“Simon,” he cried, taking a step toward her. “What the hell are you talking about? Where is he?”
She moved backward. “He’s here, Barry. Come and see him. He’s a glorious sight.” She turned and walked over to a large glass cabinet into which a series of tubes were plugged. Wilson hurried after her, followed by Kimberley.
The other side of the cabinet was transparent. It was filled with something soft. Jane tapped the glass. The softness moved. In the midst of it a pair of eyes suddenly opened. They were bright blue.
“Our son,” said Jane proudly.
Wilson stared into his son’s eyes. They stared back imploringly. There was, Wilson saw with horror, still intelligence in them.
In a strangled voice Wilson said, “And Jessica? What have you done with her, you murdering bitch?”
“Jessica is fine,” answered Jane, sounding puzzled by his reaction. “She is happy within the embrace of the Mother. She guards this sacred place with the rest of my followers. I’m surprised you didn’t see her on the way up here.”
Wilson dropped the nozzle of the fire extinguisher. It fell to the floor with a clatter as he spun round to face Jane. “Jessica was among those creatures?” he screamed.
She gazed at him calmly, her expression self-satisfied and smug. “All will be clear to you when the Mother finally takes you into her embrace,” she told him, and gave a beatific smile.
He slammed his right fist into her mouth as hard as he could, following through with all his weight. He expected to knock her unconscious. He didn’t expect her head to fly from her shoulders with a dry snap.
Kimberley screamed.
Headless, Jane’s body tottered in front of him. No blood spurted from the end of the neck. Instead green fluid began to trickle out. He could see that her whole body was riddled on the inside with fungus.
The body, still upright, lurched past him, its arms flailing. Kimberley screamed again as it seemed to move straight for her. She struck out at it with her spiked rod. The make-shift spear went through Jane’s chest without meeting any resistance and protruded from her back. Kimberley ran screaming away from it.
The thing lurched about for several more steps then fell, twitching, to the floor.
Wilson turned his back on it and stared once again at the shape which had been his son. “Simon,” he said, helplessly. The blue eyes blinked.
He freed himself from the harness of the flame-thrower and let the hideous weapon drop with a crash. Then he bent down and began pulling the tubes out of the cabinet. Liquid spilled from them across the floor. He heard Kimberley approaching. She was crying.
“You killed her,” she sobbed. “You killed her and now we’ll never know the secret of her enzyme.”
He said nothing. He pulled the rest of the tubes out of the cabinet, then stood again. As he hoped, the pair of blue eyes soon began to glaze over.
“Are you listening to me?” demanded Kimberley, grabbing him by the arm. “We’ve got no hope now of getting what we came for. You’ve ruined every. “ She paused, then gasped, “Oh God, look!”
He turned and saw what had alarmed her.
It was Jane’s head. It had rolled to the base of one of the nearby incubators and now, as it lay there, it was slowly cracking open.
Almost incuriously Wilson walked over to it. He gazed down at Jane’s eyes, which were wide-open and startled-looking. A large fissure ran down her forehead to the bridge of her nose and as he watched the crack widened. Then suddenly the skull snapped entirely into two halves, revealing a white, spherical fungus. It continued to expand.
Kimberley cried, “Look, her body too!”
He turned and saw that Jane’s headless corpse was undergoing a transformation as well. It was being shaken by a series of convulsions, as if it were trying to sit up. Then, from the stump of the neck, hyphae began to flow out and spread across the floor.
Wilson stood transfixed at the sight of his wife’s corpse collapsing in upon itself. As the hyphae spread threateningly towards them Kimberley ran to the flame-thrower. She picked it up and tried to make it work. She finally figured out how to turn it on and yelped as flames roared out. Awkwardly she sprayed fire over the fungus radiating out of Jane’s body, and then incinerated the head.
“How do I turn it off?” she cried in alarm as fire continued to gush from the nozzle. He was forced to go and assist her.
But by the time he’d managed to switch it off it was too late. The laboratory was burning.
The fire caught hold very quickly, forcing them back toward the entrance. It was then that he noticed the small glass case sitting on a table that had been decorated to resemble an altar. Telling Kimberley to get out, he made a frantic dash through the flames to the case.
Sitting in the case was a pile of paper. On the top sheet he recognized the dense scrawl of Jane’s handwriting. He had found her notes.
He snatched up the case and ran for the doorway. The flames licked at his bare skin, making him scream. And then, at last, he was through the doorway and safe.
8
Kimberley died three days later.
It was on the morning of the day after the fire that he noticed the small patch of bright orange mold behind her right knee. They had spent hours helping Carter carry his equipment across to the nearby Euston Tower, which he considered to be the best alternative location for his transmitter after the fire had completely gutted the Post Office Tower.
While Carter worked to rig his makeshift transmitter, utilizing the antenna and other undamaged equipment from the local radio station—Capital Radio—that had been based in the building, Wilson and Kimberley went exploring and found a tankful of water in a relatively untouched apartment near the top of the building.
It was a relief to be able to wash the encrusted blood and filth from their bodies, and despite his exhaustion and depression, Wilson responded to the sheer sensuality of the experience. As he helped wash Kimberley he felt a sudden and intense desire for her. By making love he would be able to blot out, if only for a short time, all the horrors of the last couple of days.
And it was soon obvious that she shared his mood—her body trembled under his touch as he rinsed the soapy water from her. But as he leaned down to raise another cupped handful of water from the bathtub he saw the small patch of orange.
“Kimberley,” he sighed, all desire gone in that instant.
She looked down and followed the direction of his gaze. The only sound she made was a tiny, child-like, “Oh.”
He hugged her, not knowing what to say. For a few moments she clung to him, then pushed him gently, but firmly, away. “Come on,” she said in a steady voice, “we’d better go see how Carter is making out.”
They didn’t mention the fungus again that day, but by nightfall it was no longer possible to ignore it. By then her right leg, from foot to upper thigh, was covered in the orange mold. It was as if she were wearing a single woolen stocking.
Carter couldn’t have helped noticing it but he said nothing either. They were sitting in what had been one of Capital Radio’s control rooms. With his spare parts Carter had got some of the equipment functioning again and they had just completed making a recording of Wilson’s analysis of Jane’s notes. Wilson had quickly read through all the notes, knowing that once out of their sealed case the paper would quickly be attacked by the fungus. He had succeeded in pinpointing the vital information. He identified the crucial enzymes that had been modified, and then gave a detailed description of the chemical structure of Jane’s resulting super-enzyme. Carter’s intention was to put the tape on a loop and transmit it continuously.