As I stood there, cold and tired from the nightmare I experienced the night before, I did my best not to look, or think, about the terror before me. My vision turned toward the bricked houses lining the filthy street of New Gate. The sun had begun to rise, giving a golden tone on the dark colored roofs of the homes. I couldn't help but notice the shadow of the Captain and his sister, dead in his arms, slowly crawl to my side. It was too much, I could not help but to look at them, both of them. I approached the Captain, and spoke.
"Captain…, Clare…, I know it's hard for you to see this," it was hard for me. I could hardly get the words to come out my mouth. After a second, I continued, my voice soft, "I…I truly am sorry…."
At first, it seemed that the Captain hadn't heard me. However, he began to turn his head. I could now see the edge of his face, the tears flowing down to the edge of his chin.
"I…I-I need a moment, Jack." His voice was cracking, and I could see the pain in his eyes. I took a step back from the two, and watched hopelessly as the Captain held the body of his now dead sister.
"I…I remember when the both of us used to head down to Victorian Harbor. You know the one, Jackie, right? Twas the one…the one that was closed down not too long ago. We both used to go down there, just the two of us, and play until the sun began to set. It was where she had first learned of her love of the ocean. We used to tell each other everything down there: our thought, our feelings…our secrets." The Captain could now no longer hold back restraint. He lifted the body of his sister off the ground and held it to himself tightly and began crying hysterically.
"Dammit, why? Why did you have to be the one to die!?" He looked toward the sky as he screamed his regrets, looking at the now rising sun.
Death is indeed a particular thing, is it not? We all are born by the same almighty being, only to live a life of pain and sorrow. The people we come to love die before our eyes, and we can do nothing but pray that they shall not burn in the depths of the inferno. And as more and more dead bodies pile around us, we begin to feel ourselves growing weaker. We know that soon, we will join the pile. Soon, we will all join the pile.
***
Now, I believe now would be the time for me to apologize. I am afraid that I have lied to all of you during the course of this story; or at lease stretched the truth. You see, when I had said that none had ever seen Francis Finrald after he had ran into the fog, that was…not quite so. After that unfortunate day at the cross of New Bread and Winterbread, the killings had stopped, and people were starting to think that Jack the Ripper was no more.
That was until the killings started again. The first started about a week after the death of Rebecca Clare. Twas as gruesome and bloody as the rest, the cuts in the usual spot; it could not have been anyone else but Jack the Ripper, whom everyone now thought to be Finrald. The killings were now coming at a faster rate, with more and more dead bodies piling up before the eyes of the people. For some strange reason, they were all women. Why this was would come to be a mystery all in its own.
A week had passed, and in that week, three victims laid dead at the hand of Jack the Ripper. I was getting annoyed by the sheer ruthlessness and stealth that such a man could possess, especially this one. For hours, I sat in my office, thinking of my next move. My office, which was inside the under budget law enforcement building, was dark, blinds closed in an effort to help me think. My desk was covered with newspapers, all stories, eyewitnesses, and theories of the murders that were taking place. I put my head down, waiting for an idea to pop into my head, when the door opened. I looked up, and saw the most beautiful, extravagant, graceful, and sensual women I had ever had the honor of meeting. Her name was Amy Esquire, my soon-to-be wife.
"Dear, you haven't been home in two days, what's wrong?" When she spoke, it felt almost like I was listening to violin. I was hard to gather my thoughts as she came closer to me. Five months engaged, and I still have not gotten used to her beauty.
"Amy, er…you, you know I have work that must be done. I still haven't even come close to figuring out how to capture—" She put her finger on my lips to stop me. The feel of her skin was almost unbearable.
"Now, Jackie, there's no reason to get so stressed over some assignment, especially one over some freak like Finrald," she shuttered at the sound of his name.
"Now, dear, we have no evidence that Finrald even did kill anyone," I had no idea why I said that. Maybe it was because I knew the truth.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that maybe the man was telling the truth when he said he had done nothing." She looked at me as if she had swallowed something awful. She obviously believed that Finrald was the murderer portrayed in the news, "Anyway, I have much more work that needs to be done, so if you would not mind—"
She stopped me again, this time not by her finger, but by crawling on my desk. She scattered my papers as her hand grasped my collar. Her other hand went through my hair, rubbing my now sweating scalp. I knew that this was wrong, that this was improper, unholy…but I still liked it.
"Now, Jackie, is it just that I don't please you anymore?" Her cheek pressed against mine as she continued, "Do I need to remind you what I can do?" She lifted her hand off my collar and began to pull down her shirt. I could do nothing, and I didn't want to. And then, as if on queue in some sort of bad love story, came in Captain Clare.
"Mr. Finrald, are you—" it was only when he got a good look at what I was doing did he stop, "Dear God! I'm sorry, Finrald, and in your office?"
"We weren't doing what you be thinking, Clare. We were just—"
"Doing what your thinking." Why did she have to interrupt?
"Amy, I think now would be an excellent time for you to leave." I looked at her as sternly as I could. It was hard to with her pretty much on top of me. However, I think I did a good job of doing so, because she was able to get the message. She got up, buttoning up her blouse as she left my office. Now it was only me and Clare.
"In you office?"
"WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" I screamed.
He was surprised by my outburst. Taken aback, it took him a second to gather his thought, "I came here to tell you that yet another murder has taken place."
"What?" I got out of my chair, "Where? Who?"
"It was Mary Carrolson. You remember her, the nice miss who used to work down by the bank. We found her in the ally right beside it. No witnesses to be seen, it was almost like Finrald just laid her there."
"Whoever it was, I would prefer that you called the murderer Jack the Ripper."
He seemed surprised by my statement, "Why do that. We all know that it was him who murdered all those people. Hell, we saw him with the dead body of…you know who," he paused. Perhaps he was troubled by the thought of his sister being no longer of the living. It seemed like the most reasonable theory, "Anyway, as if that would not be enough, the man held a gun to us. Is that not proof enough for you."
"The man held the gun to us because he was afraid of going to prison. Any reasonable man would have done the same. And you don't know if Finrald killed your sister or not; you never saw him kill her."
It took the Captain a moment to think of a rebuttal, "You are right, but I did not see him murder anyone. I was in the cathedral during the whole event. That is at lease my story. But…that still leaves you."
"Excuse me?" I asked, even though I already knew what he was asking.
"What did you see that night?"
That was what I was afraid of. I couldn't tell him what really happened. Who would believe that it was some monster that was killing all of these women? I hardly believed it myself. And I couldn't just lie to him. So, I decided to do the best thing a man could do in this sort of situation: stall.
"We can sort out that matter later. Right now, we need to be investigating that site of that murder." I had already headed out the door, Clare close behind me.
"But Jackie—"
"Now, Captain, I'll file a report on the matter later. Right now, we need to be doing our jobs," I said as I kept walking. For now, all I could do was hope that this investigation would be enough to get his mind off of what I did that night. I did not need him worrying about such when I needed him to be concentrating on the situation at hand. As we both headed out the door and headed toward Berkandale, the scene of Jack's newest victim, I began to plan how tonight's stakeout would plan out.
.
