The Fungus

“I told you. We start you on a course of the Megacrine drug,” she said guardedly.

“Yes, but will we have time for a few hours’ relaxation? A restaurant meal, perhaps? Or a visit to a pub? My treat.”

“I don’t think you’ll feel like either eating or boozing.”

“Why? Are the side effects of the drug that bad?”

“They’re not good.”

“So tell me, what are they?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“I’ll have to know sooner or later.”

“Yeah, tell us, Doc,” called Slocock from the stern of the boat. “Do we turn purple or what?”

Kimberley sighed. “Megacrine produces the following side-effects: nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, headache, diarrhea, vertigo, excessive sweating, fever, itching, insomnia, and pains in all the muscles and joints. And if the dosage is too strong for your individual metabolism it can seriously damage your skin, your gastro-intestinal tract and central nervous system with potentially fatal results. Satisfied?”

“Christ,” muttered Wilson.

“I think I’d prefer to turn into a mushroom,” said Slocock.

10

Wilson screwed his eyes shut and tensed his muscles as the now familiar spasms started again. But he couldn’t prevent the stream of vomit bursting from his mouth. Most of it missed the bucket and spattered on the floor. He couldn’t have cared less. He felt close to death.

He was lying on a bed in a hail of residence at Bangor University. It was nearly 4 a.m. and Kimberley’s medical colleagues had been injecting the damned anti-fungus drug into him for over six hours now. He had no idea whether he was having a good or bad reaction to the stuff, nor did he know how either Kimberley or Slocock were faring. All he knew was that he’d never felt so bad in all his life.

They’d arrived in Holyhead just before 7 p.m. and Wilson had been immediately struck by how different it was from Belfast. Like Belfast the place was crawling with soldiers, but whereas the atmosphere in Belfast had been tense and anxious, here it was much worse. There was an air of despair in Holyhead and, more disturbing, an underlying sense of panic. The soldiers were all acting very nervously, glancing about continually with suspicious eyes. They clutched their guns as if they were magic talismans that could somehow protect them against the fungus. Wilson felt that it wouldn’t take much of a spark to set them off. They’d run amok, shooting at everything.

As Wilson and the others, with their armed escort, moved through the series of cordons, they were regarded with undisguised hostility when the soldiers discovered who they were. It puzzled Wilson at first — he wondered if it was because he was Jane Wilson’s husband — but then he presumed it was because the three of them had come from Ireland which the trapped masses in Holyhead and elsewhere along the coast looked upon as a tantalizingly close but unreachable haven of safety. They resented anyone who could be so crazy as to leave the place and actually come to the mainland.

Even the members of their escort — an MI5 official and two Special Branch men — were cold and unfriendly toward them. Wilson tried pumping them for information about the present situation inland but only received unhelpful monosyllabic answers.

Just by looking around as their vehicle pushed its way through the choked streets Wilson could tell how bad the situation had become. Refugees outnumbered the soldiers ten-to-one. They milled around helplessly, trapped between the approaching fungus and the military lines guarding the seafront.

“Don’t see why you don’t just turn the poor bastards loose and let them take their chances with the French,” said Slocock as they passed by a crowd of refugees trying to push their way through a barricade.

“Because the more people who try and escape by sea, the more likely the Frogs will start dropping neutron bombs on us,” said one of the Special Branch men.

There were groups of refugees all along the road to Bangor and Bangor itself was also packed with people.

At Bangor University they were met by Kimberley’s colleague, Dr. George Helman, a fat, feminine-looking man with a wispy blond mustache and delicate hands. He and Kimberley greeted each other like long-lost friends and Wilson experienced a slight twinge of jealousy as he watched them hug each other. Former lovers, he wondered? It was difficult to imagine Kimberley making love to this bizarre character but perhaps she was the sort of woman who found intelligent men a turn-on. If that was the case then Wilson decided he stood a better chance of getting somewhere with her than Slocock. He’d already noticed a certain antagonism between them.

After showing them their quarters and giving them a half hour to “freshen up,” as Helman put it, he took them into a laboratory where tests were being run on samples of the mutated fungi. Through two layers of thick glass they watched people encased in bulky white suits at work in the sealed-off area.