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First published 2025 001

Written by Kalynn Bayron

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ISBN : 978–1–405–96995–6

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CHAPTER ONE

The Doctor leaned on the console as a little smile danced across his lips, the twinkling lights of the TARDIS console room reflecting in his brown eyes. Their recently concluded adventures with the Goblin King, the Bogeyman and Maestro had left him and Ruby Sunday terrified and exhilarated. They had come out relatively unscathed, but for Ruby, a whole new world was opening up, and the Doctor had found someone he could call a friend in her.

The Doctor glanced at his new companion, his big eyes shining and full of wonder. ‘Well, Ruby, what do you say we have another adventure? Galaxies are waiting to be explored. Mysteries are waiting to be unravelled,’ he said,

with a mischievous glint in his eyes. ‘Onwards, upwards, new horizons! Where are we off to next? Or should I say when ?’

Ruby felt a surge of excitement run through her veins like electricity. It was a wild, heady rush – thrilling and terrifying all at once. She’d only recently met the man who called himself the Doctor, a figure whose very name seemed to buzz with the promise of adventure. And yet, despite the brief time the pair had known each other, they’d already plunged into a maelstrom of extraordinary sights and sounds, things Ruby had previously only ever dared to imagine. The Goblin King and his singing minions had been one thing, the talking babies in space had been quite another. And the symphony of chords they’d battled in their encounter with Maestro had been chaotic and eye-opening, but it was the Doctor’s ship that had truly captured Ruby’s imagination.

Now, standing amid the kaleidoscope of the TARDIS ’s interior – a vast, swirling mixture of light and shadow, of time and space – Ruby was enveloped in a sense of boundless possibility. The console room was full of whirring machinery and glowing controls, each flicker and pulse a testament to the impossible nature of the ship. The walls seemed to breathe, the floor beneath her feet felt alive and the air itself crackled with excitement.

‘We can go anywhere, any time. Your choice, Ruby.’ He moved closer to his friend, and she watched him with a strange mixture of awe and hesitation. ‘We’re in this together now. It’s not just me flying around the stars in this contraption.’

The TARDIS squealed and the lights flashed.

The Doctor held up his hands and looked up into the bright

lights. ‘Apologies! Contraption is the wrong word! You’re a marvel!’ He leaned towards Ruby. ‘She’s touchy, today.’

Ruby grinned. She was still getting used to the ship and the fact that it was a sentient thing. ‘Well, it was my suggestion to visit the Beatles, wasn’t it?’ Ruby asked.

‘It was,’ the Doctor said. ‘And it was brilliant, even if we did almost see the end of music, and the world along with it.’

Ruby and the Doctor exchanged a knowing glance.

The pair had been through so much together. They had just used music to heal humanity’s collective heart. There’s nothing they couldn’t do, nowhere they couldn’t go. The TARDIS hummed with anticipation as Ruby weighed her options.

‘Don’t limit yourself, Ruby,’ the Doctor said. He gently touched her temple with the tips of his fingers. ‘If you can think of it here, we can make it happen.’

‘I’ve seen that first hand, haven’t I?’ Ruby said.

‘What about you?’ She thought for a moment. ‘Where do you want to go?’

The Doctor laughed a little. ‘People don’t normally ask me that.’

‘Well, they should,’ Ruby said, as she crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Time and space are endless, Doctor, and you’ve seen so much. But there must be more, right? Something you haven’t seen?’

‘I’ve seen a lot,’ the Doctor said. ‘But now that you mention it . . .’

‘There is something!’ Ruby said excitedly. ‘I knew it! What is it? Or should I say when is it?’

The Doctor sighed, then grinned again. Ruby was beginning to understand what that little glimmer in his eyes meant – he was on the verge of saying or doing something that would send them tumbling headlong into another adventure, and she was all in. She’d never felt so excited in all her life.

‘D’you know I love to read?’ the Doctor asked.

‘You do?’ Ruby looked at him quizzically. ‘I mean, that suits you.’

‘The life of a Time Lord is long. There’s a lot of time for reading,’ the Doctor said. ‘There’s a library in here somewhere.’

Ruby looked around the inside of the TARDIS . It seemed unlikely that a whole library could exist there, but she reminded herself that the TARDIS had already revealed some of its secrets to her. She’d been in the wardrobe after all, and there had been a bedroom made up just for her. Things were not always what they appeared to be, especially when it came to the TARDIS .

‘Two of them, to be fair,’ the Doctor said. ‘All sorted by planet. Miles of shelves. Stories written and unwritten.’

‘Unwritten?’ Ruby asked. ‘You mean books that haven’t even been written yet are in your library? How’s that possible?’

‘Everything is possible,’ the Doctor said. ‘D’you know one of my favourite parts of the entire thing?’ The Doctor moved closer to Ruby, an excited glint in his eye. ‘There’s an entire section filled with the works of an author named Shirley Jackson. Have you read her?’

Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box

‘Some,’ Ruby said. ‘She was an American writer, yeah? And she told scary stories.’

The Doctor smiled warmly. ‘Are you a fan of scary stories?’

Ruby beamed and clasped her hands together. ‘Oh, I love a good scary story! But not too scary. D’you know what I mean?’

‘Well, Shirley perfected the art of the scary story,’ the Doctor said, a grin spreading across his face as if he were sharing a secret delight. ‘She wrote all kinds of tales, but her horror stories? Those were the ones that stuck with me. Her writing has a way of burrowing under your skin, making your heart race with every turn of the page. Her imagination was a force to be reckoned with. It was one of those rare talents that could reach out from the page and take hold of you. I suppose that’s why her stories have stayed with me all this time. They remind me that the most fantastic adventures often begin in the corners of our minds, where fear and dreams collide.’ He shook his head in wonder as if still awed by the power of her storytelling. ‘I’ve seen all kinds of monstrous things in real life, Ruby Sunday, but there is one story in particular that kept me up all night the first time I read it.’

‘You don’t seem like you scare easily,’ Ruby said.

‘Not easily, no,’ said the Doctor. ‘But I think that’s a testament to the power of her work.’

‘Shirley Jackson,’ Ruby said. ‘It’s familiar, isn’t it? Where do I know that name from?’

‘The Haunting of Hill House. Netflix, circa 2018. An

adaptation of one of her best-known works. It was everywhere,’ the Doctor said.

‘That’s it!’ Ruby said. ‘I watched that when I was fourteen and let me tell you, I didn’t sleep for days. It was scary!’

‘And still,’ the Doctor said, ‘not the one that stuck with me.’

‘What was the story called? The one that kept you up,’ Ruby asked. ‘Maybe I’ve heard of it.’

‘It’s called “The Lottery”,’ the Doctor said reverently. ‘It’s a short story, just thirty-some-odd pages. But it’s stuck in my head ever since that first reading. There’s something about it that feels . . . familiar.’ He seemed to be grappling with a memory that was just out of reach.

Ruby tilted her head, curiosity piqued. ‘How?’ she asked. ‘Had you read it before?’

The Doctor shook his head slowly, a gesture of confusion and reluctant understanding. ‘No. It’s strange. It’s the tale of a little town, an unremarkable place where everything seems so normal on the surface. But there’s this ancient box, and the townspeople become completely consumed by it. Their lives and their very existence revolve around a bizarre ritual involving the box that nobody questions. Every year, they hold a lottery, and the “winner” – well, they’re sacrificed for the supposed good of the community.’ He paused, letting the weight of the words settle between them. ‘The thing that haunts me about it isn’t just the brutal nature of the ritual, but the way the townspeople accept it so blindly. It’s as if their entire world is wrapped up in these rituals, the controlled chaos where the box holds sway over their destinies. They’ve all been conditioned to accept the