Greetings yall! Joe Stalin here, bringing you the long, long overdue update to his so far only horror fic 'Jack The Ripper', I've had several emails clamoring for an update, and after much thought and deliberation, along with inspiration from a dream I had the previous night, I've decided to update! Hooray.

I must warn you beforehand that this fic is not for the squeamish, and I don't want any flames lambasting me for not forewarning my readers before they started reading. You get one warning. That was it.

Okay. Enough talk! Enough hype! Lets do this thing!

Jack The Ripper

Chapter 7- If You Go Down To The Woods Today...

Tails was dead. That much was obvious by the time Sonic and the police arrived at the scene.

The house could only be described as a scene of complete and utter carnage. There wasn't a single piece of furniture left untouched, slashed and ripped apart to their bare threads. The television lay face down on the floor, its screen shattered into a million pieces. Every light bulb had been smashed, plunging the house into darkness. The police had to use torches in order to navigate through the devastation.

But the worst was in store for what they found in the kitchen.

The tiled flooring was slick with blood, great streaks of it dripping down from the walls and ceiling. The utensil draws had been pulled out and lay scattered across the room, forks and spoons glistening up from their sticky crimson coating. A large meat cleaver lay in the very middle of the floor, its handle broken in two from the force it had been plunged into the lump of flesh and fur that had once been Miles Tails Prower. He no longer had a head.

Sonic threw up. The headless husk lying stomach first in its own blood couldn't be Tails. His mind refused to believe it. He felt light-headed, and would have collapsed if not for Vector who stood behind and guided him away from the scene and out into the cold night air, where he broke down completely.

"I'll kill him...I swear to God I'll kill that bastard!" he managed to get out amid the sobs.

First Shadow, then his beloved Amy, and now his best buddy Tails. Jack had taken the three most important people in his whole life. Sonic felt like his whole life was collapsing around him.

Vector finally broke the silence after several minutes once Sonic had calmed down enough. "Sonic, they're going to take him down to the coroners. I'd feel a lot safer if you came with, just so that I know where you are"

Sonic nodded slowly. "Yeah. I...I want to go with him. I know it sounds weird, but...I don't want him to go alone"

Vector nodded his head and smiled faintly, looking up as two paramedics wheeled out a stretcher from the house, a zipped up body bag wrapped in a shroud on top. They wheeled it into a waiting ambulance, and a few moments later Sonic had climbed into the back along with one of the paramedics, as Vector climbed into the passenger seat. Seconds later, the ambulance had pulled onto the road, lights flashing and siren wailing into the night. It had begun to rain.

For the next ten minutes of the journey there was silence, no one sure quite what to say as the ambulance tore into the winding darkness, leaving the busy traffic strewn streets as it took a turning. Sonic just sat motionless, his eyes never leaving the stretcher on which what had once been his best friend lay. The hedgehogs eyes brimmed with tears as he recalled all the times he and Tails had spent together, them and the gang. It seemed like such a long time ago. Sonic sighed softly at the thought of how much had changed in their lives before all the carnage, how he and Amy had finally gotten together, Rouge and Shadow finally putting their differences aside to become a couple, Eggman reforming. Indeed, Amy had become such an important part of his life that Tails had taken a backseat in Sonic's priorities, and a tear fell from his cheek as he realized that his relationship with the fox had never gotten back to the closeness they had once had. And now it never would.

"I'm...sorry Tails" Sonic whispered, and closed his eyes, the glare of headlights from behind the ambulance almost unnoticed as the hedgehog slipped into darkness.

Vector looked up suddenly from his thoughts. He let out a sigh and glanced to the side window, at the darkness that greeted him. The ambulance was now driving along a secluded wooded area to avoid the traffic, and the sombre branches of low hanging tree's zoomed past his vision as rain continued to pound the windscreen.

The sudden glare of headlights caught his by surprise, and he looked at the reflection in the side mirror as a car came up behind the ambulance, its bodywork glistening from the reflections of the emergency lights. The car left his eyes as it turned to overtake the ambulance on the otherwise deserted highway, and Vector had just sat back into his chair when suddenly the enitre ambulance was jolted to the side violently.

"What the hell?" the driver blurted as he regained control on the slick road, easing the ambulance to a halt on the side-road. "That bastard just rammed into us!"

Vector sat up as the ambulance came to a halt, and kept his eyes focussed up ahead as the offending car came to a halt several yards ahead, its red rear lights glowing like eyes as it drew to a stop.

"I'll sort this out, you just watch me" the driver snarled as he undid his seatbelt and flung open the drivers side door, stepping out into the swirling spray and storming up to the car, walking over to the drivers side door and knocking on the window as Vector watched on.

The gunshot exploded through the night, and Vector felt his heart skip a beat as the ambulance driver fell to the floor, the left side of his head all but missing.

Vector felt the terror rising through his body as the driver door of the mystery car flew open, and a figure stepped out. Vector couldn't make him out through the darkness and the swirling rain, but as he reached for his weapon he kept his eyes firmly on the figure as it began to slowly approach the ambulance, arm raised in its direction.

The bullets drilled through the rain, shattering the ambulance windscreen. As the figure continued to approach ever so deliberately slowly, Vector slumped forward onto the dashboard, blood slowly trickling from the bullet hole drilled into his skull.

The figure reached the side of the ambulance...

Sonic had felt the ambulance shake violently to the side, and had barely managed to keep his footing before it came to a halt. Outside, the rain continued to drum onto the roof.

"What happened?" he demanded, turning to the paramedic sat next to him. The young man looked at him in confusion, and Sonic noticed the twinge of fear in his eyes.

"I...I don't know" the man managed to say, as Sonic perked his ears up at the sound of the driver side door open and close. The driver had gotten out for some reason.

Sonic knew something was wrong. Why had they stopped? And what had caused the violent jerk that had almost thrown him off balance? He was just about to lean over to knock on the wall seperating them from the front of the ambulance to get Vector's attention, when his blood froze at the sound that pierced through the night.

A gunshot.

Sonic's heart began to pound against his chest, the bile filling his stomach. He immediately jumped to his feet and ran to the back doors.

"Help me get these open! Now!" he shouted at the terrified paramedic, wrenching desperately at the locked doors.

His eyes glanced down at the body bag, and his thoughts drifted to how Tails, Amy and the others must have felt before Jack had killed them. Had they felt as much fear as he was? And it was at this moment that his world erupted in a hail of bullets and broken glass.

Sonic yelled out at the top of his lungs as he finally wrenched open the back doors and stumbled out into the freezing rain, falling face first onto the tarmac. His eyes darted underneath the ambulance, and through the stinging rain he could make out the approaching legs of Jack, now only feet away from where he was lying.

Sonic had no time to warn the paramedic as he too stumbled out into the night, his eyes darting around in crippling terror. Sonic got to his feet, his chest tight with every ragged breath... and ran.

He ran with all his strength into the woods the ambulance was parallel too, ignoring the stabbing branches that tore his skin, and the rain that stung his eyes and blinded him as he continued to plow through the darkened bush.

The gunshot that tore through the night behind him only forced him on harder, not stopping until his foot caught on an unseen root and sent him tumbling face first into the dirt, his head impacting with a half hidden rock, and plunging him into darkness.

Above him, the heavens opened.

The sounds of footprints and low voices brought Sonic round, and his eyes burned at the sudden sunlight, so accustomed to the dark he had up until now been surrounded. His head hurt, his throat and chest were tight and his mouth tasted like blood. Upon opening his eyes, he was confronted with the sight of a young policeman, his eyes completely focussed on the blue hedgehog.

"Wha...what...happened?" Sonic managed to croak.

"We were hoping you could tell us, Mr Sonic" the officer replied.

Sonic looked into the mans eyes, and knew that whatever it was that had happened, it wasn't pleasant.

The ambulance lay abandoned on the side of the road exactly where it had been left. Policemen and paramedics milled around it, and the coroner looked on with a heavy heart, and a hammering heart. On one side of the ambulance, scrawled in congealing blood-

JACK.

Inside the ambulance were the bodies of Vector and one of the paramedics. The driver had been found several yards away lying face first in the middle of the road.

The only body that was missing...was Tails.

END OF PART 7.

Worth the wait? I hope so. Stay tuned for more, if you can stomach it!

Joe.