The HarpIES – Web Episode 1.
Gerard Moran woke with a start at the alarm. He must have slept, but didn’t remember falling asleep. He didn’t remember getting back home at all. In his mind one minute there was darkness, and the next a July morning sun streamed in through the window as though nothing was wrong with the world.
Gerard lay gazing at the clock on his bedside cabinet, blankly watching the hands of the dial turning around its face. He tried to settle on a thought, any thought, but his mind wouldn’t let him and instead flitted from one nightmare scene to another. He sat up, head swimming. Gerard’s body worked autonomously and he rose from the bed, walking across the room to the en-suite, following his regular routine. He turned on the shower and took off the bloodied jeans and shirt he still wore, absently noting he’d also been sick at some point. Gerard could feel pressure inside him. A piling of memory upon memory, image after image till he thought his head would explode. He stepped in under the flow, hoping the water would cleanse him in its warmth, but instead was met by a flaming bolt of pain shot which through the side of his head as the stream washed over him. He staggered backwards with the shock of it, almost cracking the glass sides of the shower as he rattled off them. Gerard turned away from the water, fumbling with the sliding panel as he tried to get back out. After some agonising seconds he was able to pull the door back, and collapsed onto the cold tiled floor. A dark aura tried to close in around him, while he fought back the urge to throw up again. The pain triggered his stifled emotions, and there was nothing he could do but let the tide of it take him. Consumed in the memories of the last twenty-four hours he began to sob.
Gerard was supposed to have met Mandy, his girlfriend of six weeks, when she finished work. She had a job in her dad’s generic ‘Coffee Bean’ franchise on the concourse at the Piccadilly train station in Manchester, but had fallen ill on her shift, and went home instead of meeting him. It didn’t take Gerard long to get back to his rented apartment, but Mandy had already gone to lie down. Looking at her he was immediately concerned. She had a grey, almost bloodless pallor to her skin and was shivering, but had a high temperature. Mandy’s chills quickly became a fever, and by the time a scared Gerard phoned the emergency services the heat was perceptively radiating out from her skin. The ambulance arrived only a short time later, but already Mandy’s pain had reached the point where she couldn’t stand anything touching her, even the sheets she lay on. As the medics tried to move her onto a stretcher, she emitted one final blood chilling scream before thankfully falling unconscious. Gerard knew unconsciousness wasn’t a good thing, but anything was better than her constant pain, as the medics could do nothing for her suffering.
Mandy came around again towards the end of the journey to the hospital, and for a moment she seemed almost normal. But no sooner had she leveled off when convulsions set in, red speckled foam and spit bubbling from her mouth as she jerked and shook while Gerard impotently looked on. The paramedic tried to hold her down, but she thrashed around wildly and only remained in the bed because of the straps put in place for the journey from the flat. For a second it all stopped, and then Mandy opened her eyes. Gerard gasped in horror at the red filled orbs staring back. It looked as though every blood vessel in her eyes had exploded.
Mandy began to struggle again, violently this time, with purpose. Then she stretched up and sunk her teeth into the medic’s arm as he knelt over her, biting away a large chunk of flesh. The ambulance man screamed in agony, and staggered backwards as blood poured from the wound. Mandy frantically pulled at the straps, trying to free herself while growling and snarling like a caged animal.
Somewhere in the background Gerard heard the driver shouting, then a moment later the ambulance turned and braked abruptly. The medic was propelled down the vehicle and took Gerard with him, both of them crashing into the door and partition that separated the cab from the back of the ambulance. The rear doors opened, and staff from the hospital were already waiting for them. Gerard untangled himself from the medic, still unable to take his eyes from Mandy. In a matter of a few hours she’d changed from his girlfriend to this animal thing. He barely noticed someone was talking to him.
“Sir, can you hear me? Are you injured?” Gerard looked at the man as though he spoke a foreign language, the shock of what was happening around him setting in.
“No…No, not me – him.” Gerard said absently, talking about the medic but still looking at Mandy as they tried to remove her out of the ambulance.
“Sir…Sir!” Gerard could feel himself being shaken, and he tried to concentrate on the doctor. “The woman you’re with, where’s she been for the last few hours?”
“The station, she was working at the train station – Piccadilly. What’s happening to her?” Gerard replied, notes of panic creeping into his voice.
“She’s another from the station, get her into isolation now!” The doctor shouted at those battling to keep Mandy on the bed.
Gerard found himself being pulled along by the arm. He was dragged through to the emergency room, in behind the trolley that was barely holding his rabid girlfriend as she struggled to free herself.
“What’s happening? Where are you taking her?” Gerard pulled away from the doctor, demanding answers.
“Sir, we’ve another…”
The sentence was never finished. Even over the din of the emergency room, people could hear crashing and screams behind the swinging double doors where Mandy had just been wheeled. As though in anticipation the room quietened, then the doors burst open and a nurse bundled out with the front of her uniform awash in red. She fell to the floor shaking in a seizure. People rushed forward to help her, but immediately stopped and began to back away again when they saw who followed her out the doors. Gerard’s stomach turned as the figure lurched into view – it was a blood covered Mandy, somehow she had gotten free of the restraints.
People quickly moved out of the way of Mandy and the nurse, creating an empty space around them. Two flak-vested policemen who’d been talking to some of the other hospital staff stepped into the void, and were now raising their semi-automatic weapons.
“Armed Police! Down on the ground!” One of the officers shouted, but this did nothing other than move Mandy’s attention from the nurse to the officer.
“Don’t move!” The officer shouted again, but Mandy paid no attention and slowly kept coming forward as though gauging them.
The officer looked like he was about to speak again, but the nurse had silently raised herself from the floor, and now screaming ran at the officer who was closest to her. She attacked him in frenzy, biting at his face and neck, jets of blood spraying out as they both fell to the floor. Mandy took this as her cue, and launched herself at the policeman who still stood. Then the guns went off, and pandemonium broke out in the crowd around them.
People were screaming and pushing each other, trying to get to away from the flash point. Those too slow or sick got pushed aside, or trampled underfoot as mob mentality took over. Gerard couldn’t help but be swept along with them, and was barely able to keep his footing within the stampede of frightened people heading for the exit. Just before the door Gerard managed to turn, and for a second he saw Mandy again. This time she was on the ground, a dark flow of red spreading out from her still body. A blood soaked officer stood with his gun still trained on her, and then they were both lost as the crush of bodies filled in behind him.
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