The Fungus

“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.