The Mandrake Effect– ONE– by P J Searle

Mercifully the aircraft lands. Harry and Rose make their way uneventfully through customs and on to arrivals. Harry leaves Rose and vaults the low barrier and runs up to Alfred, who is waiting to meet them. He grabs the little man up in a big hug.

‘Alfie! God, am I glad to see you?’

‘And me, you.’

‘How have you been? Everything okay… you watered my mandrakes? All the telex and fax papers received and stacked?’

‘Yes, yes an’ yes… your garden is okay… what do you do for buttonholes over there?’

‘Oh… plastic – it’s only America, Alfie. Mandrake doesn’t bloom there like it does in England’

‘Yes, well… nice bloody mess you’re in, I see,’ he eyes Rose’s swollen stomach, ‘Now put me down, you silly sod, I’m with…’ he indicates to a tall, blowsy looking woman in her fifties, across the big hall. She waves as Harry lets Alfred go.

‘Very nice, Alfie, very nice, indeed. Now quickly, before Rose comes out, have you done everything?’

‘Yes.’

‘Everything?’

‘Yeees! Christ sake, when have I ever let you down?’

‘Where’s the zapper, have you got it with you?’

‘Don’t be bloody daft… you do know it’s illegal in this country? It’s in your bureau with the rest of your toys. By the way, we’ve had a message from an old friend.’

‘The old man!?’ says Harry, grabbing him up again in his excitement,

‘No, sorry Harry, the old man is still dead! It was–’

‘God, I could do with my uncle now?’ He looks to the heavens, ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’

‘It was–’

‘Shush, later. Here comes Rose.’

As Rose makes her way over, Harry walks to meet her. ‘Rose. I want you to meet Alfred and…’ He raises a prompting eyebrow to Alfred.

‘…Ami,’ says Alfred’s lady-friend as she joins them, finishing the introduction, ‘Hello Rose, I’ve heard a lot about you,’ she gives Rose a curious once-over, ‘Nice to meet you, I’m sure.’

‘Right Alfie, we’re off,’ says Harry, eager to get away, ‘My motor’s kosher, I take it?’

‘Of course, legally road-taxed and insured… for once.’

‘And you’ve got yours here?’

‘Of course… also taxed and insured, at my own expense.’

‘And–’

‘Will you bugger off! … Christ! I’ll see you in the morning.’ Alfred turns to Rose, ‘You realize what you’ve bitten off here, Luv?’ Rose looks away, hands still clasped across her middle. Alfred looks worried. He turns back to Harry, ‘She okay, Harry?’

‘I’m in the doghouse, Alfie.’

‘What’s bleedin’ new?’

Harry shrugs and they go their separate ways: Alfred and Ami – Harry and Rose.

The main room of Harry’s apartment is stacked with piles of exuded fax and telex sheets––plus various healthy looking pot-plants proffering little violet flowers–– There is still every kind of computer and video equipment, ancient and modern, plus a bank of ten antiquated telex machines and a similar bank of fax machines, one of which has spilled paper out over the floor.

Harry and Rose enter. Rose flops onto the nearest sofa. Harry brings in the baggage, and then picks a fresh blossom from one of the flowerpots. ‘God, that feels better,’ say he as replaces the plastic prosthesis, ‘I can face the world now.’ He picks up the exuded paper up and stacks it neatly on the mountainous pile with the rest, then joins Rose on the sofa.

‘It’s the last batch,’ he sighs with relief, ‘I’ve got the bloody lot now. All the data from the first expedition, and all the data from your Mars shot, all on binary. Thank God no one thought to check the old-fashioned telex and fax lines – they’re all so up themselves with the newfangled bloody e-mails and internet.’ Rose looks away, uninterested. ‘Help me, Rose, I’ve got to scan every sheet. There must be two thousand, ten seconds a sheet. I’ve got two scanners, one hopper fed, the others hand fed… it’ll take all night. But if you help…’

‘If I must,’ says Rose, grudgingly conceding, ‘but I’ll need to rest first – unless you want me to start right now?’

‘Sorry, Rose… No, you rest, I’ll make us some dinner, then, when… if you feel okay we’ll get started.’

Harry gets up and lifts Rose’s legs up onto the sofa. Without a word, she closes her eyes. Harry stands a while watching her beautiful face as she sleeps, then walks to the kitchen. After he makes dinner, he wakes Rose with a kiss.

As they eat, Harry describes what has to be done: ‘What I have to do now, Rose, is scan everything then condense it and then put it onto Betamax… it’ll take about twenty cassettes. Once I’ve got that I… I transfer it to Umatic, then I condense it again onto VHS, Then…’

‘Then, what?’

‘Then… Christ, I don’t know, I fuff around all night… unless you do it, Rose.’

‘Okay, you’ve almost got it – you’re not quite as stupid as you look.’

Harry is relieved. Wanting to get started before Rose changes her mind, he leaves his meal and starts to feed in the sheets. The phone rings. Harry curses as he answers it. ‘Damn! Alfie. What is it, what’s up? … Ami says what?’

Alfred answers in ushered voice, ‘She says she’s worried about Rose, says her face don’t look pregnant enough to match her belly… just has this feeling, silly cow. Anyway, I thought I’d share it with you.’

‘Not now, Alfie, Christ, not now! I’m bloody strapped for time, I’m desperate… in the morning, old luv, in the morning.’ He puts the phone down and whispers to himself, ‘Christ all-bloody-mighty!’ He considers for a moment, then goes to his bureau and fiddles, pockets something and walks over to Rose, smiling. ‘Now this really has been in the family for years,’ he twiddles a necklace in his fingers. ‘Pearls and coral, from the South Seas… an engagement present… that’s where I intend to take you for or honeymoon, the South Seas. I want us to start off properly.’ He takes the beautiful necklace and offers it to her. He attempts to put it around her neck.

Rose turns away, ’Give it to me another time, Harry… ‘I am not in the giving vein today’.’

Harry shrugs and puts the necklace back into his pocket. ’Ha, I like it… Richard the Third – Okay, ‘another time’. Let’s get on.’

For the next six hours, they work together, loading papers into the scanners. Harry insists Rose take a rest. He leads her to the sofa. Once she is settled he returns to the machines and continues working: feverishly crashing buttons, cursing, and hurling spoilt efforts across the room. Rose, still half awake, lies watching.

At length, he turns to her, elated, with a final tape in his hand. ‘Woo,hoo! Bloody Bingo!’

He fits the tape into the large video consul. Rose stands and walks to him. With one hand she unbuttons her cardigan and lets it slip to the floor. Harry now squats in front of the consol, fiddling with the controls. He runs the tape – just static appears. He adjusts it and runs it again. Cursing he adjusts and runs it again. This time, a picture starts to form.

‘Got it,’ he yells. ‘First, the British 50’s, expedition. Your US Junairo, Mars shot is still on the machine processing.’

Ghost-like images glide across the consul screen, computer constructed facsimiles of the real figures. They move around like animated airbrush drawings, suddenly deteriorating into shapeless confusion as holes appear in the data, then the computer-link reconstructs. The fuzzy-logic program assumes the data defect, fills in and automatically runs the tape back, then moves on. As other gaps appear the computer program digests and becomes more acute. When the tape finishes, it automatically rewinds and starts to run again. On the screen the astronauts appear seated, then standing, now looking around in puzzlement, as if following the flight of a bird or insect, loose in the cabin.

WHAAAM! A hand suddenly crashes across Harry’s face knocking him clear across the room. A table and chair disintegrate as he awkwardly glides through them. He immediately staggers up, bleeding from the nose and teeth. He looks back at Rose, standing calmly by the video. She takes out the tape with one hand, the other arm now hanging limply by her side and exposing the horrible scarring from her elbow to her wrist. Without need for words Harry backs up against the wall, his fist banging hopefully, instinctively, against the hard brick wall. He watches mesmerised as her good hand moves up to her neck and unbuttons her dress. It falls open to reveal her naked, bloated stomach. Harry’s hand now feels for his holster.

‘Looking for these, Harry?’ It is Rosette that speaks. She picks up his holster from behind her chair and lets it drop.

‘Rose, I–’

‘I promise this won’t take long.’ She places her good hand onto her swollen stomach, pushes the fingers deep through the taut skin and rips her hand upwards, tearing a huge flap of flesh up across her body, up to the sternum, revealing a gorged blister of blood. The membrane ruptures and bursts open with a gurgling rush of matter, tentacles and steaming fluid. These tentacles whip at Harry’s throat and body, grabbing and heaving him toward the glistening gash. Harry grabs at anything in reach for anchor. But he is slowly pulled nearer and nearer, until the top of his head is just inside the opening. With one hand he grabs at the slippery rim, trying to force his head out. His other hand is grabbing at something in his trouser pocket, desperately trying to retrieve it. His head now totally engulfed as the drooling lips start to close.

His hand comes free from the pocket. He is holding a grey angular object in his fist. This he rams into the mess of blood-slime, and with one last almighty effort, forces his head free. A flash! Followed by a blood-curdling shriek, then a crash as Rosette is flung across the room, the slimy tentacles flaying out a fountain of bloody fluid with the force. Harry is winded and stunned from the partially conducted electric shock delivered from his ‘zapper’ – the police-issue stun gun Alfred had acquired.

Shaking furiously Harry manages to stagger to his feet. Hardly able to stand he grabs hold of the video console for a few seconds to steady himself. He manages to gather his wits. Still dripping glutinous digestive slime he grabs up Rosette’s discarded cardigan and wipes off the toxic goo from his face, neck and hands. He takes a few steps towards the convulsing heap, the tentacles flaying aimlessly in all directions. Bending down shakily, and making sure his feet are on dry carpet, he delivers another bolt. A harrowing cry as Rosette’s stunned body leaps again. Harry stands and staggers to his holster, where she had dropped it. He injects a full syringe into her heart, then sits back on his heels and watches the galloping pulse gradually die to a flicker. She gives a last erratic leap then is still. After a moment he injects the other syringe, refills and injects again. Satisfied that Rosette is dead, he covers the ugly mess of her lower body and stands back and looks down at her exposed face. ‘What the hell have you done with Rose, you bitch!?’ he hisses into her staring, sightless eyes.

After covering the rest of her he picks up the telephone. It rings for some minutes before Rose answers. ‘Harry, is that you? Do you know what time it is? Hey! Who is this? Answer damn you!’

Harry is so relieved he can hardly speak, ‘Rose… Thank God… Rosey… thank – ’

‘What’s happened!?’ yells Rose, ‘Where are you? Pull yourself together, take deep breaths. Now, again Harry… Damn you, what’s happened?’

‘It’s over, Rose, she’s dead. Rosette is dead. Can’t say too much, your phone is bugged… be careful… don’t tell anybody. I’m coming back for you… be ready… I love you… your phone is bugged.’ He finishes his rambling and puts the phone down without noticing the curtain blowing in from the open window and the shadow that momentarily flits across the far wall.

He makes another call, to Alfred. He waits a moment and the line connects. ‘Alfie, tell Ami she’s a bloody genius. Now, I need you to book a flight back to the States, New York, first Concorde available, just for one. Let me know when you’ve done it. No no no! Do not come here. I’ll give you instructions when you call back. As quick as you can, old mate, I’m bloody desperate!’

Harry puts the phone down and goes into the bathroom, picks up a remote control and turns on the shower, strips and showers. No gargled Jerusalem, just a silent prayer. He dries himself and puts on his dressing gown.

A noise!

Harry is frozen to the spot with fear… only his eyes are mobile. Something in the next room is moving. He slowly picks up the remote and flicks off all the lights. – Silence. He waits motionless. A creek of floorboard. In the gloom he fumbles in his pocket for his stun gun, his hand comes out empty. He creeps slowly through the apartment making for the main door, the noise following close behind.

A horrible, coarse, clammy, hideous inhuman hand slithers along the wall behind him. Harry is near the door and about to flee. The monstrous hand catches him around the throat, mid-step. Harry leaps about a foot in the air and out of the hand’s grasp, only to be grabbed two-handed on his descent.

‘GOT YE, YOO BUSTARD! A whole fockun’ weekend I spent in that poxy lift, sitting in my own shite!’

‘YOU!’ screams Harry.

‘Yes, meee! Yoo should’ni leave your windies open, Laddie, not with scum like me around. Now, you poncey sassenach poofter, I want my money, plus interest. But first I’m going to bust this wee bottle inti your pretty face.’

Harry, surprised, relieved and now angered, smashes a knee into Radcliff’s undefended groin, then delivers a masterly head-butt to the descending nose followed by two inspired uppercuts, left and then right, from somewhere just below his waist, punching clear through towards the ceiling, finishing with a beautifully aimed drop-kick to the throat of the now, doubled up, Scotsman, sending him sprawling head over heels into a face-down backside-up heap.

After a moment of reflection, Harry finds his syringe and delivers a short, sharp squirt into the offered rump. He then grabs his would-be assailant, shoves a more than ample bundle of bank notes into his pocket, then hurls him roughly out of the door, down the stone steps and out into the cobbled street, adding a parting comment, ‘Sorry, old luv, but you picked an inopportune moment. Now, you’ve got your money so I’m sure we won’t need to discuss this matter further.’

After a few moments, Radcliff staggers up, looks back at Harry in wild disbelief, and then hobbles off, one leg immobilized and continually floundering under him. – The door slams.