24
Ianto and Gwen stood aghast at the black jeep, and then both sets of eyes turned to the body on the ground.
Ianto briefly mumbled that the thing had been hit by the Jeep, but the other question was: Who was that in the vehicle?
The driver of the jeep eventually got out the car; she appeared to be hysterical, and Gwen and Ianto could now see why. She shut the door behind her and ran to the two individuals that were standing by the entrance of the guesthouse, the living room window smashed in to the left, and ignored the fact that Ianto was standing with a shotgun.
"Help me!" the woman screamed, and pointed to her jeep. "My...my...son!"
Gwen comforted the woman as Ianto walked forwards and stepped onto the road, the woman on the floor still twitching to the left of him, and peered into the back of the car.
A boy of seven was strapped in the back and was struggling to get free, but this boy had turned, and as soon as he clocked Ianto's face, it struggled even more to get free.
The belt was still in its lock, and it was obvious this thing had no idea how to unlock itself and why it was unable to move. Ianto was certain that once that thing was free, the windows of the car may as well be made of paper. He then noticed that the passenger window nearest the boy had been smashed.
Ianto then looked to the side of him and watched as the Hitcher that was hit by the vehicle continued to twitch on the floor. Ianto turned the gun around and slammed the butt into the side of the woman's head.
Its twitching ceased.
He then turned to the woman who was being comforted by Gwen, and said coldly, "Your son. You know he's turned, don't you?"
She nodded her head, but he could see she was unsure.
He tried again. "Your son...he's infested. There's a thing spreading through the country..." Ianto then stopped in mid-sentence. "Was your son complaining of spiders?"
She nodded and struggled to speak through her sobbing. "I was driving away and...one of those...those...things smashed its head through the passenger window and...and...my Tyler."
Both Ianto and Gwen looked at one another as Jack strode over to look for himself.
Jack said to Ianto, "He's gonna get out of that car eventually, if we leave it too late."
Ianto sighed sadly, knowing that the boy was going to have to go. But he didn't want to just do it and give the poor woman more trauma to deal with; he needed to explain to her what he was about to do and why it was absolutely necessary.
Ianto walked up to her and before he had chance to speak, she cried, "You need to kill him, don't you?"
"He's still human," Ianto tried to explain, "but he'll never go back to the Tyler that you knew and loved. He can't change back. If he gets out, he'll attack us. Then we change."
Gwen added, "We need to do this for the sake of saving ourselves and, in the long term, others as well. Didn't you see the news?"
Not answering her query, the woman cried, "He's my boy. He's all I have left."
Gwen placed her arm around her comfortingly, and spoke, "We're sorry, but what Ianto has said is correct."
"But how is this happening?"
"Nobody knows." Jack spoke up and constantly twisted his neck to the jeep, paranoid that the kid would eventually get out. "I was attacked myself last night. We barely made it, but thankfully we found this place."
Ianto could then see the woman staring at his clothes; they were covered in blood. Noticing this, he tried to explain, "We've just had an incident, minutes before you turned up in your car. I'll explain later, but we need to go somewhere safe and we need to take care of your boy."
Gwen then said to the distraught woman, "You have no idea what we're dealing with—none of us do really, but take a walk into the living room, have a look around and see for yourself."
"But don't touch them," Ianto instructed.
The woman gave Ianto a strange look with her teary, bloodshot eyes, then nodded the once before slowly stepping into the establishment. Two minutes later, she returned, even more fretful than before.
"That's what we're dealing with," Ianto sighed. "It'll take a while to sink in, but just imagine what the cities are going through. Believe it or not, we're probably in the best place."
"I can't do this," the woman cried. "I can't cope with this."
Jack added, "I know this is so fucked up and surreal, but you need to listen to Ianto."
For two more agonising minutes they tried to explain to the woman, who had introduced herself as Sue that her real son was never coming back.
Jack was growing impatient, because they were standing outdoors and were totally exposed.
Finally, Sue nodded her head, and agreed that Tyler may as well be dead with the virus that he had.
She tearfully said to Jack, "Before you do anything, let me say goodbye to my son."
Aware that one of those things could emerge from out of the dense fog, Ianto reluctantly shadowed Sue as she strolled over to her car to say her goodbyes to
Tyler. The jeep's exterior had dents to the front where she had hit the Hitcher but apart from that, it was still in working order.
Both Ianto and Sue looked into the passenger window to see her once-son manically, and desperately, trying to get out of his seat, spitting blood from his mouth.
Right away, after witnessing that scene, Sue knew that that wasn't her son. Her real son wasn't coming back; she knew he was beyond help.
She timidly placed her hand on the passenger window and cried, almost falling to her knees. Ianto could feel the swelling in his throat and was fighting the tears himself at this heartbreaking scene. He looked to either side of him, aware that hanging around for longer than necessary was putting their lives at risk, and was fearing the worst as he stared into the fog.
In his mind he envisaged one of those things running through the mist, as Sue pressed her face against the window and cried as she glared at her changed son.
Jack was in two minds whether to pull her back in case her son managed to get free from his seatbelt, but he refrained from doing so as he saw Ianto's grief as well. He looked all around once more, scared shitless. He was holding the shotgun, but wasn't sure he could react in time if one of those things would come sprinting through the dense fog.
Sue stroked the pane of glass and cried, "My boy. My poor, poor boy."
Ianto looked over his shoulder to see Gwen filling up. The 'farewell' was a lot shorter than Ianto had anticipated, and Sue turned on her heels and placed her hand on his shoulder and said, "I know he's beyond help. I know he has to be dealt with. Please, make it quick."
She walked into the guesthouse and Gwen disappeared inside with her, telling them that she'd be back out once she had got the woman and Stripy Steve into the basement.
When Gwen finally returned, she sighed and asked, "So how are we gonna do this?"
Unsure, Jack said with little confidence in his voice, "I'll blast him through the exposed window, and then go back into the basement for a nervous breakdown."
"This is so weird." Ianto sighed softly next to him.
"You ain't wrong." Jack replied, feeling a hand slid into his coat pocket, strangely comforting.
"The window isn't fully smashed through." Gwen investigated the passenger window and added, "You'd get a clearer shot if I just opened the door and then...bam!"
"Bam?" Ianto shook his head at Gwen's choice of words. "Are you actually taking this seriously? That's a little boy in there."
Gwen placed her hand on the door handle and peeped over to Jack. "You ready?"
Ianto shook his head and glared at the female. With her dark attire, her black leggings and T-shirt, she looked like an assassin. He was in similar clothing after his clothes from the night before were soaked. Gwen's hair was kept obediently behind her ears and her face highlighted that she appeared more confident than Ianto. His face quivered in fright and his hands shook.
"Let's just get this over with," Jack snapped impatiently.
"Okay."
After taking a deep breath in, Jack nodded at Ianto to open the car door. Ianto walked over to open it and Gwen responded by raising her gun as well.
In her head, the words: he's beyond help, swirled in her mind like cigar smoke and she took a breath out.
Ianto opened the door quickly and Jack squeezed the trigger. Gwen's firing a second later.
Ianto couldn't help but look, and the bang made his frame jump. The rear and the furthest passenger window were decorated in blood that flew out, decorating the inside of the car.
Gwen lowered the gun with one hand and placed her other hand over her mouth.
She sobbed and Ianto shut the door and peered inside. The head of the boy was almost missing, and blood and brain matter was all over the interior of the vehicle.
Ianto turned quickly and threw up on the road, the vomit hitting it with a loud splat. Wiping his mouth, he walked over to Jack and they both hugged.
"We need to go into the basement right now." Ianto's tone was strong, but not threatening or rude. "We can't be standing out here for a second longer, especially if these things are attracted by noise."
"Maybe we shouldn't have used the gun," Gwen said.
"I couldn't leave him. Imagine if he'd got out of the car." Jack snapped.
"We could have knifed him." Gwen quickly placed her hand over her mouth, realising what she had said. She never thought in a million years she'd be having a conversation about killing a seven-year-old boy.
"And what if he managed to grab you, or infest you?"
She never answered his query. She turned on her heels and went back inside the guesthouse, now heading for the basement.
A fraught Ianto followed behind with Jack.