I had no time, no time. It showed a bit in my work, I admit. I was sloppier than usual.
But, hey, as long as the job gets done, right?
She had just been released from jail after being held for public intoxication. I knew when she’d be getting out thanks to the loose lips of bobbies after they’ve seen the sheen of a couple pounds. As if my convenience was her priority, she took the long way home. The problem was that there were cops, oy, cops all over the place. Ones I didn’t have time to bribe or avoid. And one of them might have seen me. In hindsight, I guess it doesn’t really matter.
Five minutes later, I’d slit Eddowes open and taken the part of her uterus that I was after.
I had also mistakenly removed one of her kidneys – but in my defense, I was rushed, it was dark, and everything looks similar and squishy once you’re up to your elbows in people bits.
Back in my room, I had a chance to get a good look at the worrisome womb. Or at least the part I’d taken. Opening it up, unfolding it under a hot lamp, I saw six or seven ill-formed human-pet chimeras wriggling around. I incinerated all but one, which I cryo-froze and placed inside an evidence bag for my team back home.
Now, it gets a little gross.
The last carrier was Mary ‘Fair Emma’ Jane Kelly. And she – by simple stupid virtue of being the last – had had the infection for the longest.
Bad news.
I tracked her to her apartment at 13 Dorset Street. She lived below one couple and shared a wall with other neighbors. This arrangement could have been worse, but it still concerned me. I didn’t want anyone nearby to see or hear me.
Someone did, though. They identified me as ‘corpulent’ and ‘Jewish-looking.’ The ‘Jewish-looking’ is fine. I am. My dad was Jewish. That ‘corpulent’ thing is bullshit, though.
That’s all beside the point, I know, I know. Ego, I’m guilty.
A little before four in the morning, I rapped on Kelly’s door. She opened it slightly to check who I was. I slammed the door with my palm so that it hit her hard in the cheek and knocked her back but didn’t make much noise. She fell onto the bed, and shouted, I think, ‘murder!’ – but it didn’t matter. Neighbors in big cities have a habit of ignoring what might frighten or inconvenience them.
I took full advantage of that.
I jumped with my knife out so that it landed before I did. The blade cut her larynx in twain and I hoped as she gurgled that no more noise would spew forth.
I was wrong.
As I pinned her with my knees at the center of the bed, she exploded. Her face peeled back. It slid like over-sized clothing on a child. Back, down, slooping and drooping. Wiry tentacles pulsed through her cheek bones and jittered at me.
I fell backwards, catching my balance at the last moment.
She was the infection. There was no more ‘Fair Emma’ – this was just a writhing mass of organic machinery. And it meant to do me in.
Knife-in-hand, I lunged.
Tentacles and feelers erupted from her.
I hacked and sliced. Something wrapped around my neck and bit in. I could feel it chewing through my skin, looking for the warm flow of blood. Another lamprey mouth went between my legs, seeking the warmth there. Even then, as I drove my blade into it, carved away at it, tore hunks out of it and threw them across the room, it looked for a way to spread.
I have no idea what the neighbors thought. Their very Britishness may have saved me from over-explanation. ‘Hush, dear,’ a husband must have said to a girl. ‘It’s certainly none of our business,’ one may have said to another.
Thank you for that, I suppose. Your overwhelming need to be polite saved us all a big spot of trouble.
I don’t know how long I fought the Mary Monster. Until there was nothing dangerous left, obviously, and the alien pieces evaporated – but time has a funny way of being totally unreliable when action is taking place. A fight that seems to go forever lasts mere minutes.
Time dilation. One gets the same feeling when there’s too much caffeine or too much alcohol or too much tetrahydrocannibol in the bloodstream.
I know I left around a quarter to six in the morning. I know I was exhausted. I know I wanted to go home. And I know I took her womb with me.
I slept afterwards. I slept with those horrible, wriggling things next to me. Evidence. Evidence of an experiment gone weird and dangerous.
When I woke up, they were still in stasis. Everything was OK. I had done my job. The human race was safe. Payday was coming. I just wanted to leave – and never see London again.
So here I am, hurtling toward one of the jump gates, punching coordinates into the navigational system.
I’m not looking forward to having my uterus checked.
And I can’t shake the feeling that I’m forgetting something.
For the record, my name is Catarina Schrieber.
And you’re welcome.
One went missing. A boy. Twelve-years-old.
Then his sister, the second.
The third through eighteenth made up five families.
Well-liked families, well-loved families.
The most recent was the sheriff’s brother.
Nineteen gone.
The stranger was not well-liked.
The stranger who didn’t have a horse.
The stranger who one day was just there.
Folks in town didn’t much care for his hat. Or the hair underneath. His clothes seemed odd in a way they couldn’t quite place, even though the garments fit the period and locale precisely.
They disliked the way the stranger asked for a ‘shot of Jameson’ at the saloon when what he really should have ordered was nothing more complex than ‘whiskey.’ And the man’s cigarettes were never rolled or lumpy, but perfectly cylindrical, with an orange patch at the end and produced from a package he had hidden in his coat.
They talked – oh, how they talked – and gossiped – without end, good heavens – about the way he blathered to himself when he opened his silver pocket watch.
Most offensive to them, though, was the gun he wore low on his right thigh.
It shined brighter than the street’s oil lamps when the man shifted or drew back his long coat to sit at the bar. While the cattle hands’ weapons had handles worn down from sweat and decay, no such signs of age showed on the stranger’s revolver. The barrel on it seemed able to fit an eye inside, big and round as it was.
A monstrous machine.
Several of the menfolk, liquored up and popular on payday, got to thinking that the reason the stranger’s gun was so pristine was because he never used it. That he kept it on his side as a little trophy – bought, not earned.
Six approached the stranger in the saloon.
It was dusk. The town’s lamps were lit. The last vestiges of the sun were dying their orange and red wispy deaths along the horizon as the strong black hand of night beat them back.
The biggest (fattest) and tough-talking-est (loudest) of the six tapped the stranger’s shoulder as the he was throwing back whiskey. His attention had been on the timepiece he had forever tethered on a chain to his pocket.
“What in th’ hell you doin ‘ere?” The loudest and fattest slurred. “I ask since we’re the men who actually live ‘ere. Don’ think you belong, is what we think.”
Behind the Fatman came five grunts of approval.
The stranger ignored them, saying in his watch, “Been waiting for the idiots to do this. Talk later.” He snapped it shut, then picked up another shot and downed it.
The Fatman shoved the stranger’s shoulder.
“I assed you a question and I want’n answer.”
Five more grunts of approval.
The Fatman went on: “I think ye’re just some flashy bastard come in here to make a show, prolly because you got run outta whatever kinda city responds to guys like you, but catches on eventual.” The Fatman got in close enough to land spittle on the stranger’s ear. “Maybe you’re some New York City cocksucker. Bet you
can’t even use that shiny six-shooter on your leg. Just some limp-wristed fag.”
The stranger downed another shot, lit one of his strange cigarettes, and without turning asked, “Six of you, then?”
He heard the men behind him stand straight at his words, their boots finding spread-leg placement on the wooden floorboards of the saloon. Preening. Roosters. Cocks.
“Fine. Outside. And let’s be quick. I have yet to finish drinking,” the stranger said.
The stranger turned and stood. His heavy black boots hit the floor hard. Each step was a declarative statement saying: You’re morons, but this has to be done and I can’t wait to finish it.
People cleared the thoroughfare outside. They didn’t quite flee, but they placed themselves strategically behind barriers so that they could still watch the show without the overwhelming threat of a bullet making its way into their brains.
Six against one.
To the townspeople, it was insane entertainment.
The stranger bent to pick up a discarded bottle as the six boozy loudmouths arranged themselves in a semi-circle around him. Their drunken confidence was unaffected by his.
The stranger hefted the empty bottle. “Six on one. That how you do things around here?” He shouted the question, making sure everyone heard. If nothing else, he wanted witnesses to preach that it hadn’t been a fair fight at all. Six men aiming to kill one. Much of his quest relied on finding sympathy here. Or respect. Or awe. Anything that made people willing to talk.
Then, more quietly so that the witnesses couldn’t hear, and yet sternly, as a father hushing his child to bed, the stranger told the men, “We don’t draw until the bottle hits the ground. Understood?”
The six around him nodded, eyeing not him but the bottle he bounced from hand to hand.
The stranger tossed the bottle up. He watched the six men around him as they watched only its arc, waiting for it to land.
When the bottle reached its apex, the stranger drew his gun.
He had no intention of waiting for the glass to crash.
Only the soon-to-be dead men would know that he’d tricked them. And even if it had been a trick, no witness would dispute the frightening speed of the stranger.
He was otherworldly quick. A blur.
Red filled his mind. It was a gift that blocked everything out but the combat. His massive machine jumped and he fired. He felt the hammer fall. Felt the hammer hit the blasting cap of the bullet casing. Felt the explosions and the expansion of gases that would propel the slugs as he fanned the hammer with his left hand.
The stranger brought thunder.
And the thunder brought mortality.
Blossoms of blood bloomed on the men who had stood to confront him. Each bud started at the heart and grew outward. They cried out in shrieks that sounded far less manly than the grunts they’d voiced in the bar. The metal of the stranger’s bullets burned its way into them before the six even had a chance to pull their weapons.
Six blasts of thunder from the stranger’s gun.
Six men on the ground, dead.
No. One was merely dying.
The Fatman.
“Draw,” the stranger rasped as he walked over to him.
“Still yourself,” the stranger said. “You won’t survive the next minute. The bullets my gun fires can tear through Kevlar, which is a word you don’t need to know, and come out the other side to kill a few more. They’re .45-caliber, refined to a disgusting degree, and meant only to deal death. Your repulsive fat is the reason you’re still breathing. Some cushioning, I suppose, but you’ll be done in a few seconds. All I really wanted to say is this:
“Don’t mess with a man from Brooklyn.”
The Fatman died looking angry and confused.
A boy came to the stranger’s side. A boy no older than twelve.
“Holy damn – excuse me sir, I don’t mean to curse – you kilt em!”
“I did indeed,” the stranger said, smiling.
“Got em, jeez, six! They meant you harm, we’s all saw.”
“I know you saw, that was my intention.”
“Holeee crap! Pardon me, don’t tell me mom. Six!”
“I won’t tell your mom. I promise,” the stranger said, still grinning as he stood and reloaded his big gun.
The boy held out his hand to shake. “I never even heard of such.”
The stranger took the boy’s hand in his own and shook, “I don’t expect you had.”
“William Hostetler, sir. But everyone just calls me Bill.”
“Then I’ll call you Big Bill. You’ll grow into it. Get on to your mother and father now.”
“Ayuh, I promise, but you’re?”
“Jack,” the stranger said. “Just Jack.”
Jack sat down on the flimsy bed of his hotel room.
He put his head in his hands, rubbed his face, and then took his hat off and tossed it.
Someone who didn’t know Jack might have thought him remorseful for killing. Might have thought he was having a moment of reflection after ending six lives.
But then, they didn’t know Jack.
He took off his gun belt and stashed it under the bed. Then he stood, removing his jacket and vest before unbuttoning his shirt. As he peeled the long sleeve from his skin, his muscles flexed, his shoulders popped, and shot pain through his body – reminders of the difficult journey here.
“Travel to exciting new places, meet new people,” Jack muttered. “And kill the hell out of them.” He grunted, bemused. “What a job.”
He lay back in the bed bare-chested. He stared out the window at the stars. Away from the city, there were so damn many of the beautiful things to see. He didn’t bother to remove his boots.
He thought, as the stars winked at him, about the plan.
The plan to get at the man who forever had flies around him.
He consulted his pocket watch and opened a bottle of whiskey.
Jack was brushing a horse when the sheriff approached him.
He didn’t draw his weapon or even turn. He knew that the badge meant him no harm – not yet, at least. Not with the way the town was calling him a “hero” and a “god among gunslingers” for the way he dispatched the six angry drunks the night before.
So, he just kept on brushing and petting the horse.
His horse, now, actually.
Jack had spent a part of the morning, between handshakes and cheers from the townsfolk, explaining (lying) to the livery owner that his horse had broken a leg on the journey and had to be put down. He knew this tale, tall or not, would spread amongst the people and calm their nerves about the fact that he’d simply appeared one day.
What he did not expect was for the livery owner to give him a horse out of respect and congratulations for being the “fastest damn hand against six drunk jackasses” that the livery owner had ever seen or heard about.
“Never liked that mean fat bastard anyway, or his thugs,” the livery owner added.
Jack said thank you, and set about bonding with his beautiful creature.
The horse looked like a Morab, a tremendous animal that was one part Arabian and one part Morgan. A legendary thing in its own right and one, much like the stranger himself, that should not be found in this place and this time, because Jack was fairly certain that Morabs wouldn’t be part of the tycoon Hearst’s breeding program for a while.
And yet, here was one standing before him.
Its coat was a pure chocolate brown met by a long black mane along its head and neck. Bright and shiny. Of good stock, and certainly good care. Down its snout ran an even drizzle of cream colored hair that started just between its eyes and ended just above its cold nose.
Jack approached calmly, but confidently.
The whole reason he respected these animals was because they demanded it. They could be loyal as dogs but were not dogs. They did not forget. They made you earn their trust.
He stared into its big, brown eyes and spoke and watched the animal�
��s reaction. He put his hands up and ran them along its neck. “I don’t seem like it, maybe, but I am one of the good guys,” he said. And then, surprising himself, Jack hugged the animal. He paused and then whispered into its ear. “I suppose we’re partners now.”
He leaned back then, keeping eye contact, and waited until the horse whinnied amicably.
It did, and he began brushing.
“So, what are you doing here?” the lawman asked. “I know about last night. Everyone says you got called out and played the hand you were dealt. Impressively, too, from the noise outta everyone’s mouths. Six on one. Not a scratch on ya.” The lawman eyed Jack’s monstrous revolver. “What’s your purpose, gunslinger?”
“Looking for someone,” Jack said, still not turning, still focused on his horse.
The lawman rocked back on his heels and stretched out the suspenders that kept his slacks up. It was a gesture not necessarily of contempt, but one that suggested he’d heard that line of crap before. “Now, I ain’t no drunk. And I ain’t here to move on ya. Nor would I, if the stories’re true. I was in the outland, seeing to other business. Looking for a man myself. But set my mind at ease. Why’re you here?”
“I told you,” Jack said, turning now. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Who?”
“A man.”
“That narrows it down not one squeaky fart.”
“A man who always has flies about him. That’s all I know. I don’t even have a name.”
The sheriff didn’t stop rocking. “That right?”
“It is. And if you’re just gonna piss in my ear, I’d ask you do it later, when I’m not busy.”
Jack couldn’t quite tell if the sheriff was being a typical blowhard cop – who, Jack noted, are the same in every century – or if he had something else going on.
“What’re your intentions?” The badge asked mid-rock.
“Have any missing around here recently, sheriff? Folks who seemed to up and vanish?”
“My brother is one of them,” the sheriff said with a hint of sadness. “What business is that of yours?”
“I have reason to believe my man’s behind it.”
“Do you now?”
The Space Whiskey Death Chronicles Page 12