Chapter 7

"Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched?" Ianto said, as they sped along the country roads, swerving around the few other cars when it was necessary.

"All the time," said Jack. "All I have to do is step outside, and immediately everyone is staring at me."

"That's fair," said Ianto. "But actually I was leading up to an eerie reveal."

"Right, because someone's hiding in the back seat," Jack said flippantly.

"Yes sir," said Ianto. "Just thought you should know."

Jack grinned, adjusting the rear view mirror just in time to see the flash of silver before the creature's arms were around him. It covered his mouth, claws digging into his forehead, cheek, and neck.

"This is my car, you asshat," said Victor, his snarling face pressed against Jack's ear. "You can't just take peoples' cars all the time!"

"Hff a ffvff na crr," Jack said, voice muffled. Victor loosened his vicegrip.

"I said," said Jack, "It's a very nice car."

"It really is!" said Victor. "It really, really is. I think you should park it before I tear your head off. You'll get blood all over the seats!"

Jack obliged, tires screeching as he hit the brakes going 95, flinging Victor roughly into the windshield. Victor scrambled to get back up, but Jack was already twisting the steering wheel to park delicately in the middle of someone's yard.

He rolled out the open door, coat arcing gracefully behind him.

"Sorry about this," Jack said, shooting back through the window. Blood splattered and dripped down the opposite window.

"Fuckdamn!" Victor said, shouldering the door open and bounding after him on all fours. Blood dripped down his arm from a fresh shoulder wound. "I just wanted to talk, Jack!"

Long spines rippled down Victor's back. His face had morphed into a grotesque mask with an upturned nose and protruding jaw.

"So talk," Jack said, keeping his gun level as Victor circled slowly around him. Blood was dripping into Jack's eye from a gash on his forehead, but he didn't even bother trying to blink it away.

"Why are you even here, Jack Harkness?" Victor said, his spines quivering as he shifted upright. "Redwood Valley isn't under the jurisdiction of any planet!"

"Wait, what?"

Jack stopped to ponder this. It made sense, he supposed. Nobody here had the same accent. They seemed to be chosen at random and, now that he thought about it, weren't even very good interpretations.

"I thought we were somewhere in the Pacific Northwest," said Jack.

"Northwest of something," Victor said. "What, did you think this was really Earth?"

"Well, yeah," said Jack. "Why would anyone want to copy of a generic lumber town?"

"We just wanted to live somewhere where community values still matter!" Victor said, jaws clicking awkwardly as he talked. "Is that so wrong?"

"Community values and murder?" said Jack, looking smug. "I guess that's what happens when you grow up eating your siblings."

Victor lunged at him, his head tucked, his spines bristling. He caught Jack full in the chest, and knocked him to the ground- but Jack had the gun pressed into his fleshy throat before he could so much as raise a hand against him.

"The Seedlings are barely even the same species as us," Victor said, his face close enough to Jack's that he could feel his breath. "Our lifespans are greater than a real human's. We… settle down."

"Yeah, this is settled," said Jack. His wounds had sealed, but there was still blood trickling down his cheek and onto his lips.

"Maybe if we'd met under different circumstances, you'd understand…"

Victor met his eyes. He arched his neck-

And kissed Jack.

Jack pulled the trigger.

Victor lurched back, eyes dilated in shock, the silver reduced to the edges of an eclipse. He clutched at his neck, but blood spurted out between his fingers. He was coughing and gurgling, choking on his own blood.

"Uh," said Jack, climbing to his feet. "I thought you were going for my throat."

Victor stared up at him.

"Jack, we didn't actually get a confession," said Ianto.

"Whoops," said Jack. Jack knelt down next to Victor, gently petting his hair. "Sorry, my bad."

Blood bubbled out of Victor's mouth.

Blood, and something else. Jack didn't even have time to flinch back before the acid caught him full in the face. Victor's body shuddered, then went limp.

"Augh!" Jack shouted. "Okay, I'm not sorry!"

Jack wiped fruitlessly at his face. Luckily, none of it had gotten in his eyes this time.

He wondered what to do with the body, but decided it wasn't his problem.

"Oh good, you're here again!" Jack said only a few seconds later, staring at the two cats, who were sprawled leisurely on the roof of his car. "Shoo, get off. Go home!"

Jack could have sworn he saw one of the cats smile at him as they turned away, hopped off, and disappeared into the long grass.

"Well, we might as well follow that lead," Jack said, revving the engine, "Since we're already invested and all."

"This is going to be a little anticlimactic if there isn't anything in the lumber mill," said Ianto, as they pulled once again into Victor's driveway.

"The wizened cock of ages wouldn't have told us to go there if it wasn't important," said Jack.

"Right."

Jack got out of the car and looked up at the house. He couldn't help but wonder if he'd made a mistake. But Victor had attacked him first. It wasn't the action of an innocent man.

"Oh great, we're going to have to tell Clare," Jack said, like he'd just realized it.

"Tell me what?" said Clare, and Jack almost jumped. She was standing in the open doorway, watching them with wide, alien eyes.

"Go with the quick and dirty," Ianto advised.

"Okay, Victor's dead," Jack said bluntly. "He tried to kill us."

"Oh," said Clare. For a moment it seemed like she'd take the news with no complaint, but then she sunk to the ground, burying her face in her hands.

"Oh god," she said. "This is all my fault. All of it. Everything."

Jack paced to her side and sat down, patting her back.

"Probably not all of it," he said, reassuringly.

"You don't understand," she said, sobbing. "Victor only killed Nim because we were going to run away."

"Why didn't you say that earlier?"

"I was scared, okay?" Clare choked. "I thought, if he'd kill her to keep me here, maybe he'd be crazy enough to kill me for the same reason!"

"Well, he's dead," said Jack. "Case closed."

"No it isn't." Clare looked up at him, her dark hair sticking messily to her face. "Victor isn't the one who killed Blaire. There's still someone else."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I…" Clare took a deep breath. "I see things, sometimes. I can sense them. I can feel other peoples' emotions, and sometimes, they can feel mine. We all have a weak empathic link, but mine is stronger than the others."

"I thought so," said Jack. "Question, though. If you can share emotions, can you share… other things? I know you've talked to me, but is it possible you could, say, implant fake memories?"

"Oh no," said Clare. "Nothing as strong as that. But I can… influence current thoughts, just a little."

"The thing is," said Jack, "I don't like other people messing around in my head."

Clare looked away, down at her knees.

"…Don't worry," she said quietly. "I didn't put him there. I helped a little in bringing him out, but he was already there."

"What in the world is she talking about?" Jack whispered, tapping his ear.

"No idea," said Ianto.

"Please," said Clare, "You have to help me with one more thing. We have to go to the lumber mill."

"What a crazy random happenstance!" said Jack. "That was already top on my to-do list! Well, maybe not top. It's a long list."

Despite the rumors, there actually was a path to the lumber mill. It was paved, even. Clare was pointing out directions from the passenger's seat, but Jack thought that he probably would have stumbled over it eventually even without help. Redwood wasn't that large. It was probably on an asteroid.

"There's something I should tell you before we get there," Clare said sheepishly.

"You sure have a lot of those," Jack said. "Go ahead, shoot."

"Well," said Clare. "This is the place where the roots hide away. They'll be difficult to fight with a gun."

"I think we can handle it," Jack said. "We're all the way out here already."

"Oh, we don't have to go back," Clare said, getting a little excited. "Don't worry, I've thought this through. There's a sword under the back seat."

"A sword?" said Ianto.

"A sword," Jack repeated. He grinned. "I can rock a sword."

"Just keep both hands on the shaft," said Ianto. "We don't want a repeat of last time."

They pulled to a stop in front of a massive wood building. It looked more like a giant warehouse than a lumber mill, and the wood it was made of blended oddly with the trees growing around it, like it was all one massive body.

"I'll just… stay in the car," Clare said, hugging her knees to her chest. "You'll know what you're looking for when you see it."

"I'm not sure I like this," Ianto mumbled, as they got out of the car.

"It's just a sword," Jack said, sliding it out of its sheath with an impressive gleam. He swished it in the air a few times; it was heavy and a little unwieldy, but probably more dependable against vines than a revolver.

"Not the weapon, the building."

Jack looked up at it over the point of his sword. It did look a little… alive. That wasn't such a big deal, though. He'd tackled worse. Literally, probably, as he did have a history of tackling things.

"Nah, you heard the girl," Jack said with a grin. "We're on the hunt!"

And with that he plunged through the rusted double-doors and into the mill.

It was the smell that hit him first, a wave of mold and decomposition. The ground was pulpy and moist, clinging to his shoes like mud. It was like a giant compost heap, rotting leaves and bark in thick, uneven piles.

"They should really place an order on 51st Century air freshener," Ianto quipped.

"You can wait outside, if you want," Jack said, prodding odd protrusions with the tip of his sword.

As he walked deeper into the building the halls became cavernous, walls slick with slime and long tendrils of gunk hanging down from the ceiling. Light came in only through uneven slats in the wood. He coughed. He coughed again. The stench was getting to be worse than corpses, if only because he was more familiar with them. The heat was overbearing, humid and dank.

Jack was starting to notice them, now. Patches in corners that bubbled up and oozed, and tiny tendrils of black weaving through the wood relief. Pulsing black tentacles, and gleaming red egg sacs.

"What are we looking for?" Ianto whispered.

"We'll know," Jack said back, pressing forward. He wondered if they could see him, or sense his heat. They seemed to be leaning in a mass toward him, but sluggishly, as if winding blindly in the dark.

"We might really need a few swords for this," said Ianto.

They were curling to follow him as he walked, urging him onward, deeper. Curling around his path, but never touching, never striking.

And… he wasn't alone. He could sense it, even if he couldn't see it. Something else echoing his breaths. Something lithe and shuffling.

A long, sticky strand of goo drizzled down into his hair. Jack's grip tightened on his sword.

He looked up.

While it looked down. Down at him with an open, gaping mouth, its claws weaved into the ceiling vines and its spines prickling at him, long, and thin as needles.

"Hello, friend," Jack said, as he slashed up at it. It dodged, wriggling out of the way in a jerky manner, as if pulled by the vines, but impossibly fast. He struck again, but it was on the wall next to him now, head crooked almost upside down. With the third strike, Jack's sword bit into a thick, dark vine.

And then, all hell broke loose. They were swarming at him, coming from all angles. He slashed wildly and managed to sever a few, but more replaced them. He was drenched in bubbling, cloying alien blood, and the roots were weaving around his legs and arms.

The creature was upon him, emerging from the latticework of writhing vines. It had its back talons hooked around his shoulders and its body curled around, its jaws nipping at his coat while its hands-

They were thorns, Jack realized, as the creature jabbed its hand down his throat and twisted. Their claws were thorns.

Jack choked. He couldn't move his legs. He could barely move his arms, but not enough to swing a sword. It was suffocating him, groping into his chest and ripping, tearing. His lungs were straining to pull in air that wasn't there, while the blood spilled in to fill the space.

His vision was flickering. All he could see was its eyes, glinting at him in the dark.

Jack watched the world spin as he fell, but he didn't feel it as he hit the ground. The roots were still curling around him, tighter and tighter, pulling him deeper into the dark.

Into the dark.

Chapter 7: CLEARED

TOTAL Number of Days: 3

TOTAL Enemies Defeated: 21

TOTAL Impractical Weapons: 1

TOTAL Number of Continues: 2