The Bug: Complete Season One (29 page)

Read The Bug: Complete Season One Online

Authors: Barry J. Hutchison

Tags: #Science Fiction

 

 

 

 

EPILOGUE

 

INVERLOCHY CASTLE HOTEL, FORT WILLIAM, SCOTLAND
 

Time Unknown

 

Pain. Heat. Fire tearing up my insides. Guts like pools of burning oil.

Where am I? The floor. On the floor. Why am I on the floor?

Why does it hurt so much?

I remember… shooting. Gun in my hand. Door opening. People lurching out. My finger on the trigger. Rat-tat-tat. Fire and blood and screaming and pain.

My arms are bleeding. The skin on my forearms bubbles. Blisters. I smell the skin, like frying chicken, then the pain comes again and the world is filled with darkness and light all at once.

The flesh of my forearms tear. Left one first. I watch, can only watch, as something black stabs outwards through the skin. Right one goes next. Blood spurts from the wounds. The bug legs – because I know now that’s what they are – keep growing and growing and growing from inside me.

My insides shift, like ingredients in a blender. I hear my ribs crack. Feel the bones grind together. Splinter. Crack. Two more legs pierce my side, growing outwards. I open my mouth to scream, and my jaw swings down like a hinge.

Darkness. Closing in. Darkness and pain and fire and… hunger.

Before the world goes black, I manage to form a single coherent sentence in my head. I cling onto who I am: “I am Martin Marshall.”

But even as I think the words, I know they aren’t true. Not any more

I
was
Martin Marshall. Once upon a time. But now…

Now I am something else.


And now I am
hungry
.

 

 

 

Join the Bug Squad

 

Find out how the nightmare began with this
free and exclusive
prequel episode.

 

You’ll also be the first to hear about new episodes, special offers,

secret sales, exclusive content and much more.

 

 

Get Episode Zero Now!

 

Other books

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
Inside Out by Barry Eisler
How to be Death by Amber Benson
Heart by Higginson, Rachel
Wolfsbane by William W. Johnstone
Los hombres de paja by Michael Marshall
King and Goddess by Judith Tarr
Boiling Point by Watts, Mia