He opened his eyes and as he did, he became instantly disoriented. The disorientation caused acute nausea and he leaned forward and retched. He retched again and again until he was dry heaving and slowly the nausea subsided. Finally, his head quit spinning. The vomiting spell had caused him to close his eyes again to lessen the perplexity. He didn’t realize it until he heard a voice off to his right.
“Sir,” the voice said. “Oi, sir,” the voice said again. Jack opened his eyes slightly and realized he was going to be okay. He risked opening his eyes fully and turned his head to see who was speaking to him. His eyes focused on a boy of about twelve.
The boy was filthy. His clothes were filthy, his face was filthy and his matted hair was filthy. The boy looked at him with concern but smiled as Jack opened his eyes. The teeth that weren’t missing were rotted and yellow. “Sir?” the boy continued. “Are you alright, sir?”
“I’m fine, boy,” Jack said. “Be gone with you.”
The boy ran off and disappeared into an adjacent alley.
Jack rose to his feet and took a moment to take in his location. He was in some sort of alley between two buildings. The passage was putrid – on the ground were pools of urine filled with feces. Everything smelled like sewage and decay. To Jack, there was no doubt he had arrived.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
London, England – August 1888
Jack walked down Whitechapel Road, soaking in the East End of London. If everything had gone to plan, it was August 1888.
The East End consisted of everything east of the Aldgate Pump, also known as outcast London. Just under a million slum-dwellers populated mostly single rooms that were rented for the night and it was not uncommon for those rooms to house up to ten people. The rooms were marked only by a single bed of flea-infested straw stuffed into a sack. There were no indoor toilets, merely buckets that were frequently left in the room for several days before being emptied.
Most of the wood that did not make up the necessary structure of a home was removed for firewood. Broken windows were stuffed with rags or covered with paper. The air reeked of rotted vegetables and decaying carcasses of dogs, pigs, rabbits and rats that the inhabitants killed for food.
Those who died remained in the room as the family could neither afford to bury the body nor had anywhere to move the body.
Mothers, who had no other sources of income, turned their children loose into the streets while they made a living as a prostitute.
The women who did not sell their own bodies worked as sweat shop tailors. Children also worked in those sweat shops and would work as many as seventeen hours a day. A day’s work in the sweat shop would pay tenpence which was enough for a room for the night and food, thus continuing the cycle.
Because of the laborious way of life, women who were pregnant often contributed to complications of their unborn children. Many children died during childbirth and half of the children died before age five. The children that survived were malnourished and therefore physically and mentally underdeveloped. Children who had the opportunity to go to school would faint in their desks from starvation and exhaustion of daily life. The winters provided little warmth and schools were closed during those months because the buildings were too cold.
Whitechapel Road itself was home to eighty thousand people, mostly working seasonal jobs as builders or dockers. Those with permanent employment made a living by shoveling coal, carrying grain or carting timber. Everywhere Jack looked, petty street sellers and ramshackle shops filled any empty space.
This was the scene that Jack entered. He had read much about the East End in preparation for time travel but the narrative was a pale shadow to reality.
The entire landscape was soiled. Rotted homes were covered with mold. Filthy people roamed, often barely dressed and what clothes they wore were caked with the refuse of the streets. Every time Jack inhaled, he thought he would gag. Why did I let Jasper talk me into coming here?
As he walked, he saw children layered in mud sitting aimlessly on the street. He suspected they waited for their mother to finish with her customer and allow them back into their room.
He passed several police officers who eyed him suspiciously. His clothes, while dirty, were not nearly as filthy as those that surrounded him. He towered above every other person on the street. He began slouching as he walked so that he wouldn’t stand out so much.
He came upon a pool of standing water that was half-filled with sediment (he did not want to know what was mixed with the water.) To fit in better, he reached down and grabbed handfuls of the wet sediment and rubbed it on his cloths and face. From the corner of his eye he noticed a girl that looked about age six watching him. He snarled at the girl and she ran back into a hovel.
For two hours he wandered the streets and watched people. He observed how they interacted with each other and watched for similarities in behaviors; anything he could do to fit in better.
He turned right off Whitechapel Road onto Commercial Street and noticed someone walked behind him. He turned his head slightly and saw it was a police officer. Jack did not want to draw attention to himself but sped up his pace.
He glanced back and noticed that the officer was still behind him and had sped up as well. Great, Jack thought. He had to ditch the Copper. He didn’t think he could handle being taken into the police station; there was no way he could answer their questions satisfactorily.
Jack quickened his
