The Raven Watcher

by Amy Cross

  Stepping over to the door, I reach out for the handle.

  I want to see what's on the other side of this things.

  I start turning the handle, ready to -

  Suddenly I hear a voice over my shoulder.

  Startled, I turn and look back across the basement. I tell myself that I'm just imagining things, but then I'm shocked to see that there's a figure on the slab. One of the stone columns is partially in the way, so at first I start to wonder whether Alex has somehow managed to make it up there. After a moment, however, I realize that I can still hear a muttering voice, and then I'm shocked to see that there's a second figure at the slab, seemingly working on the body.

  I stay completely still for a moment, trying to make the hallucination go away. At the same time, the voice – vague and muffled, too quiet to be made out – seems to be drifting through the air all around me.

  I'm sick.

  I'm really ill, and all of this is just in my mind.

  At the same time, although one of the columns is in the way, I swear I'm watching someone working on a body that has been laid out on the slab. And while I watch, I can hear a constant muttering voice. It's almost as if what I'm seeing feels like some kind of visual echo.

  Finally, although I'm scared to even move, I force myself to take a step to one side so that I can see a little better.

  It's him.

  I recognize him instantly, just as I recognized his wife upstairs in the bedroom. Doctor Charles Grazier is standing next to the slab, working on the body. He's mumbling and muttering to himself, and his body has the same slightly flickering state that I noticed when I saw Catherine Grazier upstairs. He seems utterly focused on the body, and there's something a little frantic about the way he's working so fast. So far, he doesn't even seem to have noticed me, but I remain completely frozen in place. I'm worried that if I even make the slightest sound, Doctor Grazier will turn to me. Or, perhaps even worse, he'll disappear entirely and I won't be able to watch him.

  Then again, if he's just a hallucination, don't I want him to disappear?

  “This isn't real,” I whisper finally, as I realize that I can't just stand here forever. “This is just another thing that's in your head.”

  Somehow, deep down, I can't quite bring myself to believe that.

  “It's not real,” I whisper again, “it's just...”

  My voice trails off.

  I don't think lying to myself is going to work this time.

  I take a step forward, then another, approaching the slab with a growing sense of fear. At the same time, the air seems to be getting much colder all around me, to the point that I'm almost shivering. I keep expecting the doctor to vanish in the blink of an eye, but if anything he simply seems preoccupied by his work. I look at the figure on the slab, expecting to see another Jack the Ripper victim, but it seems to be someone who's fully clothed, albeit someone who's also bleeding profusely.

  Alex's body is still over by the far wall, so I know it's not her.

  Stopping next to one of the columns, I'm now just a few feet behind Doctor Grazier. In normal circumstances, he'd definitely have noticed me by now, but I guess these are very, very far from normal circumstances.

  “You will not die on me,” I can hear him saying under his breath as he continues to work furiously. “I refuse to let you go like this!”

  I don't know who he's talking to, but I guess he had plenty of victims down here in his basement. After all, he was Jack the Ripper, he was London's most fearsome serial killer. And now, even though he's been dead for over one hundred years, he's right in front of me. I'm probably witnessing some kind of echo of him chopping up a victim.

  And then, suddenly, I spot the feet of the body on the slab, and I realize that I recognize the torn, tattered trainers.

  “What the hell?” I whisper, before rushing forward and then stopping again at the edge of the slab.

  “You will come back,” Doctor Grazier says firmly, as he reaches his hand into the body's torn-open belly and starts rearranges some of its organs. “Stay with me. I will not let you stay dead.”

  For a moment, I'm too scared to even look at what's happening in front of me. Finally, however, I force myself to step around Doctor Grazier and look down at the other end of the body.

  It's me.

  I'm the body on the slab.

  And my eyes are wide open, staring up at the ceiling with a deathly chill.

  I'm dead.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Doctor Charles Grazier”

  I did it!

  I did it, I did it, I did it!

  Racing along the street, I push through the crowd as I try to reach the far corner. Dressed in the fine suit that I acquired just the other day, I am filled with glee now that I have finally acquired a position. I promised Delilah that a good suit would be the making of me, but while she said some very encouraging words, it was clear she had doubts. Now, though, I have used this suit to secure a job in the office of an import-export clerk in Richmond. For there, I can work my way up through sheer hard work, and one day I shall own a company of my own.

  I'm on my way.

  No, Delilah and I are on our way.

  The best part is, the suit includes a very fine jacket. Now I at last have something I can put around Delilah's shoulders whenever she is cold during our nights by the river. She will never have to shudder again, and I can do the gentlemanly thing by removing my nice warm jacket and placing it on her. Then she will realize, she will have to understand, just how much I care for her. I cannot wait for the opportunity!

  “Excuse me!” I shout, struggling to get through the crowd. “Coming through! Out of the way!”

  “Who do you think you are?” a vagrant asks.

  “I'm a man with a job!” I tell him excitedly, stopping for a moment. “An actual job!”

  He furrows his brow. “Haven't I seen you round here before? What are you all dressed up like that for?”

  “I've got a proper, respectable job,” I explain. I want to keep going, but I can't pass up this chance to brag a little. “I'm going to be earning good money for an honest day's work, and there'll be opportunities for advancement too!”

  “Is that right?” He rolls his eyes. “Good luck to you, boy. You're gonna need it.”

  “Thank you!” I reply, turning and hurrying along.

  The street ahead is extremely busy. I would usually force myself through, but I do not want to risk damaging or staining my suit. I have to be careful, then, and this in turn makes me impatient as I am forced to slow down. All I can think, however, is that Delilah's face will be filled with joy when she sees me.

  Joy and pride, for I am her man.

  Yet when I get to her uncle's house, there is no sign of Delilah at all. I do not dare ask her family about her whereabouts, since I know that they dislike me a great deal, but then one of the customers mentions that he heard she was sent down to the river. I feel a flicker of concern when I hear that news, although I quickly console myself by remembering that the river in this part of London at least is relatively safe. Delilah will be fine, and most likely she is down by the quayside near the tea company's shed.

  Hurrying along the street, I set off to find her. She must hear my joyous news immediately, and then finally she will understand that my plan is going to work!

  It takes me almost an hour to reach the riverbank, and then another ten minutes or so to force my way through the crowd that fills the dockyard area. I can see the tea company's shed already, but it is as if the whole of London has come down this morning to generally mill about and get in my way. Filled with hope, I duck and weave as I make my way through this great throng of people, and then I stop as I get to the corner of the main shed, where I take a moment to look about and get my bearings.

  Delilah must be here or hereabouts, yet still I do not see her.

  After a moment, however, I spot a crow sitting up on a nearby pole, and the bird seems to be watching me rather intently. I s
tare at it for a few seconds, before turning and making my way around to the shed's other side. I am beginning to tire of all these infernal people, since all I want is to find Delilah and share my good news with her. Battling my way through a seemingly never-ending crowd, I finally get to the far side of the dock area and look around again. There's still no sign of Delilah, but after a moment I notice that several people have gathered a little further along, watching as some police officers attend to something in an alley behind the shed.

  Making my way along, I try to stay calm despite the growing sense of concern in my belly. I have no reason to suppose that anything has happened to Delilah, yet some deeper part of my mind is warning me that something is very wrong. Indeed, even before I reach the back of the gathered crowd I am already half-convinced that Delilah has been hurt. Still, if that is the case, then I shall simply nurse her back to health.

  “Get out of my way!” I shout, trying to force my way through even though I know this panic is unfounded. “Move!”

  “Such a shame,” a man says nearby. “How could anybody do such a thing?”

  “So young, too,” a woman adds. “Makes your stomach turn, doesn't it?”

  Finally, gasping, I stumble out through the front of the crowd, only to find myself at the edge of the quay overlooking one of the docking areas. I immediately spot several police officers down in the mud twenty feet below, and I feel a rush of horror as soon as I see that they're standing around the body of a dead young woman who has been left face-down. Blood has pooled in the mud, and I start shivering uncontrollably as I realize that the woman is wearing Delilah's favorite yellow dress.

  It can't be her, though.

  It just can't.

  ***

  Sunday October 7th, 1888

  Opening my eyes, I stare straight ahead and watch the ravens. There are half a dozen of them now, and they are hopping around the human figure that sits slumped in the garden. I stripped Doctor Grazier down completely before I dragged him out here, and now the ravens are picking at his flesh.

  It is strange to watch one's own supposed fate get taken by another man. I always dreamed of ravens devouring my body, but in those dreams I saw great flocks of the birds. The reality is somewhat different, and these real-life ravens only caw occasionally as they peck at the corpse. They seem very timid, very nervous, as if they think that such a large meal must surely be a trap. Nevertheless, they seem to be slowly becoming bolder, and I watch as one of the birds uses its beak to pull a strip of meat away from Doctor Grazier's face.

  Good bird.

  Eat it all up.

  Get rid of the body for me.

  I don't know what I shall do with the bones, but at least the bird and its friends can get rid of the meat. I even like the thought that the good doctor's body will make these creatures a little fatter. After all, the body of a man is a succulent thing, filled with goodness even though he himself might no longer have need of its riches, and it would be a shame to waste the feast.

  I would rather feed birds than worms any day.

  Of course, in my dreams I always imagined the ravens swarming down from the sky and tearing at me while I ran from them. I imagined them screaming as they drove their razor-sharp beaks deep into my flesh. Sometimes one might even peck its way into my belly and then try to force its way up through my chest, finally scrambling through the back of my throat and emerging as a wildly cawing, kicking and scratching bundle of feathers that would tear itself out from my mouth.

  The dream would inevitably continue for some time, until I would inevitably drop to my knees, at which point more and more of the birds would come rushing down to finish me off. I would feel hundreds of beaks cutting through my body and tearing me apart strip by strip, until I began to fall apart entirely. The dream would end with me gasping on the ground, powerless to fight back, and finally I would wake up covered in sweat and scratching furiously at my naked body. My heart would be pounding, and I would be out of sorts for many hours.

  Yet now Doctor Grazier and I appear to have switched fates.

  If he is the one who gets eaten by ravens, then I feel compelled to wonder what fate of his I have assumed. He was a strange man, to be sure, and one who was difficult to truly understand. I firmly believe that there was some good in him, even if this quality was ultimately washed away by the desire to save his wife at any cost. He allowed himself to be driven mad, not that this absolves him of any blame, and in the end he did the most terrible things. What, though, was his ultimate fate supposed to be? Had he lived, he would surely have reached that point naturally. Now that I have become him, I must try to determine the truth.

  Lost in thought, I suddenly notice something moving nearby. I turn and see that one of the ravens has hopped closer to me, although I am startled to see that it is holding an optic nerve in its beak, and that at the end of this optic nerve there dangles an intact eyeball.

  I watch as the eye swings around slightly. I can see the pupil, and it is tempting to wonder whether Doctor Grazier – in whatever purgatory he now resides – might somehow still be able to see what his old eyes see.

  The idea is amusing, but obviously not something to be taken seriously.

  After a moment the bird drops the eyeball and begins to peck at its side, quickly bursting the surface and starting to pull the whole thing apart. The scene is quite gruesome, I suppose, although I must confess that I am absolutely fascinated by the way the animal kingdom deals with dead humans. There is no service, no gravity, no concern for respect. They merely take what they need as food, with no pause or hesitation. Indeed, in some ways I consider the animal kingdom to have a great advantage over we mere humans, for the animals pause not to mourn. They merely use the corpse once its soul has left. Indeed, most likely they would use it regardless, even if the soul remained.

  They are a mystery to us.

  And then, with no warning, something startles the ravens and they all take flight, abandoning Doctor Grazier's body. I watch them swarm up into the sky, after which they begin to settle in the branches of trees in nearby gardens. There they wait for a few minutes, as if they want to check that there is no danger. Finally one swoops back down and lands close to the corpse, and he is swiftly followed by a couple more. Soon the feast is rejoined, and the tearing apart of the illustrious Doctor Charles Grazier continues.

  I can just about make out his face as the ravens tear more strips away. His mouth is wide open, as if he is screaming, and one raven is trying to steal his tongue as a prize. It eventually succeeds and retreats to the top of the fence, where it starts picking the meat apart.

  I wonder whether, wherever he is now, Doctor Grazier knows what is happening to his carcass?

  Chapter Twelve

  Maddie

  Today

  “Stop!” I shout, stepping back until I bump against one of the columns. “You have to stop!”

  Ignoring me, he keeps working. His hands slip deeper into my belly, then deeper still, then all the way to the wrists. There's blood everywhere, dribbling down my sides and running from the sides of the slab, yet none of the blood has actually left a mark on Doctor Grazier himself. He's simply rummaging through my intestines while muttering to himself about how he won't let me die, while reaching up every minute or so and squeezing my exposed heart.

  Feeling nauseous, I slide down until I bump against the cold stone floor. Staring up at the slab, I watch as more and more blood dribbles from the sides.

  That's my blood.

  There's so much of it, all being wasted.

  I need that blood, I tell myself. I can't live without blood.

  “I will not let her have you,” he continues, before stepping around the slab and starting to work from the other end. “You will live, do you hear me? You will live and you will find a way out of this place! Your heart will start!”

  “This can't be really happening,” I whisper, with tears streaming down my face. Holding my hands up, I clench them together. I can feel myself, but
at the same time I feel really dizzy and disconnected from the world. “I'm not up there. I'm here. I'm on the floor.”

  At the same time, I can feel a sickening squelching sensation in my guts, and when I look back up at the slab I see that Doctor Grazier is still working on me. It's as if I can half feel him and half not, as if I'm half on the slab and half down here shivering on the ground. I turn and look away, closing my eyes in an attempt to get a grip on what's happening, but if anything that only makes everything worse. As crazy as it sounds, I swear I can feel fingers slipping through my intestines, although at the same time I'm also aware that my chest feels very still. It's almost as if I can sense that my heart isn't pumping.

  And then, suddenly, I feel a hand grip my heart and squeeze tight.

  Gasping for air, I fall forward and land on my hands and knees. I can taste blood in the back of my throat, but none dribbles from my mouth. Instead I remain completely still as I feel more blood rushing through my veins. For a moment I think I might actually collapse, but somehow I manage to remain conscious. At the same time, I can feel blood rushing into my head and then slowing, then rushing again, as it's manually pumped through my body by Doctor Grazier's hand.

  “What am I missing?” he mutters, sounding increasingly annoyed. “This should be working by now!”

  Looking up, I see that he's staring into my opened body, and that he looks utterly lost. It's as if he's run out of ideas.