Tales of Sin and Madness

by Brett McBean

  When asked if he suspected Deeming of being Jack the Ripper, the doctor refused to answer. However, he did make one last comment regarding Deeming, which was as strange as it was puzzling.

  “Not only were his parents deeply religious, but they were strongly superstitious and believed in the spirit world, and claimed to have psychic powers. Deeming told me that his father used to tell him that he had the devil in him and would come to a terrible end, and his mother even prophesied that he was born to be hung. When I saw Deeming, he was forever clutching the Book of Common Prayer, and in his cell they found other books, such as Hymns, Ancient and Modern and Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. He never mentioned it to me, but I tend to suspect that his parents passed onto him their belief in the spirit world and their psychic ability.”

  But surely the most damning statement in regards to Deeming being the Ripper comes from an unlikely source – one of Fred’s inmates at Melbourne Gaol.

  The man, who asked to remain anonymous, contacted me when he heard I was writing this article and after hearing about the murders of the prostitutes in the city. Wanting to unload what he knew, perhaps to lift some of the guilt he had been carrying around with him for the past five months, he told me this remarkable story, which he swears is true and came straight from Deeming himself.

  “He was a strange one all right,” the prisoner said. “We’d hardly been introduced when he starts telling me stuff, real intimate things, like how and why he killed his wife in Windsor. Says she found out his secret, just like the first one, and that once that happened, he had to do away with her. He tells me that his wife found his letter from Mary Kelly, and that because of what it says in it, as well as some items she found along with the letter, she asks him whether he knows anything about the murders in London. He says they argued, but he managed to calm her and tell her he had nothing to do with them. He waited till she was asleep before he done the deed, but that she woke up just as he was creeping up to the bed, and she screamed a couple of times, then he smashed her head with an axe, then slashed her throat. He then went on to say how he dumped her body in the floor and then covered her in concrete. Well, I was stunned, of course, listening to this man spew all this guff. Without a breath he then goes on to tell me about his first wife and kids, and how she found out his secret, so he had to do them in, too.

  “Finally he stops and I ask the question – what secret did your wives find out? 'Well, about me being Jack the Ripper, of course,' he says. Well I just about fell out of me cot. I didn’t believe him at first – thought he was just pulling my leg. But then he goes on to explain about the murders, saying that he done them because he was exterminating the class of women that gave him the syphilis. He says that it was his dead mother who told him to carry out the extermination. He says he killed five whores, five diseased whores who needed to be punished for their sins, stopping when he killed the one that gave him the disease in the first place. I wouldn’t have believed him if not for the look in his eyes as he was telling me all this, a mad sincerity that convinced me he was telling the God’s honest truth. I’m as certain now as I was then – I was sharing a cell with the Ripper himself!”

  I’ll leave it to you, dear readers, to decide whether Fred Deeming was telling the truth to his fellow prisoner, or whether this inmate was lying altogether. If both were telling the truth, then the truth of the Whitechapel fiend has finally been revealed, and all you have to ask yourself now is whether Jack the Ripper’s ghost haunts the house in Windsor and is now repeating his crimes here in Melbourne.

  With the 30th of September quickly approaching, we all wait with baited breath to see if two more unfortunates are murdered in the slums of Melbourne. Police presence has been heightened, but will that stop the madman of Melbourne? If it’s a mortal killer, then perhaps. Then again, they never caught Jack in Whitechapel. But if it’s a spirit at work, then it’s safe to say that three more women will be brutally slaughtered before the year’s out, and there’s not a thing anyone can do to stop it. Whatever happens, we here at The Argus will keep you informed and up-to-date with this most baffling and bloodcurdling of cases.

  --Manfred Cohen

  NOTES:

  When asked to contribute a story to the Evileye Books anthology The Evileye Annual Compendium of Dastardly Plots & Sublime Debauchery (not yet released at the time of writing) I decided I wanted to write a story that used a real life crime or mystery as its centre-point, as this fitted in with my Evileye Books series, The Garbage Man. I tossed around a number of ideas. I even researched and began a story concerning Harold Holt’s disappearance in 1967, but nothing ‘clicked’. What I really wanted to write about was Jack the Ripper, as I have a strong interest in the Ripper case. But, the Ripper was a UK-based crime, and I wanted to set my story in Australia – again, to echo The Garbage Man. Then I remembered there was an Australian connection with the Ripper – Frederick Deeming, a popular contemporary Ripper suspect who moved to Australia a few years after the Ripper murders and brutally murdered his second wife, and was later hanged for the crime in Melbourne Gaol. This was perfect – not only could I write a story dealing with the Ripper, but set it in Australia. I did copious amounts of research into Deeming’s life (including taking a visit to his home in Windsor, where he murdered his wife, Emily), as well as research into Melbourne in the late 1800s and newspapers of the late nineteenth century, in order to create an authentic and accurate newspaper article that would be at home in an 1891 edition of The Argus. I hope I succeeded, but even if I fell short, I still had a lot of fun researching and writing this particular story.

  For anyone with an interest in the Ripper case, please check out my Jack the Ripper site, Saucy Jacky: http://saucyjacky.wordpress.com/

  UNBORN LIVES

  “Why are they doing this? We didn't do anything wrong!”

  You agree, but you wish the woman would shut up. Her breath reeks of stale cigarettes, which you should be used to, but it sickens you more than the fetid air wafting in through the tiny holes dotting the darkness.

  All you know is that you're in a forest somewhere, lying face down in a box. There are no animal noises, only the occasional chanting from the unseen masses outside, and the frequent yammering of the stranger beside you, whose name you asked a little while ago, and whose response was: “What does a name matter at a time like this?”

  How you got here is a mystery. You can't remember what you were doing at the time of your kidnapping, but you can remember everything else: you were born in Melbourne, Australia; you have a wife and two kids; and you work at a computer software company — although you now feel as though you haven't really lived your life, merely viewed it like a movie on fast-forward.

  With a jolt, the box starts to move; a gradual ascent, like a roller coaster beginning its climb to the top of the rise.

  The woman screams once, loud and piercing. “OhmyGodwhat'shappening?”

  You hear her trying to break free, but you know that's not possible. The box doesn't allow for much movement.

  The woman soon gives up trying. She goes back to sobbing and uttering familiar phrases such as: “Why are they doing this?” and, “I haven't done anything wrong.” But this time she adds, “...have I?”

  Is this punishment? you wonder.

  But you haven't done anything wrong, either.

  Nothing you can remember, anyway.

  And then a strange voice says:

  You won't do anything wrong. Not now.

  You look out the nearest hole; see the forest moving by slowly and then you glimpse dark figures below.

  There's about fifty, all wearing dark clothing, and chanting. You can't see their faces and although their voices are many and echo through the dense forest, you can't understand what they're saying.

  The woman sobs: “I have a husband. I'm only thirty-eight. I haven't even lived. Christ I need a smoke.”

  She's the same age as you, and this fact scares you, though you're not sure why, and like her, you too ache for
a cigarette.

  The compartment becomes hotter and as the trunks of the pine trees become the tops, you lose sight of the figures below, though not before one of them looks up and you glimpse a white skeletal face, grinning.

  The image stays with you, even when you close your eyes; you can't rid your mind of the face — it's eerily familiar — and when light pushes through your world, you open your eyes to a luminous orange pulsating through the holes, and the woman turns and looks at you, tears glinting off her milky white cheeks. “There's a fire,” she says flatly. She doesn't blink. “A huge furnace. We're heading straight towards it.”

  “What did we do?” you cry. “Why are they doing this to us? We've done nothing wrong!”

  But you would have, the voice intones. That's why we're stopping you before you could do the damage.

  There's a jolt. You feel the box turning.

  You dare to look outside.

  What shocks you the most is the sheer number of boxes following yours up the conveyor belt; a seemingly endless sea of smooth brown crates, all punched with tiny holes, so they resemble chocolate Swiss cheese, all, presumably, containing bodies within.

  As the flames get nearer and the heat more intense, you notice, stamped in bold red on the side of the box closest to yours — 24, fire, accidental, number of deaths: 5. On the box behind — 17, fire, deliberate, number of deaths: 16.

  And underneath, the one common bit of writing, printed in smaller letters — by order of the Death Prevention Agency, sanctioned by the World Peace Organisation.

  What in Christ's name is the World Peace Organisation? you wonder.

  And whose deaths are they preventing?

  Certainly not yours.

  Your vision expands to see other conveyor belts — hundreds of them all over the land, crisscrossing each other over and between the statuesque pine trees. There are thousands of boxes rolling through the forest and these are the signs you can make out: Serial Killers; Motor Vehicle ‘Accidents’; Gang related Shootings. You watch with a sickening punch to the stomach as the boxes in their respective groups are: sliced with over sized swords; rammed into each other with powerful hydraulic arms; and shot at with all types of guns.

  You turn away from the ghoulish sight. Catch a glimpse of a large sign over your section just before your vision fills with orange. It reads — Fire-related Deaths: Accidental & Deliberate.

  The woman lets out a soul shattering scream. You've never smelt human flesh cooking before (you never got the chance), and it's worse than anything you've ever (would have) smelt.

  You close your eyes, hoping to shut your mind off from the horror, but you see the spectre of the grinning skeleton, only now it's surrounded by a red glow which infuses its eyes with demonic glee and the only sound coming from the woman now is her sizzling flesh.

  The skeleton smiles, says without moving its rotted mouth:

  Two by two, just like on the Ark.

  The punishment fits the crime.

  What crime? you scream in your head.

  The crime you would have committed. Had you been born.

  But I remember my life — my wife, my job!

  Future events that were projected into your mind. We wanted to show you what would have been, the life you would have lived. You deserve at least that much.

  When you feel the sting of fire, you hazard a guess as to what your box reads: 38, fire, accidental (surely not deliberate), number of deaths: 4.

  You think you'll miss your wife and kids.

  But you'll never get the chance to find out.

  NOTES:

  This is one of my few sci-fi stories, inspired by some of the more socially-minded sci-fi stories such as Logan’s Run and Minority Report. And like those stories, ‘Unborn Lives’ stems from a fear of technology; or, more accurately, a fear of the abuse of technology (as well as the Government). It’s a fear that constantly plagues my mind – not only the over-reliance on it, but the concern that it will someday take over our lives to a point that’s dangerous to our well-being and even to our individual freedom.

  COME MORNING

  …I will be free. Free to taste the sun without a wall of concrete around me. Free to run where I like, when I like, how I like.

  But first, the night.

  For fifteen agonizing years I’ve been holed up in this room, my life a routine of sleep, shower, eat, shit, play – but not too much play – rest, eat, sleep…

  Fifteen years waiting for tomorrow to come and it all comes down to this.

  One night.

  One night that, once done, will spell the end of my burden and the beginning of my life.

  One night.

  For two lovers, parting the next morning, one night feels like a blink of an eye, painful in its brevity. But for a kid waiting for Christmas morning to arrive, unable to sleep, night seems to roll on forever.

  One night and then I’ll be free. Gather up my clothes, my belongings, say goodbye to the heavy clanging, the even heavier silence, the violence and the madness, the rotten food, the rotten guards, the crying. All left behind in a capsule of my mind, fading with each passing day, until the memories leave only a whisper of a mark and the long years will seem like no time at all.

  But first, the night.

  Lights out, like every other night, only tonight isn’t like those other nights for tomorrow brings shower, maybe a shit, but not eat, and not play; at least, not the way they say. No, tomorrow I will eat pancakes or eggs over easy. A pot of coffee you say? Bacon strips, waffles and fresh fruit if you please. And I will play, oh yes I will play, but not on the concrete like so many dogs, lifting this and bouncing that, eyes watching from the towers. I will play, but on a soft mattress in a soft room with a soft lady – or a hard one. Whichever I can afford.

  So one night is all I have to endure before I walk out into the light; but night can be long, it can be lonely, and too many thoughts can roll around in too many heads. So though I anticipate the coming of the dawn, it will be a hard night this night, the hardest one of them all.

  I lay in my cot, like a good obedient boy, trying to drown out the cries, the slapping, the groaning, by listening to my heart, my breath. I stare out at the darkness, at the bars that have crisscrossed my life for fifteen years, waiting for sleep to overtake me, for I know that when that happens, the night will pass like a bird by my window. I will wake and the darkness would’ve turned to light and then they will come for me and I will be free.

  Free.

  Such a small word, but one containing all the heartache and joy of all the men, women and children in all the world.

  I’m not tired, I’m much too excited, but still I close my eyes, think of what life will be like once I’m out of this prison.

  I see trees spreading their wings and long cracked roads leading to somewhere, anywhere. I see bars at night, smoky women, stained eyes and good times. I see a girl lying on the ground, pants ripped, exposing tender white flesh…

  My eyes flash open.

  I frown.

  I can’t think of such things, I’m not allowed to. I’m not supposed to, I’ve been cured, I’ve done my time, so I shouldn’t be thinking of flesh and sex and violence. I’ve left that in another time, I was a different person then. I’ve had fifteen years of shedding my skin. I’m all better now.

  Again I close my eyes and imagine simple pleasures: staying up and watching the late show; being able to hop in my car and go cruising; calling my ma on the phone, day or night. These are the things I should be thinking about.

  Sometime later I drift to sleep.

  When I wake, the room is still gloomy with night. The block is quieter now, only the jab of crying, or a punch of laughter kills the silence. Probably Wilson three rooms down; in for murder, he’s as crazy as they come. But he’s not mad. I remember when I first arrived here, many, many nights ago, how he had cornered me, told me if I gave him all of my cigs, he’d only rape me once. Well, I gave him all my cigs and he did rape me, but more
than once. A lot more.

  I think of this and I’m all primed to laugh, but it halts in my throat. I almost laugh not because I enjoyed it, but because I’m going home tomorrow and Wilson will still be here, asking the next piece of fresh meat for all his cigs.

  I hop out of my cot, needing to pee. As I pee, I turn and stare out the window, see only chalky blackness through the bars. I think of all the times I’ve stared out this window, and a tear drips down my face, into the bowl. I’m gonna miss that window, those bars; my sole companion during my dark times. It was with me when I flew to Rio and danced with all of those girls, also when I traveled to Greece and sat sipping a beer, watching the yachts sail past, whiteness all around me. It was with me when I hitched a ride to Florida, and when I drove to Nevada. It was also there when I opened my wrists using a filed pen lid, and it was certainly there to watch over me when I cried endless tears.

  I finished pissing and, tucking myself in, I look to the cold floor and wonder where all the tears I’ve spilled have gone. I picture an underground river flowing with all the tears, blood and semen of all the men who have called this hell home, and I picture myself dropping down into it and floating away.