The Fungus Read online

  “Have you lost your mind, Nina!” Ilya exploded angrily. But then he heard the screams coming from the main cabin and knew that something very bad was happening back there.

  “Yaroslav! Terenty! Go and see what the problem is!” he ordered, not taking his eyes away from the console.

  The two men hurried from the flight deck, followed by Nina. Ilya continued to run through every emergency procedure he could think of, but nothing worked. Then the engines cut out again.

  “Damn,” he whispered as he sat there seething in helpless frustration. He couldn’t die like this, not knowing why he was dying. If he’d made some stupid flying error or the wings had fallen off, then yes, that would be understandable but this . . .

  It was only then, in the silence caused by the lack of power, that he became aware the screaming had stopped in the main cabin.

  Then he heard the door slowly open behind him.

  “Terenty? Yaroslav?” he said, still not looking round.

  There was no answer. But a strange odor filled the cabin. And then he felt a warm soft sensation on the back of his neck, like a woman’s kiss.

  He started to turn but the mutated aspergillus fungus engulfed him before he even had a chance to see what was happening.

  As Ilya died in suffocating blackness his last thoughts were of his five-­room apartment. He wondered who would get it.

  Devoid of human life, the Tupelov TU 144 flew on silently for a time. Then its nose dipped lower and lower and it began a shallow, gliding dive that would end in the Norwegian Sea 50,000 feet below.

  6

  The tape wasn’t started until Slocock and Kimberley had slipped, rather noisily, into their seats. Slocock saw that Peterson was giving him a particularly dirty look. Stuff him, thought Slocock. He needs me too much to give me a hard time. Let him try and find another volunteer for the crazy mission at this late stage.

  There were two other people in the small room. One was Captain O’Connell, who looked as if he was close to unravelling his entire ball of twine, and a man in his early thirties who Slocock didn’t recognize. He presumed he was the writer, Wilson, who was supposed to be the star of the mission. Slocock wasn’t impressed. Wilson was sucking on a cigarette as if it was a nipple and looking almost as unravelled as O’Connell. Slocock decided he was going to be as much use on the mainland as a devout virgin at an orgy.

  Slocock switched his attention to the screen when the familiar theme music from the BBC’s nine o’clock news program began.

  “This is four days after the outbreak was first detected,” said Peterson over the soundtrack.

  Slocock watched with interest. He hadn’t seen any of the news programs during the first week of the plague—he never watched much TV—and by the time he’d been inclined to see what was going on all transmissions from the mainland had been stopped.

  A news reader had appeared on the screen and was saying, “There have been tens of thousands more cases reported today of the fungal infections that have been plaguing the capital since last Tuesday—a crisis that is already being described as potentially the worst threat to face mankind since the Black Death in the Middle Ages . . .

  “Although the cause of the outbreak is still unknown, work is continuing at government and private research laboratories throughout the country to find a way to curb the spread of the killer disease. A government spokesman has just announced that a breakthrough is expected at any moment. In the meantime the government advises everyone in the London area to stay at home, avoid contact with other people, and await further instructions. A strict quarantine line has been imposed around the city as a precautionary measure and movement across it is strictly forbidden.

  “But as these aerial pictures show, many people have been trying to get out of London, resulting in confrontation with armed police and soldiers . . .”

  An overhead shot of a major roadway appeared on the screen. It was jammed with vehicles and people. A different voice took over on the soundtrack: “John Lurton, BBC News speaking . . . I’m in a helicopter above London’s North Circular road where it forms a junction with Green Lane. The ring road around London is being used as the quarantine boundary line. Troops and police all along the ring road have effectively sealed off the city but people are continually trying to get through. Below you can see a stream of cars and pedestrians moving north along Green Lane toward the barrier at the junction.”

  The camera zoomed in on the crowd. Men, women, and children were packed into a tight snake of humanity moving relentlessly forward. As the camera panned over them Slocock was shocked to see that many of them showed signs of fungal infection. He glimpsed flashes of colored patches on their faces and hands but the cameraman, he noticed, didn’t linger on any individual, either from personal distaste or official instruction. Probably the latter.

  Then the blockade came into view—a row of military vehicles with men in full combat gear plugging the gaps. Whether they were police or troops it was impossible to tell. And all of them, Slocock saw, were wearing gas masks and gloves. A lot of good that would do them, he reflected grimly.

  There was a space of about 20 yards between the blockade and the column of evacuees. As those at the head of the column entered that space they were met by jets of water from water cannons mounted on trucks and tear gas bombs. Soldiers were also firing what appeared to be rubber bullets into the throng and Slocock thought he heard the distinctive crack of 7.62mm army rifles. The fact that there were several unmoving bodies in front of the blockade confirmed that real bullets were being used as well as rubber ones.

  Faced with this impenetrable barrier, and being continually pushed forward by the surging mass behind them, the people at the front of the column were forced to scatter into the two side streets that ran parallel to the North Circular Road. Presumably they would try again to break through at other junctions where, no doubt, they would be met with the same resistance.

  As Slocock watched the screen a car suddenly emerged from the end of the column and sped toward the barricade. The driver obviously had the futile idea of crashing his way through the line of army vehicles. But even before he’d got halfway, there was the rattle of a heavy machine gun. The car swerved sharply and plunged into the side of a house on the corner of the road. There was a muffled whoof and the car was obscured by a ball of fire.

  Christ, thought Slocock. It came to this after only four days.

  The camera abruptly panned upward to the sky. The commentator cried excitedly, “Something just happened above us to the north . . . yes, there it is!”

  At the top of the screen an object could be seen turning over and over as it fell from the sky trailing black smoke. The camera closed in on it. It was a helicopter. It was burning fiercely and disintegrating as it fell. Pieces could clearly be seen breaking away from it. One of them looked disturbingly like a body . . .

  “Yes, it’s a helicopter!” cried the BBC reporter redundantly. “It appears to have been attacked by that jet fighter.” The camera panned again, briefly catching a fast-­moving dot in the distance. “An RAF Phantom, I think,” said the reporter. “There have been rumors that various wealthy persons have been offering vast amounts of money to any helicopter pilot willing to come in, pick them up and fly them out of the quarantine area . . .” The camera returned to the falling helicopter and followed it all the way down until it disappeared behind some houses. A mushroom of smoke marked its point of impact.

  “This puts a whole new light on the government’s ban on commercial and private flights in and out of the restricted area,” said the reporter. “Clearly they mean business.”

  The studio news reader reappeared on the screen. “We have just received information from sources in Northern Ireland that there are contingency plans to transfer the seat of British government to Stormont for the duration of the crisis. Sources at Westminster have neither confirmed nor denied the story.

  “Nor can we get information on the physical condition of the Prime Minister a
nd the members of her cabinet. Rumor has it that at least three cabinet ministers have fallen victim to the fungal plague but confirmation has not been forthcoming. However one reliable source claims that Mrs. Thatcher, several of her ministers, and senior government officials have, for the past two days, been residing in the nuclear bunkers below Whitehall.

  “But our science correspondent, Tom Southern, believes that this measure doesn’t offer much protection.”

  The camera cut to another man who a caption identified as Southern. He was a young, serious-­looking character wearing thick glasses. “The problem is that fungi are the most prevalent and varied lifeform, apart from bacteria, known to man. One handful of soil probably contains about 10 to 20 million individual fungi either growing or in a dormant state. And a cubic meter of air can contain 180,000 spores.

  “In other words we live in an environment saturated with fungi of different kinds, most of which we never notice in our daily lives . . . until now. The agent, whatever it is, that is causing all the trouble has the power to alter the genetic programming of every fungus spore it comes in contact with. It’s acting like some cancer-­causing virus within the fungi family, spreading from one species to another at an alarming rate.

  “This means that all the government’s attempts to block the spread of the infection are futile. It only takes one infected spore, or microscopic fungus particle, to transmit the virus to another species of fungi. And as I said, those species are all around us. Even in the sterile conditions of the Whitehall bunker there are no doubt tens of thousands of fungi spores. And it’s likely that the virus has gained entrance to the bunker, carried in by one or more of the people taking shelter there. It could be in their lungs, their stomachs or their intestines.

  “The grim truth is that unless we can rapidly isolate the cause of this plague and devise a means of counter acting it, we are all doomed, and that includes our leaders in their bunker.”

  He then held up his right hand which he’d previously kept behind his back. Slocock thought for a moment he was wearing a purple woolly mitten. Then he recognized what it was.

  The screen abruptly went blank. There was silence for a time, then light background music began to play. A test card came up with the words THERE HAS BEEN A TEMPORARY FAULT. NORMAL TRANSMISSION WILL BE RESUMED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

  Peterson got up and switched off the video machine. “That was the last news program from the BBC. The government accused them of spreading alarm and panic and pulled the plug. That was why this other program was recorded but never transmitted.” He held up another video tape, then put it in the machine.

  The screen came back to life. There was a title, CRISIS SPECIAL, then the camera cut to the harassed-­looking face of a middle-­aged man. “Good afternoon,” he said quickly. “We have with us Dr. Bruce Carter from the Home Office. He was one of the first people to discover the outbreak and probably knows more about the nature of the plague than anyone else. But I must warn viewers that Dr. Carter has become a victim of a fungal infection himself.”

  The camera pulled back to show that the commentator was not alone. Sitting opposite him was . . .

  Slocock felt the whiskey-­engendered warmth in his body fade away. It was replaced with a deep chill that spread upwards along his spine and then through the rest of him. Worse, he suddenly felt sober.

  Dr. Bruce Carter’s head was covered with a series of overlapping brown, crusty slabs that had the texture of tree bark. The growths continued down his neck and disappeared into the collar of the loose-­fitting shirt he was wearing. The shoulders of his jacket, which was also cut for someone several sizes larger than him, were grossly distorted by large bulges under the cloth.

  Between the wart-­like protuberances on his face his left eye could just be seen in one of the gaps. A crevice opened where his mouth should have been and Carter began to speak. He spoke with difficulty, his voice husky and wheezing. “I too would like to apologize for my appearance,” he said slowly. “I wish I could say it’s not as bad as it looks.” He followed with a strange sound that must have been, astonishingly, laughter.

  “Shit, he looks worse than the fucking Elephant Man,” muttered Slocock.

  “Shush!” ordered Peterson. “Pay attention, Sergeant.”

  “Dr. Carter,” the interviewer on the screen was saying, “I understand you are of the firm belief that the plague is a man-­made catastrophe and not a natural one.”

  Carter inclined his grotesque head. “Yes, I am,” he wheezed. “If only one species of fungi had undergone a radical change in its metabolism and growth pattern then natural mutation might explain it, but the fact that all the species are being affected indicates an artificial agent.” He paused to suck in air, then continued, “We must accept that what has happened is the result of a genetic engineering experiment that has gone hideously wrong.”

  “But who is responsible? Why don’t they come forward and explain what they’ve done?”

  “Maybe they were the first victims of their creation,” said Carter. “Or they are in hiding, too afraid to admit what they’ve done. If the latter is so I plead with them to ring this number immediately.” A telephone number was superimposed across the screen. “I have been empowered to offer them complete immunity from prosecution. It’s imperative that we learn the exact chemical structure of the agent. Without that we can’t begin to devise an effective means of counteracting it.”

  “Why hasn’t it been possible to trace the whereabouts of the laboratory responsible?” asked the interviewer. “Surely there can’t have been too many people doing research in this particular field.”

  “True,” admitted Carter. “And in normal circumstances we would have pinpointed the source of the infection. But as you are well aware the circumstances are far from normal. Conditions here in London are already chaotic, and gaining access to records, and to people, is very difficult. But even so we are continuing to make progress in our investigations and I hope that we will have the answer very shortly.”

  “Do you give any credence to the rumor that this fungal plague might be deliberate?”

  “You mean germ warfare?” Again the sound that was Carter’s version of laughter. “A secret Russian attack and all that? I hardly think so. This is one weapon that will obviously rebound on its users. It doesn’t recognize borders. It represents a threat to the entire world and I doubt if the Russians would have been so reckless to unleash it deliberately. Or even the Libyans who I’ve also heard mentioned.”

  “Just how fast is it spreading?”

  “Very fast. But it would be spreading even faster if it wasn’t for the fact that the virus or whatever has affected the reproductive cycles of the fungi. Normally a fungus will keep growing until it is time for it to send out its spores, but we’ve learned that the infected fungi species just continue growing without reaching the seeding stage. It’s possible, however, that this stage may merely be postponed in the mutated species. They might start sporing tomorrow, next week, or next year. And when that happens it will be impossible to stop the plague from spreading rapidly around the world. A single fungal fruiting body, a mushroom’s for example, can eject countless millions of spores into the air in just a few days.”

  The interviewer cleared his throat and said, “As a sufferer yourself what advice can you give to the viewers about the nature of the fungi that grow on people and the precautions one can take to prevent infection?”

  “To be blunt there seems to be no effective way of preventing infection. Constant washing with antiseptics and disinfectants might provide you with brief protection against the various external fungi, but not against the ones that grow internally. The anti-­fungal drugs, like nystatin, occasionally slow down the rate of infection but that’s all. They don’t provide a cure.”

  “But isn’t it true that some people appear to be immune to infection?” The interviewer was clearly desperate to extract some note of optimism from Carter. But he was unsuccessful.

  �
�It’s too early to tell. It does seem that a small percentage might enjoy a natural immunity, but it’s possible this is simply due to luck. We need more time to be sure.”

  “Isn’t there any way of removing the fungus once it starts growing on you? Burning it off, for instance?”

  “I’m afraid once you see any visible evidence of fungus infection it’s too late. Burning away, or otherwise removing, the surface growth wouldn’t affect the main part of the fungus. These growths you can observe on me, for example, are just the fruiting bodies. Most of the mycelium—the whole fungus—is below the surface, effectively rooted in me. Thousands of the thread-­like roots are running through my body, feeding on me. The fungus is literally a part of me now. If I broke these fruiting bodies off I suspect I would die.”

  “Then you’re saying that there’s no hope for people who become infected?”

  “There’s no hope of killing the fungus without killing the host. But to become infected is not necessarily a death sentence. I consider myself one of the luckier victims. My fungus, though parasitic, appears to be of the benign variety—so far at least. Some fungi kill their hosts quickly, some drive them insane, but mine, inconvenient and as uncomfortable as it is, is letting me live. I’ll just have to get used to it.”

  The interviewer did not seem reassured by Carter’s calm fatalism. “You’re saying mankind is completely helpless against the spread of the fungus?”

  “Our only chance is to discover the exact chemical nature of the organic agent causing the plague. Once we know that, it’s possible that scientists will be able to genetically engineer a neutralizing agent, in the form of a bacterium perhaps, that can be released into the environment.

  “But unless we isolate the plague agent very soon, mankind is doomed.”

  The tape ended. The uneasy silence that followed was broken by Slocock saying loudly, “I say to hell with it. Let’s forget the whole thing and get drunk instead.”