Bay of the Dead

TWO

Gwen was awake in an instant, her hand reaching for her gun. But her gun wasn't there; of course it wasn't. She was at home in bed, curled beneath the duvet in her jim-jams, Rhys snoring quietly beside her.

She sat up, pushing a curtain of glossy black hair out of her face. She imagined she could still hear the scream that had woken her, echoing in the silence. Could it have been a dream? It was possible. She'd had plenty of nightmares since Owen and Tosh had died on that awful day. She knew she'd been a bit clingy with Rhys since then, but he'd been brilliant. She looked down at him now, one hand tucked under his head, mouth slightly open, and she smiled. She reached out to gently stroke his hair. . and heard the clanging clatter of a dustbin lid from the back alley.

She was out of bed, across the narrow landing and wrestling with the stiff catch of the bathroom window before the edge of the duvet had even settled into place behind her. Finally winning her battle with the catch, she shoved the window open and stuck her head out.

She couldn't see much. The angles were all wrong. Just a jutting length of wall, stretching down to a sliver of ground, and the edge of a dustbin, viewed from above, peeking around the corner. All of it was soaked in the orange light of an overhead lamp, and gleamed grittily in the drizzle that Gwen could feel speckling the back of her exposed neck.

Ducking back inside, she tugged the window shut, shivering at the chill.

'What's going on?' said a voice behind her.

She spun, startled. Rhys was standing there in T-shirt and boxers, face rumpled from sleep, hair sticking up every which way.

'Rhys!' Gwen gasped and slapped him lightly on the chest. 'Don't do that to me. I nearly had a heart attack.'

He grinned boyishly. 'Oh, that's charming, that is. Frightened of me after all the horrible things you've seen.' He nodded at the now-closed window. 'What you doing anyway?'

'I heard something,' she said.

'One of those Weevil things, was it?'

'I heard a scream. Thought I heard a scream. It woke me up. Then I heard a clatter, like a dustbin lid falling off.'

'Want me to go have a look?'

She couldn't help smiling. 'Don't be daft. If anyone's going to go, it should be me.'

Rhys looked offended. 'Hey, you might be a rough, tough defender of the planet at work, Mrs Williams, but let a bloke have a bit of pride in his own home.'

Gwen chuckled and kissed him on the forehead. 'Fine. We'll go together.'

Two minutes later they had dragged on clothes and boots and were hurrying down the stairs of the apartment block. Ignoring the front door, they headed towards the heavily bolted door at the back of the building, which led out into the narrow alleyway threading between their street and the one parallel. Gwen reached the door as Rhys was still thumping down the last flight of stairs, and began drawing back the thick bolts.

'Let me go first,' Rhys panted.

Gwen used one hand to twist the catch on the door and the other to produce her Torchwood-issue semi-automatic from inside her leather jacket.

'I'm the one with the gun,' she replied, raising her eyebrows.

Rhys pulled a face. 'Come on, love, bit of an overreaction, don't you think? Not every disturbance in Cardiff is caused by psychotic aliens, you know. It's more likely to be Betty Prudom's cat.'

'I know, but still. . better safe than sorry,' Gwen said and slipped outside.

By the time Rhys had followed her into the chill drizzle of the night, Gwen was already stalking down the alley, black and silent, looking not unlike a cat herself. Her shadow stretching out long and thin before her, she moved towards the brick extension jutting from the rear of the building, which narrowed the alley still further and hid the line of dustbins from view.

Rhys hurried towards her, footsteps crackling on the wet ground. She turned and placed a finger to her lips. He rolled his eyes.

'Listen,' she whispered.

He listened. Something was moving in the alley, shuffling around near the bins. Something that sounded bigger than a cat.

Left hand cupped around her right, in which she held her gun, Gwen crept forward. She reached the wall, flattened her back against it, sidled up to the edge and peered around the corner.

She went very still. Rhys was beside her now, feeling like a bit of a spare part.

'Well?' he hissed. 'What can you see?'

Her head jerked round to look at him, hair swishing across her face. Her eyes were wide, face taut with disbelief.

'What is it, Gwen? Talk to me,' he said.

Suddenly she was a blur of movement. Instead of replying, she swung out into the alley, body poised and balanced, arms extended, gun pointing at whatever was moving about by the bins.

'Get up slowly,' she barked. 'Keep your hands where I can see them.'

For a split second Rhys wondered whether he ought to stay where he was, out of sight. Then he thought, Sod that, and moved across to stand beside his wife.

He had a clear view of the alley now, all the way to the sagging chain-link fence at the far end. To their immediate right, snug against the back of the house, was a line of metal dustbins, one per flat, each with a big white number painted on its lid.

Rhys barely registered any of this. He was too busy goggling at the figure squatting on the ground no more than five metres away. He shuddered as a wave of revulsion and cold, prickling fear swept through him.

The man — a tramp, judging by the rags he was wearing — was eating a cat. Rhys thought it might be the old ginger tom which belonged to Betty, their downstairs neighbour, but it was hard to be sure. The poor animal had been ripped apart and devoured, like a roast chicken at a medieval banquet. Most of its remains were lying on the ground at the man's feet, a mangled mass of fur and gore. Even now, as if oblivious to their presence, the man was gnawing on one of the animal's detached limbs, his chin and clothes smeared liberally in blood and guts.

'Oh, Christ,' Rhys muttered, 'that's disgusting.'

Gwen glanced at him, then turned back to the man. 'I told you to stand up!' she shouted.

The man paused, and then he cocked his head in a strangely animalistic way, as if Gwen's voice was very faint and it was taking him a long time to register her words.

And then his head snapped up with a sudden, horrible jerk, and they saw his face properly for the first time.

'Oh God,' Rhys murmured.

The man had no nose. Just a hole where his nose should have been. And his eyes were milky white. And his skin, dry and brown like old leaves, was stretched so tightly across the jutting bones of his skull that his mouth seemed lipless, exposing his black gums and blocky, meat-clogged teeth. As the man lurched upright, Rhys noticed other things about him too. He noticed that one of the man's fingers was missing at the second knuckle, and that the bone was sticking out like a splintered stick; he noticed that the man's feet were bare, and that the skin covering them had split in places, to reveal the sinews and tendons beneath.

And he noticed the smell. The awful, stomach-churning stench of something dead.

The man let out a sound from his ravaged throat, a horrible animal sound that was somewhere between a groan and a snarl. Then he raised his gore-gloved hands and lurched towards them.

' Get back!' Gwen screamed at him. 'Get back, or God help me, I'll shoot you!'

The man didn't even falter. He came at them, his face twisting into an expression of malice that was somehow mindless, utterly devoid of conscious thought.

Gwen shot him. The bullet blasted into his shoulder, leaving a sizeable hole, chunks of flesh and bone flying in all directions.

The man spun and fell, knocked back by the impact. Lowering her gun slightly, but still wary, Gwen took a step towards him.

The man scrambled to his feet and lurched towards them again. Gwen stepped back, almost slipping. Rhys grabbed her arm.

'Come on, love. You're not going to stop him. Let's just run.'

Gwen looked shaken and bewildered. She nodded, and the two of them ran back to the door leading into the apartment block. However, the door was on a spring and had clicked shut behind them. Mouth dry, Rhys delved into his jeans pocket with a trembling hand. It was a tight fit and the key ring was tangled up with all sorts of other stuff — loose change, a crumpled tissue, receipts from work.

'Come on, Rhys,' Gwen said. 'It's right behind us.'

'I'm trying,' he said.

'Well, try a bit harder.'

Rhys could hear the shuffling approach of the thing coming up behind them. Could hear its awful snarling groan. Snarling himself, he grabbed the key ring and wrenched. Money and paper flew out of his pocket, but he didn't care. With fingers that felt fat and clumsy, he found the right key and shoved it into the lock. The key turned, the door opened, and they tumbled into the building.

Gwen slammed the door shut and slid the bolts home, while Rhys, his legs suddenly very shaky, sank to the floor. He was sweating and gasping, as though he had just run the 400 metres. He clenched his fists to stop his hands from shaking.

Gwen stepped back from the door as a heavy weight slammed against it from the other side. The thing growled in apparent frustration, and continued to slam against the door, as though unable to understand why it couldn't get at them.

Rhys looked up at Gwen, who was blinking and taking deep breaths.

'I'm not imagining it, am I?' he said. 'That bloke was dead, wasn't he?'

Gwen rolled her eyes, shrugged and snorted out a laugh that had no humour in it whatsoever. Then she took her mobile out of her pocket.

'I'm calling Jack,' she said.