It was a lush rainforest and Jim loved it. Living among the tall Douglas firs, hemlocks, and all the wildlife was his dream. Therefore, he was thrilled to finally close on a house and ten acres of land located west of Olympia, Washington, just outside of Olympic National Park. The house was small but was all a single, retired man needed. He would spend his time hiking, hunting, and working on his writing hobby. The only concern he had with the house was faint brown spots on the inside walls. He figured he simply needed to repaint the surfaces.
Jim really enjoyed his first couple months living out in the wilderness. He found himself spending much of his time sitting on the front porch watching the birds and trying to finish the first draft of a fantasy novel he’d been working on for a couple of years. Without the distractions of neighbors and traffic noise, he was finally making progress again. He hadn’t done anything yet to fix the spots on the walls but noticed that they had grown larger and darker. He studied the spots more closely and saw that there was some kind of fungus starting to grow.
Each morning the spots looked worse, and then he found mushrooms growing out of the wood floor in a corner of the room. Looking around more closely, he found mushrooms sprouting out of wall spots and other ones growing under furniture. What the hell, he thought. I never heard of mushroom infestations in homes. First thing tomorrow I’ll head to Home Depot for primer and paint, and a fungicide.
Later that same afternoon, Jim decided to start working on the problem. He dug out a paint scraper and started scraping the mushrooms off the walls and floor. He didn’t notice initially but when evening sunrays came through a window, they highlighted spores and dust floating in the air. Shit, I’ll have to get face masks and a respirator when I go to town in the morning. He was feeling tired and a little dizzy but kept at it with the scraper as long as he could. Then he headed to bed. He slept well and had vivid dreams in which he was part of his novel’s story. He woke up with storyline updates and an ending for his book. He was so excited about the inspiration that he skipped going to town and concentrated on getting the story updates onto his computer.
The mushrooms were worse the next morning, but his dreams gave him more ideas for finetuning his novel. Once again, he decided to focus on his writing rather than the infestation. Later he found that he could daydream during the day and visit characters and locations in his story.
Within a few months he had finished his first novel and was well into writing the second. He also learned that a major publishing house was interested in his first book.
***
Years passed and Jim’s novels took off. He quickly became a popular fantasy writer and had thousands of followers online. One, Sue, caught his attention. She also wrote fantasy and had a couple of published novels. She indicated that she loved his style and wanted to pursue a collaboration with him on a novel based on a new fantasy world. In exploring her blog, Jim found that she was attractive and successful, therefore he invited her to visit.
Sue traveled to Washington and drove directly to Jim’s house. When she got there, Jim opened the front door and what she saw shocked her. There were huge mushrooms growing everywhere. She was immediately uneasy, but Jim convinced her to come inside. The wood floor was rotting in areas and the mushrooms appeared to be thriving. She felt like she was walking through a mushroom forest. Where the floor was missing, tall mushrooms grew from the dirt below. Fungi and mushrooms covered most of the walls and even parts of the ceiling. The room smelled strongly of damp earth and rotting wood – like a damp forest but much stronger. It was too much for Sue, way too much. “Nice meeting you Jim but I need to go,” she said as she turned to head back toward the door.
Jim stomped a foot down on a solid area of the floor. Almost immediately, all the mushrooms in the house ejected clouds of spores. There were hundreds of giant mushrooms, and each one released thousands of spores. “Just relax and enjoy the ride,” Jim said.
Sue became engulfed in a fog of spores. She initially screamed but then held her breath and headed towards the door, at first making good progress and dodging the huge mushrooms. But she started feeling very fatigued and light-headed. She also started colliding into giant mushrooms which released more spores into her face. She struggled to the door but found it locked. When did Jim lock it? She fumbled with the locking mechanism, but her thoughts were lost in a brain fog. Then she collapsed and only remembered feeling herself being dragged across the floor.
***
Jim entered the house with two five-gallon buckets filled with damp earth, rotted wood, and fresh wood chips. Sue then followed him inside with another two bucketfuls. Then they spread the materials around and misted the interior. “It’ll be good to get these chores done. We need to relax and visit the fairies to see how they fend off the dogmen, for the next chapter.”