Tales of Jack the Ripper Read Online Free PDF Page A

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