3
11:51 PM
It wasn't until Andy Davidson was back in his flat, two-thirds of the way through a shower, shit and a shave, that his hands started to shake. It started as a quivering at first; a light tremble that rose quickly to a full-scale shudder.
He didn't remember lying down on the bathroom floor or curling up in a ball with the knees of his tartan pyjamas pulled right up to his chest. He didn't remember crying either. Crying like he hadn't done in years, not since Geoff Tavers had kicked him in the gonads and nicked his pen back in Primary Five.
But he remembered Sharon Madison.
He knew he would always remember Sharon Madison, no matter how hard he tried to forget.
Christ, if he closed his eyes, he could still see her.
Two halves, each one scooped clean of everything that should've been inside.
Just two pale-skinned hollows with not a spot of blood or a trace of innards to be found.
He'd taken Captain Harkness over to the sheets and the paper suits had lifted first one, then the other. Swanson had stared for a while, as if trying to figure out what she was looking at then looking at Captain Harkness who shrugged. Then he'd turned to Davidson, clapped him on the shoulder, and told him to call it a night.
It was, Davidson reckoned, the first act of compassion he'd ever seen the Captain make, and he could almost have kissed the big bastard for it.
Davidson got up off the floor and brushed himself down.
He decided not to shave, in case he found a way to split his wrists with the safety blade. It was that sort of night.
He caught sight of himself in the mirror, all red-eyed and pasty-faced.
"Aye, looking good Andy," he muttered, before returning to the living room, where he'd left every one of the lights blazing.
As he flopped down onto the couch, he knew something was different.
Something had subtly changed in the room.
He couldn't see what it was, but he could feel it niggling away at him.
The TV was off, the lights were on. It looked just as he'd left it before going through to the bathroom.
And yet…
His eyes fell on the curtains.
Closed.
Did he draw them when he came in?
He couldn't remember. The flat was on the fourth floor, so sometimes he didn't bother shutting them, but tonight…? He couldn't remember.
He stood up. His eyes went to the door as he contemplated doing a runner, but he forced his gaze back to the window.
He was a Detective in the all-new Heddlu. Running away from his own curtains wasn't something he could allow himself to entertain, no matter how tempting it may be. He crept towards the window and the floorboards gave a sudden creak.
Davidson gasped.
Bastards.
They hadn't creaked before, had they? They'd picked a fine bloody night to start.
The curtains were thick and heavy, designed to keep out the cold and the sound of the city below.
Davidson steeled himself then gave one a quick flick. He found himself making a sound – a sort of angry yelp designed to drive off invaders, but which came out sounding like a strangled sob.
The curtain billowed briefly back and forth, then settled to a stop.
Davidson drew them both carefully back and peeked in behind.
He jumped back in fright at the sight of the wild-eyed figure hiding there, before realising it was his own reflection in the glass.
"Christ Almighty," he whispered, the relief coming out as a half-laugh. He let the curtains fall back. Just before they closed, a shape plunged from the top of the window to the bottom.
Davidson blinked. Had that happened? It had looked like… no. Surely not.
He swished the curtains apart and stepped in closer to the glass, trying to look down at the distant ground below. Whatever had fallen had landed too close to the building for him to see it.
The latch squeaked in protest as he turned it and pushed the window outwards. It opened to about forty-five degrees before the safety locks caught hold and prevented it going any wider.
Davidson leaned out. He had only glimpsed it for a second, but the thing that had fallen had looked like a man. The window looked out over the back of the flats, where there was nothing in the way of street lighting. He stared into the shadowy blackness that hugged the ground and tried to make out what—
A sound like thunder shattered the window above his head, spraying him with shards of broken glass. Davidson fell back into the flat, hands held in front of his face, blood already seeping down the back of his neck.
He looked up at the window, the frame now twisted out of shape. A man's arm and head dangled limply through the smashed pane, eyes open, skull caved in on one side.
Two bare legs hung down at an impossible angle behind them, like the force of the impact had snapped the poor bastard all the way in half.
As Davidson watched, gravity grabbed at the corpse.
The legs pulled down, showing a glimpse of bare arse. The head vanished upwards through the mangled frame. The arm went last, flopping to and fro as if waving goodbye, then the whole bloody mess slipped off the window and tumbled out of sight.
.
.
.
.
11:58 PM
Jack dropped into his chair, spun away from his cluttered desk and gazed out over the hub.
What the Hell was happening out there tonight?
The screen in front of him showed Cardiff's CCTV cameras like little tiles of activity.
He could see the flashing blues of the fire engines heading out, although they could just as easily be the lights of his own team, rushing off to deal with whatever new blister of madness had just burst open somewhere.
Jack squeezed the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes.
He hadn't seen anything like them since that spate of 'devil dog' attacks back on his Time Agent days.
Poor bastards.
And then there was Sharon Madison. He wasn't even counting her in with the rest of the murders yet. He wasn't sure what that was.
There was a soft knock and his door creaked open.
"Unit again, sir," said a worried voice. "They want to—?"
"Tell them to away and get fucked!"
There was a moment of hesitation, and then the door clicked closed again.
Jack sighed as he realised Ianto needed an apology now or there would be the 'no Speakies' later, let alone 'No Boom-boom'.
Jack took out his mobile and redialled the last number.
It rang and rang until the voicemail eventually kicked in.
Jack drummed his fingers on the desktop impatiently, listening to the message drone on.
"Davidson!" he barked, the moment he heard the beep. "Where the fuck are you? I told you to go home, not vanish off the face of the Earth. Phone me back."
He hung up and slammed the phone down on the desk with more force than he meant to, scattering a tower of paperwork that had been in danger of toppling over ever since he'd set foot in the room.
He gathered the files up, shuffling them roughly into a lop-sided stack. Assault, arson, rioting, rape … the top few files alone read like a psychopath's Bucket List.
Only they'd caught some of the people in the act, and they weren't psychos.
They had no priors, no history of trouble. They were just normal folk.
At least, they had been.
Something had happened to them.
Something that had turned normal folk off the street into the mindless animals that were banged up in the cells downstairs.
Even the Weevils didn't like them.
Jack had a bad feeling about this one.