14
A slithering parasite squirms over a paint-chipped sign that reads "WELCOME TO TORCHWOOD, SOUTH WALES, THE WHEELS OF THE FUTURE," featuring early-'sixties graphics of a utopian future.
Hundreds of slithering parasites squirm into the city. They divide off in thin lines heading toward the various homes.
In a small house, through which we can see an overweight woman in spasms with a slithering thing in her mouth.
Next door a family is gathered around a corpse, feasting on his goopy flesh.
.
.
"What's that?" Ianto asks.
Our team looks up to see a Buick Century parked at a haphazard angle in the middle of the road. The driver's side door is open. The headlights are still on.
They look at each other. Jack takes his flashlight off his belt and aims it in front of him. They all slowly approach the car, in the darkness.
Jack aims his flashlight into the Buick. The keys are still there, but no one's inside.
Andy looks at the grill of the car. It's dented. "They musta hit a deer. Probably got out to see if it's okay."
Jack and the others look around. Jack hears a lapping sound behind him. He turns, aiming the flashlight downward. A diseased deer is lapping a thick purple tongue on the wound of a dead man. The sick creature is mostly hairless and pink and covered in veins. Bulbous black eyes hang on the sides of its head like a goldfish's.
The diseased deer glances up at Jack and growls a low growl.
"Fuck me." Owen says softly "I didn't know they could make that noise."
The deer springs upward, bringing his hoofs into Jack's chest. Jack is knocked violently to the gravel, dropping his shotgun and satchel. The deer rears back and brings his hoofs down into Jack again. They crack Jack's head against the hard road. Ianto runs towards him screaming his name.
Kylie, Andy, and Rhiannon see diseased deer coming in at them from different directions. The deer SCREECH like dying rabbits.
"Bambi-rats!" Owen snarls. Andy aims his pistol at a deer jumping toward him. He shoots, misses. The deer knocks him down. The deer stomps his feet, rearing up and down on Andy's ribs, almost like a little dance. The deer tears at Andy's sleeve with decidedly carnivorous teeth, forcing him into letting go of his gun.
Kylie screams. She dives into a small space beneath a rock overhang on the side of the road. She watches what's going on from there.
Rhiannon sees the Buick a few yards away. She glances beside her to see the largest diseased deer of all, a horned buck, careening toward her.
She dashes toward the Buick as fast as she can.
A tumorous Doe leaps onto Jack, biting into his shoulder and tearing at his flesh, so now he has two deer on him. Jack is bleeding, dizzy, and disoriented, but he's able to turn, just a bit, to see the barrel of his shotgun above him. Ianto is trying to aim as the gun is slammed aside and Ianto falls back, hitting a log and becoming still.
Jack tries to scoot himself back as he's being battered. He reaches up for the shotgun; but the tips of his fingers barely graze the muzzle.
Rhiannon arrives at the Buick and starts to crawl into the front seat. But the horned buck is upon her. He bites into Rhiannon's ankle. She screams. He yanks back on her, half pulling her onto the road. But Rhiannon grabs onto the steering wheel with all her might and pulls against the horned buck's massive power.
The deer on Andy starts pulling him off, dragging him down the road as he hollers, and Owen grabs a tree branch to swing about like a fucktard.
Kylie, underneath the rock overhang, watches Jack try to scoot himself back and reach for the shotgun. It's just a little too far away. Ianto works up his nerve and slowly starts to crawl towards him.
As Rhiannon is stretched between the horned buck pulling on her ankle, and her hand on the steering wheel, she's able to flip on her side and turn the keys in the ignition; the engine starts. She reaches one hand down to the floorboard, pressing on the gas.
The Buick lurches forward, wrenching her away from the horned buck's mouth.
Ianto reaches again for the barrel of his rifle. It's too far away. But then he sees Kylie, at the butt of the rifle. She reaches out and pushes it just a little, into Jack's hand. Jack grips the muzzle like a baseball bat and swings it into the face of the deer jumping on him, knocking the beast back.
The deer tries to stumble forward again, but its whole head and neck have been knocked askew. It topples over, dead.
Jack flips the shotgun forward into his hands. He stuffs the muzzle into the tumorous doe biting into his leg. The deer looks at him. Blood is running down Jack's face and he looks half-crazed. Jack glances down and sees the telephone wire wrapped around her ankle.
Jack pulls the trigger, destroying her.
He stands, looking around for the deer with Andy. It has dragged him a fair distance down the street. Jack shoots once, missing it, and again, hitting it straight on.
Kylie looks around to see more diseased deer running through the fields toward them. Rhiannon pulls herself into the driver's seat and backs up alongside her friends. Throws open the passenger door.
"Get in!"
Everyone clambers in and Jack fumbles for the radio controls "Eugene!"
Andy looks out the window, watching the deer fade away behind them. "When I buy my zoo, I'm leaving them things the hell out!"
"Eugene!" Jack yells again into the radio.
"Hey there, Chief."
"Eugene! We need people out here at Cosgrove and McCammon right away!"
"Don't worry, Chief."
.
.
Eugene, sick and bloated, speaks into his radio, as he moves down the street with a hoard of the infected. "Already on our way."
.
.
Kylie turns her head and glances out the window. And screams. The others turn to see an SUV barreling straight towards them. It slams hard into the side of the Buick. And smashes the car back, across a short lot, and through the glass storefront of a flower store.
The Buick and SUV are destroyed, amidst the ruins of this store. Shattered vases and flowers surround them. Glass fragments dangle from the window frame. Some fall and clink to the floor.
Rhiannon lifts her battered head from the wheel. She looks beside her to see Jack and Ianto, seemingly unconscious. She looks back at Kylie. The impact has killed her. Her neck is bent at an ungodly angle. Bone juts up out of her skin. The others in the back are moving.
Rhiannon looks out her rear window and sees the SUV door open, and the diseased driver stumble out. His body is battered and broken, but, still, he lumbers toward her.
He tries to speak, but his jaw is broken, and only a MUMBLY MOAN comes out.
Rhiannon struggles to get out of the car. Eventually, she does, and she falls to the floor, amidst the broken glass from the shattered window, and the water all over the floor from the broken vases.
She sees the moaning driver limping toward her. He's still trying to speak, but he's unintelligible. The driver gets close, ready to grab her. Rhiannon sees a metal bar. She grabs it. And slams it into the diseased man's shin.
He topples over.
She crawls onto the fallen driver and brings the metal bar down into his head, again and again, shouting and crying with fury.
Rhiannon looks down at the man, who is very dead. Rhiannon looks up to see dozens of diseased townsfolk coming at her, from down the street, between buildings. They see Rhiannon there.
"RHIIIIAAAAAAAAA"
Jack and Ianto limp up behind Rhiannon, pulling her toward a door on the back wall. Owen rushes to catch up.
"Come on." Jack demands. Jack closes and locks the flower shop door behind them. The diseased townsfolk surround the little store on all sides. They SCREECH.
"What the hell are we going to do?!" Ianto hisses.
"Just block the doors, any way you can." Jack replies "The others are safe locked in the car… we are the ones fucked."
Jack grabs hammers and nails off a hardware bench. Ianto knocks things off shelves and yanks up the metal shelving.
Rhiannon looks doubtful of this whole activity. But still, she helps. The storeroom has two doors. They start nailing anything over them they can. Andy sees some slithering parasites coming in through a crack in the upper corner of the room.
"Goddamn snakes!" Owen aims his pistol at the things and starts shooting wildly at them, blasting up the whole room.
Jack and Rhiannon see slithering parasites coming in from other cracks in the room as well. They also BLAST at them. Dust is all around; they can hardly see.
Jack runs out of ammo. He grabs a hand-held Black and Decker electric circular saw and turns it on. He starts jamming it into the parasites, cutting them up, and putting big slices in the floor. They SQUEAK with pain.
The diseased townsfolk WAIL and SLAP their hands on the walls, almost rhythmically, like some tribal ritual.
Some push on the doors.
Jack hears something POP behind him. He turns to see a little hole in one of the doors. Three diseased fingers slip inside, trying to pull away more. Jack uses the circular saw to cut off the fingers. An arm pops through the door. Jack slams the circular saw into that. Blood spurts. Bone grinds.
A man's eye peeks through another crack. Jack jams the circular saw through the crack and into the man's face. The man backs away from the hole, clutching his bleeding eye. Jack spots a wide piece of shelving falling off the door across from him. He runs over to the space, when the circular saw stops turning.
Jack turns to see he's accidentally unplugged it.
Fuck.