Mushrooms in the Ceiling

CONTENT WARNING: Mention of blood, dead bodies.

Blood dries, and when exposed to oxygen, it solidifies and darkens in color. This process doesn’t take very long, depending on how much blood was used. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. 

And yet, three rocket scientists stared at a wall in a room where no one had been in six months. The blood on this wall was fresh, dripping like rain, and a small puddle collected on the cracked tile floor. 

“What do you think it means?” Dr. Carter, a NASA astronaut, pulled out his camera and took pictures of the blood-written message on the wall. 

“Well,” Commander Olivera put a hand on his hip. His thick spacesuit made it difficult to keep his hand still, but the confusion was evident in his tone. “It means what it says.”

“Mushrooms in the Ceiling.” Dr. Evers read. 

The three scientists looked up, staring at the strobing fluorescent lights without any mushroom in sight. 

“What are the chances this is paint?”

“Karant colony wasn’t sent here with arts and crafts,” Olivera knelt to grab a sample bag; he swabbed the yet-to-be-defined red ooze, cutting a line through the letter ‘g;. 

“They also weren’t sent here with supplies to allow them to travel outside the colony,” Evers mimicked the commander's tone, who shot her a look. “What I mean is that they couldn’t have gone far.”

“When was the last communication, Carter?”

“Six months ago, the regular 2100-hour check-in.” 

Putting the cotton swab back in the sample bag, he sealed it and placed it inside the backpack, slinging it over his shoulder. 

“We need to confirm if the communication tower is broken.” 

Dr. Carter held out a radio comm device, it lit up green. “I’m getting a clear signal here, Commander. If it were offline or broken, I couldn’t pick it up.”

The commander sighed, his helmet fogged up with the exhale. “There has to be an explanation.”

Carter gestured to the wall. 

“That’s not an explanation.”

“Not one that we understand anyway.” 

Evers kept her head up as she followed Carter and the Commander to the communication tower. 

“Mushrooms in the Ceiling,” she whispered. 

They paused in the decompression hallway, allowing the air to balance with the outside. The doors jerked open a crack, then a bit more, creaking loudly. 

“Do we not have WD-40 on this planet?”

The Commander ignored Carter, as usual, and used his pen to activate a dust-covered screen, punching in a code and then scrolling through information. 

“It hasn’t been opened in six months.” 

“Same day as the last communication?”

“Yes. It was opened from the inside, there was an exit, and there’s no record of re-entry.” 

Dread was not an uncommon feeling for astronauts and space travelers. This, still a relatively new mode of transportation, came with great risk. The Karant Colony was the first initiative of other-planet inhabitation, the crew would, according to the plan submitted to Congress, spend five years setting up, studying, and preparing the colony site for a secondary crew to inhabit the planet. Communication was kept to a rigorous schedule, psychological assessments were kept on all twenty persons, and everything had been thought of. That didn’t stop the dread. 

Seeing the rocket take off, waiting for the announcement of a safe landing. Any and all updates came with a twinge of anxiety. Slowly, over the next four years, it had begun to fade with the steady routine. 

Then, ten months before their scheduled return, they missed their morning check-in. Then, they missed their night check-in. Counseling appointments were not attended, and no quarterly report was submitted. 

“A simple communication issue,” the Karant Colony supervisor had told the team back at NASA Headquarters. “No need to inform the public. We’ll send a small crew to fix it, and they’ll return. In and out. Absolutely nothing to worry about.”

The three people stood, staring at the screen, reading over the screen repeatedly. 

“A technical error,” the commander said as if he was willing it to be true. “Once we reach the tower, it will confirm it.”

Evers and Carter shared a glance; the helmets fogged most of their features, but the sentiment was the same. 

The communications tower sat a few hundred yards away from the main building. After typing in the code, they entered the decompression hallway. After being let through, they continued their walk through the small office-type room. A ladder to the physical wire structure was built into the back wall. 

“Evers.” The Commander pointed to the ladder. “Do your thing.”

“Yes, sir.” Evers climbed up the ladder, pushing open the hatch to find resistance. 

“Is there an issue, Evers?” 

Sliding her gloved hand through the gap, she felt an object loosely covering the door; she pushed it, making sure not to drop the hatch on her hand. Eventually, the door cracked up, and she could continue her climb. 

“I’m in.”

Carter sat down at the chair in front of the desktop screen. He pressed the power button, and it turned on. He looked up at the Commander, who stood right behind him. 

“There could still be an issue, we should test the check-in program.” 

Carter took off his gloves and typed at the keyboard. 

Ever finished, she held onto the ladder as she held the wires gently in her glove, checking for any tears or breaks. The wires followed a small chamber up, windows overlooked the colony, and she focused on the wires until she reached the top. 

“No initial issues with the wires, Commander,” Evers said. 

“Understood. Is there any condensation on the windows? Any leaks on the panels?” 

Looking around her, she traced over the windows and metal panels, not feeling any cracks. Switching hands and turning to face the other side of the chamber, she looked at the main base building where they came from. 

“There’s something on the roof.” 

“Here?” Carter asked. 

“No, on the main base. It’s…it’s covering the satellite.”

“What is it?”

“A tarp, or some kind of fabric, maybe? I can’t see it very well.” 

“Okay,” the Commander’s tone barely changed, but they all felt relieved at the explanation. “Evers, you and I will go clear the satellite. Carter, stay here and download the communication records.” 

“Yes, sir,” they responded. 

The Commander climbed the ladder back to the main base, the dread in his chest muted but still present. Climbing onto the roof, he froze, not believing what he saw. 

Evers joined him. 

“Oh, God.”

“Um…Commander?”

“Yes, Carter, report.”

“I’ve downloaded the communication report; the last signal was six months ago, about two hours after the nightly check-in. It said-”

“-mushrooms in the ceiling.”

“Mushrooms in the ceiling.”

“Yes,” Carter confirmed. 

“They’re on the ceiling.” Evers felt bile fill her throat, the need to throw up creating a heavy weight on her chest. 

“The mushrooms?” 

“The mushrooms,” the Commander said. “And the crew.”

“What?”

Evers’ heart palpated, her vision blurred, and she fell to her knees, trying to swallow the vomit that entered her mouth. Twenty bodies, bare of any spacesuits, their skin shrunken to the bones, made them look like dolls. Mouths hung open in a never-ending silent scream. Their fingers and hands blackened like dipped in dye; some had exposed muscle, which expanded to look like rubber balls. 

Tall, stalking mushrooms kept them stationed to the ceiling. They were connected to a dread-filled garden by mushrooms growing from the roof through their eyes, ears, clothing, and dehydrated skin. The stalks were thick and pale, pulsing like a steady heartbeat. The black caps, flattened over the holes made by the stalks, hold the bodies in place.