Wednesday’s almost gone but if you’re on the West Coast or the insurgent state of Arizona, then it’s not yet midnight and that means I got this week’s Monster Laboratory in on time! I took a long time because I almost decided on Giant Killer Snakes, but at the last moment I swerved into deliciously disgusting new territory. I believe you’ll find this week’s monster to be the most disturbing that I’ve yet set up. I’ve taken a classic horror mainstay, zombies, and bred in a bit of my own evil genius to create a new species of zombie that I promise shall re-invent the zombie movie as we know it today!

Without further banter, let’s take a trip down into the Lab and learn what abomination I’ve put together. I’m not going to give you the passkey, I’ll unlock the vault myself and now you’re in a dimly lit corridor strung with bare bulbs. It’s low budget but that’s what we’ve got to work with. Follow me and be sure NOT to touch anything. Ignore the piercing shrieks from that door over there, it’s simply a longterm experiment and the world’s currently unprepared to view that particular simian at this point. We make a sharp turn and I believe you can see him there through the glass once I’ve turned the lights on, but first take a gander at this:

 

Looks harmless enough, right? And it is. That’s a ‘powder puff mushroom’ and it’s quite similar to those that grew in the Pacific Northwest neighborhood Red Hawk and I used to play in. We had bark dust in my front yard and combined with the damp, mild weather it proved to be fertile grounds for these types of mushrooms. They start as little round balls and then swell over time. Fascinating, really.

However, the real joy came when it was time to play war! We’d gather these suckers up and toss them at one another as makeshift grenades. You see, upon impact they burst open and a dust cloud of spores is released. For poor kids like us, these were wonderful for imitation explosive devices and hurt a hell of a lot less than pine cones, too!

In case you’re unaware, spores are the ’seeds’ of mushrooms and being fungus, mushrooms take root just about anywhere that’s got soil (preferably decaying matter) and moisture. They’re incredibly primitive plants that are wildly effective at scavenging the environment and growing themselves in colonies. In fact, certain kinds of mushrooms actually only bloom in odd cycles like once every five years or something like that. Even today there’s a great deal of mystery and intrigue that surrounds the humble mushroom.

So, I decided that if mushrooms could spread themselves by spores what a terrific way to create a monster! Imagine spores, spread wildly by wind when these mushrooms explode in the forest. The spores are carried into the oral and nasal cavities of humans where the moisture there gives them all they need to begin to grow - INSIDE THE HUMAN BODY! Then, having taken root and siphoning off the necessary oxygen and fluids, they take firm hold and work towards blossoming.

While that, in itself, seemed horrific enough, I’m going a step further. As you’re most likely aware, certain mushrooms produce halleucenogenic effects - they alter the mind. By interacting with the chemistry of the human body (in fact, intoxicating it as literal poison), these mushrooms alter the perceptions of the individuals who consume them whether on purpose for recreational use (ie, "shrooming" as drug users call it) or accidentally. Either way, the effects are profound and generally last several hours. But that’s if you EAT the mushrooms. What if the mushrooms were reproducing inside the body? Far more profound effects! And if those mushrooms caused far stronger effects, perhaps the infested individual would be prone to disturbing things such as: cannibalistic tendencies!

These sinister mushrooms could spring up in a highly unusual cycle, blossoming maybe every 200 years. Thus our movie would show a group of people out in the woods near a small town. Perhaps enjoying the ‘great outdoors’ and going on a hike. One of them discovers this small circle of unusual looking brightly colored mushrooms. They check their field guides but there’s nothing even remotely similar in the pages. One of the group points out that they might’ve stumbled across a brand new species that’s completely unknown to science! They decide not to disturb the shrooms and instead, set about taking photographs. One amateur photographer leans in close wanting to capture the exquisite details of a particular bulbous mushroom. As he gets in on it, POOF! it explodes and reels backwards, choking on the dust it released. The other hikers freak out but then it all becomes quite hilarious. He gets some more pictures and they continue on their way.

Later the group returns to the small village where they began their hike. They’re proud of themselves for not exploiting nature to make a quick buck or a splash of fame. They swear each other to secrecy, agreeing to check on the mushroom patch from time to time and enjoy a private piece of the woods only they know about. Of course, you’ve got the one girl who’s a sneak and after every one’s left the village to return to their home town, she lingers and harvests a few of the mushrooms. If she gets big money for them from scientific researchers, she won’t need these lousy friends anyways, right?

That, then, is how it all begins. The guy who got a lungful of dust continues on his merry way and it’ll be weeks before anyone notices changes in him. The sneak girl accidentally inhales a smaller burst of spore cloud herself while harvesting the mushrooms, but she goes on to contact someone over the internet who agrees to pay her several thousand dollars for the fungi. She’ll never make it to the secret meeting to receive her money, though, because the guy who’s offering that payment is the same guy who started the patch in the woods! He’s an evil genius of a teenager who not only cooked up these genetically altered mushrooms, he also hacks satellite information to find the girl’s house. He waits until she’s not home and then he gathers up his precious creations. We won’t see him until far later in the film, of course, so that’s all I’ll say about this guy.

Weeks roll past and finally the effects begin to show in the photographer guy and the sneaky girl. They seem a bit glazed over, their friends complain. It’s like they’re not listening, they’re too busy staring at strangers. They lose their appetites - for normal food that is. Within a few days of the first effects, these two no longer bathe or change their clothing. They quit sleeping altogether and they no longer are capable of holding conversations. And the cough - a terrible, wracking cough that grosses everyone around them out. The mushrooms have blossomed inside them and each cough now spreads fresh spores. Before long, the entire town will be sick before the government’s had time to take notice of the infestation.

Then it’s nationwide news. People growing gradually delerious and then turning sharply predatory. Not the lumbering dead goons we’ve seen time and again, these are filthy living people who care about nothing but the decimation of their own kind. They dig up graves to gnaw the bones, they invade hospitals to finish off the sick and dying. If it’s living and human, they’re obsessed with killing it. If anything, their mental powers are heightened. They’ve become killing machines who’ll use any and all weapons at their disposal to do away with the unifested. Knives, guns, even ramming vehicles through shopping malls! The carnage won’t quit until they’ve annihilated anyone who won’t house the mushrooms within their body. It’s as if the fungus itself has declared war on the human race.

That sums it up for me. Utter chaos and blind prejudice all rolled up into one big ball of gore. A planet crawling with zombie ninjas, that’s what I’m proposing. Now it’s time for you Merry Readers to get out there and drum up the financial resources to make this happen! Mushroom Zombies will give the world nightmares for decades to come! Move over Romero, there’s a new breed invading the zombie genre: Mushroom Zombies!

Oh, and did I mention how the fungus’ life cycle culminates? They overcrowd their host and it results in a messy explosion with the person’s body splattered far and wide.

-- by GlowStormLion of http://www.happyhorror.com

Tags: horror, monster, Monster Lab, mushroom, zombies

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Monster Lab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.