The scented blossoms
caught in her throat as she walked through the gardens of the stately home on
the English estate. Large and somewhat overgrown rhododendrons bushes hung heavy
with thick purple blossoms, azaleas, reds and oranges planted evenly throughout
the walkway beckoned the bees and insects to gorge themselves on the nectar,
while giving the pollen as a gift. Geoff as usual was ahead of her, his compass
grasped in his thick stubby hand with nails short from biting; forever gazing
at it for fear of losing his way. He was
a short stocky figure with short curly brown hair, green eyes and hopelessly
white, never a suntan. He wore his
combat trousers, more pockets than contents. Geoff rarely paid attention she
thought to the beauty of the Lakes, especially in the height of summer.
They were taking a well-earned break, a
week away from the city, staying in a holiday let just up from the Lake. It was
to be a time of togetherness, a time for planning their future together, the
work was just the cover they needed, for a little bit of R&R.
Geoff had a small row boat he was
borrowing from a friend. Marley had
brought her laptop; she had a few reports to finish up before Monday. She hated loose ends, and in their line of
work, you couldn’t have too many of those.
Marley was wearing her usual casual
outdoor wear, actually her every day casual soft denim jeans, slip on shoes,
scuffed and in need of a replacement before the end of the month, her light
coloured blue shirt, long sleeved, it didn’t show off her slim figure as well
as it should but she’d never been one for tight fitting figure hugging
closeness, ill fitting and loose, gave her room for manoeuvre she’d told Geoff
once.
Geoff had proposed to her on the banks of
Coniston Lake last year, this year was meant to be them planning for the
wedding, a summer wedding, with marquee, posh stately home in the background,
nothing too fancy she mused. But so far the only chance of reviewing their
dream wedding had been in a magazine they’d picked up in the village last
night, and the only visit to a stately home had been the one they were at right
now, and the only reason they were there was to check out the size of the
footprints in the sunken garden, that had been the reason for their entire
visit.
To say they were investigative journalists
was an insult to journalists, but to say that they were investigators of the
paranormal or the extraterrestrial was quite believable given that both worked
for Torchwood, and had done for several years.
It wasn’t by chance that they’d stumbled upon the offer to work for
Torchwood; they’d both seen their fair share of alien creatures and those kinds
of creatures that defied all logic. But
it was a different Torchwood to that which Marley had come to discover on the
other side of the forest, in a flash of electricity and the strong smell of
cordite.
‘It’s this way.’ Geoff pointed towards the
Sunken Gardens of Winscott Manor with his free hand. Marley sighed, had he have looked up from his
readings on that gizmo it would have told him more of the landscape and where
he was going than what colour the sky was today, or that he’d just walked in a
large pile of dog crap as he stomped over a mound of grass and walked up through
some Livingstone daisies in a small patch of earth, he might have seen the sign
that said ‘Sunken Gardens – 25 yards to the left’.
Marley walked around it, observing with
her eyes just how big the gardens were, how tidy, aside from the random dog
droppings. She bent down to take a sample in a phial she carried inside a
plastic box in her shoulder bag. It
didn’t smell like dog crap, sort of that smell you have when you linger over a
reptile tank.
Geoff put away the compass gizmo into his
left pocket of his Trespass waistcoat and pulled out his camera. The footprint
was large, not large enough to create another sunken garden, but large enough
that it didn’t fit with any creature within their own eco system. It was three toed, favoured its heels as it
walked and seemed from one footprint to the next - a distance of six feet from
each step, to be a very large creature indeed.
Another point of fact was the swathe it
cut through the flower bed and grass behind the monstrous footsteps left Geoff
and Marley thinking that they were possibly dealing with an amphibious
creature, likely reptilian.
‘It’s a bloody great big crocodile.’ Marley deduced.
‘We don’t know that for sure.’ Geoff pulled out his gizmo and tried to
measure the distance from each footprint and calculated some figures.
‘Three toed, swathing tail judging by the
mess through the petunias and look at the angle of the footprints. A crocodile
or alligator moves like that on land, shifting its weight from one side to the
other, short of it being a bloody great big snake, with legs...’ Marley tapered off as Geoff shot her a look.
‘...fine, what does the gizmo tell us?’ She sighed.
At the end of the day it all came down to electronic gadgets than
physical observations. Sometimes she really hated technology.
The gizmo bleeped and vibrated while the
calculations were processed, then there was a pause and Geoff stared at the
findings.
‘Well what is it, Einstein?’ Marley stepped
down from the raised flower bed and walked over the destroyed sunken garden to
where Geoff stared at the results on his hand-held gadget.
‘It’s a crocodile...’
‘There, what did I tell you?’ She waited for the apology but nothing
came. She wandered over and looked over
his shoulder.
He was right; it was a crocodile, sort
of. “Is that...hair, it is, isn’t
it. How can that detect everything about
the creature without even collecting data, researching the information, putting
the results through extensive readings in a lab...’ She stared at the large 2D diagram and pulled
a face.
‘It’s what it says.’ Geoff replied finally lifting his head up from
the gadget and glancing at the damage with the tail and the footprints.
‘No what it’s telling us is that a large
reptilian creature cut a swathing line through here, but he looked like Elvis.’
She raised a brow.
Geoff shot her a look of incredulous
belief. ‘Elvis?’
‘Uh huh!’ Marley adopted the accent briefly.
She grinned. Geoff was less than amused. She began to wonder just what they
really had in common with each other. ‘It’s got hair, a quiff, on its back,
hair on a crocodile, looking like Elvis. Seriously you can’t believe anything
that gizmo throws up. Next it will be
showing you a gap in the fabric of time where it fell through from another
dimension and is doing this amount of damage as it searches for its way back,
and why are you looking at me like that.’
Marley glanced behind her, just as she had
done once before when Geoff appeared to look through her. There was nothing there, thankfully. She turned back to face Geoff, but he’d
disappeared with the gadget around the corner of the Sunken Garden and off
towards the house. She sighed, then ran
to keep up.
She’d first met Geoff when they were
teamed up with a group of other first day Torchwood staff in dealing with a
rogue weevil that was terrorising a shopping centre in Hamilton and had been
found in the back room of Ann Summers eating chocolate body cream from a
battery operated dildo. Marley still smiled recalling that moment even now, and
mused as to what her family would think should that ever be brought up at the
wedding by the best man. Of course if
any of her family really knew what she got up to in her career choice of the
last seven years, she’d have to carry around a considerable amount of retcon
pills just to keep them quiet.
Geoff was busy within the hollow of a
large populated rhododendron bush when Marley caught up with him. He had a pair of tweezers and a plastic
Tupperware box, open and ready. A sliver
of scale was lodged in the thick bush, one side of the plant had been sheared
off, but lodged like a large thick plate the size of a fully grown mans fist,
was a large, green scale.
‘It’s definitely reptilian and mock all you like,
it is a crocodile but it’s not Elvis.
Not unless he came back as a crocodile.
He’d just better not start singing ‘Jailhouse Rock’ or ‘Hound dog.’
Geoff said, attempting a little humour.
‘Least we’d know where he was.’ Marley poked around the ground where the
broken and crushed branches lay, for further evidence. She found none.
‘Maybe there’s more than one.’
The following morning past
without a flicker of finding any further
clues to their search for Elvis and returning to their holiday let, Geoff
started packing up.
‘We’ve a long journey ahead, we should
consider heading back soon, before the weekend traffic starts to build.’
‘Yeah I suppose you’re right but do you
think...do you think we could, oh it doesn’t matter.’ Marley turned back to lifting the toiletries
into her bag including the small bottles of shampoo and hand cream left for
each customer.
Geoff stopped and looked at her. ‘What is it?”
‘Well it’s just, I thought the reason we
came here was to get away...’
‘And we have.’ He smiled
‘But it was work related; I thought we came here
to plan the wedding.’
Geoff frowned, then crossed the room
towards Marley slipping his arms around her waist and looked at her
closely.
‘You know I’m hopeless at those sorts of
things, that’s girl stuff. It just seemed an ideal opportunity to come and
visit here, and when Archie said about this place, with the sightings, it was
too good an opportunity to pass up. Like when we went to solve the case of the
Loch Ness Monster, this will likely be another of those crazy University rag
week things, a man on stilts with a huge footprint board. Remember the crop
circles with a bit of wood and a large rope, same thing. We’re here to dispel
people’s imaginations, nothing more.’ He
kissed her, softly, then slightly more passionately, but broke just as she was
about to succumb to it.
‘You almost done don’t want to be stuck in traffic
before we get on the M6.’
There was a warm feel to the air as they
loaded the car and closed the boot.
‘One last walk around the village before we
head back? Maybe the lake, I know you wanted to go out on the water before we
left.’
‘We would have gone last night if it wasn’t
for the amount of midgies.’ Grumbled
Geoff checking over the irritation of swollen reddened bite marks on his arms
and legs, and some rather personally around his crotch. Marley grinned.
‘Let’s go now, we can pick up some mints at
the shop on the way back. Come on, one
last walk, then I’ll not say another word till we get back into Glasgow.’
Geoff locked the car and slipping an arm
around Marley’s waist walked the short distance to the shops and the final walk
around the Lake. He had to admit, it was a nice walk, tall trees, luscious
leaves, dense foliage, the crush of the soft mulch under foot that cast up the
dust of pollen and the puff ball spores. He had to remember to hold his breath
when the dust rose, he’d heard stories about the spores clinging to your lungs
and developing inside of you. Of course, that could have just been vicious
rumours, Rory was like that in the office, made out he was the King of trivial
knowledge, when he read most of his lines off the back of a lolly ice
stick.
Bees and birds buzzed and tweeted around
them as they walked towards the water’s edge. The old row boat was still moored
there since the last visit, but the rope it was tethered to was frayed and
green lichen grew along it.
Marley wrinkled her nose at the strong
aroma that smelt as bad as the unusual dog crap earlier, as they neared the edge,
the water lapping the shoreline, rocking the boat like a gentle lullaby.
Geoff squinted out across the Lake, he was
sure he’d seen something, just above the water line, a shape moving, not very
fast and not very large, but enough to notice that it didn’t look like a bird
on a length of tree branch, and it was all too unlikely to be a shark. He
pulled his small binoculars that fit inside his combat trousers and peered
through, sighting in, Marley noticed his complexion had paled.
‘What is it?’ She glanced in the direction of his gaze and
saw the same, but without the binoculars, she was unsure what he’d seen.
‘What is it Geoff?
‘I don’t know, but it’s coming this way.’
There was a crash behind them, the sounds
of large thick pieces of wood splintering, the crash that sounded like a herd
of elephants stampeding through trees. Marley turned towards the noise while
Geoff continued to stare out at the swathing line cutting through the water
towards them.
It was the hiss of the creature before the
actual recognition that caused her to grab Geoff by the coat sleeve and pull
him away along the shoreline back towards the village.
‘RUN GEOFF, it’s ELVIS.’ For out of the
woods came the crocodile seen on the hand-held device earlier, only it was
built like a large Volvo estate with a swathing tail lashing the trees as it
moved towards them. It was coming for them, but where from and how had it found
them, they’d walked along that path, not half an hour ago, the path that lay in
ruins, sheared trees, stumps split and defeated, wasted by the lash of the eight-foot
tail with the girth of a giraffe’s neck at the thick end.
Given the slope it had gravity on its side
and it was forced to run faster than its reptilian legs could physically cope
with, but the tail kept it balanced and its jaws snapped and the growl from
deep within its throat grew louder the closer it gained.
Marley screamed or at least attempted to
as she ran, her heart pounding against her chest, threatening to explode if she
didn’t stop for a moment. She knew the 20 a day habit would kill her one day,
but not at the hands or indeed the teeth of a large crocodile which was now
joined by its mate, charging out of the water.
Geoff had caught up with her, she’d long since let go of his sleeve, to
gain momentum in her running. She pounded through the mulch of the trees and
kept running, not caring where she went so long as it was away from the shore
edge but still the creature tailed after them.
‘GO UP.’ Geoff shouted.
‘CUT UP THE HILL, MIGHT....MIGHT SLOW IT DOWN.’ He pushed her towards the steep incline but as
much as it might slow the beast down, it wasn’t helping either of them and soon
they were slipping and sliding over the foliage still damp from the early
morning mists.
Geoff lost his footing several times and
could feel the breath of the creature close on his heels. Panic set in, he
focused on Marley.
‘RUUUUNNNN!
DON’T LOOK BACK JUST RUN AND GET HELP.’ He screamed at her.
Marley turned as she heard him, saw him
slip further, further into the path of the crocodile with the hairy back, the
hairy Elvis crocodile. She saw him stare
up from the ground at the crocodile still pounding, still thundering on,
oblivious to him. She was relieved that
it hadn’t seen him, but as it pounded on towards her, it’s three toed foot
pushed against Geoff’s body crushing him underfoot. Marley screamed.
No time to lose she ran with all her
might, she didn’t care about Torchwood training, it was stay alive or be
killed. She reached the brow of the hill, saw the road another 25 yards away
and continued to run, getting her second wind as the crocodile struggled up the
last few feet, slipping on the mulched ground, snarling at the loss of a
meal. She ran and kept running, along
the tree line, looking for a gap in the hedge, a space that didn’t hem her in,
but there was nothing and the curve towards the shoreline was closing in on
her, the second crocodile was moving in for the kill. And then she saw it, a
sparkling light, that opened up, just ahead of her.
She’d recalled flashes of these in her
training, the research on anomalies and rift spikes, but this wasn’t a rift spike.
She weighed up her options, death by crocodile or death by whatever may be
waiting on the other end of the sparkling light. She could leap through it and fall to her
death, fall into a burning pit, a fiery hell hole.
Elvis was gaining, Prescilla was cutting
off Marley’s other means of escape. She
ran, slipping and crying, it could all go horribly wrong, she could arrive at
the sparkling light and it would be just like the mirages on the long road back
to camp in her third year at uni, those hot days when she swore the water on
the road was real, and she really fancied a drink, but mirage or not, she was
going to take a chance.
She ran and threw herself at the mirage
just as Elvis thundered towards her, gaining ground, catching its momentum, on
the slide back down the hill, his meal making him work for it. He lunged at
Marley, mouth open, catching her arm, her shoulder, biting into the soft
tissue. He heard her scream, the taste
of blood was too much to ignore, with added momentum he pushed with his back
legs and followed after her.
She fell screaming, the ground disappearing
beneath her feet; falling deeper and deeper into a sea of darkness, only the
crocodile for company, somewhere behind her, gaining ground on the descent.
Then a blinding light, a strong blinding
electrical current and she was catapulted forward, blinded for a moment or two. She was unaware of her surroundings, still
screaming she expected to find the crocodile behind her, but alone on the tiled
carpet flooring in a building she was unfamiliar with, she was alone. Alone in the dark. Alone and scared and without Geoff. She pulled up her knees and sobbed.
Jack Harkness stared into the room with
the glass door at the girl who sat on the makeshift camp bed, her arm and
shoulder bandaged, and a fresh shirt on her back. Gwen Cooper was sat beside her, offering tea
and sympathy, but after the initial instance of explaining about where she came
from and who she was, the actual dawning of the situation had kicked in and she
stopped talking.
The
17th floor was still off limits to anyone other than Torchwood, but
since the strange happenings on that floor, the building had slowly tapered off
to a few floors from the reception area and even that was manned only briefly. People
had an inkling that when Torchwood were involved, alien creatures weren’t far
behind.
At some point, Jack considered cells or
units would need to be constructed, the likelihood that weevils or other
strange alien creatures could wander in and cause chaos were high on Jack’s
agenda, but while they were dealing with one Marley Hanratty, Gwen felt that
staff quarters were a main priority.
‘She’s not staff.’ Jack put in, as Gwen
picked out fresh clothing for their visitor.
‘No, and she’s not a prisoner. She’s a victim of the rift Jack and until we
know how she got here, where she’s from and what was after her, then we treat
her accordingly.’
‘With kid gloves? We don’t know anything about her Gwen; she
could be on a mission. After everything
we’ve been through, I don’t trust her.’
‘We can’t abandon her, that man in the
photos, means something to her, maybe...just maybe we can find out more from
the photographs.’
Jack lifted the photographs from his desk
that he’d had developed and set them out in no particular order. There were
several blurred photos of the creature, but the teeth and size and dimensions
of it were apparent.
‘It’s a reptile.’
‘She said it had hair.”
‘Yeah, could have just been a trick of the
light. Reptiles don’t have hair.’
‘No,
but some dinosaurs had feathers...’
‘Gwen, the archaeopteryx was a fake. I should know.’ Jack sighed dropping the photographs back on
the desk. Gwen lifted the photo of a building and frowned.
‘If she’s right, then perhaps this is where
we start?’ She turned the photograph to
face Jack.
‘Winscott Manor is in the Lake District.’
Marley stared out of the window that
overlooked the Millennium Stadium, birds fluttered past the window as the
screams and yells in her mind echoed in her thoughts. She couldn’t shake
Geoff’s death from her mind and wished for something to take away the
heartache. She’d heard the Welsh woman
talk to her, ask her questions about herself, about who she was, about the
reptile she claimed had chased after her. Since she’d arrived she’d been
questioned, prodded, had blood samples taken, had been patched up and the tall
handsome man in the military coat had watched and scrutinised her every
movement, as if he expected her to do something.
Why wasn’t she surprised? She’d learnt
from the Welsh woman Gwen that the man was none other than Jack Harkness, the
head of Torchwood 3. Somewhere in the
databanks at the Glasgow office there had been a file on Jack Harkness but it
was classified, beyond Classified, and Archie didn’t like people asking too
many questions regarding Captain Jack Harkness.
Her shoulder ached and when she moved she
felt the cold sharp stabs of pain, as if a steel rod had pierced her body. She could still smell the breath of the
creature as it bit down into her flesh. Her eyes scanned the room, its double
glazed windows were closed yet she could still feel a draft, there were vents
in the floor, air conditioning, the computers that sat on every desk in the
other rooms would need cooling she got that, but what was in here?
Jack put down his pen and thrust a
shopping list at Gwen.
‘We need supplies, I’m volunteering that you
go, I’ll stay with Miss Hanratty.’
‘Costco will have forgotten that incident in
aisle 3, it was a long time ago, Jack, I’m certain they wouldn’t have barred
you for life!’ She took the list from
his outstretched hand. ‘I’ll add nappies and milk to that list too.’ Fastening her coat, she pushed the list and
Jack’s card into her pocket and strode towards the exit, turning only as she
reached the door.
She knew the drill, while her back was
turned, Jack would nonchalantly wander in, use his matinee charm and grill Marley
for all information possible. She was glad that the equipment lost in the Hub
hadn’t been salvaged, as knowing Jack; the mind probe might have been used in
her absence.
Gwen felt a cold whoosh of air as she
walked along the corridor towards the lift, and an acidic aroma that shifted as
she walked. She frowned and glanced at the walls, the familiar mould that she’d
endured in the old house, that crept up from the skirting boards, hiding behind
old pictures, most especially behind the bookcase. Glancing around and up at
the ceiling there were no mould clumps that she could see. She stepped into the
lift and pressed for ground floor.
Captain Jack Harkness entered the
makeshift bedroom and strode towards the window, hands on hips he glanced out
at the city below, people going about their everyday business oblivious to the
dangers that lurked in the shadows, behind closed doors, behind twitching
curtains on housing estates and sheltered housing, in the sewers that he
believed would still harbour the weevils that when all was said and done had
been a part of the city he’d watched over for years.
As he watched the traffic lights change,
and Gwen along with several other shoppers and office staff cross the busy road
he pondered on what he’d come back to, if he was wise asking Gwen to return to
Torchwood. She had a life, a family, young
Anwen was now toddling, growing up, soon she’d be answering back, putting
pressure on Gwen to consider leaving Torchwood to become a full time Mum, or
would she? He heard a shuffle behind him and turned to see Marley move from the
camp bed and join him at the window. She
was young, younger than Gwen. She had long dark hair that hung over her
shoulders, it was in need of a wash, the ends singed, perhaps from the fall
through the anomaly.
‘Feeling any better?’ He returned his gaze towards the city below
and the buildings beyond.
‘Not really. I keep going over it in my
head.’ She found herself replying to him
easier than Gwen.
‘What really happened back there?’ Jack slipped his hands into his trouser
pockets and turned, leaning slightly against the window sill. He studied her, noting her slight accent
change from English to Scottish, she was no more than 5’10’ in her stocking
feet. Eyes as brown as hazelnuts she stared up at him.
‘I already told you everything, why won’t
you believe me?’ She felt the tears
prickle her eyes and she blinked them away.
‘For the simple reason that I know you’re
not telling me the full story. Crocodiles are not from the Lake District, this
is not a scene from Lake Placid, and they also don’t have hairy backs. Now
unless it’s a euphemism for something else, what-the-hell-happened back there?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She moved from the window and returned to the
bed, sitting down slowly and felt warm air around her ankles. Jack frowned and joined
her sitting down beside her.
‘I know you’re hiding the truth, I know
something happened out there to make you scream the way you did and everything
you’ve told Gwen so far doesn’t add up to the photos we developed from your
phone.’ He turned his body to face her,
saw her pale skin and freckles around her cheek bones, saw the vein in her neck
throbbing.
‘Until I know the truth, I can’t risk you
leaving here.’
‘I’m a prisoner?’ She shot him an incredulous look.
‘Tell me the truth. What really happened back there?’
‘You can’t keep me here.’
‘If you work for Torchwood then you know I
can.’
Gwen pulled out her phone from the pocket
of her jeans as she stood outside of Costco, three large shopping bags bulging
and took the call.
‘Hello my lovely.’ Came the voice on the
other end. Rhys Williams, doting father,
long suffering husband was staring at cuts of meat in the supermarket, Anwen in
the shopping trolley casually pulling faces at those around her, eyes for her
daddy, rasping raspberries to everyone else.
Are you going to be home tonight?’
‘I don’t know Rhys, we’ve got a young girl who’s
come a long way from home, and we’re trying to find out what brought her here.’
She sighed leaning against the wall of
the shop, feeling the warm sunshine on her face and neck. She realised a pair of sunglasses wouldn’t
have gone amiss.
‘Oh aye, are we still talking this planet?’ Rhys
had long since accepted that there were more worlds than just this one.
‘Coniston.’
‘That’s in the Lakes that is. Used to do deliveries up there once, weird
place mind.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Gwen stepped from Costco sporting a pair of
cheap sunglasses and carried the shopping back towards the new Hub.
‘Not Coniston, more the building we had to
deliver to, off the beaten track, dirt roads weren’t in it Gwen. You don’t
think she worked there do you?’
‘Rhys Alan Williams, what is in Coniston
other than a Lake?’
Rhys focused. He put the chops back on the shelf and sighed.
‘A testing facility...’
‘For?’
‘Animals I think. Trefor said there were a lot of men in white
coats up there, lots of cages and tanks.
It was closed off mind, trespassers you know. It’s down by the Lake but there’s a long dirt
road to get to it, bugger in a lorry mind, limited passing places.’
A smile spread across Gwen’s face.
‘You wouldn’t happen to remember the address
or the name of the facility would you Rhys, oh love of my life?’
Rhys laughed. ‘Ahh what’s it worth?’
‘I could be home for supper.’ She teased.
Rhys picked the chops back off the shelf and
fired them into the trolley smiling.
Gwen, shopping bags stowed inside the
little kitchen full of white melamine worktops with a mini fridge, grill and toaster,
and a ratty looking kettle with scale brought up the details given to her by
Rhys of the Winterhope facility, on her laptop. She flicked through the various
photographs offered on a slideshow. Lovely large house, huge garden, ornate
Victorian or Georgian glasshouse that gave several conservatories she’d seen in
the Cardiff region a run for their money and the feel of quaintness about it,
NOT a testing facility for animal life.
She brought up a schematic of the building
using the Torchwood software, it belonged to a Lord and Lady Bishop, there was
a photograph, loving husband and wife team who had lived out in Africa, owned a
ranch, adopted lioness cubs sat around their legs, an Elsa lioness leaned in
between them.
Gwen wasn’t convinced this was the same
people that Rhys was talking about and dug deeper. In 1981 Lady Margaret Bishop
had been injured in a freak accident while out walking her dogs by the shore,
she was now in a wheelchair. Gwen saw as she squinted, the handles of the
wheelchair in the photograph.
‘So the lions are in Coniston?’ Gwen brought
up the map of the land. On another
computer she brought up the distance of Winscott Manor to the actual
facility. In 2005 Lord Henrick Bishop
had extended the east side of the large house and advanced the grounds by
another one hundred feet, there was a large pool, deeper and longer than an
Olympic swimming pool.
‘They say that swimming is good for the
disabled.’ She muttered as she continued
to dig deeper.
Jack had retired to his office leaving
Marley to her thoughts.
He knew she was hiding
something but unable to use any kind of physical force, mostly because he knew
Gwen would never forgive him, he’d left her alone in her room. He shook his
head, he was even calling it her room.
He contemplated the idea of Interrogation
Rooms. While he was on the subject of rooms, he needed to look into security,
cells, make this place more workable. God how he missed the Hub, but that was
beyond salvageable. There was nothing left to scavenge and half of it was under
water. Jack sighed and leaned back on the easy chair. He was about to close his
eyes when he heard movement by the door and saw Gwen.
‘Thought you’d gone home.’ He sat up.
‘No.
But I will be soon.’ Gwen entered
holding several print outs in her right hand.
‘I was looking something up.’ Walking to his desk, a modern rectangle cut,
sharp edged plastic desk with four metal square legs with cups protecting the
carpet beneath them she placed the print outs as if dealing from the deck.
‘Winterhope Facility is a testing centre in
Coniston, near the Lake. It’s down a
very long narrow farm track near the Lake itself, comprises of a large garden,
huge house with twelve bedrooms, four large function rooms, ensuite
bathrooms...’ She felt like an estate
agent and cut to the chase. ‘It has a
large swimming pool under cover and has a deep basement. It’s fully functional and has high security,
you can’t get in there unless you’re invited...’
Jack read the details, studied the
photographs and layout of the building.
‘...or Torchwood?’ He didn’t look
up. ‘What’s the Winterhope Facility?’
A voice spoke up from the doorway and Jack
looked up and saw Marley.
‘It’s where those crocodiles come from. They’re mutations.’ Gwen raised a brow.
‘I think you’d better tell us what is going
on here.”
‘It was an assignment that went wrong. An operative disappeared, we’d not heard word
back and so Geoff suggested we went, to prove to Archie we could do this. I
think he wanted to impress.’ Marley
stepped into the room but remained beside the wall decorated with sales figures
and other useless pieces of call centre information.
‘We weren’t assigned, we just...I had
holiday owing...’
Jack raised a brow. ‘So, you thought you’d
go check this place out for yourself, putting yourself at risk and jeopardising
an operation?’
‘Archie doesn’t give out assignments he’s a
strange little man in Glasgow office who spends most of his time glued to the
computer in his room, barks orders and disappears for hours on end. When I took
this job it was because nothing I did made sense.’ Marley defended.
‘We’ve seen so much death and violence and
not just from our own kind, but Cybermen, Daleks, all those children collected
up for an alien race we knew nothing about. How can you justify that, how can
you make sense of all of this? I saw a
woman fall 200ft and break her neck and she got up as if nothing affected her.’
She lowered her gaze and sighed.
‘I wanted to understand, I wanted to make
sense of what was happening. Maria and
Denny go missing and a body is found partially eaten in a Lake the other side
of Coniston, you tell me you wouldn’t want to find out what was happening? You
said Lake Placid was just a film, you have no idea what’s going on out there.’
‘Then tell us, tell us what’s going on and
maybe we can do something about it.’ Jack repeated himself.
‘Woah wait a minute.’ Gwen raised her hand. ‘If Marley came through the Rift...’
‘It was an anomaly...’ Marley interjected.
‘Ok anomaly but there’s no guarantee that
the facility would be operating in the same fashion. If I’m right in thinking, whatever comes
through the rift...’
‘Anomaly.’ Marley corrected, again.
‘I. know.’ Gwen raised a hand pointing to Marley to not
interrupt again. She paused, taking a moment to calm.
‘Everything we’ve learnt from the Anomaly...’
She glared at Marley who smiled
awkwardly. ‘...or the rift, is that
anything that comes through would be from another time, either the future or
the past and definitely from another dimension, yes?’ She looked at Jack for
confirmation. He nodded.
‘Ok, so if that is the case, we can’t be
sure that whatever is at the Winterhope Facility is exactly what Marley saw, in
this dimension, can we?’ Again she
looked at Jack. He fixed her with a stare then grinned.
‘No reason why we can’t go check it out
though right?’ He rose from the seat ‘How
long will it take us to get to...Coniston?’
‘Jack I promised Rhys I’d...’
‘Not a problem. We’ll leave tomorrow.’ He smiled reassuring Gwen. ‘At first light.’
The Lake District, busy with tourists rain
or shine, boats on the water, car parks full, buses and coaches filling up
every coach space available, ice creams and high teas littered tables beneath
trees laden with leaves and blossom and wasps. An idyllic setting, not
somewhere that housed mutant reptiles but Jack knew that behind every curtain
there hid a secret.
They’d acquired an SUV, an old reliable
Landrover not quite Torchwood, not quite tourist, but reliable enough to get
them all the way there. The radio didn’t work and after several rounds of “Ten
green bottles’ Gwen had threatened to
push one where the sun didn’t shine if Jack didn’t just for once – shut
up! Marley sat in the back, beside three
standard cases of Torchwood supplies, she spotted a packet of Mint Imperials
poking out of a rucksack and delved in the packet for a few, popping them into
her mouth to ease the travel sickness she suffered from and a handful into her
pocket before climbing out of the car when they parked up. It had been a long
drive and the closer they’d reached their destination, the full realisation of
revisiting the place where she’d lost Geoff was beginning to sink in and she
felt sick.
‘You can stay in the SUV if you want.’ Jack had offered noting her pale face. Marley
shook her head.
‘I’ll be alright, I never was a good
backseat passenger.’ She sucked on another mint imperial and lifted the
rucksack that had been allocated to her. The plan was that there was no plan,
nothing concrete anyway.
‘We’re just three people taking a walk
through the woods down to the Lake, nothing out of the ordinary.’ Jack explained after they’d loaded the
Landrover with all manner of tech, weapons and a few essential supplies. Gwen shook her head. Marley stared at Jack’s attire relaxed
military and not a hint of casual about him, albeit pleasing on the eyes.
Jack had parked the vehicle in an all day
car park and popped the card in the window. He wasn’t sure how certain people in the local
area would believe Doctor on Call would be but it was always worth a go and if it
was met with a rebuke he’d flash his pearly whites and win them with a dazzling
smile and if that failed to impress, he was a perfect bedfellow.
Jack strode across the road and along the
fence line till there was a gap in the hedge wide enough to squeeze
through. Gwen walked beside Marley,
noting her nervousness the closer they reached the woods.
‘We’ve got enough supplies here to fight off
a sabre tooth tiger and its cubs, you’ll be fine.’ Gwen smiled her casual ‘everything might turn
to shit but we’ll do the best we can to make it through’ kind of smile, the one
she’d used when really Gwen wasn’t sure if things would happen or not.
Marley crunched on the mint in her mouth
and sucked the final crumbly powder till it evaporated on her tongue.
The afternoon was humid and after a while
Jack’s shirt clung to his back, sweat soaking through the cotton fabric. They’d
been walking for what felt like miles, up hill and down dale. The facility was the other side of the Lake,
this was the tourist walkway. He knew it
would have been easier to drive along the muddy road down to the gates of the
premises but where was the fun in that, he’d told the girls. This way at least
they had the element of surprise, unless they had the same level of security
that Torchwood had, and given enough time, the new Hub would also have and
they’d have been on the cameras for a good mile or so by now and the welcome
party would be there at the gate.
He had to admit that the BT building
wasn’t really the ideal place, sure it had a high roof, he could stand on top
and survey his kingdom, but it lacked that level of privacy the last place had
given him. Under the ground, he’d had the run of miles of tunnels, walkways, a
basement, a submarine, alright not a huge submarine but enough to get around
the Bay undetected. But on the 17th Floor he was kind of
limited. All offices looked the same,
the doors to the bathrooms had the same coloured front fascias and only by the
crude sketches of Male and Female stick figures could anyone tell the
difference until they physically entered the cubicles. And hygiene...well
hygiene was down to the last person to leave the bathrooms and floor.
The Hub for all its faults had been home,
had felt safe, and he’d grown acclimatised to the building having lived and
worked in it for too many years to consider counting. And OK, a base was a base, somewhere to lay
your head, put down some roots, but since when had Jack put down any
significant roots since he’d left Cardiff after the 456 had turned him into the
‘monster’ he knew he was?
It was time to make amends, put right some
of the things he could fix, but bringing back the dead...He pushed the thoughts
to the back of his mind. If he spent as
much time thinking of the past, his future and that of millions, billions of
other people would be at risk.
There was a gate leading
to another part of the wood side, he climbed over it and continued on dead
ahead, the facility not that far away now.
Marley didn’t recognise any of the trees,
the wooded area, the stretch of Lake to her left. She tried to get her bearings, but as Gwen
had told her, the different dimensions could mean that what happened to her in
one place might not have happened on this side, which meant that she might
witness it all over again.
Harris Daniels stood outside Building 4,
his brown overall coat open fully and the packet of Castle cigarettes still
clutched in his left hand. His curly
mousy brown hair blew against the side of his head, the knotted curls bobbing
like soap suds at a night club, Trixxie’s nightclub on the Friday night – wall
to wall babes and him and Tappa with one in each arm and then back to his for
an all out party. Now with a hangover
from hell wearing off, tongue as dry as one of Gandhi’s flipflops and three
more hours before knocking off time, this was one hell of a day to deal with
three new hatchlings of reptilian creatures. You couldn’t even with a stone
cold sober attitude call them anything other than creatures. They weren’t your
run of the mill, fancy as you like standard, normal, find them in a zoo, in an
enclosure marked ‘crocodile’, no these were big as you like, bloody
uncontrollable unless you had the right set of kit, of which he, Harris Daniels
did not have, nor would have if Geoff didn’t hurry his sweet little fanny arse
all the way here in the next half hour.
Harris wasn’t the most reliable of people
to bring the right gear when he was meant to, after the party on Friday he was
lucky if he’d managed to rouse himself out of bed and drag his own fanny white
arse all the way into work, but nine hours into the shift of test samples,
injections, monitoring and he was quite pleased with his progress, but this was
by far the hardest nine hours, considering he’d managed to so far convince Lord
Henrick Bishop that he was more than capable of putting the ‘crocs’ through
their paces with his kit, of which he’d brought with him, oh yes indeed sir,
because oh woebetide him forgetting to bring that. He’d heard it all before,
Henrick Bishop hated tardiness, he ran a tight ship, so tight nothing could
squeeze out of it or into it without him knowing, which is why, standing
outside of Building 4 with his cigarette packet clutched tightly in his left
hand, Geoff worked in Building 2 which he’d have to walk by this building in
order to get to his own site, pick up the cigarette packet and replace it with
another exactly the same, that contained the kit he needed in order to put the
‘crocs’ through their paces. Harris grew impatient, the clock was ticking, and
Geoff was nowhere in sight. He was late!
Jack lowered the binoculars and wiped the
beaded sweat from his face – damn it was hot.
‘I can see the building through the trees,
just another thousand yards and if we keep to the trees we might get closer
undetected.’ He called as Gwen cooled her hands in the water lapping the
shoreline.
‘Jack?’ She called back to him. ‘Did you notice any
unusual smell back at the office, a sort of acidic smell?’ Gwen straightened up wiping her hands on the
back of her jeans and walked back to collect her rucksack from beside Marley.
‘No why?’ Jack narrowed his eyes, was this a dig at him
for forgetting to order more toilet cleaner?
‘I smelt it back there at the water’s edge,
it’s almost metallic.’ She wrestled with
the strap, straightening as Marley cleared her throat.
‘I smell that all the time.’ She had their attention and Jack’s hand was
over his side arm. ‘The last time I was
here I smelt it, then when I arrived in the building. It’s on my clothes, it’s in that room where I
sleep...’
‘It was in the corridor when I was making
for the lift.’ Gwen saw Jack quickly
check their location from the VM. ‘What
is it Jack?’
‘Nothing.’ He closed the strap of the VM and hauled on
the rucksack. ‘But I suggest we keep to
the trees, just to be on the safe side.’
The Mini van bounced along the uneven road
towards the facility, The Script played loudly over the radio and Geoff sang to
their latest hit. His voice dipped and
jarred as he pounded the van over the pot holes that were as deep as mini
craters in the tarmac. Another ten
minutes and he’d be at the gate, and another 8 hours and he’d be heading home
in darkness, and navigating his way through the typical mist, and the pot holes
would be even bloody harder, he moaned. God he hated this job, but until he
could afford to pay off the huge loan for the van he was now driving, he was
stuck there.
The packet of Castle fags sat on the
passenger seat, along with his newspaper and a cheese and onion sandwich bought
from the garage. He’d fancied the scotch egg too but they’d upped the prices, for
the tourist season. God he hated tourists. He reached the checkpoint and waved
his ID card sat on the dashboard to his right. Malcolm was in the box, bored
out of his brain, playing Candy Crush, and stuck on level 97. He nodded and
raised the barrier allowing Geoff through.
The second gate was unmanned, it meant
leaving the comfort of the vehicle and pushing open the eight foot gate,
placing it in the hook to stop it swinging back, and shutting it when he moved
the car. God he really hated heavy wooden gates.
Harris was putting out his third cigarette
by the time Geoff hurriedly raced around from the car park and swapped over
packets. He lingered in the doorway having a sly smoke before hurrying to his
charge, a female creature, heavily laden with eggs, which she was determined to
hang onto for as long as possible. It had been her third batch and so far when
her back was turned, the eggs had disappeared.
She knew they were taking them, but she didn’t know where to.
Sister 137 was the name they’d christened
her. She was one of 137 others, all
similar all with a purpose, all to make the Bishops very rich, but at what
cost? Sister 137 had no choice, she had limited movement, but the Lake was
calling her. In the dead of night she
heard him, heard the call of the wild, he was out there, looking for her,
calling for her return. How she wished
she’d followed him into the waters, not thought about her eggs, not thought of
what the two legs were going to do to them.
How she longed for her freedom.
‘Sir, you should see this.’ Martin Longfellow called from his
workstation. On the 17” screen in front
of him were three people with rucksacks walking along the tree line and only
260 yards from the Building 4 where Harris had been working, and should have
left already. Yet he’d not clocked out.
Lord Bishop gruffly glared at the taller
of the three, a soldier in a great coat who had just himself up over the fence and held his hand out for
the two women companions. Bishop
scowled.
‘Keep an eye on them, of all the days to
come and trespass on my land, they have to do it today. Pray they don’t discover our beauty....or
maybe they should, what are three more missing people? Keep an eye on them.’
‘Sir.’ Martin tapped in the security alert and
focused the cameras on the three intruders, he knew so far they were no threat,
but he also knew that if he hadn’t have mentioned it to the cantankerous old
man who paid his wages, it would be his last pay check in this godforsaken
place. He continued to follow Jack, Gwen
and Marley’s progress through the ground. Just like the last, they would likely
say they were lost, following the tourist trail, didn’t see the large 12 foot
sign that signified ‘Danger’ in big bold letters on the gate, wall and lit up
with enough cameras that even Big Brother would be paranoid.
Jack Harkness figured they were being
watched, he’d seen the cameras in the trees and wondered if Gwen or Marley had
noticed, but as no security men or large snapping Alsatians’ had come at them
from any quarter, either the cameras were defunct or nobody really cared. Or,
and it was a big or, nobody was going to retaliate until they tried to gain
actual entry then there might be trouble.
He decided to say nothing, best not to
give off any levels of ‘we’re trespassing and we know we are’ appearance. The
fencing around the perimeter was electrified, that much he’d figured out for
himself, and knowing that it tingled the first time, he really didn’t fancy
giving it a second shot. He rubbed his fingers, it would heal, it always did. He
waited, nobody came, no alarms were triggered, no guns, men or dogs came into
view.
Jack narrowed his eyes, he’d have expected
something by now. Allowing for a few more minutes to pass and given that Gwen
was already eyes and ears behind him, Marley he figured was working her way
through whatever candy she’d found in the backpacks. Hey wasn’t that mine? Jack
knew he’d packed a few mint balls for the trip.
He took the readings from the VM, there
were four large buildings at the back, the nearest one with the green wooden
facia, with the tired peeling paintwork said 4.
So counting back, number one was near the large white birdcage of a conservatory
over the other side, where gardens, grass and the main part of the house looked
out across the Lake. There were a few
heat signals but nothing significant enough to tell whether they were human or
animal.
‘What do you think Jack?’ Gwen called over
his shoulder, her voice hushed but serious, the longer they stayed where they
were, the more suspicious they were going to look and she wondered herself if
the cameras they’d passed were defunct or live. But given that nobody had run
out screaming into a walkie talkie and yelled at them to lie down, hands behind
their heads and legs apart, she felt a little at ease, but only a little. Given
what they’d experienced over the years, there could be a multiple of reasons
why nobody had come out already, and one made her feel sick to the stomach with
dread.
‘I think...’ Jack turned on his boyish grin and turned to
face her. ‘...we go take a look. Keep comms on at all times, report back what
you find and first sign of trouble, get yourselves out.’
Jack ran to the nearest building block, the
same as Harris had stood outside of waiting for his packet of cigarettes from
Geoff. It was early evening by the time Jack, Gwen and Marley had reached the
complex, although they weren’t casually strolling like tourists, they didn’t
want to make it obvious that they weren’t, and the afternoon humidity hadn’t
helped much either.
Gwen followed with Marley soon after Jack
had made it to the building block 4, and after Jack had tried the door, found
no alarm and had entered, moved to the next block to check it out. The one
thing she noticed first was how warm it was inside the block. A moist heat
similar to those tropical houses in the zoo. She withdrew her side arm,
something felt comfortable in her grip, like a security blanket for a
child.
‘Stay close, Marley.’ Gwen instructed.
There were five stone steps leading down
into the 3rd building block. The walls were tiled in marble, green
algae lived against the lower parts of it, in the corners, the cracks in the
tiling, and around the steps making it considerably slippery in the wrong
footwear. Gwen moved cautiously.
Jack felt the beads of sweat on his brow
begin to trickle down his face, his clothing clung to his body making it
difficult to manoeuvre and he was beginning to wish he’d not worn his coat. He
paced carefully across the tiled floor, noting green stains, and the strong
scent of animal droppings, the deeper into the room he got, the stronger the
smell. He wished he could find a light switch, but the torchlight had picked up
nothing as it strobed across the walls, nothing but moisture clung to them,
dripping in rivulets, pooling in the grimy floor.
Marley crunched on another mint, there was
something familiar about the smell in the room she could barely see in. Even in the beam from Gwen’s torch it was
difficult to make out anything in the gloom and as she shone into the room
itself, the light appeared to bounce back and blind the pair.
‘I don’t like this, we should go back.’ Marley spoke nervously behind Gwen.
Gwen pressed her comms link and heard only
static. ‘Jack?’ She called pressing it
again. She was almost relieved when she
heard his voice.
‘Anything?’ Came back his voice
‘Nothing, just hot, sticky, sweaty, like a
sauna only with a pungent smell of rotten water.’ She finally decided.
‘Yeah, that’s what I’m getting too. There’s a door to my left, it might open into
yours. It’s got six little windows, can
you see it, should be to your...right.’ Jack called.
Gwen shone her torch and saw the door Jack mentioned and smiled.
‘Got it.’
The thick air clung to their faces,
blinding them from seeing clearly in the darkened smoggy room. Marley froze even before Gwen’s hand touched
the round handle. Something large slithered along the tiled floor in the
darkness. There was a deep growl that
even Gwen heard. She shone the torch
again bouncing the beam off the walls, throwing large shadows towards the
ceiling. Her heart was in her mouth, there was that smell again, that all too
familiar smell.
It’s here, it’s here, oh my God, we’re going
to die, it’s here, the croc, Elvis is here?’ Marley became hysterical, blind
panic, her hands shook and three mint imperials dropped from her hand and
bounced along the tiled floor into the darkness. The slithering became more
defined, and moved with haste towards them.
The urgency to open the door now was stronger
but as she turned the handle, a bigger problem emerged. ‘SHIT!’ Gwen cursed.
Through the darkness, moving across the
tiled floor, the deep growl from within the creature, echoed around the
swimming pool sized room. Gwen rattled the door, hoping it would give.
Gwen? Gwen? What’s going on in there?’
‘We have company Jack.’
‘Open the door.’
‘The doors locked.’
‘Get yourself back to the exit.’
‘I don’t think I can Jack.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because there’s two creatures in here and
both exits are shut to us. We’re
trapped.’
Marley was shaking, sobbing and trembling,
her hands sweaty and sticky with mint. It was all happening again, only this
time there was no shimmering light and she wasn’t going to escape the creatures
that Gwen could now see coming towards them from both sides. The yellow green eyes, the snapping of its
powerful jaw, it was coming for them, and there was nothing they could do.
As Jack left Building 4 and ran to the
next, he was halted by the screaming from the Number 3.
‘GWEN!’
Is
Jack too late to save Gwen and Marley?
Find out next month when Mitchell returns.
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