Do you know Jack? The Ripper? Saucy Jack? Leather Apron?
The most infamous serial killer in history has long been fodder for the imagination of authors and artists alike, but his true identity remains an enigma to this day. Take a fresh look at the...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
My ice cream erupts over the side of my milkshake tumbler and I try to absorb the dribbled mess with a handful of paper thin napkins while I look at Hayley. "I hope they catch him. Everyone is going mad."
She gives a non-committal shrug sprinkling the top of her sundae with gummy bears at Fletcher's Diner. "I hope they do too. I mean, what happened to Mary..." she pauses awarding Mary the moment of silence some would say she'd sadly earned. "Mary was a vile bitch, especially after what she did to you this summer, but still." Hayley leans closer to me, her voice dropping. "I heard he tried to slice her belly."
I try to picture Mary Warner, the cause of half of my social status problems and sole ringleader of orchestrating my teenage demise, lying on the ground with a knife to her throat. Did she beg for her life? Did she fight back? Did she have regrets when she took her last breath? I wait to feel sympathy...empathy...anything.
Hayley snaps her fingers in front of my face. "Earth to Gemma. Did you hear me?"
"Her belly, yeah," I say. "I heard you. Horrific."
Hayley stirs the gummy bear-ice cream combo with her spoon, and her faces twists in disgust when the bell to the diner chimes. "If I were the cops, I'd look no farther than him," she nods toward the door, now swinging shut behind one Jack Price. Jack came to our school two years ago—not what one would call a recent transplant but those who don't know better treat him as if he's from some faraway world where people drank the blood of children and worship false gods. All because he's a little weird.
I stir my straw in circles. "I understand you're not a huge fan of Jack Price," I say to Hayley, "but I think you're being a little harsh."
"Can't help it," she argues. "He sends my creep radar through the roof!"
Coming from Hayley, Jack hasn't accomplished much of anything. Because everything that is remotely unusual "sends her creep radar through the roof." This could be something as simple as a boy brave enough to ask for her number or seeing old man Morrison smoking a tobacco pipe and rocking on his chair on his front porch every Sunday. "Morrison looks dead," she once told me. "Gives me the creeps."
