TW 2507: Not-So-Silent Hell

[Diane Holmes (Retired)]

2507: Penarth, Wales

About 5 miles out of Cardiff, there’s a town that’s not overly noteworthy. It’s a fairly calm, sleepy seaside town where nothing ever seems to happen. Until today, that is. It started out gradually – it looked like they were getting snow, which wasn’t all that unusual for this time of year; however, what was unusual was that it was accompanied by a thick, sulphurous fog. Eventually, it became clear that the snow wasn’t actually ‘snow’. It looked like it, but it wasn’t cold and wet – it was dry and fragile, instead; more like ashes, to be honest. However, there was no explanation for it. The weather shouldn’t have been the way it was here, nor had there been any sort of fire that would result in so much falling ash.

It made no sense, which was why Torchwood had been called in to investigate.

Much of the town had been evacuated, though several residents still remained, holed up in their homes, hiding from whatever it was that lurked out in the thick fog – for, something was out there. Several somethings, actually… But, what were they? Where had they come from? And, why were they here?

What was happening in this town?

“Well… This sure looks intriguing,” Diane announced when she’d gotten out of the black Torchwood SUV.

They’d driven into the town and parked right in the center, just outside the Police Station. They hadn’t seen a single soul while they’d driven through the fog - it was like a ghost town, here. Save for the strange grunts and growls off in the distance, that is…

“But, where is everyone?” Diane asked, peering around, but seeing nothing.

[Deleted]

Jack slammed the driver's side of the SUV as he promptly sniffed the air. A near choke followed; and he grunted, adjusting his jacket as well as his composure. “A rotten barbeque in the making perhaps?” He joined Diane by her side. “Clearly I wasn't cooking this time otherwise the party would've already started...”

Captain Jack Harkness took a quick sweeping glance of the area. “Well, we'll analyze the area first for any abnormal Rift activity; and while you're at it... can you grab that thermos? Dying for a coffee...” Dying was an understatement. Unfortunately; he hadn't had a good coffee since Ianto's passing, let alone opened himself up to try anything new in terms of relationships and coffee.

A door opened and closed at the Police Station and it quickly snagged Jack's attention. He offered a grin and a half hearted wave in the direction of the Police Station, before turning to Diane. “Keep the thermos handy. These folk could use a coffee as well”. He started making his way up the wooden stairs, noting the fact that the bottom one was kind of squeaky.

(Akira is playing Jack here <3)

[Diane Holmes (Retired)]

“Well, we'll analyze the area first for any abnormal Rift activity; and while you're at it... can you grab that thermos? Dying for a coffee...”

"Sure thing, Jack," Diane replied, reaching into the back of the SUV and pulling out an over-sized thermos full of coffee, and also a handheld device that was able to scan for rift activity - or rather, noteworthy bursts of Artron energy from the Time Vortex.

Diane handed the scanner to Jack and then poured him some coffee in a small Styrofoam cup and handed it over, too.

“Keep the thermos handy. These folk could use a coffee as well”. He started making his way up the wooden stairs, noting the fact that the bottom one was kind of squeaky.

She nodded, understanding that the poor town had been through a lot in a very short amount of time, what with this strange fog, the long list of missing people, and several reported sightings of 'monsters', for lack of a better word. The poor souls who remained might appreciate a strong cup of coffee; Diane, however, might have wished for something a bit stronger, if she'd been in their shoes.

Following after Jack, Diane brought the rest of the coffee in the thermos and entered the small police station.

It was eerily quiet inside the building, though the lights were all on. No one was being processed, no one was typing on computers, no one was sitting at their desks, no one was talking on the phone or dealing with any sort of emergency.

It was just empty and quiet, like everyone had quickly dropped what they were doing to run away from... something.

"Hello...?" Diane called out, her eyes sweeping the main room for any sign of another person - besides Jack, that is.

"This doesn't feel right... Something's wrong," Diane said, turning a concerned gaze on her boss.

"Are you picking anything up with that, Jack?" she asked, nodding at the device in his hands.

[Deleted]

Jack happily took the Styrofoam cup and swallowed a large gulp of it. “Ah”, he started; nearly licking his lips with his tongue. “That'll grow hair on your chest; for those who like it that is...” He quickly finished the cup within a couple of gulps and tossed the cup into a nearby garbage can as Diane passed him the scanner.

Jack took some time processing the information as they entered the empty police station. It was as if something had swallowed humanity before their very eyes. He tapped the scanner a couple of times and shrugged as Diane asked him if he picked up on anything unusual.

“No”, he reported, turning to her. “Nothing. Not even a breath. Perhaps these computers could tell us something. Here; I'll check out this one and you head on over to the one in the corner with the photograph of that gym junkie with his shirt off...”. Jack promptly sat behind the computer he was nearest to and rigged up a device to start cracking passwords. “Should be a telephone log or something to give us a hint of what happened before we showed up”.

[Diane Holmes (Retired)]

“That'll grow hair on your chest; for those who like it that is...”

Diane grimaced and replied, "Ugh... As long as it stays on your chest..." Back hair was not okay.

When Jack asked her to move to the other PC to try to find out what they could about what had happened - and was still happening - here, Diane moved quickly and pushed aside the picture of the shirtless hunk, who definitely did not have any back hair, nor chest hair - just shiny muscles.

But, when they went to use the computers, the screens blacked out. A moment later, the lights and power were out, too, and the creepy fog started to swirl in around their feet, maybe a foot or two tall.

Diane pulled out a small torch from her jacket pocket and switched it on, shining it around the room. So far, everything was still.

"Jack? You okay?" Diane asked as she slowly made her way towards her boss, abandoning the PC that didn't want to work.

Somewhere outside, there was a bloodcurdling scream that sounded far from human.

... and it sounded like it was coming their way...

[Moira Blake]

Penarth, Wales. 2013. Or, at least, it was...

Thick, sulfurous smog. Lovely. Simply lovely.

She'd been off her regular stomping grounds for a week. After the final destruction of the Torchwood hub in Cardiff, Moira had decided to go and visit. Pick up some artefacts and files from the wreckage, and from the organizations that had combed through the wreckage. Ensure that a few select people spent the rest of their days in pain and fear.

That sort of thing.

And then she'd seen the small news item, about the heavy smog that had choked the sleepy little town of Penarth. And, grumbling about how it wasn't her problem and she shouldn't have to deal with it, she went to look into it.

You take the Queen's shilling, you do the Queen's business.

Now, parked outside of town, she sat on the hood of her rental and stared at the smog. It was lovely stuff, stinking of sewage and rotten eggs and death, and shot through with pain and suffering and fear.

With a sigh, she checked her kit. Black leather motorcyclist's jacket, reinforced with kevlar. Black leather motorcyclist's trousers, the same. Heavy boots. Leather gloves, with two ounces of lead sewn into the back. Taurus Model 444 Ultralite in a shoulder holster, with four speed loads in each jacket pocket. Lockpicks in the back pocket, and a sophisticated offworld computer that she'd further modified on her wrist.

"Well, Moira old girl, probably time to get going."

Before she did, though, she unlocked the trunk and removed a satchel. No reason to go in without her toys, after all.

---

Legging it through the smog was hideous. She could feel ash crunching foot, and feel the energies of the polluted air clutching at her. Trying to drain her mind and pull her in forever. Thirty seconds of concentration, assembling something that combined Sidhe and Time Lord techniques, protected he from that nonsense.

But it didn't cut back on the malevolence she felt all around her. Or keep her from jumping when she heard the bloodcurdling abhuman scream off to her right.

She didn't jump when the second scream happened. Even though it was closer.

((OOC: Not Jack. But I think I'll come in handy anyway...))

[Diane Holmes (Retired)]

"Jack...? Jack, I think people are dying out there..." Diane said a bit nervously, as she glanced to a nearby window. She could see nothing, however, but that horrible, thick fog.

When she turned back to Jack, he was gone, and his PC was dead.

Diane's face fell from worried, to horrified.

"Jack?! Jack, where are you?!" she called out. "This isn't funny!" Her voice sounded angry, but in reality, she was terrified.

Alone and scared, Diane tried to reach out to Jack on their two-way radio:

"Dammit, Jack! This isn't funny! Report!" she commanded. "Over."

And, she waited for a reply from her boss - all she heard, though, was static.

"... Is anyone out there...?"

[Moira Blake]

"Dammit, Jack! This isn't funny! Report! Over."

That particular cry was from a human throat, clearly.

It was difficult to judge the direction of sounds in the smog, but Moira felt moderately certain it had come from somewhere in front of her and to the left. So, drawing her gun - something ugly and black-snouted she'd taken off a Nordic mercenary who'd been hiring himself out to the Belfast mob - she began to advance in that direction.

Her progress was stealthy, but she wasn't claiming any particular credit for that. The smog deadened sounds, spread them out. She could have been stomping through gravel instead of walking on asphault, and it would have been quiet.

"... Is anyone out there...?"

It was the same voice. Nearer, and somewhat calmer.

"Aye," Moira called back as she caught sight of a silhouette in the near distance. "Moira Blake, with the Torchwood Institute. Can ye identify yerself?"

((OOC: Of course, in keeping with the genre, that silhouette shouldn't be Diane...))

[Diane Holmes (Retired)]

"... Is anyone out there...?" Diane asked aloud as she hesitantly left the building and headed back out to the street, frustrated for not being able to hail Jack.

Where had he even gone? Where had everyone gone?

But then, someone answered her through the ridiculously thick fog: "Moira Blake, with the Torchwood Institute. Can ye identify yerself?"

It was a woman, to be sure. But, the voice wasn't one that Diane recognized - not from her past nor her present - as a member of Torchwood. But, that was because she had yet to meet the fiery Moira Blake.

Diane couldn't tell from which direction Moira's voice was coming from, so she stepped further out into the middle of the street in front of the police station and squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to better pinpoint the approximate location of the other woman.

It probably wouldn't work, though.

At any rate, Diane called out a reply, "I'm Diane Holmes. Also Torchwood," she said. "Cardiff," she added, just to be clear.

"Where are you?" Diane asked through the fog.

[Captain Jack Harkness]

Jack cursed under his breath as the computer screen went dark. He hadn't even got as far as cracking the password yet. Then the lights went as well, and the dank, clammy mist began to rise around his ankles.

By the time he pulled out his torch, the eerie fog had swirled to almost waist height. Shining the beam in the direction Diane was sitting, he commented wryly, “This place is about as welcoming as the Twilight Zone. I've had more fun in a morgue.”

A heavy stillness answered him. Jack frowned. The silence was more than just the absence of sound. It was more unnatural than that, more...foreboding. As if he was the only living thing left in the entire town.

“Diane?” he called sharply, jumping to his feet and probing the darkness with the bright beam of his torch. “Where are you?”

The chair where his colleague had been sitting was empty. Striding across to it, Jack shone his torch all around the deserted computer terminal, but there was no sign that she had ever been there.

“DIANE!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “DAMN IT, ANSWER ME!”

His own words echoed dolefully back to him, bouncing off the rising walls of impenetrable mist. A shiver slowly ratcheted its way up his spine. He had seen a lot of things in his long life, and he wasn't easy to scare. But something here was giving him the utter creeps.

“You should leave this place.”

Startled by the unexpected voice, he whipped around, his heartbeat accelerating as adrenaline raced through his veins, his hand already snatching his Webley from its holster. To his shock, he saw a child standing in the mist, in front of the computer at which he had just been seated. She looked to be about eight years old, with long dark hair, dressed in a flowing white nightdress. Her small feet were bare, the smoke-like vapour curling around them in long, wispy tendrils. Slowly, taking a deep, ragged breath to calm himself, he lowered his gun.

“You scared me, kid,” he said in relief. “How did you get in here?”

The child merely stared fixedly at him, as if he was a particularly loathsome bug under a microscope. Jack's stomach dropped as he suddenly realised that her eyes shone like polished silver and they had no pupils at all.

“You should leave this place,” she said again. Her voice was high and clear, just like a human child's. But to Jack's ears, it was also immeasurably cold. And ancient - primeval and elemental - older than any creature had the right to be.

Instinctively, he took a step backwards, his gun rising again. “What are you?”

A hideous stench of rot and decay fouled the air, choking his lungs and forcing him to fight for every breath he took. The girl smiled and took a step forward, her eyes gleaming like burnished metal, her expression emotionless and alien and cruel. Sinuous filaments of mist twined around her and reared high in the air over Jack, like fanged cobras waiting to strike.

“The Darkness is coming,” she whispered. “The Darkness is coming.”

[Moira Blake]

"Aye," Moira called back as she caught sight of a silhouette in the near distance. "Moira Blake, with the Torchwood Institute. Can ye identify yerself?"

"I'm Diane Holmes. Also Torchwood," the voice responded. "Cardiff."

"Good to hear," Moira called back. "I thought everyone from that office was killed at Canary Wharf."

"Where are you?" Diane asked through the fog.

She looked around. "On a road. Near... a gas station? Some sort of roadside convenience store, at any rate." Silent as a ghost, she approached the sign. "Ah... a British Petroleum. With a flayed... man, looks like, crucified on it."

Moira swallowed hard, fighting down memories and nausea. "Ring any bells?"

The crucified man opened his eyes, revealing bloody pits. "Leave," he gasped, his voice a hollow and brutally familiar gasp. "Leave."

She gasped and took an involuntary step backwards, hearing Xandavier's tones in the tortured voice. "No," she insisted, "no... You're not here."

"The Darkness," the voice crooned, "the Darkness is coming."

"No!" Moira's eyes flamed like emerald lasers, and her form flickered into an insubstantial network of silvery forces. Power flared, and the molecular vibrations of the flayed figure and the sign accelerated until they burst into flames. "Not again, you bastard!"

The crackling of the pyre sounded like dry, mocking laughter.

[Diane Holmes (Retired)]

"I'm Diane Holmes. Also Torchwood," the voice responded. "Cardiff."

"Good to hear," Moira called back. "I thought everyone from that office was killed at Canary Wharf."

Diane frowned and wrinkled her forehead. She wasn't familiar with this Canary Wharf incident... Must have been before her time. Maybe she'd ask Jack about it, later.

"Where are you?" Diane asked through the fog.

"On a road. Near... a gas station? Some sort of roadside convenience store, at any rate."

"Umm, alright. Do you know which one?" Diane asked, while Moira presumably moved closer to the gas station to investigate.

"Ah... a British Petroleum. With a flayed... man, looks like, crucified on it." Moira swallowed hard, fighting down memories and nausea. "Ring any bells?"

Diane gave a little gasp at Moira's words about the flayed man.

Meanwhile, off in the distance, she thought she saw the silhouette of a BP sign through the fog and walked closer. As she neared what was eventually made clear to be a BP station, Diane tried to get her bearings, so that she could find Moira - this just simply wasn't the time, nor the place to be wandering alone.

As she slowly worked her way through the fog, Diane heard Moira cry out, "No! Not again, you bastard!" And, she thought she caught a glimpse of a green light, off to her side.

She ran, hoping that she wouldn't get there too late to help.

However, it appeared that she hadn't been needed. It appeared that the flayed man that Moira had mentioned a moment ago, was now burning away upon his crucifix, like a sick bonfire.

Diane stared at it in horror, her mouth agape, and she fought to keep down her lunch.

"Oh, my god..." the Torchwood pilot uttered, completely unaware that Moira was just a few feet away.

[Captain Jack Harkness]

The Darkness is coming...

The whispered warning seemed to echo through the room, eerily rebounding off the shifting walls of mist.

Slowly, the unnatural child paced steadily towards Jack, her glittering eyes full of ancient hatred, the serpentine coils of mist snaking around her, growing more and more tangible by the second.

Jack backed slowly away, his gun still raised. He had no idea what would happen if the child reached him, but he knew he didn't particularly want to find out. The fog around him was so deep by now, he no longer had the faintest clue where the door was. The room was unrecognisable and he wasn't even sure the walls were there any more.

“Stay back!” he snarled. “Stay back, or I'll shoot!”

The child's smile widened with malice as she continued to advance. “Can you shoot the Darkness?” she mocked insolently. “That which cometh first and followeth after, ending life and killing laughter?”

Jack didn't know the answer to that one, but there was one easy way to find out. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't a child. Coldly taking aim at the creature's forehead, he pulled the trigger over and over again, emptying the chamber of the Webley.

The hail of gunfire had no discernible effect whatsoever. The bullets passed right through the ghostly apparition and vanished into the swirling mist.

The child gave a spine-chilling chuckle and kept walking towards him, her arms outstretched to embrace him.

((OOC: Okay, I've left it so John Hart can now come and find Jack. Take it away, Akira!))

[Moira Blake]

"No!" Moira's eyes flamed like emerald lasers, and her form flickered into an insubstantial network of silvery forces. Power flared, and the molecular vibrations of the flayed figure and the sign accelerated until they burst into flames. "Not again, you bastard!"

The crackling of the pyre sounded like dry, mocking laughter.

"Oh, my god..." someone choked out.

Moira whirled, right hand darting inside her coat and gripping her revolver. A brunette stood, staring in shock at the burning sign post and cadaver. She had gorgeous skin - and all of it where it should be, as far as Moira could tell - and a beautiful face that would have been far more attractive is she didn't look as if she were struggling against vomiting.

The rest of her wasn't bad, either.

"Hey," Moira called, carefully releasing her grip on the pistol. "You must be Diane." Same voice, muttered a part of her mind. "I'm Moira. Nice to meet a fellow agent."

[Diane Holmes (Retired)]

"Hey," Moira called, carefully releasing her grip on the pistol. "You must be Diane. I'm Moira. Nice to meet a fellow agent."

Diane found it easy to take her eyes off the hanging corpse, and her eyes met Moira's. The redhead was an impressive figure, and also quite lovely. It was a great relief for Diane to meet her, as opposed to one of those... monsters.

Smiling at Moira, Diane replied, "Yes, I'm Diane." It was nice to be able to put a face to her name and to see that Moira was an actual, real person. "It's very nice to meet you, Moira," she went on, temporarily forgetting the sticky mess they were entangled in, as she dealt with the pleasantries of meeting a new person.

Somewhere off in the distance, Diane's ears perked up at the sound of gunfire, but due to the thick fog, it was impossible to tell where it had come from. Regardless, she had a feeling that it must be Jack - and she hoped that wherever he was out there in this hell, that he was okay.

"I think that may have been my boss..." Diane grimly mentioned while her eyes scanned the outlaying area. "Captain Jack Harkness," she clarified. "We got separated back at the police station... I hope he's alright..."