In A Flicker

by George R. Lopez

  “Mind yourself, mate!” A passerby dodged him as he blocked sidewalk traffic.

  Ethan stood aside, watching the man pass. As he made his way in front of him, he looked up to see where he’d stopped. There he stood, outside the Ten Bells Pub.

  “Fuck!” Ethan said to himself, lowering his head and quickly facing away from the patrons inside, fearing he may be recognized or the ghost of Maggie might step through the doors and identify him as her murderer. If she were still alive he’d kill her just for fucking with his head so much. He stepped up his pace, making it to the next corner and discarding the paper. He didn’t need to read what he already knew. He needed to just get “the job” done. Reaching Hanbury Street he turned right onto the road to his next meeting with destiny until he came upon the backyard entrance to #29, the place he might be leaving Annie Chapman’s body in four nights.

  For the next three days, Ethan would take his strolls in a visibly cocky manner, as if he owned the streets of Whitechapel. He could feel his confidence building as he held the pocket watch open in his right hand while timing the different routes to and from his lodging and the next kill zone on Hanbury. During the last day of the survey, he’d finalized his choice of a route, selecting the one from which he could assess the traffic most efficiently as well as have prime accessibility through to the back yard on Hanbury. He wore local attire for this day to appear more unassuming for this delicate and clandestine task. He then had the day to get some of his bangers and mash on Whitechapel Road and eat as he sat on a window ledge and watched the traffic pass. The air was a bit brisk and a hot and delicious meal was the perfect remedy to warm him up. Ethan was treating this day like the last hours of a holiday. He was completely relaxed, having a picnic. He did not know if he was fooling the crowds or just fooling himself. He surrendered to the calm in the same way a patient with a terminal diagnosis eventually accepts the inevitable. Worrying or crying over it was not going to change the sequence of required actions and necessary outcome. No amount of panic ever resolved anything. He accepted his terminal case. Not his, but that of these women. Over the past several days Ethan had taken the perspective that the victims were already dead and fulfilling their prophetic ending, if needed, was merely a formality of great expectation.

  His visibility paramount to maintaining his mental state, being forced by proxy to appear psychologically intact in public, inside the confines of his room was quite another story. As the first of several site checks on Annie Chapman’s whereabouts and movements rapidly approached, based in no small part on the testimony of her friend, Amelia Palmer, Ethan was overcome with violent tremors from adrenaline. He stood naked in front of the mirror, dowsing himself with basin water, what now seemed ritualistic in manner. The cold fluid combined with the chilling air intruding through his perpetually open window added to this uncontrollable quivering. There was no fear in his mind; performance anxiety might be a more appropriate diagnosis of his trembling. He could visualize the entire act he was designated to carry out in due course, should the real killer again neglect to attend an event slated for the early hours of the following morning. He could also reason with himself how the process would come about and conclude. However, there were unknown variables within a troubled soul. He was not sure which Ethan would surface at the actual moment he needed to muster the cold, sterile, rational scientist. The indulgence of doubt wasn’t an affordable commodity on a budget based of necessity.

  He thought about it in the privacy of his room, agreeing to allow what gripped him have its way, as this too shall pass. Let the trembling occur, let it have its way with him as long as necessary to get this out of his system, just as long as it subsides before his scheduled departure to scope out the 5:00 p.m. whereabouts of one Annie Chapman. It did not matter. He was sure of one thing, above all. Once out in public his façade of stoic demeanor would naturally return. The tremors could have their way with him for the moment but he still had yet to shave. This was going to suck. If he could only avoid drawing his own blood, he’d consider it a successful effort.

  Ethan was mastering the straight razor. Not a single nick from his shave, the fine razor provided in his medical bag by The Consortium. They thought about hygiene. Too bad they hadn’t thought of everything! He still felt himself to be the proverbial stranger in a strange land, a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, living akin to the classic 1889 publication, cosmic forces providing the paradox, happening the year before Mark Twain’s story would come to life in the pages of a novel.

  “Hells bells!” Ethan thought to himself, “Maybe Twain is here on holiday, here in England penning the tale whilst this is happening. Perhaps he is a Scope, too!” In a spontaneous fit of laughter, he said aloud, “Never the Twain shall meet!”

  Switching his outfit to another of local design, his shirt, trousers, shoes and coat, undergarments and hosiery worn the way Maggie told him to avoid itching, he felt another twinge of remorse thinking of how helpful she’d been to him then how he’d repaid her kindness. Nothing to be done for it. Nothing. He was going to walk over to Dorset Street then loiter in the vicinity just before five o’clock, when and where he expected to find Annie Chapman in an ill state, conversing with Amelia Palmer as they discussed plans for Saturday night. His expected time was almost identical to his walks from his flat on Dorset Street over to Bucks Row during his first few days in this era, only a little over a week before and yet it seemed like eons ago. He always timed it on his new pocket watch, anywhere from thirteen to fifteen minutes. For this trip he was once again taking the more casual route, portraying the man not on a mission of any sort. Estimating he’d have to leave in roughly twenty minutes to make it to Dorset just before five in the evening, seeking his visual confirmation, surveillance imperative to definitively identify this woman with his own two eyes, off he went for a stroll.

  Ethan was, of course, familiar with Dorset Street as the site of the first room let to him upon his arrival, the room with indoor plumbing every time it rained. While the main road, Commercial Street was churning with activity, Dorset was dimly lit, mostly accessed by those staying in its run down lodgings along the passage. In the few minutes he leaned against a lesser lit section of one of the buildings, as history recorded and he expected, he spied a woman who fit Annie Chapman’s description exiting one of the lodgings across the alley. If he was on point with his research and this was actually her, she would be approached in the next few minutes by another woman by the name of Amelia Palmer. Two minutes passed. “Here she comes!” It was in his research he discovered Amelia’s testimony about these transpiring events leading up to Annie Chapman’s death. “Brilliant!” So far Amelia was damn precise in her tale recounting their encounter. If all the testimonials were expected to be as on point as hers, this should go smoothly and without incident. Of course it would.

  “I was never caught.” He mumbled beneath his breath.

  Amelia departed the alley. Knowing the history, she would be returning shortly to Annie. He chose this time to cross the street diagonally to get as close as he could possibly come to Jack the Ripper’s next victim without drawing attention to himself so that he could get a better view of her face and clothing. She was short and stout in physique. Pale in complexion with brown hair and blue eyes, she was half bent over and unobservant of his passing. Ethan was satisfied with his assignment and was now comfortably assured he would later identify her in the early morning hours on Hanbury Street. As he exited the alley, Amelia Palmer was rounding the corner returning to Annie Chapman’s side. As Ethan in turn entered Commercial Street he found himself stopping in a shadowy corner across from Ten Bells Pub. He stared at the entrance, imagining Maggie walking out of the front door and waving at him as he waited for her. He had hoped the whole incident in his room was a bad dream instead of a wide awake nightmare, hoping it was a case of mistaken identity. Polly Nichols was dead but Maggie was still there to help him get through the madness. Were it only the truth. With a heavy sigh meant to un
burden him, Ethan shoved his hands in his pockets and traveled back to his place, stopping at a few vendors to get what necessities he might need for the night.

  Returning to his lodging, he stopped in the kitchen, buying some coffee to bring into his room. There would be no meal before the upcoming task. Should Ethan feel an urge to purge, hopefully it would only manifest as dry heaves. He had it fixed in his mind. This event was going to be easier yet more difficult than his experience on Bucks Row. The task was as complex as the emotion wrapped around it, feelings he was working diligently to dismiss. He had made every effort to harness all of his focus on the historical facts and his blueprint for the evening. Well aware he was a human being, better at empathy than apathy, he did not want to kill this woman, but if that low life bastard Jack was a no show, he would have to do it for him. Fucker!

  This pending incident had deeper impact than historical preservation. Through Ethan’s unprecedented access to the future, as well as the past, knowing the victims was not a side show but an added attraction, an eventual benefit to the victim. Annie Chapman was sickly, not from the recent physical altercation she had with one Eliza Copper (who was competing for the affections of a customer) but sick beyond the black eye and bruised chest she’d received in the tussle with her nemesis. Medical records indicated she was suffering from disease of both the lungs and brain. It was suggested she was dying of either tuberculosis or syphilis. Ethan impaled in mind that this would be a mercy killing, if he had to kill her, sparing the woman from a long agonizing death spiral downward, much akin to Anson Van Ruden ending the life of one Japanese soldier. He wished he could sit her down and explain things to her wherein at the conclusion of their conversation and his big reveal, she would hug Ethan and thank him for his heartfelt actions taken on her behalf to end her suffering. If only it were that simple.

  Having once more disrobed, laying naked on the bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling, Ethan could not decide if the absence of permeating odors in the air was no longer apparent due to becoming desensitized to it or if colder night temperatures had diminished what was often carried on the breeze. It had rained slightly between six and seven that evening but it had completely subsided by 10:30 p.m. He tried to imagine the cold air swirling about the room somehow empowering him with icy veins, invigorating him for the night’s required task. The man had a job to do.

  He needed to focus all his attention on the upcoming scheduled whereabouts of Annie Chapman. Her next recorded activities would be in about an hour, returning to Crossingham’s lodging house where she would ask permission to enter the public kitchen area. There she’d linger for another hour, seen by a few people drinking the brew she concocted, taking the pills she’d picked up at the casual ward apothecary. Stating it was for her ailments, she then told a tenant she was going to her room to lay down. When she arrived, Annie informed the manager she did not have enough money for her room yet but asked that it not be given away, as she’d soon be going out to get the needed pence for the rent. She was reported heading in the direction of Spitalfield’s Market between 1:35 and 2:00 a.m. on 8 September 1888.

  Ethan’s fateful encounter with Annie Chapman wasn’t to be much later, around five in the morning over on Hanbury Street. Reclined onto his bed, he recalled some fictional suspense classics he’d read when he was a boy in school at St. Leonards, stories such as H.G. Well’s “The Invisible Man” and Robert Louis Stephenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. His power of knowing the future before anyone else did along with the cloaking effect of night gave him the fascia of invisibility, allowing him to move stealth-like through the streets of the East End of London. His likeness to Jekyll and Hyde was evolving, growing more complex with each passing day. It was a fascinating tale of two men in one. As Ethan always deciphered the story akin to a tale of an alcoholic run amuck, the potion which transformed the physician into a raving lunatic killer was simply too good a vintage. For Ethan, his knowledge was intoxicating, not in the sense of being drunk with power but the voracious thirst for it, drinking in the thoughts and ideas of those before him. He found irony in the fact his identity for the jump was as a physician, but he didn’t fancy himself comparative to Mr. Hyde. He knew the physical disguise as well as the guise he had to mentally portray during the gruesome process, should he be forced to undertake it with Annie Chapman. Though he’d much prefer to watch from a distance as a voyeur in the night, he still found solace in the dizzying inebriation of knowing everything occurring and what was still to come. Without this omnipotent power, Ethan would be another mere mortal murderer in a nomadic existence. There was only one missing piece to the puzzle, not knowing for certain the role he would be asked to play tonight.

  Finishing up his now cold coffee and ritualistic in the zone meditation practice of pacing, it was time for him to get ready. He once again dressed in his upper social class attire with the knowledge, hope and acceptance that he’d stand out enough to be a tempting approach for Annie Chapman who needed to make time to make rent. Placing his earlier purchases from the street vendors inside his medical bag, he had bought a thick leather satchel along with a bunch of rags which would, if need be, do the job of soaking up the blood when he removed the uterus from her inert body.

  It was about 4:30 a.m. when he departed for his destination, Hanbury Street. He would take Osborn Street straight up to Hanbury, arriving near the historic location, number 29 just before five in the morning. He need only wait for Annie to arrive in the next half hour or so. Ethan knew that John Anderson, a tenant at 29 Hanbury, had been reported sitting on the backyard steps around 4:45 a.m. adjusting his shoe, seeing and hearing nothing odd in the yard. There was always some speculation as to Elizabeth Long’s testimony to the authorities as to when she saw Annie Chapman speaking to a man on the street. During her interview she reported hearing the Black Eagle Brewery clock on Brick Lane chiming on the half hour, marking the time as 5:30 a.m. when she saw the man and woman speaking, but some researchers believe she could have been mistaken, having heard the quarter past chime of the clock. It mattered not. He was already there. This was why he needed to be prompt, on time, if not early to cover opposing opinions contradicting Long’s statement to police.

  The air was chilly again, reminiscent of eight days prior, as if the elements were conspiring to set the scene. There were a few people passing along the way, coming and going from work or a late Friday night or early Saturday morning rendezvous, only a few stragglers around. As if on cue, she appeared. He recognized Annie right away from her attire, still half a road from him. Ethan had to play the odds now. If everything was by design in the Universe any plan he had was already decided long before he made the jump through Flicker. He’d chosen to play the part coyly, some unsuspecting gentleman, allowing Annie Chapman to approach him. Removing his pocket watch, he stared at the time, 5:09 a.m. As he did in the alley shadows before and after Polly Nichols’ passing, Ethan waited and prayed that he was wrong about himself and his destiny, begging to be released from this awful obligation, hoping that before Annie could spot him she would be approached by his salvation, the true mad murderer. He’d hoped to be spared the continuing role. He prayed to be saved. It is always darkest before the dawn and it had not yet dawned on Ethan that he was a player in this drama for a reason. No more doubt. No more excuses. No time.

  From the corner of his eye he could see Annie sizing him up, deciding whether or not to solicit him. This was going to happen...it was inevitable. As it was written, so it would be done. Surrender was in his heart. It was his destiny. To prompt her, he peered up for a moment then offered a friendly smile. She walked up to him now considering the gesture an invitation.

  “Evenin’ gov’ner.” Annie began cheerfully. “Bit of a nip in the air tonight.”

  Ethan realized one certain thing. He was not an actor. However, neither was he concerned that his lack of thespian training would alter a supreme plan, one cosmic in nature. He just did not want to hear his own bad performance stink up the ai
r any more than it already was, but his momentary pause was a sign to Annie of rejecting her advance. She began to step behind him and continue on her way. Ethan had to act fast to correct the issue. He turned around, facing her directly. For a moment he just looked at her with his mouth agape, shocked by his own lack of social skills.

  “Yes.” He muttered. “It is, quite cold, out here, in the air, tonight, I mean.”

  Annie laughed at the man, not to be insulting but rather charmed by an awkward response she wasn’t used to and didn’t expect, not one typical of her usual clientele. She actually had quite a nice smile, much better teeth than Polly. Ethan rolled his eyes and shook his head at his performance, judging himself harshly.

  “Well, aren’t you the gigglemug?” He tried to make light of the darkness.

  “Well, perhaps I can warm ya up a bit if ya fancy the business?” Annie was not shy, though her flirtatious manner was far more subtle than Maggie’s approach.

  Ethan’s expression changed for a moment as he reflected back to Maggie saying almost exactly the same phrase in his room the night his whole world turned upside down. It unfortunately humanized Annie that much more. He would have to expect that phrase from each of the Ripper’s victims, discarding the connection as his link to a fictitious character Mary Ann Nichols had concocted. Annie began to step away again, thinking she struck out based on Ethan’s demeanor.

  “Wait. Please.” Ethan implored her. “I’m sorry, I’m just not used to...this.”

  “Ah, yer first time then, love?” Annie asked with genuine interest.

  “Second, actually.” His prophetically ominous statement had another meaning, a more insidious content than she could ever imagine.