David Golemon - Ripper

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.

Patton was shocked a year later when he was introduced to the president of the United States just after the war was over in Europe. The president was sick even then, but he managed to pull Patton aside and ask him a pointed question.

“Tell me that Colonel Thomas died doing his duty.”

Patton had not thought of Thomas since the dark night he dropped off the small package of serum he had recovered and hidden from the army. He had again disobeyed orders from Pershing and delivered Colonel Thomas’ last request to the president.

“He was a particular friend of mine, and someone I thought was indestructible.”

Patton told the president his firsthand account of that night and the battle of Perdition’s Gate. The president never said a word. When his tale was complete, Patton saw the president of the United States swipe a tear from his tired face and then smile.