by Alex Grecian
“Simon!” Robert’s voice.
“He wants to eat us, too!”
“The birdie man is gone now,” Day said. “I won’t let him come back or hurt you.”
“He’ll eat you, too.”
“He won’t eat me. I’m going to catch him. The other policemen and I are going to find him and put him in jail. He’ll never be able to hurt you.”
“That means you haven’t found him yet,” Robert said. The older boy was wiser than Simon.
“Not yet,” Day said. “I admit we haven’t got him yet. But we will.”
“No, you won’t. You can’t catch him. The birdie man can appear and disappear in the dark.”
“He’s just a man.”
“No. He has a long beak that moves about wherever it wants and big round eyes on the back of his head and smaller eyes on the front and claws for hands.” Simon’s voice now. “He’s not a regular sort of person and you can’t ever catch him.”
“Did you see him, Simon?”
“We both saw him,” Robert said.
As they talked, Day moved slowly around the clearing. He was concentrating so hard on the sound of the boys’ voices that he felt he could almost swivel his ears. As Robert spoke, Day stopped and laid his hand on a wide tree trunk at the edge of the glade. He looked up and saw a narrow board nailed into the wood just above eye level. Farther up was another board, and he thought he could make out some sort of platform, covered with leaves, high up where the trunk tapered toward the sky.
“I know where you are now, Robert,” Day said. “Why don’t you come down here? We should talk.”
There was a long pause before the older boy finally responded. “No,” he said. “I’m not going to. And even if you go away, you’re only going to bring more people here and then the birdie man is going to know where we are. We can’t let you do that.” Then, his voice softer and deeper: “I’m sorry.”
Day frowned. There was a new sound above his head, something heavy rolling across wood. He peered up into the tree. There was the sound of branches breaking and in a split second he saw a flurry of leaves and broken tree limbs and a huge black shape falling directly toward him.
17
Alan Ridgway entered his room at the far end of the hallway in the boardinghouse on Plumbers Row. He left the door standing open and fumbled with his free hand for the lamp on the table by the door, but hesitated when he heard someone breathing far back in the shadows at the other end of the room.
“It’s quite all right, Alan Ridgway. Come in and close the door. But do let’s leave the light off for now, shall we?”
Alan squinted in the direction of the voice, but couldn’t see anything more than the vague shape of a man sitting in a chair under the window. “Who’s there?” He was certain he’d left the curtains open when he’d left that morning.
“I’d rather not say just yet,” the shape said. “I’m still deciding whether we’ll know each other long enough for it to matter.”
“You must have the wrong room,” Alan said. “This one’s mine.”
“Oh, Alan Ridgway, if you’re going to steal from others, then you must learn to share in kind.”
“But—”
“Shut the door.” The shape’s voice had lost its whimsical quality and dropped to a coarse whisper. Like the warning growl of a predator.
Alan moved his hand away from the lamp. He shifted his grocery basket to his right hand and backed up slowly, aiming for the door. But the shape was instantly out of its chair and had crossed the room faster than Alan could register the movement. Rough hands pulled him back into the room and the door slammed behind him. Alan felt a flash of heat across his belly and he let go of the basket. He lost his balance and sprawled on the floor. A single apple rolled away under the table. He heard the snick of a key in the lock. He probed his gut and wasn’t surprised to find his fingers were wet. The man in his room had cut him, but Alan couldn’t tell how deep the wound was. When he looked up, the shape was in its chair again, as if it had never moved.
“It would be unwise to test me again, Alan Ridgway.” The voice in the dark was relaxed and carried no indication that the shape had exerted itself. The merry tone of hail-fellow-well-met was back and Alan knew without a trace of doubt that he was being toyed with.
“I won’t,” he said. “I didn’t mean to test you.”
“I won’t be so gentle with you next time.”
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“The question is, Alan Ridgway, who are you? I know your name from the papers, the letters and journals you’ve carelessly left here for me to find, but I know very little else about you. For instance, how much pain can you endure?”
Alan shuddered. “But I didn’t purposely leave anything here for you. This is where I live.”
“Alan Ridgway?” A note of warning in the voice.
“What do you want to know about me?” Alan’s belly had begun to hurt a great deal.
“Why are you pretending to be that which you are most patently not?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Alan said.
“Shall I cut you again? Someplace different this time?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Please, no.”
“Then let us not pretend. You have made a clumsy attempt at mimicking my methods with three women recently. I was unfortunately detained and missed your first foray into the back alleys of Whitechapel, and I arrived a bit too late at the second spot to watch you work. But I was there when you did the third one.”
“You were there?”
“I believe her name was Alice. Am I mistaken? I never knew her full name, if she had one.”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me again now, Alan Ridgway. If I decide to cut out your tongue, you’ll be of no use to me whatever.”
“I mean to say, I never knew her name.”
“I see.”
It occurred to Alan that this shape might in fact be a policeman, in which case he had just confessed to a crime. But surely a policeman would have clapped him in irons by now. This person, this shape, claimed to have seen him murder a woman, had then broken into Alan’s room and waited for him. It made no sense to Alan at all.
“How did you choose her?”
“She was alone,” Alan said.
“And?”
“Only that.”
“But was she ready?”
“Ready for what?”
“Was she ripe?”
“I don’t know,” Alan said. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“You did the deed without knowing why you were doing it? That bothers me. Your imitations are appearing everywhere in my city now. You’re stepping on my toes, you know, and I’m honestly getting weary just trying to keep tabs on you all. There’s a fellow in Notting Hill and all about who’s killing people at an alarming rate. Calls himself after some sort of spider. A Harvest Man, that’s it. And here we have you, tallying up dead women one after another with no idea why you’re doing it except you’d clearly like to be me, wouldn’t you? Only you’re not me, Alan Ridgway.”
And Alan suddenly understood who he was talking to. He actually gasped in recognition. He grinned and sat up, grunting with the pain. “You’re him.”
“Of course I am.”
“I mean you’re Jack the Ripper.”
“I am sometimes called Jack. And you are always only Alan Ridgway. I would say it’s so good to meet you, but I’m afraid it’s not. Not for either of us.”
“But I’ve studied you.”
“Not well enough.”
“Why? What did I do wrong? I only did what you did. I did it all to honor you.”
The shape sniffed and sat silent for a long time. Alan checked his sore abdomen again and, although his shirt w
as soaked, the bleeding had stopped. Jack, that shape in the dark, knew exactly what he was doing. Alan smiled and tried to breathe in the scent of the room, tried to absorb Jack through the pores of his skin.
“Taste it,” Jack said.
“What?”
“The blood. Your blood. Taste it.”
“Why?”
Jack said nothing, didn’t move. So Alan brought his fingers to his lips and licked the salty blood from them.
“What do you feel?”
“Feel?”
“What do you feel, Alan Ridgway?”
“I’m honored.”
“How curious. Honored by your own blood?”
“No, by your presence.”
“Feh. You still annoy me.” The shape leaned forward, hands across its knees. “I’m this close to ending you, Alan Ridgway. Ending you! What does the blood make you feel, damnit?”
He floated a guess out into the room. “Small?”
Jack sat back. “Interesting. Yes, small, indeed. The blood humbles us all. Very good, Alan Ridgway.”
“But big, too.” Alan suddenly felt a need to talk, as if this person he couldn’t even see might understand him, might even condone his choices. Who else would, if not Jack the Ripper? “Powerful. It makes me feel like . . .”
“Like royalty?”
“Like a king, a king presiding over life and death.”
“Like a god, then.”
“Exactly like a god.”
“Alan Ridgway, you are not a god. You are nothing, really. Not even a very good mimic.”
Alan blinked. The air in the room smelled like copper and fish and ozone. As if lightning had struck a ship at sea. “But I thought—”
“Don’t think, Alan Ridgway. It doesn’t suit you.”
“But I’m not just a mimic. I feel things. Dark awful nasty things.”
“Hardly. These dark feelings of yours are the blind impulses of an infant. You know of me. You worship me in your little way by doing the same sorts of things you think I do. Or rather the things I once did. But you have no understanding of my work and so you’re only going through the motions, and how much pleasure can you derive from that?”
“I honor you. I do.”
“Perhaps you try. I am charitable enough to allow you that.” The shape nodded. “But because you don’t understand my process, you do us both a disservice. And you’ve done a disservice to those women as well.”
“You’re here to kill me, then?”
“No, Alan Ridgway. I think you’d like that too much.” The shape sat silent for a long while and Alan waited. He sat quietly with his back against the door and his arm across his burning abdomen. Finally the shape shifted in his chair. “I’m going to use you, Alan Ridgway. You’re going to do something for me.”
“Me? Do something for you?”
“Yes. I find it useful to employ others from time to time. Some need money and have access to prison cells or private carriages, some long for notoriety and might be engaged to carry a message. Would you deliver a message for me, Alan Ridgway?”
“Gladly.”
“And then your symphony will have reached its climax. Better to take your bow and leave the stage, don’t you think? No point in overstaying your welcome.”
“Symphony?”
“Oh, yes, Alan Ridgway. I have a plan for you. Isn’t it good to be part of a plan for once, rather than blindly groping about in the muck, hoping for some clue about what you are and why you are?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it is, now that you put it so baldly.”
“Good. I’m going to give you an address, Alan Ridgway, and you’re going to do something clever for me. When you’re done with that, I’ll want you to deliver a message to an old friend of mine. His name’s Walter Day, and I think the two of you will get along splendidly.”
Alan smiled, pleased that he had finally found a purpose.
18
Day didn’t have time to react to the boulder coming at him. It weighed seventy pounds, more than enough to crack his skull, and more than enough to fall quickly through the leaves and small branches before a man could move.
The damp underbrush saved his life. He was just beginning to lean forward, trying to see the boys on the crude platform above him, when the tip of his cane slipped. He compensated by letting go of it and putting his weight on his bad leg just as the boys let go of their giant rock. Day’s leg gave out and he fell against the tree’s broad trunk. The rock plummeted neatly through the air behind him, grazing the tail of his overcoat and smashing into the ground, pushing mud and dirty water out on every side. The hems of Day’s trousers were soaked. In the quiet seconds directly after, he worried he was turning into Hammersmith.
He got his balance and turned, sank back against the tree, and stared at the rock embedded in the soil inches from his feet. It was as big around as his chest. His cane lay on either side of it and under it, divided into two big pieces and many more small pieces that were now a part of the forest floor. He was surprised by his own reaction, which was no reaction at all.
“Huh,” he said.
“Are you hurt?”
He looked up at the tree. There was a tunnel over his head where the rock had stripped away leaves and splintered branches on its journey to the ground. Water dripped down through the opening and onto his upraised face. It felt cool and pleasant.
“I’m all right,” he said.
“Good,” Robert said. Day still couldn’t see him, but the boy’s voice was clearer than it had been, and louder. “We didn’t mean to hurt you. Not really.”
“Yes, you did. You tried to drop this big rock on my head. You might’ve killed me.”
“We didn’t really think about what would happen until we let go of the rock and by then it was too late. We didn’t want to kill you. We just want you to go away.”
“How did you get this up there, anyway?” Day circled the rock, patted the top of it, and wiped it dry with the palm of his hand. He turned and sat and watched the leaves move overhead.
“We used a rope and pulley system.”
“That’s quite clever.”
“I read about it in a book. We got the pulley from a farm west of us.”
“You didn’t steal it, did you?”
“It was old and rusted. Somebody left it in a culvert.”
“We cleaned it up.” Simon’s voice now, higher pitched and full of pride. “It took a long time.”
“Then we clumb up to our secret place here and hung it in the branches,” Robert said.
“It took us three days to pull the rock up here,” Simon said. “We had to keep tying the rope round the tree when we went home to bed.”
“Quite clever of you,” Day said again. “Industrious is the word.”
“Thank you,” Robert said.
“But it was wrong of you to drop it on me.”
“But we didn’t drop it on you. We missed.”
“And it’s a good thing, too.”
“We really are sorry,” Robert said. “Will you go away now?”
“No,” Day said. “But you’re safe from me.”
“Safe?”
“I hurt my leg recently. I couldn’t climb that tree if I wanted to.”
“You can’t climb at all?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Well, we’re not coming down.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s still down there somewhere.”
“Is it all right, then, if I just sit here for a while and talk with you?”
There was a long silence. Day could hear faint murmuring from the platform as the boys discussed the situation.
“We don’t want to talk to you,” Simon said at last.
“But we can’t stop you from sitting there,” Ro
bert said.
“This is what’s known as a stalemate,” Day said. “By the way, do you have any other rocks up there?”
“No. That was our only one.”
“Good.” Day reached for his flask by habit. He uncorked it and sniffed at its emptiness, but didn’t put it away. He sat with the flask in his lap, and gazed away into the wood at a cluster of small green saplings that were deprived of sunlight by the giant trees around them. They would never grow to full height until the previous generation of growth died away and gave them a chance. He wondered what would happen to the forest if all the tallest trees were felled, or simply disappeared overnight.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes, Robert. I’m sitting here on your rock.”
“Are you really a policeman?”
“I am. I’m an inspector with Scotland Yard. My name is Day.”
“But you didn’t catch him yet,” Simon said. “You didn’t catch the birdie man.”
“You said he has a beak,” Day said. “Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“I think he wears a special sort of mask. A plague mask. They have great long beaks attached on the fronts of them.”
“It’s scary. If it’s a mask, it’s scary, even if it isn’t his real face.”
“Yes. Plague masks are odd-looking,” Day said. “But it really is only a mask. And he’s only a man.”
“Why does he wear a plague mask? Is he sick?”
“Yes, he is, but not in the way that you mean,” Day said. “At least I don’t think he is. I believe he uses the mask to protect himself from a special kind of . . . well, a sort of gas that he uses to put people to sleep.”
“And then he hurts them.”
“Yes,” Day said. “I’m afraid he does. But I won’t let him hurt you.”
“Do you have any children?”
“I have two little girls. They’re only babies, not big like you. They could never have hauled this rock up there to where you are.”
“Of course not,” Simon said. “Not if they’re babies. Girls aren’t strong enough anyway.”
“Probably not,” Day said. “You must be very strong.”
“We are,” Simon said.
