"The alien spores, what's the big deal?"
"The big deal is those spores Pines, they get inside your nasal cavity and they take over Pines! They are airborne and very dangerous! This just fucks us up good, Pines! We're fucked Pines!"
"Whoa, calm down Rick, maybe he's still down there maybe you can stop him." Stan said.
Rick frowned and tossed Stan a gas mask.
"Put this on," Rick said.
"Wha?"
"If you don't you'll be infected by the spores." Rick said as he put on his gas mask.
"Sheesh, that bad for a load of fungus?" Stan grumbled but put on the gas mask.
"We can't stop him if he's infected Stan, you don't get it these spores… t-t-t-they get inside your airways and take over!" Rick exclaimed. "They aren't like earth fungus."
"Alright, fine, nerd." Stan groused as the cautiously walked down the rickety wooden stairs to the basement.
Rick had quite a set up down here, he'd built this whole lab with white prefab walls and all kinds of beakers and machines. Of course it was trashed, metal lab tables turned on their sides, beakers smashed and walls torn open and this persistent blue purple haze floating around them like mist. Rick was staring disconsolately at an empty petri dish and a shriveled bunch of lab rats in a tank.
A petri dish had a blue purple ring and gunk oozing off it.
"Rick?" Stan asked. "What gives?"
"Look around Stan we're fucked," He gestured to the blue purple haze. "The spores are airborne!"
"SO? " Stan said. "Isn't… that how fungus works?"
"YES SHIT FOR BRAINS! BUT THIS ISN'T EARTH FUNGUS!" Rick sighed. "That's why we're wearing—"
And then Irish Mike dove out the wall and tackled Rick and was making a horrific growling noise. Irish Mike was different, his eyes were white, empty, his skin had turned gray-blue and he was covered with purple blue fungal spikes and pustules, his mouth was a sea of blue purple foam. Rick was kicking and punching the thing that had been Irish Mike, trying to fight him off. As the hits landed more clouds of spores puffed out of the fungal zombie. Stan took a shard of glass from a beaker and stabbed it into Irish Mike's back. Maybe he'd die and this nightmare would be over, but Irish Mike just turned, glass still wedged between shoulder blades and blood gushing from the wound, to Stan and leapt to attack him. Stan ducked, that's when Jenny came down into the Basement. She began to scream again, drawing the fungal mutant's attention. It grabbed her ad bit down fungal spikes ripping into her flesh and Stan watched in fascinated disgust as Jenny's body began to twitch, then go white as chalk and shrivel, her features bunching up, her once lithe form collapsing in on itself. Stan almost screamed when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was just Rick.
Rick pointed at a door leading outside, up another set of stairs. Stan nodded and followed.
They got to the surface. Rick closed the door behind them
"Okay Rick, you want me to burn this sucker down again, there's a gas can in the shed…" Stan began to say.
"No use, Pines. " In the moments before the door close a cloud of those spores had followed, drifting lazily on the air.
"Eh, nothing out here but us." Stan shrugged.
Then the wind kicked up, blowing the spores out towards the town.
"SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSSHIT!" Rick and Stan screamed simultaneously.
"Get in the car Don't take off the gas mask!" Rick shouted
"RIGHT I'm already ahead of you!" Stan yelled
They barreled over the ground to the stanelymobile got in and Stan started her up. They were down the road, gas masks still on.
"So how bad is this?" Stan asked. "Just the town or is the whole county fucked?"
"That's s-s-s-small potatoes …all of upstate maybe even Buffalo or Canada is fucked." Rick said.
"Why the fuck did you mess with those spores?!" Stan roared.
"BECAUSE THAT's what science is STAN!" Rick said.
They were speeding down the highway, faster than a bat out of hell.
"Don't give me that line of crap Rick, I know YOU!" Stan growled. "WHY?!"
"Cuz while the spores are turning your brain to goo, you are having the BEST TRIP of your LIFE! I didn't do it myself but what I discovered from the rats and like a monkey is that all the pleasure chemicals get dancing about the grey matter when the sporee get inhaled AND the hallucinations make LSD or earth shrooms look lame as fuck!" Rick said.
"YOU DID THIS TO GET HIGH!?" Stan screamed and swerved.
"EVENTUALLY, I WANTED TO NEUTRALIZE THE WHOLE TURN YOU INTO MONSTER THING…." Rick started. "Hey Stan what's that big white bright thing ahead of us?"
"The sun?" Stan said. "Wait it's getting bigger and brightener what the FUCK is it?"
The white light encompassed the Stanleymobile totally. They screamed, then the light vanished taking Rick and Stan with it.
Stan woke up, he was itchy, tired and it was too bright out, would someone draw a blind or something. Then he opened his eyes… there was nothing but bright white surrounding him and he was naked. He squinted, beside him was Rick, naked and curled into a tight ball.
Stan nudged Rick who mumbled stretched and opened his eyes.
"Hey, Rick where are we?" Stan asked.
"Beats me," Rick said. "But they could decorate a bit."
"I can help you with that," Came a beautiful female voice from nearby. Standing there was a woman at least seven feet tall, mauve skin slender in beige colored robes that trailed the ground, her long flowing hair was the colors of the sunset, her eyes were larger than any human should be and all a shade of deep blue. She had nostrils and a suggestion of a nose and full sensuous lips. ….. This woman was not human. "You are on board our ship"
Her mouth didn't move but Stan heard the words in his mind.
"Who are you?" Stan asked
"WHAT are you?" Rick asked.
"I am Frifaga of the planet Notrallia, but more importantly I am a member of the Galactic watchmen and you have unleashed the Yarok fungal entity on this poor primitive world, for that we have apprehended you." She said.
