Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 113051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“Uh, for a walk,” I say.
“You’re not allowed to leave,” he says, the wind whipping back his straggly hair. “We can’t let you leave.”
Oh fuck.
“You’re going to have to come with me,” he says, starting to get out of the vehicle.
Hell no!
I start running.
I sprint down the logging road until I hear the start of the engine, and then I quickly veer to the right and run into the forest, wondering if I can lose him for long enough that I’ll find the road again. I crash through the bushes, blackberries ripping at my leggings, reminding me of being a child, pushing myself off the trunks of spruce and pine.
I run through thickets of sword ferns that tangle at my feet, through pockets of aspen groves, until I finally come to a stop, leaning over with my hands on my thighs, spitting on the ground and trying to catch my runaway breath.
“Okay,” I wheeze. “Okay.”
I glance up, looking around. I’m surrounded by cedar, the undergrowth primarily salal in patches, though most of the ground is bare, covered in needles. Blue stain fungi show up on the trunks of some of the trees; on dead ones, oyster mushrooms abound.
I spit again and stare at the ground, straining my ears for sounds of the ATV or that man running in the forest after me. I don’t hear anything but the wind howling.
I try to think about what to do next, where to go, when something on the ground steals my focus.
The blob of spit that just came out of my mouth…
…it’s moving.
I lean in closer to get a better look, frowning.
Did I spit on an ant or something?
But I don’t see any insects.
Except a worm.
Except worms.
Tiny, thin white worms are wriggling in my spit.
“Ew,” I say, looking around at the soil. But there are no other worms around.
No.
No.
I put my hand to my mouth and hastily wipe at it.
When I take it away, thin worms wriggle against my wet fingers.
“Oh my god,” I cry out, stumbling backward until I hit a tree. I open my mouth and start retching, dry heaving violently, until I’m able to vomit up the bacon and eggs from this morning.
And in the pile of vomit is a mass of them.
White, thin, wriggling.
And with increasing terror, I realize they aren’t worms at all.
They’re mycelia.
“Oh god!” I say again, trying once more to vomit, my face straining. When nothing happens, I dig my fingers into my mouth, finding them pouring out of my throat, writhing on my tongue. Screaming, frantic, choking, I pull the strands out of my throat, over and over again, throwing them on the ground in sloppy heaps. Tears stream down my cheeks at the horror of it all.
Finally, it seems like there’s none left, and I don’t know what to do. What does this mean? How did this happen?
A branch breaks behind me.
I whirl around to see something brown slinking through the trees.
Oh god, no. How are things getting worse?
The creature comes closer.
Brown fur.
White bones.
A cougar.
Half-dead and coming for me with slow, deliberate movements.
I scream, but it dies in my throat, already so raw from everything. I push back against the tree and stare at it in horror.
Maybe I was wrong about Clayton. Maybe I hallucinated him like I did with Amani. Maybe there really was a cougar on the loose. This very one.
And yet, this cougar doesn’t look like it can do anyone harm. The way it’s looking at me—two glassy white eyes, a panting black tongue—doesn’t seem like it’s about to attack. Like the other animals, I can see mycelia wrapped around muscle and the bones underneath, but it’s mainly intact, though its patchy fur sloughs off with each step.
It stops right in front of me, staring at me with a blank look that I feel deep in my marrow.
Friend, it thinks, or something like that word.
It thinks I’m a friend.
I reach out, trying to touch it, my actions not controlled by me at all but something else. The very thing controlling the whole forest.
I press my fingers against the velvety bridge of its nose and watch in horror as mycelia reach out from beneath its eyes, pushing them out until the eyes fall from the cat’s sockets and land on the ground with a plunk.
I nearly vomit again, my stomach churning, until I’m distracted by the same filaments that are now coming out from underneath my fingernails—underneath my fingernails!—reaching and snaking forward until it connects with the ones from the big cat.
And becomes one.
For a second, we are joined.
I see myself through the cougar’s eyes as it stares up at me right now. I look exhausted, frightened, vomit staining my jacket.
Then, the forest shifts, and I’m in an operating lab.
On a table with bright lights above me.
“The cat should be asleep soon,” a woman’s voice says, and then Everly and Michael appear in my vision, wearing scrubs, masks, and goggles as they stare down at me.