Trevor Baxendale - Something in the Water

‘So it’s a “he” now, is it?’ queried Ianto.

‘Look!’ Toshiko said, pointing.

They looked. The body twitched.

‘There you are,’ said Ianto with a nod of satisfaction. ‘I said I saw it move.’

Jack drew his revolver, and this time Gwen had her automatic in both hands as well.

The corpse twitched and shuddered again, as if a tremor was running through its emaciated torso.

‘What’s going on?’ Jack demanded. ‘Some kind of nerve impulse?’

‘Death throes?’ Owen shook his head. ‘Bit late for that.’

Toshiko, scientific curiosity overcoming her instinctive fear, leant in for a closer look, running one of her hand-held scanners over the body.

‘Careful, Tosh,’ Gwen warned, moving into a slightly better line of sight.

‘It’s not the corpse moving,’ Toshiko said quietly. ‘I mean, it’s only moving because something else is moving it … Something inside.’

Suddenly there was a muffled crack from the corpse’s chest area, and Toshiko jerked backwards. Jack raised his pistol and aimed, Gwen mirroring the movement next to him.

The corpse wriggled again and now, after what Toshiko had said, they could see that it was being moved by something else.

‘There is something inside it,’ realised Owen. ‘Something moving …’

Gwen tightened her grip on the automatic. ‘What? What is it?’

‘Giant maggot?’ Owen wondered.

Then the corpse’s throat bulged and its mouth opened. The shattered skull began to shake as something forced its way out between the bared teeth like a giant tongue.

It was dark and glistening, coated in thick, congealed blood like a piece of raw liver. The jaws opened wider, accompanied by the dull crack of snapping bone and stiffened ligaments, as the thing extruded itself like a huge slug.

The skull finally cracked wide open then, revealing a foetal shape nestling in the remains of the jaws and throat, covered by a web of sticky mucous. The shape moved, flexing, opening like a moth emerging from its chrysalis, stretching out spindly, insect-like limbs.

‘Oh my God,’ said Gwen, her voice quavering. ‘It’s … human.’

A tiny head turned to look at her. Beneath the clotted slime of blood, two eyes glared out and a vicious slit of a mouth opened in a mewling hiss.

Then a gunshot boomed out, heavy and final, and the newborn creature exploded into bloody fragments.

Jack and Gwen turned to look at Owen, who had his own gun out, the barrel smoking. He was still aiming at the remains, his face twisted into a mask of utter revulsion.

‘What did you shoot it for?’ asked Jack.

‘Didn’t you see it?’ asked Owen, half-choking. ‘Did you see what it looked like? It was …’

‘Human?’ Gwen repeated.

‘No.’ Owen shook his head. ‘No, no, no. It was not human.’

‘Alien, then,’ said Jack, firmly. ‘Do we shoot aliens on sight now, Owen?’

Slowly Owen lowered the gun and looked at the ground, He wouldn’t meet the gaze of his colleagues. ‘It wasn’t right. It was … it wasn’t right.’ And then, without another word, he turned and left the room.

Toshiko was already investigating the remains of the creature. ‘It must have been alive in there all the time,’ she said, indicating the corpse. ‘Incubated, perhaps …’

‘By a corpse?’

‘Why not? Flies are.’

‘That thing wasn’t a fly,’ said Gwen.

‘Whatever it was, I want to know,’ Jack told Toshiko. ‘Piece it back together if you have to, we need to find out exactly what it was. Work with Owen.’

‘Owen?’

Jack nodded, heading for the exit. ‘I’ll sort him out now.’

‘No, let me,’ said Gwen, putting a hand on his arm. ‘I’ll see him.’

Bob was struggling to breathe. He felt as if his throat had swollen so much it was closing off his larynx. He jerked awake from his half-sleep, caught in a panic because he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe. Every basic instinct to inhale had somehow been forgotten.

He catapulted himself off the sofa and landed awkwardly on the floor, half-kneeling, retching and gagging. Eventually, he managed to suck in a lungful of air and then blow it back out. He could feel his heart hammering in the chest as he did so, straining to carry enough oxygen around his body. He wheezed and groaned for two more minutes until he felt able to sit back and congratulate himself on still being alive.

He’d treated people before with sleep-related breathing disorders — a strange condition where the body simply stopped breathing, usually when asleep, in the middle of the night. Often the condition was relieved by simply turning over, or waking up, and breathing resumed as normal. In research, some patients had been recorded as having stopped breathing for a full thirty to sixty seconds before recommencing.

He’d never experienced it himself, and it was terrifying. More terrifying than the sore throat and agonising cough that had accompanied his day so far. The basic need to breathe, to oxygenate the body and the brain, was at the core of every living being. Denied that ability, panic set in with astonishing speed. You could go without food or drink for days. Without oxygen you wouldn’t last more than a couple of minutes.

Bob picked himself up off the floor and headed for the bathroom, coughing and retching. He felt sick and exhausted. As he climbed the stairs, he found bright spots of light flaring in his vision. When he reached the bathroom, he looked in the mirror and nearly collapsed there and then.

The man in the glass didn’t look anything like Bob Strong. He was gaunt, grey-skinned, dark circles under red-rimmed eyes. There was still a trace of cyanosis around his lips. He really had been asleep without breathing, and for some time. He rubbed the cold skin of his face, trying to bring a bit of colour — the right colour — back to his complexion.

He coughed again, speckling the white sink with red and green blobs.

‘Oh, God,’ he groaned. ‘When is this going to stop …?’

He walked slowly back downstairs to the living room. The traffic went by outside his window, people walking past on their way, oblivious to the plight he was in. In times gone by, his wife would have been there for him. She’d have fetched him blankets, tea, all that. She would have moaned about it, and complained that all men were such babies when it came to being ill, but she had been good at caring for people. Right now, Bob had never felt so alone, and he desperately wanted to speak to her again. And she would have found that so typical — that he only thought to contact her again when he was sick.

He picked up the phone and then sank down into the sofa, hunched over as he coughed again. Her mobile number was on speed dial, but what would be the point of phoning her now? She wouldn’t come round to see him. She might catch whatever he had, anyway. But maybe it would be nice just to hear her voice. Anyone’s voice.

He physically jumped when the telephone rang in his hand.

‘Hello?’

‘Bob, how are you, dear?’

Bob gripped the phone tighter. ‘Mum? What are you doing ringing now?’

‘Well, I wanted to know if you were coming up for your Dad’s birthday or not. He’s eighty next month, remember, and we’re planning a party. Everyone will be there. I rang you at the surgery but they said you’d gone home poorly. What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bob said. ‘Some sort of throat infection I think. I’m not sure.’

‘It’s not anything to do with what’s been on the news, is it? That sounds awful.’

‘What’s been on the news?’

‘The flu epidemic in Wales. It’s in your region, dear.’

‘I hadn’t heard,’ Bob said. He felt a surge of anxiety and fumbled for the TV remote as his mother continued to talk.