Tales of Jack the Ripper

by Laird Barron

  Faber shook off the memory.

  Miss Lumbly was still going on about him. How did she speak of him behind his back?

  Just like your mother, Jack—all sweetness and light, singing the praises of the lord of the manor when in his presence, but damning him when he could not hear her. Faber could think of nothing worse than having to listen to his mother’s mouth—the damned whore.

  But that was an ugly way to think of poor, lonely Miss Lumbly. She had never done him any wrong. She obviously did the best she could with what life had offered her.

  “Why do you talk about him as if he were not here?” asked Dr. Springer. “He can hear you. He can also respond, although it is often too frustrating for him to try and find his words.”

  Ignoring Dr. Springer, she looked down at Faber with a smile and took his right hand. He watched it being lifted, but couldn’t feel it. “Such a wonderful man.”

  Dear God, was that genuine sadness in her voice? Her expression darkened. “Oh, but that son of his, Wayne.”

  “Miss Lumbly,” Dr. Springer said, “I think it’s time for Dr. Faber to rest.”

  “But sir, I have just arrived.”

  “Nevertheless.” He ushered her from the room.

  “Well I never,” Miss Lumbly exclaimed, her voice receding down the hall. “I’ll come back soon, Dr. Faber.”

  “She doesn’t mean to be so insensitive,” Dr. Springer said when he returned. “Then again, perhaps she does.”

  He chuckled and Faber did his best to laugh with his eyes, as his paralyzed face formed a half smile.

  There wasn’t much more in life that Faber wanted for himself and he would have accepted death as reasonable at this time if it weren’t for the loose ends he was leaving behind. There was his research; that would go on without him. Most of all, there was Wayne. He had always been a very troubled soul, and now, at the age of twenty-one, the young man already had a reputation about town as a drunk.

  Faber knew and understood the problem. With great patience and sympathy, he had talked with his son many times about his drinking, suggesting that he attend the Thursday night AA meetings at the Methodist Church on Hyde Street.

  “You do know, don’t you,” Dr. Springer said looking him squarely in the eyes, “that I’ll make sure Wayne gets along all right? He’s going settle down with time.” He placed one of his hands on Faber’s shoulder. “He’s had a good father and a good upbringing and you know that’s got to go a long way toward building his character. I think he never got over the loss of his mother—he was so young and they loved each other so much. “Faber turned his eyes away.

  “I know what you think—even the death of that little girl didn’t change him. We both know it was an accident and he wasn’t charged because he was your son—everyone does. I’m just glad no one thinks the less of you for it.”

  Everything his friend said was true, but none of it suggested the cause of his son’s drinking. He remembered the times when whiskey burned in his own belly and rage burned in his head. “No, sir, please!” she cried. She had actually called me “Sir,” as I raised the knife to slash at her throat.

  Wayne had never known about that part of Faber’s life, had never known his father was an alcoholic. But if it were not hereditary, and Faber believed it wasn’t, then what was the cause?

  Faber had gone over the possibilities endlessly. He was sixty years old when Wayne was born and had always been concerned that he might not relate to his son easily. But he had always been nothing if not a good example to the boy. He had not had a drink, smoked, cursed, or otherwise demonstrated anything but temperance in manner or lifestyle since long before the boy was born.

  His own father, a stable master by trade, died when Faber was a very young boy, kicked in the head by one of the Earl’s prize horses. His Lordship allowed the boy and his mother to stay on, eventually moving them into one of the servants’ quarters in the big house. Faber’s mother took care of the charring and he worked in the stables as his father before him. The Earl became something of a father to him and lavished special attention on the Fabers. He brought in a tutor and the boy received a good education. Faber thought this was because the Earl loved him and, perhaps, because the man felt somewhat responsible for his father’s death.

  He remembered the wind was hard biting that day and he had returned for his cap and gloves. Just outside their apartment door, he heard his mother’s urgent voice, whispering. “Not here, sir. Please—not now!”

  “The boy will be busy for some time,” His Lordship said. “He’ll be repairing the tumbled-down wall near the front gate until early evening. “Faber returned to his work. He knew now how he and his mother earned special favors from the Earl. This was how he had gained an education and a surrogate father, and how, eventually, he was afforded the opportunity to go into medicine.

  Wayne as a seven-year-old child came into his mind. “Come on, Father, take me to work with you today.”

  The boy had been asking for over a week. Faber was reluctant—there was a lot a boy could get into at the laboratory. But his mother, poor Carolyn, had been dead only two months and he needed to spend time with his father.

  “If you promise to stay out from under foot.”

  Wayne promised, they made sandwiches for their lunch, and headed for the university in the Ford. As they moved through the streets of Knoxville, Faber allowed his son to control the gear shift.

  “First gear, co-pilot,” Faber would say, pressing in the clutch. Wayne would push the stick into position. “First gear, Sir,” he would say.

  On the campus lawn, Faber introduced him to the friendly squirrels. They sat in the cool grass for a moment and fed the animals the crusts from their sandwiches. Wayne told a bad joke, and as they laughed together he put his hand on his father’s shoulder. In a rare fit of affection, Faber reached out and hugged his son.

  “Today, will you do an experiment just for me?” Wayne asked, hugging him back.

  “Of course I will.”

  In the Epley Building, Wayne was introduced to those who shared Faber’s work and laboratory, Dr. Walker and Dr. Bennett. He was more interested, however, in the strange equipment that filled the lab, and as he explored, he discovered the animals with the metal and glass electrodes implanted in their brains. At first, he wandered silently up and down the rows of cages, almost tip-toeing past the pitiful monkeys, cats, and dogs. “You stuck pieces of metal in their heads!” he said quietly, turning to his father with eyes wide. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Frankenstein—you’re just like Dr. Frankenstein!”

  Dammit—Faber was engaged in serious research and would not have his son think poorly of him! He, too, hated what he had to do to the animals.

  “Now, son,” he said, not knowing what else to say. “They aren’t in any pain.”

  But Wayne wasn’t listening. He was crying and the animals added their voices to his.

  Dammit all to hell, he was doing the best he could to make amends for what he’d done. It just had to be enough!

  Through the din, Walker and Bennett looked helplessly to Faber. “Come to me, Wayne, this instant!”

  Sniveling, the boy crawled behind a stack of empty cages in a corner and Faber had to wrestle with Wayne to get him out.

  He should never have let his son see that horrible movie. Although the film contained much that was pure fantasy, the story attached a great deal of emotion to what were essentially simple medical processes. He shouldn’t have been surprised at the effect on his son. Jack was accustomed to atrocities of the flesh. But the boy….

  Faber was not proud of the way he handled that incident. He had punished Wayne in front of the others and made him sit in a corner and read a book for the rest of the day.

  He always wondered if this had contributed to his son’s problem.

  “I’m going to let you rest, now,” Dr. Springer said. “If Wayne comes at a decent hour and isn’t too intoxicated, I’ll send him in to see you.”

  White Chap
el District, London: Aug. 31st 1888, Sept. 8th, Sept. 30th and Nov. 9th; four were women in their 40s, the fifth victim 24, three months pregnant. The first two looked much older than their years. 3rd & 4th within the space of an hour. All occurred outdoors accept the last. Mutilation increased with each—

  —but you must remember, Faber reminded himself, the penance you have paid since then, all you’ve done to balance the scales. Advisor to the National Pediatrics Foundation, member of the American Cancer Society and the Multiple Sclerosis Society, served on the National Board of Medical Examiners; all of it, so much good, so much to wipe away the sins of youth when you were so angry and had no idea how to channel that fury, that lust and energy—

  —he opened his eyes and saw standing at the foot of his bed a figure wearing a dark hat and cloak, a physician’s black bag held in its left hand. There was not enough light in the room for Faber to see the figure’s face, so he opened his mouth and tried to beckon the figure to come forward, but all that emerged from his throat was a pitiful, thick gurgling sound, not even remotely human.

  “Shhh,” said the figure, opening the bag and reaching inside. “I only mean to worship your body, dearie, worship and enjoy it in a way few of us ever know.”

  No! Faber screamed inside himself.

  “No need to be afraid, dearie,” said the figure, raising the scalpel into the light and admiring its gleaming. “It will bring you such bliss.”

  Not any more, screamed/thought Faber. I’m not you any more. I left you behind, I was never you, never, and you’ve no part of my life now!

  “What life is that, sir?” whispered the figure. “This world of four walls and a bed, is that the life to which you refer? Think about it, Jack, my friend, my creator; bit by bit, little by little, the boundaries of your world have shrunk; first it was the hospital, then this house, then only a few rooms of this house, and now your world, your life, is this bed.” The figure leaned in closer, but the darkness covering its face only grew deeper.

  “Soon, dear Jack, your world will shrink until all that is left for you is the central core of Dr. Howard Faber, and do you know what you’re going to find waiting there for you?

  “Me, dear sir. It’s been a long time, and I’ve missed you.” The figure dropped the scalpel back into the bag. “So, until then.”

  And Howard Faber fell back into the darkness of disease to find its familiarity broken by an immense, organ-crumpling pressure that he feared would crush his bones down to the very marrow.

  Tubes.

  He was aware of the plastic tubes in his body; a Foley catheter in his bladder, a nasogastric tube through which he was provided sustenance, and a nasopharyngeal tube pumping extra oxygen into his lungs from the bottles by his bedside.

  “Just like Frankenstein!” he heard seven-year-old Wayne cry.

  Uncomfortable, he tried to reach with his left hand to pull out the tubes, but found he was unable to move anything but his eyes.

  He had a vague memory of Springer saying something about “‘Locked-In’ Syndrome,” and “…a stroke.”

  If he had been able to, Howard Faber would have laughed.

  What he had done to Catherine Eddowes, Polly Nichols, Alice Mackenzie, and all the others, that was not undignified death; no, they had died in such a way that everyone would remember their names and the unique manner in which he’d worshipped their flesh. It had been quick—brutal, perhaps, but quick nonetheless, much more than those whores deserved. They weren’t conscious for most of the so-called “indignities”; they didn’t have to depend on people to turn them over in bed, to daub the perspiration from their brows or wipe their asses when they could no longer control their bowels; they didn’t have to listen to the tsk-tsk-ings and the isn’t-it-sads and—the worst of them all, the most infuriating and degrading—those horrible, terrible, disgraceful Well-at-least-his-suffering’s-almost-at-an-ends. Bloody idiots, all of them. Talking about him as if he weren’t even in the room, as if he had no grasp of the language any longer. At least Springer, the tough old bastard, at least he had the nerve to address Faber directly, to look him in the eye and speak his mind.

  “You look me in the eye, guv’ner,” said the one in the tattered blue velvet, the one who must have been… what was her name again? Polly Nichols—yes, that must have been her. “You’re going to do that to me, you at least look me in the eye so’s you remembers what was in m’heart before you took ever’thin’ away from me.”

  A brave one, that Polly Nichols. Almost too bad about that one.

  Almost.

  From outside his bedroom door he again heard the seemingly perpetual cacophony of whispering voices: Springer, and the nameless nurse, and of course Miss Lumbly… but today there was an additional voice, slurred, pained, but still recognizable.

  “He’s my father, dammit! I’ve a right to see him if I want.”

  “Not in your condition, Wayne,” replied Springer curtly. “I’ll not stand for your upsetting him.”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” said Miss Lumbly. “Your father lying in there on his death-bed and you show up here in a drunken state. Have you no respect for him? The man was—”

  “—such a saint,” snapped Wayne. “Yes, yes, I know—believe me, I know. All my life I’ve had to listen to everyone tell me what a fine, wonderful, upstanding man my father is. ‘‘You’ve quite a large shadow to step out from behind, Wayne,’ you say to me. Well, I’ve tried! I did everything I could. It wasn’t my fault the Army wouldn’t take me for duty in Korea—”

  “—that was because of the condition of your liver, Wayne,” said Springer. “The drinking has taken a toll on your system. You weren’t fit for active duty. Couple that with your history of emotional instability and—”

  “All right!” snarled Wayne, nearly shouting. “All right, maybe I have brought a lot of my problems on myself, but you have no idea what it’s like to be… to be the offspring of a saint. Compared to a miracle worker like my father, I’ll always be a failure.”

  “I find your behavior extremely distasteful,” said Miss Lumbly.

  “My behavior? Oh, that’s rich. Let’s talk about your behavior for a moment, shall we, Miss Lumbly? Which of us is worse, I ask you—the one who shows up in his cups to see his dying father, or the one who arrives day after day in her finest dresses and gloves in the hopes that a dying man might take her as his wife before he shuffles off his mortal coil—leaving her with not only a respected name but all his worldly goods, as well? Answer me that, will you, Miss Lumbly? All I want from him is… is forgiveness for not measuring up to his perfection. I don’t give a tinker’s damn about the money or the house or any of it. All I’m looking for is some trace of the father I worshipped when I was six. So here we stand, Miss Lumbly, the drunkard and the decaying debutante, and I want you tell me which of us is worse!”

  “Enough,” said Springer. Then the sound of the front door opening. “I think you’d better be on your way now, Wayne. If and when you can come back here sober, you can see your father.”

  The sound of shuffling footsteps, then Wayne’s voice, empty, defeated, disgraced: “It’s a terrible thing, never knowing if you’re your own man or simply the sum of your family’s parts. Try living with that for a while and see how you’d react. I figure I can either drink or I can weep, and drinking is so much more subtle.” The door closed.

  Faber opened his eyes again to see the dark-cloaked figure standing at the foot of the bed.

  “That was quite a show Wayne put on for the others, don’t you think?” it said. “Oh, don’t bother trying to say anything; I’ll already know what it is before it’s out of your mouth and you’ll need your strength for later, anyway.

  “It seems to me, dear Jack—oh, all right, have it your way—Howard—it seems to me that you’ve only now begun to realize what your son has been going through all these years. The boy does make a strong case, does he not?

  “You’ve made your ‘contributions,’ Howard. You’ve pion
eered your research, you’ve helped ease the suffering of others, all the things one would expect of a fine, upstanding saint such as yourself. But the one thing you’ve not bothered to ask yourself, Jack—and Jack you are, as you have always been and shall always be—the one thing you’ve never asked yourself is: Does it make any difference?”

  The figure walked around the side of the bed and seated itself on what Faber had come to think of as Springer’s chair.

  “Guess what, Jack—it doesn’t. Everything you’ve done, the great strides you’ve made in your medical research, the pain you’ve prevented, the diseases you’ve helped to fight, none of it means a thing because it will never erase what you did, what we did.

  “Have you ever heard the expression ‘Kill two birds with one stone’? I’ve a way for us to do that. It’s very simple.

  “Confess. You’re dying anyway, so you needn’t worry about the authorities doing anything to you. It will not take away from the medical accomplishments, so the advancements you’ve made will go on helping others, and—and this is the most important one, Jack, so pay close attention—it will destroy this aura of sainthood that has protected you lo these sixty-two years, and that destruction will free your son to become the man he was meant to be. No more will others look at him and say, ‘What a waste, why couldn’t he be more like his father?’ No, from now on they’ll look at his accomplishments, however grand or meager they may be, and rejoice in them, for at least he won’t be a thing like his father!

  “A name and reputation only serve you when you’re alive, Jack, and you don’t have all that much longer left, dear fellow. So my suggestion is that you confess to your son what you really are—what we really are. ‘The truth will set you free,’ and all that rubbish. It’s time. You have the ability to speak—it’s going to take everything you have to do it, but you can do it. Have him open the safe behind the Botticelli print on the wall of the study.

  “Ha! Can you imagine the looks on the faces of Springer and Estell and that puffed-up Miss Lumbly when they read your journals and see the photographs you took? When they compare your handwriting to that of the letters published in the papers and find them to be the same? And let’s not forget the little trinkets and trophies we took each time—though, looking back on it, I think that pancreas was overdoing it a bit. Ah, the details! Dear God, the details you’ll fill in for the world after all these years. How I wish I could be here to see it all happen, but…”