Ripper (Event Group Thrillers)

by David L. Golemon

  “Yes, I knew the American soldiers that are searching for Pancho Villa were within a hundred miles of here. I have arranged your demise through forces working with the president of the United States, Sahib. Forgive me, but I have been communicating with your government for over three years now. I have been reporting on your progress—progress that has now gone too far with the new series of script you have begun. These men will never be controlled as you believe, and the Americans want this stopped.”

  Ambrose couldn’t speak or move at first. He had never suspected his manservant could be capable of total betrayal until the deed had showed itself. Instead he turned from Singh and then quickly slid the needle expertly into his own arm. As he did he moved to the left. The sudden motion made Singh adjust his position and he stepped in front of the still-open number-two cell.

  “Please, Professor, place the syringe on the table top.”

  Ambrose chuckled, a sound that sent chills down the neck and arms of the large manservant. Then to Singh’s horror, he saw the syringe fall from where Ambrose had hidden it in his hand. It clattered on the flagstone floor—empty.

  “What have you done?” Singh asked as he involuntarily took a step backward toward the open cell door.

  “I do what always needs to be done old friend,” Ambrose said as saliva slowly ran from the left side of the older man’s mouth and traveled slowly through his thin beard. The distinctive facial tick, indicating that the muscles under his skin were receiving information from the extreme frontal lobe of the brain, started on the right side of the face and seemed to spread into the upper reaches of the facial muscles, most notably just above the eyes, making the brow pulse and grow. The professor took another step to the right and then one quick step forward, forcing Singh to step closer to the cell door. Ambrose smiled again—the once-straight teeth were now jumbled and separated. The professor’s blue eyes were now ringed with a red circle where the subsurface blood vessels had exploded from the massive rise in heart rate. He reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out a small shiny object.

  “An object lesson old friend—a bit of problem solving for the ultimate soldier.” He held up the small key that maintained test subject number two securely bound to his chains.

  “I’ll kill you before I allow the release of that beast from its cell. The test subjects must be destroyed,” Singh said as he cocked the British-made Webley pistol.

  “Release them?” Ambrose said with a laugh.

  The gesture allowed Singh to see the blood that had forced its way through the now widening gaps between the teeth of the professor. The lab coat was now drawstring tight around the professor’s arms. The material was starting to give way as the now thriving right side of the brain started to activate and send out new signals to the nerves controlling muscle movement, growth and strength. Singh knew that Ambrose’s body was starting to take defensive measures toward its survival as ordered by the expanding brain and the already overdosed and dying medulla oblongata.

  “I said this was your object lesson. Problem-solving capacity amongst the strongest, most ruthless creature in the world has been obtained. They need no key old friend. The last journal explains it all. They have been opening and closing the locks on their chains since the third series of injections. So I had to change the locks to a more advanced model. Now they have the reasoning to avoid capture, just like I had in London twenty years ago. It works, Singh, the formula works!”

  Singh felt his heart jump in his chest as he absorbed the words from Ambrose. Then his heart stopped when he heard the cell door behind him open. He closed his eyes and then he suddenly realized what he had to do before his own life became forfeit. He pulled the trigger.

  Ambrose was hit in the chest and thrown back just as test subject number two jumped onto the back of the manservant. As the professor absorbed the large-caliber bullet and as he hit the table with the remaining syringes on its top, he heard the beast as it tore its teeth into the neck of Singh. He reached down and started to gather the remaining doses of Perdition’s Fire from the floor. He looked down at the wound he had sustained and saw the blood pumping out of his chest from the bullet hole. He laughed as he watched the flow of life-sustaining blood dwindled to a trickle.

  While the quickly dying Ambrose started giving the final injections to the last eight patients, he ignored the sounds of test subject number two as it did what it was created to do as its brain functions started to die—it was dismembering, tearing apart, killing, and worst of all something else that had not been programmed into its cycle of violence during the professor’s long-winded readings to his test subjects, something the professor could never figure out—it would feed on the corpse of what it had just killed—a basic throwback to the primitive days of beast against beast. The total brain function brought on more than just advanced IQ; in some ways the formula reverted it also.

  For the world as a whole, the genie was now out of the bottle, and a new form of warfare was about to explode onto the landscape of the Mexican chaparral.

  The living versus the dead—and the dead had the advantage.

  Perdition’s Fire was now perfected.

  Ambrose laughed as blood spilled onto the wooden flooring. As he stared at the last test subject he felt his knees weaken and his mouth go dry. His head started to spin and he quickly gave the last dosage. Then without realizing what was happening he turned and stumbled out of the cell and crashed into the dosage table, knocking it over.

  Ambrose knew he had injected himself too late to stem the flow of blood from the bullet wound and now he would die before he could prove to the outside world that his theory of chemical balancing of the entire brain and the releasing of controlled violence would never be achieved. His eyes started to flutter closed. Suddenly he felt the sharp jab of something through the lab coat and into his arm. He opened his eyes as he felt the rush of the drug as it coursed up his arm. His strength was returning fast. He was pulled to his feet, and that was when he realized it was test subject number two. The beast had finished his work with Singh and had actually refilled one of the used syringes and had injected him again.

  “That is too much, the dosage will kill me.”

  “As you have us?” came the slow, deep voice from test subject number two. The beast let him go and then smiled. His mouth was wide and filled with large carnivorous teeth. “Now your only option is to fight … fight alongside of those you have condemned to hell with your God-like man building. Now FIGHT!”

  Ambrose felt his mind let go as the section of his brain he had only barely touched on in London came to full life. Instantly memories came to him of those nights in Whitechapel and the pleasure he took from testing his serum.

  “Yes, YES!” Ambrose shouted as the physical change went far beyond anything he had ever experienced.

  Jack the Ripper and Mr. Hyde combined was now loose upon the world.

  * * *

  As First Lieutenant George Patton led the 8th Cavalry over the last rise, the early morning sun burned off the last of the fog and illuminated a strange scene below. Women and children, peasant farmers, and their animals were streaming out of the hacienda and the outbuildings that surrounded it. Patton galloped toward the front gates of the main building. Each troop in the unit did as previously ordered. They split into four separate companies for each side of the massive hacienda.

  As Patton rode past the first of the terrified farm workers, he could sense they were not only running from the danger posed by the raid, but from the way they turned their heads back, also from something inside the hacienda. They braved the charging horses of the 8th to distance themselves from their employer—or something even more terrifying.

  The main troop with the lieutenant in the lead never hesitated as they charged two abreast through the wide double gate at the front of the hacienda. Patton was the first to discharge a weapon that morning as a man with an old Winchester rifle was downed in the center of the wide courtyard. Then other loud reports were hea
rd as the troopers behind Patton opened up on several men, both armed and unarmed.

  The first six men reigned in their mounts and came to a sliding stop on the flagstones of the courtyard. Patton held up his hand and then gestured for them to split up to cover the eighteen possible entranceways into the main building. More gunfire erupted on the other side of the house. The other troops opposite Patton’s men were coming across the same sort of weak defense. The man beside the lieutenant raised a boot and then smashed in the French style doors before him. He held a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun before him as he stepped into a large room. A man in a darkened far corner came from the shadows with his hands held high in the air. The sergeant turned quickly and fired both barrels into the man who flew backward until a whitewashed wall stopped him.

  “Jesus Christ, Sergeant!” Patton said angrily as he shook his head to clear his hearing after the loud report from the shotgun.

  “Sorry, sir,” said the small but stocky sergeant as he broke the weapon he was holding and pulled free the two smoking and expended shells. As he did this he looked up in time to see a darker shape lunge from another room. He quickly shoved Patton out of the way and swung the empty shotgun at the man’s head. It connected solidly but seemed to have little or no effect on the strangely shaped man in front of him.

  Patton kept his balance after being pushed out of the way of the charging man. He turned in time to see the twin barrels of the sergeant’s shotgun strike the attacker in the side of the head. He could have sworn he heard the sound of cracking bone, therefore he was surprised to see the man just turn his head slowly back toward the sergeant. Patton hurriedly raised his Colt. The crazed-looking man actually growled in the split second that he jumped on the sergeant. Patton couldn’t believe the speed at which the man moved. It was like watching a large predatory cat lunge at an unwitting victim. Each blow rained down upon the sergeant was something that was so shocking to see that Patton was frozen. This time he knew for sure he was hearing bones break. The sergeant never had time to scream before his skull was crushed. The attacking beast was crazed. His dark hair looked ragged and wet. The exposed muscles bulged with each movement of arms or legs. The nails on its fingers were long, dirty, and as lethal looking as small knives.

  Finally the shock of what he had just seen slid from him as if he had just awoken from a momentary nightmare. Now Patton became angry that whatever this thing was had caught him by surprise. He quickly aimed and fired two times into the right side of the man-beast as it finally straightened from the dead body of the sergeant. The two bullets hit almost simultaneously. The first struck the sergeant’s attacker in the armpit, the second just below the ribcage. The man only staggered. It screeched something and then jabbered something else as it looked toward the man that had caused it the pain it was feeling. The malformed man then turned its horribly misaligned features up toward Patton. It tilted its head and then screamed a murderous roar as it started forward.

  Patton took a step back and fired again. This time the bullet hit the oncoming beast squarely on the right side of its head. The skull jerked backward at the impact, but to the lieutenant’s amazement the hunched-over man still came forward. Even with part of the man’s brain hanging like a gray piece of meat from the side of his head, the crazed attacker came on.

  Patton took a quick glance down at the smoking .45 in his right hand. Then he raised it again and fired. That was when he saw that the slide on the automatic was locked open. Patton braced himself as the man charged when suddenly a fusillade of bullets struck the charging man at the last second before he slammed into the waiting Patton. The beast-like man flew to the side just as several of Patton’s men fired again before the maniac stopped rolling. Just as the lieutenant was about to say something a shout was heard, and then before he could turn toward the commotion more shots rang out in the large room. When he finally managed to turn he saw that his men had fired again when they saw their attacker was trying to get to his feet. Patton could see the large bullet holes in the man’s filthy white shirt. He saw that the portion of brain matter that had clung onto the shattered skull had finally fallen free. Then to his horror the badly wounded man started to push himself upward from the floor.

  “What in the hell is this?” Patton said, but no one heard as even more shots rang out. One blast was from another shotgun. This time the large pellets struck the front of the face, taking off the upper half of the crazed man’s head. The body finally slumped and fell over onto the floor.

  Without saying another word, Patton started reloading his Colt. His hands were shaking, but he knew no one noticed because theirs were shaking just as badly. He knew that if he concentrated on reloading he wouldn’t have to think about the impossibility of what just happened. When another loud report sounded Patton dropped the full clip he was trying to insert into the Colt. When he looked up he saw that Colonel Thomas had entered the building and had fired both barrels of a shotgun down into what remained of the beast’s head, totally removing it.

  “Now listen, it was as we suspected. You have to remove the head, damage the brain completely, and even remove the top of the brain stem. Any part of the brain still functioning can outthink you, and outfight you,” Thomas said as he broke open the double-barreled shotgun and inserted two more shells. That was when Patton saw that the shot he loaded was solid lead and not buckshot. The colonel was using an elephant gun.

  Suddenly screams, roars, and gunfire erupted from all sides of the hacienda. The loud reports were from the American weapons—the screams were emanating from something else.

  As Patton and his men turned to leave the large room, two of the French style doors smashed inward sending glass and wood flying. As he aimed and fired his pistol, Patton saw it was two more of the same white-clad, insane-looking men as the one a moment before. They never hesitated once they rolled after smashing through the doors. The first one pounced on a private who had reacted too slowly to the attack. The man was up and into the poor boy’s throat before he knew what was happening. Blood flowed as one of the private’s buddies shook off his fear and fired an Enfield into the side of the attacker’s head. The beast jerked away, taking a large amount of skin and muscle of the private with it. The soldier fired again, not waiting to be stunned once more by the lunatic before him. The third bullet hit the beastly looking creature on the lower chin, blowing most of the jaw away. Another bullet hit it before it could recover from the first of the devastating blows.

  Patton saw the second of the crazed men rise still wrapped in the large curtain that had covered the glass doors. He aimed and fired quickly. The bullets punched holes into the white lace curtains. Blood exploded, soaking the material as the man underneath lost his balance and crashed to the floor. Men fired point-blank at the still-moving lace curtains. Bullet after bullet hit the struggling man. Colonel Thomas stepped forward and emptied both barrels of his shotgun into the curtains. Blood misted in a small cloud, but still the beast fought to free itself. Patton finally placed the reloaded .45 automatic a few inches away from the outline of the man’s head and fired. The shot reverberated in the room as the large-caliber bullet slammed into the side of the man’s head. Brain matter and a red spray of blood splattered over the lace curtain and the men beyond. Then Thomas quickly reloaded and added another two rounds of solid shot to the area where the beast’s head was approximated to be. The body ceased moving.

  Outside, the screams of the 8th were now mingling with the roars and animalistic yells of the attacking force of crazed killers.

  Patton slid another clip of ammunition into his Colt and then stepped hurriedly out onto the veranda that looked onto the courtyard. He saw two troopers ride in through the open gates, and before they could react, he saw one of the strangely dressed men jump in front of one of the charging horses. The rider and horse reared up as the insanity-driven man hit the front breast of the huge animal. The beast bounced off as the horse reared over it. Then to the rider’s astonishment the man sprang to his
feet as if he were a gazelle. Patton took another two steps out onto the porch when the most amazing sight he had ever been witness to presented itself. The beast actually caught the forelegs of the horse before the animal could bring the sharp hooves and steel shoes down upon it. The man-beast twisted the legs of the horse until the body had to follow. Horse and rider hit the flagstone surface of the courtyard. Patton quickly aimed and fired as did the rider’s companion. Bullets hit the killer, but they didn’t stop him from leaping over the fallen horse to take the man before he could fight his way out from under his own horse.

  Above the din of the strangest fight the young lieutenant had ever been witness to, he heard the soldier start screaming as the attacker started to use his teeth on the fallen man. Thirty, forty shots rang out in the course of a minute as more of the man-animals broke free from somewhere inside the hacienda.

  “What in the devil are we up against here, Lieutenant?” the heavyset sergeant major asked as he tore his neckerchief free of his neck and started wiping blood from his bearded face.

  Patton didn’t answer as he took aim and fired two rounds into one of the filthy, muscled men that ran after another of the galloping horses.

  “We have at least fifteen men down, sir.” The sergeant major aimed the shotgun and fired both barrels at another of the men as he actually lifted a dead horse off of its rider just so he could sink his long, filthy teeth into his neck. “This is all wrong, Lieutenant.”

  Patton thought about the orders he had received. That after the hacienda had been taken, he was to burn everything. He remembered the general specifically mentioning the laboratory equipment. Screams entered his mind, pushing thoughts of his orders away to a more suitable place for the moment.

  “One of those men, those things, took eight rounds to bring it down and then it still tried to get up. It took two of these to its head to put it down!” Colonel Thomas raised the shotgun he had just reloaded. “We didn’t know that maniac had gone this far.”