A/N: Disclaimer: I do not own the Walking Dead or Doctor Who. They belong to AMC and BBC respectively.
For DW, this story is set in S5 after episode 9. For the Walking Dead, this is set somewhere in the 1st Season :)
O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Narrator
England
It was night-time. Rather, the man thought it was night-time, but he had been there for so long that this could prove wrong. But...no, the computer was right. The computer was always right…
The nights were worse. When the howling started. When the growls and screams of the dead were heard. When the man laid still and quiet in the treacherous safety of the laboratory.
When he remembered. When he dared to sleep. When he dared to think.
How long?
For how long was the man there, locked in the shadows? For how long was he searching for a cure? Jerry had gone first. Claire was the second. Michael… Michael was still out there.
Still out there… that wasn't Michael. That wasn't him. It was just a creature, now. A shade. A lifeless husk. A zombie.
Zombies...the man had to admit that the irony of this statement. He'd been fighting aliens for ten years, and now, zombies. If someone, a year ago, had told him that the world would go to hell, that the dead would arise from the ashes of humanity, and that Torchwood Four would have been destroyed? He'd have deemed them mad.
Torchwood Four. The man had been one of the technological managers. When Archie was bitten, and Jason had fallen, and Myrtle had left the boat… he was all that left.
"Does that mean I can call myself bleedin' General now? General Thusley of Torchwood, for the Queen and Country?!" The man yelled to no one in particular, laughing maniacally as he drank, his eyes closed.
Then he heard the noises, the screaming, the grunts, at the locked door
Then he opened his eyes.
Now, this is generally the moment in the story where a wave of monsters claw at the barricaded metal door, wails and screams and all that nasty stuff rolling into one dark scene. It's usually the moment in the story where the last survivor bravely equips his gun, takes a deep breath, and pushes the self-destruct button, before opening the door and shooting the pack of undead as the place explodes.
That is not what happened. I'm sad to say that perhaps it would have been better that way.
No, Frederick Thusley did not bravely pick up his weapon, laugh in the face of undeath, open the barricaded door and massacre the walking dead. No.
Frederick Thusley sat against a metal column and cried. Drinking, crying, and praying for a better day. Praying for his friends and family. Praying for Britain. Praying for the world.
Torchwood had, of course, put a resistance against the outbreak. In fact, the members of Torchwood Three were on the verge of finding something out. Oh, Torchwood Three and their Captain Jack Harkness. They believed it was an alien menace, at start. Everyone did. How could it be otherwise? Alien invasions had a purpose. That was a fact of life. That was a fact of hope. But this… this was worse.
They tried, they did try. They contacted other planets, other life forms. No one answered. No one talked. All had slunk away, out of fear and out of pity.
Torchwood Three even managed to contact the so called Shadow Proclamation.
They, oh, they did reply! They did reply through saying – NO- .
What Torchwood did not manage to contact, it seemed, was the Doctor.
Thusley had heard stories. Thusley had heard legends. Thusley had heard of the Time Lord and his Companions. Thusley had heard of them all.
What Thusley had not heard, however, was the Oncoming Storm refusing to come to the aid of humanity.
The man stood up groggily, walking slowly towards a chair in front of the main doors, a shotgun against his left arm and a bottle of wine being hold by his left.
Perhaps The Doctor would still come. Perhaps. Perhaps the Epidemic would fade. Perhaps.
Thusley doubted the what-ifs and could-have-beens. He doubted the future. And he was certainly starting to doubt the present and the past.
The last grunt of a decaying corpse made him grimace.
"God, is there still a future for humanity? Is there still hope? Were You the one who caused this?" He yelled, carelessly throwing the now emptied bottle away.
He was so drunk that he didn't notice the sound of new engines. He was so drunk that he didn't notice the person in the shadows.
He was so drunk that he didn't notice the alarms going off until it was too late.
"I'm afraid God had nothing to do with this event, my dear chap." The soft voice was heard from behind him.
The yellow light crossed the man's body.
And "General" Frederick Thusley, of Torchwood Four, for Queen and Country, watched in horror as his guts spilled out.
The kind of dark laughter that always appears, sooner or later, in stories like this, was heard*. Buttons were pressed.
And just before the doors of Torchwood Four swung open, and the infestation started…
…well,"Ta-ta for now."
*It wasn't even proper evil laughter, actually. In fact, it could be better described as a "rather low menacing chuckle that would make the Witch of the West run away very, very quickly, and her little cat too". Er, sorry, that was unnecessary.
Another A/N, because I like them: I must say that I can take a fairly long time to write this stories, as I'm a rather slow writer and I'm generally always being interrupted by something or another. I cannot promise anything.
Also, kudos to you, reader who is already starting to suspect the villain who I'm bringing to this story. Kudos to you :)
Ciao, folks!