The Bug: Complete Season One (5 page)

Howls and screams and the damp thudding of flesh against metal echoed out from behind the cell doors as Hoon and the sergeant made their way along the corridor.

“It's this one,” the sergeant said, stopping at one of the gun-grey doors.

Hoon looked the door up and down, as if it'd tell him something about the person inside. “Open it up.”

“I wouldn't, sir,” said the sergeant. “That's not… It's not a… I wouldn't.”

“Another lively one, is he? I think I can handle it. Open it up.”

“It's not even that, sir. He's quieter than some of the others. It's just…”

“It's just what?”

The sergeant reached past him and slid open the metal shutter that covered the door's small window. He backed away without a word, making room for Hoon to approach the glass.

The figure in there was short and skinny and naked as the day he was born. His hair was lank and matted in places, non-existent in others where someone – him, presumably – had torn it out by the handful.

He stood in the corner of the cell, back flat against one wall, right shoulder pressed to the other. His eyes were fixed on the window, staring at Hoon, unblinking. There were scars across his forehead, down his cheek and onto his chest.

No, not scars. Carvings. He had carved words into his own face and body.

“Lacey Crane is a whore,” Hoon read. “That's our confession then, is it?”

“Close as we're going to get, I reckon,” the sergeant said. “You seen it yet?”

Hoon frowned. “Seen what? All I see is a stark bollock naked skinny fucker with a…”

The DCI's voice trailed off into silence. He felt the back of his throat go dry. He stepped back from the window, then leaned in for a closer look.

“What the fuck is that?”

“We don't know yet. We're trying to get someone to come have a look, but they're all tied up until… well, until when they aren't.”

Hoon nodded, but barely heard. He stared in at the man in the cell, horrified yet at the same time transfixed by the lump below his skin. It was about the size of a small orange, and moved quickly, like a mouse running under a rug in an old cartoon.

It squirmed around in the skin of the man's neck for a moment, then wriggled upwards and vanished behind his head.

Hoon shuddered involuntarily. He was just about to declare that as one of the creepiest things he'd ever seen in his life when the lights went out with a
clunk
, plunging the corridor into darkness.

“Oh great. Now what?”

“Don't know, sir,” said the sergeant. “Power cut?”

“Fuck me, how come you're not a detective yet, sergeant?” Hoon snapped. He began to walk, keeping one hand on the wall to keep straight. “Come on. Let's get upstairs and find out what's—?”

Something went
crunch
and turned the floor slippy beneath his foot. “Christ,” he spat, almost losing his footing.

He took out his phone and lit up the screen. The pale light cast a faint blue glow across the floor, picking out the squishy remains of a fat black insect. It twitched fitfully as Hoon gazed down.

“What is it?” asked the sergeant, suddenly close in Hoon's ear.

“Jesus!” Hoon hissed, almost jumping out of his skin. “What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

He turned sharply and the glow from his phone illuminated the sergeant's apologetic face. The light licked the wall beside them, before being swallowed up by the dark.

“Sorry, sir,” said the sergeant.

A movement at the very edge of the light caught Hoon's eye. It was up on the wall near ceiling level, little more than a shadow.

The screen timed out, plunging the corridor into absolute blackness once more. Hoon pushed down the button on top of the phone and the light returned.

The first thing Hoon saw was the bug on the wall, right beside the sergeant's head.

The next thing he saw were the rest of them. There were half a dozen or so, dotted irregularly across the meter of corridor he was able to see. They scuttled closer, their pointed legs tapping against the glossy paintwork.

And there, in that moment, Hoon knew what had gotten under the skin of the man in the cell.

“Run,” Hoon said, but the word wouldn't come out at first. It took a second attempt for it to make it through his throat. “Run!”

He turned, holding the phone ahead of him, using its dim glow to light the way. The door that led upstairs was a dozen meters ahead in the gloom somewhere. He hurried towards it, suddenly feeling trapped down there in the dark.

“Shit, shit, get off. What is it? Get it off! Get it off!”

The sergeant's squeals came sharp at first, then suddenly muffled. Hoon stopped, turned, flashed up the phone in time to see the sergeant go down under a writhing mass of oily black bugs.

The floor heaved with them now, a squirming, scuttling living carpet that flowed like a river towards him.

The sergeant jerked sharply on the ground, his back arching, his head snapping back. And then, with a sound like air hissing from a punctured tire, he curled up and fell silent.

One of the insects landed on Hoon's boot. He kicked out, sending the creepy little fucker sailing off into the darkness.

He ran. There was nothing else for it. No time for heroics, for being the man he'd always thought he was.

He ran, faster than he'd run since back in his uniform days. Faster, even, than before then.

He ran, hurtling himself along the corridor until he finally reached the door cutting him off from the stairs and the rest of the station above.

The locked door.

“Fuck!” he cursed, hammering his fists against the metal with a
boom-boom-boom
that echoed all the way along the corridor and back again. “Fuck it, fuckity, fuck!”

The keys. He needed the keys, but there was no way he could get them. They were back along the corridor, back with the sergeant, and there was no way he could…

The light went out on his phone again. Hoon muttered, and jabbed at the button. When the glow returned it picked out the shape of a man standing less than a meter away.

“Ya bastard!” Hoon yelped, drawing back in fright. “Sergeant… You're… How the fuck did…?”

The sergeant stepped closer. Close enough for the light to pick out his dark eyes and lifeless blue lips. Close enough for Hoon to hear his breath rattling in and out, in and out, in and out.

And close enough for him to see a lump the size of a small orange squirm and wriggle beneath the sergeant's skin.

“Oh,” Hoon said. “Fuck.”

And with that, the sergeant lunged.

Want a sneak preview of The Bug Episode 2? Turn the page for an exclusive extract…

They sipped their drinks again. Another flashing blue light passed on the street beyond the car park. “Reminds me. See the news?” Col asked.

Jaden frowned. “The
news
news?” He snorted. “No. Of course not. I’m a loveable eternal man-child. I don’t do the news. We’ve discussed this.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Col said, rolling his eyes. “There was a school killing thing down in Franklin. This morning. A dad took out his kids and a few others.”

“Jesus. He shoot them?”

Col shook his head. “Nope. Tire iron.”

“Fuck.” Jaden sucked a dribble of Gatorade from the rim of the can. “That’s messed up.” He rummaged in his pocket for his phone. “Are there pictures?”

“You’re sick,” said Col. He finished the rest of his drink and crushed up the can. “And no. I couldn’t find any.”

Jaden tapped on his phone’s screen a few times. “No network. What the fuck does this mean? ‘No network’?”

“It means you’ve got no network,” said Col. He took out his own phone and checked the screen. “Huh. Same here. Must be a fault.”

“Hang on, I’m going to tweet to their customer support.” Jaden tapped an icon on his screen, waited a few seconds, then tutted. “Fuck. No network.”

“Aaaand the penny drops,” said Col.

They both put their phones away. “We should get back to work,” Col said.

Jaden shook his head. “Why the rush? Are we not entitled to breaks?”

“No,” said Col. “We took them like two hours ago. I want to get everything stacked up then go home.”

“Your parents still away?”

Col nodded. “Yeah. It’s their high school reunion tonight.”

Jaden drew in a sharp breath. “Poor bastards.”

“I don’t know. They think it’ll be fun.”

“Fun?” Jaden spat. “Fun? They think it’ll be fun?” He shuddered. “They’ve got one seriously warped definition of fun. Even now I can feel our high school reunion out there somewhere. Waiting. Lurking. Like
Jaws
. And we’re Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss, adrift on the ocean, knowing full well that the shark is out there somewhere, that sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with it, and that somewhere along the way we’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Col frowned. “What’s the bigger boat represent?”

“Nothing. I just felt the analogy needed rounding off,” Jaden admitted.

“Fair enough,” said Col, nodding. “What about your dad?”

Jaden shrugged. “What about him?”

“You said you were going to try getting in touch.”

“I said that? I don’t remember saying that,” Jaden said.

“Well, you were pretty drunk at the time,” Col admitted. “But, you know, maybe you should.”

Jaden yawned and stretched. “Nah.”

“Why not?”

“Because why should I?” Jaden asked, suddenly irritated. “He’s seen me, like, a dozen times since I was four. Why should I go chasing something he clearly has no interest in?”

“I guess,” said Col. “In his defense, he does live in a different country. Maybe it’s not easy to get--”

“Thirty-seven.”

Col blinked. “Huh?”

“Thirty-seven. That’s the number of flights leaving Glasgow every day that connect on through to Boston. Thirty-seven, many of them priced very fucking reasonably I might add.”

“Oh,” said Col. He shrugged and took a sip of his Gatorade. “Guess he’s an asshole, then.”

“I’ll fucking drink to that,” said Jaden, raising his can.

A movement in the car park caught Col’s eye. He turned and gazed out. “What the Hell?”

Jaden turned to look. A figure was racing across the car park, arms flailing wildly. “Is that Wayne?” Jaden asked. “I gotta hand it to him, for a fat guy who was dying ten minutes ago, that bitch can run.”

“He’s not stopping,” said Col, standing up. “Why isn’t he stopping?”

BOOM! Wayne hit the glass at full speed. The large pane rumbled like thunder as Wayne bounced off, leaving a bloody wad marking where his face had hit.

Jaden couldn’t stop himself laughing. “Holy shit! Did he forget the door was there? God, why wasn’t I recording that? That’s guaranteed viral right there.”

Col approached the doors, reaching for the keys Wayne had left him. “He might be hurt.”

“Dude, he’s
definitely
hurt,” Jaden said. “Did you see the way he hit the glass? He’s going to be in a coma for, like, a month!”

“He’s moving,” Col said, fumbling the key in the lock. He was about to turn it and slide open the doors when Wayne rolled over onto his back. Blood gushed from his nose and a gash on his forehead, but it was his eyes that stopped Col turning the key. Something about Wayne’s eyes told Col that turning that key would be a very bad idea.

“Hey, buddy, you OK?” said Jaden, stepping up to join Col at the glass. He had his phone out and was filming the supervisor lying on the ground. “You wanna look this way for a sec?” He grinned. “Oh, man. I’m totally going to add, like, stars and little tweeting birds round his head before I upload this.”

Wayne scrambled to his feet, and both Jaden and Col jumped in surprise at how fast he moved.

“Open!” Wayne hissed, his blood bubbling on his lips and flowing down his chin. He thumped his open hand against the red-streaked glass. His crumpled face twisted into a furious sneer. “Open!” he screamed.

Jaden glanced sideways at Col. “Does Wayne seem, I don’t know,
different
to you?”

Wayne screamed and threw himself at the glass. His nose exploded. He slammed his face forward again, this time busting open his bottom lip. “Open!” he demanded, his voice slurred. “Open, open, open door!”

Jaden and Col both retreated back past the checkouts. “What the fuck is he doing?” Col gasped, as Wayne smashed his face against the glass yet again. “Should we let him in?”

“Of course we shouldn’t!” said Jaden. “Look at him.”

“Maybe he’s just trying to get help.”

Jaden snorted. “Or maybe he’s trying to feast on our tender young flesh,” he said, “because that bitch right there? That, my friend, is a zombie.”

“Shut the fuck up. Zombies aren’t real.”

“Correction. Zombies
weren’t
real,” Jaden said. Wayne hurled himself at the door again, his fingernails trying to scratch right through the glass. “Until now.”