Dead Horizon Part 2

Later that day Cecil picked up a copy of the Ill.u.s.trated Police News and read an article about the Murder in Whitechapel, this one referring to the first. It was then he learned the name of the woman he'd killed. Knowing her name made him a bit sorrowful. He had not fancied his victims with names, which now put a sinister twist upon his deeds.

He went out that afternoon to a pub called the Ten Bells. He had a gla.s.s of gin, which was uncustomary for him. He normally did not drink, nor did he smoke, but now, to soothe his nerves, he engaged in both vices.

He was quite surprised at the number of men and women in the establishment, and he listened with great interest as some of the women gathered round one table and began talking about the discovery of a body earlier in the morning. They were truly frightened, and it gave him a perverted sense of satisfaction to sit so close to them without their having the slightest inkling as to his ident.i.ty.

He watched the poor women for some time, imagining each as a possible victim, and he even picked out one he had seen working the neighborhood regularly. She would be a prime target.

He finished his gin and left the pub, walking the streets hours as he plotted his next move, for Edward would not survive long on the meager offerings Cecil had recently provided him. Already his flesh had begun to peel away from the rotting bones beneath, his teeth were dropping, and his ribs were beginning to show. Soon there would be nothing left at all.

Cecil had to kill again, and fast, if Edward were to continue living.

Cecil sat with Edward more frequently as the cold, damp September nights pa.s.sed by. He would read to Edward, spend hours brus.h.i.+ng the few strands of hair Edward retained, and talk to Edward about days gone by.

One night while Cecil read a news article in the London Times about the Whitechapel Murders, he glanced up and saw that Edward's nose had fallen crooked. He reached up to fix it, and for a moment he simply stared into Edward's one good eye, connecting with the despair he saw there.

"They are making arrests," Cecil said suddenly. "These killings confuse them. They have no idea. To them it is simply the work of a madman, and now I'm afraid the publicity may get to be too much, then what will I do for you?"

He leaned up and kissed Edward's cold, gray forehead.

"I will not let you perish," he said in a tired voice.

Cecil awoke with a start. Something was wrong. He felt the cold grip of terror in the pit of his stomach. He rose from the chair in which he'd dozed without realizing it, hurrying to check on Edward. He gasped in horror to see that the door to Edward's room stood wide open.

He rushed through the house, desperate to find Edward, hoping he was simply wandering around. Cecil had never forgotten to lock the door to Edward's room before. Edward was not accustomed to wandering about in such a large area, and Cecil worried he might get himself into trouble.

After searching high and low, it was apparent Edward was not to be found in the house. Cecil grabbed his coat and went outside to look for him.

The sheer madness of thinking Edward was wandering these fog-shrouded streets was enough to scramble the brain. Edward could be anywhere. Fear for his well-being made it nearly impossible for Cecil to function with any degree of confidence. He rushed through the maze of streets and alleyways, he searched courtyards, and he even checked pubs, all to no avail.

And then, simply by chance, Cecil rounded a corner and saw Edward attacking a woman of ill repute. The woman was putting up quite the struggle, wailing away at Edward, who hardly seemed equipped to fight back. Cecil rushed to Edward's defense, and just as the woman started to scream, Cecil silenced her by opening a wide gash in her soft throat.

A man somewhere nearby called out, "hurt her," or "murder," or something to that end. Cecil took Edward by an arm and rushed him down a dark alley, heading in the general direction of Mitre Square.

When Cecil and Edward reached the square, a dark-haired woman in her forties had the misfortune of meeting them. She turned on the charm so as to solicit business, realizing much too late that she had made a terrible mistake. When she got a look at Edward's rotting features up close and not hidden by fog, the woman changed her demeanor quite quickly.

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.la""

Cecil had the knife in his hand in a flash. He moved before the woman could finish her sentence, swiping the blade across her neck, nearly removing her head in the process. When she fell to the ground, Cecil threw himself on top of her and began to mutilate her with abandon.

He cut off her nose and one of her ears, then he carved up her face until it was an unrecognizable pulp. He opened her belly and dragged out her organs, then he sliced and chopped until he was soaked with blood and exhausted beyond measure.

Edward stood by pa.s.sively. Cecil looked up at him, breathing heavy and gasping as he spoke. "Go on," he said, nodding at the slain woman. "She's all yours." He got up and took a few steps back from the corpse.

Edward knelt beside the dismantled corpse and buried his face in her open abdomen, and with both hands he filled his mouth with her steaming organs, only occasionally looking up at Cecil.

Cecil slipped some of the woman's kidney inside his coat. He waited patiently for his brother to finish, though he kept casting nervous glances over his shoulder, fearing the man who'd called out earlier may come snooping about.

"Come, Edward, that's enough," Cecil said, eager to be gone.

Edward looked dejected, but he took one more bite of the viscera and followed after Cecil, who moved carefully, peering around every corner before moving ahead.

The two made quite a pair and could quite possibly draw negative attention if a constable were to see them creeping about in the fog.

When they were finally home again, Cecil coaxed Edward back into his room with the stolen kidney and left him chewing as he locked the door.

Cecil returned to the front room and dropped into his chair. He noticed that his hands were shaking rather violently. He drew a deep, calming breath and closed his eyes. There was no sound save for the occasional thump that came from Edward's room. Cecil half-expected a constable to bang on his door, demanding the surrender of the creature Cecil harbored, but no such knock came.

Soon Cecil fell into a deep, undisturbed sleep.

The newspapers gave him a namea"Jack the Ripper. Quaint. Letters purporting to be from him had been received by the police and the news hounds. The authors of those letters bragged about deeds they knew nothing about. Utter nonsense, all of it. What drove the fools to seek such unearned attention?

The mockery they all made of his work. What he did was for love and for the benefit of Edward. He was not a thrill seeker. His motives were of the highest order, and for the newspapers to give voice to such rubbish was despicable.

"They're making it difficult, Edward," Cecil told his brother. "The publicity, I'm afraid, will have a dire effect on us."

Edward hardly paid Cecil any mind. His condition had grown much worse. His eye sockets were empty save for a few squirming maggots. Most of his skin had withered away, and that which remained was nothing more than parchment. His lower jaw hung by strips of rotted tissue, and all but three of his teeth were gone.

Though little remained of the thing that Cecil called his brother, Cecil refused to give up hope. He would kill more wh.o.r.es if it would bring Edward back.

He went out into the night again. He slipped through the shadows and down narrow pa.s.sageways, cutting through darkened courtyards in search of an easy victim. He came upon a woman he recognized from the pub. He approached her and spoke to her briefly. She said she was turning in for the night, and he offered her double her rate if she would accommodate him.

"Come along then," she said after consideration. "I've a room nearby."

Cecil slipped his arm around her waist.

"You are frisky, ain't ya, now?" she said.

She glanced down at his black medical bag for the first time and pulled away "Are you a doctor?" she asked, a sudden, nervous edge in her tone.

"That I am," Cecil answered with authority, hoping to quell her fear.

"You're not that bloke that's killin' all the ladies?"

"Heaven's no," he said. "I'm not that sort."

She giggled and led him into the courtyard. Her room was first on the right, number thirteen.

An unlucky number for her tonight.

He struck almost immediately upon entering the room. He attacked from behind, slicing her throat from left to right. He'd become quite adept at wielding his dagger in a professional manner, so he made quick work of her, pus.h.i.+ng her down onto a nearby cot even as he drew the knife across her neck.

He was in the midst of stabbing and ripping when he saw Edward in his mind's eye. His poor, tortured brother, a man who had once been the savior of many, now nothing more than a rotting corpse.

Poor Edward, who thought he could save the world by finding the elixir that would sustain life forever. It was unfair that a man of Edward's caliber should suffer the indignities a.s.sociated with the rotting of a human corpse.

The thought enraged Cecil. He slashed and ripped and tore at the young woman beneath him. He dragged out her intestines and hung them over the edge of the bed. He carved away body organs and removed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then he sliced and peeled away her skin, baring raw meat and tendons.

The entire episode took perhaps twenty minutes. Cecil finished by placing some of the woman's remains over her shoulder. He put her uterus, her kidney, and a breast under her head, and he left her liver between her feet. If they wanted Jack the Ripper, Cecil would give them Jack the Ripper. If they wanted a callous, mysterious killer, then so they would have one.

The papers and the police would have their work cut out for them.

There was a bounce in Cecil's step as he made his way through the dark London streets. The weight of the medical bag felt good in his hand. He'd taken a good portion of the meaty organs for his brother, and a couple strips of flesh as well, and he'd made a show of it for the authorities.

Cecil heard the commotion long before he saw anything. His spirit fell when he realized the pandemonium originated from the very street where he and Edward lived.

He picked up his pace, jogging at first, then full-out running. He rounded the corner and saw several firefighters from the Metropolitan Fire Brigade running w.i.l.l.y-nilly, some shouting orders, others simply doing the best they could to fight the raging flames.

Cecil stood staring at the disaster. Flames leapt high into the air and thick black smoke billowed from the windows of the brick flat as the inside was consumed. In spite of the best efforts of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, they would not be able to extinguish the fire in time to spare poor Edward.

Cecil covered his face and pushed his way toward the burning flat. The heat was blistering and unbearable.

"Hey, you there . . . get back before you scorch yourself."

Cecil ignored the warning and hurled the medical bag into the flames.

A firefighter grabbed hold of Cecil's arm. "Step away from here," he said.

Cecil jerked his arm away and rushed off, pausing at the corner long enough to look back at the fire one last time before disappearing into the London fog . . .

April 24th, 1891 " . . . right here on the East Side," a stocky newspaper vendor called out around the fat cigar in his mouth.

A lanky man wearing black trousers, an overcoat, and a black hat rounded the corner and b.u.mped into the vendor.

"Look where you're goin,' bub," the vendor grumbled.

The lanky man halted, glanced at the newspapers in the vendor's hand, and dug two cents from his pocket, which he handed the vendor in exchange for a copy of the New York Times.

CHOKED AND MUTILATED!.

A MURDER LIKE ONE OF JACK THE RIPPER'S DEEDS.

WHITECHAPEL'S HORRORS REPEATED IN AN EAST SIDE LODGING HOUSE.

Cecil smiled at the headline. He tucked the paper under his arm and went on his way. He whistled happily and thought about Edward.

Too bad he wasn't here to share the glory.

The Thing in the Attic.

The story I will now tell may seem at times to be the ravings of a madman. Indeed, I may be such a creature. The events described here, however, are no less valid in light of my conditiona"a condition owed, no doubt, to the situation I now place before you.

That said, let me begin my tale.

It was cold that winter morning, black outside my window but for the flurry of snowflakes that gently made way to the ground. I was sitting in my small study. The room was lit by a single desk lampa"one that provided just enough light by which to work.

I am a writer by way of vocation, and as such, generally dest.i.tute. I spend many late nights with my fingers humming gracefully about the keys of the old, battered Remington I use to create my masterpieces.

The guest house I was renting at the time of this incident was set back quite some distance from the main house, giving the impression of isolation. I quite preferred it that way, though at times I felt a loneliness that burned at my very core.

I've always been an overzealous worker, content to shun the rest of the world in favor of my typewriter, and had it not been for the occasional generosity of my landlord, I dare say I might have been dead some time ago.

Enough chatter, though.

It was the third month of my stay in this guest house that a rather unusual situation began to make itself known. After having completed yet another twenty ma.n.u.script pages, I decided to treat myself to a good cigar. I augmented the smoke with a snifter of brandy, silently toasting the extent of my progress on the new book.

The sound was distant at first. It was a noise much like the sc.r.a.ping of a lonely tree branch upon the roof in the middle of the night, and indeed I would have taken it for such had not the sound been coming from behind the north wall of my study.

I was far from concerned at first, taking the sound to be a rodent of some sort, though, I might add, a beast of considerable magnitude. I returned at once to my work, blocking the sound from my mind. It was not an easy task, for the noise grew more insistent with each pa.s.sing minute. I struggled to ignore it, focusing ever harder on my work, typing madly. The words came quicklya"hot impressions on papera"quite possibly the words of a genius, but enough about that.

The sc.r.a.ping began to move against the wall. It was the sound of fingernails across a chalkboard, slow and tortured, and as I could no longer overlook it, I began to follow it, c.o.c.king my ear to the wall. The noise would periodically come to a halt, as if my scrutiny had been detected. It would then, after a period of perhaps thirty seconds, resume its standard pattern, moving slowly along the inner workings of the wall.

My curiosity soon gained the better of me. I began to search for something with which I might knock a hole in the wall. The end of the wall, at last, was upon us, but the sc.r.a.ping sound changed its course. There was the addition of another sounda"a knock of sortsa"which alternated with the more familiar sc.r.a.ping.

I dashed madly from the house, down the steps, and to the small yard that fronted my living quarters. Facing my guest house and peering upward, I saw that indeed there was an attic of sorts to be accessed, and whatever the thing was lurking behind my wall, surely that was its destination.

I rushed back into the house, overcome with high hopes. There had to be a way for me to access the attic room as well, and sure enough, I found it. A trapdoor did indeed exist. There it was, a thing of beauty, dead-center above my work desk. How had I not noticed it before? The only obstacle now was to reach the thing.

And here, dear readers, is where the insanity begins. I tried the desk chair, then I climbed upon the desk itself. Neither of them was of sufficient height to allow me to reach my goal.

Then an idea struck. I went immediately to my bookshelves and dragged books to my desk, piling them high, a precarious arrangement at best, but one I would be obliged to make due with.

The thing had already gained entry to the attic. I could hear it walking above me, and at that moment, I became quite convinced that it was not at all anything from the rodent family. It walked on two feet, and, I might add here and now, with quite a heavy step. Each foot that fell upon the floor of the attic was solid enough to shake plaster dust onto my upturned face, forcing me to shut my eyes as I struggled with the trapdoor.

Eager as I was to put the mystery to rest, my heart pounded with the excitement of what I might discover. My throat was swollen and dry. I prayed silently that I would not be required to scream for help. I thought several times to turn away from the foolish business at hand, and had it not been for the sudden displacement of the door, I would surely have abandoned my insane pursuit.

I stared for a long time into the black mouth of the attic, plotting what my next move might be. I went to retrieve a lantern, for only the truly disturbed would have ventured into the attic as it was. Though questionable, my mind had not taken leave completely. By the time I returned, I could no longer hear footsteps, but I detected the heavy breathing of the thing above me.

I rose upon my toes for a closer look, setting the lantern inside the lip of the opening. The books began to wobble rather dangerously, forcing me to grope for the sides of the open door. I began to haul myself up into the attic. The darkness swallowed my lantern. I stood fully erect and proceeded into the attic. It was not the move I intended, but my curiosity gained the better of me, and so it was that I found myself sharing the same s.p.a.ce with something that, had I known the full extent of, I would not have wanted to be close to under any circ.u.mstance.

The attic was silent now. The lantern cast a pale yellow light about the room. As my eyes adjusted, I took note of shadowy forms around me: an old trunk, a high-backed chair, dusty boxes piled one upon the other . . . but nothing alive.

I was at a loss for explanation. Certainly I had heard those footsteps. Was it possible that it had all been a great hoax? Had my mind played a trick? I thought not, but the proof of it seemed before me, ill.u.s.trated by the vast emptiness of the dark, dank room around me.

A man was never more eager than I to leave that unholy room. I turned on my heels, desperate for flight, and here I came face to face with the thing in the attica"a rotting corpse.