Tales of Jack the Ripper by Ramsey Campbell, Joe R. Lansdale, Walter Greatshell, Laird Barron, E. Catherine Tobler, Ed Kurtz, Mercedes M. Yardley, Stanley C. Sargent, Joseph S. Pulver Sr. Read Free Book Online

floor of your mouth, which feels swollen and obstructive. She’s silent for a moment, then she says “All right. Come up in twenty minutes,” and tells you where she is.
    You hadn’t realised it would be as swift as that. Probably it’s a good thing, because if you had to wait much longer your unease might find you excuses for staying away. You emerge from the phone box and the sunlight thuds against your head. Your mouth is dry, and the flesh beneath your tongue is twitching as if an insect has lodged there. It must be the heat and the tension. You walk slowly towards your rendezvous, which is only a few streets away. You walk through a maze of alleys to keep in the shade. On either side of you empty clothes flap, children shout and barks run along a chain of dogs.
    You reach your destination on time. It’s in a street of drab shops: a boarded betting shop, a window full of cardigans and wool, a Chinese take-away. The room you want is above the latter. You skid on trodden chips and shielding your face from the eyes of the queue next door, ring the bell.
    As you stare at the new orange paint on the door you wonder what you’re going to say. You have some idea and surely enough money, but will she respond to that? You understand some prostitutes refuse to talk rather than act. You can hardly explain your interest in the Ripper. You’re still wondering when she opens the door.
    She must be in her thirties, but her face has aged like an orange and she’s tried to fill in the wrinkles, probably while waiting for you. Her eyelashes are like unwashed black paintbrushes. But she smiles slightly, as if unsure whether you want her to, and then sticks out her tongue at a head craning from next door. “You rang before,” she says, and you nod.
    The door slams behind you. Your hand reaches blindly for the latch; you can still leave, she’ll never be able to pursue you. Beneath your tongue a pulse is going wild. If you don’t go through with this now it will be more difficult next time, and you’ll never be rid of the Ripper or of your dreams. You follow her upstairs.
    Seeing her from below you find it easy to forget her smile. Her red dress pulls up and her knickers, covered with whorls of colour like the eye of a peacock’s tail, alternately bulge and crease. The hint of guilt you were beginning to feel retreats: her job is to be on show, an object, you need have no compunction. Then you’re at the top of the stairs and in her room.
    There are thick red curtains, mauve walls, a crimson bed and telephone, a colour TV, a card from Ibiza and one from Rhyl. Behind a partition you can see pans and knives hanging on hooks in the kitchen area. Then your gaze is wrenched back to her as she says “Go on then, tell me your name, you know mine.”
    Of course you don’t. You’re not so stupid as to suppose she would display her real name in the window. You shake your head and try to smile. But the garish thick colours of the room are beginning to weigh on you, and the trapped heat makes your mouth feel dry, so that the smile comes out soured.
    “Never mind, you don’t have to,” she says. “What do you want? Want me to wear anything?”
    Now you have to speak or the encounter will turn into a grotesque misunderstanding. But your tongue feels as if it’s glued down, while beneath it the flesh is throbbing painfully. You can feel your face prickling and reddening, and rooted in the discomfort behind your teeth a frustrated disgust with the whole situation is growing.
    “Are you shy? There’s no need to be,” she says. “If you were really shy you wouldn’t have come at all, would you?” She stares into the mute struggle within your eyes and smiling tentatively again, says “Can’t you talk?”
    Yes, you can talk, it’s only a temporary obstruction. And when you shift it you’ll tell her that you’ve come to use her, because that’s what she’s for. An object, that’s what she’s made herself. Inside that crust of