Innocents: A Jack the Ripper Story

Innocents

A Jack the Ripper Short Story

By Narcisse Navarre

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On a different night, in a different time, perhaps the two would have held hands, but now they just grunted and moaned like a pair of wild animals. Fingers dug into flesh, lips parted and whispers were exchanged in the dark. Moonlight bathed the alleyway in a wet sheen. Gutters sputtered rain. The stench of fish guts, curdled milk and sweat clung to my nostrils. A hungry babe cried somewhere in the tenements of George Yard. My boots sank in the muck.

The fornicators took to the act with mechanical fashion, each rutting toward a different outcome. The soldier's belly was full of cheap ale; his head hot with the prospect of emptying himself into warm flesh. The woman, at least twice his age, hiked up her skirts and bit his ear in the hopes that the young buck would soon tire. She was in pain, and her eyes looked neither up nor down. She stared fixedly at the opposite wall of the alley while her grasping hands feigned pleasure. Only liquor could dull her penance, and the woman had drunk her fill. Her wit, if not her looks, had ensnared several young men at the Angel and Crown. She had cavorted with many and earned enough for tomorrow night's romp through the pubs of Whitechapel. The breathless man currently in her clutches was her fourth customer.

The harlot's name was Martha.

I knew her well.

Her blood had flowed over my fingers more times than I cared to remember. The woman's miraculous womb took to a man's seed like fire to kindling. I had pulled out of her entrails bloody clumps that would have been children were it not for her foul medicines and toxic concoctions. Miscarriage after miscarriage had passed through my hands and dribbled into the gutter. Martha's last child had lived for a few breaths. Born without arms and a collapsed chest; the deformed creature had looked up at me with newborn eyes—already wise in their understanding of mortality.

I closed my eyes and listened. Muffled groans filled the alleyway. The scent of blood, urine, and refuse mingled until one was indistinguishable from the other. The child in my arms wheezed and drooled. Gray beady eyes bore into me, pleading for deliverance.

I fingered the scalpel in the dark. Wet my lips.

How many innocents had I reaped from Martha's belly? How many more souls would she condemn to the fires of hell? Women like her were a plague; a scourge on all that was good and decent in the world.

The soldier hooked his elbow under Martha's knee and spread her open. He thrust into her as if seeking to crawl into her womb. The woman's backside scraped roughly against the wall. A breast slipped out of her bodice. The downpour became a drizzle.

In the wake of the rain, the sticky, humid heat returned. August was London's most despicable month. Summer brought swarms of flies and rats; misery and disease. Meat rotted quickly in the abattoirs and the morgues. Few places were safe from the stench of sewage and death.

I gritted my teeth as a stray dog ambled in my direction. The mangy beast trotted past the pair and barked at the shadows where I stood. My heart battered against my ribcage. The dog tensed; bared its fangs.

Sensing that she wasn't alone, Martha rearranged her bodice and covered up her nakedness. "Hurry it up, already, I don' have all night. You're shredding me back."

"Almost there, Mattie, just a little m-more." With a final thrust and a stifled moan, the young man arched forward and spilled his seed. His hips stilled. The dog barked.