Bay of the Dead

'First right,' Ianto said, and raised his eyebrows when the wheels on the passenger side of the SUV briefly left the road as Jack took the turn. A dozen metres ahead, parked in the middle of the road, was a blue Passat with its lights on. Jack drove towards it at speed, as if he expected it to simply get out of his way.

'Brake,' Ianto said mildly.

Jack hit the brakes, and the SUV came to a halt mere centimetres from the Passat's rear bumper. Ianto was about to deliver a caustic comment when he saw what Jack had already seen. A man was lying in the gutter beside the car, whilst four figures — little more than dark, bobbing shapes — clawed and scrabbled and thumped at the vehicle, trying to gain access. Ianto supposed there was someone inside that the attackers were trying to get to, but from here he couldn't tell. Jack was already throwing his door open, drawing his Webley, Ianto only a couple of seconds behind him.

'Is this a private party or can anyone join in?' Jack shouted. He was grinning, but his gun arm was raised and ramrod-straight.

'Oh, my,' Ianto breathed as the group of figures clustered around the car turned to face them. It was the first time he had seen a 'zombie', but he had to admit their appearance was all-too familiar. Each of them looked as though they had stepped straight off the set of a low-budget horror movie. Ragged, stained clothes; discoloured skin; blank expressions — it was all there. The creatures ticked all the boxes, even in terms of their various stages of decomposition. One was almost skeletal, one ghostly-white, another greenish and bloated. Plus there was a girl, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, who looked as though she could have died yesterday. The girl, her chin and T- shirt caked in blood, her dead eyes sheened with an almost silvery glaze, hissed and crouched. The others moaned and shuffled.

'We'll take her,' Jack said to Ianto.

'Because she's the. . prettiest?' Ianto ventured.

Jack shot him a look. 'Come on, Ianto, even I'm not that shallow. I was thinking more that she wouldn't smell as bad as her buddies.'

Ianto cocked an eyebrow, as if he didn't believe a word of it. 'What about the others?'

'We've got live people in peril here,' Jack said, nodding at the car, inside which they could now see a woman's terrified face peering at them. 'We take them out.'

'Just kill them, you mean?'

'Why not? They're dead already.'

Seemingly oblivious to the weapons that Jack and Ianto were pointing at them, the creatures had now halved the distance between the car and the two men. Without further preamble, Jack raised his Webley and shot the skeletal zombie through the head. Most of its skull blew away like old tree bark and it dropped unceremoniously to the ground.

Gritting his teeth, Ianto shot a balding man with a ginger moustache and splotches of black mould on his greenish skin. The bullet hit the man in the chest, but he simply went down on one knee with a wheeze of escaping air, then stood up again.

'You need to finish them with a head shot,' Jack said, circling round to get a better aim at the third zombie, a chubby guy in what must once have been a nice suit.

'How do you know that?' Ianto asked.

'Believe me, when you've been around as long as I have, you get through a hell of a lot of movies.'

Ianto shook his head, but raised his gun and shot the balding man between the eyes. There was a spurt of thin blood and the man fell over backwards, his skull hitting the pavement with a sound like a dropped coconut.

'This doesn't feel right,' Ianto said. 'These were people once.'

'And now they're just animated cadavers,' said Jack, dropping the guy in the suit with a single shot. 'Think of them as glove puppets.'

'Thanks,' said Ianto. 'That makes me feel a lot better.'

'Hey,' Jack said, circling around to the other side of the car, head snapping from left to right. 'Where'd the girl go?'

Ianto saw a suggestion of movement in the building site across the road, a shadow flitting between the dumper trucks and excavators.

'There,' he said, pointing.

'I see her,' said Jack. He was already running, coat flying behind him. 'I'll get the girl, you look after the people here. Back in five.'

He was gone before Ianto could argue.

'Hang on,' panted Rhys.

He had fallen half a dozen metres behind Gwen, who stopped to let him catch up. His face was red and his forehead was beaded with either sweat or drizzle. His hair stood up in wet spikes.

'You all right, love?' Gwen asked.

He thumped to a halt beside her, putting out a hand to lean against the wall. Gasping, he said, 'You know me, sweetheart. I'm built for endurance, not speed.'

She smiled and rubbed his shoulder supportively. 'We'll have a breather. I reckon we're safe for now.'

They had run, and then jogged, from Bradford Street to Corporation Road, and across Clarence Bridge. Gwen had been hoping they'd be able to make it all the way along James Street to Roald Dahl Plass, where the Hub was located, but on the opposite side of the bridge they had stumbled across a group of about ten zombies shuffling towards them. Knackered though he was, Rhys had been willing to batter his way through with his trusty golf club, but Gwen had decided there was nothing to be gained in taking unnecessary risks. So they had taken a detour along Clarence Embankment and through the tight cluster of residential streets which branched off from it. They were now in a quiet alley linking Harrowby Lane to Harrowby Street, high walls on either side of them.

Rhys leaned against one of the walls with a groan and mopped his brow. 'When I said I wanted some action this evening, this isn't quite what I meant.'

Gwen snorted a brief laugh. 'I wonder what's causing this,' she mused.

'In the movies it's always chemicals or radiation or something,' said Rhys.

She pulled a face. 'That's just daft.'

'This whole situation is daft, if you ask me. I mean, where are all these zombies coming from? Up out of the ground? Hospitals? Morgues?'

Gwen looked thoughtful, then pulled out her phone. 'I'll call Jack, see if he's found out anything.'

She fast-dialled him. He answered on the first ring. 'Hey, Jack, what's going on?'

'I'm zombie-hunting,' he said. His voice was hushed, but he sounded perversely as if he was enjoying himself.

'Where are you?'

'Somewhere in Trowbridge.'

'So you're not at the Hub?'

'What would be the point of zombie-hunting in the Hub?'

Gwen shook her head at the playful but unmistakable disdain in his voice. 'Yeah, sorry. Ignore me. My thoughts are all over the place.'

'Where are you?' Jack asked.

Quickly, Gwen filled him in on what had been happening to her and Rhys, and their present location.

'But listen, Jack,' she said, 'these things are everywhere. This is bigger than we can handle.' She hesitated a moment, then said, 'I'm thinking we need outside help on this. What about putting a call through to UNIT?'

'No way,' he said stubbornly. 'Besides, we can't.'

'Why not?'

'There's a time energy barrier around Cardiff. A kind of dome over the city. No one can get in or out.'

'So this isn't just a random event then? Someone's coordinating it?'

'Looks that way,' he said.

Gwen considered for a moment. 'OK, well, how about I organise a police operation to contain the situation?' Before he could protest, as she knew he would, she said quickly, 'We need manpower on this, Jack. Think of us as. . as farmers, and the police as sheep dogs. We whistle and give instructions and they. . round up the sheep.' She grimaced at her own analogy.