The Victorian Vampire

by Nick James

  It was busy as normal. All that blood. The food that was on offer: Man, woman and child. Black, white and even an old Chinese woman shuffling along with a bundle in her arms. The burning was increasing, but I needed to stay in control, yet I was struggling and panting like an overheated dog.

  I slumped against a wall as the demon inside started to take over. It was then that a red-haired girl ghosted past me, her scent was like honey to a bee. It was divine, and once again the predator I was came to the fore. I stalked her as seagulls do fishing boats. I registered a flash of light as she entered a door on a small side street. I stood opposite and unknowingly reached out with my senses. There were four people in the house: plenty of food.

  It wasn’t too late, but the burning felt like it was devouring me from the inside out. I had to do it. I walked towards damnation and knocked on the door. I heard a few curse words, and then the door was opened by a man in his forties.

  ‘What the bloody hell do you want?’ he barked.

  The darkness within me descended. My true self was only an observer as the beast punched the man. The crack of his neck could be heard as his head was thrown backwards, killing him instantly. Evil had entered the house. It didn’t matter how much the good in me screamed, the monster went to work.

  A woman came running out of a door brandishing a knife, which I caught easily. With a twist shattering her wrist into mush before pulling her towards me, I sank my fangs into her throat and drank. But the demon needed to move quickly, so the middle-aged woman was quietened with a quick snap of her neck, separating her spinal cord and body from her soul.

  I then moved swiftly up the stairs where the last two heartbeats could be found. As I crested the stairs, a red-haired young girl covered in freckles walked into me. Before she could even draw breath, my claws had torn out her beautiful throat. From my right came a piercing scream. I spun around and there she was, the red-haired angel who had led me to this house. She tried to flee and hide behind her bedroom door. It didn’t work. The monster wanted his prize, and he won out that night. Unlike her family, her death wasn’t quick or easy. The demon wanted to play, and play he did.

  I slept throughout the day at that house and woke late afternoon. I didn’t want to see what I had done, but the cold, naked woman told me all I needed to know. The monster had had its fun with the poor girl.

  I got up and walked over to the water jug and bowl sat on a table in her room and washed my naked body. I threw sheets over her as a funeral shroud. My clothes were ruined by claws and blood, so I went in search of clothes and hopefully some money – they wouldn’t need it. The father had some old work clothes that fitted me as well as a few pounds around the place.

  The house was now devoid of life; nothing good resided there any more. Adults were lying just where they had been felled last night. The youngest had fallen down the stairs, spraying arterial blood down the walls as she went. As the light started to fade outside, I spread paraffin oil from the lamps throughout the house before placing candles under the curtains at the rear of the property. No one on the street should notice the fire too soon, allowing the newly moved bodies to be burned.

  Just as I walked out through the door, I scrutinised the flame-bathed house and vowed in honour of that family’s life that I would kill the man who made me into this abomination. Then I walked away from the house of death and into the night.

  As I walked I noticed the need to feed was no longer there. So, clearly, I had fed enough, even though I had killed innocents. It was then that I decided I would never take the life of an innocent person again. I would track down this so-called Jack the Ripper and as I did, I would feed upon the wrongdoers of London town that plagued this city.

  That night I decided to right a wrong and avenge the death of my friend, Adrian. I walked back to the army barracks and skulked around in the shadows before breaking into my commanding officer’s office and riffling through his mountain of files. I found my personnel file, slid it in between flesh and shirt, and then continued my hunt through his office.

  What I found in his desk drawer well and truly brought back the rage. I lifted out the paperwork and read it. It was the report of my friend’s death. Damn them, they had painted him as a murderer, and the bastard sergeant major and the old boy brigade agreed to let it happen. The rage might have flared, but this time I was in control as I walked calmly through the night and headed silently to my destination. Luckily, as I had spent most of my service life here, I knew the guards’ routines and where I could find just the thing I needed for my night’s work.

  The front door of the house was unlocked, although that wouldn’t have stopped me. It just proved that he was a foolish, arrogant man. I could hear his walrus-like snoring filtering from upstairs in the small house. I stepped slowly thinking that he would be ready for anything with all his years of service. In reality and life, he was ready for nothing. He was at least six foot five, with a big bushy beard and a nose that was pointing in a direction that Mother Nature had never intended.

  By the looks of the empty whisky bottle on his bedside table, he had been drinking hard. I am guessing that’s what you do when you get away with murdering your wife and her lover, my best friend. I stood over the bear of a man and struck him in the face, just hard enough to wake him. He woke fast. But my second hit was faster, sending him back into a forced sleep.

  I was prepared. I had brought rope and handcuffs. When the man woke up, he was tied spread-eagled on the bed and unable to move. A match flared to life as I struck it, bathing me in the light it had created. I put the match to the oil lamp on the bedside cabinet, and that’s when I saw his eyes go wide, not with fear but surprise and then anger. And don’t I know something about the latter one.

  ‘Hello, Sergeant Major,’ I said softly as I put a bayonet to his throat. ‘I see murder agrees with you,’ I sneered.

  The man outdid my sneer. ‘Morris, come crawling back, did ya?’ he said in a mocking tone. ‘You’re lucky I didn’t kill you as well.’ He laughed.

  I sat on the side of the bed and looked at him. ‘Maybe so, Gibson,’ I snapped, knowing that anyone using his name without his rank would send him into a fury, causing him to rant and spray spittle around the place. That was certainly the reaction I received, so I shoved an old sock into his mouth. ‘Well, if I’m lucky, that makes you unlucky because, my dear Gibson, you will not survive this night,’ I stated calmly.

  That did the job as his eyes widened and he started to panic. He thrashed around until a slap with the bayonet quietened him down, splitting his scalp, sending blood into his eyes – and the burning within me to return, damn it. I pulled out the file that had earlier filled me with so much rage.

  ‘So, it appears the colonel has defended your story that Adrian raped and killed your wife, which sent you mad, making you kill my friend,’ I recapped, staring at him. ‘Truth is, they had been seeing each other for months and they were in love. But that doesn’t matter as they are together now, and neither you, Gibson, nor I will ever join them.’ I bared my fangs, making him struggle even more.

  I bit into his wrist just to sate the need to feed but not yet wanting him killed that way. We locked eyes as I pulled away, and I smiled allowing my blood-soaked fangs to drop his blood onto his bed. Unfortunately, that’s when the smell of urine overran the potent smell of his whisky-imbued blood.

  It was a bit weird, but I stripped naked. I think in the end that scared him more than the bayonet ever did, but I couldn’t keep changing clothes, and I knew this one was going to be particularly messy.

  ‘Now, Gibson, you killed my best friend and your wife,’ I said and stuck the bayonet into his thigh, drawing a scream from him and allowing me to drink. ‘You should’ve been a better husband to your wife, and maybe I should’ve been a better friend to Adrian.’ I stuck the bayonet into his other vast thigh; the sock continued to keep his screaming muffled nicely.

  As the time went on he was struggling to remain conscious, so I decided t
o grab his attention by slapping him roughly until he could focus.

  ‘Gibson, you were always a shit, and you will die like one too.’ We locked eyes as I slowly pushed the bayonet into his chest cavity, and there it penetrated his black heart, removing another monster from this cold world.

  I left the bayonet in him, cleaned myself up and decided to check for any money, of which there was a good few pounds. Clearly, he must have had some kind of racket going on. Another plus point was the Enfield MKII along with twenty .476 rounds. Try outrunning a bullet, I thought, my mind returning to finding the monster who had done this to me. I smiled as I put the pistol into my belt and walked away from the barracks for the last time.

  What I found out later was that the police had visited my parents to see if they knew my whereabouts, which obviously they didn’t. But they had showed off their new adopted boy, and what a good boy he was too. Well, that’s what Adrian’s parents told me when I visited and handed them some money. I told them that the man who killed my friend, their son, was now in hell. They knew what I had done, but it wouldn’t be voiced or talked about. We embraced, and then I went out into the night and back to the shop where I had made my home, if you could call it that, while I hunted for the monster.

  Chapter 4

  The newspaper was still full of the Jack the Ripper killings. I pieced together the knowledge that it was the murder of Mary Ann Nichols who I had drunkenly stumbled across at the Buck’s Row stable. Not that I could save her, or myself as it played out. No longer did I have to name the man who bit me then, he was now called Jack the Ripper, public enemy number one, and I knew that I would kill him.

  As the nights went by, I spent my time walking the dark streets, feeding on the street toughs and wrongdoers near the Thames, that way I could let the body float away, keeping any police searches far from my home.

  As the days turned into weeks, victims were still coming. Thanks to my nightly activities I managed to keep the rage and hunger at bay. The regular feedings kept the criminals scared and money in my pocket, to the point that I could afford to rent the shop I had been living in, and at a cheap rate as this area of London was classed as a piece of shit.

  At the end of September while hunting, I caught a hint of the Ripper’s scent. Many people pulled away from me as I moved from shadow to shadow, and it was then that I heard the piercing whistles of panicked coppers. I moved quickly through the crowd, ending up in Dutfield’s Yard. I could hear chatter that it was another body. But his scent tailed off somewhere else. My pace built as it became stronger, and then another scream could be heard far off in the fog. A knife gleamed in the fog-filtered lamplight. I ran into the Ripper, knocking him from his most recent victim. The knife he held clattered onto the street as we both went sprawling. He pulled another knife from his coat. As I grasped for my pistol, I found it gone.

  ‘You,’ Jack growled angrily. ‘Why do you hound me, boy?’

  ‘You turned me into a monster. I’ve killed innocents all because of you!’ I cried furiously as we circled each other around the corpse, which was creating steam from the torn open belly.

  His teeth glistened as they were bared. ‘You should be on your knees, boy, thanking me. I have made you immortal. A god amongst these cattle,’ answered the Ripper in superior tones as we continued to circle each other.

  But once again there was a scream echoing from my left, then another before the whistles started. My eyes had left him for a split second, but when I turned back he was gone, with knife and bag. I found my gun in the gutter amongst the blood and filth. I gave it a shake before disappearing into the night.

  My hunt for the man and monster they called Jack the Ripper would continue. I knew our paths would cross again, but for now I had to live and start the future I had always hoped for. Although, it would be by moonlight and not in my father’s shadow. It was time to start my own business.

  Thankfully, with my previous skills as a painter/decorator, I had the place looking good as the month of November started. Morris Pawnbrokers was now open for business. It seemed ideal as I had plenty of cash thanks to the criminals, especially when I hunted the gangs down by the river and docks. When the wrong sort turned up in the dark hours to sell something they had stolen, they would be a handy meal too. Through all this though I had two constant thoughts in my head: kill the Ripper and contact Annabel. She had become a permanent fixture in my dreams which calmed the sleeping beast that resided inside me.

  I was on my usual night-time wanderings in the very early hours of November 9th, walking down Dorset Street in Spitalfields, when I heard a scream. None of the other night owls reacted, so I knew it was my superior hearing. Could it be him again? Or just the normal domestic? I walked quickly into Millers Court. My blood was boiling and the rage embraced me. My vision turned red as I followed the scent of blood.

  When I reached number 13, I could see that the door was open a crack. I could hear movement behind the door, but it all went silent as I moved closer. My rage was eager to escape. As I moved in, the monster came out with a bloodied bag and knife which glinted in the lamplight spilling in from the street. Jack was startled as he realised who was in front of him, again.

  ‘YOU!’ he growled. ‘Leave now, boy, or die!’ he cursed, and with such dexterity he spun the weapon around on his finger.

  ‘You monster, tell me what have you done to me?’ I demanded, feeling my incisors and claws lengthen ready for the fight. ‘You’ve ruined my life.’

  The man just laughed a guttural laugh. He was nearly my body double but sported large sideburns, his fangs were out and his eyes were now totally black.

  ‘Ruined it, boy, I made your life better. We are the shepherds, boy. These mortals are our flock, to kill at our pleasure,’ he hissed, mixing his metaphors. I’m sure he used a different one last time.

  ‘But why are you cutting them up? You’re sick!’ I shook my head in confusion and tried to stare him down, but he was clearly a madman. He not only had blood dripping from his jaw, but he was also salivating. He just laughed at my amazement, and then in a blink of an eye he ran at me. He was moving too quickly for me to dodge out of the way. His blade slid into my shoulder with ease, making me fall back, but thanks to my army training I allowed him to follow through and rolled him over the top of me, sending him out into the street.

  As I spun around to get up, he was already on his feet. He gave me a feral grin as I pulled out his knife with a slight hiss of pain. Then he ran, and the rage took over as I got up and made chase. Pain be damned. He was quick; both shops and people were left in our wake as we ran.

  Neither of us tired, but the rage lessened just enough for me to think. I felt for the pistol in my coat that I had always carried since that night at the barracks. I ran with it in my right hand, cocked ready to fire. I just had to wait for the right moment, which came a few minutes later as he headed down a narrow alleyway, barely enough room for two to walk side by side.

  As I turned into the alleyway I saw him bouncing off a drainpipe, which was knocked to the floor with a clatter. I stopped quickly, raised the gun and fired three shots one after the other.

  With a scream, he fell clutching his legs. I started to run to him. Then he leapt up again and tried to flee, but this time I was much closer. I shot him twice in the back, knocking him down. I finally managed to reach him and kicked him over with my foot, seeing him cough up blood whilst still smiling at me.

  ‘That won’t kill me, boy. You know nothing.’ He gave me a bloody chuckle.

  I watched as the bullet seemed to be pushed from his chest. I placed my final bullet into his forehead. Everything stilled. The air was the typical smoggy but crisp type, and then I saw his chest wounds starting to heal themselves, which meant the bastard was still alive. So, the book was true: only the sun and a stake to the heart would kill.

  I scanned the area as his body started to stir once again. Then there it was, my salvation, a broken chair leg amongst the usual trash found on London’s
backstreets. I grabbed the nearest piece. Just as his eyes opened and locked with mine, the timber broke through his chest cavity, rupturing his heart. Before he could react, the alley was illuminated as his body was engulfed in white flames that burned him and everything around him: body, medical bag and any evidence that he even existed.

  I stood over the ashes of the monster that had ruined my life. I had hoped that the rage inside me would’ve lessened by despatching him, but it still lingered, albeit in the shadows, and just as powerful. I had my soul taken from me. That was my penalty. I hoped Annabel was okay.

  The air was now full of police whistles and shouts. So after putting the now empty revolver away, I fled into the darkness and far from the scene of my revenge. The burning in my stomach had returned again, but not the rage this time, it must have been the smell of my blood from the rapidly healing wound in my shoulder. Although the killer was now gone, I was certain that the stain of his actions would linger for years to come.

  Even though that monster was no longer alive, bodies continued to be found. These were all attributed to the man named Jack. Concerned that somehow Jack was not in fact dead, I scanned each murder scene, but not once did I catch a whiff of his foul scent. However, the remnants of the murderer’s scent lingered and led me to them. Take a life, pay with your life.

  In the New Year I employed a local woman call Suzanne Atkinson to work in my pawnshop. She was a mother of six in her thirties, so I knew she was a strong woman. Suzie, which was the preferred moniker she chose to be called, worked the eight-to-five shift, then I would take over. I set up the shop to cater for my specific needs with the counter nearer the back, as there was never any direct sunlight there.

  Taking this job worked for Suzie as she lived close by. I allowed her to bring in her children if they were ill; she could keep them in the back as I rested upstairs in my room. The downside to this was finding strands of Suzie’s hair all over the place. Long black and grey tendrils attaching themselves to you, when you least expected it. Although it was nice to have some female company, it had always been ghostly quiet when I started up the business, now her voice was echoing around the place when I rested in my pitch-dark room, whether she had customers or not. The money rolled in with both of us running the shop. And in the evenings, so did the food.