While they drank the coffee, they heard the same stories that Shaun had heard on his radio—mayhem and chaos, all across the planet.
“Will our plan to head for the cold work?” the captain asked, and it took Rohit several seconds before he realized that the question had been aimed at him.
“It might,” he finally replied. “It depends what, if any, homeothermic abilities were designed into the thing. Given how quickly it is showing us new adaptations though, I wouldn’t put anything past it.”
“What do you mean, designed?” the captain asked.
It was only then that Rohit discovered that his theory about the Chinese, and their experiments, was simply that—his theory. No one else had connected the dots. He spent the next ten minutes laying it out for the Captain, firstly to disbelief growing on disdain, then, finally, a degree of acceptance as Rohit made him see the sense of his case.
“Does any of this actually help us?”
Rohit didn’t have an answer to that, until Irene nudged him in the ribs.
“You didn’t tell him about the neuro-thingy… you know, the stuff that kills it?”
The captain, as it turned out, knew about the general effects of ethanol on the fungus, but yet again, the connection had not been made between that and the destruction of whatever control centers might be buried in the matrix of mycelia.
“Are you telling me that we can systemically kill this thing off—like killing the roots of a weed to kill the foliage?” the captain asked.
“If we have enough toxin? Possibly.”
It was a moot point anyway—they were far enough offshore to be away from much fear of infection now.
We’re safe, for the time being.
33
Noble was somewhere deep in the forward hold that held the food and water supplies. As he walked among the crates and packages, he slapped an exposed palm across the surfaces, drumming in time to the beat that pounded in his empty skull.
We have danced since before life walked on land, and we will dance long after there is nothing else but the black and the rock. We will dance in the black as the moon falls into our arms, and when the sun dims and goes dark we will dance on, into the stars, black on black, until the end, when all is black, all is the dance.
We will dance.
Lost in the dark.
Lost in the dance.
34
Rebecca woke to see sunlight filtering in through the opaque windows of the garage doors. Despite the situation they had all fallen asleep, tiredness and relief washing them down to a place where worries could be forgotten, if only temporarily. She still couldn’t quite believe that Shaun was there beside her but she was glad of his company—and glad that he took the driving duties in the SUV as they left the car shop and headed out into the day.
The infection had been busy while they were sleeping. The long pond opposite butted right up to the road—and every inch of its banks—and even across the shallower stretches of water—was infested with the fungal puffballs—each taller than a man and twice as broad. Just the sound of the SUV leaving the parking area triggered a bout of frantic activity. The nearest balls puffed and swelled, spewing out a dark cloud of spores that were taken high by an offshore wind, thankfully travelling away from the road and off into the brown, dead hillside to the west.
Shaun reached into his pocket—Rebecca knew that move only too well—he was going for a cigarette. She slapped at his hand.
“No way, mister. If you want one, you’ll have to go outside.”
That got her a smile that melted—for a second—the chills and worries that infested her, and as they made their way up through the deathly quiet of Catalina she started to think that they might yet get out of this alive. The feeling only lasted for a couple of hundred yards. When they got over the hill that led them along toward the center of the small town, they saw twin plumes of smoke rising from the harbor ahead. As they got closer it was obvious that the fishing boats had been burned out—and not just the boats, but the post office, the processing factory and Mifflins’ supermarket were all reduced to smoking husks. The car park outside Mifflins had also hosted a huge bonfire and they passed by close enough to see the remains—bodies, scores of them, all burned rather than given over to the infection. The once-neat houses that had lined the road for as long as Rebecca could remember were now buried under a matted swathe of filaments, and more puffballs stood up tall on roofs, like multiple chimneys, spouting spores in lieu of smoke.
The only movement was the spores and smoke swirling in the air and the swell and bloat of the puffballs that stood along the verges, as if providing an honor guard salute on the family’s way out of the dead town.
The view did not improve any once they got out into the more open country at the far north end of the peninsula. What should be muddy pools and boggy moor was now a mass of brown tissue, and the puffballs here, as if bloated by the damp, grew stronger and sturdier than ever, reaching taller than the stunted conifers around them that had been denuded and stripped to fuel the infection.
And everywhere she looked, Rebecca was aware of a subtle, but definitely present, aura, shimmering like an almost glimpsed rainbow at the skyline. There was also, faint and far off, the constant almost musical drone, and she felt her blood pounding in her ears in time. Shaun must have felt it too.
“Talk to me, Becky,” he said. “Keep me in the here and now—and way from those Blue Hills.”
* * *
For the next fifteen minutes she brought Shaun up-to-date with everything that happened, from her trip to the mall—and the pocket watch she still had in her purse—all the way through to the flight from the cabin. His eyes went wide when she spoke of the situation in St. John’s.
“It’s gone? It’s all gone?”
She nodded, afraid to say any more, for if he started to cry, she’d join in, and neither of them might be able to stop. And Shaun went quiet. When she finally asked him about how he’d got across country, he looked grim.
“I caught a flight,” was all he said. There was another long story there—she could read it in the set of his face and the sorrow in his eyes—but now wasn’t the time to press him on it.
They went up the last long hill and Shaun stopped the SUV in the middle of the road as they looked down over the town of Bonavista—what was left of it. The infection and the associated puffballs were everywhere, an unbroken field of brown stretching down and to the sea more than a mile away. It covered houses, service stations, the local college and the hockey stadium. More clouds of spores swirled in funnels like dust devils and, higher still, dark, wide fan-shapes glided and swooped in the wind. Even the water tower on the opposite hill had succumbed—it still had a blue bald dome on top, but the brown fungus would soon overrun that too. And once again, there was no sign of life apart from the fungus.
“We can’t go down there,” Rebecca whispered. “It’s not safe.”
Shaun looked grim again.
“I don’t think it’s safe anywhere, Becky. But there’s a boat coming up from St. John’s—it said so on the radio. And if it doesn’t come, there’ll be a boat or dinghy we can take for ourselves. If that happens, we’re going to need more food and water—maybe enough to do us for a while. It’s go down there—or nowhere.”
The boys were quiet in the back—she hadn’t heard the telltale click and thud of their games playing—they were listening. She kept her voice calm as she replied.
“Down we go then.”
“Once more into the valley of death,” Shaun said.
He smiled, but she couldn’t find one in reply.
At least the road was clear of infection, and when they reached the foot of the hill, the car park of the Foodlands store was flat and gray, fungus free. Shaun drew in to the middle of the lot and left the engine running.
“We need food and water—you agree?”
Rebecca nodded.
“But you can’t go out there. There’s too many spores in the air—i
t’s too risky.”
“It’s the best we’re going to do—there’s nowhere in town with any shelter near the entrance, is there? I can get us to within a couple of feet of the door. It’ll have to be enough.”
She forced herself to think—but Shaun was right. Their current situation was as good as it got.
“You’re right—but we all go. We’re not splitting up again until this is over.”
She didn’t say the other words, but she knew they were both thinking them.
One way or the other.
“In that case,” Shaun said grimly. “Let’s do it properly.”
Before Rebecca could comment, he gunned the engine, floored the pedal and drove straight for the main picture window of the supermarket. They hit it at thirty, burst through in a shower of wood and shattered glass, and went almost four yards into the shop before stopping beside the main tills.
* * *
“I always wanted to do that,” Shaun said, and this time Rebecca did manage a smile in reply—a small one, but it was a start.
She made the boys get out the back window, for extra safety. They had to clamber and scramble over all the gear she had stowed in the trunk area, a task they seemed to enjoy, bringing more smiles from Shaun. Something that had been tight and restricting inside her for more than a day started to ease, a fraction. She checked that she’d be completely under cover, opened her door and stepped down to join the boys in the supermarket. Shaun left the engine running and stepped out to join them. The engine noise was enough to mask the droning hum that drifted in from beyond the parking lot.
“I’ll get the water, you and the boys get food,” Shaun said, but she stopped him before he left their side.
“I said, we do this together, or not at all. Besides, you’ll just sneak a smoke in if I leave you alone for a second. Take a trolley, mister. We’re going shopping.”
It was only then that she took a look around the supermarket shelves. Any shopping they were going to do was going to be limited—there was no bread, no milk—little of anything fresh at all, although thankfully there was no sign of infection, in this part of the store at least. The power was off, so that meant that anything in the refrigerated sections wasn’t going to much use either.
“Looks like it will be tins or nothing,” Shaun said beside her. “There’s no water in the dispenser—and the liquor store has been cleared out. Someone’s beaten us to it.”
In the end they found a box of beef stew—twenty-four cans—eight cans of beans, a box of bacon-flavored chips and some carrots. They stowed it in the back of the SUV beside the rest of the stuff.
“A couple of weeks if we’re lucky,” Rebecca said. “Maybe less.”
Shaun nodded.
“Let’s check the storeroom out back. They might have missed something.”
* * *
The four of them went together to the rear of the store and through into the gloom of an unlit storage area. Thin, watery sun came in through high skylights.
The first thing Rebecca noticed was the almost overpowering stench of rot.
Something had indeed been missed.
She tugged at Shaun’s sleeve.
“Come away. There won’t be anything we can use.”
Shaun turned to look at her. At the same moment a deep droning hum rose up around them and the air swam in an aura of rainbow color. She felt her head go light and woozy, and saw double—Shaun’s worried face, shouting at her, and, beyond that, Blue Hills, purple sky, and a song she wanted to join.
Something shifted in the far corner of the store, and stood, coming into view out of the shadows, man shaped but not a man—it might have been once, for it wore a red survival suit, of the kind fishermen used at sea in these parts. But whatever was inside the suit had stopped being human quite some time ago. Shaun pulled Rebecca away—she was vaguely aware that Mark was helping Shaun and trying to drag his younger brother out of the storeroom. Adam, like her, was answering a different call. There was something behind the man in the red suit. It seemed to be a huge mass of brown tissue in what looked like a thick root system, stretched—embedded—across the far wall of the store. The roots grew from a central clump in the corner, a mass of ridged and crenellated tissue some six feet across from which tendrils, each as thick as a snake, wafted in the air, as if tasting, searching.
The song swelled and Rebecca knew that there was something in that central lump of tissue, something that recognized her—something that called to her, offering peace, calm and no fear.
She saw the Blue Hills clearer than ever, heard the song, louder than ever.
She felt like dancing.
* * *
The next thing she knew Shaun had her by the shoulders and was screaming into her face. Her head cleared, slowly. She was leaning against the side of the SUV. Adam and Mark sat in the back—Adam looked as dazed as she felt.
“I said, get in the fucking car,” Shaun yelled again, and this time she didn’t need to be told again. She got into the passenger side and Shaun wasted no time. He got in the driver’s seat, put his foot to the floor and they drove through the broken window in another shower of wood and glass.
As they turned to go out of the parking lot, Rebecca took a look back.
A red-suited figure stood in the ruin of the window.
It still looked like a man—but there was only a ridged, crenellated ball of brown tissue where the head should be.
And, somehow, he was still able to sing.
35
Dinosaurs living around 100 million years ago may have experienced acid trips after eating grass infected by a fungus similar to the species used to create LSD. Palaeobiologists have discovered the earliest specimen of grass ever found trapped inside a piece of amber dug from a mine in the mountains of northern Myanmar. When they examined the grass, however, they found the tips were infected with a fungus that is thought to be similar to ergot, a group of fungi that grow on rye and wheat.
There had been no one for the Sea Princess to pick up from Carbonear that morning. They arrived with the dawn, and stayed for an hour—and a bit longer—but all there was to be seen was puffballs and spores, swirling aurora of light and gliding, swooping fragments in the sky. The peninsula belonged to the fungus.
As the boat crossed the mouth of Trinity Bay heading for Bonavista, the clouds parted and the sun came out; ten miles from shore and they seemed to be clear of all effects of the infection although the dark, swirling heaviness still loomed above the western horizon. The captain allowed everyone a turn on deck to get some air.
Rohit—with Irene still holding tight to his hand—got his turn around ten o’ clock, and it was only when he felt fresh air on his face and heard the squawk and cry of gulls overhead that he realized how oppressive the atmosphere in the hold had become.
He saw that the gulls were congregating on one spot on the surface a few hundred yards ahead. He led Irene up to the prow to try to get a closer look. At first glance it looked like a whale feeding frenzy. Then he saw the infection. There were indeed a pod of whales near the surface—but the fungus had got them all, in large brown patches along the sides of the gaping mouths and running along the bodies, covering the tails. The huge animals floundered and thrashed at the surface, as if confused.
The gulls fed, tearing chunks of flesh and blubber from the whales’ side. Rohit saw more splashing, closer to the boat’s hull. A school of dolphins swam alongside—at intervals they would come closer to the boat, then swim away quickly, keeping a distance.
As if there’s something about the boat that scares them.
Then he heard it—the droning hum of the distant song, at the same time as his head started to float. He turned full circle to identify the source of the sound—it wasn’t, as he had thought, coming from the dying whales—it was coming from somewhere below his feet—somewhere on the boat.
A seagull overhead dropped a streak of fecal matter at his feet as he headed for the bridge to warn the captain. It was mostl
y white—but laced through with thin, brown, filaments.
* * *
He had to shake the captain, hard, to get his attention—the man seemed almost half-asleep, lost in a daze. Other members of the crew on the bridge seemed similarly afflicted, and Rohit felt Irene’s hand slip from his as she too stared, unseeing, out of the large window.
He had to work fast, for he felt the tug of the song in his head, and it was most persuasive. He went through to the small room at the back—he had a bad moment when he thought there was no plug on the music system, but finally he found it, plugged it in, and got the turntable going. There was a record already on there, and he dropped the needle on it, not caring what it was, just needing the sound.
He turned the volume up to ten and the call of the infection immediately faded.
The Sea Princess made her way across Trinity Bay to the sound of a wailing heavy metal band that Rohit didn’t know. But that didn’t matter—he’d managed to mask the call of the song for now—but it was clear. The infection was aboard the boat—and they had to find it.
Before it spreads too far to be stopped.
* * *
The captain initially wanted to put Rohit and Irene back in the hold. Rohit fought against it—mainly because he knew that the call of the song would be louder there. He didn’t tell the captain that—instead he argued from the basis of his knowledge and expertise, his ability to gauge the situation should the infection be found. In the end the man relented—Rohit suspected it was more that he grew tired of the argument rather than any merit of Rohit’s techniques of persuasion. In any case, he, and Irene—she refused to be parted from him as vehemently as he had refused to go back in the hold—ended up belowdecks in a search team, following behind the hazmat-suited man—Kerry—who had spoken to them on their arrival. They all wore earplugs, and had to shout at each other to be heard—but it was better than the alternative.
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