was following him, and shrugged.
Kimberley succeeded in extracting the fungus-phallus from herself. With a shudder of disgust she flung it as far away as she could, then threw up again. But this time there was nothing but bile. After dry retching for a time she managed to get to her feet and stagger towards Wilson and Carter.
“Are you all right?” Wilson asked her.
“I’m never ever going to be all right again,” she said. She remembered Slocock’s face—or what was left of it. The thick tendrils growing out of his skull like worms.
She had seen her own future in his face.
“Do you know who you just incinerated over there?” she asked Wilson, pointing at the smoking body.
“What do you mean? How could I know?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Not now.”
Carter shuffled up to them. “We really should get moving, if the lady is up to it. We have a long way to go.”
“Can you walk, Kimberley?” asked Wilson. “Or do you want to rest awhile?”
“I’m fine,” she said listlessly.
“I suggest we head on down toward the Bayswater Road,” said Carter. “The Paddington route is impassable. The West-way and Marylebone overpass have collapsed. One of the mutated fungi seems to be causing a chemical change in all concrete structures as a byproduct of its metabolism. In a few months I doubt there’ll be a building standing in all of London.”
They set off in their shuffling, shambling gait, Wilson straining under the weight of the flame-thrower. Behind them, already forgotten—even by Kimberley—Slocock’s burned remains began to cool.
By the time they reached the Bayswater Road it was beginning to get light—Wilson guessed it must be
Hyde Park was an impenetrable forest of giant growths, some of the huge toadstools or mushrooms being almost as large as the one they’d seen in the cemetery. Many of them were brightly colored, and the overall effect was like that of a scene from some old Disney cartoon.
On the other side of the street the buildings were concealed under vast, moldering heaps of fungal growth. Only the tallest buildings revealed their man-made origins as the fungus thinned out near the top and sections of glass, brickwork, or metal showed through.
They encountered a fair number of creatures—people, Wilson had to remind himself—along the way, and on two occasions he was forced to demonstrate the power of the flame-thrower in order to disperse gathering mobs. The trouble was that his and Kimberley’s clearly untouched bodies attracted attention. His big fear was that the weapon would run out of fuel before they reached the Post Office Tower.
Wilson noticed that Kimberley’s continual inspection of her body was becoming even more obsessive. And her concern was catching—he found himself looking down at himself every minute or so and running tentative fingers across his face and back.
“You’re still fine as far as I can see,” Carter told him as he checked himself for the hundredth time.
Wilson glanced at him with embarrassment. “Sorry, can’t help it. It’s the waiting. I’ll probably feel relieved when I actually see something on me.”
“I doubt it,” said Carter.
“You’ve coped. You’re handling the whole thing very well.”
“No choice.”
Wilson lowered his voice. “There’s always death. I’m afraid that’s going to be her reaction when it finally hits her.” He indicated Kimberley, who was walking a little ahead of them. “Did you consider killing yourself when it happened to you?”
“It crossed my mind,” admitted Carter. “But I’m not a brave man. Death still scares me. I want to live as long as I can, even like this.”
They were passing through Marble Arch now. The arch itself was invisible under the fungus. Ahead stretched Oxford Street—a bizarre fungal canyon.
Wilson suggested taking a short cut through the back streets but Carter advised against it, explaining that many of the smaller streets were completely blocked. “Best if we head along Oxford Street and then go up Tottenham Court Road,” he said.
A few minutes later Wilson stopped and stared hard at the Babylonian Gardens of hanging fungal rot and yeasty strands that obscured the front of what was obviously a large building. He experienced a shock of recognition. “Good Lord, that must be Selfridges! I’ve got to take a quick look, do you mind?”
Carter said hesitantly, “I don’t think we have the time—” But Wilson was already pushing his way through the fibrous curtain and Carter, and Kimberley, had no choice but to follow him.
They entered Seifridges’ department store through a shattered window. Inside, the store was not filled with the homogeneous mass of fungus that Wilson expected but instead contained a mad variety of different growths everywhere, and on everything, in bright, mottled profusion. The atmosphere was heavy with damp and barely breathable with its moldering stench.
Wilson stared around in disbelief. “We used to shop in here—Jane and I—a lot. In the early days, when we were still—” His voice dried up. For some reason the ruined interior of the famous department store was having a greater impact on him than anything else he’d seen so far. He suddenly realized how much the fungus had destroyed. Even if it was finally overcome things would never be the same again. London definitely wouldn’t, and nor would he.
“Come on, let’s get going,” he said roughly.
They moved on along Oxford Street. At the end stood the Centrepoint high-rise, its highest three or four floors entirely clear of the fungus. It gave the impression of something bursting free of its shroud, but Wilson guessed that the fungus would continue to grow inexorably upward until it covered even this tall building’s roof.
They turned into Tottenham Court Road. As they did so there was a loud rumble from the direction of the City. Wilson asked Carter what it was.
“Building collapsing,” said Carter. “It’s happening all the time, but getting more frequent as the fungi eat through the concrete.”
Wilson looked back at Centrepoint and wondered what kind of crash it would make when it finally toppled over.
They approached the Post Office Tower. It resembled an enormous mushroom. Fungus, dark and malevolent, had accumulated around its bulbous summit.
Somewhere up there was Jane and, hopefully, his two children. But what did they look like now? Like one of the horrors he could see across the road, calmly munching on a piece of fungus?
The sight sickened him, yet at the same time made him aware of how hungry he was. A thought occurred to him.
“What do you do for food?” he asked Carter.
“I do the same as that poor unfortunate,” said Carter, gesturing at the creature opposite, who resembled an overripe Michelin Man. “I eat the fungus. Some of it actually tastes quite good. But then, I always liked mushrooms.” He made his wheezing laughing sound.
The fungus made the tower seem even bigger than it was, and as they approached it the tall structure loomed over them oppressively.
Wilson remembered the one occasion he’d gone to the top of it. It had been years ago, back in the days when there was a revolving restaurant and observatory open to the public. Before the IRA had blown out a chunk of the place with a bomb in ’73.
They drew closer to the base of the tower. “Where’s your radio equipment located?” Wilson asked Carter.
“In the adjacent Telecom building, not in the tower itself. But there is probably stuff I could use up in the TV control room if I could get access to it. And I’m going to need to rig my antenna as high as possible. I can’t transmit from the first floor. The fungus appears to absorb radio waves.”
“Where will you get your power from?”
“There’s a diesel generator in the basement. It’s kept running by your wife’s people.”
