by Zack Parsons
“Get away from me,” Bishop moaned.
They did not ignore him this time. Strange hands tore at his clothes, hitching his trousers painfully and tearing them open. He gasped as jaws closed on his muscular stomach and his thigh. They bit off his toes like ripe fruit. Their jaws clicked and clattered and sawed into his tender flesh. The pain was excruciating.
He reached into the snakeskin and felt the hard, cool shape of vials. No pills. No powders. Only the oily blue of the bliss filled the hand that he brought out of the bag and to his face. He screamed, delirious with pain, for it seemed to go on and on, and he seemed no closer to death. Their hands were inside his body, pulling out pieces, consuming him slowly. The only escape from the agony was what he held in his hand.
Quivering fingers unsealed the vial, and he brought it to his lips. The bliss poured into his mouth and was absorbed through his tongue. He felt the snuffling breath on his thigh, on his shriveled cock. No, he pleaded. Die before it happens. No. I cannot endure that. Alien jaws snapped shut. Pain exploded in his groin; hot, liquid, stretching and tearing away the flesh. He was submerged in the agony of castration, fading into the blue landscape of the bliss, and still he did not die.
Death would take many days, pursued through traced geographies of pain by his father and the laughing horse Apollyon.
Polly opened the hatch and thrust her head and shoulders out of the PitSec armored vehicle. She could almost hear the ocean, they were so close, but the city had become unrecognizable. Damage from the earthquake and military action was impossible to differentiate. Rubble was consumed by the explosion of life.
The convoy had passed from a graveyard of destroyed military vehicles and into a luminous realm of mycoflora, the sky blotted out by the gilled caps pulsing with circulating liquids. The buildings lining the street were difficult to distinguish beneath a fleshy carpet of adhesive basidiospores.
The drone of the sirens was muffled. The alarm of a car bleated from within a hedge of pale mycelial threads. The vermicular roots squirmed across the roadway, and, as she watched, their gathering weight smashed through hidden windows.
The variety and scale of flora was oppressive. Sweet smells of the fruiting bodies drifted through the air on the currents created by respiring fungus. Crustaceans scuttled out of the roadway and gathered beneath delicate, veined fans. Maggot things like those that killed Mrs. Valdez worried at the carcass of a dog. Larger things slithered, half-seen in the loathsome crowd of surrounding fungus. She sensed these creatures observing her, their menace palpable, but they did not act. Perhaps they were afraid of armored vehicles. Perhaps they had already eaten.
They proceeded, following the map she still carried, but soon she was forced to halt because of an obstruction. The ruptured curl of an immense fungal cup drooped across one lane. The roadway and surviving buildings were stained by a wash of carmine liquid from the cup’s interior. Black flecks and scraps clung to the curb and gathered in a leafy clot against the storm drain.
“What do we do?” asked Sokov, calling from the hatch of the vehicle he was driving.
Hundreds of bones enrobed in scarlet flesh scattered the road. There were limbs still partially connected by sinews, skulls, wet and glistening, and lurid mushroom stalks already sprouting between the meaty spokes of a ribcage. The quantity of bones spilled out of this velvety cup was sufficient to make a dozen or more complete skeletons. Bits of metal—keys, belts, coins—were strewn about and shined to glittering silver by the enzymes that digested the unfortunate men and women.
She felt sick. Were they dead already? Did they perish in the earthquake, or did they succumb to contagion? The thought of even one man alive and trapped within the fungal cup as the enzyme began to work was too much for her to consider long.
“We drive on,” she finally answered.
There was no choice but to drive through. The pale, questing fingers of mycotic fronds were torn away. The solid rubber tires of the armored vehicles slipped with filth. She could hear the human bones crackling beneath them.
After a moment, Robin joined her in the cockpit. The gas suit she wore was pulled back from her face.
“You shouldn’t take that off,” said Polly. She tapped the yellow warning light blinking on the spore detector. “Every time I open the hatch, I let some of it in.”
“It’s too late for that,” said Robin. “I’m afraid when we were underground I somehow ruptured my suit. I’ve been hoping ... I’m already infected.”
“We can cut it off,” said Polly.
“It’s long past the point of amputation.” Robin lifted her arm. She had surreptitiously bandaged it in Dr. Nandy’s mortuary. She showed the wrappings to Polly, and the spore growth was showing through the gauze. “I can feel it in my lungs, which means it’s in my blood.”
“The treatment,” said Polly. “We can turn around and take you to the hospital that Bishop was operating.”
She knew as soon as she spoke the possibility aloud that it was ridiculous. Dr. Chandrasekar’s treatment was a farce. If it ever worked at all, it was only because of immediate surgery. Polly had never seen anyone recover from spores in the blood.
“No,” said Robin. “I will die. I can’t bring this infection with me onto that ship. I should not even be in this vehicle with everyone else.”
Polly began to argue again, offering other farfetched possibilities, but Robin stopped her and said, “Let me tell you again about my son and daughter.”
She took a wallet out from her pocket and opened the snap. She produced a photograph of a young boy in knee-high socks and a soccer uniform kneeling beside a ball on a grassy field. He was handsome and had hair as sandy blond as his mother’s.
“That’s Clayton, from a few years ago,” said Robin. “He’s older now. His birthday is the nineteenth of June.”
She slid the photograph out of the wallet and passed it to Polly.
“I can’t take this.”
“You have to take it.” Robin slid out another picture, this one of an ecstatic little girl on the back of a Shetland pony. She handed it to Polly. “It’s from Evelyn’s birthday last year. I call her Evie. We were in ... never mind, it’s not important. Her birthday is the tenth of February.”
Robin leaned her head against the carrier’s hull. The infection was spreading so quickly across her arm that Polly could see the tiny fronds of the sting grass unfurling like little worms and widening into minuscule feathers of white.“He likes heavy-metal music and motorbikes and Chinese food. She likes horses and collecting toys and ... there’s a song I used to sing with her ... I can’t remember it now. The one time it matters.”
“I know songs,” said Polly. “Don’t worry. It’s okay.”
“That’s it. ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy.’ She likes that song. And macaroni and cheese.”
“Every kid loves that,” said Polly.
“They are in the UN safe zone in Seattle. You have to reach them. They may be evacuated to Vancouver or to the Soviet military bunkers in Vladivostock. If not there, then to Ostrov Gallya, beneath Cape Tegethoff. It is where the UN has built the biological vault. Konstantin knows the way.”
“I will find them.”
“Promise me.”
Polly looked her in the eye and said, “I swear I will find Clay and Evie, and I will get them out of this.”
Robin took other photographs out of the wallet, including a family picture and a photo of herself and her husband, a gray-haired man in a tweed suit. She took off her wedding ring and a necklace and passed them all to Polly. She put them into her pocket and hugged Robin with the arm she was not using to drive the armored vehicle.
When Robin separated from the hug, she lowered the mask back over her face to conceal her emotion.
When they reached Sugarside, Polly guided the armored vehicle down a switchback earthen ramp to the parking area, which ran along the marina and dockside shops and restaurants. The area was teeming with people. Men, women, and children. They were waving
and signaling to a long, low vessel that lay at anchor out in the waters. Those at the rear of the crowd turned their attention on the PitSec armored vehicles. She expected the crowd to assail the vehicles with stones, but they waved in a friendly manner.
Polly opened the hatch and was met with welcoming cries.
“What is going on here?” she asked the nearest people.
“We followed an angel,” said a young, dreamy-eyed woman. “He came to save us.”
She pointed up the dock to a tall man with a shaved head and a grimy, paint-stained coat. His back was turned to her. He was waving a bedsheet wrapped around the handle of a rake back and forth to get the attention of the vessel anchored out near the breakwater.
“Get everyone out.” Polly spoke to Sokov over the radio. “Stay together. I’m not quite sure what’s going on here, but we’re out of gas, and it’s our best bet.”
The people gathered along the docks were supernaturally calm. Only a few were equipped with any sort of spore masks. They extended handshakes and hugs to the scientists as Polly guided them through the crowd, toward the man waving the makeshift flag. There was a dog and a skinny man with dreadlocks standing alongside him. He turned as she reached the marina’s docks.
“Ninety-ninety,” said Polly.
“Call me Casper.” He shook her hand, was unsatisfied with that, and decided to hug her.
She was dumbfounded, but the dog was the same, and the man, other than a few ugly scabs on his face and a growth of stubble, was the man she had dropped off at St. Philomena’s. As if to confirm this, Father Woodhew approached out of the crowd.
“Polly Foster? Is that who you are?”
“Yes, Father.” She embraced him. “These people need to cover up. The spore storms will be spreading here soon.”
“There’s a ship at anchor out there,” said Casper. “I’ve been trying to signal it for the last ten minutes, but they just watch us through binoculars and do nothing.”
The Republic was waiting for Bishop. She was three hundred and fifty feet in length and had the look of a military vessel. She was liveried in bright white, and her single middle stack was blue capped by red. A red, white, and blue yacht ensign was flying from her masthead. Small radar turned above the pilot house, and figures could be seen moving within the illuminated interior. Men were gathered on the deck in dark uniforms, some with weapons and some with ropes to pull the ship in closer to the dock.
Polly did not hesitate. She took the flare pistol out from her pocket and fired two green flares to signal their arrival. The crowd in the lot cheered as if watching fireworks. White smoke began to emerge from the funnel of the Republic, and she shortly approached the main pier. The men on the deck of the ship immediately set to work mooring her against the dock.
“Who goes there?” One of the crewmen shouted a challenge from the deck as Casper and Polly marched out along the dock at the head of a column of scientists, Marines, and families. Everyone on the crew was a duplicate.
“We’re coming aboard,” said Polly. “Mr. Bishop has told us to take his place on this ship.”
The crew shouted up along a human chain, calling for the captain, and soon a dashing type one in a blue pea coat emerged from the pilot house. He walked to the gunwale and leaned upon it with his elbows. He surveyed the menagerie gathered on the dock. He seemed to remember his station, and he took a rumpled white hat from his pocket and settled it upon his head.
“I suppose we should lower the gangplank,” he declared. “Come on aboard with you. I’m Captain Fellows.”
Smiles broke out on the weary faces as they filed out across the gangplank. Robin said her good-byes to her fellow scientists, though no amount could ever satisfy the gravity of her situation. Polly had to force herself to release the woman from her arms. When she’d gone over to the gangplank to board, she found Casper and his dog bidding farewell to the dreadlocked man they called Bottles.
“I’ll save you a seat at the table,” said Bottles. He paused as he crossed the gangplank and waved a final farewell.
Polly indicated Robin, sitting alone on the pier. “She is staying. She has the spore disease.”
“I’m staying as well,” said Casper.
“What? I don’t know these people. I have to take this ship to Seattle.”
“Take it to Seattle,” said Casper. “I had to get them to the ship, and now I have another obligation. I will stay with your friend until it is time for her to go.”
Polly cast a lingering look at Robin, chin up, gazing out across the waves lapping at the dock’s stone pilings. The sun would be setting soon. Polly crossed over the gangplank and onto the immaculate deck of the Republic. The dashing Captain Fellows was waiting to greet her. He shook her hand vigorously.
“Good to have you aboard,” he said. “You will be treated like Mr. Bishop himself. My vessel is at your disposal.”
The weight of sadness tugged at Polly’s limbs as she stood on the afterdeck and watched the dying city of Los Angeles recede beyond the horizon. All around her were smiles and joyous embraces. For those escaping certain doom, these were the happiest moments of their lives.
Later, as the sun fell against the crashing sea, Casper Cord held Robin Burns in his arms.
“I want to see the sunset,” she said, and then she fell into a prolonged spasm of choking coughs. When she recovered, she smiled weakly and added, “It had better hurry.”
The white of the spore grass had crept across her limbs and body and up her neck. It cradled her chin and sent roots questing above her jawline. Though the sun had nearly slipped below the horizon, he doubted the scientist would see her wish granted.
Behind his shoulder stormy clouds of smoke hung over the city. The atmosphere reminded him of the volcanic ruins of the grasshopper’s world. The parking lot was overgrown with white, and the stalks of blue fruits quivered in the lee of the armored carriers.
A faint yellow glow appeared in the highest clouds above the city. Its light flickered within the clouds as it passed through them toward the veiled ruins of Los Angeles.
“What is that?” asked Robin as the rumble of engines became audible.
The glow passed out of the ceiling of clouds and revealed itself as the line of a missile, descending at great velocity for San Pedro. Several more glowing missiles speared through the smoke all across the area, plunging at equal speeds, like the fragments of a falling star. The dog wagged its tail.
“It’s the sunset,” said Casper.
The stars flashed and light built upon light. Casper, Robin, and the dog were transformed into smoke. The Pool, vast and deep, was freed from its manmade imprisonment by the fire. Its water flowed out and began to overtake the sea.
The sky above the horizon was lit with lingering flashes and those aboard the Republic heard a rumble of distant thunder. Some suspected what this was the end of Los Angeles, but none spoke of it. Through the night they heard jets and saw strange lights in the sky. Just after midnight a terrible screaming began to issue from an unknown source in the darkness. The children were taken below decks. The crew played searchlights across the ocean and the sky looking for the source. It was never found and most agreed that was just as well.
The following morning Captain Fellows notified Polly, Rukundo and the others that the ship’s radar had detected large surface returns. Admiral Haley’s fleet was only a few miles west. None of the vessels were answering the radio.
“Should I avoid the area?” asked Captain Fellows.
“We’ll take a closer look,” said Polly. “Very carefully.”
By mid-morning they spotted the first of the picket ships. A destroyer called Porter. The sea was hidden beneath a dense, white fog. The gray vessel was listing slightly and did not respond to visual signals. They passed it by at a distance of a few hundred yards. Nothing moved and the ship was dark. Soon they spotted other vessels in similarly ominous states. One ship, a supply vessel, was burning out of control. An explosion sent flaming debris arcin
g into the ocean. There was no sign of lifeboats or any survivors in the water.
“We should go away,” said Rukundo. “This place is not safe.”
Polly agreed. The surviving Marines insisted they continue. They had friends aboard Haley’s flagship, the immense aircraft carrier George Wallace, and that vessel had just appeared on the horizon, apparently undamaged. The ship was big as any building Polly could recall. It, like the others, did not respond to any signal. The Marines and a few armed crewmen from the Republic lowered a motor launch into the fog and boarded. After more than three hours they returned.
The boat was raised from the surface. The stricken expressions of the returning men as they came aboard was enough to silence questions. It was just as well, none of the men would speak of what they saw. Captain Fellows conducted a rigorous, private debriefing of his crewmen and decided to keep the details to himself.
“On to Seattle,” said Captain Fellows. “Pray to God we get there before what wiped out Haley’s fleet.”
The journey took three days. During that time the many refugees from St. Philomena’s crowded around civilian band radios, listening to stations along the California and Oregon seaboard as they reported on the spreading disaster. Panic was leading to misinformation.
The harried radio announcers reported every scrap of information, even if it contradicted others. The military was falling back east, leaving the civilians in California to either follow them or perish. Tanks were mounting offensives from Nevada. The President was dead. The President was safe on Air Force One. Some units were mutinying. The military was massacring duplicates in Nebraska. A plane took pictures of San Diego and it appeared as if a thousand years have passed and a strange jungle has grown up in place of the city. Earthquakes wracked the Midwest. The Chinese were in Florida. The Soviets were in Alaska. The acting President requested their military advisors.
Konstantin Sokov was permitted to use the long range radio to communicate with Vladivostok. The connection was intermittent and vulnerable to the increasing atmospheric interference. For a day a military officer named Gergiev beckoned him to come to the bunkers and promised to reunite him with wife. On the second day, after hours of blackout caused by a roiling storm, a Sokov received a terse message advising him to head to the biological vault beneath Cape Tegethoff.