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Assisted Suicide

He’d wait until everyone was asleep before starting. I’d lie still and feign unconsciousness, but his voice would persist, weakly howling in terrible desperation, as he pleaded with me. Begged me. Implored me to help him take his life.

In the garish brightness of daylight, I’d talk to my loved ones about our sleepless nights. The pity on their faces was obvious; so too was the resigned helplessness. They knew there was nothing they could do. All the suffering had to be endured by him, and, by association, me. I was his confidant; the only other person he felt comfortable speaking to. Sobbing to. Screaming to.

There was no mistaking the effects the stress had wrought on me. I’d gained weight; I’d gone on disability; I’d grown depressed. Our doctors knew he had problems. They knew something – that was the word they used: something – was wrong with him. They just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. That meant they couldn’t do anything.

Last night, we reached a breaking point. For hours, he screamed with impossible, earsplitting power. He regaled me with detailed descriptions about the pain he was enduring. Pain that my inaction was forcing upon him. The screams grew quiet as his energy evaporated. Just like every other night. But rather than sobbing pathetically and begging, his tone grew sinister. His words became violent.

“I’ll kill you,” he whispered. “I’ll tear you in half.”

My breath caught in my throat. He’d never said anything like that to me before. All the venomous contents of his words had always been directed toward himself. This was new. Terrifying.

“You’re going to bleed to death,” he informed me around a series of wracking sobs. “Do you know how you’ll feel knowing you could’ve ended this but didn’t? Knowing you left the girls alone?”

The mention of the twins caused me to jump out of bed with rage and indignation. He knew what he was doing. He’d finally figured out what it would take for me to acquiesce. The thought of Dominique and Shonda in foster care because of his hatefulness and my cowardice was too much to bear. Too much for any mother to bear.

I started to cry while making the preparations I’d dreaded since the first night he began begging me to take his life. I didn’t say a word to him as I got ready. Every so often, he’d call out and ask what I was doing. I didn’t reply. He was too weak to scream. Too exhausted. All he spoke were pathetic words and phrases like, “please…” and, “it hurts so much.” Words I’d heard over and over and over, but with them now was a sinister element of “or else.”

I knew if I did what he wanted, I could be thrown in jail. The twins would be without their mom, just like he’d threatened. But this way, at least I’d be alive. Also, if I was careful, I could get my close friends to help me hide his body. They’d all but said they would in the past – in the darkest moments when I sought their comfort after months of restless nights.

By the time everything was set up, he’d realized what was happening. He’d won. I felt sick. Part of me knew I was doing the right thing – that the suffering he’d endured was too much for anyone to have to experience. But another part – a larger part – was doing it for another reason. I wanted him dead. I wanted him out of my life and out of my daughter’s lives and out of the periphery of my friends and extended family. I wanted my autonomy back.

We went into the bathroom where everything could be scrubbed clean. Some time later, our eight months of sleepless agony were over. The screaming had stopped. The pleading had stopped. The agony had stopped. Nothing remained but me and his corpse and the blood. Blood in the tub. Blood on my hands. Blood on my thighs. Blood on the coat hanger.

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The Bleakness Before Our Old Eyes

eye

For decades, my sweetheart stared straight ahead. Before him, always, stood an expanse. Even if his eyes weren’t weak, he would have stared through the hopeless blankness of the cosmos across innumerable light years, past dying stars and decaying time, and have his gaze forever land on the back of his own head. Staring outward brought him nothing. Brought us nothing. Brought the world nothing. Billions of pairs of eyes staring at the back of the heads which imprisoned them.

Last night, The Universe slipped Her tongues inside my sweetheart, turned his eyes around, and allowed him to see the beauty hidden inside himself. His screams of pain and indignation turned to gasps of ecstatic transcendence. He became the first man in the history of men to see who he truly was. Who we truly are. Who we can truly be.

My sweetheart regaled me with stories about the man I thought I knew. Sounds passed through his lips and suffused my skull; syllables and sentences and syntax and semantics; introspection that would have been impossible before Her intervention. Her gift. The Universe continued Her manipulations as he spoke. My sweetheart’s eyes drooled their assent and he enthralled me with his enthusiastic tales.

His descriptors grew complex and the words became punctuated by, then gradually incorporated into, thick, harmonic buzzing. It was obvious he’d reached a point in his discussion that was beyond my capacity to understand. The blood vessels traversing his inward-turned eyes throbbed and their optic nerves trembled. I imagined the sights he must be seeing, despite knowing, with a feeling of ever-increasing futility, that even my wildest, wide-eyed fantasy, if extrapolated to its fullest extent, would still terminate at the back of my head.

As if sensing my dejection, my sweetheart caressed my belly. His touch was no longer familiar. In Her wisdom, The Universe had reshaped my sweetheart’s hand and arm. Long and segmented and annelidic with soft, rubbery protuberances, I gasped with alarm as its bulbous tip split and revealed a sharp, chitinous tip. The rubbery bits began to vibrate and I felt my bones humming in tune. I stared in horror as the keen end slid from the bulb and entered my abdomen. Expecting an onslaught of agony, I screamed.

There was no pain. I should have known my sweetheart would never, ever hurt me.

I felt a system of roots spreading throughout the interior of my body. Rising higher, the system grew up my neck and into my head, feeling like ten thousand tongues tickling the inside of my face. A flicker of blurriness in my right eye confirmed my assumption and unspoken prayer: my sweetheart would share with me the gift The Universe had given him.

An intense sensation of suction and a loss of depth perception caused me to swoon forward, but my sweetheart’s grip on my body ensured I remained upright. My ears itched almost unbearably and I heard crackling and stretching sounds as the little roots reconfigured and augmented my anatomy. Moments later, I understood my sweetheart’s words. I understood my sweetheart’s buzzing. My right eye, its pupil devouring the iris as it glared inside the mind which fed it, fixed itself on the sights inside while my visual cortex struggled to correlate the images of the outside word and the multiverse within me.

My sweetheart buzzed, and I found myself buzzing back. We effortlessly shared ideas and concepts and experiences in cascades of autoharmonic exchanges; his perspective of solipsistic mind-gazing melding with my half-world, half-mind dichotomy to create something new. Something blissful.

The Universe, in Her endless beneficence and gentle guidance, has directed us to bring the world into our new relationship. This account of our transformation is designed to serve as an invitation.

See us. Look upon the newness of flesh qua flesh, mind qua mind. Know you no longer need to be content with staring into space – into blankness – with no hope of seeing the richness of existence. We are here to bring hope. If these words seem insignificant, see us. If these words seem ineffectual, see us.

We, for the first time, have seen us. Us as individuals – now us as one. The bleakness before our old eyes was an outward-facing abyss of loneliness and uncertainty. Now we see everything. We feel everything. And there is so much more to see. So much more to feel.

Please, see us. See us to feel us. See us to feel us to see one another and feel one another. Show us, and yourself, what you look like on the inside. And let the countless tongues of The Universe taste our union.

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My Brother’s Fall

apple

While stationed in Iraq during operation Desert Storm, my brother, Gerald, was lost for two weeks. Officially, it was claimed he was captured by the Republican Guard and tortured before managing to escape. The condition of his body when he was found helped lend credence to the explanation. Lacerations, broken bones, and all sorts of other physical damage covered him from head to toe.

He never recovered from the experience. He was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after six months in a military hospital. When he was sent home, he began to display signs of Gulf War Syndrome. Years passed and his wife, Leah, cared for him as he weakened. His cognition, memory, and communication skills evaporated. Before he died last year, the brother I loved had been reduced to a gibbering husk. In his final moments, as Leah and I looked on, we were ready for his suffering end.

Then something happened, causing me to jump and Leah to gasp.

For the first time in eight years, Gerald expressed clear, articulate words:

“I fell in a hole.”

He went on, his voice clear and strong, as Leah and I listened, spellbound.

Gerald had been patrolling the outskirts of a village when the ground beneath him gave way. He fell for a very long time. He landed at an angle, his right leg plunging into soft moss and dirt while his left struck a rock, shattering the femur. He couldn’t believe he wasn’t dead. The pain, he told us, while indescribable, took a backseat to what he saw.

He’d fallen into what he assumed was a cavern. As deep as he was, he expected to be in pitch darkness, but the cavern was anything but. Bioluminescent vines and lichen and fungi covered the walls and stalactite-studded ceiling far above. He heard water flowing somewhere nearby.

Gerald did his best to extricate himself from the moss while trying to avoid losing consciousness from the pain of his broken leg. Some of the glowing vines which adorned the walls were very long and within his reach. He pulled himself up and out, then crawled on his belly down the small hill where he’d landed, onto the main floor of the cavern.

The floor was covered in feathers. Silvery-white and iridescent; they left streaks of dust on everything they touched, like the wings of moths. Gerald was surprised by their scent. It wasn’t unpleasant. Not at all, in fact. It was warm and spicy; entirely uncharacteristic of what one would think of when hundreds, or even thousands, of feet underground.

The dust, despite its enjoyable odor, grew thick and choking as he crawled in the direction of the rushing water. He came across an ancient-looking branch, which he used to haul himself onto his healthy leg. Using the wood as a crutch, he continued to move.

The bioluminescence intensified as the cavern narrowed. The pinkish light was coming from all directions. Gerald realized its source was some kind of mold that blanketed nearly everything in the cavern. The closer he got to the water, the more mold there was.

After walking for a few minutes, small patches of mold began falling from the ceiling like glowing snowflakes. The surreality of the cavern, the mold, and the feathers instilled a feeling of awe in Gerald, which clashed uncomfortably with the overwhelming pain in his leg and the fear that he’d never find his way out.

Not long after, he reached the river. It was slow and shallow but quite wide, stretching easily a quarter-mile across. Mold flakes floated in thick clumps on its surface. No feathers, though. Whatever the river’s source was, the feathers were from elsewhere.

He followed the river for a while. Despite the coolness of the water nearby, the cavern grew warmer. Narrower, too. The wide, tranquil river narrowed into frothing pink rapids. Gerald worried the bank would give way and he’d be plunged into the rushing water.

It did.

He was.

For countless minutes, Gerald was carried by the current and tossed into rocks, further damaging his leg and carving lacerations all over his body. As he struggled, he glimpsed tunnels on either side of him, some too narrow for a man to crawl through, some wide enough to fit a parade of elephants. Many of the wider ones were choked with feathers, which joined him and the glowing mold clots in the turbid water.

A roar filled the air, echoing off the stone walls and ceiling and drowning out the sound of the river. Before he knew what was happening, Gerald was airborne. As he tumbled through the air, he saw the waterfall he’d fallen from. He slammed into the water below and lost consciousness.

Gerald regained his senses some time later on the bank of a wide lake. He was on his back with his broken leg twisted underneath him. Screaming in agony, he didn’t notice the movement nearby. Not until it was on top of him.

Something wrapped around his ankle and hauled him into the air. The lake below him shrank as he was pulled ever higher, over a ledge, and stuffed upside down into a crevice in the ceiling.

At this point, as he told the story, Gerald began to cry. Leah held his head against her chest and did her best to console him, but his sobs were unrelenting. Gasping for breath and leaking tears, he continued to choke out words.

The view below him was no longer one of water and feathers and bioluminescent mold. The view was now one of horror and depravity.

Piles of mutilated bodies lay in writhing heaps on the floor. Some were dead, but most appeared alive. Their open mouths produced no screams, but agony was obvious in their expressions. Their wounds gaped and wept. The majority of the damage was to their backs, but many chests and bellies had been flayed and left to leak their contents onto the flailing victims trapped underneath them.

Gerald did his best to take it all in and think rationally. Craning his head and neck to look over his shoulder, he saw something massive in the distance. Something alive and moving in strange, circular patterns around a stationary central point. There was less light in this part of the cavern than where he’d initially fallen. There was no bioluminescent mold covering the walls and ceiling. Even if there was, it would have been coated with blood and gore. No, the only light around him was from fire.

Innumerable torches stood inside holes bored into the stone floors and walls and ceilings. Flames gouted and flowed within their osseous confines, illuminating the killing floor of violence and torment which stretched all the way to the leviathan far behind him.

The rock in which Gerald’s leg was stuffed cracked. Gerald began to fall, headfirst, toward the pile of bodies a hundred feet below. He knew this was one fall he wouldn’t be able to survive. As he imagined his spine splintering as his head struck the head or face of someone below, his ankle was grabbed again. The force of the grab, combined with the velocity of his fall, snapped his pelvis. The pain was immediate and unendurable. Gerald saw dark stars blooming in his vision. His consciousness waned.

He traveled in a gray fog toward the colossus he’d glimpsed while trapped. Part of him was aware of the thing which held his ankle. It was thin and tentacular; a living vine or organic cord or serpentine whip. Something he couldn’t understand. He was dropped at the floor in front of the huge creature.

Whatever it was, it didn’t have his attention. The fog of his semi-consciousness was burnt away by the sight of incredibly-bright white light. It was light unlike anything he’d ever seen; the radiance should have been blinding, but it caused no pain at all. It didn’t etch auras into his retinas like when he’d glimpsed at the sun, despite being thousands of times brighter. It didn’t travel, either – it was confined to one particular area. It produced no blazing heat or discomfort whatsoever. Only calming warmth. He felt overwhelming serenity as he locked his eyes on the man-sized light source.

The serene calm was punctured as tens of the organic tendrils erupted from somewhere above and raped their way into the brilliance. Gerald experienced a sense of hideous, disembodied violation, as if he were watching the assault of a loved one while feeling every moment of their pain and indignity with his own body. He cringed and retched, tears filling his eyes, as he watched the tendrils pull a man from somewhere inside the light source.

The spicy, warm smell from earlier in the day filled Gerald’s nostrils. The man from the light struggled against the grasp of the tendrils, his nude, muscular body completely helpless against their strength. As the man was pulled into the room with Gerald and the tendrils, Gerald gasped.

The man’s back was home to a pair of enormous wings. They flapped and sent violent currents of wind across the floor, blowing dust in all directions. While the man struggled, more tendrils came down from the ceiling. With practiced meticulousness, they uprooted the appendages from the man’s back. The sound of heavy shrubbery being torn from the ground filled the air. The man’s face contorted into a shriek of abject, torturous agony, but he made no sound. The only noise was the nauseating tearing as the man was disfigured.

Feathers broke from the wings and floated to the ground. With one final tug, the wings were separated from his body. Their stumps leaked dark blood which puddled on the dirt floor, contrasting obscenely against the magnificence of the white light just feet away.

The man stopped struggling against the tendrils. He slumped, his muscles relaxed, and stared at the ground in front of him. A series of much thinner tendrils descended and plucked all the feathers from the wings and shuttled them away, leaving the bleeding amputations in the dirt. Another tendril whipped downward at a blinding speed, striking the man’s abdomen and splitting the flesh. His intestines bulged from the wound and the tendrils holding him pulled him through the air toward the countless other bodies I’d been perched above moments before.

Leah and I watched Gerald with horrified amazement as he recalled these events. We had no idea if he was telling the truth or if it was all just a manifestation of the illness which was about to take him from us.

The three of us wept while Gerald looked around, as if trying to determine whether or not we believed him. I felt like I needed to say something, so I asked, “what happened next? How did you get out?” Leah nodded, encouraging him to go on.

Gerald’s voice dropped to a whisper.

Disoriented and in immense pain, Gerald tried to look around. The room was too big. He couldn’t get a good idea of what he was seeing or where he was, but he knew he was right in front of the creature he’d seen. He tried to struggle to his feet, but the injury to his hip and leg was too great. The fractured bones ground against one another and he screamed so hard he felt his lungs might burst.

He was grabbed again. This time, by his shoulders. Two tendrils hauled him up and up and up. He saw the thing in front of him. The colossus. The leviathan. The serpent. The head of an impossibly large snake bulged at the apex of a body of thick trunks. Each trunk had bifurcated into a series of thinner trunks. Each thinner trunk had bifurcated into a series of tendrils. Each series of tendrils had bifurcated into more, thinner tendrils. And so on.

The thick, spicy odor filled the area again. He knew it meant more wings were being destroyed. The snake stared at him, it’s yellow eye full of hideous intelligence and unknowable age. They gazed at one another, and Gerald heard words in his head. Words that were not spoken to him, but thought at him:

“Tell everyone what you saw. Tell everyone what I am. Let them know I’ll be coming soon.”

The next thing Gerald knew, he was on his back, staring at the unforgiving sun of the Iraqi desert. He was found by locals hours later.

Gerald’s whispering tapered off and he closed his eyes. I was terrified he’d passed away. Leah shook him and said his name a few times, panic rising in her voice. Gerald’s eyes opened. His lips parted.

“The serpent,” Gerald whispered.” He coughed and stared at the ceiling, a tear trickling from the corner of his eye.

“…was wrapped around a tree. The tree was filled with apples. Millions upon millions of them.”

Leah clutched his hand and I held his shoulder.

“I watched as tiny snakes crawled into the ripest ones. Pieces of him. Then the apples disappeared. They went into a hole in the air. And I could see what was on the other side of the holes. Orchards. Trees all over the world. His apples are filling them.”

His eyes fluttered closed and he breathed the last words we’d ever hear him speak.

“We’ve been eating them for millennia. He’s inside us all.”

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Slough

For the last three decades, small groups of mycologists have been visiting a village deep in the Brazilian Amazon. It is suspected, based on some evidence, the village is atop a colossal fungal colony, similar to the Armillaria solidipes in Malheur National Forest, Oregon, only dramatically larger. If that’s the case, the fungus would be the largest living creature on Earth.

The hundred-or-so expeditions before ours yielded inconclusive results. Genetic tests have shown there is a type of fungus, a stringy, white mushroom, unique to the general area, but attempts to grow it in any environment outside a 40-mile radius of the village have been futile. My trip down last March was with the intent of seeing if the fungus could be grown artificially under specific chemically-induced conditions.

A biotechnology firm had recently developed an interest in that particular mushroom, believing it might have anti-carcinogenic properties. As a result, the two members of my team and I were given far better equipment to take with us than we normally had. We were happy to oblige.

Upon our arrival, the native people were as friendly and inquisitive as always. They’d taken a liking to all the scientists who’d visited them. While the lab was set up a hundred yards from the nearest structure in the village, it was common for the scientists and villagers to interact when the workday was over. A few of us even figured out a few words of their local dialect, although no one was anywhere near conversational level. It didn’t matter, though. Food, drink, and wrestling were the common languages we spoke. For 32 years, everything had gone well.

Everything, that is, except our research. We’d been stuck for the better part of a decade. With no ability to grow the fungus aside from that small, incredibly isolated locale, the likelihood of fully determining its properties was low. Further, without massively-invasive and destructive digging, we’d never be able to find out the true size of the fungal colony below us.

Things grew complicated, though. They changed for the worse. I’m not going to write out an explanation of what went on or why I’m the only person in our group to survive the last trip, but I will share my journal entries from that period. I have to warn you, though: the things I saw were unlike anything I could have imagined – and they’re things I hope no one will ever have see again.

March 9th, 2015
9:00am

It’s been absolutely pissing rain for six days now. Jared estimates the rainfall is exceptionally high, even for the time of the year. He thinks at least 20 inches have fallen. I believe him, too. I can see why the village folks have their huts elevated off the forest floor. Otherwise, they’d be in knee-deep water. You know, sort of like our fucking lab.

Ok, it’s not that bad in the lab. Maybe only ankle-deep. But I swear, I’m going to knock Frank’s teeth out when we get back home because it was his responsibility to make sure the place was sealed tight before his crew left. The dickhead.

Anyway, Annie said “fuck it” and hiked through the water to see if the trails had been flooded. They were. Big time. None of us are getting out of here for a while, so I hope no one gets hurt or sick. The place where the helicopter usually lands might as well be a lake and when it’s all drained away it’ll be 4 feet of mud. The sat-phones work fine, though, but when I called Rakesh, he just told us to suck it up and get some work done. The rain should be tapering off tomorrow. Well, as much as it tapers off in a rainforest I guess.

March 10th, 2015
8:15am

Well, the sun’s out. God DAMN there’s a lot of water around. Thankfully, it’s draining into the ground pretty quickly. I guess that’s one of the benefits of being on top of (maybe) the largest mushroom on Earth; mushrooms loooove their water. I can’t even imagine how much that thing can hold.

Yesterday, we laughed at Annie while she picked the leeches off her legs after her little hike. Well, we laughed until she starting throwing the nasty bastards at us. Then we just hid and giggled. Only in a rainforest are there so many leeches that you’ll get them even in water that’s moving.

We didn’t do any work today. I think tomorrow’s going to be a good day, though. At the rate the water’s draining, we should be clear to start getting new samples. Whenever it rains a lot, that big fucker underground sends up thousands of little mushroom caps that grow in under than four hours. We’ll have more than enough samples to play around with.

Side note, though: I think I’m getting a cold.

March 11th, 2015
12:00pm

I have a cold. You know how summer colds are the worst because the humidity makes the sinus pressure so much worse? Yeah, well a cold in a hot, tropical rainforest is about 1000x worse. I’m sniffling and blowing snot all over the place while Jared and Annie are out doing field work and hanging with the villagers. Being stuck in here gave me the time to do stupid Frank’s job and make sure the place was airtight, and after that was done, I had the opportunity to play with the cool toys from GeneMedica. That said, I don’t even know what half this shit is. We’re mycologists, guys. Not geneticists.

Update @ 3:15pm

Something started happening a little while ago and it’s definitely relevant to our work so I’m going to do my best to detail everything. I called Rakesh and he agreed I should document it all.

I was sitting at the computer and looking out the window when what looked like dark orange smoke started pouring from the ground. And I mean pouring. The visibility went to practically nothing. The tree that’s about ten feet from our lab was borderline invisible. Outside, I can hear the villagers yelling to one another. They seem pretty frightened. I’m unnerved, to say the least. Unnerved, but also excited. Is this a spore bloom?

I’m assuming it might be, and even though I’m in the lab which I know is finally sealed properly, I’m putting on my hazmat suit. I’m probably being overcautious, and I know Annie and Jared are out in the stuff without any protection, but something about the ferocity of the way it’s coming out of the ground worries me.

Update @ 3:35pm

Jared just came back. Well, he’s still outside but he’s at least back where I can see him. He’s acting like he’s high out of his mind. He’s walking around and laughing to himself. Like, a lot. It doesn’t look like he’s having any problem breathing, but the amount of orange powder in the air and stuck to the surfaces of nearly everything is disconcerting. I can’t imagine having that stuff in his lungs.

I yelled out to him about Annie and the folks in the village. He just yelled back how awesome they were. There’s no way I’m getting through to him until his buzz wears off. It doesn’t appear that he wants to come in the lab, and I’m glad about that. I don’t think it’d be a smart move if the only clean area gets contaminated.

Update @ 7:15pm

Annie came back and is in the same state as Jared. They played around outside like two kids and wouldn’t listen to a word I yelled from the lab. They’ve since fallen asleep outside on the picnic table. I’m going to bed.

March 12, 2015
6:30am

The spores (I’m calling them that from now on because there’s no other conceivable explanation) stopped erupting overnight, and after it rained early this morning, they’ve blended in with the mud. I’m not taking off the hazmat suit, but I’ve disconnected the breathing apparatus and just using the filters in the mask. I doubt any particulate matter is small enough to penetrate the filters.

Jared and Annie seem to be no worse for wear, aside from exhaustion. After cleaning themselves in the river, I agreed they were probably fine to come back in the lab and sleep. As for me, even though I’m miserable with this cold, I’m too excited to stay in here. I’m going out – first into the village, then to the forest around us. I want to see if that spore explosion could confirm the presence of that enormous mushroom.

Update @ 10:20am

I spent a little over an hour in the village. None of the people seemed injured, just a bit confused. I’m concerned, however, about the skin irritation a few of them developed overnight. Annie, too, has red blotches on her back and stomach. She insists they don’t hurt, but they look painful. They remind me of eczema. Jared, so far, isn’t having any skin problems. He’s been coughing up disgusting orange crap from breathing in all the spores yesterday, but that’s the worst of his problems. I’m heading out into the forest for a few hours.

Update @ 2:00pm

My trip to the forest was unsettling. There were many, many injured animals. They appeared to be suffering from a skin condition similar to that of the people affected by the spore eruption. I’m going into the village once more to see how their symptoms have progressed.

Update @ 3:50pm

I returned to the lab and found Annie and Jared having sex with one another in the middle of the main room. When I entered the lab, they didn’t even try to hide themselves. They just continued doing what they were doing. That is entirely uncharacteristic of Annie, first of all, who is happily married and Jared, who, as far as I know, is gay. Neither of them ever appeared to have any romantic interest with one another and their interactions have always been professional.

I approached them and they greeted me happily, but not even pausing their action. The blotches on Annie’s back looked much worse. As they went about their business, they talked to me about how much better they were feeling after getting some rest. Annie, who had been riding Jared chest-to-chest, leaned back and exposed her chest and stomach. The flesh was terribly damaged. Jared, too, had started to show signs of skin deterioration. His own chest and belly were riddled with ugly, red, eczematous patches.

When I asked if they’d be okay with stopping for a few minutes so I could take a look at their skin, they didn’t argue. Annie hopped off Jared and they stood in front of me, naked and beaming. I have no medical training, but I thought it was important to get samples of their damaged tissue. While I’d never done a biopsy before, they didn’t look hard and Jared and Annie consented.

I made the first cut on Annie. As the knife went in, when I expected to hear a gasp from pain, she groaned with what I could only identify as pleasure. I glanced up and saw her with her head back, smiling. I took the sample, bagged it, and put it in the refrigerator. Jared, too, expressed delight at the feeling of the scalpel sliding into him, his pleasure manifesting itself more obviously as he regained the erection he’d lost following his interrupted sex with Annie. I did my best to stay professional, but I was very, very disturbed.

I put his sample in the fridge next to Annie’s. When I turned back around, I was horrified by what I saw. Annie and Jared were kissing again, and rather than resuming their intercourse, she had invaginated his navel with her index and middle fingers. She slid them in and out of his abdomen, blood trickling through his public hair to the base of his erection and dripping onto the floor. All the while, as they kissed, both their faces shone with ecstatic glee.

Sick to my stomach, I backed away and walked outside. From the village, I heard screams of rapturous joy. Many of the villagers had congregated in the center of the main huts. They were all nude and writhing against one another. Men. Women. Children. And bright blood glinted off their dark skin.

March 12, 2015
5:15pm

As much as I thought I had to, I wasn’t ready to go into the village yet. There were things I needed to do back in the lab. Annie and Jared obviously aren’t healthy and I’m worried about how safe they are around one another. I remembered GeneMedica had supplied us with three bottles of Laphroaig 30 to use in celebration if we had any breakthroughs. So, I did what any self-respecting scientist would do: got my fellow researchers blackout drunk and locked them in their respective rooms with a fresh bottle to call their own.

Then I called Rakesh. He seemed more freaked out than I was. He’d known Jared for 20 years; apparently he’s in a 25+ year monogamous relationship with his partner, and, to directly quote Rakesh, “gayer than gayer than gay.” Rakesh agreed with me that stranger things have happened than two people pairing off when stuck in a bad situation, but with everything else going on – the spore eruption, the skin lesions, the pain/pleasure rewiring, and whatever the hell was happening to the villagers – it was impossible to say it was just a situational fling. He commended me for figuring out how to keep Jared and Annie safe, then he told me to get my ass into the village and take notes.

I have a sinking feeling it’s going to be really, really ugly.

Update @ 8:00pm

It’s hard to form a coherent narrative when you’ve been traumatized. At the same time, it’s easy to recall the details of that which traumatized you. The first things I noticed, upon leaving the lab and starting the hundred-or-so yard walk to the village, were the bird feathers. They were raining from the trees and dancing in the weak wind. I couldn’t make out much through the thick canopy, but I could see one bird very clearly. It was perched on a branch nearest the trunk and vigorously rubbing its body against the bark. Once one side was denuded of feathers, it started on the other until the same result was achieved. Then it leapt from the branch and flew in a bizarre, moth-like trajectory that didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular. It went out of sight before I could learn what was happening to it.

A dog ran out from the general direction of the village and stopped in front of me. Its fur was mangy and the visible flesh was punctured or rotted away. Its tail wagged furiously and its ears were up, making it look incredibly happy despite the horrible condition of its skin. I reached out to pat its head, and it obliged, pushing its snout and head against my palm very hard; almost as if it’d never felt the touch of a person before.

It ground its skull against my hand and I felt something slide. I recoiled and pulled back. The skin stuck to my gloved hand as I pulled, tearing the fur and flesh from its head. The dog, with blood trickling down its face and its tail still wagging, stared at me and began to eat its scalp off my glove. I didn’t shoo it away. I didn’t know what to do at all, aside from let it finish. It didn’t take long. I continued my walk to the circle of huts.

With each step, the details of the natives, who still swarmed in the center of their village, became apparent. I can only describe their activity as a blood-soaked orgy. Every conceivable sexual pairing was demonstrated, all the way up groups as large of six. Most sickening to me, aside from the atrocious and seemingly-indiscriminate disparities in the ages of the participants, were the injuries. Every person had terrible damage to their skin. It appeared to be the same as what Annie and Jared are dealing with, but most of the villagers were much worse off; likely due to their constant and frenetic activity with one another.

They paid me no attention as I walked through their midst. Every so often, I’d come across a corpse. Each had profoundly-disfiguring damage to them. While I know some of it was the result the fungal spores’ effect, a good portion was clearly from the action of another person. This was verified when I saw a young man in the crowd, a rictus of pleasure etched across his face, having his entire back flayed open by his partner. The man gasped with clear delight, his nudity making obvious the arousal he felt despite the terrible injury. His partner pressed his face into the wound and planted tender kissed on the exposed ribs.

There were more acts like that, but they’ve all blurred together. I’m exhausted and overwhelmed. I called Rakesh once I got back and while he expressed sympathy for what I saw, he insisted on the importance of documenting the behavior and progress of those affected by the spore cloud. I promised him I’d do a better job tomorrow if I was able to get any sleep tonight. I checked on Annie and Jared; both were snoring. Their skin looked worse, though. I’m not sure what to do. Rakesh assured me that by tomorrow evening they’ll be able to get a helicopter to us. When I asked about where it’d land, he told me not to worry about it. So I’ll do my best. I’m going to get drunk and try to fall asleep.

March 13th, 2015
6:15am

Before I went to sleep last night, I bound Jared and Annie to their beds. It was something Rakesh suggested and I eventually decided it would be for the best. I could deal with them being pissed at me as long as they didn’t hurt themselves while we waited for the helicopter. Apparently ours would be the first of a few; there’s a medical helicopter scheduled to come in minutes after we’re taken out. While I’m really happy the villagers will get medical attention, it absolutely sucks so many of them will be either dead or terribly disfigured. If we’d been able to figure out the workings of that massive underground fungus, we might have been able to prevent this from happening.

I’m heading down to the village again. I’m bringing my voice recorder so I can document enough detail to make Rakesh happy. I’m not going to transcribe it all, but I’ll put what I feel are the most important parts in this journal.

Update @ 12:00pm

What I saw yesterday was paradise when compared to the devastation and depravity I was forced to observe today. Rakesh, I wish you hadn’t asked me to do this. I understand why you needed me to, but as a result, I am not the same person I was a few days ago. There’s just nothing I can express other than sadness and terror. Well, maybe one thing. There’s a tiny, tiny bit of solace in the fact those affected by the spores don’t appear to be in pain. But the other side of that is how they gleefully destroyed their fellow villagers. People who were entirely innocent. People who, even as I write this, continue to scream with impossible ecstasy as they’re torn apart. So Rakesh, you asked for details, so here. Choke on them.

Woman, woman, man grouping. Severe skin deterioration among all three. Severe mutilation of the man’s genitals. All that appears to remain is approximately 5 inches of his urethra, which is being stretched and pulled by both women. Each woman takes turns performing oral sex on the remains of the man’s genitals. The smaller woman, when not occupied with the man, had created holes in the larger woman’s thighs, into which she thrusts her fingers and tongue. All participants in these acts express joy.
Man, boy grouping. The dead man is on his back in the dirt while the boy sits in the gashed crater of the man’s belly. The boy is laughing and pulling out loops of the man’s intestines. Every so often, the boy will duck his head into the dead man’s stomach cavity and move around, as if trying to swim. Gaping bite wounds are visible on the boy’s arms.
Man, man, man, man, man grouping. Four men are having intercourse with gaping wounds in the torso of the fifth man. The fifth man is on his back on a small table, chewing on what appears to be the dismembered hand of a child. The child from whom he got the hand is not in sight.
Woman, woman grouping. The women are engaged in mutual oral sex. Each woman’s belly has been torn out and is dangling her viscera either onto the dirt or onto her partner’s body. The woman closest to me is bleeding very badly and will not live much longer.

Side note: As these observations were made, I noticed a change in the surface of the spore victims’ skin. Aside from the growing blight of sores, the skin appears to be growing sticky. It also appears to be weakening. I watched a boy, whose back was relatively free from deterioration, get pushed against a hut. When the boy moved forward, the skin stuck to the hut and tore from his body with each step. This is similar to what I experienced yesterday with the dog’s head.

Man, woman, woman grouping. The older woman is flaying all skin from the other two group participants. Both the flayed man and younger woman are sitting, apparently chatting happily, while the older woman removes their skin with a small knife. The scraps of flesh are being thrown both at the other groups of villagers and into the forest. This flesh is particularly tacky and is sticking like glue to whatever it strikes.
Woman, man, woman, woman, infant grouping. The woman on the ground appears to be in the process of giving birth to what may have been a healthy, unaffected infant. The man and other two women are pushing the infant in and out of the mother with a great deal of force. I have no doubt the infant is no longer alive. All four living participants are either laughing or yelling with excitement or pleasure.

It was that sight which forced me back to the lab. I’d reached my limit. When I walked in, Annie and Jared had escaped from their rooms. Once their flesh had deteriorated, it was not difficult for them to slip out of their bindings. I hadn’t bothered to lock their bedroom doors after tying them up.

They had resumed their intercourse from the day before. Jared was atop Annie, his chest against hers. When I entered the lab, Jared, surprised and delighted to see me, lifted himself off Annie. Their skin clung together and the force of his motion tore the flesh from the muscles. Amused by this, Annie pulled back from Jared and attempted to disengage their genitals. Her vaginal walls clung to Jared’s penis as she moved, sloughing off and detatching from her anatomy.

They stood in front of me, like they did yesterday, happy to talk about how much fun they were having. I couldn’t stand to look at them. I asked if they’d kindly go back to their rooms and wait for a little while. Even though they looked confused, they listened to me. I locked them in. That’s when I began to write this entry. As I type, I can hear them moaning as they pleasure themselves. I don’t know what I’m going to do between now and the eight hours before the helicopter is supposed to arrive, but I’m compelled to go into the forest and see if I can salvage anything useful from this horror show. Even if I don’t see anything, maybe it can help clear my head.

Update @ 6:00pm

The first important thing I noticed was how the chunks of flesh thrown by woman who flayed her two partners had sprouted mushrooms. Stringy, white mushrooms. Everywhere I found chunks of flesh, I found the mushrooms. Also of note: the orgy of hideousness in the village had abruptly stopped. I hurried back to see what had happened. I thought at first they might all be dead, but they were there, smiling and wandering around aimlessly. Their injuries were horrific; some catastrophic. Those too hurt to move lay on the ground. The sticky flesh that had touched the dirt had begun to grow the same mushrooms.

Gradually, those capable of walking started to spread out in all directions. They moved slowly, picking at their skin and throwing it on the ground as they walked. Over time, they increased their speed. I ran behind a group of boys. They pulled small strips of skin from their bodies and flung it to the dirt with each step. The bit off their own lips and tongues and spit them on the ground or at the trees. They ran and ran and ran, leaving a trail of gore behind them. I looked from side to side and saw the other villagers running and tearing themselves to shreds as they went.

I must have gone a mile before I couldn’t continue. The hazmat suit was too heavy and I was overheated and exhausted. I turned around and trudged back. The closer I got to town, the first few scraps of flesh that had been torn off had already started sprouting the same stringy mushrooms. I was overwhelmed with visceral disgust and scientific intrigue. Back in the village, no one was left alive. Whoever was capable of running away had done so, and all the corpses remained where they’d fallen or been dropped. Each of the carcasses were sprouting bouquets of fungus.

Out of nowhere, I remembered Annie and Jared. I ran back to the lab, threw open their doors, and saw the consequences of being too late to help them. Both were dead. They’d torn themselves to shreds and blanketed the bedrooms with their flesh and blood. With no dirt or plant life for the mushrooms to grow on, the flesh just sat there. Useless. I don’t know why I did what I did next, but at the time, it felt like the only way to honor them.

I scooped up what I could of their remains and left it on the ground by the lab. I sat and watched the mushrooms grow. Now I’m waiting for the helicopter.

——–

That’s the end of the journal. The helicopter picked me up around 10pm. The other teams came in later to do whatever investigations needed to be done. Physically, I was fine. Aside from stewing in a sweaty hazmat suit for two days with a terrible cold and too few fluids, my body was no worse for wear.

The bodies of the villagers were found over the course of the next few weeks. Some of them had made it almost 45 miles before their bodies gave out and they dropped. All that could be recovered were bones.

It’s almost a year later and I’m back in the area with a new team. It’s unpleasant to have to wear a hazmat suit at all times when we’re not in the lab, but no one wants to go through what happened to our colleagues. The research difficulties we’d faced for the last ten years still plague us, but at least a few questions about the fungus have been answered.

Still, when it’s quiet, or when I’m working alone, I think about the villagers running blindly, as far as their bodies would go, all while tearing themselves apart — just so they’d fertilize the ground with the spores of that which had possessed them. And I can’t stop thinking about how, because of it, a full five miles had been added to the radius of where that particular mushroom grows.

Continued.

Update on the blog migration.

I’m working out how to best keep links functioning between WordPress and Tumblr without having to force users into going back and forth more than once. There’s just a LOT of content that needs to be transferred and SO MANY links to be changed. It’ll probably be a month before it’s done, and that’s not including the new design. Bear with me 🙂

In Praise of Our God

George saw the expression of horror on my face from halfway across the yard. Even before I started yelling for help, he was on his way toward me. Through my shallow, ragged breaths of panic, I choked out, “she’s in the well!”

My neighbor was galvanized into action. He practically carried me to his pickup and we peeled out of the driveway toward his barn. George slammed the parking brake down while we were still moving. The truck screeched to a halt and George ran into the barn. He came back ten second later with a long, extendable ladder. He threw it in the back of the pickup, cracking the glass on the rear window of the cab with the force of his throw. Without even a hint of concern for the window, he jumped back in the truck and we tore through the field separating our yards until we reached the old well on the edge of my property.

For Mia’s entire childhood, Dave and I warned her to stay away from the well. When she was a kid, she listened. Once she hit ten, though, she got a rebellious streak in her. It only got worse in the aftermath of Dave’s passing. Without her dad around and with me being at work so often, she’d always find her way into some trouble. George did his best to keep an eye on the house from across the way, but he couldn’t watch it all the time. Nor should he have to. But he remembered when he had to tell his own kids to stay away from our well. The thing is a deathtrap, even with the boards Dave had put over its opening.

“She hasn’t answered me,” I sobbed. We’d just gotten to the well and George was using his flashlight to peer into its stygian depths. The boards that had covered the opening were stacked neatly against the side. George yelled her name into the blackness. His deep voice echoed off the narrow walls and came back to the top a few seconds later as a weak shadow of its former self. Not a sound was heard from the bottom.

George could see I was starting to lose it. My shivers had turned into full-blown shudders. My knees were knocking together so hard I could barely stand. I leaned against the pickup for support.

“She’s going to die,” I gasped. “Mia’s going to be dead. Dead like Dave and I’ll be alone.”

The world desaturated and dimmed as I hyperventilated. For a second, I must have blacked out because I wasn’t standing anymore. I sat cross-legged in the dirt as George struggled to put the ladder into the opening of the well. He called Mia’s name over and over and over as he worked to get the thing inside. It struck me that George loved my daughter. It made sense; he’d babysat her whenever I needed to work. Even after his own kids were grown and had moved away, George took interest in Mia and did his best to give her turbulent life a modicum of stability.

I heard George swear under his breath once he realized the ladder wasn’t long enough to reach the bottom. He yelled, “Mia, look out!” and he dropped the ladder. I struggled to my feet and peered over the edge; my tears falling into the blackness. I could see the top of the ladder was only about ten feet from the lip of the well. George rushed to the bed of his pickup and grabbed a rope. He tied it to the bumper of the truck and was ready to rappel down to the ladder.

“How long until the fire department gets here?,” he asked.

“I called them two minutes before I came to you,” I whimpered. “It’ll be at least another 15 before they’re here.”

Before jumping over the edge, George told me, “When I have her in my arms, I won’t be able to get back up the rope. They’ll need to get us both out.” With that, he lowered himself down to the ladder.

Once he had his feet on the rungs, he let go of the rope and navigated down the narrow throat of the well. He peered up at my tearstained face as he descended. “She’ll be okay,” he told me. His voice was firm. Confident.

George reached the bottom a minute or two later. He yelled up to me, his voice still calm and steady but with a hint of worry that’d been absent moments ago. “I’m looking. I’ll find her.”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw dust being kicked up on the dirt road way on the other side of the property. Dave always hoped he’d get an opportunity to pave the damn thing, but he never got a chance. The only benefit was it was easy to see when someone was coming.

The ladder shuddered as George made his way up. His face emerged from the blackness. “I…I can’t find Mia,” he admitted. The calmness that had defined his voice this whole time was gone. He sounded resigned. It almost sounded like he’d failed.

I heard tires screech to a halt behind me. I whirled around and shouted, “It’s about time!”

“I’m so, so sorry Mom!,” Mia exclaimed. She got off her bicycle and let it drop in the dirt. She was panting and sweat poured down her face. “Did I miss it?”

Mia and I peered over the edge of the well. George, who’d made his way to the top of the ladder and was reaching for the rope, stopped and stared up with bewilderment.

“Mia?,” he asked, a look of confusion blooming on his brow.

“Hi Mr. Palumbo!,” Mia shouted.

George reached for the rope and tried to pull himself up. Its end whipped over the edge of the well and slapped him in the forehead. I’d untied it from his bumper the minute he’d set foot on the ladder.

“What’s going on?,” asked George. He sounded angry now. Indignant. “What are – .” He stopped talking. A deep, droning sound came from below him. Even though it wasn’t loud, I could feel its low frequency resonating in my chest.

He peered down. Mia glanced at me and smiled. I put my arm around her sweaty shoulders. We watched George together. The noise came again. It was louder this time. Almost too loud. I felt it in my chest and deep in my stomach, giving me the unpleasant sensation of needing to rush to the bathroom. Mia squirmed with discomfort. The stones lining the inside of the well began to leak. George yelped with surprise. The fluid was thick and viscous. It started dark – almost black. As more vomited out from between the stones and dripped into the pit of the well, its color lightened. Crimson liquid mixed with swirls of beige paste and yellow, mucousy discharge. The smell made my head spin. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mia quietly retching.

George yelled again. And again. More fluid spurted from the walls, soaking George. His yell turned into a high-pitched, uncomprehending scream. His clothing dissolved. The mop of gray hair on his head began to smoke. Steam rose from his skin. He gripped the top rung of the ladder in some desperate bid for security.

The walls stopped their ejaculation. George stared at us with a look of desperate pain and abject terror. The droning sound from earlier was replaced by an intense, distorted blast. The ladder shuddered below George as the amplitude of the noise increased. My breath felt stuck in my chest. It was so, so loud. My ribs felt like they were being trampled on and my bowels contorted and spasmed. Mia doubled over and fell backward, clutching her knees to her chest as her nose dripped blood onto her t-shirt.

When it felt like my body would pop from the intensity of the sound, it stopped. “Come on, get up,” I hissed at Mia. She obeyed, wiping her nose with her forearm and pulling her shirt down over the back of her shorts with embarrassment. George was silent. He wasn’t looking at us anymore. He was staring at the bottom of the well. Then he gasped.

Our God coalesced from the putrescent slime and crept up the sides of the well like ivy carved from rotten meat. A thick tube, about as wide as George’s trunk, rose silently from the depths. George scrambled up the ladder, bracing his hands on the slippery stone. Steam billowed from the spots where his hands met the walls, still wet with caustic fluid. He didn’t seem to notice. He dug his fingers into the stone and I cringed when his fingernails snapped backward with audible pops. Our God was at him in seconds.

The column had enveloped the ladder and was at George’s feet. Cilia slid from the tip of the tube and grasped each ankle. As he was pulled downward, he reached up toward us. Mia waved. A terrible sucking sound exploded from the well. George’s legs disappeared into Our God. The color drained from his body and his eyes collapsed backward into his skull. After a loud crack, the top of his head caved inward. Mia and I stared into the hole in his head. Soft, wet slurping sounds burbled up from the wreckage of my neighbor’s body.

I looked away from George and watched Mia. She gazed at Our God with rapt attention. Her nose had clotted and she gripped the edge of the well with white knuckles. The embarrassment she’d felt a brief time ago was long forgotten. This was what she’d wanted to see. This was what Dave and I had told her about since she was a toddler.

Once Our God had finished and disappeared back into the well, Mia looked into my eyes. She was weeping.

“Are you okay?,” I asked, genuinely concerned.

“I love you, Mom,” was all she said. We embraced for a long, long time.

Today, with Mia all grown up and my beautiful grandchildren running around the house causing all sorts of trouble, I look back at that embrace as the first time my daughter and I truly connected. Sometimes it just takes a special situation for two people to realize how close they are. For that situation – for that wonderful, memorable moment – I give great thanks to Our God.

May every word I speak be in praise of His drooling mouths; may all my pleasure be felt by His singing flesh; may my last day on Earth be the day He chooses to taste me. Through His grace, I will bathe in His tongues.

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For Lena and Clair

After the earthquake, we were trapped. We assumed rescue efforts were underway, but it’d been three weeks. No one came. There was more than enough for us to drink, thanks to a burst pipe that trickled clean water through the ceiling. But that just meant we were dying more slowly. Starvation seemed imminent.

Liz thought all the other floors of the hotel had to be right on top of us. All 60 of them. How the two of us managed to avoid being crushed seemed like a miracle. Well, at first it did. As the days dragged on, and we came to the gradual realization we might not get rescued, the miracle soured. After two weeks, it was more like a curse.

We couldn’t give up, though. I constantly coaxed Liz down from hysterics which, during their worst periods, had her threatening to slam her throat onto a jagged piece of rebar. Talking about Lena and Clair helped. If we were going to get out of this, they’d need their mom. They’d need both of us.

Talk was cheap, though. No matter how much we held one another and cried, praying that the catharsis would diminish our agony, our stomachs growled. After the first week, I’d started to grow dizzy. Had I not been sitting, I know I would have passed out. But we both sat and maintained an atrocious lucidity about where we were, what was happening, and how the likelihood of our escape was dwindling.

A few times, off in a distance blocked by hundreds of feet of concrete and steel debris, we heard the sounds of rescue equipment. Saws, bulldozers, all that. Not one voice, though. That’s how far inside we were. The day it happened, we’d been getting on the elevator, which was in the center of the hotel. Once the quake started, it just shuddered and began to fall. Somehow, as the building swayed, the plunge of the elevator car was arrested by the angle of the shaft. We still came down very, very hard, but had it not been for that slight angle, no one would have survived.

Since a couple days after the earthquake, the air had been growing ripe with the odor of putrefaction. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many people were dead in the rubble. The hotel seemed packed to the gills that day. I’ll admit, I was jealous of those who were crushed and died instantly. I know Liz was, too.

Toward the end of the third week, our desperation had reached its peak. All Liz talked about was how she’d abandoned the kids at home. She called herself a failure, even though she knew this whole, terrible thing was out of her control. It was only then that I broached the subject of Kevin.

I flicked my lighter, illuminating the carcass of our eldest son, who stood like a twisted, decaying scarecrow on the other side of the elevator. He’d been impaled and crushed when debris fell on top of the car after we hit bottom. I crawled over to his body and told Liz to close her eyes. I bit, spit into my palm, and moved back over to my wife.

“Keep your eyes closed,” I instructed, “and think about getting home to Clair and Lena.” In the dark of the elevator car, her sobs quieted as she chewed. I went back and got her more, as well as some for myself. The moment I heard her swallow the last piece, the rubble above us started to move. I was ready for the cave-in. Almost happy for it. Seconds later, we were blinded by a flashlight.

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