I first noticed something was off the day after Christmas.
My husband Brad and I had driven down from the city for a few days to spend time with my parents. It had been going as well as it could, I guess.
The holiday meals are always weird for me because I’m a vegetarian. My dad hates this.
“You’re insulting your mother,” he said loudly over our Christmas Eve dinner, his mouth full of mashed potatoes. “It’s not normal to not eat chicken.”
“Dad,” I began, “I’ve been vegetarian for years. You know that.”
“Aww, come on. It’s just chicken! Your mother worked hard on this.”
My mother gave me an uncomfortable glance.
“I’ll eat her slice,” my husband interjected, winking at me as he reached for the platter and loaded his plate with several slabs of white meat. I rolled my eyes and made a silly face at him that made him grin.
My husband tolerated my family somewhat better than I did. Easy for him- he didn’t grow up with them. Sometimes I felt like my parents liked him more than me. Whatever.
I did my best to tune out my father’s news and politics -fueled complaining at the other end of the table, focusing instead on my green beans and sweet potatoes.
“So honey,” my mother asked a few minutes later, “When are you two going to finally give us a grandchild?”
“Mom!” I yelled. “Seriously?!”
“Well honey you aren’t getting any younger.”
“Thanks a lot.”
I resented this line of questioning. My husband knew how I felt, and rescued me again.
“I don’t know if we’re ready for that yet.” Our eyes locked briefly.
“Well don’t put it off for too long,” she sniffed. I knew she was judging me, assuming it was all my fault, that I was a heartless bitch denying my husband of his god-given right to children.
But that wasn’t remotely true. I just wasn’t ready to reveal that we had actually been trying for a baby for several months now, with no success.
Long after we cleared the table and my parents went to bed, Brad and I sat together on the basement couch watching reruns of The Office.
“I’m starting to get a headache,” he complained.
“Do you want some excedrin?” I asked. “I think there’s some still in my purse.”
“No, actually,” he said slowly, running his hand down my back. “But I wouldn’t mind doing something else.”
My mind turned back to my mothers questioning at the dinner table. I smiled lazily.
“Sure. I’m sure they’re asleep already anyway.”
I knew from years of high school experimentation that the basement was blissfully soundproof to the rest of the house.
The day had been chaotic and loud, and I couldn’t think of a better way to end it than with some quiet time together in the glow of the basement tv.
After we finished up we slipped into bed, but our rest was short lived. I awoke hours later to Brad tossing and turning next to me under the covers.
“Stop moving,” I complained. “Just lay still and go the hell to sleep.” I’m a deep sleeper, always have been, and I hate waking up in the middle of the night.
“I can’t sleep,” he huffed, jerking the blanket.
I sat up and shook his shoulder. “What’s wrong? Really. Do you need another pillow?”
He sighed, and turned the lamp on. “My head still hurts. I.. I think I’m getting a big zit back there. There’s a knot, I can feel it.”
I frowned. “Turn over, let me look at it.” I never missed an opportunity to squeeze a zit.
But one look at the back of his head killed any zit- popping excitement I had. A huge lump the size of a golf ball had risen up on the back of his head. I gripped his skull to get a better look.
“You’re burning up,” I said. “Something’s wrong.”
“Really?” he asked, his face muffled by the pillow.
I cautiously probed the lump with my finger.
“Ow!” he barked. “Quit. That shit hurts.”
“I barely touched it! I think you need to go to urgent care.”
He swore. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Not right now.”
“Ok, let’s look at it in the morning,” I relented.
We fell into a few hours of fitful sleep before getting up the next day. Brad truly looked awful, with glassy eyes and flushed skin. My mother chattered nervously about the flu. I was more concerned with the lump on his head, which was now swollen to the size of a goose egg.
I shepherded him to the car. My mother followed us, a bagel in hand. I rolled my eyes.
“He’s not going to starve in 30 minutes, mom!”
That’s when I saw it. The buttons on her cardigan were all in the wrong holes, and her eyes look glassy too- or was I just imagining things?
“Come on,” I said to Brad, giving him a push towards the door as he shoved a piece of bagel in his mouth.
We were fortunate that my parents lived just a few miles from the local hospital. We walked into the nearly empty ER and began filling out paperwork.
“Just come with me,” he shrugged, when his name was called.
We took a seat in the small exam room. The nurse frowned at his high temperature. “Hon, I’m going to test you for flu.” She looked at me. “You ought to get a test as well. It’s going around like crazy right now.”
So we tested. I was negative. Turns out, so was he.
I then pointed to the giant knot on the back of his head. She clucked when she saw it.
“Oh that looks bad,” she said. “We’re going to have to lance it.”
She made him lay face down on the table while she got prepared.
That’s when I noticed. My husband’s shirt was on inside out, which I thought was odd.
Being the insane human that I am, I watched with sick pleasure as the nurse lanced my husband’s boil. I expected it to explode with liquid- but it didn’t. Or not really. Instead, the inside of the boil looked like a mass of extremely fine spaghetti, almost like white hairs. Yellow pus dripped down from the opening.
The nurse made a face as she pulled out a blob of the spaghetti. “What the-”
But her complaints were cut short, because Brad started convulsing.
“Brad!” I shrieked, “What’s happening?” I yelled at the nurse. By then several other staff ran into the room, and I was quickly whisked from the chaos and deposited into the waiting area.
I sat alone, sobbing, in an empty waiting room that smelled like piss and bleach for several long moments. I was anxious. I didn’t know what was happening, and I couldn’t process how quickly everything had fallen apart.
I tried to call the house, but couldn’t get anyone to pick up. I frowned. That was odd, but maybe they had run out for something. I tried both my mom’s and my dad’s cell numbers, with no answer.
I quickly forgot this, as a doctor pushed through the door and walked towards me.
“Are you Brad’s wife?”
“Yes,” I sniffed.
“Well, I want you to know that Brad is in stable condition.”
What?” I interrupted. “We came here for a fever and a lump on his head!”
“Well,” he hesitated. “We have him in a medically induced coma.”
At this, I began crying hysterically.
He soldiered on over my sobs. “We don’t know what it is yet. We’re sending everything to the lab. This is an unusual case, so we should have results within a few hours.”
“I want to see him,” I choked out.
He shook his head. “We can’t let anyone see him right now until we have results. We have him quarantined until we can identify the pathogen.”
I ran out of the ER, and began frantically calling my mom. Then my dad. Then the house. No response. I began to panic, and as I drove back to the house I started to feel more and more concerned about them.
As I pulled into the driveway I spotted mom standing in the yard. I jumped out and walked over to her, but slowed to a stop when I noticed her blank, thousand yard stare. Her face looked flushed. She didn’t seem to notice me at all.
“Mom?”
She took a few wobbly steps before falling to her knees and then collapsing face down into the grass.
I ran to her, frantically shaking her. Her skin was fiery hot and clammy.
I noticed she had a huge lump on the back of her head. Massive, really. My hand shook as I gingerly touched the mass. Unlike Brad’s, her’s exploded in a mess of hair- like spaghetti and yellow pus.
I screamed. What the fuck was happening?
I ran into the house and grabbed the phone. As I dialed 9-1-1 and relayed the situation to an operator.
As I waited for the voice on the other end of the line, I raised my head and looked out the kitchen window.
That’s when I saw dad standing in the yard, staring at our back tree line. After a brief second, I watched in horror as he too fell to his knees and collapsed in the grass.
“Noooo,” I sobbed into the receiver.
I hung up the phone as soon as she said they were on their way and rushed outside.
Dad was the same as mom. But his was more.. Advanced.
He didn’t have just a bump on his head. His had.. Sprouted. It almost looked like a growth. When the EMTs loaded his body on the stretcher sometime later, I swear I saw dust- (spores?) flake off of it.
The day passed in a blur as I dealt with the EMTs and eventually, the coroner. I was in complete shock- I had no idea how to process what was going on at all.
I mean really- what was going on?
That’s when I got the call.
It was the hospital. Brad’s lab results were back. I felt a rush of guilt- I’d completely forgotten about Brad.
“Ma’am, we are making a preliminary diagnosis on your husband’s sample. Looks like a rare form of cordyceps fungi, spread from under- cooked poultry. It’s spread within chicken and turkey houses with unsanitary conditions.”
“What.. what is a cordyceps?” I whispered.
“It’s a parasitic fungi, often called a “zombie fungus.” Most common in insects, but we’re seeing these livestock- to- human ones more and more often. Still very rare. Is there any chance you know the brand of your turkey? You should be entitled to financial compensation from the company.”
“I.. I think this might have been what killed my parents.”
There was a brief second of dead air.
“Are you saying there are other victims?”
I managed to relay the events of the day as succinctly as possible.
“I’ll notify the authorities, and the CDC. They’re going to need samples. You weren’t exposed yourself, were you?”
“No, I didn’t eat the turkey.”
“That’s good. That’s the only way to contract the fungus. We’ll be in touch.”
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Will Brad.. Live?” I choked out. Losing Brad today too would simply be too much.
“Hard to say. We caught it early, but the mycelium had already moved into the spinal fluid. We’re treating him with a strong intravenous antifungal. There is a chance he could live.. But there’s also a chance he could not wake up.”
I hung up the phone. My parents had been taken away from the house in the coroner van. I went inside, and slumped down onto the floor. I was numb. After sitting in silence, I put on one of Brad’s shirts and threw myself onto the bed. I cried myself to sleep.
The next morning my first phone call wasn’t from the hospital or coroner, but from the PR and legal departments of Tyshawn Poultry Products, Inc. They’d gotten wind of what happened and wanted to get ahead of it before it hit the news.
I listened to the artificially upbeat voices on the other end of the line with indifference. They offered me an incredible sum of money in exchange for signing a NDA and not suing the company.
I agreed tonelessly to their arrangement, mostly just to get them off the phone. Normally I would have been thrilled. But no amount of money would bring my family back.
I hung up the phone and tossed it to the floor. I didn’t care about the money, because I’ll never see it.
I know the doctor lied to me. Brad won’t be waking up, because even if he survives, he’ll be brain dead.
I know the doctor lied because this morning, at 3 AM, I woke up with extreme pain and a lump. I’m not going to the hospital, because a quick death will be welcome after the Christmas I’ve had.
The lump’s not on my head though. More like my lower abdomen.. Or my uterus, I guess.
I guess eating the contaminated turkey wasn’t the only way to contract the fungus after all.