The House (audio story)
- You may wish to consult
House (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
The House was the second story in the audio anthology The Doctor and Carnacki, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Georgia Cook and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and both Dan Starkey and Joe Jameson as Thomas Carnacki.
Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
Awoken in the dead of night to assist his distraught friend Arkright, Carnacki finds himself unexpectedly thrust into a long-buried mystery from his childhood, and face-to-face with a man he hasn't seen in years: the Doctor.
But what is 'The House'? Why does everything Arkright touch transform into the same rotting furnishings and wallpaper? Can a man really be haunted by a building?
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
Part one[[edit] | [edit source]]
Carnacki is summoned to the Cross Keys by a boy paid by the Doctor, whom he has not seen in over fifteen years and who has found Arkright, an old friend of Carnacki's, in some distress. Carnacki and the Doctor help him get home where he tells them how the tent he was in whilst exploring developed the wallpaper of a house that he believes is haunting him and that he immediately returned to London, where he saw the wallpaper out of the corner of his eye wherever he went. After the Doctor gets Arkright to bed, Carnacki recounts how he swapped rooms with Arkright at Harrow after his carpet and wallpaper inexplicably changed to that of an abandoned property on his family's land in Sussex, only for Arkright's new room to change a week later. They visited the House, which Carnacki immediately hated, and Arkright was transferred to a new room upon returning to school.
The House burnt down shortly after the visit and Arkright was not troubled by it again after being transferred to his new room. Carnacki can see no evidence that Arkright's house has been changed at all and reasons that he is likely suffering from stress, but when Arkright shouts from upstairs they find that his bedroom has transformed. The Doctor takes the two men into the TARDIS, scans Arkright and flies to his family estate, Elm's Hall, after which they leave Arkright in the TARDIS in a warding circle due to his unwillingness to return to the ruined house. Using his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor detects a presence with a connection to Arkright inside the House and hurries back to the ship when the Cloister Bell sounds; the console room is transforming and the wallpaper pattern is growing on Arkright's arm. The TARDIS reboots and the Doctor says that whatever is causing the phenomena must be stopped.
Part two[[edit] | [edit source]]
A scan confirms that it has caught something in its filters, but that it disintegrated with the reboot. With the TARDIS restored to normal, the trio head to Carnacki's home where he collects some equipment and leaves Arkright inside an electric pentacle which seems to stop the progress of the wallpaper pattern on his arm. The Doctor takes Carnacki back to the House on the night of his and Arkright's visit when they were young and they watch the young Carnacki set fire to it. They then go back to 1731 to see the House in its early days and find that it looks identical, prompting them to go back to 1485, where it is unchanged, and then back to before it was built. The Doctor notices that a particular fungus has been growing on the site the whole time and identifies its spore as that expelled by the TARDIS.
Reasoning that the spores have been repelling people from the House as a defence mechanism, the Doctor concludes that Arkright taking a sample of the fungus was interpreted as a threat and that Carnacki burning the House down was only a temporary fix. Spores lay inside of him and are now growing back using the shape of the House. They return to Arkright's house to make use of his laboratory, finding that it is still transforming despite his absence and that the structure is changing in addition to the decor, and locate a fungal neutraliser. The Doctor and Carnacki decide to use the electric pentacle as a magnifier and combining the neutraliser with water to combat the fungi's earthly and alien properties simultaneously to pacify it with the help of the TARDIS. When Arkright starts to merge with the floor, however, Carnacki instead prepares to burn the house down until the fungi speak through his old friend.
The fungi confirm that they came from outer space and ask to be returned to its state of dormancy, so Carnacki draws the runes as instructed and the fungi sleep once more as blue roundheads. Arkright chooses to believe that the fungi had a hallucinogenic effect on them all and Carnacki agrees not to speak of the adventure with their friends. Before leaving, the Doctor praises Carnacki on how much he has changed since they last met and says that he might drop in on him on occasion.
Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
- Carnacki - Dan Starkey
- Arkright / Young Arkright / Boy / Fungi Voice - Harry Hart
- Young Carnacki - Joe Jameson
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Carnacki lives at 427 Cheyne Walk.
- Arkright is a mycologist.
- Carnacki and Arkright studied at Harrow.
- Carnacki uses garlic and chalk to produce a warding circle against paranormal activity in the TARDIS control room.
- He later produces an electric pentacle.
- The Doctor is incredibly partial to homemade crème brûlée. He visits the TARDIS kitchens to retrieve some garlic cloves.
- On the way, the Doctor mentions, he gets lost between the TARDIS swimming pool and the old bedrooms.
- Dodgson and Jessop are two of Carnacki and Arkright's friends.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Arkright is a recurring character from the original Carnacki stories, being among the group of friends that Carnacki relays his adventures to.
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Carnacki immediately recognises the Doctor from AUDIO: The Haunter of the Shore [+]Loading...["The Haunter of the Shore (audio story)"]. They now regard one another as old acquaintances.
- Carnacki mentions encountering "reptilian detectives". He met Vastra and the Paternoster Gang in AUDIO: The Screaming Ceiling [+]Loading...["The Screaming Ceiling (audio story)"].
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Official The House page at bigfinish.com
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