One: Oxford, 2006

[GarrettPLC]

As Harry and Sarah Jane moved around the corner, they could see that the crash had clearly come from the door leading to the access stairs, which was now swinging open, its pneumatic closing system snapped and hanging from the top edge---the larger, more decorative main staircase down to the ground level was unoccupied and positioned directly across the room from the broken door. The musky scent was slightly stronger; it was a greasy, clingy thing, and it caught at their lungs, making breathing unpleasant.

Barely visible through the open door was a concrete, unfurnished stairwell, likely connecting all the way from the roof to the storage subbasements. The stairwell 'emergency' lights, supposedly always lit to provide safe transit, were dark---glittering in the light that filtered through the windows and made its way that far, shards of glass suggested a possible reason for this.

During the momentary pause in his advance while he took stock of the situation, Harry heard a slight creaking, squeaking sound, as of heavy leather protesting movement, coming from somewhere nearby.

[ChrisC]

‘Harry Sullivan is an imbecile.’ The Doctor’s words had haunted him for 25 years, but these days Harry Sullivan was older and wiser. The Harry that Sarah Jane remembered would have rushed into the stairwell yelling “charge�. He was still going in, duty required it, but this Harry was not only wiser; 25 years in MI5 had made him infinitely more ruthless. “Look out� he yelled, pushing Sarah Jane to the floor. Then smiling to himself he dived into the stairwell. As he moved he drew his automatic checking, without even needing to think about it, that the safety was off and a bullet chambered.

This time Harry Sullivan did not go charging up the steps gun blazing.  Instead he spun around and silently dropped into shadows of the corner facing the room. With a solid wall at his back and clear sight lines in all directions he held the gun’s reassuring bulk ready. Harry’s eyes flicked in all directions, but always back to watch over Sarah Jane struggling to get to her feet. He hoped that he would be able to get the thing if it went for her. After all if giving her the largest diamond in the world hadn’t worked, perhaps saving her life would.

[Sarah Jane]

Sarah Jane was seriously irritated. Just as she’d arrived and paused to assess the damage, Harry’s shout and shove had sent her sprawling into the wall. Prone was not her favourite position for dealing with the unexpected. ‘And if he’s using me as bait I’ll kill him myself.’ She scrambled upright, keeping her bag close. The torn off door worried her more than a little; her usual defence inside the bag suddenly seemed woefully inadequate. She cast around and hefted the nearest fire extinguisher into use.

[GarrettPLC]

From his position in the dark and distinctly odorous stairwell, glass shards crunching under his shoes, Harry glanced up and down the stairwell shaft and back out onto the first floor where Sarah Jane was just starting to pick herself up.

Years ago, Harry would have charged up the stairs---and years ago, he would have found himself in a bad way a few moments later. Something he saw touched off a nerve, giving him much more to go on than he was hoping for. His eyes darted back, just to make sure.

The stairwell door onto the ground floor---one flight down---was slightly ajar, closing slowly on the pneumatics, and there clearly wasn't anything on the stairs with him.

A surge of adrenaline set the blood pounding in his veins; twisting, he brought the automatic to bear right in Sarah Jane's direction just as, he saw, the thing came loping silently up the open main staircase directly across from the stairwell---it had tried to flank them, going down the stairwell and coming back up that way!

All he could see of it was a tall, vague shape---a humanoid body, but with at least four spindled, spidery arms, and a head much larger than he would have thought the smallish frame could support---accompanied by a sudden upsurge in the oily scent of musk. Unfortunately, Sarah Jane was just standing up between Harry and the thing, and she was only just now noticing Harry aiming the gun over her head.

[ChrisC]

"It's behind you" yelled Harry

[Sarah Jane]

She spun and dropped to one knee, triggering the extinguisher before she'd even registered what the thing was.

[GarrettPLC]

Sarah Jane saw only a dark, gray face that was all the wrong shape, and the flash of blades, before the white chemical foam from the extinguisher covered most of the apparition's features. Less than a second later, his line of fire clear, Harry put a burst of shots into the thing's obscured head. Letting out a bizarre, burbling wail  the creature stumbled back, taking another burst in the chest---clad in a the shredded remants of a familiar blue uniform, Sarah Jane saw---before tumbling backwards down the staircase, to land in a heap on the floor near the museum's front desk.

Briefly stunned, Sarah Jane found herself covered in flecks of white foam, tinged with blood.

[ChrisC]

His heart pounding heavier than was healthy for a man of his age, Harry replaced the spent magazine and cautiously moved back into the room, keeping a wall to his back. “Sarah Jane, move to the side of the room and stay very, very still. There may be more than one of them� he instructed.

[Sarah Jane]

Sarah Jane ignored him and stepped across to take a closer look down the stairwell at the corpse. Undoubtedly the remains of the guard who’d escorted her in earlier.

“I have a bad feeling about his missing colleague Carl” she informed Harry. "Can we go now, or was there something else you've omitted to tell me?"

[ChrisC]

Despairing that he would ever gain the upper hand with Sarah Jane, Harry replied. “Well that all depends upon whether you would like me to buy you dinner?�

[Sarah Jane]

“I thought you’d never ask,� she admitted. Her stomach gurgled agreement. “Shall we try to get out the back stairway or the front stairs or…� she paused, looking with sudden curiosity at the steps leading up to the roof. The steps the guard had undoubtedly used to search for pranksters. “Maybe we should just have a quick peek up there?�

[Colonel Blood]

The walkie talkie on the... thing's jacket flares into life and Harry and Sarah Jane both jump at the unexpected sound from the body. Over the hiss of static can be heard a chanting rythym in a rumbling bass voice: "Kali ma kali ma kali ma kali ma," occasionally the chanting is interrupted by a guttural giggling but always it continues. In the darkness of the stairwell it is hard to see just what had happened to the seemingly normal guard.

[Colonel Blood]

As SJ and Harry stood, panting from the sudden adrenaline burst, and rekindling what there was of a relationship twenty years past, the thing began to twitch and raise itself, Christopher Lee-like from the floor.

Its bent and twisted grey face appeared again as it raised itself on its hinged waist. One eye was missing from Harry's 9mm barrage but the other regarded them, somehow sad, yet also filled with gleaming malevolence. It raised its trunk and trumpeted a screeching cry at the two, human blood falling from the limb, before placing its four clawed hands to the floor and raising itself, preparing to charge.

Harry watched the thing and casually thumbed off the safety once more. Then he felt something breathing down his neck.

[ChrisC]

Sarah Jane had just agreed to have dinner with him and now some monster was getting in the way. It was not going to be a good time to be a monster. The monster down the main stairs had a way to climb and Sarah Jane was watching it. So hoping he wasn’t too late Harry spun round to face the most immediate threat. If I die now she may never forgive me he thought to himself.

[Sarah Jane]

“Oh dear,� commented Sarah Jane, “it does looks as though it’s re-animating.� She peered down the gloom of the main staircase, try to get the extinguisher lined up for another clear shot as it charged up the last flight of stairs. There was a scuffle behind her, but the thing was too close now for her to take her eyes off it.