The Fungus

Their entrance caused a stir. Everyone looked in their direction and there were wolf-whistles and crude jeers. It wouldn’t have been like this a few weeks ago, Slocock reflected. Oh yes, these brainless bums would have reacted the same way to a woman like Kimberley Fairchild walking into their private male preserve, but not in so blatant a way. Things are beginning to crumble, he realized. The discipline is giving way. With the center gone the rest of the structure, what there is left of it, is collapsing.

“I think you’d be more comfortable in the Officer’s Club,” he told her.

“Nonsense, Sergeant,” she said and plunged into the crowd toward the bar. Slocock watched her walk coolly through the offensive rabble, then followed after her with Feely bringing up the rear. He ignored the jibes along the way. He’d long since given up worrying about his pride. Marge had taken care of that. As everyone back at Aldershot had known about her sleeping around months before she had walked out on him he knew he was looked upon as being not much of a man. Unusually, for such a situation, Marge had got all the sympathy. No one blamed her for having affairs, because he was generally regarded as a bastard. Many just thought she was trying to get away from him but the truth was even more humiliating than the worst of the gossip he’d picked up about himself — she had been trying to rub his nose in the fact that he could no longer even begin to satisfy her. And when her ‘affairs’ entered double figures he gave up counting.

He pushed ahead of Kimberley and cleared a space for her at the bar. He had no difficulty in intimidating the men there — they may have despised him, but they still feared him. And for good reason.

“What’ll you have?” he asked her.

“What do grannies normally drink?” she asked.

“My granny drank brandy.”

“Then I’ll have a brandy.”

“It killed her.”

“Then I’ll have a double.”

Slocock grinned, ordered her drink, a pint of bitter for Feely and a double scotch for himself.

While waiting for the drinks he turned to Feely. “How did last night’s mission south of the border go?”

“Okay. No real fuss except we had to practically drag the bloke out from under his desk. He was hiding there. Thought we were the bloody IRA.” Feely laughed. “Bit of a wimp if you ask me. Beats me why we had to go fetch him. You any idea, Sarge?”

Slocock grimaced. “Yeah. Too many.” He glanced at Kimberley. “You met him yet?”

She shook her head. “No, but I will soon.” She looked at her watch. “In just over an hour’s time. At a briefing. You’ll be attending it as well, I gather.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said sourly. “I hear.“

they’re going to show us some great snuff movies.

“I understand you had something like that right here in the base. A man called Hibbert..?“

Slocock downed his scotch with one swallow and gestured to the barman for a refill. “Yeah. Percy Hibbert. He came in the last batch to be evacuated from Holyhead before they slammed the doors. Spent two days having every inch of his body checked for any sign of the stuff like everybody else and finally got a clean bill of health. Was here for a whole four days before it happened.”

Slocock’s second drink arrived. He grabbed it thankfully. He swallowed half, then continued. “On the morning of the fourth day he’d been here I was walking by the shower blocks and heard a bigger commotion in there than usual. I go for a look-see and almost get knocked down by a stampede of naked guys. Then through the steam comes Hibbert, screaming for help. He was bare-assed too and I could see his whole body was starting to split open with this green and black stuff pushing itself out of him. He came right up to me and grabbed me.” Slocock shuddered at the memory and finished his second double.

“I shoved him away. He goes sprawling across the floor but gets up and runs off. I start screaming for someone to go fetch the bloody flame-throwers and then follow him. We chased him around the camp for nearly a quarter of an hour. We finally cornered him on the football field — out where we were just now.”

“And that was five days ago?”

Slocock nodded. He was watching, yet again, Hibbert’s blackened body writhing and kicking as the three jets of fire sprayed over him.

“It’s fortunate there’s been no other outbreak since then,” said Kimberley. “You were all very lucky.”

Feely said, “The whole place still stinks of disinfectant. And everything Hibbert touched was burned. We even burned down the shower block. But since then everyone’s been as nervous as hell. Most of the lads spend every spare minute checking themselves for a sign of the stuff.”

“Or checking each other. The faggots are over the moon,” growled Slocock. He was still embarrassed at the state of panic he’d been in for 24 hours after the Hibbert incident. He’d torn off all his clothes and locked himself in a bathroom in the officers’ block. He’d sat in an empty bathtub, shaking uncontrollably, and poured a bottle of disinfectant over himself.