The Fungus

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.

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