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Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 174
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 2:14 pm: | 
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Hi Ap- well I can't really say anything except many thanks and I'm glad you are enjoying it!
Part 4:
"It does not matter," his voice spiralled and danced into me. "I can find you and come to you awake or asleep, willing or obdurate, living or dead. Do not worry yourself about such things.. -it does not matter. All that matters is that I am here.. that you are here and that I have such things to show you that no man has seen before or will ever see again."
There are walls about me.. - I can't see them but I can feel them there in the dark - crumbling, tottering, eyeless wails that leer at me from the sanctuary of their own permanence.. a yard, cramped and narrow...I don't like it here. Please, I don't like it here.
"You don't have to like it," he sighed. "But it is here in this slimy pit of despair that I have catechized and cauterized the second head of the Hydra. And you must see it. It is my wish."
It is so very easy for you to condemn me but his voice lulls the senses and dulls the judgement - and don't try and pretend even to yourselves that you would have done any different because I know otherwise...
It is early light.. dawn forges a sliver of tomorrow low in the east... a still, sepulchral shape in the corner of the yard... stretched out like a silvered, scaled sea-thing on a slab -arms laid loose beside her, legs drawn up as if for some travesty of the act of love.. she lay there, squeezed in carefully between the fence and a small flight of steps. the first, hesitant sounds of day were stirring. - men and beasts readying themselves for another struggle to survive... she had lost her struggle...
"You know what to do," he urged. "Look, observe and remember."
He must know that I am ready.. he must know that I have thought hour after hour in the darkness about what he showed me before. This time there is nothing hidden. This time, the play of his demented imagination is laid out before me like the reddened counter of a butcher's shop... her head is almost severed... just a litle strip of flesh holds it still to her outraged carcass... her blood-streaked abdomen is flayed and laid open to the sky... lumpy, greasy entrails are festooned about her shoulder like the fleshy hair of some obscene Gorgon... I cannot look any more... I know that you trust me and that you are showing me what you would reveal to others but I am not ready for this...
(VOMITS)
"You disappoint me, my friend. Is your stomach as squeamish and as tender as your fellow men? But do not tell me that I have chosen wrongly. I am never wrong. I cannot allow myself to be wrong."
"I am not ready..."
"Then when will you be ready?"
"I don't know! How can any man know when he will be able to look on that and not feel the acid and the bile surge up inside him?"
"Listen to me, you will look and you will learn. I will teach you and if you do not learn to my satisfaction, then by the time my vengeance is done you will wish that it was you laying there steaming in your own hot blood instead of her."
Even his threats were quiet - soft as a sleeping baby breathing gently against my neck.
"Look for me when you least expect me.. and learn to please me better..."
I felt his darkness lift from me and I was alone again.
PAUSE
I can't sleep! I daren't sleep because I do not know what he will do to me when my mind and my will are naked and pliable. I will fight off the heaviness and the seduction of sleep... I will banish slumber with the force of my will... even my bed, my filthy, crusted, stained mattress looks so soft, so inviting. Just a little sleep, just close my eyes for a minute and let the weariness fall from me. - . no! he will come and torment me and drive me mad...but l must be mad already to have seen what I have and to have listened to his soft, wonderful, stroking voice that was velvet in the dark... close my eyes for just a few seconds and let the warm and boundless night. that lies behind our eyelids swallow me and nestle me to it.. no! I must fight...I must not sleep...
PAUSE
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Marie Finlay
Inspector
Username: Marie
Post Number: 236
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 2:48 pm: |
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This thread is amazing.
It's wonderful to have this insight into the artistic talent of those who regularly post here.
I'm loving it! |
Robert Charles Linford
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robert
Post Number: 143
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 2:56 pm: |
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Hi AP and Chris
Chris, this is fantastic stuff! I can only echo AP, you should be doing this permanently. (Only don't give up the census for Christ sake, we need you!) I shudder to think what's going to happen when you get to Kelly!
AP, glad you liked the rant. I thought I'd do an AP, AP, and make it a double event.
ENNUI
Ah me, life is tough! It's just struck the hour
And I'm feeling flat and a little bit sour.
The mayor's show as usual will be a big bore,
Needs livening up...oh look, there's a whore!
"Come on, love."
I too need livening, that is a fact.
It's weeks since I killed (well I do have some tact).
Thought that I'd give the poor coppers a rest,
But today I feel, well, a bit lacking in zest.
"Cat got your tongue?"
It isn't MY tongue you should worry about,
You horrid young ratbag stinking of stout.
You're Irish! Well Jack is a tolerant fellow.
You have your own room!!! Shame the walls are so yellow....
She's dead. Just cried "Murder". No time for a curse.
Now for the jigsaw game in reverse.
I'll have this bit, and that bit, and....oh, I'll have that.
I'm starting to get this whole business off pat.
That's it, I'm for home. Now what shall I pick?
That stuff from the last one just made me feel sick.
Turn a new leaf, Jack, make a fresh start :
I think I'll walk off with the whore's bloody heart!
Robert |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 175
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 4:39 pm: |
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Thanks all for the wonderful comments - and the research is definitely gonna carry on!!!
Part 5
(HEAD SLUMPS)
He has won.. for the moment. So, faceless friend of mine who always stands behind my shoulder, show yourself, Why will you not let me see you eye to eye? What do you think I am afraid of? Or what are you afraid of?
PAUSE
Is that it? The only way to keep your own snarling fear at bay is to find someone who is weaker than you and distil your terror drop by drop into him? That is it, isn't it? I thought you so strong and coldly sure of yourself but you are just like all the others - a coward and a liar.. .you are not the one I have been looking for, you are not the one I can give my life to.
PAUSE
(SCREAMS - HOLDING HEAD>
I cannot see. The blackness of Hell riveted to my eyes with lightless, fire-fingered bolts that pierce and pirouette into my brain - inky wires threading like serrated worms into the windows of my eye, piercing through the flaccid, gelatinous globes - probing into the bony, burning sockets - coursing into the screaming ribbon of my nerves...I can see him..only him. He is in my brain and the dark fire crackles around him and the cold sparks are his halo... it is not his image... it is not his shadow.. it is not his reflection in a smoky glass... it is him... in here... in my head.
PAUSE
Help me! Take this darkness from me...
PAUSE
I still cannot see his face... it is a shadow in the darkness...he is holding out his hand to me.. what do you want?.. His fingers are pale and slender, the hand of an artist.. the hand of a painter.. a painter whose canvas is darkness and whose pigments are blood and fear.. he is beckoning me.. -no, I will not go with you.. what are you saying to me? I cannot hear you.
PAUSE
"In this hand, little brother, I hold fear. Think, think carefully. Imagine.. to feel no terrors in the world, to know no fear because that fear is here in the palm of your hand. That is what I am offering you ... freedom from fear. Freedom and power. Think about it - but do not think too long."
He wrenched his dark shape from my brain in a rush of pain that tore through me, red and raw. I slept no more nor will I ever again. Not because of fear but because I do not need to and because the night is too delicious to waste on brutish sleep.
Did I believe him? Did I listen to him? What do you think? Well, what could you offer me that could compare with his gift? What can your world of incense-stinking hypocrisy, your smug and crumbling civilisation that you are so proud of, your pallid, feeble God whose only crown is one of barbed thorns - what can these give me?
Nothing! They are built on your rules and the games that I play must be mine, all mine or they mean nothing and the winning or the losing of your pathetic little charades bore me.
I am ready, master - ready to go with you and to be taught by you. Ready to look and to remember. They are not my friends. Don't be jealous. They don't know you. We should pity them.
PAUSE
"Are you ready, little friend? Will you come with me this time of your own will?"
"Yes"
"The third head of the dragon has cheated me. I knew her as soon as I saw her - she was perfect. She came with me easily enough, as they always do. They don't do it for the money - did you know that? They do it because they are what they are. Whores, women born of women, doubly cursed, clawing and pernicious creatures spat out by that undulating prison of flesh. It is no bigger than my fist, you know - the womb. When it is empty. Believe me, I know. That is where it all starts, little brother, all the sin and the blood flow from that flushed, gaping, slimy orifice that oozes us out into the world. That is where it all starts - and how does it start? How are we all -saint or savage, madman or martyr - how are brought into this world? By the sweaty coupling of two beasts whose fluids spurt out like pale and slimy blood., and in the thrust and the fervour of their frenzy, in the flush and the unholy delight of their copulation, they wash the womb of a whore with the accursed seed of a stinking and stupid oaf whose only thought is where and when he will be able to next perpetrate this sickening performance. That is where we come from. - all of us... It is what gave me life and I must wash that slime and that filth from me. I will cut out the seat of sin by the root and you will watch me do it and you will understand. This one tonight talked to me so easily, so casually of all the carnal and bestial secrets that are her trade. ..but as we slowly drew back into the nightshade of those gates I stopped her chatter.. for ever. You see, little brother, I am very good at what I do. But some one came along, some one dared to interrupt my sacrifice, but I still severed the head, at least. That I had to do. But another head must be cut from the creature tonight or the dragon will rear up his crimson head and will destroy me. You will follow me and you will watch."
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Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 179
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 6:33 am: |
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Part 6
PAUSE
He guided me gently like a kindly stranger helping a blind man or a doting parent leading an unsteady child to take its first steps. It was not far - but in the darkness and the silence, the long shadows and the mocking echoes, even I felt the sharp pang of the fear that haunted those streets. He knew my mind.
"Do not be afraid," he whispered. "I am the fear.You are with me."
We two walked to the stifled beat of my footsteps - he made no noise, no sound, no echo, no syllable, no utterance... He existed only in my mind as far as any but myself was concerned.
A lightless square that would be dark even in the broad sun of daylight. We drew back into the deeper shadows of a sheltering corner..
"There," he sighed. "She is the one."
A wornan stood in the narrow alley leading into the square, beneath a single, fitful lamp that flitted and flickered like some jaundiced cyclops. She looked about uncertainly. Had she heard us? No.. she was waiting. A distant, muffled bell struck the half hour.
"It is time," he whispered to me. "Watch and learn..."
I felt his shadow course through me - a shape that could pass for human ambled slowly forward away from me, a projection of my own will, detached, nebulous, unreal. He who had always stood behind my shoulder now floated away in fromt of me but I saw only his back - his face was still hidden. As he glided soundlessly to her, I felt a sudden and awful need to shout to her:
"Get away from here!"
But the last, unlamented trace of my humanity sank into the pit of my expectation. He spoke to her only briefly - so briefly that when it happened I was amazed - he led her gently to the opposite corner, as he had led me so often before. In the yellow light of the lamp I saw a sudden, shocking glint of steel and she slumped slowly to the ground. As his knife struck, the tableau in the gloomy corner flared into a sourceless and terrible light. He stood there still, silent - as she slid to the pavement. He laid her out gently, as though putting a drowsy child to bed. It was the speed of it that astounded me - he lifted her clothing with the delicacy and the precision of a jeweller about to cut some legendary stone.
"It must be right," he said in my mind." It must be flawless." There is a sparkle of steel and an eruption of blood and the blade melts its way throught the buttery flesh. A cavity that seems impossibly long for her delicate height opens its scarlet lips and his hands work rapidly inside her, darting and dancing like maddened marionettes. He holds something up but I can see only a lump of congealed gore that glistens like a hideous, fleshy ruby in his crimson fingers. He leans over her face and his sparkling knife dances across her waxy features, an hypnotic firefly in the unnatural light.
PAUSE
He is gone. Where is he? No-one can move that quickly. The feather of a touch on my shoulder tells me where he is.
"I have cut my third head," he gloats. "The dragon can sleep tonight. Now you have shared all my secrets. Well, nearly all." His voice hisses with the blue fire of a glacier's core - his words crackle and scintillate with the lowering joy of a stormdark sky.
PAUSE
Alone, Though I cannot see him, I know when he has gone. Why does he always leave - like all the others? Is he really any different? Or is he just more cruel, more shameless in his perversity, more gleeful in his depravity?
And it seemed that I lay there on the pavement beside her - I slept at the side of the dragons's whore and her cold, dark blood seeped and slithered against my body. And as I slept, again the dreams came...
A room. Pure as marbled ice, white as the blanched flesh of a young lamb. A room that is all coldness and clarity - crystal, adamant, razored shards of a light that is bleached of all warmth, all colour. It is a room of painful beauty, sterile, severe, serene. But I know in my heart that it is a room where no living man ever trod before. Unsullied, unpolluted, its air unbreathed by the foul and cankerous lungs of the world - it is too lovely to have known even the fleeting touch of even one human hand. Why has this pale heaven let me into its secret chamber? Am I not human? But I also know in my heart that I can only look, that I can only ever be a passive, dispassioned observer - but I long to touch, I need to touch, I need to feel that cool and smooth perfection beneath my fingers...I must not stroke those pristine walls, flawless as unbreathing flesh. .I must not.. but I itch to, I cannot fight this madness to touch perfection,..
PAUSE
Oh, the smoothness and the silk, the skin of a sleeping child beneath my eager fingers,. a mark.. a blemish.. a scar... a tear in the perfection...I am human...I am corrupt... this room, that was white with the wonder of paradise, is flaking and fading.. great peeling scabs writhe across its face, gobbets of corrupt and flyeaten flesh ooze from crusted cracks - leering, lolling tongues moisten wrinkled lips that cackle and hiss from every rotting surface of this madhouse.. don't laugh at me! don't you dare laugh at me! I know you, I know you all and I know where I can find you.. and if there ever comes a moment when I can get my revenge on all you sniggering, simpering, upright, civilised, worm-eating, sh*t-brained, little nobodies then beware, just beware...
PAUSE
Because you are the one I will start with...
BLACKOUT
INTERVAL
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Robert Charles Linford
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robert
Post Number: 148
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 7:15 am: |
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Hi Chris
That murder description was superb, told with complete conviction. So quiet, so quick. Brilliant!
Robert |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 181
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 7:58 am: |
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Many thanks Robert - glad you're enjoying (if that is the right word!) the piece.
It is now half way through (I had to give the poor actor a rest!) so will start posting 2nd half later
regards
chris
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Stephen P. Ryder
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 2722
Registered: 10-1997
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 8:07 am: |
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Chris -
Just wanted to add my praise to the lot, some excellent writing there! Please do continue... and once its complete, send over the piece in its entirety if you'd like to have it posted on the Casebook proper under "Original Ripper Fiction."
That goes for everyone else as well - there is a great deal of talent here!
Stephen P. Ryder, Editor
Casebook: Jack the Ripper
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Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 182
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 8:22 am: |
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Thanks Stephen
And I will forward with a LOT of press stuff (got on to Mexico now!!) to you by mail
Regards
Chris
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Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 183
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 10:03 am: |
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Well here goes with the second half - interval over!
Part 7
LIGHTS UP ON ACTOR UC, BACK TO AUDIENCE
So long, so long a time and still he will not come. I pretend to myself that I don't mind - I only do that because I know that he might be listening. Can he hear me when I don't know whether he's here or not? I would know... he does not have to touch me... he does not have to speak. I would know. How? What do you mean - how? How does a bird know how to fly, how does a fish know how to swim? He is so much a part of me - in a way that I cannot fully understand, he is me. Or perhaps, I am him. Does it matter? I know his mind, that is all that is important. But if you know his mind, why don't you know why he does not come? Because he has chosen not to tell me- that is why! He is testing me and I will not be found wanting. Blessed am I among men, for he has chosen me to carry the seed of his darkness....
PAUSE
Someone is here. - is it him? No, of course not! Who else would it be? Anyone who is not him... I can smell them. the fear and the tingle, the itch, the sweat of expectation.. he has no fear.. he is the fear...
PAUSE
(SWINGS ROUND TO FACE AUDIENCE)
Out there, in the dark, just outside the pale, pitiful light of your pride... he is there You can never quite see him... sometimes you can't see him at all. But you are aware of him on the threshold of your light. When you are alone, truly alone, when you can hear no other living being breathe, when there is no other splinter of sound to comfort you, can you truly say that you have never heard him?
PAUSE
I hope I didn't scare you. It is just my way - just one of my little games. But some games are serious - some games are deadly. Are you ready to play my games? You see, the main rule for all of my games is - once you start, you stay in till the end. However it ends. Are you ready for that? Really? Well then let's play the confession game. It's very easy. Even you will understand it, I'm sure. All we have to do is tell the truth. That's easy enough, isn't it? Only the truth. This is how it goes - I tell you something about me and then you tell me something about you. Only two rules. All the things we tell each other have to be true and each must be better than the one before - more personal, more shocking, more outrageous.. more painful. Shall I start?
PAUSE
Well then.. .I sometimes get lonely. Now you...
LISTENS
Really? That does surprise me. All right then. I didn't like my father... in fact, I hated my father.
LISTENS
Well! And you look so.. ordinary. I'd never have thought that. But then you can't tell just by looking and you are telling the truth, of course. Aren't you? Well, I suppose it's up to me again. Let me see ...... ah yes... I have dreams, bad dreams...
LISTENS
Good! But in my dreams I do things, awful things, wicked things, dirty things...
LISTENS
Very good! But when I wake up from my dreams I don't feel ashamed... I want to do the things in my dreams...
LISTENS
Oh, I like this! But I want to do the things in my dreams to you...
LISTENS
You wouldn't like that.. believe me. I would like to have you at my mercy, in my power...
LISTENS
Go on...go on..
LISTENS
Yes.. yes.. and I would like to have you there, tied up and powerless.. and I would run a cold, naked, gleaming razor slowly. over your flesh. I wouldn't hurt you, of course. Not really. It's only pretend. Only a game.
PAUSE
Only a game.
PAUSE
All my waiting was rewarded, my faith was fulfilled. He came back to me. It was the darkest night that I could ever remember. No moon.. no shadows.. clouds as thick and as heavy as the fumes of Hell. I sat in my room alone, always alone. The stink of neglect. The stench of waiting. I had slept despite my promises and my threats to myself. I had dreamed. Raw, naked, bleeding dreams that peopled my night.
PAUSE
Quiet! Listen! A sound.. so faint, a sigh in the echo of my breath, a rustle... it is him. Will he speak to me? Will he touch me? His hand is on my shoulder... I need him... I have never wanted any other in my life...
"Let your doubts melt into the shadows, little friend. I am here. We are together. Nothing else matters."
"Nothing"
I felt his silken fingers tighten on my shoulder.
"What is it?"
"It is time. Tonight the Dragon is strong. But I must be stronger. We must be stronger.'
"What is he, this dragon? You must defeat him... I know that But what is he?"
"He is the monster from my dreams. He is the creature that would destroy me, if I were not who I am. He is all that is evil in the world, little brother. He is lust and he is corruption, he is sin and he is depravity, he is life and he is womankind, he is the whore of the world and his scaled, scarlet heads would tear me and devour me. Oh, he is wise, my friend, and he is cunning and devious. He knows that if any man saw him as he really was, then the malevolence and the hatred in those awful, ancient eyes would blast that man's mind asunder and destroy him. That is not what he wants. he wants suffering, Lingering pain. So, what does he do? He hides his malice beneath a pretty face, he clothes his loathsome scales in the guise of woman. But I have seen him... I know him.. and I will destroy him.. him and his handmaidens whose teeming, pulsing wombs feed him and his staunchless hunger.. his acolytes are the whores of the world and one of them, a woman cursed with the moon-flooding blood of the dragon, brought me into this world. I have lain in the chamber of the dragon, I have drunk at his altar and I have eaten at his table. I have slept in the silted waters of his womb and while that blood and that filth are on me I cannot rest until I have slain him.
PAUSE
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Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 184
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 10:19 am: |
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The meeting with Kelly.... (2 parts to go after this one)
Part 8
PAUSE
Tonight, brother, we will face the dragon in his lair and we will destroy him."
PAUSE
He whispered to me like a lover in the tented darkness of the night.
"Do you trust me?"
"I have no other to trust."
"Will you do what I ask of you?"
"Of course."
I was in streets that I had never seen before, places that I had never known but his hand, soft and warm on my shoulder, guided my steps as surely as if I had lived all my days among those evil alleyways. It was a beautiful, sacred night - the only person in the world who cared about me was with me and I could serve him.
"What name can I call you by?" I asked him.
"You have called me master in the past."
"If that pleases you, then I need no other..'
"If you need a name, then you can call me Jack."
We walked on in solemn silence. Frost crystalled the filth that lay around us, the living filth and the dead.
"Yes," I said "Jack... Jack the.. Ripper,"
His slender artist's fingers gripped my shoulder harder than they had ever done before. I stopped. I held my breath. I had angered him.
PAUSE
"Yes," he breathed gently. "I like that. If the world must have a name to remember me by, that is as good as any. And doubt not, little brother, that they shall remember me. After tonight, they will not dare forget."
We walked the empty and aching streets and in the cloud of silence that muffled about us, I had never in my all my life felt so close to another living person. The mire of filth and the sinks of corruption floated gently past me, almost unnoticed as I sank all of my will and all of my soul into his dark beauty.
Suddenly he stopped.
"It is time." The icy steel of finality honed his voice to a hairthin edge.
I waited.
"Tonight is the last. And tonight it will not be me showing you what I have done - what I have had to do - it will not be me forcing you to watch my dark ministrations.. No, it will be us, you and I, brother, worshipping together at the altar of despair.
I will not be beside you, I will not be behind you. I will be part of you. Two wills in one body.. two minds with one purpose. That is why I needed you, that is why I will use you. Are you ready for that?"
There was no need to answer. He knew.
And suddenly that darkness that had been outside of me, the monster that had whispered and waivered at the furthest corner of my eye, suddenly that simmering void of hatred and despair pressed its soft flesh to mine and was part of me. Black fire raced in my surging veins and my mind was overwhelmed with his hideous passions. His voice was no longer in my ear but in my soul. He was inside of me.
PAUSE
We walked a little farther, quietly, calmly, There, on a dank, autumnal corner.. a woman.. younger than the others.. pert, pretty, petulant... she has seen me... she is coming over.. what do I say?..
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AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 249
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 1:32 pm: |
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Chris
the edge just keeps getting sharper but I will save myself till the end.
I've put me own pen into retirement and am heading for the beach after reading your stuff and will probably never write again.
You are proving to be a hard act to follow.
Absolutely riveting stuff.
Now, let's have the rest. |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 185
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 1:51 pm: |
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Part 9
She has taken my arm.. her laughing voice is saying words that I cannot hear.. the only thoughts in my brain are those that he allows me... the only sound is the leaf-rustle of his desire.. her soft hand at my elbow is urging me, guiding me.. we have turned into a narrow, evil-smelling court.. a few steps down and she has stopped.. she is singing... I can hear her now, like the bell of a distant chapel where some ancient ghost is laid to its final rest. I am in her room.. we are in her room.. no.. it is I.. has he gone? No.. .he that was a bystander in the sanctity of my being is now its occupant and I am the guest. ..the passive onlooker. She is slowly undoing her shabby, dark dress.. I can see the puzzlement in her eyes...I am not moving. ..standing.. watching.. she shrugs her pale little shoulders and gives me a half-smile as though my reluctance were some human weakness she had seen many times before. Her bed is narrow, ill-made.. but it will serve as a fitting altar for his final shedding of the dragon's blood and so will be sanctified for all time. She must have sensed his thought in me.. carefully, deliberately, like a princess from a fairy-tale going willingly to her sacrifice, she is laying down on the bed. She looks up at me, her large eyes glinting in the shimmer of a feeble candle...I can hear her now..
"Well, are you going to do anything? Are you going to stand there all night?"
Was that her... or him, urging me on...I am sitting on the bed beside her and her hand slowly moves to me like a pallid, eyeless, fiveheaded snake that will surely sting me, bite me, poison me if I let its scaly whiteness crawl over my skin... I knock the serpent aside but it has another head, a grinning, watery-eyed, human head that is lolling and lurching towards me... its neck a slender trunk ... I stroke its neck gently, very gently... its human head is smiling...I caress its neck a little harder, a little firmer...I join my hands around that hated, fleshy trunk that gives life to that pale serpent, that gives breath to those weeping, luminous eyes... the face is reddening, deadening...I must hold harder, the serpent is still breathing...I must kill it.. I must squeeze every vestige of breath and every hope of life out of every part of its being... I must squeeze it and choke it and cut it off by the root and the branch or those scaly five-headed arms will entwine about me and envelop me and I know the darkness that lies beneath those limbs...I know the gaping mouth that slaps its lips between her lower limbs.. that scarlet, throbbing slash that will drag me in and maul and tear at me and drag me into the waters of its lust-red chamber.. .I must hold on.. .I must squeeze and hurt and pummel life and breath out of this trunk of flesh that will not lie still, that will not be calm, that will not die.. die.. die.. be not.. dragon.. serpent... filth... bitch... whore... I must kill...I must...
PAUSE
The muffling darkness in my mind split and shattered and a vast and dazzling light exploded inside me.. a surge of white anger and unpent lust welled up and spat out of me and on the crown and the crest of that wave of joy and hatred I cried out in my pain and my ecstasy.
And I was gone from my mind into a glistening, bleeding place where neither sleep nor waking had any meaning... and I was naked and alone... I crossed a deep and seeping chasm that I knew to be bottomless... but I walked barefoot on a huge bridge that was a single, perfect steel blade.. on its edge I walked and the unblemished line of its razored sharpness slid so easily and so painlessly into the flesh of my feet..I had to cross. .I could not fall.. there was no other way.. and as I walked on and on the silver sliver of the bridge slithered and sidled into my flesh. .but I did not bleed... I did not hurt... it had to be done.. there was no other way...
PAUSE
I am still on the bed.. she is still here.. she is dead... Did I do that? In that frenzy, could I do that? She is there, beside me, like a lover at a picnic, beside a river.. but she has been his lover, not mine... the last head of the dragon has been sliced from its scaly stump...
PAUSE
That part of her that he hated so, that part that gave life... it is no more.. but his hatred has spilled over her, a wave of blood, a storm of sacrifice.. her head is almost severed.. her face cut and disfigured beyond all recognition.. she is not a human being, she is an object.. a slaughtered animal, a votive offering to his despair... she has been flayed... seeping, bleeding flesh where minutes ago was pale, soft skin... all marks of her womanhood have been destroyed.. her breasts cut off.. her womb gouged out and her heart slit, still warm, from her ribs...
PAUSE
"Master, where are you?"
Silence...the silence of dead vengeance.
"Will you come to me again?" . . nothing, the nothingness of spent hatred.
"Will you leave me?".. an echo, a twilight of sound in the most silent chamber of my being...
"I must leave you, little friend. What reason is there for me stay when I have done what I lived for? Is that not a good reason to die? Is that not a good farewell to a world that I have hated even more then it despised me? Be wise, my friend. Do not be afraid of the darkness any more because you know - only you know - what is out there, beyond the little circle of our light and our safety. And when men despise you, look them in the eye, straight in the eye and keep in your mind the knowledge that what is in me is also in them. They hide it, they deny it, they loathe it - but it is there. That is why you will frighten them..."
Then he was gone, forever.
PAUSE
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Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 186
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 1:53 pm: |
|
Part 10 - The last
So, what now? I have played the truth game, haven't I? I have told you everything? Do I frighten you? Look me straight in the eye and know that I can see what is inside you...
{STARES AT AUDIENCE)
PAUSE
You know it too, don't you?
He was right.. he was always right. You are little men with little minds and petty ambitions. But when I look at you, straight in the eye, I can see that your loathing and your contempt are large... that is good... he would have liked that.
And when you have had enough of me, when I have given you enough entertainment for one day and your little minds wander off to some new diversion, what will you remember of him? Anything of importance? Anything of real importance? Or will your petty and drab little imaginations flounder with the meaning of his words. I understood. I am not a clever man. There is a message there, is there not?
PAUSE
Leave me alone now. I am tired. Not weary... tired, tired of you, all of you.
PAUSE
SHOUTS
Can't you hear? I said "Leave me alone!' . This is my place. I belong here. You have your own places. But do not feel too safe in them. Remember what is out there, out there in the dark. And remember what is in here, in here in the dark. The dark, scaly hand of the master may come for you on a certain hot, summer night when there is not a breath in the air and the hot, fervent sweat of your own burning lust itches and squirms inside you. He may come to you.. and the darkness will sleep no more...
"'Master, do not leave me.. take me with you... there is nothing for me here..."
(TURNS BACK ON AUDIENCE)
"They do not understand . they will never understand.. they did not like my games and I hate them all.. they would not even have liked your games, your pretty games.. do not leave me..."
(SITS STIFFLY UPRIGHT)
"Leave you? Did you not know, my little, foolish friend?"
(TURNS SHARPLY)
"Leave you? I am with you always.. until the end of Time...
BLACKOUT
THE END
copyright C.SCOTT 2001
All rights reserved to the author
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Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 187
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 1:55 pm: |
|
Thats all, folks!
As I said the piece - entitled "Bloodshadow" - has been perormed once. It was actually written as an audition piece for a friend of mine during his efforts to get into Drama School - he made it by the way!
regards
Chris
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Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 152
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 3:29 pm: |
|
Chris, if I promise faithfully to go to drama school, will you write another one for me?
Phew! What can I say? I'm not a literary or dramatic critic, but the concept and the expression and everything about it was brilliant.
I don't know if you've thought of selling it (watch out for the BBC, they're tight) but I think you should. Also it would be great if this was gathered up and placed on the Casebook in one section.
I can only thank you for posting such a marvellous piece of work.
PS I too am putting my pen into mothballs!
Robert |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 188
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 3:40 pm: |
|
Robert
I'm very glad you enjoyed the piece and plase don't stop writing!!!
I have never done anything commercially with this piece as it was written for a very specific purpose but most years I do put a one act play into the local drama festival
All the best and thanks for the comments
Chris
PS I have sent the complete piece to Spry and it is goinf intot he Fiction section on Casebook
CS |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 250
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 5:06 pm: |
|
Chris
right to the end, stunning.
I will read again at my leisure and then post a few more thoughts.
On another channel here Brian once said to me that if someone could supply him with a motive that was not the motive of a sexual serial killer then he would consider changing his mind about the motive of Jack.
Well Chris, you have supplied that canny motive, so much better than I have attempted to do in the Myth, and Brian, it is now time for you to change your mind.
The world is a much bigger place than any of us ever think. |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 252
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 1:28 pm: |
|
As perhaps we have all exhausted our artistic talents for the moment regarding Jack, I thought it a good time to do some looking back at what has been posted here.
It strikes me immediately that there appears to be some sort of reluctance on the part of our creative brain to accept simple sordid sex as the motive and seek some perhaps nobler or even - dare I say it? - artistic motive to the crimes, whereas it is equally clear that the logical side of our brain seems to tell us that the crimes were of a sexual nature. This may well be another of my many sweeping generalisations but nonetheless there appears good and solid ground for it, if one trawls back through the many excellent contributions and studies them in depth.
Can it really be possible that most of us are able to view the crimes of Jack in two so very different ways - a logical view and a creative view - in which the motive and very intent of the crimes are able to switch from AC to DC depending on whether we hold a pen in our hands or sit at a keyboard. I am making the wild assumption that most of the creative spirits on this board would have abandoned their key board and worked their magic with a good old fashioned pen. I would think I’m right.
I think the artistic inspiration we have seen here is also a valuable lesson concerning individuality and the problems that arise when attempting to use modern criminal profiling techniques to put some sort of measure on that individuality. This vapid attempt to pick someone out of the crowd using highly questionable markers falls to pieces if we were to have profiled Chris Scott before and after posting his truly evocative and provocative story. As I have said before, poetry and prose exposes the underbelly as discussion does not, and in this regard the Lusk letter to me is poetry and here we see Jack with his guard down.
My meandering does lead to a conclusion, and that is a profile of Jack would depend on whether the profiler had his creative or logical head on.
And that it is impossible to profile anyone, because everyone has a logical and creative side to their inner soul. Even the killer.
Profiling? Load of mumbo jumbo.
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Marie Finlay
Inspector
Username: Marie
Post Number: 250
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 2:19 pm: |
|
Chris: that was amazing, I was enthralled with it.
Just thought you should know. |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 191
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 3:19 pm: |
|
Hi all
Thanks for the messages on this board (and the mails)
Good to receive such a positive response and I'm glad that it seems to have gone down well. Now it's ME who's resting my pen for a bit so it's over to you guys - keep them coming!
Regards
Chris
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AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 253
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 5:43 pm: |
|
Mice
We scurry to and fro,
like little mice we go.
When new book announce
then like cat we pounce.
New author to champion or trounce.
New blood, new blood we all do cry
And yet another half kidney to fry.
Each book will have its camp
And each camp will have its champ
And all will swear abject undying loyalty
Whilst author pockets handsome royalty.
And author claims his suspect is quite real
If only you lot will turn hamster wheel,
And that turning will go on all night
When you all know you are quite right.
But that incessant turning cause me to choke
For something solid get stuck in me throat.
And that be something deep that I feel
For money oils that publisher’s wheel.
For a king’s shilling
Them whores is willing
To sell you any old floss or dross
And him that author him don’t give toss.
Authors’ gain and readers loss.
Fresh sweeping is required
New logic to be applied.
New order to be marched through
In hope of finding something new.
When new book is formally announced
No longer should ’owt be pronounced.
Instead a simple silence
And in that lovely violence
Author can be ignored
And we won’t get bored.
For I fear words breed herds
And not a few nerds.
And my greatest fear
Is when I hear
That new book ’bout to appear.
Ah, another final solution
And in that final revolution
Hamster wheel turns once more
To throw out another tired whore.
New book that will without hesitation
Name Jack without reservation.
A spawn that spawns
A breed indeed.
Bastard seed!
On which we feed.
‘Tis but circus ride
That doth hide
The hurt inside.
Ah, but could I by magic plunder
And rip all theory asunder
And roll out with thunder
Some simple little honest bone
For you all too finely hone.
Just a sport of no import
For lesson has been taught.
‘Touch not my precious claim
Tarnish not my road to fame
Allow reputation to remain
For great profit can I claim.’
Betrayed by truth
Yee great grand sleuths.
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 93
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 4:03 am: |
|
Plead your cause to one and all
or save your squeaks completely.
No good baiting one or two
this trap is set too neatly.
Here it comes quite full o' cheese
and here it comes again.
So twitch yer whiskers, get stuck in
and see how much you gain.
Have a great weekend all.
Love,
Caz
|
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 254
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 1:41 pm: |
|
Bait
What trap with what bait?
I fear you do mistake
an honest point I make.
That be, vested interest
being much like incest -
I'm sure I have recently read -
doth make strange partners in bed.
I fear you still smart
from being placed in same cart
as lover, mother, sister, daughter or wife
and thus have you honed your sharp knife.
But here you scratch at tiresome itch
and use hammer to squash tiresome nit.
I have long admired your sharp blade
with common sense and good argument made.
But here the pickings are but lean
and it is yourself you do demean. |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 167
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 2:44 pm: |
|
I've never written brilliant book or dull
Of Druitt, Ostrog, Polish Jew or Gull.
I haven't found the Ripper, you can tell.
And if I do, I'm sure my book won't sell.
One thing I'll do, before I ride my hearse :
I'll plague you lot with bloody awful verse.
A POLICEMAN'S LOT
It's a thankless duty copperin' these days.
Proud Jacky's got some hoity-toity ways.
He's rubbed our noses in it, that's a fact.
If we don't catch him soon, we'll all be sacked.
Proud Jacky is a man of many parts.
Not all of them are his though, they're the tarts'.
I can't imagine why he wants that stuff.
You'd think by now he would have got enough.
We find a corpse - expletives ring out clear.
In court we have to say we cried "Oh dear!"
And interviewing loonies is a pain.
Can't think when I last spoke to someone sane.
There's journalists a-pesterin' for me quotes.
How should I know who cut them bloomin' throats?
And vigilantes think it's all a game -
Five times tonight they've taken down my name!
Me bull's-eye lantern never hits the mark,
And everywhere I go it's bloomin' dark.
I'm not appreciated, I can see!
I think I'll go and have a cup of tea.
Robert
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