“A good thing you did. Otherwise, we’d be dead by now.”
“But why did they attack? We weren’t threatening them at all.”
“But we were threatening their beloved fungus. Killing it.”
“Their beloved fungus. What do you mean?”
“Who knows what those poor bastards think anymore in all that stuff? I reckon it’s a case of ‘if you can’t beat it, join it.’ The ones the fungus doesn’t kill probably feel grateful to it, despite being turned into walking mushrooms.”
Their progress towards the center of London got slower and slower. Often the roads were blocked completely and they had to make numerous detours until they could find an alternate route. On one occasion, as they were traveling through what they guessed to be Wembley, they were stopped dead by a huge toadstool that completely filled the road. Its trunk—it was too big to be called a stem—was at least 15 feet in diameter and its cap dwarfed the houses on either side of the street.
Then later, as they were crawling along the Harrow Road past Kensal Green, they were attacked by another mob—a big one numbering several hundred. They emerged from the surrounding, suffocating dreamscape like creatures from the worst nightmare imaginable. Large creatures, slow and bulbous, with stubby appendages, bearing iron bars, bricks and bottles. They formed a solid line across the road in front of the truck. Slocock didn’t slow down.
Missiles began to hit the windshield, some bouncing off, some shattering.
The Stalwart plowed into the mass of obscenely soft bodies. Wilson’s stomach turned over as he heard the thud, thud of the impacts and felt the big wheels going over things.
There were muffled cries. A spurt of greenish liquid suddenly obscured part of the windshield.
Wilson threw up.
Then the truck started to slow down, its wheels spinning as it fought a losing struggle with the mass of bodies around and in front of it.
“Shoot, for Christ’s sake, shoot!” yelled Slocock as he fought to push the truck onward.
Wilson hesitated for only a few moments. He told himself the creatures out there were no longer people. The fungus had turned them into something else.
He opened fire with the minigun and then the big machine gun. The things that were still capable of movement began, at last, to scatter.
The engine strained as the truck attempted to climb the soft, slippery mound in front of it.
A lurch as the cab tilted back—and then they were over it and free.
Slocock sent the truck hurtling down the Harrow Road, smashing through anything that got in his way, no matter what it or who it was.
They were just passing what Wilson barely recognized as the turning into Ladbroke Grove when in front of them stepped yet another missile-wielding creature. But this one was holding a bottle with a rag stuffed into the top. And the rag was burning.
The creature flung the gasoline bomb too soon. Instead of hitting the truck, it shattered on the road ahead of them. But at the sight of the spreading pool of fire Slocock screamed and tugged violently on the wheel.
The Stalwart went into an uncontrollable skid. It shot across the road and straight into the corner of a fungus covered building.
Wilson felt himself flung forward into the windshield, and then there was nothing but blackness.
2
Chaos. Pain. Confusion.
Wilson was battered by all three as he floated up from unconsciousness. His head throbbed and there was a taste of blood in his mouth. What had happened? And what was making that terrible noise?
He opened his eyes, trying to orientate himself. It took him several seconds to realize that the Stalwart was now lying on its side. It had tipped over onto the passenger side and he was wedged up against the door.
There was no sign of Slocock. The emergency hatch was still sealed, so that meant he must have gone through to the rear compartment.
Clang. The cab vibrated from yet another violent impact. It sounded as if someone was using a sledge-hammer. He could also hear hoarse cries and yells. Lots of them.
He couldn’t see anything through the windshield—it had frosted over from the crash—and all he could see through the window on the driver’s side, now above him, was the evening sky.
Wilson struggled to extricate himself from his awkward position. At the same time he groped for the Sterling submachine gun. He couldn’t find it. It was gone. So was the .38.
Something filled the window above him. He looked up and saw a head that resembled a Halloween pumpkin. It hissed at him. At that moment the windshield caved inward and Wilson was showered with powdered glass. He shut his eyes and raised an arm to protect himself.
He felt a rush of warm, moist air and then there were hands pulling at his body. Hands that seemed to be encased in thick, soft mittens.
He tried to fend them off, his flesh crawling at their touch and at the thought of the infection they carried, but there were too many of them. Despite his struggles he was inexorably dragged out of the cab through the shattered windshield. Like a turtle being ripped out of its shell, he thought. I’m totally defenseless now. They’ve got me.
They were everywhere he looked. Caricatures of human beings. The pure stuff of nightmare. Some were doubled over from the weight of fungal growth they carried on their bodies, some were thin and partially eaten away, covered in only a sheen of mold. And others were so deformed by the fungus it was hard to believe they were of human origin at all.
Making nerve-jangling cries they hustled him over the rubble to the rear of the truck. He glimpsed a white suit in the midst of another throng of the creatures ahead, then saw the familiar short black hair and pale face. He shouted Kimberley’s name and heard her cry his in return. But then she was swallowed up in the mass of obscenely soft, fungus-coated bodies.
At least she was still alive, he thought as he was halfshoved, half-carried along the Harrow Road, back along the way they’d come, but what had happened to Slocock?
Slocock fought to control his panic. His biggest fear was that the truck would be hit by another petrol bomb. He wanted to get out through the emergency hatch and get as far away from this death trap as he could, but his soldier’s conditioning warned him to resist the urge. It would be, he knew, suicide to venture out there unarmed.
So he forced himself to take a deep breath, and then began to hunt around under Wilson’s crumpled body for the Sterling. As he did this, to his surprise, Wilson groaned. He’d presumed he was dead. Well, thought Slocock, he soon would be, and good riddance. He located the Sterling and also the revolver. For a moment he was tempted to put a bullet through Wilson’s head, but decided not to bother. Why waste ammunition?
Ammunition. Again he stopped himself from using the emergency hatch. Instead he maneuvered open, with difficulty, the hatch leading into the back of the truck and crawled through.
The rear compartment was a shambles. Kimberley, still in her anti-contamination suit, was moving feebly under an oxygen cylinder that had come loose from its wall bracket.
He pulled the cylinder off her, then ignored her as he set about collecting several full clips of 9mm ammunition for the Sterling. He shoved them into his belt and was about to open the rear door when he thought of something else.
His prayers were answered. One bottle of whiskey had survived the crash. He picked it up and smiled at it as if greeting his dearest friend.