Bay of the Dead

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 façade 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?'

ELEVEN

'Now, now, Mildred,' Jack said as the zombie snapped at him, missing his fingers by inches, 'don't be rude.'

Ianto, who was standing behind the chair into which the creature had been secured, raised an eyebrow. 'Mildred?'

Jack removed the last of the sensor pads attached to the zombie's forehead, and straightened up. 'Don't you think she looks like a Mildred?'

Deadpan, Ianto said, 'I'd say she's more of a Kylie.'

'In those shoes? No way!'

The girl might have been small, but she'd been as lively as a Weevil when they had hauled her up from the cells. Between them, Jack and Ianto had eventually managed to strap her into what Jack — and therefore the rest of them — always referred to as the 'interrogation chair'. It had been part of the fixtures and fittings at Torchwood since Emily Holroyd's era in the 1890s, though the thick leather wrist, ankle and neck restraints had been replaced several times in the intervening years.

Jack and Ianto had attached sensor pads to the girl's head to monitor brain activity — if any — and had taken samples of her blood, skin and hair. Finally they had subjected her to a comprehensive body scan, using the Bekaran deep-tissue scanner, a natty little hand-held X-ray device which Owen had been particularly fond of.

Now the results were scrolling across various computer screens arrayed around the girl's snarling, tethered form — and they were making mighty interesting reading.

Jack raised his eyebrows as he scanned the latest findings.

'Well, that decides it,' he said.

'She isn't human?'

'She never was. In fact, she was never anything. She's a construct. She's made of some kind of alien substance which our equipment can't identify. She's ersatz meat.'

'Like Quorn, you mean?' said Ianto.

Jack laughed. 'Zombie flesh as a vegetarian option. Now there's a novel idea.'

Ianto frowned. 'So basically what you're saying is, she's a special effect?'

'But one with substance,' said Jack. 'One that can maim and kill.'

Ianto and Jack looked down thoughtfully at the gnashing, snarling creature in its blood-spattered Girls Aloud T-shirt, straining against its bonds in front of them.

'But where do these things come from?' asked Ianto. 'Who's creating them?'

'That,' said Jack, 'is the question.'

'That's the best I can do,' Andy said, 'though ideally she probably needs a few stitches. Course of antibiotics too, I shouldn't wonder.'

He straightened up, looking down at Dawn, who was lying unconscious on the settee. He had cleaned, disinfected and bandaged her hand, and now all he could do was hope that the infection raging through her system didn't get any worse.

Given tonight's track record, he had half-expected his street to be crawling with zombies when he had turned into it fifteen minutes earlier. But in fact Canton as a whole had been relatively quiet, compared to other parts of the city. The closest zombie to Andy's flat had been an all-but-skeletal old woman with wispy white hair, who had been dragging herself along the pavement on her stomach three streets away.

Even so, Andy had been nervous as he had fumbled for his keys on the drizzle-slick pavement once he and Sophie had carried Dawn the few metres from the car to the mostly lightless apartment block. Even after they had made it inside and shut the door behind them, he had been wary, half-expecting zombies to lurch out at them from every turn of the stairs.

Now, though, finally, he felt able to relax, at least a little. Of course, he was still anxious about Dawn — she looked like death warmed up — but at least, for the time being, they were safe from the marauding undead.

Despite her swollen knee and lacerated feet, Sophie had been a trooper, helping Andy as much as she could, but now she sank into the armchair next to the settee with a groan.

Andy looked at her, and immediately felt guilty for not noticing before how pasty her mascara-streaked face had become. 'You look as though you could do with a cup of tea and some painkillers,' he said.

The trace of a smile flickered on her face. 'I'd rather have a Harvey Wallbanger. But I suppose I'd better keep my wits about me. Just in case. .'

Her words hung in the air between them. Andy knew exactly what she was thinking, for the simple reason that he was thinking precisely the same thing. He knew that neither of them wanted to voice the possibility that there might yet be further horrors in store, and that secretly they were both wondering how and when this terrible nightmare would end.

He wondered whether he ought to say something optimistic, reassuring, but nothing that came to mind struck him as anything but hollow. In the end he simply muttered, 'I'll stick the kettle on,' and sloped out of the room, feeling that somehow he had let the side down.

He was using a spoon to alternately prod the teabags in two mugs, watching the boiling water darken to the colour of chestnuts, when Sophie appeared in the kitchen behind him.

'Don't s'pose there's any chance of a hot bath?' she asked.

'Sure, help yourself,' said Andy. 'First door on the left. You'll find clean towels in the airing cupboard. Oh, and you might as well take these with you as you go.' He handed her a pack of Ibuprofen and hastily scooped the tea bag out of her mug before splashing milk into it. 'Sugar?'

'I'm sweet enough, thanks,' she said with weary humour, and limped out of the room.

Andy heard her enter the bathroom and close the door. A moment later came the soft, somehow comforting spatter of water on plastic. He took a long sip of his tea and closed his eyes, relishing the momentary stillness. He felt utterly exhausted, and yet at the same time he couldn't imagine sleeping ever again — not while zombies were still roaming the streets of Cardiff, at any rate.

When he'd finished his tea, he plodded through to the hallway and tapped on the bathroom door. 'Would you like me to find you some clean clothes to change into?' he asked.

He heard the gentle lap of water. 'Don't suppose you've got a nice cocktail dress I can wear?' she replied.

Andy surprised himself by laughing. 'Mine's in the wash, sorry. T-shirt and jeans do you?'

'Guess it'll have to,' she replied. He could tell from her voice that she was smiling.

He selected a red T-shirt and his tightest black jeans from the drawers in his bedroom, and knocked on the bathroom door again. 'I'll leave the clothes outside,' he told her. 'You might have to roll the jeans up a bit.'

She didn't reply. And then he heard a small sound — something like a sob.

'Sophie?' he said. 'You OK?'

Another pause. Then in a cracked voice she said, 'Yeah.'

'You sure?'

This time her response was more decisive, as if she was really making an effort. 'Yeah, I'm fine. Honestly. I'm. . I'll be OK.'

'Right,' he said. 'Well, listen, you just. . just relax, all right? Take your time. And when you're ready I'll make us a bite to eat. Cheese on toast or something. Sound OK?'

'Sounds great,' she said.

'Right then,' said Andy. He started to move away.

'Andy?' she said.

He paused. 'Yeah.'

'Thanks. For everything, I mean. For saving my life.'

'You're welcome,' he said.

He went into the kitchen and busied himself slicing cheese and tomatoes for their post-midnight snack. He was lifting a couple of plates down from the overhead cupboard when he heard padding footsteps behind him.

'Hope you don't mind your cheddar extra mature,' he said, glancing over his shoulder.

But it wasn't Sophie who had entered the kitchen; it was Dawn.

She was glaring at him, though her eyes were glazed and dead. A string of drool was hanging from her lips, which were curled back from her teeth. She raised her hands — one bandaged, one not — and hooked her fingers into claws, like a child playing at witches. Then, from down in her throat, she began to growl, low and threatening, like a dog.

I really don't need this, Andy thought with a kind of weary irritability, and snatched the cheese knife from the counter beside him. Holding it up, he warned, 'Keep back.' Then he realised what he was doing and decided to try a different tack. 'Dawn!' he said firmly. 'Dawn, can you hear me?'

She shuffled towards him, still snarling and drooling. Andy took another step back, the base of his spine nudging the handle of the cutlery drawer.

'Dawn!' he shouted again. 'Listen to me. It's Andy! We're partners, remember? We're mates.'

There was no recognition in her eyes, nothing but a flat, dull hunger.

Maybe he could knock her out, Andy thought, or disable her in some way. Without taking his eyes off her, he put the knife on the counter behind him and reached for the handcuffs on his belt. But then he remembered he had used the cuffs to restrain the zombie at the party earlier that evening. He took a quick glance over his shoulder, looking for something else he could use.

As soon as he broke eye contact with her, she leaped at him.

Unlike most of the other zombies he had encountered, she was fast. Fast and ferocious. Maybe it was because she wasn't actually dead — or was only just dead, he couldn't help thinking — but she had crossed the room and was at his throat almost before Andy could react. At the last possible instant he threw up his arms and managed to deflect her clawing hands. She went for him again, but this time he managed to grab her wrists, her forward momentum forcing him back against the kitchen units with enough force to rattle the cutlery in the drawers.

'Dawn!' he shouted again, but she just dipped her head and snapped at his face. Her teeth clacked together, mere millimetres from the tip of his nose. He tried to wrestle her off him, to use his superior height and strength to subdue her, but it was as though her muscles were locked, immovable.

Her feral, chalk-white face filled his vision. Clots of her spittle flecked his face and he could smell her hot, sour breath.

Then Andy glimpsed something above her head, something white, bird-like, swooping down on her. He realised it was a towel only when it settled over her head and was pulled tight across her face, yanking her backwards.

Immediately he realised what had happened. Sophie had entered the kitchen behind Dawn and had thrown a towel — maybe the one she had been using to contain her damp hair — over the other girl's head. She was gripping the towel in both fists now, tugging back on it, trying to pull Dawn off balance.

Andy helped her, hooking his foot around Dawn's ankles and whipping her feet from under her. Towel still wrapped around her face, Dawn fell, Sophie jumping back as quickly as her injured leg would allow as the WPC thumped heavily to the tiled floor.

Like a wrestler going for the fall, Andy dropped unceremoniously onto his partner's body, covering her limbs with his own, using his weight to immobilise her. She bucked and thrashed beneath him, but he held on, pressing her to the ground.

Glancing up at Sophie, he shouted, 'Get me two more towels, quick!' Sophie limped away, and returned less than a minute later with a couple of fluffy white towels from the airing cupboard in the bathroom.

'Twist them into ropes!' Andy gasped. 'We need to. . tie her up.'

Sophie did as he asked, and then dropped to Andy's side, wincing at the flare of pain in her knee. Together the two of them wrapped and tied the towels first around Dawn's hands, and then her feet.

By the time they had done, they were both sweating, Sophie's damp blonde hair sticking to her flushed cheeks.

'What do we. . do with her. . now?' she panted, looking down at Dawn's writhing form.

'Suppose we'll have to stick her in the bedroom,' Andy said. 'I'll tie something round the handle to stop her getting out.'

He sat back on his haunches and let out a long, heartfelt breath. Then he looked at Sophie and gave her a shaky smile.

'By the way,' he said, 'those jeans really suit you.'

'The windows are the most vulnerable points,' said Gwen. 'Have you got any wood we can cover them with?'

Rhys and the owner of the house, whose name was Keith Samuels, were struggling out of the front room and into the hallway with a heavy sideboard to shove up against the front door. A constant backdrop of dull, meaty thuds accompanied their attempts to make the building secure, and occasionally a window would rattle, causing Gwen's stomach to flip over. So far, though, the zombies didn't seem to have worked out that the windows were the house's weak points.

'Don't think so,' Keith panted.

'It's only in movies where people have window-sized sheets of wood lying about,' said Rhys. 'But then the things they're trying to keep out always seem to come down the chimney anyway.'

'We haven't got a chimney,' Keith said.

'Well, that's something at any rate,' Rhys replied.

Frustrated, Gwen said, 'Haven't you got anything we can use?'

Keith thought about it. 'There's a chalkboard in the kitchen. And Jaz has got a big cork noticeboard on her wall. She sticks photos and things on it.'

'Well, that's a start,' said Gwen, and called down the hallway. 'Jaz, will you get your noticeboard for me?'

Jasmine, aged eleven, a pretty little slip of a thing, had been helping her mum, Naomi, wedge small but heavy items — the toaster, the microwave — into the barricade of furniture against the back door. She looked at Naomi with wide, scared eyes, as if for approval.

Naomi — short and bespectacled, with black spiky hair — pursed her lips but gave a curt nod, and the little girl scampered upstairs.

'What about the kitchen table?' Gwen said. 'That's nice and big. We could break that up.'

'You're not breaking up my kitchen table,' Naomi bridled, overhearing her. Ever since being roused from her bed she had been acting as if Gwen and Rhys were responsible for the chaos that had befallen her family, as if the two of them had deliberately brought it along in their wake. 'That was a wedding present from Mam and Dad.'

Gwen took a deep breath and counted to five as she walked the short distance along the hallway to the kitchen at the back of the house. She entered the room, flashing Naomi one of her warmest smiles.

'Well, it's like this, see,' she said sweetly. 'If we don't barricade the house, those things out there — those dead things — will get in. And if they get in, they'll rip us apart with their bare hands and they'll eat us. But if you think it's worth risking that happening to your daughter for the sake of an old table. .'

She broke off. Tears were sparkling in Naomi's eyes, and suddenly Gwen realised where the woman's hostility was coming from. It was fear. Plain and simple. Naomi Samuels was terrified.

Instinctively Gwen stepped forward and enfolded the other woman in a hug, the way that Rhys did to her when she'd had a bad day.

'Hey, come on,' she said gently. 'Everything'll be all right. But we've got to pull together on this. OK?'

Huddled against Gwen like a child seeking comfort, Naomi nodded.

Sarah Thomas and her baby son were sleeping. Watching them, Jack smiled, but he couldn't help feeling a pang of sadness at the knowledge that, unless his circumstances changed drastically over the next half-century or so, he would outlive this boy. As the years slipped past, he himself would remain unchanged, while this tiny human being, less than an hour old, grew and blossomed, withered and died. Jack had lost so many friends over the years. He had been to so many funerals and cried so many tears that he was now all but cried out. That still didn't stop him feeling each new death as keenly as the last, however. Blowing a kiss to the sleeping mother and child, he turned and slipped silently away.

Upstairs, Ianto was fussing round the 'pod', which had become something of a pet project of his. In light of their recent discovery, he and Jack had earlier spent twenty minutes discussing strategy over mugs of excellent Java Santos, but the only conclusion they had come to was that their new information didn't really add much in a practical sense to what they already knew. OK, so the zombies were not actually the newly risen dead of Cardiff, but how did that usefully change things? It still didn't give them any insight into who or what might be responsible for the 'invasion' — and, more especially, why it was taking place. Was the outbreak a random occurrence, perhaps some freakish quirk of the Rift, or was it part of the sinister agenda of an evil mastermind, or even a race of aliens, who were currently lurking somewhere in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to emerge?

In the end, Jack had called a halt to the discussion, saying that they both needed to go away and indulge in a little private 'thinking time'. Now, however, he was back, having thought himself to a standstill.

'Any ideas?' he asked, his voice ringing around the Hub.

Ianto, who had changed into a blue suit, pink shirt and blue flowery tie, straightened from his examination of the pod and shook his head. 'Not a sausage. You?'

'Nada,' Jack admitted. 'What say we just go tearing round the streets, kicking asses and looking for clues?'

'I don't think that's-' Ianto began, and then he looked up, to a point above Jack's head. 'Oh.'

Jack turned, following his gaze. A man was standing on the walkway of the level above them, looking down, swaying slightly from side to side. It was Trys Thomas, and he looked ghastly. His face was fish-belly white, his eyes flecks of grey flint in sunken hollows. He wore a slack expression, as if he was drugged or sleepwalking.

'Hey there!' Jack said, raising a hand. 'How you doin'?'

Trys did not reply. Instead his head swung drunkenly from side to side, as if he was looking for an access point to the floor below. Sure enough, he shuffled to the metal steps like an old man and began to clang down them. Jack moved forward to greet him, but Ianto said, 'Careful, Jack.'

'I'm always careful,' Jack said out of the corner of his mouth. 'Just be ready with the handcuffs.'

'If I had a penny for every time you've used that line,' Ianto deadpanned.

Jack shot him a look, then strolled across to the bottom of the metal stairs, like a one-man welcoming committee for a visiting dignitary.

'Good to see you up and about, Trys,' he said. 'It is Trys, isn't it? Guess you're wondering where the hell you are, huh?'

The blankness of Trys's eyes, and the way he moved his head, made Jack think of a blind man fixing someone's position by the sound of their voice.

'Sure you are,' Jack continued breezily, studying Trys's face for any kind of reaction, any flicker of humanity. 'Well, this is the Hub, I'm Captain Jack Harkness and that there is Ianto Jones. And guess what? Your wife Sarah's downstairs, safe and well. Remember Sarah? Remember how she was all big and fat the last time you saw her? Well, I bet you're just dying to know what's been happening while you've been asleep, huh? Want me to tell you?'

Trys was only a few steps from the bottom of the stairs now. His dead eyes were still fixed on Jack, but it was clear that he had no interest in, or understanding of, Jack's words.

All at once he raised his hands and lunged forward. Ianto shouted a warning, but Jack was ready.

'Oh no, you don't!' he cried, grabbing Trys's hands and stepping back. 'You don't catch me out a second time.'

He continued to move backwards at speed, like a ballroom dancer, swinging his partner after him. Trys was shorter than Jack, and his feet barely touched the floor, the toes of his shoes scuffing the metal. Restrained by Jack's grip, he tried to crane his neck forward, to snap at Jack's face, but Jack evaded him easily.

'Never on a first date,' he said with a good-natured grin, and swept Trys around and across the floor, bypassing the workstations and the zombie he had nicknamed Mildred, which was still strapped in the interrogation chair. Mildred watched them pass with the flat eyes of a snake alert for prey. Jack winked at her and swept Trys across to where Ianto was now waiting, beside a rusty but torso-thick support stanchion, handcuffs at the ready.

The two of them were used to subduing strong and vicious Weevils, and it took them no more than a few seconds to drag Trys's arms behind his back and cuff him to the stanchion. When he was secure, Jack and Ianto stepped away, out of range of his snapping teeth. Trys kept trying to walk towards them, and couldn't seem to work out why he was unable to do so. His constant, frustrated efforts were rather pathetic to see.

'What are we going to tell Sarah?' Ianto said sadly.

Jack looked grim. 'Maybe we won't have to tell her anything.'

Ianto frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'Hey, don't look at me like that! What do you take me for? What I mean is that Trys and Mildred are different. She's not a real zombie, so maybe he's not one too.'

'His condition could be psychosomatic, you mean?'

Jack shrugged. 'Let's find out, shall we?'

It was decided, for the sake of convenience, to cuff Mildred to a stanchion on the far side of the Hub for now, and to transfer Trys to the interrogation chair in order to run some tests on him. Jack managed to seal Mildred's mouth with a strip of duct tape without getting his fingers bitten off, and Ianto slipped a choke-loop attached to a metre-long metal pole over her head. Jack then undid the leather straps securing her to the chair and Ianto directed her across the metal floor of the Hub to another support stanchion on the far side of the vast room.

The sound began as a gentle, almost musical warbling. Jack, who was walking beside Ianto with a second set of handcuffs, came to a halt, a puzzled expression on his face.

'You hear that?'

Ianto nodded. 'What is it?'

'I don't know. It's kinda hard to pin down.'

'It seems to be coming from. . everywhere,' Ianto said, looking around. 'It sounds like a song.'

Jack frowned. 'Let's worry about one thing at a time. Her first;

then

we'll work out where the music's coming from.'

They started walking again, Ianto using the metal pole to urge the zombie onwards. The warbling sound grew louder. Jack and Ianto looked at each other. Another few steps, and it was becoming less like a song and more like the howling shriek of an alarm.

They halted again, almost in unison. The sound was unearthly, alien. It filled the Hub with echoes, which resounded and clashed, feeding off one another.

Jack looked up into the vast vault of shadows above him, where the pteranodon could sometimes be seen, swooping and circling.

'What the hell is that?' he demanded, hands over his ears.

Ianto cast about, looking for an answer. His gaze fell on a nearby workbench.

'Look,' he breathed.

Jack looked. 'My God.'

The partially reconstituted pod was going crazy. Coloured lights were flickering across its surface in rapid, but seemingly haphazard patterns. From deep within it emanated a kind of glow, a pulse, like something alive. Now that Ianto had identified it, it was clear that this was the source of the peculiar alien ululation, the heart-rending sound that was somewhere between symphony, siren and scream.

Ianto looked at Mildred and saw the flickering lights of the pod reflected in her dull, silvery eyes.

'It's her,' he said. 'Jack, it's reacting to her.'

Jack nodded. It was true. Unless it was an almighty coincidence, the pod was responding to the proximity of the false zombie, the ersatz meat.

'Now we're getting somewhere,' he muttered.