Jack the Ripper

The police car sped past on the road outside, siren wailing and lights flashing.

Jack gasped. They were onto him; he didn’t have much time. He had to make as many as possible for Them, didn’t they understand that? Still clutching the juice-covered butcher’s knife, Jack ran to the window and peered out.

The car screeched to a stop before his neighbour Sam’s house. Two police officers burst out of the vehicle. They ran up to the door, hands on the butts of their weapons, heads twitching from side to side. The front door swung open before they could knock, and Sam came out to meet them. Sam was distraught, gesticulating and screaming. He pointed towards Jack’s house, and the officers glanced in his direction.

Jack yelped, pasting himself to the wall beside the window, chest vibrating. No time, there was no time. He thought he would have longer to finish his work, but they’d ended it too soon. He wouldn’t be able to finish it all. If he’d known that this was all the time he’d get, he would have worked faster. He wouldn’t have wasted any seconds on useless frivolities. He’d have to make do and finish what he could before the end came knocking. Jack would have to hope that it was enough to please Them. He swished the curtains shut and twizzled the knife around in his hands. Jack went from a forward, vegetable-chopping grip to a reverse, combat-ready grip. He ran back to the kitchen, feet sliding on the innards spilt on the floor. He grabbed a pumpkin head by the stalk and started cutting and slashing, ripping open the top of the skull. Jack didn’t bother with a spoon. He stabbed his knife into the table. He began pulling out the brains with his bare hands, tossing the waste over his shoulder. When it was empty enough, Jack snatched up his 6-inch knife and stabbed the face, making ugly, untidy cuts.

The eyes fell out, then the nose, then the teeth.

He grunted. It was far from his best work. It was downright shoddy work. He used to be an artist – an artist! – but they’d reduced him to this abomination. Would They hold such poor artistry against him? Jack had no idea; he guessed he’d only find out later. He grabbed a candle, lit it with a lighter – singeing his fingertips – and dropped it into the pumpkin. He placed the jack-o’-lantern with the others dotting the room.

On almost every surface, a carved pumpkin stood, flickering with the light of a candle. Despite the decay, the earlier ones were the better work pieces.

Jack blinked away the tears. “Almost” every surface wasn’t good enough. They needed to be everywhere. Time, time, time, he needed more time. He shouldn’t have taken these pumpkins from where they grew in Sam’s garden. But it wasn’t his fault, damn it! How was he supposed to resist those bright, colourful pumpkins ripe for the taking? Sam had baited him into revealing his true identity and giving away his position. Jack grabbed the next pumpkin by the top of its head and nodded at the others that still awaited his blade. ‘Soon, my children, soon. Patience,’ he said, voice trembling. ‘Patience is a virtue!’

BANG-BANG-BANG! A fist hammered against his front door with a vengeance. ‘OPEN UP, JACK! IT’S THE POLICE!’

Jack froze, knife in hand, mouth open in an ‘O’ of surprise. Too soon, too soon! So much work left undone. There was so much more he hoped to do. Yet, for one second, he debated dropping the knife, opening the door, and answering for his crimes. But then he chopped, hacked, sliced, and scooped that thought out of his noggin. Jack brought the blade down into the pumpkin’s skull with a warrior’s cry, burying the knife up to the hilt. Jack cut open the scalp in a zigzag pattern and tore it open. He swirled the blade around inside the orange head to mince the brains and dislocate them from the walls. Jack flipped the pumpkin upside-down and spanked it, letting the innards vomit out. Jack carved a single eye, a mouth, and no nose. Then he lit it and started on the next.

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG! ‘JACK? JACK! WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE! WE KNOW IT’S YOU. OPEN THIS GODDAMN DOOR RIGHT NOW.’ The yelling voice dropped down to a little above speaking volume. ‘Jack, c’mon, man, it’s Sherriff Hal, here. We used to be buddies, back in the day, remember? Jack, some of the boys here want to take you violently, but it doesn’t need to go down that way, man. Just open –’ BANG! ‘– the godDAMN –’ BANG! ‘– DOOR!’

Jack flinched and yelped at every heavy thud against his housedoor. With each second, the chance for him to leave here alive faded like candles extinguished in the wind. If there ever had been a chance for him to survive. Buddies? Yeah, right. Horror Hal had tormented him throughout school. He was relishing the opportunity to bring in ol’ Jumpin’ Jack. He flicked a handful of the next one’s brains out with a swish of his hand. Jack stabbed into the thing’s face, no longer making any rational pattern at all – cuts and slashes.

The front door shuddered in its frame.

Jack paused as the lighter burned and blistered his fingertips. ‘No,’ he whispered.

The door shuddered again and again. The wood groaned. A crack raced up along the frame.

Trembling all over, Jack dropped the candle into the cut-open head and pushed it onto the counter.

The pumpkin slid, rolled, and then dropped off the edge. The jack-o’-lantern hit the floor and split right as Sherriff Hal’s shoulder hit the door and split it. The candle snuffed out, seeds and goop sprayed. Wood splintered, fragments raining. Sunlight poured into the dark, dank room, blinding and white. Guns raised, orders screamed.

Jack grabbed a fresh pumpkin and held his gore-slaked blade to its face, jittering. ‘I-I’ll do it! I swear to Them that I’ll do it! Don’t you think I won’t, ‘cause I will!’

A moment of silence. Outside, the green and orange lights flashed. And then someone vomited, bringing up stringy, orange clumps dotted with seeds. ‘Oh God,’ they groaned.

Wide-eyed, Jack backed into the corner, surrounded by cops and hollowed-out pumpkins. He realised that true artists never got the recognition they deserved. Not during their lifetimes. He understood now, too, that there was never enough time to finish your life’s work.

Hal’s eyes narrowed, his orange skin paling. He raised his weapon. When he spoke, he did so a little above a whisper. ‘My God, you sick sonofabitch.’

Jack had time to threaten with the blade. ‘Don’t—’

Hal and the rest of the Pumpkin Police opened fire, pasting the wall with Jack’s pumpkin brains.