The Fungus

1

They did a wide detour to the south of Oxford, almost as far south as Abingdon, and then sped across country until they encountered the M40 north of High Wycombe. They had only made one stop along the way. They’d both grown used to seeing the increasingly bizarre growths as they penetrated deeper into the infected area—such as the red candy floss-like fungus that hung from the branches of most of the trees, and the colonies of huge mushrooms and toadstools, some of which were over 20 feet tall—but as they were driving across a field Slocock suddenly swore and braked the truck.

“What the hell is that?” he asked, pointing to a growth a few yards away. It looked like the erect penis of a sleeping giant. It was about six feet high and its head or cap was covered with a thick black slime. Several birds were stuck fast in the stuff, their feathers plastered to their bodies. A few of them were still struggling, but the rest were still

“Looks like an oversized version of phallus impudicus,” said Wilson, “Also known more commonly as the stinkhorn. Usually they only grow up to between six and nine inches in length.”

Slocock stared at the thing. “I need a drink. I feel sick. Go fetch me a bottle of scotch, would you? I promise you no tricks.”

“Sure. As soon as I happen to look the other way I get the bottle on my head.” He gestured with the .38. “Get going.”

When they reached the M40 Wilson decided to check on Kimberley. He switched on the intercom and asked her if she was okay. Her reply alarmed him.

“Get back here right away, please, Barry!” she cried, sounding on the edge of panic. “Quickly!”

Deciding it would be safe to leave Slocock alone, as there was nothing he could use as a weapon in the cab, Wilson opened the hatch and crawled through.

He was startled to see her standing there naked, a small mirror in her hand. She looked distressed.

“Barry, you’ve got to help me! I’ve tried to look everywhere but I’m sure there are places I can’t see, even with the mirror.” She turned her back to him. “Is there any of it growing there? Please check carefully.”

He’d realized by then what she was talking about. He was shocked at the state she was in. He’d pegged her as someone who would never lose their self-control and it was disturbing to see her going to pieces like this.

He examined her back and pronounced her clear of any fungal growth.

She bent over, practically shoving her bottom in his face. “What about down there?” She parted her buttocks. He looked, reflecting that in other circumstances his feelings about what she was doing would be very different. Instead her panic was beginning to infect him too. He became aware of several itchy patches on his body. He told her he couldn’t see any fungus on her.

She still wasn’t satisfied and made him examine the back of her neck and head.

“Look,” he said as he probed through her hair, “this is all a waste of time. If we find any sign of infection on us it’s already too late. Why not just calm down? There’s nothing you can do.”

She spun round, eyes flashing angrily. “I’m not going to let myself turn into one of those things. Look at me! I’m beautiful, aren’t I? Do you think I could stand to have that horrible stuff growing on me? Spreading through me?”

“But how can you stop it?”

She indicated a nearby can of powerful solvent. “I’d burn it off. And if that didn’t work I’d kill myself. At least I’d die clean.”

He knew she meant what she said. Brutally he said, “You should have thought of all this before you volunteered to come here.”

“But I was sure the Megacrine would protect us! I can’t understand why it failed.”

In an attempt to calm her down he said, not really believing it himself, “Perhaps that other stuff you’ve been pumping into us is the important factor. The—” He couldn’t remember the drug’s name.

“Inosine pranobex?” She shook her head. “The two human guinea pigs back at Bangor were on that too, but it didn’t help them.”

“But they were already dying. They both had cancer. Their immune systems were no longer functioning properly. But we three are all healthy. The drug may be giving us an edge those two poor bastards didn’t have.”

He was satisfied to see a faint touch of hope appear in her eyes. “I suppose that is possible,” she said slowly. “Their T-lymphocyte cells, even with their number increased, would have been concentrated around the tumors. They wouldn’t have been able to cope with an invasion of fungal cells as well.”

“Right,” he said with more confidence then he felt. “Now calm down and get dressed.” He found one of Slocock’s bottles and opened it. He took several long swallows and then offered the whiskey to her. “Drink some of this. Doctor’s orders.”

She even managed a brief flicker of a smile as she took the bottle.

When he left, she was getting dressed. She seemed to have recovered most of her composure, but he suspected the crisis had only temporarily been averted.

Back in the driver’s cab he handed Slocock the cup of whiskey he’d decided to bring back with him. Might as well try to keep everyone happy.

Slocock took it without thanks and drained it in one gulp. He expelled a satisfied burp and said, “So what’s the trouble back there?”

“Nothing. She was having a panic attack for no reason.” Yet, he added to himself.

“You reassured her, eh?”

“Yeah, sort of.” He scratched at an itchy patch on his chest.

“You give her a quick poke as well?”

“What?” He looked at Slocock in surprise. “No, of course I didn’t.”

“You should have. You’re the one with the power now. She’ll be ripe for you. Just come on a bit strong with her. She likes that. But I guess you know that already. I figure you were eavesdropping last night on the intercom.”

“As my old friend Flannery once said, ‘Life is nothing but a giant cesspool, which is why it’s advisable to swim with your mouth shut’.”

He opened the front of his overalls and examined the itchy patch on his chest. The skin still looked bright pink but there was no sign of anything else. He wondered how’d he’d react when he did find something.

As they came nearer to London the fungus got worse. The built-up areas they were passing through were totally unrecognizable beneath their surreal fungal coverings and it was only when they saw a barely visible sign for Denham that they knew where they were.

Houses were soft mounds, all traces of man-made sharpness gone. Between the buildings grew the giant mushrooms and toadstools, and occasionally giant white puff-balls the size of radar domes. The fungi were clearly the victors in this brief war between them and mankind. Very soon there would be no trace left of humanity’s handiwork. Or of man himself.

But for the moment the former dominant species was still in evidence. Wilson kept glimpsing people in the street or standing in fungus-draped doorways. Not that they still looked like people. Every one he saw had been blighted by the fungus in some way. If there was a small percentage of people who possessed some miraculous immunity to infection, he saw no sign of them. If they existed at all, perhaps they were in hiding.

Past Denham they began to encounter difficulties on the highway. A continuous thick carpet of hyphae grew on all the road surfaces. This presented no real problem to the Stalwart’s tires; however in places great ropy strands stretched across the road like jungle suspension bridges.

Most of the time the truck was capable of breaking through them, but eventually they came to a section where the strands grew so thickly, the vehicle was forced to come to a halt.

“We’re stuck!” exclaimed Wilson, staring around. “It’s like being in the middle of a giant spider’s web!”

“We could burn our way through the rest of the stuff. There’s not much more ahead,” said Slocock. “But—” He didn’t go on.

“But what?”

“But you’ll have to do it. I don’t like—” He swallowed and went on. “I don’t like handling flame-throwers. But I’ll show you how to operate the damn thing.”

Wilson hesitated. Was this a trick? A scheme to get the upper hand somehow? He sounded genuine, though. He seemed actually embarrassed at having to admit this weakness.

Wilson decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Okay. Let’s get outside.”

On the way through the rear compartment Wilson explained the reason for the stop to Kimberley. She insisted on putting on one of the anti-contamination suits before they opened the back doors. He was impatient at the delay, knowing that the suit’s protection was probably only an illusory one now, but thought it best to humor her.

When they stepped outside they entered a bizarre, fairyland world of bright colors and soft, furry surfaces. Even speech sounded alien in this strange new environment with the omnipresent fungus absorbing all vibrations. The result was an awful, muffled stillness in the air.

Wilson stood unsteadily on the springy substance covering the road while Slocock extracted one of the flame-throwers from its locker. Not only was he keeping a suspicious eye on Slocock, he was also trying to watch the numerous figures he glimpsed lurking in the buildings on either side of the street.

Slocock handed him the flame-thrower and from then on all his attention had to be on it while Slocock explained how it worked. Slocock showed him how to light the burner and then how to operate the valve that would send the gas-ejected fuel spurting out some 15 to 20 feet. “Remember, short bursts only,” warned Slocock, his distaste for the weapon all too evident on his face.

As Wilson struggled into the harness Slocock dryly offered to hold the Sterling for him. Wilson just smiled without saying anything. He stuck the .38 in the front pocket of the overalls where it was within easy reach and took hold of the business end of the flame-thrower, which needed both hands.

Slocock had backed the truck several yards from the fungus strands that had blocked them, giving Wilson plenty of room to use the flame-thrower. As he unleashed the terrible stream of liquid fire with its deafening roar he quite understood Slocock’s phobic dislike of the weapon. It was indeed an infernal device.

The fungus offered no resistance to the fire. The thick strands blackened, bubbled, then melted away, leaving only an awful stink in the air. Wilson had soon burned his way through most of them.

A warning shout from Slocock between bursts made him look round. He saw four misshapen figures rushing toward them. All were carrying clubs. One had an axe. Behind them, further back, a larger group was massing on the side of the road.

He acted without thinking. He spun round and sprayed the four nearest figures with the liquid fire.

One of them went down as if hit by a high-pressure hose. He, or she, went rolling across the fungus-covered road scattering burning fragments like a catherine wheel. The other three, who hadn’t taken the full brunt of the jet of fire, staggered about flailing their arms as their fungal crusts burned fiercely. They made hideous, high-pitched wailing sounds that cut like a knife into Wilson.

Shocked at what he’d done, he stood there staring at them helplessly, the lowered snout of the flame-thrower still dribbling fire onto the fungus matting. He was only dimly aware of the bigger group fleeing in all directions.

“Quickly, damn it!” he heard Slocock shout. “Before they make another try.”

He snapped back into life and followed Slocock to the rear of the Stalwart. Slocock switched the weapon off, then helped Wilson out of its harness. They flung it into the locker and then hurried inside, slamming the door. Kimberley, still encased in her suit, made urgent gestures at them as they pushed by her towards the front cab but Wilson was in no mood to explain the situation to her.

When he reached the cab he saw that two of his victims were, horrifyingly, still writhing as they burned. The other two were unmoving, blackened shapes.

While Slocock started the engine Wilson pulled down the mini-gun control and starting firing blindly. Eventually he managed to hit his targets. They shuddered and stopped moving.

“Don’t waste any more bullets,” cautioned Slocock as he sent the truck surging forward. The Stalwart cut through the remaining strands of the fungus and sped down the road.

“Why did they attack us?” cried Wilson, the image of the four fungus-covered figures enveloped in flames still searing his retinas. “I didn’t mean to do that to them.”

“A good thing you did. Otherwise, we’d be dead by now.”

“But why did they attack? We weren’t threatening them at all.”

“But we were threatening their beloved fungus. Killing it.”

“Their beloved fungus. What do you mean?”

“Who knows what those poor bastards think anymore in all that stuff? I reckon it’s a case of ‘if you can’t beat it, join it.’ The ones the fungus doesn’t kill probably feel grateful to it, despite being turned into walking mushrooms.”

Their progress towards the center of London got slower and slower. Often the roads were blocked completely and they had to make numerous detours until they could find an alternate route. On one occasion, as they were traveling through what they guessed to be Wembley, they were stopped dead by a huge toadstool that completely filled the road. Its trunk—it was too big to be called a stem—was at least 15 feet in diameter and its cap dwarfed the houses on either side of the street.

Then later, as they were crawling along the Harrow Road past Kensal Green, they were attacked by another mob—a big one numbering several hundred. They emerged from the surrounding, suffocating dreamscape like creatures from the worst nightmare imaginable. Large creatures, slow and bulbous, with stubby appendages, bearing iron bars, bricks and bottles. They formed a solid line across the road in front of the truck. Slocock didn’t slow down.

Missiles began to hit the windshield, some bouncing off, some shattering.

The Stalwart plowed into the mass of obscenely soft bodies. Wilson’s stomach turned over as he heard the thud, thud of the impacts and felt the big wheels going over things.

There were muffled cries. A spurt of greenish liquid suddenly obscured part of the windshield.

Wilson threw up.

Then the truck started to slow down, its wheels spinning as it fought a losing struggle with the mass of bodies around and in front of it.

“Shoot, for Christ’s sake, shoot!” yelled Slocock as he fought to push the truck onward.

Wilson hesitated for only a few moments. He told himself the creatures out there were no longer people. The fungus had turned them into something else.

He opened fire with the minigun and then the big machine gun. The things that were still capable of movement began, at last, to scatter.

The engine strained as the truck attempted to climb the soft, slippery mound in front of it.

A lurch as the cab tilted back—and then they were over it and free.

Slocock sent the truck hurtling down the Harrow Road, smashing through anything that got in his way, no matter what it or who it was.

They were just passing what Wilson barely recognized as the turning into Ladbroke Grove when in front of them stepped yet another missile-wielding creature. But this one was holding a bottle with a rag stuffed into the top. And the rag was burning.

The creature flung the gasoline bomb too soon. Instead of hitting the truck, it shattered on the road ahead of them. But at the sight of the spreading pool of fire Slocock screamed and tugged violently on the wheel.

The Stalwart went into an uncontrollable skid. It shot across the road and straight into the corner of a fungus covered building.

Wilson felt himself flung forward into the windshield, and then there was nothing but blackness.

2

Chaos. Pain. Confusion.

Wilson was battered by all three as he floated up from unconsciousness. His head throbbed and there was a taste of blood in his mouth. What had happened? And what was making that terrible noise?

He opened his eyes, trying to orientate himself. It took him several seconds to realize that the Stalwart was now lying on its side. It had tipped over onto the passenger side and he was wedged up against the door.

There was no sign of Slocock. The emergency hatch was still sealed, so that meant he must have gone through to the rear compartment.

Clang. The cab vibrated from yet another violent impact. It sounded as if someone was using a sledge-hammer. He could also hear hoarse cries and yells. Lots of them.

He couldn’t see anything through the windshield—it had frosted over from the crash—and all he could see through the window on the driver’s side, now above him, was the evening sky.

Wilson struggled to extricate himself from his awkward position. At the same time he groped for the Sterling submachine gun. He couldn’t find it. It was gone. So was the .38.

Something filled the window above him. He looked up and saw a head that resembled a Halloween pumpkin. It hissed at him. At that moment the windshield caved inward and Wilson was showered with powdered glass. He shut his eyes and raised an arm to protect himself.

He felt a rush of warm, moist air and then there were hands pulling at his body. Hands that seemed to be encased in thick, soft mittens.

He tried to fend them off, his flesh crawling at their touch and at the thought of the infection they carried, but there were too many of them. Despite his struggles he was inexorably dragged out of the cab through the shattered windshield. Like a turtle being ripped out of its shell, he thought. I’m totally defenseless now. They’ve got me.

They were everywhere he looked. Caricatures of human beings. The pure stuff of nightmare. Some were doubled over from the weight of fungal growth they carried on their bodies, some were thin and partially eaten away, covered in only a sheen of mold. And others were so deformed by the fungus it was hard to believe they were of human origin at all.

Making nerve-jangling cries they hustled him over the rubble to the rear of the truck. He glimpsed a white suit in the midst of another throng of the creatures ahead, then saw the familiar short black hair and pale face. He shouted Kimberley’s name and heard her cry his in return. But then she was swallowed up in the mass of obscenely soft, fungus-coated bodies.

At least she was still alive, he thought as he was halfshoved, half-carried along the Harrow Road, back along the way they’d come, but what had happened to Slocock?

Slocock fought to control his panic. His biggest fear was that the truck would be hit by another petrol bomb. He wanted to get out through the emergency hatch and get as far away from this death trap as he could, but his soldier’s conditioning warned him to resist the urge. It would be, he knew, suicide to venture out there unarmed.

So he forced himself to take a deep breath, and then began to hunt around under Wilson’s crumpled body for the Sterling. As he did this, to his surprise, Wilson groaned. He’d presumed he was dead. Well, thought Slocock, he soon would be, and good riddance. He located the Sterling and also the revolver. For a moment he was tempted to put a bullet through Wilson’s head, but decided not to bother. Why waste ammunition?

Ammunition. Again he stopped himself from using the emergency hatch. Instead he maneuvered open, with difficulty, the hatch leading into the back of the truck and crawled through.

The rear compartment was a shambles. Kimberley, still in her anti-contamination suit, was moving feebly under an oxygen cylinder that had come loose from its wall bracket.

He pulled the cylinder off her, then ignored her as he set about collecting several full clips of 9mm ammunition for the Sterling. He shoved them into his belt and was about to open the rear door when he thought of something else.

His prayers were answered. One bottle of whiskey had survived the crash. He picked it up and smiled at it as if greeting his dearest friend.

By then Kimberley had taken her helmet off and was struggling to stand up. “What happened?” she gasped.

“Bit of an accident. Drove into the side of a house,” he said as he got the door to the airlock open. “Better get moving if you’re coming with me.”

Kimberley gave a groan of pain as her left leg buckled beneath her and she fell. “My leg!” she cried. “You’re going to have to help me!”

“Sorry. It’s every man for himself. Beside, you’d only slow me down.” He hauled himself up into the airlock, which now lay horizontal at chest height, taking care not to break the bottle of whiskey.

“You can’t just leave me!”

“Watch me.” He pushed the outer door open, slid through the airlock, then jumped down to the ground. He almost slipped on the fungal matting but managed to keep his balance. It was fortunate that he did. Three lumbering figures were coming straight toward him, clubs in their hands. They were less than five yards away.

Operating the Sterling with just one hand—he was holding the scotch in the other—he sprayed them with bullets. All three of them dropped but in the grey twilight he could see more of them coming down the Harrow Road towards the crashed Stalwart.

He hurried across the intersection and into Ladbroke Grove. It was difficult running on the slippery, yielding surface but by adopting a kind of sliding shuffle he found he could keep up a fair pace.

He crossed over the bridge that spanned the Grand Union Canal. The canal itself couldn’t be seen. It was concealed beneath a thick profusion of different fungi, some of them quite huge. The plentiful supply of water had obviously allowed the fungi to grow even larger than usual along the canal’s route. The giant, brightly colored toadstools marched in both directions in straight columns as if someone had deliberately arranged them in formation.

Slocock hurried on and then took cover beside a fungus draped building that he felt instinctively had once been a pub. He set his bottle down carefully between his feet and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.

They came hurrying along the road, using the same sort of shuffle he had. There were only about a dozen of them. He guessed the rest of the mob he’d seen were concentrating on the truck. He felt a momentary pang of regret at having had to leave Kimberley behind, but quickly suppressed it.

When the shuffling group had passed his hiding place he stepped out and opened fire. He got most of them with the long burst but two were still standing when he’d emptied the clip.

Unhurriedly he pulled the empty clip out, threw it away and replaced it with a fresh one. The two creatures hesitated, then started toward him. He felt strangely calm and detached as they approached. Even when one of them spoke, unexpectedly, in a clear, educated woman’s voice he experienced no real surprise. He was beyond surprise.

“Don’t shoot,” she said. “We just want to talk to you.” He let them get closer. One of them was holding a crowbar. When they were about six feet away and he could plainly see the loathsome details of the crusts that covered them he opened fire.

As the bullets smashed into them they were both sent sprawling backward, but the one with the crow-bar flung it at Slocock as he, or she, fell. He dodged to one side and the bar missed him. But then it bounced off the fibrous wall behind and landed right on the whiskey bottle.

Slocock stared down in distress at the shattered remains. He felt like crying.

He walked over to the two fallen fungus victims and kicked the nearest one in the side. His boot penetrated the crust and body beneath it by several inches, making a dry snap sound. When he pulled the boot free he saw a greenish liquid begin to trickle out of the cavity he’d made.

Incuriously he examined the other corpse. This one was lying in a pool of ordinary red blood. He wondered if this was the woman. He also wondered, if he ripped off all the fungal crusts, whether he’d find the body of a perfectly ordinary woman underneath.

He doubted it, but the idea made him think of his wife Marge. They’d had some good times together, at first. But then he’d realized their sexual needs were out of sync. He’d never thought of himself as undersexed, but she had made him feel that way after a while. She wanted it every night, no matter what. And when he couldn’t manage it every night, or at least without being able to conceal the effort it took, she began to nag and taunt him about it, which only made the situation worse. And after that things just went to pieces.

Where was she now? he wondered idly. He knew she’d moved to London after leaving Aldershot, but she’d never sent him her new address. Was she still alive, and if so, did she look like one of these things lying on the ground in front of him?

His thoughts turned to Kimberley and their love-making of the night before. Again he felt regret at having to leave her behind and briefly considered returning to the truck, but he dismissed it as a suicidal idea. There had been too many of the things coming down the road and, hell, it was probably too late now.

But the thought that he might never see again a plague-free, naked woman in whatever time he had left depressed him profoundly. “Christ, I need a drink,” he muttered and stared wistfully at the broken bottle.

Then he walked back to the building and peered in through the strands of fungus that clung to the window. It was a pub, he realized.

He picked up the crowbar and started to prise the door open. The wood, riddled with fungus, disintegrated immediately and he was able to step into the gloomy interior. The stink in there was bad and he held his nose while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Despite the spongy growths that looked like giant green egg yolks covering the walls, ceiling and floor, Slocock saw that he was in a bar. A shapeless mound by one wall had to be the bar itself.

He made his way to it, stepping warily around the circular growths on the floor. He was about to step behind the bar when a hand grabbed his ankle.

He glanced down and saw what appeared to be an emaciated human arm protruding from an oblong mound of fungus on the floor. He pulled his leg free and stepped back, the Sterling ready to fire.

A reedy, whispery voice said to him, “Help me—please help me.”

Slocock began to make out what the shape on the floor was. It was a man, or rather the remains of a man. His body seemed to be part of the fungus growing out of the floor, though apart from his head, his torso, and one arm there wasn’t much left of him.

“Help me,” the thing whispered.

“Sure thing,” said Slocock with a smile and pulled the trigger. “Closing time, pal.”

He then went behind the bar and began wiping aside the moss-like growths covering the bottles and glasses. The labels had been eaten away but he was soon able to identify a full bottle of scotch. He opened it and took a long drink. “Canadian Club,” he told himself happily.

He went to the front of the bar and perched himself on top of a fungus-draped bar stool. Its upholstery was gone but its tubular steel frame was still solid. The fungus squelched under his buttocks.

He placed the Sterling on the pulpy surface of the bar and then laid out the spare clips of ammunition beside it. There were four of them left. Thirty-two rounds in each. One hundred and twenty-eight bullets, plus what was left in the clip on the gun. Oh, and the four bullets left in the.38. He smiled and took another long drink from the bottle. He’d be able to kill a hell of a lot of things with all that, provided he used the ammunition sparingly.

It was going to be a good night.

Wilson had given up trying to resist. Now he just let himself be carried away by the tide of shoving and pulling creatures. He was dimly aware that he and Kimberley—he got brief glimpses of her up ahead—had been dragged back up along the Harrow Road to the spot where they’d first encountered the big mob.

And now he was being hustled through some gateway and down a lane. In the fading light he saw that they were inside a large, sprawling cemetery, the tombstones still visible among the fungi. He was mildly surprised; he’d driven along the Harrow Road many times but had never really noticed the existence of this large place before.

The horde of creatures surrounding them seemed to be increasing in size as they were carried along a lane bounded on both sides by a profusion of fungal growths amid tall obelisks and blockhouse-like mausoleums. Wilson guessed that the cemetery was a more than ideal source of nourishment for the fungi.

The lane widened and Wilson saw that they were approaching a strange building that seemed to be a Victorian reproduction of a Greek or Roman temple. In spite of the fungus growing on it he could see the rows of columns extending out on either side from a tall central structure, forming a square with one side open.

Dominating this curious scene was the biggest fungus Wilson had ever seen. It grew in the center of the square beside the main building which it easily dwarfed. It was either a mushroom or a toadstool and it stood at least 40 to 50 feet high.

He saw several of the fungus victims fall on their knees as they approached it and he realized, with a shock, that they were praying to it.

Then the mob formed a circle in front of the giant fungus, or rather beneath it as its huge cap was about 100 feet in diameter.

Wilson saw Kimberley thrust into the center of the circle. She staggered a few feet and fell. She was obviously having trouble walking. He struggled against the ones who held him, but couldn’t break free. He was forced to watch helplessly as several of the creatures converged on Kimberley.

They pulled the contamination suit off her, then stripped her of her clothes. After that they pinned her on her back on the ground, her body spread-eagled.

What were they going to do to her, he wondered frantically. Rape her?

No; he soon saw that the violation of her body they intended was not a sexual one.

One of the creatures came forward carrying an armful of colored fungus. He kneeled beside Kimberley and began to rub chunks of the material over her body.

Kimberley screamed and struggled but soon her body was soaked with juices from the fungus.

And then they forced pieces of the stuff down her throat. After that they backed away from her, watching her as she writhed on the ground, choking and retching.

Wilson was suddenly propelled forward into the circle.

It was his turn now.

3

Wilson’s arms ached. He’d been tied to one of the columns for several hours, his arms pulled back behind him and secured by thick strands of woven fungus.

The night was pitch-black apart from the faint illumination provided by the moon. He could just make out the pale shape of Kimberley’s body similarly tied a few columns away. He had tried speaking to her, but she wouldn’t answer. She seemed to be well and truly sunk in her personal pit of despair.

He shifted his position in yet another vain attempt to ease the strain on his arms. And he was also dying for a drink of water. It was a hot night and the air was thick with humidity and the fecal odor of the fungus.

He stank of it himself. His whole body was smeared with it, it was in his hair, and he could still taste it from the time they had forced him to eat the stuff and swallow its juices.

After the “ceremony” he and Kimberley had been tied naked to the columns, and their captors had settled down to wait. Wilson had quickly realized what they were waiting for, and so had Kimberley, to judge by her frightened sobbing.

Every so often one of the creatures would come and examine them, looking for signs that the fungus was growing on them. So far the examinations had proved negative, to his intense relief, but he knew it could only be a matter of time before one of them, or both, displayed the inevitable stigmata. What would happen then he had no idea. Presumably they’d be released to be full-fledged members of this fungus-loving crowd.

What a total fiasco, he told himself bitterly. Instead of even beginning to search for Jane and her papers he’d ended up in this situation. No transportation, no weapons, not even any clothes—and certainly not even the remotest hope of achieving what he’d come here to do. He had begun to realize that the whole mission had been a wild long-shot from the very start.

He heard a sound, turned and saw a shadowy outline shuffling towards him. Most of their captors seemed to be sleeping now but one or two had obviously stayed awake to carry out the inspections.

Then, as the bulbous figure drew nearer, Wilson saw the moonlight being reflected off something in his hand. Something metallic.

He had a knife.

What was this? Had they got tired of waiting? Or was this some kind of ritual sacrifice? Wilson tried to edge his way around the column, but he was bound too tightly.

He tensed himself as the creature halted beside him, waiting for the awful pain of the knife blow.

“Dr. Wilson, I presume?” wheezed a soft voice.

Wilson was so startled he was unable to reply.

“Dr. Wilson?” repeated the voice. “Dr. Barry Wilson?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice cracking. “Who are you?”

“A great fan of your Flannery books, Dr. Wilson. I thought your last one, The Meaning of Liffey, was marvelous.”

“Uh, thanks.” Wilson couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. Was it some fungus-induced hallucination?

The creature made an odd, rustling sound that Wilson realized he’d heard before. Then, “Sorry, Dr. Wilson. Couldn’t resist my little joke. I still have a sense of humor if not much else. My name is Dr. Bruce Carter. I’ve been waiting for you.” He began slicing through the strands with his knife.

Wilson remembered the Public Health investigator on the video. He felt a surge of renewed hope as he was cut free. “God!” he cried. “How on earth did you find us?”

“Shush, not so loud or you’ll wake our friends. I’ll explain everything later. First let’s get your companion free.”

Kimberley raised her head as they approached her and said in a dull, apathetic voice, “What are you doing?”

“Escaping,” said Wilson, and told her who Carter was.

Her reaction was to mutter, “What’s the use? We might as well stay here. We’re finished. I can feel it growing on me.”

As Carter cut her free of the bindings Wilson quickly ran his hands over her face, torso and limbs. Her skin felt smooth to his touch. “You’re fine,” he told her. “Come on, get up. We’re getting out of here.”

He pulled her to her feet. She leaned against him and groaned. “My leg. I hurt my knee when the truck crashed. I don’t think I can walk.”

“You’d better,” he said roughly. “I certainly can’t carry you.”

With Carter in the lead, and Kimberley hobbling painfully, they picked their way quietly through the mass of sleeping creatures. Even though Wilson knew they were human beings under their fungal shells he was unable to regard them as people any longer. And he was thankful the darkness prevented him from getting a good look at Carter.

They made it to the lane that led through the cemetery to the entrance. As they hurried along it as fast as they could, which wasn’t very fast due to Kimberley’s leg and the fact that Carter couldn’t manage much more than a shuffle, Wilson began to relax a little. He again asked Carter how he’d found them.

“Knew you… were coming,” he wheezed with difficulty. “Intercepted radio messages meant for you. Posted lookouts on the main western approaches still open into London there are still a few of us who can call our brains our own, though for how much longer I don’t know. My own thoughts are getting stranger all the time—a sign the fungus is affecting my mind.”

He paused to suck in air, making a sound like water going down a drain.

He continued, “The physiological changes the fungi are imposing on their unwilling hosts are quite interesting from the scientific point of view. The effects are many and varied, but there does seem to be a major trend toward the mutating fungi somehow harnessing human intelligence for their own survival purposes.

“But I’m digressing—another indication of mental deterioration, I fear—I was telling you how I came to be here.

The look-out I’d posted south of here heard all the shooting and guessed it might be you. He fired a flare to alert me and I came as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast, I’m afraid.

I found your abandoned vehicle and knew it was you.”

“But how did you know we’d be in that weird temple place back there?”

“That’s where they take all their victims. They hunt for people who don’t show any signs of infection. There are a few such around—natural immunity, I gather—but they are very rare. If they still don’t get infected in spite of everything our friends at the temple do to them, they are then killed as heretics. Like one of those old witchcraft trials—you can’t win either way.”

Kimberley gave a piercing shriek. Wilson turned and got a fleeting impression of something rushing at them out of the darkness. He pushed Kimberley to one side and struck blindly at the shape.

He felt his fist make contact with something brittle. There was a sound like a stalk of celery being snapped in two. At the same moment something hard caught him a glancing blow on his left shoulder.

Dazed, he swung his fist again but met nothing but empty air. Then he discovered that his attacker was stretched out on the ground in front of him.

Wilson knelt down and gingerly examined the thing with his fingertips. He said wonderingly, “Damn, its neck’s broken. I didn’t hit it that hard.”

“Many of them are so riddled with the fungus, their bodies are becoming extremely fragile,” said Carter. “They are probably more fungus than human now. I suspect the same thing is happening to me—uh oh, listen!”

In the distance, from the direction they’d come, there was a murmur of voices—a kind of angry buzzing as if a bee hive was slowly coming to life.

“I’m afraid the lady’s cry carried too far,” wheezed Carter. “They’ll be coming after us.”

Wilson stood up. He was now holding the iron bar that the creature had attacked him with. He took Kimberley by the arm.

They weren’t far from the entrance. As they emerged into Harrow Road Wilson hesitated. “How far are we from the truck?” he asked Carter urgently. “I was confused on the way here.”

“About half a mile.”

The murmur of angry voices was getting closer now. “We’ll have to try and make it. Come on, as fast as you can!”

It was downhill, but as the three of them slipped and staggered along the fungus-covered roadway Wilson realized their pursuers would catch them before they reached the truck.

He voiced his fear to Carter, who was wheezing painfully as he shuffled along. His reply was hard to hear. “Might… be… able… to slow… them down,” he gasped. “Noticed some bird’s nest fungi—on the way here.”

About 50 yards further on he veered toward the high wall that bounded the cemetery. As Wilson followed him he saw a large number of white, trumpet-shaped growths protruding from the wall.

“Giant cyathus,” said Wilson as they hurried past the growths. He glanced over his shoulder. The first few pursuers were closing in, though the bulk of the mob was still a fair way back. Wilson guessed that the ones leading the pack were less fungus-riddled than the others and had more control of their limbs.

As they passed the end of the long row of cyathus fungi Carter said, “Strike the wall as hard as you can. With the bar.”

Wilson suddenly saw what he had in mind. He stopped and swung the bar at the wall. The impact jarred his arms. He swung again.

Something like a cricket ball with a spring attached flew out of one of the nearest trumpet-shaped fungus and shot clear across the road.

He hit the wall several more times and was gratffied to see a full-scale eruption of the things all along the row of fungi. One of their pursuers screamed. Wilson could imagine what was happening to him.

In conventional cyathus fungi there are a dozen or so little round objects called peridioles containing the badio-spores. The peridioles rest on spring-like hyphal coils. When the fungus is mature the impact of raindrops falling onto it is enough to activate the mechanism. The peridioles fly out of the trumpet and the trailing spring-like hyphae sticks to any leaf or twig it touches, coiling itself tightly.

With fungi this size the hyphae must be capable of exerting a tremendous amount of pressure.

And judging by the increasing number of screams in the darkness they were doing just that.

“Good idea,” cried Wilson as he caught up with Carter’s shambling form. He was about to clap him on the shoulder but held back his hand at the last moment, remembering what Carter’s shoulder consisted of.

“A delaying tactic only,” wheezed Carter. “Killed a few, no doubt, but it won’t stop the others for long. What do you have in mind when we reach the truck?”

“It all depends on what’s still there.” He didn’t continue. Finally the bulk of the Stalwart, lying on its side amid the rubble of the partially demolished building, appeared out of the gloom. Wilson rushed forward and anxiously examined the locker containing the flame-throwers. It was still intact.

There were signs that someone had tried to batter it open but had failed.

Wilson prayed he would be more successful. He could hear the mob approaching down the road.

In a frenzy he attacked the lock with the iron bar. He rained blows on it, ignoring the jarring pain of each impact. Something gave. He was able to wrench the door open.

Hurriedly he dragged out one of the weapons, trying to remember Slocock’s instructions for operating it.

“Oh God,” cried Kimberley in a small, terrified voice. A tall shape covered with what appeared to be tennis balls lurched out of the darkness. Wilson, still struggling to light the thing, thrust the end of the flame-thrower into the creature’s face. There was a crunch and it fell, mewling, to the ground. But there were several others close behind.

At last! He had found the switch that ignited the afterburner. And now all he had to do was turn a valve—there was a satisfying hiss of pressure—and—

The flame shot out with its terrible, ear-splitting roar, a great, dribbling tongue of fire that was so bright, after all the hours of being in near total darkness, it hurt Wilson’s eyes to look at it.

Its glare illuminated a scene out of a painting by Hieronymous Bosch. The road, already transformed by the fungus into a surreal landscape, was filled with a mass of creatures that could have only come straight from hell.

It even occurred to Wilson, as he stood there pouring fire into the midst of the screaming horde, that he was actually in hell. That he had perhaps died of a heart attack in his Irish cottage and all that had happened in the past few days had been his personal descent into eternal torment.

He cut the flow of fire, remembering Slocock’s instructions to use short bursts only.

Several of the creatures were burning. They ran about in circles, screeching and waving their arms as their fungus-riddled bodies sizzled and crackled. Wilson looked at them without emotion. He was numb.

He unleashed the fire again.

The crowd broke up, the creatures running in all directions. Some ran with flames streaming in the night air behind them.

He moved forward, letting loose another burst of fire—aiming the nozzle high as he would a garden hose and scribing a wide arc of burning liquid in front of him. Then he shut it off and surveyed his handiwork. There were numerous fires all around, and the air stank.

Apart from the things that lay still or feebly kicking in the flames there was no sign of the fungus creatures. The area was deserted.

He turned and headed back to the truck. Kimberley and Carter stood motionless beside it, vaguely illuminated by the flickering red glow from the various fires.

Wilson realized that Carter was indistinguishable from the creatures he’d just burned, and Kimberley scarcely appeared human either. Her hair matted to her skull, her body stained with fungi juices and tarnished red by the glow, she looked like a female demon.

He wondered what he looked like, naked and carrying a flame-thrower.

Something gave a low, wailing cry as it burned.

He didn’t look round. He suddenly felt very tired.

“What now?” he asked Carter helplessly.

“We go to see your wife,” said Carter.

“My wife?” repeated Wilson, astonished. “You know where Jane is?”

“I’ve known for several days now.”

“She’s still alive! Thank God for that!” cried Wilson. “But what about my kids? My son and daughter? Are they with her?”

“I’m sorry,” wheezed Carter. “I don’t know. I haven’t actually seen your wife. I know where she’s located but I can’t get to her. Her followers guard her too well.”

“What? Her followers? What are you talking about?”

“Your wife’s a very important woman now, Dr. Wilson,” said Carter, and made the dry, rustling sound which was his equivalent of laughter. “In fact you could say she’s gone up in the world. In more ways than one.”

4

Slocock was drunk. He’d finished the entire bottle of whiskey and was now opening a second one. A lesser man, he knew, would be unconscious on the floor by now and probably inhaling vomit, but he had the constitution of a Chieftain tank.

“There’s no two ways ’bout it,” he announced to the empty, fungus-ridden bar as he lurched around with the fresh bottle. “I can hold my fucking liquor.” He stopped as something crunched under his boot. Swaying, he peered down and saw he’d stepped on the remains of the fungus victim he’d shot earlier. His boot had crushed its fragile skull.

“Oh, ‘scuse me, fella,” he said to it and weaved his way back to the bar stool. He climbed carefully onto it and took another long drink. Then he picked up the Sterling and fired a long burst in the air, raking the ceiling with bullets. Chunks of fungus and plaster fell everywhere.

“Time, gentlemen! Time!” he yelled. “Can I have your glasses please.” He started to laugh then stopped when he felt a stab of pain in his forehead. A hangover already? But he hadn’t finished drinking yet. He ran his head over his sweaty forehead. Then, surprised, he ran it over again. He couldn’t believe it. Hair! His receding hairline was growing back! Thick and luxuriant!

He grinned happily to himself. “This calls for another drink,” he told the empty bar as he raised the bottle. He was too drunk to wonder why his hair had started to grow back, he just took it for granted as some kind of strange miracle. After all, these were strange times.

He remembered how, when he was younger with a full head of hair, he’d never had any trouble picking up women. Now that he had all his hair back, he was confident it would be as easy for him again.

He placed the bottle lovingly down his shirt front, gathered up the ammunition clips, and slid off the stool. His mind was made up. He would go and find a woman. One that wasn’t covered in all that muck. There had to be at least one or two around.

He staggered out of the ruined pub and began to make his way down Ladbroke Grove. He felt very happy. He had three important things—a bottle of whiskey, a gun, and a hard-on. What more could a man want, apart from a woman?

As he progressed, unsteadily, down the street he became aware of others using the thoroughfare. They shuffled and scuttled furtively in the shadows as if they didn’t want to be seen, and who could blame them, thought Slocock. On one occasion he glimpsed a creature that appeared to be covered with fluid-bloated condoms. As drunk as he was, the sight nauseated him, and he immediately shot the creature with the .38.

He also shot four people—things—who were joined together by thick strands of fungus like a Siamese quartet. “Doing you a favor,” he told them as he opened fire while they tried to flee from him in four directions at once.

He lost track of the time as he wandered about on his quest for a woman. He also became confused as to where he was. Under their blankets of fungus all the streets looked the same.

Then, when he was getting low on both whiskey and ammunition he’d shot a lot of creatures by that time—he saw what he’d been searching for. A woman. An untouched woman. A woman with clean, white skin. And she was all his.

All he had to do was get rid of the two fungus-ridden maggots who were in the process of raping her.

At least the truck’s lights were still working. Wilson blinked in the sudden brightness, then helped Carter clamber down into the wrecked rear compartment, forcing himself to overcome his aversion to touching the man. It was the first time he’d had a chance really to see Carter, and it took an effort to keep telling himself that there was a human being underneath all those huge, wart-like crusts.

Carter read his mind. Peering at him with his one visible eye he wheezed, “Not a pretty sight, eh? Think a hair-piece would help? A big one, maybe?” He made his odd laughing sound again.

Wilson, feeling embarrassed, looked away. Kimberley, he saw, was splashing herself with a trickle from the drinking water tank in an attempt to wash off the dried fungal juices. At the same time she was anxiously examining her body for signs of infection. He automatically glanced down at his own body, half-expecting to see the fungus somewhere on him. But as far as he could tell, through all the soot and fungus stains, he was still infection-free.

Observing this, Carter commented, “It’s remarkable you two have both escaped the fungus so far, even though you’ve been exposed for a considerable time.”

Wilson told him about the drugs they’d been using.

“But not any longer,” said Kimberley bitterly, gesturing at the smashed glass littering the overturned compartment. Their captors had done a thorough job of breaking everything that was breakable.

An unpleasant thought suddenly occurred to Wilson. He immediately checked the locker containing the spare radio, and saw at once the seals were broken. One look inside was enough to show him that the set was beyond repair.

“Well, that’s it then,” he said sourly. “Even if we get Jane to talk there’s no way we can transmit the information.”

“Yes, there is,” said Carter. “I’m a one-time radio ham. Cost my father a fortune when I was a teenager, and I had to give it up when I began my medical studies, but there still isn’t much I don’t know about radios. I’ve been cannibalizing equipment at British Telecom, building makeshift receivers. The fungus gets into them pretty quickly but I’ve been able to keep a step ahead of it. That’s how I picked up those messages meant for you. I’m sure I can rig up a transmitter. There are still plenty of spare parts sealed up at the Post Office Tower.”

“And you say that’s where Jane is? At the Tower?”

Carter nodded his bulbous head. “Right at the very top. Her followers guard the only way up there.”

Wilson frowned. He was still having trouble accepting the incredible story that Carter had told him about Jane. “You say these people actually worship her? But why?”

“They obviously believe her when she tells them she created the fungus and controls it. Her followers are all women, by the way, though what the significance is of that I don’t know yet.”

“But what’s she doing in the top of Post Office Tower?” asked Wilson.

“I’ve heard rumors she’s established some sort of laboratory up there.”

“You think she might be working on a way of stopping the fungus?”

“From what I hear about her I doubt it very much.”

Wilson sighed. “Well, at least she’s still alive and rational enough to organize a lab. That means she’s probably still capable of looking after the kids. I’m sure she wouldn’t let any harm come to them, no matter what the state of her mind.” He turned to Kimberley. “Stop wasting that water.” She was still splashing it over herself and frantically peering at her skin.

“I have to know if it’s on me yet,” she cried, then, as before, turned her back to him. “Can you see it anywhere? Tell me the truth.”

He gave her back a cursory look. “You’re fine,” he told her, then salvaged a cup from the debris. “Move aside, I’m thirsty.”

“You don’t seem to care!” she accused him as he gulped down a cupful of water. “We’re going to look like that thing over there, and you don’t give a damn!”

She was pointing at Carter.

Wilson said nothing. Instead he filled the cup again and handed it to Carter.

Kimberley muttered something under her breath and went to the rear door. “Where are you going?” Wilson asked her.

“I’m going outside for a pee. I can hardly have one in here.”

That was true. The cubicle housing the chemical toilet was now horizontal. “Don’t go too far from the truck,” he warned her. “And keep an eye out for anything moving.”

He watched her as she climbed out of the open airlock. She seemed completely oblivious to her nakedness and he felt a sluggish revival of his desire for her—a desire that had been dormant for some time.

“A very attractive woman,” commented Carter.

“Yes,” agreed Wilson, uncomfortably aware that his partial arousal was physically evident. “I wish she had something to wear. I wish I had something to wear.”

Carter made his wheezing laugh and said, “You don’t have any spare clothing with you?”

Wilson told him about the fungus attack that had cleaned them out of everything organic.

“Well,” said Carter, “You really don’t need clothes in London anymore, as far as the climate is concerned. The fungus seems to have raised the average temperature by at least five degrees. And the humidity has increased, too.”

“And after a while the fungus even clothes you as well,” said Wilson bitterly.

“Yes, there is that,” conceded Carter. “But you two have been lucky so far. Perhaps those drugs have given you permanent immunity.”

“Perhaps,” said Wilson though he didn’t believe it for a second.

After a pause, Carter said, “An odd choice for this expedition. Your traveling companion, I mean.”

“Kimberley? At first I didn’t think so. Seemed as hard as nails. But then when she found out the Megacrine drug wasn’t all it was cracked up to be she began to go to pieces. I guess she believed she was 100 percent safe from the fungus, otherwise she would never have come.”

“And why exactly has she come?”

“That, Dr. Carter, is a good question.”

Kimberley moved some distance away from the truck, taking care to avoid the still-smoldering remains of the creatures. The knot of terror in the pit of her stomach was like an unbearable physical pain. She felt so scared and helpless, but there was nowhere she could run, nowhere she could hide to avoid the inevitable infection. It was probably growing inside her already.

At the beginning the odds for pulling off her gamble had seemed in her favor, but now.

She squatted down amid the rubble of the building. At least her knee was feeling better. Something rustled behind her. She was just turning her head to see when a hand was clamped over her mouth and she was pulled roughly backward.

She tried to scream but couldn’t make a sound. Then the hand withdrew. She opened her mouth to draw breath but as she did so something rubbery was thrust into it, gagging her. She recognized the foul taste of fungus.

The next thing she knew she was being pulled along by her feet like a human sled. She tried to resist, digging her fingers into the ground, but it was useless. The fungal matting covering the road was too smooth.

As she was pulled quickly along, her head was gently buffeted by undulations and small growths in the carpet of fungus. Soon she was feeling quite dazed.

It was some time before she was able to get a clear look at what had captured her. Eventually she was able to keep her head raised long enough to see. There were two of them—one holding each leg—both very thin and emaciated. In the dim moonlight she saw ulcerous craters all over their backs.

She had no idea how far they’d traveled from the truck when the creatures finally stopped and let go of her legs. The continual buffeting had left her semi-conscious and at first she was only half aware that she was hearing voices.

“Go on—you first.”

“No, no. I’ll wait—all that running—have to catch my breath.”

They sounded like two people suffering from very bad laryngitis. She wondered what they were talking about.

“You’re scared you can’t do it any more.”

“I can. I just need a bit of time. Go on. You warm her up for me. I can see you’re ready from here. it’s enormous.”

Christ, she thought, they’re going to rape me. I’ve come all this way to be gang-banged by two pathetic, dying zombies.

She tried to sit up but as she did so she was punched in the face. She fell back onto the fungus, bright lights flashing in her eyes.

Then her legs were being roughly parted. A heavy body, hot and sticky, was suddenly on top of her and at the same time she felt something being brutally thrust into her. It was unnaturally large and it hurt like hell.

Her horror and disgust gave her extra strength. She violently wrenched her body to one side, simultaneously giving the rapist a powerful shove with her arms.

There was a distinct crunch. Then a thin, wailing scream. She looked up and saw him kneeling there clutching at his crotch. Blood spurted out between his fingers.

His companion cried, “What’s wrong? What did she do to you?”

The other one just continued to scream. It was then that Kimberley became aware that he was still inside her. She realized that his grotesque member was so diseased with fungus it had simply snapped off.

Her revulsion sent a hot stream of vomit rushing up her throat. She was noisily sick, getting rid of the chunks of her fungus gag. Then she reached between her legs, trying to extract.

A hand grabbed her hair, jerked her head around. She found herself staring into what was once a face. She’d seen such faces before. In Africa. On untreated leprosy victims.

“I’m gonna kill you for what you done to me!” the face screeched.

Then, somewhere nearby, there was a sound like an animal burping very loudly and the top half of the face ceased to exist. The thing slumped toward her, spattering her with its blood. She screamed and shoved it away from her.

Its companion obviously didn’t know what was going on. It was looking around wildly in all directions. The hidden animal made a much longer sound this time and the creature’s body jerked and shuddered as if it were trying to shake itself to pieces. Then it fell.

Silence.

A figure stepped into view out of the shadows of a building. And then she heard a familiar voice say, in a drunken slur, “It’s the British Army to the rescue, Doc. And not bad shooting if I do say so myself.”

It was Slocock. The feeling of relief was so acute, she almost passed out. “Thank God,” she gasped.

He came closer, and she was able to see his face.

She started to scream.

5

Slocock couldn’t understand what was wrong with Kimberley. Here he’d just saved her from those two stinking pox-bags and she was acting like he was Count Dracula out for a bite.

“Here, Kim, it’s me! Good ol’ Sergeant Slocock. The man with the magic fingers.” He bent over her, brushing the thick hair out of his eyes (it was amazing how quickly it had grown). But she just screamed again and pushed herself away from him, scuttling backwards on her hands and heels like a giant crab.

The hair! That’s why she didn’t recognize him. It probably made him look 10 years younger, at least.

He started after her, saying, “Kim, you silly bitch, it’s me. I’ve just got more hair, that’s all.”

She sprang to her feet, turned and ran—slipping and sliding over the fungus. He cursed to himself and started to follow her. No telling what other trouble the silly slut would get herself into if he didn’t catch up with her.

He yelled her name again but she put on speed and disappeared around a corner. He hurried after her—and ran straight into the gateway of hell.

All he saw was a brilliant red flash that rushed straight at him and consumed him. The next moment the fluid of his eyeballs had solidified like the boiled white of an egg. He felt his flesh crackling and shriveling, but so far his shocked nervous system hadn’t been able to register any pain. For a few terrible seconds Slocock was aware of what was happening to him and then, mercifully, the intense heat detonated the 9mm ammunition in the remaining clip stuck in his belt. One of the bullets penetrated his brain.

Wilson switched off the flame-thrower and warily approached the smoldering, blackened shape. He’d been surprised when he’d heard the ammunition going up. He hadn’t noticed that the creature was armed.

He sighed and he stared at the charred form. He didn’t like the way he was finding it easier to use this horrible weapon on the creatures. A bad sign.

He looked around for Kimberley. At first he couldn’t see her, but then spotted her squatting on the ground some distance away. “Kimberley, you okay?” he called as he approached her.

“Stay away from me!” she cried. “Don’t come near me!” He stopped, frowning, then turned to Carter, who was following him, and shrugged.

Kimberley succeeded in extracting the fungus-phallus from herself. With a shudder of disgust she flung it as far away as she could, then threw up again. But this time there was nothing but bile. After dry retching for a time she managed to get to her feet and stagger towards Wilson and Carter.

“Are you all right?” Wilson asked her.

“I’m never ever going to be all right again,” she said. She remembered Slocock’s face—or what was left of it. The thick tendrils growing out of his skull like worms.

She had seen her own future in his face.

“Do you know who you just incinerated over there?” she asked Wilson, pointing at the smoking body.

“What do you mean? How could I know?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Not now.”

Carter shuffled up to them. “We really should get moving, if the lady is up to it. We have a long way to go.”

“Can you walk, Kimberley?” asked Wilson. “Or do you want to rest awhile?”

“I’m fine,” she said listlessly.

“I suggest we head on down toward the Bayswater Road,” said Carter. “The Paddington route is impassable. The West-way and Marylebone overpass have collapsed. One of the mutated fungi seems to be causing a chemical change in all concrete structures as a byproduct of its metabolism. In a few months I doubt there’ll be a building standing in all of London.”

They set off in their shuffling, shambling gait, Wilson straining under the weight of the flame-thrower. Behind them, already forgotten—even by Kimberley—Slocock’s burned remains began to cool.

By the time they reached the Bayswater Road it was beginning to get light—Wilson guessed it must be 5 a.m. at least—and the world of the fungus was revealed in all its horrible glory.

Hyde Park was an impenetrable forest of giant growths, some of the huge toadstools or mushrooms being almost as large as the one they’d seen in the cemetery. Many of them were brightly colored, and the overall effect was like that of a scene from some old Disney cartoon.

On the other side of the street the buildings were concealed under vast, moldering heaps of fungal growth. Only the tallest buildings revealed their man-made origins as the fungus thinned out near the top and sections of glass, brickwork, or metal showed through.

They encountered a fair number of creatures—people, Wilson had to remind himself—along the way, and on two occasions he was forced to demonstrate the power of the flame-thrower in order to disperse gathering mobs. The trouble was that his and Kimberley’s clearly untouched bodies attracted attention. His big fear was that the weapon would run out of fuel before they reached the Post Office Tower.

Wilson noticed that Kimberley’s continual inspection of her body was becoming even more obsessive. And her concern was catching—he found himself looking down at himself every minute or so and running tentative fingers across his face and back.

“You’re still fine as far as I can see,” Carter told him as he checked himself for the hundredth time.

Wilson glanced at him with embarrassment. “Sorry, can’t help it. It’s the waiting. I’ll probably feel relieved when I actually see something on me.”

“I doubt it,” said Carter.

“You’ve coped. You’re handling the whole thing very well.”

“No choice.”

Wilson lowered his voice. “There’s always death. I’m afraid that’s going to be her reaction when it finally hits her.” He indicated Kimberley, who was walking a little ahead of them. “Did you consider killing yourself when it happened to you?”

“It crossed my mind,” admitted Carter. “But I’m not a brave man. Death still scares me. I want to live as long as I can, even like this.”

They were passing through Marble Arch now. The arch itself was invisible under the fungus. Ahead stretched Oxford Street—a bizarre fungal canyon.

Wilson suggested taking a short cut through the back streets but Carter advised against it, explaining that many of the smaller streets were completely blocked. “Best if we head along Oxford Street and then go up Tottenham Court Road,” he said.

A few minutes later Wilson stopped and stared hard at the Babylonian Gardens of hanging fungal rot and yeasty strands that obscured the front of what was obviously a large building. He experienced a shock of recognition. “Good Lord, that must be Selfridges! I’ve got to take a quick look, do you mind?”

Carter said hesitantly, “I don’t think we have the time—” But Wilson was already pushing his way through the fibrous curtain and Carter, and Kimberley, had no choice but to follow him.

They entered Seifridges’ department store through a shattered window. Inside, the store was not filled with the homogeneous mass of fungus that Wilson expected but instead contained a mad variety of different growths everywhere, and on everything, in bright, mottled profusion. The atmosphere was heavy with damp and barely breathable with its moldering stench.

Wilson stared around in disbelief. “We used to shop in here—Jane and I—a lot. In the early days, when we were still—” His voice dried up. For some reason the ruined interior of the famous department store was having a greater impact on him than anything else he’d seen so far. He suddenly realized how much the fungus had destroyed. Even if it was finally overcome things would never be the same again. London definitely wouldn’t, and nor would he.

“Come on, let’s get going,” he said roughly.

They moved on along Oxford Street. At the end stood the Centrepoint high-rise, its highest three or four floors entirely clear of the fungus. It gave the impression of something bursting free of its shroud, but Wilson guessed that the fungus would continue to grow inexorably upward until it covered even this tall building’s roof.

They turned into Tottenham Court Road. As they did so there was a loud rumble from the direction of the City. Wilson asked Carter what it was.

“Building collapsing,” said Carter. “It’s happening all the time, but getting more frequent as the fungi eat through the concrete.”

Wilson looked back at Centrepoint and wondered what kind of crash it would make when it finally toppled over.

They approached the Post Office Tower. It resembled an enormous mushroom. Fungus, dark and malevolent, had accumulated around its bulbous summit.

Somewhere up there was Jane and, hopefully, his two children. But what did they look like now? Like one of the horrors he could see across the road, calmly munching on a piece of fungus?

The sight sickened him, yet at the same time made him aware of how hungry he was. A thought occurred to him.

“What do you do for food?” he asked Carter.

“I do the same as that poor unfortunate,” said Carter, gesturing at the creature opposite, who resembled an overripe Michelin Man. “I eat the fungus. Some of it actually tastes quite good. But then, I always liked mushrooms.” He made his wheezing laughing sound.

The fungus made the tower seem even bigger than it was, and as they approached it the tall structure loomed over them oppressively.

Wilson remembered the one occasion he’d gone to the top of it. It had been years ago, back in the days when there was a revolving restaurant and observatory open to the public. Before the IRA had blown out a chunk of the place with a bomb in ’73.

They drew closer to the base of the tower. “Where’s your radio equipment located?” Wilson asked Carter.

“In the adjacent Telecom building, not in the tower itself. But there is probably stuff I could use up in the TV control room if I could get access to it. And I’m going to need to rig my antenna as high as possible. I can’t transmit from the first floor. The fungus appears to absorb radio waves.”

“Where will you get your power from?”

“There’s a diesel generator in the basement. It’s kept running by your wife’s people.”

Wilson was surprised. “Why?”

“She needs the power for whatever she’s doing up there.”

Carter led them to a doorway partially obscured by fungus. They entered a dank, foul-smelling stairwell. Wilson checked the flame-thrower. There was a reassuring slosh of fuel in its tank. He ignited the after-burner. “You show me the way up to the top,” he told Carter, “then wait until I come back. If I don’t come back you’ll know I’ve failed.” He turned to Kimberley. “Same goes for you.”

She shook her head. “I’m coming up with you. I haven’t come all this distance to stop now.”

“Look, you’ll be in my way if I have to use this thing.”

“I’ll stay well behind you,” she said firmly. “But I am coming with you.”

He sighed. He wasn’t going to waste time or energy arguing with her.

Carter led them to the first floor of the Telecom building and then along a passageway to the base of the tower. “It’s a long climb,” he warned. “The basement generator isn’t enough to power the elevators.”

“Do you know where these guards of Jane’s are located?”

“Anywhere between here and the top. And I don’t know exactly how many there are of them, either. They patrol in groups of two or three. Carry things like steel spikes as weapons. Vicious bitches, too. I’ve seen them in action, so don’t let the fact they’re all women inhibit you with that weapon.”

“It hasn’t yet,” said Wilson grimly, thinking that many of the creatures he’d torched so far had probably been female under their fungal crusts.

Carter pushed aside a curtain of hyphae to reveal the entrance to the spiral staircase leading to the top of the tower. The walls and stairs themselves were covered with damp-looking fungus. It looked like the cancerous orifice of some giant animal.

Wilson wanted to turn and run. Sweat began to pour out of him. He didn’t want to know what was awaiting him at the top of the stairs.

“What’s the matter?” asked Kimberley impatiently.

“Nothing.” He stepped forward.

6

Climbing the staircase was difficult. The layer of smooth fungus made everything slippery, and Wilson kept losing his footing. Nor did the weight of the flame-thrower help matters.

The only source of illumination was from the weapon’s after-burner, but Wilson was beginning to think that its red glow was more of a handicap than an advantage. It meant that whoever was guarding the staircase could see them coming, and he was sure it wasn’t his imagination that he could hear faint sounds up ahead. As if someone were backing away from him as he climbed.

He halted to rest his aching legs. And as he did so an idea occurred to him.

He heard Kimberley laboring up the stairs behind him. “Stay where you are,” he called softly to her. “I’m coming back down. There’s something back there I want to check out.”

“What are you talking about?” she called back irritably. “I can’t see anything to check.”

“Shush,” he warned, turning so that the nozzle of the weapon pointed down the stairs and its glow was shielded by his body. Straining his ears he was positive he heard a movement above. He also felt a slight stirring of air against his bare skin. Someone was creeping down the staircase toward him.

He moved as close to the outer wall as he could, then quickly turned and aimed the nozzle upward.

He let loose a long gush of fire that splashed off the opposite wall above and disappeared round the curve of the central pillar of the spiral. Over the roar of the flamethrower, which was deafening in the enclosed space, he was satisfied to hear a high-pitched scream.

Then he screamed himself as some of the liquid fire dribbled back down the stairs and brushed his left foot when he didn’t move out of the way fast enough.

At the same time a figure appeared around the curve of the stairs. It was burning fiercely and as it staggered blindly downward it kept slamming itself against the wall, trying to put out the flames.

“Watch out, Kimberley!” he cried as it stumbled past him, searing his skin with its heat.

The thing disappeared around the curve and then he heard Kimberley scream. There was a sound of something falling down the stairs and more screaming.

“Kim, are you okay?”

He was relieved to hear her say, shakily, “I think so. She grabbed my arm but then she tripped and fell. I’ve got a couple of burns but I don’t think they’re serious. Why the hell didn’t you warn me you were going to do that?”

“I would have warned it—her—at the same time. And whoever else is up ahead.”

He continued onward. The glow from the weapon revealed another burned body further up the stairs. This one, fortunately, was not moving.

While he was staring at the corpse there was a metallic clang and a metal rod with a sharpened end narrowly missed his head after ricochetting off the wall. He reacted quickly, sending a quick burst of flame upwards. There was a cry of pain and the sound of receding footsteps.

Wilson picked up speed. Keep them on the run, he told himself. Don’t give them a chance to plan something clever.

Nothing else happened for about five minutes, then he heard a series of loud crashes up ahead. He couldn’t understand their significance at first, then realized what was happening. A large metal object was rolling down the stairs.

He pressed himself against the central pillar and yelled to Kimberley to do the same. The noise was getting louder. It sounded huge, whatever it was, and moving fast. No chance of outrunning it.

It was right above him now—only yards away. He tensed himself.

Suddenly a large cylinder—like a big water heater—came hurtling round the curve. Wilson felt an agonizing stab of pain in his left thigh, and then the thing clattered past him.

“Kim—?“ he called when the tank had rolled past her position.

“I’m still here. It missed me.”

“You were lucky.” He felt his thigh. There was a large flap of skin hanging loose and a lot of blood. But he knew he’d got off lightly. His main hope was that they couldn’t find something even bigger to roll down. If the tank had been only a couple of feet wider it would have swept them both down the staircase. All the way to the bottom.

Gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg he started upward again. Then stopped almost immediately. He could hear footsteps padding down from above. They were coming to see the effects of their weapon.

He waited until they were just around the bend, then turned on the flame-thrower, shutting his ears to the female screams that resulted. A burning figure stumbled around the curve as before and seemed to reach its arms out to him before collapsing. Again fire dribbled down the stairs, making the fungus sizzle and producing a stench.

He moved on. He passed three more bodies at different intervals, all of them smoldering. The one that had got the furthest up the stairs was twitching feebly. He ignored it and kept going.

The climb went on for ages. He felt certain he was almost at the top but every time he rounded the curve there was just another expanse of stairway ahead.

It was during one of his increasingly frequent halts to catch his breath that he heard a woman’s voice call out clearly from the darkness ahead, “Turn back. You can’t get past us, even with your devil’s man weapon. There are too many of us. We are blocking the way completely.”

With a shock he realized he recognized the voice.

“Hilary!” he gasped. “Is that you?” The last time he’d seen Hilary Burne-Smith was at a pub in Highgate, the night he’d told her that he thought their brief affair should come to an end. It was during one of those periods when he was making a periodic attempt to repair his relationship with Jane, shortly before he gave up and left for Ireland.

Hilary Burne-Smith had been the newest of Jane’s assistants, fresh from Cambridge and a stranger to London. Feeling sorry for her, they’d invited her to dinner on several occasions. He’d given her a ride home each time, and then one night she’d invited him up to her place for coffee, and—

He knew he hadn’t taken advantage of a lonely, homesick young woman who could have been rather attractive if she’d lost a bit of weight; he was aware that she’d done the seducing, not him. But he certainly hadn’t resisted one iota. And sex with her turned out to be surprisingly good. Hilary in bed was a different Hilary from the somewhat shy and very correct young lady he’d come to know across the dinner table. He would have been quite happy to continue the affair except for the nagging guilt, and there was more guilt when he told her it was over, because her reaction had been unexpectedly emotional. There had been lots of tears and he’d sat there, all eyes on him, feeling like a heel.

That had been over two years ago. He hadn’t seen her since. And now here she was confronting him in the dark in this hell-hole.

“You?” she said with surprise. “It can’t be!”

“I’m afraid it is. Barry Wilson in the flesh. How are you, Hilary?”

There was a long pause before she answered. “Why are you here? Why have you murdered my sisters?”

Wilson flinched at the word “murdered.” “I have to see Jane—speak to her. It’s very important. She’s the only hope of saving the rest of mankind from the fungus.”

In the darkness Hilary laughed. To Wilson it seemed, under the circumstances, a shocking sound.

Then she said, “Mankind is finished. A new order has arisen to cleanse the world of his unholy deeds. The great softness will spread across the globe and blur the edges of Man’s harsh works before consuming them totally. And Man himself will also be consumed. Only those who welcome the softness—who become part of it—will be saved.” She spoke the words as if reciting a litany.

Wearily he said, “The only softness around here is in your brain. Christ, Hilary, only a short time ago you were a scientist! You can’t have changed so completely, so quickly. There must still be a glimmer of rationality in you somewhere. So listen to me, Hilary. Pay attention to what I’m saying! You’re sick! But you can still help protect others who aren’t sick!”

There was another long pause and when she spoke again her voice sounded different. “You’re right, Barry—I am am sick. What am I going to do? Can you help me? I can’t seem… to think… straight anymore—” Her voice broke and he realized she was crying. Then he heard her coming down the stairs toward him. She stepped hesitantly into the red glow coming from the after-burner. She was still recognizably a woman. Her fungus consisted of a thin moss-like mold that looked like some kind of skin-tight costume covering every inch of her. Her full, heavy breasts swayed as she came slowly down the stairs. Her eyes—those very familiar eyes—were stricken with despair.

“Hilary—” he whispered, a terrible sadness welling up through him. She held out her arms to him.

“Help me,” she pleaded.

Then she lunged.

Before he knew what was happening he was losing his balance and she had almost wrested the flame-thrower nozzle out of his grip. Then he was on his back, the tanks digging painfully into his flesh, and she was on top of him, snarling as she pulled the nozzle out of his reach with one hand and squeezed his wind-pipe with the other.

Suddenly, to his amazement, a metal tongue suddenly grew out of her chest, right between her breasts. She stiffened and screamed. It was then that he saw Kimberley behind her, one of their metal spears in her hands.

“Hurry,” she said as she shoved Hilary to one side, “I can hear her friends coming.”

She helped him up. He fumbled with the nozzle. The footsteps sounded very close.

They came round the curve like a solid wall. There must have been a dozen of them at least. At the same moment, he ignited the flame-thrower.

The next minute or so was literally something out of hell. At the end of it he stood there, choking on fumes, while around him bodies writhed and moaned. He somehow found Kimberley through all the smoke and together they hurried on upward, anxious to get away from that hideous scene.

They encountered no more of the “sisters” and finally reached the top of the stairway. They emerged into the lowest level of the observatory. The fungus was everywhere, covering even the windows. A quick search revealed that the area was empty.

So were the next few levels. But when they entered the section that had once housed the rotating restaurant, they found themselves blinking in a blaze of bright light.

Warily they stepped into the circular room, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the unexpected brightness.

The second thing that surprised him was the total absence of fungus in the place. It was draped over the exteriors of the windows but there was none inside at all. The floor, ceiling, and various pieces of laboratory equipment scattered around were all pristine clean.

Then a voice said, from so close behind him he jumped, “Why on earth did you shave off all your hair, Barry? Being bald doesn’t suit you at all.”

It was Jane.

7

He turned, dreading what he was going to see.

But what he did see was totally unexpected.

Jane stood there exactly as he remembered her. She seemed completely untouched by the fungus. She was wearing a white lab coat, but her legs and feet were bare and there was not a single blemish on them. Her face and hands were unmarked too; in fact she appeared to be positively glowing with good health.

She advanced toward them with a welcoming smile and Wilson experienced a wave of unreality. It was as if he and Kimberley had dropped in to pay a social call, except that they were both naked, covered in soot and blood, and he was carrying a flame-thrower.

Jane stopped some feet away and ran a critical eye over both of them. She frowned slightly, then smiled again. “Who’s your friend, Barry?” she asked, gesturing at Kimberley. “She looks quite attractive under all that muck.”

Before he could answer Kimberley said, “My name is Kimberley Fairchild. We’ve met before, at the London University Conference two years ago.”

“Really?” There was no sign of recognition in her eyes as she again examined Kimberley’s body. Wilson realized she was looking for a sign of the fungus. She was obviously puzzled that there was none on either of them.

“Jane, where are Simon and Jessica?” he asked urgently. “Are they all right?”

“What? Oh, yes, they’re fine,” she said dismissively.

“Where are they? I want to see them.”

She ignored him. She was now sweeping her gaze up and down his body again. “How very strange that neither of you show any sign of the fungus. The odds against both of you having natural immunity must be very high. I don’t understand it.”

“We were taking drugs to protect ourselves. They seemed to have worked, so far,” he said. “Look, about the children—”

“Drugs? What drugs?” Jane’s eyes glittered brightly. It was the first firm indication of her state of mind. His hopes that the children might be safe after all began to plummet. He told her quickly about the Megacrine and the other drugs.

She smiled with what appeared to be relief. “Short term protection, possibly, but nothing more. You’ve both been lucky.”

“So have you. Unless you’re concealing it.”

“No. I am untouched too.” She opened the lab coat. She wore nothing underneath it. The rest of her body glowed with the same unnatural good health as her face. “I have been spared by the Earth Mother in order to finish my work. When it is complete I will gladly submit to her embrace.”

Wilson glanced at Kimberley, trying to give her a silent warning to let him do all the talking. Then, to Jane, he said, “Earth Mother?”

Jane gestured at the fungus clinging to the outside of the windows. “There is her blessed manifestation. All around you. We are in her womb.”

“Jane,” he said gently, “that stuff is poison. It’s killing people right across the country. It has to be stopped.”

She gave him a pitying look. “For a time, I didn’t understand, either. When it began I thought I’d done something terrible. But then the Earth Mother showed me the truth: that I was the instrument chosen by her to transform the world into her image. To bring about the end of man’s evil domination of the planet and allow the Earth Mother to regain what is rightfully hers.”

“Jane, the fungus is causing suffering wherever it spreads.”

“There is always pain at the time of birth. But once man has been cleansed from the world the Earth Mother will protect and sustain her children. We will become one with nature instead of fighting against her. There will be no more hunger or pain. We will be enfolded and nourished by her forever.”

“I see,” he said softly. It was hopeless. Unable to cope with the enormity of what she had unleashed, her mind had become completely unhinged. She had convinced herself that she had somehow achieved her original objective—that her fungus would end world hunger.

“And what is this work you mentioned that you had to finish?” he asked.

“I must find a way of overcoming the inhibiting factor that is preventing the fungi from sporing, and I must also alter the fungi so that the few unfortunate people who resist infection will be able to succumb to the Earth Mother’s embrace.”

He nodded, maintaining his outward calm while his blood turned to ice water. “And have you had any success yet?”

“I am close to solving the sporing problem, I feel sure of it.” She indicated a row of incubators that followed the curve of the outer wall. “And when I have succeeded I will take the new spores to the roof and release them into the air. They will also include the new genetic factor to enable the fungi to embrace the few who are naturally immune. That problem I have already solved, though I need to conduct further tests to be certain. But with the help of you two, the whole process will be speeded up.”

“Why do you think we would help you?”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “That’s the reason you’re here. Why else would the Earth Mother have permitted you to reach here? If you weren’t under her protection my disciples would have killed you. She let you pass through their ranks unmolested.”

Wilson glanced down at the nozzle of the flame-thrower and then at the bloody spike Kimberley was holding. Jane had pointedly ignored both weapons. She refused to consider the possibility that they may have fought their way to her. Nothing could be allowed to shake her self-delusion of divinity. He decided the only course of action was to humor her, to let her keep believing that she was still in control of the situation, and that her followers were still alive.

He said, “And how could we help you?”

“I admit I was puzzled when you first entered. Because neither of you bear any sign of the Mother’s embrace. But now, of course, I understand why. One of you is obviously immune—a simple test will tell me which one. I need another immune specimen for the final series of tests. My other specimen is of no further use to me. His tissues have been exhausted.”

“What other specimen? Where is he?” demanded Wilson, looking around the room.

She ignored the question. “No doubt you will prove to be the immune one,” she continued, pointing at Kimberley. “Barry’s role will be to act as my assistant. After all, he was a mycologist.” She shook her head in wonder. “How truly wise is the Earth Mother, sending me a trained laboratory technician at the crucial moment. And how fitting her choice in you, Barry. Though a man, you will be instrumental in her ultimate victory. Your final actions will atone a little for all the terrible sins of your sex against her. Just as your son also helped atone for his maleness.”

“Simon,” he cried, taking a step toward her. “What the hell are you talking about? Where is he?”

She moved backward. “He’s here, Barry. Come and see him. He’s a glorious sight.” She turned and walked over to a large glass cabinet into which a series of tubes were plugged. Wilson hurried after her, followed by Kimberley.

The other side of the cabinet was transparent. It was filled with something soft. Jane tapped the glass. The softness moved. In the midst of it a pair of eyes suddenly opened. They were bright blue.

“Our son,” said Jane proudly.

Wilson stared into his son’s eyes. They stared back imploringly. There was, Wilson saw with horror, still intelligence in them.

In a strangled voice Wilson said, “And Jessica? What have you done with her, you murdering bitch?”

“Jessica is fine,” answered Jane, sounding puzzled by his reaction. “She is happy within the embrace of the Mother. She guards this sacred place with the rest of my followers. I’m surprised you didn’t see her on the way up here.”

Wilson dropped the nozzle of the fire extinguisher. It fell to the floor with a clatter as he spun round to face Jane. “Jessica was among those creatures?” he screamed.

She gazed at him calmly, her expression self-satisfied and smug. “All will be clear to you when the Mother finally takes you into her embrace,” she told him, and gave a beatific smile.

He slammed his right fist into her mouth as hard as he could, following through with all his weight. He expected to knock her unconscious. He didn’t expect her head to fly from her shoulders with a dry snap.

Kimberley screamed.

Headless, Jane’s body tottered in front of him. No blood spurted from the end of the neck. Instead green fluid began to trickle out. He could see that her whole body was riddled on the inside with fungus.

The body, still upright, lurched past him, its arms flailing. Kimberley screamed again as it seemed to move straight for her. She struck out at it with her spiked rod. The make-shift spear went through Jane’s chest without meeting any resistance and protruded from her back. Kimberley ran screaming away from it.

The thing lurched about for several more steps then fell, twitching, to the floor.

Wilson turned his back on it and stared once again at the shape which had been his son. “Simon,” he said, helplessly. The blue eyes blinked.

He freed himself from the harness of the flame-thrower and let the hideous weapon drop with a crash. Then he bent down and began pulling the tubes out of the cabinet. Liquid spilled from them across the floor. He heard Kimberley approaching. She was crying.

“You killed her,” she sobbed. “You killed her and now we’ll never know the secret of her enzyme.”

He said nothing. He pulled the rest of the tubes out of the cabinet, then stood again. As he hoped, the pair of blue eyes soon began to glaze over.

“Are you listening to me?” demanded Kimberley, grabbing him by the arm. “We’ve got no hope now of getting what we came for. You’ve ruined every. “ She paused, then gasped, “Oh God, look!”

He turned and saw what had alarmed her.

It was Jane’s head. It had rolled to the base of one of the nearby incubators and now, as it lay there, it was slowly cracking open.

Almost incuriously Wilson walked over to it. He gazed down at Jane’s eyes, which were wide-open and startled-looking. A large fissure ran down her forehead to the bridge of her nose and as he watched the crack widened. Then suddenly the skull snapped entirely into two halves, revealing a white, spherical fungus. It continued to expand.

Kimberley cried, “Look, her body too!”

He turned and saw that Jane’s headless corpse was undergoing a transformation as well. It was being shaken by a series of convulsions, as if it were trying to sit up. Then, from the stump of the neck, hyphae began to flow out and spread across the floor.

Wilson stood transfixed at the sight of his wife’s corpse collapsing in upon itself. As the hyphae spread threateningly towards them Kimberley ran to the flame-thrower. She picked it up and tried to make it work. She finally figured out how to turn it on and yelped as flames roared out. Awkwardly she sprayed fire over the fungus radiating out of Jane’s body, and then incinerated the head.

“How do I turn it off?” she cried in alarm as fire continued to gush from the nozzle. He was forced to go and assist her.

But by the time he’d managed to switch it off it was too late. The laboratory was burning.

The fire caught hold very quickly, forcing them back toward the entrance. It was then that he noticed the small glass case sitting on a table that had been decorated to resemble an altar. Telling Kimberley to get out, he made a frantic dash through the flames to the case.

Sitting in the case was a pile of paper. On the top sheet he recognized the dense scrawl of Jane’s handwriting. He had found her notes.

He snatched up the case and ran for the doorway. The flames licked at his bare skin, making him scream. And then, at last, he was through the doorway and safe.

8

Kimberley died three days later.

It was on the morning of the day after the fire that he noticed the small patch of bright orange mold behind her right knee. They had spent hours helping Carter carry his equipment across to the nearby Euston Tower, which he considered to be the best alternative location for his transmitter after the fire had completely gutted the Post Office Tower.

While Carter worked to rig his makeshift transmitter, utilizing the antenna and other undamaged equipment from the local radio station—Capital Radio—that had been based in the building, Wilson and Kimberley went exploring and found a tankful of water in a relatively untouched apartment near the top of the building.

It was a relief to be able to wash the encrusted blood and filth from their bodies, and despite his exhaustion and depression, Wilson responded to the sheer sensuality of the experience. As he helped wash Kimberley he felt a sudden and intense desire for her. By making love he would be able to blot out, if only for a short time, all the horrors of the last couple of days.

And it was soon obvious that she shared his mood—her body trembled under his touch as he rinsed the soapy water from her. But as he leaned down to raise another cupped handful of water from the bathtub he saw the small patch of orange.

“Kimberley,” he sighed, all desire gone in that instant.

She looked down and followed the direction of his gaze. The only sound she made was a tiny, child-like, “Oh.”

He hugged her, not knowing what to say. For a few moments she clung to him, then pushed him gently, but firmly, away. “Come on,” she said in a steady voice, “we’d better go see how Carter is making out.”

They didn’t mention the fungus again that day, but by nightfall it was no longer possible to ignore it. By then her right leg, from foot to upper thigh, was covered in the orange mold. It was as if she were wearing a single woolen stocking.

Carter couldn’t have helped noticing it but he said nothing either. They were sitting in what had been one of Capital Radio’s control rooms. With his spare parts Carter had got some of the equipment functioning again and they had just completed making a recording of Wilson’s analysis of Jane’s notes. Wilson had quickly read through all the notes, knowing that once out of their sealed case the paper would quickly be attacked by the fungus. He had succeeded in pinpointing the vital information. He identified the crucial enzymes that had been modified, and then gave a detailed description of the chemical structure of Jane’s resulting super-enzyme. Carter’s intention was to put the tape on a loop and transmit it continuously.

It was then that Kimberley had asked Carter suddenly, “Do you think it’s symbiotic or parasitic?” Both men knew what she was referring to.

“It’s too early to tell,” wheezed Carter.

She was thoughtful for a while, then said, “Well, at least it’s prettier than some I’ve seen.”

Carter began the transmission. As he was relying solely on batteries for power, he wasn’t sure if the signal would carry far enough, nor did he have the means to build a receiver to hear if the signal was acknowledged.

“What are the chances?” Wilson asked him.

“Fifty-fifty. We’re sending on the designated frequency, so someone somewhere should be monitoring it 24 hours a day waiting to hear from you. It all depends on how close to us the nearest functioning receiver is now. It may be that the fungus has spread right through Wales to the coast. Then again, how far a signal travels often varies depending on atmospheric conditions; so the longer I can keep this equipment functioning, the better our chances are.”

Wilson and Kimberley left Carter in the dimly lit control room, anxiously tending the vulnerable transmitter. They returned to the apartment they’d found earlier. They knew there were some cans of food stored in a kitchen cupboard.

They ate in darkness on the floor of the living room, opening one can after another by touch and then tasting to identify the contents. It was a strange meal, consisting of asparagus tips, courgettes, tuna fish, tomato soup, apricot halves, rice pudding, and evaporated milk. They even managed to laugh at one point when Wilson realized he’d opened a can of dog food.

Afterward, by an unspoken agreement, they made love. In the darkness, on the floor, they made love with a frantic, desperate, urgency. At first he tried to avoid touching her right leg but soon it didn’t matter to him, nor to her.

Later, as they lay in each other’s arms, she sighed and said, “I wish now we’d got to know each other better.” She spoke matter-of-factly and he realized she was now resigned to the fact of her imminent death.

He gave her a gentle hug. “So do I. But there’s still time.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” she said but he knew she didn’t mean it.

“For a start you could tell me why you came along on this trip. I know you’ve been hiding something all along.”

She sighed again. “You’re right. I had an ulterior motive. It made sense once but now it seems crazy. I would never have succeeded.”

“In doing what?”

“In getting my parents out of prison. They were convicted last year in Johannesburg under the Anti-Terrorism Act, conspiring to cause explosions.” She gave a bitter laugh. “It was all trumped up by the security boys, of course. My parents have had connections with anti-apartheid movements for years now, but they’d never be involved with violence. My mother’s a doctor, for God’s sake. But she’s been sentenced to 10 years and my father to 15.”

Wilson made a sympathetic sound though he couldn’t see what possible link there might be between her parents’ jail sentence and the fungus.

“When I heard what was happening in London,” she continued, “and learned the reason for it, I came up with this wild scheme. It involved mutated lichen fungi—you know the special properties of lichen fungi, don’t you?”

“Vaguely,” he said, trying to remember. “I know they’re a strange combination of fungi and algae.”

“Yes, and they have the ability to absorb heavy metals. There’s a theory that the gold deposits in South Africa at Witwatersrand are the result of lichen fungi in pre-Cambrian lagoons absorbing the gold out of the water. I had the idea of using mutated lichen fungi to extract gold in vast quantities from sea water. And if that was possible it would mean the ruination of the South African economy, because the price of gold would plummet and the country still depends on the damn stuff so much.”

He understood now. “You were going to try and blackmail the South African government into setting your parents free.”

“Yes.”

“But it would have meant modifying Jane’s mutating agent to the point where it was safe. That would have been very risky, and complicated.”

He felt her shrug in his arms. “I was going to worry about that later. The main priority was to make sure your wife’s secret wasn’t lost. So I maneuvered myself into a position where I was indispensable to the mission.”

He considered what she’d told him. “You were crazy,” he said finally. “It would never have worked.”

“Maybe not, but I had to try. Now I rather wish I hadn’t. I’m not as strong as I thought I was. I don’t want to die but I don’t want to end up like all those other creatures.”

He squeezed her. “Don’t think about it. Not now.”

But she continued, “Will you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“If you survive all this, will you try to contact my parents and tell them about me?”

“Of course, if I survive. But I don’t think much of my chances.”

“No,” she said seriously, “I’m certain you will get out of this uninfected. Your wife was right. One of us was naturally immune, but it wasn’t me.”

“I’ve just been lucky so far.”

“No. It’s probably genetic. Your son was immune, before your wife—” She paused. “I’m sorry.”

He felt her lips brush his. “Promise me you’ll do what I asked?” she whispered.

“Yes, I promise,” he said and meant it. And he’d do his best to get her parents out of prison as well. As the man who—hopefully—helped save the world, he would be entitled to some rewards.

They made love again. More slowly this time, and with genuine affection. Then he fell asleep.

When he woke up bright daylight flooded the room and Kimberley was gone.

He knew in his heart it was a waste of time, but he searched for her anyway. He couldn’t find her until he went out onto the roof and looked down. Far below, lying on yellow fungus that coated the sidewalk was a small splotch of bright orange.

His eyes stung as the hot tears filled them. Then he went back down to the control room.

Carter was asleep. The equipment didn’t appear to be functioning. Wilson gently shook Carter awake and asked him what the situation was.

“I kept it going for over six hours,” wheezed Carter, “but then some mold got into the works. We can only hope someone heard—” He looked around. “Where’s the lady?”

“Kimberley’s gone,” said Wilson.

“I see,” said Carter, his heavy head tilting forward.

The days passed monotonously. When Wilson wasn’t scavenging for food and drink, he spent the time sitting on the roof of the Euston Tower with Carter. They were waiting for something to happen—a sign of some kind—though they didn’t know what.

Carter didn’t talk much anymore. He was finding it difficult to breathe due to the weight of the crust on his head, neck and chest.

During one of their last conversations Wilson said, “Christ, I could do with a cigarette.”

“Bad for your lungs,” wheezed Carter, and made his laughing sound. Then he said, “Me—I’d like to read a book. Anything at all. Even a Flannery novel.”

Wilson laughed too.

On the eighth day they got their sign. It was near sunset and they were sitting in their customary place on the roof. Suddenly an RAF jet flew overhead with a thunderous roar. It circled low over the area, rocked its wings, and then disappeared to the north.

“You think that was an acknowledgment of our message?” Wilson asked eagerly.

“Had to be,” wheezed Carter. “No other way they’d know we were here.”

The next morning, Carter was dead. He’d suffocated in his sleep.

Wilson left him where he lay and by evening the fungus had consumed him completely. The bright orange stain on the sidewalk far below had long disappeared.

Every morning and night Wilson checked himself for the fungus, but he remained uninfected. Kimberley had been right, it seemed. He was immune. Not that it really seemed to matter any more.

A week or so after Carter’s death he was sitting on the roof one late afternoon, drinking a bottle of wine he’d found, and staring vacantly out over the fungus-covered vista, when he heard a loud rumbling sound. He looked and saw the Post Office Tower starting to topple over. It fell toward Tottenham Court Road in slow motion, and when it hit the ground, after smashing through the brittle shells of the smaller buildings beneath it, the impact made the Euston Tower shake.

Wilson guessed that the fungus had finally eaten through the concrete base of the Post Office structure. He was glad it had collapsed. Every time he looked at it he remembered what its bulbous summit had contained. the horrors of Jane’s laboratory. his son’s eyes staring out of that cabinet.

For some reason he interpreted the destruction of the tower as an even more positive sign than the RAF jet’s appearance.

All of a sudden he knew for certain that the battle would be won and the fungus would be destroyed.

He drank the rest of the wine and flung the bottle high into the air.