Ripper (9 page)

“Yes, sir,” Patton said as he frowned and then pulled his old six-shot revolver from its holster. He went back through the same broken window he had exited from. Sunlight was now streaming into the main house and Patton could see much better. He saw the two men they had dispatched earlier. One was lying next to the dead sergeant, and to his shock and amazement, that one was even now still
moving. Hands, jaws, and eyeless sockets where bullets and pellets had taken out the eyeballs were moving, twitching, and shaking. The two beasts’ movements were uncoordinated and slow. The damage to their brains was so severe that their higher functions weren’t cooperating. Patton for the first time in his adult life wanted to vomit from something he had witnessed.

“I am not going to deal with
this!” Patton shouted over the gunfire. “Sergeant Major, tell Alexander to get in here with the explosives!”

The sergeant major turned and once more ran from the hacienda. Patton gestured for four troopers to start searching for the way into the basement, but before they could move a large door opened at the far end of the main room. Patton turned to see nothing but darkness at first, and then
he saw the dim outline of a giant of a man. It stood there framed just beyond the door. Patton was shocked as he could swear he could see the glowing eyes looking right at him. Then just as suddenly the dark shape was gone. Before Patton could move he heard something that would cause him years of nightmares afterward—the laugh trailed out behind whatever had been standing in that doorway.

“This
way,” Patton shouted to his four men.

The lieutenant hit the open doorway and slid to a stop. He looked down into a black abyss that seemed to go on forever. He waited and gathered his courage and then started down. It was only thirty feet down to a dimly lit basement that smelled of dampness and mildew, and then he felt the coldness of the area beneath the first floor. He held both of his heavy
weapons out before him as the other men pounded down the stairs. Patton looked around, hoping his eyes would adjust to the dimness of the basement faster than normal. Despite his bravado in all things, the blonde-haired lieutenant held his ground at the base of the steps.

“Come now, you have invaded my home. You have killed my test subjects just to get to me, and now you hesitate when the time
draws near to meet your adversary?”

The voice was booming and had a growl hidden just beneath the words. Patton felt the chills slide up his backside as the meaning of the invite hit home. He knew then that they weren’t dealing with a man at all, but some abnormality created artificially in this lonesome place south of the border.

“That’s Ambrose himself,” said Colonel Thomas as he reloaded
his shotgun yet again. “Whatever happens Lieutenant, go through the remains of this place and get samples of whatever you find. Our government needs to find a way to fight this. An antidote, maybe, because if this thing gets onto the open market, there will be hell to pay. If I’m not there, get the samples to the president—only the president,” he said, waiting for the young lieutenant to nod his head.
“Now, may I suggest Lieutenant Patton that we kill the son of a bitch?”

George Patton quickly gestured for two of his men to go left; the other two he placed behind him and Thomas, and the attack element advanced through the dimness toward the spot they thought the voice had come from.

“I have been waiting for a test such as this.”

Another laugh after the words.

“Jesus Christ, Lieutenant,
what is this place,” the private immediately behind Patton and the colonel hissed.

“Take hold of yourself private and get ready to—”

Several loud reports and shotgun blasts sounded in the dark basement as something in front of the advancing men moved. Then before Patton could see what was happening, more boots pounded down the stairs. He turned and saw the sergeant major and immediately behind
him was Lieutenant Alexander with a set of saddlebags over one shoulder and two Colt .45s at the ready.

“I have the dynamite, Lieutenant.”

Patton was tempted to just place the charges in the basement, ignite the fuse, and get out of the hell he now found himself in, but he remembered the orders that Pershing had given him. He was forced to confirm the death of this Ambrose. He shook his head
and then cursed his luck. He noticed that the gunfire from above had dwindled to almost nothing as the troopers started taking full control of the hacienda. Remembering his dead men up on the main floor, Patton swallowed the fear he was feeling and then waved his men forward.

“I’m waiting for you—come, get what you came for!”

“We’re coming Ambrose, we’re coming. This isn’t London and you sure
as hell aren’t in Whitechapel. We know all about your deals, we’re here to stop you!” Thomas shouted around Patton.

The lieutenant knew the name Whitechapel, but that statement by the colonel offered nothing of an explanation to him whatsoever.

“Ah, Whitechapel, the good days, the fun days, the turning of the tide as they say … now come and get me and see what awaits you!”

This time the words
were barely understandable as they came from the darkness ahead. As Patton stepped forward he looked down and saw light streaming up through the cracks in the floorboards. There was another level below this one and he knew then that he and his men were being led in that direction. He swallowed, and for the first time in his entire arrogance-filled life, George S. Patton was terrified. He shook
himself to bring his terror under control and then advanced farther into the basement.

“It’s alright to be frightened Patton. There are things in the world that are truly terrifying, and this is but one of those nightmares … I know, I’ve seen it, and—”

They heard the creaking of a door ahead of them, quieting Thomas. Then a far-thicker wave of mustiness hit their noses.

“There, a trapdoor!”
Lieutenant Alexander said as he squeezed by Patton and Thomas and then ran forward.

“Goddamn it, no!”

Alexander was already three steps down through the door in the flooring before Patton could stop the young West Point graduate. He hurriedly followed. He and the others descended the stairs as fast as the darkness around them would allow when suddenly the entire wooden staircase was wrenched
out from under them. They were thrown to the left, the right, and then they all felt the bottom of their stomachs fall free of their bodies as they became airborne.

Patton hit the dirt-lined floor and two of his men fell across him. They were all lucky it hadn’t been but ten feet from top to bottom. As he tried to kick free he saw that the staircase had fallen directly on two of his men, crushing
them to death. The lieutenant cursed and then gained his feet. He had lost the automatic somewhere in the fall, so he pulled out his second six-shot Peacemaker. He cocked both pistols, and that was when he heard the laugh coming from his front. He and the remaining men aimed their weapons into the blackness ahead. But before he could move, he heard the voice from behind. It was Colonel Thomas.
He was trapped underneath the staircase and it was obvious that his legs were crushed, and the large wooden splinter coming through his lower abdomen made the leg problem that much less of a burden. The colonel was a dead man, he just didn’t know it yet.

“Kill the bastard for me, and get the samples to Washington, code 5656,” Thomas said as his eyes slowly closed. Patton would never get any answers
from the brave lieutenant colonel as to who he really was and who he really worked for.

Patton heard moaning at his feet and then he realized that young Alexander was hurt as well. The saddlebag containing the dynamite was still clutched in his hand. Just as Patton reached down to help Alexander to his feet something shot out of the darkness, grabbed the boy, and disappeared before Patton could
react. In the brief flash of movement, Patton could not believe what he had just seen. Alexander was not only gone, pulled into the blackness ahead, but in that briefest of moments he had seen something that could not have existed. The man, or whatever it had been, was a giant. The clothing was in tatters and the smell was atrocious. The hair was long and the teeth flashed for the few seconds it
took to drag Alexander away. They were hideously long, canine in appearance, and sharp. It was as if whatever it was had reverted back to a time when men were nothing more than the monkeys Darwin said they had sprung from. He couldn’t help it—his hands once again started shaking.

The screaming started almost as soon as the attack had happened. They all heard Alexander screeching, a sound that
couldn’t possibly come from the throat of a human being. The pain was etched in every decibel of that scream.

The sergeant major reacted without orders. He charged forward with one of the shotguns and then he just disappeared, vanishing through the dirt-covered subbasement. Patton ran to the spot as did his remaining troopers. There was bright light streaming through a hole that had opened up
beneath the sergeant major’s feet. As Patton looked through that hole he could see the sergeant major below, just coming to his senses.

“Are you alright?” Patton called down into the hell pit beneath their feet.

The sergeant major rolled over onto his back, but just before he could answer something grabbed his left-booted foot and pulled him off the ground. The man vanished just as Alexander
had a moment before. Patton could not believe what was happening—a hacienda that had not one or two but three sublevels. He grimaced as he saw through the bright lights below that he was looking at a completely new portion of the old building. Barrels and lab equipment lined the walls far below. Modern equipment was everywhere. Then he jumped when a large figure appeared below and looked up through
the gaping hole in the floor. The smile was apparent, but what really made Patton shudder was the fact that the beast still had the sergeant major by one leg.

“Come, come down and see the miracle I have created!” the beast shouted up as he raised the screaming sergeant up by his one leg and then spun him around so quickly that the sergeant major never felt his own death as his body was slammed
into the stone flooring below.

One of his privates tried to push by Patton to get into the hole, but the lieutenant held him back.

“No, not one more man!” he screamed as the beast below laughed, a maniacal-sounding noise that reverberated throughout the dirt-lined false basement. He looked around in a panic as he failed to think of how he could handle this. That was when his foot kicked something
on the floor near the hole in the ground. It was the double saddlebags containing the explosives. There was a twin lying next to it. He quickly made a decision. He reached down and then started pulling out the wrapped dynamite. There were six bundles of five along with enough fuses to do the job. He started tossing the wrapped bundles to his men.

“Spread these out all along the basement.”

“You
hesitate to see my miracle; come now and join your men in my workshop!”

“Go to hell you son of a bitch,” Patton screamed as he started pulling fuse line and stretching it across the dirt flooring. He didn’t notice that he accidentally kicked the second set of leather saddlebags into the abyss below. There was a laugh as the beast kicked the bags out of the way as it continued to stare upward,
daring the men there to do something.

Once the fuses were connected Patton chanced a look into the wide hole. The beast was there, smiling as it looked up. The sergeant major was lying broken at the creature’s feet. The mouth opened and closed and then it saw what Patton was holding.

“This is for my men you bastard!” Patton screamed and then lit the short fuse. The creature roared and then tried
in vain to leap upward toward the hole. Patton angrily emptied both Peacemakers into the upturned face with three of the rounds slicing through the cheeks and entering the left-side forehead. The creature stumbled, fell to the floor, and then slowly started to rise. Patton cursed again and then was pulled away from the hole. One of the privates screamed something he did not understand. Then he
found himself standing where the staircase used to be. He had forgotten that they had fallen into the second level and thus had no escape route.

“Jesus, that was well thought out!” he yelled.

Suddenly four ropes appeared from nowhere as the animalistic roar from below actually made the dirt flooring beneath their feet shake. The men above started pulling them free of the second level. As Patton
waited for the last private to be pulled up, he chanced a last look at the hole. A hand reached through, tried in vain to gain purchase, and then fell free. The creature was actually jumping the twenty feet and almost making it. Patton’s eyes widened as he grabbed the last rope. The men above yanked up and through the hole, leaving his dead men behind him.

“Go, go, go!” he shouted at the men
as they started streaming from the building. With one last look down, and in his mind’s eye and wild imagination he knew the beast had indeed gained the top of the hole, Patton slammed the door closed and ran for his life just as the explosives below detonated.

The hacienda shook and shuttered, but the old adobe held firm as the first level of basement collapsed onto the second, burying the third
for all time, at least he hoped.

Patton bent at the waist inside of the main room of the hacienda and allowed his stomach to relieve itself of its contents.

“Sir, we have Mexican troops approaching from the south. I suggest we retreat across the border. We’re down to twenty-seven men, and we have thirty-two wounded,” a corporal said as he helped Patton straighten.

“Spread the word to all the
men to assist the wounded. Get them mounted so we can leave this place.”

The corporal vanished. Patton looked around and then, feeling he had accomplished his mission to a certain degree, he too left the interior of the hacienda.

*   *   *

As the remaining men of the 8th United States Cavalry limped back across the border, Lieutenant George S. Patton knew he had disobeyed his orders in not
confirming the death of their target, Lawrence Ambrose. He assumed that whatever horrible force was at play in Mexico had killed the professor prior to their attack no matter what Colonel Thomas had stated. He knew this man could be no man of science. The beast was sent from hell, and Patton would never believe that it had been the man they called Ambrose.