The Fungus

He looked at her more closely and then decided he’d seen her before. She wasn’t a regular but she was definitely familiar. Maybe she’d only been in the pub once before, but he remembered her face. It wasn’t the sort of face a man was likely to forget. She was a looker, all right, and from what he could see of her body it made a good match with her face.

He whistled as he headed back to the Public Bar. Looking at beautiful women always cheered him up. Even at times like this when his bowels were playing up.

It was all the fault of the Yard of Ale competition he’d organized earlier in the evening. He hadn’t actually taken part in it, because he was too good, but as usual he’d given a demonstration of how it should be done just to impress the young’uns. Oh, he knew they wouldn’t be impressed to begin with but later when they were pouring beer all over themselves or choking or giving up halfway it would dawn on them they’d seen a master of the art in action. And then he’d really rub it in when it was all over by casually downing a second yard of ale, which is what he’d done tonight as usual. He’d managed it okay but it had been a struggle at the end, he had to admit. His guts had been giving him hell all day and this had been his fifth trip to the toilet, without success. He was so constipated he felt like a pregnant elephant. Perhaps he’d better do what his damned doctor kept advising and cut down on the drink. One of these days.

Despite his acute discomfort he pulled himself together as he entered the public bar and began the task of getting people to drink up with his customary diplomacy:

“Come on, you drunken buggers! Haven’t you got homes to go to?” he bellowed.

He loved to play the tough landlord and, although the regulars knew it was all a game, the tourists and other drop-ins always looked satisfyingly alarmed when his red-faced, pot-bellied form appeared suddenly in their midst breathing fumes and yelling insults at them. It was always a great way to end the day.

And as a point of principle, when everyone was gone he always helped to clean up. He knew he was often more of a hindrance than a help by that stage of the night but the staff didn’t mind. He was quite a good employer as landlords go. Even the girls didn’t get too upset when he rubbed his belly against them “accidentally on purpose-like,” as he told his friends. They knew he was just having some harmless fun, that there was nothing more to it.

Tonight, however, he didn’t feel like rubbing his painfully distended belly against anyone, no matter how young, soft and female they might be. In fact he didn’t even feel up to helping the staff, he just wanted to collapse. And so, after a brief clear-up in the Lounge, which consisted mainly of wiping the table where the attractive blonde had been sitting and picking up her glass, which still contained several mouthfuls of wine, he said goodnight to his staff and headed upstairs to bed.

As he climbed the stairs his belly rumbled and he let out a tremendous fart. He was already regretting not being able to resist swallowing the remains of the blonde’s red wine before washing the glass. On top of the dozen or so pints of Bottom Draught he’d consumed that evening the small amount of wine could turn out to be the alcoholic straw that broke the camel’s back.

He sat down heavily on the big, sagging double-bed, tugged off his shoes then collapsed backward, not bothering to undress. As he drifted quickly off to sleep he thought briefly of Marianne, as he always did at this time, even though it had been eight years since his late wife had shared the double-bed with him. There had been no one else since then.

During the night, as he slept, the live yeasts in the beer that filled his stomach and intestine underwent a remarkable molecular change.

Yeast, the only fungus that grows by budding rather than by producing the long tendrils called hyphae, is also the fastest growing fungus with the theoretical ability to increase a thousand fold in 24 hours. The transformed yeasts in Eric’s stomach, however, were now capable of growing at a hundred times that rate.

Which is what they were proceeding to do.

Feeding first on the sugar in the contents of Eric’s stomach the yeasts budded and grew at a phenomenal speed, producing more alcohol as a waste product as well as a considerable amount of carbon dioxide gas.

Then, when the transformed yeast fungi had exhausted the supply of sugar within his stomach they began to break down the cells of the stomach wall and the intestinal linings. If Eric had been awake it would have felt as if his internal organs were on fire but, mercifully for him, the large amount of extra alcohol created by the yeast had already put him into deep unconsciousness.

Then, slowly at first but then much more quickly, Eric Gifford began to ferment.

And as he fermented his body expanded.