Something in the Water

EIGHTEEN

Bob Strong was slowly coming to the conclusion that he was dying. He thought he should call his mother, but he was almost too weak to move.

He was coughing up more blood — thick, dark clots of it mixed with a pungent mucus that made him retch and gag with the effort. He was on his hands and knees, shaking like a frightened dog, spitting out more strings of red slime onto the living room floor, when the doorbell rang.

It was such a stupidly ordinary sound that he almost laughed. Ding dong! Then he was coughing again, and, by the time the convulsions had gone and he was wiping his trembling lips with the remains of a ragged, disintegrating paper towel, he knew there was no way he could get to the door to answer it, let alone care who it was.

The bell sounded again. For a full minute he lay on the cold laminate floor, surrounded by gobbets of blood-streaked phlegm and old tissues, utterly exhausted. When the doorbell sounded for the third and fourth time, each a little more urgently, a part of his semi-conscious brain began to concentrate, analysing the situation, in an almost dreamlike state.

Maybe it was Owen Harper, the man from the Government.

It could be him at the door. With the cure, or some kind of vaccine. Or a team of paramedics in decontamination suits, ready to whisk him into biohazard quarantine. Bob guessed there were procedures, protocols for this sort of thing.

Somehow he dredged up the energy to crawl towards the front door. In the hallway, he had to wait for a minute for another coughing fit to pass, and then, with a mighty effort, pull himself upright using the doorframe as support. Finally, he was on his feet, feeling sick and dizzy, the world spinning around him and an ache in his chest and throat that threatened to stop him breathing. Only then did he think that if it was the authorities, intent on either rescue or internment, they would have probably broken the door down by now and come in for him.

He focused on the front door. There was a shape on the other side of the frosted glass — female.

It took a couple of attempts to open the door because his fingers were half-numb and slippery with perspiration. He couldn’t get a good grip on the latch. Eventually he managed to unlock it and the door opened to reveal a young, rather striking blonde in a raincoat. She had strange, haunting green eyes that, even in his current state of mind, he recognised immediately.

‘Saskia?’

‘Hello, Dr Strong.’

Not ‘Good God, you look awful, what’s the matter?’ Just ‘Hello.’ It was so utterly normal and unexpected that Bob felt an immediate, fantastic surge of hope and warmth. Maybe things were not quite as bad as he thought, if she didn’t reel back in alarm and disgust at the first sight of him. Maybe he felt worse than he looked. But then he remembered who he was dealing with.

‘Saskia,’ he said roughly, his throat still clogged with snot. Realising this guttural noise could hardly be understood, he swallowed with difficulty and began again. ‘Saskia … Y’know, now isn’t a good time.’

‘Is there anything wrong? You don’t look very well, Dr Strong.’ Was that a smile on those perfect lips? Surely that was concern in her eyes, not mockery?

Strong went to speak, coughed up another string of mucus, and backed away. Immediately Saskia Harden stepped in after him, reaching out to help keep him upright.

She took him into the living room, surveying the mess without comment. She let him sit down in the armchair. ‘Rest there a moment.’

He raised a hand to protest. ‘What are you doing here?’ He coughed painfully and tried once again to focus on her.

‘Do you know what’s wrong with you?’ Saskia asked him gently.

He shook his head and shivered. ‘Dunno. I think it’s something to do with what’s been on TV. I think I should go to hospital, but …’

‘But …?’

‘Well, I’ve already got people working on it,’ he told her. ‘They’ve done some blood tests. They’re looking in to it.’

‘But do you know what it is?’

‘Not yet.’ He gagged, once, and then spoke in a rush, the words tumbling from his lips in a hurry because he knew he was going to throw up soon. ‘They’re saying it’s flu but it isn’t. I think it’s some kind of virus. I mean, virus as in “biohazard”. Like a biological weapon — I know it sounds crazy, but I’m convinced. I’ve seen the reports on the TV … it’s spreading across the whole area, and they keep telling everyone it’s nothing to worry about, it’s just a minor flu epidemic or a bug, but I can tell they’re keeping something back. You probably think I’m nuts-’ (She shook her head, not at all) ‘-but it feels like there’s a wasps’ nest in my throat and I can’t stop coughing. I want to cough it all up, but it just won’t budge. For God’s sake, I’m bringing up blood.’ He coughed, winced and then said, ‘I’m supposed to be a doctor. I can’t panic about this. I mustn’t.’

He wiped a hand down his face, surprised at the roughness on his chin. He realised that he must look like a complete tramp; Saskia’s cool green gaze was still checking him over carefully, perhaps trying to recognise the same man she’d seen in surgery the previous day. ‘Look,’ he said, summoning a feeble smile from somewhere, ‘I did warn you — this isn’t a good time for me. Maybe I’m just paranoid or this thing is doing something to my mind, but … Really, what are you doing here?’

She looked at him with a steady, level gaze. ‘I’ve come for my baby, Dr Strong.’

The SUV was speeding back towards Roald Dahl Plass, Owen following in his Honda.

Inside the Torchwood vehicle, the glare of the street lights cast strobing orange shapes across the faces of Gwen and Jack.

‘That man,’ Gwen said, staring at the road ahead. ‘I looked at him properly. And so did you.’

Jack glanced at her but said nothing.

‘I saw the way you looked at him.’ Gwen turned her head and stared at his profile as he drove. ‘The way he’d been killed … cut right open like that. Could you survive something like that, Jack?’

‘You know I would.’

‘I know you can’t die. But a wound like that … how would you? How could you? Surely it wouldn’t just … heal?

‘It’d take a while, but it would heal. I’d live.’

Gwen shivered. ‘I can’t imagine that.’

‘Try not to think about it,’ Jack advised. ‘That’s what I do.’

She looked back at him. ‘But … you must think about it. You must do.’

‘Not any more. I don’t think about dying. Only living.’ He glanced across at her and smiled that wolfish grin. ‘Besides, I don’t plan on letting anyone rip me open like that. Believe me. That’s gotta smart.’

She smiled despite herself. ‘Why do you always do that?’

‘What?’

‘Make me feel daft for even thinking something so bad, even when we’re right in the middle of a crisis.’

‘Crisis? What crisis?’

‘Owen’s medical crisis.’ Gwen activated the computer console in front of her and went online, searching for a news update. It wasn’t hard to find coverage of what the strap line termed ‘South Wales Epidemic’.

Owen’s voice crackled over the comms. ‘How come it’s my medical crisis?’

‘The TV and internet are full of it,’ Gwen reported, tapping at the monitor screen in front of her. ‘And they’re still calling it a flu epidemic.’

‘That’s bollocks,’ said Owen’s voice over the loudspeakers.

‘That a medical term?’ asked Jack.

‘It is when I use it.’ The Honda pulled up alongside the SUV as the two cars hurtled along the carriageway. Gwen could see Owen at the wheel. ‘Look, it won’t be long before someone starts calling it an outbreak,’ he continued. ‘That’s different to an epidemic, by the way. The authorities will already be considering it an emergency, the way things are going.’

‘They’ll think it’s germ warfare or something,’ Gwen said. ‘Terrorism.’

‘They’ll check with all the relevant biohazard facilities first — research labs, storage bases, chemical plants, both commercial and government. That won’t tell them much. Even if one of them knew there’d been a leak, they wouldn’t fess up straight away.’

‘What are the chances of it being an accidental leak?’ asked Jack.

‘Slim, but not impossible.’ Owen’s voice crackled slightly as the Honda pulled ahead and moved in front.

‘What if it’s none of those things?’ asked Gwen. ‘I mean, not an accidental leak from a research lab or even a deliberate attempt at biological terrorism? What if it’s something else?’

‘Then they’ll call us,’ said Jack.

‘Baby?’ said Bob. He suddenly felt a lot worse, if that was possible, as he sensed everything suddenly sliding out of control. ‘I don’t understand.’

Saskia just smiled. It was the coldest thing Bob had ever seen. ‘You will.’

‘Saskia, this really isn’t the right time …’ Bob tried to glare at her, but he couldn’t focus properly. He wondered if he was simply hallucinating the whole thing. She looked strangely ephemeral, as if he was seeing her through water.

She pulled off her raincoat, exposing one bare arm for Bob to see.

‘You’re hurt,’ he said, puzzled. The reaction was instinctive. There was a wound — a deep tear in the flesh of her upper arm, crusted with blood. The skin around it was inflamed and swollen. It looked extraordinarily painful, and yet she barely seemed to register it. All this time, and she had not given the slightest indication that it hurt. ‘How did you do that?’ he wondered. He stared at it, unable to take his eyes off the damage, his professional interest suddenly overwhelming every other thought. ‘Is that a gunshot wound?’

This time her lips parted in a tiny snarl. ‘Something metal,’ she said. Even the word seemed to taste bad for her.

Bob sat up, peering more closely at the wound. It was still bleeding, slightly, but there was something else in there, possibly detritus that would need to be cleaned away.

‘You should go to hospital,’ he told her. ‘The best place for this kind of thing is A amp;E, honestly.’

As he spoke, he saw something move in the wound. It was dark green, like a fragment of cabbage or broccoli caught in the scab. It quickly withdrew inside the flesh as he looked, almost as if it sensed his observation.

‘This is too much,’ Bob stammered, looking away. ‘I’m seeing things now.’

‘Really?’

There was something in her tone — a challenge? A hint of contempt?

Whatever it was, it made Bob look back up at her, into her eyes. And then, in the final moments of his life, Bob suddenly realised what colour Saskia Harden’s eyes were.

They were the colour of mucus.