The Fungus

peered down and saw he’d stepped on the remains of the fungus victim he’d shot earlier. His boot had crushed its fragile skull.

“Oh, ‘scuse me, fella,” he said to it and weaved his way back to the bar stool. He climbed carefully onto it and took another long drink. Then he picked up the Sterling and fired a long burst in the air, raking the ceiling with bullets. Chunks of fungus and plaster fell everywhere.

“Time, gentlemen! Time!” he yelled. “Can I have your glasses please.” He started to laugh then stopped when he felt a stab of pain in his forehead. A hangover already? But he hadn’t finished drinking yet. He ran his head over his sweaty forehead. Then, surprised, he ran it over again. He couldn’t believe it. Hair! His receding hairline was growing back! Thick and luxuriant!

He grinned happily to himself. “This calls for another drink,” he told the empty bar as he raised the bottle. He was too drunk to wonder why his hair had started to grow back, he just took it for granted as some kind of strange miracle. After all, these were strange times.

He remembered how, when he was younger with a full head of hair, he’d never had any trouble picking up women. Now that he had all his hair back, he was confident it would be as easy for him again.

He placed the bottle lovingly down his shirt front, gathered up the ammunition clips, and slid off the stool. His mind was made up. He would go and find a woman. One that wasn’t covered in all that muck. There had to be at least one or two around.

He staggered out of the ruined pub and began to make his way down Ladbroke Grove. He felt very happy. He had three important things—a bottle of whiskey, a gun, and a hard-on. What more could a man want, apart from a woman?

As he progressed, unsteadily, down the street he became aware of others using the thoroughfare. They shuffled and scuttled furtively in the shadows as if they didn’t want to be seen, and who could blame them, thought Slocock. On one occasion he glimpsed a creature that appeared to be covered with fluid-bloated condoms. As drunk as he was, the sight nauseated him, and he immediately shot the creature with the .38.

He also shot four people—things—who were joined together by thick strands of fungus like a Siamese quartet. “Doing you a favor,” he told them as he opened fire while they tried to flee from him in four directions at once.

He lost track of the time as he wandered about on his quest for a woman. He also became confused as to where he was. Under their blankets of fungus all the streets looked the same.

Then, when he was getting low on both whiskey and ammunition he’d shot a lot of creatures by that time —he saw what he’d been searching for. A woman. An untouched woman. A woman with clean, white skin. And she was all his.

All he had to do was get rid of the two fungus-ridden maggots who were in the process of raping her.

At least the truck’s lights were still working. Wilson blinked in the sudden brightness, then helped Carter clamber down into the wrecked rear compartment, forcing himself to overcome his aversion to touching the man. It was the first time he’d had a chance really to see Carter, and it took an effort to keep telling himself that there was a human being underneath all those huge, wart-like crusts.

Carter read his mind. Peering at him with his one visible eye he wheezed, “Not a pretty sight, eh? Think a hair-piece would help? A big one, maybe?” He made his odd laughing sound again.

Wilson, feeling embarrassed, looked away. Kimberley, he saw, was splashing herself with a trickle from the drinking water tank in an attempt to wash off the dried fungal juices. At the same time she was anxiously examining her body for signs of infection. He automatically glanced down at his own body, half-expecting to see the fungus somewhere on him. But as far as he could tell, through all the soot and fungus stains, he was still infection-free.

Observing this, Carter commented, “It’s remarkable you two have both escaped the fungus so far, even though you’ve been exposed for a considerable time.”

Wilson told him about the drugs they’d been using.

“But not any longer,” said Kimberley bitterly, gesturing at the smashed glass littering the overturned compartment. Their captors had done a thorough job of breaking everything that was breakable.

An unpleasant thought suddenly occurred to Wilson. He immediately checked the locker containing the spare radio, and saw at once the seals were broken. One look inside was enough to show him that the set was beyond repair.

“Well, that’s it then,” he said sourly. “Even if we get Jane to talk there’s no way we can transmit the information.”

“Yes, there is,” said Carter. “I’m a one-time radio ham. Cost my father a fortune when I was a teenager, and I had to give it up when I began my medical studies, but there still isn’t much I don’t know about radios. I’ve been cannibalizing equipment at British Telecom, building makeshift receivers. The fungus gets into them pretty quickly but I’ve been able to keep a step ahead of it. That’s how I picked up those messages meant for you. I’m sure I can rig up a transmitter. There are still plenty of spare parts sealed up at the Post Office Tower.”

“And you say that’s where Jane is? At the Tower?”

Carter nodded his bulbous head. “Right at the very top. Her followers guard the only way up there.”

Wilson frowned. He was still having trouble accepting the incredible story that Carter had told him about Jane. “You say these people actually worship her? But why?”

“They obviously believe her when she tells them she created the fungus and controls it. Her followers are all women, by the way, though what the significance is of that I don’t know yet.”

“But what’s she doing in the top of Post Office Tower?” asked Wilson.

“I’ve heard rumors she’s established some sort of laboratory up there.”

“You think she might be working on a way of stopping the fungus?”

“From what I hear about her I doubt it very much.”

Wilson sighed. “Well, at least she’s still alive and rational enough to organize a lab. That means she’s probably still capable of looking after the kids. I’m sure she wouldn’t let any harm come to them, no matter what the state of her mind.” He turned to Kimberley. “Stop wasting that water.” She was still splashing it over herself and frantically peering at her skin.

“I have to know if it’s on me yet,” she cried, then, as before, turned her back to him. “Can you see it anywhere? Tell me the truth.”

He gave her back a cursory look. “You’re fine,” he told her, then salvaged a cup from the debris. “Move aside, I’m thirsty.”

“You don’t seem to care!” she accused him as he gulped down a cupful of water. “We’re going to look like that thing over there, and you don’t give a damn!”

She was pointing at Carter.

Wilson said nothing. Instead he filled the cup again and handed it to Carter.

Kimberley muttered something under her breath and went to the rear door. “Where are you going?” Wilson asked her.

“I’m going outside for a pee. I can hardly have one in here.”

That was true. The cubicle housing the chemical toilet was now horizontal. “Don’t go too far from the truck,” he warned her. “And keep an eye out for anything moving.”

He watched her as she climbed out of the open airlock. She seemed completely oblivious to her nakedness and he felt a sluggish revival of his desire for her—a desire that had been dormant for some time.

“A very attractive woman,” commented Carter.

“Yes,” agreed Wilson, uncomfortably aware that his partial arousal was physically evident. “I wish she had something to wear. I wish I had something to wear.”

Carter made his wheezing laugh and said, “You don’t have any spare clothing with you?”

Wilson told him about the fungus attack that had cleaned them out of everything organic.

“Well,” said Carter, “You really don’t need clothes in London anymore, as far as the climate is concerned. The fungus seems to have raised the average temperature by at least five degrees. And the humidity has increased, too.”

“And after a while the fungus even clothes you as well,” said Wilson bitterly.