For
the second time on a night when the bright sphere of the moon swelled in her sky, a biting shiver travelled Nancy’s
spine. She trembled and wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders. The worn soles of the young woman’s shoes brushed
the cobbles of Mitre Square as she muttered through clenched teeth, “Bloody freezing.”
Nancy quickened her pace along the bleak and empty streets, aware that the look in her
eyes, if met by anyone, would betray her fear, the result of unspeakable thoughts pervading her mind. Although she tried to
harness it, a terrified murmur escaped her pursed lips. The fear which pursued the unfortunate women of London had been given
a name, an identity. Those who should have known better called it The Ripper, a
murderous force of undeniable precision and motivation, one often described as the epitome of evil itself.
The sound of heels hitting the cracked pavement made Nancy turn. The girl recoiled into
the comforting depths of her shawl as she caught sight of a figure rapidly approaching. She steadied herself and remained
silent as the stranger moved closer. She shut her pretty brown eyes and prayed hard, her warm breath consumed by the piercing
chill of the November air.
“Don’t let it be
him,” she whispered. As the echo of these words penetrated the night, the figure whose shadow stretched over Nancy’s
petite form, uttered a few familiar words.
“Alright, Darlin’?”
With a hurried intake of breath, Nancy opened her eyes to reveal
the face of an attractive woman. The woman, who was several years her senior, tossed her wavy red locks behind her ears and
blinked twice, betraying puzzlement.
“Oh, Mary, you gave
me a scare,” Nancy said. “You know ‘ow it gets round these parts.”
The redhead nodded in agreement
and fumbled with the buttons on her cotton overcoat. “Sorry, Nance,” she said, “you ‘ad any luck tonight?”
Nancy mopped her brow with
her handkerchief in the way she always did, crossed her arms and replied: “No, too bloody cold, ain’t it?”
Smiling sweetly, Mary took
a few steps closer and began to stroke Nancy’s hair in an affectionate manner, the loose brown curls sliding over Mary’s
thin, malnourished fingers.
“I know,” she
said, allowing her smile to fade a little, but otherwise maintaining her maternal gaze. “Just try your ‘ardest
to keep warm, Love.” Mary turned her head and stared longingly to the right of the usually thriving market square. “I’ve
got to go,” she continued. “I’ll be off the streets for a while.”
Nancy’s discouraging
stare unnerved Mary when she explained to her friend how, following the deaths of three of her close acquaintances, Inspector
Abberline had arranged for her, and her alone, to reside in safety at a local inn. Once finished, Mary gave Nancy a folded,
damp paper, and told her that on it was written her address.
“Abberline says I
shouldn’t tell anyone,” she said, “but as long as you keep it a secret, it’ll be okay.” She
withdrew her fingers from Nancy’s curls, letting them fall, framing the young woman’s face prettily, enhancing
her youth. Mary smiled and lightly pressed her lips against Nancy’s cheek.
“Take care,”
said Nancy in a quiet voice, a little resentful of her friend’s departure. Then, Mary’s figure began to fade,
scarcely discernible in the silver mist of the Whitechapel fog, and Nancy walked on alone. She paused after a minute or so
and struggled to tighten her corset, wanting to ensure her elegant curves were displayed to their best advantage. Satisfied
that they were, she gazed wistfully up at the autumn stars.
The sky was the darkest
velvet black, the full moon suspended as if on string, a dozen or more stars draped around it like brilliant sequins on an
ebony gown. Her eyes fixed on the shining globe in the night sky like a child making a wish, Nancy’s thoughts were broken
by a shrill, ominous scream.
The chilling sound echoed
from the stone wall to the right of Nancy, filling the air with its intensity. Nancy’s black pupils dilated. She gasped
and turned quickly, dropping her shawl. Sweat beaded her forehead. Panicked and isolated, she ran her hands over the dirtied
cobbles, indifferent to the trampled mud which oozed between her fingers; she crouched down as if searching for something
precious. Soon enough, she touched a familiar material warmer than the unfriendly cobbles, and grasped the frayed fabric of
her shawl, threw it over her shoulder, and backed up against the cold bricks of the wall behind her. Her breath emerged in
sharp bursts; she swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut , waiting for another unanswered cry.
It did not come. What she
heard instead sent a wave of panic and disbelief through her senses. Cutting deep into Nancy’s soul came the sound of
certain death—a sucking rent the air of Mitre Square, the dull fog itself
redolent with the essence of stifled screams and tearing, wet flesh.
What she thought was a
stomach cramp ripped through the left side of her waist. It was over fairly quickly, but was coupled with a strange nausea
in the pit of her stomach. Worried that her soft gasp would attract whatever beast was lurking not twenty feet from where
she stood, Nancy was unwilling to listen for murderers in the dark for much longer. Finally, she edged away from the stone
wall and started to run. She stumbled over the cobbles, breathless and wild. Without warning, a rush of guilt coursed through
her as she remembered her friend. Mary, she thought, please, God, let her be all right!
Uncertain of the identity
of the woman she’d abandoned to The Ripper, hot, guilty tears painted streaks
on Nancy’s skin as they traversed her pale face. She battled with the voice which shamed her somewhere inside her head.
She stopped to glance back; gas-lights flickered, near and distant. Despite her feelings of guilt, Nancy could not ignore
the fear within herself, a dread of her own demise in the clutches of the Whitechapel Ripper. Instinctively, she fled.
*
* *
Although very much accustomed
to her own company, Nancy experienced a pang of loneliness the following night as she sat in a corner of The Ten Bells Pub.
The busy crowds of middle-aged men occasionally jeered and taunted, but, used to it, she ignored them. She stared at the well-worn
table she leaned against, her eyes distant and her thoughts tormented by the events of the previous night. News had reached
Nancy; the murdered woman was Catherine Eddowes, a prostitute Nancy knew by sight, and one who’d befriended Mary long
ago. The papers confirmed that Catherine was the fourth victim of The Ripper, the
fourth to be killed in that way—torn apart, her insides on the outside.
A few loose tears splashed
on the wooden table. The killer Nancy feared had taken the lives of four women, all friends of Mary’s, and Nancy could
not help but consider her own chances of survival.
A friendly smile from a
familiar face caught the young woman’s attention, and she returned the gesture. John Clarke, a former client and good
friend of Nancy’s, sat down opposite the distraught woman.
“It’s nice
to see you, Nancy,” he said. He noticed her cheeks looked sore, her natural beauty greatly diminished by tear tracks.
Reaching across the table, he gripped her hand tight; despite her anxiety, she smiled in a way which highlighted her defined
cheekbones. Her soft smile brought Nancy her custom; her regulars adored her for it. That look excited them tremendously and
she knew it.
“I’ve missed
you,” she said, before lowering her gaze, her smile fading, devoured by dismay. She gulped and said, “I’m
scared, John…scared for my life.”
John squeezed her hand
tighter. His expression conveyed a reassurance that eased Nancy a little as she
waited for him to speak. He ran his left hand through his tousled brown hair and hesitated.
“Nancy,” he
began, “I think there’s more to the murders.” He stroked her fingers, her dainty hand cupped neatly inside
his own. Nancy admired the way John spoke, savouring his words like they were some kind of fine wine; his accent signified
his professional origin, his occupation as a respected doctor. Intrigued, Nancy stared at him, confused and silent.
“I don’t think
this is the work of man,” John replied, appearing slightly restless in his
chair.
“Then the killer’s
a woman?” Nancy exhaled and rolled her eyes. She did not believe in female
murderers.
“No,” he said,
“I think it’s something else.” He paused and glanced around the dimly-lit inn, a gleam of certainty in his
eyes. “Nancy, I’ve looked at the bodies. In all four cases, I’m sure there were no weapons used. I fear
this is the work of a being or force beyond the realm of our sciences. The police have no evidence, no real suspects. I believe
something supernatural is stalking your friends: something evil.” He paused
and looked at Nancy with his blue eyes, her brown ones looking back.
“What are you sayin’?” she asked, “Should I watch out for demons in the dark? Well, if I see
one, I’ll give him a smile and be on my way.” She pulled her hand away from his and stood up, the sarcastic tone
in her voice evident. She began to walk towards the door, and turned after two or three steps only to find John had followed
her.
He seized her arm and pulled
her close to him. Shocked, she struggled slightly, but made no real effort to free herself. Looking at her arm, John noticed
a distinct wound, a deep cut, or some sort of hole, just beneath her elbow. “What’s this?” he said, the
flesh wound red and gaping.
“I don’t know,”
said Nancy, “they just come,”
John released her arm and
ushered Nancy outside. When they reached the surprisingly isolated street, he led her to a darkened corner next to a sign
that read: ‘Miller’s Court.’ “Have you more of these marks?” he asked her. “Who’s
hurting you?”
“They don’t
hurt,” she replied, “I don’t know ‘ow they get there.” Slowly, she undid her bodice, fairly
modestly, as if it were a prized and delicate art, to reveal two more of the same wounds—one, a long gash across the
left side of her waist, angled towards her hip, the other, a smaller hole on her right breast. “They hurt only when
they…come,” she said. Nancy looked down at the wet cobbles beneath her feet, “I must be sick.”
A red blush flared across
John’s cheeks as he admired Nancy’s curvaceous figure. He ran a finger over the cut on her waist and sighed. John
helped her tie the ribbon of her bodice as best he could, removed his own heavy black jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
“I don’t think
you’re sick,” he said. “I’m not sure what’s happening, but those marks are unnatural.”
He rubbed his brow and glanced briefly at the sky. “Nobody has hurt you, and you haven’t done yourself any harm,
have you?”
The young woman shook her
head, her big brown eyes swelling with tears.
“Nancy, they seem to be coming out from inside.”
Shocked at the prospect
of an evil residing within herself, she wept, letting huge sobs rise from her chest. John gripped her shoulders and held her
close.
“I’m so afraid,”
she choked, and John could feel her body weakening, her legs ready to refuse her. As she cried, he stroked her hair and kissed
her head, wishing he could tell her it was going to be all right. Suddenly, her cries turned to something more as she jumped
away from John, gave a scream of pain and clutched the right side of her neck.
“What is it?”
he said, “Nancy, what happened?”
She stopped crying and
slowly moved her hand from her throat to reveal a fresh tear, a blistered red scar stretched across her neck. It looked angry.
“Oh, God,”
cried John, “whatever’s in you, Nancy, is bad.”
Nancy touched her new wound;
it was painless, familiar, as if it had always been there, a part of her. John stroked her face with the backs of his fingers
and kissed her lips, his tongue flicking against hers.
“I’m going
to find out what I can,” he said. “I’ll come back for you. Call upon one of your friends. Don’t walk
the streets alone.”
“I need you with
me, John. What if something…happens?”
“You’ve more
to fear than men,” he said. “I promise I’ll find you.”
Nancy was used to empty
promises, but trusted John, and reached into the tattered pocket of her skirt. She pulled out the folded parchment she’d
put there, and, as John began to walk away, she unfolded the paper and read the address: ‘13 Miller’s Court Inn.’
Anxious and alone, she walked
the Whitechapel streets until she reached the room Mary was renting. The outside was unappealing; the walls were damp, the
door decomposed, and the wooden window frame splintered. She noticed the warm glow of a candle from inside and began to call
to her friend.
“Mary, let me in,”
she said. “It’s Nancy; I need to talk to you, Darlin’.”
Silence; perhaps she’s sleepin’, thought Nancy, and rapped harder on the door.
Mary screamed. It was a
scream which verbalised the terror Nancy felt inside herself. She could hear the sound of tearing fabric and falling furniture,
and she pounded her fists against the wood.
“I’m here!”
Nancy cried as she forced her weight against the door. It opened and she stepped inside.
The sight she met would
remain with her, burnt into her memory by an uncompromising flame, its ashes scattered over the remnants of her life. Mary
was being ripped apart. She was dying, but under the hands of no man, as if death itself was claiming her life; there was
no one in the room with her. Mary was stood over her bed, her face contorted in pain as an invisible predator sliced at her
stomach.
Nancy sank to her knees.
Wide-eyed, she tried to make sense of the macabre sight before her—the tearing skin, the red-flecked walls, the blood.
She shut her eyes as Mary collapsed onto the bed beside her, her limbs severed and her face hacked beyond recognition. Slumped
across the dirtied bed sheets, Mary, or what remained of her, drew in a final breath as she gazed at her friend.
“It’s the fear,” she stammered, her voice hoarse, as if each word was as painful as a
razor fighting its way out of her throat. Then she stopped, stiff. When her mutilated body stilled, the only indication for
Nancy that the corpse before her was her friend’s, was the bright-red hair which lay flat against the bed, still lively
even in death. Something stirred in Mary’s throat. Powerless, Nancy watched as a small black mist exited her lips into
the night. The obscure shape, menacing but graceful, made patterns inside itself as it moved towards the window; Nancy thought
she saw an image of herself, small, raw and vaguely defined, running from a hollow apparition which took the form of a black
figure in the mist. She blinked and it was gone…and so, at long last, were her wounds.
John had been right! The
killer called The Ripper that had, indeed, hunted Nancy and her friends, could never be punished or stopped. For centuries to come, what had consumed five vulnerable women would
be given an identity recognised by all. Nancy vomited in the corner of the inn, realising she had to be brave, to dread no horror: for none was worse than fear itself. She knew that her discovery would be wasted on others; she would be doubted
and disbelieved. Instead, the fear that had taken the lives of her friends would be humanised, and named, as such things often
were. It would be known as Jack.
Rebecca Knight, bee_bopp@hotmail.co.uk, our youngest author, in her late teens, wrote “Known as Jack.” She is
from sunny old England and studying English at University as of October ‘07. She has always enjoyed writing dark, atmospheric
and disturbing stories, but admits she’s a “total virgin” when it comes to submitting them to anyone. Her
story, set in nineteenth century London, focuses on a small group of female friends, who encounter an eerie force stalking
their streets.
