by Dan Smith
“You’re right.” Krish paused with his hand on the door handle and looked back at Nancy. “We should go straight to school.”
“So you don’t think we’re imagining it any more?” Pete asked.
“No,” Krish replied. He pushed open the door and hurried outside.
“But other people might think we are,” Nancy said. “I’ll take a picture to prove we’re not.” She pointed her camera upwards and took a photo. In the brief flash of bright white light, they all saw the roof of the building. It was covered with more of the bent claws holding pods. There were hundreds of them.
Maybe even thousands.
CHAPTER 8
Too Late
The cold wind bit at Nancy, Pete and Krish as they sped along Ridley Lane and headed back into the village. None of them spoke. Each was lost in thought about what they had seen at Carpenter’s Field.
When they reached the school, the car park was full.
“Everyone’s already here,” Pete said as he skidded to a halt. “It must be most of the school.”
“Still no signal,” Krish said, holding his phone higher and frowning at the screen.
“Look.” Nancy pointed. “That’s my mum’s van.”
Pete rode over and pressed his face close to the van’s back window. “The boxes are gone,” he said.
“Come on.” Krish dumped his bike and ran to the front of the school. “I see my parents’ car. They must be inside.”
But the main door was locked, so they raced around the school, looking into the dark windows and checking all the doors.
The fire escape at the side of the hall was sealed tight. When they put their ears to the painted wood, they heard the hubbub of a crowd.
“Everyone’s in there,” Krish said. He was starting to panic. “I bet those boxes are in there too. Those things.”
Pete remembered the freaky pod, beating like a living heart.
“Open up!” Krish hammered on the door. “Open up!”
“They can’t hear you,” Nancy told him. “It’s too noisy in there.”
“I have to get in.” Krish was growing more agitated. “My mum and dad are inside!”
Nancy stepped back and looked up at the narrow windows along the top of the hall. “If only we could see in.”
“Maybe we can,” Pete said. He led the others around the back of the hall and used the lower branches of an oak tree to climb onto the roof of the temporary history classroom.
From there, they had a perfect view into the high windows of the hall. They saw parents and kids chatting in the semi darkness, waiting for the meeting to start. Even Tyson Bridges was there with his mum and dad.
“The boxes.” Nancy’s voice was so full of fear, it was like spiders crawling over Pete’s skin. “Look.”
Every single person had an unopened box on their lap.
“There’s my mum and dad!” Krish pointed to a dark haired couple sitting in the front row. There was an empty seat beside them, with a box ready for Krish. “I have to do something.” He hurried along the roof and scrambled back down the tree.
Pete and Nancy didn’t take their eyes off the windows. In the hall, Mr Finney had come onto the stage and was saying something to the audience.
Krish jumped to the ground with a thud and rushed around the side of the building. A few moments later, there was a loud banging.
“Mum! Dad!” Krish shouted, his voice cutting into the night.
In the hall, a few heads turned towards the fire escape door, but Mr Finney continued talking. He had one of the boxes in his hand and was opening the lid. Pete guessed he was giving the audience instructions, because some of them were doing the same.
“Get out of there!” Krish’s voice grew louder and shriller.
More heads turned towards the door, but already some of the parents at the other side of the hall had opened their boxes.
“It’s too late,” Nancy whispered.
Pete watched with dread as Krish’s dad looked down into his box and—
POP!
Krish’s dad’s head jerked back as the pod burst and a musty cloud of spores erupted from the box.
A moment later, another parent opened their box. Then another. And with each explosion, the hall flooded with spores. Within seconds, there was a mist of particles floating over the audience’s heads. Panicked parents and children were jerking and flinching in their seats. Some managed to get to their feet and make it to the doors, but they could only rattle on the handles, unable to get out.
Everything was locked. There was no way out of the hall.
Pete and Nancy watched the pandemonium. They couldn’t look away. But soon the parents began to grow calm as the spores took effect. The first of the parents came to a standstill and turned like zombies towards the stage to look at Mr Finney, and Pete knew it was time to go.
*
Krish was still banging at the door when Pete grabbed him.
“My house!” Pete said. “My mum’s not at the meeting. She’ll know what to do.”
“I can’t leave them.” Krish was frantic. His voice was hoarse from shouting.
“You have to,” Pete told his friend. “It’s not safe here. Everyone in there …” Pete looked at Nancy and saw the mix of fear and sadness in her eyes. “It’s too late for them.”
CHAPTER 9
Ambush
Campbell Street, where Pete lived, was eerily silent. No cars were on the move. No street lamps were glowing. No light spilled from closed curtains.
“I don’t like it,” Pete said as he stopped outside his house and looked around.
“I don’t like any of this,” Nancy said.
“Tell me again what you saw at school.” Krish took off his glasses. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath to calm himself. “Tell me exactly.”
“We already told you a hundred times,” Pete said, but he was glad to see his friend was in thinking mode now. Thinking Krish was more useful than panicking Krish.
“Basically, the spores came out and turned everyone into zombies,” Nancy said. “Well, not zombies exactly, because zombies are dead, aren’t they?”
“But it was definitely the spores?” Krish asked.
“Yes.”
“So maybe it’s like the ant fungus we saw on The Mystery Shed,” Krish said, looking at Pete. “The one that takes over ants’ brains and makes them climb to the top of a tree.”
“Why does it do that?” Nancy asked, sounding scared.
“Don’t know,” Krish said. He was lying and Pete knew why.
He knew which story Krish was talking about. Pete had loved it because there was a disgusting video to go with it, and Krish had hated it for the same reason. When the fungus infected ants reached the tree tops, they died and exploded, sending spores across the jungle to infect more ants. The only purpose of the fungus was to survive and spread.
But the last thing any of them needed to think about was their parents’ heads exploding.
“I need to check on my mum,” Pete said. He abandoned his bike and hurried to the front door. His key clicked in the lock and the door eased open without a sound.
“Mum?” Pete hardly said it loud enough for Nancy and Krish to hear, let alone anyone in the house. “Mum? Are you here?” Pete went to the foot of the stairs and looked up into the darkness.
“Do you want me to go first?” Nancy asked.
Pete shook his head and started to climb the staircase. The others were close behind.
When they reached the top, Pete smelled the musty odour. His insides turned to water, and he wanted to get out. But the door at the end of the landing creaked open.
“Peter?” a voice said. “Is that you?”
Pete’s mum was just a dark shape in the doorway. Moonlight spilled through the window behind her and cut across the landing carpet. His mum’s long hair hung over her shoulders, shining with a silvery hue.
“Mum? Are you all right?” Pete asked.
“P
eter. I have something for you.” The ghostly figure held something out towards the children. Even in the darkness, they knew it was one of the strange purplish pods.
With panic flooding his veins, Pete started to back away. “She’s infected!” he gasped.
Krish started downstairs, but when Pete turned to do the same, he saw another shape standing in the hallway below.
It was Nancy’s mum. She came forward into the moonlight and raised her hands. “Nancy, darling,” she said, and put her foot on the first step. “I have something for you.”
And Pete realised it was his fault. He had told Mr Finney that his mum wouldn’t be at the meeting. That was why Mrs Finney had come here – to make sure Pete’s mum was infected like everyone else.
“No!” Pete cried. Guilt and fear washed over him as he looked from his mum to Nancy’s mum. Both of them infected. Both of them carrying pods. Both of them moving closer.
“In here!” Nancy grabbed Pete’s coat and dragged him towards the nearest door.
But it was too late for Krish. He turned to follow Pete and Nancy, but he was already halfway down the stairs—
POP!
A cloud of spores squirted from the pod in Mrs Finney’s hands and shimmered in the moonlight. As Pete stumbled backwards into the bathroom, he saw a silvery mist envelop Krish. He stood bolt upright as if he’d been struck by lightning, and his fingers tightened on the bannister. Krish’s eyes widened, and he stretched his mouth open as if he were about to scream and then—
SLAM!
Nancy pulled the bathroom door shut and pushed the bolt across.
CHAPTER 10
Escape
Nancy went straight to the window and threw it open. Cold, damp night air blew into the bathroom as she looked out. “It’s too high,” Nancy said. “We can’t get out this way.”
Beside her, Pete couldn’t stop staring at the door.
“There must be something we can do,” Nancy went on. “I don’t want to be a mould monster. I don’t want … wait.” She looked at Pete. “You said you had mould in the bathroom – that your mum makes you spray it.”
“Yeah, with Mould Blaster but—”
“Where is it?” Nancy demanded.
“What?”
“The Mould Blaster!” yelled Nancy. “Just get it!”
Pete opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out a spray bottle. He gave it a shake to test if it was full. “What now?” he asked.
“The black stuff you get in the bathroom is mould,” Nancy said. “Which is a kind of fungus, so maybe the spray will kill the stuff that comes out of those pods. Maybe it’ll stop our mums and Krish.” Nancy pulled out her phone. “And we know they don’t like bright light.” She switched on the torch and went to the door. “Are you ready?”
Pete pointed the spray bottle at the door and took a deep breath. “OK,” he said.
Nancy slid the bolt across and tugged the door wide.
Nancy’s mum, Pete’s mum and Krish reeled back at once from the torchlight, raising their arms to cover their eyes. Pete didn’t waste time. He fired the spray, covering them in Mould Blaster. Immediately, they began to howl. It was the most awful sound Pete had ever heard – as if a thousand vampires were screaming at once.
And from somewhere outside came an ugly screaming reply.
SCREEEEEEEE!
Pete sprayed them again, and Krish collapsed. A moment later, Pete’s mum and Nancy’s mum followed suit, crashing to the carpet.
Nancy knelt beside her mum and felt her pulse with shaking hands. “She’s still alive.” She checked the others. “They’re all still alive.”
Pete looked at the spray bottle. “It worked,” he said.
“But did you hear it?” Nancy asked. “When they made that awful noise, there was more screaming from outside.”
Pete nodded. “There must be other Infected out there.”
As if to confirm it, there was a rattle on the front door. Pete and Nancy hurried to the front bedroom and looked out of the window to see that Campbell Street was no longer deserted. There were now at least twenty Infected on the pavement below. Tyson Bridges was among them, staring up with blank eyes.
“They’ve come from school,” Pete said. “How did they know we’re here?”
“And how do we fight all of them with just a phone torch and a bottle of Mould Blaster?” Nancy asked.
Pete shrugged. “Don’t know. But we have to try.”
*
Pete and Nancy burst out of the front door, ready to fight. The first of the Infected to come at them was Tyson Bridges. He was slow and strong, striding down the path with the others following.
“Never liked you,” Pete said as he gave Tyson two squirts of Mould Blaster.
Tyson let out a blood freezing scream and stumbled backwards. Behind him, the others suddenly came to a stop and opened their mouths wide. They screamed together: a hideous chorus of screeching. Pete gave Tyson another blast, and the bully collapsed onto the concrete path. The other Infected staggered back, shocked and confused. Pete and Nancy took the chance to jump on their bikes and escape.
They rode fast, staying in the darkest shadows, finally slowing down as they travelled side by side past the park.
“Did you see that?” Pete asked, feeling the adrenaline pumping in his veins. “I sprayed Tyson Bridges.” He couldn’t help himself from grinning.
“I saw,” Nancy replied, out of breath. “But did you see what happened to the others when you did it?”
Pete thought about all the screaming and blundering about. “Yeah. Why?”
“Same thing happened when you sprayed my mum.” Nancy’s nose was red with the cold.
“And my mum,” Pete added. Suddenly it felt serious again. “And Krish.”
“It affected them all, like they’re connected somehow,” Nancy said.
“So?”
“So, I mean, what if they are connected? What if they’re part of the same thing? And what if that thing we saw at the fracking site is controlling them all?”
“Like a giant brain?” Pete suggested.
“Exactly,” Nancy said. “So maybe we have to kill it. Kill the brain.”
“With what? One bottle of Mould Blaster?”
“I think we’ll need more than that. I have an idea.”
*
They reached the village centre and went straight to Hutson’s Hardware. Nancy snatched up one of the white painted rocks that lined the green on the other side of the road.
“Sorry, Mr Hutson,” she said just before she hefted the rock at the main window.
Immediately, they heard the shrill SCREEEEEEEE of the Infected. Pete looked across to see Mr Hutson standing on the green. He was wearing a thick winter coat and woolly hat. His mouth was open wide, and he was pointing a finger in their direction.
From somewhere in the village, a scream rang out in reply.
“Keep watch!” Nancy said as she stepped through the window, crunching on broken glass. “They know we’re here.” She grabbed a backpack from the rack by the door and made her way along the aisles until she found the cleaning products.
Pete waited at the entrance, keeping an eye on Mr Hutson, while Nancy filled the backpack with as many bottles of Mould Blaster as she could find.
She grabbed every bottle from the shelf, threw the bag on her back and turned towards the broken window.
“They’re coming,” Pete said as he saw a car turning onto the High Street and heading towards them.
No, not a car: a van.
A crowd of Infected appeared from around the corner, following the van. They were moving fast. Running. And now Mr Hutson was coming across the green.
Nancy rushed out of the shop and jumped on her bike, but Pete said, “Wait. I’ve got a brilliant idea!” and ran inside.
“What are you doing?” Nancy called. “They’re coming!”
“Just a minute!” Pete emerged a moment later holding two Aqua Zap water guns.
“W
hat do you think?” he asked.
“Awesome,” Nancy said. “But they’ll have to wait!”
Already the van was halfway along the High Street. The Infected were running behind it, spreading out. Nancy could hardly take her eyes off them. She knew them. They were her neighbours and her classmates.
Or they had been.
CHAPTER 11
Screams in the Night
Pete and Nancy pedalled straight past Mr Hutson and into the alley beside the Winchester Arms. They made their way through the village, terrified of being spotted, riding as fast as they could until they came to the gates leading into the Carpenter’s Field fracking site.
Pete skidded to a halt and jumped off his bike. Nancy did the same and shrugged off her backpack. Pete ripped the packaging off the two Aqua Zaps he had taken from Hutson’s Hardware. He unscrewed the cap on each gun and held them steady while Nancy poured Mould Blaster into the tanks.
“I’ve set the nozzle to spray,” Pete said as he handed one of the massive water guns to Nancy. They jogged through the gates. “Let’s go smother that thing.”
“No proble—”
Nancy was cut off by a nerve shredding SCREEEEEEEE. The sound rattled through them like fingernails dragged over splintery wood.
Pete ducked, looking towards the BioMesa building. One of the Infected was standing in the shadows with his head back, his eyes glistening in the moonlight. His mouth was wide open as he screamed.
From the distance came the terrible screeching reply, and Pete knew what it meant.
“They’ll be here soon,” he said.
CHAPTER 12
The Infected
Pete and Nancy sprinted towards the main building. The Infected man ran at them, moving fast. It was Mr Craven, the Geography teacher from school. Pete had never seen him move so fast. Whatever else the fungus did to people, it definitely made them stronger and fitter.
As Mr Craven came within range, Pete and Nancy raised their water guns and fired. The Mould Blaster sprayed out in a mist in front of them, engulfing their attacker.