by Mark Morris
'We've got to find a way through,' Gwen muttered between shots.
Rhys's ears were ringing from the gunfire, but he heard her words and knew how desperate she was to help the policemen. Enough of the zombies had peeled away from the vehicle now, however, for him to be able to see inside it. It was abundantly clear to him that both officers were way beyond help. There was very little left of either of them.
'It's too late,' he said softly. Gwen appeared not to hear him. She was still firing, her teeth clenched, dark eyes full of fury. Rhys put his hand on her shoulder and raised his voice. 'It's too late, love. They're both dead.'
She glanced at him, anguish on her face.
'And if we don't get away from here, we'll be joining them,' he added.
Gwen nodded, though not before shooting a blonde-haired zombie in a nurse's uniform, who was holding something red and oozing that was leaving a trail on the road behind her. 'I know,' she muttered.
Rhys grabbed her free hand. 'Then let's go.'
They ran back along the street, Gwen still shooting, Rhys dodging clumsily flailing arms and clutching hands. When they came parallel with the car, he stopped abruptly, almost yanking Gwen's arm off.
'Hang on a sec,' he said.
'What are you doing, Rhys?' Gwen demanded in exasperation. 'Come on.'
'I need a weapon too,' he said. 'Give me ten seconds.' He ran round to the back of the car and popped the boot open. Rummaging inside, he drew out what at first Gwen thought was a sword, but then realised was a golf club.
'See?' he said, hefting the club in his hand. 'Not a complete waste of money, after all.'
Gwen rolled her eyes. Rhys had bought the clubs on eBay, with the intention of taking up golf. After a couple of rounds at their local course, however, he had decided he liked neither the game nor the people who played it, and the clubs had been gathering dust in the boot of the car ever since.
He grinned at her, reached up and pushed down the boot — which revealed a bespectacled, middle-aged man with a rotting, greenish face. The man had shuffled up the pavement on Rhys's blindside and was now less than a metre away from him.
'Rhys! ' Gwen screamed, but he didn't need the warning. Moving with remarkable agility for a man forty pounds above his optimum weight, he spun round and buried the business end of the club in the zombie's forehead.
The zombie's eyes rolled up and it collapsed, the head of the club coming free with a gristly tearing sound as it fell. Rhys stared at the creature in a kind of wonder, and then looked at the head of the club, which was covered with a mess of blood and grey-green gloop.
'Can we go now?' Gwen asked impatiently.
'Right behind you, sweetheart,' said Rhys.
Sophie and Kirsty were sitting in the back of a cab on Bute Street, en route to Oceana on Greyfriars Road. Both girls were feeling mellow, tapping their feet and moving their bodies to the seventies funk which filled the car. The traffic lights were on red and the engine was idling. The cab driver was called Winston, and he'd already told them all about his fortieth birthday a month ago, which he had celebrated by visiting his extended family in Jamaica. Now Winston was taking the opportunity to have a quick roll-up, blowing blue-grey smoke out of his open window. Drizzle sheened the streets and blurred the light from the overhead lamps. The pubs had shut and there were very few people around.
'You girls ain't too cold with the window open?' Winston said between puffs on his straw-thin cigarette.
'No, we're fine,' said Sophie, though in truth she was a bit cold; she had goose bumps on her bare arms.
'I'm never cold,' Kirsty said, and touched her forearm with the tip of an index finger, making a tsss sound. 'I'm always hot.'
Winston chuckled. 'I can believe it. So how come you girls are out partyin' so late at night? Ain't you got work in the mornin'?'
Kirsty leaned forward, resting her arm on the back of his seat. 'No, we're-' she began.
And at that moment a chalk-white hand with black fingernails reached in through the driver's side window and ripped Winston's face off.
It happened in an instant. The hand seemed simply to dig its fingers into the soft flesh beneath Winston's jaw and peel off his skin like a balaclava. Winston fell backwards without a sound, sprawling across the front seats, his roll-up still held daintily between the forefinger and second finger of his right hand. Blood fountained from his severed jugular vein, an arterial spray which drenched Kirsty in an instant. She screamed and threw up her hands. All Sophie could do was gape in utter disbelief.
Then the door next to Kirsty was wrenched open, and half a dozen hands shot into the car, grabbed hold of the screaming girl and dragged her out. Sophie couldn't believe what was happening, couldn't believe that less than ten seconds ago she, Kirsty and Winston had been chatting and listening to music. She sat there, frozen in terror, as she heard Kirsty's screams rise in pitch and agony, until they became almost too unbearable to listen to. 'No!' Kirsty was screaming. 'No, please … ' There was a final gurgling scream and then silence.
Shaking from head to foot, her sparkly top speckled with Winston's blood, Sophie reached for the door handle. At first she wasn't sure she even had the strength to turn it. Then the door clicked open and she all but fell into the road. She got up, sobbing, her legs shaky and weak, her stomach juddering, as if she was frozen to the core. She looked over the roof of the car and saw a group of. . things, tearing at something that was covered in blood. Something that no longer looked human. Something that Sophie refused to believe had been her best friend less than a minute before.
Head spinning, her breathing coming in sobbing, shuddering gulps, she tottered away on her high heels. After a few steps she paused to kick them off, and then, with the chill wetness of the ground soaking into her stockinged feet, she ran.
***
'Left here, Jack,' Ianto said.
Jack swung the SUV into the sharp turn without even slowing. The tyres made a screeching hiss on the wet tarmac.
'Whoa there, Mr Testosterone,' Ianto said drily. 'There's no need to impress me with your crazy stunt driving.'
'Never walk when you can run, Ianto,' Jack said heartily.
'Never die when you can live,' Ianto muttered, and then added, 'Oh, I was forgetting — you don't.'
They were 'zombie-hunting', as Jack kept insisting on calling it, the monitoring equipment inside the SUV acting as a kind of 'zombie' satnav. Ianto was using the readings to give Jack directions; only problem was, the 'zombies' — whether by accident or through some kind of flocking instinct — tended to congregate in large groups, and that was something they were trying to avoid. They were in Trowbridge, on the trail of a quartet of the creatures, which appeared to have been stationary for the last five minutes or so. Trowbridge was an area of tight suburban streets and public housing, though it was presently undergoing something of a facelift. The 'zombies' — or at least their Rift traces — had been detected on a road with pre-war housing on one side and a building site (which would soon become desirable new dwellings) on the other.
'First right,' Ianto said, and raised his eyebrows when the wheels on the passenger side of the SUV briefly left the road as Jack took the turn. A dozen metres ahead, parked in the middle of the road, was a blue Passat with its lights on. Jack drove towards it at speed, as if he expected it to simply get out of his way.
'Brake,' Ianto said mildly.
Jack hit the brakes, and the SUV came to a halt mere centimetres from the Passat's rear bumper. Ianto was about to deliver a caustic comment when he saw what Jack had already seen. A man was lying in the gutter beside the car, whilst four figures — little more than dark, bobbing shapes — clawed and scrabbled and thumped at the vehicle, trying to gain access. Ianto supposed there was someone inside that the attackers were trying to get to, but from here he couldn't tell. Jack was already throwing his door open, drawing his Webley, Ianto only a couple of seconds behind him.
'Is this a private party or can anyone join in?' Jack shou
ted. He was grinning, but his gun arm was raised and ramrod-straight.
'Oh, my,' Ianto breathed as the group of figures clustered around the car turned to face them. It was the first time he had seen a 'zombie', but he had to admit their appearance was all-too familiar. Each of them looked as though they had stepped straight off the set of a low-budget horror movie. Ragged, stained clothes; discoloured skin; blank expressions — it was all there. The creatures ticked all the boxes, even in terms of their various stages of decomposition. One was almost skeletal, one ghostly-white, another greenish and bloated. Plus there was a girl, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, who looked as though she could have died yesterday. The girl, her chin and T-shirt caked in blood, her dead eyes sheened with an almost silvery glaze, hissed and crouched. The others moaned and shuffled.
'We'll take her,' Jack said to Ianto.
'Because she's the. . prettiest?' Ianto ventured.
Jack shot him a look. 'Come on, Ianto, even I'm not that shallow. I was thinking more that she wouldn't smell as bad as her buddies.'
Ianto cocked an eyebrow, as if he didn't believe a word of it. 'What about the others?'
'We've got live people in peril here,' Jack said, nodding at the car, inside which they could now see a woman's terrified face peering at them. 'We take them out.'
'Just kill them, you mean?'
'Why not? They're dead already.'
Seemingly oblivious to the weapons that Jack and Ianto were pointing at them, the creatures had now halved the distance between the car and the two men. Without further preamble, Jack raised his Webley and shot the skeletal zombie through the head. Most of its skull blew away like old tree bark and it dropped unceremoniously to the ground.
Gritting his teeth, Ianto shot a balding man with a ginger moustache and splotches of black mould on his greenish skin. The bullet hit the man in the chest, but he simply went down on one knee with a wheeze of escaping air, then stood up again.
'You need to finish them with a head shot,' Jack said, circling round to get a better aim at the third zombie, a chubby guy in what must once have been a nice suit.
'How do you know that?' Ianto asked.
'Believe me, when you've been around as long as I have, you get through a hell of a lot of movies.'
Ianto shook his head, but raised his gun and shot the balding man between the eyes. There was a spurt of thin blood and the man fell over backwards, his skull hitting the pavement with a sound like a dropped coconut.
'This doesn't feel right,' Ianto said. 'These were people once.'
'And now they're just animated cadavers,' said Jack, dropping the guy in the suit with a single shot. 'Think of them as glove puppets.'
'Thanks,' said Ianto. 'That makes me feel a lot better.'
'Hey,' Jack said, circling around to the other side of the car, head snapping from left to right. 'Where'd the girl go?'
Ianto saw a suggestion of movement in the building site across the road, a shadow flitting between the dumper trucks and excavators.
'There,' he said, pointing.
'I see her,' said Jack. He was already running, coat flying behind him. 'I'll get the girl, you look after the people here. Back in five.'
He was gone before Ianto could argue.
'Hang on,' panted Rhys.
He had fallen half a dozen metres behind Gwen, who stopped to let him catch up. His face was red and his forehead was beaded with either sweat or drizzle. His hair stood up in wet spikes.
'You all right, love?' Gwen asked.
He thumped to a halt beside her, putting out a hand to lean against the wall. Gasping, he said, 'You know me, sweetheart. I'm built for endurance, not speed.'
She smiled and rubbed his shoulder supportively. 'We'll have a breather. I reckon we're safe for now.'
They had run, and then jogged, from Bradford Street to Corporation Road, and across Clarence Bridge. Gwen had been hoping they'd be able to make it all the way along James Street to Roald Dahl Plass, where the Hub was located, but on the opposite side of the bridge they had stumbled across a group of about ten zombies shuffling towards them. Knackered though he was, Rhys had been willing to batter his way through with his trusty golf club, but Gwen had decided there was nothing to be gained in taking unnecessary risks. So they had taken a detour along Clarence Embankment and through the tight cluster of residential streets which branched off from it. They were now in a quiet alley linking Harrowby Lane to Harrowby Street, high walls on either side of them.
Rhys leaned against one of the walls with a groan and mopped his brow. 'When I said I wanted some action this evening, this isn't quite what I meant.'
Gwen snorted a brief laugh. 'I wonder what's causing this,' she mused.
'In the movies it's always chemicals or radiation or something,' said Rhys.
She pulled a face. 'That's just daft.'
'This whole situation is daft, if you ask me. I mean, where are all these zombies coming from? Up out of the ground? Hospitals? Morgues?'
Gwen looked thoughtful, then pulled out her phone. 'I'll call Jack, see if he's found out anything.'
She fast-dialled him. He answered on the first ring. 'Hey, Jack, what's going on?'
'I'm zombie-hunting,' he said. His voice was hushed, but he sounded perversely as if he was enjoying himself.
'Where are you?'
'Somewhere in Trowbridge.'
'So you're not at the Hub?'
'What would be the point of zombie-hunting in the Hub?'
Gwen shook her head at the playful but unmistakable disdain in his voice. 'Yeah, sorry. Ignore me. My thoughts are all over the place.'
'Where are you?' Jack asked.
Quickly, Gwen filled him in on what had been happening to her and Rhys, and their present location.
'But listen, Jack,' she said, 'these things are everywhere. This is bigger than we can handle.' She hesitated a moment, then said, 'I'm thinking we need outside help on this. What about putting a call through to UNIT?'
'No way,' he said stubbornly. 'Besides, we can't.'
'Why not?'
'There's a time energy barrier around Cardiff. A kind of dome over the city. No one can get in or out.'
'So this isn't just a random event then? Someone's coordinating it?'
'Looks that way,' he said.
Gwen considered for a moment. 'OK, well, how about I organise a police operation to contain the situation?' Before he could protest, as she knew he would, she said quickly, 'We need manpower on this, Jack. Think of us as. . as farmers, and the police as sheep dogs. We whistle and give instructions and they. . round up the sheep.' She grimaced at her own analogy.
Jack said, 'I don't know, Gwen.'
'Come on, Jack,' she said, 'you know it makes sense. Most people are in bed now, but in five or six hours they'll be waking up, coming out of their houses, and when that happens we'll be faced with a bigger bloodbath than we've got already. If we've got a chance to stop that happening — any chance — we've got to take it.'
He was silent for so long that she thought she'd lost him. Then he said, 'OK. Do it.'
'Speak to you later,' she said. 'Happy hunting.'
She cut the connection and punched in the direct line number to Cardiff's Central Police Headquarters, the one that meant she'd be able to speak to someone in authority without first getting pushed from pillar to post. However, she was greeted by an automated message, which informed her that the connection was currently non-operational and politely suggested she try again later. Sighing, Gwen punched in a couple of other, more general numbers, but was met with the same response.
Huffing in frustration, she said, 'Can you believe this? All the lines are jammed.'
'Wonder why that could be,' Rhys remarked drily.
She looked at him, trying to decide what best to do. Finally she said, 'Right, change of plan. Forget the Hub for now. We'll head to the police station on foot.'
Rhys raised his finger to his forehead in a casual salute. 'Whatever you say, boss
,' he said.
The man in the gutter was not dead, but he looked as though he'd been mauled by a wild animal. When Ianto turned him over, he saw that his jacket and sweatshirt had been shredded, and that there were deep scratches and bite marks in his back, shoulders and arms. Fortunately, the wounds did not look infected, and although the man had lost some blood he was breathing normally and his heartbeat was strong. As soon as he had completed his examination, Ianto stood up and stepped across to the Passat to check on the woman.
She was cowering in the passenger seat, and when Ianto leaned forward to peer in at her through the window, she let out a shrill, breathy scream. What most alarmed him, however, was not how terrified she was, but the fact that she was clearly heavily pregnant.
He held up his hand and smiled. 'Hi,' he said.
The woman just stared at him with wide, shocked eyes.
'I'm here to help,' Ianto said, enunciating the words carefully in the hope that if she couldn't hear him she could at least read his lips. 'Any chance you could unlock this door?'
She didn't respond. Still smiling encouragingly, Ianto said, 'My name's Ianto Jones. What's yours?'
Silence.
Ianto flipped a thumb behind him. 'That man in the gutter. Is he your husband? He's OK, but he needs medical help. You look as though you do too.'
This time the woman did react. She sat up straighter in her seat, a look of startled hope on her face. Ianto saw her struggling to push herself upright, to peer around him.
It was clear that she wanted to see the man in the gutter. Ianto stepped back to give her a better view. 'He's OK,' he said again, raising his thumbs to emphasise the fact.
The woman moved carefully across the front seats, holding her belly and wincing as she did so. There was a clunk as she disengaged the central locking system. Ianto pulled the door open.