Chap 6
"Hey, hey, come on, let us out of here." Yvonne yells as she watches the exchange.
"Start at the beginning!" Ianto asks, opening the cell door but keeping his handgun cocked.
"Oh. Ha, ha, ha." Yvonne bounces out of the cell, "I told you I got here last night."
"Don't bullshit me!" Ianto snarls, all pretence gone as he raises his gun.
"Lieutenant." She raises her hands in surrender, "Okay."
"What the hell is going on out there?" Ianto flicks his head at the doors.
"What?" She tries for ignorance but Ianto does not blink. Finally she shrugs. Busted.
"In semi-arid regions on Earth, there are certain organisms that live in small pools that are formed by the annual rains." She chooses a seat and reaches for a drink, "When the pools dry up, those organisms can't live but they don't die either. They go dormant. Below the surface, away from the hot sun until the next rain cycle begins. Then they re-emerge. I think something like that's happening here. I don't understand. Well, whatever used to live here, we woke it up."
Blank stares all around and she sighs. "It takes us, okay? I'm talking about a kind of possession."
"Lieutenant," Owen interrupts, "Sgt. Hart's on the radio. He said he found three people out there. They're on the way in. They got an ETA of 5 minutes. You should get on the radio and talk to him."
"The hell do you mean he's found three people?" Ianto huffs and Owen shrugs.
"That's what he said." Owen jumps as he hears banging from a cell.
Looking at Tosh for backup he nods for Ianto to open the door.
A woman comes flying out of the room, gnashing her teeth and snarling as she makes a b-line for the hapless Owen who can only yodel as she struggles with him.
Ianto calmly watches the display and then raises his weapon, firing from the hip. The body flies back against the wall and slides down, leaving a slimy red trail as it folds ungainly onto the ground.
"You Okay?" he asks Owen who is sitting on the ground in Tosh's lap.
"No" Owen pouts as Tosh rubs an elbow.
"Is something broken?" Ianto crouches down with a cocked head.
"No, I'm all right." Owen finally admits as he clambers to his feet.
"But it's out of the body now." Yvonne wails, looking around the room.
"Yeah, it's loose in here." Ianto frowns as he watches the body for any signs of life.
"Lieutenant," Tosh calls out from the radio she had just returned to, "sergeant's on the radio."
"Lieutenant," Hart's voice was gravelly, showing that he was moving with some speed, "we're coming in. Can you read me?"
"Sergeant, where are you?" Ianto asks with growing concern.
"We're right down the street." Comes the reply and Ianto tilts his head.
"We?" Ianto asks Tosh who is watching the exchange, "Who's "we"?"
"I found three people alive out here." John replies and Ianto realises the radio was still on, "Come and open the door for us."
"I tried to reach you on the radio." John pants as he tries to catch his breath, the three men who had stumbled in with him collapse against the wall as they openly shake with fear.
"Just you make sure that door is locked." He asks Ianto who nods to Tosh to deploy the double locks, "There must be 200 of them fucking freaks, and any minute now they're going to be coming down the street looking to kick our ass."
"Okay. Relax." Ianto places a hand on John's arm and he looks up with pleased surprise at the contact, "Who are these guys?"
"I found them hiding up in the mine shed."
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"Lieutenant." John barks in his comms, "We got a situation here."
"Sergeant, you're breaking up." Ianto faintly answers, "I can hardly hear you."
"The commander's dead." John reports and waits for an answer, when none comes he says, "Everybody in the mine's gone insane."
John waits for Ianto to speak but the coms are silent, probably the storm interrupting them. The door he is leaning against opens and hands grab for his jacket, pulling him into the tool shed he was leaning against.
"Check the window!" a man demands and John counts three frightened men staring at him.
"They didn't see."
"Who are you?" John asks with confusion.
"Who are we?" The man scoffs who had made the demand, "Who are you?"
"The man asked you a question." Another sneers and John leans back against the closed door to stare at them.
"My name's Hart." He finally offers with a leer.
"At least he's not one of them." The smaller one mutters, John notes the other large ones nod their agreement. So he's in charge?
"What's happening out there?" he asks the men, "Who the fuck are those clowns? What are they all sparked up about?"
"Used to be miners. Then everybody in this place lost their mind running around, chopping people's heads off." The leader said with growing excitement.
"Ease up, man." John soothes then nods for him to continue.
"We were up on the rim when they called the work stoppage.
We were watching from the top of a pit, they all seemed to be knocking off early for the night. We were gonna sneak into our shift change because we were late but didn't know what to do if they locked up early for the night" the leader who John had come to think of as Uno.
"Then we heard all this bloody screaming and chanting, like" a large one speaks. Dos. "Then this red mist came rolling on from the south."
"We hid until the storm was over." Uno continues the story with a slap to the large one's chest, "Later, I went out to take a look around. Thought they were all dead. Then some of them started to come to. They walked around like they were confused or lost. A few of them seemed okay. They was trying to help the others. Then they started changing."
"Changing?" John frowns as the leader pauses, "What do you mean?"
"They act different, stand different. Start cutting themselves for decoration. Filing their teeth. Making weapons. Killing the ones who hadn't changed." Uno shudders at the memory, "Cutting people's faces off and wearing them for masks."
"You boys got any weapons?" John is afraid now, no longer slumping, he stands tall as he adjusts his rifle.
Dos raises a knife and grins. John snorts and looks to Uno, "I mean real weapons."
"Only cops can have guns." Uno snorts and the third one speaks.
"Some detonators in them cases over there." Comes a rumbling lisp from the third one who John is stumped by, then he comes up with a name he thinks is fitting. Spare.
"Do you know how these things work?" John looks at the cases of potential weapons with admiration.
"I know you need dynamite to use them." Uno shrugs.
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"Okay then." Ianto contemplates their next move with John, "We take our prisoner and we all get on the train."
"What prisoner would that be?" Uno asks and Ianto raises an eyebrow at the interruption.
"That's doesn't concern you." John snarls, seeing Ianto's annoyance and feeling an overwhelming desire to defend his new leader.
John steps between Ianto and the men as he strokes his rifle, realising he is the only one with a weapon drawn as Owen's sits by Tosh's on a nearby table and Ianto has his leaning behind him against the wall.
"If it's Captain Harkness, it concerns me very much." Uno laughs as the three men drop their long coats to reveal weapons, pointed at all three soldiers. Now drop your weapon. All of you!"
"Weapons on the floor." Dos snarls as Tosh squeaks, removing her sidearm along with Owen and they drop them to the floor.
"So only cops have guns, eh?" John sighs as Ianto nods for John to back down as he drops his own sidearm with a quiet groan.
John realises that he brought this threat home. He has put Ianto in danger, great move soldier.
"You fucking pricks."