Chapter 3
Jack Harkness awoke to the smell of coffee, a scent that always left him feeling bittersweet and nostalgic. He turned away from the glare of sunlight to roll out of bed, blinking open his eyes, and for just a moment he forgot where he was. He had the nagging feeling he had somewhere else to be, another place, or time. Why had he come back to earth, anyway? No- why had he left in the first place?
Jack ran his fingers through his hair, and sighed. He'd worry about it when he was done wrapping things up here. If it was really that important, Ianto would have told him by now.
He righted the chair next to the small desk in the corner, slouched into it, and sipped his coffee.
"Ianto, is there something wrong?" Jack asked, setting down the mug.
"I'm not sure what you mean," said Ianto.
"I mean, the coffee. Your coffee's tasted different ever since we got here." He paused, "Well no, it's been the same, just… off. I'm wondering if it's something to do with you."
"I'm fine, Jack, really."
"I know, I know," Jack sighed. The denial only made it worse, because there definitely was something wrong, something off, and Ianto wouldn't open up about it.
Jack didn't have time to pursue it any further, though, because that was when he realized he was being watched. It was hard to see because it was lying so still, but as always the eyes gave it away. A creature crouched under his bed, scraggly hair in its face, spines pressed flat against its back.
Jack pulled out his gun and shot through the mattress without hesitation.
The creature wailed and scrambled out from under the bed. But it wasn't moving toward him. Its quills caught in the sheets and it stumbled, smearing blood in the carpet. It struggled to get upright, but Jack had the gun pointed at its face. The creature held eye contact with him as it pulled free of the blankets, leaving several of the long quills behind. Then it sniffed, looked away, and jumped out the window.
Jack crouched down to examine the quills, which were barbed, and leaking murky yellow-green pus. It looked similar to what the creature that had rammed his car, (which he was now mentally referring to as a "bulldog,") had spit at him the day before. Some kind of paralyzing venom, with a cute little side effect of lighting all your nerves on fire. Between that and the acid the smaller ones had spit at him, Jack was not very fond of these creatures' fluids.
"Good morning to you, too!" Jack shouted out the window.
After finishing his coffee, Jack left to find the address Victor had given him to talk to the witness that had found the body. He was surprised to find that not only did Blaire Falls the "highschool dropout" live on the up side of town, but that Redwoods Valley had an uptown at all. With how frugal the larger part of the town was, he hadn't expected to see giant, fancy houses the size of mansions. On closer look, though, many of them appeared to be abandoned. Redwood's token flaxen-colored lawns had become overgrown and browned, and red ivy snaked around both the trees and the buildings. Many of the windows had grown foggy with dust.
The Falls manor was one of the largest buildings, but unlike the others it was well kempt and almost gleaming in excess.
Jack knocked firmly, and waited. He knocked again. Still no answer. After waiting almost four minutes, Jack decided he'd given plenty of time for someone to answer, and took matters into his own hands.
Into his own foot, actually. Jack slammed his boot into the door with a sharp kick. The door made a quiet cracking sound, but didn't splinter, and definitely didn't open.
Jack stared at it. It was a door not of this earth.
"Someone's a little ahead of his time," Jack said, with a quirk of a smile. "I could still open it if I had the tools, but darn it, I left my sonic screwdriver at home."
Oh well. Jack decided he'd come back later.
In the meantime, there was someone important that Jack had yet to meet with, and an important place he hadn't looked at.
"It looks like Nim Sudo lived with an older cousin," Ianto informed him. "Her mother died when she was born, and her father died in an accident at the lumber mill."
"That's odd," said Jack. "I didn't realize it had been closed that recently."
It probably wasn't important.
Jack pulled up in front of the house, which was much less impressive than the last one. It looked very small for two people, and was almost as rundown as the abandoned buildings on the other side of town. One of the windows was open, and out of it wafted a scent of something that might or might not be legal in this part of the country.
Jack knocked on the door, and listened inside as someone leisurely got up to answer it. As the door opened, Jack was overcome by a wave of smells trying to cover up other smells and failing.
"Ay," said a man in a red Hawaiian shirt, with short dark hair and impressive sideburns. He looked to be about twenty-five.
"Hey there, I'm Captain Jack Harkness," Jack said, extending a hand, though the man didn't seem to notice. He was staring very intently at Jack's face. "I'm here to look for leads concerning Nim's death."
"You're very pretty for an FBI agent or whatever," the man noted. "People should get murdered here more often. I'm Merry."
"You sure look that way," Jack said, patting him on the shoulder. "Wait, Merry Sudo?"
"No, Merry Weeds. Nim's related on her mam's side."
"Merry Weeds?" Ianto said incredulously. "Seriously?"
"And that's your real name?" asked Jack.
"I'm just living up to destiny." Merry shrugged. "Who am I to fight that?"
"He sure seems lighthearted for a man who's just lost a close relative," Jack said, hand to his ear.
"Smokin' away the tears," Merry said. "Speaking of, come inside. I need another hit."
Jack followed Merry into the house, and watched as Merry settled himself back into his gaudily colored couch. The TV across from was showing only a handful of odd static images on a few second's rotation, one of which was the weather, which said only "AFTERNOON SHOWERS" with a frowny picture of a cloud.
"So, what can I do for you?" Merry asked. He punctuated his sentence with a pipe to his lips.
"I need to know what you know about the circumstances surrounding Nim's death," said Jack, pacing the small room. He noted that there were nails hammered into the walls, but no photographs hung on them.
"I don't remember," Merry said. "I don't remember any of it. I'm sorry, that's not very helpful, but I don't."
"Nothing? Nothing at all?"
"She said she was going to meet a friend. Nim had a lot of friends. She was very pretty." Merry looked away. Though he was a tall and not exactly petite man, he almost looked transparent. Nim's death had hit him harder than it first appeared.
"Thank you," Jack said, after a long pause. "Merry, I know this might seem rude, but can I have a look at Nim's things? It might give us some invaluable insight into the case."
"Go ahead," Merry said with a dismissive hand gesture. "It's the door on the right. It's not locked. All her things should be right where she left them."
Jack smiled his sad smile, and turned away.
Nim's room looked very typical for that of a teenage girl. It was simply decorated and a little bit messy, with the scatterbrained zen of a girl who knew where everything was, despite the incomprehensibility to an outside eye.
But the room was small, and Jack knew all the places to look. There had to be a hidden panel in a drawer with a diary in it, or a book with the inside of its pages cut out.
Jack began his investigation, but found neither of those things. In the closet, he found drugs. In the dresser drawers he found more drugs. There were drugs hidden between the mattresses, and tucked in pockets and shoes. Jack couldn't tell if this was normal for teenage residents of Redwood, or if Nim was the largest drug dealer in the town.
Then, under the bed, he found something else. It was a large box of many varieties and colors of sex toys. Another impressive collection for a small town.
"Look inside the vibrators," Ianto said suddenly.
"Should I even ask why you'd think of that?" Jack said, shaking the box.
"Just check inside the battery compartments," Ianto insisted. "There might be something inside."
Jack picked one out at random. It was vivid scarlet, and made vaguely in the shape of a pine tree. He screwed it open, and to his surprise, a key fell out into his hand.
"Ianto Jones, you're a genius!" Jack said, turning it around in his fingers.
"I like to think so," Ianto said, with polite welsh smugness.
Jack looked more closely at the key, and saw that there were tiny letters inscribed on it. "BF"
"Boyfriend?" Ianto offered.
"Or initials," said Jack. "B.F. Blaire Falls. We've just found our way in."
As Jack drove back along the same roads to get to Blaire's house, he found himself stricken with an almost dizzying sense of dread that he couldn't place. The feeling didn't even feel like it belonged to him. It was something else, a sort of deadly premonition. Something was happening, and he was too late to stop it.
Jack realized that what he was feeling was guilt.
He stepped on the gas, desperate now to get there faster, but many of the roads in Redwood seemed to curve around pointlessly. Even from where he was he could see the road turning back in the opposite direction, less than half a mile away in a straight line.
Slowly, Jack grinned.
"This is a terrible idea," he said.
"This is a wonderful idea," said Ianto.
Jack swerved hard right and into the field. The shoddy police car whined in complaint as they bumped along rocky ground, lurching this way and that.
"Haha!" Jack said triumphantly. The tires kicked up dirt as he skidded back onto the road, showering down behind them in a thick layer of dust, but that wasn't his problem. Redwoods' roads were curiously well maintained. And if the car broke down, he could always get another one from Stiff.
Now, though, they had a bigger problem.
Almost as if the sky had draped a curtain over them, it was raining.
Raining in impenetrable sheets. Jack's mind flashed back to the sound of that bulldog. A low, guttural bellow. Hampered vision or not, he slammed on the gas, pushing the car for all that it was worth. Turning on the sirens would have made it go a little faster, but he was terrified it would help the monster find him.
There was a thump.
And then another. Jack's eyes widened as he saw them. They were just as they had been in the hospital, but now all of their skin was slick and black. They were rising in masses out of the ground, their heads drooping loosely, hair sticking to their wet bodies. Their bones cracked deafeningly loud as he ran them down. Babump- babump. They were impossible to avoid, even if he wanted to.
"I think I'm going to hurl," said Ianto.
"Don't lose your lunch in the car," said Jack, "Stiff'll kill us."
Jack slammed on his breaks, just in time to hit a fence. It crumbled and he drove right through, only to crash into a house and come to a jarring stop.
"Ride's over!" Jack said, laughing as the adrenaline coursed through him. "Everyone out!"
Jack flung open the door and rolled out dramatically, landing crouched on his feet, gun at the ready. The rain hissed loudly in his ears. He prepared for one of the creatures to leap at him at any moment, but nothing came.
"I was wondering when you'd get here!" said a familiar voice. Jack looked up to see Victor standing under an awning, arms folded and shivering.
"Hey, Vicky! Fancy meeting you here," Jack said, getting up and wiping the mud off of his coat. He was already drenched to the bone, and found himself wishing for- well, not a raincoat. But a poncho would be nice. Besides, it was impossible to be unhappy in a poncho. "I thought you didn't go out in the rain."
"I was already here when it started," Victor said, wide eyed. "Somebody called in an anonymous tip, but no one's answering and I can't get the door open."
"Lucky for us, I have a key," Jack said, pulling it from his pocket and waving it around triumphantly.
"Well then, open the door!" said Victor.
Jack strode past him and slid the key into the lock. The door swung open easily.
As he stepped into the entryway, Jack felt that insurmountable feeling of guilt returning.
"Stay here," he said, putting a hand on Victor's chest to hold him back. "Ianto and I will look around first."
Jack circled around a long, arching stairway, and down the hall. He instinctively knew where to go. Already, he could smell the blood. Still, he grimaced as he entered the room and saw it. It was everywhere, a massive pool on the bed that oozed down onto the floor and-
And trailed under another doorway, like someone had been dragged. He could hear the sound of running water, a hiss that could almost be mistaken for the rain.
Jack fearlessly flung open the door, but he gasped a little when he saw what was inside.
The boy was about seventeen, with pale hair and feminine features. He was sitting propped up against the wall of the shower. His torso had been split open from the chest down, organs spilling out, blood running in a river down into the drain.
Where the shower water hit his body, bits of skin were peeling off.
Pale skin flaked from his forearms and his legs, clumping together in squishy mounds. Underneath, the skin was slick and black. Jack couldn't see them, but he would have bet his eternal life that his eyes were silver.
Suddenly, the body choked and retched forward, convulsing.
"Ianto- he's still alive!" Jack rushed to his side and knelt down. "Blaire, answer me. Who did this to you?"
Blaire choked again, his eyelashes fluttering. He gasped in a ragged breath of air.
"A…ahh…" he said, hacking out the sounds. "Ahhhhh….hn…. ammm…. ssss."
"Ames?" Jack asked urgently.
Blaire gurgled pathetically. He slumped forward into the pile of his own organs and skin with a squelch.
"What's going on in here?" Victor said, running into the room. He froze, and put a hand over his mouth. "Oh my god. Is he-"
Jack reached out and put his fingers to his neck, just in case, but of course there was nothing.
"He's dead, Vic."
Victor gagged and turned away. He looked like he might vomit. With the shower still running and Blaire's body still slowly bleeding out, Jack stared and Victor from behind. He'd been here the whole time. Ames. It was so obvious, so obvious that he didn't want to believe it.
The door creaked. Jack looked down. It took him a minute to process what he was seeing. Two white cats had just waltzed into the room, one with blue eyes and a blue collar, the other with green. They meowed simultaneously, and nudged his legs.
Jack's head ached. He flinched and staggered back, covering his eyes. He could see them. He could see Blaire, and Nim, and another girl he didn't recognize with long, black hair. They were smiling. Nim was laughing, and reaching for Blaire's hand.
Then it was over.
"Call this in," Jack said, not looking at Victor. "I need to go."
Chapter 3: CLEARED
TOTAL Number of Days: 2
TOTAL Number of Snogs: 1
TOTAL Enemies Defeated: 19
TOTAL Number of Continues: 1