“Fuck!” Hoon spat. He barged at the door again. Wood splintered, but the door still didn’t give.
He took another step back, picked a spot near the handle, and brought his foot up. BAM! His boot slammed against the wood. The door rattled in its frame. He drew back again, then stumbled sideways as a chunk of the door exploded outwards with a bang.
“Leanne? Leanne?” Hoon bellowed. He kicked the door again, and this time it flew open, smashing against the wall on the other side.
He ran into the room to find Leanne kneeling on the floor, the rifle in her hands. Daniel was on his back across an upturned table, a ragged hole roughly where his heart should be. Leanne was staring at him, her breath coming in heaving gulps.
Leanne’s head jerked up. The rifle pointed at Hoon. “Is… is it you?” she asked. “Are you you?”
Hoon rested the sword against the wall. “Aye. Aye, I’m me,” he assured her. “It’s just me.”
She didn’t lower the gun. Not right away. It wasn’t until Hoon knelt down in front and gently nudged the barrel aside that she let it fall onto the carpet. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in close.
“He was going to hurt me,” she said. “He’d been… He’d been…”
“Shh, it’s OK, it’s OK, you did what you had to. Alright? You did what you had to.”
“But… but I killed him. I killed him.”
Hoon leaned back, but kept a hold of her. “Aye. And usually I’d be the first to frown on such behaviour, but you had no choice, Leanne. It was him or you, that’s what it came down to. Him or you. And if one of you had to go, I’m glad it was Darren.”
“Daniel.”
“Whatever,” said Hoon. The sudden bark of a shotgun stopped him before he could say any more. A moment of silence followed, which was broken by a baby’s screams.
Leanne and Hoon scrambled to their feet together. “Immy!” Leanne gasped.
“Keep hold of the gun,” Hoon told her, stepping past Daniel’s body and snatching up the sword. “Stay close to me. If I tell you to run, you run.”
Leanne nodded and they charged out into the corridor. “Moira! Coming in,” Hoon announced, before barging into the suite.
“Oh, thank God,” Marshall said, rushing over to pass Immy to Leanne like she was a bomb about to explode. Immy thrashed about, wailing, her little face turning shades of red.
Moira stood over near the window, the shotgun trained on a gaping hole where the glass should have been. “What happened?” Hoon demanded.
“It was this big insect-thing, sir,” Marshall began, but Hoon silenced him with a look.
“I wasn’t asking you,” he said.
“One of the buggers from the cellar, I think,” Moira said, not taking her eyes off the window frame. “Climbed up outside, broke the glass and tried to get in.”
“What buggers from downstairs?” Leanne asked, rocking Immy from side to side. The baby’s screams became quieter sobs. “What was it?”
“Bugs,” said Hoon. “But big ones.” He turned back to his sister. “You get it?”
Moira shook her head. “Don’t think so. Agile little shit. Think it dodged.”
“Fuck, then that means they’re smart,” Hoon said. “That’s all we need.”
He crossed to the window and cautiously peeked out. The bug in his head was conspicuously silent, giving nothing away.
There was nothing on the walls above or below the window, but there was something on the grass. Lots of somethings, in fact.
“Fuck me,” Hoon whistled.
“Do you see it?” asked Moira.
“Hmm? No, not that. Them.”
Moira and Leanne joined him at the window. Marshall hung back, shifting his weight uneasily from foot to foot. “What is it?”
They were people. Or had been, at least. They stood all over the castle grounds, five or six meters apart. Their bodies twitched, their curved fingers clawing at invisible enemies in the air. Their feet remained planted, though. Rooted to the spot, not moving.
“What the Devil are they up to?” Moira asked.
“Not a lot,” Hoon said.
“Why aren’t they trying to get in?” Leanne asked. “I mean, not that I want them to, or anything.”
“Some of them are in,” Hoon said. “They’re in the bar. I’ve tied the door, but it’ll no’ hold for long. That lot out there? They’re just stopping us making a run for it.”
“I could take a few out with the rifle,” Moira suggested.
Hoon shook his head. “Wouldn’t be enough. We left the cars down at the gates. We’d never make it.”
“What about the trucks?”
Hoon and the others turned to Marshall. He tried to smile, but it came out somewhere closer to a sneer. “The trucks,” said Hoon. “Aye. They’re out front.”
“There’s a soldier. Caitlin,” Marshall said. “I could find her, ask her for help.”
Hoon shook his head. “She’s dead.”
Marshall blinked. He made a sound that was like a laugh, but wasn’t one. “What?”
“Your soldier. All the soldiers. They’re dead. Darren, too.”
“Daniel,” Moira corrected.
Hoon rolled his eyes. “Aye. Him. You knew who I was talking about, didn’t you? You don’t need to correct me every bastarding time.”
“Dead?” Marshall repeated. “What do you mean, they’re dead?”
Hoon sighed. “I’d have thought that was pretty fucking self-explanatory. You know being alive? Well they’re the opposite of that.”
“Yeah… but, but, I mean… how?” Marshall stammered. “Daniel. Cait… The soldier. How did they…?”
Hoon fought the urge to glance left and right at Moira and Leanne. “Those bug things. The big ones. But does it really matter? They’re dead. We don’t want to be, so we need to focus.”
“Where’s the UZI?” Moira asked. “That could come in handy.”
“It was in the room with Daniel. On the table,” Leanne said. “I should have taken it, sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Hoon said. He clicked his fingers at Marshall and pointed to the door. “Go grab it. Round the corner on the right. Door’s wide open.”
Marshall went pale. “What? What? Why me?”
The bug stirred in Hoon’s head. “Because I’m telling you to.”
Marshall glanced at the others, then straightened his shoulders. “You’re not my boss any more.”
Hoon almost made a grab for him, almost caught him by the hair, almost smashed his pathetic wee face off the table. Instead, he gritted his teeth, flexed his fingers, and waited for the whispering to stop.
Marshall took the silence to mean Hoon was reconsidering. He tried to press the advantage. “We should all go. We’ve got no window in here now. It’ll be safer if we go together.”
Hoon stepped closer until his huge, pock-marked face was all Marshall could see. The DCI opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, then took a steadying breath.
“Look, Martin,” he said, his voice surprisingly level. “We’ve all got a job to do here. Leanne’s looking after the baby, Moira’s keeping them both safe, and I’m trying to think of a way that we can all get out of here without being eaten, or Christ knows what else.”
He put a slab-like hand on Marshall’s shoulder. “You’re scared. I get it. And no wonder. But I need you to suck it up and do this one thing for me, OK? Just do this one thing.”
He leaned in even closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Also, if you don’t, I’m liable to rip both your upper and lower intestines out through your cock. So there’s that, too.”
Hoon straightened up. He smiled. “We sorted, then?”
Marshall’s tongue flitted across his dry lips. He nodded. “I’ll go get it.”
“Good lad,” said Hoon.
“Can I at least get a gun?”
“Can you fuck. Go.”
Marshall looked imploringly at Leanne and Moira. Leanne shot him a supportive
smile, but made no move to give him the rifle that was slung across her shoulder.
“Right.” He nodded. “Well, I suppose I’ll see you.”
“Don’t milk it, Marshall, you’re going round the corner, no’ to the fucking moon,” Hoon told him. “Hurry up.”
With a final nod, Marshall crossed to the door. He stood with his hand on the handle for several long seconds, finally pulling it open just in time to stop Hoon shouting at him. He slipped out and closed it gently, testing it once to make sure it hadn’t locked behind him.
Out in the corridor, Marshall frantically glanced left and right, his breath already coming in rasping wheezes. There was a violent rattling from downstairs, like a door being shaken and shoved. Marshall wasted no time in scurrying in the opposite direction, headed for the turn at the end of the corridor.
“Get the gun, get back. Get the gun, get back,” he whispered, repeating it over and over as he hurried along. “Easy. Not a problem. Get the gun, get back.”
He took the bend, found the open door, darted inside, then stopped. Daniel’s body was draped backwards across a table. His legs and the top of his head touched the floor, but the rest of his was bent upwards out of shape. The patterned carpet had a new design element – a slowly spreading patch of crimson that bloomed like a flower beneath the body.
Caught by surprise, Marshall covered his mouth with his hands, but too late to hold back the torrent of puke that erupted out of him. He doubled over and spat a few final chunks onto the floor. If the carpet hadn’t been ruined already, it was well and truly beyond saving now.
Straightening up, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then cast his eye across the room. It took him a couple of seconds to spot the UZI, sitting on a table over by the window. He hurried across to it, giving the blood puddle a wide berth. He picked it up and cradled it against him, immediately feeling just a little safer. Before turning, he shot a glance out of the window. The crowds were still gathered out there on the lawn. Apart from the twitching and weird hand-clawing, they didn’t seem to have moved so much as an inch.
Retracing his footsteps, Marshall reached the door. He hesitated, breathed deeply, then turned to look back at Daniel’s body. He’d seen enough gunshot wounds to know one when he saw it, even at this distance. It hadn’t been a bug that had killed him, not unless they were now packing heat.
“Sorry, pal,” he whispered, then he stepped through the door and started making his way back to the others.
There was a scuttling sound from behind him. Marshall spun around, his body tensing from the arse upwards. He raised the gun in time to see something sleek and black race across the ceiling, and launch itself into a leap.
***
The sound of machine-gun fire made Immy jerk violently. She broke into a new round of screaming, and Leanne leaned low over her, whispering soft shushes into her ear.
“Fuck,” Hoon hissed. He stabbed a finger to Moira. “Watch them. Keep away from the window.”
He tore open the door, slamming it shut behind him. He reached the corner in a matter of seconds. As he neared it, he noted again that the whispers in his head had stopped, and was suddenly grateful for the sword he still held in his left hand. Tightening his grip on the handle, he leaned around the corner.
The corridor was empty. There was no Marshall. No anything. Or not quite anything.
Hoon bent and picked up the UZI. It was warm to the touch. “Bollocks,” he muttered.
He looked along the corridor ahead of him, to where it ended in the T-Junction. He looked to his right, back to where he could just make out the door to the suite. He turned his head left and right, his conscience pulling him in both directions at once.
“Ah… fuck it,” he said at last, then he began to walk.
FRANKLIN, MASSACHUSETTS
May 25th, 8:17 AM
Amy tipped the last few peanut crumbs into her mouth, and shook the bag to see if there were any more still clinging on inside. Breakfast had been half a pack of chocolate-coated pretzels, and a full bag of honey-roasted peanuts they’d found tucked away in the driver compartment. They’d discovered a little box of mints in there, too, but had decided to save those for lunch.
Water hadn’t been a problem, but finding something to hold it in had been. Instead, they just took it in turns to drink straight from the tap in the bathroom. It tasted of chemicals, but it was wet and vaguely cold, and they didn’t complain too much.
Jaden chewed on his last pretzel. It was soft and tasted stale. He rolled the chocolate-coated clumps together with his tongue, then swallowed it all down.
“I can’t believe there’s no, like, in-flight meals on this train,” he grumbled.
“What do you mean, ‘in-flight meals’?” Amy asked. “Those are only on planes.”
Jaden shook his head. “Uh-uh. You get them on trains, too.”
“Well, OK, but you don’t,” said Amy. “In flight meals. It’s literally right there in the name.”
“She’s right, dude,” said Col.
“Bullshit,” Jaden said, leaning forward in his seat. “When my mom used to drive one of these things, there was a woman – I don’t know, fucking Angela or something – who had, like, a trolley with food on it. Sandwiches. Chips. All that shit. Every time I’d come visit my mom, Angela would slip me some candy or a Coke or whatever.”
He sat back again. “She got fired in the end. Compulsive thief. But they had in-flight meals.”
“Snack trolley,” Amy said. “Totally different thing. But yeah, one of those would be good, too.”
Silence fell. The only sound was the faint crackle of the peanut packet as Amy ran her finger along the inside, scooping up the honey and salt flavoring.
“What about him?” asked Col, nodding along the aisle.
They all turned and looked at the body on the floor. Jaden shook his head. “No way, man. That’s where I draw the line. There is no way I’m eating Dave Gatward.” He glanced at the others in turn. “Or, I don’t know, should we?”
“No!” Col said. “Jesus!”
“Hey, don’t get shitty with me, man,” Jaden told him. “You’re the one who suggested it.”
“I meant what are we going to do with him?” Col said. “We should get rid of him.”
Jaden opened his mouth.
“Not by eating him!” Col said, before Jaden had the chance. “We should just, I don’t know, throw him off.”
Amy nodded. “Works for me.”
“I call shotgun on the feet end,” Jaden announced.
“Aw, come on,” Col protested. “If I have to get the head end, I’ll puke, I swear.”
Jaden folded his arms. “Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you shot him in the face, Columbo.”
“I was saving you!” Col reminded him.
“It’s fine, I’ll get the head end,” said Amy. “Jesus, let’s just get rid of him.”
Col reluctantly stood up. “No. It’s fine. I’ll get it.”
Jaden followed him along the carriage. “Let Amy do it. She might love doing the head,” he said. He looked back over his shoulder. “Amy? Any comment. Do you love the head?”
Amy flicked him her middle finger. Jaden nodded appreciatively. “I’m absolutely taking that as a ‘yes’,” he decided.
“Stop messing around,” Col said. He pulled the neck of his shirt up over his mouth and leaned down to grab Gatward’s arms. “Aw, Jesus. This is disgusting.”
“Quit whining, bitch!” said Jaden, bending to pick up the feet. “Half of that shit hit me in the face.”
“Ready? Three, two, one… lift,” said Col. They both took the strain and heaved Dave Gatward’s body off the floor. “Jesus,” Col grunted. “He’s heavier than he looks.”
“And that’s without his brains and half of his head,” Jaden pointed out. They waddled him up to the door, then let him drop to the floor. “Anything there?”
Col looked out through the window in door. “No. No, doesn’t look like it.
” He hit the button and the door slid open. Col stepped back and joined Jaden in looking down at the body. “Should we say something, do you think?”
“Like what?” Jaden asked.
“I don’t know. We knew him, it feels like we should say something.”
Jaden nodded slowly. He thought for a moment. “Fuck you, Dave Gatward?”
Col shrugged. “Yeah, let’s go with that. Fuck you, Dave Gatward.”
They both got down on their knees and shoved Gatward’s corpse toward the door. It slipped easily along the vinyl floor, then plunged over the edge. There was the crack of snapping bone as he hit the edge of the track, then rolled heels-over-head, down the grassy verge beside it.
They watched him tumble down then spread into a vague star-shape at the bottom. “O Captain! My Captain,” Jaden began, then he shrugged. “That’s all I know.”
“That’s OK. Don’t think it’s about the captain of a sprint team, anyway,” Col said. He hit the button and the door closed. Col shot his friend a sideways look. “How you doing?”
“Right as rain, man,” said Jaden, a smile splitting his face.
“Bullshit.”
“Yeah, well…” He let the rest of the sentence hang there. “How’s your arm?”
Col flexed his fingers in and out. “Hurts if I do that, so, you know, I try to avoid doing that where possible. Other than that, it’s not too bad.”
“How about now?” asked Jaden. He flicked Col on the bandage.
“Ow! You asshole!”
“I know,” Jaden laughed. “I have no fucking clue why I do these things.”
“Uh… guys?” Amy hadn’t raised her voice, but there was an urgency to it that couldn’t be missed. “You’re going to want to come and see this.”
She was leaning on the back of one of the seats, bent low to give her a better view out of the window beside her. Col and Jaden made their way back to join her. Halfway there, they saw the figures gathering outside.
Men. Women. Children. All drawing together alongside the train. All infected.
“Shit,” Col whispered, ducking low. “Where did they come from?”
The Bug: Complete Season One Page 24
