Doctor who the unquiet dead Page #5

Season #1 Episode #3

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[Chapel of Rest]

ROSE:
Let me out! Somebody open the door! Open the door!

(Redpath grabs Rose. The Doctor kicks the door in.)

DOCTOR:
I think this is my dance.

(The Doctor pulls Rose away from Redpath.)

DICKENS:
It's a prank. It must be. We're under some mesmeric influence.

DOCTOR:
No, we're not. The dead are walking. Hi.

ROSE:
Hi. Who's your friend?

DOCTOR:
Charles Dickens.

ROSE:
Okay.

DOCTOR:
My name's the Doctor. Who are you, then? What do you want?

(Redpath replies with several voices.)

REDPATH:
Failing. Open the rift. We're dying. Trapped in this form. Cannot sustain. Help us. Argh!

(The gas leaves Redpath and his mother and returns to the gas lamp. The corpses collapse.)

[Living room]

(Gwyneth pours tea.)

ROSE:
First of all you drug me, then you kidnap me, and don't think I didn't feel your hands having a quick wander, you dirty old man.

SNEED:
I won't be spoken to like this!

ROSE:
Then you stuck me in a room full of zombies! And if that ain't enough, you swan off and leave me to die! So come on, talk!

SNEED:
It's not my fault. It's this house. It always had a reputation. Haunted. But I never had much bother until a few months back, and then the stiffs, the er, dear departed started getting restless.

DICKENS:
Tommyrot.

SNEED:
You witnessed it. Can't keep the beggars down, sir. They walk. And it's the queerest thing, but they hang on to scraps.

(Gwyneth places the Doctor's cup on the mantlepiece beside him.)

GWYNETH:
Two sugars, sir, just how you like it.

SNEED:
One old fellow who used to be a sexton almost walked into his own memorial service. Just like the old lady going to your performance, sir, just as she planned.

DICKENS:
Morbid fancy.

DOCTOR:
Oh, Charles, you were there.

DICKENS:
I saw nothing but an illusion.

DOCTOR:
If you're going to deny it, don't waste my time. Just shut up. What about the gas?

SNEED:
That's new, sir. Never seen anything like that.

DOCTOR:
Means it's getting stronger, the rift's getting wider and something's sneaking through.

ROSE:
What's the rift?

DOCTOR:
A weak point in time and space. A connection between this place and another. That's the cause of ghost stories, most of the time.

SNEED:
That's how I got the house so cheap. Stories going back generations.

(Dickens slams the door as he leaves.)

SNEED:
Echoes in the dark, queer songs in the air, and this feeling like a shadow passing over your soul. Mind you, truth be told, it's been good for business. Just what people expect from a gloomy old trade like mine.

[Hallway]

(Dickens stops by a gas lamp and tries to listen to the whispers.)

DICKENS:
Impossible.

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