Tires screeched against stone as the car swerved onto the landscape, then the wheels hit the bare earth and spat up clouds of dust.

The force of the turn rolled the creature onto its side. One of the beast’s oral tentacles tensed, and then it stabbed into the hood, piercing the metal and gripping tight to hold itself in place. It shrieked, gurgled, and roared. It bore its weight onto the car, lurched both to the side, knocking Zelen over.

He hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt.

Valny screamed as he fired again, but the creature riposted, smashing through the windshield with a limb made from a feathered raptor’s head. The raptor’s jaws snapped, one of the fungal tentacles sprouting from its eye-sockets lashed out at the mercenary, smacking the gun out of his hands. A paw studded with slices of human faces pressed down on Valny’s chest, pinning him in his seat.

Zelen thrusted his legs at the creature. He caught it off guard and kicked it hard, making the monster flinch, but only for a moment, but it gave Valny the window he needed. The mercenary scraped his mask past the beasts’ paw-pads as he slipped down and grabbed his rifle. Valny shot the creature in the mouth, at the heart of its rosette of oral tentacles.

With an unearthly screech, the beast withdrew its paw, and then splayed its body across the windshield as it scrambled onto the car’s flank, eclipsing the view.

“Fuck!” Nitsky swore. “I can’t see!”

The beast was far longer than any animal ought to be. Rotting feathers and lichenous fur pressed against the half-shattered windshield. Masses of insects, leaves, and dead bark had fused into its flesh, and they grated the car as the creature crawled. Its body was a meld of three different creatures at once: two tigers, fused end to end, capped in a large feathered raptor. It writhed, wormlike, flailing many pairs of legs as it clambered onto the driver’s-side window. Its head was a rosette of tentacles lined with birds’ heads and protruding bones alongside things like memories of mouths, all of them famished and ravenous.

Nitsky swerved left and right, trying to shake it off, but to no avail.

And so, it fell to Dr. Slavaa. With a gulp, the virologist drew on the power within him. The power frightened him, and he barely knew what he was doing, but it was better than nothing. It had to be. It wasn’t just death that spurred him to act: he didn’t want to be alone any longer.

He wanted something more than mere ghosts.

As the wheels screeched and tentacles flailed and dirt flew skyward, Zelen made a laser of his thoughts. He focused all his willpower, concentrating it on a single spot on the side of the car, near to where he thought its head would be.

Force jerked the car’s side with explosive power. The car’s front-left wheel body blasted off into the axel, but the monster dodged the blow with an unnatural swerve..

Fuck.

The car screeched. Soil sprayed up as the naked axel tore through the ground. Sparks spurted and rained as the car swerved over paved paths, pelting the creature’s head.

The monster let out a shriek of rage, and then bashed its oral tentacles into the driver’s-side window, once, twice, thrice. The reinforced glass cracked.

The shrieking axel growled as it crossed onto a long stretch of pavement.

With the engine screaming in his ears, Dr. Slavaa threw himself at Nitsky and reached for the tentacle. The virologist grabbed it, squeezed its wriggling muscles and pulled. He tore the tentacle loose with a sickening rip, freeing the driver’s neck.

The car swerved as gravity had its way.

And then they crashed. The impact was spectacular. Its force ripped the severed tentacle out of Zelen’s grasp and flung the three men forward, smacking them into the dashboard as the car plowed into and then through a structure they couldn’t see. Metal crunched against twisted flesh as the beast bore the brunt of the impact. The engine sputtered. A great pressure crushed the monster’s body against the broken windshield, and then there was a sick wet squish, and everything shook, and then the beast fell silent.

Inertia set in; the car groaned as it came to a stop. Steam billowed up from the hole in the engine hood with a long, hot hiss, condensed thick in the frigid Night air.

Nitsky coughed. Valny groaned. Zelen blinked. The virologist fumbled his arms, palming around until he found and pulled the door handle and clawed his way out of the car. He staggered about in the cold Night, his lagging nervous system still telling his body that everything was spinning. It took a second for the world to make sense again, and as soon as it did, Dr. Slavaa rushed to open the driver’s door, and then bent over to help the man out of his seat. The lights from the car’s cabin spilled out into the Night for a moment, only to flicker and fall to darkness.

Nitsky stumbled to his feet, coughing all the way. He looked around. “Where’s the package?” he rasped.

“I’ve got it,” Valny said, softly. He crawled over to the driver’s seat and out through the door, the black plastic case firmly in his hand.

Nitsky leaned against the side of the car. “What the fuck was that?” He stared at the wreck in front of them.

The SUV had careened through an ornate metal fence at the far end of the Zoo where it had crashed into a stone wall, the back end of some building. The raptor-tiger-tiger creature had been impaled on the fence, where its body was now strung out like noodles on barbed wire.

“I,” Zelen cleared his throat, “I think it was the zoo animals. Well… some of them, anyhow.” But then he shuddered: the strips of flesh splayed across the fence were beginning to wriggle of their own accord.

It did not bode well for anyone.

Nistky’s eyes widened. “What?”

The virologist shook his head. “We barely understand what the Green Death does to humans. Who knows what it might do to other organisms?”

As if to answer them, unnatural cries echoed through the flickering, lamp-lit Night. The noises meshed with the sounds of war and the wails of human misery scattered in the deep. And above it all, still, that pipe-organ choir thrummed in the darkness, filling the Night with their unearthly song.

Valny slapped the steaming wreckage. “Well,” he coughed, “the car’s shot.”

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The disordered song of the choir beyond coalesced into an eerie unison. It was louder than before. It made all three of them shiver at the sound, but none more than Zelen.

Valny squatted low and hissed. “Quiet!” He glared at Zelen and Nitsky. “Keep your heads down!”

Zelen and Nitsky knelt to the ground. The virologist winced as a shard of glass cut into one of his shins.

Valny surveyed their surroundings with his expert eyes. Unlocking the case on his arm, he pulled back a sliding cover to expose an active console screen, which he then tapped twice before closing the cover once more. A green beam of light shot out from a small unit on the side of Valny’s headgear, to guide the way forward.

At last—after what felt like an eternity, Valny simply said, “This isn’t good.”

“So we’re fucked,” Nitsky said, with a shake of his head. “We’re fucking fucked. Even the Mr. Virologist here coulda told you that, Valny Nikolaivich.”

“What do you mean?” Zelen said, as meekly as he could manage.

Nitksy spat onto the brick pavement. “I’m not a superstitious man, but,” he stabbed a finger in the direction of the creature’s still-twitching remains, “when God throws shit like this at you, that’s destiny’s way of telling you that you’re fucked, end of story!”

It looked like it was stitching itself back together from the inside, slowly, but surely.

Nitsky made the Bond-sign, muttering, “Moonlight guide me.”

Valny huffed. “Colorful, but on point. Considering the number of large animals at the Zoo,” he pointed at the creature, “it’s a safe bet there are plenty more abominations like that wandering around.” He shook his head. “Yeah, this ain’t good.”

Nistky pointed at the gardens with a trembling finger. “I’m not going back out there. Without the car, we’d be exposed on all sides. Those things would be on us like wolves; we wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Valny nodded. “We’ll have to go through the zoo.”

“How will that be any safer?” Zelen asked.

“Less exposure. We might even be able to sneak through without getting detected, though I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Enough talk,” Nitsky hissed. “Time’s not on our side. The aerostats’ll be leaving any minute now, assuming the troops haven’t already blown them sky high.”

Valny nodded. “Follow me.” He brought a single finger up to his gas mask. “And, Dr. Slavaa, if our lives have any value: be quiet.”

And so they entered. The whole experience didn’t feel real to him.

Valny and Nitsky squatted in the shadows, creeping around corners like children playing make-believe as they made their way through the Zoo, and Dr. Slavaa did his best to follow suit, but that didn’t make it feel any less crazy. The past week had been a nightmare, and Zelen wanted nothing more than to wake up and for everything to be normal again. He could go for a walk in the morning, before he had to report to the lab. The food cart on Nardogov and Fintslin served the best syrnyky on this side of the city, with raisins and pears mixed into the batter and coated in a battle of sour cherry varenye and buttery sweet cream. The days when he could look forward to seeing the sunflowers again, when they bloomed with the next coming of summer.

But it was not to be. Just like Ekaterina would never graduate with her degree.

Things like this aren’t supposed to happen anymore.

And yet, they did. And there was no justice in it.

The virologist found it difficult to proceed. His mouth watered with every step. Something was whipping him into a frenzy. Perhaps the sweet stench in the air?

He was hungry. So hungry.

But onward they crept. On more than one occasion, Dr. Slavaa was nearly on his hands and knees.

The shadows seemed to move.

Chaos had paid the zoo a visit. It must have happened days ago. Now, only the aftermath remained. Fungal growths pressed onto glass walls from within the greenhouses scattered across the grounds. Some seemed almost human-like: like hands and faces, begging for help. Perhaps, days ago, they had been. The pathways and courtyards were the workshop of a painter of horrors. Dark fluids smeared across the pavement, suggestive of corpses being dragged across the floor, or—more likely—dragging themselves. The information booths and food kiosked that populated the Zoo’s grounds were toppled over and ravaged. Doors to the animal cages were wide open, as were the gates to the pens, and the habitats. The metal squealed softly on its hinges as it swung in the sweet-scented wind.

And everything was coming up fungus.

“The Green Death isn’t an infection,” Valny whispered, “it’s an invasion.”

The corpses bore witness to the horrors, and the fungus did not discriminate. It killed all and twisted all: human, animal, tree and grass; even the buildings themselves had begun their gruesome metamorphosis. The walls of the display pavilions—the Reptile Room, the Mammal House—split open as the fungus replaced their architecture with its own. Bloated lilypads bobbed in the watering holes, curling their fronds and filaments around the nearest surfaces. Some of the pads had continued to swell, inflating like balloons, and filled with spores and floating firefly lights. Zelen stumbled on a large crack in the pavement where the ground had been tilted upward by fungal outgrowth from the ground below. It was like the plague was converting the very earth beneath their feet.

Wings thwick-thwicked over the three wanderers’ heads. Most moved too quickly for Zelen to get a good look at them, except for one, whose form cast a silhouette as it flitted past a lamppost’s somber orange glow. Zelen saw a distended tangle of too-many twitching wings. Root-like structures dangled from its underside. Swollen bulbs glowed on their backs.

The sight made Dr. Slavaa groan. Saliva pooled in his mouth.

“C’mon, Dr. Slavaa,” Valny said, turning back to face him. “We’ve got a flight to catch.”

But the virologist sank down onto one knee. He clutched his stomach.

Zelen had always prided himself on his strength of will. It had allowed him to see his projects through to completion, no matter the time they demanded of him; no matter the agonies and worries; no matter the sleepless nights. It was like his father had always said: a man without convictions is a memory waiting to be forgotten.

But now?

The ground was molasses beneath his feet. Zelen’s strength was oozing out of him. The world seemed to spin. Drool pooled beneath his tongue.

He was starving.

Delirious, fumbling through the wan ochre light, Zelen reached for the nearby fence to steady himself, only to hear a creaking noise and feel something moist and pliable instead of cold iron. The contact stung, and though the feeling was strangely pleasant, he still winced and pulled his arm away. Then, he heard a soft ripping sound and stared.

He gasped. His breath was the palest green in the cold Night.

The fence wasn’t just covered in fungal growth, it had ruptured with them. Rich nodules and tendrils broke open the hollow handrail from within, meeting up with the twisting tendrils and foliose masses that encrusted the metal’s surface. Where Zelen had touched it, the fungus had fused to his palm. A portion of the fence had simply torn free when he’d drawn his arm away.

Nitsky screamed at the sight and scrambled back, stumbling to the ground.

Zelen shook his arm, but it wouldn’t come off. He pumped his legs and ran away—suddenly filled with energy—only to rip more of the foul thing off the ground. Rustling noises and quiet gurgles filled the air. A tickling, muscle-spasm sensation wriggled at the point of contact. The fungus’ link with Zelen’s body thickened and pulsed as mass inchwormed into him through it. Corrupted shrubs and infected corpses—interlinked by the mycelial web—grayed and deflated as the harvested biomass was pumped into Dr. Slavaa’s body. The hyphae contracted, pulling twisted biology toward him.

Zelen grabbed the connection and tried to rip it off, but his hands fused with it as soon as he touched it. His sleeves swelled—cufflinks bursting—as the fungus pumped him full of flesh. The incoming biomass sunk into him, melting like butter on a skillet. Little ripples quivered at the edges of the foreign masses as his skin feasted on the meal.

And Zelen changed.

His left hand melted into three fingers, wickedly clawed. His right arm—where the connection had first been made—thickened and lengthened, swelling with new muscle. Zelen’s torso popped up, ripping his parka, as his spine cracked and grew. Suddenly, he was bigger and bulkier than both of the mercenaries combined.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Valny aimed his rifle and fired multiple rounds into Dr. Zelen Slavaa’s chest. Pain seared at Zelen’s chest, and on pure reflex, Zelen pressed his changing hands into the bullet wounds, trying to stem the flow of blood. Only there was no blood. There was no heat; no spreading, seeping moisture. Just pain—and even that was fading rapidly.

Zelen stuck out his hands in a gesture of surrender. The connecting tendril snapped at a thin point, and what remained slurped into Zelen’s body. His right hand twitched as his fingers fused and grew, the clawed digits now bigger than his face.

“Please, stop!” he begged, I’m not—”

Valny fired again.