7
12:16 AM
Howls and screams and the damp thudding of flesh against metal echoed out from behind the cell doors as Swanson and Jack made their way along the corridor following a sergeant.
"It's this one," the sergeant said, stopping at one of the gun-grey doors.
Jack 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 Jack 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 Swanson, 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.
"Sharon Madison is a whore," Jack read. "That's our confession then, is it?"
"Close as we're going to get, I reckon," the sergeant said. "You seen it yet?"
Swanson 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."
Swanson nodded, but barely heard. She 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.
Swanson shuddered involuntarily.
She was just about to declare that as one of the creepiest things she'd ever seen in her life and Jack had better start talking 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?" Jack 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 slippery 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 Swanson gazed down.
"What is it?" asked the sergeant, suddenly close in Swanson's ear.
"Jesus!" Swanson hissed, almost jumping out of her skin. "What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?"
Jack 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, Ma'am," said the sergeant.
A movement at the very edge of the light caught Swanson'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.
Jack pushed down the button on top of the phone and the light returned.
The first thing Swanson saw was the spider on the wall, right beside the sergeant's head.
The next thing she saw were the rest of them. There were half a dozen or so, dotted irregularly across the meter of corridor she was able to see. They scuttled closer, their pointed legs tapping against the glossy paintwork.
And there, in that moment, Jack knew what had gotten under the skin of the man in the cell.
"Run," Jack 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.
Jack stopped, turned, flashed up the phone in time to see the sergeant go down under a writhing mass of oily black spiders.
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 Swanson's boot. She kicked out, sending the creepy little fucker sailing off into the darkness.
They ran. There was nothing else for it.
Swanson ran, faster than she'd run since back in her uniform days. Faster, even, than before then.
Jack ran, hurtling himself along the corridor until he finally reached the door cuttinghim 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. Jack muttered as Swanson pushed him aside and started to pound the door as she screamed for assistance, and jack jabbed at the phone.
When the glow returned it picked out the shape of a man standing less than a meter away.
"Ya bastard!" Swanson 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 Swanson 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," Swanson said. "Fuck."
And with that, the sergeant lunged.