Oranges and Lemons: A horrible short story for Halloween

With Halloween coming up, and a GIGANTIC pumpkin on my kitchen table ready to be carved into something grotesque, I thought it might be a good time to share my short story, Oranges and Lemons, putting a twist on a historical crime.

I don’t usually write historical fiction (those of you who do will no doubt spot some inaccuracies!), or indeed horror, but I thought I would give it a go. I actually wrote this a few years ago now, but it’s not currently available to read anywhere else online.

Hope you enjoy it - if that’s the right word for it. But just a note to all the women reading - the world is a better place when we lift each other up. X

Photo by Tom Rogers on Unsplash

Oranges and Lemons

Come flock to me and forget your woes for the streets are much too dangerous for sobriety! Only when our chest puffs out and our legs stoop low do we brave the dark, torrid cobbles of Whitechapel. Pass through my free house, and you will find abundant peace and certain delirium courtesy of Old Tom Gin, I promise you that.

My palace gaslights twinkle, enticing you in from the bloody streets where entrails once lay and screams echo nightly. The warmth of my fire and the merriment of my gin wink at you - a perfect recipe to still your fearful heart.

Aha! But let it not be stilled like poor Mary Ann’s! For many a heart stopped beating since that dreadful night!

Speculation is rife and men are threatened by this grotesque power much darker and greater than they. A doctor, a baker, a candlestick maker? Come now, how could familiar men such as they slay our vulnerable creatures of the night?

But a noiseless man with features unique to strangers? Of course – it must be this man! Only a stranger could dance with the devil.

You utter fools! It could be anyone of you. Any man who pursues the women down Commercial Road. Any man who sings along with the music hall crowd. Any man you rub shoulders with and play bagatelle.

A man who we know so very, very well…

Perhaps it’s you, dear fellow? My regular, coming daily to drink away the reality of a wife walking the blackest of streets.

Or perhaps the doctor, so desperate to leave this squalid place he seeks oblivion by drowning his sanity in gin.

Whoever this ‘Jack’ reveals himself to be he’s most certainly accountable, they say. Be it this man or that man but certainly some man round these parts.

Ha! They’re at it again, as is my fame-hungry ghost writer, trying hard to win controversy. A little game to keep a small mind busy. What fool seeks such notoriety? Notoriety that can stop a deathly passion in its tracks.

And then there’s our dear, hard-working detective – now he’s a prize twerp! He'd be no more blind if he were running around with his head in a goose and his brain pickled in India’s finest pale ale. But carry on, detective, by all means. Allow me to keep my passion raging a while longer…

The humour certainly isn’t lost on me, serving my clientele with a smile and a flash of bosom. Good evening, Sir, name your most delectable poison. And what might Madam desire on this dark night? A tipple of this? A dash of that? Something to warm your cockles, my love?

London is gravely intoxicated. Intoxicated by my gin. Intoxicated by the mystery of Jack the Ripper. Oh Whitechapel, your toxins have removed your senses entirely! You’re guarding the wrong ideas while the fire rages out of hand.

As a woman in the business of intoxication perhaps poison should be my weapon? This presumption is precisely why it is not. For if they ever dare dream of a woman killer, she must only be a quiet killer. History tells us women are toxic to their prey.

A drink, kind Sir?

A frenzied attack need not be impassioned. It needn’t be borne of the physical strength of a man and his love - or hate - for woman. We can stage frenzy. My passion is my palace, and I am not ready to let it lie. Those women are competition, sapping my potential day by day, cutting off my takings while the night is still young with their looks of false lust and promises of a quick ‘ow’s yer father.

But I, Nancy Johnson, am a successful businesswoman, and I will not tolerate such opposition! My smile will not betray my anger, nor will my heart - which beats no faster as I tug at well-worn bowels and slice dirty flesh. I’ll put an end to this nonsense, and the most educated of men, thus far, do not suspect a single thing. Education, you see, is so much more than pencils on slate. The finest education can be discovered by keeping your eyes open and never expecting the expected.

I’m not used to being ignored and for the most part I’m not. The charm I exude sees to that. The charm I use to hide my dark soul from daylight. My light and cheeky aura shines above the darkness in these dark times. I may be ignored, but my actions are not. I can sit back and enjoy the show as these foolish people run ragged around a myth.

Jack the bleedin’ Ripper.

When did murder become a man’s world? A world requiring only physical strength. Cunning and constitution are the traits most required. How to make it look like a man? Make it sloppy and pay no mind to the mess…

And yet those men who wince at the screaming bloody mass of wriggling flesh emerging from woman - do they not know we deal in blood and gore day in, day out?

‘Oh, protect your delicate little ears, m’dear, these words are not fit for a precious lady.’

You’ve no idea what I’m hiding in my skirts. You’ve no idea of the ease in which I float through Whitechapel. You look at me, but you don’t see me. Go ahead - assume women feeble and strangers a menace. Your eyes see only what you tell them to see.

But I see you. And I let you continue in this foolish game of cat and mouse. Meanwhile, my wink says so much more than you’ll ever know.

What shall your poison be today, my dear?