Torchwood_Long Time Dead

by Sarah Pinborough

  ‘The glove was destroyed. That’s not behind this. All Torchwood deceased were kept at the Hub. Suzie Costello’s body would have been frozen in the vault, and that’s where our lab rat John Blackman’s body was found. The drawers were all smashed up down there and you can imagine the smell and state of the place. Her body must have fallen out of one of the drawers. We were looking for recoverable technology not checking that the dead were still dead, so we didn’t do a body count.’

  ‘Something woke her up,’ Cutler said, ‘and whatever it was, I think it’s taking her over. These deaths aren’t just a murder spree. Something is turning these people’s brains to mulch.’ He paused. ‘And there’s something else. Something really bad is coming. Something dark and endless and unimaginable. I know that sounds crazy, but I feel it. I’ve found myself opening and closing doors and drawers. I think I was trying to tell myself that a doorway has been opened, to somewhere terrible, and we need to close it before it’s too late.’

  Jackson stared at him. ‘I feel it too. I’ve been dreaming. Hellish dreams. I’ve not dreamed anything like it in all my years.’

  ‘We need to find her, and figure out what it is. I can’t believe that she’s doing all of this willingly.’ It sounded lame and he knew it. Judging by the report in front of him, Suzie Costello was a psychopathic killer and there was no way round it. But he’d seen something else. A different side to her. Listening to himself, he wondered if he was as crazy as she was. Still, he wanted to hear her explanation for himself. He needed to try and understand what was going on with her.

  His phone rang and he listened to Andy Davidson at the other end. ‘We’ll meet you there. Secure the building but be discreet. I don’t want anyone going in until I get there.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Her apartment. You coming?’

  Commander Jackson nodded, and took one last glance at the picture in the file. ‘Aren’t you going to circulate her photo? In case anyone sees her?’

  ‘I’m not putting anyone at risk like that, and to be honest, I don’t want her alerted. Not until we’ve decided how best to play this.’

  ‘You think she’s at home?’

  Cutler shook his head. ‘Not a chance. But we might learn something.’ He looked again at the picture. ‘Maybe give this to one of your men to get to the airports. I don’t want her knowing we’re looking for her but at the same time, let’s keep her in the country.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  For a long moment, Cutler couldn’t speak. Let’s go to yours. Mine’s a right bloody mess. Wasn’t that what she’d said? Was that a little private joke to herself? The body tied to the bed had probably been handsome and toned once, but it was hard to tell now. The man stared upwards, his eyes still wide and glazed, and his mouth hung open slightly. His skin had mottled where the blood was now long settled and Cutler knew from experience that if they rolled him over, his back would be purple. The air stank of the beginning of decay. When had she killed this man? The night before they slept together? Who was this stranger?

  The sheets were soaked with blood from where she’d cut him and his naked body was like a patchwork quilt with squares of skin cut away on his arms and legs and torso. She’d taken her time killing him, that was obvious, and, although there were blue edges that gave away the original colour of the sheets, the bed was now a slick mass of crimson where he had lost so much blood. His hands and feet were tied to the head and foot boards. Was that how she’d got him so helpless? Lured him in for some fun? Had she actually had sex with him first? And if so, why had she killed this man and not him? He thought about the water she’d probably drugged him with last night. Had her intention been to put him to sleep and then kill him quickly? Why hadn’t she? Because she had feelings for him? Could someone capable of what had been done to the dead man on the bed even be capable of loving someone? It was like looking at the actions of a stranger.

  Bloody footprints led from the bed to the window and then to the bathroom, and he followed her path. Make-up was strewn in disarray across the surfaces and there was still a wet patch on the floor where she’d got out of the shower.

  ‘Sir?’

  He turned to find Andy Davidson in the doorway. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Station just called. We can’t get a trace on her phone. She’s using some kind of blocking device on it. God knows what.’

  ‘Great.’ Cutler wasn’t really surprised. ‘You find anything here?’

  ‘Nothing, really. Just a laptop which is clean and some clothes. Basics in the kitchen. Tea. Coffee. Milk. Some bread that’s going stale.’

  ‘And of course a mutilated corpse,’ Cutler added. Tea and coffee and a corpse. It summed Suzie Costello up perfectly. Partly so normal, and partly bat-shit crazy. ‘Get the computer to the tech boys and let them dig around in it. And then get a team here to get the body.’ He’d had enough of looking at it and headed back to the sitting room. ‘Where’s Commander Jackson?’

  Andy was staring down at his phone, his expression dark and distracted. Who was he thinking of calling? His mum? The boss? Cutler clicked his fingers, and the sergeant looked up suddenly. ‘The Commander?’ Cutler asked again.

  ‘Sorry. Outside.’ Andy put his phone away. ‘One of his men just turned up. Looked quite freaked out. Said he needed to speak to him in private.’

  ‘Did he now?’ Cutler said, striding towards the front door. ‘We’ll see about that.’

  He found them in the corridor below, heads close together, the Commander listening intently as the other man spoke, his hands animated.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Cutler asked, glancing upwards for any smoke alarms and then lighting a cigarette. The sight of the dead man had added to the creeping dread that was consuming him like a cancer on the inside. Whatever was coming, the time they had to find it was running out. As if in support of his words, a siren blared in the distance. There was more chaos in the city.

  Commander Jackson nodded at the thin man who wore an untidy suit rather than a uniform. ‘Go on, Dr Holdt,’ he said. ‘Detective Inspector Cutler knows about Torchwood and what they did. In this current situation, we have no secrets from him.’ He turned to Cutler. ‘I didn’t want your sergeant hearing anything unusual.’

  ‘So, what is going on?’

  ‘There’s a manual monitoring device that Harkness and his team would use to detect any alien activity or use of alien technology. It showed—’

  ‘Rift activity?’ Cutler cut in.

  ‘That’s right.’ Dr Holdt looked surprised. ‘Well, we’ve got it working again and have been trying to make sense of its readings. There are a lot of readings. The thing is going haywire. There are major spikes at all the locations the dead bodies were found, but now it seems as if, alongside the spiking that we understand, there are these stranger readings. Almost anti-readings. As if whatever is happening there is so out of the machine’s remit it can’t compute them.’ He looked nervously from the Commander to the policeman. ‘And given that the machine’s sole function is to register anything alien, then whatever it is must be very alien indeed.’

  ‘Has anyone been to the locations of these weird readings?’ Cutler asked.

  ‘Yes, we sent a small team. There are black patches of something. Or maybe black patches of nothing would be more accurate. One of our men tried touching one and was sucked inside it. We’ve sent a couple of small probes in, and the readings go haywire until the probes are fully absorbed and then they go dead. The monitors still show that they’re functioning but we can’t get any readings. Whatever’s on the other side is – appearances to the contrary – a long way away.’

  ‘This is something to do with the Rift, though?’ Cutler asked.

  ‘Yes and no. Maybe something that once came through the Rift helped cause it, but our sources tell us that in the last hour NASA have been recording some kind of spatial disturbances but aren’t giving any details – and I think that’s because they can’t.’

  ‘Jesus.’ The C
ommander had visibly paled. They were all out of their depth here, that much was clear, but Cutler reckoned that Jackson had it worst. The scientist’s brain would be finding this fascinating as well as terrifying, and Cutler at least had come across alien activity twice before. For the Commander, even though he was in charge of the Hub site, this was a whole new world opening up.

  This was a whole new world opening up. The phrase replayed in his head and hit him like a bucket of cold water. That was the terror. The awful dread. A whole new world – no, not a world – a dimension – was opening up.

  ‘Something’s trying to absorb the world,’ he muttered. His hand trembled as he sucked hard on the cigarette. ‘We’re being pulled into the darkness.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Dr Holdt shook his head. ‘We’re getting no clear readings that would be expected from anything coming from space.’

  ‘This isn’t our known space. This shouldn’t be here.’ Cutler fought the panic that made him want to throw himself out of the nearest window rather than face what was coming for them.

  ‘What about the people Sue Costa – Suzie Costello’s been murdering?’ Jackson asked. ‘The ones with scrambled brains and no eyes. How do they tie in?’

  Cutler’s head throbbed. ‘I’m not sure they’re entirely dead.’ The screaming of millions. ‘Their bodies might be, but their consciousnesses? Their souls? I think they’re in that other place. The one that’s now spreading out in the dark patches and pulling people in whole. That’s what it wants. Us.’ He was right, and he knew it. He’d felt it, a slight tug just before he’d remembered the previous night. There had been something pulling at him and he now knew where it was coming from. ‘We need to stop it. Now, before it’s too late.’

  ‘How?’ Commander Jackson asked. ‘How the hell do we do that?’

  ‘Suzie Costello,’ Cutler said. ‘We need to draw her back to us. This started with her coming back to life in the Torchwood vault and there has to be some technology at the bottom of this. Something she’s using. She killed your man there and hasn’t stopped since. And I’m not talking about that poor sod back there in the bed. I mean the exploding- eyes victims. Given that she’s clearly very bloody clever and she’s been sitting in your office for days, I bet she knows that we’re looking for her by now. Why has she kept on killing like that? Knowing that it’ll draw attention to her and is also making the darkness stronger? She must know these dark patches all over the city are down to her. Why hasn’t she stopped?’

  Both of the other men stared at him. For people clearly experts in their respective fields, neither of them would have been any good as policemen.

  ‘Because she can’t,’ he finished. ‘And that’s our hook.’

  ‘Have you got a plan?’ Jackson asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Cutler answered, nodding slowly. ‘I think I do.’ As he ground his cigarette out on the carpet he wished it had brought him some relief.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  After a while, not wanting to draw attention to herself, even though most people were avoiding coming near her, Suzie had taken refuge in the ladies’ toilets. When she’d stood up and seen how her shadow stayed behind on the seat, she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry some more. In the end, she chose crying.

  Her phone had been ringing over and over, and she turned it off as she sat in the locked cubicle and rested her head against the wall. Quiet. She needed some peace and quiet so she could think. Try and find a way out of this.

  Over the past twelve hours she’d felt everything start to crumble. Control was shifting. Was it because she’d let her guard down with her sudden rush of feelings for Cutler? Had the darkness inside sensed that and managed to somehow overpower her management of it? Or was this just the inevitable turn of events? She was still Suzie Costello, and she still wasn’t quite as good as she thought she was. She had become Death – and so much more – but only because the vast awfulness behind her eyes had made it so. She was a puppet, nothing more.

  Her head ached with the distant screams of those it had already taken. Not just the ones she’d shown, but others, people who had wandered into the driftwood of darkness that had broken away from her. She could feel those pieces, though, deep in her core wherever the device had gone to. They were still part of her and she part of it. What would happen to her when it had consumed the world, she wondered? Would it send her back to the nothingness of death or drag her into the agony with all the rest?

  Her mouth twisted into a bitter smile and her eyes filled with tears again. Why could nothing go right for her? Where had the new Suzie gone to now? Where was all that confidence? She peeled more skin back from her fingernails as snot ran from her nose. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Not at all. What was she supposed to do now? She should be long gone, and she’d probably left it too late. Cutler wasn’t stupid and neither was that old buffoon Jackson. They’d know she wasn’t who she claimed to be by now, even if they hadn’t figured out exactly who she was. They’d have alerted the airports, if nothing else. It was all such a mess.

  She winced as a fresh scream filled her head and then faded as the hell inside her took it. One more dark shadow she’d left behind somewhere serving its purpose.

  ‘Just leave me alone,’ she mumbled. ‘Just take them and leave me alone.’ For an awful moment, she thought she heard laughter coming from the dimension that looked out on the world from within her tiny body. That was new. There had never been anything obviously sentient about it before. But now… now there was conscious malice there. The things that lived inside it were watching and learning and they were so, so hungry.

  She rubbed her eyes and took in a deep, shaky breath. She needed to get a grip. There had to be a way out of this. There always was. She was Torchwood. The thought made her laugh and sob all over again. Jack Harkness, wherever he was, would have something to say about that. All her time of good service had been forgotten when the trouble with the Resurrection glove came along. And of course Miss close-to-bloody-perfect Gwen Cooper. Jack had liked her. Suzie had seen it. He’d liked Gwen Cooper more in that first couple of days than he’d liked Suzie in all the time they’d known each other. It was as if he’d always somehow known that Suzie would end up being damaged goods. She hiccupped out a short loud laugh. He wouldn’t have been wrong, of course. But she would bet that he’d never have envisaged her as the one to cause the end of the world, and very probably the universe. What was inside her would consume it all, eventually, she was sure of that.

  Suddenly the world, even the grubby inside of the station toilets, seemed beautiful. There was so much light and laughter and joy in it. Yes, there was pain and heartache and death, but there was so much more. It was all she’d ever wanted. To have a chance to enjoy that for longer. To be someone that mattered. Last night, she’d found someone that she mattered to and who could matter to her. Someone equally damaged. What would he think of her if he could see her now? If he could see what she’d done?

  She turned her phone on again and stared at it. Had he given up calling? She hoped not. Did he hate her already? How much could he know? The phone beeped several times with answerphone messages, and then the text tone went off. She opened it. She couldn’t help herself. It was from Cutler.

  I know something alien is making you do this. I can help you. We can get out of this. Check the news. Meet me at the Hub at ten p.m. The vault. Trust me. Sounds stupid but I think I love you.

  She stared at the message for what felt like an eternity before she realised her eyes had dried. It could be a trap. It was probably a trap. How could he help her? Surely, he just wanted to catch her? Still, her heart thumped rapidly, and as her hope grew she felt some small control over the darkness return. Somewhere, several of the dark patches that stained Cardiff disappeared and drew back inside her. It wasn’t enough, but it was something. She needed to stay strong. She re-read the last two sentences over and over and then finally got to her feet. She needed to find somewhere with a TV.

 
Chapter Thirty

  Back at the station, in a secure room, Elwood Jackson watched the news story unfolding on the screen. Even though he knew it was a fabrication, he still felt decidedly strange about it. Still, it had been approved by both his military and Department bosses, and to be honest they hadn’t had a lot of choice. It had to be him to make it convincing. No one else would have had the access to either the systems or the equipment without being questioned. He was glad, however, that he didn’t have a wife sitting at home, kept out of the loop of course, and watching this unfold. It was a lonely existence he’d chosen, but it had always been his belief that only selfish soldiers married and had families. Why would you burden anyone with so much potential grief? Today, he was pretty damned sure he was right in his thinking.

  ‘Although the police are refusing to comment at this stage, it is believed that Commander Elwood Jackson, the official in charge of the excavation project on Roald Dahl Plass, has been arrested in connection with a series of murders that have taken place in Cardiff over recent days. The police are taking control of the site, and all work there appears to have been suspended until further notice. This has once again raised concerns about the nature of the government facility destroyed in a terrorist attack last month. Dr David Jones, an eminent professor at Cardiff University’s Department of Scientific Research, told reporters that, in light of the massive increase in reported suicides over the past forty-eight hours, some sort of mood-altering virus leak can’t be ruled out…’

  ‘You think she’ll believe this?’ Jackson asked as they switched the TV off.

  ‘The key thing here is that she’ll want to believe it. And that’s half the battle won.’ Cutler lit a fresh cigarette, despite the building being entirely non-smoking. It would appear that, for now, they were operating outside of normal rules. Saving the world clearly got some allowances made. As he watched the tendrils of smoke dancing up to the ceiling, Elwood Jackson was very tempted to ask for one himself.