Jack's Back

by Mark Romain

  Kelly pulled the curtain as far back as it would go, hooking it over the passenger seat to allow as much ambient light as possible inside. Moving ever so slowly, she climbed into the back, pausing to let her night vision take hold. The inside was repellent to her. She felt confined, totally trapped. She wanted to turn around, run away while she still could.

  There, at the back of the van, she could make out a shape on the floor. Was it a person? If so, were they still alive?

  She had to fight off her claustrophobia, and think of the victim, not herself. “Hello?” she said nervously, thinking she sounded pathetically weak.

  Suddenly, the shape moved, only slightly but enough to convince her that it really was a living person. Kelly leapt back, banging her head against the metal partition. As she rubbed the back of her skull, she could hear the shape breathing, slow and shallow, like someone in a deep sleep.

  The chemical smell was significantly stronger back here.

  She had to get this poor woman out before the Ripper came back. She wasn’t naive enough to think that she could take him on her own. Kelly began to crawl forward, towards the woman.

  “What the…?” She realised that the interior was coated with thick sheets of plastic, which rustled and creaked every time she moved. A wave of nausea gripped her stomach as she contemplated its sinister purpose. Had his four previous victims died right here, on the very spot where she was kneeling? Kelly closed her eyes tightly, trying to focus her mind on the task at hand, instead of succumbing to the torrent of terrifying images that threatened to engulf her. This was not the time to ponder such things.

  Come on Kelly. You can do this; don’t fall apart on me now. She opened her eyes, taking several deep breaths, and then reached out a hand, gently touching the woman’s shoulder.

  “Can you hear me?” she asked, shaking the woman softly. Sarah Pritchard’s moan startled her, and her hand recoiled automatically. She reached forward again, more firmly this time.

  “Please, you’ve got to wake up. We have to get away from here,” Kelly said forcefully.

  As she knelt down beside the killer’s latest captive, she realised that her vision seemed slightly blurry. Her eyes felt gritty, and her limbs suddenly felt heavy, weighted.

  What was wrong with her? She shook her head, trying to clear it. Why was she having trouble focusing?

  “W – where am I?” The voice, when it came, was weaker than before.

  A wave of relief flooded over Kelly. At least if the woman was conscious there was a chance to get her away from the van; hopefully, they would both see this hellish episode through.

  “You’re in the back of a van in Wapping,” Kelly explained. “But we’re both in great danger. We’ve got to move quickly. Can you sit up?”

  “Can’t move…tied up, I think…” The woman croaked, her every word a supreme effort.

  Kelly checked the woman over. Tied up was an understatement. The woman’s ankles and knees were securely bound, as were her arms. Kelly turned her over gently. Sure enough, just as she’d feared, the victim’s hands were cuffed behind her back. Underneath the cuffs, her wrists had pieces of cloth wrapped around them to prevent marking.

  There was no longer any doubt that she was dealing with the Ripper. Everything she’d seen fit his Modus Operandi perfectly. He’d brought this poor woman here for one reason only: to die.

  And that was bad news for both of them because it meant he’d be coming back very, very, soon.

  Kelly examined the cuffs closely, wondering if her cuff key would fit. They were rigid, police issue cuffs. A shudder ran through her as a disturbing new thought hit home.

  My god, he’s one of us. The Ripper’s a cop.

  Kelly began to feel around the floor of the van, frantically searching for something to cut the ropes with.

  CHAPTER 39

  The old warehouse was cavernous, and it had taken The Disciple far longer to explore than he’d expected. When he finally emerged from the hole that he’d made in the boarding to get in, he took a few moments to brush himself down; the entire place had been covered in grease, grime, and cobwebs. Then he set off through the mist, which had noticeably worsened since he’d gone in. it seemed like a long walk back to his van, which agitated him because he was desperately impatient to get on with things. He hated having unfinished business.

  The old building was spot on. He could hole up in there until the early hours without any problem. Everything he needed to complete the final ritual was contained within his bag, and he would be able to take his time sacrificing his controlling wife, the third bitch responsible for ruining his life.

  The mist soon began to thin out, and before long it had been reduced to a few wispy tendrils. As he left the uneven footpath and regained the cobbled surface of the service road, Simon Pritchard spotted his van up ahead. As soon as he saw it alarm bells began to go off inside his head. Something was not as it should be, but what?

  And then he saw it. The driver’s door had been slid back.

  It was open.

  NOOOO!

  He stopped in his tracks, sniffing the air like a wild animal. There was no way that the Queen of Whores could have broken free without outside help. That meant that someone must have found the van.

  But who?

  And how many of them were there?

  His mind spun as he pondered what to do. He couldn’t abandon the van, and he wouldn’t abandon his final target, not after coming this far.

  He had promised Tyler that he would kill again within twenty-four hours, and he wouldn’t give that son of a bitch the satisfaction of failing. Slipping back into the safety of the shadows, he began to creep towards the van, ready to turn and run if things looked really bad.

  His first thought, on seeing the driver’s door open, was that the police had found him, but he’d dismissed it almost at once. There would be patrol cars and flashing lights, and he would have heard lots of excited chatter on the handheld radio he carried.

  But what if the police had found the van, rescued Sarah, and retreated to a safe distance, where they could watch without being seen? They could be keeping it under observation in the hope that he would return. He could be walking into a trap.

  No, he decided, this wasn’t the work of the police. Subtlety wasn’t their style, and anyway, they wouldn’t have had time to pull off a stunt as elaborate as that.

  But if not them, then who was it?

  The obvious answer was thieves, drug takers or vagrants, plundering his hard-earned spoils. A ripple of anger surged through his body.

  How dare they!

  He felt for the hilt of the knife concealed at the rear of his waistband. Someone had just made a fatal mistake, fatal being the operative word. As he reached the side of the van, he heard muffled voices inside. There were two of them, both unmistakably female,

  What the…?

  His mind raced. There were two women inside his van. One was the Queen of Whores, the other was a stranger – an unknown quantity, but probably a drug addict or a tramp looking for somewhere quiet to lay up for the night.

  He tried to imagine the look on her face as she’d broke into his van and came face to face with his handiwork. The anger began to subside, replaced instead by a mixture of curiosity and excitement. Number five had attracted number six. Who would have believed it possible? He was going to have a bonus kill!

  What a strange turn of events, he thought, pondering tonight’s roller coaster sequence of ups and downs. Still, his unexpected good fortune was not to be sneered at. The completion of the ancient sacrificial ritual, which would give him the power and influence over lesser mortals he so desperately craved, was in sight.

  The blood of five maidens must be shed…

  He could – no, he would – kill another two tonight. They were mere feet away from the cold, unfeeling, steel of his knife. The most delicious part of it all was that they had no idea just how close to death they were. They probably thought they still had a chance to esca
pe. He could hear them moving around inside, making urgent scuttling sounds like rats in a sewer.

  He was overcome by a desire to prolong the experience, to feed off of their fear for as long as he could. He would let them build up their hopes inside the van. Then, just as escape seemed a certainty, he would shatter their illusions and put an end to their petty, meaningless lives.

  He wondered what birth sign the stranger had been born under. He would refrain from killing her until he had acquired that information.

  The Disciple cocked his head to one side, listening carefully. He could hear it quite clearly above the noise the whores were making: his lovely little tune:

  What a ride, what a thrill. All I wanna do is kill, kill, kill…

  ◆◆◆

  “Come on, don’t give up on me. We’re nearly there,” Kelly said, breathlessly. Unable to find anything sharp on the plastic-coated floor, she had snapped, torn and ruined every nail on her hands trying to undo the thick knots that bound the ankles of the killer’s latest victim.

  Powerless to help, Sarah Pritchard was forced to lay very still while Kelly worked on the ropes. The pain in her shattered shoulder was astronomical, and it was getting worse by the second. The ropes were so tight that she could hardly feel her limbs. Every time Kelly pulled at the knots, it sent a wave of pain through her.

  “What’s your name?” Kelly asked, trying to keep the victim’s mind from dwelling on their predicament.

  Sarah moaned softly, a cry of pain and fear. “Sarah…Sarah Pritchard. My husband, Simon – he’s a killer... he’s the Ripper.”

  Kelly paused. Wasn’t Sarah Pritchard the woman Steve Bull had recruited to help the team canvass the local working girls?

  “You’ve got to hurry,” Sarah cried, trying to make Kelly understand the urgency of the situation. “If you don’t untie me before he gets back, he’ll kill us both.” Sobbing hysterically, Sarah Pritchard tried to get up. She had to get out of the van.

  “Shush!” Kelly soothed, gently pushing her back down. “Stop struggling. I’m nearly done.” And then, with no prior warning, the knot on the rope around Sarah’s ankles came free.

  YES! Kelly almost punched the air with relief. She unwound it frantically, ignoring Sarah’s protests of pain. There was simply no time for finesse. The woman’s knees and arms were still securely bound but they would have to wait. Kelly crawled over her, feeling across the rear doors for a handle. Her hands came into contact with a coarse, thick material, which was draped over the doors from top to bottom.

  A curtain!

  She pulled it aside roughly, and the inside of the van suddenly became a little lighter as ambient light filtered in through the blacked out rear windows. She looked over her shoulder, familiarising herself with the interior of the van, remembering as much detail as she could. They would want to debrief her when she got out of this.

  When?

  If I get out of it, more likely!

  She shook her head angrily. She couldn’t entertain thoughts like that. What would Jack Tyler think of her? Even when faced with danger, the thought of Tyler made her heart flutter.

  Kelly spotted the handle halfway up the door. She reached forward, hardly daring to breathe as she took hold of it. Her palm was slippery with sweat as she twisted it, gently at first and then harder, as hard as she possibly could.

  It creaked and groaned and gradually began to move. But nowhere near enough. Kelly put her full weight behind it, pushing for all she was worth. And then, all of a sudden, it was open and she nearly fell out, face first, onto the hard-concrete floor.

  Kelly jumped down quickly, and uneasily scanned the shadows around her. Nothing moved.

  The damp swirling mist was much denser down by the warehouse then it was up here. She half expected the Ripper to burst out of it and run towards her, like something you’d see in a horror flick. The lower floors of the old building were totally obscured by an opaque wall of mist, although the uneven outline of its roof still dominated the horizon like a gothic castle.

  The fresh air was starting to clear her head, but the cloying chemical smell of the van lingered on her skin and clothes as unpleasantly as the smoke that always used to cling to her after a long night in the pub.

  Kelly quickly opened the other door, cringing at the horrible squeaking its hinges made. She leaned in and helped Sarah up into a sitting position.

  “Come on, love, we’ve got to get you away from here,” Kelly whispered. She gently pulled Sarah’s Pritchard’s legs around until they dangled over the edge of the van, resting her feet on the small back step. Sarah winced and cried with every movement, but she didn’t resist.

  “My car is at the end of this road. I’ll support you all the way, but we’ve got to go now,” Kelly told her urgently. Sarah nodded obediently. Kelly put her arm around the woman’s waist and began to pull her out.

  Suddenly, Sarah stiffened. Screaming hysterically, she tried to drag herself back into the van, violently shrugging Kelly’s arm off.

  What the…?

  “Look, I know it hurts but –” One look at the woman’s face was enough to make her realise that Sarah wasn’t screaming because of anything she had done. Kelly went rigid with fear. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and, suddenly, the presence of death became a tangible thing. It was him – the Ripper.

  He’d come back.

  ◆◆◆

  Tyler’s anxiety was making him feel very agitated. He had already driven the length of Wapping High Street without seeing any sign of Kelly, and they were now doing a reciprocal route. “Try her number again, Dill,” he ordered impatiently.

  “I can’t, Jack. There’s no signal,” the big man replied.

  “Damn it. Come on Kelly. Where the hell are you?” Tyler’s eyes darted left and right, scanning the streets for her. There was no sign of life anywhere. The place was like a ghost town. All that was missing was the tumbleweed.

  “What car did she book out, Dill?” Tyler asked.

  “I don’t know, Jack,” Dillon said. No one in the office ever booked the cars out properly – himself included – so he hadn’t bothered to check the register.

  “She was listening to the chase on the Main-Set,” Jack said. “Apart from the Omega, how many of our cars have one?”

  “Bloody hell, you’re right, Jack,” Dillon said wondering why he hadn’t he thought of that. “The only other car with a Main-Set in it is the blue Escort – it’s an R registration, I think.”

  ◆◆◆

  Kelly stood up quickly, every muscle in her body tensed for action. The ASP was tucked into her waistband, still fully extended. Quick as a flash, Kelly pulled it out and spun around, raising it in preparation for a strike.

  As fast as she was, the killer was even faster. His fist lashed out, catching her on the side of her chin. His whole weight was behind the blow, and Kelly fell back, banging her head against the van door. The ASP flew from her hand, landing with a metallic clang on the floor nearby.

  Everything began to spin as Kelly slumped to the ground. Through tunnelled vision, she watched helplessly as the blurred shape of a man bent over her. She was powerless to resist as he reached down and took her chin in his hand, roughly twisting her head from side to side, as if examining a piece of meat.

  “Hello,” he said, pleasantly. “And who might you be?” His voice seemed to echo inside her head like a grotesque sound effect. He let go of her head and it sagged forward onto her chest.

  The last thing she saw before passing out was the giant thirteen-inch Bowie knife in his left hand. The last thing she heard was Sarah Pritchard’s spine-chilling scream.

  ◆◆◆

  Jack spun the car around when they reached St. Katherine’s Way and began their third trip along the now familiar stretch of road. A cat ran across the road in front of them. It was the first living creature they’d seen in ages. He slowed down on the approach to each side street he came to, in case she was waiting for them off the main road, but the
re was no sign of her or anyone else in this godforsaken place.

  Tyler began to consider the possibility that the van had moved off again. If it had, she would have gone with it. And if that were the case, she could be miles away, unable to update them with her new location because of the poor signal on her cell phone. He was about to suggest this to Dillon when he spotted a dark coloured Escort parked up ahead on the right.

  Dillon saw it too and pointed. “Hang on, Jack. I think that’s it.”