Тим Леббон - New Fears 2 - Brand New Horror Stories by Masters of the Macabre

“What do you mean by evil?” I asked. “I shan’t leave without answers.”

The psychometrist regarded me with his small, wet eyes. “That typewriter belonged to Emory Grist. That’s all I can tell you. Now please… leave!”

That name, Emory Grist, was familiar to me. I pondered it on the bus ride home, but couldn’t place it—one of those annoying tip-of-the-tongue things. Evelyn would know, but she was sleeping by the time I arrived home, so I didn’t disturb her. I waited until the following day at work and asked Watkins.

“Leather Apron strikes again,” Watkins said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“That was the headline in the Evening Standard ,” Watkins said. “April of 1910, I believe. Emory Grist killed six women in Whitechapel in the space of three weeks. Cut their throats in two places, from left to right, and disembowelled them too. The similarities to Leather Apron—also known as Jack the Ripper—were so remarkable that many people believed Grist and the Ripper were one and the same.”

My heart dropped in my chest. I shook my head and took a deep breath.

“Grist killed himself in a house fire as the police were closing in,” Watkins continued. “To this day nobody knows if he truly was the Ripper.”

“House fire,” I said vaguely, recalling the scorch marks on the typewriter’s body.

“Then there were the letters,” Watkins said.

“The letters?”

“From Hell.” Watkins grinned and rubbed his chin. “In 1888 someone purporting to be Jack the Ripper sent a letter to the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. The communication was badly misspelled—deliberately, some scholars believe—and accompanied by a portion of human kidney. The address in the top corner read simply, ‘From Hell.’ Twenty-two years later, Emory Grist did something eerily similar. The only notable differences were that his letters were sent to Scotland Yard, and they weren’t handwritten… they were typed.”

Watkins made typing gestures with his fingers.

“Of course,” I said, feeling woozy.

“Which reminds me,” Watkins said. “What did old Pringle say about your—” And then his mouth closed with a little snap and his eyebrows knitted neatly in the middle of his forehead. I could almost hear the proverbial penny drop.

I walked away from his desk and avoided him for the rest of the day.

Returning home that evening, I brimmed with resolve to jettison the typewriter. My plan was to put it in a sack and throw it in the Thames. However, when I walked into the back room and laid my hands on the machine, I had a sudden change of heart. I found myself caressing its keytop and platen. Same the following evening, and the evening after that. Much as I knew I should, I just couldn’t bring myself to part with it.

It would appear that it has quite a hold on me.

Wednesday 24th June 1964

So many bad dreams. Click-clack-ding! Click-clack-ding! Last night was the worst yet, and the violent imagery still pours through my head. Far too disturbing to commit to paper. I’ll keep it in my head and hope it fades.

Thursday 25th June 1964

Drummond has requested I shave. And bathe. He insists my shabby-genteel image is not appropriate for the workplace. I imagined plunging my dividers into his left eye. Ding!

Monday 29th June 1964

I stopped at Temple’s Bric-à-Brac on the way home, fully intending to ask if he would take the typewriter off my hands. He could have it for free, if he was willing to come and collect it.

I couldn’t do it, though. I stammered like a moron and Temple looked at me through one eye, but the offer wouldn’t spill from my lips. Instead I purchased a ceremonial Japanese samurai sword. The blade is a little rusty, but I’m sure it’ll sharpen nicely.

Tuesday 30th June 1964

Many tears tonight. Not from me, but from Evelyn and the children. They are all sleeping now and their bags are packed. They leave for Liverpool tomorrow.

The window rattles, but the sound of the whetstone along the blade is very comforting.

Wenzday 1st Juli 1964

I mad some poetry for a whil and lookd in mirror and saw the crack. Then I got my samri sord and went upstares and there was Evelyn sleping in the bed like an angel. I thoht I could kep her and stop her from leeving if I cut her into peeses and put her in a nise littel box. Then the windo ratteld a sound like clik and clack and clik and Evelyn waked up and saw me and screemed. I tryed to cut her in half with the sord. I think I cut somethin bekuase there was some blood but not much and Evelyn throw the lamp at me the fucken bitch. She run from the bedroom and down the landin and I chayse her with my sord. She gos to kiddys bedroom and slams the door and bloks it with somethin I think a chare. I could here them all cryin and screeming. I try to brake down the door and evn used my nise sord but I couldnt brake it. I needed somethin hevvy so went downstares and got my typewryter which I luv. I carry it back upstares and use it on the door wam and bam and crak and yes the door brake open but wen I lok inside the windo is open and Evelyn the fucken bitch is gone and tak the kiddles with her. I think she gos to Livrpol but she left her bags. Mayb she come bak. The windos still rattel and I lik the way they go clik and clak and ding.

Friday 3rd July 1964

The police are looking for me. My picture adorns the Evening Standard , along with a warning that I am extremely danjerous and not to be approached. I think they will be looking for some time, though. I have effected a disguise by shaving my hed bald and trimming my beard into a neat goatee. I look very different from the man I used to be.

I feel different, two.

I write this—my final dire entry—from the Ten Bells in Whitechapel. It is late, and the pub is crowded with merrymakers. Some rabblesome men, and a bounty of young women—pale and frajile, all.

So many shadows outside. So many places untouched by streetlight.

I think I’ll linger here a whil, with my samri sord conceeled inside my long koat. I rather like these crooked streets. It feels like hell.

In fact, it feels lik coming home.

It was abandoned, the clapboard peeling and splintered, but practically a mansion. And surely, thought Lars, warmer than the outside. No wind anyway. The front door was padlocked and the windows boarded, but it didn’t take long to find the place where the boards only looked nailed down and the shards of glass had been picked out of a window frame. The place where, with a minimum of effort, he could wriggle his way through and inside.

But of course that place meant that someone had arrived before him, and might still be inside. He didn’t mind sharing—it was a big enough house that there was plenty of it to go around—but would they ?

“Hello?” he called softly into the darkened building. When there was no answer, he pushed his duffle bag through the gap and wormed his way in after it.

He waited for his eyes to adjust, but even after a few minutes had passed all he saw were odd thin grey stripes, floating in the air around him. Eventually, he divined these to be the joins between the boards nailed over the windows, letting the slightest hint of light in.

He felt around with one gloved hand, but the floor seemed bare. No rubbish, no sign of habitation—which meant that whoever had been here hadn’t stayed long or perhaps, like him, had just arrived.