Read Online 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. - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ramsey Campbell, Joe R. Lansdale, Walter Greatshell, Laird Barron, E. Catherine Tobler, Ed Kurtz, Mercedes M. Yardley, Stanley C. Sargent, Joseph S. Pulver Sr.
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to get him out of there, but he was gone, like he’d never been. I couldn’t see a ripple. But the razor was lying there and I could hear it. Hear it sucking up Donny’s blood like a kid sucking the sweet out of a sucker. Pretty soon there wasn’t a drop of blood on it… I picked it up… so shiny, so damned shiny. I came upstairs, passed out on the floor from the loss of blood.
“At first I thought I was dreaming, or maybe delirious, because I was lying at the end of this dark alley between these trashcans with my back against the wall. There were legs sticking out of the trashcans, like tossed mannikins. Only they weren’t mannikins. There were razor blades and nails sticking out of the soles of the feet and blood was running down the ankles and legs, swirling so that they looked like giant peppermint sticks. Then I heard a noise like someone trying to dribble a medicine ball across a hardwood floor. Plop, plop, plop. And then I saw the God of the Razor.
“First there’s nothing in front of me but stewing shadows, and the next instant he’s there. Tall and black… not Negro… but black like obsidian rock. Had eyes like smashed windshield glass and teeth like polished stickpins. Was wearing a top hat with this shiny band made out of chrome razor blades. His coat and pants looked like they were made out of human flesh, and sticking out of the pockets of his coat were gnawed fingers, like after-dinner treats. And he had this big old turnip pocket watch dangling out of his pants pocket on a strand of gut. The watch swung between his legs as he walked. And that plopping sound, know what that was? His shoes. He had these tiny, tiny feet and they were fitted right into the mouths of these human heads. One of the heads was a woman’s and it dragged long black hair behind it when the God walked.
“Kept telling myself to wake up. But I couldn’t. The God pulled this chair out of nowhere—it was made out of leg bones and the seat looked like scraps of flesh and hunks of hair—and he sat down, crossed his legs and dangled one of those ragged-head shoes in my face. Next thing he does is whip this ventriloquist dummy out of the air, and it looked like Donny, and was dressed like Donny had been last time I’d seen him, down there on the stair. The God put the dummy on his knee and Donny opened his eyes and spoke. ‘Hey, buddy boy,’ he said, ‘how goes it? What do you think of the razor’s bite? You see, pal, if you don’t die from it, it’s like a vampire’s bite. Get my drift? You got to keep passing it on. The sharp things will tell you when, and if you don’t want to do it, they’ll bother you until you do, or you slice yourself bad enough to come over here on the Darkside with me and Jack and the others. Well, got to go back now, join the gang. Be talking with you real soon, moving into your head.’
“Then he just sort of went limp on the God’s knee, and the God took off his hat and he had this zipper running along the middle of his bald head. A goddamned zipper! He pulled it open. Smoke and fire and noises like screaming and car wrecks happening came out of there. He picked up the Donny dummy, which was real small now, and tossed him into the hole in his head the way you’d toss a treat into a Great Dane’s mouth. Then he zipped up again and put on his hat. Never said a word. But he leaned forward and held his turnip watch so I could see it. The watch hands were skeleton fingers, and there was a face in there, pressing its nose in little smudged circles against the glass, and though I couldn’t hear it, the face had its mouth open and it was screaming, and that face was mine . Then the God and the alley and the legs in the trashcans were gone. And so was the cut on my chest. Healed completely. Not even a mark.
“I left out of there and didn’t tell a soul. And Donny, just like he said, came to live in my head, and the razor started singing to me nights, probably a song sort of like those
“At first I thought I was dreaming, or maybe delirious, because I was lying at the end of this dark alley between these trashcans with my back against the wall. There were legs sticking out of the trashcans, like tossed mannikins. Only they weren’t mannikins. There were razor blades and nails sticking out of the soles of the feet and blood was running down the ankles and legs, swirling so that they looked like giant peppermint sticks. Then I heard a noise like someone trying to dribble a medicine ball across a hardwood floor. Plop, plop, plop. And then I saw the God of the Razor.
“First there’s nothing in front of me but stewing shadows, and the next instant he’s there. Tall and black… not Negro… but black like obsidian rock. Had eyes like smashed windshield glass and teeth like polished stickpins. Was wearing a top hat with this shiny band made out of chrome razor blades. His coat and pants looked like they were made out of human flesh, and sticking out of the pockets of his coat were gnawed fingers, like after-dinner treats. And he had this big old turnip pocket watch dangling out of his pants pocket on a strand of gut. The watch swung between his legs as he walked. And that plopping sound, know what that was? His shoes. He had these tiny, tiny feet and they were fitted right into the mouths of these human heads. One of the heads was a woman’s and it dragged long black hair behind it when the God walked.
“Kept telling myself to wake up. But I couldn’t. The God pulled this chair out of nowhere—it was made out of leg bones and the seat looked like scraps of flesh and hunks of hair—and he sat down, crossed his legs and dangled one of those ragged-head shoes in my face. Next thing he does is whip this ventriloquist dummy out of the air, and it looked like Donny, and was dressed like Donny had been last time I’d seen him, down there on the stair. The God put the dummy on his knee and Donny opened his eyes and spoke. ‘Hey, buddy boy,’ he said, ‘how goes it? What do you think of the razor’s bite? You see, pal, if you don’t die from it, it’s like a vampire’s bite. Get my drift? You got to keep passing it on. The sharp things will tell you when, and if you don’t want to do it, they’ll bother you until you do, or you slice yourself bad enough to come over here on the Darkside with me and Jack and the others. Well, got to go back now, join the gang. Be talking with you real soon, moving into your head.’
“Then he just sort of went limp on the God’s knee, and the God took off his hat and he had this zipper running along the middle of his bald head. A goddamned zipper! He pulled it open. Smoke and fire and noises like screaming and car wrecks happening came out of there. He picked up the Donny dummy, which was real small now, and tossed him into the hole in his head the way you’d toss a treat into a Great Dane’s mouth. Then he zipped up again and put on his hat. Never said a word. But he leaned forward and held his turnip watch so I could see it. The watch hands were skeleton fingers, and there was a face in there, pressing its nose in little smudged circles against the glass, and though I couldn’t hear it, the face had its mouth open and it was screaming, and that face was mine . Then the God and the alley and the legs in the trashcans were gone. And so was the cut on my chest. Healed completely. Not even a mark.
“I left out of there and didn’t tell a soul. And Donny, just like he said, came to live in my head, and the razor started singing to me nights, probably a song sort of like those
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