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DOCTOR WHO
HORROR OF FANG ROCK

Written by
Terrance Dicks

Part Three

(Overlap from Reuben stoking the boiler)

[INT. Generator room]

(The DOCTOR and LEELA run downstairs at full pelt.)
DOCTOR: (stopping on the final flight of steps) Reuben?
(They head down the rest of the way, more slowly. The door to the outside is open.)
LEELA: It must have taken Reuben, like the other.
DOCTOR: Don't talk to any strangers.
(He leaves, followed by LEELA.)

[INT. Crew room]

ADELAIDE: But what was that ghastly scream?
PALMERDALE: Oh, control yourself!
SKINSALE: Come along, there's no cause for alarm.
ADELAIDE: Something terrible has happened, I know it! It was in my stars. I should have listened to Miss Nethercott.
SKINSALE: (to the sobbing woman) Oh, come now. That's absolute nonsense. You're overwrought. Come along now, pull yourself together. You'll be all right.
(HARKER takes a lamp and leaves.)
PALMERDALE: Harker! Where are you going?
HARKER [OC]: Below.
PALMERDALE: Insubordinate ruffian. If there is something on this rock, we should stick together.
SKINSALE: What, on the principle that it may satisfy its appetite before it reaches you, eh?
ADELAIDE: (sinking to the floor and blubbering) Oh, stop it!
PALMERDALE: Fool. Now look what you've done.

[INT. Generator room]

(HARKER is descending the steps with lantern in hand.)
HARKER: Doctor? Where are you?
(He sees the open door and steps into its frame.)
HARKER: Hello? Doctor, are you there? Doctor?
(He gives up and turns back round. REUBEN is standing at the other end of the room, expressionless.)
HARKER: Reuben? Is something wrong? Reuben?
(REUBEN walks straight past HARKER.)
REUBEN: (in a monotone) Leave me be.
HARKER: Are you all right, man?
(REUBEN marches slowly up the stairs.)
HARKER: (returning to the door) Doctor? Ahoy there!
(REUBEN reaches the top of the staircase. Elsewhere, VINCE sounds the foghorn again. He notices the lights come up.)

[INT. Crew room]

SKINSALE: There, they've repaired the lights. (to ADELAIDE) It's all right. There's nothing to worry about.
PALMERDALE: Listen!
SKINSALE: What?
(Footfalls can be heard on the stairs.)
PALMERDALE: There's someone outside.
ADELAIDE: (standing) Oh, Colonel, please!
PALMERDALE: Ssshh.
SKINSALE: (through the crack of the door) Hello? Doctor? (stepping out) Harker? Oh. It's all right. It's just the old chap.
(REUBEN has gone past him, headed upstairs. SKINSALE steps back inside.)
PALMERDALE: Eh?
SKINSALE: The keeper.
PALMERDALE: What was that cry? Did he say?
SKINSALE: He went straight on up. Looked done in, I thought. (to the crying lady) Adelaide, you ought to lie down.
ADELAIDE: Up in that room? Alone? Have you taken leave of your senses?

[INT. Generator room]

(HARKER is checking the boiler pressure. He opens the door to stoke the boiler and fetches the shovel just as the DOCTOR and LEELA re-enter.)
DOCTOR: Well, there's nothing out there now. Were you calling?
HARKER: Yes, sir.
DOCTOR: Get that door shut. Do you know what I think?
LEELA: (closing the door) That the creature killed Reuben.
DOCTOR: Probably, probably.
HARKER: Reuben's all right, miss.
DOCTOR: This electricity-
LEELA: What did you say?
HARKER: I said Reuben's all right. I've just seen him.
LEELA: Are you certain?
DOCTOR: Got it! U by Q over R.
LEELA: Doctor, did you hear that?
DOCTOR: Ssssshhhh.
LEELA: What are you doing?
DOCTOR: Thinking.
(The DOCTOR deliberately reaches out to touch the generator and receives a healthy electric shock.)
DOCTOR: Yes, it's certainly been here. You see, in the space surrounding an electrically charged body, there occurs an electric potential which is proportional to the charge Q and inversely proportional to the distance R from the centre. Where is he?
HARKER: What?
LEELA: Who?
DOCTOR: Reuben. I thought you said you'd seen him.
HARKER: Er, yes, sir, going upstairs, looking as if he'd seen a ghost.
DOCTOR: Then why didn't you tell me?
HARKER: I told miss, sir.
DOCTOR: Why am I standing here wasting my time trying to work out its size?
HARKER: I don't know, sir.
DOCTOR: If Reuben's seen it, he can tell us.
LEELA: That is what I thought, but of course I am only a savage.
DOCTOR: Come on, savage. Harker?
HARKER: Yes?
DOCTOR: Try and find some way to secure that door, hmm?
HARKER: Yes, sir.
(He looks back and forth between the DOCTOR and the door as the other two leave. He is perplexed but starts to obey.)

[INT. Crew room]

PALMERDALE: I don't suppose in your service in the Engineers they taught you anything useful, like how to operate one of these gadgets, Jimmy?
(PALMERDALE is referring to the telegraph.)
SKINSALE: Do you suppose if they did, I'd send a message for you?
PALMERDALE: (earnestly, bending down) We could make a killing, old boy. I'd split the profit.
SKINSALE: I'd be ruined, and you know it. You seem to think that money's the only thing that-
(The DOCTOR and LEELA enter.)
DOCTOR: Where's Reuben?
PALMERDALE: Who?
DOCTOR: Reuben.
SKINSALE: Well, he was out there a short while ago. Looked a bit groggy, I thought.
DOCTOR: Groggy?
SKINSALE: Yes.
ADELAIDE: Doctor, what was that terrible cry?
DOCTOR: Thank you very much. Come on, Leela.
(LEELA and the DOCTOR leave. The door closes heavily.)
ADELAIDE: Well, really. His manners are quite insufferable!
SKINSALE: Things on his mind, by the look of him, eh, Henry?
PALMERDALE: We all have.
(PALMERDALE leaves.)
ADELAIDE: As for the girl, I think she's tied to him by a piece of string.
SKINSALE: Where do you suppose his Lordship's gone?
ADELAIDE: Is it important? None of us can leave this dreadful place.
SKINSALE: Some men make me nervous when I'm with them. Salisbury, Bonar Law. With your employer, it's the opposite effect. I get nervous when he's out of my sight.
ADELAIDE: (rising) Oh, Colonel, you're not leaving me all alone.
SKINSALE: It's all right. Back in a tick.
(With this reassurance, she sits back down.)

[INT. Stairs]

(The DOCTOR comes to a door along the stairs that is locked. He raps on it.)
DOCTOR: Reuben? Reuben, are you in there?

[INT. Bunk room]

(We see REUBEN standing in the room, unmoving beside a window.)
DOCTOR [OC]: Can you hear me?
(REUBEN takes on a greenish glow, and then his form wavers as the knocking continues.)
DOCTOR [OC]: Reuben, open the door. I want to talk to you.
(The green glow fades. REUBEN still has not moved.)

[INT. Stairs]

DOCTOR: Solid oak.
LEELA: Why does he not answer?
DOCTOR: Because he's not listening.
LEELA: Not listening?
DOCTOR: Shock can close the mind, Leela. He could be like that for hours, days even.
LEELA: Days? What are you going to do?
DOCTOR: Someone's got to keep this place running. Go and tell Harker to stay where he is and keep the boiler pressure up.
LEELA: Keep the boiler pressure up. (heading downstairs) Keep the boiler pressure up. Keep...

[INT. Lamp room]

PALMERDALE: So, it's a lonely life you chaps lead here, eh?
VINCE: You get used to it, sir.
PALMERDALE: I suppose they don't pay you too well either.
VINCE: Oh, it's not so bad. You get your keep, and it's steady work.
PALMERDALE: Still, you'd not be averse to earning a little extra? Say, fifty pounds?
VINCE: Fifty pound?
PALMERDALE: I have to get a message to London rather urgently. I assume you know how to use that equipment downstairs.
(A brief shot of the staircase shows that SKINSALE is listening in.)
VINCE: Oh, yes, sir, but it's the official telegraph.
PALMERDALE: Look, when I say fifty pounds, I mean fifty pounds now. It's all I happen to be carrying. There'll be as much again for you when I get back to London.
(While saying this, PALMERDALE has pulled a wallet from his inside pocket and extracted banknotes from within.)
VINCE: A hundred pound! That be a fortune. I don't want to get mixed up in nothing wrong.
PALMERDALE: Look, I'm a businessman. How could there be anything wrong?
(SKINSALE turns back the way he's come from.
Meanwhile, PALMERDALE gives VINCE a reassuring nod and holds out the money more firmly. VINCE takes it and looks at it. PALMERDALE nods.
An exterior shot of the lighthouse shows the tentacled glowing green ball heading past the upper windows of the lighthouse. It is near the lamp gallery.)
PALMERDALE: Here's the message. I've written it in code.
DOCTOR [OC]: Vince?
PALMERDALE: Don't worry, nothing's wrong.
DOCTOR [OC]: Vince!
VINCE: Yes, sir?
PALMERDALE: (sotto) Remember, say nothing.
(He ducks out, to the lamp gallery, while VINCE resumes sounding the foghorn. The DOCTOR enters.)
DOCTOR: You all right?
VINCE: Yes, I'm fine.
DOCTOR: (walking past him) Good. I want to talk to you, Vince.

[INT. Generator room]

(HARKER is at the door to the outside, finishing up his attempt to render it impervious to intruders with a wooden beam under the handle.)
HARKER: There. That ought to do the trick, eh, miss?
(She takes the hammer from him and assesses it.)
LEELA: Solid oak.
HARKER: Hickory, more likely, miss.
LEELA: Oh, Harker, I have a message from the Doctor. He said Reuben will not answer, so you must stay here and keep the boi pressure up.
HARKER: Er, boiler pressure, miss?
LEELA: That is what I said.
HARKER: Right you are, miss.
(He grabs the shovel. In the foreground, LEELA is swinging the hammer, judging its worthiness as a weapon.)

[INT. Lamp room]

VINCE: What do you reckon Reuben saw, Doctor?
DOCTOR: I don't know, Vince, but I think we'll find out by sunrise.
VINCE: Well, if it's the beast come back, well, last time they found two of the keepers dead and t' other mad with fear. Well, Ben's dead, in' 'e? Reuben's mad. There's only me left now.
DOCTOR: That's superstitious nonsense, Vince.
VINCE: Is it? Look what happened to Ben!
DOCTOR: There are eight of us here. If it attacks again, we'll be ready and waiting. All the advantage is with us. Eight to one.
(VINCE swallows. He doesn't seem convinced.
Outside, our green visitor is just below the railing, glowing and losing its glow alternately, while PALMERDALE, in the gallery, shivers. He strains to hear what LEELA and the DOCTOR are saying to each other, but it's no good. As a green glow reflects off his shirt, he approaches the railing and looks over it, in curiosity. It seems that he can't see anything in the thickening fog, so he stands. He is then attacked, with lightning-style arcing lighting up his body and a crackling sound clearly audible.)

[INT. Crew room]

(ADELAIDE is standing, laying into SKINSALE, who sits nonplussed, with hand on chin.)
ADELAIDE: You've no right to say such things, Colonel. Lord Palmerdale has always been the kindest and most considerate of employers.
SKINSALE: Oh, to you, no doubt, though my experience of him has been somewhat different.
ADELAIDE: You have enjoyed his friendship. Indeed, more than just his friendship. He's been most generous to you, as I now know.
SKINSALE: A sprat to catch a mackerel.
ADELAIDE: What is that supposed to mean?
SKINSALE: He intends to make far more money out of me than I've ever had from him.
ADELAIDE: Oh, nonsense!
SKINSALE: No, it's true.
ADELAIDE: Lord Palmerdale is already a millionaire. How could you possibly bring him further financial advantage?
SKINSALE: Because your precious employer is a crook and a skunk, my dear, with no scruples about destroying my honour.
ADELAIDE: How dare you! I refuse to listen to another word. Furthermore, I shall find his Lordship and tell him just what a perfidious so-called friend you are!
(She slams the door as she leaves.)
SKINSALE: I thought you might.
(SKINSALE stands and contemplates the telegraph.)

[INT. Stairs]

(LEELA returns to the locked door with the hammer. Determined, she knocks.)
LEELA: Reuben? Reuben, hear me! If you do not unlock this door now, I shall smash it down. Do you understand?

[INT. Bunk room]

(REUBEN is green again, and he is standing exactly where we left him.)
LEELA [OC]: Reuben! (She knocks again.)

[INT. Lamp room]

DOCTOR: So then, Harker keeps the boiler stoked, and you stay on the siren.
VINCE: All right, Doctor, if you think that's best.
DOCTOR: I do.
VINCE: You sure it'd be no good me having a word with Reuben?
DOCTOR: No, you stay here, Vince. Do what you've got to do.
(We hear the sound of the hammer hitting the bunk room door. VINCE starts to leave, and the DOCTOR grabs his arm.)
DOCTOR: Stay here, Vince.
(He runs past VINCE and out. VINCE walks near the door to try to listen.)

[INT. Stairs]

(LEELA is just breaking through one of the panels of the door.)
LEELA: Come out, old one!
(She looks inside. REUBEN is standing in place, no longer green. She readies the hammer for a large swing, and the DOCTOR grabs the business end of her weapon. LEELA is startled.)
LEELA: You do not want the old one?
DOCTOR: He'll come out when he's ready.
ADELAIDE [OC]: Is his Lordship up here?
DOCTOR: (as ADELAIDE starts walking past him on the stairs) No. There's no-one in the lamp room except the keeper. Go back to the crew room.
ADELAIDE: I must find him.
DOCTOR: Get back to the crew room!
(She turns with a sulk and obeys.)
DOCTOR: (peering into the hole LEELA made, then looking back at her) The Malicious Damage Act 1861 covers lighthouses.
LEELA: What?
DOCTOR: Nothing. (He looks back inside.)

[INT. Lamp gallery]

VINCE: He's gone, sir. Your Lordship?
(VINCE doesn't see anyone standing outside. He walks around, which includes looking down. He then heads back inside swiftly, grabs the speaking tube, takes the cap off, looks at it, and hangs it back on the wall. He then hurriedly pulls the money from Palmerdale from his pocket, sets the banknotes on the metal floor, and sets light to them with a match.)

[INT. Stairs]

(The DOCTOR is heading down the stairs, followed by LEELA.)
DOCTOR: Leela, get Harker up here, then try and find Palmerdale.
LEELA: The cowardly one?
DOCTOR [OC]: Yes.

[INT. Crew room]

(The DOCTOR enters.)
ADELAIDE: Doctor!
DOCTOR: Ssshh.
(He makes sure that Leela isn't within earshot outside the door.)
SKINSALE: What's all this about, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Survival, Colonel.
SKINSALE: Survival?
DOCTOR: Yes. Yours, mine, all of us.
SKINSALE: (chuckles) Oh, this mysterious beast that eats lighthouse-keepers.
DOCTOR: Do you find that difficult to accept, Colonel?
SKINSALE: Oh, come, Doctor, I'm a man of intelligence, of education.
DOCTOR: Quite so, quite so, and I don't believe in mythical sea creatures either.
ADELAIDE: Then why do you suggest that we're in danger?
DOCTOR: Because somewhere out there is a hostile alien from a distant planet, and I believe it intends to destroy us.
SKINSALE: A hostile alien from a distant planet?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ADELAIDE: You call yourself a doctor? Well, that's the most insane suggestion I've heard in my life.
(LEELA rushes in, with HARKER behind her.)
LEELA: Doctor, I cannot find the cowardly one.
DOCTOR: I've never been more serious, Colonel. We are facing an enemy of greater power than you can dream of.
SKINSALE: I do appreciate the scientific romanticism of Mister Wells, Doctor, but-
(He is interrupted by a whistle. HARKER picks up the room's speaking tube.)
HARKER: Yes?
DOCTOR: Herbert may have a few unimportant facts wrong, but his basic supposition is sound enough.
HARKER: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Do you think your little speck in the galaxy's the only one with intelligent life? Hmm? (into the tube) Yes? (he listens) How very interesting.
ADELAIDE: What's interesting?
DOCTOR: That was Vince.
ADELAIDE: (when nothing more is said) What's happened?
DOCTOR: He says he thinks Lord Palmerdale's fallen from the lamp gallery.
(ADELAIDE lets out a protracted scream, so LEELA slaps her, reasonably hard.)
SKINSALE: Fallen? But the railing. You can't-. Well, he can't have fallen.
DOCTOR: I agree. The question is do we go out and see?
SKINSALE: (rising) Well, of course! I mean- (he pauses under the DOCTOR's gaze) You really believe in this thing, don't you?
DOCTOR: I do. Leela, stay here. Come on.
(He leaves, followed by HARKER and then SKINSALE.
On the next flight of stairs up, REUBEN is lurking in the shadows.
Inside, LEELA pulls her sleeves down and closes the door.)
ADELAIDE: I told him that we shouldn't have come, but he wouldn't listen. He laughed when I said Miss Nethercott had seen tragedy in my stars.
LEELA: In your stars?
ADELAIDE: (sobbing) If only we'd stayed in Deauville. I knew something ghastly would happen. Her predictions are never wrong.
LEELA: I understand. She is your shaman.
ADELAIDE: What? No, Miss Nethercott is an astrologer. The finest. I consult her every month.
LEELA: A waste of time. I too used to believe in magic, but the Doctor has taught me about science. It is better to believe in science.

[INT. Generator room]

(HARKER enters from outside, followed by the DOCTOR, who has a body slung over his shoulders, then SKINSALE.)
DOCTOR: Harker, secure the door. Come with me, Skinsale.

[INT. Crew room]

(Hearing footfalls outside, LEELA rises. She shushes ADELAIDE and, knife in hand, opens the door. In come the DOCTOR, still carrying PALMERDALE's corpse, and SKINSALE.)
ADELAIDE: Oh, no! (She continues blubbering.)
LEELA: Quiet! Has she never seen death before?
(SKINSALE shakes his head.)
ADELAIDE: I can't bear it!
SKINSALE: Adelaide, come along. You must be brave. Adelaide.
ADELAIDE: (lashing out feebly at him) Take your hands off me! You did it! You killed him!
SKINSALE: Me? Oh, don't be so ridiculous.
ADELAIDE: (standing) You went out after him, you followed him, and then you pushed him.
SKINSALE: I was never in the lamp room.
ADELAIDE: Then where were you?!
SKINSALE: True, I followed him, but only to find out what he was up to.
ADELAIDE: You did it, I know you did it. Oh-
LEELA: (grabbing her arm) Enough!
DOCTOR: And what was he up to?
SKINSALE: He was trying to bribe that young keeper to telegraph a message to his brokers.
DOCTOR: Ah. And so you came down here and wrecked the telegraph.
(He shows the results to the assembled company.)
SKINSALE: (resignedly) It was the only way I could think of stopping him. I'd have been dishonoured, ruined.
DOCTOR: Of course. So to protect your honour, you've put all our lives in danger.
SKINSALE: What?
ADELAIDE: You mean we've no way of contacting the mainland now?
DOCTOR: Oh, no. We're on our own now.

[INT. Generator room]

(With a few final hammer blows, HARKER wedges a length of wood under the door handle. Satisfied with his work, he turns to leave. He then hears someone on the stairs.)
HARKER: Hello, shipmate.
(He is speaking to REUBEN, who is now trudging down the stairs.)
HARKER: How are you feeling now?
(Not-quite-REUBEN lifts his chin and slowly pulls his mouth into a smile. It does not sit well on his face.
Upstairs, the foghorn lever gives VINCE a sound closer to an asthmatic elephant trumpeting. A second pull produces just a hiss of pressure.)

[INT. Crew room]

SKINSALE: I did not harm him, Adelaide. I swear it.
ADELAIDE: Then who did?
SKINSALE: I don't know. Harker, perhaps. (He sits again.)
ADELAIDE: Harker?
SKINSALE: Why not? He attacked Henry earlier, blamed him for wrecking the ship.
ADELAIDE: That's absurd.
SKINSALE: It's no more absurd than thinking that I might have-
DOCTOR: Murdered him? I wish you had.
ADELAIDE: What do you mean?
DOCTOR: Well, if you had murdered Palmerdale, everything would have been so much simpler. Unfortunately, he was dead before he hit the ground.
SKINSALE: What?
DOCTOR: Electrocuted. He was killed by a massive electric shock in exactly the same way the keeper was.
SKINSALE: In the lamp gallery? That's not possible. That would mean that this creature can climb sheer walls.
DOCTOR: Oh, not only can it climb sheer walls, it's amphibious, it has some affinity with electricity and the technological ability to adapt its environment to optimum thermal lev-. Are you following me?
SKINSALE: No.
DOCTOR: It likes the cold.
(LEELA stands to answer the whistle from the speaking tube.)
DOCTOR: Not enough data to place the species.
LEELA: Yes?
DOCTOR: But heat might be a method of defence.
LEELA: That was Vince. (reciting) He said the boiler pressure has fallen and the siren will not sound.
DOCTOR: Harker.
(He and LEELA leave the room. SKINSALE rises and goes after them. ADELAIDE is on her own now. Recognising this, she too stands, and she hurries out.)

[INT. Generator room]

(HARKER's corpse lies on the ground. The DOCTOR is squatting next to it, alongside LEELA.)
ADELAIDE: (hand over her mouth) Oh, no!
DOCTOR: Get her out of here!
(SKINSALE turns on the steps and escorts the distraught ADELAIDE back upstairs.)
LEELA: Like the others?
DOCTOR: Yesss.

[INT. Coal bunker]

(The DOCTOR slowly makes his way around the room and steps into the entrance to the coal bunker. REUBEN is lying on the floor inside. The DOCTOR grabs the dead keeper's hand.)
DOCTOR: Rigor mortis.
LEELA: What is that?
DOCTOR: He's been dead for hours.
LEELA: But that is not possible. He was in his room.
DOCTOR: Not Reuben.
LEELA: But he was! I saw him.
DOCTOR: The chameleon factor, sometimes called lycanthropy. Leela, I've made a terrible mistake. I thought I'd locked the enemy out. Instead, I've locked it in, with us.

The above notes, transcription, etc. by Anna Shefl

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