Torchwood Long Time Dead (17 page)

Eryn allows herself to be led out of the sitting

room where the suited man is talking quietly

through whatever kind of phone is in his ear, and

she sits at the round pine kitchen table that looks

so ordinary with her post opened from yesterday

still littering it. A gas bill and a bank statement,

nothing exciting, there never is, but she was going

to file it away when she got home. After everything

that's happened, she'd completely forgotten.

'I saw them with Billy in the playground,' she

whispers.

Suzie Costello is adding tea bags to the pot

and waiting for the kettle to boil. She doesn't turn

around.

'I knew something was wrong when I saw that,'

Eryn continues. She doesn't know if the woman is

listening and she doesn't really care. She just needs

to say it again as if maybe by repeating it over

and over she can get it out of her system and get

back to being sensible Eryn Bunting, a nice young

girl, responsible primary teacher, a little old for

her time but that's all right because she quite likes

being that way. 'Nobody ever plays with Billy. He's

the one that even the teachers have a hard time

liking.'

She pauses then - she feels bad saying it even

though it's true and even though it can hardly hurt

Billy now - but it feels wrong. 'But those two little

girls were playing with him. They were pretty girls

too.' She looks up at the woman. 'Twins. I didn't

recognise them, which is strange because I know

most of the children in the school, even if only by

sight. It's like a sixth sense with teachers, that

ability to recognise your own. They had Billy's

hands and then they just led him right out of the

gate and Billy didn't so much as look back, even

though all the children know that they can't go

out of the gate at playtime.' She frowns with the

memory. I banged on the window but they didn't

hear me. I could see Anna, who was on gate duty,

telling Jimmy Logan off for something and she

hadn't seen them.' She can remember every detail

perfectly. The classroom smelled of dusty central

heating and her heels clattered on the parquet

wooden floor of the old building as she ran outside.

She banged her hand on the door frame and it

really hurt but she didn't stop.

I called after them,' she says. 'The bell had just

gone and all the other children were lining up to

come back inside, but I ran out of the gate. They

were just going round the corner and into that bit of

woody wasteland that people keep saying is going

to be nice new flats but has been empty for ages

apart from the hoarding. I'm not much of a sprinter

and I had heels on - only low ones, out still not

exactly running shoes.' She can remember how her

legs burned with the sudden exertion and her large

breasts bounced painfully under her jumper. She

can remember wondering what was scaring her

so much. This wasn't a strange man with sweets

luring one of her children into a car or something,

this was just children sneaking off to play. Still,

she couldn't fight the dread that coursed through

her veins. Something wasn't right. Not at all. It

was those children and they had Billy and they

weren't HER children and there was something

very wrong because they were playing with Billy

and no one ever played with Billy.

They must have been walking fast, because they

were quite far across the muddy ground and were

weaving their way through the bushes. I called

after them again but they didn't stop until they

were sheltered in the middle of a thicket. That's

when they finally looked my way.' A sob caught a

little in her throat. 'Billy was crying when he turned

around. He saw me and he looked so scared. He

started to call out and one of them lifted her hand

and wrapped it round his mouth. His glasses tilted

funny on his face. It was so weird. She looked like

she was barely exerting herself, but poor Billy's

face was all squashed in her grip.' She looks up

and swallows. It's so hard to believe. Just thinking

about it now she feels crazy.

'It's over now. A cup of tea and getting it off your

chest will make you feel better.' Suzie is getting

milk out of the fridge and gives her a half-smile

as she speaks. It's sympathetic but Eryn can see

she's not really listening. How can all this seem so

ordinary to her? And to those others?

'The other one turned round and looked at me.

She was so pretty. Maybe 6 or 7. About Billy's age,

I suppose, but he's always been smaller than the

other kids. She smiled right at me and I stopped

moving forward. I don't even know why.' Her nose

was running and she wiped it on the back of her

hand. 'She was laughing at me. I could tell. I looked

behind me, hoping Anna had come too, but there

was no one there. I was so scared. Not as scared as

Billy, but so scared. I looked at Billy, stuck and so

small between them and I could see that he really

thought I could help him. That I would just make

them let him go. That's what adults do, isn't it?'

Suzie puts the mug of tea in front of her and she

wraps her hands round it, needing its warmth.

'That's when it happened. The one that smiled at

me, she just reached up and tugged at her pony

tail. I didn't understand what was happening at

first. It looked so odd. And then I saw the skin

coming away from her face and showing what was

underneath. All those TEETH.' She gasps at the

memory. 'Just teeth. Sharp, shiny teeth. Rows and

rows of them. It turned my way again and I knew

there was nothing I could do but run. It wasn't real.

It couldn't be real. That's what I thought. And god

help me, as the second one started to pull its face

off, I turned and ran all the way back to school.'

She's shivering, and Suzie leans in to steady the

mug in her hands before she spills it. 'Drink that.

It'll make you feel better.' She has dark serious

eyes, but Eryn wonders how anything could make

her feel better ever again. She holds the mug but

doesn't drink it. She's still lost in the re-living of

the previous afternoon. She thinks she will be for

ever.

I ran into my classroom and went to the

window. My class were all confused, and the TA

was trying to get them organised with art stuff and

was calling to me to help but I ignored them all I

watched the gate as the minutes ticked away. I'd

almost convinced myself it had never happened at

all and it was all in my head, like some kind of

brain tumour making me see things, when the two

blonde girls came back to school, holding hands

with each other and no sign of Billy. I've never been

so scared in all my life. I couldn't stay. I faked a

migraine, went home and then called the police.'

'You did the right thing.' Suzie sips her own tea,

and Eryn raises her mug.

What happened to Billy V she asks, and then

takes a sip. She knows the answer, but she needs to

hear it out loud.

'They ate him,' Suzie says, and Eryn starts to

cry properly.

Who are you?' she asks. Who are you people?'

We're Torchwood,' Suzie answers, as if that

explains everything. Eryn drinks her tea.

It was all there. Everything. She remembered it.

And more. She sat in the gloom of the bathroom,
her pants down around her knees still, and her
mouth dropped open slightly. Billy wasn't run over.

Not like she remembered it. Those girls had eaten
him. There were things like that everywhere, she
was sure of it, and there was Torchwood to stop
them. That's what they did. Torchwood. The young
man and the woman. It was the woman that she
was thinking about now though. She pushed the
image of long-dead Billy to one side. She couldn't
help him then, and she couldn't help him now.

It was the woman. The woman in the deli. Suzie
Costello.

One hand rose to her mouth and her brain

itched like crazy as the pieces came together. She'd
sat at her kitchen table and drunk tea with Suzie
Costello, and then she'd forgotten everything.

She'd fallen asleep. When she'd woken up she was
hazy. Not quite ill but not quite well either. She
took a couple of days off work and that's when she
found out that Billy had been knocked down and
killed, and then she'd been upset and little things
like that month's filing went out of her head. But
now she remembered - it was clear as a bell in
her head. The bank statement was on her kitchen
table when Suzie Costello made the tea that made
her forget. But after that, it wasn't there. She
could see the gas bill but not the bank statement.

Suzie Costello had taken it. She knew that,
just as she knew that Suzie Costello was the
woman she'd bumped into at the deli, the woman
with the dark shadow on her back. She trembled
in the gloom and hot tears spilled down her cold
cheeks. She remembered everything. Torchwood.

Torchwood were meant to
protect
them from things
like the girls that ate Billy, that's what they did,
but now Suzie Costello had the darkness inside
her, the terrible, terrible darkness that was so
hungry and wanted to play with them and make
them scream and never let them die and...

Eryn got up from the toilet, pulled up her
knickers with trembling hands and then locked
the door. She was freezing, and her legs numb
from sitting half naked for so long. How long?

She didn't know. She didn't care. Suzie Costello
had the darkness inside her - she'd seen it on her
back. And now that she'd seen it, it would come
for her, she knew that, and the darkness would be
far worse than the thing with the teeth that had
eaten poor Billy. The darkness was everything in
every nightmare she'd ever had.

There was a lipstick in the bathroom cabinet
and she wrote her message with it on the bathroom
wall.

I REMEMBER.

Eryn Bunting was as sensible and practical in
her death as she was in her life. She smashed the
glass of the cabinet mirror and sliced her wrists
open with two deft slices, straight up the vein,
not across. She sat on the toilet again and let out
a sigh. The glass breaking wouldn't have woken
Alan. He'd stretched out across her side of the bed
and would be sleeping like a baby. Black spots
appeared in the corner of her vision. Not her side
of the bed any more. She didn't mind the nothing
that crept in and stole her away. Nothing lived in
it. Nothing that would make her scream.

Suzie let the chemistry take hold. For the first five
minutes or so in the cab, they'd kept themselves
under control, but as soon as the driver had
turned off the main road and the back of the car
was in relative seclusion, she and the policeman
were all over each other. They just couldn't help
themselves.

By the time they tumbled through the door to
his small flat, they were laughing and tearing at
each other's clothes, kicking their shoes off as he
half-carried her into the bedroom.