body. The white square of paper quivered and wavered, it changed shape, crawled across my desk, and spread white bats’ wings. Then suddenly it launched into flight, wings whispering, and it flew at my face. I saw the wide open mouth ringed with needle vampire teeth, heard the shrill squeaks as it attacked. I shouted with horror, and struck with the axe. The white thing fluttered and squeaked against my throat and face, and I fought and shouted, striking it down onto the floor where, it crawled and slithered loathsomely. I struck with the edge of the axe, and inky black blood spurted from the thing and puddled the wooden floor of the hut.
I backed away from the thing, and lay back against the wall. I felt weak, and terribly afraid. I began to cough. The cough took hold of my whole body and shook it, rocking me, doubling me against the wall. I coughed until my vision burst into bright lights, and there was a salty sweet taste in my mouth.
I sank to my knees against the wall, my mouth was filled with warm wetness and I spat a thick gob of bright blood onto the floor. I stared at it, not understanding what was happening to me. I lifted my hand to my mouth and wiped my lips. My hand came away smeared with blood.
I knew then what it was. Louren and I had passed beyond two sealed doorways into the depths of a tomb closed for 2,000 years - and we had breathed air loaded with the spores of
It was too late now for me to berate myself for overlooking the precautions. I had believed that because the archives were safe, the rest of it was also. In my eagerness and excitement I had not given another thought to the fungus danger, even when Louren and I had discussed the door seals and even when I had smelled the mushroom odour in the tomb of the kings.
Now my lungs were clogged with the horrible colonies of living fungus, a growing living thing within me, feeding on the soft tissues of my body, and pouring out its poisons into my blood to be carried to my brain.
‘Treatment,’ I gasped, ‘got to find the treatment.’ And I staggered across to my bookshelves. I tried to read the letters on the spines of the books, but they changed to little black insects and crawled away. Suddenly a thick mottled snake uncoiled from the top shelf, and dangled down towards my face, a thick bloated puff-adder with a flicking black tongue. I backed away, then turned and fled out into the night.
The smoke was thick, swirling around me, choking me so that I coughed wildly. The flames around me lit all with a lurid satanic glow, a flickering glow. There were dark shapes and strange sounds. I saw Louren’s hut, and ran towards it.
‘Louren,’ I screamed, bursting in through the door. ‘Louren!’ panting, coughing.
The light went on. Sally was alone in Louren’s bed, she sat up, sleepy, soft-eyed, naked, and looked at me with unfocused vision.
‘Where is he?’ I shouted at her. She looked confused, not understanding.
‘Ben, what is it? You’re bleeding!’
‘Where is Lo?’ It was desperately urgent. I had to find him. He had been exposed to the fungus also. I had to find him.
Sally looked down at the bed beside her. There was the indentation on the pillow where Louren’s head had lain.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, big-eyed, puzzled. ‘He was here. He must have gone out.’
I coughed, great choking sobs, and felt fresh blood in my mouth. Sally was fully awake now. She stared at me.
‘Ben, what is it?’
‘Neuromyces,’ I told her, and she gasped seeing the blood streaming down my chin.
‘Louren and I have opened a secret passage beyond the sun image in the archives. It’s infected with the spores. We took no precautions. It has got us. I’m sure he’s there now. I’m going to him.’ I stopped to breathe. Sally was out of bed slipping into her gown, coming to me.
‘Get Ral Davidson. Respirators. Take all precautions. Follow us. I will prop the doors open. Down steps. Turn left at bottom. Follow us. Louren will have it also, drives you mad. Crazy. Terrible things. Come quickly - do you understand?’
‘Yes, Ben.’
‘Get Ral,’ I said and turned. I ran out into the smoke and flames and darkness, running for the cliffs and the cavern. The great walls of the temple towered above me, walls long gone. The great phallic towers of Baal pointed to the moon, lit by the flames of a burning city. Towers that stood again after so long. They were screaming, the women, burning alive with their children. Dead men lay strewn in my path, cut down like the harvest of the devil, their dead faces terrible in the moonlight.
‘Louren,’ I shouted and ran on through the temple. They were in my path, dark and savage, crowding forward to oppose me. Dark, shapeless, terrifying, and I flew at them with a strange battle cry yelled from a blood-glutted throat. The mighty axe spun its silver circles in the firelight, and I was through them, running.
I reached the cavern, saw it lit by the guttering torches, saw the pavement of stone bordering the circular green beauty of the emerald pool. The rows of stone benches, rising in tiers around it as they had 2,000 years before. With a last enormous effort of will, I forced my brain to discount this fantasy and to recognize reality.
The wooden guard hut stood across the cavern from me. I staggered towards it. The guard sat at his desk reading. He looked up, his expression changing to surprise and incredulity.
‘Good God, are you all right, Doctor?’
‘Mr Sturvesant, is he in the tunnel?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did he go in?’
‘An hour ago.’ The guard came towards me. ‘Is something wrong? You are bleeding, Doctor!’
‘Wait here,’ I told him. ‘The others are coming. They know what do to.’
