and running a series of quick mental calculations. “That’s almost four weeks! Are you trying to tell me this man’s been asleep for a month?”
Servile bowed his head in confirmation. “Several of our guests have slept for even longer.” The Doctor glanced from lounger to lounger. Each one supported a similarly sleeping sun-seeker.
“But, you’re serving them drinks,” said Peri, gesturing to the tall tumbler of green liquid on Servile’s tray. Other waiters scuttled across the sand with similar refreshment.
“A concoction of our own design we are using to, er… sustain our guests while they sleep,” explained Servile.
“You’re keeping them alive,” translated the Doctor, dipping his finger into the glass and sucking it clean. “A mixture of prosthetic proteins and vitamins, if I’m not mistaken.”
Once again, Servile lowered his eyes in agreement. “We also massage their limbs regularly, so as to avoid muscle wastage.”
“Why has this been going on for so long?” asked Peri. “You said this man’s been asleep for a month; you could have called for help weeks ago.”
Servile’s cheeks flushed red. “Our, er… owners say there is no reason to alarm the outside world until a solution can be found.”
“You mean they want to protect their reputation,” said Peri, scornfully. “They don’t want their profits to- argh!” She screamed as a shimmering insect, like a glass cockroach, scuttled out of the sleeping man’s left nostril and scampered up over his balding scalp. The Doctor tried to swat the creature away, but his hand passed right through its twitching body, causing it to shimmer slightly.
Peri gasped as the insect darted into the man’s ear and out of sight. “It’s like a hologram!” Another translucent cockroach appeared from between the man’s lips and scampered up his face, burrowing beneath one of his twitching eyelids.
The Doctor turned to Servile. “Do the other guests have these things on them?”
The waiter nodded unhappily. “The longer they have slept, the greater the number.”
Peri clutched at the Doctor’s arm. “What are they?”
“Nothing I can easily put a stop to, I’m afraid,” the Doctor replied. “Judging by this poor fellow’s eye movements, I’d say he’s in the midst of REM sleep – the period when conscious beings do their dreaming…”
“And you think those insects are what he’s dreaming about?”
“That, or they’ve infested his nightmares,” said the Doctor. “But, there’s no way to tell from out here…” Dropping his coat and book onto the sand, he began to roll up his shirt sleeves.
“You mean… you’re going inside his dream to find out what’s happening?” questioned Peri.
“Not his dream,” the Doctor smiled. “I don’t know the chap. That sort of intrusion would be unforgivable, and relatively dangerous. No, I need a dreamer with a strong will, whose mind won’t buckle under the pressure of my brief visit. Someone who already knows me…”
Peri’s eyes widened. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “You’re not getting inside my head!”
“Why not?” inquired the Doctor. “A little nap in the sun would do you the world of good – and you did say you wanted to chill out!”
—
Peri lay back on the sun lounger and scowled. “I’m not happy about this!”
The Doctor knelt beside her and gently rested his fingertips against her temples. “You won’t feel a thing,” he promised. “I just need to get inside these people’s dreams and find a way to help them. You’ll be nothing more than a doorway.”
“Well… alright – but don’t go poking around in there!” Peri insisted. “I don’t want you meddling with my memories!”
“As if I would,” said the Doctor, sounding hurt. “Now, close your eyes and try to relax.”
“There’s no way I’m going to be able to fall asleep with all this going on,” Peri assured him, although she had to admit she was feeling a little tired – and the soothing crackle of the flames in the barbecue pit coupled with the rhythmic crashing of the waves was making it hard to… hard to…
The Doctor brushed a strand of hair away from Peri’s forehead. “See you on the other side,” he whispered.
—
Screams. So many screams.
The Doctor leapt to his feet and raced across the sand, now stained red with previously unseen blood, to the lounger closest to Peri. The occupant – an elderly woman – was little more than skin and bone. The cockroaches swarmed over her, no longer translucent but black and glistening. They bit into the woman’s body, tearing away lumps of flesh. They were eating her alive in her dreams.
The Doctor swatted as many of the insects away as he could, then darted around a glass statue to do the same for a young man. The unfortunate holiday maker would have once looked fit and tanned – now his skin was ripped and running with blood as the cockroaches ate their fill. As quickly as he swept the insects off the man, they scuttled back across the sand and clambered back up onto the lounger to feast.
It was a hopeless task. There were at least thirty guests suffering in their sleep. Even if the Doctor could find a way to bring Servile and the other waiters inside this nightmarish world, they still wouldn’t be able to-
Another scream. A scream he’d heard before. Peri!
The Doctor fell to his knees beside her, staring in horror at the rivulet of blood running down her cheek as the first insect sank its pincers into her flesh. Another bit a flap of skin from her chest while more began to dine on her bare legs.
“Time to wake up!” the Doctor shouted. He grabbed her shoulders and shook hard.
Nothing happened.
“Wake up!” roared the Doctor as Peri screamed again. More of the cockroaches were scuttling up onto her body, the smell of fresh meat attracting them from all over the beach.
The Doctor tore the insects off her, crushing them in his hands and hurling the blood-soaked carcasses away – but for each creature he removed, two more arrived to take its place.
“Peri!” he yelled, grabbing his heavy book and smashing a handful of the insects into the sand. “You have to wake up!”
“She will not wake!” gurgled a deep voice.
The Doctor spun round to see the sand rising up behind him, a shapeless bulge lifting out of the beach. Gradually, a face began to form, coarse features peering down from the summit of the mound. Instantly, those insects that had eaten their fill left their victims and scuttled over to the new arrival, their beaks clicking with glee. They clambered up the sides of this giant sand monster and began to regurgitate the blood from their bellies where it was quickly absorbed into the body of the beast. Once empty, they scurried away to feed again.
“Peri!” bellowed the Doctor, turning back to his charge. “Please!”
“She is mine!” sputtered the creature, rivers of scarlet sand pouring down what passed for its face.
The Doctor stood and faced the creature, glaring up at its ever changing features. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“My given name is Silica,” the beast bubbled, “but those I feast upon know me as The Sandman.”
“Well, I am the Doctor, and I insist that you-”
“I do not care who you are,” hissed Silica, “nor how you came to be in my realm. If my bed bugs are not to bring me your blood, you are unimportant.”
“Everyone here is important!” snapped the Doctor. “You have no right to feed upon them!”
“I dine only inside their dreams. They bear no physical scars.”
The Doctor glanced around at the half-consumed tourists. “You know as well as I do that they’ll never wake once you’ve devoured them here!”
Silica shrugged, cockroaches tumbling from his sandy shoulders. “Such is the cycle of predator and prey.”
“But there can only be enough ‘food’ left here for another eight, maybe ten rotations,” said the Doctor. “What happens, then?”
“I move to the next resort and feed again. This is a big planet, Doctor! I have been on this world for many rotations, and you are the first to detect my presence.”
“And any evidence is covered up by the resort owners,” snarled the Doctor, struggling to contain his temper. “So, more and more holiday-makers arrive on Rematonia…”
“The food supply is endless!” rumbled Silica with glee.
Behind the Doctor, Peri screamed again as more skin was torn from her flesh.
“Leave her alone!” the Doctor commanded. “She’s only a girl!”
“You are incorrect, Doctor!” Silica gushed. “She is also delicious!” As he spoke hundreds – no, thousands more black bed bugs burst from the sand that made up his body and raced towards the sun loungers.
“Stop this!” the Doctor roared. “This is a crime, and…” He stopped, eyes narrowing as the answer presented itself. “This is a crime, and you must be punished!”
Snatching up his copy of Crime and Punishment from the sand, the Doctor ran to the far side of the crackling barbecue pit and hurled the heavy tome through the searing fire. The thin paper erupted into flames and soared across the beach where it buried itself in Silica’s vast, sandy bulk.
Silica screamed as the engorged bed bugs covering his body began to burn, scorching the sand beneath their twitching feet and transforming it. The Sandman writhed in agony as his fluid form quickly solidified, grains of scorching sand fusing together as his precious insects burned…
—
Peri sat bolt upright and quickly brushed her hands over her arms and legs.
“Is there a problem?” asked a friendly voice.
“I… I don’t know, Doctor…” Peri admitted. “I thought those insects were all over me, but I guess it must have just been a dream.”
She jumped as an elderly woman staggered into view. Servile quickly tossed his tray aside and hurried across the sand to help her. All around them, the guests were finally rousing from their slumbers.
“You managed to wake them!” cried Peri, jumping to her feet. “ Will they be alright now?”
The Doctor leaned back and smiled. “I prescribe a long period of rest, but I’m certain they will recover from their ordeal.”
Peri flung her arms around the Doctor. “You did it!”
“Did you ever doubt me?”
“No, but…” Peri froze as she realised that the Doctor was leaning against a glass sculpture that hadn’t been there when she’d fallen asleep. Unlike the others, this statue depicted a huge, shapeless figure, its face twisted in silent torment.
“What is that?”
“What, this?” replied the Doctor casually. “You don’t like it?”
“No, I don’t!” scowled Peri. “That… thing was in my dream – and I’m sure he had some sort of horrible plan…”
“Oh, he did for a while,” admitted the Doctor, breathing on the glass and rubbing away a barely visible fingerprint. “But I saw right through him!”
THE END
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