Stalking Jack the Ripper

by Kerri Maniscalco

  There, exactly where he said it’d be, was the locket from the photograph.

  I swallowed disbelief down. Turned out Mr. Robert James Lees was no fraud. How tragic Scotland Yard didn’t listen to him. Perhaps they could’ve stopped Father a long time ago. I bent closer, reading the pages of the book that were carefully left open, trying to understand the significance of the passage.

  The book was Paradise Lost by John Milton.

  Upon himself; horror and doubt distract

  His troubl’d thoughts, and from the bottom stirr

  The Hell within him, for within him Hell

  He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell

  One step no more then from himself can fly

  By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair

  That slumbered, wakes the bitter memorie

  Of what he was, what is, and what must be

  Worse; of worse deeds worse suffering must ensue.

  My eyes strayed to the underlined from Hell part, recalling the title of the letter sent from the Ripper all too clearly.

  The way it was underlined looked like slashes, angry and tormented.

  Any residual doubts I might’ve harbored about Father were gone.

  He was comparing his gruesome acts to Satan’s in Paradise Lost. What a twisted manifesto. The significance of the passage hit me at once. It was where Satan questioned his rebellion—the moment he realized Hell would always be with him, because he couldn’t escape the hell of his own mind.

  Satan would never find peace or Heaven, no matter how physically close he got, because forgiveness would always be out of reach. He could never change his mind, therefore Hell would be eternal. Acknowledging that, he turns evil into good, committing worse acts in the name of his version of “good.”

  I stared at the heart-shaped locket once belonging to Mother. Was this all for her, then? I carefully removed the glass case protecting both book and necklace. I’d not allow Father to use her as an excuse to do evil anymore. I placed the locket around my neck, feeling the comfort of it resting above my own heart.

  Unable to be near the book, I walked over to the obscenely large portrait hanging on the wall. I still hated the sadistic-looking man with the proud stance of a murderer, the bear he’d slain limp at his feet.

  I peered at the brass placard near the bottom. It was smudged with dirt. I reached over, about to scrub it off with my sleeve, when the painting lurched inward.

  I yanked my hand back, nearly jumping out of my skin.

  “What in the name of God is…” Once my heart stopped ramming against my ribs, I took a step closer. The portrait had been concealing a hidden passage.

  An ice-cold breeze blew up from the darkened stairs, lifting wayward strands of hair about my face like the serpents on Medusa’s head. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A curved stone staircase was there, waiting to be explored. Or yelling at me to turn away. It was hard to decipher what the gaping mouth was imploring.

  I stood, one foot over the threshold of the unknown, the other planted in the relative safety I knew. A terrible feeling stole over my bones, forcing them to clatter together in dread. This had to be the place where Jack the Ripper’s prizes were kept.

  Indecision clawed at me, confusing my better judgment. I stepped back, closing the portrait. I should run to Uncle’s—have him call Scotland Yard and Thomas. Then we could all descend into Hell together. Still, I made no move to leave. I studied the portrait closer, removing the smudge from the placard, then gasped.

  My hand flew to my mouth, fear taking on a whole new bodily form. His name was Jonathan Nathaniel Wadsworth the first.

  The man both my uncle and brother were named after. Clearly, Father despised his brother, but what did it mean that he’d hung his namesake up in his study, hiding something undoubtedly filled with wretched things?

  Was it a secret dig at Uncle? Blaming him for failing Mother? If the secret passage led to Hell, was it Uncle’s fault for showing Father the way?

  What sounded like a soft moan drifted from beyond the painting. I blinked. Pressing my ear against the wall, I listened harder. There was only the stillness of silence and too many secrets kept. Perhaps I was going mad. The walls couldn’t possibly be talking.

  Or perhaps another helpless victim was trapped wherever that staircase led. My heart thrashed, and my blood roared through my veins. I needed to go down there. I needed to save at least one of Father’s victims. I glanced at the clock above the mantel. It was still early. Father and Nathaniel wouldn’t be back for hours yet. Or what if… what if it was Nathaniel down there now? What if Father had trapped him?

  What a fool I’d been! I couldn’t expect Father to play by any rules. Just because he’d said he’d gone out with Nathaniel didn’t mean my brother actually left the house. He could be tied up and bleeding to death this instant.

  Without further hesitation, I pushed the painting in, then stepped onto the staircase. A whispered noise greeted me from the seemingly endless depths below.

  Someone or something was definitely down there.

  I went to gather my skirts, forgetting I wasn’t wearing a blasted dress, then almost lost my footing as I looked down in surprise. I placed one hand against the cool stone wall, allowing it to act as my guide as I drifted farther into the darkness, my feet flying as fast as they dared over unfamiliar ground.

  Grabbing an oil lamp or candle would’ve been wise. I wouldn’t dwell on that lack of foresight now. With each step downward, blackness got lighter instead of more suffocating. A lamp must have been left on for reasons I dare not know.

  I shuddered, imagining a million and one horrors about to greet me. My silk shoes raced along the stone, light as a feather as I jumped from one step to the next. I was grateful for the soundlessness they offered. I’d forgotten my boots when I left Uncle’s earlier, which seemed like a blessing now. The silken tread would give me time to secure my bearings without revealing myself.

  As I neared the end of the stairs, a warm glow reached toward me. The very idea something so inviting could herald the entrance of this pit of hell made my skin crawl. Beyond a final bend, before the room came fully into view, I paused with my back pressed against the wall, listening.

  No human noise sounded. But the soft whirl and churn of steam-driven parts quietly hissed in time to the beat of my heart. It had to be the noise I’d heard.

  Whirl-churn. Whirl-churn.

  I closed my eyes. Whatever was making that sound could only be wretched.

  Whirl-churn. Whirl-churn.

  The scent of medical elixirs and burnt flesh wafted over to my hiding place, turning my already queasy stomach. I was not anxious to have my curiosity quelled now, but if my brother was being tortured, I needed to cross that final step.

  I sucked a breath through my mouth, seeking to avoid the sickening scent as much as possible, then peeled myself off the wall. It took two tries, but I finally commanded my body to move into the room.

  Fear spread its ugly disease throughout my body like rats carrying the Black Death. A laboratory, far more sinister than anything ever dreamed up in novels, was set out before me. As in Uncle’s laboratory, shelves lined the walls, filled with specimen jars two and three deep. Unlike in my uncle’s laboratory, there did not appear to be any order to these specimens, and the wood looked half-rotten.

  I staggered back, bumping into something soft and fleshy on a shelf nearest the wall. The world stopped spinning as I flipped around and saw flesh pulled tightly over a mechanical arm, the skin crudely sewn together with large, jagged stitches.

  It was as if Father had chopped an arm off at the elbow, and replaced some of the bones in the fingers and forearm with metal before covering it with stolen skin.

  Redness surrounded the needle wounds; clearly an infection was leeching into the makeshift limb. My corset felt ten times too tight, and I swayed on my feet, suddenly gasping for breath.

  Whirl-churn. Whirl-churn.

  This co
uldn’t be real. I closed my eyes, praying when I opened them the world would right itself again. But that was a fool’s dream. I swallowed the bile rising quickly in my throat, taking in the full gore of the object I’d bumped into.

  Black squiggly lines of sepsis twisted up the monstrosity. Gray-tipped fingers twitched, the nail beds dried and receding to both metal and bone.

  Whatever Father was attempting, he’d failed with this… thing.

  Whirl-churn. Whirl-churn.

  Steam erupted from the strange device, forcing dead fingers to flex at regular intervals. I was too shocked to even cover my mouth.

  At least my heart hadn’t lost its senses; I felt its beat throughout my body, pumping so quickly I feared it’d knock me over in its mad rush to flee. Should Father or even Blackburn pop out from one of these dark corners, I’d perish on the spot.

  I slowly backed away from the mechanical flesh-covered arm, my attention steadily moving about the room, jumping from one horror to the next.

  Whirl-churn. Whirl-churn.

  Animals in specimen jars were in various states of decay, their flesh and soft tissues breaking apart in liquid hell. Crude abominations were left on tabletops throughout the room. Birds were ripped apart, placed in the mouths of dead cats, scenes of cruelty in nature displayed in sick tribute to the strong. It reminded me of a much darker version of Thomas’s personal laboratory. I stepped closer, unable to stop myself from getting a better look at the horrific creations.

  On another shelf I spied a ginger beer bottle filled with a dark crimson liquid. I picked it up, turning it one way, then the other. It had dried and coagulated to a gel. Jack made reference to it in one of his letters. He hadn’t lied.

  I exhaled, my breath puffing little white clouds in front of me. It was unbearably cold down here. I rubbed my hands over my arms, walking to a machine near the center of the room making the soft whirl-churn noise, and halted, nearly stumbling over my own feet when I saw the most sinister thing of all.

  A human heart sat under a glass case, and soft noises came from a machine lending an electrical charge to it, causing it to continue pumping.

  Pressing a hand to my mouth, I forced myself to stay calm and not gag or scream. Liquid-filled tubes ran out of the organ and over the table, toward something I couldn’t quite see without moving closer. I peered at the liquid being pushed through the heart with the transfusion apparatus; it was black as oil and stank of sulfur.

  Whirl-churn. Whirl-churn.

  I swallowed my revulsion. Father had truly lost his mind. Ghosts of his victims surrounded me, warning me to turn back, run away. Or maybe it was my own innate warning system, commanding me into that fight-or-flight state of being. But I couldn’t stop myself from inching around the table—any more than some of the slain prostitutes could resist their drink—too compelled to leave without seeing what the heart was pumping its strange life force into.

  My breath came faster, speeding my pulse along with the added oxygen coursing through my system, making me both faint and jittery at once. I could hear myself screaming, No! Turn back! RUN! But couldn’t stop moving forward.

  Whirl-churn. Whirl-churn.

  A closed wooden crate, as long and wide as a coffin, lay on the floor, tubes disappearing into it like worms burrowing into the earth. I did not want to know what that box contained. I paused, feeling the sharp tug of self-preservation dragging me back.

  But I cut it away, silencing it.

  I mustn’t reach for the lid, but knew that was impossible. I was sick with dread, knowing, somehow just knowing, what I was about to uncover and being unable to walk away without seeing the truth. I watched as my hand shakily reached down, of its own volition, and lifted the creaky lid.

  Inside the makeshift coffin lay my mother.

  Her gray flesh—a patchwork of decayed skin with pieces of new—glistened with a sheen of unnatural sweat. The skin over her jaw had rotted away, giving her a permanent sneer. Beneath the grafted skin, something bubbled with artificial life.

  Father wasn’t trying to complete a successful organ transplant. He was trying to bring Mother back from the dead—five years after.

  All the fear I’d been containing shattered like glass. I screamed, letting go of the lid and backing away, bumping into the table. The soft whirl-churn of the machines grew louder. Or maybe I was about to pass out. I covered my eyes with my hands, trying to rid myself of the image burned there. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t have done such a thing.

  No one, not even the most scientifically mad, would attempt something so ungodly. We’d been so wrong about Jack the Ripper’s motives. Even Thomas couldn’t have predicted such a thing.

  I kept trying to drag myself away, prevent my gaze from lingering on the rotten face and decayed body. But I couldn’t move. It was as if the horror was so intense it had frozen me in place. Time didn’t seem to move. Life outside of this hell didn’t exist.

  But the worst part was my emotions. I was disgusted, through and through, but part of me wanted to finish the work he’d started. I hated that piece of me, hated that I yearned for my mother back so much I’d condone this madness. Who was more a monster, my father or myself?

  I was going to be ill. I turned, finally listening to my primal instincts, and ran for the stairs. As I rounded the steps, I slammed into a mass of flesh. Warm flesh.

  It gripped me back hard and I screamed again. Only when I lifted my gaze did I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Oh, thank God,” I panted, clutching on for dear life. “It’s you.”

  Human Hand Anatomized and Preserved, 19th century

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  JACK THE RIPPER

  WADSWORTH RESIDENCE,

  BELGRAVE SQUARE

  9 NOVEMBER 1888

  “Hurry,” I urged, tugging my brother toward the staircase with the kind of super strength awarded those in the throes of deathly terror. “We must leave before Father comes back. Oh, Nathaniel. He’s done terrible things!”

  It took several moments to realize my brother wasn’t moving. He was standing, frozen in place, eyes drinking in our surroundings. I grabbed the front of his long overcoat, shaking him until his wide gaze landed on me.

  His hair was a wreck, standing out every which way, and it appeared as if he hadn’t slept in days. Dark shadows hung beneath his eyes, giving him a sunken expression. He looked no better than the corpse of our dead mother.

  Or whatever that creature was in the coffin. That abomination.

  Another shudder wracked my body, almost dropping me to my knees. I couldn’t let him see that. He’d never be the same again. Getting ahold of myself, I stood straighter, easing the boning from my ribs.

  “Nathaniel,” I said sternly, taking hold of his hand. “We must leave here at once. I’ll explain on the way to Scotland Yard. Please, let’s hurry. I do not wish to meet Father down here.”

  My brother nodded, seeming too shocked to do much more. I led him toward the stairs, our feet reaching the first blessed steps, when he stopped again.

  I turned, exasperated, unable to convey the importance of leaving swiftly. If I had to slap him unconscious and drag him up the stairs, so be it. “Nathaniel—”

  He latched onto my wrist with a viselike grip, yanking me away from the stairs and deeper into Jack the Ripper’s lair. I struggled against him, not understanding his need to be difficult, when he threw his head back and laughed.

  Gooseflesh too terrified to even erupt lurked just under my skin, tinkling with the promise of new fear. He tossed me into a chair near the corner of the room, still chuckling to himself. I blinked. My brother had never handled me so roughly before. Father must have drugged him somehow. It was the only explanation. I rubbed my lower back. A bruise was already forming where I’d hit the chair when he’d thrown me into it.

  He didn’t seem to notice. Or care.

  “Nathaniel,” I said, trying to sound as calm as possible while he paced in front of me, slapping the side of his head as if sil
encing voices only he could hear. “Once we leave, I’ll fix you a tonic. It’ll cure whatever’s ailing you. Whatever Father gave you, we’ll make better. Uncle will know precisely what to do. You have to trust me, all right? We stick together. Always. Isn’t that right?”

  Nathaniel stopped laughing, his gaze zeroing in on me with an icy precision. He lowered his hands from the side of his head before cocking it. Right then he was a predator in every sense of the word.

  “Dear, dear Sister. I’m afraid you’ve got it terribly wrong. For once, Father isn’t responsible for what’s afflicting me. This is all my doing.”

  “I don’t understand… you’ve been taking elixirs yourself?” I shuddered. “Have you… have you been abusing laudanum, too?” My brother had been under severe stress. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned to the cure-all tonic. Hallucinations weren’t unheard-of when it was taken in large doses. “It’s okay,” I said, reaching for him. “I can help you. We’ll both go to Thornbriar until you’re well.”

  Reaching his arms out to either side, he spun proudly in place. Acting as if this were all his…

  “No.” I shook my head, blinking disbelief away. It couldn’t be. Life wouldn’t be so cruel. It just wouldn’t. Tears pooled in my eyes before rushing down my face. This could not be. I was going to be sick. I lurched forward, clutching my stomach and rocking.

  Nathaniel paced in front of me, removing a concealed knife from his sleeve. It was roughly six or seven inches in length. The exact size Uncle had predicted Jack the Ripper’s weapon to be.

  He ran his fingers tenderly over the bloodstained blade, then set it on the table with the taxidermy bird being ripped apart.

  Memories of my brother saving animals, feeding them more than they could hope to eat, crying each time something died in spite of his efforts, filtered into my thoughts. The sweet boy who’d vowed to protect me against our grief-stricken father. This could not be the monster brutalizing women. I would not allow it to be. This lab was not his. These weren’t his experiments. He was not the one who’d done this to our mother.