Disclaimer = The Doctor & his companions are the property of the BBC, all other characters in here are works of fiction and any similarity to persons living or dead is purely accidental. 

Monsters of Queen's Arcade by Drew Payne

It had been his therapist's idea, an idea that he didn't really agree with but, in the end, he decided he'd try anything, even if he didn't like it.

That afternoon, while his mother was still at work, he left his home, that neat little house on its suburban street, and caught a bus into town. He wasn't going as far as the Westend, just as far as that place, as Queen's Arcade.

He'd sat himself at a window seat, on the top deck of the bus. He intended to stare out of the bus' window, to watch the world as it passed by outside, to take his mind off things, but it didn't work. He still kept remembering those events, ten years ago now, even if he stared hard at the passing buildings.

It had been an evening in early summer, when he had been seven. He'd been out shopping with his parents. He'd been holding his mother's hand; his father had been a few paces in front and looking in a shop window when, when.

Mark got off the bus in front of Queen's Arcade but didn't go straight inside. Instead he wondered up and down the street in front of it. When he came here with his parents it had all gleaming white stone, bright green glass and polished black metal. Now it was looking very faded and shabby. No longer was it bright and clean. The white stone was dirty with green water staining streaking its surface; most of the green glass had gone and had been replaced with cheap and clear glass; the metal work was chipped and rusty, all the shine and lustre had gone. Inside, when he looked in through the propped open glass doors, seemed to have fared no better. Gone were the big name and up market shops, to be replaced with pound shops (nothing more then one-pound) and other cheap and discount stores. Even these shops looked shabby and neglected.

Eventually, after walking back and forth so many times outside, Mark pushed down his nerves and dark feelings and actually went inside Queen's Arcade.

For a moment, as he stepped over the threshold, Mark felt a rush of panic but, with each step he took further inside the panic eased. He still felt uncomfortable but the panic was soon gone. Slowly he wondered through Queen's Arcade, just aimlessly walking along the half empty corridors. People passed him by and hardly took any notice of him, shoppers mostly but also a few people just wondering aimlessly like him.

His memories weren't as strong here as they had on the bus ride. Queen's Arcade had changed so much over the years, changed so far from his memories of this place that it didn't feel the same place as he remembered. Ever since that time, ever since that early summer's evening when he was seven years old, his mother had refused to return here. So this was the first time he had been back here since that day.

The more he walked around this place the more his feelings of unease lessened and lessened. Slowly it was all easing from his mind; this place was turning from a place of terror and into just another dull and shabby shopping mall.

He hadn't had any real plan of were he would walk while he was here, he had just wondered around its wide corridors. When he turned the corner and was greeted by that shop window, a large bay window with two expressionless dummies standing in it, making him physically stop in his tracks.

It was as if an icy hand had clutched at the base of his spine. A cold rush ran through his body, sweeping away all his emotions and leaving behind a cold numbness. He stood there, almost rooted to that spot on the once polished floor, his body barely moving at all.

He had been holding his mother's hand, his father had been looking at one of the shop dummies in that bay window, when the dummies began to move. His parents laughed, saying it was some kind of promotional thing. Then one of the dummies smashed the glass of the window. His mother cried out, pulling him backwards; but his father stayed where he was, just stared at the dummy as it walked towards him, muttering something. The dummy pointed its hand straight at his father, a fraction of a second later its hand split in two, it seemed to be hinged in the middle of its palm, its fingers falling away to reveal a gun - pointing straight at his father. There was a loud explosion and he saw his father begin to fall to the ground. He didn't see his father hit the ground, his mother was screaming and pulling him away, as all around them seemed to explode into violence.

One of the dummies standing in the bay window, the one wearing the cheap orange tracksuit, moved. Its right arm suddenly rose upwards. Mark felt his mouth rapidly fill with the sharp, acid taste of bile, cold sweat breaking out over his face in a fine film. A moment later a woman moved around the dummy, pulling the tracksuit top off it. The woman had moved the dummy's arm.

Coming here had not been a good idea at all. You could not just exercise ten years worth of bad dreams and bad memories simply by wondering around a shabby shopping mall, because always around some corner or other was always something waiting to remind him.

Mark stayed were he was, unmoving, just watching the woman in the bay window struggle to change the dummy's clothing. Only a meter or so in front of him was the spot were his father, Clive Finch, was killed by a gun fired by a shop dummy ten years ago.

The End