Remaining patient, Jack squats behind trash, roaches, and rat feces. Craning his head, he hears an unfortunate soul walk down the alley- his ally. High-heeled shoes reverberate off the buildings looming over the stranger. Cheap perfume encloses around Jack’s shadowed body. Extracting his handkerchief and holding his breath, he watches her shadow shrinking against the opposite wall. Once her calf comes into view, Jack lunges out from the shadows covering her muffled screams with a handkerchief dipped in ether. The women’s body goes limp in Jack's arms in a matter of seconds, glancing around the corner he quickly carries her body back home.
Roaming the world at night like a masked vampire, Jack dashes under London’s streetlights- under a bright full moon. Approaching the front door, he tosses the girl’s body over his left shoulder. Fiddling with the keys in the lock, while hastily glancing around for any wandering eyes. Flinging the door on its creaking hinges he steps through the doorway, silently praying the rusty hinges didn’t alert any police officials. Upon entering, his foot catches on something sending the girl’s body flying across his little apartment with a sickening thud. Throwing his hands out at the last minute he braces the fall, nose hovering above the broken dingy slates- marking up the floor.
Slowly getting up he brushes off the dirt and dust from his tattered work pants. Glancing over at the booby trap that sent him tumbling down, eyes wide, he leans forward snatching the newspaper off the wooden floor. Any trace of a smile fading. While the recognition of his studies is delightful, he notices the black-inked words sting. “Jack the Ripper has struck again!” Rolling his eyes, he closes the door behind him walking forward still reading the newspaper. “Another dead body! Who is the murderous Jack the Ripper?” The words float off the pages, swirling viciously around him, like sharks eyeing their prey. Sighing he drops the paper on the dining room table, covered in sketches of the body or medicine prescriptions. Pills lay spilled out on the floor or crushed on the table, faded letters from loved ones and old friends sit on the floor unopened with dirty footprints trampled upon them.
“They just don’t understand what I’m trying to do for the good of humankind. They want us to die young, killing us with poisons! I will show them, all these studies will show them. I WILL be known—" He collapses on the floor in a coughing fit that lasts a little longer than the last one. Pulling out his stained handkerchief, he covers his mouth catching the dots of blood spilling out. Retrieving his breath, he lies on the ground by the prostitute’s body. Gazing at the women’s body; strength and determination propel him to keep fighting. Pushing up from the musty ground, he lifts and carries her warm body into the back room. Rinsing his hands and throwing on surgical clothes, he takes a deep breath. Raising his head, closing his eyes, and whispering into the silent damp air, “Let this body hold the answers, to a remedy we desperately need. Please let me save the human race from these treacherous diseases.”
Jack begins to cut into the body scanning over to his journals, notes, and books every few moments inspecting each new body part from the original studies of the last patients before this one. After hours he collapses to the ground, letting tears streak down his face as his hands tremble in rage, fear, doubt, and guilt. Covering his sweety beat red face with bloody palms, he pulls a journal off the table, scanning the pages in vain for an answer. Time was running out, the police were looking for him and the last time they almost caught him. Eventually, luck will run out and they will find him. Time was not on his side, his heart drummed at the thought of their fists hammering against his front door. What if they find him before he finds an antidote? Would they listen and believe his research was purely for humanity?
Pushing up off the ground and cleaning up in the large rusty basin, Jack splashes water against his face, gulping down the surge of defeat- before going out into his bedroom. Under the blankets barely moving is his sick daughter. Stepping lightly on the creaky boards he checks on her temperature. Pulling his hand back abruptly at the sudden heat radiating from his 8-year-old daughters’ clammy forehead.
“Elizabeth? Elizabeth can you hear me?” She makes no sound, quickly he throws the blankets off her and rushes to the bathroom. Soaking a dingy cloth in water, he rubs it across her chest and neck.
“I will find a cure for us, I promise, no one will ever have to die like this again. I will save you, but you have to be strong for me. Can you do that? Please stay with me, please I can’t live without you!” Sobbing he clutches her closer to his chest, after a few minutes her temperature lowers, he places her back in bed. Walking into the kitchen he grabs a pewter filling it to the rim with water before scavenging for a stall loaf of bread. Returning to the bedside he tries to get her to drink and nibble some of the bread. To no avail, he sets the food next to her bedside. “I will be back soon.”
Exiting the room, he makes his way back into the back room. Wrapping up the women’s body he takes her to a large barrel. Heaving the bloodied body into the wooden barrel he shuts it before opening the front door and checking for onlookers. No one was up and around. The sun was just about to come up, painting the sky in a light-dark tone. He knew he didn’t have much time left, he rolled the barrel out and around a corner before checking a few alleyways. Stopping in front of a familiar building he had previously been watching for days, he rolled the barrel inside. Pulling out the wrapped body he began laying her down and positioning her. He spread parts of her insides around her body. Wrapping her intestines around her neck like the feathered boas. “There a woman must always look presentable even in death.”
Picking up the barrel he quickly and swiftly makes his way to the desolate canal. Smashing and tumbling, the barrel lands loudly against the water's edge, bobbing in the water causing his heart to sink deeper into his twisted gut. Scanning the area, flickers of paranoia rise behind every flickering lamp post, horse-drawn carriage, or drunken bellow. No one, yet goosebumps prickled atop his filthy skin. Watching the wooden parts of the bloodied barrel sink in the dark waters below him. He sighed feeling the weight of his actions leaving his body. Closing his eyes and tilting his head back he enjoys the morning rays touching his pale boney skin. Breathing in the air around him, his ears continue to burn scanning every noise of the city coming to life once again. His city. Glancing back down at the murky depths a thought pestered its way to the front of his brain, what if the illness was being spread by water. Could someone be poisoning everyone through the water?
“Hey what are you doing so close to the water?” Jack freezes noticing the familiar authoritative note in the sudden stranger. Slowly turning he faces the policeman, trying to steady his breathing he gives a weak smile before tugging out his bloodied handkerchief.
“I-I am just enjoying the sunrise.” Jack dabs at the sweat accumulating atop his brow before stuffing the handkerchief back in his pants pocket. The policeman furrows his brows before slowly turning back around and walking away. Calling out over his shoulder, “watch out there’s a manic loose cutting up woman, who knows when he might change his target. It’d be best to hide out till we catch the psycho.”
Jack’s blood boiled at the comment but biting his tongue, he remained calm. Soon they will be thanking him for finding a cure for everyone, soon they would praise his hard work and dedication to save their flickering lives. Besides he didn’t disrespect the women, he dressed them up for death. Glancing back at the rising sun he made his way back home to tend to his daughter before picking out the next patient. Opening his front door he wondered for the millionth time that night- if time would ever be on anyone's side. Would a day come where no one perished by the hands of a disease?
A bell tolled off in the distance marking another day for the survivors to continue "living" to continue mourning those that were left to walk alongside the reaper.
Tears threatened to spill over his bottom lashes making his way to the little shared bedroom in the back. A small frail body awaited him buried under the covers, the covers rose slower than before. When would it be his daughter's last time looking at the sunrise?
When would it be his last?
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