Fungal Tide

by Ian Woodhead

  “That these life forms originated from here?”

  The other archaeologist eagerly nodded before reaching down beside him. “Look at this, Ryan.” He sat up and threw something yellow at him.

  He just managed to get his arms out before the object flew into his chest. Mark chuckled.

  “Don’t worry about damaging that artefact. There are thousands more. Besides, if this carries on, I suspect that there won’t be many humans left to gaze at it through some museum display case.”

  Ryan turned the large skull around and looked into the eye sockets, spotting the changes to the bone structure straight away. Lines of raised bone spidered out from each socket and spread out over the top of the skull. The lines stopped just above the nose. Mark passed him a jaw bone. That looked normal, no sign of the lines. “I don’t understand what this is,” he said. “Apart from this skull and jaw belonged to the other species.”

  “You’re that one who postulated that we were looking at an advanced form of terrestrial life that wasn’t from our evolutionary tree.”

  “Yes, I remember. And you were the one who called me a jumped up dreamer, more interested in fantasy nonsense, backed up with pseudo-science than with reality.”

  Mark sighed. “Yeah, I did say those words. A little unfortunate, considering the circumstances.” The older man took the skull out of Ryan’s hand. “There wasn’t just one species, there were three, all living in some sort of mutual symbiotic community.” He ran his finger along the raised bone lines. Something catastrophic happened to them, Ryan, and I think we’re witnessing the fallout. All the evidence points to a war that wiped them all out.”

  Ryan blinked, not sure if he was listening to the same person. “Just how do you know all of this?” he said very slowly.

  Mark rolled up the fabric by his ankles, revealing a narrow band of white fibre. “It may not look like much, Ryan, but its strands have spread throughout my body, and as it entered my cerebellum, it brought with it genetic history. This fallout will spread, taking its own form of life further afield. We could be witnessing the end of the human species.” The man stood up and walked over to Ryan and grabbed his shoulders. “They were such a beautiful race of creatures, my friend. They understood their world and lived peacefully and in harmony. They created their own heaven on Earth.”

  No matter how hard he tried, Ryan just couldn’t wrap his head around the man’s words. “And the fungus told you all of that?” He pointed to the white fibres advancing across the landscape before looking at the same stuff wrapped around Mark’s ankle. “Just listen to yourself, man. Why would such an intelligent peace loving species create such an invasive lifeform?”

  Mark unexpectedly laughed. “Oh fuck, isn’t it bloody obvious? They were themselves set upon by an invasive lifeform. Us, Ryan, Homo Sapiens. These poor bastards came into contact with our distant ancestors.”

  Ryan shuddered. “I dare not even imagine how our species reacted at that encounter. Wait, let me get this right. They created this stuff to destroy our species? Biological warfare at a genetic level.” Ryan paled when he now understood the reason why his unnamed backers had thrown so much money into this dig. The bastards must have already known what would be here. “Oh hell. What we do, Mark. How can we stop it?”

  His companion looked up, big tears were pouring down his cheeks. “No, Ryan, you don’t understand. They didn’t create any kind of weapon. The hairless apes worshipped these beings at first, believing they were their creators. Then something happened and the tribes of humans attacked them; these poor things never stood a chance against such a violent creature. The few that survived tried to escape.”

  “They hid in these tunnels?”

  Mark shook his head. “No, they tried to escape from their bodies, to separate their souls. Somehow, I don’t think…”

  The man’s words tail away, he moaned softly. Ryan felt the earth beneath his feet tremble. He jerked up at Mark’s trembling face. “What’s happening?”

  The man ran over to a mound of white fibre dangling down the far wall. Mark pulled it back to reveal a tunnel. “The plated hunters are approaching. “Mark licked his lips and passed him a black cube, the size of a plug. “The answers are contained in this. Now go, get out of here before they get here.”

  Ryan dived through the gap and turned around. “I can’t leave you here!” He pushed his arm through the fibres and immediately felt the strands wrap around his wrist and began to squeeze. They only loosened their grip when he tried to pull his arm back. He stood there, shaking, watching Mark walk away from the curtain of fibre. The man turned around. “Go now, Ryan. If the plated hunters catch your scent, the carpet fungus won’t be able to stop them from eating you.”

  The ground shook. And Ryan found himself gazing at the horrifying sight of two ten foot tall, green and yellow creatures, plucked straight from the nightmares of insanity. Their ovoid bodies were covered in horizontal strips of rippled plates, each one interlocking with their neighbour. Ryan found himself drawing comparisons to two giant comice pears in organic suits of armour. The similarity stopped short at the sight of their numerous thick, wet appendages, sliding in and out from above and below their bodies.

  Serrated thorns of different shapes and sizes ringed each tip, with black studs stretching down the length. The things whipped them from side to side, leaving deep scars in the walls.

  His colleague stopped in the middle of the trench and cast his arms apart. Ryan slammed a hand over his mouth to stop himself from screaming out as the creatures moved closer. Their bulk didn’t hamper their agility. Before the appendages found the man’s flesh, Mark turned around.

  “Get away from here!”

  Ryan turned and ran, listening to them rip the man apart. He only slowed down when another noise drowned out the wet sound of the creatures feasting. He could hear helicopters.

  10.

  A Woman’s Work is Never Done

  Her own mother made sure that Joyce Lorraine Jameson would never stoop to muddying the stern principles set in stone by her grandmother over sixty years ago.

  Right up to the day when her mother got so close to pass into the gates of heaven, Rita Jameson recited the family prayer at breakfast. The doctor’s had confined her to bed several weeks ago, explaining that no ninety-eight year old with her problems should even attempt to walk unaided.

  Joyce knew her mother better than anyone and watched with naked delight as her frail mother, weak in body but not in mind, had given that silly man, with his silly comb-over hair, silly cheap suit and silly self important stance, a tongue lashing that sent him fleeing from their house.

  What else did they expect from a man? Okay, so both of them did (secretly agree) that her mother’s health wasn’t as great as past times, but there was no need to treat Rita like some naughty child with a dirty nappy.

  She looked away from the embroidered collection of their principles hung on the wall next to the framed picture of her mother and willed herself not to cry. The tears flowed freely, just like they did every morning. It just wasn’t fair. Why wasn’t her mother getting any better?

  “It’s all that doctor’s fault,” she growled, storming into the kitchen. Of course he had to be the one to blame. He must have given her the wrong dose. Joyce pulled open the cupboard above the microwave and pulled out her box of cornflakes before turning to pull the blender closer to her. She straightened her blue floral dress, then silently recited the family’s third principle.

  She smiled to herself. Listening to herself repeating her favourite line always made her feel better. “Trust not the advice of men.” Joyce carefully poured some cornflakes into the clear plastic container, added a cup of creamy milk and fastened the lid. This morning her mother would join her at the table for breakfast. She flicked the switch and watched the twin blades turn the ingredients into a smooth pale yellow mush. Her mother needed good food, constant company and exercise, not to be pumped full of chemicals that obviously weren’t working. />
  The medicines could stay on the top shelf in the living room until she finished with breakfast. They’d all go once this morning’s cleaning duties started. Joyce sighed to herself while spooning out the mixture into her mother’s green bowl. Perhaps not every principle was so revered. Joyce loved to clean but the family’s fifth principle of ensuring the house was tidy before dinnertime never made much sense to her.

  Joyce filled her red bowl with cornflakes straight from the box, added milk then took both bowls over to the table. Her heart sang with joy at the sight of both bowls on the table. It had been almost three years since her mother sat here, three years of sitting alone. It was enough to drive anybody nuts.

  The news on the TV reported of roadblocks and emergency vehicles. Joyce peered around the doorframe, a little surprised to find it was the local news. It sounded like something that would be happening in one of those far away, uncivilised places. This was happening right now in her town. “How odd,” she said, turning back to the table. As the newsreader was a man, she decided that he was probably just exaggerating the situation. Everybody knew that all men tended to get a little over-excitable. It was their parents’ fault for letting them play with toy guns when they were kids.

  She finished laying the cutlery and hurried through the living room. The newscaster now said that a state of emergency had been declared in Radfield and all citizens should keep calm and stay indoors. Joyce tuned out the silly man

  There was no chance of her staying indoors; that fool obviously didn’t understand that this was shopping day. The local butchers already had her order all sorted out and at precisely two this afternoon Joyce would be at in that shop, inspecting every cut of meat that Jim Bannister had prepared for her. Although the man had never tried to cheat her yet, she had no intention of letting her guard slip. It only took just one casual glance to let that man think he could try and take advantage. Taking advantage ran in that family, they obviously had no principles of their own to adhere to. She’d seen how that wayward son of Jim’s acted whenever he strolled into the shop.

  Joyce turned off the television, halting the man’s speech about white fields in mid sentence. “You silly man, we’re not going to have snow for months.” They just love to show off. Just like that butcher’s son, Gavin. He’d been in the shop a couple of weeks ago, looking like he’d already eaten most of his father’s pies. Gavin just slouched in Jim’s chair with a face set like a spanked bottom while muttering under his breath. Heck, he’d even muttered something obviously derogatory when she’d demanded the butcher open up the bag and roll out the meat on the glass counter. His father hadn’t said anything but she did, oh yes. Just like her mother, Joyce wouldn’t stand for any fools.

  The stairs looked so tall, this morning. Joyce took a deep breath and started to climb them; she’d already set events in motion. Backing out now would mean breaking their family’s seventh principle. As she reached the top, Joyce pondered over their last principle that stated ‘Men do have their uses, on occasion.’ Right now, Joyce would have liked the Bannister lad here with her to carry her mother down these stairs. As she peered down all those step, Joyce began to wonder if it might have been a better idea to just bring the bowls up here instead.

  “Oh heck, I can’t break the seventh, I just can’t.” Joyce turned away from the seemingly impossible task and looked through the window onto the street below. It looked so peaceful out there, and that didn’t feel right. Many of her neighbours had their routines too. Even though none of them stuck to them as closely as she did, Joyce should still see either Mrs Johnson hanging out her washing at this time, or the funny looking old man over the road sitting in his garden. The longer she stared, the more strange she felt. It occurred to her that no cars had passed her house. Considering her road led into the centre of Radfield two miles from here, at least one car should have driven passed.

  A patch of white sticking to the side of Mrs Johnson’s house caught her eyes.

  “Oh heck, could that silly man have been telling the truth?” Joyce pressed her nose against the glass, reminding herself to give this window three wipes instead of the usual two when she started on her cleaning duty. Now that she spotted one patch, Joyce now saw many more patches scattered across the limited view from her window. “That can’t be snow, it’s far too warm.”

  Maybe she ought to go back downstairs and turn on the TV? Joyce moaned softly, watching what looked like a white cat creep towards Mrs Johnson’s bin. It took her a second to realise her mistake, and Joyce’s blood ran cold. “Oh, my heavens!” she turned away from the window, not wanting to torment her eyes with anymore images that didn’t make sense. “Remember principle seven, remember the line,” she chanted running over to her mother’s closed bedroom door. She pushed the handle down and remembering her manners at the last second, opened her mouth to ask for permission to enter.

  “Mother always knows best.” She looked back over at the window at the landing. Even from here, that white stuff was visible. Could she even quote principle seven in this instance? Her mother wouldn’t even be awake yet; how could she even know best?

  “Mother, can I come in?” She didn’t wait for a reply, not now, this was way too important. Joyce pushed open the door, her reason for not waiting was already on the tip of her tongue. She pushed her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down when the white door slid back to reveal that the white stuff had already found its way into her mother’s bedroom. “Oh no!” Joyce ran over to the bed, covered her hand with a spare pillowcase laying on top of her mother’s Church clothes and swept away several strand of white fibre climbing along the bed sheet.

  “You need to wake up, mother!” she yelled, throwing the pillowcase at the mass of alien looking stuff pushing through the window before shaking her mother’s shoulders. “Oh heck, come on, woman!”

  Joyce threw back the covers, lifted the woman’s shoulders, slid her arm under and then pushed her other arm under her mother’s thighs and lifted her off the bed. “Good heaven’s mother, I can’t believe how heavy you’ve got. You weigh twice as much as you did last week, I’m sure of it,” she lied. It felt as though she carried a small child in her arms. “Cleaning duty has been pushed forward to five minutes from now!”

  As she backed towards the door, Joyce watched with disgust as the stuff continued to push into the room, the long strands sticking to the wall, thickening up, forming shapes. Joyce shook her head. No, this couldn’t be real, it had to be a dream. The shapes grew more defined, taking on an almost human form. Joyce automatically hushed her mother when she groaned in her sleep.

  She reached the doorway. “I don’t care what that is. No, I don’t” She looked down at her mother’s sleeping face, so wishing she’d open her eyes, smile and give Joyce some idea of what to do. She backed out of the room and leaned against the wall, wondering how she’d cope if her mother really did wake up, considering two mornings ago she woke up screaming about a fire. It took Joyce over an hour to calm her down. “You’re right there, mother, we do have a can of fungicide left under the sink.”

  “It’s out of date, Joyce.”

  She yelped in utter shock when the deep male voice announced those words. Joyce jerked her head up and saw a huge human shaped lump of white fibres on the other side of the bed. Beneath all that matting, she could make out a dazzling pair of dark blue eyes. “Oh my heavens! Is that really you, Jim?”

  “In a way, I suppose.” The shape pushed forward, nudging the bed an inch closer to the door. “You are a fine looking woman, Joyce, and I’ve waited all my life to tell you that.”

  Joyce edged along the wall, crying when her mother’s favourite framed watercolour fell off the wall. “Leave me alone!”

  “I’ve always given you the best cuts, Joyce! Come back here, join with me.”

  The abomination moved out of sight. She held back her sobs when her mother began to stir in her arms. “It’s okay, mother, don’t start fretting. We’re just going downstairs for breakfast.�
�� She heard the bed legs scraping along the floorboards and resisted the overwhelming urge to shout out. What good would that do anybody?” You’re just a stupid man.” Her mother head suddenly flew back. “Calm down, I don’t want to drop you!” As she reached the top of the stairs she saw all the greenery, brick red and concrete grey obscured by huge moving shapes of black and white. None of what she saw made any sense.

  “Don’t leave me, Joyce!” She growled in disgust, not surprised to hear the sound of whining coming from a man. It’s what they all did. Heck, her father was just the same; it only took a runny nose to send the man to bed, claiming he was dying.

  She carried the woman down the stairs, taking time with every step, acutely aware that the infected butcher was getting closer. She heard him slithering along the carpet. “Will you just get out of my house!”

  Joyce grabbed the edge of the door at the bottom of the stairs to stop her legs from buckling. She turned back and now her own terror found a way through the barriers when the transformed butcher had now grown and expanded his fibres along both walls, growing at an exponential rate, covering every inch of her pale green wallpaper. She screamed, turned and bolted into the living room, reaching her chair before her knees gave way. She still managed to place her mother into the chair without dropping her.

  “Just you wait, Jim,” she muttered, running into the kitchen. All of that vile, dirty stuff flowing through her house just had to go. The very air stunk of mould, foist and vegetable rot. It was a good job that her mother slept. If she did see what had become of the home, the poor dear would probably keel over in shock. Joyce dropped to her knees and pulled open the cupboards under the sink. There it was, just behind the tube of scouring powder. A large yellow plastic container of fungicide, yet to be used. She pulled it out and set it on the counter, pushing away the blender. Her friend Sandra Broadbent told her to get this when her drains were blocked two months ago. It turned out the blockage cleared itself up. Looking behind her and watching those fibres reach around the hallway door, Joyce was so glad she’d bought the stuff.