Spores
Chapter One
Author — Sidia
Joshua Marsh was not where he thought he would be in life.
He was nearly forty and had accomplished almost nothing that he had thought he would. His career had stalled, the money he had to pay to his ex-wife for child support was crippling him, and the opportunity he thought would turn everything around had been nothing but a disaster.
Joshua was a field researcher in a sub-branch of a major pharmacological company—not something that traditionally paid well. He was diligent in his job, but he’d never made the kind of breakthrough that would have cemented his career. To start with, his prospects had been held back by the fact that he had knocked up his girlfriend Annie in his final years at college. At twenty-two years old, Joshua had been faced with the terrifying prospect of fatherhood—and what was worse was that he’d had to play the part of responsible adult as his girlfriend at the time was a fresh-faced eighteen year old in her first year of study. They’d tried to do the right thing and make it work—but had lasted barely two years together before they had filed for divorce. Although their split had started out amicable, as time had passed Annie had become more and more hostile towards him—blaming and resenting him for the fact that she was saddled with a child during the ‘best years of her life’.
Their child was a little girl that they had named Claire, and in the beginning Joshua considered her to be the best thing in his life. Claire was a bubbly and vivacious girl—with a cute face, honey-blonde hair, and striking blue-grey eyes. Even though Joshua only got to have her one week a month, he very much looked forward to their time together. Unfortunately though, as Claire got older her behaviour changed for the worse.
Joshua could only assume that Annie had been making an effort to turn his daughter against him. As time passed he noted that Claire was starting to become distant with him—no longer showing or wanting affection. It gradually got to the point where she was being opening hostile—all but sneering whenever he tried to speak to her. Joshua had considered forgoing his visitation rights, but held off doing so—hoping that his girl would come around. He was beginning to give up on that hope though, as Claire—now in her final year of high school—seemed to actively despise him. She had blossomed in the last few years—her cute face morphing into the kind of beauty that wouldn’t look out of place upon a model. On top of that her body had developed a set of curves that seemed hand-tailored for sin; Joshua had to admit to himself that he had checked out his daughter more than once—shaking his head in rueful admiration at just how sexy she was becoming. Not that he had much chance to look at her though—every time Claire came to stay with him she spent most of the time in her room or out with friends. Her obvious attempts at avoiding him had initially saddened Joshua, but as time progressed a spark of anger had been growing inside of him.
If his personal life being a mess wasn’t bad enough, Joshua was now dealing with the fact that his latest gambit career-wise had been an unmitigated cluster-fuck. He had volunteered to join a research expedition deep into a jungle that was situated in an isolated and barely explored valley. The time-frame for the trip was tentatively scheduled for two months—his ex-wife had thrown a tantrum about the fact he wouldn’t be able to take their daughter while he was away; something to do with the fact that she’d made plans with the guy she was currently screwing. She couldn’t exactly stop him from going however, and she’d had to make do with uttering threats that he would regret fucking her plans around.
The expedition had started out fine—it was a small research team consisting of Joshua and five others. He was the only new person in the group—the other team members had been to the jungle in question before, but this time they were planning on pushing further into the depths than they had gone previously. It had been gruelling and exhausting work—making their way through the undergrowth. It had been the most challenging research trip that Joshua had ever been on, but he’d experienced a swelling feeling of accomplishment when they had reached their destination. That feeling had only increased when they almost immediately started discovering and cataloging what they were sure were undiscovered species of plants.
Unfortunately, things quickly took a turn for the worse.
Everything went wrong when they were nearing the end of their trip, even though Joshua was the only one who retained a memory of what had actually happened. While he had been at their basecamp inputting data into a computer, the other five team members had stumbled across an unknown species of fungi. The first that Joshua had known of it was when he noted that the others were very late in getting back to the camp. He had gone looking for them and had eventually found them in an oddly shaped small clearing—standing in a rough circle and not moving at all. Something about their slack posture gave him pause, and it made Joshua baulk at going any closer. He had called out—trying to get their attention, but all that happened was that they shuffled around slowly on the spot to face him; their features terrifyingly blank. He then decided that there was nothing for it—he’d have to walk out to them if he wanted to help his colleagues. Just then a light breeze sprung up and he felt it caress his face.
Joshua had lost a bit of time at this point—the next thing he knew it was the late afternoon, and he was standing a few feet into the clearing, and it looked like the other team members hadn’t moved at all. He looked down at his feet confused—it appeared he had only made it few steps before he had blacked out. Spooked, he’d retreated further from the clearing and took the opportunity to look closely at the surrounding area.
The more he took in, the more sinister this clearing became. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but there appeared to be a disproportionally large number of carrion within the break in jungle. Everywhere he looked there were small animals decaying and clusters of bones. Around each carcass was a solid clump of an innocent appearing fungus. As Joshua watched, a light breeze sprung up again and he noticed a fine mist of spores rise up from the group of fungi. Could that have been what happened to him? It didn’t seem likely, but just in case he was going to take some precautions.
He had hurried back to the camp to collect some protective gear—chiefly a face mask. By the time he’d made it back to the clearing it was almost nightfall. It had taken a great deal of courage for Joshua to walk into that clearing, but he’d managed it. When he got to them, the five researchers were still blank and appeared completely unaware of anything around them. He tried shouting their names and even shaking them, but apart from them turning to face him when he said their names he got no reaction at all.
He discovered a solution completely by accident. Frustrated and scared, he broke down and swore—yelling at them to get the fuck out of the clearing. It spooked him even more when they obediently and blankly obeyed—shuffling with an odd and loose gait until they had reached the jungle—where they then stopped once more.
It appeared that whatever their condition was, they could follow directions. Joshua got them up and moving and back to the basecamp—hoping that once they were away from the area they would return to normal. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case—the stood milling about the camp while showing no interest in their surroundings. Giving up for the moment—it was late and they were far from any available help—Joshua got them all fed and watered before putting them into their tents. He fervently hoped all would be normal in the morning.
Unfortunately that wasn’t to be the case. All five of his colleagues remained in the fugue-like state; oblivious and pliant, they obeyed any order given to them but were incapable of caring for themselves. It was creepy how they just obediently did whatever he told them to do. Joshua recalled the clearing of death, and shuddered when he considered that if he had gone with them that morning they would all currently be standing out there until they died of exposure. It must be those odd fungal spores that were the cause.
Joshua decided to give it one more day before sending an SOS—a decision that would prove costly. He still hoped that the other five researchers would snap out of it eventually like he had, but regardless he decided he should probably go back to the clearing to collect samples of the mysterious fungi. He was certain he had only breathed in a tiny amount of the spores, but he had no clue as to how much the other five researchers had been exposed to. If his colleague’s conditions didn’t improve they would need data on the root cause in order to investigate what was wrong with them.
In another example of the universe piling it on against them, Joshua was on his way back with the fungal spore samples when a massive rain storm struck. To say it was raining was to do a huge disservice to just how torrential the deluge was. It had felt closer to living through a monsoon season instead of a mere storm. It rained for days on end, and Joshua was soon at his limit in trying to keep all his helpless colleagues safe. When it was finally over, the damage was extensive.
Nearly all the samples they had collected over the course of the expedition were ruined, as well as every piece of electronic equipment that they had brought. There was to be no calling for help now. The only thing left intact were the fungal spores and that was only because Joshua had taken extreme care in keeping them safe. The new danger to be faced was that while they still had food and supplies, they wouldn’t last forever.
In the end it was almost a full month until Joshua’s colleagues began to come out of their fugue state. It was a slow process and they remained confused and delusional. Even when they improved, they retained no memory whatsoever of anything they had experienced after being in contact with the spores. They didn’t even remember finding them to begin with.
Joshua had been ordering them all around for over a month—making sure they were clean and fed. He’d had to deal with all their bodily functions and issues—degrading things that he was sure they would have been mortified by had they any recollection of it. On top of that, he was startled to note that they retained some aspects of behaviour that he had ordered them to do—even towards the end of their recovery when they were most of the way to normal, they all still practically did everything that needed doing; for example the camp chores that he had been telling them to do all this time they now did automatically. It seemed that they had imprinted on his commands somehow—they weren’t aware of it, but they still subconsciously followed the directions he had given them while they were under the influence of the spores.
Even though they had finally snapped out of it, it was a gruelling trek out of the jungle. When they eventually emerged, the final kick in the teeth was revealed.
Joshua didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t what was waiting for them. While they had been missing and overdue to return, their funding had been cut—a typical soulless corporate decision about profit and loss—and their failures in the field were widely dismissed as bumbling academics who had brought disaster upon themselves through being underprepared and unsuited for such an ambitious expedition; a theory that seemed accurate given just how confused and unsure the team was when they returned.
Joshua had intended to use the spores he had collected—the only thing that he’d managed to salvage from the expedition—as evidence for what had occurred, but everything happened so fast. He wasn’t proud of it—and indeed, still felt a little guilty—but as soon as he was confronted with the scathing rebukes and financial punishment that was inflicted on them, he instead held his tongue. His colleagues were getting better every day, and he found that he had no desire to provide something that might be an incredible discovery to a company that was treating him so terribly. He felt like it could be his ticket out of the rut that he found himself in—the anaesthetic properties of the fungal spores alone could be groundbreaking!
So—after one nerve-wracking trip back into the country with his smuggled collection of fungal spore samples—Joshua found himself back in his old life and apartment with the strange new feeling of hope at last. He set about immediately constructing what he needed to cultivate more samples—he’d decided he would need to propagate the fungus so he would always have it on hand. Fortunately his apartment was an old-style bottom floor affair—he had access to a small private sub-basement below ground. After adding some glass terrarium cases and setting up a humidifier, Joshua was all set. The hardest part was getting the soil pH just right, but as he’d had a long time to study the fungus in its natural habitat he soon had it all sorted out.
He was so caught up and overworked—spending his day doing dreary lab work at his job and then spending most of the night on his own special project—that it completely slipped his mind when the time came for Claire to have her monthly stay with him.
He answered the door on a Saturday morning—he had no idea how long the loud knocking had been going on for—to find his ex-wife and daughter waiting angrily at the threshold.
“Are you getting off on making us wait out here or something?” Annie angrily spat at him as soon as he opened the door. “I have places to be—I don’t have time to wait while you’re pulling some kind of bullshit power play.”
“Um.” Joshua mumbled. He rubbed at his eyes and then looked at his watch—he had no idea what time it was. “I was downstairs. Working on something. Sorry, I didn’t hear —”
“Save it.” Annie said scathingly. “And whats with your clothes? You look like shit!”
“Oh.” Joshua said. He looked down at his body and saw that the clothes he was wearing were crumpled and dirty. He tried to laugh it off. “Yeah—I think a shower is in order, right? I lost track of time—I was working on something promising you see —”
“Whatever.” Annie said, cutting him off dismissively. “Like I care about whatever you’re ‘working on’. Unlike you I actually have things to do—and you’ve made Claire wait long enough.”
“Uh, yeah.” Joshua said weakly. He looked down at his daughter. “Hi, sweetie—sorry I didn’t hear you knocking. Have you been well?”
Claire—looking very fetching in a small pair of jean-shorts and a figure-hugging singlet—gave him a disinterested frown and didn’t bother answering. Joshua sighed to himself—no change there then. He negotiated the tricky conversational steps in finally getting his ex to leave—even though she was insisting she was running late and had to go, Annie seemed very content to stay at his door delivering barbs and insults. Claire and pushed passed him with her bag in the meantime, and after her mother had gone, Joshua had found his daughter in the kitchen.
She was looking in disgust at the mess of dishes piled in the sink, and Joshua suddenly felt ashamed and embarrassed at the state of his house.
“Sorry about the mess, Claire.” He muttered, giving her a shame-faced smile. Luckily he knew her bedroom was the only clean room in the house—he didn’t go in there when she was at her mother’s place. “Why don’t you go and get comfortable and unpack while I give this place a quick tidy.”
“You’ll need more than a quick tidy to fix this hole.” Claire said shortly before turning on her heel to head up the hallway to her bedroom.
Joshua sighed as he watched his daughter’s retreating back—his eyes inexorably falling down to the pert ass-cheeks encased in denim. Fuck his girl was a hot little thing—even if she had turned into a bit of a bitch the last few years. Still, he felt like he kind of deserved the attitude this time—hopefully she would come around once he got the apartment clean.
It took a couple of hours to get the apartment back to a respectable state and afterwards Joshua took a shower and got into a clean set of clothes. In all that time Claire hadn’t come out of her room. He went and knocked on her door but from the sounds of it she had music playing and either couldn’t hear him or was ignoring him.
“Claire?” Joshua said hesitantly as he opened a door a fraction. He stuck his head carefully around the corner and peered inside. “Sorry, honey—I was wondering what you wanted for dinner —”
“Shit, dad!” Claire interrupted angrily, sitting up. “How about a little privacy?”
“Sorry!” Joshua said, holding his hand up in apology. He hadn’t intended to, but he’d been unable to stop himself from quickly checking out Claire’s body. She had been laying face downwards on her bed, and before she’d moved Joshua had felt a small twinge of arousal and appreciation at just how good her firm little bubble-butt had looked in profile. It made him feel like a dirty old man to be ogling his daughter like that. “I knocked, but I guess you didn’t hear me.”
“You can’t have knocked very hard.” Claire muttered, looking to one side. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to know what you wanted for dinner.” Joshua said patiently, hiding his annoyance at how she refused to show him any response other than disdain. Sometimes he felt that she was turning into another version of her mother.
“It doesn’t matter—I’m going out tonight.” Claire said, laying down on her back and holding her phone up to her face in an obvious dismissal.
“What do you mean you’re going out?” Joshua asked his daughter. The first Saturday night when she came over had traditionally been their catchup night—even though it had become increasingly strained as her behaviour towards him had changed. “It’s Saturday!”
“So?” Claire said distantly. “There’s a band playing tonight that I want to see. Alice and I are going.”
“A band?” Joshua said slowly. Alice was Claire’s best friend and he had always got on well with her. Their looks were like a perfect example of yin and yang when they were together. Where his daughter was blonde, stacked, and tanned, Alice had dark hair, a lithe and slender body, and pale white skin. They were both gorgeous but in starkly contrasting ways. “What kind of band? Where are they playing?”
“Does it matter?” Claire said exasperatedly, rolling her eyes while she scrolled on her phone. “And it’s down at a club in town. I doubt you’d know it.”
“A club.” Joshua said flatly. “You are nowhere near old enough to be going to a club.”
“You can’t tell me what to do.” His daughter smirked. “Mom said I could go.”
“Bullshit.” Joshua stated. He was getting seriously angry now—she had played the mother card before with him but never so blatantly. “And even if it was true—you’re under my roof now and there’s no way I’m going to let you go out to a club unsupervised.”
“What the fuck!” Claire exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. “You can’t stop me from going—and I’m not ‘unsupervised’. Alice will be with me.”
“Well no offence to Alice, but I don’t think I could ask her to be responsible for your well being.” Joshua said sardonically. “And watch your language young lady—you won’t get anywhere talking to me like that. Just accept it—you’re not going.”
“Great—I guess I’m going to be stuck here in this shithole with nothing to do.” Claire said bitterly. “Why do I even have to come here anyway.”
“Because … I want to spend time with you.” Joshua said, swallowing his hurt and anger. She had never actually come out and said she didn’t want to see him before. He thought he better leave her alone before things escalated any further. “I’m going to be down in the basement doing some work. If you change your mind about dinner … well, you know where I’ll be.”
Claire didn’t bother answering him and Joshua walked back into the kitchen feeling depressed. He couldn’t imagine what crap Annie had been filling their daughter’s head with. His ex-wife had turned into quite the vindictive bitch over the years, and he wouldn’t put it past her to be purposely trying to turn Claire against him.
Before he headed down into the basement, Joshua paused at seeing Claire’s backpack sitting in the kitchen. He checked and saw that her purse and other personal possessions were in it—all the things he figured she’d want if she was going to go see a band. Joshua decided to take her bag with him into the basement as added insurance in case she decided to try and sneak out. He didn’t think she would actually do something like that … but it was better to be safe. That done, he went down the narrow staircase and began to work.
Joshua had made huge leaps forward recently in his study and cultivation of the fungal spores. He’d been trying various concentrations and solutions on some lab rats he’d procured, and was fairly confident he’d managed to refine a powdered dose that created a limited form of the original effect. He obviously hadn’t tested it on a human yet, but he’d amassed a number of small vials containing a fine powder which should place someone into a fugue-like and suggestible state for approximately one hour.
His basement now looked like it was half laboratory and half mushroom farm. Along one wall he had his work benches with scientific equipment, and on the other he had his earth terrariums where the fungus was growing, as well as drying machines for the freshly harvested growths. Joshua had been very careful and at all times the fungal spores were contained either behind glass or in closed equipment. Whenever he had to move the fungus from one station to another he always made sure to dress up in heavy protective gear.
Joshua sat down and started measuring and recording his findings and soon lost track of time again—he was jolted back to reality by the sounds of footsteps on the stairs. He turned in time to see Claire arrive in the basement—a petulant and annoyed look on her face.
“I can’t find my bag.” Claire said, her voice short. She looked very irritated to have had to come down to see him.
“Oh?” Joshua said evenly. He instantly knew it had been a good idea to take it from the kitchen, and he felt a swell of anger at the realisation that she had indeed intended to sneak out of the house. Joshua knew that he only had his daughter living with him one week a month, but she should still respect his authority more than that. “What do you need it for?”
“It’s got something I want in it, what does it matter?” Claire said angrily. She craned her head and spotted her bag under Joshua’s work table. “There it is—I can’t believe you took it. You can’t just take my things!”
“I can when you are planning on using it to sneak out.” Joshua said flatly, abandoning any pretence of beating around the bush. “You want your purse so you can go to see that band. I told you to forget it—it’s not happening.”
“Moms right.” Claire said, her voice cruel. “You do get off on trying to throw your weight around. It’s no wonder she left you.”
“What the fu—” Joshua started to say heatedly, but then he checked himself—taking a deep and calming breath. He wasn’t going to stoop to Annie’s level—losing his temper at Claire would be just what she wanted, and on top of that it wouldn’t help the situation in the slightest. “I’m not going to say anything to badmouth your mother. All I will say is that there are always two sides to a story—and you shouldn’t believe something without any evidence.”
Claire looked taken aback that he didn’t immediately start lashing back at her. She was so nonplussed that it made Joshua wonder what kind of life she had when she was living with Annie. He barely knew anything about what her home was like with his ex-wife; he’d always assumed that Annie’s disdain and scorn were reserved especially for him. Maybe Claire got a taste of it as well.
Claire looked to one side without speaking for a few seconds and spied his big fungus growing setup.
“What’s all this—you growing mushrooms for a hobby?” Claire said derisively—taking a new tact in trying to get a rise out of him. “So much for your ‘promising work’.”
“It’s a fungus actually.” Joshua said, biting his tongue. The scientist in him then came to the fore and he corrected her without thinking. “All mushrooms are fungi, but not all fungi are mushrooms.”
“Whatever.” Claire laughed. “You don’t have to lie—you’re trying to make some money on the side by growing magic mushrooms or something aren’t you. Like some lame-ass version of breaking bad. My dad—the shroom peddler. It’s so sad—wait until mom hears this one.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing, Claire.” Joshua sighed, giving up and turning back around to his work station—he refused to give her the argument she wanted. “I’m growing ‘shrooms’. Unfortunately it seems I can’t trust you, so you’re not getting your bag back. I’ll make dinner in a few hours—if you’re willing to act like an adult I’ll look forward to seeing you then.”
He heard his daughter make a noise of disgust and then she spun on her heel to leave. She only went a few steps before she paused—giving Joshua the fleeting hope that she was actually going to apologise to him. What he heard next however was the surreptitious sound of someone attempting to lift open the glass door of his drying chamber without making a noise. Joshua turned around in a panic just in time to see Claire grab a handful of the semi-dried fungi and clutch it to her chest in an attempt to hide her theft.
Joshua gaped for split second before springing into action. He turned back to his desk and lunged towards where he left his safety equipment in easy reach. He hurriedly placed the mask over his noise and mouth, and then put the rest of the gear on. Technically he only needed to mask to be safe, but he didn’t want to risk getting spores on his skin and then becoming exposed later on. Once safe, he turned to his erstwhile daughter.
Claire was standing slackly in place—a fistful of the fungi still in her hand. Joshua cursed both the stupidity of his daughter as well as his own inattention to security. The idiot girl had seriously thought he was growing magic mushrooms and had attempted to steal some. Fortunately the fungus had a vastly reduced effect once it had been dried—there was no danger of her becoming a empty and pliant zombie for months like the members of the research team. That said, Joshua estimated that she would be under the effects of the spores at least until tomorrow morning.
“Fuck!” He spat disgustedly. “This is just perfect.”
Luckily she wouldn’t remember what had happened to her once she came out of it, so there was that at least. He just had to get everything cleaned up and sanitised and it would all be okay. He reached over and turned on an air filtration system he’d installed that would pick up any stray spores that were in the air, and then turned back to his daughter.
“Claire.” Joshua stated, his voice firm. At least now she wouldn’t talk back to him. Maybe he should feel lucky that he wouldn’t have to put up with her shit for a bit. “Put the fungi back where you got it and close the lid.”
He watched carefully as his daughter blankly followed his order. Just like he remembered with the research team, her mouth hung open slightly and she barely ever seemed to blink. Her limbs seemed loose and fluid as she moved. Once she had finished, Joshua was annoyed to see that she’d managed to cake the front of her shirt with spores.
“How did you even manage to get so much on you?” Joshua exclaimed exasperatedly. The spores would be rendered inert once they’d gone through the washing machine, but it was still one more hassle. “Claire, you need to wash all your clothes. Take them off carefully and put them in the washing machine. Then go and take a shower.”
When Claire reached down to the front of her shorts and began to mechanically undo them, Joshua realised his mistake. He’d meant that she should go to the laundry and get undressed there, but he hadn’t been clear enough. He was so taken aback that Claire had managed to work her tight shorts halfway down her thighs before he’d snapped out of it. Joshua opened his mouth to tell her to stop … but he couldn’t seem to manage to get the words out. He was mesmerised by every inch of smooth skin that was revealed to his hungry eyes. Instead he just stood there silently while staring in awe as his teen daughter stripped herself naked right in front of him.
Every thought he’d ever had about Claire being sexy was immediately proven correct—if anything, his imagination hadn’t been doing her justice. Every part of her body seemed utterly perfect. He’d heard the term hourglass figure before, but had always thought it was just a saying … but his daughter fit the description perfectly. Joshua swore softly in appreciation when Claire pulled her panties down—he wouldn’t have guessed it, but she was clean-shaven and had what was perhaps the prettiest pussy he’d ever seen. If he’d been impressed by her lower body, he was blown away when Claire lifted her singlet-top up over her head.
Her breasts were … the only term he could think of was mouthwatering. They were absolutely huge, and seemed to defy gravity itself. They sat there—plump and rounded perfection—on top of what was otherwise a slim body frame. It had been so long since Joshua had even seen a naked woman … let alone had sex. Right at that moment it didn’t matter to him in the slightest that she was his daughter; Joshua’s body had instantly reacted to Claire’s nude form. He was harder than he could ever remember being.
All too quickly though the moment was over. Claire gathered up her clothes and began to stiffly walk up the stairs and out of the basement. Joshua’s mouth was dry as he stared at his daughter’s ass as she exited. Her buttocks rolled hypnotically as she climbed, and he didn’t even realise he had been holding his breath until Claire had vanished from sight and he exhaled explosively.
Joshua didn’t know what to think for a few moments—he was so turned on that it shocked him. On top of that, the fact that his reaction was triggered by Claire was causing him to feel a certain level of disgust with himself as well. Fathers weren’t supposed to be turned on by their daughters. He gazed blankly at the spot where she had stripped—reliving the incredible sight in his minds-eye. After a long few minutes, Joshua half-heartedly did a once-over of his lab—making sure nothing else was contaminated. He could barely focus on his tasks and it took him far longer than it usually did. Once he had finished, he found he was subconsciously staring up towards where the bathroom was.
Joshua made a snap decision and quickly got out of his protective gear. He really should go and check to see that Claire was alright. It was the fatherly thing to do.
At least that was what he told himself anyway.