Spores

by Ike Hamill

  Leonard moaned and jerked his arm. The skin of his wrist was pinched down into the metal seam of the door. When he tugged, it peeled away like putty—stretching a little and then tearing. Just below the cuff of his jacket, his arm ended. There should have been blood gushing out from the wound, but there was nothing. His skin was stuck together at the end of his arm and there was no blood at all. Leonard stared at it in disbelief as he rolled over.

  “When the explosion goes off, the chair will help absorb some of the shock.”

  “What explosion?” he asked. For a moment, he forgot that he was supposed to be ignoring this hallucination of Marie.

  “Orion,” Marie said. “Andrew explained it. Don’t you remember?”

  Leonard was having problems with his memories of Andrew. Sometimes, it seemed like every memory of the man was wrapped up in the weird fantasy of the hunting trip. He had started to think that maybe he had just made up the man entirely. That couldn’t be right though. He had gone to Andrew’s funeral and seen his confused, wide-eyed son standing next to a woman that had to be Andrew’s sister.

  “There are nuclear weapons stored under this pad. When they are activated, we’ll be launched into space.”

  “We would be vaporized, or turned to mush by the force.”

  “No,” she said. “Right now we’re being moved onto a giant shock absorber. This container and others will be accelerated at a rate just below the threshold of killing us. Once we’re far enough away from Earth, the second stage will likely kill us. Mars isn’t currently in the ideal location in its orbit. An extraordinary amount of force will need to be applied to put us on course for Mars.”

  “Then what’s the point?”

  Leonard felt a jolt and the floor shifted underneath him. When he started to crawl back towards the chair, his body didn’t fight him. With his remaining hand, he pulled himself up.

  “We don’t have to survive, just the organisms inside of us. This container will deliver everything needed to for the organisms to colonize their new home.”

  “It’s not sensible. Why would people build a spacecraft that killed the occupants?”

  “They probably thought of it as a last ditch effort. In the event that everything on Earth was going to be destroyed, either through war or natural disaster, Orion would deliver the seeds of life to a new world.”

  Leonard slipped into his seat. Marie was fastening the harness over herself. With one hand, Leonard struggled to get the strap over his shoulder.

  “Do you need help?” she asked.

  Through the walls of the metal box, he heard the tone of the siren elevate to a new level.

  “What’s the point? If what you’re saying is true, then we don’t have long to live. If this is a dream, then none of it matters. Either way, what’s the point?”

  She nodded sympathetically as she unbuckled herself and crossed over to him. It only took her a few seconds to buckle him in and move back to her own chair. Leonard tried to look at his wrist again. Strapped in, he couldn’t get a good view. He closed his eyes and flopped his head back against the chair.

  “This is a shitty dream,” he said. “Of all the delusions I could have had, why did it have to be this apocalyptic hell?”

  “People are driven to reproduce and live on through their progeny,” Marie said. “Part of us will be folded into the organisms. We’ll live on through a brand new species that’s colonizing a new world. Our consciousness will be immortal there.”

  “Great. That’s perfect. Not only kidnapped from my home, but made to suffer forever.”

  “Once we join the ether, there won’t be any suffering.”

  “One thing I know about delusions is that they’re full of suffering. Even if the delusion tells you that everything is going to be okay, it’s just a lie. That’s the worst part. You can’t trust yourself and you certainly can’t trust the thing that’s tricking you.”

  Marie appeared concerned at what Leonard had said. He almost felt bad for bursting her bubble. He remembered that she was the focal point of this whole delusion. To feel sympathy for her was to sympathize with his own oppressor. He refused to do that.

  “I hope that’s not true,” she said.

  Below them, he felt a rumble.

  When the explosion went off, it felt like they were riding the shockwave up. Leonard’s body was compressed by the acceleration. He couldn’t take a breath and he could feel his heart struggling to beat against the force. The world lost focus and he felt something leaking out from his ears and nose. He hoped it wasn’t his brain.

  Everything went black.

  Leonard tried to count off the seconds, thinking that if he could mark the passage of time, it might go faster.

  Before he made it to twenty, the pressure began to ease.

  He heard Marie gasp.

  Leonard blinked until his eyes cleared. The lights were flickering, but he could see her as she tried to pull in a breath. When she coughed, blood spilled down on her shirt. Leonard couldn’t even try to take in air. Even though the pressure was gone, his chest wouldn’t inflate.

  He opened his mouth to ask her what was going to happen next. She seemed to know more than him. It didn’t matter—he couldn’t pull in enough air to ask a question and he doubted that she would be able to answer if he did.

  Still, he heard her voice in his head.

  “I think I’ve been lied to,” she said.

  “Does it matter?” he thought.

  Leonard felt another rumble and then a second blast of pressure. The metal box shook and groaned. He heard a series of pops and bangs and he imagined rivets shearing off. After his eyes went black, Leonard saw stars. At first, he imagined that the flickering dots were simply artifacts of his oxygen-starved brain.

  Then, as the dome of stars rotated, the sun came into view. It was impossibly bright, but he was able to stare straight at it.

  There was a presence by his side.

  “Are we dead?” Marie asked. Her voice was inside his head.

  Leonard corrected himself—he likely didn’t have a head anymore. She was inside his mind.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I doubt it though. A couple of minutes ago, you said we were going to be immortal.”

  “I believed it back then. Now, I’m not so sure.”

  The stars spun, the sun drifted out of his view, and they saw a receding image of the Earth. Over North America, a big circle of a cloud was expanding.

  “What changed?” he asked.

  “As soon as we launched, they released the hold they had on me. The organism inside you was very aggressive. It operated you like a puppet when it needed to, but most of the time it blocked you from knowing it. The one inside me was very coercive. It convinced me that what it wanted to do was the only possible path. When it released its grip on me, just moments ago, it was like a great loss. It was like I had been walking between my parents, gripping their hands while they guided me forward. Suddenly, they were gone. I feel abandoned.”

  Leonard understood the sentiment. Now that they were adrift, if that’s what was really happening, he did feel alone. They were children. They were untethered children, abandoned and alone. The sun spun back into view.

  “They grew us to be their arms and legs,” she said. “We were nothing more than meat vehicles.”

  The Earth swung into view again. It was much smaller now, and the cloud was immense. It stretched across the Atlantic and almost all the way to the Pacific coast.

  “We can’t be seeing this,” Leonard said. “Where’s the container and the chairs that we were strapped to? How are we alive out in space?”

  “I doubt that we are,” Marie said. “Our bodies are merely gateways to consciousness now.”

  Leonard thought about telling her that he didn’t understand. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  “Everyone we know is back there. You think any of them will survive?” he asked.

  “Nobody survives. Not forever.”

  “Exc
ept us?”

  “I hope not,” she said.

  As the Earth swung out of view again, Leonard sensed the foreign world that they were moving towards. He didn’t know how long the journey would take, or if he would be able to sense it when they arrived. He guessed that the other consciousness knew, but it couldn’t or wouldn’t pass along the information. Leonard realized that he was one of them now. He was helpless to do anything but watch what unfolded around him.

  * * * * * * *

  Ike Hamill

  April, 2018

  Topsham, Maine

  About Spores

  I hope you enjoyed Spores as much as I did. I’ve been thinking about some of these ideas for a long time. It was a relief to get them out of the back of my brain. I like remote cabins, snowmobiles, and frozen lakes. I like people who slowly change as they become possessed. And I really like an unexpected twist or turn here or there. I tried my best to capture all of those in Spores. I hope that I managed to plant some of those images into your brain.

  Some of the things mentioned in this book are real. Terence McKenna talked about the idea that mushrooms were alien probes and that we could join our consciousness with that of the aliens. There are plenty of examples of viruses, bacteria, and fungi that are parasites which take over the host in one way or another. Finally, there was a Project Orion that sought to launch spacecraft using nuclear explosions. All I did was take these outlandish concepts and put them together in one place.

  As always, if you have any questions, comments, or arguments, you can find me on email (ikehamill@gmail.com), Twitter (http://twitter.com/ikehamill), or Facebook (http://facebook.com/ikehamill). I would be thrilled to hear from you.

  All my best,

  Ike

  Madelyn’s Nephew

  Gather my bones, if you find them. If a bear hasn’t dragged them off, or a wolf cracked them for my marrow. My skull goes on the wall with the others. Any other remains can be planted near Sacrifice Rock. That’s where my grandfather is buried, and where I dug up the skull of my beloved grandmother.

  Her sweet eyes were still wise and kind, even when I only imagined them from their hollow sockets. She taught us so many things—how to hunt, trap, and fish. She should have taught me how to live alone. I never learned the trick of scaring away the ghosts. They won’t shut up and leave me in peace. Guess I can’t beat them. I’ll have to join them.

  —Madelyn

  Inhabited

  They were looking for an adventure—a night of harmless fun. Miguel has a map. Kristin’s friend has the equipment. The mine leads to the cave, and the cave is where they’ll find their fortune.

  But down in the darkness, something waits.

  It needs them.

  The caves hold a secret. They’re Inhabited.