Dead of Night

by william Todd

  I then quickly resume my constriction. I give her credit. That was an admirable attempt. But even with one interrupted session and an unbearable attack of pain, I, even in a weakened state, am more than she can handle.

  Her muscles slacken underneath my grip. The hiss of her cut-off screams lessons. I begin to move her along the wall, hand-to-hand and hand-to-throat in a death-waltz. I like to dance; it helps to drain completely that little bit of life they scratch and claw to keep.

  Ah, four minutes until she gives up the ghost. More than I would have preferred but not bad, all things considered.

  Through an alchemic process heretofore unknown, she transfers her life force into me; her limp body empowers my now weakened and aching muscles. This has been a grueling night, even for the likes of me, but her death makes me strong again.

  As I lay her down, I smell the pestilent fog. The dead give off a scent. This scent is like a delicate perfume to my nostrils, invigorating me to gut my catch.

  I retrace our dance from its end to where we first embraced. I find her dropped knife in a shallow puddle of rainwater at the base of the passage wall and quickly return to my pile of cloth and flesh and set about my work.

  I am happy at my task, content even, resisting the urge to hum a tune, as I feel the slickness between my gloved fingers in the dark.

  Then it strikes again. The pain sears me like a hot iron poked through my eyes, into my brain. I bite down hard on and through my blood-soaked glove to repress a scream of pain. I taste globs of wet copper, and I am unsure how much of it is hers and how much may be mine, as my teeth break the skin.

  Recently, I have noticed the quickening pace of these attacks. They are becoming more pronounced, more unbearable. When the insufferable ones sink their claws into my head, I have been lucky enough to find temporary refuge in empty rooms, back alleys, and wooded parks until they subside.

  I know the future holds no sway in my providence for keeping the affliction to myself. The only one who knows at present is my friend the night. That is how it shall remain until such a time arrives when I can no longer keep control of my senses. I will not spend the rest of my days locked in an asylum room, staring out through the London fog at the pestilence peddling their wares on the street below. I will take my own life when the time comes. It could be said that I will die in childbirth. That newborn’s brain will hold an insight for hatred in all its glorious colors, its limbs shall be formed for murder, its heart will pump only apathy, its eyes shall be blind to goodness, its ears deaf to mercy, its tongue will taste only blood and it will suckle on indignation. It will understand only self-preservation. The only love it will give and get in kind is love of death. History will look back on me and say that I gave birth to the modern age.

  Instead of repressing that all-encompassing pain, I turn it into an all-consuming anger that jolts my hands like lightning strikes. These bolts of hatred are concentrated around the woman’s face. I stab, I cut, I gouge, I slice, until I am completely drained.

  The night-cloaked dagger drips the aftermath, as I clutch my head once more and drop to my knees. Deciding that prudence at this point is best if I am to carry on my endeavors beyond this night, I pull the laudanum from my pocket. It won’t take effect right away, but I will begin to feel its numbing effects when I put a block between me and my work.

  I open the vial and drink. I also pull from my coat a small leather satchel. I put a few trinkets from my handiwork inside for later use, pull the drawstring, and my onyx companion whisks me off into the damp and dingy night, as unseen as that cowering moon.

  I am not done playing. There are a few things yet needing prepared before I call it an evening. Two blocks away, already feeling the deadening effects of the drug, I find a small alcove hidden in the shadows that services a butcher shop. It is in this comforting darkness where I change into my post-mortem attire. I put my bloody gloves, ripped coat, trousers and shirt, even my felt hat, into the linen bag.

  I then walk several more blocks to London Bridge. There, before I walk across, I pick up a heavy stone from the walkway and place it into the linen bag. This, I toss into the Thames’ muddy water when I am at the bridge’s midway point before heading off to my next playground.

  After catching my limit fishing for prostitutes, I turn my endeavors to playing with the bobbies. I scribble some graffiti about Jews on a wall and drop a clue that will drive them mad. Then, it will be time to retire for the evening.

  . . . . . It’s nearly three in the morning when I finally arrive back home. I try to be as quiet as possible when entering the house, even leaving the hansom a block from home to keep the clap of hoof-upon-cobblestone from waking the questioning eyes of neighbors.

  Instead of going directly to bed, I spend time in the bathroom. Candlelight flickers my distorted shadow across the wall, as I pour then splash water on my face and stare at the reflection in the mirror. This is the first time the reflection looks weary.

  My hands shake, my ears ring like the insides of a tolling bell.

  My time at play in this filthy world is nearing its inevitable end.

  From another room I hear a tired voice call out, “Jack? That you, dear?” I say nothing. I just stare at the wilting face before me; at one time it was such a beautiful face. Now, it is but a shell of what it used to be.

  There is a knock at the door, then a sleepy-eyed face peaks in. “Jack?” I still only stare back at myself, unblinking at what Syphilis has done to me. Eyes once the color of a clear summer sky are now dull and gray. My cheeks have sunken and my chin protrudes. The once delicate features of a woman are now being eaten away. This transformation has seemingly happened within the time span of a single evening.

  “Jacqueline, you alright?” he implores with patient concern. I unfasten and let down my long, blond hair then run my fingers through their thinning strands. “Sorry, love,” I sigh. “It’s been a long night.”

  He extends a sleepy smile. “Got your cable about staying late tonight at the hospital, but didn’t think you would’ve been this long.”

  “Nor I, dearest,” I reply. “Sometimes the sick have their own schedule. Tonight they conspired against me at every turn.”

  “You know I worry about you at these hours.”

  “I know.”

  “This bloody Jack the Ripper nonsense and all that.”

  “Jack kills prostitutes,” I clarify.

  “Sometimes it might be hard to tell the difference in the dark.”

  “Jack knows.”

  “You talk as though you know the man.”

  “I know the type. I see a lot working where I do.”

  “I still worry.”

  “I know you do.”

  He yawns and scratches his head. “You coming to bed soon, then?”

  “I’ll be right in, love.”

  He blows me a kiss and says, “I’ll warm up your side of the bed for you,” then slowly closes the door. James is such a wonderful man. So innocent and ignorant. He loves me so unconditionally. It’s truly unfortunate that he will have to die, too. He is a flower among the weeds, an Angel fish among the bottom dwellers. So in my benevolence, I will spare him the blade; I have passed on my affliction to him.

  They say that sharing with your partner that which is most intimate is a sign of true love. And Jack does so love death.

  The Thing in the Shadows

  1

  The bear of a man looked around the smoke-filled den, holding a handkerchief over his nose. It was the first time—and hopefully the last—he had ever been inside this kind of establishment. Men lay back languidly on velvet couches, long pipes loosely grasped, or sprawled out on Persian carpets, many curled up in little balls in the darkened and hazy corners. Beaded entranceways that led to other rooms clapped lightly to an unseen disturbance at the far end, only barely discernable in the noxious fog of the place.

  Somewhere among this slapdash amalgam of barely conscious bodies was Alastair Wiggins.

  The man
removed the cloth and yelled out in a voice as thick as his girth, “Alastair? Alastair, you in here?”

  No one replied. Then he remembered the man’s father saying that Alastair now went by his middle name, so he tried that, as well. “Wendell, then? Is Wendell Wiggins here?”

  Although he wasn’t sure the movement was voluntary, a limp figure splayed face down on a rug made what appeared to be an attempt at raising his arm.

  The big man took that as a yes, went to the smokeshrouded figure, grabbed him up by his shirt, and whisked him back out the front door.

  Outside, the air was crisp. The sun was angled acutely in the cloudless sky, which made the abductor drop his handkerchief and shield his eyes, as he clomped along the wooden walkway until he found what he was looking for. Adjacent to the front entrance was a water trough, into which the behemoth dropped the semi-conscious man.

  A moment under the water and the man suddenly sprang back to life, flailing his arms wildly, grasping at the sides, coughing up horse-slobbered water. “Wha—what the hell? S-sir, how da-dare you. What is the meaning of this?”

  He drew a fist but when he saw the size of the man it was meant for, he thought it better to use that hand to instead push the wet mop of hair from his eyes.

  When his dizzy eyes finally whittled the three gentlemen in front of him down to one, he saw a smirk on the man’s face.

  “Son of a bitch. What’d you do that for, Arnold?” Wendell lamented, as he wobbly extracted himself from the trough.

  “Probably the first bath you’ve had in a month,” the big man replied. As he steadied himself, trying to shake off the rest of the opium haze, Wendell said, “It is no one’s concern how often I bathe. Who, exactly, would it be that I’d have to worry about offending?”

  “Anyone within ten feet of you.”

  Reaching out a big hand to help steady him, Arnold then said, “That stuff’ll kill you, you know.” “Again, it is no one’s concern what I do to facilitate my death. It’s my own, after all. Why not do it up the way you want? Up till just now, I didn’t think anyone cared, anyway, least of all Father. What’s he got you coming after me for now? He insisted I stay out of his life. I thought I’d done a pretty good job of that, these last four years.”

  The smile quickly disappeared from Arnold’s cinder block of a face. “Everyone knows things between you and your father haven’t always been good. I’d say there’s been fault on both sides in your feud, but that ain’t why I’m here.”

  Squeezing water from his shirt Wendell replied, “Spit it out, man. What does dear old dad want from me after so long a time?”

  “Mr. Wiggins is dying. He’s been down in Hamot Hospital a week now. He’s slipping away, and he’s asking for you.”

  Although they had their differences, Wendell didn’t hate his father. Deep down one might say he fostered something akin to affection for the man, despite their troubled past. He only wished his father had felt the same way. He’d made his peace with that long ago—at the end of an opium pipe.

  However, the thought of his father now dying sobered him fully.

  “Take me to him,” Wendell said somberly.

  . . . . . The dog cart ride down to the hospital from the upper reaches of Parade Street was awkward and silent. Wendell remembered that his father’s trusting servant wasn’t the most adept at conversation as it was, but the particular kind of silence Arnold exhibited was unnerving, especially since the two hadn’t seen each other in nearly four years; there was much to talk about. Wendell made several attempts at extracting helpful information as he dried himself off with some rags fetched from the back of the dog cart, but Arnold would only say the elder Mr. Wiggins was ill, dying and only asked to see Wendell as death neared. No allusion to what malady had overtaken the man, how long he’d been ill, or why he wanted to see his son before he died.

  The only honest attempt at conversation was when Arnold had asked, “Why do you go by your middle name now?”

  Wendell replied, “I figured it would help mask my relation to Father if I ever ran afoul of the law—not that I had planned to, mind you. But I know his standing in the community is not something to be trifled with.”

  “Wouldn’t changing your last name’ve done a better job of that?” Arnold offered.

  Wendell had only grinned and said, “But I rather like my last name.” Now, hands clasped nervously behind his back, Wendell stared out a window in the large, well-adorned hallway of the home-now-hospital. The bay, Presque Isle, and the lake lay just beyond at the bottom of the small hill on which the hospital sat. On the horizon, Lake Erie’s blue water reflected the mid October sky. Only the schooners and steamers rippling the waters helped discern where lake started and sky ended.

  Arnold sat contemplatively in a chair that seemed to be perpetually on the verge of being crushed under the weight of the man. His fixed stair would only wander from the door of Mr. Wiggins’ room if Wendell happened to move from his sentry at the window.

  Finally, after twenty minutes of waiting, a nurse exited the sick man’s room.

  “He’s up now. I’ve arranged the room for him, and he’s ready to see you.” “Thank you,” answered Wendell.

  “One thing, though, sir,” the nurse went on in a solemn tone that matched to perfection her dark, close-set eyes and thin lips. “Do not, under any circumstances, close the curtains or blow out any of the candles.”

  Wendell cast a curious glance at Arnold, to which the man only nodded slightly his assent. As he regarded the nurse again, she reiterated, “I cannot let you in unless you agree to leave the room as it is unless instructed otherwise by Mr. Wiggins himself. His orders, Mr. Wendell.”

  Curiosity rippled his brow but Wendell agreed, and the nurse moved aside to let him through.

  At the threshold, Wendell turned to Arnold. “Aren’t you coming in, too?”

  Arnold, with a curiously fearful look in his eye, only shook his head no and stayed put on the tortured chair.

  “Suit yourself.”

  Wendell went inside, closing the door behind him. If the nurse hadn’t already alluded to what was inside, the contents of the room would have done nothing if not pique his curiosity. To his immediate right were two large windows overlooking the bay and the lake. The curtains had been pushed completely aside, letting in the harsh autumn sun. A bed straddled the space between the windows and the sick Mr. Wiggins lay upon it, clutching his blankets.

  But that wasn’t the most curious thing about the room. In every corner and placed at intervals were a multitude of burning candles—twenty, at least—and three lit lanterns, all giving the appearance he was in the lantern room of a lighthouse staring into its Fresnel lens instead of the room of a dying man.

  The unforgiving light made the opium cobwebs still hanging in Wendell’s head stir in painful throbs. A labored, phlegmy laugh brought him back to his father. “You look like hell,” the sick man growled through wheezing breaths.

  It was only then that Wendell realized how sloppy he looked and uncomfortable he felt in his still damp clothes.

  “You can thank Arnold for my appearance.”

  “Whatever it was he did, I’m s-sure it was necessary. Come.” He motioned to a chair next to the bed. “Sit.” Wendell did as requested. He knew from experience that any questions he might have would only be answered when his father was good and ready, so, as was protocol with the old horse shoe manufacturer, he took his seat next to the man and waited.

  Although he could only be examined from the chest up, Wendell observed the hollow, bloodshot eyes, protruding cheeks, and ashen face—the countenance of one not long for this world.

  After an awkward silence, the elder Wiggins finally spoke. “You’re probably w-wondering why I called f-for you,” he labored.

  “I was hoping it was because you wanted to reconcile with your only son before you died,” Wendell replied drily.

  “In a m-manner of speaking, yes. There is something I need to t-tell you before I go.”
<
br />   “What, exactly, has you so ill?” he asked, knowing he had just broken protocol by doing so. “What is k-killing me has no bearing on the outcome, now does it? Death is death no matter how you arrive at it. It is what’s g-going to happen after I die.”

  “And what would that be?”

  The sick man shuffled under his covers uneasily, clutching their edges as though they were the only thread that kept him tied to the mortal realm. He then stuttered out an unintelligible word that was cut off by a phlegmy cough. His eyes fearfully raced around the brightly lit room, as he regrouped his thoughts. Then he said in a forced whisper, “A-a demon, a something—I call it a demon, I don’t know what else it could be—has tormented me f-for years. It’s the damned reason why I’m in this bed. It’ll have me soon enough, it’s done with me. But not with us.”

  “Us? A what? What on earth are you talking about?” “When I am gone it will come after you—come with one purpose and one only. It will come for your soul and try to get others. I-I gave it your soul. I gave you to it. I’m so sorry, son. I had to. I just couldn’t s-stand the torment any longer.”

  Wendell gave his father an incredulous stare but said nothing.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like I’m a f-fool,” the elder Wiggins rejoined. “Just what kind of response were you expecting?” Wendell bit back. “I’ve not seen nor heard from you in nearly four years, I find you in a hospital bed, dying, and the first statement from your mouth is that I’m to be overtaken by some—some demon? And you—you gave it my soul? What the hell does that even mean?” Wendell threw up his hands in exasperation. “I’m speechless. I don’t know what to say. Father, I know you think little of me, but at least do me the courtesy of an honest response.”

  “Oh, so you think I’m lying, d-do you?” “What would you have me believe? That ghosts and ghouls are coming for my soul? How? For what purpose? You were never a believer in the hereafter, at least not that I am aware of, and I certainly am not. That is something that should have been instilled in me as a pup, not on your deathbed, for me to give it any credence.”