Devil's Veil

The Fruiting Body

When Kenneth Gorge reached down with his tweezers poised it was an action undertaken with an infinity of care. He had been tramping around this valley for the better part of two hours, having scouted the location over the past few weekends. It was heavily wooded, had stable temperatures, and was very humid due to a number of streams that ran throughout the area. Perfect conditions, he thought as the tweezers hovered over the potential discovery sprouting before him.

With a deft twist and a rough pull, Gorge pulled the curious mushroom up, stalk, cap, and all. The action was repeated three more times, with each mushroom going into a separate clear bag that Gorge had brought along for the purpose. Now satisfied, Gorge rose from the awkward position and mused while he cracked his back. He turned to start on the long path back to his car when he heard a furtive movement.

The bizarre mushroom had been sprouting out of a fungal colony growing inside an old rotted tree stump; singe marks around the edges and a long running scar showed that the tree had once received a strike of lightning. Since then a small puddle of water had formed in the depression. The water was brackish and filled with debris: small insects, leaves, bits of bark. Lapping at the water was a ratty looking mutt, its collar and tag all but invisible in the filth of its wiry fur. It kept one good eye on Gorge while it licked around the base of the mushrooms. Stupid looking thing, Gorge thought spitefully, hefting his bag of samples in one hand and a heavy stick in the other. The makeshift weapon gave him something resembling courage, and he tried a rather half-hearted attempt to shoo the beast away.

“Go on! Get away!” Gorge took one step forward while brandishing the stick. The creature obliged by taking one huge bite out of the remaining mushrooms, then turned and scampered away a bit. “Damn you! Spit it out!” he shrieked, taking a few more steps forwards. The dog backed up and maintained distance. Gorge and the dog stood staring at each other for several heartbeats, until the dog broke the spell by barking madly at the ground. Now, what in hell? Gorge thought, while taking a step back. Son of a bitch... it's mad, or worse. It might think it can come home with me. He glanced around for some avenue of escape, but soon found that unnecessary. The dog was walking away, retching like a cat with a hairball. Kenneth smiled with a hint of bitter triumph and threw a stone to hurry the wretched thing along.

*****

It had been near nightfall by the time he climbed out of the ravine. After getting home, Gorge made a careful inventory of the samples he had taken: four mushrooms, complete with stalks and caps. Gorge would collect a sample of the substrate later if he could in fact confirm that the mushrooms were an altogether new species and not just some damned mutation. It had happened to him once before. After several weeks of going through some of the most hellish terrain, of wading hip-deep in sloughs and suffering innumerable scratches and bruises, Gorge had stumbled across what he was certain was a new kind of fungus. But having submitted its samples to several mycology journals, he was upset to find that the fungus was in fact a well catalogued one; this news had arrived by way of form letter, but Gorge saw the mockery hiding under the courteous tones and he seethed. All that effort for a mutant... a freak.

Mired in his own litany of complaints, Gorge set about taking spore samples. He removed one of the full mushrooms from their storage bag and popped the cap off of the stalk. Placing a napkin on his bedside table, Gorge then put the cap onto the napkin. Over the next few hours the cap would leave its spore imprint on the napkin, and that would give Gorge the information he would need to proceed further in his investigations. The mushroom is the fruiting body, Gorge rehearsed as he stretched and got ready for bed. He permitted himself a slight smile as he considered this tidbit of information: people often thought that the mushroom was the fungus, but in reality the cap was only a reproductive organ. And as was so often the case, thoughts of his unappreciated intellect lead to thoughts of work. Gorge just couldn't wait to get started.

*****

Kenneth Gorge was a bureaucrat by nature and a tyrant by habit. He had been fortunate enough to find gainful employment at Agora, a marketing research firm. What the company lacked in imagination it made up for with consistency, and Gorge was able to rapidly work his way to a middle-tier management position from which he had no intention of moving. He had just enough authority to command the younger team members, but not so much that he was ever expected to be accountable for company decisions. In short, Gorge had prepared a niche for himself, and his fealty to the webs of administration was beyond dispute.

Monday morning saw Gorge arrive slightly early. Entering the lobby, he was annoyed to find he had forgotten that Monday was one of the days that the talkative security guard worked. Ted, a name so insipid it could hardly be more fitting, waved to Gorge as he approached the desk to sign in. “Hey there, Kenny! How was the weekend? Ready for today? No Monday blues?” A stream of questions and comments poured into Gorge's ears as he signed the proffered ledger and handed it back to Ted.

Damned if I know how someone could ever think this was conversation, Kenneth thought while mouthing the appropriate responses. “The weekend was uneventful, Ted. Just caught up on some sleep, some work, you know.” Although you don't, do you? Gorge took a perverse delight in talking about the inanities of Ted's life while thinking of how close his own work was to fruition. Let him prattle; I'll be the one on magazine covers. “Well, it's getting close to that time, Ted. I'll see you later.” Ted smiled stupidly, wished him a good day, and turned to the next victim.

He made his way to the staff room, put his lunch in the fridge, and checked the company billboard. The new complaints and notices were effectively reiterations of the old, and Gorge took a grudging comfort in this. I see Mary needs someone to take a shift for her again... don't know why anyone would have kids if they can't even keep their own schedules straight. Oh, and look! Poor Sara in Human Resources is still sick. Ha! Sick of work, more like. Mary passed by not too much later, hair in disarray and a look of good-natured martyrdom about her. She smiled and waved at Gorge, who waved back back and avoided eye contact.

A great, huge hand suddenly clapped down hard on Gorge's back. Startled, Gorge glanced to the side and saw the imposing form of Robert Longbow, a tower of a man with a head of thick black hair, a well-kept handlebar moustache, and the build of a former athlete who still took care of himself. The friendly menace of his broad, handsome features was fully turned towards Gorge, who had to fight a sudden impulse to curl his lip, or maybe put some distance between them. “Hey there Kenny boy! Checking out our softball team this year? We got us some star material, that's for sure,” he said with a nonchalant confidence that frankly made Gorge uneasy. Star material? It's an amateur softball league, you idiot pimp. Gorge cleared his throat while trying to come up with something to say. Robert had already turned his attention to the board, sparing Gorge the necessary effort. His face took on a genuine look of concern as he rumbled “Hm. Sara's still not feeling well. That's too bad.” Gorge took the opportunity to scuttle to his office.

Having reached the safety of his desk, Gorge turned on his computer and started going through the day's correspondences. He soon found his attention wandering, which was as disturbing as it was uncommon. He first ascribed the distraction to his encounter with Robert, whose chiseled affability never failed to irritate him. But Robert had been no worse today than usual, and Gorge sought elsewhere for blame. Hearing some laughter outside his office, he set his work aside and stalked out, glaring left and right. He spied three workers laughing outside a cubicle. There! There, three slobs, playing around, throwing everybody off. Tapping his wrist, which wore a cheap yet effective watch, Gorge said “We've been on shift for the past fifteen minutes. Try and act like it.” One of the three made a perfunctory response and waved, while the other two exchanged glances and walked away. Let them glare, he thought, puffed with the shade of pride that always followed the admonishment of his peers, I know my job. I know the rules.

But Gorge still could not concentrate. He did manage to isolate the cause: he had filled the margins of a notepad with illustrations of the mushroom. Looking hurriedly through the remaining day's work, Gorge saw that it was not all that critical, nor time consuming. He could therefore justify taking a few minutes here and there to maybe do some research while at work. Reading of known and suspected fungal specimens, Gorge's day passed surprisingly quickly. However, any real investigation would have to wait for when he was off work, or better yet, the weekend. Thus preoccupied, Gorge's normal sanctuary of the workday sped by; thus tantalized, the week never seemed to end.

Neither Plant nor Animal

If nothing else, the work week that followed gave Gorge ample time to reflect on his observations. The spore sample had been successful, and Gorge was happy to see that the cap had left a print the colour of rusted metal. He was less pleased to discover that the damaged stalk had an overpowering odour. Like vinegar and vomit, he considered as he fought to suppress his gag reflex. The other mushrooms had no such smell. Must be a symptom of its being damaged. Noisome, but memorable. Gorge liked that. He was careful to preserve the stalk for further analysis, but had mislaid the cap. This left him with three complete specimens, which he studied in detail over the weeknights that followed.

The caps were probably the most exotic feature of the fungus. Each was about four inches in diameter and three inches deep. The caps were predominantly of a deep brownish red colour, excepting the edges where it graded into a sickly yellow white; its gills were pallid and concave. From the top grew two prongs that looked every bit like two horns. The caps were covered in over a dozen small pores that would occasionally discharge a runny pink fluid. This fluid collected at the edges of the mushroom and hung off as a sort of netting. The strings were surprisingly resistant to damage, but Gorge managed to remove several and deposited them in a specimens case that he stored in a cooler. All the mushrooms he collected produced the runoff, but the odour had so far only occurred with the one he tore from its stalk, so he was not inclined to believe the runoff was the source of the odour.

All in all, it's rather a devilish thing. Yes, that's the word. It has horns and everything. That observation in particular had almost made Gorge laugh aloud at a morning meeting. He stifled the chuckle, but with difficulty. And that netting. Like a trap... no, a veil. And this had caused some consternation in Gorge, as he was unaccustomed to flights of fancy. But it is! It is surely a veil. Then that's its name. The Devil's Veil.

*****

That weekend, Gorge leaped out of bed with an enthusiasm he hadn't felt since... well, ever, probably. He tunelessly hummed in the shower, something catchy he remembered from the radio, and talked out loud when he peeked in on the Devil's Veil samples.

“Don't you worry, little devils. Today, we bring your family on home.” As soon as he spoke, he felt damned foolish. Listen to me, he admonished, talking out loud like a loony. But people talk to pets, don't they? And even to houseplants. “And fungus is neither plant nor animal, but something in between,” he intoned as he prepared for the day's events. Fungus does not photosynthesize like plants do, and it reproduces asexually; it requires neither sunlight nor mate. Nevertheless, it grows; nevertheless, it multiplies.

He would need food, of course, and water. He had protective clothing that would shield him from sunlight, minor abrasions, and other inconveniences. He made sure his camera and cell phone were charged up and set out for the grocer. Wandering amidst the ordered halls of his local supermarket, he eventually selected a half-dozen sandwiches, some fruits, and a bottle of juice. These were packed into the cooler he kept in the trunk, and he was finally off to the ravine.

Arriving while the sun was still reaching its apex, Gorge felt a twinge of satisfaction as he pulled into a parking area overlooking the trails. Only one other car was in the lot; no one was to be seen. I won't be forced into banter with the jocks or the long hairs. Gorge smirked as he began down the path. The vegetation over the established paths was thick, if not actually overgrown, and the heat from the morning sun was trapped by the dense foliage. Gorge was by now quite adept at trudging for extended periods of time, but he was sweating heavily by the time he reached the break in the foliage some forty minutes away.

Going through the break, Gorge glanced over his shoulder. Wouldn't that be fine? Some waffling moron stumbles in and takes the Veil from me. “Huh! Not bloody likely,” he muttered. He passed one hand over his forehead, wiping the sweat away and out of his eyes. A refreshing breeze kicked up, somehow passing through the branches, and Gorge leaned back, almost grateful. But the brief reprieve was curdled by the onset of an overpowering stench. At first, he assumed it was roadkill or some dead animal putrefying in the sun. But it was sharper - more penetrating - than the honeysuckle of decomposition. Vinegar and stomach acid. Devil's Veil.

Gorge shook his head and loudly blew air out his nose. He resorted to breathing through his mouth, struggling against the cloying humidity of the ravine, and looked around. That smell would only occur if something happened to it, to the Veil, if it was damaged. But who would be so barbarous... Gorge stopped short as he encountered the assailant. The same wretched dog he had seen last week, glaring at him, hunched over, with a mouth full of rust brown flesh, mutilated caps of Devil's Veil hanging off its lip. Gorge nearly retched seeing the dog dishonour the Veil so. And what is it doing here anyways? It got so sick the last time.

Looking around, Gorge found another stick. Picking it up, he held it high over his head and made a faltering show of a rush at the mutt. The dog stared back, still eating, apparently unafraid. Or unwilling, Gorge realized, the damn thing's really got a taste for them. His thoughts were interrupted by the breaking of branches and the swears of people unaccustomed to tramping through brush. A young couple stumbled from the brush, wearing layers of carefully mismatched clothing, thick boots, toques, and any number of buttons advertising their favourite bands, quotes, and politics. Disgusting kids. Do they both have, what's the word... dreadlocks? Ridiculous.

“Hey man, awesome for finding our dog,” the boy said, the girl running over to pet the dog.

Wow, that was almost a complete sentence, man. Gorge allowed himself some brief satisfaction at this observation, and said with uncharacteristic confidence, “Not at all. But you should watch him more carefully. I think those mushrooms he's eating are poisonous.” Idiot! Don't tell him about the Veil. He forced a queasy grin; the girl took a step back and made an impatient gesture at the dog. Both of them were standing behind the boy now, who had turned his attention back to Gorge.

“Yeah, yeah, no problem. Thanks, man. Once again, awesome. C'mon, Joy; c'mon, Sophi,” he said, turning around and patting his side. The girl and the dog followed, the girl swiftly overtaking her lover and whispering something to him. Likely about me, no matter though. An invasion of my privacy, really, if you think about it. An invasion. Gorge waited a full five minutes, ensured the invaders were actually leaving, then proceeded the small distance remaining to reach the site of the Veil.

And there it was. A majestic mycelium, Gorge joked to himself. Ho ho, that's really quite good, I'll have to write it down for submission. While he wanted a sample of the mycelium culture from which the Veil mushrooms grew, Gorge did not want to damage the stump in taking the sample. This in turn required that he plunge his hands into the fetid pool. Grimacing, he pulled out rubber gloves and a surgical knife and stared at the water, readying himself. He placed his hands on the surface, and, turning his face, lowered them in. The pool was shallow enough, and he only had to reach in halfway to his elbows before his hands came into contact with a spongy mass. He set his jaw, steeled himself, and pressed the knife down. He flinched, irrationally expecting something to happen: a scream, a spurt of blood, an explosion of spores. Nothing did.

Removing a soggy chunk of soil heavily threaded with visible strands of pale mycelium, Gorge dropped it into a clear bag. He plunged his hands in a second time, and another sample was withdrawn. This one was dropped into a plastic case filled with wood chips and sawdust. Satisfied, even excited, Gorge made an effort at whistling as he made his way back to the car. In the excitement of everything he realized he had forgotten to eat. He pulled the fruits out of his bag and wolfed them down, followed by two of the sandwiches. He was drinking the juice when he heard an ugly animal noise somewhere between a whimper and a retch.

The break in the foliage that lead back to the original path was just up ahead. Between the path and Gorge were the three half-wits he had met earlier. The couple were huddled over the dog, who lay on its side gasping for air. A puddle of brown vomit illustrated what had happened, and Gorge barely concealed a satisfied grin as he approached the party. Attagirl! So much for your baby, ah? Neither plant nor animal, but something over and other. My Veil triumphs.

“Oh, your dog's sick. Sorry. Man.” Gorge offered, refusing to look at the girl. She returned the favour.

The young man looked up and gave an empty headed grin. “Don't even worry, man,” he laughed, “happens all the time. We're just gonna let 'er figure it out, you know?” Gorge shook his head in disbelief. His vision fixated on the idiot in front of him, shifted to the dog, then the vomit. The heat became radically more oppressive, and he could feel blood rushing through his temples. He lurched past the couple, found the trail, and hiked back to his car.

It was nearing sunset when Gorge reached the lot. Where does the day go? He felt lightheaded, giddy even, and suppressed a sudden wave of fatigue that threatened to topple him where he stood. Opening his door, he sat in the driver's seat, bent over at the waist, and dry heaved. I haven't had sunstroke since I was a kid, Gorge wondered, stars still in his eyes, what a goddamn day. The radio played something catchy and banal, Gorge tapped the wheel mindlessly, and the sun came shining through his windows, catching the moisture in his eyes. Things never looked better.

*****

The following week at work was probably the worst in a career that had, until now, always found comfort in its inoffensive adequacy. Monday morning, Gorge arrived some twenty minutes late, found his normal spot occupied, and parked his car in a different space some distance away. Walking through the lobby, Gorge's mind was utterly preoccupied with all that he was discovering about the sample of substrate he had acquired over the weekend. The most confoundingly beautiful thing I have ever known. It is terrifically baffling. He was so lost in his rumination that he barely heard what Ted was saying to him.

“...Kenny? This is the first day I ever seen you late. Late nights, eh?” the guard winked conspiratorially while saying this. Gorge snapped to attention, blinking at the guard, then considered how to respond. Jesus. What would you know of it? Some flicker of his sentiments must have passed over his face, as Ted's manner hardened and he shoved the ledger over to Gorge with feigned indifference. “Just making small talk, bud.” Gorge could barely keep his eyes focused as he set pen to paper: he was exhausted, Ted had been quite right on that. Signing his name, Gorge threw the pen down, and, leaving the ledger where it lay, proceeded through the doors.

The rest of that day was hardly better. While checking the bulletin board, Gorge was again accosted by Robert, being jarred from his reveries by a tremendous clapping blow across his back. Christ, it's that idiotic lump again, he fumed while collecting himself. Looking back he said “Good morning Robert. I would have thought you'd be at your desk right now.”

Taken aback, Robert stared at him for a few seconds. Ha ha! Sports page doesn't quite know how to deal with – but here Gorge was interrupted in his thoughts as Robert threw his head back and laughed. “Look at you, eh, Kenny? Always giving flack... I'm not on the clock for another ten. And you're twenty minutes late there, superstar.”

Gorge realized that Robert was right, of course. The bloody mutant is right! He clenched his hands, trying to find something to say, and gave up, settling for glaring. Robert snapped his mouth shut and stammered some niceties before leaving abruptly. Surprised, Gorge nevertheless congratulated himself on having dealt with Robert so well. Leaving the billboard, Gorge noticed Robert talking with Sara, back from the dead, apparently, and another employee. All three stopped whispering and looked elsewhere as Gorge passed, although he thought he heard Sara mumble something about a funeral. Laying the groundwork for less work, and with that he entered his office, shutting the door behind him.

He was not late again that week, but on Thursday he had entered into a very strange altercation in the cafeteria. Gorge was not a frequent visitor to the cafeteria owing to the noise, the false friendliness, the generally farmyard atmosphere of the place, but on this occasion he was without lunch. When he had pulled his brown bag out of the staff fridge, he found it empty barring a crumpled piece of saran wrap and a half eaten apple covered in short white hairs. The culprit owns a cat or dog. That narrows it down to a couple hundred. Heaving the sigh of a martyr, Gorge dug around in his coat pockets for some change and headed to the lunch room.

The serving area of the cafeteria consisted of two long tables laden with foods, one hot meals, the other fruits and salads. Employees were expected to serve themselves, take their servings to a cashier at the end of the table, and pay using cash or a prepaid lunch card, like some goddamn kid. Gorge made his way past the offerings, not particularly impressed with any of them, when he suddenly found himself at the end of the line and facing a red-faced staff member.

“Just what the hell are you doing, man? You can't do that!” the staff member fumed. Gorge shook his head and took a step back, raising his hands in supplication. What? Why? Is this lunatic... He looked around for some sort of assistance, bewilderment overwhelming him. The overhead lights, the murmur of conversation, the smells of cooking food, all blended into a single dizzying sensation as the cashier continued his tirade. “You ass! Keep your hands off the food!”

At this, everyone had laughed, and Gorge felt the modicum of power his long practised tyranny had accrued slipping away. He looked down and saw that, yes, there were remnants of food on his platter, along with several strands of sickly white hair. Gorge's stomach growled. Then he heard Robert's booming voice, audible over the cafeteria, shouting “Wow, Kenny, didn't you have enough to eat already? That bag lunch was huge.” And the room erupted in laughter.

Mobilization in Growth

Three weeks had passed since the incident in the cafeteria. On the one hand, Gorge had every reason to be optimistic concerning the novelty of his Devil's Veil, as he had been unable to find anything remotely resembling it in any of his sources. The pink secretions that made up the netting around the cap were vaguely similar to those of the bleeding tooth fungus, and the rusty colouring of the spores was a bit closer to common than he would have liked, but in all he was optimistic. Not a thing to worry about on that score.

The tray cultures were flourishing, resting in an aquarium dedicated to their growth. The cultures grew like nothing he had ever seen, and Gorge found himself accelerating his schedule of study by entire weeks. For one thing, the initial culture had completely absorbed its nutrient agar and covered the petri dish on which it was being raised in under a day. This was not completely unheard of, but it was generally uncommon for such growth to occur in fewer than several days. The culture in turn was able to inoculate the spawn in three days, a process that would normally take at least two weeks. And the spawn had completely and throughly insinuated mycelium throughout the bulk substrate he had provided it with in under a week, which was at least three or four times faster than what might otherwise be hoped for.

In a fit of curiosity, Gorge had left a bit of splintery wood in the aquarium one night, one jagged end leaning against the uppermost glass and the other planted firmly in the substrate. The next night, Gorge shifted the wood to take a look. When he lifted the branch, it came apart into a haphazard network of splinters held together by a thick network of mycelium threads that spread throughout it like fine hair. It had eaten the entire chunk of decrepit wood within a single night. Although, of course, it had not merely eaten; it grew. Fungus utilized growth as its principal means of mobility. Fungus doesn't go to the market, it grows there. Gorge had giggled a little at this, and thus reminded, gathered his things for a trip to the grocer.

On the other hand, nothing beyond the Veil seemed to do very much good for Gorge. Two weeks ago, Gorge had called in sick to work. For the first time since Mother's funeral, for the first time in six years! Gorge permitted himself a small smile at the achievement: six years with nary an interruption from his personal life. The truth was that he was simply too exhausted to go to work. He had spent the past three nights in the ravine, having camped there from Friday evening to Monday morning. The weather had been invitingly warm when Kenneth got home Friday evening, and a light rain had sprung up from an apparently clear sky. It would have been crazy for him not to have gone to the ravine.

I just wish I had thought to bring a tent.

*****

The overgrown ground had been further softened by the rain, and Gorge had fashioned workable bedding by stuffing some extra layers of clothing with some brush and old newspaper. He was not too far from the stump where his Veil grew, and it had been easy to keep an eye on things from his camping spot. Water had been easily obtained from a number of nearby sources, but he had forgotten about food until late Saturday. The hotter part of the day had been spent lying under the low hanging branches of a thick pine tree, staring up into its boughs. A considerable period of time was spent slowly spooling a long, white thread he had found lodged under a fingernail; this was accompanied by a sensation like that of pulling thread between forefinger and thumb, except that it extended up his forearm and past his elbow. Gorge's thoughts grew increasingly disorganized as noon approached, and the lights and sounds of the ravine had driven him to this cool refuge.

He remembered raiding a picnic Saturday evening. Or was it a birthday party? The picnickers had brought two buckets of fried chicken, along with cake, pop, and other snacks. The savoury smell of semi-solid fats had drawn Gorge to the site. He stumbled into the open, shielding his eyes from the fading sunlight with one dirty hand. His hand were often dirty anymore, and he had noticed a grainy rash spreading to his palms and forearms. Three kids sitting on a blanket watched him with the frank curiosity of children.

“Well, hello there, uh... kids. What's happening? Where are your parents?” he had asked, immediately feeling that he had committed some offence. Grown-ups can't just ask that, he admonished himself, Jesus, they'll think you're crazy. Fuck it... I need to get some of that food. He opened his mouth to speak again when the older of the three whispered to his sister, who got up and ran a few meters from the campsite. Putting distance between herself and Gorge. Moving in front of the youngest, the oldest boy dug into a bucket and fished out two drumsticks.

Handing them to Gorge, the boy said “Here, mister. And watch your mouth. You're not supposed to swear.” Gorge grabbed the drumsticks, stuffed one into his mouth, and was on the verge of expressing gratitude around one greasy mouthful when he saw the girl returning with two adults behind her. One of them, an older male, the father most likely, was pointing at him and shouting. Gorge never heard him. He had already made his retreat, gobbling the drumstick, cracking the bones, and sucking the marrow from them. It was delicious.

At any rate, he got home Monday morning before the sun had come up. He called in sick, and collapsed into his recliner. He shook himself out of bed well after noon, cotton headed, thirsty, and starving. He drew his blinds, stumbled into the washroom, and put his head under the tap. He filled the sink, drank its contents, refilled it, and drank again. Feeling somewhat better, Gorge made his way to the living room, which was now home to two large aquariums and a washtub, all of which had been filled with substrate, all of which held flourishing Devil's Veil colonies.

After checking in on the little ones, after making sure they ate all their proteins, Gorge sang a little. He was tuneless of course, and the words were not particularly coherent, but the Veil never seemed to mind. One more advantage over pets and houseplants, he had thought, congratulations are in order. And with that, Gorge had gone to see the grocer.

*****

Kenneth was still unsure as to the exact unfolding of events that fateful trip, but he had been able to put together enough to know the general outline. Inside the store, Gorge had been dazzled at the array of sights and smells, foods and colours, easy listening muzak over invisible speakers, intangible entities delivering bounties unheard of. Blinded by the consumer's oasis, he had stumbled from one aisle to another, colliding with other carts or barely missing them. Sometimes a shopper would greet him, or mutter something low and hostile. It was all very surreal.

Gorge remembered that at some point he became aware of how messy the store was: his hands were covered in grease, and rust-brown particles had collected under his nails. He held one apple close to his eye in order to inspect the white strands that hung between its pulp and his hand. He had looked up to find himself face to face with an irate store manager, balding, short, paunchy. But for his glasses and rather sickly effort at a moustache, the manager might have been his own twin. Gorge had smiled in warm welcome; the manager flinched. Apparently, several of the customers had reported that Gorge was seen rummaging through wrapped items with his bare hands. Dazed by the rapidity of these events, Gorge offered a stumbling argument, but the manager only grew louder and pointed at his cart. The cart was in a total state of disarray. It had been filled with an appetizing larder of half-eaten foods and opened beverage containers.

Gorge had been forced to spend the next day in a holding cell while the cops processed him. The arresting officer had been especially difficult, jumped up security guard, which troubled Gorge, who had always treated policemen with a respect bordering on obsequious.

Officer Klasky had lectured Gorge all the way to the precinct. “Do ya have meds you should be taking?” The answer was negative. “Well, that's a real gross way to treat your supermarket, bud. And your car!” What about my car? Gorge need not have wondered; no sooner had he finished this thought then Klasky was informing him. “Rotten fruit, old meat... Christ, bud, there was a burger in there that had to have been a few weeks old!”

At any rate, Gorge ended up missing three days of work rather than the one he had called in sick for. When he went back to the office Thursday afternoon, he was told to wait by the security guard. Not Ted, he noted, no, good old Ted can take a day off. After waiting for an indeterminable period of time, he had been ushered into Human Resources, where Sara informed him he would be placed on a leave of absence for the next thirty days while the company processed his claims. He didn't really hear all the details, and at some point Sara had accused him of slandering her unborn child. Afterwards, while Gorge was returning to his car, he noticed a cleaning crew was removing the old fridge from the staff room. The smell must have been terrible, as every member of the crew was wearing an air filter. Thirty days away will do me good. This place is falling apart.

*****

So it was that Gorge returned to the ravine. He had typed his findings some time ago, but had yet to submit them for publishing. The more he learned of his Veil, the less important the accolades seemed. Besides which, the Veil approved, as Gorge had submitted his rough copies to the substrate. But there was still a great deal to uncover, and questions continuously percolated in Gorge concerning its properties. For instance, what of noble Sophi? Or was it Joy? What happened to an organism that consumed the Veil? Or did so regularly? The thought of the Veil's destruction promised revulsion; the knowledge to be gleaned from its consumption threatened revelation.

Inspired by such thoughts, Gorge resolved to study the Veil more closely in its natural habitat. He packed his cooler to the brim with foods and juices, whisking rust-brown particulate from the corners. He bought a pup tent and a flashlight, although he did not think he would have much use for the latter. His eyesight had gotten better since his discovery, the exhilaration must be having a healing effect, and he could see in near-dark as surely as if it were noon. Better, actually, since the newfound sensitivity to light meant he had frequent migraines when exposed to sunlight. Well, a door is closed, a window opened, Gorge cheered himself. Now if only I could remember who it was that said that... Shakespeare.


Gorge polished off a jug of water as he pulled into the lot overlooking the ravine. He tossed the container into the back of the car where it joined a growing pile of debris. Taking out a tent, he scooped the contents of the cooler into a bag, and made his way down the trail. Gorge kept an eye out for the three kids who had pointed him out to their parents. Rotten upstarts. But Gorge wasn't really mad at them, and his grousing was more habitual than sincere.

“What's that?” An enquiry made from outside his peripheral.

Freezing in place, Gorge thought to himself, is that meant for me? What happened now? Without turning his head, he slowly said “Hello? What's what?” His head stayed fixed downwards, his shadow providing his sight with some refuge from the glaring light overhead. From the accusing voice behind.

A snicker. “What's an upstart? I'm not giving you a hard time, man, I was just wondering.” And with the utterance of that monosyllabic crutch Gorge knew exactly to whom he spoke. It was Man, man. He laughed, a little giddily, and turned around. He was right. There the boy stood, a sheepish stoner in the same tattered clothes as before, with the notable absence of Sophi and Joy.

With genuine curiosity, Gorge asked where they had gone. The boy shrugged with negligence, with elegance, and said “Dunno, man. She was a trip though. Dog was hers, get the one, get the other... sort of a package deal. Few weeks ago, man, we argued. Turned into a whole thing, she split.” The boy pushed one greasy lock out of his eyes, laughed. Then, looking back at Gorge, he held out his hand and said “I'm Rich, man... although I'm not a rich man.” He laughed again at that; the boy laughed easily.

Gorge took the hand, pumped it, introduced himself. Both Kenneth and Rich looked down at their hands. Kenneth looked merely amused, while Rich was genuinely confused for a split second. “Hey, what is this grainy stuff, man? It feels like bud. Smells like something else, though... like vinegar and fries, or something.” Rich wiped his hand off on his pants, with no malicious intent. Kenneth, for his part, continued to stare at his hand.

Without lifting his eyes from the faintly green streak of residue that had been wiped into his palm, Gorge said gregariously “How would you like to see something great?” A great discovery. It will put my name into history. Rich agreed that would be something to see, and so accompanied Gorge to the birthing place of the Devil's Veil.

*****

Rich proved to be most appreciative of the Veil, and had asked a multitude of questions about it. Why did it have horns? Where did it come from? Could it be eaten? This last question had been asked many times, and each time Gorge had replied that he did not yet know. Captivated, Rich had asked for permission to accompany Gorge to his home. He agreed. Entering the front door, the two of them were met by a wave of vinegar and bile.

The Veil welcomed them, and Rich nodded in agreement, staring into the house from the front porch. Gorge could hardly blame him. Noting with distress that the Veil had saturated its environment in the aquarium, Gorge had set about laying as many more tray cultures as he could. He had quickly filled an additional aquarium, as well as several more conventional containers. He proceeded to use whatever he could find that could hold substrate, lashed it to the ceiling, and was now growing well over a dozen column cultures. These pillars of mealy substrate, red buboes, and veins of fibrous white mycelium hung around the room, occasionally twisting lazily on the string frames they hung from.

Most of the furniture as well as a stand for an entertainment system had also been sacrificed; broken and reconfigured, the furniture had been used to create standing cultures in basic wooden frames that now leaned against the walls. But the centre of the living room remained relatively clear, excepting a collection of bowls and basins with varying levels of water in them. Gorge took up his customary spot in the middle of these bowls, inviting young Rich to sit with him. He raised one bowl to his lips while he did so, his other hand idly trailing its fingers in another bowl nearby.

In the end, Gorge was really quite happy he had met Rich. It was Rich who had asked so feverishly about the effects of consuming the Veil; it was Rich who remembered they had seen the dog eating it, and that the dog only got a little bit sick from eating a very large amount. Rich suggested the same thing would have happened if the dog had eaten something called a magic mushroom, which was a pretty perfect name, really, and the two had decided to nibble at a cap. Yes, Gorge was quite happy with that; without young Rich, he would never have even thought of ingesting the Veil. Similarly, he couldn't recall ever having seen a dog do anything so foolish.

Later on, the two set out to find something to eat. Besides which, Gorge was monstrously thirsty, it was just beginning to rain, and so the two stepped out into that good night.

Growth Through Decay

Four more weeks passed; Gorge had now been acquainted with the Devil's Veil for nine. Rich had come and gone. He had proved quite helpful during his stay. The windows were completely taped over with tinfoil and a blanket had been stapled to the frame, resulting in a total blockage of sunlight. Sunlight was unnecessary, and Gorge did not miss it; it failed to feed any of his appetites. More importantly, Rich had been the one to bring in the humidifiers that even now soaked the room with moisture.

But Rich's mobility ultimately proved to be his undoing. He had left home during the day, near noon. Gorge had been giddy with a flush of heat and moisture, standing in the centre of his living room with his arms thrown wide. This had been common behaviour then. Even now, the noonday sun still signalled the beginning of a period of near-total paralysis that afflicted him for the better part of three hours. Back then, he had only the one appendage and no way of monitoring its activities while he rested.

Rich had sought out Joy and Sophi, the fungus in the dog's stomach signalling its location. Sympathetic magic of the simplest sort; cellular sorcery. The girl answered the door, irritated at first and then scared. The dog barked wildly, unable to attack after being debilitated by a sudden onset of stomach cramps. The Veiled were altruists, and needed no prompting. The girl fought hard, showing that frustrating force and direction so common to her kind. Rich had fumbled forwards, bursting past the open door and into her home. He could have left then, having already done all that would be necessary for Gorge to infiltrate her home. But he had been afflicted by zealotry, and he pursued the girl into her own nest. She had cut him several times with a knife, holding him back long enough that two policemen had come to her rescue.

Rich had been incapacitated with heavy blows. He provided no explanation for his behaviour and was placed in a holding cell for processing. His erratic behaviour had not endeared him to his captors, and Rich had been transferred to a psychiatric facility where he had been subjected to intensive decontamination. Further contact had been impossible, but the events had not been without benefit. The holding cell had, after all, been a warm, sheltered area, with a hardwood floor and constant foot traffic. Still, Gorge would have preferred that Rich had not been captured. He felt a brief stirring of the old anxieties.

*****

Robert Longbow hovered attentively over Gorge, who was seated in a lawn chair at the centre of his living room. Both Gorge and the chair were covered in a swollen fungous mass, his flesh a pallid white congery with hints of fevered yellow. Rust-brown buboes of a harder, callused material bulged out from rents in his flesh. Gorge's chest lay split open, revealing a pulpy, fibrous thing where his heart should have been, hanging in a web of mycelium thread so thick it looked like cotton. His bones were spongy and warped, and the rest of his cavity was full to bursting with fruiting bodies of Devil's Veil, their horned caps questing forwards from long, sinuous stalks. Atop all this rolled the faintly familiar outline of Kenneth's old face, one cheek of which had been eradicated to make room for the Devil's Veil blooming out of an old cavity he had.

A weak smile crept across the remains of his face as Robert sprinkled water over him. Having performed his duties, Robert cast an enquiring glance at Gorge, who signalled his approval. No words were necessary for the exchange, and Gorge had to do nothing more than transmit his sentiments to the colony that was even now gestating in Robert's stomach. Robert smiled, took a knee, and carefully snapped a Devil's Veil from Gorge's torso. A milky fluid with veins of red oozed from the space, followed by the distinctive smell of the Veiled sacrament. It was the vestiges of hemoglobin that made the fluid so ugly; soon, it would be uniformly pink, runny and sour.

He could taste the necrotization of protein; his skin tingled with the deconstruction of his environment; he grew in the annihilation of himself.

*****

Its recomposition neared completion. A great column occupied the place of its former location, its former occupant, its former host. The entire living room and the majority of the house had been saturated by its being. Its spore had been impressed on the clothes of a multitude, the deliverymen delivering such delerium the head spun. Its sites of growth proved profusely populated; prey to predate, and predators to persuade, its spores could influence the bizarre sugar-and-fat machinery of its competitors. And its colonies were robust. It could penetrate every organic material it encountered.

This was appropriate to its station; it needed few things, but it did need. It needed water, it needed darkness, it needed protein. It was practising with stone; it would master metal.

One of the humidifiers sputtered. Robert came in and gave it a sharp slap with his hand, spore shaking loose from a skein of rust brown running from his palm to his index finger. The appendage will replace the unit tomorrow, and it will be fine. Robert nodded and made his way back to the kitchen where he oversaw the receipt of the various deliveries.

People dropped in all the time now, bringing with them juices, or fruits, or meats, in varying states of decay or putrefaction. It no longer needed food to be decomposed; it had found that acid worked well in expediting the digestive procedure. The corpses of dogs, cats, birds, and squirrels were common. A nest had been made of these offerings, and there was a soup of decomposing animals covering the floor. Twice, people had seen some evidence of the Veil who had proved unworthy of the image. They had been stored in the cellar until their machinery could be rendered into substrate, which required nothing more than their exposure to some spores.

The Veil was sure to translate chemical storage to cellular memory, thereby preserving in tissue whatever its food had preserved in memory. Sometimes the voices and sentiments of digested beings rose from the bubbling morass of sensations comprising the Veil's normal condition. This was always amusing: the echoes of goldfish dreams.

Gorge no longer thought of numbers, but if he did he would have known that the Devil counted thirty three among the Veiled. Its appendages proved receptive; holy laughter accompanied its entrance, and its appendages clasped in prayer. For each note, a symbol. From symbols, the experience. Its network was a symphony.

Blissful and free, it's not me, thought Gorge, surfacing languidly one last time, the Devil inveigled me to it.

Such harmonies!