The Doctor snorted. 'Jack seems to leave them with very little intelligence. These psychically controlled creatures are just puppets.'
With an apocalyptic thunderclap of noise, the car exploded, showering the green with pieces of metal and glass. The blast hit the Doctor and the others in the back, a fist of oily heat that hurled them to the ground. They were just beyond the range of the bullet-fast shrapnel.
The scarecrows were not so fortunate. One or two had been completely consumed in the fireball, leaving only black twigs and corn in their wake. Another burnt like a human torch, head and arms flailing through angry red flames.
The other stickmen fell back, as if in superstitious awe, watching as the burning scarecrow collapsed to the ground in a rain of dark flesh and bone.
The Doctor turned to Rebecca and Trevor. 'Wake him up,'
he said, pointing at Denman. 'Then get some petrol - you saw what fire did to these creatures. And find Ace. Tell her to leave the big picture to me. She'll understand.'
'What are you going to do?' asked Trevor, wiping some of the soot from his face.
'I have a pressing engagement with Jack i' the Green,' said the Doctor. 'Matthew Hatch, too.'
'Where will you find them?' queried Rebecca.
The Doctor pointed to the inn that for centuries had watched the dark heart of Hexen Bridge. 'The Green Man,'
announced the Doctor. 'Formerly the Jack in the Green.' He sighed. 'It's obvious when you think about it, isn't it?'
The kitchen door shook, the wooden panels bulging. Cracks started to trail across from the hinges.
Steven Chen and Ace looked around the room for something that they could wedge against the door, but the cupboards and work surfaces were fixed to the floor.
'Come on!' shouted Ace, as much to herself as to her companions. 'There's got to be something we can use.'
'The fridge?' queried Chen, pointing at the freestanding unit.
'Oh, great,' said Ace sarcastically. 'If things get nasty we can offer them a lager!'
A large split appeared in the door. Mrs Chen cried out, as if she felt every impact herself.
'Got any better ideas?' snapped Steven. He pulled the plug from the wall socket and began pushing the refrigerator towards the door. Ace helped, rocking it from side to side.
Vegetables spilled out on to the floor, and Steven Chen kicked them away impatiently.
A scarecrow hand smashed through a door panel, tearing at the splintered wood.
With a cry of triumph, Ace and Steven pushed the fridge against the door.
There was a crack of bone and twig from behind the refrigerator.
'Now what?' asked Steven.
Ace scanned the hanging utensils and huge chest freezers that dominated the kitchen, pulling another cleaver and an enormous serrated carving knife from a wooden block.
Joanna Matson stood at the side door that led outside, tugging bolts into position.
A dark shape appeared in the small frosted pane of glass high up on the outer door. Joanna screamed. 'We're trapped!'
The figure knocked at the door. 'Let me in! Please!' It was a human voice, edged with panic. 'They're coming for me.'
Without thinking, Ace ran towards the side entrance.
'Stop!' Steven pushed her arm away from the locks. 'You don't know what that is.'
'It's the Reverend Baber.' The voice from outside was a pleading whine. The faintest impression of a face could be seen through the glass. 'If you don't let me in they'll kill me!'
From the other end of the kitchen, the inner door shook under repeated blows.
Ace shoved Steven to one side. 'It's the vicar. We've got to let him in.'
'No!'Joanna's shout was unexpectedly loud in the confines of the kitchen. 'That's not him!'
As she spoke, a straw-filled hand smashed through the glass in the door.
'My head hurts,' said Denman, sluggishly. 'What happened?'
'We got lucky,' replied Trevor as he led the policeman through a twisting patch of trees towards the open field beyond. 'The Doctor wants us to find something to burn them with.'
Denman seemed to be having difficulty focusing on his surroundings. He rested for a second by a gnarled old oak, and patted it lovingly. 'I used to bring my wife down here when we were first married,' he said with a faraway look.
'Oh God, not the life story,' said Trevor, cuttingly. 'Come on, we've got work to do.'
Ahead of them stretched a field of billowing wheat, leading towards White's farm. Rebecca was crouching down beside a five-bar gate. She looked up nervously as they approached.
'Get down,' she hissed, letting out a sigh of relief. 'The whole area's crawling with scarecrows.' She gave Denman a close look as though his glazed eyes held some secret wisdom. 'Are you sure you're all right?' she asked.
'No,' said Denman flatly. 'But I'm not going to lie down for a bunch of walking rag men.'
'That's the spirit,' said Trevor sarcastically. 'Come on, there are some outbuildings beyond this field. There's bound to be some fuel there.'
Thomas Baber's face lay somewhere behind the scraps of cloth and the trailing veins of corn, but it had been hideously transformed. Only the dark, glowing eyes spoke of the remnants of a human intelligence - a spark of life corrupted beyond words and reason.
'In,' sighed the creature, Baber's strong voice replaced by what sounded like the moan of winter winds. 'Let me in.'
Long arms of branch and bone extended into the kitchen, searching for human life. The nails on the hands were like bramble thorns. With a terrifying rending sound, the creature pulled itself through the small window, a space through which no human could climb.
'We're trapped,' repeated Joanna Matson, the word a grim mantra. 'There's no escape from them.'
'The wine cellar!' exclaimed Steven Chen, running across the room to a trapdoor set into the floor. 'It's small, but it's our only chance.'
Ace looked at the wooden hatch with suspicion. 'Is that going to be any stronger than the doors?'
Steven Chen shrugged. 'I don't know. But I don't see we've got any choice.'
Chen's father had already struggled back on to his feet, wincing against the pain. 'It will delay their attack a little.
And time is always precious,' said the old man, his voice a harsh whisper.
'Yeah, but we'll be caged like rats,' persisted Ace. 'Once we're down there, there'll be nowhere else to go.'
Steven Chen had already pulled the hatch open. 'You can stay here and be butchered if you want,' he said.
Ace looked around the room again, and saw for the first time another window, high up on one wall, above the ovens.
'I'll try to get out. Get some help.' She gestured towards Steven's parents. 'You're right, you've got to try to protect them for as long as possible.'
Steven's father was wheezing as he made his way down the wooden stairs into the cellar.
Ace handed Steven the meat cleaver. 'Don't know if this'll come in handy, but...'
Steven took the implement, watching as Joanna Matson climbed through the hatch. 'I'll do what I can,' he said.
With a resigned shrug of the shoulders, Steven disappeared down into the artificial twilight of the cellar, pulling the trapdoor over his head.
The Baber scarecrow hit the floor with a thud. Its head moving almost sadly, it shuffled towards Ace, angular hands outstretched.
Ace leapt for the window.
The first barn was empty, but the second contained a weather-beaten tractor and a cluttered array of rusted equipment. The stone tiles were thick with grease and dust.
Towards the back the floor was cleaner, dominated by towering bales of hay.
Rebecca started pushing through the clutter of old feed bags and plastic crates, looking for a can of fuel. 'I'll check up there,' announced Trevor, swiftly climbing a ladder to the hayloft.
A scream from Rebecca stopped him five rungs from the top.
He slid back down and ran across the barn. Denman and Rebecca were staring at the stickman form of a scarecrow, lying abandoned against the wall. Beside the scarecrow were the badly burnt remains of an old Guy Fawkes effigy. Its head, made from a football, was blackened and scarred from the flames of the previous year's bonfire. An old navy-blue woollen jumper covered a childlike body and limply splayed legs.
Trevor glanced back at the bulky form of the scarecrow. 'Is it...?' he began.
'Let's find out,' said Denman, pulling a pitchfork from the hay. He strode towards the scarecrow, his movements betraying the terror beneath his determination.
'Be careful,' warned Rebecca, backing away slowly.
Denman thrust the fork into the face of the scarecrow. The metal prongs sank into the rotting straw. He twisted the wooden handle, and most of the face staved in, releasing a sickly-sweet aroma. With a sigh of relief he removed the pitchfork and turned back to Trevor.
'No sweat,' he said. 'It's a real real one!' one!'
Denman laughed as he weighed the pitchfork in his hand, turning his attention to the Guy. 'I suppose I'd better deflate this little man, just in case,' he said with a wry grin, pushing the fork prongs towards the football-shaped head.
The fork pushed through the perished rubber easily, but came to a jarring halt as it hit something hard beneath.
Denman half turned in surprise. 'Wha-?'
The doll-like creature knocked the pitchfork away, then flew at Denman's throat with talons outstretched.
The Doctor stepped into the pub through the open front door.
Things were quieter on the green now, as if the scarecrows had taken most of the easy targets in the vicinity, and were moving further afield - which was worrying enough in itself.
The Doctor imagined what was going on, elsewhere, as the stickmen burst into houses. He could almost hear the screams of terror. The sound of bones breaking, like bundles of twigs.
In the Academy, his always-active imagination had been one of his greatest gifts, the one attribute that drove him on to greatness and doomed him to mediocrity. Now it was a curse. The Doctor shook his head, looking around the public bar of the Green Man.
In a scene of quiet devastation, the butterflies were little pockets of movement and light. His eyes wide in amazement, the Doctor approached the display cases. Within, the creatures had revived, despite the pins that kept them impaled on small squares of cork. Their legs flapped in anger at their new imprisonment, futile wings beating together.
'Jack kept you here,' whispered the Doctor. 'Now Jack is releasing you.'
Without warning, the ground shook.
The Doctor ran to a window, and saw that the green itself was... writhing. writhing. The ground squirmed and bucked as great threads of evil twisted beneath it. The ground squirmed and bucked as great threads of evil twisted beneath it.
The floor beneath the Doctor's feet shuddered again, and then became still. He returned to the cabinets, noticing a large split in one of the glass covers.