Chapter One, Couldn't Bare It
"Morning!" The cheery tones of Ianto Jones greeted Gwen as she stumbled into the back seats of the imposing Torchwood SUV. Although the sun was well into the sky, Gwen hadn't had much of a chance to sleep, having only crawled into bed beside Rhys as the sun was rising.
"Again." Gwen replied, recalling that Ianto had bid her a good morning not more than three hours ago, when she'd left the hub for home. He'd just been turning up to work, lucky sod. Gwen and Jack had been out chasing a stray weevil which had taken a keen interest in a cattery, and had consumed half a dozen before the pair had managed to sedate it. Usually Ianto and Jack would relish in the task, enjoying the hunt as much as Gwen suspected they enjoyed each other, but Ianto had been busy dealing with something Jack didn't want to. They'd not specified the precise details, but Gwen guessed it was political.
"Yes again." Ianto replied with precision, swinging the SUV out of the road. "Though I haven't qualified it with a positive adjective this time." He added. Gwen rubbed her eyes, forcing herself to wake up. She could really do with a coffee right now.
"What?" She mumbled, not understanding, and her brain not awake at all. Jack was seated in the front passenger seat, and turned to look at her.
"He means there's nothing good about what's happened." He clarified, "Take a look."
Gwen found herself studying the screens that only a month ago, Toshiko would have been eagerly engaging with. Their glare was offset by the sunshine that was coming in through the tinted windows of the SUV, but Gwen could see the rift readings clearly. There'd been a significant peak half an hour ago roughly. Significant enough, that when cross-referenced to the history of peaks, indicated something almost certainly come through. It gave Gwen's guts a feeling of dread, even without consuming breakfast. After seeing how a weevil consumed cats, a half eaten, bloodied tail hanging from its mouth, she hadn't felt much like food.
"So what's come through?" Gwen asked, pressing a few keys on the compact board to review the other information that the hub's mainframe was sending out to the remote base on wheels. In her jacket, her PDA lit up and gleaned field information, ready for the scene.
"Clothes shop, central Cardiff, four female shoppers dead. They were trying on clothes in the store's changing rooms when it happened." Ianto began to explain, applying the brakes of the SUV firmly, bringing the vehicle to a halt. Gwen wasn't quite ready for it, despite the fact Ianto drove more smoothly than Jack's boy-racer sprints. She flipped up the keyboard and the trio piled out onto the street. Jack and Ianto seized equipment from within the vehicle, and Gwen followed behind, feeling a little out of the loop.
Pausing outside in the morning sunlight, Gwen surveyed the scene in the street. Shoppers milled with bewildered expressions on the pavement, though there was no panic. In the last month the people of Cardiff had been well versed in what to do when aliens popped out of nowhere, or half the city blew up. Turning back to the front entrance of the store, Gwen saw the familiar sight of two police constables guarding the door, controlling who was coming in, and still persuading bewildered shoppers out. Whatever had come through the rift had certainly come through within the store itself, though it appeared from first glances that the casualties were minimal. However, in her experience, nothing was always as it seemed. The uneasy feeling in Gwen's stomach grew as she followed Ianto and Jack inside, weaving through racks of clothing in a rainbow blur as she jogged to catch up with their figures.
The female changing rooms weren't hard to find, surrounded by the police SOCO team in their white body suits, preventing contamination of the scene. Gwen spotted Andy looking a little green, though holding up well. She wasn't sure if it was the scene, or more the fact he was stood amongst the underwear section. Andy had become a very useful ally since the day John and Grey had ripped Cardiff apart, and was toughening up. Andy had once claimed that Gwen had lost touch with caring about people, and now he seemed to be following suit, especially as he still maintained his interest in joining Torchwood. She'd told him before that he couldn't, but it didn't stop him believing. Before, Andy would have called this scene one of Gwen's 'spooky-doos', but he looked rather more serious today, nodding to Jack and Ianto before looking to Gwen for an explanation.
Coming to a halt near Andy, Gwen could see the blood spatters on the magnolia coloured back wall of the changing room area. The yellow curtains had turned a sickly red-brown colour, and the curtain of the nearest changing cubicle had torn from its rail as the occupant had fallen backwards. Gwen took a sharp intake of breath as she saw the woman. Her face was streaked with blood, which had pooled around her head, soaking into the carpet, turning it crimson. But the most grim part of the scene was the fact that the woman's eyes had been torn from her face, leaving two bloodied and raw holes in her face.
"Couldn't bare to see themselves in these clothes." Andy remarked with a straight face. His voice gave him away. It was like he'd been waiting for the chance to say it to someone who might share the morbid humour. Gwen stepped gingerly over the scene, and looked to the second body, where she found identical wounds.
"Exactly the same for all four of them." Ianto confirmed, standing between the final two cubicles, looking a little amazed himself.
"Right." Jack began, drawing himself to full height and taking control.
"Gwen, see if you can find anything out from the witnesses, the assistant, other shoppers, we want to know how this happened, whether anyone came in or out, sounds – you know the sort." Gwen gave a nod, and pulled out her PDA in readiness, bringing up the notes automatically loaded onto the portable device.
"Ianto, deal with the scene. We'll have to take the bodies back with us," He paused, and Ianto realised he was thinking how crippled the team were without a proper medic. Owen's departure, however valiant, had ripped a huge hole in the team, along with Tosh. He glanced down to the face of one of the nearby women, and noted the holes were rather like the two bloodied gaps in the face, created by whatever had come through the rift.
"Not your weevil things is it?" Andy interrupted. "Not got a delicacy for eyes now have they?" His question was not eagerly enjoyed, especially as Gwen had departed to question a potential witness. Ianto rolled his eyes, and turned back to the equipment, beginning to run scans.
"Andy isn't it?" Jack asked the copper. "Know anywhere you can get a decent coffee round here?" Ianto bent over the body in the furthest cubicle, holding the scanner a few inches from the skin. He smirked at Jack's question, anticipating what was coming next.
"There's a good one on the corner, just a minute away-."
"Make it three – and a bottle of water. Thanks." After a pause, Andy realising he'd been done over by Jack nicely, the police officer retreated, a peeved expression right across his face, with no attempt to hide it. Once he was gone, Jack crouched beside Ianto.
"Anything?" He shook his head.
"Nothing, I can't find anything to suggest the cause of death was anything other than the head injuries." Ianto confirmed, as the scanner drew blanks apart from a few bruises and scratches, that were probably caused by the fall backwards. He waved it over the head of the victim, and the two of them looked closely at the screen.
"Carlie is it?" Gwen asked, seeing a meek looking girl, seated on a chair wrapped in a blanket. Where the blanket didn't cover, Gwen could see a uniform beneath, splattered in blood.
"I'm Gwen Cooper, from Torchwood, I need to ask you a few questions." Carlie nodded numbly, and Gwen crouched beside her, trying to assure her she was safe.
"Can you tell me what happened?" Gwen promptly softly, tapping a button on her PDA to begin recording the conversation.
"I was working just outside the changing rooms, supervising people taking clothes in and out, y'know. We'd been pretty busy all morning, but that's not unusual. I'd just let one of the ladies into the first cubicle, she'd taken three items in with her, when it happened. I'd probably taken two steps back to my post, and there was this sound…" Carlie frowned, trying to find the words to describe it.
"Like a window smashing, and all this screaming…" The shop assistant's face drew into a grimace. "… and then like the window smashing backwards again. I turned and saw blood, everywhere, and they just fell through the curtains. Oh God, they had no eyes!" She dissolved into tiny sobs at recalling the incident again. Gwen squeezed Carlie's knee, and spoke soothing words. Her PDA bleeted, and she looked down to see an alert pop up on the screen, flashing. Another, almost identical report of deaths…