TimeRipper

by D E McCluskey

  The night did indeed prove to be eventful. There were four fights, three of which were serious, involving either knives or the pewter tankards used as blunt weapons to the head. There were several people caught fornicating in the latrines around the back who had been forcibly removed, only to return again an hour or so later. Two gypsies had been caught lifting wallets and purses; a few curses were uttered while they were ejected. But all of this was just another weekend in The Ten Bells.

  It was around midnight, the room was at its fullest, and Annie was avoiding another groping by the, now fully inebriated, landlord. She was also doing her best to avoid the advances of an older gentleman, who too was in a state of advanced drunkenness, and obviously out for a ‘bit of rough.’ She had been considering allowing him some of the advances in order for her to attempt to lift his wallet, as he looked like he was good for a few bob.

  ‘You! Wench! A pint of ale, warm!’ came a shout from the other end of the bar. There stood a well-built man with a fine example of a moustache. He also looks like he’s not short of some coinage, maybe more than the old codger over there, she thought. She looked him up and down and thought that she might actually let this one do what he wanted. It’s been a while, she smiled at the thought.

  ‘Hey, slag! I’m telling you to get me a pint of ale,’ he shouted again.

  All romantic notions she had of him being a knight in shining armour were flushed away like twenty-minute-old vomit. She sighed as she sauntered towards him, flashing a forced smile. Oh, you don’t know what you’ve just lost, mate, she thought. As she poured him the pint of ale, slipping in a large deposit from the frothing drip tray, she studied his features. He was tallish, well-built, and had a foreign look about him. Mediterranean maybe. He wasn’t a bad looking type, until she got to his eyes. Wow! His eyes, she thought, scaring herself a little. They were large and dark, much darker than was the norm around here. The sparse whites were intertwined with bloodshot tendrils, giving him a slightly vampire-ish look.

  As she handed over the drink, he dropped some coins into her other hand, and as he took the handle of the tankard, their hands touched. It was only a small, light brush, but it was enough to shock both into silence.

  He snapped his hand away in a flash. His wide eyes looked at his flexing fingers, then slowly up at her. There was a moment of clarity between them; it hung there, still and timeless, until he lunged over the bar and grabbed her.

  Their eyes stared into each other’s for mere seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Images of the next four hundred years pass between them. Electricity, light bulbs in every home, cars, world wars, aeroplanes, television, computers, handheld computers, networks, portals, Slipstreams, Higgs Storm, and then right back into this pub. They both flinched, as if they had been hit, before Kosminski pushed her away. He reeled back from the bar with a wild, untamed look in his eyes.

  He seemed to sober up, instantly.

  Annie fell back against the bar, causing some of the tankards to fall off the shelf and bounce onto the floor, and a small clatter ensued as recognition descended upon her. She didn’t know how, but she knew that there was a connection between them. Could we be related? she thought, but the coincidence would have been too much for her to even consider.

  ~~~~

  When the world stopped spinning, and the thoughts in his head were not so… so what? he thought. Fantastical? Is that even a word? Kosminski regarded the woman before him. He recognised this foe for who she was, and what she was; one of the witches, and obviously a powerful one too judging by what she has just done to me. He backed away from her and away from the bar, staring in awe and disbelief, and yes, fear!

  No one else in the bar existed in that moment. A mist was settling over his eyes, it felt red. He didn’t know what colours felt like, but it felt red to him. He pulled the handle from his cane to release the long, deadly blade hidden inside. He dropped the sheath onto the floor and raised the sword. Before anyone knew what was happening, he yelled and dived at the witch. He swung the weapon with wild abandon aiming for the wicked female before him.

  Annie’s reflexes were quick, and all Kosminski hacked away at was air where a mere millisecond before, she was stood.

  The punters stopped their merriment, turning to see what this crazed lunatic was doing. If there was entertainment tonight, they all wanted a bit of it.

  ~~~~

  The landlord, seeing what was happening to one of his girls, ran to the front of the room just in time to see Annie cowering beneath the bar. She was crouched in a puddle of spilled ale while an ape of a man was attempting to jump over the bar and hack her to bits with what looked to him like a sword. He didn’t know what angered him more, that this lunatic would see fit to do this in his pub, or the pools of spilled ale. His profits would be down at this rate. A fight was normally good for business, a murder however, was not. It was not going to happen on his watch, and not to the wench that he had is greedy little eyes on either.

  With an effort, he hefted his bulk up to the bar and grabbed the attacker underneath his arms, pulling him away. Aaron Kosminski was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a small man, but the sheer size of the landlord almost dwarfed him. He was screaming and thrashing like a mad man, but the landlord subdued him easily. ‘Whoa there, guvnor, what’s all this about then?’ he asked in a tone that he used when he wanted to talk down a punter.

  ‘She’s a witch,’ he spat, pointing behind the bar where Annie was still cowering. ‘She deserves nothing better than to die, just like the others. The ones that I witnessed.’

  ‘Sir, I don’t know what you’re referring to, but make no mistake, I’ll make short work of your fucking arms if you do not cease threatening the wenches in my establishment. Do we understand each other? Do we have an agreement?’

  Kosminski calmed down as he looked at the size of his adversary, and at the excited, angry, faces of the pub’s clientele. Reluctantly, he nodded his head. The landlord released him from his grip, and he straightened his cape and the jacket beneath. He picked up the sheath from his cane, slid the blade back inside, and looked around the bar. Everyone was looking at him as if they were seeing a crazed madman.

  They don’t realise that they have a witch in their presence, he thought.

  Slowly, and with a look of terror still etched on her face, Annie stood up from behind the bar. He looked at her, and she looked back at him. He saw the fear in her face, it was etched onto her lips, and in the wrinkles on her forehead. He smirked before turning towards the exit.

  ‘Please feel free to give this establishment a wide berth from here on in, your ugly mug is persona-non-grata.’ The landlord waved his flabby arms around his head, indicating the bar around him. ‘OK, OK, the show’s over now, you wallops,’ he was now addressing the rest of his punters. ‘You can all get back to quaffing and wenching,’ he shouted with the smile back on his jowly face.

  A loud cheer went up around the bar at this announcement.

  He turned back to face the pale and shaking Annie Chapman. ‘What did you do to bring about his wrath?’

  Annie shook her head. ‘I didn’t do anything, sir. I poured him his ale and gave him his change. Then, the next thing I knew he was on the bar, as lively as you like. Calling me a witch, he was, saying I was going to die like the others. What do you think he meant?’

  The landlord shook his head. ‘I don’t know, but there’s been tell of murder around these streets the last month or so. Two birds have bitten it, and no mistake. In grizzly fashion too. I warrant it was him that did it. You best watch yourself girlie.’ He licked his lips and then held his gaze towards her low-cut dress and ample cleavage. ‘You might want to think about getting someplace near to stay tonight, with someone who could, maybe, keep you safe.’

  Annie noticed his gaze on her breasts and she quickly folded her arms across them. ‘I think I’ll be fine. I’ll find myself a nice soldier to keep me safe on my walk home.’

  The landlord pulled a disgruntled f
ace before grunting and stomping back into the room behind the bar. ‘Get back to serving, wench! You’ve got another hour to cover,’ he yelled.

  40.

  IT WAS PAST one-thirty in the morning, and Annie was exhausted, and hungry. The shock of the earlier altercation had not been lost on her, and the wariness of pulling pints all night, coupled with constantly being groped, had taken its toll on her weary bones.

  With trepidation, she left The Ten Bells pub and started her short walk home through the night air of Spitalfields. She made a point of not walking down any dark alleyways and keeping to the streetlamps and within the more densely populated areas of the streets.

  She passed by a young boy of about fifteen years of age. He was stood next to a fire he had constructed within a wheelbarrow. He was roasting and selling hot potatoes. She purchased one and continued on her way.

  The day had been warm, but the night was now cloudless and cold. She revelled in the warmth provided by the potato inside her overcoat. She arrived home without incident, looking forward to tucking into her warm meal.

  There was a man on her step.

  She could just make out his silhouette in the shadows. Stopping suddenly, she felt her heart thudding in her chest. He stood up as she neared, and Annie was ready to throw her potato at him and run.

  ‘You owe me money, Chapman,’ the man said in a menacing voice. ‘You’re behind on your rent, and I overheard that you got yourself some extra work. So, how’s about paying your poor, starving landlord, eh?’

  The relief that it was only John Evans acting on behalf of Tim Donovan, her landlord, washed over her, and she visibly relaxed. She knew she could wrap John around her little finger with a wink, and maybe flash of her cleavage. ‘John,’ she said saucily undoing the buttons of her overcoat. ‘Can’t we come to an arrangement here? You know I’m good for it.’ She took his hand and put it over one of her breasts. She could feel it trembling in her embrace. He licked his lips, his eyes flicking, greedily down her top. She smiled as his hand cupped her. ‘Can you feel my heart beating, John? It’s fast because I’ve been pulling pints all night, and my little legs are dead tired.’ She lifted her skirts to flash a little ankle and calf his way.

  With a nervous jolt, he pulled his hand away as fast as he could, ‘I’m sorry, Annie, but Tim says I can have a percentage of what I get from you. Now, I’m not really sure what that means, but it has to be a good thing. My kids are starving these days too, so I got to bring home the bacon, don’t I? I ‘ave to get the money from you. He said eight-D should cover it.’

  ‘That lousy bastard,’ she cursed, and reached inside her dress pocket for her purse.

  It wasn’t there.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ she cursed. ‘I’ve left my purse on my hook in the Bells, it’s got all my wages in it, tell Tim…’

  ‘I’ll tell Tim nothing, except that I got his money, Annie. You’re not getting in here tonight unless you got your lodging. I’m sorry, love,’ he shook his head slowly as he barred her way towards the front door of the scruffy house. His face looked pained but determined.

  ‘Prick!’ she spat before storming off, out to the street, back towards the pub.

  John watched her go, scratching his head. ‘What’s a prick?’ he asked himself before shrugging and sitting back on the stoop.

  ~~~~

  Annie was fuming with herself. She hoped that the pub was still open, so she wouldn’t have to knock the greasy landlord up from his bed. He would have his mind dead set on other, more salacious, things. She was also hoping that no one else had seen her purse and taken a liking to either it, or its contents.

  She was in luck. There was a light coming from the inside. She could see it through a small chink in the curtains. She slipped around the back and let herself in the tradesman’s entrance.

  ‘Hello, Annie.’ A voice from behind startled her into spinning around, her hand automatically covering her chest in surprise. She stumbled over a step and fell into the arms of a stranger who had been lurking in the shadows; a man she’d never seen before in her life.

  ‘I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed back here, sir,’ she said, breathlessly. ‘This is for staff only. I’ll have to ask you to make your entrance round the front of the pub,’ she said struggling to catch her breath.

  ‘I’m not here for drinks, Annie, I’ve got something for you.’ He lifted his hands, and in them, he had a black bonnet.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked casting a worried glance down at the gift. It looks like Polly’s bonnet, the one she’d bought the day she disappeared. This thought offered her no comfort.

  ‘Polly wanted me to give this to you. She wanted to let you know that she died needlessly,’ the stranger whispered.

  ‘What?’ Annie hissed.

  ‘I said, she died needlessly. All I want from you are your transponder codes. Once I have them, I’ll take you, and all your friends, safely back to twenty-two-eighty-eight. There, you’ll stand trial for your crimes, but you’ll live. How does that sound?’

  There was something about this man’s voice that didn’t sound right, but she put it to the back of her mind, there were more important things to think about.

  ‘What’s going on back here?’ a booming voice came from just inside the back door of the pub. ‘If anyone’s out here fucking again, I’ll do you both in with my bare hands.’

  Annie reluctantly drew her eyes away from the stranger and turned towards the door. Half an hour ago, she wouldn’t have believed that she could have been thankful to hear the landlord’s voice. With a smile on her face, she turned back towards the mystery man, but the smile didn’t last long.

  The man was gone!

  ‘Well, hello, love,’ the landlord crooned when he saw that Annie had returned. ‘I knew you’d be back. Come for a little of the old slap and tickle, eh?’

  ‘Something like that,’ she replied with a forced smile, trying her best to control the shake in her voice.

  ‘You look freezing, girl,’ he said, looking her up and down, licking his lips. She cringed at this scrutiny, but it was better than the chilling alternative waiting for her outside. ‘Come inside, child, I’ll keep you warm,’ he said with a silky salaciousness that made her stomach churn. She decided that inside the pub was much the better option. He held the door open, and as she passed, he pushed himself forwards so her breasts pushed along his arm. This coupled with his filthy stench made her skin crawl.

  ‘Maybe you want to earn yourself an extra shilling, maybe even two if you’re lucky,’ he said as she slipped inside the back room to the pub. She spied her purse containing her wages and hurried over to it, grabbing it and stuffing it, and its thankfully full contents into her pocket. As she did, the landlord eased his bulk into the room. She smelt him before she could see him.

  ‘So, Annie, tell me how you want to earn your extra shillings? We’ll have to be sharpish though, as the missus is still upstairs counting the takings. I’ve kept a little aside for you though.’ Unbuckling his trousers, he advanced on her.

  There was very little time to waste; she needed to act quickly. Cornered in the small room by this mammoth of a man, she felt she had two choices: either stay here and be molested by this disgusting creature or take her chances outside with the mysterious man from the future.

  Looking at the grin on the big man’s face, she decided that she would be better off taking her chances.

  The landlord’s trousers were down by his ankles now, displaying a filthy pair of yellow and grey, stained undergarments. They looked like they hadn’t been washed, or even changed, for weeks. As he attempted to slip his leg out of his trousers, she noticed he was slightly unbalanced. She lashed out an almighty kick, connecting with him right between his legs. The howl of agony was ear-shattering as she darted past him and out into the crowded bar. Even through the hubbub of the bar, she could still hear him screaming in agony as she slipped out of the front door, and onto Commercial Street.

  Say goodbye to that job, Annie,
she laughed as the cold night hit her again.

  The street was now almost deserted, and there was no sign of the mystery man anywhere. With furtive glances up and down the thoroughfare, she embarked on the five-minute walk back to her lodgings.

  She walked swiftly and soon found herself on Princelet Street. At this hour of the morning, it was all but deserted too, just a few drunken stragglers staggering towards The Ten Bells for a late drink that they couldn’t get anywhere else. She gave the revellers a wide berth as she turned onto Spelman Street. Another cursory glance back the way she had come satisfied her that there was no one following. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the gate to her lodgings; they were open, and there was no one between herself and home. She’d made it! She needed to sleep for a while before reporting back what she had seen and heard to Mary, or Carrie, first thing in the morning.

  As she reached the gate, she stopped, looking behind her.

  A shiver ran through her as she entered darkness that swamped the yard. The hackles on the back of her neck were standing on edge. She has a feeling that she wasn’t alone. She wanted to put it down to the odd experience she’d had in the bar, with the strange man, but this felt like something else. She turned around, hoping to see John Evans demanding his money, when someone grabbed her from behind and threw her, roughly onto the floor.

  A leather clad hand was over her mouth, stifling her scream. There was a noise from the yard next door, someone was using the outside privy. The wooden door banged closed, and whoever it was trudged back towards the lodgings. She wanted to cry out, to scream for help, but the hold over her mouth wouldn’t allow any noise to escape.

  Whoever it was walked off, back towards the house. A sinking feeling overcame her as she realised that there was no help coming. She lay on the cold, stone floor looking up at a clear night sky. Her eyes shifted slightly to the left, and she saw her assailant crouching over her. He was holding something in his hand, something spherical, something that she recognised but knew had no business being here in eighteen-eighty-eight.