Unspeakable

by Marturano, Tony

  The retching continued, growing in intensity, as a lump, the size of a golf ball, appeared in her throat, and gradually squeezed its way up her oesophagus.

  It filled her mouth with bile, built the pressure in her head, and distended her eyeballs.

  Then, she began to whine like a disgruntled cat. Low at first then slowly getting louder until the sound was replaced by the squishing of cartilage as she began to choke.

  Rupert finally found his feet, as did Adam. They moved to assist, but they were both too late. They could only watch, in stupefied horror, as the gagging metamorphosed into a loud wheeze.

  What happened next was so shocking it seemed to unfold in slow motion, yet was over in seconds.

  Gagging and choking, Elisabeth Harrison doubled over in one final, painful spasm, before lifting her head and vomiting over the brilliantly white table.

  The black, sticky fluid spattered the centrepiece of flowers, and sprayed Julie and Rachel’s faces, freezing both of them in shock.

  The second expulsion of thick black liquid was accompanied by large clots of coagulated blood that squelched as they hit the table in front of her.

  The third joined it, creating what looked like a crude-oil slick that oozed over the table and dripped to the floor.

  Then, Elisabeth’s eyes rolled white once more, and she collapsed to the floor.

  Adam and Rupert fell by her side.

  Ashley rushed for the phone, while all Rachel, Julie and Jason could do was stare in disbelief.

  The plates of food, the crystal wine glasses, and the once luminously white table cloth were now coated in putrid, sticky blackness.

  47 Disease

  They had been at the hospital for nearly two hours, and were yet to receive any news from doctors, who had rushed Elisabeth through to the Intensive Care Unit.

  Adam had spent most of the time sitting in the metal chair in the corridor, with his face in his hands.

  Rupert had alternated between sitting, pacing and drinking machine-bought coffee.

  Ashley did her best to tend to both men, and provide as much support as she could, but she felt inadequate.

  She was probably with the only two men in the world who loved Elisabeth. She was under no illusion that there was no amount of comforting hugs, words of encouragement or coffee fetching that could possibly make either of them feel better.

  For Rupert, it wasn’t just about his cousin, it was also about being back in the very place that reduced him to a young man once more.

  The smells, the waiting, the anticipation, the dread, and the fear of what the world might be, without someone who meant everything.

  Miriam Harrison had been admitted to this very hospital on three separate occasions after attempting to take her own life.

  The first two times, doctors had pumped her stomach, given her a talking to, recommended another therapist and sent her on her merry way.

  The third time, things started out pretty much in the same vein, with young Rupert oblivious to the damaging effects of excessive medication on the human body. He had no reason to believe that things would work out differently this time.

  That was until a solemn-faced doctor came out to speak with his father. He told him, somewhat casually, that, given his wife’s history of abuse, her liver was failing, and that she would need a transplant to make it through the night.

  But the waiting list was long.

  All they could do was pray for somebody else’s disaster to become their miracle.

  It didn’t.

  Presently, exhausted from all the pacing, Rupert sat down, and, like a frightened little boy, rang his hands together.

  Ashley stroked his hair and rubbed his back with affection. He looked pale, haunted with grief, and she so desperately wished there was something she could do to take his away his pain.

  But there was nothing.

  It was another half hour before the doctor, a balding, gangly man with spectacles walked up to them.

  “Mr Harrison?”

  Rupert, like a soldier who had been caught sleeping on duty, jumped to his feet.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  Adam and Ashley stood close to him.

  “How is she?” Rupert asked.

  The doctor, whose face was alarmingly grim, thrust his hands into his pockets and said, “I am very sorry, but Miss Harrison has suffered severe organ failure.”

  Rupert’s stared.

  “What, what,” he stammered, “What does that mean, doctor, what happened? Specifically, I mean.”

  “Well, specifically, Miss Harrison’s primary organs have been eroded so severely, that they can no longer function without the aid of life support.”

  Rupert cocked his head as if the doctor were speaking another language and uttered, “Eroded, how, by what? You mean cancer or something, what do you mean?”

  “I am very sorry, at this time, Mr Harrison, we don’t know. We’re still running tests. My diagnosis, and it’s really just a guess at this stage, is that we’re dealing with some kind of voracious organism that has been feeding off her. Has Miss Harrison travelled abroad recently, say during the past six months?”

  Rupert shook his head. “No, not that I know of…”

  He looked at Adam, who also shook his head, but said nothing as if he had lost the power of speech. He simply stared at the doctor with wild eyes.

  Ashley was worried about him and wondered if he should be left alone tonight.

  “Anywhere she may have gone without you knowing?”

  “I doubt it,” Rupert said, “we work together; I normally know everything about her travel. Adam’s her boyfriend, he’d know if there was anything else.”

  Adam merely shook his head again.

  The doctor nodded.

  “Why? What are you thinking; she may have picked up some kind of illness, a bug of some sort?”

  “It really is too early to say. I have asked a specialist to come down and see her. I am hoping he will be able to tell us more.”

  There was quiet but for the paging of a Dr Ferguson who was being asked to report to reception, and the giggling of a couple of nurses, as they walked by.

  “Look, we’ve stabilised her for now. There really isn’t much else you can do for her tonight. Go home. We’ll contact you as soon as the specialist has seen her and we know more.”

  Rupert shook his head. He wasn’t going to leave.

  “There really isn’t much more we can do right now but wait…”

  “…For her to die?” Rupert snapped.

  The doctor weighed his answer carefully. “Until some of the tests come back and my colleague has examined her.”

  “But you don’t think she’s going to make it, though, I mean primary organ failure, doesn’t bode well, does it?” Rupert said, caustically, anxiety thick in his voice.

  The doctor did not respond. He left Rupert to draw his own conclusions.

  That’s when that familiar sense of dread began to suffocate him, just as it had all of those years before. It made him weak at the knees and want to collapse to the floor and weep.

  “I’ll be in touch,” the doctor said, turned and walked away, leaving Rupert standing in the middle of the corridor, no longer a powerful businessman, but a frightened teenager once more.

  48 ltn news

  It was past ten in the evening and freezing rain was spitting against the window.

  Abigail Palmer was sitting at her computer in the deserted offices of London Television Network.

  Saturday night, and like many weekends before, Abigail was working. Her latest story was the Stantons and the tragic death of their son.

  The best thing was that, through an unprecedented stroke of luck, she happened to have interviewed them the actual night their son died. Therefore, she was already coming at the story from a different angle; star denies being overprotective on show while son is murdered.

  Of course, her editor thought the headline was ‘Over sensational’.

  His c
omment didn’t surprise Abigail, since it was coming from the man who also resisted her pitch for a one hour special on the grounds of good taste, which was a joke coming from him. That guy would strip his mother and put her onscreen if he thought it’d improve ratings.

  She argued that a special about the celebrity couple and what had happened to their son, was a must, because if they didn’t do it, one of the other broadcasters would.

  It was only towards the end of the ridiculous conversation, when the fifty-something started grinning like a freakish Cheshire Cat that she realised; it wasn’t that Miles Toomey disliked the idea of the special, he just didn’t want her to produce it.

  And it wasn’t the first time that her blonde hair, big blue eyes and pendulous breasts had had an impact on her career.

  It always went one of two ways; they either fast-tracked her to her ultimate goal or they got in the way of it. The latter normally happened when she refused to sleep with men in power. Men who wanted to have it both ways; keep their marriages as well as a bit on the side,

  This time, while her sexuality had a bearing on the situation, it wasn’t for the usual reasons.

  Miles, an ‘out and proud’ homosexual, was in no way interested in her curves, other than how they attracted men for him to ogle.

  He didn’t want Abigail to produce the segment because there were a couple of other producers with penises that he would much rather give the job to, despite the fact that she was clearly the best choice. Everybody knew it. Hell, he even knew it, and it had absolutely nothing to do with her physical appearance, and everything to do with her impeccable journalistic record.

  “People see enough depressing crap in their dreary everyday lives, they don’t want to watch more of it when they turn on the TV,” he had said after viewing a six-month-in-the-making documentary about homeless people.

  When Abigail asked him why he hadn’t mentioned anything before, the man turned to her with that smile and those thin lips and said, “I needed a basic tutorial on how documentaries should not be made and I thank you for creating such a masterpiece.”

  After that, the whole room went quiet.

  That’s right, Miles didn’t mock her work in the privacy of his office, that wasn’t his style. He told her during the morning briefing.

  And for a seasoned reporter such as her, it was more than a humiliating experience. It was one that actually made her want to burst into tears and run screaming from the room, but only after she’d kicked the wanker’s teeth in.

  Sadly, he was the new Editor-in-Chief, and she couldn’t afford that luxury, not if she wanted to keep her job.

  Now, nearly a year and several award-winning documentaries later, Abigail was back. She had landed an exclusive with the Stanton interview. Admittedly, she had only got the job because nobody else was available at such short notice. Yet, she had pulled it off, despite the crap she had to endure from the director, who just happened to be from Miles’ neck of the woods.

  It had taken a lot of courage for her to walk into Miles’ office today and pitch the idea of a feature, and she was ready for the knockback.

  “Come on, Miles. Let’s not piss about. You know I’m the right person for the job. Don’t let your penis come between us.”

  “Don’t you worry, there’s no chance of that happening, love,” he clipped.

  “I know, because you’ll probably be too busy showing it to Matt Warren.”

  His eyes lit up.

  “That’s right. My chum from school. The one you’ve had a crush on for the best part of two years...”

  “…I’ve had no such thing…”

  “…Seriously, Miles?”

  She looked at him, expectantly.

  He shrugged, irked by the fact that she’d come to know him so damn well, and that she no longer feared him, yet he’d actually come to respect that.

  “What do you want?” He said, impatiently.

  “You know what I want,” she said with a grin.

  “Done. But do we even know if Matt’s…”

  “…Hey, I’ll just bring the horse to water, and all that. The rest is up to you.”

  “Fine,” he agreed, like a petulant child.

  She sat on his desk and spent the next ten minutes reeling off all the reasons why this special would work, and why Heron Heights was the perfect backdrop to it all. There were so many angles. She would pack it with detail, research and would have an outline with him in a few days.

  “You have until Monday.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  She winked.

  “Get out, you annoying little girl,” he said, feigning interest in his laptop.

  Abigail moved to leave the room, but stopped at the door and turned, “Oh and Miles, you and I both know that this whole Matt thing is just a sweetener. You were going to give me this job anyway.”

  “If you say so.”

  And that’s how she now found herself scouring the web and the archives, for as much detail as she could find about the Stantons, the Harrison dynasty, and Jackie Harris. She was going to need to dig up every shred of original detail to impress Miles.

  She drank from her cup and flinched, her coffee had turned cold, and it was with a heavy heart that she walked over to the coffee machine for a refill.

  The challenge ahead was daunting. She was going to need to outline interviews, places, collate evidence and script it all into a 1-hour show. There was no way she could get it all done by Monday, but then maybe that’s why Miles had agreed to give it to her.

  He enjoyed nothing more than to hand her a bomb, and see if she was smart enough to diffuse it before the thing exploded in her face.

  Bitten off more than you can chew?

  Hell no!

  She sat back at her computer; she had already collated as much as she could on the Stantons; his driving and her acting career.

  Thankfully, she had already conducted some research for the interview that was never used. Now, she needed to take a look at Heron Heights, its history, owners and security. Then, she would move on to the tenants.

  She made notes on a pad:

  Jackie Harris’ death; How did she die? Was it suicide or was she killed? Conspiracy angle; The Met tried to ban the book, what’s in it? Where’s the manuscript now? Damaging manuscript mysteriously disappears; that will go down well with Miles. Look into that.

  Rupert Harrison; millionaire publisher, twin brother died in freak accident. Mother died of an overdose. A lot here. Concentrate on this bloke!

  Ashley Marshall, editor at Harrison Publishing and also Harrison’s girlfriend. Controversial already, for wanting to publish a book about the Met rape case. Otherwise, don’t know much about her?? Find out more. Need more background.

  Other tenants at Heron Heights. Know nothing about them. Find out more, visit the place.

  Abigail looked at her notes and smiled; there was so much here, if she did her work properly, she would have Miles by the balls.

  She shuddered at the literal thought of that and went back to work.

  49 Sunday

  Sunday morning reflected Rachel’s mood; grey with freezing drizzle.

  She didn’t want to get out of bed. In fact, when the alarm went off, she just rolled over, and actually contemplated never returning to the dungeon. Especially since she could hear Jason’s deep breathing beside her.

  She just wanted to snuggle up to him.

  Instead, she reluctantly extricated herself from under the covers and sleepwalked to the shower, where all of her memories began to parade themselves in front of her like a grotesque fashion show.

  First, not surprisingly, was the dinner.

  She still had the vivid memory of the warm stickiness of Elisabeth’s vomit, as it slapped her face, as well as the pungent odour that had rapidly filled the room and her nostrils.

  She shuddered then scrubbed a little harder.

  Then, she felt guilty, as if her reaction was some kind of disrespect to the woman who had obvio
usly suffered, and, of course, her hosts.

  She wondered how everybody was doing today and made a mental note to ring Ashley.

  Then, she promptly pushed that particular set of thoughts from her mind, because she was already feeling rough; the vision of Elisabeth, no matter how guilty she felt, was making her feel physically ill.

  Her thoughts then turned to the argument she’d had with Jason about Night & Day. It was obvious that he didn’t want her to work there, and that he did have the money to support them both. On the other hand, she didn’t like being told what to do, but was she cutting her proverbial nose off to spite her face?

  Maybe she should have a conversation with Lilly today, be honest, and explain how unsettling recent events had been, and how her boyfriend was worried about her…

  …Come on Rachel, this is all a cop out and you know it!

  And she was right.

  She told herself to shut up and put up, or get out. She’d been there but days, and hadn’t even given the place a chance. But then, she hadn’t really had the opportunity. It was as if the whole world had gone to crap the moment she arrived here.

  Ultimately, she decided she’d take a look at some job sites at the end of her shift. Hell, if things were quiet, she might even take a look while she was there.

  And so, thirty minutes later, after running the gauntlet of the creepy hallway that she absolutely hated, she arrived at the office to find the door unlocked.

  She pushed on it, and it swung open with that hateful, loud creak.

  “Good morning, Lilly?” She said, cheerily.

  Silence.

  “Lilly?” She called again as she entered the office, but it was empty.

  As always, it was dark in there but for that strip of grey sky through the window.

  She flicked on the wall light, but it spat at her and died. She tried the same with the overhead light, but it, true to its usual self, did the same.

  “What a surprise.”

  She stepped back out and peered down the gloomy corridor.

  “Lilly?”