The Bug: Complete Season One (7 page)

Detective Inspector Martin Marshall stared at the naked teenager on the floor. He didn’t bother checking for a pulse. There was no need. She was dead, no two ways about it. The cause of death, though, was a little harder to pinpoint.

Her head was turned almost 180 degrees on her shoulders. That was the most likely culprit, of course, but there was also a deep tear running right across her throat from one side to the other. From the pattern of blood on the floor and walls around her, it must have sprayed out of the wound like a fountain.

Marshall looked up. The ceiling was a nicotine yellow, but there was a spattering of crimson, too, showing how high the blood spray had reached. He kept staring at it for a while, pretending there was something really fascinating up there and giving his stomach a chance to settle.

Steeling himself, he looked down at the girl again. Her bare skin was awash with blood, but through it Marshall could see what looked like bite marks on one of her breasts. Fiery red scratches ran down both sides of her face, visible on her snow white skin even through the blood-slick.

The girl’s eyes were open, staring hopelessly upwards as if begging some higher power for help. Marshall moved to close them, but a wave of revulsion flooded his stomach, and he found himself stumbling towards the broken remains of the window for fresh air instead.

He’d seen enough human wreckage by now that the sight of it rarely bothered him, but the smell… The smell always reminded him that what was now just a burst sack of shit and organs had once been a functioning human being.

Marshall got as close to the broken window as he dared and sucked in a few deep breaths. The way the block was facing meant he couldn’t see much of the city, but there was an orange glow and a whiff of smoke that suggested something was burning somewhere. Sirens screamed, and even in the small area he could see, three or four blue lights raced along the streets.

He breathed deeply. The cold air pushed back against his rising nausea. Just a couple of hours ago, the remains of TV weather presenter, Lacey Crane, had been found. The poor cow had been carved in half from top to bottom, and had all her organs removed. Their whereabouts, as far as he knew, were still unknown.

As he’d stared down at her, Marshall had come to the conclusion that this had to be it. This
had
to be the single worst thing he’d ever see. After this, he’d thought, there’d be no worse things to witness.

But as he stared out into the dark, with a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl spread out behind him like a broken doll, Marshall began to worry that he might be wrong, and that there might yet be worse things out there than the halves of Lacey Crane.

“Ready.”

Marshall jumped and let out a little gasp of fright. He turned to see Leanne standing in the doorway, now cleaned up and dressed in fresh jeans and a fluffy brown hoodie designed to look like Chewbacca from Star Wars. She had a rucksack-type schoolbag slung over one shoulder, and a fucking enormous kitchen knife in the opposite hand.

“What’s that for?” Marshall asked her. He felt his pulse quicken. From what he’d been able to gather from talking to Leanne downstairs, there had been four people in the flat just half an hour ago – Leanne, the girl on the floor, and two boys who’d both taken a nose dive through the window.

Everything else he’d seen that night had led him to believe her story about one of the boys going crazy and killing the others, but now here she was standing in front of him with a dirty great knife, and suddenly he remembered she wasn’t just a witness to what had happened in the flat, she was also the prime suspect.

“Self-defense,” said Leanne, looking down at the blade. It was easily eight inches from tip to handle, and reached down past her knees.

Marshall swallowed. “And what do you think’s going to attack you? A rhino?”

Leanne gripped the knife and chewed her bottom lip. Her eyes turned shiny with tears. “I don’t know,” she tried to say, but it came out as a croaky whisper. “But I’m not taking any chances.”

Marshall held out his hand. “Give me the knife, Leanne. You don’t need it. I’ll keep you safe.”

Leanne snorted. “You? Sorry. You almost shat yourself when I came into the room.”

“I’m in the police, you know that. I can look after you. Give me the knife.”

Leanne shook her head. “You’re not getting the knife,” she said, and her voice went from shaky to angry. “Look, I saw him. I was there when Owen threw Ashleigh
through a fucking door
and when he tried to chew Dagan’s arm off then pushed him through the window. Not
out
the window,
through
.”

She turned her head, showing Marshall the three sticking plasters he’d used downstairs to cover the gash on her cheek, and the darkening bruise that was now covering almost a quarter of her face.

“He did this. He nearly shoved his thumbs through my eyes. He killed Ashleigh, he killed Dagan, and he nearly killed me!”

“And now he’s dead,” Marshall reminded her.

“
He
is!” Leanne admitted. “But what about everything else that’s going on? Hmm? What about none of the TV channels broadcasting? What about the phones not working? You told me yourself, that guy off the news was lying dead in the studio, and no-one was coming to help him. Why not? Why was nobody coming, unless they were dead, too?”

“We don’t know that,” Marshall protested.

“Exactly. We don’t know anything,” agreed Leanne. “And that’s why I’m keeping the fucking knife.”

Marshall opened his mouth to argue, then thought better of it. He glanced out through the broken window behind him. There was a squeal in the distance which might have been an alarm, or might have been someone screaming. Whatever it was, it was silenced almost immediately.

“OK, take the knife,” Marshall said. He shifted awkwardly on his feet. “But I don’t suppose you happen to have another one?”

***

Marshall zipped up his jacket and tried to tuck the knife Leanne had given him up inside his sleeve. The blade was much smaller than hers was, and he was able to conceal most of it, at least.

“You ready?” he asked.

Leanne stood behind him at the foot of the stairs, her hairy hood pulled up over her head. She nodded abruptly, her eyes staying fixed on the heavy security door that was currently keeping them cut off from the world outside.

“My car is in the car park. It’s only a hundred yards away. Just a hundred yards, that’s all,” he said, trying to convince himself as much as the girl. “We’ll get to it, we’ll get to the station, then we’ll find out what’s happening. It’s going to be OK. OK?”

Leanne gave another nod. She had the knife clutched flat against her chest, pointed downwards, her knuckles white on the handle.

“OK, three, two, one…” Marshall turned the lock and pulled open the door. He jumped back, as if expecting someone to come rushing in at them, but all that came in through the gap was a swirl of cold air, and a faint smell of burning. Marshall and Leanne both breathed out at the same time.

Marshall leaned around the door and looked in both directions. Far off on the left, just beside the corner, he could see broken glass on the tarmac. There was something else there, too. It took him a moment to recognize it as a hand. The arm, and the body it belonged to, were mercifully hidden by the rest of the building.

“Coast’s clear. This way,” Marshall said. He began walking quickly towards the car park on the right. There were five or six other cars parked a little closer, but he always made a point of parking his under the street lights in an attempt to dissuade any random pricks who might otherwise think about breaking into it. Right now, though, he wished he’d just parked the bloody thing closer and taken the risk.

Leanne glanced around anxiously as they took a shortcut across the patch of grass – Dog Shit Field, she always used to call it – between the car park and the flats. Outside, the sounds of sirens and alarms and distant shouting were much more in-your-face, and the longer they were exposed to it all, the faster her pulse began to race.

“What one is it?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

“There,” said Marshall, pointing ahead to a dull grey Renault that looked mostly orange in the glow from the street light hanging above it. “Not much further. Don’t worry.”

“Martin,” Leanne hissed. She caught him by the back of his jacket and tugged hard. “Look.”

Marshall turned in the direction Leanne was staring. They were level with the rear side of the flats now, and in the gloom Marshall could make out a group of people all huddled together.

“Come here,” he whispered to Leanne, and they both ducked down next to the first car in the car park. They watched the group for several long seconds in silence, before Leanne finally spoke.

“What should we do?”

Marshall looked around them, then back at the group. It was hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be around eight or nine of them there. He thought he could just make out the old woman from downstairs – God, what was her name? – standing there in a dressing gown.

“They don’t seem violent or anything,” Marshall said. “We should talk to them.”

Leanne’s eyes went wide. “Are you fucking nuts?” she whispered.

Marshall frowned. “What? Of course I’m not, but look at them. They’re not doing anything. Look, that’s the woman from downstairs. What’s her name? In the dressing gown. She’s, I don’t know, in her eighties. I hardly think she’s going to cause us any trouble.”

Despite Leanne’s hissed protests, Marshall straightened up. He glanced around again, then began walking quickly towards the group.

“Martin,” Leanne whispered, keeping low. “Martin, come back.”

“Hello, there,” Martin called, as he drew closer to the crowd. Almost at once, he realized his mistake. Every head snapped towards him as one, and in the faint orange glow of the street lights, he could make out their faces. Twisted. Snarling. Wrong.

The crowd moved together, lurching from stationary to sprinting in a split second. Marshall hesitated, transfixed by the jerky movements of the old woman from downstairs as she powered towards him on her bare feet.

From behind him, Marshall heard Leanne shout his name, and at last he began to run. The air at his back was filled with a chorus of frenzied screeches and screams as he hurled himself across the grass and raced towards his car.

Leanne was running ahead of him, head down, her knife flashing in the light as her arms pumped the air.

The car was close now, but the screaming and the gnashing and the thudding of running footsteps sounded closer still. Leanne slammed up against the passenger door and yanked on the handle. Locked.

“Open the door!” she shrieked, and Marshall fumbled in his pockets for his keys. His heart leapt into his throat. No keys.

Frantically, he swapped the knife to his other hand and checked the pocket on the other side. His fingers brushed against metal and he let out a high-pitched sob of relief.

Yanking the keys free, he pushed down on the remote. The lights blinked and Leanne dived inside.

Marshall chanced a look back over his shoulder, and his body went tight from the arse upwards. The mob was right at his heels, hissing and spitting and snarling like animals, their hands grabbing and clawing for his back.

The sight of them pushed him harder. There was no time to make it all the way around the car, so he screamed at Leanne to move over, and she hurriedly clambered into the driver’s seat.

With a final desperate dive, Marshall hit the passenger seat and pulled the door shut. The charging crowd slammed into the side of the vehicle at full speed, and for a brief, horrible moment, Marshall felt like it was going to tip sideways.

He pushed down the lock on the door and thrust the keys into Leanne’s hands. “Drive.”

“I don’t know how!” Leanne yelped.

A figure pounced onto the front of the car and began scratching at the windscreen with her crooked fingers, her dressing gown flapping open in the wind.
Mrs Maclean
, that was her name. Marshall felt a strange sense of relief at finally having remembered it, but then the car rocked sideways again and the feeling passed.

He pulled on his seat belt and nodded in the direction of the ignition. “Then I hope for both our sakes you’re a fast fucking learner.”