“Right. Yeah. That’s a better way of putting it.” He seems to have been ready for more of an argument, but she’s tired and just wants to move forward. “Well. Good.” He crouches down and unzips the duffel bag. “Since that’s settled, I guess we better suit up.”

Their goal is to retrieve the sample containers Darla brought in the other day. She would have labeled them with the date and location. Jack refers to this as a parent site—a primary source for germination—as opposed to the secondary carriers they’ve encountered at some of the crime scenes.

From the hall they can see black tendrils, like damp hair, reaching out from the edges of the door. “This is going to be bad,” Jack says. The door is the weakest seal in the room. The vents, thankfully, are filtered for strict climate control and to prevent any cross-contamination between the labs.

It’s late enough in the day that they haven’t seen any students or faculty, but just to be sure, they raid a nearby janitor’s closet and set up a cart on either end of the hallway with notes that read CLOSED FOR CLEANING. Then they shut off the lights so the only illumination is the Exit sign’s red glow.

On the way to campus they swung by the police station and Nora swiped two hazmat suits out of the back of a forensics van. Now they step inside the floppy fabric and zip each other up. She loves the security of the final zipper tug, the knowledge of her vacuum. It’s the same feeling she gets every time she puts on the mask, only bigger.

They also have a spray bottle of bleach, a few kitchen knives, and several Tupperware containers that will double as specimen jars.

“Ready?” Jack says, his voice hollowed by his suit, and she gives him a nod.

He pulls out his key card but doesn’t bother bringing it to the sensor. The door is already unlatched. “Oh, shit,” he says.

“What?”

“I locked this door. I left a note that specifically said no one should come inside. And now . . .” He gives the door a push, and it doesn’t swing open so much as squelch forward. “No lock, no note.”

What she sees inside is overgrown completely, no longer even faintly recognizable as a lab. They might be stepping into a damp cave or the stomach of a whale.

“Hurry,” he says, waving her in. “We want to limit its exposure to the hall.”