Fungal Infestation

((WARNING! Explicit body horror ahead, reader beware!))

Not a moment after she screamed, a pair of throwing daggers thudded into the mushroom-laden zombie's forehead. It let loose another echoing howl before it collapsed, releasing Althea's ankle. The acolyte darted a glance back and saw Lorna brandishing another three knives between the fingers of one hand. She gave Althea a silent nod before lobbing the next dagger at another stirring corpse. Meanwhile, Fabian brandished his longsword and sliced another fungal undead's head in half. In that time, two more of the corpses managed to get to their feet and now began shuffling on rigid limbs toward the trio of breathing adventurers.

"We need to get out of here!" Fabian shouted as one of the undead lurched toward him. A tendril of the familiar but foul black bile dribbled at the corner of the zombie's lips, and its black mold blindfold only distanced the unliving abomination from its former humanity. Lorna ran by and planted a dagger into the grappling undead's skull like a wooden stake in one maneuver. It fell from Fabian's arm, but that was when an oily, black vine dropped from the darkness above, coiling about the bald mercenary's throat. "GHGGKKKHH--" he gagged and dropped his sword, gasping at his throat.

"Fabian!" Lorna shouted and held the torch higher. Though Althea could only make out a vague silhouette, the dwarven fighter saw clearly the horrors lurking in the rafters of the building. She recoiled in terror, immediately dropping the torch onto one of the corpses. It shrieked in anguish and clawed its dismembered remains away from the dwarf. However, in that lapse of awareness, the last undead wrapped its rotting, bony fingers around Lorna's scarlet dreadlocks. "Gah! Let me go, monster!" The dwarf swiped with futility, unable to break free from the cold, deathly grasp. Then Althea watched helplessly, backing toward the vault door, as something unspeakable happened.

A split formed on the blind zombie's decaying chin, bisecting its jaw vertically into a macabre, toothy pincer. Tightening its grip, the undead stood taller as bizarre cracks bent its limbs in unnatural, disjointed angles. It **** Lorna to her knees and held her head sideways. From within the dark, corrupted flesh of the corpse's exposed throat, a pale, worm-like tendril sprouted and waved in serpentine patterns above Lorna's exposed neck. Althea could see a hooked barb at the tip, and it pointed directly down at the dwarf's **** juggular. Fabian thrashed at his bonds, but the chokehold on his throat had already brought him to his knees, and he looked ready to pass out. It was in that moment that the coil grappling Fabian jerked and snapped his neck. His body hit the warehouse floor and Althea shrieked.

"Althea!" the dwarf screamed with undignified terror, "Help me!" Lorna brandished her axe and swung backwards, burying it in the mutant zombie's rib cage and spinal column. However, te weapon only succeeded in trapping itself and disarming its dwarven wielder. After the zombie shifted its weight in response to the blow, it pulled Lorna closer to its rotting torso and held her tight like a twisted lover. Observing through frozen fear, Althea watched the pale tendril plunge into Lorna's neck. The results were immediate, and utterly horrific.

Wet, revolting gurgles churned in the undead's gullet, followed by a series of seven small bulges that traveled through the pale tongu-like appendage from the zombie's throat snaking along the length before injecting into Lorna's bare neck. Each one sent a mild spasm through her body, but the fungal zombie held fast. Almost as quickly as it began, the tendril retracted back into the creature's torso, and it fused its jaw. Its grip loosened on the dwarf's hair, and the undead fell to the floor in a heap. Althea gazed helplessly into Lorna's eyes as they grew cloudy. A patch of fuzzy, black mold spread out from each of her tear ducts before fully masking her eyes. A familiar, black stalk sprouted from the original puncture wound. Lorna struggled to stay on her feet, and stood stooped, with a feeble posture. Her body twitched, sending her prodigious breasts bouncing within the tight bandoliers, and sprouting a second stalk. Another spasm, and another three stalks appeared. However, this is where the similarities ceased.

"L-Lorna?" Althea spoke softly, her voice filled with equal parts concern and dread. Lorna shambled a step toward Althea, her jaw slack as if in a trance. A creak caught Althea's attention, but before she could identify the source, one of the bandoliers burst from around Lorna's breasts. The ruptured leather sent the daggers flying out in all directions, and one grazed Althea's thigh. She winced in pain, but fixed her sight on the rapidly changing dwarf. By what she could see, it appeared that Lorna's breast on the side she was stung had more than doubled in size. The disproportionate teats balked the priestess with their surreal imbalance. Althea observed a deep, inky darkness to the exposed, engorged nipple. As another spasm wracked Lorna's body, the other bandolier tore and fell to the floor. As if warping the skin nearest the injection, patches of black lumps gathered along Lorna's exposed body, spreading outward in a mottled tapestry of fungal infestation. It was beyond anything Althea had ever read about in her studies.

That was when a deep, gassy gurgle churned in Lorna's gut, forcing her to double over. After hearing the anguished groan slip from the dwarf's slack jaw, Althea could not determine if the stout mercenary was even still self aware or lost in a spore-induced trance. So stunned by the sight before her, Althea scarcely noticed that the mutating dwarf had already halved the distance between them with her awkward waddling. The newest transformation to seize the poor mercenary was her growing dome of a belly. After each step Althea could hear a thick, syrupy sloshing sound that only grew worse with each inch the dwarf's belly swelled. If Althea didn't know better, she would have sworn Lorna now looked like a mother in her third trimester, nearing a momentous birth. But such was the realm of Helestria. This nightmarish parody of her goddess' beauty turned Althea's stomach. Even now the black corruption spread in patches across the pale globe of Lorna's middle. Althea stepped back again, but once more failed to notice a prone corpse behind her, and she landed on her rear with a soft grunt.

To Althea's fortune, Lorna seemed no longer able to support her burgeoning weight, and collapsed onto the warehouse floor, pinned down by a belly nearly as large as the rest of her. Deep, dark stretchmarks wreathed the taut, sloshing flesh, and Lorna reached out helplessly toward the priestess. In a sickening reflection of the dwarf's state of immobility, the flesh beneath Lorna's arms softened and warped, clinging to itself like wet bread dough before ultimately fusing her limbs against the sides of her immense, trembling gut. Althea sat up just in time to see Lorna's navel split like a blossoming flower. From within sprouted a quartet of the same black tentacles that just killed Fabian.