Page 112

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.

The whir of a saw vibrates louder and louder.