The Hydra Effect

by G Johanson

  “My shift...I left early. They’ll ask questions,” Inès fretted.

  “Go to bed. I’ll have all of your answers ready when you wake up.”

  “Did I really do the right thing?” she asked, desperate for his reassurance.

  “You did. You were the only one who could have done it. I am so proud of you.”

  Lucien stood in the street by the nursing home with flowers for the second time, and this was another morning when she did not want to see him. She had been a fool to become emotionally involved with him in the first place. He wasn’t offering commitment and he was the nephew of her cause’s sworn enemy, the enemy of mankind itself, Georges Steil. She had killed his kin and he was oblivious to any of it, for now. It was best he left before he discovered the truth.

  “A gift to say thank you. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’d like to invite you round tonight to see you before I go,” Lucien said warmly.

  “I’ll be too busy. With the extra patients I’ll be working all night again.”

  “Again?” Lucien said quizzically. “I came to give you flowers on your way out only to find you going in.”

  “I had to go home for a little while. I’m here now.”

  “Come and see me. We can’t talk properly here. You’re too tense, and I know how to remedy that.”

  “I have to start work. You should just leave town today. I can’t see you later.”

  “Is this about Georges? He’s generally friendly to everyone but he can be funny sometimes. Don’t take it personally.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing worth mentioning. What time do you finish?”

  “Six in the morning.”

  “I can come and see you then.”

  “There’s no point. You have closure and we were never going to last. We never even started. Go back to your family.”

  “I’m not going to beg so if that’s how you want to leave it so be it. I’ll be at the cafe at noon if your bad mood lifts,” Lucien said, sounding moody himself. She’d fulfilled her purpose so he figured he could talk to her how he pleased now. She entered the building with her scripted lines ready for when the matron asked her why she skipped out in the middle of her shift. She managed to get inside without seeing anybody and she got straight down to business, cutting her wrist in the empty staffroom before she chanted the incantation. She was done; she could go home now without seeing anybody.

  A new nurse who Inès did not recognise ran into the staffroom in a whirl and she shouted, “Come quickly! I don’t know where anything is!”

  Inès followed her and she led her to the ward housing female patients where she found Delaney collapsed on the floor convulsing. The new nurse said, “I only started 10 minutes ago. She was showing me around and...”

  Inès bent down to check her airway and she said, “Go and get the matron. Upstairs, second room on the left. Right. Second room on the right. Hurry.”

  Delaney’s airway had been compromised and Inès helped save her life, though Delaney was still very ill and was placed in a bed immediately. It felt good to save a life. She quickly remembered that she had invited the creature back into the building and this placed Delaney firmly in the line of fire. Delaney was not up to talking which meant that Inès somehow managed to get through the morning without hearing any news or gossip. She felt that a patient being shot dead should surely be worthy of some discussion. The matron thanked her for working the extra hours and only criticised her a little, telling her that she didn’t mind her leaving earlier than she said, but next time could she tell them when she was leaving. Inès promised her that she would and she went into Georges’ room to see whether his body had not been discovered yet. His room was empty, with no sign of blood on the floor where he fell, though the matron would insist on such unsightly patches being thoroughly scrubbed. She went to the morgue next, to search for his body and to see if this was where the creature was hiding. She closed the door and walked to the three empty slabs. There was no sign of his body, or the creature, and she was baffled. Her confusion turned to terror as Georges Steil opened up a cupboard he’d hidden in and walked to the door blocking her escape. He rubbed his left shoulder and groaned – he was not as flexible as he used to be and had contorted himself in an uncomfortable position to fit inside the small cupboard.

  “I thought you’d never come. I might as well throw the straitjacket out now – I don’t think I can do that bit anymore. I don’t recommend old age,” Georges said genially, most unlike his provocative and judgemental manner the previous night, when she had shot him dead!

  Inès stared at him blankly and Georges heard the sound of flowing water, only it wasn’t water. He hoped she didn’t have the gun on her again or it would get rusty, a thought he chose not to share.

  “Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me...” Inès repeated softly like a mantra, envisioning her death at this vengeful spirit’s hands, a fate she could not even protest for she deserved it.

  “Why?” Georges asked.

  “Why?” she echoed, confused and terrified with no clue what he meant.

  “I thought I deserved to die?”

  “I didn’t mean to do it. I wish I hadn’t. Please leave me be!”

  “Good news. You didn’t. Weak as I am, basic hypnosis is still within my range.”

  She looked at Georges and tried to understand what he meant. “It was real,” she protested.

  “As real as we’re standing here, I know. Now you don’t know what’s real and what’s false. I apologise for that, I know that your head’s all over the place. Now what? You said you wished you hadn’t killed me. Do you still feel that way?”

  “You tricked me.”

  “I’m a magician. That’s what we do. No more mean tricks though, I promise you that on my nephews’ lives. You have a second chance, Inès, to put this right. I need your help. I don’t fully understand this. What do you say to working together?”

  “Why would you even want to?”

  “I’m not well. You could run a marathon; you’re going to be the last woman standing in this town so your help would be invaluable. A good friend of mine, a lady by the name of Zylphia, was on Albert’s side when he tried wiping out life, and she caused me a fair bit of misery at the time. Less than a year later she stood shoulder to shoulder with me when the wave of shit hit Paris. People can change; show me that you can and I might even tell my nephew not to run a mile. I don’t expect you to change your philosophy right now. I hope you have an epiphany moment but that has to come from you. If I was the monster you believe I could have changed your mind for you with hypnosis and that never even crossed my mind. It’s up to you to make the right choice. Do it before this place fills up, please.”

  Georges left her to her thoughts and once he was gone she slumped down along the wall. It was a relief to discover she was not a murderer, though the question arose of what she should do next. The creature needed sustenance or it would die and she now questioned whether this was for the best.

  Inès spent the day on the women’s ward, training the new nurse, Melodie, and looking after her friend. She worked through her dinner and spotted Lucien sat at their table at the cafe. He could see her through the upstairs window and he gestured for her to come over and she shook her head. He waved goodbye and she returned the gesture. A mayfly romance was still better than she deserved and she had other matters to attend to, even if she wanted to blot them out. She visited Georges just before she was due to leave and she sat on a chair by his bed and said wearily, “What’s your plan?”

  “I need your help for that. I’m flailing in the dark here. I don’t know exactly what I’m dealing with. Find out what you can tonight. I’ll patrol the wards with my friend and keep the ‘inmates’ safe. Bring me any written materials you have.”

  “As soon as he’s better they’re sending him to an asylum.”

  “Royer? They don’t need to do that,” Georges said, protesting vociferously at this. “That’s a second problem I’m
going to have to deal with. I can sort that one myself but for this one I need your help, Inès. I can’t make you help me, it’s your choice.”

  “I haven’t said I’m going to. I’ll decide tonight. At what point did you entrance me?”

  “A good magician never reveals his tricks so I’m completely at liberty to tell you that it was when you drew your gun. I might have fished around a little bit for information, but I promise I didn’t go too deep. I saw your motives and they’re not evil. You’ve done it all for the legacy of your brother. A familiar tale, like Ulrich Deiss all over again.”

  “I’m sorry?” Inès said.

  “I’m sorry too for bringing that name up again, something I vowed never to do. Erase that name from your memory banks. I’m not expanding on that, not even if you torture me with wet jellyfish,” Georges said humorously, attempting to divert her so that she didn’t quiz him further. “Let’s have an atrocity to remember a good man! Am I the mad one? Save the world through pestilence! That idea is pure genius. This modern logic...”

  Inès did not have a clue what he was talking about and she left him to protect the patients while she went home where she expected to find the creature. Instead she found her mother lying on her back on the kitchen floor, her eyes staring upwards. Her mouth was open a fraction, her expression serene in death. Inès knelt down besides her and stoked her face, sobbing uncontrollably yet again. After what felt like an eternity she stumbled to her bedroom and found the door was locked. She kept trying to open the door and she heard a scream from inside the room.

  “Who’s there?” Inès asked.

  Jeanne opened the door and tearfully embraced Inès. “I’ve been so scared. Have you seen Matthieu and Marie?”

  “Where’s Matthieu?” Inès asked.

  “On your mother’s bed. That thing was going to die. It couldn’t get back to the hospital so Durand said there was only one way of keeping it alive. They chose to sacrifice themselves. It took forever. It didn’t understand that...I don’t understand. Oh, Inès, I’ve been so scared. He said I should too, but I couldn’t. Don’t hate me, please.”

  “Durand did this?” Inès said hatefully.

  “They volunteered.”

  “At his suggestion?” Inès said, picking up enough details from her prattle to deduce what had happened here. The creature was supposedly too weak to consume healthy victims, who could fight back. Healthy victims who passively accepted their fates were a different proposition.

  “Yes. I know you must think I’m a traitor to the cause.”

  “The cause died with my mother. Where is he?”

  “Durand. In the bathroom. He went first.”

  This news came as a surprise to Inès and with the receptacle for her hatred gone she was at a loss as to how to react. All she had left to do now was stopping the creature. “Where’s the creature then?”

  “I don’t know. After Matthieu I locked myself in here. What are we going to do?”

  “Three more deaths won’t arouse suspicions. I’ll report it, though I don’t believe there’s any undertakers left alive or capable to move the bodies. Go home and bring home any documentation that Matthieu has. Anything. I’ll go to Durand’s and do the same.” Jeanne whimpered and Inès said, “This is important. Come back here when you’re done.”

  “Any of this any good to you?” Inès asked Georges. She had three bulging bags full of books and paperwork with her which she placed at his bedside. He wheezed as he picked up the first bag and opened it and saw what she had brought him.

  “Probably,” Georges said phlegmatically. His eyes were heavy, this old man looking even older than normal, deteriorating like every other person in the hospital, staff included, all bar her. “Do you have time to sit and talk with me? I have more questions to ask.”

  “Can you look through that first and I’ll come in on my lunch break? It’s hectic out there.”

  “I can appreciate that. You okay?” Georges noticed she looked more glum than usual, which was some achievement.

  “I’ve had better days. It killed my mother yesterday. Durand and Matthieu too.”

  Georges shook his head and he said sympathetically, “I am so sorry. I never wanted that. Demons are never big on loyalty. It’s not as developed as previous ones I’ve seen. It needs to feed and it preys on the weak because it’s still weak itself. When I blocked its access to the easy targets here it has had to look for other targets and willing victims are the easiest of all. Healthy victims might make it even stronger.”

  “We were going to...we were going to unleash a hundred of them.”

  “At least you’ve learnt your lesson with the first. A lot don’t learn so quick. It’s containable, Inès, don’t fret. You’re tough, to be able to come here today after that. If my mother doesn’t outlive me I’ll be devastated.”

  “It happened at home. I feel better being here.”

  “Let’s get rid of it once and for all and then your life can begin again. You said Matthieu. It wasn’t Matthieu Quentin, was it?”

  Inès nodded. “He despised you.”

  “With some justification. His wife...you don’t need to hear that right now.” Georges had not coveted his acquaintance’s young wife initially and she had been keener on him than he was on her for a whole summer. Things changed in autumn when she begged Georges to take her on as his pupil and a cerebral connection formed which was hard to resist and blurred lines were crossed. By the end of the year Elodie had broken her husband’s heart and his too, Georges slowly realising that Elodie purely loved what he was, not who he was, viewing him, erroneously, as some sort of dark messiah. “I’ll look through this, I’ll let you get on. I’ve buried people I love before. It does get easier. I’ll tell you about Adrienne sometime.”

  Inès went about her duties and joined Georges after her shift. He was still reading through Durand’s materials when she returned to him and she spotted his evening meal was left on the floor, untouched and stone cold. She sat down on a chair by his bed and asked him for his findings, her question languid for she felt completely empty. Going through the motions at work was hard but at least she had some purpose during working hours. Now that her shift was done she had nothing.

  “It’s hard to work out what’s real and what’s planned. The information about me is mostly false so I have to question how accurate the rest of it is. It says that when I stopped Albert Clarke, which wasn’t his name, I had a pet dragon and a consort from Hell. I had a pet rabbit named after a dragon and kind Thea was a Hellene, may whatever Gods that exist bless her soul. Durand writes about other chapters around the world: Paris, London, New York, Peking, Berlin, Madrid, Cairo, Constantinople, Maramont. That last one crops up a lot; it’s a French town I’ve never heard of where Durand has spent a lot of time.”

  Inès listened attentively to his words. She picked her nails, looking down at them as she did so, and she said, “I’m prepared to sacrifice myself to stop it.”

  “That’s good of you – won’t make a scrap of difference, mind. The solution’s not that easy. Reading through the lines and adding my own theory to it, I surmise that the thing – we need a name for it – releases spores we’ll say, into the bodies of those that it drains of life. These spores then germinate the local population, weakening them to ensure an abundant food source. As demons go it’s not particularly tough, which is why it relies upon vulnerable prey, and it has the ability to reduce us all to that. Think of insects that paralyse their prey. It can’t quite do that to us, but it slows us down enough to do us in. I believe in a matter of weeks it will kill everyone in town.”

  “There’s just one of them.”

  “It’s not human. We can only gorge ourselves so much until we literally cannot take another bite. This thing can likely feed and feed, and I know there are plenty of vulnerable meals awaiting it. I may have scared it away from here but I gather there are ill people everywhere. This hospital couldn’t take every sick person.”

  “It’s need
ed to be led to food. Where could it be now?”

  “I’ll try a spell to locate it. You should rest. You can sleep safely here if you like.”

  “It would be pointless even trying. There is one thing that won’t be in those notes. The creature was born through my blood, the blood of a virgin. That was what Durand believed and I didn’t correct him. Could that have made a difference?”

  Georges firmly shook his head. Inès was a hard girl to get to know and to see a softer side of her felt like progress and he set out to reassure her that she had not caused this crisis by what she considered her wanton ways.

  “Not in the slightest. The emphasis that most people, especially men, place on maidenhood is a method of controlling women. This monster is doing exactly what Durand desired it do. Virgins and whores have the same blood, give or take a venereal disease or two. Not that I’m calling you a whore. My bride to be was a prostitute for many years, just as Albert’s bride was. Unfortunately his bride intercepted mine.” Inès looked at Georges blankly and Georges returned to the point, clarifying, “A chaste virgin’s blood would have had exactly the same effect as a liberated woman’s.”

  Inès had not corrected Durand’s misconception and she did not correct Georges either. She had not lost her virginity as an act of independence or even as an expression of carnal lust. It had been a horrific experience and that was partly why she had not hesitated when Lucien made overtures, to try and rid the association of sex and revulsion.

  CHAPTER 3 – MEA CULPA

  Georges always quizzed the nurses as to the body count each day, the news becoming depressingly worse. The creature had to be stopped soon, though there was the danger that it had already done its damage and that they would not recover. While he couldn’t be certain, Georges trusted that it had not returned to feast at the nursing home since he had averted its attack, yet still they were dropping like flies. Wherever it was now it would be acquiring more victims and contaminating dozens if not hundreds of more potentials.