Revenge Painted Red

Revenge Painted Red

The Diary of Haelie Dugan

                You’re on vacation in England, walking the same paths which held so many of the gruesome “Jack the Ripper” murders.  It’s dark in the small alleyways, too dark to see anything beyond a foot in front of you, so you flick on your flashlight.  You notice, in a wall kept in impeccable shape, one brick that seems different from the uniformity of the others.  Overwhelmed with curiosity, you pull out the brick, to find an old eight by four, leather-bound, diary.  You dust off the cover to reveal that it was written by a girl named Haelie Dugan.  You sit down, leaning against the old brick wall, and begin to read…

        October 23, 1888

Dear Diary,

          My name is Haelie V. Dugan, I am seventeen years of age and I am currently living in Whitechapel, England.  Now, I have not ever kept a diary in my life, but I feel like I need to now.  Why do I need to?  Why am I writing all of this? Well, allow me to answer my first question.  My older sister Stephanie Dugan worked as a prostitute, to pay for our cost of living, and for me to attend a finishing school, to carve a more ‘Honorable’ name for our family.  I received a letter from the police department while I was at the school, urging me to return home, to identify what they believed to be my sister’s body; to my dismay…they were right.  My sister, who I had looked up to since the day I was born, and even more when our parents died, had been murdered by Jack the Ripper.  I swear on all that I have ever held dear, that I will have my revenge.  However, if you are reading this…than I have failed.  I beg you, use any information that I have collected to bring my sister’s…and apparently my, killer to justice.

       October 24, 1888

Dear Diary,

          I have successfully dropped out of finishing school, so that I may be free to pursue the Ripper.  The current time is 19:07 o’clock and the skies are almost dark.  I am wearing a black cloak, so that I may steak out the alley ways without being to awfully distinguishable from the average person walking through the alley, with my candle lighting my way.  Not dressed as a prostitute, I have no worries of being murdered; the Ripper would merely write me off as a wonderer, or perhaps having some relation to the now-rampant, underground opium trade.  The prostitutes that were frequently visible were few and far between tonight, perhaps because of my sister’s recent death, but that only makes the feel of death more prevalent on the air.  I’ve returned home, I must’ve spent hours searching for the lout, but I had no luck, and no leads.

       October 25, 1888

Dear Diary,

          It has begun to snow for the first time since March, and I am once again dressed in my cloak, clutching my candle as I watch men coming and going from the Alley ways, usually happier when they emerge then when they went in; in short, the prostitutes have returned tonight.  I enter the labyrinth-like alley ways and begin to walk aimlessly, being eyed scrupulously by the other Alley-goers.  The further into the dark abyss I go, the less people there are to be found.  I’ve been walking for some time now, and am all alone, thinking of turning back for as the way things are tonight, it doesn’t seem as though I’ll be seeing anymore of lady-luck than I did yesterday.  Just as I begin to turn back, I see a shadow, no, the silhouette of a man looking at me.  I am now running after him, so forgive me if my writing becomes a bit sloppy.  He tears down a corner, but by the time I reach it, he is nowhere to be found.

 I return home, more confident now than I was last night.  The ripper is extremely fast, so I have little hope of chasing him; so on the morrow, I must use a new idea, one which will lure Jack the Ripper right to me.