“Sean’s not a zombie,” said Aaron. “It was more like he was angry and confused.”
Brett went into the lounge and handed Loobey a bottle of water, then placed his hand against his sweaty forehead. “You’re burning up, Loobs.” He looked at his watch. “Where the hell is Tom? He should have come back by now. What is it to the village? Two miles?”
Ryan shrugged. “More or less. The road isn’t easy, though. He’s probably had to take it slow.”
Brett nodded but didn’t seem to believe it. Out of all of them, he was the most on edge. Just looking at him made Ryan feel guilty for putting him in this situation.
Aaron slid off the sofa and knelt beside Brett’s jacket. Everyone tensed, Ryan most of all. “Aaron, what are you doing?”
“I want to look at the rabbit. Maybe we can learn something.”
“What the hell are we going to learn by looking at a dead rabbit?”
“Brett should take a look. He’s a vet.”
Brett grimaced, but slowly his expression changed. “I’m not an expert in contagious organisms, but I suppose it might help if we can find out how the infection progresses.”
“How it progresses?” Ryan was unsettled by the word.
“Don’t you want to know which organs it affects? How it spreads?”
“No, not really.”
“I do,” said Aaron. “I want to know what we’re up against.” Without asking for permission, he whipped away Brett’s jacket, revealing a pile of rotting brown flesh and clumps of green fuzz. The rabbit’s glassy eyes stared at the front door, as if it might get up and try to escape.
Ryan covered his nose with his forearm. “It fucking reeks.”
Aaron moved away in revulsion, too. Brett, however, probably used to blood and guts, leaned right over the corpse. “It’s completely desiccated.” There was wonderment in his voice. “The fungus fed on the rabbit’s organs, probably using it as fuel to spread outside the body.”
“There’s more of that bony stuff,” said Aaron, pointing at the rabbit’s guts while pulling the neck of his T-shirt up over his mouth and nose.
Ryan grimaced, not understanding how his brother could be so curious about something so gross. All the same, he wanted to add to the conversation. “With Sean, the bone cracked open and bugs spilled out.”
“Get me a pen,” said Brett.
The small console table next to the front door had a guest’s comments book. On top of the book was a red biro. Ryan grabbed it and handed it to Brett, being sure to keep his distance from the squashed rabbit.
Brett used the biro to poke at the corpse, specifically at the bony protuberance. “It’s not bone,” he said. “It’s fibrous, more like chitin.”
“What the hell is chitin?” Loobey had rolled onto his side and was watching them intently.
“It’s the substance you usually find in insects and sea creatures. Insects have their skeletons on the outside, right? Think of a scorpion or a beetle. They don’t have skeletons like us, they have shells. Chitin is the stuff those shells are typically made of. It can be very thick, like with a crab, but also thin enough to form the wings of a dragonfly. It’s one of the most common biological components on Earth. In this case, it seems to have formed some kind of protective sac.”
“For the insects,” said Aaron.
Brett adjusted his glasses, took a moment, and then sighed. “It seems like the insects are the vectors for the fungus. They’re born inside an infected creature. Once they’re mature enough, they escape their protective sac and start spreading the green oil. The green oil leads to more fungus that in turn leads to more infected animals, which leads to more insects. It’s a complete life cycle. The only problem is that this organism is entirely unknown to science.”
“How can you be sure?” asked Ryan, holding his nose to combat the smell. It made him sound bunged up, like he had a cold. “You don’t know every species of animal.”
Brett gave a slightly defensive smile. “Of course I don’t, but vets don’t study thirty thousand separate species of spider to know about spiders. They study a few of the most common species along with a small collection of outliers. By doing this they can make an educated guess about all of the species in between. Same goes for all other animal species. Learn the biology of a Havana rabbit and you can be pretty confident about the biology of a Florida White.”
“What’s your point?”
“His point,” said Aaron, “is that he might not know every fungus or insect, but he knows enough to realise when something isn’t right.”
Brett nodded. “Exactly. I understand enough to be sure that what we’re dealing with isn’t in any textbook, the bugs and the fungus, both.”
For some reason, Ryan was irritated. He wanted answers, but all he was getting were reasons to be afraid. “So what are you saying? Did some new species emerge from the earth right next to this cottage in the middle of nowhere, disturbed by that chunk of metal falling out of the sky because a plane forgot to lock its cargo hatch?”
“These hills and mountains are ancient, and mostly untouched. For all we know, this organism could be prehistoric, lying inert beneath the soil for thousands of years until a big chunk of porous metal came and provided a route to the surface.”
“What if the metal didn’t come from a plane?” said Aaron. “What if it came from higher up? Like, from aliens?”
Everyone tutted.
Aaron blushed, but he was defiant. “You don’t know! What if the corkscrew was launched from space by an alien civilisation?”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “To do what?”
“To take over. What if the bugs are alien life forms, and the fungus is a way of infecting Earth – or altering it? Maybe it’s an alien plot to make the planet suitable for them to come here and take it for themselves.”
“I don’t like how convincing he’s making this sound,” said Loobey. “He’s
