It was a long time before either of them could speak.
'A zombie,' Rhys said incredulously. 'A bloody zombie, for Christ's sake!'
'We don't know that's what it was,' Gwen said. 'Let's not jump to conclusions.'
They were in the car, heading through the streets of Grangetown towards Corporation Road. After calling Jack, they had stopped only to get properly dressed and for Gwen to grab some extra ammunition. Now they were on their way to the Hub to liaise with Jack and Ianto.
'Jack's jumping to conclusions,' Rhys pointed out. 'Zombie attack, he said. Zombie attack on Cardiff. Sounds like a computer game.'
Gwen smiled. 'Jack likes to be dramatic.'
'Jesus!' Rhys exclaimed as a police car suddenly rocketed past them, siren screaming and lights going like crazy. Their own Saab rocked slightly in the slipstream. 'Wonder where he's going in such a hurry.'
Before Gwen could reply, her phone rang. She answered it on the second ring. 'Jack?'
She listened for a moment, frowned in puzzlement, and then shot a glance at Rhys. 'Andy, what are you-' Rhys grinned wickedly. 'Not still mooning after you, is he?' he said, loudly enough to be overheard.
Still frowning, Gwen put a hand on Rhys's arm and gave a little shake of the head. Rhys could tell from her expression that whatever Andy was telling her was serious.
'You're joking me,' she said. And, 'Oh my God.' And, 'OK, Andy, thanks. . No, you get her to hospital. . I'm on my way to meet them now, as a matter of fact. . Yeah, see you.'
She pocketed the phone and puffed out her cheeks, as though exhaling a long-held breath.
'What?' Rhys asked.
'It's everywhere,' she said, and there was a hushed tone to her voice which chilled Rhys to the core. She told him what Andy had told her — about zombies attacking a group of partygoers in Gabalfa, about how his partner had been bitten and was bleeding badly. 'This is mad,' she said. 'It's just. . mad.'
'Madder than aliens?' Rhys said.
'Yes!' she snapped, as though affronted by the sheer outrageousness of what was happening. 'Aliens I can understand, but zombies? It doesn't make sense.'
Rhys was about to reply when his unspoken words were superseded by an ear-splitting howl of brakes and a shockingly loud crash from somewhere ahead. He reacted as though a pedestrian had stepped out in front of the car, hunching his shoulders and stamping on the brakes, arms rigid as he clenched the steering wheel.
'What the hell was that?' he said.
'Car crash?' suggested Gwen.
'Sounded like a bloody building falling down.'
'Let's check it out, shall we?'
He gave a short nod, put the car into gear and eased it forward.
'I think it came from up there,' Gwen said, pointing at the right turn into Bradford Street.
Rhys nodded again and turned into the road that Gwen had indicated.
'Oh my God,' she breathed.
Less than ten metres ahead of them, the police car that had gone screaming past a few minutes earlier was embedded in the now-demolished garden wall of a suburban house. Judging by the thick black skid-marks on the road, visible in the light of the Saab's headlamps, the car had swerved out of control, mounted the pavement and smashed at some speed into the waist-high stone barrier. However it was wasn't the crumpled car, nor even the sight of its two unconscious, bloodstained occupants, that was responsible for Gwen's shocked exhalation.
The street was swarming with zombies. Dozens of them shuffled and lurched in apparently random directions. Though even as Gwen and Rhys gaped in horror and disbelief, the undead began to turn as one, to converge with slow and remorseless purpose on the wrecked car and its stricken occupants.
SIX
'That's interesting,' Ianto said.
He and Jack had just entered the Hub through the revolving cog-wheel door, which was now rolling back into place behind them. They were here to check data, take readings, try to find some rhyme and reason for what was happening — and thus, they hoped, formulate a strategy to combat it.
Jack was in the lead, striding along the iron walkway towards the central work area, where a bank of interlinked computers and readout screens assimilated and displayed information.
Now he glanced over his shoulder to see that Ianto had come to a halt, his attention elsewhere.
'What is?' Jack asked.
Ianto indicated a work bench tucked into an alcove close to the steps leading down to the Autopsy Room. On the bench was a shattered chunk of what looked to have once been a football-sized orb of some silvery, iridescent material. The orb fragment, which rippled gently with light, was nestled within a complex cradle of monitoring equipment, not unlike a miniature version of the work station area. Ianto's attention was snagged by a scrolling bank of data on a monitor screen.
'These enzyme readings are going through the roof,' he said.
'Meaning?'
'Meaning that the pod's rate of regeneration is increasing exponentially.'
Jack arched an eyebrow. He appreciated Ianto's efforts to step into the considerable breach left by the deaths of Owen and Tosh, but he couldn't deny that the extra workload his friend and colleague had recently taken on affected his focus on occasion. Even the normally exceptional standard of Ianto's coffee had slipped a little these past months. Not that Jack would have said anything. Ianto would have been devastated.
'Your point being?'
Ianto shrugged. 'It's just interesting, that's all. Didn't I already say that?'
'You did,' Jack acknowledged, 'and much as I admire your ability to multitask, I really think we need to focus on the matter in hand.' He smiled to show his words were not intended as a reprimand, and swept away, resuming his long-legged stride towards the Rift-monitoring equipment, which was invariably their first port of call in an emergency, and the technological heart of the Hub.
By the time Ianto had joined him, Jack was hopping from screen to screen, poring over the ever-shifting banks of figures and diagrams.
'Look at this,' he said, jabbing at a schematic of a dome-like structure looming over a gridded relief map of the city.
Ianto leaned forward, automatically smoothing down his tie with his hand. 'What is it? Some kind of energy barrier?'
'A time energy barrier,' Jack corrected. 'Highly sophisticated. This is not good.'
'So we're sealed in?'
'Like rats in a cage. Nothing can enter or leave the city. It's gonna play havoc with the gene pool.'
Ianto didn't laugh, but raised his eyebrows to acknowledge the quip. 'What about the visitors?'
Jack moved to another computer, tapped out a few directions on the keyboard, and a more detailed street map of the city flashed up on a large, free-standing flatscreen a few metres away. This map, etched in ice-blue light, was speckled with random clusters of ant-like blips. Even as Ianto watched, more blips appeared, seemingly from nowhere.
'Zombies,' Jack said. Ianto winced. 'As you can see, they're just. . popping into existence all over.'
'They're coming through the Rift, you mean?'
'You'd think so, wouldn't you?' Jack shook his head. 'But here's the weird thing. There are no signs of recent Rift activity.'
Ianto stared at him. 'But that's impossible.'
'All the same. .' Jack shrugged, waving a hand at the screen, as if to say: Here's the evidence. Deal with it.
Ianto crossed back to the computer readouts, stared at them, matching one to the other, trying to make sense of what they were telling him. Finally he said, 'But according to these readings, each of the visitors does possess a residual trace of Rift energy. It's almost as if. .'