Only the Thunder Knows_East End Girls

Only the

Thunder Knows

By

Gord Rollo

JournalStone

San Francisco

Copyright
© 2013 by Gord Rollo

All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping
or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission
of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews.

This
is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations,
and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously.

JournalStone
books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

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www.journalstone.com

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The
views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby
disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN:
    978-1-936564-82-8            (sc)

ISBN:     978-1-940161-16-7            (hc
– limited edition)

ISBN:     978-1-936564-79-8            (ebook)

Library
of Congress Control Number: 2013935628

Printed
in the United States of America

JournalStone
rev. date:  June 7, 2013

Cover
Design:       Denis Daniel

Cover
Art:             Alan M. Clark

Edited
By:             Norman Rubenstein

Dedication

I’d like to
give a shout out to my friend and fellow author Steve Savile. He’s a brilliant
writer and a huge inspiration for me. More importantly for the project you’re
holding in your hands, it was Steve who originally suggested the idea for a
dark tale about the grave robbers turned serial killers, Burke and Hare. For years
we talked about writing something together and I’d hoped this book might
eventually be the one. Unfortunately, Steve is so incredibly busy (not that
there is anything unfortunate about that—he’s earned every bit of his success)
we just couldn’t find the time to make it happen this time around. When this
opportunity came along for me, and I heard that Rena Mason was writing a
historical horror tale set in Great Britain, I knew I wanted to write something
in a similar historical vein as well. Burke and Hare fit that theme perfectly.
I asked Steve if he minded if I wrote the story myself and he graciously told
me to go ahead. I still hope we get the chance to work together sometime soon,
but for now I’ll be content if Steve reads my book and doesn’t think I screwed
it up too badly.

Endorsements

“
Only
the Thunder Knows
is a wonderfully written story by Gord Rollo,
possibly his very best writing (which is saying quite a bit). The story starts
with two grave robbers but it moves into unexpected territory as it continues
and by the end I was totally enthralled. I was amazed at the skill Rollo brings
to the table to be able to pull this off. Very highly recommended!” –
John R. Little

“Readers who
enjoy toying with alternate-historical hypotheses and can endure gore should
find these lively accounts appealing.”

–
Publishers Weekly

A Little
Knowledge

Is

A Dangerous
Thing

An Introduction by Alan M.
Clark

This volume marks the beginning of the
new Double Down series of books to be released by JournalStone Publishing.  The
unusual
tête-bêche
books are inspired by the Ace Doubles from the 1950s
to the 1970s.

Part of what
draws the two novellas in this book into one volume is that each of the authors
has chosen to give their story a well-known historical setting.  Both take
place in Great Britain; Gord Rollo’s, “Only the Thunder Knows,” in Edinburgh in
the late Georgian era of the resurrectionists, particularly Burke and Hare, and
Rena Mason’s, “East End Girls,” in Victorian London during the time of Jack the
Ripper.  

I love a good
historical fiction or alternate history tale, one that helps me do a bit of time-travel,
and these stories transport me to fascinating periods.  Nearly everyone enjoys
looking back in history and considering a simpler time.  Some of that pleasure
comes from trying to imagine how the world might be today if events had
unfolded differently in the past.  For me, much of the enjoyment comes from
knowing that the people of the past had something to look forward to; some of
the advances in science and medicine that we enjoy today.  Those people had
hope of a better world, and we know they had the guts and the drive to get
there, for here we are.  When casually considering the past, however, we often
don’t think about what it took to turn those hopes for a better world into
reality; the struggles, the growing pains, the unintended consequences of
trying something new.

Both the late
Georgian and Victorian eras saw enormous advancements in science in Great
Britain.  With the science came new technologies in medicine and industry.  Of
course there were those who capitalized on the economic growth that ensued, and
they had their share of hubris, their ofttimes heedless and single‐minded
efforts to drive the technologies into the future resulting in unintended
consequences that caused their fellow man no end of trouble and harm.  Of
course we are always on the cusp of knowing more, but frequently, even when we
have only a little knowledge, we tend to have big ideas—sometimes dangerous
ideas—of what we could do with it.  But then, this is in part how we learn.  We
make mistakes.  It’s messy, but there seems to be an inevitability about the
process and no good way around it.

What’s
fascinating to me is that when looking back on such eras we are strangely
nostalgic about our naiveté.  Some even lament the loss of those
simpler
times
.  What these periods provide for the writer is settings for great
tragic drama. 

And Mason and
Rollo have employed them for just that. 

“East End
Girls” takes place in the 1880s when the industrial revolution had made Great
Britain the richest nation in the world.  That same revolution, however, had
put so many of the British people out of work that the East End of London
experienced some of the worst poverty known anywhere at the time.  The poor and
vulnerable were the prey of Jack the Ripper.  Perhaps nothing could have stopped
the first murder, but with better law enforcement techniques the subsequent
murders might have been prevented.  The repeated loss of life becomes more
poignant when considering that fingerprinting, a technology that might have
helped catch the killer, was introduced to the London police and rejected by
shortsighted officials in 1886, 2 years before the Ripper.   In this case, the
lack
of action in taking up a technology caused unintended harm.  Yes, I think it
even as I tap the keys to write this—they were
simpler times
.  Jack the
Ripper may have had little fear of being caught.  Because the history of the
Ripper has many such wellsprings of collective human regret, I have always been
fascinated with stories of the murderer and have explored the history in my own
writing.  Mason’s tale has wonderful new twists and turns to add to the growing
body of speculation about Jack the Ripper.

Gord Rollo’s
story is centered around the most notorious characters from the dark history of
bodysnatching, William Burke and William Hare.  To this day, the best way to
study anatomy is to dissect a human being.  In modern times we tend to have
plenty of people willing to hand over their bodies after death to this purpose,
but that’s not how it’s always been.  In the past, due to religious beliefs and
other scruples throughout most of the developing world, we have not been
consistently willing to give up our dead for dissection sufficient to the need
of every one striving to become a physician. 

Whenever we’ve
failed to meet that need, a market for stolen dead bodies has emerged.  My
grandfather, Dr. Sam Lillard Clark (1898 to 1961), was head of the Anatomy
Department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and was on the Tennessee
Anatomical Board (he called it the Board Stiff), charged with the task of
securing cadavers for all the medical students in Tennessee.  When there were
not enough to go around, he employed a body snatcher.  I have long loved the
history of bodysnatching, ever since reading my grandfather’s paper, “Medical
Education from the Ground Up,” that he wrote and delivered to his gentleman’s
club in the 1940s.  Part of the paper are the words of his body
snatcher—originally recorded on Dictaphone® (wax cylinder dictation machine),
then transcribed by my grandfather into the paper—telling of his exploits in
the Nashville area, the city where I grew up. 

Rollo’s
novella puts a shovel in my hand and pays me handsomely to dig for corpses
alongside his characters, and I’m right there with them when they make an incredible
discovery that turns the reader’s expectations inside out.  

When I was
asked to paint the cover art for this Double Down book, I was excited by the
subject matter.  Reading the beautifully crafted stories I became immersed in
long lost, gritty worlds of British history, both realistically and
fantastically portrayed by Rollo and Mason.  Then I was offered the honor of
writing this introduction!  Rarely have I been presented with a project that so
well suits my own interests.  I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have.

Only the

Thunder Knows

By

Gord Rollo

Chapter

1

Edinburgh,
Scotland

October, 1828

Other than the
incessant rain, which is pretty much a given this far north, the Gaffer had
told Charlie Mawson hot wax burns would be what he’d hate most about igniting
the gaslights along the narrow cobbled streets of Westport.
The Warden’s
Curse
he’d called it, but the Gaffer had been wrong. Naturally, Charlie
cursed every time he held his pole aloft and scalding drops of melted candle
rained down on him, but the skin on his hands had toughened up – burnt into
insensitivity most likely – and for the last week he had taken to wearing a
wide-brimmed felt hat which he fancied made him look like a Spaniard out to
fence his way across some pirate’s galleon. Besides, practice had taught him
ways to avoid most of the spills. The burns he could cope with.

No, it was the
fog he truly despised, the thick Edinburgh pea‐soupers that left the cobbles
invisible beneath his feet as he trudged along the empty streets.

Charlie
loathed being alone when the fog descended on the city. And he hated the way
his mind conjured up all kinds of demons and phantoms – always just out of sight
and reach but only just so – hovering ominously on the periphery of his vision,
masked by the swirling mist. And when the fog rolled in extra thick, as it had
tonight, blanketing Westport in its eerie shroud, Charlie’s palms would grow
sweaty and chills danced up and down his back as iron bands of dread tightened
slowly around his chest, squeezing the very breath from his lungs.

Charlie had
thought it a stroke of genius on his part to apply for a job as a Warden with
the gasworks – instead of being cooped up in some rat-infested factory along
the Firth of Forth all day long, he’d be working outside, no one watching over
his every move. And it was good money besides. He couldn’t believe how many
folks on the route paid him an extra ha’penny a week to knock them awake come
sunrise. Easy money, he’d thought, knocking on a few windows after he’d doused
the gaslights for the day to come. Thirty days into his employment, and the fog
had convinced Charlie that a factory job wasn’t the ‘evil to end all evils’
after all.

Ah, to Hell
and buggery, just get on with it, yer fool,
Charlie thought, chastising
himself.
Once the blasted lights are burnin’ you’ll feel better.

A Hackney cab
ghosted by in the distance; or perhaps it was one of those fancy new two-wheeled
hansom cabs he’d been hearing about lately, its iron-rimmed wheels striking
sparks on the uneven cobbles. Though in truth he might never have known it was
there without the clop of the horse’s shoes and the clatter of the wheel rims
on the broken stones. The fog smudged out its black shape until it simply
ceased to be.

Charlie
shivered, thinking of ghoulies and ghosties and other nasty things that went
bump in the night.

Fear
is peculiar like that, Charlie knew. You struggled through with clenched teeth
like you were lugging a bloody great bag of coal on your back. You’ve just got
to get on with it or it will drop you in your tracks. And right enough, once
he’d ignited most of the gaslights along the High Street he felt more in
control. The flames burned off some of the fog and pushed the darkness back to
a safer distance. Charlie knew it was all in his head but nevertheless he felt
the bands around his chest slowly ease their grip. He took several deep breaths,
doing his best to relax.

Then he heard
the footsteps.

Slow and
measured.

Heavy,
confident strides.

Assuredly
male. Not the leggy gait of a whore out working the streets or the nervous
tap-tap-scuffle of a more refined lady – no self-respecting woman would be out
this late, he reasoned, certainly not in this part of town – definitely a man.

He felt his
chest tightening again.

The footsteps
approached out of the fog, coming from some still unlit section of the city but
with the all-encompassing white mist it was impossible to judge if they came
from behind him, ahead of him or from either side. That was another thing
Charlie hated about the fog; it rendered direction meaningless. He strained to
peer through the gloom but there was nothing to see except
a
calico cat sheltered under the eaves of the local bakery, enjoying the lingering
aromas of cinnamon and saffron that were drifting out from the air vents.
 

Suddenly, like
one of the wraiths that plagued his imagination, a tall figure dressed in black
strode purposefully out of the night, the curtain of fog torn asunder and
scattered by his appearance.
Charlie stared at the shape coalescing
out of the mist. The fragment of jaundiced light from the gaslight gave the
man’s face a deathlike pallor, as though his bone‐white skull showed through
the folds of skin drawn over it. The newcomer was like something that might
walk out of Dante’s Hell. Tails fluttered like the wings of black birds around
his legs.

The
footsteps slowed.

Stopped.

Charlie very
nearly screamed but he bit down on it hard enough to draw blood from his bottom
lip.

The newcomer
was big, well over six feet and easily fifteen stone, though his bulky overcoat
and top hat made him appear both wider and taller. Their eyes met for a moment
but Charlie quickly broke the contact and looked away, pretending to fumble
with the glass casing on the light above him despite the fact that it was
already lit and closed. Fear tied anxious knots deep in his belly.

He had
thought, for no more than a heartbeat, that the tall man had no eyes. Good
Catholic boy that he was, Charlie moved instinctively to make the sign of the
cross on his chest but he stopped himself. He didn’t want the stranger thinking
he was some simpleton fresh out from the asylum.

“A word with
you, young sir?” a deep, gravelly voice asked. Then silence and Charlie had no
choice but to look up and face its owner.

A small
measure of relief washed over him: The man wasn’t some mystical Speaker of the
Dead; he did in fact have eyes and not cold round shillings, albeit the
strangest eyes Charlie had ever seen. Twin blanks; the whole eye the same ice
white as the stranger’s long hair and slightly ragged beard – an exact match
for the shifting banks of fog. A shiver wormed its way down the length of
Charlie’s back.

“Can I help
you, Gov’nor?”

“That depends.
I’m looking for Tanner’s Close,” White Eyes said. “I was told I might find a
lodging house there. It is, after all, deep into the dead of night and even the
most restless souls must sleep.”

Directions.
All he wants is a place to kip down. Thank Christ for that.
For all that
Charlie still
couldn’t look the stranger square in the eye.

“Aye sir…‘tis.”
Charlie turned and pointed along the street in the direction of the Quayside.
“Down that way toward the water, Tanner’s is the fourth turning you’ll come to,
you can’t miss it. Go into the crescent and you’ll see Log’s Lodging House
right on the corner. Big building. Bit rundown, but then what isn’t around
here? Anyway, like I said, you can’t miss it.”

He was
rambling.

White Eyes
made no response. His inspection was invasive. It made Charlie feel dirty,
violated, as though the tall man wasn’t staring
at
him, but rather
into
him. Perhaps, Charlie thought wildly, he could see into his soul and was
actually reading it then to see if he spoke the truth or not. Charlie shook his
head blaming the crazy notion on the wee dram of whiskey he’d knocked back
before coming out. Apparently satisfied, he gave Charlie a slight nod then
moved off down the street without so much as another word.

The stranger
stopped in midstride, inclining his head ever so slightly as though listening
to some sound only he could hear, and then walked on. Over his shoulder, he
called: “My thanks, young man. You’ll find your reward, I am sure, in Heaven.
Ah… and speaking of the good Lord’s house, the old lady on Princess Street
won’t wake up come sunrise, so save your banging, Charlie Mawson. She’s
sleeping the good sleep.”

Charlie could
only stare, unwilling,
unable
to turn his back on this mysterious man.
How
the bloody buggerin’ Hell does he know my name?

Chilled bone deep,
Charlie watched the stranger walk away. One by one, each gaslight along the
High Street dulled, flickered, and then went out as he passed it.

Charlie
dropped his candle and fumbled for the flask of whiskey he kept hidden in the
depths of his coat pockets, not nearly as afraid of the fog now as he was of
the darker things that walked within it. Shaking, he uncapped the silver
stopper and drank deeply. The whiskey burned on its way down but it didn’t even
begin to touch the chill in his rapidly beating heart.

*   *   *

Maggie Hare answered the door
almost before the first knock had sounded. She threw it wide open and braced
herself there in the doorway like some common fishwife, ready to give her
miserable excuse for a husband a mouthful for coming home in the middle of the
night stinking of beer and smoke.

She’d kept a
faithful vigil at the downstairs window for hours with only the ticking of the
grandfather clock in the common room for company. Not that she could see
anything of the streets outside. A fog had crept in off Colston Hill and the
peaks of the Highlands beyond, smothering the city in mist so thick she had
trouble seeing the end of her nose much less the road and the workhouses and
factories beyond her front stoop. William, her husband, was a good for nothing
drunk.
Worthless as a human being, worth even less as a husband
, Maggie
thought bitterly. Given his usual state of inebriation she was constantly
surprised when he found his way home, but then even the mangiest of mongrels
seem to have the knack for finding their beds and a softie to feed them come
morning.

“Damn you,
William Hare! If you’ve been out pokin’ some damned whore–” Maggie launched
into her tirade but the familiar invective had barely left her tongue before
she saw the stranger waiting on the doorstep.

She wasn’t
sure who the tall dark-clothed man was, but he definitely wasn’t her William.

“Ah, my
sincerest apologies, Good Wife. I appear to have come at a bad time,” the
stranger said, no hint of the Scottish burr to his voice; nor Irish for that
matter. An English Gentleman maybe, out in the dead of night. “I was hoping to
rent a room but I can return in the morning, or perhaps you know of somewhere
else nearby?”

“Goodness me,
no, sir. Come in, come in. It’s colder ‘n a witches tit out there… you must be
frozen. We’ve got a nice warm fire stoked and I can heat up a bowl of broth for
you no trouble… get some heat into your old bones, eh?” Maggie graced him with
her most winning of smiles, pretending that it was a common thing for complete
strangers to come calling this late at night. It was nothing short of magic the
way the thought of getting her hands on the stranger’s money dampened her anger
with her husband.

“How long will
you be with us, mister…?”

“Black… Ambrosious
Black,” he said, smiling. “I know, quite a mouthful, but you get used to it by
the time you get to my age. I was thinking something along the lines of a couple
of months, perhaps even more. It all depends on the work I have to do here
really, so it’s hard to say exactly.”

“A basic room
is two ‘n eight a night, nothing fancy mind, just good plain home cooking and a
warm bed.” Her eyes took on a far away quality as she wrestled with the
arithmetic in her head. Two shillings, eight pennies a day, for at least sixty
days was almost ten guineas. “Half up front, of course,” she added hurriedly.

“Of course,”
Black said, reaching into his top coat pocket for his leather purse.

“Black with
the white eyes.” Maggie found herself saying.

“Pardon?”
Black said, his smile spreading.

“Black. Funny
name for a fella with white hair and white eyes…oh my, you ain’t blind are you?
Can’t be giving you something upstairs if you’s blind…oh do listen to me
prattling on like a fool.”

“I’m not
blind, dear lady. Though a downstairs room, perhaps out of the way of your
other guests would be appreciated. I’ll be working during my stay.”

“Well,” she
said doubtfully, “We have got a room out back, William uses it for his
workshop, not that he ever does any work, mind.”

“Marvelous.”

“I think
William’s got a cot in there.”

“Even better.”
He palmed five guineas into Maggie’s hand, more than he even owed. “I can see
we are going to get along like a house on fire, Mrs. Hare.”