Fungoid

by William Meikle

  Down below the song was louder, more insistent, and far away from the pounding metal band still playing on the bridge. Even through the earplugs Rohit felt its call, and he had taken to humming to himself, nonsense tunes he remembered from his childhood in India that helped alleviate the pull of the infection’s song.

  They were headed for the forward hold. The captain had asked him where the infection was most likely to spread. Rohit had replied. “Anywhere it can feed.” And the captain had gone white. Now here they were, less than five minutes later, approaching the storage hold where all the shipboard supplies were kept.

  Rohit knew they were on the right track as they approached the closed door that led to the hold. A rainbow aurora, faint but unmistakable, hung in the air, a specter showing them the way to the feast.

  36

  “So, why weren’t you affected, back in the store?” Becky said.

  They were parked on the old stone jetty in Bonavista harbor, facing out to sea. They’d been there for an hour now, with no sign of any boat, and they couldn’t get anything on any radio station to tell them whether they still had hope of a rescue. They hadn’t seen a single other living thing apart from the infection.

  Shaun took a while to reply to her question—he didn’t rightly know how to answer it. All he knew was that he’d almost lost her—she’d been so far gone that she’d fought and scratched at him as he dragged her away. She didn’t seem to remember that part—and he wasn’t about to tell her anytime soon.

  “I was affected—but I seemed to be able to fight it better than you could. Maybe it’s the nicotine?” he said with a smile. It was worth a try—he’d only been back on the smokes for just over a day, and already he wanted another—the old addiction was hard to crack, doubly so after you’d slipped back into it.

  She punched him on the shoulder, hard.

  “Don’t even think of it, buster. Besides, Mark was like you—and Adam was like me.”

  “Something in the genes then?” Shaun replied, voicing something he’d been thinking about for a while. “Maybe some folks have more natural immunity than others?”

  Their conversations had been like this since they parked—going round in circles.

  And without answers we’ll just keep going round and round.

  At least the view had improved—by parking to face the sea they were inured against the sight of the worst ravages of the infection. Dark clouds still roiled just overhead, but out toward the horizon all was blue and sparkling. That’s where Shaun’s hope lay, and he kept his eyes fixed on it, waiting for the first sign of a prow, a funnel—rescue.

  Adam had fallen into a fitful sleep again in the backseat, curled up in a corner. Mark had leaned forward with his head poked through between the front seats and an arm draped over Shaun’s shoulder, reassuring himself by touch that Shaun was still here.

  I’ll never leave them again.

  That was something else he’d been thinking on for a while. Alberta had been all well and good—steady work and good money—but it had also almost cost him his family. The way the world was going he’d probably never have to make the decision again, but he made the promise to himself anyway.

  I’ll never leave them again.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later and without warning the SUV tilted with a lurch, the nose going down on Shaun’s side.

  “Puncture?” Becky asked.

  “I don’t think so, we’re not moving, and a slow puncture would have been, well…slow. This is something else.”

  He put a hand on the door handle, intending to step out and check, but Becky stopped him.

  “Leave it,” she said, softly. “It’s too risky.”

  “But we might not be able to get going again if…”

  She put a hand on his arm.

  “I know. Just leave it, okay? Either the boat comes, or it doesn’t. Either way, we’re not intending on driving anywhere, are we?”

  They’d talked about what to do if the boat didn’t arrive by dusk. From where they sat they could see three small cabin cruisers and a yacht tied up in the inner dock. The plan was to take one of them—any one that had fuel. That plan too had its risks—they’d all have to brave the air outside for as long as it took to get aboard and loaded. They’d already decided to put that off as long as possible.

  He took his hand from the door handle. Suddenly, more than ever, he wanted another smoke.

  37

  Irene’s grip on his left hand was back as tight as ever, yet somehow comforting as Kerry opened the door to the cargo hold and went through first, with Rohit right behind, face almost pressed against the man’s backpack. He smelled the ethanol—he’d smelled it all the way down, ever since standing next to the man when the spray kit was filled. They were using a gardening tool normally used to moisten greenhouse plants, but from what Rohit had already seen, it seemed to do the job admirably, the alcohol killing any fungus it touched. His main worry as he stepped into the hold was that they hadn’t brought enough of it.

  That worry was proved appropriate seconds later when Kerry stepped back, almost knocking Rohit over, then started spraying everywhere all around. Rohit saw the reason when the man moved slightly to one side—the whole cargo hold was infested. The rainbow aurora hung everywhere, and just looking at it made Rohit’s head feel woozy again, so much so that he had to close his eyes momentarily to regain his composure.

  “Back,” he heard Kerry shout. “We have to go back.”

  “No!” Rohit shouted. “Hose it. Hose it all. We need to kill it.”

  “But the supplies…”

  “They’re gone. Hose it all down. And do it quick—can’t you feel it?”

  Rohit opened his eyes. The dancing light was seductive, and the whining hum could be heard too, even through the earplugs. Kerry hosed, sweeping the pistol grip left and right in wide arcs. The smell of ethanol became almost overpowering—but Rohit’s head cleared and the drone of the song faltered and faded.

  “It’s working,” Irene shouted out.

  A dark shape loomed out of the shadows, a man in a hazmat suit—but it wasn’t reinforcements. The new arrival lumbered and stumbled as if drunk, almost falling into Kerry, but doing it with enough momentum to send them both rolling to the ground. It was only sheer luck that saved Kerry—he had the pistol grip in his hand as he threw a punch, and sent a spray of ethanol over the attacker, who rolled away and fell still, slumped against the bulkhead.

  Kerry lay on the floor near the doorway, panting as if he’d just run a mile.

  “My back’s gone,” he said, clearly in pain. “Get me out of here.”

  Rohit shook his head.

  “Not yet. The job’s not done.”

  He had Irene help him roll Kerry over—an operation accompanied by much swearing and yelps of pain—enough to convince Rohit that the man wasn’t too badly hurt and would live. They unstrapped the pack from his back, and Rohit put it on, having to tighten the straps to stop it slipping off again.

  “He’s right,” Irene shouted, even while helping him with the buckles. “We really should get out of here.”

  “This won’t take long,” Rohit replied, and started to wash the place down with the alcohol, stepping farther into the gloom of the hold as he sprayed systematically across every crate and box.

  The infection retreated before him as he went farther in, the brown filaments washing away with the alcohol, the dancing aurora dimming and flickering like a sputtering candle. The retreat seemed to be following a definite course, all the die-off proceeding backward towards a point in the far corner of the hold.

  Is there a source?

  Rohit kept walking. Irene did not hold his free hand, but she was there, just a yard behind him. He was washing a spray of fungus-killer to his left, and almost jerked in surprise when she called out.

  “Rohit—on your right!”

  He instinctively turned. The aura of light flared as the alcohol hit a tangled mass of brown tissue that was wedge
d in the corner of the hold. It looked more like a distorted tree trunk than any fungus, thick and bulbous, with root-like tendrils—some as thick as Rohit’s thigh—stretching off and away along the walls—and roof. The swell of the song grew louder still, and Rohit’s earphones did little to mask it; the dancing light seemed to penetrate even through his eyelids, flickering inside his skull, promising calm, togetherness—if only he would put down the pistol grip and stop.

  “Kill it. Kill it now,” Irene shouted. “Before it gets us too.”

  Rohit’s finger tightened on the trigger and he sent a wash of alcohol over the central mass of tissue. The whole organism—trunk and roots and all—jerked and went into a spasm. The drone turned to a screaming wail—loud, but it held no hypnotic compulsion.

  “Again,” Irene shouted, and Rohit complied. The wash did not seem to be affecting the outer surface of the infection much, if at all—but the wailing whine cut off, leaving them in a gloomy, dark silence as the aurora flickered, and faded away completely.

  They did not have time to contemplate their seeming victory. Even as the main body of the fungus went still and quiet, Kerry shouted from across the hold.

  “Get over here. He’s still moving.”

  * * *

  The thing that had attacked Kerry had once been a man—indeed, it seemed he was known.

  “My God, it’s Jim Noble.”

  “How can you tell?” Irene asked, just before Rohit said the same thing. The body on the ground swelled and bloated inside the hazmat suit, making the material look tight and stretched much wider than its normal girth. The fact there had been a man inside was obvious from the single blue eye, patch of hair and an ear visible on the left-hand side. But the rest of the head was covered in a tight mat of the brown infection, and had already hardened, almost woody across the whole right hemisphere of the skull.

  And it was definitely still alive. It crawled, on all fours, heading in a straight line for the dark corner containing the thick mass of tissue.

  “Spray it. Kill it,” Kerry shouted. The man’s back seemed to have improved remarkably, for he stood, and was backing away quickly toward the doorway.

  Rohit shook his head.

  “Let’s see what’s happening. We might learn something.”

  “Yes. And we might get dead. You do what you like. I’m out of here.”

  Kerry left Rohit and Irene alone in the hold, and would have shut them in had Irene not stepped into the doorway.

  “I’ll get the captain,” Kerry shouted as he left.

  Rohit knew that the captain’s first instinct would be to slash and burn. If he was to learn anything, it had to be now.

  The crawling figure seemed to be ignoring them completely. Once they were sure Kerry was actually gone and would not be returning to seal them in, Rohit and Irene followed across the floor of the hold.

  It headed straight for the corner. Six feet from the woody mass it reached the first of the thicker roots. The thing in the suit reached out a hand—and even before it touched the root a blue and green shimmer passed across the gap in the air, six inches off the floor. The humming drone started again, almost too faint to hear, but getting louder as the shimmer brightened, passing from the hazmat suit across to the roots and dancing up the tendril toward the main body, which quivered, as if in anticipation.

  It’s communicating. More than that—it’s replenishing itself.

  He had a flash of inspiration.

  They’re both memory nodes, the suited thing and the woody mass—and they can talk to each other—maybe even heal each other.

  “Hose it again,” Irene said. “It’s getting stronger. I can feel it.”

  She was right—he had become noticeably light-headed in the last few seconds and the dancing aura of color had strengthened. He sprayed the woody mass again, and the shimmering—and humming—faded. He also noticed that he no longer felt the weight of the pack on his back, and when he moved he didn’t get the side-to-side sloshing sensation that had been there minutes before.

  I’m almost out of juice.

  The suited figure crawled forward again, still making for the main mass in the corner.

  “Hose it—hose it now,” Irene shouted.

  “And if you don’t, I will,” another voice said. The captain had joined them, and he wore a backpack of his own. Behind him were two men carrying cans of kerosene.

  “Wait,” Rohit said. “I might have an idea. We need this one alive.”

  38

  Noble came reluctantly out of the dance, out of the black and into the light once more. It hurt—lancing into his eyes, his skull, seeming to penetrate all the way through to his bones.

  Something ate into him, something that was inside, something that had joined the dance. He wanted to scream at the searing, blistering pain of it but his mouth wouldn’t respond, his limbs wouldn’t move. Molten fire, like lava, ran through his veins, threatening to consume him utterly.

  He stopped dancing, lost his partners; lost the song.

  “It’s working,” a voice said, far, far away.

  Then there was just the pain—endless, white-hot pain.

  39

  Rebecca almost wept with joy just after noon when they got their first sighting of the red keel of the approaching supply vessel; it came slowly into view around the headland that bounded the eastern side of the harbor. Shaun flashed the SUV’s headlights, half a dozen times—and they all heard the answering blasts of the boat’s horn, even above the noise of the car engine.

  She wasn’t worried when her side of the car dipped suddenly—whatever had caused the axle to give way on Shaun’s side seemed to be spreading.

  But the cavalry’s here. We’re saved.

  She thought that the boat might stop offshore and send a tender or dinghy in to the small harbor, but it kept coming until it loomed large in the windshield, and docked thirty yards ahead of them up the jetty. She now saw that it wasn’t just a supply boat—it also had a ferry deck, and was already lowering a ramp to allow them access.

  “Can we move?” she asked Shaun.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Shaun released the brake and put his foot on the pedal. Something squealed in a high whine, the engine coughed, twice—then gave in with a rumble that indicated it was badly busted in there. The engine knocked and sputtered. It was still running, but not delivering any power to the wheels. Wisps of black smoke rose from under the hood. Shaun kept pumping the pedal but it was obvious they weren’t going anywhere.

  Shaun flicked the headlights several times. They heard an amplified voice call out—they couldn’t make out the words until Rebecca gingerly wound her window down slightly.

  “Stay put. We’re coming to you.”

  * * *

  The next five minutes went past excruciatingly slowly—for the first two of them there seemed to be no activity at all—then three people in full hazmat gear, all wearing backpacks, could be seen on the high viewing area outside the bridge windows. They descended a ladder, going out of sight, and that was that for another couple of minutes until, finally, they heard the roar of a large engine and a truck came up out of the ferry deck, coming along the jetty toward them. It stopped inches from their fender and the three suited figures got out.

  Rebecca started to wind down the window, planning to talk to them, when Shaun held her back.

  “Wait. Something’s up.”

  The suited figures looked closely at the front tires for several seconds, then stood back to allow one of them access. He washed a spray over the whole front and sides of the SUV, and Rebecca smelled it oozing through the haps in the bodywork and up from the floor—an almost overpowering whiff of alcohol and, beneath that, the faintest hint of disinfectant.

  It was only when they were satisfied that one of the suited figures approached her window and tapped on it, indicating she should roll it down.

  “Please step out,” a male voice said. The voice came from behind a mask that hid most of h
is features. “One at a time. We’ll take this slow.”

  Shaun went first. They hosed him down, head to toe, and he was still dripping when Mark went out on the same side to join him. Rebecca turned to Adam. The boy was still curled up in the back corner. He looked asleep, but something lurched in her heart as she leaned over and reached for him.

  She didn’t quite manage it—one of the suited figures pulled open her passenger door and dragged her from the vehicle. She screamed even as she was hosed down.

  “Adam!”

  The boy didn’t reply. He didn’t open his eyes, didn’t seem quite awake, but Rebecca had seen enough to know what the problem was—thin brown filaments ran from the SUV’s trunk, around the corner of the backseat—and across the skin of the boy’s neck.

  Adam was infected.

  40

  “Where’s my son. I want to see my son.”

  Rohit heard the man shouting even through the metal door of the room that served as the boat’s medical center. He’d had the lad brought straight in—hosing him down hadn’t got to the infection in time—it was inside him.

  But there was hope.

  He had two bodies laid out on tables in the room—the lad, and the cleanup worker, Noble. Rohit’s idea had worked—after bringing Noble up out of the cargo hold, they’d injected him with a dilute dose of ethanol—and waited. It had taken two hours, and the man wasn’t out of the woods by any means—but the infection had definitely retreated, although he still had a fist-sized lump of foreign tissue, like a goiter, at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Rohit suspected that this was the nerve system—the brain of the thing. It had him worried.