Tales of Jack the Ripper Read Online Free PDF

blood staining the walls and sheets, and for the first time he became aware of the magnificence of the human body, the organic wonder of its intricacies, and he saw Mary Kelly’s face, was stunned into reverential silence by the expression of bliss she wore—bliss, where the others had been grimacing in agony, and he knew, then, that these whores had been giving him a gift, the gift of wonder and knowledge, their gutted bodies offering up the treasures with which he had been seeking communion, saying, “This is holy, this blood, this tissue, these veins and organs, and you are right to worship them, to hold them steaming in your hands and shape them into altars where you might kneel before the miracle of the flesh,” and Faber was both grateful for and angered by this gift; grateful because his life now had a purpose, angered because the look on Mary Kelly’s face conveyed such peace, such acceptance, as if she too were receiving a gift beyond articulation, something so wondrous and fulfilling that he would never know it’s like until the day he lay on his own death-bed, and in a last burst of anger he decided to savage her face so none but he would ever know the look of ecstasy that she wore at the moment of her death, and as he touched the scalpel to her face she opened her mouth and said—
    —“Open this door at once, Wayne!” screamed Springer from outside Faber’s bedroom, then pounded against the heavy wood with his fists. The shadows danced around Faber’s bed, trailing dark viscera.
    “I love you, Father,” said Wayne, as he lowered the scalpel toward Faber’s throat—
    He knows! thought Faber. He’s known all along, why else would he cut my throat?
    Wayne did not cut Faber’s throat; instead he turned his father’s head and sliced across an artery at the base of Faber’s skull, then gently rolled his head back into place so they might look at one another.
    “Your suffering’s at an end, Father,” whispered Wayne, nearly gagging on his snot and tears. “Don’t you see? This is how I erase a thousand hurts, all the failures, all the times I disappointed everyone. I’ll always be the one who took away your suffering. You’re free of your pain, and I am my own man.”
    The shadows danced, becoming children in a circle, singing at the tops of their lungs, their voices echoing through the East End London streets: “Jack the Ripper’s dead/And lying on his bed/He cut his throat/With Sunlight Soap/Jack the Ripper’s dead!”
    “The police are on their way, Wayne,” screamed Springer, still pounding on the door.
    “It doesn’t matter now,” said Wayne, his face filling with bliss, with peace and wonder. “It’s all over.”
    “Jack the Ripper’s dead…”
    “Confess,” said the dark-cloaked figure. “Else your son has damned himself for you.”
    Drawing on his last reserves of strength, Faber tried to speak, tried to say something, anything at all, to let his son know what must be done, where the evidence could be found, but nothing emerged from his throat, nothing at all.
    “…and lying on his bed…”
    The scalpel, once gleaming, now bloodied… was it the scalpel? Faber couldn’t tell.
    “…he cut his throat/With Sunlight soap…”
    “I forgive you,” said Mary Kelly.
    “Forgive me,” said Wayne.
    My son, thought Faber; my poor, fine, damned boy.
    “…Jack the Ripper’s dead….”
     
     
     
     
     

Jack’s Little Friend
    Ramsey Campbell
     
     
    It’s afternoon when you find the box. You’re in the marshes on the verge of the Thames below London. Perhaps you live in the area, perhaps you’re visiting, on business or on holiday. You’ve been walking. You’ve passed a power station and its expressionless metallic chord, you’ve skirted a flat placid field of cows above which black smoke pumps from factory chimneys. Now reeds smear your legs with mud, and you might be proposing to turn back when you see a corner of metal protruding from the bearded mud.
    You