Million Eyes

by C. R. Berry

  No time to lose. Rawling saw Nichols stumble against the brick wall just next to the gateway to the stable yard. She was too drunk to notice the clap of his hard leather boots against the cobbles as he advanced towards her.

  He couldn’t give her a chance to scream. There were houses right there. So he clamped his hand around her left arm and spun her against the wall, then slammed his fist square into her face. Knocked out, she crumpled to the pavement.

  He dropped to his knees and yanked her bag from her shoulder. He rifled through raggedy bits of clothing, a rank facecloth, stained pocket handkerchief, comb, broken slab of mirror, ripped, stained papers, a chunk of stale bread and some loose, partly shrivelled grapes, and there it was. The History of Computer-Aided Timetabling for Railway Systems by Jeremy Jennings. He tossed the bag and its contents, and stuffed the book into the large inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  Nichols moved her head, started to murmur. She was coming around.

  Go, James. Run. You have what you came for. Run before she sees you and wakes everyone in a square mile with her screams.

  But a part of him wanted her to scream. Then he’d have no choice.

  He stared down at Nichols. Waited. Found himself reaching into his other pocket for his knife.

  No, James. Don’t.

  He released the clean, silver blade from its leather sheath, caught a flicker of himself in the metal. The blade shone orange in the low light from the gas lamp at the end of the street.

  Nichols’ eyes opened a crack, saw him and the blade hanging over her, then sprang open like mouse traps. Her body heaved and she opened her mouth to scream.

  Rawling swung the blade, carved through her throat like a cake. Blood squirted the cobbles. Nichols’ intended scream turned into a guttural cough, blood erupting from her throat like a malfunctioning fountain, spraying Rawling in the chest.

  The thrill he’d felt earlier was back, just ten times stronger. Warm, tingly, gratifying. He remembered this feeling so well. A hundred times better than all his best orgasms. He looked up, breathed in deeply, closed his eyes. He was exhilarated, like he’d been set free. His whole body throbbed with it.

  He opened his eyes, returned them to Nichols. She was spluttering silently, arms flailing about her open throat, which spewed a continuous flow of blood onto the pavement.

  His lips trembling, he swung the knife again, deeper. Fuck. This time he felt the scrape of bone against the tip of the blade – her spine. Instant tingling in his fingers.

  The life went out of Nichols’ eyes like snuffed-out flames. Her head drooped to one side, arms flopped beside her, and she was still. A steady trickle of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth like an unfastened tap. He ran his bloody knuckle along his lower lip, leaving a droplet of blood which he licked away.

  Wow.

  Feeling more alive than he had in years, he buried the knife deep in Nichols’ abdomen, dragged it through her flesh. Sshlunk. Took it out, stabbed again. Sshlash. Again, again, again.

  He heard something. Rustling. He had to stop. Damn. It was like pulling out before finishing. He stood up straight, breathless, and looked around.

  Meeoow.

  A small tabby cat, fir marbled with white, greyish-brown and a little black, slinked towards him, tail curling.

  He looked down at Nichols’ body. James, that’s enough. What have you done? He wiped his bloody hands and knife on Nichols’ frock and picked up the leather sheath he’d tossed aside. He replaced the knife in the sheath and returned it to his pocket.

  The soaring pleasure was gone, replaced by confusion, fear.

  He’d lost control. And now his past had come hurtling into his present.

  The tabby cat meowed again.

  Rawling lowered to his knees and the cat climbed into his arms. He cuddled it, stroking the ball of its head. “You look just like Bella,” he murmured, a picture of his mother’s cat flashing through his mind.

  Instantly his thoughts were on his mother, on telling her what he’d done. What would she think? He supposed he wouldn’t need to worry about that. Mother had dementia and couldn’t speak. He’d still tell her – he told her everything, always had. But he never knew how much she understood because she just stared blankly at him like an imbecile. It infuriated him sometimes.

  Suddenly – nearby footsteps. Someone was about to turn down Buck’s Row.

  “I’ve got to go, little one.”

  He set the cat down on the cobbles. It crept towards Nichols’ body, sniffing the blood that was congealing beneath her. Rawling turned and sprinted up Buck’s Row.

  He veered onto a road called Brady Street and sneaked into an alleyway. He waited for his heaving chest to relax. Then he took out his phone and called Miss Morgan.

  “I have the book.”

  A small breath of relief. “Good. Destroy it. Destroy it now.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Then what?”

  “Wait for my call.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Miss Morgan hung up.

  Rawling pulled the book from his pocket. He reached for his disruptor, holstered beneath his jacket on his hip.

  “Bastard!”

  Rawling’s fingers never touched the disruptor. Somebody slammed into him from behind, two hands gripping his arms, and he thumped onto the cobbles, the book yanked from his grip. In his periphery, Rawling saw it plummet into a storm drain some metres ahead.

  His attacker was on top of him, screaming, “You killed her, you bastard!” Rawling squirmed to face him, saw a red-faced John Snider pull back his arm and swing his fist.

  Rawling thrust out his hand to block the punch, clamping it round Snider’s wrist. He swung his other hand, fist connecting with Snider’s jaw with a thwack.

  Snider dazed, Rawling grabbed both of his shoulders and rolled, flipping him onto his back, both hands going straight for Snider’s neck. This time he wasn’t letting go. As Snider tried to grapple with him, Rawling squeezed. Without gloves, every laboured ripple of blood through Snider’s throat was tangible.

  “I… know… w-what’s in that… book…” Snider choked. “I know… what you’re… planning…”

  Rawling squeezed harder, tighter, as Snider thrashed and clawed for air and freedom, mouth stretched open awkwardly.

  Pleasure tingled through him once more, becoming stronger and more gratifying the tighter he squeezed, the more purple Snider’s face became.

  Snider’s eyes rolled backwards in their sockets, his thrashing growing aimless, feeble. Then his arms flopped to his sides, his movements weakening to a twitch.

  Then nothing.

  Rawling released his grip, release sweeping through him. He took a long deep breath and climbed to his feet. His hands were red-raw.

  As the sensation passed, rational thought returned.

  He was supposed to recover the book. That was it. Miss Morgan said nothing about killing anyone.

  Now he’d killed two people. Snatched them from the timeline. Could he have done more harm than good? Who knew. Alright, so Mary Ann Nichols was just a prostitute. Her impact on the timeline would’ve been minimal. Well, probably minimal. John Snider – Rawling was less sure about him. He wasn’t poor, judging by his clothes and manner. Rawling had no way of knowing his importance.

  He could only hope that history wouldn’t miss him.

  Rawling left Snider’s body in the alleyway and walked over to the storm drain that The History of Computer-Aided Timetabling for Railway Systems had fallen into. He looked through the gaps in the grate but couldn’t see anything in the water below.

  Damn.

  It was as good as destroyed though, submerged in London’s drainage system – Rawling hoped.

  A phone call from Miss Morgan was imminent. Either she would order him back to the future, the timeline restored, or there would be a further loose end to tie up somewhere or somewhen.

  Rawling wasn’t ready to go. Not yet. He felt higher than he’d ever felt his whole life. He’d bee
n walking round like a zombie for so many years. Finally he was alive again. Alive – and powerful. He needed to feel this again. He needed to.

  The door was open. And it would stay open. He should never have fucking closed it.

  He tweaked the temporal alignment on his phone so that by the time Miss Morgan called, it would be a couple of months later for him. One of time travel’s perks.

  Then he left the alleyway and walked up Brady Street. He would walk the streets for the rest of the night, waiting for the sun to rise. After about ten minutes it started to rain. Rawling lifted his face into the rain and let the water fill his mouth and eyes and pour down his open suit jacket and bloody shirt, diluting it pink.

  James Rawling was right about one thing. John Snider was not a man destined for the history books. Still, had Rawling not just strangled him to death, he would have gone on to father a son with his wife in 1891: Arthur Snider. Arthur Snider in turn would’ve fathered a son in 1927: Christopher Snider.

  Christopher Snider would’ve been a wayward child and a hateful, unhinged adult. Instilled with his family’s prejudices, he would’ve become a founding member of a far-right terrorist group with a fierce anti-Muslim agenda.

  That agenda would’ve led him and his cohorts to Saudi Arabia in 1957 to commit a mass shooting in a shopping centre in Riyadh, Saudi’s capital.

  One of the casualties would’ve been Hamida Ibrahim, wife of Mohammed bin Laden, at the time eight months pregnant with a son.

  A son she was planning to call Osama.

  19

  June 23rd 2020

  After a long shift in the warehouse at Tesco, Jennifer was heading home. Home was a just-big-enough room in a house she shared with four very loud Sussex University students. It wasn’t all bad. They were nice people who she’d happily befriend were it not for her new commitment to a people-free life. Her job as a warehouse operative wasn’t all bad either. She did the night shifts, typically, which involved long periods of alone time. That worked for her.

  The morning sun was wading through a thin mist lingering at the tops of the buildings as Jennifer strolled through Brighton’s still-sleeping bohemian quarter, the North Laine. This former slum had kooky-looking bars, shops and theatres that did their damnedest to coax her out of her self-imposed solitary confinement whenever she walked by.

  As she passed Mrs Mistle’s flower shop, her thoughts returned to her mum. It was her birthday today. Jennifer had arranged for a bunch of gerberas to be delivered to her at home this morning, before work. Big, ostentatious ones with bright orange, yellow-tipped petals, just the kind she loved, with a note to reiterate that she was okay and she loved her.

  Jennifer felt a sharp pang in her chest. Wasn’t enough. She wanted to speak to her. She hadn’t heard her warm, slightly husky voice in eight months. She wanted to know if she was okay, how work was going, if she was seeing anyone new since Phil, if Jamie hated her. She’d written to the both of them shortly after she arrived in Brighton. She was honest – to a point. Told them what she’d told Adam about people trying to kill her and that she’d had to run away. And she wrote a separate letter to Adam, just to let him know she was safe. She promised them all she’d be back and that she had a plan, but that was a lie. She had no plan. Time was her plan. Let enough pass and hope that Million Eyes would move on, forget about her. Maybe then she could return home.

  The sun had mopped up what remained of the mist by the time she passed the Grindstone, the tiny pub on the corner of her road. Right now she had two sanctuaries in the world – her bedroom and the Grindstone, where she could drink in peace since only about three or four locals were ever there, and always too drunk to notice her. Sticky floors, peeling wallpaper, gross toilets and a gruff barman with a sweat problem all did a brilliant job of fending off the masses.

  Her front door opened just as she went to insert her key. It was one of her housemates. Amy – she thought. Or was it Chloe? One of the two. Amy/Chloe said brightly as she walked past Jennifer, probably on her way to a lecture, “Oh, hi Vicks.”

  Eeek.

  There it was, like always. The invisible flinch she did each time someone called her Vicks or Vicky. Would she ever get used to it?

  Changing her name was one of the first things Jennifer had decided to do after coming here. She didn’t go through the proper legal process, of course; she wasn’t about to get flagged up on any government databases. Instead she found a guy in the city who was a dab hand at forging identities. Understandably never giving his name, just calling himself the Facechanger like some Marvel character, he helped Jennifer assume the identity of Victoria Moore, complete with an elaborate fictional backstory. His skills weren’t cheap, though, and Jennifer was without funds. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it), the Facechanger revealed himself as your average pervert and was willing to accept a blowjob instead. Jennifer was still working on burying it in the deepest, darkest recesses of her memory; heavy drinking was helping with that.

  She used her new identity to land the job at Tesco, which enabled her to move out of Becks Shayes’ spare room and leave the poor girl alone. From that moment on she was on her own. Nobody knew her, but that was the point. Jennifer had been clinging to the fiction of Victoria Moore’s life like a security blanket ever since.

  Jennifer climbed to the first floor and was hit by a wall of heat as she entered her bedroom. Her room got the first of the day’s sun and her flimsy cream curtains did next to nothing to keep any of it out. Definitely time to invest in some blackouts. She dropped her handbag next to the leaning tower of laundry in the corner, switched on her fan, threw open her window as wide as it would go, got naked, and plunged onto the bed.

  She tried to sleep – couldn’t – and it wasn’t just the heat. It was everything. She had days like this. Low days where all she could think about was her mum and how she’d die for a cuddle. There was no one who cuddled like her mum. She was a proper squeezer, would hold you so tight that the folds and textures of your clothes would dent your skin, like she was protecting you from a bomb. On a low day, a cuddle like that instantly took the edge off.

  Now Jennifer got cuddles off no one, ever.

  There were times when she thought, You know what? I am willing to die for a cuddle. That she was going to jump on a train to Deepwater and go home to Mum, and stick two fingers up to Million Eyes along the way by telling everyone on her path everything she knew about them. She didn’t have a scrap of evidence but that didn’t matter. All she needed to do was get enough people asking questions, and sooner or later they’d crumble under the weight of them.

  But it was all talk. That kind of thing would take bravery, not something Jennifer had in abundance. She did what she had to, to survive, but that was about as far as it went. If it was fight or flight she’d always, if she could, choose the latter – hence her current situation. She was a coward, really. Million Eyes had scared the shit out of her, and she’d run away.

  Maybe she was being too hard on herself. She wasn’t just protecting herself from Million Eyes. She was protecting her mum, her sister, Adam. Going home for a cuddle would put them in danger as well. It wasn’t just cowardice that stopped her packing her things and getting on a train. It was them.

  Thing is – had she protected them? Were they safe? Getting away had always seemed like the best way of keeping them safe, but what if Million Eyes had gone after them anyway? Mum, Jamie and Adam had heard from her but she hadn’t heard from them. Not for eight months. So who the fuck knew?

  She sat up, swung her legs off the bed. Oh God. She gagged and clutched her chest as her every worst fear hit her at once.

  She leapt off the bed. There was something she’d thought about doing for a few months now, these fears surfacing more and more. But each time she’d almost gone through with it, she’d stopped on account of the risk and drowned her fears in a bottle of cheap rum.

  But today she had to know. She had to know they were okay – now.

>   Before she could talk herself out of it, she went to grab some fresh underwear from her chest of drawers and, realising that every sock, bra and pair of knickers she owned was in her laundry pile, put back on the ones she’d worn at work last night. Then she pulled on loose shorts and a t-shirt, closed her window, switched off her fan and went downstairs. She grabbed a bottle of water and left the house.

  The nearest train station was London Road, a ten-minute walk. Jennifer got there and bought a ticket to Eastbourne. On the forty-five-minute journey she thought about what she was going to say. She’d have to keep it brief, which meant choosing her words carefully and not letting emotion overcome her – which, she knew, was going to be fucking hard.

  She got off the train in the town centre. It was a five-minute walk to the second-hand phone shop she’d looked up earlier, where she purchased an old Nokia and stuck a tenner’s worth of credit on it.

  She found some quiet-looking public gardens and parked on an empty bench, as far away from anyone else as she could get. She took out the phone she’d just bought, glanced over both shoulders to check she was alone, and rang her mum at work.

  She heard ringing and swallowed. She felt her breath quicken, her heart begin to pound.

  It rang for some time. It was her mum’s direct dial, but maybe she was in a meeting?

  Or maybe she was… Jennifer cut off the thought. She wasn’t going there. No fucking way.

  Please answer. Please, please just –

  “Hello, Kerry Larson speaking.”

  Even if she hadn’t said her name, Jennifer would’ve known from the word ‘hello’. She’d know that voice anywhere. Oh, that wonderful, warm, perfect voice. She’d never appreciated how comforting a sound it was until this moment. She felt a rush of God knows what, like a deep emptiness inside her was suddenly filling back up.