The grizzled man pulled a clump of red vines from the outskirts of his garden. He furrowed his brow before tossing them forcefully over the fence and returning to the harvest. A cool wind blew through the nearby trees, carrying with it the first hints of winter. His frown grew deeper, then deeper still as he bent down with creaking joints and extracted a shriveled carrot.
He inspected it, wiped off a layer of slimy fungus, and placed it in the basket.
…
“Well?” The man’s wife asked.
He sighed, then set the basket on the table. His wife inspected the bounty, and her frown grew nearly as pronounced as his.
“That’s it?” She asked.
He nodded.
“But that’s not enough!”
“I know.” He said softly.
“What are we gonna do?”
“Maybe I can get a deer or three this winter.” He said.
“A deer? Out here? Now? You know there aren’t any left.”
“There are still some animals running around.”
“A few squirrels? A couple birds, maybe?”
“I’ll get something.” He promised.
Becky pursed her lips. “You know Lori needs something real to eat. She can’t survive another winter like this.”
“I know.” The man said. His body was nearly as exhausted as his weary mind.
The woman seemed as if she had more to say on the subject, but merely gave a disapproving look. “Well, go give her a kiss. She’s heading to bed soon.”
The grizzled man said nothing. He walked back to his daughter’s room, where he found her playing with a doll. He knelt beside her and raked his calloused fingers through her hair. Her smile seemed to brighten the room in ways he hadn’t seen since forsaking electricity.
“Hi daddy.”
“Hey sweetheart.” He said, hugging her close. “Is Mrs. Susie ready for bed?”
Lori seemed to weigh something in her mind.
“Susie says she wants a story first.”
“Did you brush your teeth?”
“Uh-huh.”
He gave her a probing look.
“I did!” She insisted. “See?” She opened her mouth.
“Alright. I’ll tuck you both in and read you something good.”
As his daughter snuggled deep into her blankets, he pulled a tattered book from the wall. At one point in the recent past it had been a textbook; a literary reader for elementary school children.
…But there weren’t any more schools…Not like there had been.
…And there weren’t even any more children…Not real ones.
…And the textbooks that hadn’t been salvaged by lone survivors had been left to rot.
He opened the pages and read Lori the story of a princess who had a pet purple ferret and wanted to travel the world. Like the princess in the book, his daughter had dreams of traveling across the globe and seeing fantastic sights and meeting strange people and sampling odd foods.
He didn’t have the heart to tell her those sights and foods and people no longer existed…Not as they had.
“And after walking for many miles she saw her castle in the distance, and it was the best sight she had ever seen. She realized that after her long journey, the thing she wanted most of all was to find her way home. The End.”
He looked down at his daughter and saw she was deep asleep. He placed the book back on the shelf, blew out the candle, and walked back to the kitchen.
“She’s getting worse.” Becky said. “Today she told me her chest was starting to hurt. I think the infection is moving toward her heart.”
The grizzled man collapsed on a chair before closing his eyes. He just needed a few seconds of calm to collect himself.
“Did you hear me?”
“I did.” He answered. He opened his eyes and leaned forward.
Becky frowned and moved close to him. She hugged him close, and he wrapped an arm around her waist and reciprocated the affection…The worry…The mounting pain…In those short moments they embraced one another and shared the others’ burdens.
“I know we’ve resisted so far.” Becky said softly. “But maybe we can give her some redweed.”
The grizzled man said nothing, but instead let out a long and exasperated sigh.
“Look, we don’t have to eat only redweed!” She added hastily. “We can cut it up and I can cook it well. I’ll mix it with other ingredients and-”
“-And we’ll get addicted.” He interrupted softly.
“I heard it wasn’t addictive though.”
“Not chemically, but once we start supplementing our diet with it here and there, when will it end? We’ll grow reliant on it, and before we know what’s happened we won’t even need a garden anymore!”
At this his wife pursed her lips. “So what’s the alternative? We let your principles kill our daughter?!”
“I told you I’d hunt something.” He growled.
“Hunt something, hunt something…You always say you’re going to hunt something, but this magic meat has yet to appear in our pantry-” She stomped to the kitchen, opened the pantry door, and peeked inside. “Oh look! No meat! Maybe it’s in the cellar!” She moved closer to the living room, opened the cellar door, and once more feigned a search. “Gee, it’s not there either! But that’s strange, I remember being told that early Autumn was prime deer season, and yet here we are, almost into December, and with nothing to show for it.”
The grizzled man stood up and walked to the door. He grabbed his rifle along the way, put on a leather coat, and stepped out into the night.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
“Out…” The grizzled man said. “For food.”
Before she had time to argue or interject, he’d already disappeared into the frigid night.
…
A northern wind whipped through the forests as pale moonlight filtered through the leafless canopy and reflected off the shimmering red masses that clung to the Earth’s surface. As the grizzled man trudged further from his home, he scornfully kicked at the blood-colored vines that clumped around one another.
The telltale sound of an animal rustling around a tree’s branches caused him to freeze in place.
His ears perked up.
He listened.
Twigs rattling against twigs… It wasn’t the wind… It was something solid… Something moving.
He brought the rifle up to his eye and began to slowly look around before spotting a distant gray blob moving on a tree.
He chanced a step closer…Then another.
The creature came into better focus with each step he took.
A squirrel.
He frowned. It wasn’t much meat, but it was something.
He watched the creature for a few seconds longer before taking careful aim and pulling the trigger.
A thunderous crack rang through the trees. The man’s adrenaline spiked as he watched the tiny body fall to the ground.
He rushed over to the beast with excitement, but his heart soon sank.
The animal’s wound was completely devoid of blood. Instead, red vines slowly snaked their way out from its body; crisscrossing and doing their best to mend it.
“Looks like another strike, eh Malcolm?”
The grizzled man’s head shot up in surprise.
“Jericho.” He nodded. “How long you been there?”
The clone shrugged. “Difficult question to answer. Since I’m part of the mycelium network, and since the network exists everywhere, I guess you could say I’ve been here the whole time.”
Malcolm kicked at some of the vines nearest him. “I’ve been meaning to ask about that…Can you do something about these ruddy stupid things growing everywhere?”
“What’s wrong with them?” Jericho frowned.
“They’re everywhere, and they’re choking out my garden, and they’re infecting all the animals!”
Jericho frowned as he lifted one up and inspected it. “You know they’re edible, right?”
The grizzled man spat.
“No, seriously.”
“You expect me to become like…That?” He asked, pointing toward the squirrel. “You want me to eat them and infect myself with-”
“-They won’t infect you.” Jericho interrupted. “That squirrel, and indeed all the animals in the forest, have already been replaced. The original versions-”
“-REAL versions!”
Jericho remained silent for a moment as he parsed this interjection. “Fine. If you so wish, the real animals have already been added to the Fungal Colony. The secondary versions-”
“-The fakes!”
“-Fakes, fine, have been brought back to the surface the same as anything else. They were given the choice between life above and life below, and they chose the easier path.”
Malcolm watched as the twitching squirrel continued to shrink as the red roots inside its body mingled with nearby vines and spread across the ground.
“You can’t honestly expect me to believe that these beasts willingly chose to live underground.”
“Why not? Pheromones are easy enough to replicate. Some animals were attracted by the prospect of sex. Some were drawn in with the smells of food.” Jericho shrugged. “You’d like to think you’re somehow above such simple temptations, but really, humanity as a whole was just as easily lured into the tunnels.”
Malcolm said nothing. He gave a small, weary sigh and continued walking deeper into the forest.
“Where are you going?” Jericho asked.
“I don’t suppose shooting you would make you go away?”
The clone shook his head with a smile. “Not permanently, no. The Mycelium Network already has my consciousness recorded, and it will just rebuild me as it needs. If you did shoot me, you’d find I’m filled with very delicious, very nutritious red weed.”
“I’ll give you this, you Mycelloids are honest to a ‘T’. Tell me, are there any creatures in the forest that haven’t yet been infected?”
“You mean, are there any originals left?” Jericho smirked at this use of Malcolm’s word.
“-Yeah.”
Jericho closed his eyes.
“A couple cardinals, but they’re about fourteen miles away…Oh, and they’ve been eating red weed. I don’t suppose you’d go for that. After all, in your mind there’s not much difference in eating red weed, and eating something that’s been sustaining itself off red weed, is there? Don’t wanna become reliant on it, after all.”
Truthfully, Malcolm would have been more than happy to eat anything that wasn’t fungal in nature…Even if the things he ate had eaten the red weed themselves.
…But fourteen miles was a long way to trudge for a couple small birds, and after it was all said and done, the journey would have cost more calories than he would have earned.
With a heavy heart he began trudging back home. They’d have to ration their remaining food carefully…Put it in jars…Preserve it…Can it…
A sudden thought struck Malcolm.
“Jericho?”
“Yes?”
“When I left civilization behind, most people were still people, right?”
“Only two percent of the population had been cloned, if that’s what you mean.”
“What percent has been cloned now?”
“Over ninety-nine percent across the planet. There are a few lone holdouts like you and your family, and there’s a large human colony in Southeast Asia we regularly work with, but by and large everyone’s been cloned.”
“And you clones don’t need to eat food, right?”
“We’re sustained by dead and rotting matter.”
“I mean, all the canned goods in the city…Those have mostly been left alone, right?’
Jericho considered this. “I suppose they must have, yes.”
A new hope began burning deep in the grizzled man’s heart. With an energy he hadn’t experienced in years, he tore back through the forest and into the cabin.
“What?! What’s going on!?” His surprised wife asked.
The grizzled man explained. “Food! In the city! Old canned goods!”
Eventually he was able to slow his excitement to the point he could eloquently explain his intentions.
“Clones don’t need to eat food like we do, so all that food left behind…All of it ready to be found and eaten.”
Oddly, his wife didn’t seem as enthusiastic. “That’s the plan?”
The grizzled man frowned. “Well of course. I thought you’d be excited.”
“I just don’t see the point.” His wife said. “You’re unwilling to rely on red weed for food, but completely fine relying on a dead civilization to meet our needs?”
“But it’s food.” The man argued. “Food food! Not that fungus shit, but real, honest to god food!”
“So’s red weed.” His wife said. “And it grows everywhere. Those cans you’re speaking of, they’re a finite resource.” She shook her head. “I thought you wanted to live a fully self-reliant life. I get it. I do too. But if you’re going scavenging in the city for old food, how’s that any different than harvesting the red-weed?”
“Because the Mycelloids…The fungus…” By this point Jericho had entered the house.
“Oh, hello Jericho.” She greeted passively.
“Ma’am.” He said with a nod.
“Tell my husband here that it’s silly to go foraging for old food when we have a fresh source here.”
“I would, but you know how he feels about my kind.”
Becky pursed her lips.
“Just give me a few days.” The man pleaded. “I’ll be back with more food than we could ever eat.”
Becky sighed.
“Fine…Go…”
Full of brimming excitement, the man retreated to their shared bedroom and began preparing for the ensuing journey. Jericho appeared behind him, holding an old can of carrots.
“Here.” He said, handing it to the grizzled man.
Malcolm took it with astonishment. “Wha’? I don’t…”
“From the nearby city.” He explained. “The network just brought it here. If you want, I could save you the trip. Any preserved food that we find could be instantly delivered to your front doorstep.”
Malcolm seemed to consider this. “I…I can’t…”
Jericho sighed. “You mean ‘you won’t’. I get it. You feel as if you need to struggle to survive. You feel our assistance is somehow cheating, and that you need to remain fully reliant on yourselves… Even though, by foraging for this old food, that wouldn’t be the case.”
The grizzled man said nothing.
“Look, I get it, you’re distrustful of me and my kind. You won’t eat the red weed because you don’t want to rely on it, and you don’t want us bringing you old food because you don’t want to rely on us. We can make your life easier, yet you seem to resist us at every turn.”
Malcolm sat on the bed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to respond.
“What about your eyesight? I know it’s been getting worse. If you simply say the word, we could readjust the shape of your eyeballs and cleanse your lens so that your vision is just as good as it was when you were younger.”
“No.” The answer was automatic.
“Of course not…
Even though it would make you more independent, you still find any help we offer to be taboo.” Jericho headed to the door. “One day, I hope you can open up and start to trust us. We really could make your life much easier.”
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