Free Ripper by David Lynn Golemon Page A

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 caughthim 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 thathad 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 amazementthe 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 suddenlya 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 managedto 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 wereshaking 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, totallyremoving 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 wastwo more of the same white-clad, insane-looking men as the one a moment before. They never hesitated once they rolled after smashing