The Devil's Fingers

by Hunter Shea

  Tina yelped.

  Brandon snapped his fingers in front of their faces, but not too close because he was terrified of touching them. “Carrie. Dan. Can you guys hear me?”

  He turned to Autumn and Latrell.

  “What the hell’s wrong with them?”

  Autumn took a deep, stuttering breath. “It looks like they’ve been burned. Honey, Carrie, can you tell me what happened? Where were you?”

  Carrie stared into the distance, not blinking. If not for the slight raising of their shoulders as they breathed, she and Dan could have been a pair of disturbing mannequins.

  “You think those are blisters?” Brandon said. He felt pressure on his arm, looked over and saw Tina was clutching him—hard. “Because they don’t look like blisters to me.”

  Autumn took a tentative step toward Carrie, studying the raised white domes on her chest, two of them covering her nipples like pasties.

  “Don’t,” Latrell warned her when it looked like she was getting too close.

  “There’s something in them,” Autumn said.

  “What?” Brandon said, his scrotum shriveling. “Did you just say there’s something in them?”

  Autumn made a careful circuit around their friends, examining them from head to toe.

  “Yes. Look.”

  The last thing Brandon wanted to do was look, but shit, this was Carrie and Dan. Whatever had happened to them was happening to them. They couldn’t just ignore it and run away.

  With Tina dragging beside him, he stepped next to Dan. Every square inch of the big man’s back was covered in the white sacs. Biting down on his molars so hard it hurt, he forced himself to lean forward.

  “Holy shit!”

  Within each of the sacs were dark, curled shapes, like fetuses from some doomed genetics experiment.

  “What are they?” he asked.

  Tina had let go of his arm, stumbling backward until she fell on her rump.

  “We have to get them to a doctor,” Tina said.

  Brandon wanted to tell her, No duh, Captain Obvious. The problem was, there was no cell service out here, so they couldn’t get an emergency team to them. And how the hell were they supposed to get Carrie and Dan to hike three miles to the trailhead where their cars were waiting?

  “It can’t be an allergic reaction,” Autumn said.

  Brandon got the feeling she was more talking to herself than informing anyone what she thought. “Not with whatever is inside those things. It’s not an outgrowth from their bodies. No, this is something that attached itself to them.” She suddenly pulled back, one hand covering her mouth. “No. It’s not possible.”

  “What, baby? What’s not possible?” Latrell said.

  “I—I need something sharp,” she said.

  “Like a knife?” Latrell said, eyes bugging out of his skull.

  She nodded, unable to take her eyes off the sacs.

  “Seth’s machete,” Brandon said, zipping into his friend’s tent. Seth had brought it along, he said, to hack away any vegetation that may have choked the trail. Brandon thought he carried it so he’d look like a wilderness badass. At this moment, he was grateful they had it.

  He unsheathed it and handed it to Autumn. “What are you gonna do?”

  Biting her upper lip, she said, “I’m going to see what’s inside.”

  “Wait, won’t that hurt them?”

  “It’s not their skin, so I really don’t think they’ll feel a thing. If I can pop one open, I might know exactly what it is. And if I’m right, I have no idea how this is possible.”

  “Wait,” Latrell said. He tore open his backpack, found a pair of heavy-duty gloves, and slipped them on. “Give me the knife. I’ll do it.”

  “Give me the gloves,” Autumn said.

  “It’s better I do it,” Latrell said.

  Brandon heard Tina whimpering behind them. He was torn between consoling her and telling her to get her shit together.

  “If it’s what I think it is, trust me, I need to be the one,” Autumn said.

  They stared at one another in a brief standoff. Mighty Mite wasn’t backing down. Autumn was like that. If she got something in her mind, no one could stand in her way. Latrell relented, handing her the gloves. “Just be careful.”

  “And work on Dan,” Brandon said. “He’s a big guy. He can take it.”

  Though right now, he seemed to have shrunk to half his size. Gone was the confidence, the posturing, the puffed-up manliness that Dan naturally exuded. Now, he was just a shell, an incubator for…

  “Eggs,” Brandon said.

  “What?” Latrell said.

  “They’re eggs, aren’t they?” he said to Autumn.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Like what those tentacle things came out of back in that field. Is that what you think is growing on them?”

  Autumn wiped beads of sweat from her brow.

  “They look like them. But they can’t grow on people.”

  “You sure about that? I mean, look at Dan and Carrie. And if that’s a fungus, why are they catatonic?”

  “I…don’t…know. Now if everyone can just shut up for a minute, I can open one up and see what we’re dealing with.”

  She glared at Brandon, then Latrell, and finally Tina, who sniffled one last time and grew silent.

  Autumn hefted the machete and got behind Dan. She seemed to be searching for just the right egg to open. The tip of the blade hovered over the largest one at the base of his spine. Brandon watched the jittery blade inch closer and closer. He held his breath, fingers digging into his thighs as he bent to get a closer look.

  The machete’s tip pierced the egg soundlessly. For some reason, Brandon was expecting something dramatic, like a demonic hiss or horrid squelch. The eggshell split open like a flower, the petals as delicate and temporal as ash.

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” Tina said, seconds before Brandon heard the hot splash of her eggs and coffee.

  He swallowed hard, trying not to join her.

  Five small, pink and gray tentacles unfolded from the ruptured sac, the listless limbs settling into the crack of Dan’s ass.

  Brandon covered his face, even though there was no discernible odor. “Are those the what-you-call-its?”

  Autumn touched the tentacles with the knife, lifting one up to reveal the suction-like dots on its underside.

  “These are definitely Devil’s Fingers,” she said. “I just don’t understand how.”

  Latrell shifted so he could look in Dan’s vacant eyes. “Dan. You with me? Could you feel that?”

  Their friend didn’t reply, didn’t even flinch.

  “What if you take them all off?” Brandon said. “Are those things poison? There’s a lot of mushrooms out there that can seriously fuck you up.”

  Autumn sighed, popping another egg. Four half-formed tentacles spilled out.

  “Clathrus archeri are not poisonous. But even though they look exactly like them, these can’t just be Devil’s Fingers.”

  “Let’s get them off first and worry about what they are later,” Brandon said.

  “Right.”

  Autumn poked each egg sac on Dan’s back until it looked like he was covered with pink strands of spaghetti. Tina groaned each time one opened up, Autumn eventually telling her to either keep quiet or walk away. Latrell kept trying to get Dan or Carrie to react, but it was as if they were in a kind of standing coma.

  But they can walk, Brandon thought. They made it back to camp. Hopefully, once we remove this crap that’s made them like this, they can follow us down the trail.

  It was wishful thinking, but no one had ever accused Brandon of being grounded.

  Autumn used the knife to peel the slippery tentacles away from Dan’s flesh. Now that they were all exposed, the tentacles l
eaked a thick, clear fluid that ran in thin rivulets down Dan’s back and legs.

  “Shouldn’t they just snap right off like when you kick a mushroom?” Brandon asked.

  The tip of Autumn’s tongue poked out of the side of her mouth. “They should…if this was just a fungus, which I’m pretty sure it’s not.” She angled the machete’s tip under one of the clumps of tentacles. “Here goes.”

  Brandon’s lungs chose that moment to go into a barking coughing spasm.

  Autumn’s hand jumped. The machete bit into Dan’s skin.

  Dan burst to life, yowling like a wounded animal.

  Autumn screamed, falling before Dan’s massive arm sideswiped her head. Everyone else jumped back as Dan went into a full-on frenzy, spinning around the camp like a tornado, demolishing everything in his path.

  Chapter 7

  Autumn watched in horror from her spot on the ground as Dan went berserk. Sounds emanated from his mouth that weren’t even remotely human. In his frenzy, he kicked over her and Latrell’s tent, sent the cooler spinning end over end, all of their food and drinks spilling out, and stepped on Tina’s ankle so hard they all heard the bone snap over his wild ululations.

  “What the fuck did you do to him?” Brandon howled, scampering away from Dan.

  She was too terrified to speak.

  Only the whites of Dan’s eyes were showing, thick froth sputtering from his mouth. As he turned away from her, she saw blood running down his back from where she’d jabbed him with the machete.

  Yes, she’d poked him, but not hard enough to elicit this reaction.

  She yelped when Latrell grabbed her by the upper arms, lifting her up and away.

  “Carrie,” she said. Her best friend remained immobile, oblivious to Dan’s madness.

  Brandon had scooped Tina into his arms to get her out of Dan’s path. The four of them dashed behind an outcropping of rocks, watching Dan thrash and wail.

  “On the bright side, you seem to have gotten Dan out of his fugue,” Brandon said, wheezing. Fat tears rolled down Tina’s face. Her ankle was already swollen to twice its size and red as an apple. Autumn could see the fractured bone pushing against the skin.

  “Oh my God, it hurts,” she whimpered.

  “He’s still not Dan,” Autumn said, praying he would tire himself out. The violence of his actions was scaring her more than the mysterious fungus covering his and Carrie’s bodies.

  “I’ll hold him still before he hurts himself or someone else,” Latrell said, ready to run out and wrap Dan up in a bear hug.

  Autumn threw herself in front of him. “You can’t touch him.”

  “Look at him. I can’t let him go on like that.”

  “We can’t come in contact with whatever’s on his body. Not until we know exactly what it is.”

  Latrell’s chest heaved with caged impatience. “So I’m just supposed to watch my buddy have his seizure or freak out or whatever you want to call it?”

  She grabbed his face, pulling him close until their noses touched. “I know it goes against every instinct you have, but we can’t take a chance of getting, of getting…”

  “Infected,” Brandon finished for her.

  The word was like a lance penetrating her gut. It bled an atavistic terror that raised the short hairs on the back of her neck. She recalled images and cases of rare, exotic infections her father used to share with her and how even as a teen they’d scare her so much sometimes, she couldn’t sleep through the night for days. A creeping dread of an inevitable pandemic haunted her for years. She used to wonder, How the hell can he ever smile or enjoy even the simplest things in life, knowing what he knows?

  Global warming, threats of nuclear war, asteroids obliterating the planet—none of them compared to her fear of organisms impossible to see with the naked eye.

  Brandon was right. They had to treat it like a contagion. Thankfully, their initial fright at seeing Dan and Carrie had kept them a safe distance from the infected pair. For all she knew, just breathing near the egg sacs when they were punctured was enough to doom them. She couldn’t stop them from breathing, but they could do everything in their control to avoid coming in physical contact with the strange pods.

  Dan attacked Seth’s tent, pulling the stakes free and crumpling it like he did his beer cans. Tossing it aside, he stomped on Seth’s camping gear, his feet getting bloodier and bloodier the longer he rampaged.

  Autumn desperately wanted to pull Carrie to safety. Seeing her friend covered in egg sacs, with the one on her tongue—if her eyes weren’t deceiving her, growing over the past several minutes—was worse than torture.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  Tina was yanked from her pain, crying out, “Seth, watch out! Stay away from Dan!”

  Seth had his fishing pole over one shoulder, his other hand holding the tackle box and a big hook with several trout. He didn’t even have time to drop the fish before Dan spotted him, charging like a bull.

  His eyes large as ping-pong balls, Seth registered the mania burning in Dan’s cold, alabaster gaze, cringing from the deformity of his flesh. He backpedaled, his feet tangling like a nest of snakes.

  Dan leaped, arms outstretched like a wrestler flying from the top turnbuckle. One second Seth was falling backward, the next he was flat on the ground, completely covered by Dan’s hulking frame. The tentacles drooped to the sides of his back as if they were trying to reach out and touch Seth.

  “Get the fuck off me!” Seth shouted, his hands digging out from Dan’s sides, pounding his back. With each punch, tentacles popped like bubble gum; maroon, fermented ichor bubbling from the connection points of the shattered egg sac to Dan’s flesh. The ghastly broth coated Seth’s fists, sluicing down his arms as he frantically tried to extricate himself out from under the slab of strange meat that had been one of his closest friends.

  “Fuck this,” Latrell said, charging from their safe place.

  “No!” Autumn bleated, but she was too late.

  Latrell zigged left, snatched the remains of their tent and draped it over Dan and Seth. He ripped Dan off of Seth, rolling onto his back, Dan now on top of him.

  But Dan was no longer moving.

  Autumn bit back a scream when she saw a host of new egg sacs that had sprung up in just the past thirty seconds on his flopping penis and balls. His entire genital area was a thick cluster of bulging, white pods.

  Rocking Dan from side to side, the tent a prophylactic between them, Latrell managed to scoot his way out, crab walking hectically away from the obscene tableau that Dan had become.

  Seth jumped to his feet, desperately trying to wipe the maroon gel that was more like Vaseline than blood or pus.

  “What—what the hell just happened? Christ, it burns!”

  He stepped toward Latrell, who scurried further from him.

  “Man, you gotta get that stuff off you,” Latrell said.

  “The lake,” Autumn said. “Quick, get in the lake.”

  Seth looked at her with wild, confused, pleading eyes, his slick palms held out in supplication. “What is it? What happened to Dan?”

  “Just jump in the lake, now!” Autumn said.

  He looked to her, then Latrell, his gaze lingering on Dan, who could be dead for all they knew. Seth turned toward Merritt Lake and ran, splashing into the water, his arms and legs churning up white foam as he struggled to get deeper and deeper. His head went under and for an interminable flash of time, Autumn wondered if he was ever going to come up.

  Bursting from the rippled surface, Seth rubbed his arms, the lake water cutting through the coating of viscous fluid and whatever nightmares it encapsulated.

  “Is Dan breathing?” Brandon said, nudging Autumn with Tina’s good leg. She must have been getting heavy by now, but he wasn’t letting her go.

  “I don’t know,” she said, cautio
usly stepping out from behind the rocks. “Guess we have to find out.”

  Chapter 8

  Seth continued scrubbing himself like a man possessed while Autumn, with Brandon and Tina right behind her, crept toward Dan’s inert body. He looked more like a mushroom planter than a person. The eggs grew right before their eyes, shadows of the tentacles within a portent of more horrors to come.

  Latrell had gotten to his feet, skirting around Dan and standing between him and Autumn.

  “I think he’s breathing,” Latrell said.

  “Let me get a closer look,” Autumn said, reaching for Latrell’s hand. He jerked it back.

  “I don’t know if I touched him or not,” he warned his fiancé. “Let’s not take a chance.”

  Then why the hell did you tackle him? she wanted to shout in his face, but she knew exactly why. Dan was already infected and he’d had to impotently watch him suffer. Latrell couldn’t sit by and watch Seth get attacked, even though, if the Devil’s Fingers were spread by contact, he was already doomed.

  Autumn fought back tears.

  “Okay,” she said, her voice quivering. “But I still need to check on Dan.”

  A breeze rippled over the campsite. The diaphanous egg pods trembled. She couldn’t tell if Dan’s chest and stomach were rising or falling thanks to palpitating eggs. And there was no way she was going to check him for a pulse.

  But there it was, right at the base of his throat, a slight expansion of exposed flesh, the hollow triangle pulsing outward for a heartbeat.

  “He’s alive,” she said, not sure if that was a good thing anymore.

  Seth slogged out of the lake.

  “One of you better tell me what happened while I was gone. What happened to Dan—and Carrie? Why is she just standing there like that? What in the name of fuck is on them and why is my skin still burning? I know I got it all off.”

  He stood over Dan, droplets of water dappling the ocean of egg sacs that had sprouted on just about every inch of Dan’s body. Getting down on one knee, he waved his palm over Dan’s chest. “What are they?”

  “Dude, don’t touch them,” Brandon said.