Harry Knight - The Fungus

I’m working too hard, he told himself as he threw cold water on his face and then began to clean his teeth. At this rate I’ll be dead of a heart attack long before I reach retirement age. Just like Dad.

And yet he enjoyed his job, in spite of the long, unsocial hours, and the pressures, and certainly didn’t want to be transferred into a less strenuous department. He knew he’d be bored doing anything else.

Dr. Bruce Carter was a medical investigator for the Home Office. His duties ranged over a wide area, dealing with everything from rabies control to tracking down the origins of outbreaks of communicable diseases like typhoid, TB and the like. He was also an expert on toxins and was often called in on suspected murder cases. All in all it was a fairly exciting and challenging job that didn’t follow any particular routine. He hated routine but he loved challenges.

He parked his car in Goodge Street at 6.25 a.m., pleased with himself at how quickly he’d made it into town. As be got out of the car he was aware of how quiet it was at this time of the morning. If only it was always like this, he thought, as he hurried toward the entrance of the Middlesex Hospital.

On the way he noticed something odd; growing out of a drain next to the footpath was a clump of the biggest toad-stools he’d ever seen. They were white, spherical things almost the size of footballs. He was tempted to examine them more closely but there wasn’t time. Later perhaps.

Inside the building he gave his name to the receptionist who, predictably, couldn’t find it on her list. Carter was patient. “Try looking under ‘C’,” he suggested politely.

She eventually found a Dr. Bruce “Cowper” on the list and agreed, a shade reluctantly, that it was probably him. “You’re to go to the Contagious Diseases Ward, Block C, Level two and ask for a Dr. Mason. Take that lift there and press the button marked two. Then. “

But Carter was already running for the lift. “Thanks,” he called over his shoulder. “I know the way.”

On the second floor he encountered a nurse heading toward him from the direction of the Contagious Diseases Ward. The look on her face disturbed him. Her expression was one of shock. It was rare for a nurse to display her emotions that way, no matter what she might have witnessed. Carter began to get an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He went through the door marked “Contagious Diseases” in big red letters. Beyond, in a short passageway, sat a nurse at a desk. There was another nurse with her, talking in a low voice. They both looked up at him as he entered. Their eyes had the same expression of dull shock as the nurse he’d passed outside. His feeling of foreboding increased.

He gave them his name and one of them took him along into a small room. She handed him a plastic anti-contamination suit and told him to put it on. He stared at the suit with surprise. He’d worn such clothing before, but only rarely, in extreme situations. The last time had been during the investigation of a suspected escape of smallpox bacillus from a research lab.

He gestured at the suit’s self-contained oxygen supply and said to the nurse, “Rather drastic this, isn’t it? Isn’t your patient in an isolation unit?”

Tersely she said, “There’s more than one of them and, yes, they are in isolation units, but Dr. Mason advises the use of the suit just the same.”

He said nothing more as he climbed into the suit. When he was ready she checked the seals then indicated another door. “Go through there. You’ll find a door at the end of the passageway. Dr. Mason will be waiting to meet you beyond it.”

“What’s the problem?” he asked her, his voice distorted by the plastic helmet.

“I think you’d better let Dr. Mason explain the situation,” she said and then left the room.

Carter paused for a while, then went to the door she’d indicated. He was positive now he was not going to enjoy what lay at the end of the passage.

Dr. Mason, similarly attired like an extra from Star Wars, met him as he stepped into a small ward that was all pristine whiteness and glittering medical equipment. Carter had met Dr. Mason once before at an emergency meeting to discuss the AIDS problem about a year and a half ago but knew him mainly by reputation. And that was very impressive indeed.

“Ah, Dr. Carter, I’m glad you made it here so quickly,” said Mason. “I’m afraid we have quite a serious problem on our hands— quite a serious problem.”

Behind the plastic of his helmet Mason’s round, sweat-covered face was haggard with strain. Carter glanced past him at the six beds the ward contained. Each bed was covered by a plastic tent. In four of the tents he could make out vague shapes.

He peered hard at the nearest bed/tent. The patient within it seemed to be entirely covered in thick bandages. Yellow bandages. He went nearer. Mason followed.

“What happened to him? Or is it a her? Those bandages make it impossible to tell.”

“It’s a ‘he.’ And those aren’t bandages.”

Carter turned to Mason, thinking he was making some sort of odd joke, but the look in Mason’s eyes told him it was no joke. Carter felt himself go very cold and his testicles seemed to be shrinking up into his crotch as if trying to hide.

He turned back to the figure on the bed and bent his helmet close to the plastic tent. What he’d thought was a bandage was instead a thick yellow growth that covered the whole body, even the face.

“Jesus,” he groaned. “What the hell is that? It looks like a mold.”

“It is.”

Carter was confused. “I’ve seen a fair few corpses in my time but never one in a state like that. And why have you got it up here instead of in the morgue?”

“It’s not a corpse.” Mason’s voice was bleak.

“What!” He stared at Mason in astonishment then back at the form on the bed. He now saw that the fluff-covered chest rose and fell perceptibly. He was glad he hadn’t had time for breakfast before he’d left home.

“Yes, he’s still alive,” said Mason. “I suppose you could say he’s one of the lucky ones.” He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Unlike this patient.”

Mason led Carter to the adjacent bed. The naked body beneath the plastic was that of a man. Carter judged him to be in his mid-twenties. He couldn’t tell for sure because from the neck up there was nothing but a lump of gray, featureless fungus. It was like a dirty cauliflower.

“Mercifully dead, but I don’t dare transfer him to the morgue. The risk of contagion is too great. The man may be dead but that growth is still alive, I fear.”

“But what is it?” demanded Carter. “Where did these people get infected with this stuff?”

“The answer to both your questions is, ‘I don’t know,’ “said Mason. He pointed back at the first bed. “That one was picked up by the police less than two hours ago. He was spotted by the driver of a newspaper delivery van staggering along the Euston Road. The two policemen who answered the call had the good sense to bring him straight here. And this victim—” He indicated the body in front of them. “—was brought in by ambulance from Ladbroke Grove about an hour ago. Neighbors heard his girlfriend screaming at around 5 a.m. She was completely hysterical. She’d woken up in bed and found him like this—beside her.” Mason swallowed dryly and led Carter to the next bed.

Carter reluctantly stared through the plastic. It was almost as bad as he had feared. The body was covered with pulpy white growths. Like toadstools, the puff-ball variety.

He remembered the unusually large toadstools growing in the gutter outside the hospital and a horrible suspicion began to form in the back of his mind.