Spore (7 page)

The flash-enhanced image glowed on the view screen. A convoluted network of whitish veins sprawled near the headstone. Were they plasma filaments? A root system? He paused to take another picture, a close-up, to better see the fluffed up, slimy texture. Then he looked around.

Each grave had its own odd, threaded shroud.

Mare grimaced at the image on the camera screen. “It looks like someone stretched a lumpy, veiny hunk of skin on the ground.”

“I don’t know what it is,” Sean whispered, one hand reaching down to touch the tangled membrane. He found it warm and slick, slimy like snot, and he felt a faint pulse of fluid flowing within. “Whatever it is, it’s warmer than the ground. And it’s pulsating.” He tried to fling it off his fingers, but the gunk stuck to him. “Sticky.” He wiped his hand on his jeans and took another picture.

“Oh my God,” Mare muttered, gaze darting around. “That’s… It’s…” She swallowed as Sean took a third picture. “I think we ought to go home,” she said at last, her voice small in the rain. “It stinks out here and what if the stuff is dangerous? A terrorist biohazard or something? We’re not even wearing gloves.”

Just a few more, then we can go.
Sean leaned forward to get another close up of the weird veiny membrane, making sure to get the gravestone in the shot. “None of the cops are wearing facemasks or protective suits, and none of the people today were sick. I’m willing to bet it’s not toxic.”

“Always the optimist,” she muttered, crouching beside him. “So what do we do?”

“Get a few more pics,” he said, motioning to a large gravestone close to the nearest tarp. “If nothing else, I can use these for inspiration for Ghoulie.”

The cops and kids in the woods grew louder.

“Yeah, Ghoulie covered with snot strands. That’d be fun. Like I don’t see enough of that at work,” Mare said, barely audible over the warning squawk of the megaphone. Sean counted to three then they bolted, bent low, slimy strings shifting beneath their feet. They reached the next large gravestone and crouched behind it. “Make it quick, okay?” Mare said, wiping rainwater from her eyes.

“Sure.” Sean shifted to take a photograph of the smear in front of him. “Just a couple more then we can—“

“Sean!” she gasped, pointing up the creek. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” he whispered, gaze darting around.
Shit! Did a deputy spot us?

“That!” she said, standing. “Something splashed in the water way over there. Something
big
.”

He rose to look backwards over the gravestone to the cops and kids. Eight or nine damp, grimy teenagers clumped together, defiant and screaming. Two pointed up the hill, toward them, and Sean crouched again. “Mare. Get down. They’re going to see—“

Lightning arched across the sky, bringing an immediate crack of thunder. Mare had walked toward the glowing tarps, still pointing. Past her, within the farthest, fluid splashed up to speckle the inside of the plastic.

“Hey!” the megaphone screeched. “You! Up the hill! This is a restricted—“ The rest of the warning was lost to another peal of thunder. Sean bolted for Mare, swearing under his breath. He dragged her down to the ground as lightning crackled again.

Sean sneezed at the choking stink of mold. Beside him, Mare covered her nose with her hand.

“God, it stinks,” Mare said.

Teenagers and cops yelled at each other down the hill, and one cop climbed the hill toward him and Mare. Not much time left. “I’m going to reach under the closest tarp and take a picture, then toss you the camera,” he said, getting his feet beneath him. “You stay put. I’ll run, get their attention, and once they’re chasing me, you head back home. Get those pics downloaded and put on a disk, okay? Or the cloud. Somewhere we can get them back.”

“What? Are you nuts? You’ll get arrested!”

“Better than both us of getting arrested and losing the pictures,” he said. Finger on the shutter button, he jumped down into the creek.

Teeth clenched, he faced into the wind and rain, and lifted the bottom of the plastic, pointing the camera toward the water while watching the deputy approach. Lightning crackled to the west as he pushed the button. Before the image finished processing, he tossed the camera to Mare and bolted out of the creek and toward the tallest gravestones near the crest of the hill.

“Stop!” the deputy yelled, but Sean skirted a knee-high gravestone and kept running. “You can’t escape!”

Escape isn’t my plan,
Sean thought, taking a zigzag route to the eastern bend of the creek and the splashed tarp. Someone down the hill hollered in pain as Sean leapt into the water and ripped the tarp half off its ring. Struggling to catch his balance in the mud and current, he scrambled aside before falling face-first onto a thrashing wad of white, foamy slime or knocking over the floodlight that shown down upon it. As large as a beanbag chair and releasing strings of delicate bubbles, the mass quivered and splashed about under the water’s surface like a fish caught on a line.

The burbling slime-mass roiled, dousing Sean with water and foam as it flipped. Bits of it slid off and floated away, leaving a purple-tinted swirl in their wake.
What the hell’s happening here?

The deputy jumped down into the creek, hand on his gun, his uniform drenched and muddy. He was maybe twenty and looked terrified.

Despite his own fear, Sean smiled at him. “Hey,” he said, gesturing at the thrashing mass as a human foot burst out, flecking them both with purple slime. “Whatcha got here?”

“Nothing you need to see. You’re gonna come with me.”

“Fucker maced me!” a young man’s voice screeched from the dark. “Fucking bastard asshole!” The deputy turned with a lurch toward the noise.

A gun went off with a loud high pop that echoed through the storm. Out there, somewhere, a woman screamed.

Be a warning shot for the kids. Let Mare be all right!
Sean froze, heart slamming, while, before him, the slimy thing fizzed and fell apart, exposing an arm, a torso, the back of someone’s head. The deputy cursed and clambered out of the creek, leaving Sean alone. He crouched in the water and tried to help free the thrashing person from the muck.

The kids continued to scream at the cops, and he heard a crash and sounds of fighting.
It’s toward the gate,
he told himself, as he glanced where the deputy had recently stood.
Not toward Mare.

“Filthy goddamn pigs! You’re breaking my fucking arm! Do you know who my dad is? I’ll have your fu—“ The rest was lost to the storm.

A woman burst up beneath Sean’s hands, gasping and coughing up water, as the remaining frothy mass floated away and dissolved into a purple swirl.

She slumped sideways and collapsed into the water, but tried again to crawl up the bank, looking up at him with fearful eyes, dark and gleaming. She dripped with purple mucus and white foam, and she slipped again as she cowered away from him. Her scream sounded like a trapped rodent. Despite his apprehension, Sean approached her and held out his hand.

“It’s all right,” he coaxed, heart hammering. “Come on. I’ll help you.”

How can this be happening?
he thought as he examined her young face, surely no older than mid twenties.
So human, so impossible.
“Can you stand? Can you talk?”

She opened her mouth and squeaked at him, and she barely resisted as he grasped her hand and drew her to her knees. The whites of her eyes shimmered lilac in the floodlight, the irises deep violet. Her skin was cold and clammy, goose pimpled, and she shivered.

“Gonna get you out of here,” he said, drawing her toward the bank. “Get you dried off, covered up.” Her knees buckled and she collapsed in the creek again as she blinked dumbly up at him. The brilliant purples in her eyes had already faded. She smiled, but it was mindless, like a child’s doll. Whatever she was, she was no threat. It was like looking into the eyes of a newborn. “Aaah gah?”

“Yep, ah gah. C’mon,” he said. “You can do it. On your feet, now.”

The deputy returned and, reaching for the radio at his shoulder, barked, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Helping this poor woman stand.” Sean draped one of her arms over his shoulder and got his strength beneath her. “I could use a hand here, or didn’t they teach you to help people back in Deputy Academy or whatever the hell it’s called?”

The young deputy’s cheeks turned red. He stammered then said, “You’re under arrest for interfering—“

“Fine. Arrest me,” Sean said, struggling not to slip on the remaining mucus. “But help
her
. She’s freezing out here!”

Together they managed to drag the young woman, stumbling, out of the creek and down the hill. A row of teenagers lay face down on the ground near the police cars, their hands secured behind them and a deputy standing guard. The third deputy carried a blanket toward Sean and the young deputy, huffing as he dragged his heft up the hill.

“Great, just great,” Todd muttered as he approached. “You were supposed to call for backup.”

“He was trying to help her,” the young deputy replied, voice sounding whiny. “And he didn’t seem—“

“Didn’t seem could get your ass killed,” Todd said. He stopped and sighed at Sean. “What are you doing here?”

Sean smiled. “Guess I’m a bad penny.”

Todd wrapped the woman in the blanket and sent her down the hill with the young deputy. He glared at Sean. “Bad, no. Too damn curious for your own good, yes.” He sighed and looked Sean over. “I saw flashes. Where’s your camera?”

“Dropped it in the chase,” Sean lied.

“Uh huh. A cheapskate like you? I don’t believe that.”

Sean held his arms wide. “You can pat me down. Check my pockets…”

Todd’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t have time for your crap. Not after the day I’ve had.” He grabbed Sean’s upper arm and turned him toward the northwest. “Go home. Forget whatever you saw.”

“You know I can’t—“

“Yes, you damn well can,” Todd snapped. “We have backup on the way, but, for right now, I’ve got two rookies down there who will keep their yaps shut if I tell them to. I’m already in enough shit without having to drag your sorry ass in for a bullshit charge of trespassing on public property just so you can show up in arraignment and spill your guts to the judge and a hundred cameras tomorrow morning. No. Those kids are bad enough but they didn’t see anything. You… You’ll get me fired for starting a media shitstorm.”

“What happened?” Sean asked as Todd pushed him toward the hole in the fence. “Why are these people—“

“Shut up and go home or you’re going to jail. And those pictures had better not show up on the internet.” Todd glared at Sean. “We’re friends, remember? I’ve always trusted you. Don’t fuck me over now.”

Todd turned and walked away, huffing back down the hill. A million questions dancing in his mind, Sean watched him go.

Part Two

Growth

Chapter Eight

Rain pattered against the window. Mindy sat on her saggy borrowed bed, rocking herself with her arms wrapped around her legs. Her mind raced over the same few worries: Jeff, her family, being dead, having no provable identity or money, and being taken in by strangers.

I’m stuck, right and proper,
she thought, face pressed against her knees as another peal of thunder rumbled outside.
What can I do?

Sighing, she raised her head and looked out to her room. It was small, with scuffed mint green walls and worn Berber carpet with an orange stain—likely Kool-Aid or juice—just inside the doorway. A battered dresser leaned against one wall, its drawer fronts decorated with Transformers stickers shooting monsters scribbled in marker. The closet doors were gone but the track remained, and a cracked plastic shade covered the lone window.

Mare had given her a tour of the house. Other than the GhoulBane artwork, everything looked second hand or, at best, bought on sale at a discount store years ago.
They can’t afford to let me stay here long,
she thought, resting her head on her knees again.
I’ll cost them more food, more electricity, more water, more everything. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone. I just want my life back. But I can’t, because Jeff—

The back door opened and she sat straight, breath caught in her throat.
What’d they find? Oh, God, do I really want to know?

Mare and Sean came in the back door and talked in the kitchen, their voices sounding excited as they moved toward the living room, then the hall. Mindy stood, listening, her stomach tying itself into knots as they went into Sean’s studio, the room next to her.

“Did it get too wet?” Mare asked. “I tried to keep it dry, but the rain…”

“I don’t know yet,” Sean said. “Where’s the USB cable?”

“Top left… Here, I’ll get it,” Mare said.

Mindy stepped into the hall and braved a glance into the studio. Sean sat at a black and silver Mac, toweling his face and dripping wet hair while his feet tapped with hurried frustration. Mare, also drenched, rifled through a desk drawer. Sean saw Mindy and smiled. “C’mon in,” he said, waving her into the room. “We took some pics.”

“Found it!” Mare proudly displayed a white cable and plugged it in. She snapped the other end into the camera and stepped aside to dry herself as Sean clicked the mouse again.

“Why such a rush?” Mindy asked. “Surely it’ll wait until you’re dry.”

“Maybe not,” Sean said, flicking something on the camera. “I got caught by a deputy. He knows me and saw the camera. Gotta get the pics off it and onto a disk before he gets here.”

“Oh.” Mindy stood by Mare, pressing her forearms against her stomach to quiet the terrified glurgle.
Is it because of the photos, or because I might get in trouble for leaving the hospital?

“Aw, shit,” Sean muttered as the status bar filled and disappeared. “They’re loading too quick. Looks like I forgot to put the camera on hi-res.”

“Dammit,” Mare muttered, scrunching her hair in the towel. “Hopefully they’ll be okay.”

“Should be,” Sean said, leaning forward as shiny veins on a grave filled the screen. “960 by 1280. Not great, but it’ll do,” he said. “It’s not like we’ll be printing them.”

“What are the veins?” Mindy asked.

“Not sure. Some kind of mold, judging by the smell,” Sean said, moving on to the next picture, a close-up of the slime. Again, Sean’s few clicks brightened and enhanced the photograph. Mindy could see raindrops beading on the translucent surface. “Is that what I came from?” she asked, grimacing.

“No,” Sean said, clicking a few times as another puddle flickered on the screen then disappeared again. “I’m pretty sure you came from one of these.”

The new picture showed a puffy ball in a creek, partially hidden beneath a fallen branch and spewing countless fragile tendrils of slime and foam.

Mindy thought it looked like a slimy version of the fizzy tablets people dissolve in water for cold medicine or denture cleaning. “That’s it, isn’t it? The thing that made me.”

“I helped another woman come out of one,” he said. “She was slimy, like you were when you first came here. All the goop just floats away.”

Mindy’s hands clenched against her belly as someone knocked on the door.
The sheriff!

“Shit, shit, shit,” Mare muttered, tossing her towel in the corner before hurrying from the room.

“Stall them, if you can.” Sean leaned forward, chewing his lower lip, as he typed. A screen popped up, with another status bar, then first picture disappeared. He moved onto the next.

“Is there anything I can do?” Mindy asked as the next picture saved and closed.

“Are the cops looking for you?” Sean pulled a stack of CDs out of a drawer as the third photograph saved.

Mindy winced. “Probably. I kinda escaped quarantine at the hospital.”

He kept saving files. “Hide in the bathroom. But be quiet.”

“Go ahead. Let him in.” Sean walked into the living room, camera in hand. “No reason to keep him standing in the rain.”

Mare continued to face the barely open door. “He doesn’t have a warrant.”

Outside, on the stoop, Todd sighed and said, “C’mon, Mare. I told you I’m not here as a deputy, I’m here as a friend, okay? Just give me the memory card and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Friend or not, you’re still a cop. You want to take my private property, you’d better have a warrant.”

Sean laid a hand upon Mare’s shoulder and drew her away from the door. “Mare, babe, it’s okay. Let him in.”

Todd entered, his bulk diminished under a rain slicker, and nodded his thanks. “Look, I know and you know what you saw, but right now is not a good time. I’d really appreciate it if you could just give me the memory card—“

“I told you,” Mare said, “not without a warrant! Friends still have rights, you know.”

Todd frowned. “Give it to me, and I will keep you out of this shit that’s about to hit the fan.”

Sean held out the camera. “Here. It shorted out anyway, but I’d appreciate a receipt at least.”

“Don’t need to make any more paper trail than we already have.” Todd opened the side of the camera. “Corroded batteries, that’s a nice touch,” he muttered as he slid the memory card loose. He held it like a coin between his fingertips. “This the right one, or have you substituted a fake?”

“It’s the only one I have. The pics are on it. Or were.”

Todd dropped the card onto the floor and crunched it beneath his boot. “The correct answer is ‘no comment’, or ‘I’ll have to ask my lawyer’. Anyone else comes to talk to you about what happened tonight, that’s all you say.” He tossed the camera back to Sean. “Got it?”

Sean caught it and watched Todd pick up the pieces of memory card. “Yeah, I got it.”
Rather have gotten the receipt.
Curious, but reminding himself that Mindy was hiding down the hall, Sean asked, “Why are you doing this? Destroying evidence?”

Todd sighed and stood. “Because there’s too much weird shit happening today and you haven’t done anything but try to help these people. Or whatever they are. I don—“

Sean took a step forward. “They’re
miracles
. I saw—“

“I know what you saw,” Todd sighed. “I’ve seen it, too. It’s been a shitty ass day, okay? I’ve had to explain to these scared fungaloids that every person they used to know and love has moved, died, remarried, or thinks this is all a cruel joke. I’ve been spit on, yelled at, hit, kicked, and threatened. That part’s pretty normal, but being the first on the scene after a kidnapping and having to question terrified parents was pretty awful. Plus I’ve been up for almost twenty-four hours, the last five in the rain. I’m tired. No, I’m
exhausted
and my ass is already in enough trouble. I just want to file my report and sleep for about four days.”

He sighed and turned to go. “I don’t think the recruit knew who you were. But if he talks, if
anyone
shows up to question you, remember what I said.”

“Dammit, Todd. What’d you do?” Mare asked, her voice soft.

Todd sagged. “Some of the fungaloids disappeared from the hospital. I was lead man there, so it’s my ass. I’ll be damned if I let this evidence leak.”

Sean frowned.
He keeps calling them fungaloids. Is that stuff in the cemetery a fungus? It certainly would explain the smell.

“I’m not going to ask you if you have copies of the pics—I know you do—but have you put them online, anywhere? Email? Twitter? The cloud?”

“No,” Sean said, holding Todd’s gaze. “Personal use only. I swear. Inspiration for Ghoulie and all.” He wanted to ask more questions, about the mucus balls, the people, and the why of it all, but instead he held his tongue.

The men stood there, gauging each other, until Todd nodded. “All right. Once the news breaks, and it will, do whatever you want with them. Put up billboards alongside the interstate or sell them to
The National Enquirer
for all I care. But if your photos hit the web first, I’ll lose my job. I can’t afford to lose my job.”

“We’d never do anything to hurt you or Hailey. The pics won’t go anywhere. I promise.”

Todd nodded and held out his hand. Sean shook it and Todd grinned. “Good to see you. Sorry it’s under such squirrelly circumstances. We should get together for a drink or something some time.”

Sean grinned back. “I bartend at Hap’s Place Wednesday nights. Stop by and I’ll get you a burger and a beer, on the house.”

“It’s a deal.” Todd wished them a good night and left.

Mare closed the door behind him and turned to smile at Sean. “It’s been a long time since we last saw Todd.”

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging. They’d been friends since they were kids, playing video games and getting into trouble together. Todd had been the one to suggest Sean go to art school instead of the military and had encouraged him to ask Mare out. But after Todd’s wife had entered the picture, they’d drifted apart. “Kim broke his heart, I think.” He grasped Mare’s hand. “Maybe he’ll start coming around more.”

Mare squeezed his fingers. “Hope so. He’s a good guy.”

“He’s gone?” Mindy asked, peeking around the corner.

Sean removed his hand from Mare’s. “Yep. Just left.”

Mindy smiled, relieved. “So, um, what happened out there? In the cemetery?” she asked, fidgeting. “Why am I here when I should be dead?”

Sean gestured toward the hall. “I don’t know. But something in the pictures might help explain it.”

Mindy listened to their tale and examined the pictures on Sean’s computer. “It’s not possible,” she said, staring at the whitish veins sprawling in front of Evelyn Fischer’s gravestone. Evelyn, the disoriented woman who’d kept sneezing at the back of the van. Born February 1942, died December 1985, and apparently back again July 2015. As a fungus. That cop had said so. And the doctors had found fungus in her blood.

Mindy clasped her hands between her thighs and stared at the photo.
Did I really come from one of those globs? How can this be real?

“You okay?” Mare asked, squeezing Mindy’s shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Mindy sighed. “Other than I’m just a fungus.”

“You’re not a fungus,” Sean said from behind her. “Yeah, you smelled musty when I first met you, but you don’t now.”

Oh gee, thanks,
Mindy thought, glancing up at him.

Mare frowned and nudged him aside. “Didn’t you say that you were urinating pink, but you’re not anymore?”

“Yes, but—“

“You’re obviously not sick, you’re not showing signs of skin lesions or systemic infection, and Sean’s right. You smell just fine.” Mare shrugged. “I work with sick people all day every day and I’ve seen a
lot
of fungal infections. I’m no doctor, but you’re not showing a single symptom. You’re not a fungus.”

“But the doctors said we were infected, that it was all through our bodies, our cells.”

“Maybe you’ve fought it off,” Sean said, shrugging. “That woman I helped out of the creek… I saw her change. As she stood, her eyes stopped being purple.”

“Just like my urine did,” Mindy said. “So maybe the infection goes away?”

“I don’t see why not,” Mare said. “And I really don’t think you’re contagious. Someone would have come to take us to the hospital by now, or we would’ve been notified. Not all fungus is bad, after all.”

“Right. Like mushrooms,” Sean said. “Besides, none of the cops were wearing protective gear. Just regular uniforms. They didn’t seem worried about infection.”

“’Kay,” Mindy sighed, warily eyeing the photo of Evelyn’s grave. She still felt like a freak. A fungaloid freak.

An awkward silence settled over them. Mare said, “It’s been a long day. I’m heading to bed.” She squeezed Mindy’s shoulder again and said, “Try to get some rest.”

“I’ll try.”

Sean watched Mare go, and said, “You can look at them all you want. Or whatever. Just don’t delete or save over anything, okay?”

“So I can, like, check my Facebook?” Mindy asked, hopeful. Jeff almost never let her check Facebook, if he let her use his computer at all. Heck, if he let her do anything at but take care of his needs, his wants, his demands.

Sean shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I have work files on there I don’t want to lose. As long as you don’t screw them up, you can do whatever you want.”

Mindy managed a smile. “I won’t. Promise.”

Sean turned to go, but paused in the doorway to smile at her. “And no porn site viruses. My Mac’s too innocent for that stuff.” He winked. “Look at anything else you want, but stay away from the porn.”

She laughed. “No porn. Got it.”

They bade each other good night and, hand shaking, Mindy opened a browser window and went to Facebook.

Her page still existed, and she had 41 new messages waiting, all condolences for her family about her death. Despite insisting on full access to her account, Jeff not only hadn’t bothered to open or respond to any of them, he hadn’t posted anything about the accident in her timeline. Jeff had actually encouraged her last post, an excited, pre-dawn note about driving to Des Moines to shop. That brief post, which normally might have gotten a couple of thumbs-up, gathered more than twenty grieving comments. None of them received responses from Jeff, but Dani, her mother, and Mikey each had commented about the funeral arrangements and where to send donations.