Free Ripper by David Lynn Golemon

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 pleasurehe 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 onlyrunning 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 heard 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 thengestured 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 steppedinto 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 stockysergeant 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 balanceafter 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 inthe 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 wascrushed. The attacking beast was crazed. His dark hair looked ragged and wet. The exposed muscles bulged with each movement of arms or legs. The