In Darkness Dwell

by Cross, Amy

  With that, he lets out a low, rumbling chuckle that seems to originate in his belly.

  Looking down at my bandaged wrists, I realize that somehow I have been rescued. At the same time, I cannot fathom how this can be. If this man is an illusion and I am in fact alone, the only possibility is that I rescued myself. In which case, I showed weakness at a moment when I required absolute strength.

  “I might not have done a great job there,” the man continues. “I'm afraid I had to improvise, what with me not being blessed with any kind of training. Still, I manage to stop the bleeding, and you're alive- Which is the main thing, if you think about it. Pale, but alive. You can thank me later.”

  “What gave you the right?” I whisper.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What gave you the right to do this?” I ask, as I start clumsily trying to pull the bandages away. I know this man has to be an illusion, yet I cannot help but admonish him. “I had made my decision. I am ready to go and find Catherine, to be with her again! Don't you understand? All of this has been about Catherine, right from the very beginning! I care only about her, and -”

  “You're delirious!” he yells, suddenly grabbing my arms and forcing me back against the bed, while climbing on top of me and resting his weight against my chest. “You need to snap out of this,” he continues, leaning closer to my face. “I saved you from the dark, empty pit of oblivion. If I hadn't broken that door down and rescued you, you wouldn't be with your darling Catherine right now! Oh no, you'd be gone, you'd be extinguished! You'd no longer exist. There's no fairy-tale reunion waiting for you in death, my friend. Believe what you want, but the truth is absolutely clear!”

  I shake my head. He's wrong, he has to be.

  “This is pathetic!” he continues. “Look at you! You're a coward!”

  “How dare you!”

  “Do I have to prove that you're alive?”

  “Unhand me at once!” I say firmly. “If you do not, I shall be forced to -”

  Suddenly he squeezes my wrists hard, just for long enough to cause a searing burst of pain. I cry out, and at this he leans closer, forcing me to smell his foul, rotten breath. The stench is utterly disgusting, worse than some of the cadavers I have had on my table over the years. Still he grips my hands, until my cry becomes a whimper.

  “If I am an illusion,” he mutters, “then obviously you don't mind me doing this to you, do you?”

  “Stop it!” I shout, feeling rough stitches slipping through my tattered wrists. “You're hurting me!”

  “How can I be hurting you, when I'm not really here?”

  “Leave me alone!” I sob. “Stop this at once!”

  “Get a grip, man!” he snarls. “Don't let your great mind sink into a mess of superstitious nonsense! That's be a real shame, Doctor Grazier. I might even shed a tear over it.”

  “Let go of me!” I shout, trying but failing to pull away from him. “Unchain me from this bed and release my arms! You're hurting me!”

  “Oh I am, am I? How about now?”

  Before I can reply, he twists my wrist again, this time eliciting an even louder cry of pain from my lips.

  “And what does that tell you, huh?” he continues, leaning so close that I can feel another fine spray of warm spittle against my face. “Come on, Doctor Grazier, put your thinking cap on. Shouldn't something rather obvious be occurring to you by now? Something that should serve as a revelation?”

  “You're a monster!” I shout. “You're a beast, you're nothing but a brazen, common little -”

  And then I realize what he means.

  He's still holding my wrists, still causing me pain, but now I'm frozen in place as I stare up into his maniacal eyes. A slow sense of realization is growing through my chest, pushing against my mind even as I try to dismiss the truth that's staring down at me. And as this monster's smile grows, I finally understand the awful truth, even if I am appalled by the very idea.

  “You're real,” I whisper, as I allow myself to accept the possibility that this is actually happening. “You're not a hallucination. You're a real man!”

  Chapter Six

  Maddie

  Today

  “Jack the Ripper! Get your Jack the Ripper t-shirts here!”

  Crossing Trafalgar Square, keeping myself in the thick of the crowds, I can't help noticing that there are a lot more vendors out today. Almost every patch of pavement near the fountain has been taken up by people selling Jack the Ripper tat, from t-shirts to books to mugs to just about anything it's possible to imagine. Just a few days after the murders started, a veritable Jack the Ripper industry has cropped up, and although I have to admire the ingenuity of these wannabe entrepreneurs, I can't help thinking that the whole thing is in bad taste.

  I even overheard someone earlier, saying that scores of hastily cobbled-together Jack the Ripper horror books have appeared online. Right now, anything linked to Jack the Ripper seems to be a huge deal.

  “Jack the Ripper tour!” a man calls out as I walk past his stall. “Come and see the sites of the original crimes! Buck's Row! Hanbury Street! Dutfield's Yard! Mitre Square! Miller's Court! And of course, the old Scotland Yard building! A full two hour tour for just thirty quid each!”

  He casts a dirty glance at me, as if he can see that there's no way I'm going to become one of his customers, and then he reaches over and grabs a woman's arm, pulling her toward his stall.

  “Come on, love,” he tells the startled woman. “Don't you wanna see where it all began?”

  Slipping past them, I force my way through the crowd. There are armed police nearby, so I keep my distance in case they spot me and ask whether I'm living on the streets. I really can't afford to get spotted by the police, but it's not like there's anywhere to hide anywhere. In fact, after walking the streets for a few hours, I began to realize that I'm better off hiding in the crowds, at least until darkness comes and I can slip away a little more easily. Sure, I've been getting dirty looks from passersby, but I also picked up a cheap t-shirt and slipping into it while I was in an alley, so I'm hoping that I don't stand out too much.

  The t-shirt cost £2, which means that in total I've already spent £23 of the £275 I got the other day from the jewellery guy. I'm going through this money way too fast, and I need to go find Alex soon. I just hope she didn't end up going to one of those round-up centers.

  As I head through the crowd, I overhear snippets of excited conversations all around, and it's pretty clear that there's only one topic in London today. A police officer glances this way, but he quickly looks in another direction, so I'm pretty sure my cheap disguise is working. And then, as I reach the edge of one of the other fountains, I spot a giggling guy crouched down, speaking into a phone.

  “Ready?” he says, as he cranes his neck to look past some nearby tourists.

  I slow my pace, wondering what he's planning.

  “Yeah,” he continues, “all's good at this end. Don't worry, I'll be filming. We'll get, like, ten million views in the first twenty-four hours alone. This is gonna be mental.”

  He pauses, clearly listening to whoever's on the other end of the line.

  “Nah, don't stress. This is gonna be another top quality Matt Milford prank video. Now stay focused on what I told you to do, okay? And get on with it!”

  Suddenly there's a horrified scream in the distance, followed immediately by several more. I turn and watch as the crowd parts, and to my horror I see a semi-naked girl stumbling through the crowd, covered in blood. She's wearing skin-colored underwear, but there's blood all over her body and after a moment she drops to her knees, crying out in pain as stunned onlookers watch. For a moment I'm horrified, but then I realize that the whole thing seems completely absurd, and that it's almost certainly some kind of staged prank.

  Sure enough, nearby that Matt guy is laughing as he films the whole thing.

  “He got me!” she yells, fumbling with the top of her skin-color underwear, as if she's trying to find somethin
g. “He -”

  Suddenly blood sprays from her hands, splattering some of the onlookers. Two armed police officers are already rushing over, but I can't help noticing that the guy from earlier is still filming the scene on his phone and giggling wildly. And then, sure enough, the girl gets to her feet and starts laughing, before taking a bow and running off into the crowd. The police try to stop her, but she vanishes within seconds, leaving behind nothing more than a large patch of fake blood.

  “Was that a joke?” someone asks nearby. “Please, tell me that was a joke.”

  “I think it was supposed to be,” a man mutters, clearly not amused. “Some people've got no taste.”

  Stepping past them, I watch as the guy from earlier sits on the edge of the fountain, tapping at his phone.

  “I'm gonna upload it now,” he says as I get closer. “Just give me a second, I've got to compress it first.”

  He sets the phone down for a moment as he reaches into his pocket.

  “Yeah, don't worry,” he continues, raising his voice so that the person on the other end of the line can still hear him. “Two minutes, tops, and I can put it on our page. You're so impatient, Karen. Just make sure no-one grabs you, okay? Get that fake blood off and meet me back here.”

  As I get closer, I see that his phone is still processing the video. I hesitate for a moment, before stepping forward and reaching down, nudging the phone with my leg and sending it sliding into the fountain's water.

  “What the hell?!” the guy shouts, trying to grab the phone. Reaching into the water, he fishes it out and taps furiously at the screen, which has now gone blank. “What did you do that for?” he screams, getting to his feet and stepping toward me. “That was the only copy we had!”

  “Sorry,” I mumble as I slip past him. “It was an accident.”

  He yells at me, and I think maybe he even tries to follow me through the crowd. I manage to give him the slip, though, and pretty soon I'm lost once again in the vast throng of people. I'd never usually confront an asshole like that, but this time I felt a brief surge of anger. Two girls have died, and the killer is still out there somewhere. This isn't something that should be turned into a game.

  I have to force my way through the crowd, but finally I get to the far end of the square. Breathless and a little disorientated, I turn and look at the throng of people. They all seem so excited and enthralled, and it's as if this whole city has suddenly become some kind of huge Jack the Ripper theme park. All around, I can hear people chattering about their different theories, and wondering whether there's going to be another attack tonight. Even as I cross the road, I'm bumped by several passersby who seem too focused on their phones to even look where they're going, and I'm quite sure they're watching the latest news bulletins.

  And all the while, the sky is starting to darken and nearby bars are starting to switch on their outside lights. Night is coming, and I guess the city is divided between people who are going to hide away in their homes and hotel rooms, and people who are going to get a thrill out of daring to stay out. From what I've overheard, there are even vigilante gangs heading to Whitechapel tonight to patrol the streets, even though the police have told them to stay away. All things considered, this city seems to be spiraling out of control.

  “Have you got somewhere to be?” a voice asks suddenly.

  Turning, I find two armed police officers watching me from their post on the street corner.

  “I'm fine,” I mutter. “I'm just going home.”

  They seem satisfied, and they both look away, but that was close. Now that I've found a change of clothes, I figure it's time to get well off the streets, and I only really know one place to go. As I hurry along the street, I notice that the sky already seems even darker.

  Chapter Seven

  Doctor Charles Grazier

  Sunday September 30th, 1888

  “I would have helped you,” the man says, sitting on a chair next to the dressing table, watching as I continue to peel the bandages away from my wrists. “When that idiot cart driver almost caught you in the yard during the night, I mean. If you'd needed it, I would've stepped out of the shadows and cut the bastard's throat for you.”

  The bandages stick a little to my bloodied flesh. It's evident that this fool did not clean the wounds, so I must ignore usual best practice and – instead – take a proper look. Even if, in doing so, I re-open the cuts. Sure enough, I feel a great deal of pain as I pull the bandages aside, but finally I see the great chunks that I carved out of my wrists. There is a small amount of fresh blood, but for the most part the wound seems...

  I lean closer and take a sniff.

  “Did you cauterize my wrists?” I ask, genuinely shocked by the charred skin.

  “I didn't know what else to do,” he replies. “I know it works for animals, and I had to act fast. I set your wrists against the stove. You cried out, but I put my hands over your mouth to keep you quiet. On account of the neighbors, obviously. Do you not remember that?”

  “I remember sitting at the table,” I tell him.

  “Don't you remember all the blood?”

  “I think so. But nothing after that.”

  “Maybe it's shock,” he continues. “I wouldn't blame you, not after all that blood you lost. I tried cleaning your face, but you might want to have a proper wash later.”

  I reach up and touch my chin, and sure enough there are flakes of something encrusted around my mouth. I chip some of the flakes away and examine them in the palm of my hand, and I find that they are dark red.

  Blood.

  Turning to the man again, I see that there is a faint smile on his lips, as if he finds this whole situation amusing. He is a disagreeable fellow, that much is certain, and his jacket is caked in mud and grime and blood and probably other remnants from the streets. I have seen his kind in the street from time to time, but only in the less salubrious parts of the city, and I have certainly never before made conversation with an individual who obviously comes from low stock. In his hands, he is holding a large knife, although not in a threatening manner. Indeed, he seems to be amusing himself by repeatedly running the blade along the callouses that cover his fingers.

  “I wrote to the newspapers on your behalf,” he explains. “I thought you deserved to be famous.”

  “Famous? Why would anybody want to be famous?

  “I wrote to the newspapers. A lot of people did, to be fair, but they were all fantasists. They were guessing. I had the benefit of having observed you at work a few times, so I reckon my letters should have been taken more seriously. Don't worry, I didn't include anything that might give you away. I was very careful like that. I even added some misdirection.”

  “Why would you do such a thing?” I ask.

  “Did you like the name I came up with? Jack the Ripper?”

  “Like it?” I mutter, filled with a sense of disdain. “Why would I like it?”

  “I killed someone once,” he continues, and now the smile has faded from his lips. “It was an idiot who tried to cheat me at cards. I followed him outside and put a knife in his chest, and then I shoved him into the river. Not that anyone minded. He was here from abroad, so there wasn't even anyone to miss him.”

  He pauses for a moment.

  “I tried to kill a lady once,” he adds cautiously. “That was different, though. That was something I planned, but I couldn't quite go through with it. I followed a fine-looking woman through the streets. I had this very knife in my pocket and, as the Lord is my witness, I intended to slit her throat with it. I wanted to know what that felt like, and I thought I could have my way with her first too. But the longer I followed her, the harder I found it to actually make the strike. She was out walking for such a long time, I followed her all the way to an inn near the tower. I don't know why, but I just couldn't finish her off. Instead I watched her walk into the inn, and then she was gone. That's why I was so impressed when I saw you at work for the first time. I realized, Doctor Grazier, that you've got a
real gift for murder.”

  “I am not a murderer!” I splutter.

  “There are at least three dead girls who'd beg to disagree with you,” he replies.

  “I am a man of medicine!”

  “That first one,” he continues, “I got to see up close, after you'd left her alone. Just for a few minutes, mind, but I got to put my hands in her guts. It was glorious to feel her rich, warm blood all over my fingers. I tried to imagine what it would have been like if I'd been the one who did her in, and it sure felt good. I should thank you for that opportunity. Sir, I can honestly say that it's a privilege to watch you work. That's why I came tonight, really. I suppose I -”

  Suddenly his face twitches, and he mutters something under his breath as his left eye flickers wildly for a few seconds. He seems troubled by something deep within, and it takes several seconds before he leans back and chuckles. Evidently he is amused by his own suffering.

  “I find you fascinating,” he says, and now he's starting to rock back and forth on the chair. In truth, he reminds me of men I saw in the asylums back when I occasionally had reason to visit those foul institutions in a professional capacity. “I could never do what you do, but I would dearly love to be close to it all. That's why I thought I'd come along and offer myself to you, Doctor Grazier. You need an assistant, do you not? I can do the hard work, and I can write those magnificent letters to the newspapers, and in return you can let me get closer to what you're doing. Have you tried eating the girls' remains, Sir? Have you ever bitten into a human kidney?”

  “Of course I haven't!” I shout, struggling to maintain my composure. “I insist that you release me at once!”

  Pulling on the chain around my foot, I find that it remains firmly attached to the bed's frame. This madman has me trapped, and I cannot help but glance after a moment at his knife. He is still using it on his own hand, scraping at thick knots of dried skin around the base of his thumb, but I have no doubt that he would turn the weapon on me if I angered him.