14

"He's at the blockade!"

The soldiers run down the stairs. Mathers shouts "He went over the wall! We thought he'd be dead sir!"

"Shut up!" Henry roared "Davis - you're coming with me!"

Jack stands in the blockade, turning the handle of a siren. Rain is pouring down, mingling with the blood on his face. Jack stops, and the sound of the siren starts to fade away.

From the motorway ahead, through the rain, a jeep is approaching. The jeep drives fast down the motorway, and pulls up. Davis is driving and Henry stands on the back, manning the jeep's mounted machine gun. The jeep pulls up, one hundred meters from the blockade, and Henry brings the mounted machine gun to bear on the blockade.

"Okay. Let's see if we can sidestep the cat-and-mouse bullshit." Henry opens fire.

Bullets rip through the blockade, punching holes through the vehicles, smashing through the packing crates...Henry stops shooting. With a peal of thunder, the rain suddenly begins to flood down. The barrel of the machine gun spits and steams as the raindrops hit the hot metal.

Davis pulls up at the outskirts of the blockade, and they get out of the truck. Henry and Davis make their way into the blockade. With a signal from Henry, the two split up. Henry moves through the blockade. He lets off a controlled burst of shots into the tents. Stealthily, Davis searches around the trucks and tents...

A flash of movement - fast, like an Turned, ducking behind one of trucks: Jack. Davis wipes the rain from his eyes, and presses forward. Jack is nowhere to be seen. Another flash of movement, around the back of the next truck.

Davis moves around the truck...but Jack is not there. "Fuck."

Davis turns, and sees...Jack, flying towards him, holding Rhys' lead pipe, lips drawn back over his teeth in a manic smile, murderous. He is the vision of the Turned, in his expression, his movements, the blood, everything.

Henry turns, as if having just heard something. Perhaps a scream "Jack?"

Another noise. This time it is unambiguously a Turned howl. Henry turns again. From down the motorway, and from the fields, he can now see the Turned. A large number, attracted by noise of the heavy machine gun, are approaching. He looses off a couple of shots at the Turned, then starts to back away to the jeep.

Henry runs up to the jeep. Through the rain, and the water running down the windscreen, Henry can see a figure sitting at the driver's seat. "Davis?"

The figure doesn't move. Henry approaches cautiously, gun raised, and finds...Davis sitting on the front seat, dead, his skull smashed open.

Henry whirls, expecting to find Jack behind him. But there is no one there. Henry shoots again, blindly, emptying his clip at anything and everything around him. He reloads - hurriedly, hands slipping on the wet clip, betraying nervousness...and fires at a rain shadow that sweeps between two of the tents. Then his nerve is gone.

"Fine! Fine, you bastard! Fucking die out here!" Henry hauls out Davis's body, gets into the driver's seat, turning the ignition...but nothing is happening.

Henry turns the key again, desperately. The motor doesn't even turn over. Reaching under the dashboard, he pulls out a handful of wires. "Jack."

And at the moment, a Turned slams onto the windscreen, face against the glass. Henry shouts out of surprise and anger, lifting his gun, and fires at point-blank range, through the glass, into the Turned's face. The windscreen shatters, blown outwards. And now, where our view was obscured by rain-washed glass, we can see clearly...Turned, in the blockade, coming through the downpour, running towards the jeep. Henry opens fire and cuts them down.

.

.

..

.

Jack appears above Mailer in his pit, and shoots off Mailer's chain.

Mathers stands holding his gun at Ianto and Anwen, who sit on the sofas, opposite each other. Also in the room are Clifton, standing by the French windows, and Mitchell. Mathers seems jumpy, a sheen of sweat on his forehead, as if sensing that things have gone seriously wrong. A flicker of lightning lights up outside. "What was that? Was that a claymore?"

Michell snorts "It was lightning."

"But I heard something." Mathers whimpered. A moment. Rain and wind lash the windows.

"I'll go and hit the floods. Take a butcher's. Keep an eye on him, would you?" Mitchell moves. Mathers wipes at the beads of sweat on his upper lip.

And in noticeable contrast, Anwen is completely calm... "Those pills. I think they're having an effect. I can feel them, and... I don't feel sleepy, but..."

Her sentence trails off. Then she turns to Mathers. "They've been a long time."

Mathers says nothing.

"What are you going to do if they don't come back?" Anwen asks in a sing-song voice.

Mathers still says nothing, but the question is clearly hitting a nerve.

"Will you be the boss if Henry is dead? Is that the way if works?" Anwen asks with a slow blink and Ianto looks at Anwen quickly.

"Shut up." Mathers snarls.

"I don't think they are coming back. I think they've been killed."

"I told you to shut up!"

Ianto is nervous "Anwen..."

Anwen repeats flatly "They're dead."

Anwen's eyes flick over Mathers' shoulder, and something fleeting passes over her face. "You're going to be next."

At that moment, a mine detonates in the mansion grounds.

"Shit!" Mather yelps and at that moment, the floodlights power up...illuminating Mailer, just on the other side of the French windows, just behind Clifton, a split second before he smashes through. Then he does smash through. Clifton is thrown to the ground, with Mailer on top of him. "Help! Shoot him! Shoot him!"

Mathers is hopeless, panicking - fires, and misses.

Anwen watches, spaced out. Ianto shakes Anwen by the shoulders, pulling Anwen upwards. "Anwen! Anwen! We have to get out of here!"

Mailer vomits blood into Clifton's face.

Ianto and Anwen back out of the living room, through the house. Anwen is very doped up.

"Oh Jesus, Jesus, Anwen, stay with it, stay with it." Ianto pants as he keeps trying to move forward.

Anwen is relaxed, as she's yanked along "Don't worry. I feel fine. Really."

They reach the front hallway, and the front door bursts open...Mitchell, with Bedford.

"What the fuck's going on? What's all the shouti..." Mitchell is cut off by a high scream, from down the hall, in the direction of the living room. All turn, and see...Mathers, running, screaming, out of one doorway, across the hallway. He has lost his weapon - and is chased by Mailer, but not Clifton. Like a train passing, in half a second they are out of sight. A moment. Then Mitchell explodes. Screaming at Bedford "Don't just fucking stand there! Get after them!"

Mailer chases Mathers into the kitchen, but when he enters, Mathers is nowhere to be seen. Mailer turns, and sees Bedford in the kitchen doorway, holding his gun.

"What the fuck are you going to do now, eh?" But just as Bedford lifts his gun to shoot Mailer...Clifton runs at him, full speed from down the corridor...and Bedford is knocked sideways by the Turned Clifton.

Jack is at the kitchen window, looking in as Bedford is killed by Mailer and Clifton. Mathers covers inside a cupboard, hearing Bedford's .

"Up! Up!" Mitchell pushes grabbing Ianto and the girl to push up the stairs. At the top of the staircase, wide-eyed with fear, is Bell.

"Mitchell? What's going on?"

"Stay here and defend these stairs with your fucking life!" Mitchell barks, He turns back to them, still holding Ianto's arm, and Anwen is gone. Ianto sees her, heading away down towards the corridor.

"Anwen!"

Mitchell starts pulling Ianto in the opposite direction from Anwen. Anwen runs into the dressing room. The freestanding mirror sits in the middle of the floor. Also on the floor are her clothes, and she starts to look through them, looking for her jeans...which she lifts up, then digs in the pocket, and pulls out...a photo of her with Rhys and her mother. She gazes at the photo. At that moment, there is a noise from behind her. She looks up, and sees, in the reflection of the mirror, Clifton, running down the corridor towards her.

Clifton bursts into the dressing room, which is now empty. Clifton freezes, then looks around. Anwen is clinging on to the back of the large mirror, trembling. A moment - then Clifton moves on.

Silence in the kitchen. Bedford lies dead, torn to pieces. A cupboard creaks slowly open, and Mathers peers out. He has been hiding. Trembling with fear, he crawls out...moves into the kitchen...peers out into the hall. It is empty. Mathers starts running. Down the corridor outside the kitchen.

Mathers runs into the front hall...And suddenly stops. Dead in his tracks.

Jack is standing right in front of him. Mathers looks surprised, wide eyed. His mouth opens, but no sound comes out. Mathers has run straight into Jack's bayonet. Mathers falls, taking the gun and bayonet with him. Jack steps over his body, and into the house...Jack runs through the radio room. In the break between two blasts of lightning, the room goes dark. When it is re-illuminated, Jack has gone, and Mailer and Clifton have entered.

Jack runs up the stairs.

Henry walks into the front hall, where he finds Mathers. Mathers is lying flat on his back, mortally wounded, gazing up. Still alive - but only just. Taking his very last breaths. Henry kneels beside him, and Mathers' eyes turn to his officer.

He blinks, tries to speak, but is too weak and close to death to form the words. Henry's hand closes around Mathers'.

Mathers blinks once more.

And dies.