Dark Designs

by Flowers, Thomas S.

  “Wake up, you unutterable filth. Wake up I say!”

  With a rough shake of his shoulders, the Inventor was brought out of his sleep to find a thuggish face inches from his own. It was a face that might have been carved out of granite and reeked of cheap aftershave.

  “Oh good,” said the face. “You're not dead.”

  For a moment, the Inventor had trouble making sense of his situation. Then it came back to him that he had crossed into another world and was no longer in his own living room as he had at first thought. Although he was outraged at being manhandled and barked at, he found he didn't have the strength to protest as vociferously as he wished.

  Drugged, he realized, recognizing the symptoms. The Amontillado...

  Though his eyes were able to focus no farther than the face, he was able to make out two figures standing by the door.

  “What is going on?” he slurred, speaking as if drunk. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “I'm the man who's going to send you to the gallows.” The face grinned, revealing teeth mottled with decay and tobacco stains. “Detective Inspector Monroe of Her Britannic Majesty's Secret Police at your service.”

  The mention of secret police hit the Inventor like a bucket of cold water, causing his eyes and mind to clear. He saw that the men at the door were constables dressed in uniforms more fitting to Bavaria than London. They looked every bit as murderous as their chief.

  Detective Inspector Monroe sat in the chair recently vacated by the Doppelgänger. “So what made you confess? And don't tell me your conscience was bothering you. I'm not stupid, you know.”

  “Confess? I'm afraid I'm at a loss to know what you mean.”

  “In my experience,” said the policeman, “serial killers always harbor a desire to be caught. They want the notoriety. They want the world to know what they've been up to. It's part of their sickness.”

  “Look here, Inspector! I don't know where you got the insane idea that I'm a serial killer but I assure you I am not. And if you say any such thing in public, I will sue you for every penny you've got.”

  Monroe held up a sheet of paper. “Is this your writing?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Either it is or it isn't.”

  The Inventor was at a loss to know what to say. How could he explain to Monroe that the note he was holding had been written by his double? Realizing there'd be no point trying, he remained silent.

  “There's no use you denying that you're Jack the Ripper,” Monroe said. “First we have the phone call you made to Scotland Yard, the transcription of which will be produced in court in due time. And second, there's this, your handwritten confession found on the table in front of you while you slept. It lists all your crimes – including two of which we had no prior knowledge – along with certain details you could not have known were you not the perpetrator.”

  “Inspector, I swear to you I did not write that note.”

  “Swear all you like, matey. We have handwriting experts a-plenty who will put the lie to your denial. There's no two ways about it. You are Jack the Ripper, and I – Detective Inspector Nelson Monroe – am the man who caught the Ripper. You and I will soon both be famous. The crucial difference is that I will live to enjoy the fruits of my labor.”

  With a litheness that belied his years, the Inventor leapt to his feet and made a lurch towards the door. The three policemen moved swiftly and would have intersected him were his move not a feint. As they converged upon the spot they expected him to be, he turned and ran for the interdimensional machine. The door was open. All he had to do was throw himself into the sphere and close the door behind him, then he could start up the machine at his leisure.

  As he reached the door, his hopes were dashed in an instant. Sooty marks on the control console spoke of a fire, no doubt caused by an overload. His only means of escape was denied to him.

  Accepting his doom, he stood placidly as Detective Inspector Monroe marched up to him and knocked him cold with a brutal punch.

  The Doppelgänger had never enjoyed the Times so much in all his life. Story after story spoke of good deeds being committed, of heroic actions and people aspiring to greatness. There was no slavery, no Spanish Inquisition and very little in the way of genocide. Everything he read told him he was living in a world where goodness and kindness were cherished and governments were so liberal it was a wonder they hung on to power.

  Sitting in a comfortable chair, bathed in the warmth of a gas fire, he was more at peace with himself than he had been for a long time. He unconsciously placed his hand to his neck as if to feel for the noose that would soon be tightening around it had he stayed in his own world. Monroe of the Yard had been getting altogether too close for comfort and was perhaps no more than a few days away from cracking the case.

  Now he was safe, far beyond the reach of the Secret Police. The beauty of it was that he had so arranged things as to ensure that Monroe got his man. It was of course the wrong man but no one would ever know.

  “This is a fresh start for me, Bruin,” he announced, carelessly tossing the Times aside. He poured himself another glass of Amontillado. The sherry was the exact same brand and vintage as the one he'd left for the Inventor to drink. Only it hadn't been doped. “Tomorrow I shall begin the business of slaughtering anew, bringing terror to this world's London such as it has never known.

  “Soon I'll have every flatfoot in the city searching in vain for Jack the Ripper. I'll be as famous in this world as I was in my own. What do you say to that, Bruin, you flea-bitten mutt?”

  Bruin had nothing to say to that or anything. He lay beside his master's chair, fast asleep and chasing rabbits in his dreams.

  THROUGH THE SLIP

  Chad A. Clark

  I am lost.

  Between the worlds.

  Neither in the place from which I started or that where I thought I was going. All my stupid dreams and everything I hoped I would accomplish means nothing in the vast expanse of this darkness through which I float. I don't even know if it's my voice I'm hearing or if this is merely a few moments of hallucination before my matter is spread throughout the cosmos. All I know is I ended up in that place, in her place, by my own poor judgment, mistakes I can no longer correct.

  But mistakes I can perhaps rectify.

  If I can somehow find my way back, forge a path through to my original departure point, maybe this can all be prevented. She has begun her journey and her mind is set on our destruction. I'm the only one who knows what it is that’s about to happen, the only one who can warn them of what I have brought about. Nothing has ever been this vital, this essential. I have to get back and warn them and give them as much time as possible to prepare.

  The child is coming.

  "Please, Dr. Reynolds. It's been so long since I've heard from him. You're the only one who can help me at this point."

  "I don't understand what you think I'm going to be able to do. He hasn't tried to contact me either."

  "I just have the worst feeling that something happened... He's always been a recluse but with him losing his job on top of everything... there's no one looking out for him and you were always fair with him."

  Reynolds winced as the thunder cracked again outside, lightning filling the room. For most of his life, a sob story from a pretty face was about all he ever needed to get himself into the worst situations. And despite his better judgment, he agreed to help. Still, it had clearly been a mistake to come here tonight. He could have just as easily held off until morning or even a few more days. It wasn't like the apartment was going anywhere.

  Looking at the pathetic excuse for a home, it was hard to imagine this being the residence for a once renowned physicist. How could Bronson have gotten any kind of work done in here? Reynolds was used to the calming sterility of the lab, the reassurance he felt knowing that he was surrounded by the most current and capable technology. This dump was a nightmare. Something scurried behind one of the walls, so paper-thin that he co
uld only hope that the sound was coming from the next apartment over and not from within the walls themselves.

  Calling them apartments was pretty much a joke as well. Bronson's home consisted of one room with a small closet attached to it. There was no kitchen to speak of but Reynolds did spot an electric burner in the corner. Bronson at least had the sense to leave it unplugged but even from where he stood, Reynolds could see the physical damage to the cord, fraying in a way that almost dared you to plug it in. All around it were cans of generic brand ravioli and condensed soups. The metal lids were jagged around the edges and half ripped off of the can, as if Bronson had simply punctured the tops with a screwdriver and pulled them open.

  The air smelled foul. There was a shared common bathroom at the end of the hall but it smelled like Bronson couldn't be bothered to go even that far. Either the work had become too important for him to walk away for three minutes or he had gotten so paranoid he thought people were waiting to kill him out there.

  Reynolds was the only one from the original group who had remained in touch with Bronson after he had been kicked out of the University. Standing here in the filth of this apartment made him wish that he hadn't bothered. Still, Bronson's daughter made him promise to help and he kept his promises. He would keep on going until he found his former colleague in hiding somewhere, or discovered that he was cooling down on a slab in the local morgue.

  The floor was littered with battered notebooks and from the few that had fallen open, he could see tiny, frantic scribbling. He would have guessed that Bronson had managed to record three to four times what most people would be able to fit into one notebook. Most of it had been scratched over, either because Bronson was trying to protect himself after the fact, or was just rejecting his own ideas in real time. It stood as a sad testament to an avenue of insane theories, most of which Reynolds wasn't even aware of.

  Still, if there was any way to figure out where Bronson was, his "research" was the best and only place to work from.

  Notebook after notebook yielded nothing, save for sporadic bursts of written stream of consciousness followed by pages and pages of cryptic mathematical formulas. Reynolds recognized none of it. He wanted to believe that this was some kind of higher order work, sign of Bronson's dormant genius but it looked like nothing he had ever seen before in any academic texts. It was almost like Bronson had been trying to express something with the numbers themselves, secreting a message to whoever happened to come across it.

  Finally, after fifteen minutes of opening notebooks and tossing them aside, he found some text that he could understand. It was on the very last page and Reynolds took note of the fact that Bronson had, upon reaching the edge of the page, simply kept writing over onto the cardboard cover of the notebook. The words he had written were simply stated but also impossible to understand.

  The child will be our end.

  The child will be our end.

  Someone must stop

  Following this, the page was almost entirely blank, save for one last sentence scribbled on the bottom.

  We must stop her.

  Reynolds let the notebook drop to the floor and looked around the room. Other than empty bottles and crumpled up fast food wrappers there was little else to find in here but as he turned to leave, he caught a reflection off of something metallic by the window. Moving closer, he saw a key hanging on a thin nail, hugged up so close to the window frame that he hadn't noticed it at first. The key-fob had the logo for a storage company along with a unit number. Reynolds shoved it into his pocket and did another orbit of the room, looking for anything that he might have missed.

  Moving towards the door, he kicked an empty box out of his way and noticed a single piece of paper inside. He bent down to pick it up and turned it over to reveal a hand-drawn picture. It was the kind of thing he would have expected to see in a grade school art room but there was a part of him that knew conclusively that Bronson had been the one to draw this. There was a crudely drawn line of skyscrapers, standing before a street filled with cars. The picture was covered with what he had initially seen as tiny red dots. Holding the paper up closer, he realized what was being depicted.

  They were all tiny sets of eyes, glaring up at him from the picture.

  "What is going on with you?"

  Bronson turned back to face him, one foot already halfway out the door with the supplies tucked under his arm. He looked like he had no interest in staying around to talk but he paused long enough for Reynolds to catch up.

  "You heard me, what is going on? I haven't seen you for over a week and out of the blue you show up to take some syringes and flash drives?"

  It was only at that moment that Reynolds noticed the smell coming off of Bronson. He had always known the man to be obsessed in his work but he looked like he hadn't showered in weeks. He had shaved, but his skin was littered with spots of beard he had missed as well as dried snippets of toilet paper from all the places he had cut himself. There was an underlying funk to him, the smell from clothes that had gone too long without being cleaned and as he looked closer at the items which Bronson was now clutching to his chest, he realized that the man's hands were trembling.

  "Christ, are you all right? Seriously, are you—“

  "Look I didn't think any of this stuff mattered," Bronson snapped at him. "It isn't like I've got anything expensive here, the University practically gives this crap away."

  "Bronson..." Reynolds paused, and for the briefest moment thought that his friend was about to hit him. "I don't care about any of that. Take whatever you want. This has always been your lab, regardless of what the big-wigs say. I just want to make sure you're okay. Your phone keeps going straight to voice-mail, I don't hear from you or see you. What's going on, what are you into?"

  The blank stare from Bronson wavered, as if he was contemplating an answer but in the end he just shook his head. "I can't explain it right now. I'll get back to you when I can, that's all I can say."

  "Bronson, wait!"

  The door slamming shut behind him was the only response he was given as Bronson rushed out into the night, mixing in with the foot traffic as he hurried off towards whatever project he was immersed in but could not talk about. Thunder rumbled overhead and Reynolds frowned, thinking that the forecast had been for clear skies.

  He never saw Bronson again after that night.

  The rain was torrential as Reynolds stepped through the front door of Bronson's building and paused under the pathetically sized awning. He was tempted to stand around for a few minutes and wait out the worst of the rain but decided that it would be better to get wet than face what might be lurking around in one of the nearby alleys. The interior of Bronson's apartment wasn't just some kind of ironic call for a spartan lifestyle. This was actually one of the worst neighborhoods in the city and Reynolds just wanted to get out of there.

  He had just gotten a taxi to come screeching to a halt when he caught glimpse of a person watching him from the other side of the street. He couldn't explain why he thought he was being watched but as soon as he locked eyes, the person spun around and took off down the alley. There was no way to make out anything other than the small, frail outline and a ragged, hooded sweatshirt.

  From his right, he heard the impatient honk from the cabbie and he took a step towards the car. As he did so, his train of thought stuttered again and he looked down the alley. The horn bleated again and this time he caught the glare from the driver in the rear view mirror. Reynolds simply shook his head and waved the car off. As it peeled off in an irritated acceleration away from the curb, Reynolds checked traffic as he jogged across the street, moving down the alley in pursuit of the stranger. Some whispered regions of his subconscious told him that he needed to catch up with whoever this was.

  All sense and reason told him that there was no way he would ever be able to catch up but as soon as he got to the other end of the alley, he spotted the red sweatshirt ducking down behind some newspaper machines. Reynolds flicked the colla
r of his jacket up over his neck as he made his way over, catching a snippet from a television in one of the bars he passed.

  ...atmospheric disturbances around the globe have been seen in a spike in violent thunderstorms, resulting in damages...

  Reynolds reached the vending machines and put a hand out to steady himself as he rounded over to the other side. No one was there but he noticed the front door of the building before him closing shut, a dark silhouette making its way up the stairs inside.

  "Hey!" Reynolds called out, not even sure if the person in there was the one he had been chasing. He pulled the door open and stepped up onto the stairs. His feet almost slipped out from underneath him from the water and oily grime on the floor and he grabbed the railing to stay upright. The wood groaned and cracked as it bore his weight but he managed to keep from falling as he began making his way up to the second floor. Stepping out into the hallway, he stopped short at the sight of the person, now standing at the other end and staring back at him. Lightning struck outside, immediately illuminating the hallway in bright contrasts around the solitary figure.

  "Who are you?" Reynolds asked and it was only at that moment that he realized how absurd this whole endeavor had been. He had no idea who this kid was or if he had even been watching him. He was jumping at shadows, overreacting and now this awkwardness was the price he paid. Maybe if he was lucky, the kid's father would show up and beat the holy hell out of Reynolds for bothering his son.

  No one appeared though and the kid remained standing there, not offering any statement or explanation.

  "Hello? Were you watching me down there on the—"

  "Why were you in his apartment?"

  Reynolds started at the sound of the voice, clearly female.

  "Who? Bronson? Do you know him?"

  "Why were you in his apartment? Who are you?"