"You saw the flower, right? The one I shot?"

Misty nodded. "I don't mean to be rude, but it was rather difficult not to spot it. Orange and blue are not colours I'd normally associate with the English forest landscape."

Faven nodded in agreement, and brought an image up on the screen of a monitor. It was a closeup of the pod itself. "This pod is what we term in the science world a spore carrier. This carries a selection of small spores within the flower itself. It has some sort of proximity tracker which allows it to detect when a living being is nearby. It then opens and fires the spores directly into the creature's face, which results in the spores being absorbed into the pores of the skin and through the breathing tubes."

She switched the display over. "After a few days, other symptoms start to emerge. We first spotted these in a local hospital when patients started to arrive with very strange symptoms. They were doing things like coughing up bubbles and sneezing lightning. But what was most notable was the fact their skin was covered in orange spots."

Misty shuddered. "Coughing up bubbles doesn't sound fun."

"Can't imagine that having large amounts of fluid in your lungs is what I'd consider a fun time," Alphabittle agreed.

Faven updated to a new image. "And that was just the start. After a few days in isolation, all neural activity ceased. Their brains effectively shut down, and the subject was brain dead, although other organs continued to function. Any navigation appeared to be conducted by some sort of hive mind as the corpse wanders around based on some sort of higher instruction. I know it sounds highly unprofessional, but they'd effectively turned into zombies."

"Given that neither of us are medics, an element of layman's terms is required for us to follow what you're saying," Alphabittle admitted. "But please, do go on."

"We soon lost control of the hospital and the police had to be called in to contain the problem. But we then started getting reports of people all across the Dean Forest area getting similar symptoms, and similar moments of violence which required police support to bring down. All of them, the infected, that is, had been to this part of the Dean Forest in the previous few days.

"Naturally, I had to investigate, so I went there myself in some protective gear and discovered the flowers. I was also able to recover a specimen of the infected and dissect them, and what I found was bizarre."

She moved the image to a different image, showing what appeared to be an autopsy result, with a body chopped open. A hand was indicating to something. "See that there? The unmistakable appearance of tree bark."

Misty shook her head. "This is starting to sound like something out of a folk horror movie."

Faven continued on. "This, I only later learned, is the precursor to Stage IV of the disease, which none of us had observed before."

"Stage IV?" Misty asked, confused. All of this was very strange to her- not least as no disease she had ever heard of behaved like this.

Faven reached over to some controls. The display changed once more to an exterior view, and something began to rotate. It could be inferred from context that Faven had turned a camera on the exterior of the building. She pointed along a line of trees. "See these trees here? The ones with the spore pods at the bottom?"

"Yeah?" both of the other people said.

Faven paused. "Those trees weren't there a week ago." She brought up a photograph of the same spot from a week earlier, before running her hand over the same spot. "That's what Stage IV does. It causes the infected to rapidly mutate into trees- trees that produce the same spore pods that infected them in the first place. That's how the disease spreads, and how it always spread. The infected can cover a great deal of ground in only a week, and although most of these trees have been eradicated in other parts of England they've remained here for centuries."

"How long have we known about it?" Misty asked innocently.

"My research revealed stories of the Spotted Men, people who were forced into the forest by locals who were terrified of catching the disease itself. And it goes back even further. This disease, which I have dubbed Swamp Fever after a similar infection was observed in Louisiana, is so much more than a disease. It's a weapon. I know what I'm about to say may seem insane, but bear with me.

"The Swamp Fever disease is a weapon used by the Wight King, a figure from English folklore. I know this because I have encountered him." Some new video footage appeared on the screen, showing a figure floating above the treeline near large numbers of trees.

"You thought you could defeat the power of the Ancient Ones, Doctor Firstmorne? What folly. The forest shall rise again!"

Large numbers of the zombie like creatures then rushed the camera, which appeared to be producing flames as it reversed.

"Damnit! Running low on fuel!" The pilot looked directly at the camera, revealing them to be Faven. "This is the only warning we'll get. Stay away from the forest, stay away, STAY AWA-"

"The camera broke before I could get back to base," Faven said. "I was lucky to escape with my life, but somehow I'm here. And we're the only ones standing in the way of the Wight King."

"Could we have a bit of context on who the Wight King is?" Alphabittle asked.

Faven nodded. "The Wight King is an ancient figure from English folklore. He ruled this land with a cruel fist and subjected the people to all sorts of torment in his desire to rule the forest. Eventually, a group of druids led by Clover the Clever succeeded in hunting him down, and he was sealed away in the forest thousands of years ago. Unfortunately, mining work in the local area disturbed the seal, and the Wight King has emerged once more to destroy us. He intends to take over the country with Swamp Fever as his main weapon. His armies will sweep across the land and infect as many as they can, with those who survive unable to defeat the resulting tide."

"So why are we standing in his way?" Misty asked.

"Because I fought him and lived to tell the tale," Faven explained. "And I have a plan to end this once and for all." She hit a button, and a wall spun round to reveal a suit of orange armour mounted in the wall. At the ends of the arms were two large nozzles, and on the back were a pair of fuel tanks.

"This is the Firebat. I built it to allow me to navigate through this section of the forest whilst avoiding getting infected, as the suit is environmentally sealed. The flamethrowers are for burning plants and the infected. My plan is that we do this on a much larger scale."

"We're going to need an awful lot of fuel if we're going to burn this area of forest," Alphabittle said.

"I know," Faven said. "I intend to use the suit the start a fire in the middle of this section of forest, but to pull off a fire of that scale will need a lot of fuel. Luckily, I happen to have some. I got some fuel tankers moved here loaded with a mixture of conventional vehicle petrol and kerosene, and they are currently parked at the old coal mine. We need to retrieve them, take them to the main point, and saturate as much ground as we can with fuel. We can then ignite it and escape."

"I assume we come in at that point," Alphabittle said.

"I can't pull the tankers, but you have an engine that can," Faven said. "I'll help get it back on the rails, and then we can proceed to the mine and collect the fuel. Then we can end this nightmare once and for all."

Misty had been silent for most of the time, and truth be told had rather lost track of time. As a result, she was surprised to see it was now evening. "How did time pass by so quickly?"

"That can happen when you're stuck in isolation," Faven admitted. "You're the first humans I've seen in quite a while. We'll set off on our plan in the morning, but first I'll prepare us something to eat. Owing to my isolation it won't be Michelin quality, but it should keep us going."

Misty had to admit this was quickly proving to be one of the strangest days of her life. Not only had she met her mother for probably the first time in a very long time, she was now involved in a struggle for Britain's survival.

Again.

Author's Note

Now we have a name for the disease. As the inspiration for this story was stated in the description you probably saw this coming, but the disease is indeed Swamp Fever from the 7th Season episode A Health of Information. Although Swamp Fever is a real disease that infects horses, the disease in the show behaves more like cordyceps, which infects insects and hijacks their bodies to convert it into a flowering plant. Considering the fact that the cure for Swamp Fever was absurdly hard to obtain and the end result so horrifying, one can only wander if mercy killings were common in Hayseed Swamp.

Faven's suit of armour is based on the Firebat, a unit type from the video game Starcraft 2. A combat suit designed for fighting biological enemies with little to no armour, it seemed like an ideal fit for the setting.

Next time; fiery time!