TEN
Jack sat up with a cry on his lips, and immediately began gulping at the air, with the intention of filling his lungs, re-oxygenating his blood.
He still didn't really understand the physical mechanics of his condition. What seemed to happen was that his just-deceased body was held in stasis while time ran backwards over it, repairing wounds and mending broken bones.
Then he became aware that his throat was hurting – really stinging, in fact – and that he had the mother of all headaches. That wasn't supposed to happen. He brought a hand up to his throat, and found some partly scabbed-over gouges there, and some very painful bruising. He cried out as his fingers prodded the tender areas, then sank back onto the bed, feeling dizzy. He realised straight away what had happened. He hadn't died. That zombie kid had opened his throat, and he had lost some blood, but the injuries hadn't been fatal. The long and the short of it was, Jack had simply slipped and knocked himself out.
How embarrassing, Jack thought. And how inconvenient. Sometimes it was better to die than not. At least when he died, the time-forces did their stuff, making him good as new, leaving him with no wounds, no scars, no pain. But injuries were merely injuries. They took time to heal. And what was more they bloody hurt.
Suddenly aware that he was wet and sticky, Jack looked down to see that the front of his shirt was soaked in congealing blood. He grimaced. 'Oh, gross,' he said.
He looked around, wincing at the throbbing pain in his head. He was back in the Hub, lying on the table in the Autopsy Room. Home sweet home. He wondered how long he'd been out for.
Next second he scrambled to his feet, hand moving instinctively to his gun, as someone screamed.
It was a woman. Gwen? Rising above the pain of his injuries, as he had had to do on so many previous occasions, he ran up the steps and into the main Hub area, his eyes sweeping across the gantries and walkways, the workstations with their glowing computer screens and cluttered glass table tops, the metal tower in the centre constantly streaming with water. There was no one. Or at least no one that he could see. The scream had been brief, but ratcheting, full of pain.
'Gwen?' he shouted, his voice echoing back off the brick walls. 'Ianto?'
'In here, Jack,' Ianto shouted from somewhere below him. He sounded stressed.
'Where's here?' Jack called back.
'Boardroom.'
The Boardroom was in the depths of the Hub, at the end of a corridor that had been converted from a vast pipe, which Jack suspected, from the faint but lingering odour, might once have been one of Cardiff's major sewer outlets. He ran down there, feet clanging on the metal walkways, his speed increasing as another scream came tearing up from below. What the hell was Ianto doing down there? Torturing someone?
It was only when he burst into the room, gun at the ready, that his still somewhat fractured memories snapped back into place. Ianto, in his shirtsleeves, hands encased in blood-smeared surgical gloves, eyed the Webley disapprovingly.
'I don't think you're going to need that,' he said.
Sarah Thomas, the pregnant woman they had rescued earlier, was lying on a mattress which had been placed on the long, glass-topped table in the Boardroom. Pillows had been bunched behind her back and head, allowing her to half sit up. Her hair was drenched in sweat and her red face was contorted in pain. Jack looked down and saw that she was in the latter stages of giving birth. The mattress was covered in blood and he could see the top of the baby's head.
'My, you have been busy,' he remarked, putting his gun away. Then he realised what Sarah was lying on. 'Hey, is that my mattress?'
Ianto scowled at him. 'Shut up, Jack, and give me a hand here.'
Jack grinned and said to Sarah, 'I love it when he's masterful.'
Sarah just rolled her eyes, clearly not in the mood for frivolity.
Abruptly becoming serious, Jack said, 'You look as though you're doing a brilliant job here. Both of you.'
Ianto flashed him a brief smile and said, 'You ready for another push, Sarah?'
Sarah inhaled and exhaled rapidly through her mouth, and nodded.
'Whenever you're ready,' Ianto said.
Sarah opened her mouth, screamed and pushed. The baby's head, dark hair plastered to its scalp, bulged between her legs and then slipped back again.
'Again,' Ianto said gently. 'Come on, Sarah, you're nearly there.'
She tried again. And again. Finally, after ten minutes of exhausting effort, the little body, purpley-blue and smeared in blood and vernix, suddenly slithered out from between her legs, trailing the thick blue rope of its umbilical cord. Jack caught the baby as it emerged, gently cradling its tiny head. Ianto, clutching Sarah's hand, laughed with sheer joy. Sarah slumped back onto the pillows in relief and exhaustion.
'It's a boy,' Jack said softly, and grinned. 'Well done.'
He leaned forward and kissed Sarah's cheek. Ianto kissed the other.
Sarah lifted her head. She looked utterly drained, yet suddenly radiant. 'Is he all right?' she asked.
'He's beautiful,' said Jack, 'just like his mother.'
'Can I hold him?'
Jack wrapped the baby in one of the clean towels which Ianto had thought to bring down from upstairs and handed the baby to Sarah. His eyes sparkled as he watched mother and baby together for the first time.
'See?' he said to Ianto. 'This is what it's all about. The miracle of life amidst all this death.'
Ianto looked anything but his usual immaculate self, but he was grinning. All at once he noticed the wounds to Jack's throat and said, 'I thought when you died, it was supposed to—' 'I didn't die,' Jack interrupted curtly.
'You didn't? I thought you had. I told Gwen you had. When she phoned.'
'Yeah, well. I didn't.'
There was an almost embarrassed silence, and then Ianto murmured, 'What about the umbilical cord? The baby's, I mean. And the placenta?'
Jack held up his hands. 'I'll handle it. I've delivered babies before.'
'Have you?' said Ianto surprised. 'When?'
'Long story,' said Jack. 'Why don't you put some coffee on? I think we could all do with some.'
'Good idea,' Ianto said and started to trudge away. Sarah called his name and he turned back.
'Thanks,' she said. 'For everything. For being here with me.'
He nodded, and though he remained composed he looked absurdly touched. 'You're welcome,' he said, a little choked.
Ten minutes later, Jack, cleaned up and wearing a fresh shirt, joined Ianto as he was pouring the coffee.
'That smells good,' he said.
'How is she?' Ianto asked.
'Mother and baby are doing just fine. You did a great job back there.'
Ianto nodded briefly. He hesitated a second, and then said, 'I was scared though, Jack. What if something had gone wrong?'
'It didn't,' Jack said reassuringly.
'No, but what if it had? I wouldn't have known what to do. As it was, Sarah delivered her baby with no pain relief. I wasn't sure what to give her. I didn't know what was safe in her condition.'
Another pause.
'We need a proper medic, Jack. Someone to replace Owen. We need—'
'I'm working on it,' Jack said curtly, and looked around. 'Hey, where's the zombie? And Sarah's husband? What's his name?'
'Trys,' said Ianto. 'I made up a bed for him in the Hothouse. It's nice and quiet in there. I think he'll be OK. His life signs are good.'
'And let me guess – the zombie's in the cells.'
Ianto nodded. 'I've put her next door to Janet. They'll be making friends by now.'
'Bitching about us, no doubt. You know how girls are when they get together.' He grinned at his own joke, but Ianto still looked sombre.
'Jack,' he said, 'what would have happened out there tonight if I hadn't been there to save you? What if that zombie and its mates had torn you apart and eaten you? How would you have come back from that? How would you come back if your body was totally destroyed?'
For a moment, Jack looked haunted, as if he had often wondered the same thing. Then the familiar grin – the grin that Ianto knew Jack sometimes wore like a mask – appeared, and he shrugged.
'Who knows?' he said, and reached for a mug of coffee. 'Maybe we ought to try it some time.'
'So what do they call you, then?' Andy glanced at the girl in his rear-view mirror.
She stared back at him with shocked panda eyes.
'What?' she said.
'Your name? What's your name?'
'Oh.'
For a moment she was silent, a slight frown wrinkling her forehead, as if she had put the information down, like a set of keys, and couldn't remember where. Then she said, 'Sophie. Sophie Gould.'
'Nice to meet you, Sophie. I'm Andy. And this is my partner, Dawn.'
Sophie's shell-shocked eyes flickered to regard the WPC slumped in the passenger seat. 'What's wrong with her?' she asked dully.
'She got bit by one of those. . . creatures,' Andy said.
'Is she gonna be all right?'
'Yeah, she'll be fine,' he replied, more confidently than he felt. 'I was going to take her to hospital, but. . . well, we couldn't get there. So I'm taking her back to the station now. There's a doctor there. He can look her over. He can check you out too, if you like.'
Aware that he was beginning to babble, he forced himself to shut up.
Sophie nodded vaguely. 'I'm all right.'
'You look to me as though you've hurt your leg,' said Andy.
'What? Oh yeah,' Sophie replied, as if only just realising that her knee was red and swollen.
'So what happened?'
'I twisted it jumping out of a window.'
'Stuntwoman, are you?'
'What?'
'Never mind,' said Andy. 'It was a joke. Not a very good one.'
A short silence fell between them. Andy was driving slowly, keeping his eyes peeled for marauding zombies. Whenever he spotted one, or a group of them, he would extinguish his headlights, change down to second gear and crawl past, in the hope that the creatures would ignore the car.
So far the tactic had worked, and the journey since he had picked up Sophie had been relatively uneventful. The only potentially risky moment had come when a zombie had wandered into the road, right in front of them. On that occasion, Andy had had to stop the car, and he and Sophie had waited, holding their breath, until the creature – a hulking ginger-haired man in a blood-streaked leather jacket – had crossed the road in front of them and ambled away.
'So what's your story?' he asked now, glancing at Sophie again.
At first he thought she wasn't going to answer, and then she haltingly started to tell him what had happened to her that night, the terrible things she'd seen. Finally her voice cracked and she began to sob, lowering her face into her cupped hands, her shoulders heaving. She sobbed for several minutes and then abruptly she stopped. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, smearing mascara across her face.
'Sorry,' she said bleakly.
'Nothing to apologise for,' Andy said. 'You've been incredibly brave.'
She snorted. 'No, I haven't. I ran away and left my best friend to get torn apart by those. . . things.'
'There was nothing you could have done. If you'd tried to help, you'd be dead now too.'
She was silent a moment, as though contemplating this. Then she asked, 'Is this happening all over, or just here in Cardiff?'
'I don't know.'
'And, I mean – why is it happening? Is it like. . . Judgement Day or something?'
'No idea,' said Andy. 'Sorry. I'm as much in the dark as you are. It just started happening, and now I'm trying to deal with it as best I can.'
They drove on, cutting through the centre of the city, bypassing the Millennium Stadium and Cardiff Castle, heading up North Road with Bute Park on their left. They saw the black silhouettes of zombies wandering about in the park like lost drunks, massing around the Roman Fort and the tennis courts.
Finally, on the other side of the road, the imposing fa?ade of Police Headquarters came into view, its myriad windows staring down at them.
'No,' Andy breathed.
Sophie leaned forward, between the seats. 'What is it?'
'We'll never get in. Look.'
Sophie looked. The police station was under siege. Zombies were massing around it, stumbling up the steps that led to the main entrance, battering against the building with their hands, or their bodies.
As Andy edged closer, he saw that the building had battened down its hatches. All its doors were firmly closed, and the faces of those who had taken refuge inside were peering out of lighted windows. Looking closer, he saw that a number of bodies were strewn on the ground, though whether they were the bodies of the undead or their victims he couldn't be sure. Certainly one car was simply stationary in the opposite lane, its lights on and doors open, as if the occupants had left in a hurry. Another car – a police car like Andy's own, the word 'Heddlu' clearly visible on the side – had mounted the pavement and destroyed a sapling. This car had dark smears on the mostly white bodywork, but its erstwhile occupants were nowhere in sight.
Sophie made a sudden sound, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper. 'They've seen us,' she squeaked, and then her voice suddenly escalated into panic. 'Get us out of here! Get us out!'
Andy didn't argue. It was clear that the station would not be the safe haven he had been hoping for. With no clear thought as to where he was heading, except away from the dead eyes and grasping hands of the dozens of zombies which were now turning towards them, he put his foot down and sped away.
Gwen suddenly stopped and slumped against a wall, as if her legs had given out on her. She covered her face with hands that Rhys saw were shaking badly.
'You all right, love?' he asked. He himself felt scooped-out, empty, after the death of the couple in the café.
Gwen's voice, muffled beneath her hands, was trembling with anger. 'That man, that. . . that. . .'
Words failed her then, and when her hands dropped Rhys saw that her face was twisted in abhorrence and rage.
Abruptly she shrieked, a savage war-cry of a sound, and began to kick and pummel the wall, yelling until her voice gave out.
Rhys looked around anxiously, terrified she would attract undue attention, but he didn't try to stop her. She needed to let it out. Gwen was not the sort of person who could bottle things up.
Eventually she slumped again, her fury spent. Rhys opened his arms.
'Come here,' he said softly.
She tumbled into his embrace, and for a minute or more they just stood there in the drizzle, locked together in misery and anguish and fear and mutual comfort.
At last she took a deep breath and broke away. 'I'm OK now,' she said. 'We should be getting on.'
Her phone rang. She scooped it from her pocket. 'Jack? Oh, Andy. . . hi.'
She listened for a moment, and then said, 'Why, what's happened?'
Rhys saw her face change. She breathed out a long, 'Ohh. . .' of weary despair. Eventually she said, 'Just go home, Andy. Barricade yourself in. There's nothing else you can do.'
She paused, listening to his response, and the grimace she flashed at Rhys spoke volumes. He knew from her expression that Andy was nearing the end of his tether, bending Gwen's ear, probably demanding to know why Torchwood weren't doing anything about the situation. He felt a flash of anger and held out his hand for the phone, but Gwen shook her head.
'You'll just have to look after her the best you can,' she said. 'You know the score. I can't work miracles, Andy.'
She half-smiled at his response. When she next spoke her voice was softer. 'That's OK. . . We all are. Look, just get home and keep yourself safe, all right?'
She put the phone back in her pocket.
'Lovelorn Andy giving you a hard time, is he?' said Rhys.
Gwen cocked a reproving eyebrow. 'He's up against it, just like us. But he gave me some useful information, as it happens. Police HQ is overrun with zombies. Sorry, Rhys, but we'll have to change our plans again.'
Rhys groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. 'You mean we've come all this way for nothing? So what do we do now?'
Gwen's expression suggested they were running out of options, but she tried to sound purposeful. 'We'll revert to our original plan – go back to the Hub.'
'And do what? Hide underground and hope it all goes away?'
'What other choice do we have?' she snapped suddenly, and then immediately she raised both hands. 'Sorry, sorry.'
Rhys blew out a long breath.
'No, love, it's me who should be apologising. You've got equipment at the Hub. Computers and that. You might be able to come up with something. It's just the thought of having to retrace our steps through that. . . that war zone back there.'
'We'll go down Lloyd George Avenue,' Gwen said. 'It's not far.'
'Far enough,' Rhys replied. 'It's a long, straight road without much cover, that is.' He smiled without humour. 'Valley of death.'
'We'll get transport,' Gwen said. 'Something big and solid.'
'From where?' said Rhys.
'Wherever we can find it.'
'Oh, so we're common car thieves, are we now?'
She shrugged. 'Needs must when the devil drives, Rhys.'
Rhys nodded at the pocket where she kept her phone. 'Why don't you try Jack again, see if he can come and pick us up?'
Gwen had called a flustered Ianto twenty minutes earlier, only to be told that he was in the middle of delivering a baby and that Jack was dead again. It had not been a long conversation.
'Jack and Ianto have enough on their hands,' she said. 'Besides, I'm not using them as a taxi service. I do have my pride, you know.'
'Bloody stubborn is what you are,' Rhys said, albeit with the trace of a smile.
'I think you mean independent, don't you?' said Gwen, smiling back at him.
They set off, emerging from the back alleys along which they had been skulking, and starting down the wide, straight expanse of Lloyd George Avenue, which ran parallel with Bute Street, and stretched all the way from Cardiff city centre to Roald Dahl Plass. The modest houses lining both sides of the road, fronted by grass verges, were dark and quiet, and there appeared to be no sign of zombie activity in the immediate vicinity.
Even so, they felt nervous and exposed, and moved as swiftly and silently as they could, their eyes darting everywhere, their hands tightly clutching their respective weapons. The wet road stretching before them was a rusty, glittering brown under the light from the street lamps. To Rhys, their footsteps sounded like little crackling detonations, which he couldn't believe weren't audible for miles around.
They had been walking for only a couple of minutes when Gwen hissed, 'Rhys, over there.'
At first he thought she had spotted a zombie, and tensed, but then realised she was referring to a silver Mitsubishi Shogun parked in front of a house to their left.
They ran across to it. Gwen tried the doors.
'You didn't honestly expect it to be open, did you?' Rhys whispered.
She shrugged. 'You never know.'
She produced something from the pocket of her jacket, a stubby black circular device, like a miniature hubcap. When she placed it on the door of the car it remained there, clinging like a limpet. Lights with no discernible source rippled across its surface.
'What's that, then? One of your alien doodahs?' said Rhys.
'Sort of. It's something Tosh came up with. But it's derived from alien technology, yes.'
There was the sudden chunky sound of locks disengaging.
'Et voilà!' exclaimed Gwen, grinning.
'What the hell do you think you're doing?'
They spun round to see the Shogun's owner framed in the open doorway of the house behind them. He was in his mid-thirties, hair tousled, face unshaven and rumpled with sleep. He was wearing a grey T-shirt stretched over a burgeoning beer belly and baggy black boxer shorts. In his hands he was brandishing a red squeegee mop.
He's just like me, Rhys thought with a horribly embarrassed sense of shame, and here we are about to nick his pride and joy.
He held up his hands, though tried not to make it look as though he was wielding his golf club like a weapon, and flashed his teeth in a contrite grin.
'Hello, mate,' he said. 'Listen, this isn't what it looks like.'
'What were you doing with my—' the man said, and then the expression on his face changed from outraged indignation to an open-mouthed, almost comical, gape.
Rhys realised that the car owner was no longer looking at him. He turned his head, stomach clenching with an even more acute sense of embarrassment when he saw that Gwen was pointing her gun at the man.
'Come on, love, there's no need for that,' he said light-heartedly, trying to flash the man a reassuring smile.
'I'm really sorry,' Gwen said, looking as though she meant it, 'but we need your car. It's a matter of life and death.'
'We'll bring it back when we've finished with it,' Rhys promised.
'So if you could just get us the keys,' Gwen said.
The man looked bewildered and scared. Holding up his hands, as though aping Rhys's actions of a few moments before, he nodded mutely and backed stumblingly into his house. Then his eyes widened further and his head jerked to look at something over Gwen's shoulder.
Rhys followed his gaze. 'Oh, crap,' he said.
Eight zombies had appeared from the shadows of the house opposite and were shambling across the road towards them. One was dressed as a clown, its face a repulsive blend of dark rot and white greasepaint; another was an air hostess, her cap perched at a jaunty angle on her wizened, almost hairless head.
Gwen turned and took a shot at one of the zombies, hitting it in the throat. It rocked back on its heels, and then resumed its advance, thin blood streaming from the wound. Turning back to the man she said urgently, 'Go back into your house and lock yourself in.'
'Gwen, we can't leave him,' said Rhys, 'not now the zombies have seen him. You know what they were like at the café when they knew someone was inside. He'll have to come with us.'
Gwen paused and thought for a moment, then said, 'OK. Run inside and get the keys to the car. Be as quick as you can. I'll hold them off till you get back.'
The man hesitated.
'What are you waiting for?' Gwen snapped.
'I've got a wife and daughter,' said the man. 'They're asleep upstairs. I'm not leaving them.'
Gwen swore. The zombies were moving slowly, and it was a wide road, but there would be nowhere near enough time for the man to wake his family and bring them out to the car before the creatures were upon them. Maybe she and Rhys could take them all out, she thought; there were only eight of them, after all.
At that moment at least a dozen more zombies appeared from between two houses on her left and started moving in their direction.
'What's this?' Rhys shouted, head swivelling from one group of zombies to the other. 'Zombie tactics? They've got us in a pincer movement!'
Gwen took another shot at the zombies, hitting one of them in the shoulder, but it was no more than a token gesture. She knew that, no matter how slow the undead were, there was no way she and Rhys would be able to put them all down before they overwhelmed them with sheer numbers. If she and Rhys had been on their own, she would have suggested beating a hasty retreat, but she couldn't face the thought of leaving a young family to the mercy of the creatures, not after what had happened at the café.
And so she did the only thing she could – she grabbed Rhys and propelled him towards the house.
'Inside!' she shouted. 'We'll fight them from there.'
'Not sure that's a good idea,' he panted, running along beside her. 'Have you seen Night of the Living Dead?'
She scowled. 'Have you got any better ideas?'