by Hunter Shea
Autumn collapsed, sliding off Latrell’s chest as it disintegrated.
Brandon was there to catch her, pulling her clear of her worst nightmare.
Her pulse hammered in her ears, blocking out all sound. She couldn’t catch her breath. Gasping like a fish on land, she stared up at Brandon. He held her face between his hands, her head cradled in his lap.
“Latrell,” she gasped.
Her tears blurred Brandon’s concerned face, choking her as she slipped into the black, unable to go back to her living room, her father and mother so far out of reach.
Chapter 19
Autumn awoke with the sun on her face.
She turned her head and saw the black embers of the fire.
Brandon was curled atop a sleeping bag.
The morning was cold, the air clear and cloudless. Swiveling her head to her left, she glanced at the stained ground where Latrell had been when…when…
Scrunching her eyes shut, she let her grief take control, quietly sobbing into her hands.
After shedding so many tears she felt dehydrated; she wiped her eyes and stared at the azure sky. There were no chemtrails, no mysterious planes cruising at higher than normal altitudes.
There also still weren’t any birds. The only audible sound around the lake was the waterfall, the gentle, yet steady splash oblivious to the horrors that had befallen Merritt Lake. She wished she could be that waterfall.
She was thirsty. Hungry, too, but every time she thought back to the last twenty-four hours, her appetite fled to the shadows.
“You up?” Brandon croaked before going into a coughing fit. He ended up on all fours, dredging heavy wads of mucous from his lungs.
There was no point asking him if he was okay. They would never be okay.
Wiping tears from his eyes, he sat back on the sleeping bag and settled his breathing down. “No better way to start the day.”
Autumn noticed for the first time that she was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. So was Brandon. He must have dressed her when she’d passed out.
“Have you checked?” she asked him.
Brandon shook his head.
“I’m not sure I wanna know how bad it is at this point,” he said. “Maybe it’s better to live in ignorance for as long as I can.”
Autumn pulled up her sleeve and drew in a long, ragged hiss through her gritted teeth.
Her arms looked like they were studded with chicken pox—white, bulbous chicken pox.
Brandon saw it and groaned.
“I’m sorry, Autumn. I’d hoped at least you would make it out of here.”
Captivated by the budding Devil’s Fingers, she was jolted by the fact that she felt nothing. No fear. No sadness. No regret.
There was nothing those Devil’s Fingers could do to her that was worse than what she’d already been forced to do. In fact, it was a relief. Her time spent being able to remember what she did to Latrell and the others would be short…blessedly short.
“I guess it just wasn’t meant to be,” she said, tugging her sleeves down.
He got up, found a couple of bottles of water and gave one to her.
When his arm reached out, his sleeve slipped up his arm a bit. His skin was completely unblemished.
“Brandon,” she said, “take off your shirt.”
“It’s freezing. And I told you I don’t care.”
“You will if you take off your shirt.”
He stared at her. She felt self-conscious when his eyes roamed over her body, lingering on her neck. She felt knobs growing on her throat.
“Please,” she said.
Sighing, he put his bottle on the ground and tugged his shirt over his head.
Autumn had to catch her breath.
“You’re…you’re clear,” she said.
He looked down at his chest and belly, holding his arms out so he could inspect them.
“Wait,” he said, unbuckling his belt and slipping out of his jeans.
There wasn’t a single bud on him.
“How is that possible?” he said. “Tina got ahold of me. I was on top of Latrell when those things were hatching. This doesn’t make sense. How could I be immune?”
Autumn’s head reeled. She had to take a moment to still the pounding of her heart before she passed out yet again. She suddenly felt very frail.
Of course you are, she thought. The Clathrus archeri are feeding on you now, taking all they can so they can grow and mature and…and…
“And they’re not transmitted by touch,” she murmured.
“But they are. We both saw it.”
“We saw what I thought we needed to see. But there wasn’t a big enough sample size. But if it isn’t by touch, then it has to be airborne. When they mature and wither, their spores filter into the air. That doesn’t make sense, either. We’ve all been breathing the same tainted air.”
Brandon sighed, sitting beside her so close their arms touched. She could count his ribs under that perfect, unsullied flesh.
“I have something I need to tell you,” he said.
Autumn leaned away from him. Panicked thoughts ran through her.
Brandon was the one who’d noticed the chemtrails and basically told them they were altering the environment. He was the only one immune to the Clathrus archeri. Was it because he’d been in on it all along? Was his happy-stoner persona nothing but a smoke screen?
No. It couldn’t be. How the hell could he have been planning this all the way back in college when they’d met?
“Hey, Earth to Autumn.”
“Just say it.”
He drew in a deep breath, which made him cough. “I think that’s what did it.”
“What did it?”
“I was going to tell you guys after we got back.” His eyes were wet with tears. “I was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Even with aggressive treatment, I have a few months at best.”
“Oh, Brandon, no.”
“I’m thinking that if these things get into you through your lungs, maybe I can’t breathe in enough for them to settle in. Shit, maybe they keep trying and I keep spitting them out along with half my lungs.”
She put her arm around his bony shoulders.
“When did you find out?” she asked.
“Last week. The funny thing is, the doctor says I didn’t get it from smoking. It’s a case of genetic roulette. A few people in my family died from it. Looks like I’m the lucky one to carry on the tradition.”
He dressed, silent tears spattering the ground.
“You can get out of here,” Autumn said.
“I’m not going to leave you.”
“But you don’t have to die here.”
“Look, I’m going to die somewhere sooner than I’d like. I don’t plan on doing it knowing I left you alone out here.”
She was too tired to fight. Besides, when she started to turn, she didn’t want to end up like the others.
“Then make me a promise.”
“Sure. Anything.”
“When they start to hatch…” she looked at her arms. “You have to kill me.”
Chapter 20
It was their version of a Last Supper. Autumn and Brandon had gathered all of the packets of food Seth had bought at the camping-goods store and ate until their stomachs hurt. There was mac ’n cheese, beef stroganoff, chili (that tasted nothing like chili), rice and beans, some kind of spicy stew, and even pasta primavera.
Autumn shoveled it in like there was no tomorrow because for her, there would be no tomorrow. She noticed the egg sacs growing as the eating marathon went on. She was fueling their maturation but she didn’t care. At best, she had a couple of hours until they hatched. All the better. Soon, she’d either be with Latrell, or disappear into an empty void where she would never again have to see his face, rife
with tentacles, as she cleaved it in two with the machete.
Brandon burped. It echoed across Merritt Lake.
Normally, Autumn would have laughed, but that ability had died with Latrell.
“I think we still have some freeze-dried ice cream,” Brandon said, rooting around the discarded foil packs.
“Why ruin a good meal?” she said. “Besides, everything was starting to taste like that stroganoff.”
“It was pretty powerful.”
She’d found Latrell’s phone while Brandon cooked their nine-course meal. There was still some battery left. She checked it now and saw it was almost noon. If the Devil’s Fingers hatched by two or three, that would leave plenty of time for Brandon to get back before nightfall.
“You have everything you need all packed up?” she said.
He tapped his backpack. The machete leaned against it. “All set.”
“Good.”
She sat back, feeling the pods pulsing from her flesh. Tina had said they were taking over her mind. Autumn tried to quiet herself and listen for any alien signals invading her brain.
There was nothing.
Perhaps that would come soon.
She wasn’t looking forward to it, to becoming the ultimate botanist, a human completely merging with a plant.
Autumn shuddered.
A log in the fire spat a fireworks display of sparks.
Brandon lay against the backpack, watching her.
“H—hello?”
They both went on instant high alert.
“Who the hell?” Brandon said.
Autumn got up, dusting her jeans, seeing the swollen pod on the back of her left hand.
Coming around the bend by the rock outcropping was a man in some kind of forest ranger gear. He had a ball cap pulled low over his face.
“We need some help,” the man said.
Behind him were four boys. At most, they were twelve year olds. It hit Autumn that the man wasn’t a forest ranger. They were scouts.
And they were infected by Devil’s Fingers.
Egg sacs covered their faces the way pimples would have if they were to have lived long enough to enter puberty.
The man looked at her with eyes so red, it looked like he was suffering from a massive brain bleed.
“I saw your fire and hoped there was someone who could help us.”
“Where did you come from?” Autumn asked.
“We were up the trail by Lost Lake for our annual outing. Then this happened,” he said, pointing to his face. The young scouts looked half-dead. If they were at Lost Lake, it was a considerable hike to get here, especially in their condition. “I see you have it, too. Do you have any idea what it is?”
“No. Not really,” Autumn said.
“Then I guess we’ll have to hoof it the rest of the way to the trailhead. You don’t have any food or water to spare, do you? One of my boys—” his voice cracked. “Well, something went very wrong with him. He destroyed all of our supplies before I could—I could stop him.”
She knew what that meant. Somewhere between Merritt and Lost lakes, there was a rumpled scout’s uniform with strange, ashy remains within and around it.
“We have some freeze-dried ice cream,” Brandon said. “And bottled water. It’s warm, but it’s water, you know.”
One of the boys licked his lips. Autumn spotted the egg sac on the tip of his tongue.
The man sighed. “We’d be much obliged. We won’t stay long. I have to get these boys some medical attention. We’re just thirsty as hell, if you’ll pardon my French.”
Rivulets of sweat ran between the irregular rows of pods on the man’s arms and exposed chest.
Brandon cast a quick glance at Autumn. She pursed her lips. He mouthed the word no.
Before the scoutmaster could catch on to their private conversation, Autumn sprinted for the machete, knocked Brandon aside and attacked the man. The boys shrieked as she buried the machete halfway into his neck. Blood geysered from the wound, painting a nearby bush crimson. The sacs on his body hatched in response to the assault of their host. Dozens of tentacles swatted the air and Autumn pulled the blade free and attacked the wound over and over until his head dangled against his back, held on by a tough strip of flesh.
“Autumn, no!” Brandon yelled when she turned to the boy with the egg sac on his tongue. He screamed as the knife lopped off the tip of his nose. The Devil’s Fingers exploded. The boy flew into a rage.
Autumn sliced his stomach open, his innards slopping onto his feet.
She caught another boy who was trying to run around her, slicing his thigh open. Arterial spray coated Autumn with his blood. He collapsed, clutching his leg just as the pods broke open. His cries of pain turned to wails of anger. She took care of that quickly, removing his lower jaw before severing his jugular.
The two remaining boys were escaping, running down the trail and screaming at the top of their lungs.
She was about to go after them when she was tackled from behind.
* * * *
Brandon heard the egg sacs pop on Autumn’s chest the second she hit the ground. He rolled her over, yanking the machete from her grip.
“Are you out of your fucking mind!” he howled.
“You can’t let them get away,” she said, a smaller pod bursting on her neck. A pair of pinkish tentacles unfurled.
“I’m not going to kill innocent kids!”
“They’re not kids anymore, Brandon! Don’t you get it?”
The rotting-meat smell coming off the scoutmaster and two boys was overpowering. Brandon coughed, covering his nose with his shirt.
Autumn didn’t try to get out from under him. Egg sacs were hatching one after the other.
“Get Latrell’s phone,” she said.
“What?”
“You have to record this. You have to show them! Hurry!”
He found the phone where she’d dropped it. The battery only had 10 percent left, but it would be enough to shoot a short video.
As much as he didn’t want to do it, she was right. Once the Devil’s Fingers did their awful thing, there wasn’t much left to prove they’d ever been there.
Standing over Autumn, he hit record.
She removed her shirt and nodded. “My name is Autumn Winters. While camping along Merritt Lake, my friends and I have become infected by what appear to be Clathrus archeri. The fungus is transmitted through the air, taking over its host until they are covered with egg pods.” She grimaced in pain as several large eggs ruptured. Large tentacles flopped onto her stomach and chest. “Along with the hatching Clathrus archeri comes a period of rage in the host, the fungus giving it unbelievable strength. The only way to stop the host is by killing it, which in turn kills the Clathrus archeri. Both host and fungus dissolve, leaving almost no trace.”
An egg sac bulged at her throat and popped. Tentacles snaked up into her mouth, choking her.
Brandon hadn’t realized he’d been crying the entire time. He jammed the phone in his pocket and pulled the tentacles out.
“N—now,” Autumn sputtered. The whites of her eyes had gone bloodred.
His legs weak as newborn kittens, he staggered to the machete.
Autumn’s entire body was awash with unholy limbs.
Brandon drove the blade into her chest.
“Thank—you,” Autumn burbled, blood filling her mouth.
Looking away, he pushed it in deeper, holding it there until he no longer heard her breathing.
When he looked down, she was already starting to melt away.
Extricating the machete, he looped his arm around his backpack’s sling and ran. He ran from the overpowering stench and the ghastly remains of his and Autumn’s desperation.
When he was a hundred yards away, he stopped, his lungs violently angry a
t him.
In between gasps, he said, “Yeah, I hate you, too.”
Once his coughing settled down, he eyed the trail before him. There was plenty of sunlight left in the day.
He wondered if those boys would make it to the trailhead.
And if he came across them, what would he do?
* * * *
Brandon could not believe how many Devil’s Fingers eggs were in the woods. They clung to every surface. At one point, while resting on a fallen log beside Mahar Creek, he theorized that there were no birds or animals because they’d all been devoured by the fungus.
The rest of the walk back was easy, especially when he didn’t have to worry about the Devil’s Fingers. He kicked the egg sacs apart with each step. Because they hadn’t matured yet, there was no foul odor.
With every bend in the trail, he worried that he’d find the boys taking a rest or perhaps in the throes of the fungus takeover.
Autumn’s mercy killing had taken a part of his soul. He didn’t think he had enough left to do the same with the infected boys.
Walking in a daze, stopping to cough every fifty or so feet, he didn’t realize he’d made it to the trailhead until someone called out, “Hey, you, stop right there!”
Brandon looked up to see the small parking lot crammed with ambulances and police cars, their lights flickering like disco balls.
“Put down the weapon,” someone barked.
Brandon shielded his eyes. “What?”
“Drop it, now!”
He saw the guns pointed at him.
They were looking at the machete. The bloodstained machete.
He let it drop from his fingers. A dozen cops swarmed up the trail, tackling him. He was roughly thrown to the ground, his arms yanked behind his back, wrists cuffed tightly.
“What the hell’s going on?” he said over and over. People kept yelling at him, saying things he couldn’t understand.
He was carried by a pair of burly men to a waiting car, the back door held open by a female officer.
“That’s him,” a young voice said. “He was there!”
Brandon was shoved unceremoniously into the backseat. When he looked out the window, he saw the two boys, covered in blankets and surrounded by first responders, pointing at him.
