The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack bas-1

by Mark Hodder

  Moments later, he arrived at the back of the houses on Taybridge Road. He identified the fifth one along and approached its high back wall. He was just tall enough to look over it.

  A gas lamp was on in the kitchen and through the window he could see a woman washing dishes in a basin. Last time he'd seen her, she'd been just fourteen years old. Now Lizzie Fraser was thirty-eight. She looked careworn and exhausted, with a haunted expression around her eyes.

  A young girl came into view: the daughter, Marian.

  The mother said something.

  Marian replied.

  She moved away from the window.

  The back door opened.

  The girl stepped into the yard and walked over to a small chicken coop.

  She bent over it.

  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.

  Damn! 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 passed: 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 muffled girl's voice.

  "Constable Dickson," 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 prone girl.

  She was shaking so hard that her teeth were chattering.

  He reached down and pulled apart the buttons 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.

  "Shit!" 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 sexual pervert? God, 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 brandishing their makeshift 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 altitude that the trees thrashed beneath its downdraught.

  "Oh, will you please piss off and leave me alone!" he yelled.

  It passed 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 piss 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. Pushing 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 damned 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 damned 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 shifted 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.

  Fucking hell! 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 hell 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, damn 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?"

  "Talking orang-?" began Burton.

  "Captain Burton!" came a distant shout.

  Oxford looked up through the trees as the second flying machine drew closer.

  "The mist has cleared and the sun is high enough," he muttered to himself. "I should be able to recharge."

  "Charge at what?" demanded Burton. "You're speaking in riddles, man!"

  "Time to go," said Oxford. He laughed. "Time to go!"

  Burton suddenly dived at him.

  Oxford twisted out of the way and, as the famous Victorian crashed past him, he strode away.

  "Sir Richard Francis Burton," he hissed to himself. "That's all I bloody well need!"

  Ducking under branches, he moved from bole to bole until he emerged from the woods back onto the golf course. Off to the south, he saw a horde of policemen and villagers milling about. A police whistle blew and a roar went up from the crowd. They surged toward him.

  Oxford bounded away and circled the course. He only had to remain in the sunlight for a couple of minutes; it would be enough.

  In enormous hops, he ran around the perimeter while the mob surged back and forth trying to cut him off.

  He passed the edge of the trees again and saw Burton standing there. The man ran out to intercept him. Oxford bounded over his head.

  "Stay out of it, Burton!" he shouted.

  He took six more strides and sprang high.

  At the apex of his jump, he ordered the suit to flip him to the next destination and, at exactly the same moment, realised that the second flying machine was too close, almost touching him.

  He landed in the Alsop field on the night of September 30, 1861, with fragments of the machine accompanying him. He hit the ground awkwardly, floundered, and fell. Bits of twisted metal thudded into the earth around him. One piece embedded itself in his right forearm. He screamed with pain and yanked it out. Blood splashed over the scales of his suit.

  Spring Heeled Jack rolled to all fours and hauled himself upright. He held his arm and winced. He looked down the sloping field and forgot the pain.

  It was all so familiar.

  There were the lights of Old Ford; there was Bearbinder Lane; and there was the cottage where Jane Alsop lived, and where he would now find her daughter, Alicia Pipkiss.

  He had no reason to think that she was the girl with the rainbow birthmark, but all of a sudden that's exactly what he did think.

  He smiled.

  Something came spinning through the air, hit his stilts, and wrapped itself around them.

  He toppled sideways and fell onto his injured arm. Another scream was torn from his throat.

  What the-?

  He looked down and saw that he'd been enmeshed in bolas-throwing weapons consisting of a cord with weights at either end.

  Men rushed out of the trees. A lot of men. They threw nets over him.

  Colourful birds exploded into the air.

  In Old Ford, Constable Krishnamurthy saw the flock of parakeets rising upward. They wheeled around then flew westward. Firing up his rotorchair, he ascended on a column of boiling vapour and steered the craft toward the field. Some distance behind him, by the ruined farmhouse, six more rotorchairs rose.

  To the north, west, and south of the field, Burton, Trounce, and Honesty also saw the birds. They ordered their men forward.

  Not far behind Trounce's team, Laurence Oliphant turned to the twentythree red-robed figures and snapped: "Go! Attack! Feast!"

  They threw back their hoods and howled.

  Men piled onto Spring Heeled Jack, holding his arms away from his chest. They hauled him upright. He struggled wildly and became entangled in netting. One punched him hard in the stomach. He doubled over and vomited.

  "Sorry, old thing. Had to immobilise you, what!" said the aggressor.

  "Blast it," said another. "We have company."

  The Rakes, gathered around the time traveller, suddenly found themselves surrounded by men who were charging out from the very same trees they'd just vacated. The Libertine extremists formed a circle around their prisoner, faced outward, and drew their rapiers from their canes.

  The advancing forces pulled goggles down from their foreheads to cover their eyes, reached into their jackets, and withdrew truncheons and pistols.

  "I am Detective Inspector Trounce of Scotland Yard," roared a voice. "I command you, in the name of His Majesty King Albert, to lay down your weapons and give yourselves up!"

  "Not likely!" came a reply.

  The Rakes chuckled and brandished their swords.

  Seven rotorchairs began to circle the field. Bright lamps blazed beneath them, suspended on ropes, illuminating the scene, sending long black shadows angling across it.

  "We need reinforcements," Oxford heard one of his captors mutter.

  "Don't worry. They're coming," answered another.

  A parakeet landed on the threshold of the veranda doors at Darkening Towers.

  "Message for Henry bog-breath Beresford!" it squawked into the ballroom.

  Another fluttered down beside it: "Message for the limp-wristed Marquess of Waterford!"

  And another: "Message for the highly hideous Henry Beresford!"

  And more:

  "Message for Henry bastard-of-bastards Beresford!"

  "Message for Henry tweak-nibbler Beresford!"

  "Message for the mange-ridden marquess!"

  "Message for barmy flesh-puller Beresford!"

  "Message for the Marquess of buttock-wobbling Waterford!"

  "Bloody hell!" exclaimed Henry de La Poer Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford, as a colourful tidal wave of parakeets swept into the room to insult him.

  "Message begins," they chorused deafeningly. "He's arrived, you bollockgroper. Message ends."

  The glass-headed orangutan blundered through them, waving its long arms, sending up a fluttering mass of colour. He lurched out into the grounds and bawled: "Get the steam up! Get the steam up! He's here! Spring Heeled Jack is
here!"

  The gigantic rotorship trembled as its crankshafts started turning, spinning the rotors. It vented steam from its exhausts. Men ran between it and the smaller vessel, which was landed nearby.

  Beresford tumbled up the ramp, passing a man whose head was half brass: John Speke, who, with the key over his left ear slowly revolving, raced to the smaller craft.

  The Mad Marquess entered the mighty Technologist ship and the ramp withdrew behind him.

  The doors clanged shut.

  With a powerful roar, the colossal platform lifted into the air.

  Sir Richard Francis Burton, his eyes covered by leather-bound goggles, his cane thrust beneath his belt, plunged into the amassed Rakes and laid about him with his rapier. The blade clicked and clacked against those of his enemies, and, though he was vastly outnumbered, his skill was such that he disarmed or disabled man after man without sustaining even a scratch himself.

  Beside and behind him, police constables pushed forward, swiping swordsticks aside with their truncheons, lashing out with fists and boots.

  It occurred to the king's agent that the last time he'd been in a position such as this, it had ended in disaster.

  "Not this time!" he grunted, leaning into the manchette and watching with satisfaction as his opponent flinched, cried out, dropped his sword, and clutched at his pierced wrist.

  Soon, the crush of men became too tight for swordplay and his left fist became his primary weapon, smashing into jaws, noses, and foreheads. He grinned savagely, thankful to have at last reached the final reckoning with his enemies, glorying in the battle.

  He laughed when he caught sight of Detective Inspector Honesty. The slightly built man appeared to be boxing under the Marquess of Queensberry rules, as had been demonstrated for the first time last June by the heavyweight pugilist Jem Mace, who'd won the Championship of England against Sam Hurst. Honesty's back was ramrod straight; he was dancing and dodging on his toes; his left fist was defending his chin, while his right was jabbing again and again into the face of his infuriated adversary. He appeared to be making no headway until, quite without warning, he swerved, stepped in, and whipped his left fist up in a devastating uppercut. His opponent's feet left the ground and the man flopped flat on his back, out for the count. "Bravo!" cheered Burton.