“Is she dead?” He could hear the words rattling around in his skull, words he’d heard carelessly uttered by one youthful, inexperienced member of the FTC team. Ethan froze, mere moments seemed like a millennium. Coming to his senses again, he immediately knelt beside her, checking for her pulse. Polly was alive. However, the combination of excessive drinking and the impact from the fall knocked her out cold. Mary Ann Nichols was right. He wasn’t a doctor in the way she’d thought and he did not know the full extent of her injuries but common sense dictated, she most certainly had a concussion. He would have to try to wake her up. She’d merely have to walk with a hell of a headache, that is, if she could walk at all. Propping her back up against the footboard of the bed, Ethan repeatedly called her by name, by ALL of her names! Shaking her by the shoulders he even splashed a little bit of water on her face. She remained entirely unresponsive, no signs of regaining consciousness. Ethan’s mind and body moved at light speed. Time was running out.

How could he have allowed this to happen? He was not a religious man per se, but he wondered if God was punishing him for tinkering with the laws of physics, with time itself. Ethan was considering the implications of Mary Ann Nichols being absent, not present for her own historical death. There was no way she would make it on her own to the spot where she was supposed to be murdered. Looking around for resolution, it came to him. He could still salvage the timeline and his research, but he had to get Polly to Bucks Row. Already dressed in his physician’s attire with all of his paperwork in the vest pocket, Ethan lifted Polly from the floor and placed her on the bed, laying the medical bag atop her midsection to take along as cover.

After a moment’s pause to reflect on this desperate situation, apologizing aloud to an unconscious woman, Ethan reached down into her blouse in search of the key, obtaining it quickly then ending the awkward contact.

“I’m sorry. Sorry. Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am.” He was a nervous wreck.

Unlocking the door, Ethan lifted Polly and the bag into his arms. Deadweight, he knew she would not be easy to move but it was his only option. As carefully and quietly as possible Ethan maneuvered her body downstairs to the first floor. Nobody visible during the early morning hours, slipping out the back door past the library, Ethan carried her through the rear alley where the outhouse was located. It became apparent that her motionless frame was too heavy for him to manage. This journey would require several stops to reposition her along the way. Adding other variables into this complex equation, he’d calculated her additional weight and the timing to avoid any encounter with police or anybody else out this late. If all went according to a revised plan he’d make it to his intended destination in just under ten minutes.

Ethan had the advantage over the key players in this historical drama. He knew police constable John Neil would be over near the slaughterhouse and he knew that Charles Cross and Robert Paul hadn’t yet departed their respective homes. Random encounters were the real variables, the incidents he could not predict. No one knew exactly when Jack the Ripper actually attacked Mary Ann Nichols so he needed to get her to the precise location and do so undetected. Any undue confrontation would chance endangering the timeline further. If stopped by another constable, he would be close enough to London Hospital on Whitechapel Road, just a few streets away, to rightfully demand passage with a patient in tow. No officer of the law would try to keep him from an appointed task, from getting an unconscious woman into a bed. Thankfully, he didn’t need to explain anything. It was a struggle but he made it.

Ethan gently placed Polly down near the gate by the boarding school on Bucks Row in the exact spot where her corpse would later be found. Grabbing his medical bag, crossing the street to the north side over to his preplanned vantage point, Ethan hoped the timeline had been unaffected, that Jack the Ripper would come upon her prone body and still perform the murder and mutilation in spite of her incapacitated condition. Checking his pocket watch, it was 3:12 a.m. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Had the killer already come and gone, having no potential victim in sight? Had Ethan made it there in time? His mind plagued with questions, to now have to watch the woman he’d come to know and care for be butchered, to succumb to the hands of a madman was not what he’d expected to experience. Though he never anticipated this sudden turn of events it would’ve been somewhat less disturbing to see it happen to a virtual stranger. What was even more terrifying for the tenderhearted soul, he’d now have a personal vendetta, a vested interest in hating the demon about to murder his friend. He needed to know who it was so he’d know who to hate.

Remaining crouched in the shadows, trying to regain his mental acuity, a safety zone he’d acquired prior to Polly’s arrival at his door, the minute hand on his pocket watch was fast becoming his enemy. It was now 3:17 a.m. Where was this monster? Polly’s body was recorded being discovered at 3:40 a.m. Ethan began ringing his moist hands together, rubbing the skin from his knuckles. Muttering a mantra chant, the words in his head escaped his lips as a guttural whisper: “Please show up please show up please show up please show up please show up.”

How cruel could a Universe be? How did a humble Scope research project get so fucked up so fast? This wasn’t about him or Maggie, Polly, Mary. This was about the discipline of time. This was about an oath taken to The Consortium, those years spent training, learning to comprehend the inherent complexities and complicity of changing an immutable timeline, interfering in history in terms imaginable...or not. A glitch in the minutia could ultimately affect the world on a much grander scale.

It was 3:22 a.m. Time stopped. It ceased to exist, if it ever did. Ethan held his breath while the cosmos conspired against him, turning on him in a blink of God’s eye as he realized the killer wasn’t coming. He was already there. Now it was up to him to maintain the timeline, come what may. This was the grand scale. It was also a personal crisis. Everything changed in a flicker with the repulsive realization that he, Dr. Ethan LaPierre, in Jack’s absence, would have to play the role of the Ripper.

No. No. Ethan was no one’s understudy, he hadn’t rehearsed for this part. It was all a vicious joke, another hellish nightmare. Maggie was not Polly Nichols and he was not Jack the Ripper. He’d awaken any moment to find “Robinson Crusoe” on the bed beside him, laying open to the chapter that prompted this insane dream. No.

Pacing in place, rubbing his hands raw, Ethan glanced down at his medical bag. Among its contents were surgical knives. No! He’d be incapable of doing what was being asked of him, a demand made in error, no doubt. The monster would round a corner any second just like the black-winged Pegasus had, a harbinger of evil deeds in another nightmare he recalled. No. This could not happen to him. The man hadn’t done anything in his life to deserve this, as he’d never hurt another living soul. Not so much as a spider found in his flat, released from its prison into the light of day. He never deliberately killed anything and certainly wasn’t going to begin by killing a friend, even if she’d been dead far more than a century by the time they met. No.

Now 3:24. Where was the son of a bitch? Conflict rising like acid from his stomach, it got stuck in his throat, burning him alive from within. He felt ill, as he had coming through the Flicker, ready to vomit again. Breathe. Breathe. “No time...must make time to spare, even a minute. Give him another minute.” No time.

Now 3:25...3:26...Ethan visualized the culprit rounding a dark corner of Bucks Row, how he would look, what he would do as he practically stumbled over Polly laying on the cold cobblestone. The demon would stand there a moment snickering, the thought of how easy it would be, no fight at all. Leaning over her, deciding she was already as good as dead so he’d do her a favor and finish the job. Ethan was so tempted to yell “About time!” as his brain created a ghost lurking among shadows but there was no one hiding in the fog...no one there but him. 3:27. Out of time.

No! Grabbing the medical bag, Ethan crossed the street, counting every step as he went astray in the night. Off script. Crouching down beside her, looking around once more, it was up to him to maintain the timeline, up to him to finish her off. It was an unfathomable task. The bastard must have already come and gone, leaving him to fulfill the dictate of history. His pocket watch would never lie to him. 3:28. Polly did not move. She did not even appear to be breathing. Perhaps she’d already passed. No sign of life, he didn’t bother to feel for a pulse. The head injury she had sustained in his room must have been worse than he thought. Thank God she would not feel a thing. Polly was already lost and gone. It would ease the pain of what needed doing, not her pain...but his own. 3:29 a.m.

He sifted through the medical bag to find a knife that he could use to make the identical incisions, lacerations on her body recorded in autopsy photographs. Those medical reports were burned into his memory long ago in a faraway time. His hands slick with sweat, his throat tightening with tension, he couldn’t swallow. There was no saliva in his mouth. Barely breathing, he found one surgical knife at the bottom of the bag, sunken by its own weight. Knowing it would be similar to the knife used by the assailant, it was an archaic tool, obsolete, almost violent in appearance, yet it was as sharp as any modern medical instrument in any operating room. Mustering the courage, Ethan knew this was a no way out scenario, something he had to do to preserve the timeline. Polly appeared so peaceful, placid in repose, a still life, lying at his feet in the cool night air. The woman seemed an ethereal creature in morning mist, an otherworldly optical illusion sprawled out before him but she was real, as real as the fire pulsing through his veins. Time was of the essence.

“Stop it!” The man was trembling uncontrollably. “Stop it! You know what you have to do! Do it now!” Kneeling over her torso, Ethan straddled her, holding the blade to Polly’s throat long enough to steady his hand. The angle of the cut had to be precise. Puncturing skin, the first recorded incision was under the left jawline.

“I’m sorry, Maggie.” Ethan whispered the mournful words, riddled with regret. Then, attempting to quell the brewing storm in his mind, he silently talked himself through it. “I’ve got to do this.” Rationalizing a completely irrational act, the kindly professor transformed into a butcher preparing to all but sever the head from Polly’s body with precision technique, knowing he must replicate the imagery impaled in his mind. “I’ve got to go through with it. This is her destiny, and now mine.” Gazing at the poor, pitiful woman, an equally helpless victim of circumstance, Ethan issued the final prompt that would send him careening over the precipice into the darkest abyss of night. Willing the strength to do what he couldn’t possibly do, he chanted a silent incantation. “You can do it...you can do it...you can do it....”

Ethan took a deep breath, steadied his hand and began to cut her throat. Slicing several inches in, shocked by the ease with which a knife slid through supple skin, Mary Ann Nichols opened her eyes. Penetrating his soul, he jerked back the knife. Staring at each other, connected for eternity, in that singular moment of recognition, Miss Maggie knew her killer.

“How could you do this to me?” Her bewildered expression stilled the man.

Taking it in as the images appeared in rapid-fire succession, creating permanent postcards for Ethan to take back into the future, he had already sliced clear through her larynx. Polly did try to speak to him, her eyes darting as wildly as his own. The few words she mouthed with blood-spattered lips produced only the slightest moan as gurgling sounds bubbled up through the slit in her throat. He could smell blood, watching incredulously as steam rose from the wound, pouring out and around both sides of her throat, channeled by folds of skin on her neck, gravity tugging it toward cobblestone. As the crimson substance flowed with ease, forming a puddle beneath her shoulder blades, she didn’t move. She did not struggle. In shock, as if reconciled to her own demise, a certain fate, she made no attempt to fight for her life. No need to check his pocket watch. He was certain time had stopped. It was irrelevant. They were together in the timeless bubble, suspended in the moment. Consumed with the event he was sharing with his victim, Ethan paused to reconsider the cosmic cousin to the seven stages of grief. He saw this transpiring as it happened. In her eyes he’d seen the seven stages of fear.

 

The Seven Stages of Fear

Defiance: self-preservation / life embrace / fear of unknown

“I don’t want to die.”

Shock: disbelief / astonishment / realization of what transpires

“Could this really be happening?”

Confusion: disorientation / chaos / uncertainty

“What is happening to me?”

Denial: rejection / turmoil / renunciation

“This cannot be happening to me.”

Betrayal: blame / anger / self-loathing / devastation

“How could you do this to me?”

Despair: grief / inevitability / relinquishing will

“I thought you loved me.”

Surrender: acceptance / acquiescence / transcendence

“This is happening to me.”

Ethan knew there was no turning back, no running away from the scene of this crime. He had to finish what he started and so, went in for the second cut. He finally found courage, knowing he’d have to perform the mutilation exactly as it occurred, according to the specific details in the autopsy report. This cut had to be from the bottom left jawline down across her entire throat to the right jawline. He had to cut back and forth until it reached Polly’s spine, all the while holding his free hand over her mouth to muffle what sounds might come with the pain. He’d hoped the shock of it had a numbing effect. Tipping her head backward, exposing the existing gash, her eyes were locked onto his and Ethan couldn’t break the cosmic connection. He could not afford to look away. Instead, he was forced to observe everything he did to exactly recreate these mortal wounds. Trying to soothe her, to comfort his friend, he repeated, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Shhh...shhh. It’s all right. It will be all right. I’ll make it right, Maggie.” Tears were trickling down his face.

Blood expelled through her nose splattering on his right hand, still covering her mouth. He removed his hand, realizing she was incapable of making any accidental or deliberate sounds as the life force left her body. Plucking the handkerchief from his vest pocket, Ethan tenderly cleaned her face. He knew he was not done, yet. He had to complete this morbid task, maintaining the integrity of the timeline. He had gotten her where she belonged, where she needed to be, in time and on time. It was an issue of authenticity, this matter of continuity. Having no choice but to desecrate Polly’s body in the most gruesome way imaginable, this was no longer a matter of life and death. Based on what he knew he’d have to do next, he cursed God for his role in history and thanked God that she was already dead.

Lifting her woolen skirt to the neck, his swift action as a single sweeping motion revealed her lower extremities to cold air she could no longer feel against dead skin. Though he’d known of the absence of undergarments, it was nonetheless a shocking sight to see her so exposed. The abdomen and genitalia visible, Ethan firmly seized the handle of the knife, fixating on all the documented details, postmortem findings of the murder and the subsequent disemboweling. He could not close his eyes and plunge right in. Instead, he had to watch what he was doing, duplicating the details. Choosing a location, he jabbed the blade into the left side of her belly. With a flick of the wrist, a twist of the knife, a nick of the liver, the stand-in for the brutal butcher forever fixed in history, Ethan attempted to fix history. He could feel the spearhead impacting her vital organs. Dragging it down toward the vaginal cavity, he delved deeply inward, straining the sore muscles he had already used to carry his victim to Bucks Row then lay her at death’s door. He stopped, retracting the eight-inch blade, assessing the damage inflicted, Ethan took a deep breath then refocused. He noticed how warm her blood was to the touch, how moist flesh clutched at his hand from within her core with each impaling blow as if clinging to life from beyond the grave. Keeping count in the same way he’d always counted the steps of a staircase, Ethan had to be exacting. The clock was ticking. He had no time to check the time.

Deliberate in his approach, the man stabbed repeatedly into Polly’s lower torso, penetrating to bone, decimating the pelvic region. Every gouging, ripping, serrating motion kept him preoccupied with getting it right. It was now Ethan’s blood racing, pulsing through his closed veins and arteries. He could feel the rush of heat surging inside his body. His hands were no longer trembling. His mind steadied, he watched his own handiwork, horrified and astonished by the amount of blood in one human body. He struck at her flesh with such force, each withdrawal of the weapon exerted pressure enough to lift her corpse from the cobblestone. Polly Nichols felt immortal to him, still alive in some inexplicable way, yet Mary Ann Nichols, Polly, Maggie was dead and, in some way, so was Ethan, as if he’d just cut his own throat. Time would tell but for the moment, he felt like one of two victims, the lone survivor.

During the next few minutes Professor LaPierre continued on, against his will, to play the heinous role of Jack the Ripper. He despised the faceless man who never showed up and put him in such an untenable position. Choosing the spots recorded, he impaled the blade into the right side of her belly. He had no choice. As to what would be historically and accurately chronicled of the murder, the angle of her body allowed for most of the blood to flow underneath her, gradually soaked up by her clothing, leaving only a small pool behind her back. Standing to reason, considering that blood was no longer pumping through her fragile heart, given willingly to the man of her dreams, a ticket out of abject deprivation, Ethan could not bear to think of her as Maggie or Polly or Mary Ann Nichols. She had expired. She was a corpse. Catching his breath on the breeze, he made several more documented cuts, jaggedly slashing across the lower abdomen, opening a fissure that provided visual access to her lower intestines. Duplicating the depraved mutilation was a challenge, the most grotesque kind of reenactment Ethan could conceive.

In went the knife again, this time into the lower right side of her stomach then down deeply into the pelvic region, repeatedly plunging the weapon into her lifeless form while keeping close count. Maintaining his concentration and conformity, just as meticulous with the murder as he was with his research of it, he knew the precise number, the precise locations, depth and breadth of every puncture wound inflicted, recorded for posterity, spending years of his life pouring over every detail. He knew what to do and he was nearly done. Ripping her body cavity wide open with a single slash, he exposed her internal organs. Each strike more severe than one preceding it, according to the coroner’s report that’s exactly how it happened. The adrenaline racing through his veins bulging with the rapid flow of his own blood, sweat raining from his brow, the aggressor was exhausted, gasping for air in much the same way his friend had only a few minutes earlier.

A quick comparative analysis, Ethan recalled the images of this victim hanging on his office walls, autopsy photographs displaying every lurid breach of her body. Looking down at the gaping wounds he’d duplicated from memory, they matched. Suddenly he wondered, had he acted prematurely? Had the REAL Jack the Ripper been hiding in the shadows all along, watching over Ethan committing the barbaric act in error, the murder of a victim not rightfully his own? A woman HE had been destined for, deprived of because of an overzealous professor? An understandable paranoia developing in his mind, considering even the potential paradox of another Ethan from another time lurking in dark alleys, in the shadows of his soul, a fellow Flicker traveler might be watching him at that very moment. No! He could not wrap his otherwise facile mind around the convoluted concept. Self-loathing aside, the work he needed to do was finished. He’d done all he could to preserve the integrity of the crime scene as a historical event, the authenticity of the timeline for the sake of an unknown future. Nothing had changed except him.

Peering once more at her face, into the open eyes of the woman who was once “Maggie” the barmaid to him, until a mere forty minutes before when he had first mouthed the words “I’m sorry” Ethan said it again. In hushed tones, expressing his regrets, he was drowning in sorrow, awash in emotions flowing through him as fast as the blood flowed from his victim. Shock. Horror. Grief. Anger. Being plunged into a predicament beyond his control, compelled by the cosmos to take control of a situation not of his making, circumstances he could never have predicted, a flood of remorse burst from his heart, pouring from his eyes while he sobbed.

Disposing of the knife, throwing it back into the bag, he snapped it up with one hand, placing the other over his mouth as he raced across the street to the relative safety of the alleyway. Remaining in a crouched position, his urgency was no longer born of the fear of detection but the visceral sensation that he was about to be sick. Barely making it into the secluded corner he had chosen to observe the proceedings, Ethan covered his mouth to muffle the distinguishable sound as he began to retch, catching the contents of his stomach in the hand drenched with the rusty residue of coagulated blood congealing between his fingers. It came over him in waves as he knelt down near some discarded construction materials. The vomiting was violent, no doubt due to the compelling event, compounded by the knowledge of what he’d done; sickened by this part he played in history. Mind reeling, thoughts fracturing with reasons why he had to kill a friend then mutilate her corpse, he was overcome. A human being lost her life to the hands he found himself staring at, reflecting upon what had occurred...and why...and what may come of it.

Did this mean he’d have to murder the other four women he was there to simply observe? Would he become a suspect in their brutal slaying? Never in all of his life, not even during the first three days he had spent here in the Whitechapel district of old London, had anything been quite as real as it was in that moment spent peering at his own bloodstained palms. Closing his weary eyes, Ethan’s tears escaped from the corners, cascading down, absorbed by his collar. In his mind’s eye he could see an image of young Maggie stumbling in the mud, leering back at him with playful disdain, a postcard, the keepsake he had carried with him into the past. It has often been said the first cut is the deepest and what he had done cut him to the core, there as a permanent scar. Pulling out his pocket watch, it was 3:32 a.m. In touching it to open the face, blood smeared on his faithful companion, the three-legged horse.