Most Haunted (comic story)

Summary
On a dark, stormy night, two children, Kerri and Joe, explore Harcourt Manor, which is rumoured to be haunted. In the dusty and rat-riddled house they find a ghostly figure in the drawing room. The door is locked; they are unable to escape. The children are spooked even more as the “wheezing, groaning” sound of the TARDIS is heard, announcing the arrival of two more figures, the Doctor and Amy, at the top of the stairs.

As a plank flies through the air and strikes the Doctor, he dismisses any talk of ghosts, explaining it away as psychic energy. Kerri says that according to rumours, a monster was seen in the house a hundred years ago. The locals were scared and killed it, but its spirit still haunts the house.

Kerri and Joe take the Doctor and Amy back to the drawing room, where the Doctor identifies the ghostly figure as a psycho-ectoplasmic form that seems to be pointing to a hanging portrait above the fireplace. Realising the ghostly figure means them no harm, the Doctor takes down the painting to reveal the ‘monster’ bricked up in the chimney. The ‘monster’ is an alien being in suspended animation. The Doctor revives it with a nice cup of tea from a flask and the alien explains that when the frightened locals entombed him, he survived only by putting himself into a deep sleep, reaching out with its subconscious mind, trying to get help.

Finding an alien is more exciting than finding a ghost for the children, but no one will believe them as the Doctor leads the alien into the TARDIS and takes it home.

Characters

 * The Doctor
 * Amy Pond
 * Kerri and Joe

Original print details

 * Publication with page count and closing captions


 * 1) DWA 180 (4 pages) NEXT WEEK – The Doctor and Amy versus the living storm
 * No reprints to date.

Continuity

 * Tea is used to revive the alien, as it was with the Tenth Doctor (shortly after his regeneration) (DW: The Christmas Invasion) and Craig Owens. (DW: The Lodger)
 * The arrival of the TARDIS is a noisy affair with a “wheezing and groaning sound” a phrase familiar to readers of Target Books.

Timeline

 * This story occurs after DWAN: In the Stars
 * This story occurs before DWAN: The Living Storm