Chapter 24

  ~ Informant ~

  "So what's there to find?"

  Sitting tall on her horse, Victoria had been paying attention to the horizon, where stalks bowed under the breeze, more than her hostage. He wasn't, really, but it sometimes felt like it. She knew he didn't want to be here, that he'd only stayed to repay some kind of debt he thought owed. The only reason she had accepted was that in the tiniest part of her, Victoria still believed she could sway him.

  "We're looking for the tower," she began, gesturing across the field. "If what you said is true, it shouldn't take much longer."

  Adam flailed through the undergrowth, struggling to keep up with Jim, her ageing chestnut palfrey. In truth, Victoria wasn't masterful behind the reins, and as much as she tried, her horse only followed the rest of the group out of habit more than command, following the rhythm with a stubborn mind. Still, Adam looked like he was fighting off the entire field, and she had to refrain from laughing.

  "No, I know about the tower," he said, flicking away a wheat strand. "But why are we—"

  He accidentally ate a fly, puffed it out, and resumed talking with a furious swat at the air. "—why, are we going there?" he finished as Jim snorted in what she chose to interpret as amusement.

  Victoria tapped the back of the saddle. "You're sure you don't want to ride behind me?"

  "Positive," he said, glaring at the horse's swishing tail. "I'm not getting on that… creature."

  She leaned forward to scratch Jim between the ears. "He's not as terrible as he looks, he's just an old cart horse."

  "Oh, it's not about him," Adam corrected, brushing a cornflower from his sleeve. "I just hate all horses equally."

  It was pleasant to have him by her side. While she'd found her place amongst the Scholars, she had little company besides him. Gripping the reins with her nervous hands, Victoria could almost forget the knot in her stomach.

  They had begun a few weeks ago, after her party had been ambushed by the Children. She had been lucky then to get out alive, but others had not had the chance. Even then, as they navigated far out from the city, she scanned the swaying straws to look for any figure that might rise from it. The wind shifted through the overgrown field under a sky that refused them any warmth, but the smell of stems and old earth did nothing to calm her. Victoria had tried breathing through those episodes as she usually did. Whispering one… two… three… in hopes of restoring her train of thought, anchoring herself in whatever steadiness could be found, but few things helped her ground herself lately.

  Every sound in the brush made her stiffen, and Jim twitched beneath her, ears back and steps faster. He could feel it too.

  She thought of him then.

  He would find ways to drag her to shore. The right words; the right gestures. Hiding behind his mood, but deep down, making sure she was well. He had no big speech or hollow comfort. Only presence. He would never call it fear, never make her small. And he had given everything despite never truly knowing her. She had only dragged him along on a desperate race.

  She would have loved for him to be there; in time, he might have even found their fight worthy.

  Victoria tightened her legs around Jim's flanks. She would need to succeed. She had to show Adam that this wasn't a game. That she wasn't just a frightened girl on a borrowed horse.

  "You're in your head again." Saela's voice drifted to her ears. She had caught up on the left, bobbing up and down on her trotting steed, her curls bouncing with every stride. "Thinking of last night?" she teased, tucking a brown strand behind her pointy ear.

  Victoria felt warmth rise in her cheeks and awkwardly glanced sideways to check if Adam was listening. He was, of course. Looking over with a curious air—that raised-eyebrow look of his.

  "I was just thinking," she finally said to stop any more conjecture. "Adam wanted to know about the mission."

  "Oh," Saela said with a grin, reining in Sampson until her thighs almost touched Victoria's. "Right, the mission."

  "We lost contact with our informant," Victoria blurted out to Adam, trying for formality. As if formality might douse the fire spreading over her skin. "The Children swept through a district we occupied. We had to pull our operatives and relocate, and in doing so, lost the radio signal we used to communicate."

  "Which means," Saela added, leaning over in front of Victoria," no more intel on Noxhold. And we're not about to fly in blind."

  Adam gave a slow nod. "So you're hoping the camp has what? An antenna? Broadcast gear?"

  "Parts," Victoria replied. "Military-grade, hopefully. Enough to upgrade our equipment and boost the range."

  If it could make some hot chocolate as well, I wouldn't say no.

  "The camp you saw on your way to the city," Saela continued with a dimmed smile. "Used to be a sorting site. The kind where people who had contracted the disease were sent. Quarantine, they called it for good measure. And of course, it was completely useless to manage the spread."

  It felt like the conscensus around any attempt at curbing the infection was that the authorities had done jack shit.

  "A lot of rumours back then," Saela added, absently brushing a hand over her horse's neck. "I'm not sure they solely sent people infected with cordyceps."

  Adam's brows drew low. "Places like this must have been picked clean, though?"

  "This one," Victoria started. "We're hoping people stayed far from. You'll probably understand as soon as we see it, if Saela's hypothesis is right."

  "You guys really enjoy the mystery," Adam said. He was walking ever faster to keep up.

  Victoria almost guffawed. "Now, this is getting ridiculous. Why don't you go ask the guys for a place in their trailer?"

  "Oh right, and risk being bitten by their giant beast of a horse?"

  "But King's a sweetheart," Saela interjected, although Victoria knew it was pointless.

  "King has murder eyes," Adam retaliated.

  "Sleepy eyes, you mean."

  "Murder eyes," he insisted, pointing with two fingers at his own. "Masked as sleepy, that's how they get you."

  Victoria shook her head, letting their voices drift around her. They crested a small hill, their party following along through the tall grass. Not all the group had continued towards the sorting camp; the Aegis Wardens had a different mission altogether, and most curators and tinkerers had stayed back in the main outpost. But a few people from Saela's group had joined, as well as Lenor, who had insisted they needed protection, as if his skinny self could protect anyone.

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  She turned on her saddle to check they were still following. The massive horse, King, hauled a rattling trailer behind him with the tired patience of one too old to care or too strong to stop. The makeshift cart had been cobbled together: higher wheels to help navigate the terrain, central seats to guide the draught horse, and axles groaning under the weight of equipment.

  Atop it, Lenor and Gus were bickering as usual. Probably about some meaningless debate, like who'd survive the longest as an infected or which of them had the likeliest chance of dying horribly. Victoria suspected Lenor had insisted on coming along only to spend time with Gus, Saela's lab partner, and away from his responsibilities. She watched them lean over one another and fight over a ration tin.

  It should have all been comforting, the laughter, the defiance. Friends you made on the road, warmth you retained even when the world froze.

  Instead, it crumbled like old paper under the touch of her gaze.

  They were people she could lose. The mission wasn't just about recovering old truths, not only to help preserve their story, it was about them. All of them. About making sure every one of those souls got out safe. That each of them got to enjoy life beyond survival. About building a place they could come back to.

  She would carve that haven into the earth if she had to. The place from her dreams. A home on the edge of a lake where light reflected on ripples and the flowers swayed under a fresh breeze. A cabin overlooking a garden, with wide windows and a porch wrapped in the sound of tales.

  Back then, she had pictured herself growing old alongside Olivia. And even as the spark had slowly died in Victoria's heart, the dream held on. And under the brazen sky, Alek would read his favourite book in a creaking chair; Milo would sprint around barefoot, his giggles spilling over the hill as Dog bound after him; Saela would laugh by her side, and Adam would smile earnestly. And all the while, Lenor and Gus would fight over who'd get to have the first pancakes, because some arguments should never end.

  Victoria let her gaze linger one more moment on the ragtag procession. Like pilgrims wading through rustling gold, the grass bowed under hooves and boots, hiding the scars of the land beneath its gentler crown. But the wind shifted as they dipped into the lower valley.

  Saela straightened in her saddle, closing her hand into a fist.

  "Wait," she called.

  The group stilled. And Victoria turned back, the saddle creaking under her weight.

  At first, one could confuse them for specks of dust caught in a shaft of light. But Victoria knew better. They danced too slow; their sheen betrayed a different nature.

  "What's wrong?" Adam asked, looking over the brittle grass.

  "Spore bloom," Victoria replied, her voice barely audible. At her side, Adam recoiled as if he'd seen a ghoul step out of the scorched earth.

  "Masks!" Saela called out.

  They all knew what to do, and Victoria threw one at Adam. "Here, protect your lungs."

  "I've never—" Adam donned the mask, his skin even more pale. "I've never seen them float in the open air like this… We could have breathed them without knowing. We could have—"

  "Don't worry, Roadblock," Saela interrupted. "That's outdated knowledge."

  Adam blinked at her.

  "They settle in the lungs," Victoria explained, her breath hissing behind the filters. "But they don't turn you. Not as long as you're alive anyway."

  "You do become a carrier, though," Saela continued. "A walking sporebed. And once you die, or get bitten, the strain activates… turning you into one of the infected."

  "Oh," he said, hitting his mask with one hand. "That's so much better."

  Victoria leaned forward on Jim's crest. "It is. It means you can't become infected from breathing spores, which is a relief; otherwise, we'd all be dead."

  Adam turned towards them, dumbfounded. Spores were drifting past his floating hair, in a thickening haze.

  "Saela conjectured that giant mushroom structures rise from time to time in the right context. They enter a blooming phase where they release enormous amounts of spores into the atmosphere." Victoria opened her fingers towards the sky. "Essentially, we're all doomed to turn when we die."

  "Lovely," he replied.

  Saela made Sampson walk faster. "And you haven't heard the worst!" she said with a grim smile hidden behind glass. "When you're completely dead, as in all your motor functions have been stopped and the cordyceps basically has no use for you anymore, the strain becomes hyperactive. It feeds on your flesh to grow into hyphae—the tendrils you've probably seen growing inside dark places. You become a breeding ground for the infection."

  "So why the mask then?" Adam asked incredulously. "Is it the part where you tell me it was all a prank?"

  "It's for your lungs," Victoria said. "No use breathing in foreign objects even if we're probably infected already."

  As much as they were talking about it lightly, this amount of spores meant only one thing. The camp would be one of those breeding grounds.

  In the meantime, Saela had gathered the party around and decided how they would proceed. The horses would stay behind with some of the biology group while Saela, Adam, Gus, Lenor and Victoria would continue towards the camp. And judging by the cloud of spores washing over the fields, it shouldn't be far.

  They strapped their supplies to their backs and bid the others farewell. A long process. Victoria always made sure to say goodbye properly, warmly hugging the people she left behind. Even those she barely knew. She had learned, again and again, that farewell was a privilege.

  The terrain dipped lower under their boots, and soon, spores became a yellow cloud they had to traverse, and the only sounds were their footfalls and the creak of shifting gear.

  "I swear, if Hotsoup dies in there," Lenor started. "I'm not going to be the one to carry his corpse."

  "Here we go," Saela murmured.

  Gus, who'd been nicknamed Hotsoup after being found resting in an abandoned jacuzzi, looked at Lenor offendedly while flexing his bicep. "You're assuming we'd ask for you to carry that kind of weight."

  "I'm sure you'd be lightweight when dead."

  "You're deadweight even now."

  Victoria let the corner of her mouth tug upward. Let them banter. Let them pretend this was another field trip. They had been like this since her early days amongst the Scholars, particularly once they'd arrived at the outpost where they weren't always separated by duty. One constantly tested the line between clever and obnoxious. The other pretended not to care, but never strayed far.

  She saw it for what it was: a strange kind of loyalty. An affection that didn't need self-awareness. That didn't need tenderness. They fought because that was their language and because it meant the world wasn't done with them. Perhaps she ought to try.

  In the back, Adam had grown quiet again. He had faded behind the group, but she could still see fear in his eyes behind the fog blinking on his mask. He looked at her then. Not yet trust, or understanding, but the space that could grow into it. She replaced the mask over her face, and then she finally saw the silhouette of the wreck.

  Victoria slowed as the grass gave way to trampled soil. An orange snowfall had settled over the ruin, swirling low in the air. But she could still trace the outlines. The sorting camp extended, wrapped behind layers of chain-link fence, and everywhere, temporary shelters, medical tents and modular buildings stood in various states of collapse. Fabrics shredded; roofs caved. But worst of all, rampant hyphae. Massive and almost fossilised, their fungal structures curved out of the ground, snaking over concrete walls and the twisted frames of floodlights and enclosures.

  "Those things are growing everywhere," Adam whispered behind her.

  Putting a hand over the rusted grid, Saela looked over at the barbed wires. "We'll have to find a way across."

  To her right, Gus had strayed further from the group. "How about here?" he said, pointing at a tear in the fence.

  One by one, they stepped through, making sure their clothes didn't snag on the sharp iron wires. Victoria breathed slowly behind her mask, and before crossing, she glimpsed a sign.

  EDWARD JENNER RESCUE CAMP

  Breathe, you're in good hands.

  A solemn silence had settled over them as they ventured forth where spores had coated every surface. And in places, massive caps, wide as shelves, bloomed across the skin of tendrils. Saela looked utterly entranced. Lost in her scholarly lust, she couldn't refrain from brushing her fingers over the rubbery edges and taking a look under each cap.

  Victoria heard Lenor laugh nervously ahead. Drawn to the noise, an image got burned on her retinas. Bodies. Corpses the fungal growth had swallowed. Hands jutted out from walls, calcified in final gestures. Faces fused with mushroom caps. The tide had come crashing over the residents and congealed them in time.

  Gus sidled close and nudged her, staring up at one of the mushroom crowns that had grown from an old satellite dish. "I think it's looking at me."

  She wanted to laugh, oh, she wanted to, but another sound took precedence. A creak, echoing deep in the sea of seeds. Metal groaning under strain and wind. Victoria turned. A shiver ran down her skin as she searched for Adam. He had disappeared ahead, his figure blurred in the haze.

  She caught up to him, her boots catching on creeping vines.

  The structure ahead was severely corroded, the reinforced steel crumbling. Support struts had stopped doing their job long ago, and the spire leaned over like the mast of a sunken vessel. It should have fallen long ago. But thick, bark-skinned tentacles had wrapped around the shaft, the widest of them climbing almost to the top in spirals. Curling into the gaps like fingers digging into a wound.

  The tower stood only from the will of the fungus.

  And in the hush, an insidious cry rippled through them. Adam had tried covering his masked mouth, Saela her ears, and Gus his eyes. But Lenor had disappeared, and Victoria was left to witness. Some twisted dream. Some broken dirge. Some terrible ode to despair and death.

  ***

  If you're not already aware, he wrote a chapter, , in which Alek from another universe is sent to a weird dimension to witness the death of the world and confront his ghosts. Elijah did an amazing job at capturing the essence of my book, and I think it also serves as a great introduction for his own universe, which I more than encourage you checking out! Especially if you're a fan of creepy monsters, and society coming together to fight the unexplainable.