13
The infected arrive at the car. Jack just lets his foot off the gas, and sits there, letting the ranchers leap onto the car. Kylie looks at Jack, panicked by his choice to do nothing.
"We need their weight." Ianto softly tells her, knowing what his husband is thinking.
Jack slams down the gas again, and the car zooms forward. The diseased get knocked off. Jack pants with adrenaline and fear "Dumbshits."
The car rushes toward the trees of the forest.
.
.
Rhiannon keeps running, when she trips and falls. She looks down to see she stumbled over old barbed-wire fencing, now long fallen and curling on the forest floor. Rhiannon forces herself up, as Young Cop closes in.
Young Cop grabs onto her blouse, SCREECHING furiously. When he hears something and looks over to see Jack's police car, cruising over the forest floor, directly toward him. Young Cop, frightened, let's go of Rhiannon. He's about to get hit when the police car suddenly stops, jammed between two trees, inches from Young Cop.
Young Cop smiles and moves toward Jack - but Rhiannon rises behind him, holding a sharp rusty stake from the barbed-wire fence.
She thrusts it forward, hard; and it pops out the front of Young Cop's neck. He turns to look at Rhiannon and topples over into the leaves.
Jack backs the car out from between the trees. He sees the Older Cop and Redneck coming in toward them.
"Come on!" Ianto yells.
"You don't have to tell me twice" Owen yells back.
Andy and Rhiannon get into the car. The Older Cop watches them back away and yells "Rhiannon!"
The police car pulls up and out of the forest. The car is in bad shape. Steam rises from the smashed grill. Jack looks to his side; he's down a bit from the Strutemyers' ranch. He pulls away, heading back toward town.
They all sit in a stupefied daze. Rhiannon's beside Ianto in the back with Owen squashed against the window watching outside. Jack grabs the police radio. "Eugene?"
Nothing.
STATIC.
Everyone notes this, worried. Jack tries again "Eugene, you there?"
For a moment, there's nothing. And then "Yo, Chief. How y'all doin'?"
Jack and Ianto look at each other, relieved.
.
.
Eugene sits at the police operator's unit, peppy. "You dig that rat out of the hole?"
Jack replies "Listen, you got any reports of... I don't know what you call 'em. They look like big slugs, only fast."
"Slugs? No. 'Less you talkin' about that new waitress down at Sloan's! Ha ha!"
"Eugene …"
"Oh, shit! I hope she ain't a police radio aficionado. If so, I apology…"
"Eugene, shut up. Keep an eye out for these things. If you see 'em, keep your mouth covered. Otherwise, they'll go straight down it. All right?" Jack is snarling.
Eugene looks confused, and nods.
"Are you nodding?"
"Yeah."
"I can't hear when you're nodding." Jack reminds him.
"Sorry."
"We'll be there in ten minutes." Jack hangs up. Kylie is clutching onto herself, hollow-eyed, in deep shock.
She mutters, almost unintelligibly "The worms are in their brains."
Rhiannon, Jack, and, Ianto and Andy look at her.
.
.
The Redneck is hunched over Gwen's body, eating her flesh. A parasite is imbedded into his brain; its tail hangs down his spine, wagging just a bit.
"Drivin' 'em around..." Kylie whispers.
Jack stares at Kylie like she's insane.
"She's right. We saw one – one came out of Archie's head." Andy agrees. "Yeah. Sort of his eye, it came out there …"
"Kylie, how do you …" Rhiannon asks as Kylie is rocking back and forth. "Kylie, how do you know that?"
Kylie shakes her head. She doesn't want to answer.
"Kylie, honey. Please." Ianto softly asks. "A lot of bad things have happened to you today, we know. But we need your help to find out what's going on."
Kylie cries "I was in the bath. It tried to go inside me and I - for a minute I became it."
"The worm?"
"I got it out."
"What are they?" Andy asks her.
"Part of him."
"Who?" Jack asks and after a pause he repeats "Who?"
"Mrs. Johnny's husband."
Rhiannon stares at her.
"But not always. I was … He was...other stuff too." She tells Rhiannon.
"What other stuff?"
Kylie kind of points at the sky.
"He's a fucking Martian?!" Owen splutters.
"A Martian is from Mars, Mister Mayor." Kylie tries to think. "For real it looks like a needle. Its real face. But it always gots another. He goes from place to place, worlds... planets... killing 'em. He takes over half of what's alive and eats the other half. Till they're gone."
They stare at her, freaked out.
"Now he's here. He went in Mr. Johnny."
"Through a wound on his stomach?" Rhianon asks.
Kylie nods. "He took him over. His body. His ... his brain, everything what he knew. He's only been dumb stuff before amoeba-things, and rhino-things. He liked being human. Didn't want to change."
"And you said the worms are part of him. They're all linked, like one creature?" Rhiannon tries to get it.
"When one sees you they all see you." Kylie nods.
"An animal that doesn't procreate. It spreads, grows. A living disease." Owen says with horror.
Jack speaks to Kylie while trying to ignore Owen "So the way to stop this thing is to stop Johnny?"
Kylie shrugs. The police car starts CHUGGING.
"Shit." Jack mutters.
The car slows and comes to a stop.
Everyone steps slowly out of the car. They look around the deserted road. The wide-open night is shrouded in darkness. Quiet. They can see the lights of Torchwood down the road in front of them.
Jack speaks into the radio again, as he gets his leather satchel of weaponry out of the trunk. Andy grabs ammo from the satchel to reload his pistol. "Eugene, we broke down on 22, a mile outside town. Come pick us up."
"I got to leave my post?"
"Do it."
.
.
They walk down the road, toward the city. Rhiannon and Jack are in the lead.
"Hey, Rhiannon."
She looks at him.
"Was always curious why you married Johnny in the first place... Just never seemed outta love." Jack asks.
"I know what people say, Jack. I... Remember, back in high school I worked at my father's gas station?"
Jack nods.
"Johnny used to get filled up every day. I knew it was just to see me. He was too old - But he was handsome. And he had that big ol' Lincoln then. I flirted with him." She giggles.
"Well, big ol' Lincoln, sure. Guess I would have flirted with him too." Jack smiles.
Rhiannon smiles, thinks. "My father, he was - he was real close to evil. People didn't know. Still don't. From the time I was a toddler he'd beat the hell out of me. I don't mean just like a smack for smart-mouthing... he took a real enjoyment in it. And when I turned eleven or twelve, things... well, they got worse."
Rhiannon looks at Jack, who seems struck.
"I'm sorry." He finally says.
Rhiannon shrugs it off.
"Anyway, Johnny rolls in one day. I fill his tank with like an eighth-of-a-gallon as usual. And he notices my lip's all swollen up and starts asking me how it happened. I don't know why I chose then, why Johnny - I guess I saw an opportunity. And I told him everything, first time I told anyone. Johnny was furious." She explains, glancing back at her brother who is listening "He picked up a tire iron, walked straightaway into the garage, and beat my father half to death. You say it's not about love, Jack. But that was the closest thing to it I ever knew."
Pause.
"Johnny asked me to marry him a few weeks later. I felt... safe with him."
"And I found Jack to protect me too." Ianto sighed softly "we thought we had escaped Da in the end."
"Seems you can't escape evil" Owen said in the darkness behind them.
Yeah.