Aaron tugged at Ryan’s arm, pointed to the side of the road. “Look!”
At first it was unclear what Aaron was indicating, but then Ryan’s eyes adjusted enough to discern a dim silhouette of a corkscrew.
No.
His eyes flicked to the right, and he spotted a second corkscrew, further away but easy to see due to the way its metallic surface caught and reflected the moonlight.
No!
A wheelie bin toppled over nearby. A creature emerged, formerly human, now waving a pair of talon-tipped tendrils instead of arms.
“Get inside!” Tom cried out. Three more infected people emerged from the shadowy side streets.
“What’s going on?” Aaron cried, holding his head like he had flies buzzing inside his skull. “This can’t be happening. I don’t understand.”
“People are sick,” shouted Tom, stepping out of the church’s porch. “They’re all sick.”
Ryan couldn’t move. His mind was cartwheeling down a steep hill, thoughts flying out in all directions as he tried to make sense of what was happening. “Th-The corkscrews, they landed everywhere. It wasn’t just the one we found.”
Aaron was muttering to himself, still clutching his head and now pulling at his hair. All of his resolve had melted away in an instant. He was a helpless kid again.
The infected people stumbled closer.
Ryan managed to shake himself free of his stupor and grabbed his brother. “Aaron, snap out of it. We have to move.”
Aaron blinked twice, let go of his hair, and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
The Cartwright brother raced towards the church. The whole time, Ryan couldn’t help screaming madly inside his own head – The corkscrews landed everywhere.
Everywhere.
Chapter Twelve
There had been only darkness, but then came the light. Dim at first, but slowly spreading wide and bright like the petals of a tulip, it cut through the shadows and illuminated metal edges and splintered wood. For a moment, Loobey didn’t know where he was. Then, he thought that maybe he was in a prison cell, staring up at a ceiling that was far too low. If not for all the wood, he might have continued down that line of thought, but then he realised he was lying on his back inside a shed. His mind took him no further than that for a moment, but then he remembered it all.
Ryan’s stag do.
The cottage.
The fungus.
Shit!
Loobey bolted upright, hitting his shoulder on the underside of an old workbench. He was surrounded by tools and junk. Beside the workbench, a petrol mower hung from a hook. Dust swirled in the shafts of light spilling in through the shed’s single window. Hundreds of tiny bugs skittered along the floorboards.
Loobey yelped and dragged himself back along the floor. His hand hit something warm and wet, and when he turned, he saw Sean.
Or what was left of him.
The twisted creature held only scraps of Loobey’s former friend. Pieces of skin here, a patch of ginger hair there. Mostly it was a mass of brown fluids and green fungus, along with the bony carapaces that seemed to grow at random. A pair of metal shears stuck out of Sean’s skull, lodged inside his left eye socket. The memory of having put them there flashed through Loobey’s weary mind.
I killed Sean. No, the fungus killed Sean. I just dealt with what was left.
Loobey remembered being in the dark with a silent monster whipping at him with two vicious talons. He looked down at his arms now and saw the deep lacerations he had sustained. Dry blood ran from his hands to his elbows.
When he had pulled Sean into the shed with him, it had been an attempt at euthanasia. His death had been certain, but at least he would give Ryan and Aaron a chance to get away. Instead of slowly dying in a bed on a cancer ward, months from now, he had got the chance to die for a reason.
But I ain’t dead.
Why ain’t I dead?
Loobey reached out and kicked at Sean’s corpse, wanting to make sure it wasn’t going to suddenly leap up. The fungus had turned Sean into a monster. Who was to say the monster couldn’t come back from the dead?
The corpse moved, and Loobey yelped, but the monster was most definitely dead. The movement came from something else.
Bugs.
Sean’s remains were infested with four-legged bugs, the same ones that covered the shed floor in their hundreds. Loobey made up his mind to get moving, so he leapt to his feet, surprised at his own agility. For months, he had felt weak and… heavy. Now he felt rested, almost excited. Adrenaline coursed through his veins and made him feel connected to every part of his body.
My body. It’s still my body.
Loobey looked down at the gash on the back of his right hand. He had got it outside when he had been wrestling with Sean. A talon had bit into his flesh and infected him. The wound had been laced with green oil and subtle strands of green fuzz, and as he looked at it now, he still saw the fungus, but it had blackened. The fungus had spread no further than his hand. How long had the infection taken with Brett and Sean?
Sean was covered in the stuff after a few hours. Brett changed in less than a day. How long have I been lying here?
Loobey stared out of the window. It was made from a sheet of murky plastic, so the only thing he could see was that it was daylight. When Ryan and Aaron had escaped on the bikes, it had been evening – not even midnight.
I’ve been lying here for hours. After I planted the shears in Sean’s skull, I… I lost my breath and passed out. I was exhausted. It was too much.
But now I feel… okay. I feel better than I have in months.
Loobey felt like he was trapped inside a dream, confused by the strange logic of an imagined world. As much as he felt in touch with his own body, he felt completely adrift from reality. Sean was a
