Monster Planet(70)

She dropped the record she was holding and it slapped on the naked concrete floor, not breaking. White fur had sprouted inside the gate-fold cover. It grew longer as she watched, soft-looking tendrils that reached for the moist air.

She had to turn around and look at the door, make sure it was locked. She needed to make sure it was locked because if it wasn't, she still had time to go and lock it. Fear took her over, though. It was like a spotlight blazing into life in a still, dark night. She couldn't move, she was dazzled by the fear. Then adrenaline poured into her circulatory system and flipped every switch toON .

In one corner of the basement a tiny patch of mushrooms nursed on a wet patch of floor. They were getting bigger. She ran. No, more like she jumped, like an antelope running from a cheetah.

She found a stairway in the corner of the basement farthest from the mushrooms. She stomped up the stairs, flew up them two at a time. At the first landing she finally managed to turn and look back. A broad brown stain was creeping across the concrete floor. The wood banister of the stairwell was cracked. Trumpet-shaped fungi peeked out of that crevice. Sarah ran again, upward, away from the basement. She could hear rustling down there. The sound of rot and blight and smut growing at a horribly accelerated pace.

If it touched her, if she got any of it on her, it would eat her skin. It would get in her mouth, her nose, her lungs. It would fill up her insides and burst her open like a wet, stringy pumpkin. She ran.

Ground floor. The stairwell door opened into another, broader stairwell that lead up into darkness. Office space surrounded her on every side, some of it empty, some full of abandoned furniture. All of those offices were dead ends. She pushed through a glass door and into the building's foyer. A thick bluish slime covered the front door, colored the light coming in through the frosted glass.

Back to the stairwell. She had only one direction to go. Up. Up and away, away from the monster. She climbed, her breath already coming in ragged gasps.

A bloom of mold ran along one wall, chased her up the steps. Sarah pushed herself, pushed harder. Every step made her knees creek, her shins burn.

Come on. Come on. Come on.

The refrain sounded stupid even inside her own head but she kept it up. Second floor'more offices, a little light from a window at the far end. Nothing she could use. Third floor identical to the second except that little stars were flashing before her eyes. Just how badly out of shape was she? She had gotten plenty of excercise while living with Ayaan. Could four flights of stairs really make her this desperate for a lungful of air?

No.

No, they couldn't. The mold was already in her. The dust she'd breathed in, down in the basement. It must have already been full of spores. And now the Fungal Freak was causing them to bloom inside her body, just by being near her.

A door slammed down in the basement. She had forgotten to lock it and now the monster was inside. C'mon c'mon c'mon. Sarah gasped for breath and pounded up the stairs, almost ran into a door with a metal release bar at hip-height. She pushed the bar and the door opened up on blue sky. Sarah's arms shot out to help her keep balance but the door wasn't just opening on empty space. She had come to the roof. She looked out across the tarpaper and gravel, stared at the clogged-up ventilation hoods like tiny minarets. The roof. Last stop.

There was nowhere to go. The buildings on either side were too low to leap to, she would break her legs. The fire escape didn't reach the roof.

Last stop. Sarah looked back and saw something drippy and wet on the stairs below her. She stepped out into the sunlight and tripped over a hidden step.

She fell forward, her hands outstretched to catch her but they just slid across loose gravel. Her chin smacked the tarpaper and she lost blood. Dark spots blobbed across her vision. She couldn't seem to get her breath, couldn't seem to move her arms, her legs, she felt like a dead spider with her limbs up in the air.

Slowly, very slowly she relaxed her body, her stiff limbs. Slowly, very slowly she sucked in breath through one nostril. She closed her eyes and saw green flashes. She opened them again and saw her fingernails had turned yellow. Faint black spots swam down there in the quick. As she watched her thumbnail creased down the middle'fungus underneath was pushing up against it. The nail turned white and started to split. Pain made her screech.

She heard a heavy tread on the stairs. Someone was coming up, coming after her.

She focused on the pain in her thumb. Used it. She saw it as a white sparkle, a sunburst in her hand. This wasn't her special sight, it was just pure visualization, but it worked. She used that energy to propel her back up to her feet. She drew her Makarov, flicked off the safety, assumed a firing stance with her arm outstretched and pointed at the doorway she'd just come through. She yanked breath into her filling lungs, fought her own body to stay upright long enough to put one bullet through whoever came through that door.