He wiped his right shoe on the grass to clean off the dung then continued to weave his tipsy way towards the camp site.
He didn’t know it, and wouldn’t have cared less if he did, but smears of excreta remained in the chunky patterns on the sole of his shoe. He also didn’t know that the smears contained spores from the coprophilous fungus living in the intestine of the cow that had produced the dung.
None of this would have mattered but for the fact that the field had received an invisible shower of microscopic fungus particles carried all the way from London by the prevailing winds. The particles had first been swept very high into the sky and would have continued on over the Irish Sea if a westerly cross current hadn’t caused them to be deposited onto this particular part of Yorkshire.
And as Dermot walked across the field a few of the particles were picked up by the smears of cow dung on his shoe. Each particle contained Jane Wilson’s still-active enzyme, and when one of them came into contact with a coprophilous spore, something began to happen.
The lights were out in both the tents. Dermot had expected to find Sally still engrossed in her paperback—some epic fantasy about an adventurous leper or something. She and her silly sci-fi books, but it was because she was so hooked on the damn thing that she didn’t mind him going off to get plastered with the old farmer.
He headed for the children’s tent and almost tripped over a tent rope. Regaining his balance he said “Shhhs!” to himself and then poked his head, unsteadily, into the tent. They were all fast asleep but he kept watching them for awhile longer to make sure. They were crafty little devils.
Satisfied that they weren’t faking he went to his own tent. Sally was asleep too so he undressed as quietly as he could. All went well until he tried to remove his trousers and tripped over. He flopped heavily onto Sally.
“Wa? Uh?” she said.
“It’s only me. Sorry, possum. I’m a bit sloshed.” She muttered something he couldn’t decipher and unzippered the sleeping bag a part of the way to make room for him. He crawled in, with difficulty. She was naked and felt warm. There was the slight slickness to her body that fresh perspiration gives. It felt very good, and he began to get hard.
He caressed her smooth skin and she reacted swiftly with the responses of a sexually aroused but still half-awake woman. They made love with all the pleasure of their early days together.
Later, as they slept, a thick, orange growth slowly formed outside the tent. It was looking for food, having already depleted the organic detritus in the soil.
It quickly detected the presence of a large supply of warm food nearby. Its thin hyphae, which would have been almost invisible in daylight, spread out over the ground toward the heat source. They moved swiftly, covering over 12 inches every minute. They entered the tent and spread across the grass towards the ground sheet and the end of the sleeping bag. During their love-making Dermot and his wife had emerged from the bag and were now sleeping on top of it. The tips of the hyphae touched their damp feet and began to feed on the dead outer layer of the epidermis.
As they grew further up the sleeping couple’s legs the hyphae sensed a food that was more natural to the coprophilous fungus. They grew faster and were soon probing the warm crevices and orifices that were particularly moist and nourishing.
They entered Dermot and Sally almost simultaneously.
All the sleeping couple felt was a dim sense of increased warmth. They both relaxed into it, and their dreams were pleasant. At one point Sally became half-awake and stroked Dermot’s chest. His skin seemed to have a thick, furry texture to it but she knew that was only because of the strangeness that sleep gives to the senses. It felt wonderful, she decided, as she sank back into deep sleep again.
In the other tent the children were being similarly invaded by the fungus and entering into the same peaceful state of union with it. The mutating coprophilous was making the necessary changes to its hosts so that it could exist in a symbiotic relationship with them without causing their destruction.
When the Biggs family awoke the next morning and saw what they had become, there was no adverse reaction—some brief moments of bewilderment but that was all. Then they began their new life, no longer needful of tents, books or clothes. From now on the fungus would take care of all their wants.
They wandered out into the meadow and got down on all fours. The grass tasted especially good at this time of the year.
3
Slocock hurt so much he knew he couldn’t do another yard, let alone a lap. His legs felt like kit-bags full of suet and his throat was so raw that each breath was like swallowing a cheese grater. His heart was doing at least 180 mph and he wouldn’t have been surprised if it simply packed up on him.
But he did do another lap, driving his short, stocky body on.
“Nice one, Sarge!” shouted young Feely who was sitting on one of the low benches that ringed the track. There was someone with him but Slocock, his eyes stinging with sweat, couldn’t make out who it was.
Slocock staggered off the track and collapsed onto the grass. He lay there on his back, chest heaving. The hot midday sun beat down on him and he screwed his eyes shut against it.
In the distance there was a distinctive crump sound. The bastards were at it again. A big one too. Possibly another car bomb. Despite what had happened on the mainland, and what was still happening, the bloody IRA had stepped up their campaign against the army. They can’t drive us outflow, thought Slocock bitterly, don’t they realize there’s no place left for us to go?
“You want to be careful, Sarge. Especially at your age,” came Feely’s voice from close by. Slocock smiled to himself. Feely was a good kid.
“If someone had said that to your old man,” wheezed Slocock, “you’d be nothing but a dried-up puddle in an old rubber lying in some Liverpool alley. And what a loss to the world that would have been.”
Feely laughed. Some people—well, a lot of people—couldn’t take Slocock. And Slocock had convinced himself he liked it that way, particularly since Marge. But Feely refused to be offended by anything Slocock said and usually gave as good as he got. This time, however, all he said was, “You’ve got a visitor, Sarge.” And his voice held a note of amusement in it.
Slocock opened his eyes. Sweat continued to blur his vision and he could only distinguish two vague forms outlined against the sun.
“Good afternoon, sergeant,” said a female voice. A very nice female voice.
Slocock wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and squinted. He could now make out a woman in her late twenties. She was strikingly attractive. She had large eyes, high cheek bones, and a wide, suggestive mouth. Her hair was short and very black. And though she was wearing a pair of baggy jeans and a shapeless khaki shirt he could tell her body was lean and muscular. She held herself well.
“Begorrah, Feely,” he said in a mock Irish accent, “you’ve brought your dear old grannie to see your beloved Sarge.”
“I’m Kimberley Fairchild. Doctor Kimberley Fairchild. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Sargeant Slocock, but I’ve already been warned about you.”
“Lies. Filthy lies spread about by my envious inferiors. I am in reality the pasteurized milk of human kindness. So what can I do you for, Doctor?”
“Nothing in particular. I just wanted to take a look at you.”
He spread his arms. “Look all you want. Feast your eyes. It will mean reappraising your ideal of male beauty but that’s the price you must pay for the privilege.”