by Laird Barron
It stood up, adjusted its cloak and hat, then paused for a moment, considering something, and set its black medical bag on Faber’s bedside table. “Well then, I have to dash. Fare thee well, Jack. Confess to your son and set him free. Set us all free.”
Faber was awakened by the sound of the bedroom door opening. He looked toward the clock on the fireplace mantel.
1:45. Morning or afternoon? he wondered.
The nurse came forward and said, “I’m sorry to disturb you, Dr. Faber, but your son is here to see you. He said it was important.”
Wayne came in behind her, and Faber nearly gasped at the sight of his son.
Pale, sweaty, and shaking, with dark circles under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, but that couldn’t be because he was here only a few hours ago, wasn’t he?
“I’ll leave the two of you alone now,” said the nurse, closing the door behind her.
“I’m guessing she’ll give us about ten minutes before she wakes Springer,” said Wayne. “She actually smelled my breath before letting me come in! My God!” He looked down at his father. “I’m glad you’re awake, Father. I’ve… I’ve got something to tell you.” He sat down in Springer’s chair.
This close, Wayne looked even worse than Faber had first thought. There was a hollowness in his cheeks that reminded him of pictures he’d seen of Jews rescued from Nazi concentration camps. He looked so bad that Faber actually felt frightened for his son.
“I, uh, I finally took your advice, Father. I went down to the Methodist Church on Hyde Street Thursday night. I joined AA. I…” He pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and wiped the sweat from his face. “I haven’t had a drink in three days.”
Three days? thought Faber. He’d been unconscious for three days?
“It’s horrible,” said Wayne. “I mean, I feel like everything inside of me is going to implode for want of a drink, but I haven’t even looked at a bottle or a bar. God, it’s so hard.”
My boy, whispered Faber within himself. My good son.
Wayne rose from the chair and began pacing back and forth. The light from the bedside table cast his shadow large upon the wall, changing its shape, expanding it, contracting it, twisting it into other shapes: a cowering whore, a splatter of blood over flagstones, a stack of warm innards, a figure cloaked in black.
“The oddest thing crossed my mind when I was asked to stand up in front of the group and speak, and I tried to tell them about it but for some reason it wouldn’t come out the way I wanted it to, and then it occurred to me that I had to ask you about it first.
“Do you remember the day of Mother’s funeral? I was in my room getting dressed, and you came in and looked at me and said, ‘Don’t wear the green tie, wear the blue one—and your other good shoes.’ I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but later on—hell, for years now—it’s kept… gnawing at me. The blue tie and my other good shoes?” He stared at Faber with eyes of anguish. “We were burying my mother, your wife! What the hell difference did it make what color my tie was or what shoes I wore? Someone we both loved dearly was dead, but instead of sharing your grief with me, instead of allowing me to share my grief with you, we wasted that time on a tie and a pair of shoes!
“Why, Father? Can you tell me that?”
Unable to move his head, Faber could only stare at his son, feeling the tears form in his eyes.
He had no memory of that incident; no memory at all.
Wayne continued to pace as his shadow continued its metamorphosis: a torn section of a skirt, a crushed hat, a pair of blood-soaked white gloves. Confess, said the figure in the dark cloak as Wayne walked right through it. Set him free. Set us all free.
“It doesn’t really matter, I suppose,” said Wayne. “It’s just bothered me for all these years and I wanted you to know that. I… I do love you, Father, and I have nothing in my heart but the deepest admiration for all you’ve accomplished in your life.
“But I don’t possess your genius, your skills and abilities, your… virtue.
“Goddamn it, Father, where is your human side, your fallibility? Not once have I ever seen you… stumble… I mean stub your toe and have to let out with an impropriety!
“And just once in my life I would have liked to hear you utter the words, ‘I don’t know.’ Wayne lowered his eyes and turned away.
“A man’s worth shouldn’t be measured simply by his accomplishments, it should also be measured by the intentions in his heart, and I know that my intentions have almost always been good. That’s what makes the failures all the more disgraceful. But if nothing else, I can at least be glad that they haven’t tainted your good name.”
Tell him, said the dark-cloaked figure as Wayne once again passed through it, only this time Wayne paused, then shivered as if he’d felt another presence in the room.
Who’s there?” said Mary Kelly from behind her door at 13 Miller’s Court.
“An admirer,” Jack/Faber replied.
She opened the door just a crack and looked him over. “Well, now, ain’t’cha a fine one?” Her voice was oddly pleasant, almost musical. “A real gentleman what’s come to call on me?”
“I saw you earlier this evening at the pub, but I… well…”
“No need to explain, luv,” she said, placing a surprisingly delicate hand on his arm. “You’re what’s we call the shy type, am I right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, what says you come on in and I’ll get out the snifter I keeps for my special gentlemen friends?”
“Sounds wonderful.”
She smiled. Her teeth, though yellowed, seemed in good condition. “Come on in, then, ’fore you catch yourself a death of cold.”
Faber/Jack removed his hat and stepped in, locking the door behind him.
“Damned drafty house,” said Wayne, locking the bedroom door, then stumbling back toward Faber’s bed. “Sorry about that, Father. My legs seem to be a little unstable these days.” He sat in Springer’s chair and removed the black medical bag from the table.
“I was thinking about that day in the lab, when I caused such a scene about the animals and you put me in the corner with a book for the rest of the day. Do you remember what the book was?”
No, said Faber with his eyes. Wayne reached over and wiped away some of his father’s tears.
“It was a collection of quotes from various literary works, and the one I remembered best—in fact, it’s the only one I remember at all—was from Thoreau: ‘One true selfless act on the part of a man can erase a thousand small hurts.’”
He opened the bag and reached inside, removing a vial of morphine and a syringe.
The cloaked figure stood behind him. Speak to him, Jack; speak to him now, before it’s too late.
“I’ve never been and will never be Wayne Faber, I’ll always be your son, understand? And that’s not how I want to be remembered. I want to be remembered as having erased a thousand small hurts. All of them yours.”
Faber’s eyes widened with realization.
Wayne looked down at him. “I can see the pain in your eyes, Father. I can’t even begin to imagine the agony you’re in.”
There’s nothing, son, not a thing, no pain, I’m beyond that, dear God there’s no pain, no suffering!
Wayne tried to fill the syringe but his hands were shaking too violently and he dropped the morphine vial, which shattered as it struck the wood floor.
“Dammit!” He looked at Faber. “I’m sorry, Father.”
Sorry the place ain’t what the likes of you is accustomed to,” said Mary Kelly, brushing the dust off the small, ugly wooden table in the center of her cramped room. “But I suppose we don’t really need to have ourselves a palace for what we’s got in mind, eh?”
“Turn down the light,” he said, removing his cloak.
“Don’t’cha want a bit of a drink first?”
He smiled his most charming smile at her. “Afterward.”
“Oh, I
got a feeling about you, luv. You ain’t like all them others, is you?”
“Not at all.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and grasped the scalpel. “I don’t want to just use your body, I want to worship it.”
“Worship, is it? My, my,” she said, beginning to unbutton the front of her pathetic dress. “I thinks maybe I’ll make some noise for you.”
“I hope so,” he said, moving toward her.
The shadows on the wall of Faber’s bedroom were changing shape again, bleeding together, dancing and writhing.
“I don’t want you to hurt any longer, Father,” said Wayne, reaching into the bag again and removing the scalpel—
—which glided smoothly into Mary Kelly’s flesh, opening her skin like the petals of a blossoming flower, her blood so purely red and sacred, and she never made a sound, simply lay there on her sad bed in her pathetic room as Faber took her apart, slowly, savagely, arranging her breasts and liver on the table beside her bed, and just as he was moving up to work on her face, he saw the glistening viscera in his hands, the blood staining the walls and sheets, and for the first time he became aware of the magnificence of the human body, the organic wonder of its intricacies, and he saw Mary Kelly’s face, was stunned into reverential silence by the expression of bliss she wore—bliss, where the others had been grimacing in agony, and he knew, then, that these whores had been giving him a gift, the gift of wonder and knowledge, their gutted bodies offering up the treasures with which he had been seeking communion, saying, “This is holy, this blood, this tissue, these veins and organs, and you are right to worship them, to hold them steaming in your hands and shape them into altars where you might kneel before the miracle of the flesh,” and Faber was both grateful for and angered by this gift; grateful because his life now had a purpose, angered because the look on Mary Kelly’s face conveyed such peace, such acceptance, as if she too were receiving a gift beyond articulation, something so wondrous and fulfilling that he would never know it’s like until the day he lay on his own death-bed, and in a last burst of anger he decided to savage her face so none but he would ever know the look of ecstasy that she wore at the moment of her death, and as he touched the scalpel to her face she opened her mouth and said—
—“Open this door at once, Wayne!” screamed Springer from outside Faber’s bedroom, then pounded against the heavy wood with his fists. The shadows danced around Faber’s bed, trailing dark viscera.
“I love you, Father,” said Wayne, as he lowered the scalpel toward Faber’s throat—
He knows! thought Faber. He’s known all along, why else would he cut my throat?
Wayne did not cut Faber’s throat; instead he turned his father’s head and sliced across an artery at the base of Faber’s skull, then gently rolled his head back into place so they might look at one another.
“Your suffering’s at an end, Father,” whispered Wayne, nearly gagging on his snot and tears. “Don’t you see? This is how I erase a thousand hurts, all the failures, all the times I disappointed everyone. I’ll always be the one who took away your suffering. You’re free of your pain, and I am my own man.”
The shadows danced, becoming children in a circle, singing at the tops of their lungs, their voices echoing through the East End London streets: “Jack the Ripper’s dead/And lying on his bed/He cut his throat/With Sunlight Soap/Jack the Ripper’s dead!”
“The police are on their way, Wayne,” screamed Springer, still pounding on the door.
“It doesn’t matter now,” said Wayne, his face filling with bliss, with peace and wonder. “It’s all over.”
“Jack the Ripper’s dead…”
“Confess,” said the dark-cloaked figure. “Else your son has damned himself for you.”
Drawing on his last reserves of strength, Faber tried to speak, tried to say something, anything at all, to let his son know what must be done, where the evidence could be found, but nothing emerged from his throat, nothing at all.
“…and lying on his bed…”
The scalpel, once gleaming, now bloodied… was it the scalpel? Faber couldn’t tell.
“…he cut his throat/With Sunlight soap…”
“I forgive you,” said Mary Kelly.
“Forgive me,” said Wayne.
My son, thought Faber; my poor, fine, damned boy.
“…Jack the Ripper’s dead….”
Jack’s Little Friend
Ramsey Campbell
It’s afternoon when you find the box. You’re in the marshes on the verge of the Thames below London. Perhaps you live in the area, perhaps you’re visiting, on business or on holiday. You’ve been walking. You’ve passed a power station and its expressionless metallic chord, you’ve skirted a flat placid field of cows above which black smoke pumps from factory chimneys. Now reeds smear your legs with mud, and you might be proposing to turn back when you see a corner of metal protruding from the bearded mud.
You make your way towards it, squelching. It looks chewed by time, and you wonder how long it’s been there. Perhaps it was dumped here recently; perhaps it was thrown out by the river; possibly the Thames, belabouring and dragging the mud, uncovered the box. As the water has built the box a niche of mud so it has washed the lid, and you can make out dates scratched on the metal. They are almost a century old. It’s the dates that provoke your curiosity, and perhaps also a gesture against the dull landscape. You stoop and pick up the box, which frees itself with a gasp of mud.
Although it’s only a foot square the box is heavier than you anticipated. You skid and regain your balance. You wouldn’t be surprised if the box were made of lead. If anyone had thrown it in the river they would certainly have expected it to stay sunk. You wonder why they would have bothered to carry it to the river or to the marshes for disposal. It isn’t distinguished, except by the dates carved on the lid by an illiterate or clumsy hand—just a plain box of heavy grey metal. You read the dates:
31 / 8 / 1888
8 / 9 / 1888
30 / 9 / 1888
9 / 11 / 1888
There seems to be no pattern. It’s as if someone had been trying to work one out. But what kind of calculation would be resolved by throwing away a metal box? Bewildered though you are, that’s how you read the clues. What was happening in 1888? You think you read somewhere that expeditions were returning from Egypt around that date. Have you discovered an abandoned archaeological find? There’s one way to know. But your fingers slip off the box, which in any case is no doubt locked beneath its coat of mud, and the marsh is seeping into your shoes; so you leave off your attempts to open the lid and stumble away, carrying the box.
By the time you reach the road your excitement has drained somewhat. After all, someone could have scratched the dates on the lid last week; it could even be an understated practical joke. You don’t want to take a heavy box all the way home only to prise from its depths a piece of paper saying APRIL FOOL. So you leave the box in the grass at the side of the road and search until you find a metal bar. Sorry if I’m aborting the future of archaeology, you think, and begin to lever at the box.
But even now it’s not as easy as you thought. You’ve wedged the box and can devote all your energy to shifting the lid, but it’s fighting you. Once it yields an inch or two and then snaps shut again. It’s as if it were being held shut, like the shell of a clam. A car passes on the other side of the road and you begin to give in to a sense of absurdity, to the sight of yourself struggling to jemmy open an old box. You begin to feel like a tourist’s glimpse. Another car, on your side this time, and dust sweeps into your face. You blink and weep and cough violently, for the dust seems to have been scooped into your mouth. Then the sensation of dry crawling in your mouth recedes, and only the skin beneath your tongue feels rough. You wipe your eyes and return to the box. And then you drop the bar, for the box is wide open.
And it’s empty. The interior is as dull as the exterior. There’s nothing, except on the bottom a thin glistening coat of what looks like sa
liva but must be marsh water. You slam the lid. You memorize the dates and walk away, rolling your tongue around the floor of your mouth, which still feels thick, and grinning wryly. Perhaps the hitch-hiker or whoever finds the box will conceive a use for it.
That night you’re walking along a long dim street towards a woman. She seems to be backing away, and you can’t see her face. Suddenly, as you rush towards her, her body opens like an anemone. You plunge deep into the wet red fronds.
The dream hoods your brain for days. Perhaps it’s the pressure of work or of worry, but you find yourself becoming obsessive. In crowds you halt, thinking of the dates on the box. You’ve consulted such books as you have access to, but they didn’t help. You stare at the asymmetrical faces of the crowd. Smoke rises from their mouths or their jaws work as they drive forward, pulled along by their set eyes. Imagine asking them to help. They wouldn’t have touched the box, they would have shuffled on by, scattering their waste paper and condoms. You shake your head to dislodge the crawling thoughts. You aren’t usually so misanthropic. You’ll have to find out what those dates mean. Obviously your brain won’t give you much peace until you do.
So you ask your friend, the one who knows something about history. And your friend says, “That’s easy. They’re the dates of Jack the Ripper,” and tells you that the five murders everyone accepts as the Ripper’s work were committed on those dates. You can’t help smiling, because you’ve just had a flash of clarity: of course you must have recognized the dates subconsciously from having read them somewhere; and the recognition was the source of your dream. Then your friend says, “Why are you interested?”