The Fungus

Wilson was surprised. “Why?”

“She needs the power for whatever she’s doing up there.”

Carter led them to a doorway partially obscured by fungus. They entered a dank, foul-smelling stairwell. Wilson checked the flame-thrower. There was a reassuring slosh of fuel in its tank. He ignited the after-burner. “You show me the way up to the top,” he told Carter, “then wait until I come back. If I don’t come back you’ll know I’ve failed.” He turned to Kimberley. “Same goes for you.”

She shook her head. “I’m coming up with you. I haven’t come all this distance to stop now.”

“Look, you’ll be in my way if I have to use this thing.”

“I’ll stay well behind you,” she said firmly. “But I am coming with you.”

He sighed. He wasn’t going to waste time or energy arguing with her.

Carter led them to the first floor of the Telecom building and then along a passageway to the base of the tower. “It’s a long climb,” he warned. “The basement generator isn’t enough to power the elevators.”

“Do you know where these guards of Jane’s are located?”

“Anywhere between here and the top. And I don’t know exactly how many there are of them, either. They patrol in groups of two or three. Carry things like steel spikes as weapons. Vicious bitches, too. I’ve seen them in action, so don’t let the fact they’re all women inhibit you with that weapon.”

“It hasn’t yet,” said Wilson grimly, thinking that many of the creatures he’d torched so far had probably been female under their fungal crusts.

Carter pushed aside a curtain of hyphae to reveal the entrance to the spiral staircase leading to the top of the tower. The walls and stairs themselves were covered with damp-looking fungus. It looked like the cancerous orifice of some giant animal.

Wilson wanted to turn and run. Sweat began to pour out of him. He didn’t want to know what was awaiting him at the top of the stairs.

“What’s the matter?” asked Kimberley impatiently.

“Nothing.” He stepped forward.

6

Climbing the staircase was difficult. The layer of smooth fungus made everything slippery, and Wilson kept losing his footing. Nor did the weight of the flame-thrower help matters.

The only source of illumination was from the weapon’s after-burner, but Wilson was beginning to think that its red glow was more of a handicap than an advantage. It meant that whoever was guarding the staircase could see them coming, and he was sure it wasn’t his imagination that he could hear faint sounds up ahead. As if someone were backing away from him as he climbed.

He halted to rest his aching legs. And as he did so an idea occurred to him.

He heard Kimberley laboring up the stairs behind him. “Stay where you are,” he called softly to her. “I’m coming back down. There’s something back there I want to check out.”

“What are you talking about?” she called back irritably. “I can’t see anything to check.”

“Shush,” he warned, turning so that the nozzle of the weapon pointed down the stairs and its glow was shielded by his body. Straining his ears he was positive he heard a movement above. He also felt a slight stirring of air against his bare skin. Someone was creeping down the staircase toward him.

He moved as close to the outer wall as he could, then quickly turned and aimed the nozzle upward.

He let loose a long gush of fire that splashed off the opposite wall above and disappeared round the curve of the central pillar of the spiral. Over the roar of the flamethrower, which was deafening in the enclosed space, he was satisfied to hear a high-pitched scream.

Then he screamed himself as some of the liquid fire dribbled back down the stairs and brushed his left foot when he didn’t move out of the way fast enough.

At the same time a figure appeared around the curve of the stairs. It was burning fiercely and as it staggered blindly downward it kept slamming itself against the wall, trying to put out the flames.

“Watch out, Kimberley!” he cried as it stumbled past him, searing his skin with its heat.

The thing disappeared around the curve and then he heard Kimberley scream. There was a sound of something falling down the stairs and more screaming.

“Kim, are you okay?”

He was relieved to hear her say, shakily, “I think so. She grabbed my arm but then she tripped and fell. I’ve got a couple of burns but I don’t think they’re serious. Why the hell didn’t you warn me you were going to do that?”

“I would have warned it—her—at the same time. And whoever else is up ahead.”

He continued onward. The glow from the weapon revealed another burned body further up the stairs. This one, fortunately, was not moving.

While he was staring at the corpse there was a metallic clang and a metal rod with a sharpened end narrowly missed his head after ricochetting off the wall. He reacted quickly, sending a quick burst of flame upwards. There was a cry of pain and the sound of receding footsteps.

Wilson picked up speed. Keep them on the run, he told himself. Don’t give them a chance to plan something clever.

Nothing else happened for about five minutes, then he heard a series of loud crashes up ahead. He couldn’t understand their significance at first, then realized what was happening. A large metal object was rolling down the stairs.

He pressed himself against the central pillar and yelled to Kimberley to do the same. The noise was getting louder. It sounded huge, whatever it was, and moving fast. No chance of outrunning it.

It was right above him now—only yards away. He tensed himself.

Suddenly a large cylinder—like a big water heater—came hurtling round the curve. Wilson felt an agonizing stab of pain in his left thigh, and then the thing clattered past him.

“Kim—?“ he called when the tank had rolled past her position.

“I’m still here. It missed me.”

“You were lucky.” He felt his thigh. There was a large flap of skin hanging loose and a lot of blood. But he knew he’d got off lightly. His main hope was that they couldn’t find something even bigger to roll down. If the tank had been only a couple of feet wider it would have swept them both down the staircase. All the way to the bottom.

Gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg he started upward again. Then stopped almost immediately. He could hear footsteps padding down from above. They were coming to see the effects of their weapon.

He waited until they were just around the bend, then turned on the flame-thrower, shutting his ears to the female screams that resulted. A burning figure stumbled around the curve as before and seemed to reach its arms out to him before collapsing. Again fire dribbled down the stairs, making the fungus sizzle and producing a stench.

He moved on. He passed three more bodies at different intervals, all of them smoldering. The one that had got the furthest up the stairs was twitching feebly. He ignored it and kept going.

The climb went on for ages. He felt certain he was almost at the top but every time he rounded the curve there was just another expanse of stairway ahead.

It was during one of his increasingly frequent halts to catch his breath that he heard a woman’s voice call out clearly from the darkness ahead, “Turn back. You can’t get past us, even with your devil’s man weapon. There are too many of us. We are blocking the way completely.”

With a shock he realized he recognized the voice.

“Hilary!” he gasped. “Is that you?” The last time he’d seen Hilary Burne-Smith was at a pub in Highgate, the night he’d told her that he thought their brief affair should come to an end. It was during one of those periods when he was making a periodic attempt to repair his relationship with Jane, shortly before he gave up and left for Ireland.

Hilary Burne-Smith had been the newest of Jane’s assistants, fresh from Cambridge and a stranger to