m_findlow

Title: Haunted
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Gwen, Ianto, OCs
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M
Length: 50,847 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for spook_me 2020 Prompt - Ghost
Summary: The team investigate rumours of a haunted house in rural Wales.

Gwen bit down on the desire to feel frustrated. Jack's past was always coming back to haunt them. She just never assumed it would literally haunt them. She briefly wondered on a scale of one to ten, just how much trouble they were in.

‘I don't suppose you know anything about a man called Gil?’ she asked the priest. She was, of course, assuming it was a man. With Jack it so often was. The women in his life were generally less vindictive in her experience. Father Michael shook his head.

‘Right.’ She pulled back the safety on her gun, hearing the satisfying click. ‘We're going inside that house, we're going to find Jack, and Ianto, and we're going to find out what the hell is going on around here and how to stop it.’ She began to march in a straight line towards the house before her nerve failed her.

She'd only gone a few feet when a strange sound erupted out of the nothingness. ‘What is that?’

‘Birds?’ Father Michael offered. It did sound a bit like birds cawing but that was ridiculous. It was the middle of the night.

The sound became louder and less distinct, like it was doubling over on itself, multiplying.

‘Look!’ Father Michael pointed up into the air and Gwen saw what he saw. The sky was becoming darker, transforming from a deep nighttime blue into a sea of black specks, growing closer and closer until Gwen could make out the large black wings and the deafening calls of hundreds of ravens. It was a flock unlike anything she'd ever seen. It blacked out the sky and then it began to descend in the most awful cacophony of shrieks and squawks.

‘Get down!’ she cried as the birds flocked and swooped on the pair of them. Wings flapped loudly and their cawing filled the air in a thunderous racket. Gwen threw her hands over her head as she curled into the smallest shape she could. Sharp claws and beaks pecked and scratched at her arms and shoulders and the wind beat around her as their wings disrupted the very air surrounding them. Her head pounded from the sheer noise. They dived into her at speed, inflicting whatever damage they could. She couldn't move to flap them away because they didn't give her an inch of space to move from where she was huddled. She couldn't even get her gun up to loose off a few shots in the hopes it would startle them and make them disperse.

It felt like an eternity that the crazed birds swooped and assailed them, but finally they lifted and the enormous black flock ascended once more into the air, disappearing over the horizon.

Gwen crawled over to Father Michael, who was cowered against a large headstone that had at least protected the elderly man from the worst of their attack. ‘Are you okay?’ He nodded, visibly shaken by the assault, but other than a few bleeding scratches, appeared to be okay. ‘Where the hell did they all come from?’

The cleric shook his head, equally mystified. ‘I don't know. It was like they rode in on the wings of Satan himself.’

‘Let's not wait for them to decide to come back for another go.’ She helped him back to his feet and stepped over to where her gun and torch had been dropped and rolled away during the attack. The torchlight beam shone brightly in the darkness, illuminating a mound of freshly turned earth. Gwen frowned at it. That wasn't right. There were no new graves here. She'd checked them all. When she looked up at the headstone where her torchlight directed itself, she gasped at the inscription.

Jones. Unknown - 2009.

No. No, no, no, no! It couldn't be. It just couldn't. Her heart began to thud a million miles an hour as panic set in. She dropped to her knees and grabbed the torch, searching for any signs that her intuition was completely wrong.

‘No!’ she cried, beginning to sweep away huge handfuls of the loose earth. Ianto wasn't dead. He couldn't be. They must have overwhelmed him, buried him alive. She'd last seen him only a few hours ago. He could still be down there, running out of air. There was still time, she told herself. Time to get him out and save him.

Her fingers bit into the dirt, pulling it away as fast as she could. She ignored the way the dirt lodged under her nails, tearing them away right down to the quick. All that mattered was getting to the bottom and freeing Ianto. How long did he have until he ran out of air? Hours? Minutes? Was he dead already? It didn't matter. ‘Help me get him out!’ she begged the priest. He got down on arthritic knees and began scraping away the dirt beside her.

The pair of them made light work of removing the upper mound of dirt that still clung loosely and then began to dig away at the more firmly packed earth beneath it. Gwen's mind reeled as she wondered how far down they'd have to dig. There couldn't have been time to dig anything more than a shallow grave, two or three feet at most. Who had dug it and where they were now didn't matter. She just had to get him out.

Gwen didn't pause until she noticed the slowing of Father Michael's efforts. The poor old man wouldn't be able to keep this up for long but she had to keep him going as long as she could. Ianto was counting on them. When he stopped altogether she looked up.

‘Gwen,’ he said, his voice low and awestruck.

She hadn't noticed them before, but now there was a white glow surrounding them. Dozens of lights, not dissimilar to the ones that had pursued her in the forest now lingered by the headstones all around them. They glowed with sad expressions on their ghostly faces.

‘What are they?’ Father Michael said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘Spirits? Angels?’

‘I don't care,’ Gwen said, returning to her digging. That was all she had energy to worry about. Let them come and attack her but she wasn't going to stop. They'd have to kill her first.

'There were some old tools in that coal room by the house,' she said. It would take an age to dig him out with just their bare hands. They needed a faster way. ‘Go see if you can find a shovel or something. Hurry!’ she barked, watching him struggle to his feet and rush back toward the house.

She tried not to think about Ianto being trapped down there, so close and yet unable to reach him yet- how dark and terrifying it would be. ‘Just hold on!’ Gwen yelled, praying Ianto could hear her. ‘We're coming!’

We're coming, she repeated in her head, making it a firm promise.

Next chapter...