A short, horror-ish ficlet for the 365daysofusuk tumblr.
Don't Ask Polly
It's something you've never done in London, so it'll be, like, educational. Fun! You won't let England scare you out of it, no way, because he's just England. He's right there beside you, wearing a wool peacoat and scowling under his thatchy-straw hair that looks stiff and gelled but isn't. You know it's actually really soft.
The sun is just waning past twilight when you exit Aldgate East station, but the city lights are bright. Whitechapel these days is filled not with unsolved legends but with people and honking cars and sharp-edged, glass-fronted modern buildings, and the paved streets are lined with fresh parking stripes and gleaming bollards.
Besides, you're with a tour group, and the guide is wearing a saucy bowler and speaking with a forced Cockney accent that makes England wince.
But as you cross the high street and turn down a cobblestoned alley, you realize that your group is gone, the saucy Cockney has vanished. It's suddenly deepest night like the sun was snuffed out long ago, and everything is smothered with a smoky fog that's thick in your lungs like coal-dust.
You're nervous but you follow England as he walks slowly through alternating darkness and pools of greasy yellow light that ooze from old-fashioned gas lamps. You hear muffled, rowdy laughter coming from somewhere, and the crackling of November-dead leaves as they tumble halfheartedly past. The click, click of England's shoes on the cobblestones. The whisper of the fog against your ear.
"W- wow, you guys do this Jack the Ripper stuff up all authentic," you say in a voice that isn't shaky. Not at all.
"This is extraordinary," England breathes, his voice so full of wonder that you gape at him, but he's not looking at you. His eyes are narrowed as he stares at something down the alley, something you can't see. And for just a moment you can imagine the outline of a high-crowned beaver hat perched on his head, the shadowed swirl of black capes about his body.
A pale, staggering shape looms out of the fog. Your heart stutters until you see it's just a woman, but as she nears, you see she's ... not right. She has no color at all. She's in black and white and is grainy around the edges, like an apparition from an old, wrinkled photograph.
"Oi, likely ladssh," she slurs at you in a voice filled with gravel and gin. "Needsh a place to sleep. Oi'll do yer both fer sixpence."
There are weird dark spatters on her dress. When she gets close enough to look up at you, you see jagged edges of skin that used to be sealed, that used to cover her neck.
"Ughm," you gargle. She frowns at you and looks at England.
"Oh, sh'you, sir."
England grabs your hand and squeezes, hard. You feel better for a second, even though you know with sudden certainty what she is.
"I came down here," England says to her thickly, as if through a closed throat. "Walked the streets. Always too early or too late."
"As may be." She looks at you again with narrowed eyes, peering inside your head like she knows what you are, too. "He's the reason, then. Wunnert why I were woke up."
"What rea-?" you begin, but England cuts you off.
"Can you tell me?" he croaks at her, harsh, hopeful, and you realize this isn't a lark or a legend for him. He still feels it, still wants to know, and you'd never realized.
The - the woman scratches at what is left of her throat. "Go asks Mary. Let Polly rest, for love of all thash holy."
And she's gone, fading back into the swirls of fog. Only then does your heart start beating again, thumping so hard it makes you lightheaded. England looks up at you with wide eyes.
"Spitalfields," he says.
He's still clasping your hand, his fingers warm against your icy ones. You can't believe he's suggesting this. "But. she's a - she's a-" you begin.
"I don't know how you brought this, but you did," England whispers.
"I didn't," you say, and look away from England's pleading gaze but there's only the dark night and the whispering of the fog.
Then England starts running, pulling you along, and his cloak that isn't there whips through the black eddies of the past, flaps against your blue-jeaned thighs. You don't want to go but you don't want to let go, either, and so you run down alleys and around corners and through the fog and try to ignore the city that doesn't belong there anymore. The joke's gone too far, haha, but it's not a joke, is it? England is running with panicked desperation, croaking out "I need you, I need you with me, it'll be all right," over and over.
He drags you through a splintered doorway and pounds up creaking, narrow steps and you lose your grip on him for a second but he snatches you back, keeps you close with his warm hand and excited gaze. You stumble into a room devoid of color, a moving photograph of torn curtains and dripping black.
There's a bed, and on the bed is a body. It used to be a woman.
"Mary Kelley," England croaks. "We know what happened to you. What happened to him?"
The shape that used to be a woman lurches off the bed. Her limbs move crookedly, as if hanging from threads being worked by a drunken puppeteer. Her torso is gaping, empty. Her face has been ruined by a six- to eight-inch knife.
"America," she gurgles and reels towards you and there's nowhere to run, only a wall behind you.
"How does she know my name?" you cry, but the ghost stumbles into you - not against you but into you, your heart, colder than November, damper than fog, full of answers to questions you didn't ask. Your legs give way and you slide down the wall and drip to the floor like congealed blood.
England kneels and holds you close. "Not your name. A place. DNA, my arse. I'm sorry," he croons, and you can feel the brush of his soft hair against your cheek as you die of freaking fright. What a stupid way to go.
END.
Notes: No, America's not really dead, just scared silly. ;)
Mary Anne Chapman, aka Polly, was the first of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper. Mary Kelley was the last.
All comments, critique welcomed!