Bay of the Dead by Mark Morris

touched him.
He felt his way along the narrow passage until he came to an opening. He slipped through it, gun arm swinging from left to right.
At first he thought the room was empty, and then, from over by the far wall, there came a scuff and a grunting snarl. Ianto screwed up his eyes and glimpsed what appeared to be a suggestion of movement.
'Jack,' he said cautiously. 'Is that you?'
Jack's voice was a grunt in the darkness. 'Get. . . her. . . off me.'
Ianto stepped closer, still pointing his gun. He saw a blue glint on the floor, and realised it was Jack's earpiece, which must have fallen or been pulled off. The PDA cast a metre or so of cold, bluish light before it. Six strides brought Ianto close enough to see Jack lying on his back, trying to hold off the dead teenage girl, who was writhing like a wildcat, her teeth clacking together as she snapped at his face.
Jack glanced up at Ianto with an almost embarrassed expression. 'She's a lot. . . stronger than. . . she looks,' he said. The girl snapped at him again. He turned his face aside. 'And her breath really stinks.'
Ianto put his gun away, placed the PDA on the floor, and produced a choke-loop, which the Torchwood team sometimes used on Weevils, from the inside of his jacket. He tried to loop it over the girl's head, and had to snatch his hand back when she twisted in Jack's grasp and snapped at him.
'Hold her still,' he said tetchily.
'I'm. . . trying,' Jack replied, indignant.
Ianto had another go at snaring the girl, and again almost lost several fingers for his troubles. Sighing, he delved into the left hip pocket of his jacket and produced a nebuliser. This time when the girl twisted her head towards him, he sprayed her full in the face.
He wasn't sure whether the chemicals would have the same immobilising effect on the girl as they did on Weevils – presumably she had no working respiratory system – but it certainly seemed to disorientate her long enough for Ianto to slip the choke-loop over her head. Once that was done, it was only a matter of minutes before he and Jack had the girl gagged and bound. They carried her, still struggling wildly, out of the house, back through the building site, and out onto the street, where the SUV was parked and waiting for them.
In the ten minutes or so that Ianto had been away, three more zombies had arrived, and were now clustered around the SUV, batting ineffectually at the toughened glass of the windows, trying to gain access to the juicy titbits inside.
Jack and Ianto put the trussed and wriggling girl down on the road, and Jack pulled out his gun.
'Oh, you guys are so damn tiresome ,' he shouted, and ran towards them.
***
Andy gave Dawn another worried look as he turned into the road leading to St Helen's Hospital. She looked awful – pale and sweating, her eyes ringed with dark circles. The tea towel around her injured hand was stained red, but the blood loss wasn't so great that she would be in any immediate danger.
He thought of what she had said after she'd been bitten, of how she'd been afraid that the suspect might have infected her. But what kind of infection attacked its host so quickly? This was more like the effects of snake venom or something.
Unless. . . Andy swallowed, hardly daring to contemplate the possibility.
Unless this was some sort of alien infection. A plague from beyond the stars. Some bloody germ or other that turned people into flesh-eating monsters.
He went cold at the prospect. Best to put it out of his head for now, concentrate on the matter in hand.
'Soon be there,' he said, wincing inwardly at the tremor beneath the false cheeriness of his voice.
Whether Dawn could hear him or not he didn't know. A few minutes ago she had closed her eyes, murmuring that she was 'so tired'. Since then he hadn't heard a peep out of her.
'Dawn?' Andy said, hoping that she was just dozing, that she hadn't slipped into a coma. 'Dawn, are you – Oh, Christ! '
It was what his headlights had revealed as he had