Now the night only brought memories of what he had done.
Jack couldn’t explain how or why his conscience had returned. It had not been with him for many years. And if it had been there, it edged him on rather detouring him from committing the murders for which he had become famous.
He closed his eyes and he saw Polly Nichols, the first person he had killed. He saw himself placing his hand over her mouth so she couldn’t scream. With his right hand, he brought the knife up. He saw himself touch the knife to the left side of her neck. Then, he inserted the blade and drew it across her throat, slitting her gullet from ear to ear. He watched her eyes as the life left them.
After she was dead, he switched the knife to his left hand and then mutilated her stomach. He recalled smiling lustfully as her insides spilled out of the jagged wounds. He was full of rage and continued to slash, enjoying the act of mutilating the body. When he finally stopped, he was painted in blood.
Jack screamed and opened his eyes.
After an hour, he was able to close his eyes again. This time he saw Elizabeth Stride, known as Long Liz. He had also covered her mouth so she couldn’t scream and pulled her backwards into the courtyard. He pushed the blade into her neck and then slid the knife across, severing her windpipe, ending the gash at her artery: he was careful to only barely nick the artery.
With her windpipe severed, she could not call out so Jack removed his hand from her mouth. She reached up and grabbed at her neck, trying in a state of shock to stop what had happened. Because her artery was only partially cut, she bled but bled slowly. Jack sat on top of her and watched her take a minute-and-a-half to die.
Before Jack could wake, he saw Catherine Eddowes. He watched as she walked by him with a flirtatious smile. He grabbed her hair after she had passed, pulling her to the ground and murdering her. In his dream he saw the large incision across her face from her nose to her right cheek. He didn’t recall now why he had done it but he nicked each of her eyelids. He removed part of her right ear and ripped her abdomen open from the middle of her chest to well below her navel; then, he removed several of her organs.
Jack woke up sweating with a second scream caught in his throat. He wanted the scream to escape (it burned his throat) but he was so horrified at what he had done that it would not exhume itself. He had admitted to Wilson that he was a monster – and he was right. “I am a monster,” he repeated aloud in the night.
Jack had killed countless more people and he could see all of their faces at that moment. What have I become?
He knew sleep was pointless. He would keep recalling the murders he had committed as he dreamt. Staying awake was almost as bad. He tried to block out the images but they would not be dissuaded.
Finally his thoughts turned to President Libby Williams. Libby, who had come to a decade in American history where she never should have been. Libby, who had made the best of a difficult situation but had also changed history.
And now she was dead. By his hand.
He had taken parts of her body from her as she screamed. He did not kill her fast. He wanted her to experience all of the pain before he finally ended her. He started by stripping her flesh and finished by opening her stomach and displaying her intestines to her dying eyes. He remembered retching when he was finished and how confused he had been at that moment. He had spent so many years as a serial killer – cold and decisive – and now it seemed he was back to the man he had been before he invented time travel.
He was full of regret and knew he deserved to die a terrible death but he also knew that everything he had done was not done under his own influence. The technology he had developed for travel through time had changed him for the worse and had taken the killer that is within all men and brought it to the surface. He had become what his subconscious desired to be. Now that part of him had once again become suppressed and he was back to a life of full emotion and consequence.
Jack thought several times about taking his own life. But in the end, he was resigned to the fact that his death would solve nothing (although there were others who would disagree). He was one of the few men in the world who knew how to make time travel happen and now that he was released from his inner-monster, maybe he could actually do some good with his knowledge. Perhaps he could recreate the technology in a safe manner – similar to the device that Wilson used – and could go back and stop himself from ever becoming Jack the Ripper. If he did, everything he had ever done including kill Libby Williams would be reversed.
He also knew that many other parts of history would change.
He wrestled with the idea a while longer before making up his mind. In the end, he knew the decision he had to make. It seemed he had no choice
