Pack Animals t-7

by Peter Anghelides

  Gareth hadn’t noticed him yet. But something else had.

  In the grass around him, double-headed flowers were bursting through the surface, like a stop-motion film of a plant lifecycle. Their heads reared, seeking him out, opening their petals and spitting at him. He flung up an arm to protect his face, and the dart-like seeds embedded themselves in his sleeve.

  And in the heel of his hand.

  He jumped back, stung. His gun-arm already felt numb. He was staggering away from the flowers, his balance abruptly deserting him. His head thumped down on the soft turf as the green light from the centre of the Stadium discoloured and faded and went to black.

  Brigstocke said he’d been on enough Stadium tours and Press visits to the Millennium Stadium to know exactly where to find the controls for power and TV transmission. Toshiko was grateful that he hadn’t withdrawn into a helpless, gibbering wreck in the face of the extraordinary events. Extraordinary for him, that was.

  She attached remote control explosives to both the satellite uplink and the landline back-up, and keyed them so that she could activate them from her PDA. She would have preferred to run this from the equipment in the SUV, better still from her workstation back at the Hub. But they would be impossible to reach in time, so she had to improvise.

  ‘Need to switch off the power next,’ she told Brigstocke. The journalist didn’t reply. She looked up from her handiwork on the TV equipment, and saw that he had slipped through a nearby door.

  ‘Mr Brigstocke? David?’

  She pushed the door open and found him in one of the Press boxes. The angled windows offered a magnificent outlook over the whole ground.

  Brigstocke wasn’t admiring the view, though. He was facing away from the window, with his hand to his mouth in shock. He barely moved, though Toshiko could hear him taking little panicky breaths.

  There were other people in the Press box. Some of them were seated at the commentary positions, others stood looking out over the Stadium. But they were all stock-still. Unblinking statues. Living dead men.

  Toshiko heard a soft scraping sound from the window, like a wiper dragged over a dry windscreen. There were two lizards clinging to the outside of the glass, chirruping as they traversed the window with their toe pads. One of them lazily licked its eye with a long grey tongue.

  Brigstocke abruptly leaped across the room and twisted Toshiko away from the window. ‘Don’t look at them!’ he hissed. ‘I remember them from the cards I saw in the car.’ He pulled a handful of MonstaQuest cards from his jacket pocket, and shuffled through them with frightened fingers. ‘There, see!’ He brandished one in front of her eyes. ‘Gorgon Gekko.’ Brigstocke uttered a brittle laugh. ‘Funny when you first read it.’ He noticed Toshiko was trying to compare the cartoon image with the real creatures. ‘No! Don’t look at them!’ He ushered her from the room, back into the access corridor. ‘The text explains that they can freeze enemies into immobility, if they make eye contact for long enough.’

  ‘That’s not plausible,’ she told him.

  ‘Well, tell that to those journalists in there,’ Brigstocke shouted at her.

  Toshiko looked at the card again. ‘This must be one that Gareth invented. But he’s actually brought it to life.’ She grabbed the door handle. ‘We have to see what else he’s doing.’

  ‘Not from that Press box,’ Brigstocke told her. ‘Try one further down.’

  This new Press box was also full of blankly staring journalists. One was halfway through biting into a sandwich. Another was poised with his fingers in mid air above a laptop computer. When Brigstocke spotted a third one with a half-full glass of champagne lifted to his lips, he smacked it out of the man’s frozen hands.

  Toshiko hurried over to him in concern. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s Ieuan Walters, the bastard!’ Brigstocke looked furious. ‘Wait till I see Eleri. Mid-Wales Beer Festival, my arse! He’s glugging champagne at the international, the crafty sod.’

  Toshiko moved cautiously to the front of the room. ‘No lizards clinging to these windows,’ she noted with relief.

  ‘They must have made their way along the row,’ Brigstocke suggested.

  Toshiko looked down onto the pitch. The tiered seats dropped away towards the pitch in a vertiginous slope. At the centre of the ground, Gareth still dominated the scene with his bizarre alien courtiers.

  Brigstocke spread the MonstaQuest cards on the desk in front of him, and began to pick out the creatures he could see.

  ‘We can’t let this get out,’ Toshiko said. She called up the control interface on her PDA, and set off the remote explosives. The satellite feed and the landline severed instantly. Monitors across the Stadium fizzed into white noise or colour bars. With another remote command from the PDA, she began to shut the Stadium roof.

  The green vortex around Gareth faltered, playing out on the closing roof like a strange laser show.

  Gareth had noticed what was happening. He rotated in a full circle, as though scanning the entire Stadium with his baleful gaze, until coming to a halt and pointing.

  Even at this distance, Toshiko could see what he was doing. With a thrill of horror, she saw that he was pointing straight at her.

  A pair of bat-black nightmare creatures flapped their dreadful wings and began to swoop across the Stadium towards the Press box.

  Jack whooped in air as he came back to life.

  Poison was a tricky one in his long experience of death and resurrection. If it stayed in the system, it kept killing him, and revival was a multi-stage affair. If he was able to metabolise it, like now, his recovery was swift.

  Two fat birds, savage crows the size of Rottweilers, were pecking at the sleeve of his coat. He rolled over, but couldn’t shake them off. So he retrieved the Webley revolver from the grass, and took off the birds’ heads with a couple of shots.

  Jack tapped his earcomm. ‘Tosh, how are you getting on?’ The hiss of static told him that no signal was getting through.

  Gareth was thirty metres away, and apparently engrossed with something way up in the stands. Jack took careful aim at the back of the man’s head. He was applying first pressure to the trigger when he felt a fresh tug on his coat. A flock of the Rottweiler-crows seized his clothes, flesh, and hair in their talons, and lifted him bodily into the air.

  Jack couldn’t angle the Webley to hit any of them. The ground vanished beneath him at dizzying speed, and he was soon carried high up above the middle tier of seats. Now wouldn’t be a good time to struggle free, he decided.

  The monstrous birds had other ideas. As they swooped over the stand, they released him. Jack flailed in mid air, as though there might be something to grab on to. The last thing he saw was a balcony filled with padded chairs and a sliding door made of plate glass before he smashed into the stands.

  The hideous bat-creatures slammed onto the Press box’s window again. A faint trace of lines spread over the surface of the glass. Brigstocke shrank back against the far wall. ‘We have to get out of here.’

  ‘No,’ said Toshiko in a firm, level tone. ‘We have to be able to see what’s happening in the Stadium.’

  Down on the pitch, an enormous crevasse was opening up. Gareth Portland stood on a column of earth, a spindly tower that poked precariously up and supported him in the middle of the maelstrom. Fat jungle vines spewed from the dark earth and over the grass, snaking off in search of the stands. The thick boles of gnarled trees reared up from the green turf, and their branches whipped around in the tearing wind that circled the inside of the Stadium.

  ‘What does Gareth think he’s doing?’ moaned Brigstocke.

  ‘There is no Gareth any more,’ Toshiko explained. ‘The Visualiser is completely controlling him. Turning this place into an alien world. From here, it’ll spread out across Cardiff.’

  The bat-creatures smacked into the glass, cracking the glass and smearing fresh spittle from their foam-flecked jaws.

  ‘Those things are going to open this box like
a packed lunch,’ yelled Brigstocke. ‘Can’t you cut off the Stadium power? Won’t that stop him?’

  ‘It’ll only stop him generating new creatures,’ said Toshiko. She brushed something from her face, and found that shards of glass had cut her cheek and palm. ‘Besides, I have a much better idea. And I need your help.’

  Jack resurrected in a mess of glass and blood. He had fallen to his death into one of the private boxes on the Stadium’s middle tier. He struggled up, and surveyed the arena. Either he’d been dead for a while this time, or things had moved on faster than he’d expected.

  The retractable roof was fully closed, reflecting back the shimmer of green light that now infused the whole building. A tangle of strange foliage sprawled over the entire pitch, through which sprouted a forest of extraterrestrial trees. Fantastical creatures crawled and galloped in an alien landscape. And at its centre, Gareth conducted events from a thin podium of green turf within a ravine that cut deep into the earth below the Stadium.

  Gareth was directing his attention in the direction of the Press gallery. Jack snatched up a pair of binoculars from the private box, and focused them upwards.

  He could just make out Toshiko and Brigstocke in the window of the far Press box, grappling with the Visualiser device. A flock of the Rottweiler-crows and a couple of bat-creatures were hurling themselves repeatedly at the cracked glass in a desperate attempt to reach them.

  The ground shook like an earthquake. Jack snapped his head back towards the pitch. He blinked in disbelief. Struggling out of the further reach of the crevasse in the pitch was an enormous humanoid shape, its bald white skull fringed with a halo of curly red hair. The hands were bulbous, and when it placed its elbows on the edge of the ravine, it revealed it was wearing yellow-striped dungarees.

  The creature threw back its pale white face, and beneath the bulbous red nose was a mouth filled with daggers.

  ‘A killer clown.’ Jack bellowed with laughter. ‘That has gotta be Tosh!’ She must have inserted herself in the game using the other Visualiser. She was giving Gareth a fight. But there was surely no way that she could win against the guy who created MonstaQuest?

  The clown had pulled itself free now. Gareth directed his monsters to attack the bizarre newcomer. Even the alien trees rippled and began to shuffle forward to defend their creator.

  Jack surveyed the rest of the Stadium. The howling wind that encircled the enclosed space was beginning to loosen chairs and hoardings. But soaring towards him from the stand beyond the goalposts was another extraordinary sight. A flying unicorn.

  The pale white coat was dappled green in the supernatural light. It seemed to toss its head at him as it approached. Jack clambered up onto the balcony rail, waited for the amazing creature to pass, and leaped onto its back.

  He almost overshot. But the animal dropped its shoulder and swung around so that Jack was able to rebalance.

  He sat well forward on the animal’s withers, plunging his hands into its silky mane and pushing his legs over the point of the shoulder to keep them clear of the elegantly beating wings. He held on grimly as it veered into the wind and out over the centre of the Stadium.

  The unicorn shimmied right a little, then swooped through a sudden squall in the wind. Its legs kicked away the snatching branches of the alien trees as the hooves skimmed the canopy. Gareth Portland was straight ahead, facing away on his tall thin pedestal, his red hair glowing in the unnatural light. Trees and animals blurred past Jack’s face. He grappled with his flapping coat as he retrieved the Webley.

  ‘Hey, Gareth!’ he bellowed into the wind.

  Gareth twisted around to see the unicorn approaching.

  ‘Game over!’ yelled Jack, and loosed off a single shot that took Gareth smack in the forehead.

  The man’s head snapped back, and he dropped wordlessly into the alien abyss. Jack watched the Vandrogonite Visualiser spinning end over end as it tumbled after him.

  The tornado in the Stadium howled, paused, and changed direction. The gruesome creatures scrabbled for purchase with hooves and claws and hands as the shifting alien surface slid towards the dark maw that had just consumed Gareth and the Visualiser. It was like a tablecloth was pulled into a hole at the centre of the pitch, dragging everything helplessly down with it.

  Jack flew up towards the Press box. The monstrous bats and the Rottweiler-crows were abruptly snatched backwards, as though propelled from a gun, and hurled into the centre of the Stadium. The unicorn circled around in front of the cracked glass of the Press box, and Jack could make out Toshiko and Brigstocke clutching the other Visualiser between their outstretched hands. They turned to grin back at Jack. Brigstocke let go of the Visualiser and gave Jack a double thumbs-up gesture.

  Which was the exact moment that the unicorn vanished, and sent Jack plummeting to the stands far below.

  *

  Toshiko was mopping his brow when Jack revived this time. He found that he was badly twisted across a couple of Stadium seats. Brigstocke sat several rows further up the tier, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Toshiko directed Jack’s attention to the bowl of the Stadium. There was an ominous cracking noise from his spine when he straightened up to take a look.

  In the stark white of the floodlights, it was clear that the crevasse had disappeared. There was no trace of the alien flora or fauna, though the turf was rutted and torn, and chairs and hoardings were strewn across its surface.

  He looked at Toshiko’s scratched, blood-flecked face. She looked exhausted, but pleased. ‘Well played, Tosh,’ smiled Jack.

  Toshiko pulled out her PDA and tapped something into it. The giant scoreboard flickered into life. Jack looked up and laughed. It said: ‘Torchwood 1, Achenbrite 0’.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Toshiko was delighted with her ‘Get Well’ card. Owen had knocked up a design based on the MonstaQuest pack, with her picture square and centre. The monster type was ‘Genius’, and she had high scores for all the attributes: ‘Intelligence’, ‘Imagination’, ‘Bravery’.

  Typical Toshiko, she’d quibbled why they’d only rated her nine out of ten for ‘Dress Sense’.

  ‘You’re making a fuss about nothing, anyway,’ she said. ‘I’ve only got a few glass cuts on my face. You should have seen what happened to Jack.’

  ‘Get Well Soon cards are wasted on Jack,’ noted Owen.

  ‘Perhaps we should get him a Get Well Slowly card,’ Ianto said. He and Gwen had just clattered in through the cog-wheel door, returning from their hunt for the guerrilla gorilla. ‘He might take a bit of time off.’

  ‘Careful, Ianto.’ Gwen patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’re starting to sound like Rhys. I’m just off the phone from him, and he’s all “you’re late again, Gwen”. No thank you for warning him to stay away from the Stadium, mind.’

  ‘Was he angry about missing the match?’ asked Ianto.

  ‘Angrier that Banana got pissed in the City Arms and had to be carried home.’

  Jack hung back quietly, unnoticed. He enjoyed the easy confidence that his team had together, friendship and trust forged in combat against whatever the Rift could throw at them. Sometimes he just liked to watch them like this, so proud of their achievements.

  He left them in the Hub celebrating, and slipped away for his appointment in town. David Brigstocke was already sitting at a table in the window of Casa Celi when Jack arrived.

  ‘My first instinct was that this would be a trick.’ Brigstocke tried to sound nonchalant, but Jack could practically hear his heart hammering the inside of his tweed jacket. Did the guy have nothing else in his wardrobe? ‘Are you humouring me, Jack?’

  Jack pushed aside a red napkin containing cutlery so that he could lean on the table. ‘Stand you up? Never.’

  Brigstocke put his hand into his jacket pocket.

  ‘No recording, please,’ said Jack.

  ‘Would there be any point?’

  Jack shook his head very slightly. ‘But tonight, I’m trusting you. L
et’s just talk.’

  Brigstocke brought his hand back out again, and folded it over the other on the metal table. ‘I notice that you walked here.’

  ‘Exercise is how I retain these irresistible good looks.’

  ‘Something more than that, I think.’ Brigstocke’s eyes glittered. ‘Your foot’s completely healed. Impossibly fast, wouldn’t you say? And as for the injuries you sustained in the Stadium…’

  Jack beckoned the waiter over and ordered a glass of iced water for himself and a Morreti beer for Brigstocke.

  ‘Captain Hark-a-ness!’ declared the waiter. ‘And-a what-a else can I get-a for you?’

  Jack grinned and sent him on his way. He knew that Enrico Celi was a Welsh Italian with a natural South Wales accent. ‘Save it for the punters, Rico,’ he laughed.

  Rico winked, and returned to a large table at the rear of the café. A small group of Italians from the international were trying to enjoy themselves. Depending on the result, Rico had been planning either a celebration or a wake, but the match postponement had dampened enthusiasm. A smaller number had turned up than he’d expected. Jack studied them across the room as they gazed sullenly at their gnocchi. All of them had the dark hair and tan that made even the meanest of features look attractive. Well, compared to the Welsh anyway, thought Jack as one drunk hammered on the front window while staggering past.

  Which brought his attention back to Brigstocke.

  ‘I saw that one of its heads seemed to have had a fatal wound,’ Brigstocke quoted, ‘but that this deadly injury had healed and the whole world had marvelled and followed the beast.’

  ‘Beast?’ smiled Jack. ‘I’ve been called that before.’

  Brigstocke leaned closer. ‘It’s from the Bible. In the church this morning, do you remember? You’re not a beast, Jack. But you’re something more than human.’

  Jack sipped his water and said nothing.

  ‘And I’ve seen you and your team in action today. Properly, I mean. Saving all those people. And so much more. I hope I helped.’