by kindels
"For god's sake, William, calm down," Kate ordered in that unflappable, not-to-be-argued-with voice of hers. "If the music does indicate that the spirit of Jack the Ripper is haunting your dream, and I admit it looks that way, it doesn't necessarily mean he's 'after you', as you put it."
"But why else would he be doing this? And why should David have heard the song being carried on the wind last night? What has he got to do with all of this, apart from helping me to find out exactly what's going on?"
"I don't know yet, but maybe just the fact that he is helping you is reason enough. Perhaps The Ripper, if it is The Ripper, is trying to tell David something. Perhaps that's what he's doing to you to, simply trying to tell you something. Maybe there's a significance in the dream that none of us have seen yet. Jack Reid was a relative of The Ripper. You, David, as far as we know, are not. Therefore, logic dictates that you have experienced the dream either as a result of the power of suggestion, having heard it described in detail by Jack Reid, or because, if this is a case of a supernatural entity, it is trying to communicate with you. The same goes for you, David. It may be trying to tell you something, something that you can learn from the song."
"But why? What the hell have I got to do with it, apart from trying to help William to solve the riddle of the journal and its effects on the Cavendish family, and on him of course?"
"Maybe this entity, or The Ripper, or whatever it is, is trying to help you solve the riddle by focussing your attention on the song?"
"But the damn song means nothing to me! I don't see how it could be a clue to anything. And why didn't you hear it too?"
"I still don't have any real answers, David, so we'll all have to be patient. I have an idea forming in my mind; but, until I can get my thoughts clear on the matter, I'll say nothing, at least for awhile."
"So there's nothing we can do for now?" came the question from Forbes.
"We can watch the video and you will then hear the tune as it must have sounded when sung in the Victorian era," Kate replied, as she finally managed to get Forbes and me to stand behind her as she sat down in front of my computer screen.
She quickly nudged the mouse across the mouse mat and my screensaver cleared to show the site she'd already mentioned, and which was set up to show one particular video. She clicked on 'Play' on the screen and the video began to play. Immediately, the haunting melody of A Violet from Mother's Grave began to play, followed by the voice of a singer who appeared to have copied the Victorian style perfectly. The song sounded much as I imagined it would have done when performed by a Victorian music hall singer all those years ago. I almost forgot to take notice of the video images; but, when I allowed myself to focus on the pictures on the screen, I saw that the video was in fact someone's short, but touching tribute to Mary Kelly, a kind of tribute to her life, and a memorial to her death.
The video maker had assembled a collage of images, mostly copies of press cartoons and photographs from the time of The Ripper murders, and included a couple of highly disturbing images of the mutilated, or rather the butchered remains of Mary Kelly, all of which assumed a great poignancy when played back to the accompaniment of that sadly haunting melody. I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds and could mentally conjure up an image of the frail, and perhaps hungry, young woman who, despite the deprivation of her grim and seedy existence, managed to remain upbeat enough to sing to herself as she breathed out the last few hours of her too-short life.
I cast a quick glance at Forbes. I'd only ever heard those few bars of the song that drifted to my ears on the wind, but William Forbes had heard so much more of the song in his dream-state, and had heard it so much more often than I. Now, his face appeared ghostly white as the scratchy, haunting sound of the melody screeched at us from my computer speakers.
In an instant, Forbes had transformed back into the trembling, terrified figure that both Kate and I had witnessed over the previous two days. Terror danced in the suffering look evident in his panic-stricken eyes, darting all round the room, once again searching for some unknown and unseen assailant perhaps. His hands shook, his skin assumed a deathly pallor, and his legs would probably have collapsed from beneath him if I hadn't anticipated what was about to happen and guided him into a small office chair, a few feet from where we stood.
The final strains of A Violet from Mother's Grave signalled the end of the short video, and Kate turned to look at me and the now slumped figure of William Forbes.
"That's it," she said with a sort of finality.
"It's bloody spooky, hearing it played through the computer like that." I said. "William, are you okay?"
The crumpled face that looked at me as Forbes raised his head from his hunched position, confirmed to me that he certainly wasn't okay. It was a look I'd seen before, as he'd appeared when he withdrew into that dark and profoundly private world where his own dark thoughts, and unearthly fears and terrors, held him in their thrall. I had the distinct impression that William Forbes's mind, disturbed enough already by all that had happened to him, and by the fear that had remained lurking just beneath the surface these last few hours, had now descended further along the path towards irrevocable breakdown.
His lips moved, but not a sound came from his mouth. His hands were now clasped tightly together on his lap as though, by gripping them in that way, he could stop the tremors and the shaking that now pervaded his entire being. If that had been his hope, it had failed. From the top of his head to his feet, the man had become a quivering mass of terror-stricken humanity. Kate and I looked at each other, then back at the man in the chair.
"Hearing the tune sung like that might just have sent him over the edge," I said, as Kate rose and moved across to try and bring the trembling man out of his terrible anxiety and fear attack.
"I should have anticipated this," Kate replied as she took hold of Forbes by the shoulders, gently but firmly attempting to remonstrate with him. "Come on, William. Don't leave us now. Try and snap out of it. We need you, as much as you need us. We can only help you if you're here to guide us through certain aspects of all of this. Please, William, don't crack up on me now."
Her attempt failed. I also did my best to help Forbes recover from this latest attack; but, as the minutes ticked by, his eyes seemed to sink further into their sockets, the tremors in his body increased, and he began to drool from the side of his mouth. There was now little doubt in my mind that we were losing him, at least in terms of any form of coherent behaviour.
"We have to get him to lie down, David," Kate insisted. "Can we manhandle him to the bedroom, do you think?"
"I think we can do that," I responded. "But why the bedroom? Can't we get him to lie on the sofa in the sitting room?"
"The sofa will do, David, but what I want more than anything is for you to get your medical bag and prepare a bloody large dose of that sedative. I think William needs to be out of it for a while, if we're to get anywhere in this matter."
"Kate, what is it you're not telling me?" I asked, suddenly aware that my friend's face had assumed a worried, concerned look.
"David, look at him. Look really closely. Can't you see what's happening?"
I did as she asked and looked intently at the shaking figure of William Forbes. As I did so, I became aware of exactly what Kate was getting at.
"He looks different," I gasped in surprise, as the face of the man in my office chair appeared to visibly alter before my eyes. His brow had narrowed, and now presented itself with deep furrows and creases evident. His eyes, already sunken into his head through what I'd presumed to be fear, now bore a feral look and blazed with an intensity that sent a shiver down my spine. Even his mouth appeared smaller. His lips appeared pinched with his teeth showing as yellow and uneven; whereas, I could swear that the night before he'd possessed a perfect set of pearly white ones.
"Jesus Christ," I shouted as I realised what was taking place. "He's changing! What the hell is he becoming, Kate?"
"I don't know, David, at leas
t not yet, but we have to sedate him. We must keep whatever it is that's inside him quiet and at bay until we figure out what's happening. He could be highly, extremely dangerous if we don't know what we're dealing with."
"Come on then. Let's not waste time," I urged as, together, Kate and I lifted the still shaking and trembling figure of William Forbes from the chair and, with his feet dragging along the carpeted floor, we managed to struggle through to the sitting room where we deposited the almost dead weight of his now writhing body onto the sofa. Forbes appeared to be struggling and failing to hold his own in a fight against something that attacked his total internal being. His head thrashed from side to side and his arms began to flail around, as though attempting to push some unseen attacker away. His breathing was rapid and panic-stricken, and I placed a hand on his chest and could almost feel his heart trying to burst through his rib cage; so fast had his heart rate become.
"David, the sedative! Quickly man."
Leaving Kate with him for no more than a few seconds, I dashed to my room and grabbed my medical bag. As I returned to the living room, a terrible maniacal laughter suddenly burst from the lips of the man on the sofa.
"Hurry, man, hurry. Look at him" Kate urged, a hint of desperation creeping into her normally controlled and even voice.
Rushing to the sofa I looked down at Forbes, lying there with that awful sound issuing from his lips. In addition to the terrible, unearthly sound of that laughter, I was stunned by what I saw.
"Kate, what the hell's going on? His eyes ... "
"I know, hurry, David, the sedative, now!"
I quickly pulled his sleeve up and plunged the needle into his arm. Within seconds of doing so, William Forbes fell silent and his eyes began to close. I looked one more time at those eyes before they finally closed. I hadn't been mistaken. William Forbes possessed brown eyes, of that I was certain. Before he'd fallen into the drug-induced slumber, however, I'd seen them change from their normal appearance as they'd become engorged with blood, until all that peered out from his eye sockets were two, blood-red orbs that could only have had their origins in Hell itself.
I stood back from the sofa, looked down, and realised that my own hands were shaking. I looked at Kate. Her face registered the shock we both shared at what we'd just witnessed.
"Kate, what the hell just happened here?" My voice trembled.
"David, my dear, dear boy. I don't know. I really don't bloody well know!"
That was when I first saw the tears running down her face.
"Whatever it is, I do believe we are all in terrible danger," she said before collapsing into the computer chair, deep worry lines furrowing her brow."
"Was it the aura?" I asked, trying to find some reason for the manifestation we'd just seen.
"David, I meant what I just said. I have no idea what the heck we've just seen, but an aura couldn't possibly manifest itself in such a grotesquely physical form, I'm sure. I can only hope that whatever it was, it somehow dissipates before he wakes up."
"Do you have any other friends who might be able to help us?"
"David, I've never in my life seen anything like this before, and I can assure you that none of my friends or colleagues have either. This is something so unearthly that I have no words to describe it, no words of comfort to offer to you or myself."I paused, my mind racing as it tried to compute the mass of thoughts, both logical and illogical, that ran through it in mere milliseconds. When I spoke again, I almost feared to utter the words that came from my own mouth.
"Kate, do you really think that the spirit, the essence or whatever, of Jack the Ripper just materialised within the body of Forbes, right here, before our eyes?"
Kate Goddard's eyes fell to the floor, unable to look directly back in my direction. She sat there silently as Forbes lay, breathing deeply in his sleep, and I stood staring at her. Finally, wordlessly, she gave a gentle nod of her head, and I shivered. Whatever warmth had existed in the room a few seconds earlier had deserted me, and I felt tendrils of fear and panic rise within me as the stench of the grave filled my nostrils, and the terror, that had previously belonged exclusively to William Forbes, reached deep within me and took a firm hold of my soul.
Chapter Twenty-four
A Walk on the Wild Side
Despite the early hour, I poured Kate a large gin and tonic, and myself, an unusually large Napoleon brandy. Recent events certainly justified the large measures. The two of us sat, quietly stunned, in front of the unlit log fire in my sitting room. The lack of warmth, and the absence of the fire's comforting glow, added to the all-pervading chill that had crept into my home as we attempted to make sense of what had just taken place. Forbes continued to sleep, deeply, on the sofa. I'd assured Kate that the large injection of sedative I'd given him would keep him out for hours.
"I have to admit, I'm bloody scared, Kate," I said as I drained my glass and quickly poured myself another.
"You wouldn't be human if you weren't," Kate acknowledged. "I'm pretty shaken up myself, and I've seen a few things in my time, believe me."
"That, that thing in there, is it still William Forbes, or has he become something inhuman, possessed by something we still don't understand?"
"I hope to god he is still William Forbes," Kate replied. "My own theory, and it's based on no real evidence, David, so don't quote me on it, is that William Forbes is still there, lying on the sofa, but that there is something else lying there with him, in him, in fact."
"Wait a minute. Didn't he say to us once that Jack the Ripper was inside him? Could that be it, Kate?"
"Look, David, we're staring straight into the unknown here. I'm sure you began this whole thing thinking that Forbes was a bit of a wacko, a man who'd come too close to a serial killer and who couldn't handle some of the stuff he'd learned from Reid, am I correct?"
"Spot on, actually," I replied. "I thought he'd come up here, and that I would be able to listen to him and offer some advice on how to clear his mind of the preoccupations he'd developed, and send him home feeling refreshed and relieved. Instead, all of his nightmares have somehow become mine and yours too, and we seem to be dealing with a real case of some kind of evil manifestation."
"Demonic possession, perhaps," said Kate, thinking aloud rather than in reply to my words.
"I've heard of such things, though I never gave them much credence, at least not until now. You think that's what we just witnessed?"
"David, we won't really know much more until Forbes wakes up. What I do know is that the change in him appeared to begin as soon as the tune stopped. It was as if the music reached into him and triggered a response."
"Yes, and what a response! Those eyes, Kate. They looked hellish. Could that really have been blood that we saw filling his eye sockets?"
"It looked like blood to me."
"But, how could such a thing happen?"
"I don't know, but let's go take a closer look at William. He's fast asleep, so it should be safe enough."
I followed Kate as she rose and, together, we approached the supine form of Forbes as he slept sonorously on the sofa. Sure enough, trickles of what could only be blood were evident, trickling from the sides of his closed eyelids. Slowly and gently, I lifted one eyelid; my intention being to confirm or deny the presence of those awful, blood-filled orbs we'd so recently recoiled from.
"Kate, look!"
Kate joined me as we looked into Forbes's right eye. The redness was there, but was no longer as intense, and the eye gave us the impression of being severely bloodshot.
"Certainly not what we saw earlier," Kate confirmed.
I thought hard for a moment before speaking once again.
"Blood vessels," I said.
"Pardon?"
"Burst blood vessels, Kate. That's what I think happened earlier. Something caused the blood vessels in the eyes to rupture, causing an immediate and immensely frightening reaction for anyone witnessing it. It had to be a very severe reaction for the eyes to appear filled
with blood the way they did. Every single blood vessel must have burst simultaneously and yet, now, just a short time later, they appear to be repairing themselves and, if I'm not mistaken, in a few hours Forbes's eyes will have returned to normal. Only an intense shock to his system could possibly have caused such a thing to happen. It's almost as if his optical senses suffered from a great shock that his ocular nerves couldn't contend with."
"You mean he saw something that his eyes refused to believe, or that caused such mental anguish in him that his brain simply told his eyes to shut down, or that caused the blood vessels to burst to prevent him from seeing whatever had induced the terror?"
"Maybe, I'm not sure if such a thing could happen, but there's still so much about the human brain we've yet to learn."
"And yet, I saw nothing, David, did you?"
"No, nothing at all, apart from Forbes going into that terrible seizure of fear, and the apparent changes in his facial appearance and, of course, his eyes."
"Do you have any thoughts on the way his face seemed to change? Is that medically possible?"
"No, of course not. No one can change their appearance like that. We are all born with our inherited physical characteristics and, apart from surgical intervention through plastic surgery, for example, we just can't go around changing our facial appearance at will."
"He looks pretty normal now," Kate asserted, looking closely at the sleeping man. "Could we both have hallucinated and imagined the change in his face?"
"What? Both of us at the same time? I doubt it. No, something eerily strange happened to him and to us, Kate. I don't mind admitting I'm pretty scared right now. I'm really and truly sorry I called you and got you caught up in all this."
"Oh, come now, David, dear boy. There's no need to apologise. This is the most interesting phenomenon I've ever had the opportunity to encounter and examine at close quarters. This could be the first time anyone has seen anything like this and, just think, what a report I'll be able to write at the conclusion of it all. I wouldn't have missed this for the world!"