Read The Bug - Episode 1 for Free Online

on the other side, and rested his head against the door.
    “Hey, I know you're in there,” said the girl. Marshall recognized her as the daughter of the couple two floors up. Leona or Leanne or something. “I can hear you breathing. Open up. Please.”
    With trembling hands, Marshall turned the lock, but kept the chain in place. He opened the door until the chain went tight. The girl stood shivering in the hallway, her clothes and face awash with blood.
    “You're in the police, right?” she said. Marshall thought about denying it, but slowly nodded. Tears rolled down the girl's cheeks, cutting tracks through the crimson. “Let me in,” she said. “Something's happened.”
    Marshall looked back over his shoulder, first at TV then at the broken window with the curtains wafting in and out.
    “Aye,” he said, his voice little more than a dry croak. “You're telling me.”

GLASGOW NW POLICE HQ, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND
25 th MAY, 12:16 AM
 
    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