Ripped (4 page)

Collin was standing on one side of Katie, Toby on the other. Together they watched transfixed as the waxwork man dragged the head of the girl to his chest, and mechanically rumpled her hair. Swinging shadows threw brightness on the bulging outline of a knife handle sticking out of his waistcoat pocket. And as he swiveled and pivoted, the torn mouth of his mask showed a smiling ridge of discolored teeth.

A rattling creak came from the crooked window overhead as it swung open, and a woman's face popped out. “Who goes there?” she hollered. “State yer business, or be off with you!” The woman's marble eyes peered out, searching the street corner below. A heavy silence ensued, followed by the clang of a rusty bolt as her head popped back inside.

The hooded man leered up at the window, then down at the wax girl. Moonlight shone on the lower part of their waxwork faces. The man raised his arm, drawing a gloved finger across the girl's throat. As if by a conjurer's trick, a knife appeared in his hand.

A flicker of light picked out his jerky arm movements as the blade slashed across the wax girl's throat. Red liquid spurted from the gushing wound.

A peal of bells rose in the distance, and the scene was transformed by a host of gilded mirrors swinging forward from all sides, blinding Katie with flashing, tinfoil glints of fake lightning.

Multiplied by the mirrored slivers, the man's robotic eyes began to glow in duplicate and triplicate as the head he cradled to his chest tilted and jerked, the scene replicating itself over and over in the long mirrors, a seemingly endless card-flip of quivering reflections. Finally, the girl's image split, and she fell to the ground, her glass eyes staring blankly up at the three teenagers.

In the mirror closest to Katie, the hooded man was laughing grotesquely.

The lights went out.

Katie turned and tried to hurry away. But in that instant of darkness she lost her sense of direction and stumbled. Somebody— Toby?—caught her by the elbow. She took a deep breath of musty, damp-smelling air.

The hologram of Mrs. Llewellyn appeared before them in a soap bubble of golden light, her church organ voice rising and falling: “
Such a pity
. Poor Mary Ann Nichols deserved better from life, as did Annie Chapman, ‘Dark Annie' as she was called, who died eight days later . . .”

A green-edged spotlight picked out the face of another girl standing in the gloom a little farther down. Wearing a long, white dress and lace shawl, she looked like a demure bride, her cheeks circled with bright spots of rouge. The hooded man sprang up behind her.

A gas lamp burned murkily overhead.

The hooded man's bloodshot eyes, like dull marbles, seemed to grow round and then shrink, like a beating pulse. He rumpled the girl's hair, making it fluff up in all directions. He dragged his gloved hand across her throat with the edge of a butcher's knife, causing a red gash and a spurt of flame-colored liquid, followed by a gurgle and rattle as of someone gasping for breath. Again came the pungent, cloying scent of cheap perfume as the second victim's face dipped, and appeared, and dipped again, swallowed by the mist.

“Such a pity about Dark Annie.” The apple woman's voice radiated out from the diaphanous cocoon of her hologram. “The Ripper snipped off Dark Annie's ears and sent them to the police. Then he saved some of her blood in a ginger beer bottle to write a missive to the newspapers, but it grew thick as glue and he had to use red ink instead.

“After the murder of Dark Annie, all of London, including the Queen, became fixated on these vicious attacks, especially when they began to escalate in brutality. Isn't that right, Doctor Llewellyn?”

“Yes, my dear, quite right. And I should know, because I was the surgeon who officiated at the autopsies of these poor unfortunates.” The robotic Doctor Llewellyn could now be seen sitting in a leather armchair just ahead. “Shall I give our guests some clues, Mrs. Llewellyn, to help elucidate the peculiar facts of the case?” He crossed and uncrossed his mechanical legs with a click-clacking, whirring sound.

“Oh, yes, Doctor Llewellyn. Do tell,” twinkled Mrs. Llewellyn, smiling like an apple-cheeked fairy godmother in her floating soap bubble.

“Come closer, right this way, and I shall present the clues forthwith.”

The teenagers moved along the smoky passage as fans in the ceiling tore blotches and rifts in the fake fog.

“On September thirtieth, in the year 1888, Jack the Ripper committed a double murder. First, Molly Potter in Berner Street, Whitechapel, and then, shortly before midnight, Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square, Aldgate—both within earshot of police officers. After the double murder of Molly Potter and Catherine Eddowes the habits of East Enders changed overnight. No one dared venture outside after nightfall, so great was their fear of the Ripper. And those unfortunate few who had no choice were instructed by Scotland Yard to walk in pairs. Hark ye, Mrs. Llewellyn,
in pairs
.

“Suddenly Jack the Ripper's butchery was being debated in the House of Commons, as well as in front of every blazing fireplace in all of England.” A spurt of fake fire rose in a hearth next to Doctor Llewellyn, rippling cellophane tongues of orange and red.

“Londoners were outraged that in the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth such savagery was allowed to go unchecked. Newspapers and politicians denounced Scotland Yard for its ineptitude. Roaming mobs of vigilantes and clerical do-gooders took to the streets to hunt down the hideous monster.

“ ‘Who is Jack the Ripper?' was heard on every street corner throughout the land. How was he able to murder and slice up his victims when the entire Metropolitan Police force was patrolling every inch of Whitechapel? And, most troublesome of all, why did the Ripper's victims
never
cry out for help when help was so very close?”

“Oh, look!” the floating Mrs. Llewellyn chirped, bobbing happily now alongside her waxwork husband. “There's Molly Potter! Molly-Dolly is positively bursting with pride, pregnant as she is with her first child. A baby girl, they say, or so it appeared after the infant was ripped from Molly-Dolly's womb—”

“Er, that will do, Mrs. Llewellyn. No need to open up a Pandora's box of horrors, or dwell on the morbid details of these revolting acts of bloodshed, which occurred, after all, a century and a half ago.”

“But our guests
do
need to know the facts. After Molly Potter was murdered, Catherine Eddowes was butchered just before midnight that same evening. Then it was Elizabeth Stride's turn, followed by Mary Jane Kelly, so very, very beautiful she was. A Marilyn Monroe look-alike. Then poor Dora Fowler, slashed and eviscerated near the rookery where she sold parrots, and half a block from where her fiancé was hurrying on his way to meet her. And last but not least a young woman from the nobility, the Duke of Twyford's granddaughter, and the most brutal of all the murders. Lady Beatrix Twyford was carved up like a—”

“
Ahem
. Let us leave the dead in peace, shall we, Mrs. Llewellyn?”

“Yes, my love. Quite right. But do tell our guests about the curious incident of the girls' eyeballs! They shan't want to miss
that
historical tidbit.”

“Indeed, my love. I almost forgot.” The wax man's head bobbed and swiveled like a giant Kewpie doll, his robotic jaws clamping open and shut. “At the time of the murders the assistant deputy of the CID, Scotland Yard, Major Gideon Brown, gave the orders for Dark Annie and Dora Fowler's eyes to be photographed in the hope that their retinas might retain the image of their killer. There was a popular belief during the early years of plate-photography—started by a short-story writer — that when a person died, the last scene he witnessed would be imprinted on his retina. Superstitious rubbish, of course, but these early sepia photographs proved invaluable to Madame Tussauds' present-day team of forensic artists who compiled the wax likenesses of these unfortunate girls.”

Katie wrenched her gaze away from the mechanical man and his hologram wife. She'd had enough of this underground labyrinth of death.
More than enough
.

As she scurried toward the flashing exit sign, another waxwork tableau swiveled to life, depicting the double murder of the pregnant Molly Potter and Catherine Eddowes.

Against a backdrop of glaring strobe lights, Katie glanced briefly at Molly Potter's flannel petticoats peeking out from under her swirling skirts, and then at the fur-trimmed cape Catherine Eddowes had actually worn on the night she died, or so the sign said. But Katie wasn't interested. She turned and scooted away.
If I see one more wax statue of a girl being slaughtered . . . I swear I
'
ll kill someone!

Katie hurled herself toward the blinking exit sign. She didn't know where Toby and Collin were, but she couldn't wait for them. Her muscles felt jittery; her knees, wobbly.
I
'
ve got to get out of here!

The life-sized double-murder diorama of Molly Potter and Catherine Eddowes was followed by Elizabeth Stride, Mary Jane Kelly, and Dora Fowler. But then came the most horrific disembowelment of them all. The scene was so gruesome, Katie jerked to a halt, stopping dead in her tracks.

Trying hard not to look at the carnage, she kept her eyes focused on the brass plate below, and silently read the inscription:

On the 7th of December in Miller's Court, Dorset Street, Lady Beatrix Twyford, age twenty-three, met with the most ghastly death of all at the hands of Jack the Ripper.

An authentic broadsheet announcement, bordered in black, hung nailed to a lamppost:

GROTESQUE
MURDER
IN THE EAST-END.
DREADFUL MUTILATION
OF YOUNG WOMAN

Katie tried to avert her eyes. But it was no use. A sepia three-dimensional projection of Dorset Street rose up the wall, shadowed by the needle spire of a church.

Turn The Corner If You Dare!
THIS EXHIBIT IS NOT
FOR THE SQUEAMISH OR FAINT OF HEART.
PROCEED AHEAD TO THE EXIT DOORS
IF YOU WISH TO LEAVE NOW.

Like a candle being snuffed out, the diorama of the dead girl and the sepia 3-D projection went dark, leaving only the faint, filmy essence of smoke in its place.

As if pulled by an invisible force, Katie stumbled around the dark corner, even as the bright exit sign blinked and beckoned and then disappeared behind her.

Katie inched down the narrow passageway, peering into the gloom ahead. Ghostly images and projections mixed with the stifling uneasiness in the air.
Turn back, now!
her inner voice pleaded as she trudged over a rickety drawbridge toward a narrow, little house, passing a horse trough and crooked pilings. The bridge was reinforced with wooden cross-boards that groaned underfoot.

A gust of cool air from a ceiling fan brought with it the smell of mud and the less pleasant odor of sewage as Katie approached the stone house. At right angles to the front door were a rusty iron bell and a metal plate with “No. 13 Miller's Court” hammered into it.

Peering through the first set of barred windows, Katie could just make out an assortment of dustbins and brooms, a water tap and sink. She saw no wax forms or faces, but heard a suggestion of a noise, like someone pacing up and down on the wooden floor.

Katie moved to the next window, which had two broken panes. The jagged edges of the glass looked real. She reached out her hand. The museum would never use real glass. It must be plastic or acrylic painted with a glimmering sheen to mimic real glass, Katie thought.

Sweeping her gaze through the iron bars, Katie willed her eyes to adjust to the dim light inside, which flickered, curled eerily, then shrank away. When the murky light finally held steady, Katie gasped in horror and withdrew her outstretched hand so quickly the jagged glass caught on her index finger, slicing it open.

What the—?
She raised her finger to her mouth and tasted her own blood.

With great effort she forced herself to move back to the window, waiting as the light winked on and off three times rapidly: a pause, another flash, then a longer pause until it held fast, illuminating the room in a murky glow. She took a deep breath, silently chiding herself for being squeamish. This wasn't real after all, even if they did use broken glass.

The room was roughly twelve feet square with brick walls and a wooden floor, obviously painted to look authentic. The door on the far side was padlocked. To the left of the window Katie was peering through stood a fireplace with a large painting of an angel hovering above the bow of a boat. Firelight crackled inside the iron grating, glowing strong, dying away, then growing strong again, as if on a pulsating timer. Next to the padlocked door was an open china cupboard revealing speckled teacups and saucers piled one atop the other, and on the lowest shelf, a hunk of bread, a tub of butter, two spoons, and a broken wine glass. Katie forced her gaze to the brass bed jutting out from the corner. The sheets had been ripped off and lay tangled and bloodstained at the foot of the bed.

Upon the blood-soaked mattress lay a raw mass of what looked like human flesh. The wax girl lay on her back, entirely naked. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear. Her nose had been cut off, and the face slashed until the features were unrecognizable. The stomach and abdomen gaped open, with the organs removed and placed on the girl's right thigh.

Bloodstains splashed the wall and the ceiling. Laid out on the table beside the bed was the final horror. Like pieces of a nauseating jigsaw puzzle, mounds of flesh, presumably meant to look like the victim's breasts, lay symmetrically arranged alongside a quivering heart and what looked like kidneys. There were even little bits of flesh hanging from the picture-frame nails above the fireplace.

“T'was more the work of the devil than a man!” boomed Dr. Llewellyn's robotic voice, though he was nowhere to be seen. “Not even an insane butcher could have created such carnage. Her uterus was cut out and mailed to Scotland Yard.” The mechanical voice echoed and bounced off the walls in surround sound.