The Strange Affair Of Spring Heeled Jack Part 48

Edward Oxford vaulted over the wall, landed behind her, pressed a hand over her mouth, wrapped an arm around her slim body, lifted her off her feet, and leaped back over the wall, clutching her tightly.

An agonised scream came from the kitchen.

d.a.m.n! The mother had seen him!

He whirled the young girl around and grabbed her by the upper arms, shook her, and growled: "You're Marian Steephill, yes? Answer me!"

She nodded, her face contorted with fear.

The screams from beyond the wall became hysterical.

Without further ado, Oxford grabbed Marian's dress and ripped it away. He clawed at the slip beneath until her skin was bared.

There was no birthmark.

He pushed her away and ran back into the rubbish tip, took three giant strides, soared into the air, and landed in Patcham Terrace at ten in the evening of September 6, 1861.

It was a warm night. The street was empty but he could hear a vehicle approaching. He pressed himself into the shadows as it pa.s.sed: a motorised penny-farthing, leaving a cloud of steam behind it. He shook his head and chuckled. Impossible. There was no such thing!

Lucy Harkness, the daughter of Sarah Lovitt, lived at number 12 with her parents. It was Friday; her mother and father would be at the Tremors public house.

Oxford walked up to the door, which opened straight onto the pavement-there were no front gardens in this road-and knocked on it. He bent to bring his height down below the transom window.

"Who is it?" came a m.u.f.fled girl's voice.

"Constable d.i.c.kson," said Oxford. "Lucy Harkness?"

"Yes."

"Has there been a break-in here?"

"No, not at all, sir."

"Would you allow me to check your back windows, miss? There's an intruder in the area."

"Wait a minute."

He heard a bolt being drawn back.

The door cracked open.

He threw his weight against it, knocking the girl backward onto the floor.

Slamming the door shut behind him and crouching so as to avoid the ceiling, he paced forward until he was next to the p.r.o.ne girl.

She was shaking so hard that her teeth were chattering.

He reached down and pulled apart the b.u.t.tons of her blouse.

She didn't resist.

He pushed aside her underclothes.

No birthmark.

All of a sudden, her body arched upward and her eyes rolled into her head. She was having some sort of fit.

Oxford backed away nervously, fumbled with the door until it opened, stepped out, and jumped.

He thudded into the ground at five o'clock in the morning on Thursday September 19, 1861. He'd landed on a dark, misty pathway in Hoblingwell Wood near Mickleham village.

He ducked into the cover of the trees and waited.

A few minutes later he saw the light of an oil lamp approaching.

He stepped out.

"Who's that there?" demanded a girl's voice.

Suddenly she turned and started running.

He sprang after and caught her, yanked her around, and savagely rent her clothing, ripping it wildly until her naked skin was exposed. Bending her backward, he placed his face close to her chest. Blue light from his burning helmet reflected off her pale, unmarked skin.

He looked up into her face.

"Not you!"

Then he dropped her and jumped away-but landed in the same time, and in the same place.

"s.h.i.+t!" he spat.

The leap from Battersea to his current location had drained the suit's power. Now he'd have to wait until dawn, when the sunlight would recharge it.

He paced along the path, out of the woods, across a road, and into a field. He sat beneath a gnarled oak, the mist curling around him, and waited. A feeling of drowsiness overtook him.

Is this what I've come to? he thought. A man who rips the dresses from teenage girls, like some sort of s.e.xual pervert? G.o.d, I want to go home! I want to have supper with my wife! I want to put my hand on her belly and feel the child kick.

About thirty minutes later, he was roused by a shout.

He looked up.

A crowd of people were charging toward him, waving pitchforks and clubs.

He hauled himself upright and ran away.

His legs ached.

He was exhausted.

When was it he last slept? He couldn't remember. Probably years ago. Literally!

He stumbled on. The villagers followed.

Sometimes he outdistanced them and stopped to rest. Then they'd come back into view, yelling and brandis.h.i.+ng their makes.h.i.+ft weapons like crazed animals.

If they caught him, they'd kill him, of that he was sure.

As dawn broke, Spring Heeled Jack, Edward John Oxford, the man from the distant future, sprang on his stilts from one field into the next, over hedgerows and across roads, over a golf course and into the shelter of some woods.

He pushed through the trees, leaned against one, and tried to regain his breath.

The sun was up but it was misty and the light too weak to recharge his batteries quickly.

Something irritated his ear-a distant vibration, the sound of a machine.

As it increased, he recognised it. It was the noise made by rotor blades.

Closer it came, until the tree at his back began to vibrate.

He looked up as it flew overhead and caught sight of a ludicrous flying contraption.

Edward Oxford didn't believe anything he saw anymore. The world was one giant fairy story, a crazed jumble of talking apes and horse-drawn carriages and accentuated manners and the stink of unprocessed sewage and, now, flying chairs which trailed steam.

The machine approached again, at such a low alt.i.tude that the trees thrashed beneath its downdraught.

"Oh, will you please p.i.s.s off and leave me alone!" he yelled.

It pa.s.sed above him. He crouched, leaped, shot up through the twigs and leaves, and caught hold of the side of the machine. It rocked and careened sideways.

The man at its controls turned and looked at him through a pair of goggles.

"I said p.i.s.s off!" shouted Oxford.

He reached out and grabbed the man by the wrist.

The machine spiralled out of control and crashed into the trees.

Oxford was knocked from its side and fell spinning through the foliage. He thumped onto the ground and lay still, winded, his shoulder hurting.

He got to his knees. He could hear the whistle of steam off to his left. Pus.h.i.+ng himself upright, he walked in the direction of the sound until the wrecked machine came into view.

A man was lying facedown beside it. He rolled over as Oxford stood above him with a stilt to either side.

The time traveller squatted.

"Who are you?" he asked. The man had a vaguely familiar face-dark, savage, powerful, but also scarred, battered, and bruised.

"You know d.a.m.ned well who I am!" exclaimed the man.

"I don't. I've never seen you before, though I must admit, I feel I should know you."

"Never seen me! You gave me this d.a.m.ned black eye! Or maybe that was your brother?"

Edward Oxford grinned. More nonsense! More of this world's idiocy!

"I don't have a brother," he said. "I don't even have parents!"

He threw back his head and laughed.

The man beneath him s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably.

Oxford looked down at his face.

So familiar. It was so familiar.

"Where have I seen you before?" he muttered. "Famous, are you?"

"Comparatively," answered the man, and started to wriggle out from between the stilts. Oxford reached down and clutched the front of his coat, stopping him from moving.

"Stay still," he barked.

He searched his memory and thought about the history of this period, the biographies he'd read and the old black and white photographs he'd seen.

The name came to him.

f.u.c.king h.e.l.l! he thought. You're Joking!

But it wasn't a joke. There was no doubt about it. He knew who this man was.

"Yes, I know you now," he muttered. "Sir Richard Francis Burton! One of the great Victorians!"

"What the h.e.l.l is a Victorian?" snarled Burton.

Shouts reached them from the distance. There were people approaching -and, too, the far-off chopping of another flying machine.

"Listen, Burton," hissed Oxford. "I have no idea why you're here but you have to leave me alone to do what I have to do. I know it's not a good thing but I don't mean the girls any harm. If you or anyone else stops me, I can't get back and I won't be able to repair the damage. Everything will stay this way-and it's wrong! It's wrong! This is not the way things are meant to be! Do you understand?"

"Not in the slightest," replied Burton. "Let me up, d.a.m.n it!"

Oxford let go of the man's coat and Burton pushed himself out from between the stilts and got to his feet.

"So what exactly is it you need to do?"

"Restore, Burton!" replied the time traveller. "Restore!"

"Restore what?"

"Myself. You. Everything! Do you honestly think the world should have talking orangutans in it? Isn't it obvious to you that something is desperately wrong?"