Page 133 of If Looks Could Kill
She crawls her fingers along the floor. He doesn’t notice. She’s on a folded sheet. Beyond it, she finds a bit of gravel and flings it, hoping the noise will startle him. It does, but he shrugs it off. He presses fingers into her gut, marking the spot of his next cut, and readies his blade.
No time.
Her extended right hand finds something metallic and heavy and long.A tool? A pipe? It’ll do. She swings it up and over, clocking him on the side of the head with it.
His full, suffocating weight collapses on top of her. It presses the tip of the blade into her body once more before it flops sideways. She cries out in pain, gashed in two places.
He’s moving, scrambling to get up, to reach for her throat. No time, no time.
She twists hard to the left, throwing his weight off-balance and rolling him off her. The wounds in her belly scream. Before he can settle, she brings the heavy metal object crashing down upon his head once more.
It stuns him briefly. It won’t be long.
“Help me!” she screams. “Help!”
No one comes. No one hears.
She has no time left at all.
Jack to the Harvest(Early Morning, Tuesday, December 4, 1888)
She attacked him. She hit him! She actually hit him. Twice. His head reels from the blow, and he feels sticky blood trickle down his cheek. Oh, she will pay for this. And not with a swift death. Oh, no. Not she.
If she prefers to be awake, let her be awake.
If she prefers to scream, let her scream.
But he’d used enough chloroform to sedate a pony. She should be far, far gone.
Now she moans and whimpers something underneath her breath.
Good. Let her unravel. It will be amusing to watch. And here he’d almost taken an indulgent view of her, the hardworking little maid. Never forget, Jack, what women are. He will harvest her and rid the world of one more hysterical female.
Something crashes over his face, sharp and wet. His brew. She has flung the beaker straight into his face. It shatters. He roars in frustration. All his pains, all his risks for nothing. The experiment is ruined. Never mind; it will be pleasure enough simply to kill her.
The pathetic wretch is crawling toward the light and the foot of the stairs. Does she think she can escape him on her hands and knees?
Let her think it. He calms his breath, steels his grip on his knife, and rises to finish the job.
Pearl—To the Light(Early Morning, Tuesday, December 4, 1888)
Get to the light. It’s all she can think of. Get to the light.
Waves of pain wash over her, but she crawls for the lamp.
Her hand finds a bundle of old newspapers tied together with twine. She drags them with her, along with her lead pipe.
How many women has he killed? And she’s gettingnewspapers?
Come to me, my darlings, she calls. This is the hour of our last battle. This is the time.
But they don’t come. Is she too injured? Too drugged? Too frightened? Her one and only hope, betraying her in this godforsaken hour?
She reaches the lamp. With an effort, she tears newspapers out from the bundle, rolls them into a tube, and feeds them down the chimney of the lamp until fire whooshes upward with a cloud of inky smoke.
She pulls out her makeshift flaming torch and uses it to set the whole bundle of papers on fire.
A crash sounds from behind her, behind and beyond them both.
