by S A Falconi
Donaghue peered around the corner, glancing down the first corridor before gazing down the second. Nothing. He inched his way off the landing and quietly proceeded down the first corridor. The room numbers began with 221 and increased. He turned to head down the second corridor. With no windows or any sources of light, the corridor was cloaked in darkness. He took each step carefully as he did when they descended the abandoned mineshaft. Donaghue glanced at the room numbers etched on each door as they proceeded.
219
217
215
The jangle of a door knob twisting came from behind them. Donaghue spun on his heel, aiming his revolver at the source. A haggard miner opened the door, saw Donaghue with his weapon drawn, and slammed the door. An echo resonated down each corridor dully.
Donaghue sighed with relief.
Another door knob sounded, this one from the opposite direction. Donaghue spun again, aiming his revolver as before. The door three spaces down from where they stood slowly inched open. Donaghue waited, fingertip kissing the trigger. Just one inch of flesh, that’s all he needed to see to take the Ripper down. But no one emerged. Donaghue and Kraus waited several more seconds before Donaghue inched his way forward again.
213
211
The open doorway was just a few feet in front him, but he couldn’t see within. Ever so quietly, he shuffled along the wall as he motioned for Kraus to maintain a safe distance. With the agility of wild game, Donaghue pounced in front of the open doorway with his revolver poised. The room was empty though, the only sign of human presence the disheveled bed alongside the wall. He stepped forward, entering the room. The door suddenly crashed into Donaghue’s hands and face with such force that he would’ve shot himself in the head had he not tumbled backward into the dark corridor.
“Pete!” Kraus yelped, watching his associate tumble to the floor with a mighty thud.
Donaghue’s revolver evaded his grasp and landed on the floor a few feet to his right. The door burst open again, revealing the heinous form of Perry Grafton, the infamous immortal man. Donaghue rolled to his right and grasped his revolver as Grafton tore off down the corridor.
BANG! Donaghue fired at the evading shadow but the bullet tore into the wall nearby.
BANG! Donaghue fired again, but Grafton dodged to the right just as the bullet skirted by.
Donaghue pulled the hammer back again, but before he could fire, Grafton had already disappeared through a doorway and down the side staircase.
“Go get the sheriff!” Donaghue barked at Kraus as he stood and ran down the corridor.
As Donaghue thundered down the hallway, Kraus was momentarily paralyzed by shock. Just as Donaghue ripped the door open to race down the side stairwell, Kraus’ paralysis subsided and he bounded down the corridor toward the main staircase.
Grafton’s thunderous boot steps echoed within the stairwell, although Donaghue was unable to lay eyes upon his adversary. The detective bounded down the stairs with his revolver ready by his side. As he veered the elbow of the case, he saw the door leading to the alley below slam shut. He leaped from the remaining flight, his boots roaring as he landed. Donaghue’s fervor beckoned him to kick the door open and race into the alley after the immortal man, but he knew better than to commit such a faux pas. Slowly, he nudged the door open and waited several moments.
BANG! Splinters flew from the door where Grafton’s bullet tore into the wood.
“Halt, Grafton!” Donaghue bellowed from within the stairwell. “Police!”
Donaghue glanced through the door quickly, expecting a bullet to tear within inches of his cheek. He saw no such thing though, just a cloud of dust dissipating in the sunlight. Donaghue ran into the alley, keeping his eyes and ears honed for any indication of assault. Nearing the far edge of the alley, he slowed and peered around the corner. A short alleyway spilled out onto a main road. Donaghue crept, knowing that Grafton could be hiding behind either corner.
“AAHHH!!!” a woman shrieked.
Donaghue sprinted again, exiting the alley just in time to see Grafton slamming the toe of his boot into the gut of a man sprawled out on the ground near his horse. The shrieking woman was just a few feet away, paralyzed from shock.
“Grafton, stop!” Donaghue shouted.
Grafton glanced back, that devilish eye of his locking on Donaghue for a moment. Donaghue raised his revolver but couldn’t force himself to shoot. Grafton was at least a hundred and fifty feet away, a distance that made Donaghue question his own marksmanship. God forbid he accidently shoot the assaulted man or the screaming woman.
“HALT!” Donaghue hollered, watching Grafton leap onto the saddle and slam his heels into the horse’s ribs.
An abrupt neigh echoed throughout the street before the stallion lunged forward and reached maximum velocity within a few strides. A cloud of dust erupted in the horse’s wake, smothering Donaghue’s view of the animal and its rider completely.
Donaghue searched the street frantically for a horse. Across the way was another inn with a stable on its left flank. Donaghue bolted across the street, the clapping of the fleeing horse’s steps growing fainter by the second. By the time Donaghue tore through the stable and mounted the first available horse, Grafton was nearly a half a mile down the avenue. Donaghue jabbed his heels against the horse’s flanks and she galloped through the stable threshold and out onto the street. Grafton’s trail of dust, although withering in the alpine breeze, made an abrupt turn to the right about a mile down the road. Donaghue leaned against the mare’s mane, feeling the animal’s muscles pulse and throb in a synchronous sequence. He’d have to cut his adversary off somehow. He had at least a half mile to gain.
The horse thundered down the street roughly two more blocks before Donaghue yanked the reigns to the right, leaning hard into the turn. The mare obliged wonderfully, losing little momentum as she hugged the corner of 7th and Sheridan. Donaghue raced down Sheridan Avenue several more blocks before cutting hard to the left down 4th Street, a prominent cloud of dust just two blocks away now. Donaghue reached into his holster, drew the revolver, and raised it above his head.
BANG! BANG! He fired, bellowing, “HALT, GRAFTON! HALT!”
But although the cloud was nearing, Donaghue’s adversary wasn’t halting in the slightest.
BANG! Donaghue heard the gunshot from ahead and dirt popped up from the ground to his left.
BANG! Another shot rang out, this one kicking the dirt just a few feet in front of his horse’s stride. The mare neighed and her stride faltered briefly as she protested the gunshot.
“Come on!” Donaghue barked, slamming his heels into her ribs until she complied.
Up ahead, Donaghue could see they were reaching the southern city limits, the dust of the avenue gradually converging into the short alpine vegetation of the valley. Grafton knew where he was going, that was certain. To where was the question though?
Donaghue pursued Grafton across the alpine valley for a quarter of an hour before Grafton finally flanked a boulder-strewn foothill and disappeared around its edge. Donaghue was still a quarter of a mile behind. When he veered the outcrop’s flank, he was forced to yank back on the reigns abruptly. The horse screamed with the jolt but was able to halt within a few feet of a steep rock wall. Donaghue glanced about quickly, surveying the landscape for any sign of Grafton. He saw none though. It was as if the immortal man simply vanished into the granite wall. Down the length of the rock wall about two hundred feet, Donaghue noticed a slight metallic glimmer. He drew his revolver again and quickly reloaded the chambers. Weapon ready, he guided the horse slowly along the rock wall toward the glimmer of light. As he neared it, he saw it wasn’t just a random glimmer of light though; it was the light bouncing off the iron lattice of a narrow-gauge rail track that penetratedthe rocky embankment. Upon turning the corner fully, Donaghue saw the mouth of a massive mineshaft.Unlike the abandoned mine outside of Georgetown, this mine was quite large, roughly twenty feet wide and fifteen feet
tall. Bulky timbers formed a threshold at the mine’s mouth, supporting the fragile exterior of the geographic abrasion. Standing just within the gaping hole was Grafton’s exhausted horse.
As Donaghue approached the mouth of the mine, he debated his approach as well as the strategy of his foe. Would Grafton simply try to flee, disappear into the wilderness unseen and unheard only to leave his sixth victim to be found in a different settlement a hundred miles away? Would Grafton lay in wait and ambush at just the right moment? Would Grafton take the impatient and aggressive approach, seeking his pursuer as vigilantly as his pursuer sought him? Donaghue recalled what the starved old man in Blackhawk said about the one-eyed man though. He said Grafton was impulsive, as bellicose as a bull. It was against his crippled nature to be patient, methodical. But that was completely contradictory to what Donaghue knew about the Ripper. If Grafton was in fact as impulsive and reckless as the old man claimed, then there would be no way that he could be as deft and invisible as he was. Recklessness would’ve caused him to be seen by someone. Even if Grafton had only fortune on his side, his luck would’ve diminished by the second or third victim. It was completely contradictory, and yet, it made perfect sense. Grafton was just the instrument of mortality. But who was the intelligence, the demented psyche that fueled the Ripper murders? Was it Walter Blackburn or Blaxton Bucked? Certainly the evidence pointed to Blackburn, but what connection to Grafton did Blackburn have?
Donaghue’s heart began to race as he passed through the mine’s threshold. He proceeded alongside the ore cart rail line with the hope that his vision would quickly acclimate to the impending darkness. That weight of futility in his gut seemed to swell though the deeper into the mine he went. His sense of survival and self-preservation shrieked at him to turn back, to wait for backup and proper equipment to arrive before descending into the maelstrom. But his sense of courage and determination falsely soothed him, baited him to press onward.
He was at least one hundred feet into the mine and still the light of day was able to illuminate the depths enough for him to see faint shades and outlines. The outline of the ore cart rail made an abrupt turn to the left down a steeper, narrower corridor void entirely of light. Donaghue kept his revolver poised as he followed the bend in the iron lattice and penetrated the pitch black tunnel.
WHACK!
The metallic spade smashed into the back of Donaghue’s skull and immediately knocked him senseless. Donaghue didn’t even stagger; he just crumpled to the ground effortlessly. Looming over him, spade gripped tightly in hand was Perry Grafton. His lone eye stared into the darkness, sensing the unconscious form of his pursuer on the ground before him. His arm muscles tensed, and without so much as a second thought, he raised the spade to make one final, fatal strike. A hand fell compassionately on his shoulder though, and he lowered the spade obediently.
“Not yet,” a voice in the darkness cooed. It was the voice he’d come to know, trust, and love. The voice of the only being that’d accepted him for who he now was. “Not just yet,” she whispered.
XVII.
Donaghue’s head split with the ferocity of the worst hangover imaginable. Not only could he not recall anything that had happened recently, but he also couldn’t open his eyes without feeling as though a prospector was driving a pick axe persistently into his face. He was utterly disoriented, every one of his senses tingling with ineptitude. An intense wave of nausea was next to strike, wrenching his guts in what seemed like every imagineable direction. He couldn’t help but lean to the side and heave fruitlessly. Every wretch he made forced that throb in his head to magnify, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop heaving. One just seemed to lead to the other.
On his fifth heave, a pail of frigid water was dumped over his head, paralyzing his body and senses save for his screams of blind fright. Where in God’s name was he? Who had done this to him? When the shock of the icy water subsided, Donaghue attempted to move again. His hands were met quickly with restraint though, the coarse weave of a heavy rope cutting into his wrists with every budge.
Finally, he drew the courage to overcome the throbbing in his head and opened his eyes. His lids fluttered at first, a glare of flamelight causing the pain in his skull to pulsate once again. But his eyes were quick to overcome the sensational shock, and soon his vision began to clarify. He appeared to be in a dank, stone corridor. Several torches flared eerily, refracting orange and yellow glares of light off the fractured angles of the rock walls. He was sitting on the ground with his back perched up against the far wall, an iron trelice before him that appeared to run the length of the granite corridor.
“Step back,” a voice muttered, contradictorally soft in comparison to the harshness of the rest of the scene.
A looming figure backed away from Donaghue, ill-defined at first but growing in clarity as it moved farther away. As the light of the torches began to wash over the figure’s expression, Donaghue’s last memories began to slowly reappear in his psyche – the inn, the pursuit on horseback, the invisible mine and that tremondous blast of light that briefly filled his vision before he passed out. And as everyone had said, there was no forgetting that devilish expression. Standing before him was none other than Perry Grafton, the immortal man. Donaghue could see the stark contrast of Grafton’s face. The right side was completely normal, perhaps even handsome a year before. The left side though was nothing more than a blob of wrinkled, indistinguishable flesh. A crater in what once was his cheekbone revealed the entrance of the infamous iron tamping rod. The exit atop his head was revealed by a similar identation, a patch entirely void of hair. As for the missing eye, Grafton no longer wore the patch he’d grown accustomed to donning in public. There, just above the crater in his cheek, was the shriveled cavity that was once home to his eye. People were right – Perry Grafton was a monster.
“Why do you stare at him with such disgust?” the soothing voice uttered.
Donaghue’s gaze broke and his eyes slowly trailed over to the source of the gentle voice. A gasp involuntarily crept from his mouth when he laid his eyes upon her. It was Anabeth Bucke.
“It’s you?” Donaghue muttered, “You’re the Ripper?”
Mrs. Bucke grinned, the light of the torches illuminating her face like a jack-o-lantern.
“Why so surprised, Detective Donaghue? Is it because women are capable of nothing more than homemaking and childbirth?”
“Dona …” he uttered. “How do you know my name?”
“Oh, goodness!” Mrs. Bucke blurted, “The things I know about you, Detective Peter Donaghue! My, my, I don’t quite know where to begin. Well, I suppose a few months back is appropriate, seeing as that’s when this really all began.”
“Began?” Donaghue grumbled.
“Why yes!” she answered. “As I’m sure you might’ve discovered, I’ve taken a particular liking for the world’s … strays if you will. Take for instance Mr. Grafton over there. Transformed into a stray by one strike of blind fate – sorry Perry, no pun intended with that.” She gaze a queer wink to her disfigured companion before continuing, “As I was saying, I have a fondness for those that humanity derides – cripples on occasion, but mainly harlots. Why do you suppose I have a particular liking for prostitutes, Detective Donaghue? It’s because my wretch of a husband would rather have their company than mine. In my mind, if I can rid the world of whores, then my husband will have no choice but to seek my company again.”
Donaghue interjected, “So you mutilated those women because you’re husband hates you?”
“NO!” Mrs. Bucke blurted. “Not initially at least. Initially, I just wanted to help those poor lost souls dragged into the hell of prostitution. I’m a woman of means, Detective, so perhaps if I shared my means they too could become respectable women again. But you see, giving a whore means is as pointless as teaching an Injun to read, because that which pollutes their being still remains within them. And until you rid the body of that which pollutes, you’ll never transform the being fr
om evil to good completely. Are you following me so far?”
Donaghue nodded, the shock of the entire ordeal causing his mind to spin out of control.
Mrs. Bucke continued, “The wombs, Detective, they are the source of women’s pollution. Now, we’re all taught to believe that the womb is the source of life, the source of good, and that is true so long as the womb does not become infected by evil. But when the womb becomes infected by evil, such as that obtained through prostitution, the only way to rid the body of the infection is to extract that which is infected. And so, I taught myself some fine surgical skills on swine first before advancing on to human patients.”
Donaghue stammered, “Wh-wh-what do you do with them?”
“Burn them of course! It’s the most liberating sensation in the world, Detective. A yoke of the world’s mass lifted off the shoulders. Imagine being so tainted, so tarnished that you feel as though you are the Black Plague reincarnate, and suddenly that feeling is whisked away. That is what I did for my girls. That arrogant brute Billing had the audacity to call me a murderer – the Ripper – ” she shook her head, a scowl emerging on her face, “when all I did was save those girls from themselves. I freed them, Detective, and your ex-wife was my first.”
Donaghue’s gut lurched at the mention of Molly and his muscles pulsed with anger.
“That’s right, Detective. Molly was my first. As I said before, I know more about you than you ever knew about yourself. Molly told me everything. How you were a drunk, a womanizer, a lying fiend that cared for nothing and nobody except himself. You are my husband, Detective, and that’s why I knew I had to save her from you. I had to protect her from the pain that my bastard of a husband caused me. ‘Cause in the end, all men are the same – even that dilapidated mongrel over there. You cower at the sight of him, when in reality you’re all as ugly on the inside as he is on the outside. And I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you and that perverted head shrinker get in my way!”