Something in the Water

NINE

The corpse was laid out on the table in the Autopsy Room underneath a ring of brilliant exam lights. It was old and in an advanced state of decay. The skin had withered into a dark, leathery carapace stretched over wasted muscle and tendon. Some of the joints were exposed, yellowed bone just visible beneath the skein of mud that still covered the entire body.

It was still wearing the remnants of trousers and a sweater, but these were little more than scraps of material stiffened by the preserving effects of the soil. Closer examination revealed small invertebrates still making a home in the damp crevices.

The head was little more than a hairless skull with eyes crusted over behind blackened lids. The lips were partly eaten away to reveal the remains of yellow teeth.

‘Definitely human,’ announced Owen, now wearing his white lab coat, ‘judging by the orthodontic work. Five fillings and a cap.’

He stood in the well of the Autopsy Room while the others watched from the walkway above. There was a deck of monitoring equipment at the end of the table, and a camera filming the autopsy. Owen circled the corpse, making a number of routine observations before attempting any invasive exploration.

‘The body is male, adult, although it’s not possible at this stage to make a guess at its age.’

‘Guess anyway,’ advised Jack. He stood in his shirtsleeves, arms folded. ‘You never know, you may be right.’

Owen looked up at him. ‘Who, me?’ he said sarcastically. He straightened up and shrugged, fiddling with the badges which speckled the lapels of his white coat. ‘All right: at a very rough guess, I’d say he was aged between twenty and a hundred.’

‘You’re uncanny, Owen. Narrow it down.’

‘Your age,’ Owen said, without missing a beat.

Jack smiled but said nothing.

‘Is there no way of telling who he was?’ Gwen asked.

‘I checked the missing persons records from the late seventies to the early eighties,’ Ianto said. ‘There are plenty of candidates, obviously. We need more data from the body before we can start sifting.’

‘What if it was a tramp?’ asked Gwen. ‘They wouldn’t necessarily be reported as missing, would they?’

‘I hate the thought of someone never being missed,’ said Ianto sadly. ‘It’s the ultimate humiliation, surely. So unimportant in life that no one even notices when you die.’

‘Theories, anyone?’ prompted Jack. He looked impatient.

‘Your old mate Professor Len was telling Tosh and me about a local witch who used to drag unlucky suitors down into the bog,’ said Gwen. ‘According to him, the last reported victim of Sally Blackteeth went missing on Greendown Moss in 1974.’

‘You think this could be him?’

‘It’s possible.’

Jack nodded. ‘Find out. Get in touch with Professor Len.’ He turned to Owen. ‘Can you tell how he died?’

‘That’s what I’m here for,’ Owen said. ‘Initial observations: there’s no obvious sign of violence or mutilation. No broken bones that I can detect thus far. There appears to be some swelling of the neck and throat, but it’s not consistent with strangling. Probably the result of drowning.’

‘He was in the middle of the marsh.’

Owen smiled humourlessly. ‘Wandered off the path, got stuck in the mud. No Professor Len around to help him when he got that sinking feeling. Glug, glug, glug …’

‘That could have been me,’ said Toshiko quietly. She had just appeared on the steps besides Jack, having showered and changed. All Torchwood personnel routinely kept a change of clothes in the Hub in case of emergencies.

‘My, doesn’t she scrub up well?’ said Owen.

‘Leave it out, Owen,’ snapped Gwen. ‘She’s had a bad fright.’

‘Not as big a fright as this guy had,’ Owen gestured at the corpse. ‘The thing is, and call me Mr Boring if you must, but I don’t see what’s so extraordinary about this corpse. He drowned in the marsh. It’s a police matter.’

‘No,’ said Jack firmly. ‘It’s a Torchwood matter. Tosh?’

Toshiko held up a hand scanner. ‘Residual temporal energy all over it. If he didn’t actually come through the Rift, then he was touched by something that did. That makes it our business.’

‘All right,’ Owen said. ‘Let’s have a closer look, then.’ He picked up a large scalpel from the instrument trolley at his side and brandished it dramatically over the corpse like a sacrificial dagger.

‘God, I bet you were unbearable at med school,’ said Gwen.

‘He’s unbearable now,’ said Toshiko, but there was the beginning of a tiny smile on her lips.

‘About to make the first incision,’ Owen announced, suddenly professional. It was almost as if, with the banter and playing around over, he was ready to get on with the job he loved most of all.

He approached the cadaver from the right, leaning over the chest, resting the tip of the scalpel blade against the leathery skin at the bottom of the throat in preparation for the long Y-shaped cut from sternum to navel.

At which point the corpse suddenly convulsed and screamed out loud.

Owen sprang backwards with a yell of surprise, genuinely shocked, as the corpse arched its back on the autopsy table and screamed again. It was a terrible sound: dry, parched, the result of old, decayed lungs forcing air through a withered thorax. The sound of someone jumping on a pair of old, dusty bellows. The head tilted right back, the vertebrae clicking audibly as the mouth stretched open, tearing the stiff skin which covered its cheeks. A shrivelled, blackened tongue quivered between the widening jaws as another rasping cry escaped.

Toshiko had staggered backwards at the first scream, grabbing hold of Gwen instinctively. Gwen stared at the corpse, eyes wide, utterly transfixed. Jack vaulted the chain-link rail and landed next to the autopsy table as the corpse struggled to sit upright.

‘Easy, fella!’ Jack shouted, holding out his hands towards the body to show he meant no harm. But it was doubtful that the thing could see at all. The eyes looked like prunes sunk inside folds of dried skin. The skull was twisting from side to side as if looking around in panic but unable to see a thing. Its mouth kept moving, trying to form words with no lips or proper tongue, leaving nothing but a series of heaving gags to emerge.

‘What’s it trying to say?’ Toshiko asked. ‘It’s trying to say something!’

After a few more seconds, the corpse coughed up a mouthful of thick mud and spat it across the room, spattering the white tiles which lined the walls.

Owen climbed back to his feet, still clutching the scalpel in his white fingers. He watched in shocked fascination as the corpse tried to climb off the examination table, making incoherent shouts and cries, holding out one stiff arm as if feeling for something — anything — to touch.

Jack circled it warily, careful not to get in the way of the shower of brown spittle which burst from the thing’s grinning mouth every time it tried to speak.

The skeletal fingers closed around Gwen’s ankle. She was standing on the walkway, level with the corpse’s head and shoulders.

‘Let her go,’ ordered Jack, moving closer.

But the corpse was in a rage. With an angry cry, it wrenched Gwen off her feet and she tumbled into the autopsy well, scraping her back on the edge of the steps.

Owen stepped forward and rammed the scalpel into the corpse’s neck, just where the jugular vein should be. The blade struck with a dull thud but had no discernible effect. The cadaver grabbed Gwen by the throat and pulled her upright, bringing her close enough for her to feel the gusts of fetid air blowing out of the remains of its nose and mouth.

It held her for a moment, leaning in, almost as if it was intending to kiss her. But then it became obvious that it was simply trying to look at her, to see her more closely. But its desiccated eyes were useless.

‘I said let her go,’ repeated Jack loudly, and this time he had his service revolver out and aimed at the corpse’s head.

‘Jack, it’s already dead!’ Owen warned.

‘Maybe it needs reminding.’ Jack pulled the trigger, the gun roared and a large hole appeared in the corpse’s skull, exploding fragments of bone across the far wall. The corpse staggered, and, reacting instinctively, Gwen used the moment to give it a huge shove with both hands, propelling it backwards until it crashed into Owen’s instrument trolley. The corpse spun around, sending the trolley flying and scattering instruments across the floor of the room.

‘Told you it wouldn’t work,’ said Owen as the corpse continued to struggle. It had regained its feet, turning to face Jack as he walked purposefully towards it, gun arm extended.

‘Wanna bet?’ Jack fired again, blowing the top off the skull at point-blank range. The corpse jerked backwards, lumps of rotted brain matter dangling from the gaping hole in its cranium.

The sounds of the shots had reverberated around the hard surfaces of the Autopsy Room, leaving everyone’s ears ringing. Gwen was yelling at the top of her voice, hands to her face, trying to wipe away the stinking mess from the impact of the first shot. Owen and Jack advanced on the shuddering corpse. Owen looked shocked and ashen-faced, but Jack’s features were set in a mask of determination. His revolver was still aimed straight at the corpse, utterly unwavering.

But the corpse seemed to accept, finally, that enough was enough. It sank to its knees with a series of dry cracks, shaking and twitching.

‘It’s over,’ said Jack, although he kept the gun trained on the shattered remains of the skull as the cadaver started to waver.

Then, with a last, dry rasp of dead breath, the corpse collapsed. It lay on its back, cold and stiff once again, its face turned sightlessly up towards the glaring lights.

For a second everyone held their positions: Jack with his gun trained on the body, Owen standing by him, Gwen with her hands to her face. Above them, looking down in disbelieving horror, Toshiko and Ianto.

Sticky lumps of black blood dribbled down the tiles and, beneath the shattered skull, a huge mess of brain and bone sat in a thick puddle of blood.

‘I’d just got this place spotless, too,’ said Ianto.