The Spread: Book 1 (The Hill)

jobs in two years didn’t breed success.
I need to find something and stick with it. The problem is, I have no idea what I want to do with my life, and it feels like time is running out.
Brett was standing on one leg, struggling to keep his balance, so Ryan reached out and steadied him. “How’s the ankle?”
“Stiff and painful. I didn’t sleep a wink.”
“Me neither.”
Tom raised his key fob and pressed a button. Nothing happened, and he grimaced. “That’s not a good sign.” Next, he opened the driver’s side door, which he had to do manually with the pop-out key. A few moments was all it took for him to reach a verdict. He climbed back out of the car and kicked its tyre. “I can’t bloody believe it.”
Brett huffed. “It’s to be expected. Cars rarely fix themselves miraculously overnight. Okay, well, it looks like someone needs to walk to the village. I would offer to go myself but, um…” He waggled his swollen ankle.
“I’ll go,” said Ryan. “This is my mess to sort out.”
“You should stay with Aaron,” said Tom. “I’ll go. If I don’t call Amanda soon, she’ll find another man.”
“Sophie will be worrying too,” said Ryan.
“I’ll call her for you when I get to the village. I… I can’t be here when Sean wakes up, okay? I want to be the one to go for a walk. I need to clear my head.”
Ryan sighed. “Okay, but please think about forgiving Sean. He didn’t mean what he did. He’s devastated.”
“I just need some time to think.”
“I understand. I’m just really sorry that—”
“Just let him think!” Brett snapped. “You can’t fix everything all the time, Ryan. You act like it’s your job to keep everyone together, but sometimes you just have to let people make their own decisions.”
Ryan flinched, but it didn’t take him long to nod his understanding. “You’re right.”
Tom sighed. “I’m going to get going.”
There was a shout from inside the cottage, coming from upstairs. It was Loobey.
Brett pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. “Looks like Sean’s awake.”
Ryan sighed. “Hold off on that walk, Tom. We might need your help.”
Tom groaned. “What is it now?”
“What do you think?” said Brett. “Trouble.”
The three of them hurried back inside.
Ryan knew the situation was bad, even before he reached the stairs. A crash sounded upstairs, followed by the sound of Loobey crying out in pain. It could only be Sean. What the hell was he doing?
Aaron was already on the landing when Ryan made it up there, standing unsteadily like a drunken student on Princess Street. When he saw Ryan, he was visibly relieved. “Something’s happening.”
“It’s all right, Aaron. Just stand back, okay?” Ryan moved up to the bedroom door and glanced back to see Brett and Tom standing behind him. Brett had his arm around Tom’s neck to keep the weight off his bad leg. His glasses were crooked but he didn’t adjust them. Both of them nodded to Ryan, informing him that they had his back.
Ryan shoved the door.
What he saw inside the bedroom was hard to describe. First, there was Loobey, fully clothed and sprawled backwards against a bedside cabinet. Then there was Sean – or a distorted version of him – half-naked and wrestling with Loobey. His face was a picture of pure rage, cheeks the colour of sour milk. Teeth bared.
Ryan threw himself at Sean, not punching or kicking, but using his entire body to remove him. With hands no longer grabbing at his chest, Loobey fell to the floor, gasping. Brett and Tom immediately dragged him out of the room.
Sean had toppled onto his bed, which had become like a pit. The fitted sheet was yellow, dark brown in places, and soaked with piss and sweat. The stench in the room was foul, like the stairwell to a block of flats in a bad part of town.
“Sean, what the hell, man? I don’t understand what’s happening.”
Sean rose to his feet, keeping his back to Ryan. The dawn sunlight came through the window and illuminated him, made his pale flesh seem to glow at the edges. Slowly, he turned around, revealing that his short ginger hair now had patches of dark green in it. The strange fuzz had spread, now covering all of his stomach and parts of his chest.
Ryan gasped.
A floret of green fuzz had replaced Sean’s left eye. His other eye seemed confused, half closed with the upper lid flickering. “Ryan? Ryan, I feel well rough. How much gear did I do last night?”
“Sean, just… just sit down on the bed, all right?”
Sean did as he was told, and he did so calmly. The rage that had taken over when he’d been attacking Loobey had completely gone. He spotted a bottle of water lying on the floor and picked it up, drinking from it so ordinarily that it was clear he thought everything was okay. Had he forgotten about having just attacked Loobey?
Sean put the lid back on the bottle of water and dropped it at his feet. He cleared his throat and rubbed at his fuzzy green eye. For a second, it seemed to dawn on him that something wasn’t right, but he didn’t voice it.
“Sean, you’re not well. Why were you trying to hurt Loobey?”
Sean frowned, the question apparently confusing him. “Huh? I was just screwing around, weren’t I? I would never hurt Loobey. Shit, I’ve looked after that kid his entire life.”
Ryan nodded. “And you’ve looked after me too. That’s why we’re going to get you the help you need, Sean. Someone will walk to the village to get help, okay? In the meantime, you need to stay calm and rest.”
In the doorway, Brett and Tom were aghast. No doubt they couldn’t believe what they were seeing either. If Sean had contracted some kind of fungus, it was one hell of a specimen. Brett seemed in no rush to study it.
Ryan caught Brett’s attention. “Do you know of anything like this? Can fungus do this?”
Brett’s