Under-whirled: Rise of the Lichens

A symbiosis of comedy and horror.

Under-whirled: Rise of the Lichens

Colin put on his basketball shoes and went to wake up Harry, his best friend who shared the dorm room next to his with a major science geek. Harry was a science geek too, but he was also a good baller, so Colin was willing to overlook it. There was a pickup b-ball game every Saturday morning, and he didn't want to be late. Colin entered Harry's room without knocking, partly because he was Harry's best friend and partly because it annoyed his dorm mate.

.

Seeing Harry's empty bed, Colin asked, "Dude, where's Harry?" 

.

"Harry's down in the laundry room," his dorm mate answered in hopes that Colin would leave. 

.

Colin headed down to the basement where the laundry room is located. He called out to Harry as he crossed the basement, "Yo, Harry, let's go. We've got a date with a basketball. Your holey panties can wait." 

.

But when Colin entered the laundry room, Harry was busy folding his clothes while listening to his Zune. When he saw Colin walk in, he took his ear buds out and said, "I'm almost done here." 

.

"Come on dude. I don't want to be late again." 

.

Harry asked, "How is it that someone can be so OCD about being on time for basketball, yet you haven't shown up to a single class on time all semester?" 

.

Harry's question went unanswered because Colin was staring at the clothes in the basket like he was in a trance. 

.

"Dude, your whites are dingy," Colin said at last, "Haven't you ever heard of bleach?" 

.

Harry said, "Yeah, I know, I know. The agitator is broken on the washing machine so it doesn't wash the clothes very well." 

.

"The agi-what-er?" Colin asked. 

.

"Agitator. The thing that whirls the clothes around in the washing machine. They just don't get very clean without agitation." 

.

Colin joked, "So they're just under-whirled? Why don't you get a stick and whirl 'em around yourself?" 

.

"Maybe I should throw you in there," Harry said, "you're starting to agitate me." 

.

"Take it easy, dude. I'm just trying to help," Colin defended. 

.

"If you want to help, start folding. The sooner I get these things finished, the sooner we can hit the court." 

.

Colin picked up a pair of jeans and started folding with all the care and gentleness of a jackhammer. Harry pulled out a white t-shirt and started folding it. 

.

"Look at the humongous stain on that shirt, dude!!" 

.

Harry turned the shirt around, looked at the stain, and dropped it on the floor next to the folding table. "Ooh, that one's nasty." 

.

Colin cried out in awe, "Dude, it's moving. The stain's moving." 

.

"What? No way!" Colin stared at the shirt, and sure enough he could see slight movements in the stains. He picked it up carefully and looked at it closer. "Whoa!! I think it's a lichen, and it's eating my shirt," he said and tossed it into the trash can. 

.

"Aliken to what?" Colin asked. 

.

"Not aliken. A LICHEN. A lichen is a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and algae." 

.

The low rustling noise emanating from the trash can went unnoticed by Colin and Harry. 

.

"Thanks Poindexter," Colin smirked, "care to repeat that in English?" 

.

"It's two completely different organisms living together as if they were a single organism," Harry said. He sometimes wondered why he hung around with Colin. 

.

The brownish-green organism pulled itself over the lip of the trash can, and clasped ahold of the table leg. Colin and Harry were so caught up in their conversation, they didn't notice that the lichen was on the move. A fragment broke off of the lichen and fell to the floor. The fragment started inching its way toward the next table leg. 

.

"Oh, you mean like your smoking hot cousin Jessica and that furry Weeble she calls her husband?" Colin joked. Harry gave him a look that told him to get serious, and he went on, "Or like moss, right?" 

.

"Well, yes and no. The stuff that hangs down from trees is true moss, but the stuff that grows on the bark of trees and on rocks is called tree moss and rock moss, but they are not actually moss. So, yeah certain lichens are called moss, but real moss is not a lichen, it's an actual plant." 

.

The lichen wrapped its leaflike thallus around the interweaving of the clothes basket and heaved itself onto the table. It had grown considerably since consuming the t-shirt, and it hungered for more. It climbed the side of the clothes basket while Harry and Colin continued to talk. At long last, Colin noticed the lichen. 

.

"Dude!! It's climbing the basket!! It ate your shirt, and now it wants more." 

.

Harry tried to flick it off of the basket before it could get any more clothes, but the lichen stuck to his finger. When he pulled his hand back, the lichen clung to it. Harry cried out and shook his hand violently to try to loosen the lichen. Drops of blood flew in all directions, slowly at first and then faster with each shake. Colin stood and watched paralyzed with disbelief. 

.

"Aarrhhh, it's biting me," he yelled and the lichen finally flew off of his hand and right into his face. Harry screams were muffled as the lichen clamped down on his face and hundreds of tiny hungry mouths bit down and drilled into his skin. 

.

Colin finally broke out of his stupor and moved to go help Harry. He took one step with no problem, but when he tried to take another, something held his foot fast in place and Colin tumbled to the floor. Colin looked down just in time to see the fragment that had broken loose from the lichen, now grown much larger, disappear up his pants leg. He kicked his legs and beat at the front of his pants with his hands. His grey sweats began to seep blood as the lichen clamped down on his manhood. The blood spread across the front of his plants like a flower blooming. 

.

Colin's screams joined Harry's muffled screams. The clamor seemed to be echoing in the laundry room, but the sound never made it out of the basement. Colin thrashed around and his head hit the table leg hard enough to stun him. 

.

Colin rubbed his head and groaned. He could no longer feel anything from the waist down except for a throbbing achiness, and he almost believed that he had awoken from a bad dream. He looked down at the pool of blood that surrounded his middle and knew that it was no dream. He jammed his hand down his sweatpants and felt nothing. No lichen ... and no manly parts. Just blood. 

.

Colin remembered Harry and looked at where he thought he was. Harry lay motionless on the floor. Colin stared at Harry's chest to see if it was rising from breathing, but there was no movement. Worse than that, Harry's face was completely gone. The lichen had completely eaten it away and was now gone. Colin looked left and right and didn't see the lichen anywhere. He hoped it had crawled off and died some place. 

.

Colin let his head sink back to the floor. It rested on something soft. He felt the something soft move. He tried to raise his head, but the lichen wrapped itself around his head and fed again. Colin's muffled screams went unheard. 

.

Many people made their way down to the basement over the next few days, but none of them made it out again. A week and a half had passed before anyone figured out that more than a dozen people had gone missing. Some of their missing students' friends had no idea where their friends had gone, but many interviewees recounted that the last time they had seen them, they were going to the basement. 

.

A detective and two uniformed officers went to investigate the basement, and never returned. The next day, an assault team was assembled and sent into the basement. Massive gunfire was heard, and one man made it out of the basement alive, but his face and tongue had been eaten away. He died before medical help arrived. 

.

The students took it upon themselves to take action. They evacuated their belongings. Several full gas cans were rolled down the basement stairs, and the building was set on fire. And thusly the lichen rebellion was suppressed ending the rise of the lichens.

 

Author's Note

I couldn't help it. I was inspired by a typo (yeah, we'll assume it was a typo) where someone referred to a werewolf as a lichen on this site. That struck me as incredibly funny and thus this story was born.

Reviews

[Sound]

Very good. The dialogue was good, but a little subdued. I understand it's a sort of comedy...but I think the scenes and dialogue should at least seem to be as it is real. In the story it felt to me as if not only did I not believe it or get drawn in (which is acceptable since it is a parody) but even the characters in the story weren't drawn into it or believed any of it.

[Chases-Lost-Ghosts]

It was a good read & I Love the fact that a typo inspired it! Good interaction between the original characters. Now I'm just curious as to how the Lichen came to be...

[Here No More]

Ha! I'm a fan of plant horror (The Ruins was actually quite enjoyable!) and this was a fun little read.