The Killing Hand (26 page)

   "We're getting out of here," Lilly cries as she rushes to my side, checking my wounds. I can see in her face that I am in a bad state.

   "N-no.. we are not."

   "Yes, we are."

   "Y-you... have to... finish him."

   She falters, unsure ho
w to react. I feel sick asking her to do such a cruel deed, but I need to know that the nightmare is over.

   She nods slowly and makes her way ov
er to corner of the cell where I can hear her pull a loose rock from the wall. Again, she sits by my side and I can see in her eyes pleading with me to reconsider. But I will not. If there is even any chance of Jack still being alive, then it will put her at risk.

   She nods again, this time solemn and slow. She makes her way over to the still form of Jack laid spread across the floor, his body in a wicked contortion. As I lose consciousness, I can see the image if Lilly raising the rock high above her hea
d. As she brings it down with force a great relief rushes over me. Her eyes meet with mine as she raises her blood soaked hands. I can feel the world spinning. I let my eyes close, the weight of everything bearing down on me. At last I can feel the peace settling over me, I know my job is done forever. It settles over me like a warm blanket, and then my world slips into darkness and there is nothing.

Everything is black, but I can still feel the pain. My entire body ac
hes. I wonder if I am dead? No lights. No afterlife. Only eternal darkness. I try to move, but I cannot. There is only pain. I cannot sense my legs, or my toes. A tingling sensation encompasses me, replacing what should be my body.

   I can hear a voice, d
istant and detached.

   "Oh Christ, Eric."

   I stir and manage to open my eyes, although it feels like such a struggle to do even that. As my vision returns to me, the light of the room stings and I struggle to adjust to it. I cannot move my arms or legs. My head lolls to one side in exhaustion and, through weary eyes, I can see the murky silhouette of Lilly sat beside me.

   I try to speak, but my throat goes dry. I spend a moment to whet my mouth before trying again. "Where am I?"

   "The hospital – try not to move, your body is not in good shape. You have been out for a week."

   My vision returns to me, but only partially. It is with great horror that I move my hand over my face to discover a bandage wrapped around my head - bandaged over my right eye.
I look at Lilly, that murky shape only just beyond my reach, but she only shakes her head solemnly and I drop my hand. I try to remember the last image in my mind. "What happened to me? I passed out."

   "He is dead
. Spring-heeled Jack is gone, Eric. You do not have to worry anymore."

   I shake my head. The events that occurred within the cell blur and form together to create a picture of the night in my mind. "
Definitely?”

   She nods
. “A nearby officer heard the gunshots. By the time he got there he made sure Jack was not standing anymore.”

   I sit up in my bed, barely comprehending what is being said to me. "The police!?"

   Lilly smiles and places her hand on my chest, letting me slip back down to rest. "Relax, Eric. Once they caught him they realised what had happened. Now that Jack has been brought to justice, you are a free man."

   "What about the autopsy?"

   “What of it?”

   “
Well… who was he?”

   She shakes her
head gently. "They have no idea. They put his face in the papers, but nobody has identified him."

 
I mumble a feigned response. “I daresay they would not want to."

   "
Either way, they were not able to connect him to anything. It was as if he came from nowhere."

   I still feel uneasy, having not seen it myself, but it appear
s this is as good as it gets. Lilly witnessed Jack die. Was that good enough to lay my mind to rest? I thought not. Too little had been answered, yet there was enough for me to start my life again.

   "He is gone, that is the main thing," I say, more to my
self so that I can hear those words said.

   "So what will you do now?"

   I consider my answer briefly, but deep down I already know the response. Perhaps my memories of Europe were a facade, but my desire to leave London was not. "I am going to travel out to Europe. Try and start a new life. London is not for me."

   Lilly gives me a happy, but sombre, smile.

   "Will you come with me?"

   "I figured that you would ask," she r
eplies, looking out of the window to her home. "London is all I know. All I have ever known. My home is here, Eric."

   Before Lilly can
continue, one of the doctors notices that I am awake and walks up to my bed. "Well, Mr Godwin. I must admit I was not quite sure we would see you come back to us so soon."

   "How bad is the damage?"

   "Bad." I can hear the graveness in his voice. "You are lucky to be here at all. You have lost your right eye entirely. The rest of you should heal with time. You will have severe scarring, but you will function. You will, however, have to remain hospitalised for some time until you recover from all your wounds. Just take it easy."

   I thank the doctor and he returns to tending his other patients.
The news is grim, but it is better than the alternative.

   I ask
Lilly, "Did they find anything?"

   "What like?"

   "Anything on him? Identification? Paperwork? Anything at all?"

   Lilly's face grows
stern. I can hear her voice tremble as she speaks. "You went after him because of the money. I knew such a thing. The only driving force in your life is money, Eric. And now look what it has done to you."

   "It was not about the money."

   "It was. Just because you justified it as travelling, or recreation, or whatever, does not mean at its heart it was not fuelled by monetary gain."

   I feel no shame in my intentions being found. "The money in that account was everything. Without it, my life was over." I sink into my bed and
rest, not even bothering to wrap up in the covers. Tonight there will be no screaming, no pain, nothing to make me shiver in the darkness. Tonight I may just get to sleep, although somehow I doubt it.

   Lilly sits and stares at me. I wonder if she hates me. Eventually, she smiles, and for the first time in a lon
g time I know that everything was going to be alright. I smile back at her. It hurts to smile, but at least I remember how.

  
A great sleep overcomes me, the weight of such wounds bearing down on my body. My eyes close and I slip out of consciousness into a dreamless sleep for the night, finally free of the nightmare, free to bask in our triumph. The hardship was over. The battle finally won and, although it was not heaven, it was close enough. I was still alive - despite odds that even I would not have even bet on.

It took six months until I finally discharged out of the hospital, and even then it was at the doctor
’s reluctance. I can walk, but only with the help of crutches. My right eye is gone; I now hide it with a bandana wrapped over. My body is hideously scarred, some wounds so deep they will never level out, but for the most part I am still a functioning human being and that is all that matters.

   The reason behind my early discharge is to
make haste of finishing my business in England. I do not wish to stay in this country any longer than I have to, especially after being holed up in that hospital for so long. As the sole remaining benefactor to The Hudson Group, I decide it best to retake that which is rightfully mine. With the account details from that fateful day when I signed up in my hands,I make my way towards the bank, Lilly accompanying me. The night had just lost its hold on the day and the blazing sun was peaking over the rooftops as we arrive. There is a surprising freshness to the air about London this morning, and for a split second I feel as though I could grow to love the place.

   I arrive at the bank shortly after opening, seating myself at one of the banker's tables. That very same desk that I visited with Lucius, almost half a year
ago now.

   The leery baker spends several absent moments scrawling in a log book before leaning back in his seat and peering down through his spectacles at me. "How can I help you, Sir?" I can see from his expression he knows full well who I am, but with
out Lucius stood by myself he offers to warm invitation to private business.

   I push the slip of paper marking my share of the account across the desk towards him. "I would like to withdraw everything from this account."

   He picks it up and eyes it. I can tell he wants to scream. He wants to tell me to go away, that this money is not rightfully mine, but he has no leg to stand on: it
is
mine, albeit through grim inheritance. Putting on his professional voice to mask the anger and avoid attention from the others from the room, he simply responds "Just a moment, sir," and carries the slip of paper away into a back room out of sight.

   I tur
n to Lilly, speaking fast and purposeful. "There is a boat heading for Europe in just under an hour. A shipping boat, but I can convince them to let me on. I do not wish to stay here any longer than I have to."

   She looks at me with a discerning expressi
on. "And what will you do?"

   "Travel. Away from here. Away from everyone, I guess. I cannot stay here now, not with so many bad memories."

   "And you will go alone?"
   "I had hoped you would join me."

   She
smiles, but it is sorrowful. "I have lost so much here too, Eric, but I do not know if I could leave. I have a life here now. You could, too. You can always rebuild."

   I shake my head.

   "And what of Francis? Did he not leave to go to York? You could join him there."

   "No. England itself is too
stained with blood now. To escape its borders is the only true escape."

   Lilly sighs. I can tell she will not join me. I knew before I asked, of course. What would a
woman do out in the harsh plains of the world anyway? What would I do? But I scrap that question - what I will do is irrelevant. I could collapse and die within minutes of arriving, but escaping from England is all that matters. I cannot make heads nor tales of the events that have occurred here, nor do I wish to.

   "I
know you will go," she finally speaks. "You have always done as you wished, in the end. I fear that this time you will never return, but I will not stop you. It is evident to me that in order to become your own person you must first lose yourself. I hope that when you stand out in the dark wilderness, you finally meet him. Yourself. Perhaps one day you may return, but no - I do not believe it."

   I do not respond, pretending that I have not heard. Anything to avoid admitting to the truth. We sit there in a
wkward silence for some time, but fortunately the banker returns to end it. When he does, he places a small box on the table before me.

   Confused, I ask. "What is this?"

   "This is the content of the account."

   "...A box?"

   "That is right."

   I sha
ke my head. "No, the account was a business account, full of money. I am the only person with access to the account..."

   I do not manage to finish my sentence.

   "Eric..." Lilly cuts in, her face worried. I know what she was going to say before the words even came out: "...Open it."

   I do not want to hear it. Why, I do not know. My stomach churns as I pull the box towards me. How could such a small thing cause so much fear? Did I fear that it was empty? No, even I was not that contorted by money. I fea
red that I would find something so much worse, to perhaps show that this entire venture had all been in vain. That men had died for absolutely nothing.

   I flipped the copper latch and open the wooden lid.
Peering inside, I know only too well that this nightmare will never leave me.

The Killing Hand was based off an idea I had roughly around 2005, when I was attending college. The concept was simple: the story would explain the real-life mystery of Spring-heeled Jack. He would be a member of a wealthy group, and would take to the night to commit perverse acts in order to prove his prowess to the woman he wished to woo. Naturally, the attempts would fail. Would you be impressed by a man who jumped about at night and tore women’s clothes off? No, I thought not.

  
Throughout those many years the idea remained rooted in my mind, slow cooking like a good roast. Whilst I had a few attempts to jot the scenes in my head down (two particular ones come to mind, since lost to time: one of Jack hunting a wealthy man across rooftop, the other of the finale scene where he crashed down through the roof of a butchers warehouse whilst in pursuit of his love, sending knives and carvers flying about the place. Neither were good enough to reuse.)

  
It wasn’t until January 2012 when I sat down and seriously turned my eye to The Killing Hand. I was fuelled by my second (failed) attempt at National Novel Writing Month, which took place in November 2011, and wanted to go in with a stronger entry this time around. Throughout the period of January to October the story existed in various formats. Back then the story frequently changed names, flitting from Springald, to Steel Jack, to various others I’ve since forgotten. I spent a great majority of my time studying Spring-heeled Jack, the majority of which I ended up ignoring come my first draft. The Spring-heeled Jack case is one burdened with masses of disinformation – at the time Wikipedia had several supposed attacks listed as factual, despite their being no mention of them in the history books or papers until modern day. Thankfully, these have since been removed, but I have no doubt the fanatics will continue to distort the truth. A large part of the distortion of the truth which occurs throughout the book was influenced by my research.

   Springald existed in script form for the majority of the year. A lot of the original dialogue from the stage play version still exists as it were at the time, namely
the intro chapter, the public meeting, and a great deal of the secret meetings. The script was interwoven with the actual newspaper clippings from the case, but as time went on I realised that the concept of these men commanding Jack to go threaten random women in the night felt… well, it just didn’t make any sense. Using the reports, I fabricated them into making it so that Jack was killing businessmen. Far more menacing.

   In November, as per yearly tradition, I took part National Novel Writing Month 20
12 using the work I’d done for Springald to start telling the story proper. At some point, the penny dropped to start calling it The Killing Hand. It was during this period that I began showing the work to the public and hosting it on various sites. In this section I hope to accurately chart the journey of The Killing Hand, and just where it’s been prior to landing in your hands (or on your lap, on your monitor, etc.).