Page 23 of Unlikable

The hatch opens, and a newspaper falls down. The pack of paper lands on his lap with a thud, and as he holds the candle a little closer to see what it says, he stares at his own face. Or rather, a sketch of his face.

“You’re the ripper,” his mother’s shocked voice sounds above him.

Nicholas looks up, squeezing his eyes to slits to see her, and when he sees her tears, he can do nothing but grin at her proudly. “What are you going to do now?”

His mother starts crying really hard now. She sinks to her knees and puts her hands in front of her face. Her shoulders shake. “Why?”

“Why did you abandon me?” he retorts. “Why did you think it was such a good idea to let your own son rot away with a family that didn’t want him because he was different? It may have been your sister you banished me to, but she didn’t want me any more than the rest of the world. “Because I…” He stops his sentence and tries to calm himself down. “Because I was born this way.” He points to his face, knowing that his left eye has an abnormality that makes him look deformed and horrible. “Because people are disgusted with me. Even you are disgusted with me. That’s the real reason why you gave me away, isn’t it?” He knows that is not the real reason, but at this point he would say anything to hurt her.

“N-no,” she stammers sadly. “Of course not. I love you. You are my son.”

Nicholas opened his mouth to fire a flurry of hurtful words her way, but then the realisation hits him that his face is in the papers.

People will recognise him.

He will never be able to walk the streets unseen again.

Could he still tell London that he was there only by accident and the woman who described his portrait made a mistake?

Of course not, because people want a culprit and would look at the slightest evidence as truth.

For the first time in a long time, Nicholas does not know what to do. He clung so tightly to the idea that as he watched the life die out of Eleonora’s eyes, he would regain the energy to go on. That he would enjoy his normal kills again. That he would again be able to look at the eyes standing in his room in Canterbury with a triumphant smile. Proving to those trapped souls that he is still the boss.

But now…

Now he is a fugitive.

London has a face for Junior R.

His days are numbered.

Nicholas balls his hands into fists and punches the ground beside him. A frustrated cry escapes his throat.

“You have to stop,” his mother begs him. “You can’t keep doing this. You’ve done terrible things and for what?”

He doesn’t even hear her. He can only imagine the scenarios that await him if he is found. They will not spare him. They will slit his throat, hang him from the tallest tree and bleed him dry.

As his mother continues to rattle on above him about how bad he is, Nicholas realises that his days as a ripper are numbered and that he must flee. He will have to travel beyond Europe. To the other side of the world, where news of Junior R never travelled.

“Norman Hill…” His mother starts laughing above him. “There’s no such person, is there? That whole gang supposedly after you is complete nonsense. Am I wrong?”

“Would you have taken me in if I had told you the truth?”

She is silent.

“That’s what I thought.” Nicholas runs a hand through his hair and then bites his clenched fist. He has to leave London. And then what? Start a new life somewhere else, knowing that his looks will always ensure that people will treat him like dirt, will keep making fun of him? Where should he start again, without money and belongings?

Frankenstein lies across from him, and he stares at the cover of the book. Frankenstein’s monster makes a choice at the end of the book. Nicholas never understood this choice until now, but even the monster had no way out.

Nicholas looks up at his mother, who is looking down at him with a face that has gone white. She flinches slightly when he gets up. She is scared. Afraid of her own son.

“I will stop,” he promises her. “I will put an end to all this.”

She continues to look at him sceptically.

“But you are going to help me commit my last murder.”

His mother starts crying again. So incredibly loud and hysterical that he is afraid of being discovered. Nicholas crawls out of the hole, grabs his mother and puts a hand over her mouth. He stares into her eyes. The same eyes as his own, only his mother’s are decently set in her skull.

He soothes her, rocking her up and down almost childishly. She does not resist, too stiff with fear. “I promised you that you were going to be proud of me. I am going to keep that promise.”

She murmurs against his hand. Her tears fall from her cheeks onto his skin.

“You are not going to betray me because you have done that before, and if you betray me, I will tell the world who I am and by which woman I was conceived.” He notices that his body begins to tremble with tension. Panic begins to take over, but he cannot let that happen. He must press on now. Not go mad. Not give up.

Nicholas brings his mouth to his mother’s ear. “You are going to tell me who is closest to Eleonora, and you are not going to antagonise me because you know what I have said and what I am capable of. For my mother”—he pulls on his mother’s hair, bringing her face even closer to his—“especially for my mother, I won’t make an exception.”