Automatic Woman by Nathan L. Yocum

Not with Dr. Doyle’s magic solution coursing in my veins.
    I stripped off my flaming coat and took the masker’s firearm, a nickeled Colt Action Army. His fall had knocked the gazelle mask eschew. It was Owens. My Bow Street comrade. My safety net.
    I ran down the streets of London, a nutter of the first rate with a pistol in each hand and burn holes throughout my shirt and trousers. I ran the streets. If the maskers pursued, I knew not. I ran straight and true, pumping arms and legs and guns. A line of spittle ran from my mouth, down my chin and speckled my sooty shirt. I imagine I looked much like Mary Shelley’s monster. Evening strollers and late business folk jumped to avoid me, crossed busy roadways to avoid me, entered buildings to avoid me. Somewhere on Three Lanes a Metro called out to me. I paused and turned to him. I was breathing fire at this point and grinding my teeth so hard that one literally cracked and fell out of my mouth. The copper looked at me, looked at my pistol hands and what must have been the maddest eyes he’d ever beheld and made a decision not to interfere.
    “Get home safe, mate,” he called out. I’d taken to my running again. I ran back to Whitechapel, back to the Piece Work. The pimps and whores and clients gasped and stared at my entrance. Keeping my stay here secret might be harder than I imagined.
    I made it to my room and blacked out. I awoke naked on the mattress. Mary was holding me and whispering. The cold air was painful on my skin. My arms and legs were covered in bubbled skin and peeling blisters. Much of my hair was singed away.
    At some point, Dr. Doyle returned. At first he was speechless. There wasn’t much on me that wasn’t burnt and blistered.
    “Oh, what the shite!?” The good doctor said.

Five
    Jolly finds himself in an unfamiliar setting
    I woke in a strange bed and strange surroundings. The plush faux elegance of the Piece Work was replaced by a room with spare and Spartan decor. I remember images like photographs, dirty plaster walls, bed sheets hung as curtains, a bed that squeaked and squealed with each of my turns and rolls. The smells were different here. The talcum and sex scent of the Piece Work was replaced by the scent of cabbage, stronger when the breeze pushed in a sheet curtain.
    I sat up. I was still naked. My skin was covered in some kind of thick salve, maybe petroleum jelly. All my skin was raw. What hadn’t peeled the first night of my convalescence had turned a shiny pink. What had peeled had turned into quite the scab collection. If I’d been a handsome man, this would have posed as a serious loss. Given my natural looks, I can’t say I was inconvenienced outside of tremendous pain and the loss of Lord knows how many days.
    How many days? I remembered still periods in the night, in the early morning, in the day. The flapping of that sheet and the ever-present smell of cabbage. My whole world was cabbage.
    My stomach rumbled. I wondered how long it had been since my last proper meal. Also, where were my clothes?
    I wrapped the bed’s quilt around myself and walked to the window. The touch of the quilt hurt the skin on my shoulders and arms. I walked to the window. Outside a big woman was singing and pegging laundry. Shirts and trousers and diapers. She sang in Gaelic:
     
    Luchd nan seòl àrd, hù il oro
    ‘S nan long luatha, o hi ibh o
    ‘S nam brataichean, hù il oro
    Gorm is uaine, boch orainn o
     
    Those beautiful and alien words. I don’t speak it, but all Gaelic sounds like the purr of love and the question of existence to me. Which got me thinking, was I still in London?
    My mind went back to Owens. I shot Owens in the chest, a man I knew. The animal maskers were in some way connected to Bow Street, which meant they were connected to Lord Barnes, which meant I was right fucked.
    The Gaelic singing was interrupted by shouts outside the front door. First female, then male, all muffled into tones and unknowns. I left the bedroom