The Mushroom Virus

By Mathew Heinecke

Mr. Snarr’s science class was the best. Every day he had a new experiment for the kids to perform. With his long white lab coat and messy hair, he would stand in front of class and demonstrate the experiment. He used a lot of comedy and usually ended up making a big mess. His  favorite  expression  was,  “If  you  are  not making a mess, you are not making science.”

Today, they were growing mold in a petri dish. Mr. Snarr showed them how to boil the solution. He spilled some on his hand and pretended to turn into a monster. The kids all laughed (though some were scared at first).

Marty Gifford laughed the hardest. He loved science. He was always doing experiments at his house. His mother would find all kinds of strange things in his room. Once, he built a pulley system so that he could open all the drawers in his dresser. His mother got all tangled up in the ropes and was stuck there for half the afternoon. After that, Marty had to take his experiments to the shed.

Being curious and adventurous, Marty decided to add a little extra to his mixture. He had a chewable vitamin that his mother put in his lunch for him to eat each day. Marty hated the vitamins, because  they  tasted  horrible.  He  thought,  “Why the other kids.” His mom had insisted on this particular vitamin since it was organic and all natural.

He took out the vitamin, crushed it up and proceeded to sprinkle the green powder on top of his  petri  dish  solution.  He  hoped  the  vitamins would make the mold grow faster and he would amaze the teacher with his new findings.

The next day, Marty was excited to see how his mold was growing. However, he was disappointed when his mother told him school was cancelled. She  said  the  school  was  contaminated  by  some kind   of   fungus.   Marty   wondered   if   it   had something to do with their petri dish experiments.

Later that day, Marty’s friend Oscar came over to play. As they were playing cards, Marty asked, “Hey Oscar. Your dad is a policeman right?”

Oscar  answered,  “Yes,  he  usually  works  at night, but was called over to the school because of what happened this morning. He told us that some strange  mushrooms  were  growing  all  over  the school. Weird, right?”

“Yeah. Weird.” said Marty. “We should go check it out.”

They got their bicycles and rode down to the school. Police cars were everywhere. They saw some  men  wearing  protective  white  paper  suits that covered them from head to toe. Their heads had those gigantic helmets on with the big clear plastic facemasks. Some were carrying out wheelbarrows full of bright yellow and orange mushrooms.

People  from  all   over  town   were  standing around watching. One of the mushrooms fell out of a wheelbarrow and instantly more mushrooms began to grow. They spread like a wild fire, each time one would pop up, five more would pop up around it. Soon, they covered most of the school grounds.

Everyone started backing up and some started to run. Marty and Oscar got on their bikes and pedaled  back  to  their  homes.  When  Marty  got there, his dad was packing up the minivan.

“Hey Marty,” hey yelled. “Grab some clothes and your toothbrush. Don’t forget some clean underwear and socks. We are getting out of here in fifteen minutes.”

Marty knew this was serious. He rushed to his room and got out his luggage. He filled it with some clothes, his toothbrush and his video games. He  couldn’t  survive  without  those.  His  older brother and sister were running around like crazy trying to figure out what to bring. Their dad only allowed them one suitcase each.

They quickly all piled into the minivan and started driving. When they got to the edge of the town, they were barricaded by the police. Marty’s dad decided to try another route, but that was blocked too.

He parked the car down a deserted road and told everyone to get out and grab his or her bags.

“What are we going to do now?” asked Marty’s older brother Todd.

His dad answered, “We need to get out of here. We are going to have to walk.”

After some arguing, they each got their suitcase and started walking. They made it through some trees where they were stopped again. This time it was the military. They had set up a big chain link fence. It looked like it went all the way around Willakaville. Army tanks rolled past followed by men with machine guns patrolling it. Big steam shovels were digging a huge trench and filling it with some type of green chemical.

“Well,” said Marty’s dad. “I guess we are under quarantine. Let’s go get some groceries and head back to the house.”

When they got to the grocery store, it had been ransacked. Most everything was gone. Only a few things like deodorant and toenail clippers were left. Still, Marty’s family searched the store. They managed to find some lima beans, asparagus soup and rye crackers.

As they drove home, they could see a large area of Willakaville covered with orange and yellow mushrooms.

 *****

Several days had passed since the mushrooms first appeared. Everything closed down. People were too afraid to leave their houses. They did not know what the mushrooms would do to them.

The town was scarce on food. It had to be delivered each week by truck. All they got to eat was pasta, cereal, spam, bananas and milk. Marty was so sick of eating the same thing everyday. In fact, everyone was.

Marty looked out his front window, wishing he could go out and play. He missed his friend Oscar. Marty’s brother Todd saw Marty and came next to him. He gave Marty a pat on the back and then opened the door.

“No!” screamed Marty. “Dad said we can’t go outside.”

Todd did not listen. He just kept on walking. Marty watched in horror as his brother crouched down, picked up a mushroom and ate it. Marty started crying, thinking that his brother would soon fall  over dead.  Luckily, he did  not. He just sat there eating mushroom after mushroom. After eating about six or seven, Todd looked at Marty and gave him the thumbs up sign with a big smile on his face.

Marty opened the door and shouted, “You are crazy!”

Todd replied, “Come on out, these taste really good.”

Marty said, “No way! Who knows what those

can do to you. They could be poisonous!” “Whatever,” smirked Todd.

Marty’s father was furious with Todd. His mother,  who  always  worried  about  everything, kept crying all night. Todd seemed fine though. He said that he felt great. He had tons of energy and even cleaned all the dishes that night. Marty thought, “Maybe all these mushrooms are not so bad after all. Everyone is probably freaking out over nothing.”

Unfortunately, Marty was wrong. Just when he thought everything was ok is when things got worse. I mean really worse. The next day, Todd started eating more mushrooms. It was all he wanted. He would not eat anything else. It was as if he was obsessed with them. In fact, he was obsessed with them. He started getting angry when he didn’t have one. He was eating so many that his skin was turning yellow and orange like the mushrooms.

His father saw what was happening and locked Todd in his room. But, the mushrooms made Todd crazy  and  gave  him  superhuman  strength.  He broke the door down to his room and ran out of the house. His dad tried to catch him, but the mushrooms gave Todd the speed of a cheetah.

They searched for him all morning. Along the way, they saw other people running around like wild animals and eating mushrooms. They all had that same crazy look in their eyes like Todd. It was as if they were zombies. Orange and yellow zombies. All they cared about were mushrooms. They almost hit a few of them on the way back home.

Things got even weirder. At night, groups of ten to twenty of the mushroom zombies would gather and make noises. It sounded like some kind of deranged gorillas. You could hear a low “Brooo, Brooo, Brooooooooo!” in the middle of the night.

Day by day you could see more and more of these yellow orange mushshroom zombies wandering around, eating mushrooms and making strange noises. Marty thought that this might be the end for Willakaville.

Until one day, his friend Oscar came over. He was very excited about something.

“Marty, Marty,” he said gasping for breath. “I made a discovery.”

“What is it?” answered Marty.

“Remember when Mr. Snarr was teaching us about  fungus  and  how  it  can  grow  on  your bodies?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, do you also remember when he told us that garlic and oregano are natural anti-fungals?”

“Yes.”

“I decided to pour some garlic salt and oregano on some of the mushrooms. And one of those mushroom eaters ate it. About an hour later they were cured. The other mushrooms I put it on died and no new ones grew back.”

“That  is  excellent!”  exclaimed  Marty.  “We have to tell everyone!”

Marty and Oscar told their families and they went out with garlic and oregano and demonstrated the effects to their neighbors. Soon, more and more people heard the news and they passed it on to more and more people. Within a few days, the whole town was practically cured.

Word eventually made it to the military, who ended up spraying the entire town with garlic salt and oregano. All the mushrooms were finally destroyed. The military removed the fences and buried the ditches.  Things finally got back to normal in Willakaville, except that it smelled like a big piece of lasagna.

Poor Mr. Riggatoli had to change his Italian restaurant  into  a  hair  studio.  No  one  in Willakaville was hungry for Italian food for a long time…

- Total nr. of readings: 11,122 Copyright © The author [2020] All Rights Reserved. This story may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the author except for personal use.