Fans Fiction Mitchell Part 8 by DJ Forrest

   ‘GET OFF THE GAS PEDAL!’  Mitchell screamed before the vehicle left the road, slicing through a clump of small beech shoots, just breaking open to feel the sun on their topside, the grill shredded them through the front fender. 

     Jack felt the vehicle lurch to the left and slid from his seat.  He grabbed for the wheel despite the gnawing pain in his groin, before the creature sunk its teeth into the main artery.  Mitchell gripped hold of the steering wheel too as he slipped from his seat his feet pressed against the door frame and the foot well of the passenger side.  He was scared!

     It was never going to end well, Mitchell knew, and Jack knew but a part of each of them hoped for a portion of luck as the metal carcase of the 4 x 4 scraped along the concrete incline towards the river bed, the vehicle slammed and bounced and try as they might to right the steering it tilted too far and the push against the left side rolled the tin can jeep over and over slamming man against man against metal and windscreen.

     Mitchell felt the windscreen shatter, and come away from the frame, he still held onto the one hope that he’d survive this, like he’d survived every other piece of shit that had befallen him of late. He cried out as he felt every bone and muscle take the pounding, and let go of the steering wheel. 

     Jack’s leg relaxed against the pedal, he couldn’t feel it, he felt sick, and cold.  The creature held on till it’s back snapped against the steering wheel, as Jack left the seat as the vehicle rolled.  Jack fell against Mitchell, who felt like the washing in the machine as it went into spin cycle.  He felt the bulk of Jack throw him from the vehicle as it rolled over slamming him against the already splintered windscreen, then out onto the bonnet in a heartbeat, then disappearing from view.  Jack however had already slumped across the seats, his head cracking against the doorframe.

     Mitchell felt the stones of the embankment reach up and hit him as he fell from the vehicle.  He rolled a few feet hitting his head and body against more of the jutting stones that lay like giant dinosaur eggs oval and hard.  He was awake only to see the darkness of the vehicle bring sunlight to his eyes as it rolled away from him.  He heard the metal grind against the rocks, the engine scream, and the metal groaning as it twisted and bounced and came to rest.  Mitchell’s eyes closed.

     Inside the vehicle Jack lay at an awkward angle, face and shoulders pressed against the passenger door, body twisted across the seats and one leg resting over the dash.  He was dead!

     Lying like a fish out of water, the eel like creature lay in a small pool of water, trapped like pond life, it had gasped and gulped then lay quite still. Water gently filtered through the pool and lifted the creature in the watery cradle and gently teased it along the ripples, as the afternoon birdsong played along its funeral procession.

    

     A hissing came from the engine as if a sack full of angry snakes had been rudely awoken from their slumber.  Steam and smoke began to rise up from the battered wreck. 

     Captain Jack Harkness gasped back to life; disorientated for a heartbeat, he could smell smoke, but now with an added flavour – fire! He scrambled up painfully from his position, groaned at his leg caught against the shattered glass from the windscreen and climbed from the wreckage.  Mitchell was nowhere in sight! 

     Jack stumbled, still a little disorientated and blinked several times to clear the wooliness in his head.  His limp improved as he moved away from the vehicle and looked around for the boy.  He spotted a body on the higher ground, and away from the vehicle and made haste towards it. 

   ‘Mitchell?’  He dropped to his knees, and felt for a pulse just as the metal wreckage popped and exploded, casting Jeep in all directions.  Jack shielded the young man from the blast and felt the heat upon his own backside and prayed it wasn’t on fire.

     Gwen pushed the fire doors open into the office and frowned.  Marley was nowhere in sight.  It wasn’t often she was away from her computer, her handbag would be sat on her desk and she’d be somewhere within the building accounting for destroying something, as was her manner.  Gwen still wasn’t sure of her, but Jack, being Jack, knew that Marley would come good, she just needed time. 

     Gwen placed her kit on the empty desk and removed her outer coat, draping it over the box.  ‘Well I stink of chemicals I don’t know about you.’  She called over her shoulder then frowned again.  All the way up the corridor Clark had been quiet.  He’d thrown up on the way back, accusing the dodgy fried egg sandwich he’d picked up at breakfast before they’d begun their journey.  Now he wasn’t behind her.  Gwen turned on her heels and retraced her steps.  Clark was propping up the wall, he was pale and skin was clammy and he looked close to passing out.

   ‘God, you look awful, come on let’s find you a seat, yeah?’  Gwen cast her eyes around the many vacant office chairs, in the empty open plan call centre office.  He nodded weakly and sat in the nearest seat without a computer flashing images of the alien software.  Gwen was concerned.  She felt his forehead, he was burning up. 

   ‘I’ll get a couple of painkillers, I’ll be fine.’  Clark forced a smile but he was nowhere near fine.  His stomach was knotting up, contracting against whatever he’d eaten.  He tried not to think of the egg swimming in grease. 

   ‘Want me to run you home?’  She offered.

     Clark shook his head.  ‘No.  Just get me a couple of painkillers and some water and I’ll be good.  It’ll pass.’  He forced a smile on his glistening sweaty face. 

     Gwen was concerned.  This was more than a couple of painkillers kind of pain.  ‘Were you bitten?’

     Clark’s hand instantly reached for the back of his leg and the fiery pain that burnt along it.

   ‘We need to get you checked out, this could be connected, it might not be...’  she countered, seeing a look of horror creep over his face.  She gave a reassuring, ‘everything is going to be ok, even though it probably won’t’ look. 

   ‘Couple of painkillers, I’ll be fine.’  He assured her, then winced in pain and doubled over in his seat.

   ‘Yeah, course, because that’s how we behave when we’re going to be ok.’  Gwen winced.  ‘Hospital I think, they’ll know what to do.’  She hoped.

     Mitchell awoke to hear the crackling of a fire close by and the warmth it gave on his face.  He could smell fresh air, the farm, animals, and grass, mulched ground and the lingering odour of the river.  He heard distant cars on the distant roads, the bubbling river, flowing forever, he heard the heart beating against the warm chest and found himself cradled in the arms of Jack Harkness. His coat was wrapped around as best as it could.  Jack smiled down at him, as their eyes met.

   ‘Hey, how are you feeling?’  He asked softly, pulling up the coat now slipping away as Mitchell tried to shift his position.

   ‘Not sure yet.  My head hurts, guts ache and I feel like anyone does after they’ve fallen out of a washing machine.’  He swallowed painfully, each movement, however slight, sent shockwaves through his system.  Mitchell concentrated on his body, he could feel everything, his head, fingers, toes, knees, he could isolate each and every part of him, could account for the pain in every part of his body except for one. He’d never felt anything like it before, a fire that burnt against his skin, inward and upward forever surging towards his heart.  He couldn’t isolate it.  He could feel his legs, and they were burning too.

   ‘My...legs are they?’  He reached his left arm towards his knees as Jack brought his hand back.

   ‘It’s ok, your legs are fine, try and stay warm, last thing I want is for you to go into shock.  I’ve called for help; paramedics should be on their way soon.’

   ‘That creature...did you...I thought when it...’ 

   ‘I’m ok, it’s gone, don’t know where, probably still inside the car.’  Jack said staring over at the burning husk of metal, the newly acquired vehicle, the ink still wet on the Ownership contract.  ‘We’ll find another one, there’ll be more, don’t worry about it.’  Jack stared down at Mitchell, once again the boy had come to harm, and he knew he’d taken a risk with the vehicle. 

   ‘I’m sorry about the car.’  Mitchell knew there had been nothing he could have done, given the limited controls that he’d had with the car.  He could only swerve so much before he’d inevitably lose control and they’d been lucky that they’d both survived.  Yet it had amazed Mitchell how well Jack looked considering all that had happened.  There were some evident cuts on his face and bruising but that creature had been severe and had bitten down in a fairly risky area as far as Mitchell was concerned, and yet Jack showed no discomfort at having him resting on his lap. 

   ‘I thought you were a goner, I saw how much blood was coming from that bite.’

     Jack smiled lightly, he’d seen it too, and given how much he’d tried to pull the creature off him, it wasn’t for letting go.  ‘I’m lucky I guess, it didn’t bite through as deep as I thought.  See, all good!’ 

     Mitchell felt light headed, he told himself it was likely shock, despite the warmth of the coat and the contact with Jack, it was an experience he didn’t want to have to go through again.  He was reminded on how lucky he’d been given his leap of faith from Brody’s window.  Now he was back near the water, and it filled him with dread.  Would it be third time lucky, when nobody would come to rescue him?

   ‘Hey it’s ok, you’re safe, I can hear the ambulance, we’ll have you checked out at the hospital and then we’ll go home, have some supper...a bath...’  Jack laughed.  ‘Because I don’t know about you, but I sure could do with a bath, those dicks really stink.’ 

     Mitchell’s eyes began to close but he had to tell Jack one last thing.  ‘I’m sorry about the car.’

     Jack’s attention had been drawn to the paramedic vehicle screaming along the country lane towards them, until he heard Mitchell apologise.  He  looked back down at the boy.  ‘Mitchell?’  He felt for a pulse and his eyes widened.  ‘No no no don’t, Mitchell, come on wake up.  Please wake up.’ 

     Marley was certain that Barry Wingate was hiding something.  Throughout her meeting with him, he was agitated, often wiped his fevered brow and glanced towards the window, or anywhere that didn’t feature her prying eyes.  He was terrible at eye contact, and under extreme pressure she was certain would crack and spill the beans.  But as much as she knew several levels of extreme torture, through watching the military videos from Guantanamo Bay, she wasn’t entirely sure she was the person who could seriously inflict just the right amount of force.  In her head however, the levels of torture, her snarled features pressing up close and personal to Barry as he lay spread eagled on a bench, his trousers around his ankles, his fingers attached to metal links that would fire electricity through his system and the electrodes on his testicles, oh she had quite an arsenal in order to get her revenge...revenge.  He wasn’t the enemy she sighed; he was just a man trying to make money on another health pill that unfortunately had one or two nasty side effects.  She felt sorry for him, his secrets were going to destroy him, he was covering for someone, probably the partner, this Darren who showed no interest in coming to his defence. But then maybe not, she thought as she ripped open the lid of the take away coffee and added sugar and milk and used the wooden stick to stir it in.  She was at the hospital labs, in the canteen, had been there all afternoon, researching further on the pills and their side effects.  Merthyr the young lab technician with degrees longer than her Girl Guide merits on both arms, was preparing a summary of the chemical breakdown in the pills he had already been working on. 

     She’d learnt from Merthyr of the patients who had been admitted, and the bodies in the morgue that had been brought in after whatever creature had escaped them.  A creature who from description had matched the ID of those her team were battling in that Terrace.  Merthyr was doing a summary of that too.  She’d offered to do her own, shown her ID but then a call from upstairs from Dr. Bryn Thomas changed her mind. 

    Dr. Bryn was a senior doctor at the St Helens hospital.  He was well regarded, he was no more than 38 years of age, in his size 9 shoes and smelt of expensive aftershave, and wore his hair slicked back with hair oil, but even he couldn’t explain why his patients who had been admitted with bite marks were left fighting for their lives and dead within the space of a week if that.  He’d told Marley as he paraded the Ward where the patients lay in beds two feet from the next, eight in each ward room, or some along the corridors, and even some taking up the infirmary wards due to the influx. 

     Bryn couldn’t make out why some as young as three and as old as 87 were suffering from the same marks on their body, and if that wasn’t bad enough, just what the hell were those, he’d pointed his lily-white finger at the lines on the bodies of the patients.

     Marley stared at the black veins that stretched out from the bite mark often in their legs and ankles and hands, rarely on their bellies or backs unless in some cases they’d been bed ridden.  Around the teeth marks of whatever creature, it had been, black root like veins were spreading out from the wound, heading forever upwards.  Patients complained of a burning sensation from the wound and along the staggered veins, but many only mentioned it once. 

     Bryn also explained the marker pen dots on certain bodies. 

   ‘We monitor the spread, and it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.’  He said, his tired eyes having only spent a few hours closed.  ‘In a matter of a few hours from the bite mark in the back of the leg, this black vein has increased in diameter.  From here to the thigh in just a few hours. What the hell is it, because I really don’t know.  And the guys in the lab are drawing blanks.  What are we dealing with, is it alien?’

     It had been then that Marley realised that in this world, aliens were known by the public and that they were only talked about with jest in hers.  It was a threat all the same but she was protected somehow by the veil of knowledge that she possessed, a secret organisation, nobody knew about, to one where the events of Miracle Day, and the 456, and the Space Ships and the events of Canary Wharf were far more real than she ever realised, and right now she was in the middle of a crisis.  This was no longer worrying about an oversized crocodile by meddling freaks, this was something from another planet that was killing people around her, and whatever she thought once, this was bloody real and she was in the thick of it.

     She took a few photographs of the veins for her records, she assured him, and the scale by which they spread, from one marker dot to the next.  She pulled out her notepad, a pastel and flowered book from a shop in the city, that she’d planned on using to locate details of the other Marley, the family and background, something she couldn’t shake off, ignore.  Now she was scribbling notes in short hand, taking detailed photos and measurements and slipping back into the role of a medical student, a role she once had, albeit in the wrong field.  But these days, veterinary and doctor ran hand in hand. 

   

      The resus doors crashed open and Mitchell was wheeled in, his body contained within the neck and head brace and all manner of medical devices to keep him alive.  Jack followed them in, his eyes never leaving Mitchell, concern growing increasingly stronger, the moment the defibrillator was called for.

     Gwen slammed her palms at the front of the vending machine and swore at the lack of a drink after the machine had gobbled up her money.  She blew her hair from her face and rested both hands on the machine.  With a well meaning kick into the guts of the rectangle vending machine, a click, whirr and clatter signified the cup dropping into the holder and a series of flavours dribbled into it.  Gwen swore again.  Canteen, she could be certain of something resembling tea there...she hoped!

     Barry Wingate sat at his desk, the beads of sweat on his brow and upper lip gathered heavily and he dabbed them with his dirty white handkerchief.  He had been staring at the same hand written phone number for the past ten minutes.  He’d lifted and replaced the handset three times.  They had said to him that if he had any problems to call them, but they seemed certain that he would never need to call.  They were very sure of that.  Barry began to wish THEY had never come, that THEY had never considered him for the batch of diet pills they were flogging.  But They seemed convinced that he was a sure fire bet, and while the beer flowed and while they remained completely sober and Darren his inebriated partner of business seemed convinced that this batch would be the makings of them, signed the deal and shook hands. 

     Since the first batch was sent out, advertised on the website, bulk demands, there had been problems.  No second orders, no complaints guaranteed, he was pleased about that, but then again, in every order of pills, vitamins, painkillers, steroids someone somewhere had had a gripe, or wanted to order more, but nothing, no comments good or bad were posted on their walls. 

     Newly married Darren had always been quipping that his wife needed to lose a few pounds around the belly and had taken a batch home, had slipped it in her tea, and had convinced her that he was doing what was best for her.  Then he had come home from work one day to find his wife dead on the hall carpet, her insides on the outside and creatures on the carpet making a beeline for him.

     Barry had visited Darren earlier despite telling that woman from the Authorities, Dr Hanratty, that he hadn’t seen him, he’d implored him to speak to the Authorities that this couldn’t go on.  They had to confess, if they just named those people, if they just knew where they came from, they’d be saved, it wasn’t their fault, they just sold the goods, they didn’t make them.  Barry paused as he saw Darren’s face change.

   ‘What?  Darren talk to me.’

   ‘Where do you think those people came from, the ones in the factory? They supplied them, no questions asked, and we didn’t ask did we? We never said once where they came from, if they had papers.’  Darren watched as Barry crumbled and sagged into the armchair, in his dinghy bedsit.  No longer the expensive house, he’d never been back since that day. 

     In a grotty bedsit over an Off Licence shop, Darren had moved in, taken the lease and never looked back.  But he’d also never properly slept, awoken screaming his wife’s name and cried himself back to sleep.  He stank of stale sweat and whisky. 

   ‘Oh fucking hell.  Do we even know where They came from? Were they as illegal an alien as the staff?’  Barry reached an arm to the half bottle of whisky on the coffee table, wiped his thick sausage fingers around the inside of the dirty glass and poured a measure, knocking it back, feeling it burn, and poured another. 

   ‘We need to get rid of any association to those pills and....oh god... she’ll come back, she’ll come back and with more inspectors, if they find those workers...’  He knocked the second and felt his head swim.

   ‘Who?’  Darren raised his head.

   ‘The woman from the Authorities, Dr Hanratty.  She told me about the pills, about the damage that they do, that they’ve done.  What the hell was in those pills Darren, did you look, did you read the packaging? We need to find what’s in them, we’ve got to fucking cover ourselves’

   ‘Cover ourselves Bazza, our credibility went through the roof after those pills hit the market, my wife is dead because of it.  I’m not going back into that house, I’m not going to go through what I saw, it was like something out of a sci fi movie, I’m bloody not.  You can’t make me.’

       It had been hours.  Again, it felt like London, he’d waited hours then.  Jack sighed as he sat in the corridor awaiting news.  A nurse had told him earlier that they were trying to stabilise Mitchell – just how bad had he been hurt? The cause of the accident had been the creature, Jack’s foot and the sudden veer off the road by a misjudged swerve.  All three had put Mitchell in a critical condition that Jack couldn’t help thinking could have been avoided.  He sighed again then got to his feet. Mitchell was no longer in Resus.  He considered it odd that the medical staff hadn’t notified him and went in search. 

     He hated hospitals.  In this one alone he could recall several events on various corridors over the years.  As he rounded a corner he saw Gwen and frowned.  She was standing, her hands on her hips of her skinny jeans, the door behind her was open.  She must have noticed him staring and glanced across. 

   ‘Jack, what are you doing here?’  She frowned.

     He jerked a thumb back towards the Resus.  ‘Mitchell, you?’

     She jerked her thumb back to the open door.  ‘Clark.’

     Jack strolled over and peered into the single room and saw a man looking no different in complexion to Mitchell earlier.  ‘What happened?’

   ‘He came over really sick, on the way back from the clean up.  He was bitten, but only once.  Mitchell was bitten too wasn’t he?’  She replied turning back to face the open door, and the unconscious male kept alive by a ventilator. 

   ‘Yeah.’  Jack whispered.  His jaw flickered.

   ‘What is this creature, how do we stop it?’

   ‘We need to find out where it came from, then locate each and every store it was sold to.’

   ‘What if it were online? Those people, if they took the pills, most of them won’t be alive.’

   ‘Then we have to find them fast.  Who did Marley say the pills were sold to over here?’

   ‘It’s a pharmaceutical business on an industrial estate. Have no idea where she is, probably screwing something else up.’

   ‘Give her a break Gwen, she’s new to this.’

   ‘She’s Torchwood, so she is aware of what goes on here.’

   ‘Torchwood from an alternative universe, where half the things that we have happen, don’t over there, remember, flip side of the coin.  She only gets to deal with Elvis and over inflated creatures, while we get the real deal, and all the fun.’  Jack placed a hand on Gwen’s shoulder. 

   ‘I need to find Mitchell, find out where they took him after Resus.’ 

     Gwen faced Jack and stared up at him, frowning.

    ‘What happened?’  She saw him properly, the dishevelled appearance of his clothing, bits of grass and mud on his coat, and blood on his boots, and a tear in his trousers. 

   ‘We crashed.  One of those creatures that we thought had escaped hadn’t.’  He shook his head.  ‘I need to find Mitchell, he went through the windscreen when the vehicle rolled.’

   ‘Oh God.’  Gwen exclaimed.  ‘I’ll come with you.’  She rummaged in the pocket of her jacket retrieving a phone.  Its ringtone was standard, the name flashing said ‘Uncle’.  Jack glanced over.  Gwen paused. 

   ‘It’s Clark’s phone, fell out of his pocket earlier...’  the phone continued to ring.  She answered it.  ‘Hello?’  The caller paused before hanging up.  She pulled a disgruntled face and looked at the number. 

   ‘Problem?’  Jack asked as they continued along the corridor peering into ward rooms.

   ‘Probably nothing.’

   ‘Oh, come on Gwen, problem shared and all of that?’ 

   ‘Just a gut feeling.’  She pushed the phone back into her pocket as Jack located a ward full of patients, all in the same condition.  There were 10 patients and near the back of the room he spotted Mitchell.  He strode into the room as a nurse looked up.

   ‘I’m sorry sir but you can’t come in here, not unless you’ve got clearance.’  The ward sister said, stepping in front of Jack halting his progress.  Jack glanced back at Gwen before pulling his ID, and waving it in her face. 

   ‘I think you’ll find it’s all in order.  What’s wrong with these patients, why are they all here? And who’s in charge?’

   ‘I am!’ 

     Jack spun around and raised a brow.  Standing directly in the doorway, a clipboard under her arm and a stethoscope around her neck was Dr. Marley Hanratty. 

     Marley explained in detail to both Jack and Gwen about the patients that had been admitted since the pills had made their first contact with a human host.  It seemed that bar 15 that had been sold online, the majority 45 bottles were sold over the counter in pharmacies around Cardiff.  Marley had managed to locate, contact and recall every pill bottle from the shelves and have them ready for collection by 12 noon the very next day, she’d arranged with Merthyr, to have them incinerated at the hospital, once checks had been carried out.   Although she’d hoped that all doors wouldn’t lead back to the Pharmaceutical company on the Industrial estate, it seemed that they did.

     Jack listened intently, his face darkening with each lead, each bottle and each dead victim now taking up residence in the downstairs morgue.  He blanched at the photographs of the black veins that fanned out across a patient’s body from the wound upwards to the heart, and after seeing it for himself on several patients, removed the covers and saw for himself the extent of the bites on Mitchell’s legs and hands.  Given the length of time since he’d been bitten, the poison had had time to take hold. 

   ‘How long?’  He growled.

   ‘The last patient to die was brought in yesterday afternoon, she’d been bitten in the morning, one of the many brought out from evacuated streets.’

   ‘We need to find a live specimen or we’re going to lose them Jack!’  Gwen put in.

   ‘What’s the name of the guy at the Pharmaceutical place, Gary?’

   ‘Barry – Barry Wingate.  He knows something, I’m sure of it.’  Marley corrected.

   ‘Then we go pay him a visit.’  Jack fought back the ache in his heart at the young man.  ‘You call me...the moment anything happens, good...or bad!’  He bent down and pressed his lips against Mitchell’s forehead, a long lingering kiss.  Sniffing deeply, and swallowing hard, he straightened up and stormed from the room.  Gwen lingered a moment at the bedside, smiled sympathetically and followed quickly after Jack.      

     The major frowned at the voice on the other end of the line as he held the phone in his right hand.  Who was answering on behalf of Clark and where was he?

     Barry Wingate filled the cardboard box on his desk with his personal belongings.  On the desk sat a shredder, it was full of shredded paper and sitting beside it was an empty folder, beneath that sat another folder yet to be shredded, another with the X for delete.  This had been a good business once, but they still required investment and Darren had sought a good investor, or so he thought.  But still, even after spending a good few hours searching through all the data and the deals with THEM, he still had no idea who THEY were.

     Barry was scared.  He’d been scared since the first visit from Hanratty, since the reports of the deaths from the pills he’d sold, from the workers who had no records in his books and yet he’d paid.  Just who the hell were THEY?

He scurried from the office and out into the hallway just as a tall handsome man stepped into the building, his blue great coat swaying around him, like an over lord of a powerful organisation – Barry trembled, clutching his box of belongings to his chest; a customised stapler with googly eyes, a nodding flower in a plant pot that reacted to sound, and also vibrations and shuddered in the box as he trembled in his shoes.

   ‘Barry Wingate?’ 

   ‘Who...who’s asking?’

   ‘It wasn’t a question.’

   ‘Business is closed, take whatever it is up with the next mug, I don’t work here anymore.’  He scurried to the door as Gwen blocked his exit.

   ‘Oh no, you’re Barry Wingate, you own this establishment and we’ve got a lot of questions to ask you.’  Gwen flashed her ID and saw a grown man cry.

     Captain Jack Harkness sat in the swivel chair behind Wingate’s desk and read what was left of the files, addresses of companies they’d bought from in the past, employees that were employed over a period of time, and most of which were during the distribution of the Wonder Pills.  But the batch number that was given below each of the workers worried Jack.  B872.  He closed the folder over with a slap, leant forward, interlinked his fingers and rested his chin on them and glared darkly at Wingate. 

   ‘How long have you been employing workers and making deals with the Extra Terrestrial Workers Union?’

     Barry’s face dropped.  ‘What?’

      Jack pushed the folder towards him, his fingers pressed against the front cover.  ‘This shows that you have employed alien workers in your factory without any papers.’  He said.

   ‘Illegal aliens?’  Gwen pulled a face.

   ‘I don’t understand.  Alien?’  Barry didn’t want to consider the possibility of alien life forms but the more he sat with the two people either side of him, and the discovery of the creature still living inside Darren’s house that he had left Darren with as he’d hightailed it from the house, to his car, to the warehouse, he was beginning to think that perhaps there were after all – aliens!

   ‘B872 is an order of Alien that has been employed to work in mass factories because of their ability to work without sleep.  They’re drones, they don’t require feeding or sleeping, they just work.’

   ‘Are they....human?  I mean, they looked, I mean, when I saw them, they looked real!’  Barry began to remember.

     He’d seen them arrive in the truck, a cattle truck perhaps but nevertheless a truck.  There were over 20 of them.  Their usual staff hadn’t appeared for work, Barry had never questioned this, as it was Darren’s job.  He hired and fired, Barry just ordered and wrote the cheques and the more he thought about it, he realised that he was less involved in the actual running of the business than he’d thought.  It was his business, he’d started it, with Darren.  Darren hadn’t invested, he’d come in with the ideas of what they should do, how they should expand, they’d be rich by the time they were in their 30’s.  They’d live the high life and drink expensive champagne on expensive yachts on the Maldives.  Pipe dreams Barry had always thought, but for one moment when that dream was a reality, for that brief few months, when the sales rocketed, a workforce was employed and they were knocking out pills like smarties. Then when the repeated orders failed to come in, when the online sales stopped, when their regular previous customers failed to order, everything slumped!

   ‘What’s the name of the suppliers, when did you sign the deal, why is there no paperwork? WHO ARE THEY?’

   ‘I don’t know!’ Barry bleated.  ‘It was Darren who dealt with the suppliers, I just signed the cheques.  I’m sorry, I don’t know anything.  Darren dealt with these people.  I only met them once and they gave me the willies.’  He confessed.

   ‘Gave you the willies how?’  Jack pressed rising from the seat.

   ‘Just the way they were.  They never smiled, they wore dark glasses it was very men in black, I thought they were something official, government like, I’d never heard of the name.  Darren told me to stop worrying about it, I asked him see, but he said it was all kosher, and when the batches turned up, the chemicals...’

   ‘Chemicals?’  Gwen asked.

   ‘We have a factory, it’s out the back.  We had our own staff but they never showed for work, we did contact but no answer, then this new gang arrived and well...’

   ‘Show me the factory!’  Jack insisted!

     The black veins spread up Mitchell’s body, fanning out like the skeletal pattern of a large leaf.  It stretched up like spilt ink on blotting paper creeping over his lower torso.  He moved in the bed, his body taut, fingers clenched, visible facial pained expression.  Marley watched the monitor count a double beat and felt his forehead. 

   ‘He’s burning up.’  She considered a moment.  ‘Ice... we need to bring down the temperature, maybe that will slow the process.’  She looked down at Mitchell.  ‘Hang in there, Mitch, Jack and Gwen are going to find a cure.’  She stroked his cheek.

     The large warehouse was spotlessly clean.  The machinery hardly looked used, there was no oil or powder, no stains on the belts, they were as clean as when they were first installed.

     Jack poked his head into the bowels of the machinery, peered up into the labyrinth of cogs and wheels, conveyor belts and grabber arms, all the things that made the machine blend, add ingredients, mould and pack pills and sighed. 

   ‘When was this installed?’  He called while still feeling along the clean chrome metal shelving that selected the different grade of pill.

   ‘2008, that’s when we ordered it, I never checked see, it wasn’t my job, you should talk to Darren.’

   ‘And where can we find him?’  Gwen asked tiring of the fat man in the suit who was ladling a fair portion of the blame on a partner unable to defend himself. 

   ‘He’ll be at home.’

     Gwen glanced over.  ‘And where is that?’

     Darren had sat there all night, on the plastic box in the middle of the kitchen.  He still held the kitchen knife in his left hand but all the adrenalin had escaped him and he was exhausted, pale and extremely uncomfortable.  He had bite marks on his hands and legs and blood pooled around his shoes and soaked into his trousers where he sat.  He could still hear the creature screaming at him, hissing from the box.  This way though, sitting on the red stack a box, one he’d found storing fabrics for curtains his wife was considering putting up in the lounge, he’d trapped the creature, large though it was, and although he’d initially put books on to secure it, it still moved.  So, he’d sat on it, secured it and it didn’t matter how much it screamed, he wasn’t giving up.  And if by some miracle it escaped, then he had the knife and he’d kill that little fucker, so and he would!

     The screaming had stopped when he woke from his snatched sleep.  He held his breath and carefully peered around the box and tentatively felt all four sides.  But all were intact.  He’d had the most horrendous of dreams that night.  His legs had gone to sleep.  He craved to stretch them, but he was afraid to move in case it escaped.  But he felt uncomfortable and a little sick.  His stomach growled, it lurched forward and he felt sick.  He’d woken up in the night, still sitting on the box, still holding the knife.  His wife was still on the floor, her decomposed body decomposing further but still with the tablecloth covering her face, that scared, screaming, horrified, ‘oh my god I’m going to die’ look that he couldn’t face any longer. 

     He felt a pain in his stomach, and another and another, a biting pain.  He tried to remember what he’d last eaten.  It had been a liquid lunch, and Wingate was there, whining about the business and desperate to spill his guts to the authorities.  They’d come back to the house to deal with the creature that Darren always knew was still in the house.  And they’d seen it.  A foot long, like a giant penis with legs and arms and teeth like a piranha and the ability to fucking jump and bite with teeth so bloody sharp they were through your layers of skin and drawing on your blood like a vampire, before you’d even emitted GET IT OFF ME.  What the hell was it?  Where did it come from? How could that have come from a pill?

     He felt the pain again and heard the splatter of something inside the box hit the tiled floor and splash against the sides of the box.  ‘Oh god!’  Darren whimpered.  ‘Oh God, no!’

     Jack Harkness followed Barry into the show house on Winterbourne Avenue. It was early morning, the birds were still roosting in trees high above them, the suburban street was still snuggled beneath duvets, not quite the time for shift workers to be waking for work.  Gwen had almost bought a house in suburbia, when life had been a little less hectic and the world hadn’t gone to shit, and when the, then government hadn’t wanted to kill her and the team.  She pushed the thought to the back of her mind, and focused on the here and now.  It didn’t pay to dwell on the past.  Who had said that, she frowned?

     The smell was over powering as the door opened into the hallway.  Darren’s wife’s permeating stench hit them as they entered and her highly visible legs protruded from the tablecloth along with her lower torso open for all to see.  Jack and Gwen instantly clamped their hands to their nose and mouth as their eyes watered at the strong pungent odour.

     Barry stepped around the body and called to Darren. 

   ‘Darren? Sorry I ducked out earlier mate but I brought help.’  Barry poked his head around each door, quickly assessed the room and moved on in search of Darren, his tie over his mouth and nose.   

   ‘They want to talk to you about....Darren?’  Barry had reached the kitchen, and saw Darren, sitting on a plastic stack a box where the floor all around him pooled with blood and faeces and all manner of bodily fluids.  Darren himself was pale, clammy and was crying, the knife held over his exposed left wrist.

   ‘I can’t do it.  Please.  I can’t.’  He sobbed.

     Jack cast a glance at Gwen before stepping into the room.  He knew without even asking what had happened. 

   ‘Darren, look at me.’  Jack said, removing his coat and draping it across the table.  He squatted near to the man and took away the knife from the exposed vein.  ‘Talk to me, tell me what happened?’

   ‘This was meant to be a new start!’  Darren wheezed.  ‘This was meant to be our dream home.  Sheryl wanted to lose weight before the wedding, so I gave her the pills.  I put them in her tea!’  He wasn’t looking at Jack now, he was gazing at the legs of his wife, her bare feet, bloodied stubs where the toes once existed.  ‘What creature does that?’

   ‘They’re alien Darren.  Who were the people you dealt with?’

   ‘Alien? ALIEN?’  He restated, unsure if he’d heard correctly.

   ‘Darren listen to me.  You and I both know what’s going on here.’  Jack looked towards the man’s chest and Darren refocused on Jack. 

   ‘You’ve seen this before haven’t you?  You know what I’m going through.’

   ‘Yes.  And I’ve got two sick team members in hospital fighting for their lives and many other people dying because of the pills you and your business partner over there sold across the country.  Now I need to know the name of the suppliers.  It’s very important that you remember that.’  Jack pressed.

   ‘I’m going to die, aren’t I?’  Darren stared hard at Jack.

   ‘It’s possible.  So why not impart the information and let me and Gwen and my team nail these bastards so that they don’t ruin any more lives?’

       Darren fell silent and Jack knew they didn’t have much time. 

   ‘There’s a chance we can get you to hospital and get this creature out of you, but I need to know who those men were because I need to stop this happening again.  Darren...focus on me, WHO WERE THEY?’  Jack had hold of the man’s hands. 

     Darren’s head lolled forward.  ‘No you don’t.’  Jack got to his feet and quickly moved Darren from the box and laid him flat on the ground.  Barry’s eyes fixed on the box and the gaping hole in the centre.  Gwen had followed the seeping mass of blood as Jack moved the body. 

   ‘Oh God!’  She whispered.  She took hold of Barry’s arm and steered him from the room.  ‘I need you to do something for me Barry.’  She said, her voice soft but authoritative.  Barry maintained an eye on the box and the other on Gwen, her voice interesting but still not enough to convince him that it was any safer than the blood in the kitchen.  ‘I need you to go and find a box with a lid that we can use.’

   ‘What for?’  He said.

   ‘In a few moments this place is going to get a little crazy, and I want to make sure that you are not in the room.  So, I need you to find a box big enough to put that creature into.’

   ‘I’m not going to pick it up.’

   ‘Nobody is asking you to but I need to help Jack and your friend Darren and I can’t do it without a box.  Barry, focus on me and my voice, find me a box with a lid that can house an alien creature, yes.  Now tell me what I just said!’  She knew he wasn’t listening; it was evident from his manner, and the box in the kitchen.  She knew also that without the box they would be playing ‘Bat the Rat’ or ‘alien’ in this case.  It could get messy and she stood a good chance of being bitten, and something else.  Where were the other creatures that came out of the woman in the hallway?

     Gwen closed the kitchen door shutting the wife in the hallway.  She heard Barry’s footsteps on the landing above her head and searched the kitchen for a back up box. 

     Jack pulled out Darren’s shirt that had been partly tucked inside his trousers, there was some significant movement within the lower torso. 

   ‘See if you can locate another knife Gwen, hurry!’  He called ‘And a towel.’

     Gwen cast a look back at the blood trail leading to Darren’s lifeless body, lifeless aside from the activity in the belly.  ‘What are you going to do?’

   ‘Perform a caesarean, what do you think I’m going to do?’  Jack quipped sarcastically. 

     Gwen pulled out various drawers, and rifled through the large selection of cutlery for a knife.  She found a small knife, used for peeling potatoes and grasped it in her hand and turned to face Jack, who raised a brow and shook his head.  She returned to the drawers and pulled out another and set a tenderising hammer onto the draining board, Jack laughed incredulously.

   ‘Don’t you mock me Jack Harkness, we might need this yet.’

   ‘What for, Barry?’

     She laughed.  ‘Possibly.  Got it!’  She pulled a large fishing knife from the drawer, a beast of a knife, serrated one end, and smooth edged the other, the ideal filleting knife.  She held it aloft and smiled.

   ‘So I take it the towels are for wrapping our ‘baby’ in?’  Gwen said as she handed the knife to Jack, handle first.  He took it and nodded.

   ‘They’re slippery buggers without, as I can vouch for.’  He told her.  Turning back to the body he prepared himself.  ‘You’d better keep a listen out for Barry, don’t really want him coming in and witnessing this.’

   ‘There was a time when you wouldn’t have batted an eye.’  Gwen said stepping around the blood on the tiled floor to reach the kitchen door to the hallway.

   ‘You’d better take the tenderiser with you in case he freaks, wouldn’t want this getting out that Torchwood are into filleting humans.  Ruin our street cred.’  He flipped the knife blade over and slid it into the lower half of Darren’s body and slowly slit open his belly.  The erratic behaviour at the top of the torso forced blood into the mouth of the victim.  Jack became worried that his efforts would be in vain.

     Gwen couldn’t watch him, it turned her stomach.  She stepped into the hallway and waited for Barry.  In a way, the body in the hallway as pungent as it was, wasn’t nearly as barbaric as Darren.  She stepped over the body and stood at the foot of the stairs. 

   ‘Barry, are you alright up there, do you need a hand?’  Gwen placed a hand on the stair rail and took a step up.  ‘Barry?’  She took a deep breath.  All was quiet up the stairs.  Pulling her gun from the back of her belt, checking her ammo, the tenderiser hammer in her left hand, Gwen climbed the stairs to investigate.

Despite the creature’s obvious attempts at clawing its way out of Darren’s stomach, as soon as Jack slit his belly, the creature seemed less inclined to leave that way.  It dawned on Jack then that as the creature grew, so did its level of survival instinct.  It knew if it showed itself, it was going to be caught, and likely be contained.  It had already escaped the stack a box container by clawing and eating its way through the plastic and up into the arse of Darren Ormskirk. With the belly now open and the chewed insides visible Jack saw the tail of the creature push through the chest cavity and force its way through the neck towards the mouth.  Grabbing the towel that Gwen had left on the seat, he quickly made a grab of the tail of the creature, slimy as it was and located a leg and pulled. His hand slid down the tail as it thrashed and pushed itself further up the oesophagus. 

   ‘No you don’t!’  Jack caught hold again and tugged hard.  He felt the creature struggle against him, saw the neck slacken and lose the thickness of the creature.  As he pulled some more, the creature became visible.  This was a lot bigger than the one he’d struggled with in the 4x4, this was the next stage up, or maybe two stages up.  This was sock puppet size with legs and arms and teeth.  Jack snatched up the towel and clamped his hand around the creature, securing it in the towel and made good a wrap that he could hold it without losing it. 

   ‘GWEN, HOW’S THE BOX COMING?!’  He yelled towards the door.  Nothing!  ‘Gwen?’  Above his head he heard three loud gunshots.  ‘GWEN!’

It was quiet upstairs as Gwen climbed the staircase onto the landing.  A small bathroom with bath and shower met her first, the door open and the pine disinfectant heavy on the air.  She cast a glance inside and saw nothing out of the ordinary, no tiny footprints on the floor.  No tell tale signs.  She pushed ahead and to the second door, closed.  She’d come back to it.  The next two doors were open slightly.  She pushed open the third door and peered inside.  It was a spare bedroom, clean sheets on the single divan bed, wardrobe with empty hangers, and a view from the window to the neighbour’s opposite.  There were lights on in an upstairs room, and a light was on in the hallway.  She checked her watch.  Time was cracking on; the dawn chorus would be kicking in shortly. 

     In the fourth room, again another spare room, this time an office, with computer desk and chair, office space and shelving containing box files and folders she leafed through one on the desk that contained illustrations for children’s books, when she heard a scuffling sound near the far wall.  Aiming the gun in that direction and retrieving the hammer from the desk she cautiously edged towards the bookcase and peered around it.  The scuffling came again.  She narrowed her eyes.  This was coming from the other room, but she’d already checked in there. 

     Gwen stepped out onto the landing and called Barry’s name again, and the scuffling became agitated. 

   ‘Barry if that is you, thump the ground hard twice.’  She said.  Two hard thumps shook the floorboards and she gasped.  She pushed the door again but saw nothing.  She stared at the divan and the drawers underneath and frowned.  Barry was a large man, there was no physical way he could have...

     Putting down the hammer on the clean bed sheet, Gwen hooked her fingers under the divan drawer handle and gave a tug.  Stiff as it was, it opened – it was empty. 

   ‘Barry, where are you?’

     Out on the landing again and Gwen had no choice, whatever was behind that closed second door could answer that nagging question.  Gwen wrapped her hand around the round handle and turned it.  She pushed the door open but it refused to open fully.  Something was blocking it. 

   ‘Barry?’  A fist thumped the floor.  ‘Are you hurt, can you move? Thump once for yes and two for no!’  Before she’d even finished her sentence, Barry had thumped the floor once. ‘Are they in there with you Barry?’  Another thump, only weaker.  Gwen took a deep breath and poked her head around the door.  Two large eel like alien creatures had brought down the big man and were feasting on his throat.  He couldn’t move.  His body was a mass of bite marks and blood and he was dying.  A box lay beside him, near the door.  He was as good as dead, and he knew it, Gwen knew it.  It would be a mercy killing, a relief.  He wanted her to do it. He’d rather it was quick than slow and painful, living through being eaten alive.  He’d once questioned the news report of the cannibal who ate his victims while they were still alive and wondered what that was like, an off the cuff thought, a throw-away line.  He never expected to ever find out.

     Barry looked at Gwen through eyes that pleaded, eyes so desperate, eyes slowly closing. 

     The creatures were much thicker, their bony structure had more development than those in the Terrace.  She could only imagine what Jack would find in the stomach of Darren. She couldn’t hesitate, in quick fire succession she fired three shots, Barry was dead in the first.  She grabbed the box and pulled the door shut behind her.  As she stepped out onto the landing and faced the stairs, Jack was at the foot of them, the creature now wrapped in two towels. 

   ‘Where’s Barry?’

   ‘Dead.  There were two more of those creatures up the stairs.’  She prised open the box as she reached him and closed it up after the creature was contained.  ‘We need to get this to the hospital, it’s almost morning.’

Clark Goodson opened his eyes and focused on the faces staring back at him around the bed.  He’d heard them speaking for a good few minutes before the rest of his senses kicked in.  There was a Welsh voice he recognised, Gwen, and the Scottish girl Marley, the other he wasn’t so sure of.  Now that his eyes fully focused, his attention to the third person was explained.  Nurse Ranjik Arrick smiled. 

   ‘Looks like it worked.  I’ll let Dr Bryn know.’  He watched her leave and focused his attention on Gwen and Marley. 

   ‘What did I miss?’

Captain Jack Harkness yawned and stretched in the seat beside the bed.  The monitor beat a healthy rhythm.  Mitchell’s temperature was down, and unlike other patients in the ward, Mitchell was still unconscious.  Jack hadn’t moved, hadn’t left his side.  While he’d sat he felt sick, not from the bites of previous.  Being brought back from death had rejuvenated him, all past injuries had been reset, he was ‘as good as new’. 

     When they’d returned to the hospital with the contained creature, they’d made their way to the labs for the team to extract what they needed to create anti venom, the antidote for the poison, from there they watched and waited for the drug to be administered to all the patients including Clark and Mitchell.  But it was the waiting that dragged.  In that time Jack had mulled through the events of the day, the details he’d read in the files at the pharmaceutical plant. The batch code for the drones, it had been many years and another planet since he’d heard of them.  A whole other life time ago.  But why now, what was their purpose, why did they need human hosts, and what were those creatures, what purpose did the drones have for them?  But they were questions that he had no answers for and with both Wingate and Ormskirk dead, there was no way of finding the truth. 

     Mitchell’s arm twitched, he was coming to.

Clark was rifling through his jacket pockets when Gwen stepped back into the ward some time later, with a coffee and a sandwich.  She’d left Clark sleeping.

   ‘You need to rest.’  She said setting the sandwich and cup on the bedside cabinet.

   ‘I hate hospitals.  And I’m fixed right, had my shots.  All better.’  He checked his trouser pockets.

   ‘Are you looking for this?’  Gwen held out his Android phone.  Clark glanced over curious.

   ‘Why have you got my phone?’

   ‘It fell out of your pocket when we arrived here. I just forgot to put it back.’  She held it out to him.

   ‘Oh, thanks!’  He took it from her and checked his messages.

   ‘I thought you said you didn’t have any family?’  Gwen said, just as Clark discovered the Major had phoned him more than once.

   ‘I don’t.’

   ‘So, who is Uncle?’

   ‘Didn’t you ever have ‘uncles’ when you were a kid, a family friend?’  He pushed the phone into his jacket pocket and shrugged on the coat.  ‘Just a lonely old man, I call in and see him sometimes.’

   ‘He seemed very keen to speak to you but he wouldn’t speak to me.’

   ‘Yeah he’s like that.’  Clark laughed it off.  ‘He’s got a touch of dementia, I always made a promise to look out for him, and he’s a good laugh when he remembers the good times.’  Clark slipped on his shoes and smiled at Gwen.  ‘Look he’s not some secret military contact if that’s what you’re worried about.’  Clark eyed Gwen with a smile.  ‘I told you everything about my reasons for joining Torchwood and if my story didn’t check out, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, now would we?’

     Gwen considered, then smiled.  ‘No, you’re right.’  She watched him straighten his collar and step into the corridor.  ‘Do you want a run home?’

   ‘No, it’s alright, I fancy some fresh air, I’ll walk thanks.’ 

     Gwen watched him go.  She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something there she didn’t like.  She pulled out ‘Uncle’s’ number from her pocket and chewed on her lower lip.

A week had passed.  Patients were sent home, Clark was back in work and tackling the paperwork with Gwen, from the pharmaceutical plant in order to find the suppliers.  It was a needle in a haystack, Jack had told them, but there might be something, even a shred of something they could work on. 

     Every internet news station and terrestrial news stations around the globe had been fed information regarding WondaBlend Diet Pills, and thousands had been recalled.  Patients were admitted with abdominal pains but many were still not receiving the information about the drug that could seriously affect their health.  The hospital now had enough anti venom to deal with the influx of other cases still as yet unaccounted for.  Yet as the days progressed, the WondaBlend Pills news grew old and another item took over the tabloids.   Jack wasn’t interested in who was dating Jonathan Priest, the new centre half for the Cardiff City football team. 

     Drones were on Earth and if Jack knew anything about them, this wouldn’t be the last time he’d hear their name. 

     He turned and smiled across at Mitchell as he stirred in their bed, back at the old homestead.  Mitchell inhaled deeply as he awoke and yawned loudly. 

   ‘Sleep well?’  Jack laughed, smiling broadly. 

   ‘How long have I been asleep for?’

   ‘Since leaving the hospital, oh a couple of days.’  Jack teased back the covers and smiled.

   ‘Hey, my face is this way.’  Mitchell called.

   ‘I was admiring the fact that you no longer sport any black marks from the bite.’  He joked, returning his gaze to Mitchell, and smiled, flashing his pearly whites.

The tank bubbled and raged as the meat was lowered into it.  Several hundred eel like tails slapped the water in a frenzy of excitement and their teeth tore into the flesh.  It was feeding time.  In a tank the size of a standard swimming pool housed in a large warehouse, with armed security, electric fencing, and every inch of the building secured, the Major watched from his vantage point, a small elevated ledge to view the eel like creatures in their natural habitat. 

     They were carnivores, born from eggs warmed in bodies and would grow and become the army of the future, but not on this plain.  They were destined to a life beyond the stars.  Earth was just the breeding ground, with humans so keen to lose weight, to throw pills down their neck seeing only the possibility of a miracle without reading the label.  He was doing them a favour, he told himself – often.

     These were his source of income, and the many before them.  The Major felt a chuckle emanating from the depths of his stomach, it built its way up his body and he threw back his head and laughed the hardest he’d laughed in years.  He had his army, now all he needed was Harkness, Mitchell and the Arakian Queen and he would return to Arakia triumphant and claim his reward.