Project Backwards; Chapter Seventeen

A Chapter by Michael Stevens

Chapter Seventeen:

Steve’s senses returned slowly, and this time he smelled something before he saw it, it was the smell of perfume. He looked around the small room he was in, and saw a man discreetly putting perfume down his pants. He glanced up and said,

“Oh, Steve, I didn’t know you were awake. You caught me; with my bath not working; this is in place of a bath.”

“Oh, sorry to hear your bath is broken. How long has it been out?”

“Two weeks.”

Two weeks without a bath? Time to change the subject. “How’s the weather in...”

“Oh, the usual London weather; foggy and raining.”

So, he at least knew where he was. He didn’t, however, recognize the man. “Thank you for letting me stay here, ahh...”

“That’s no problem; I was just going out. Make yourself at home. There’s some leftover stew on the stove. Just heat it up.”

“Stew, for breakfast?”

“Breakfast? It’s well past 11.00 at night. Don’t you remember all the beer you drank this afternoon at the horse races?”

“Nope, but I can tell I drank like a fish.”

“Yeah, a sucker fish, as in you really sucked ‘em down!”

“Where are you headed?”

“Oh, just out. I’m not sure when I’ll be back, so don’t worry.”

With that, he was gone, out into the swirling fog. Steve immediately started looking for a clue as to who this guy was. All he knew so far was the guy was a perfume-wearing scuz-bucket! Two weeks without bathing? He glanced around, but saw nothing that may help him figure out who the scuz-bucket was. He knew he shouldn’t, but he soon wandered into the guy’s bedroom. There was a desk, so he looked through the desk drawers, and found some sort of diary. He didn’t want to read it, but it was already open. He saw the name on the top of the page, which drew a blank, followed by the date (two weeks ago), and, in his shaky hand,

“Followed a soiled dove, and when she turned into an ally way, which was perfectly quiet and dark, I pounced, stabbing her over and over again. I went into a rage, taking out all my pent-up feelings of anger at being impotent. Slowly, I came out of my rage. I was sure she was she was dead, but much to my surprise, she glanced up at me, and said,

“Why?”, so I went back into my rage and stabbed her some more. I came back out of my hate-filled frenzy. This time, she must be dead, right? But no, she moved her arm. So once again I went back into a rage and stabbed he over and over. By this time, I was raging about having to go into a rage over and over, but this time she lay still. Her blood was all over me, so I quickly returned home and took a bath. After I scrubbed all the blood off, I drained the tub and tried to refill it with clean water, but all I heard was a loud banging, and no water would come out. Great, something’s wrong, and right now is not a good time for me moneywise. Maybe it’s time for me to break my own rule, and sell my story to a newspaper. They’re already referring to me as ‘Jack the Ripper’, so maybe I should cash in. No, it’s best to stay hidden. Hopefully, they’ll never figure out who I am.”

Oh, Steve would have to let the police Jack’s true identity. The diary continued,

“I’ve written letters to newspapers, but they believe they’re hoaxes. The stupid b******s don’t realize that if they put everything together, they could figure out my true identity. To be safe, I’ve used the name ‘Jack Horferer’ on this diary. Call me paranoid, but just for safety’s sake, I can’t risk this diary falling into the authorities hands.”

Oh; Steve would just go to the police and bring them back here. He put the damning diary back just the way he’d found it, and turned to leave the house. Just then, came the sound of a key in the lock, and a blood-covered Jack Horferer, or whatever his real name was, came through the door. He saw Steve, and said,

“Wow, that one put up a fight! Now, how am I supposed to get clean, with no bath? Well, I won’t worry about that until I take care of you,” he said, and came towards Steve with a bloody, dripping knife. “I’m sorry you had to see me, but it’s just your bad luck!”

Steve panicked, desperate to get away. “Get me out of here!” he screamed, and just as Jack the Ripper was raising the knife to stab forward, everything went dark.

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