“And you say that’s where Jane is? At the Tower?”
Carter nodded his bulbous head. “Right at the very top. Her followers guard the only way up there.”
Wilson frowned. He was still having trouble accepting the incredible story that Carter had told him about Jane. “You say these people actually worship her? But why?”
“They obviously believe her when she tells them she created the fungus and controls it. Her followers are all women, by the way, though what the significance is of that I don’t know yet.”
“But what’s she doing in the top of Post Office Tower?” asked Wilson.
“I’ve heard rumors she’s established some sort of laboratory up there.”
“You think she might be working on a way of stopping the fungus?”
“From what I hear about her I doubt it very much.”
Wilson sighed. “Well, at least she’s still alive and rational enough to organize a lab. That means she’s probably still capable of looking after the kids. I’m sure she wouldn’t let any harm come to them, no matter what the state of her mind.” He turned to Kimberley. “Stop wasting that water.” She was still splashing it over herself and frantically peering at her skin.
“I have to know if it’s on me yet,” she cried, then, as before, turned her back to him. “Can you see it anywhere? Tell me the truth.”
He gave her back a cursory look. “You’re fine,” he told her, then salvaged a cup from the debris. “Move aside, I’m thirsty.”
“You don’t seem to care!” she accused him as he gulped down a cupful of water. “We’re going to look like that thing over there, and you don’t give a damn!”
She was pointing at Carter.
Wilson said nothing. Instead he filled the cup again and handed it to Carter.
Kimberley muttered something under her breath and went to the rear door. “Where are you going?” Wilson asked her.
“I’m going outside for a pee. I can hardly have one in here.”
That was true. The cubicle housing the chemical toilet was now horizontal. “Don’t go too far from the truck,” he warned her. “And keep an eye out for anything moving.”
He watched her as she climbed out of the open airlock. She seemed completely oblivious to her nakedness and he felt a sluggish revival of his desire for her—a desire that had been dormant for some time.
“A very attractive woman,” commented Carter.
“Yes,” agreed Wilson, uncomfortably aware that his partial arousal was physically evident. “I wish she had something to wear. I wish I had something to wear.”
Carter made his wheezing laugh and said, “You don’t have any spare clothing with you?”
Wilson told him about the fungus attack that had cleaned them out of everything organic.
“Well,” said Carter, “You really don’t need clothes in London anymore, as far as the climate is concerned. The fungus seems to have raised the average temperature by at least five degrees. And the humidity has increased, too.”
“And after a while the fungus even clothes you as well,” said Wilson bitterly.
“Yes, there is that,” conceded Carter. “But you two have been lucky so far. Perhaps those drugs have given you permanent immunity.”
“Perhaps,” said Wilson though he didn’t believe it for a second.
After a pause, Carter said, “An odd choice for this expedition. Your traveling companion, I mean.”
“Kimberley? At first I didn’t think so. Seemed as hard as nails. But then when she found out the Megacrine drug wasn’t all it was cracked up to be she began to go to pieces. I guess she believed she was 100 percent safe from the fungus, otherwise she would never have come.”
“And why exactly has she come?”
“That, Dr. Carter, is a good question.”
Kimberley moved some distance away from the truck, taking care to avoid the still-smoldering remains of the creatures. The knot of terror in the pit of her stomach was like an unbearable physical pain. She felt so scared and helpless, but there was nowhere she could run, nowhere she could hide to avoid the inevitable infection. It was probably growing inside her already.
At the beginning the odds for pulling off her gamble had seemed in her favor, but now.
She squatted down amid the rubble of the building. At least her knee was feeling better. Something rustled behind her. She was just turning her head to see when a hand was clamped over her mouth and she was pulled roughly backward.
She tried to scream but couldn’t make a sound. Then the hand withdrew. She opened her mouth to draw breath but as she did so something rubbery was thrust into it, gagging her. She recognized the foul taste of fungus.
The next thing she knew she was being pulled along by her feet like a human sled. She tried to resist, digging her fingers into the ground, but it was useless. The fungal matting covering the road was too smooth.
As she was pulled quickly along, her head was gently buffeted by undulations and small growths in the carpet of fungus. Soon she was feeling quite dazed.
It was some time before she was able to get a clear look at what had captured her. Eventually she was able to keep her head raised long enough to see. There were two of them—one holding each leg—both very thin and emaciated. In the dim moonlight she saw ulcerous craters all over their backs.
She had no idea how far they’d traveled from the truck when the creatures finally stopped and let go of her legs. The continual buffeting had left her semi-conscious and at first she was only half aware that she was hearing voices.
“Go on—you first.”
“No, no. I’ll wait—all that running—have to catch my breath.”
They sounded like two people suffering from very bad laryngitis. She wondered what they were talking about.
“You’re scared you can’t do it any more.”
“I can. I just need a bit of time. Go on. You warm her up for me. I can see you’re ready from here. it’s enormous.”
Christ, she thought, they’re going to rape me. I’ve come all this way to be gang-banged by two pathetic, dying zombies.
She tried to sit up but as she did so she was punched in the face. She fell back onto the fungus, bright lights flashing in her eyes.
Then her legs were being roughly parted. A heavy body, hot and sticky, was suddenly on top of her and at the same time she felt something being brutally thrust into her. It was unnaturally large and it hurt like hell.
Her horror and disgust gave her extra strength. She violently wrenched her body to one side, simultaneously giving the rapist a powerful shove with her arms.
There was a distinct crunch. Then a thin, wailing scream. She looked up and saw him kneeling there clutching at his crotch. Blood spurted out between his fingers.
His companion cried, “What’s wrong? What did she do to you?”
The other one just continued to scream. It was then that Kimberley became aware that he was still inside her. She realized that his grotesque member was so diseased with fungus it had simply snapped off.
Her revulsion sent a hot stream of vomit rushing up her throat. She was noisily sick, getting rid of the chunks of her fungus gag. Then she reached between her legs, trying to extract.
A hand grabbed her hair, jerked her head around. She found herself staring into what was once a face. She’d seen such faces before. In Africa. On untreated leprosy victims.
“I’m gonna kill you for what you done to me!” the face screeched.