David Llewellyn - Trace Memory

'Terribly rude to start a party without me,' said Jack. 'Where are your manners?'

Valentine and Tatiana were now arguing in Russian, both shouting. It was Valentine who had started the argument, the moment Tatiana had entered the room and told them Jack was dead. Michael had stopped listening.

This was it, then. The only person who stood any chance of getting him out of here was gone. Everyone was gone. For a fleeting moment, he'd felt less alone and less scared. He'd felt safer, even in this terrible place, knowing Jack was nearby.

The boat was less than an hour from arrival, the boat that would take him to Germany before they moved him on to Moscow. He'd dreamed of leaving Cardiff, of course, of sailing to faraway countries, but not like this.

He was staring down at the ominous dark stains on the bare floor when he heard the door open with a loud bang, and then a single gunshot. When he looked up, Valentine was on the floor in a growing pool of his own blood, and standing in the doorway with a rifle was Jack.

'Harkness!' said Tatiana. 'You were dead… I saw you die…'

'Don't believe everything you see,' snarled Jack.

Tatiana raised her rifle and fired, but the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. She cursed, throwing the rifle to the floor, and began backing away from Jack, her tone changing very suddenly.

'Listen, Jack, it doesn't have to be this way. I'm sure we could come to an… arrangement?'

Jack swung his rifle, hitting her in the face, and she dropped to the ground.

He turned to Michael. 'What's the matter? You look as if you've seen a ghost.'

Michael leapt up from the table and ran across the room, flinging his arms around him.

'Whoa, there,' said Jack. 'Anyone would think you were pleased to see me.'

Michael looked at Jack, his heart racing, tears burning in his eyes. 'I thought you were dead,' he said. 'They told me you were dead.'

'Ah,' said Jack, 'what do they know?'

They kissed, and Michael held him as if he needed him to breathe. This time it was different. This time he didn't care about anything outside the room. All that mattered was that Jack was alive. He wouldn't have minded if that moment had lasted hours or even days, but it was cut short by the sound of an alarm.

'Do they know you've escaped?' asked Michael.

Jack shrugged, and then the two of them heard gunfire, from an upstairs room in the substation.

'That isn't for us,' said Jack. 'If it was, we'd be getting shot at right now.'

They ran from the cell and into the corridor to see two of the Russians standing at the far end, both of them with rifles.

'Ustanovka!' shouted one of the men:

Halt!

As the Russians lifted their rifles to their shoulders and took aim, the fluorescent strip lights in the corridor began to flicker.

Behind them, an iron door first buckled with a loud groan and then came crashing forward, blasted out by some unseen force.

'What is it?' asked Michael. 'What's happening?'

But Jack didn't answer. He was staring back down the corridor at whatever had been on the other side of that door. Michael followed his gaze and saw them, the men in bowler hats, exactly as they had appeared to him in so many other places, in so many other times. There were two of them, and they walked towards the two armed Russians, both grinning insanely. The Russians aimed at the creatures and fired, but it was as if the shots simply passed straight through them.

'Nam nada bezhat!' shouted the second Russian, and now both men ran towards Jack and Michael. Neither got very far. The Vondrax entered the corridor, and there was a noise like the hum of an amplifier, increasing in volume until one of the fluorescent strips shattered, and both Russians collapsed to the floor, their hands over their ears, howling in pain.

'What's happening to them?' asked Michael.

'I don't know,' said Jack, 'but we've got to get out of here.'

They were about to flee when the Russians' heads exploded in a cascading shower of gore, splattering both sides of the corridor. Their lifeless, decapitated corpses slumped to the ground.

'The Traveller…' hissed the Vondrax, in unison, stepping over the bodies.

'Go!' said Jack, taking Michael by the arm. 'Run!'

'Not without you,' said Michael. 'I can't go without you.'

Jack looked at him soulfully. 'You'll have to,' he said.

Michael turned and ran along the corridor until he came to another door, which led out onto a metal spiral staircase. He looked back at Jack just once before running up the stairs.

In the corridor, Jack faced the Vondrax. They were stalking closer and closer, the sound of their breathing like a death rattle. They looked human enough, from a distance, but up close they were quite clearly something else entirely. Everything about them looked diseased, from their sallow, desiccated skin to their hideous, carnivorous teeth. Why, Jack wondered, had they chosen to look this way?

As they drew closer still, their mouths fixed in rictus grins, black eyes behind black lenses, boring into him, he understood. It was fear. They liked to be feared.

'This one is different,' said one of the Vondrax, though there was no telling them apart. 'This one fears but does not die.'

'Kill it,' said the other Vondrax.

The first creature took off its round black sunglasses. It was now only two feet away from Jack, and he could see straight into its eyes, like polished ebony orbs in sunken sockets. A strange sensation gripped him, as if every nerve ending in his body were being shredded. It felt like dying, or rather, paradoxically, it felt like reliving every death he'd ever had.

'It feels pain,' said the first Vondrax, 'but it does not die.'

And then a strange thing happened. The first Vondrax made a noise in its throat as if it were choking. It stepped away from Jack, hunching over, its clawed hands bunched into white-knuckled fists. Black liquid began to pour from its open mouth and nose, hissing like acid as it hit the hard concrete floor.

The second Vondrax rushed forward, hurling its sunglasses to the ground, and picked Jack up by his throat. Again, like the first, it stared into his eyes.

'Cannot die?' it said, and then, as if it were analysing him: 'Curious composition. Why can it not die?'

An expression very suddenly appeared on its face that Jack hadn't expected. The Vondrax looked scared.

'The darkness…' it hissed. 'It sees the darkness…'

The Vondrax dropped him to the floor and it too began to choke, and then vomit out the same black ooze as the first. They were both now doubled over, their bodies shrinking away inside their suits, becoming ever more skeletal, their bones cracking and their skin flaking away as dust.

Jack ran from the corridor and up the metal staircase. Michael was waiting for him at a door two storeys up, holding it only slightly ajar.

'What is it?' Jack asked. 'What's happening?'

'They're everywhere,' said Michael, inviting him to look through the narrow gap between the door and the frame. 'They're everywhere.'

Peering through the gap, Jack saw the substation reduced to a scene of carnage. The foot soldiers were running, confused, in all directions, firing shots at the dozens of Vondrax, who were impervious to their bullets. One by one, the guards fell; some spontaneously igniting, some ripped apart as if by invisible machinery. The stench of blood and burning flesh was overwhelming.

'We'll never get out that way,' said Jack. 'We need to get to the roof.'

They raced up the clanking metal stairs, higher up into the almost cathedral-like heights of the warehouse's upper levels. Below them the sounds of explosions and screaming continued, and the building shook with each blast, powdered concrete raining down around them in grey blizzards.