Pack Animals
( Torchwood - 7 )
Peter Anghelides
Peter Anghelides. Pack Animals
(Torchwood – 7)
Light filled Father Ninian’s church and lifted his soul. He loved the place most when it was like this in the mid-morning.
He shaded his eyes to stare up at the rose window above the choir loft. Its brilliant light silhouetted the music stands like skeletal overseers, and sent long shadows running down the length of the nave’s nut-brown parquet. Two centuries of city building around Holy Innocents meant this was the only time of day that natural light streamed uninterrupted through any window in the eighteenth-century building. For much of Cardiff’s population, passing by on their way to shops or work or clubs, the church might as well be invisible. It was tired and old, a bit like Father Ninian, but at moments like this he saw the glory of God again in its damaged pink sandstone. He could even ignore the thrumming vibration of the sewer works in the street around the corner.
He inhaled all the church’s familiar smells. The snuffed smoke of extinguished offertory candles. The beeswax of polished pews. The background tang of old incense. In the vestment room there would be the scent of crisp linen and the cheap aftershave of the more senior altar boys.
Only boys, because Father Ninian didn’t like altar girls.
Two lonely parishioners awaited his arrival for confession today. Mrs Wendle and her husband, of course, bundled in their heavy coats, sitting in the pew between the fifth and sixth Stations of the Cross. Simon of Cyrene and St Veronica gazed down with the glazed beatific expressions of nineteenth-century oils.
He genuflected before the altar. When he rose, he smiled in the Wendles’ direction. Unlike the painted saints, they avoided his eyes. The pensioners preferred to talk with their priest in the supposed anonymity of the confessional, pouring out their endless personal litany of venial sins, trivial misdemeanours and perceived slights. Father Ninian kept the pain of his own mortal sins close to himself. He had entered into temptation, he knew, but the flesh was weak. He also knew the promise of damnation if his sin remained unpardoned, and that it must be expunged by sanctifying grace before the time of death. Well, he had opportunity enough for that.
His sacristan fussed by the altar rail as she prepared the church for afternoon mass. Father Ninian smiled at the old woman, and indicated the Wendles. ‘The usual suspects, eh, Miss Bullivant?’
Miss Bullivant scrunched her aged mouth into a disapproving pout so that it puckered like a dog’s bum. She opened the New Jerusalem Bible on the altar rail, and tapped an arthritic knuckle on a page. Father Ninian could see it was the Book of Revelation.
‘Its heads were marked with blasphemous titles,’ she whispered. Miss Bullivant always whispered in church. Father Ninian only ever met her in church, so perhaps she whispered all the time. ‘Blasphemous titles,’ she emphasised, and grasped his sleeve with a gnarled hand. An unlikely description of the Wendles, Father Ninian was about to say, when Miss Bullivant continued: ‘Those youngsters play with monsters. They don’t understand that Halloween should be All Hallows Eve. You should talk about it in your sermon, Father. It’s not about tricks and treats and ghosts and monsters. Forget the saints, and all that’s left is a cult of death.’
Father Ninian looked away from the old woman’s agitated face, and studied the passive expressions of the painted saints by the Stations. ‘I shall consider it, Miss Bullivant,’ he said, meaning no. ‘But I mustn’t keep the Wendles waiting, must I? Are my vestments ready for mass?’
A guilty thought made him smile as he walked away. The pensioners might confess a mortal sin at Halloween after all. If Mrs Wendle had, in a weak moment, been practising black magic, that would be a clear transgression of the First Commandment. He could only hope.
Miss Bullivant’s hiss followed him down the side aisle as she disappeared into the vestry. ‘There’s someone in there already. Waiting.’
Father Ninian frowned. He preferred penitents to wait outside until he had settled himself in place in the confessional box. It wouldn’t do to peer too obviously through the grille. He kissed and positioned his stole, muttered his words of prayer, and said softly: ‘Yes, my child?’
It sounded like a chuckle from beyond the grille. ‘My child?’ repeated a young man’s voice.
Father Ninian hoped it wasn’t another Saturday morning drunk. He leaned towards the grille. There was no smell of alcohol, just the dusty veil and the cherry-wood frame. ‘How long is it since your last confession?’
‘Forgive me, Father,’ said the soft voice, ‘for you have sinned.’
Now Father Ninian did peer directly through the grille. He saw a figure in an orange Cardiff United shirt. The unblinking green eyes stared back, so shockingly direct that the priest flinched away. He knew this boy. No longer a boy, of course, he was… who? Father Ninian’s mind reeled as he tried to compose his thoughts. One of his altar servers from… eight years ago, perhaps more. Gary or Gareth or Graeme. Gareth, it was Gareth. Must be in his twenties now. How could he have forgotten Gareth?
‘You’re not going to forgive me,’ Gareth said coldly.
Father Ninian fiddled with his trouser leg. He couldn’t leave now, he’d barely been in here two minutes, what would the Wendles think? ‘It’s not me who forgives you, my son. I absolve you in the name of-’
‘I don’t want your absolution.’
‘You could have sought penance at any church. Why choose Holy Innocents?’
‘Holy Innocents?’ Another snort of laughter. ‘You’re not wholly innocent yourself, are you, Father?’ He rattled the partition between them. ‘I’ve brought you this.’
A piece of coloured card was pushed through the side of the grille. It was like a large playing card, the size of a paper sheet folded in half. Father Ninian plucked it from the frame and studied it quizzically. His question died on his lips when he heard the fizzing noise, like a match being struck. Absurdly, the priest’s first thought was of Health and Safety regulations that forbade smoking inside the building but still allowed his altar boys to light a thurible and wave incense around the church.
A bright flare of illumination filled the confessional. The priest felt his heart pound. The place was ablaze with light. In the confined space, a squat human shape was forming before his eyes, dark against a brilliance brighter than the rose window.
No, not a human. Now he could see a monster in human form. Rags loosely covered its creased leathery hide. A skein of scraggy hair tufted around a snarling face of deep-set eyes and drooling mouth. Its forehead was marked with deep wrinkles, brutal furrows scribbled across its brow. The enclosed space filled with its foul stench.
‘Oh God!’ cried Father Ninian.
‘As usual,’ said Gareth’s calm voice, ‘God has nothing to do with it.’
Father Ninian choked a scream. The creature cocked its hideous head and turned its attention to him. It seized him in one savage movement and raked the flesh of his face and neck with its sharp teeth. The priest shrieked and slipped from its grasp. He squirmed between its straddling legs, through the curtain, and out onto the parquet of the aisle. Mrs Wendle craned her neck out of her overcoat, and stared down at him like a startled turtle.
Inside the confessional, the monster lurched to left and right in a furious attempt to escape from its wooden prison. The curtain wrenched aside and the creature loomed in the frame, bellowing. The Wendles fled.
Father Ninian scrambled backwards down the side aisle, too terrified to decide whether to waste time trying to stand. The creature slammed two pews aside. Beyond it, the priest could see Gareth swiftly but calmly walking away into the shadows at the rear of the church.
‘Gareth, help me!’ ple
aded Father Ninian.
Gareth’s orange football shirt continued to move away. The young man’s calm voice floated back in the church’s echo. ‘Help you? I can’t even forgive you.’
Just as Father Ninian reached the altar rail, the monster reached Father Ninian.
ONE
Banana Boat was driving Rhys Williams crazy. Rhys hated shopping trips at the best of times, and his long-time school friend’s relentlessly cheerful running commentary during their progress through the out-of-town mall was wearing him down. That parking was impossible, said Banana. These food court prices were a rip-off, announced Banana. Those lasses in Valley Girl were well shaggable, declared Banana. And is that kid wearing a Halloween mask, or does being that ugly come naturally?
He’d been hyper since getting back from Lanzarote. Rhys was almost sorry that the Spanish authorities had released Banana from his brief stay in police custody. He’d been caught flogging bootleg CDs in Tias, but unexpectedly allowed home with just a warning. ‘They kept my bloody CDs, though,’ Banana had grumbled, to Rhys’s incredulity.
The way today was going, he’d be behind bars again before lunch, they wouldn’t have the wedding coats hired, and they’d both miss this evening’s international at the Stadium to boot.
‘Hello?’ called Banana from the nearby changing room. He was poking his head around the curtain and trying to attract the blonde assistant’s attention. ‘Can you help me, love? The toilet roll has run out in here.’
Rhys struggled not to smile. The badge on the blonde’s bosom told Rhys that she was senior sales assistant Kelly. The prices in the catalogue told Rhys that his dad wasn’t going to get any change out of his wedding budget.
‘Sorry about him,’ muttered Rhys. ‘He’s my best man.’ Senior sales assistant Kelly’s tight smile made him wonder ruefully whether he’d made the wrong choice of best man. He’d considered the alternatives. Dozy Daf? Barry ‘Island’ McGinn with the stutter? No, on reflection, Banana was the least-worst man.
Rhys signed away a month’s salary as a deposit, and dragged Banana Boat out of the store. A group of four teenagers swaggered past, identikit grey hoods pulled up in defiance of the mall’s rules, and indifferent to the wake they caused in the crowd of shoppers. What was it about you lumpen hooligans, he wanted to ask, swaggering about like a pack of animals? Rhys clicked his tongue, but held it too; he could already imagine Gwen admonishing him, and she was a police officer who supposedly knew how to handle the little monsters. And she knew how to handle real, big monsters too, of course. That put things into perspective for him.
Banana leaned on the rail, peering down into Pendefig Mall like a fisherman surveying prospective catches.
‘It’s madness,’ Banana told him. ‘You said it would be quieter out here. Should have gone to Evans the Suit in town, like your dad said.’
‘Evans Suit Hire,’ Rhys corrected him.
‘Suit yourself,’ laughed Banana.
Rhys studied the till receipt from senior sales assistant Kelly. Too late for that option.
The escalators were crammed with overloaded shoppers, and the ground-floor walkway below seemed to quiver as snaking currents of people moved ceaselessly in their Saturday morning quest to consume.
‘Should have stayed in town,’ insisted Banana.
Rhys shook his head. ‘That’ll be worse. Especially when the football crowds start arriving at the stations.’
Banana wasn’t listening. He was pointing indiscreetly at the lower level. ‘Is that Sheelagh Thompson? God, I could drop a peanut into her cleavage from here. In fact, there’s room for the whole packet.’
‘You big kid. What are you, twelve?’ Rhys groaned.
‘I know,’ grinned Banana, showing his even white teeth, ‘I’m an animal. But she’s my type. I fancy a bit of blond on blonde. Just ’cause you’re getting married, sad boy, doesn’t mean the rest of us have stopped doing road tests.’ He gazed almost pleadingly at Rhys.
Rhys looked at his watch. It felt like they’d been here hours, but it was still only half past ten. ‘I think I can get the rest of the stuff myself, Banana. Why don’t you knock off now, and I’ll meet you later at the match?’
Banana’s grin got even wider. ‘If Gwen’ll let you.’ He pressed one thumb into the open palm of his other hand. ‘Like that, you are, mate! Don’t get caught!’
‘You can bloody talk!’ Rhys called after him. ‘Why not buy yourself some CDs while you’re here?’
Banana flicked a cheery V-sign over his shoulder as he strode off to the escalator, irresistibly drawn by Sheelagh Thompson’s tits.
Rhys had to keep an eye out. He’d promised Gwen he wouldn’t shop here today. It was unlucky to see the dress beforehand, she’d told him. He’d said that was only if she was wearing it, and she’d retorted that she was planning on trying it on first, thank you, and he should keep well out of the way. Somewhere else in the Pendefig Mall, she and that mate of hers from school, Megan, would be in one of the bridal-wear shops and spending a small fortune. So he could get this done, and still be back home in time to cook lunch, as he’d promised.
Rhys pulled a crumpled scrap of paper from his jeans pocket. He could leave the bridesmaids’ gifts for another time, but he had time to get a present for the least-worst man before he sneaked off home again.
He made his way up the escalator, nudging past the standing pedestrians on the right. As Rhys stepped off the moving stairway, a matronly woman beside him told her daughter proudly: ‘That there is the biggest shoe shop in South Wales. And I know the manager!’ Gwen would have loved that one – he’d have to remember it later.
Several angry shouts from the opposite escalator made Rhys twist around. A ripple worked its way down the line as someone shoved roughly past. Another kid in a hurry. Round-shouldered in his leather jacket, and wearing a stupid Halloween mask. Most of the bumped shoppers shrugged, fuming inside but too frightened to speak up. One old codger at the bottom was having none of it, though. Rhys watched in amusement from his position near the top of the opposite escalator. The old guy raised his furled umbrella and gave the kid a whack across the arm. The kid paused briefly to snarl through his mask. The old guy recoiled as though he’d been spat at, but gave the kid another smack with his brolly.
‘Ooh, that’s gotta smart!’ breathed Rhys in appreciation.
The kid hunched his shoulders, and loped off into the crowd of shoppers, knocking aside those who didn’t make way as he barged through. From the hand gestures they were making, it was clear the kid smelled none too good, either. Dirty, uncouth little yob.
The upper level had a row of toyshops. Where better, mused Rhys, to buy a joke gift for Banana, the big kid? If he couldn’t find something here, there were always the market stalls outside the mall’s main entrance.
The first two stores were for pre-school and infants, brightly lit and devoid of customers. In the far corner, though, was a smaller toyshop. This one had a hand-painted sign fixed precariously above the uPVC frame of its standard mall store front: Leonard’s Toys and Games. And, unlike the other stores, it seemed to be full of chattering kids. The front window was decked out in shades of orange and black, crammed with Halloween pumpkins, witches’ cloaks and hats, vampire teeth and wolf-man masks, liberally sprayed with stringy lines of cobweb.
Inside, old-fashioned wall shelving was stacked with board games and fantasy novels. Rhys saw no electronic games. Rotating wire racks were hung with blister packs of carved models, mythical characters that included gorgons, winged serpents, a Cyclops. The thin-faced shopkeeper smiled at Rhys as he meandered through the closely stacked displays.
There was a whoop from the rear of the shop. A group of young adults had crowded around a hand-crafted landscape. They positioned characters, painted versions from the blister packs, in competing formations. Each participant held a hand of brightly coloured, oversized playing cards. A rangy lad with spiked hair rattled dice from a cup. Whatever he scored, it caused another deep-thr
oated cheer of encouragement from the crowd. Rhys could feel their energy coursing through the cluttered shop. ‘Geek power,’ he murmured.
He blenched as he almost walked into a figure by the tills. It was an old shop dummy, a reclaimed version of the sort you’d find in big department stores like Wendleby amp; Son. Its incongruously elegant hands poked out from the neatly pressed boiler suit, and a scowling full-face mask obscured most of its sculpted head. Rhys had jumped involuntarily because he recognised the tufted hair, deeply furrowed brow, and angular foam teeth. It was so like that creature he’d seen in the Torchwood dungeon. What had Gwen called it? ‘A Weevil,’ he said.
‘It’s a Toothsome, actually,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘From MonstaQuest?’ Rhys looked blankly at him. ‘I’m forever “translating” for parents. It’s the new trading-card game. Models and masks too, you know.’ Rhys obviously looked like he didn’t. ‘Bit of a craze with the older teens and upwards. Doing really well.’ The shopkeeper’s smile looked like a mouthful of baby teeth. He was younger than Rhys. Unshaven, with dark uncombed hair. Eager. ‘Are you buying for your kids?’
Rhys laughed. ‘No kids. Not yet,’ he said, and wondered why he’d added that.
He remembered what Banana had said before he left: ‘I’m a monster.’ Yes, these would do. And the joke was even better for him and Gwen, because they knew real monsters when they saw them.
‘MonstaQuest, eh?’ Rhys pulled a scrunched-up tenner from his pocket. ‘I’ll take a pack of those, then.’
The shopkeeper had just handed Rhys the oversized cards when the mall’s fire alarm went off.
TWO
‘Come on, Ianto, get a move on,’ said Jack Harkness. He wriggled in the driver’s seat of the SUV. ‘My ass is going to sleep here.’
‘I know,’ muttered Ianto Jones. ‘I heard it snoring.’ He tapped some more at the compact keyboard and the heads-up display flickered its response. ‘Believe me, I’m as keen to get out of this vehicle as you are. Some date, huh?’
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