Pulling a Jack the Ripper

Chapter One

If you live around New Orleans and they think a hurricane might be coming, all hell brakes loose. Not amount the residents really, but on the news, the news wants us to worry about hurricanes in my town Bénouville, Lousiana (population 1,700). Hurricane preperations usually included buying more beer and ice to keep the beer cool when the power goes out. We do have a neighbor with a two-man row boat lashes on top of the porch roof, all ready to go if the water rises - but thats Billy Mack, and he started his own religion in his garage, so he has a lot more going on than an extreme concern for personal safety.

Anyway, Bénouville is an unstable place, built on a swamp. Everyone who lives here accepts the fact that it was a terrible place to build a town, but since it's there, we just got living in it. Every 50 years or so, everything nut the old hotel gets wrecked by a flood or a hurricane - and the same bunch of lunatics come back and build new stuff. Many generations of the Husik family have lived in the beautiful down town Bénouville, largely because there is no other part to live in. I love where I'm from, don't get me wrong, but its the kind of town that makes you crazy if you never leave, even for a little while.

My parents were the only ones in our family to leave to go to college, then to law school. They became professors in Tulane, New Orleans. They have long since decided that it would be good for all three of us to spend a little time living outside of Louisiana. Four years ago, right before i started high school, they applied to do a years sabbatical teaching American Law at the University of Bristol in England. We made an agreement that i could take part in the decision about were i spend my sabbatical year - It would be my senior year. I said i wanted to go to school in London.

Bristol and London are really far apart, by English standards. Bristol is in the middle of the country and far to the left and London is way down south. But, really far apart in England is a few hours on the train. And London is London. So, i had decided on a school called Wexford, located in the East End of London. The three of us were all going to fly over together and spend a few days there, then i would go to school and my parents would go to Bristol, and i would travel back and forth every few weeks.

But then there was a hurricane warning, and everyone freaked out, and the airlines wiped the schedule. Thw hurricane teased everyone and rolled around the Gulf before turning into a railroad, but by that point our flights had been cancelled and everything was a mess for a few days. Eventually, the airline managed to find one empty seat on a flight to New York, and another empty seat on a flight to London from there. Since i was scheduled to be at Wexford before my parents needed to be in Bristol, i got the seat and went by myself.

Which was fine actually. It was as long trip - 3 hours to New York, 2 hours wandering the airport before taking a 6 hour flight to London overnight - but i still liked it. I was awake all night on the plane watching English television and listening to the English accents.

I made my way through the duty-free area right after customs, where they try to get you to buy a few last-minute gallons of perfume and crates of cigarettes. There was a man waiting for me just beyond the doors. He had completely white hair and wore a polo shirt with the name Wexford stitched on the breast. A shock of white chest hair popped out at the collar, and as i approached him, i caught the distinctive, spicy smell of mens cologne. Lots of cologne...

"Aurora?" he asked.
"Rory." I corrected him. I never use the name Aurora. It was my great-grandmother's name, and it was dropped on me as a kind a family obligation. Not even my parents use it.
"I'm Mr. Blake. I'll be taking you to Wexford. Let me help you with those."