It was showing London again, but it was now a city that Rebecca barely recognized. Matted brown filaments ran rampant through streets normally awash with tourists—the fountains in Trafalgar Square were completely clogged, and Nelson’s Column was brown and crusted more than a third of a way up its height. The Thames had backed up at Hammersmith, dammed with the infection, and overlooked by an army of puffballs on the bridge above, standing tall and spewing out spores like smokestacks. The pictures were obviously coming in from a helicopter. It banked away from the river and back over Buckingham Palace—now little more than a brown dry mound—over Green Park—a name that would have to be changed—and along an Oxford Street eerily empty and devoid of a single moving soul. St. Paul’s, the cathedral that had withstood all that the Germans could throw at it, was a burned-out ruin, the great dome collapsed in on itself and the steps outside festooned, not with tourists, but with tall, silent puffballs. Indeed, the whole city seemed to lie empty, and Rebecca was reminded of those old movies Shaun loved so much, and the quiet, dead streets of the old city that so often heralded an apocalypse.
She got Mark to turn up the volume.
“The pictures you are seeing are not a random, one-off occurrence—similar scenes are being enacted all across the globe. Where cities are not being engulfed, they are burning, in frantic, mostly futile, attempts to contain the menace. But nothing short of complete destruction by fire has stopped its spread. The question has to be asked—and might be being answered here, right in front of our eyes.
“Is this the way the world ends?”
* * *
The picture on screen faded, filled with static, then sharpened again, but duller than before.
The phones are out, now the television is going. How much longer will we have power?
They’d talked about getting a spare generator for the cabin, but as they were rarely in residence during the worst of the weather, they hadn’t got round to doing anything about it. It hadn’t seemed urgent at the time. Rebecca spent the next hour taking stock of what they did have in the cabin—apart from what she’d brought in the truck, the pantry was well-stocked with cans—beans mostly—and dried pasta and rice. As long as the power held out they’d do all right for food. A rummage around at the back of the closet where they kept the activities gear also yielded a single-burner camp stove and two bottles of propane—Shaun’s night fishing supply. She might be able to eke a couple days’ cooking out of that—if she was lucky.
The old fireplace in the cabin hadn’t seen a flame for as long as Rebecca could remember, but if the power did go, she knew she would have to get a fire going—and burn anything she could find. There was plenty of firewood just outside beyond the drive in normal times—but these weren’t normal times, and she wasn’t about to risk walking among the infected greenery in search of kindling.
I’ll have to make do.
After her stocktaking, she set to making a pot—a big pot—of potato and meat stew. That way, if the power did go unexpectedly, at least she wouldn’t have to start from scratch. As she was chopping vegetables at the table, a vivid memory came to her, of a long-ago winter storm, standing in this same spot as her mother chopped and scraped and filled a pot.
And all of a sudden she was crying, heavy wet tears running down her cheeks.
I’ll keep them safe, Mum. I promise you, I’ll keep them safe.
* * *
Once the stew was on and bubbling, she made another coffee and joined the boys on the couch. Adam was sound asleep, curled up tight in one corner, but Mark was wide-awake—even slightly hyperactive, although she sensed that tears might not be far away behind the brave smile he flashed as she pushed him gently aside to make room.
“It’s bad all over, Mum,” he said. “That’s Miami—what’s left of it.”
The screen showed that the infection had run rampant across Florida, eating its way through the vegetation at a prodigious rate and clambering through streets, over buildings—inside houses—driven, so they said, by heat and humidity.
At least we don’t have to worry about that on the Rock in April.
And it seemed there was something new to report—something so strange that it took her a while to process the import of it. Again she recognized the city—Edinburgh Castle is hard to mistake—but what she didn’t understand at first was the sight of what looked like black beach balls rolling down the cobbles of the Royal Mile. As the camera zoomed in she saw that the balls weren’t black at all, but brown, and crenellated—and burst on impact with anything they touched—lampposts, vehicles—and people. The camera cut away as one of the balls bounced, hit a running man hard in the back—and rather than exploding, opened out, a black crow at the man’s neck, before clasping shut, tight on the screaming mouth, cutting off the sound. The last thing the camera caught was the figure falling, poleaxed, and another ball bouncing and unfolding on top of his prone body. His legs kicked twice, then went still.
As the report cut to a talking head, Mark finally asked the question she knew had been worrying at him all day.
“Do you think Dad’s okay?”
She put her coffee down on the table and pulled the boy close. He was at an age now when he’d normally complain and move away, but not this time. She felt him sob once against her shoulder.
“He texted—said he’s coming home. And you know your dad—if he says it, he means it. Just you wait and see—he’ll be here as soon as he can. I’m sure of it.”
As she said it, Rebecca realized she believed it. Shaun would be doing everything in his power to make it back to them—that was his job.
And it’s my job to make sure we’re all in one piece when he arrives.
23
There was only so much of the view from the cockpit that Shaun could take. They’d been in the air for well over an hour now, and everything they could see below them was brown and infected, with only small patches of green still showing. Fires sent tall plumes of smoke high into the air above many towns and settlements, and Wozniak was forced to fly low to keep below the heavy, spore-filled clouds that loomed above. Everything had an air of doom and death, and Shaun found himself thinking more and more of the two men they’d left lying on the tarmac. It seemed Wozniak might have been thinking along similar lines.
“See if there’s any booze in the back, would you?” the man said. “My nerves are shot, and this seems like the kind of crate where the owner would have some decent liquor aboard.”
Shaun took the opportunity to go back into the passenger cabin and light up a smoke, sucking it down and trying to find a spot of calm. The plane bucked and swayed in ways he wasn’t used to, each lurch bringing with it the worry of plunging out of the sky.
Yep—a drink would go down just fine right about now.
He finished the smoke and did some searching, finding a fridge and drinks cabinet behind the rearmost seat. There was an almost-full bottle of single-malt Scotch, and he took it and a couple of glasses back up front.
“We need to talk about our plan,” Wozniak said as Shaun poured them both stiff measures.
“We have a plan?” Shaun replied, only half-joking.
“Get to Montreal, fill up, and head for Moncton is mine—but I’m guessing from your accent that you’re from the Rock. Is Moncton good enough for now?”
Shaun nodded.
“It’s a start. I can get a ride and head up through Prince Edward Island—hope a ferry is running, or charter a boat.”
“Or steal one…” Wozniak added, and Shaun nodded again.
“In for a penny, in for a pound. It’s not as if anyone is paying attention.”
They’d been listening on the radio, expecting someone, anyone, to contact them, threaten them. But there had been nothing. It seemed they had got away and clear.
Better than those two we left on the tarmac anyway.
He pushed that thought away—his focus had to be ahead, not behind. Wozniak was talking, and Shaun had missed a bit—something about
an airfield.
“…Montreal is too big—but there’s a small field that fishermen use to get in and out of the wild—I’ve been there twice. The strip’s long enough for us to land this crate just fine, and there’ll be less chance—I hope—of anyone trying to stop us.”
“Whatever you say, pal,” Shaun replied. “You’re the boss.”
He eyed the Scotch bottle again—the thought of drowning in its depths was tempting—but he’d need a clear head—he had a feeling that refueling wasn’t going to be quite as simple as Wozniak might like it to be.
* * *
Twenty minutes later they were making a wide circle over a small provincial airfield.
“I don’t see anybody,” Wozniak said. “Do you see anybody?”
All Shaun saw was brown where there should be green. It looked like all the vegetation was infested; forest, grass, shrub and cropland—even the ponds and lakes that should be blue and shimmering sat gray, sepia tinged, and lifeless.
“We can’t land here,” Shaun said. “It’s not safe.”
“Could be worse,” Wozniak replied and let out a laugh that had little humor in it. “It could be raining.”
He lined up the Cessna with the runway and brought her down into a slightly bumpy but safe enough landing, before taxiing over toward the group of buildings that denoted the administrative area and hangars.
“Over there,” he said after a few minutes. “There’s the pumps. I’m going to get as close as I can, then make a dash for it—I should be able to stay under the wings if I do this right. I’ll need you at the doorway—keeping an eye open. And don’t worry, big man. This is the last lap—get this done and in five minutes we’ll be on our way back east, and home for supper.”
Everything fell suddenly quiet when Wozniak cut the engine. And it was just as quiet outside when they opened the cabin door and let down the steps. The air smelled of damp and rot, and Shaun was suddenly reminded of the scene at the logging camp.
“Five minutes, right?”
Wozniak patted him on the arm, and left the plane, heading under the wing to a fuel hose that snaked across to the nearest hangar.
“Just keep an eye open—and shout if anyone looks like bothering us.”
Shaun took the opportunity to light up another smoke as Wozniak hooked up the fuel line. At least the taste of it masked the dank smell, but a feeling of deep dread crept all around him, sinking into him. And now a droning hum, distant, but getting definitely louder. He started to walk toward the sound before his head caught up with his body and forced it to a stop.
“There’s something funky going on here,” he said, and his voice resonated in his head, as if he had a cold coming on.
“I feel it too,” Wozniak called out. “Hold on—we’ve got fuel going in. We’re nearly there.”
The drone got louder, and Shaun’s head swam—the last time he’d felt anything like it had been when he’d gone under anaesthetic for dental surgery—but this was different. This felt guided somehow, purposeful. Then he remembered the animals crossing the highway, and the sound outside the pickup.
He stepped quickly back inside the plane—the effect dampened slightly—at least enough for him to shake it from his head.
But Wozniak is still outside.
Moving quickly, he took a bundle of tissues from the top of the drink cabinet and stuffed them, hard, in his ears. The drone cut off—its effect nullified.
But for how long?
Taking another handful of the tissues he went back outside. Wozniak had walked away from the plane, his eyes glazed, heading across the runway, straight for the brown verge beyond. Shaun caught up with him five yards from the edge of the tarmac, and turned him around. There was no recognition in the man’s eyes, and he immediately tried to turn away again, attempting to squirm from Shaun’s grip.
It took three attempts to get the tissues wadded in the smaller man’s ears, but almost immediately after that his eyes cleared, and he shook his head, as if clearing it.
“Back to the plane, quick,” Wozniak shouted. Shaun didn’t hang around to disagree—but when they turned, they saw that they were no longer alone on the tarmac.
A man stood at the foot of the plane’s steps.
He had a gun pointed straight at them.
* * *
The gun was the first thing Shaun saw—the second was that the man was clearly infected. He wore earplugs—the small, personal ones, so was immune to the sound of the drone—but it was too late for him anyway. Brown filaments ran across both cheeks and tugged at the left corner of his mouth, making it droop like he’d suffered a stroke. His eyes were clear though, and his voice carried loud enough even through the wadded tissues.
“I’m coming with you.”
Seeing the size of the gun—it was a handgun, but the barrel looked like a bloody cannon—Shaun was inclined to acquiesce, but Wozniak had other ideas.
“Can’t do that, man,” he shouted, shuffling forward, never taking his eyes off the weapon. “I’ve got my wife and kids to think of. We’re still clear—not infected.”
“I’ll shoot,” the man replied, and aimed straight at Wozniak.
“Then who’d fly you out of here?”
The gunman seemed momentarily confused by the question, and his hesitation gave the small man the opening he needed. Wozniak launched himself at the armed man, head down in a shoulder charge that sent them both sprawling on the tarmac. The gun went off, the shot loud even through the tissues in Shaun’s ears.
“Get the gun,” Wozniak shouted, and finally Shaun moved to his aid. He stepped forward and stamped down on the armed man’s wrist, twice, feeling bone give way before the weapon fell from his grasp. Wozniak lifted the gunman’s head from the tarmac and slammed it down hard, then again. The back of the skull gave way and the man fell back, suddenly still. There was almost no blood, and what little there was looked brown and watery.
Shaun bent to retrieve the gun.
“Leave it!” Wozniak shouted. “He touched it. It might be infected.” The man left Shaun standing over the body, went under the wing and disengaged the fuel line. “Let’s get the flock out of here before somebody else comes along.”
As he followed Wozniak back into the plane Shaun saw the man wince, grab at his side, and bring a bloody hand away.
“Bastard nicked me—don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Let’s get the bird up first, then we can worry about it.”
Shaun waited until they were back in the plane with the door firmly shut before removing the tissues from his ears. The drone had gone again, leaving a memory, a promise of peace and rest that was still somehow beguiling—without the wadding, Shaun knew he’d have given in to its call—and gone gladly.
He followed Wozniak into the cockpit—the man winced in fresh pain as he sat down, but waved Shaun away.
“I said, let’s get her up first—I’ll be happier when we’re in the sky. But first, get the Scotch.”
“Should you be drinking?”
“It’s not for drinking, you idiot—I touched that fucker. Who knows what I got on me? Pour it over my hands—and quick—time is probably of the essence.”
Shaun did as he was told. The cockpit filled with the high smell of the liquor as Wozniak rubbed it into his hands and wrists, then took to the controls. As he kicked in the engine and they started to roll away, Shaun saw movement at the edge of the runway—although at first he didn’t believe what he was seeing. Black balls rolled out of the verge—the size of soccer balls and bigger—and unhesitatingly made straight for the prone body they’d left behind. As Wozniak took them off and away, he had time to see the first ball open out, like an actor opening a cape with a dramatic flourish, then swoop down over the dead man, who was quickly, and thankfully, lost from sight.
The first traces of brown filament appeared in the wound in Wozniak’s side twenty minutes later.
24
Rohit knew there had to be something he was missing. Many plant species have natural c
hemical defenses against fungal attacks, but from what he’d seen on the news and read online, this newest invader was riding roughshod over all of them. Rohit had tested some of them on his sample—nicotine infusions, coffee, Pyrethin-based mold remover, and several common disinfectants based on pinesap extract. The new fungus ate them all up and came on for more. It seemed the organism had been built with a prime directive that overrode everything else.
If it’s organic, it’s dinner.
But while considering the fact that the thing had been made in a lab, cobbled together from bits and pieces, Rohit had what proved to be an epiphany. The bundles of tissue that looked like neurons had to have come from somewhere, a building block that had an origin. And it was indeed nervous tissue, then maybe it wasn’t a defensive strategy he should be considering—maybe it was an attacking one. He stopped researching plant defenses, and began looking into neurotoxins.
* * *
He was aware he was straying outside his own, admittedly narrow, field of expertise, but he felt rising excitement and anticipation—he was onto something, something that was confirmed when he read about the psychoactive effects of certain neurotoxin transmitters.
That’s how they’re producing the visions. It must be.
His research was leading him down strange pathways, and he had to laugh when Irene brought him coffee and, when asked what he was reading, he was able to reply, with a straight face, “The effects on brain chemistry of licking the Sonoran Desert toad.”
The more he read, the more he was convinced he was on the right track.
But how am I supposed to test it?
It wasn’t as if he had a ready supply of neurotoxins on hand—then he remembered that he had plenty of one of the most simple of all, one all labs have a supply of. He retrieved a bottle of ethanol and took it over to the cabinet. Opening it only as far as he dared—even then the sound of the drone and the light-headed effect kicked in immediately—he poured fifty milliliters or so over the top of the rightmost puffball.
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