In A Flicker

by George R. Lopez

  “Yes! Ow’d ya know that?” She asked with a smile, softening haggard features, taking it as a form of flattery, almost relieved to finally drop the façade.

  Ethan stepped closer, hoping it was his ears deceiving him and not the cosmos.

  “Mary Ann Nichols. Born 26 August 1845 to Edward and Caroline Walker in London, England?” Ethan could no longer chance a coincidence, just as Polly could no longer smile. As though every word he spoke kicked her further away, knocking her off balance, she staggered back, trying to get away from him.

  “Oh, bloody hell! Ow’d ya know that? Who, what are ya?” Alarm in her voice, she leered at the man who knew too much about her.

  The two stared at one another in silence. Ethan had not noticed the resemblance, having only seen her corpse in vintage photographs, the details of her face obscured. This was nothing he’d trained for, nothing he could’ve anticipated or even remotely prepared for, as a scenario unfolding before his disbelieving eyes never crossed his mind, not as a Scope, scientist, historian or doctor of letters. Dumbfounded, he was a helpless victim of circumstance, as was she, the intended victim still keeping her distance. Time was suspended. Submersed in the fog of conscious thought relating to the current and pending event, he had to quickly reconcile this painful revelation, coming to terms with the truth that the woman about to become the first victim of the notorious “Jack the Ripper” had locked herself inside his room. A woman he’d befriended and felt sorry for because of her losses in life would shortly lose her life as a matter of destiny, becoming a figure in history.

  There had been a reason for the hours of non-interference discussions with The Consortium brass and this was precisely it. Unbeknownst to him at the time, Ethan inadvertently invested himself emotionally into someone intricately involved with the historical timeline of events. Maggie had no significance. Polly did. According to his perception of things, Maggie was irrelevant to these proceedings, a side show; the common barmaid with an equally common side job, to make ends meet. It never occurred to him that Maggie might play such a pivotal role in history. She’d become part of his journey and now he would have to let her go, literally, to her death.

  The timeline derailed, getting it back on track was the priority. He had no choice but to detach, no matter how difficult. Likewise for Ethan, a cruel twist of fate but at least it would not cost him his life. He had to convince Polly to leave, condemning a friend to death, sending the defenseless, unsuspecting soul out the door alone, into the darkest of nights. This was not a choice. It was history. No time to think, barely time enough to act, Ethan didn’t have time to tell another lie. Lifting the watch from his pocket his heart nearly stopped at 2:51 a.m. as the shot of pure adrenaline surged through his veins, a bolt of lightning; the ultimate wake-up call.

  “Mary...Polly.” Stepping closer, he tried to reason with her as she stepped back. “You do not understand. You really need to give me that key and leave now.”

  “No! Bloody come clean...who are ya, a bobby? How d’ ya know who I am!” The more upset she became, a reaction amplified by abundant alcohol in her system, the farther away the suspicious woman stepped from his tenuous approach.

  “No! No! Hell no! I’ll explain it all tomorrow.” Stepping forward again, Ethan knew there would be no tomorrow for her.

  “Who are ya then?” She demanded again, anger raging in her sparse words.

  “There’s no time! Give me the key!” Ethan demanded, moving closer.

  They maneuvered about the room, Polly going backward as Ethan leaned in. He wasn’t one to grab at her the way she had done with him, no attempt made to search her bosom. He wouldn’t push her around but he needed to push the issue. Her head was spinning in circles, as was the room, a dizziness undoubtedly due to her severe state of inebriation. Disoriented, stumbling over the lip of the rug, tripping, twisting, and turning, unable to catch herself, Ethan reached out to save her but Polly went down too hard and fast, striking her head just below the left ear against the corner of the solid oak bedpost. It knocked her unconscious. Having fallen with such force the impact spun her around to the right, that side of her face slamming to the floor with one dull thud. Mary Ann Nichols, Polly appeared to be dead to the world.

  “Is she dead?” He could hear the words rattling around in his skull, words he’d heard carelessly uttered by one youthful, inexperienced member of the FTC team. Ethan froze, mere moments seemed like a millennium. Coming to his senses again, he immediately knelt beside her, checking for her pulse. Polly was alive. However, the combination of excessive drinking and the impact from the fall knocked her out cold. Mary Ann Nichols was right. He wasn’t a doctor in the way she’d thought and he did not know the full extent of her injuries but common sense dictated, she most certainly had a concussion. He would have to try to wake her up. She’d merely have to walk with a hell of a headache, that is, if she could walk at all. Propping her back up against the footboard of the bed, Ethan repeatedly called her by name, by ALL of her names! Shaking her by the shoulders he even splashed a little bit of water on her face. She remained entirely unresponsive, no signs of regaining consciousness. Ethan’s mind and body moved at light speed. Time was running out.

  How could he have allowed this to happen? He was not a religious man per se, but he wondered if God was punishing him for tinkering with the laws of physics, with time itself. Ethan was considering the implications of Mary Ann Nichols being absent, not present for her own historical death. There was no way she would make it on her own to the spot where she was supposed to be murdered. Looking around for resolution, it came to him. He could still salvage the timeline and his research, but he had to get Polly to Bucks Row. Already dressed in his physician’s attire with all of his paperwork in the vest pocket, Ethan lifted Polly from the floor and placed her on the bed, laying the medical bag atop her midsection to take along as cover.

  After a moment’s pause to reflect on this desperate situation, apologizing aloud to an unconscious woman, Ethan reached down into her blouse in search of the key, obtaining it quickly then ending the awkward contact.

  “I’m sorry. Sorry. Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am.” He was a nervous wreck.

  Unlocking the door, Ethan lifted Polly and the bag into his arms. Deadweight, he knew she would not be easy to move but it was his only option. As carefully and quietly as possible Ethan maneuvered her body downstairs to the first floor. Nobody visible during the early morning hours, slipping out the back door past the library, Ethan carried her through the rear alley where the outhouse was located. It became apparent that her motionless frame was too heavy for him to manage. This journey would require several stops to reposition her along the way. Adding other variables into this complex equation, he’d calculated her additional weight and the timing to avoid any encounter with police or anybody else out this late. If all went according to a revised plan he’d make it to his intended destination in just under ten minutes.

  Ethan had the advantage over the key players in this historical drama. He knew police constable John Neil would be over near the slaughterhouse and he knew that Charles Cross and Robert Paul hadn’t yet departed their respective homes. Random encounters were the real variables, the incidents he could not predict. No one knew exactly when Jack the Ripper actually attacked Mary Ann Nichols so he needed to get her to the precise location and do so undetected. Any undue confrontation would chance endangering the timeline further. If stopped by another constable, he would be close enough to London Hospital on Whitechapel Road, just a few streets away, to rightfully demand passage with a patient in tow. No officer of the law would try to keep him from an appointed task, from getting an unconscious woman into a bed. Thankfully, he didn’t need to explain anything. It was a struggle but he made it.

  Ethan gently placed Polly down near the gate by the boarding school on Bucks Row in the exact spot where her corpse would later be found. Grabbing his medical bag, crossing the street to the north side over to his preplanned vantage point, Ethan h
oped the timeline had been unaffected, that Jack the Ripper would come upon her prone body and still perform the murder and mutilation in spite of her incapacitated condition. Checking his pocket watch, it was 3:12 a.m. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Had the killer already come and gone, having no potential victim in sight? Had Ethan made it there in time? His mind plagued with questions, to now have to watch the woman he’d come to know and care for be butchered, to succumb to the hands of a madman was not what he’d expected to experience. Though he never anticipated this sudden turn of events it would’ve been somewhat less disturbing to see it happen to a virtual stranger. What was even more terrifying for the tenderhearted soul, he’d now have a personal vendetta, a vested interest in hating the demon about to murder his friend. He needed to know who it was so he’d know who to hate.

  Remaining crouched in the shadows, trying to regain his mental acuity, a safety zone he’d acquired prior to Polly’s arrival at his door, the minute hand on his pocket watch was fast becoming his enemy. It was now 3:17 a.m. Where was this monster? Polly’s body was recorded being discovered at 3:40 a.m. Ethan began ringing his moist hands together, rubbing the skin from his knuckles. Muttering a mantra chant, the words in his head escaped his lips as a guttural whisper: “Please show up please show up please show up please show up please show up.”

  How cruel could a Universe be? How did a humble Scope research project get so fucked up so fast? This wasn’t about him or Maggie, Polly, Mary. This was about the discipline of time. This was about an oath taken to The Consortium, those years spent training, learning to comprehend the inherent complexities and complicity of changing an immutable timeline, interfering in history in terms imaginable...or not. A glitch in the minutia could ultimately affect the world on a much grander scale.

  It was 3:22 a.m. Time stopped. It ceased to exist, if it ever did. Ethan held his breath while the cosmos conspired against him, turning on him in a blink of God’s eye as he realized the killer wasn’t coming. He was already there. Now it was up to him to maintain the timeline, come what may. This was the grand scale. It was also a personal crisis. Everything changed in a flicker with the repulsive realization that he, Dr. Ethan LaPierre, in Jack’s absence, would have to play the role of the Ripper.

  No. No. Ethan was no one’s understudy, he hadn’t rehearsed for this part. It was all a vicious joke, another hellish nightmare. Maggie was not Polly Nichols and he was not Jack the Ripper. He’d awaken any moment to find “Robinson Crusoe” on the bed beside him, laying open to the chapter that prompted this insane dream. No.

  Pacing in place, rubbing his hands raw, Ethan glanced down at his medical bag. Among its contents were surgical knives. No! He’d be incapable of doing what was being asked of him, a demand made in error, no doubt. The monster would round a corner any second just like the black-winged Pegasus had, a harbinger of evil deeds in another nightmare he recalled. No. This could not happen to him. The man hadn’t done anything in his life to deserve this, as he’d never hurt another living soul. Not so much as a spider found in his flat, released from its prison into the light of day. He never deliberately killed anything and certainly wasn’t going to begin by killing a friend, even if she’d been dead far more than a century by the time they met. No.

  Now 3:24. Where was the son of a bitch? Conflict rising like acid from his stomach, it got stuck in his throat, burning him alive from within. He felt ill, as he had coming through the Flicker, ready to vomit again. Breathe. Breathe. “No time...must make time to spare, even a minute. Give him another minute.” No time.

  Now 3:25...3:26...Ethan visualized the culprit rounding a dark corner of Bucks Row, how he would look, what he would do as he practically stumbled over Polly laying on the cold cobblestone. The demon would stand there a moment snickering, the thought of how easy it would be, no fight at all. Leaning over her, deciding she was already as good as dead so he’d do her a favor and finish the job. Ethan was so tempted to yell “About time!” as his brain created a ghost lurking among shadows but there was no one hiding in the fog...no one there but him. 3:27. Out of time.

  No! Grabbing the medical bag, Ethan crossed the street, counting every step as he went astray in the night. Off script. Crouching down beside her, looking around once more, it was up to him to maintain the timeline, up to him to finish her off. It was an unfathomable task. The bastard must have already come and gone, leaving him to fulfill the dictate of history. His pocket watch would never lie to him. 3:28. Polly did not move. She did not even appear to be breathing. Perhaps she’d already passed. No sign of life, he didn’t bother to feel for a pulse. The head injury she had sustained in his room must have been worse than he thought. Thank God she would not feel a thing. Polly was already lost and gone. It would ease the pain of what needed doing, not her pain...but his own. 3:29 a.m.

  He sifted through the medical bag to find a knife that he could use to make the identical incisions, lacerations on her body recorded in autopsy photographs. Those medical reports were burned into his memory long ago in a faraway time. His hands slick with sweat, his throat tightening with tension, he couldn’t swallow. There was no saliva in his mouth. Barely breathing, he found one surgical knife at the bottom of the bag, sunken by its own weight. Knowing it would be similar to the knife used by the assailant, it was an archaic tool, obsolete, almost violent in appearance, yet it was as sharp as any modern medical instrument in any operating room. Mustering the courage, Ethan knew this was a no way out scenario, something he had to do to preserve the timeline. Polly appeared so peaceful, placid in repose, a still life, lying at his feet in the cool night air. The woman seemed an ethereal creature in morning mist, an otherworldly optical illusion sprawled out before him but she was real, as real as the fire pulsing through his veins. Time was of the essence.

  “Stop it!” The man was trembling uncontrollably. “Stop it! You know what you have to do! Do it now!” Kneeling over her torso, Ethan straddled her, holding the blade to Polly’s throat long enough to steady his hand. The angle of the cut had to be precise. Puncturing skin, the first recorded incision was under the left jawline.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie.” Ethan whispered the mournful words, riddled with regret. Then, attempting to quell the brewing storm in his mind, he silently talked himself through it. “I’ve got to do this.” Rationalizing a completely irrational act, the kindly professor transformed into a butcher preparing to all but sever the head from Polly’s body with precision technique, knowing he must replicate the imagery impaled in his mind. “I’ve got to go through with it. This is her destiny, and now mine.” Gazing at the poor, pitiful woman, an equally helpless victim of circumstance, Ethan issued the final prompt that would send him careening over the precipice into the darkest abyss of night. Willing the strength to do what he couldn’t possibly do, he chanted a silent incantation. “You can do it...you can do it...you can do it....”

  Ethan took a deep breath, steadied his hand and began to cut her throat. Slicing several inches in, shocked by the ease with which a knife slid through supple skin, Mary Ann Nichols opened her eyes. Penetrating his soul, he jerked back the knife. Staring at each other, connected for eternity, in that singular moment of recognition, Miss Maggie knew her killer.

  “How could you do this to me?” Her bewildered expression stilled the man.

  Taking it in as the images appeared in rapid-fire succession, creating permanent postcards for Ethan to take back into the future, he had already sliced clear through her larynx. Polly did try to speak to him, her eyes darting as wildly as his own. The few words she mouthed with blood-spattered lips produced only the slightest moan as gurgling sounds bubbled up through the slit in her throat. He could smell blood, watching incredulously as steam rose from the wound, pouring out and around both sides of her throat, channeled by folds of skin on her neck, gravity tugging it toward cobblestone. As the crimson substance flowed with ease, forming a puddle beneath her shoulder blades, she didn’t move. She did not struggle. In shock, as if reconciled to h
er own demise, a certain fate, she made no attempt to fight for her life. No need to check his pocket watch. He was certain time had stopped. It was irrelevant. They were together in the timeless bubble, suspended in the moment. Consumed with the event he was sharing with his victim, Ethan paused to reconsider the cosmic cousin to the seven stages of grief. He saw this transpiring as it happened. In her eyes he’d seen the seven stages of fear.

  The Seven Stages of Fear

  Defiance: self-preservation / life embrace / fear of unknown

  “I don’t want to die.”

  Shock: disbelief / astonishment / realization of what transpires

  “Could this really be happening?”

  Confusion: disorientation / chaos / uncertainty

  “What is happening to me?”

  Denial: rejection / turmoil / renunciation

  “This cannot be happening to me.”

  Betrayal: blame / anger / self-loathing / devastation

  “How could you do this to me?”

  Despair: grief / inevitability / relinquishing will

  “I thought you loved me.”

  Surrender: acceptance / acquiescence / transcendence

  “This is happening to me.”

  Ethan knew there was no turning back, no running away from the scene of this crime. He had to finish what he started and so, went in for the second cut. He finally found courage, knowing he’d have to perform the mutilation exactly as it occurred, according to the specific details in the autopsy report. This cut had to be from the bottom left jawline down across her entire throat to the right jawline. He had to cut back and forth until it reached Polly’s spine, all the while holding his free hand over her mouth to muffle what sounds might come with the pain. He’d hoped the shock of it had a numbing effect. Tipping her head backward, exposing the existing gash, her eyes were locked onto his and Ethan couldn’t break the cosmic connection. He could not afford to look away. Instead, he was forced to observe everything he did to exactly recreate these mortal wounds. Trying to soothe her, to comfort his friend, he repeated, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Shhh...shhh. It’s all right. It will be all right. I’ll make it right, Maggie.” Tears were trickling down his face.