Grave Mistakes (The Grave Diggers Book 3)

by Chris Fritschi

  Before his mind registered the sound of running feet, the front door glass blew out. Something solid slammed into Tate’s outstretched arm, spinning him away from the wall. The charging Vix caught its leg on the doorframe as it flew out of the door and tumbled to the ground on its back.

  In an instant it flipped over and came at the team, scuttling on all fours. Tate’s right arm was numb with pain and useless. Swinging up his assault rifle with his good hand he tried to point the barrel at the fast moving Vix when it suddenly disintegrated into bone and fragments of rotted flesh as Kaiden, Fulton, Monkhouse and Rosse all opened up at point blank range.

  Tate blinked at the near instantaneous transformation from a deadly Vix to a puddle of gunk.

  “And stay down!” smirked Monkhouse.

  “Movement,” said Ota. “Far side of the park.”

  Rosse hurried over to Tate, examining his arm for breaks or something much worse. “You’re okay. There’s no blood,” he said with relief. “It didn’t get you.”

  Grateful, Tate nodded to Rosse and looked up just in time to see a distant figure running towards them at incredible speed. There was a puff of dust from its head and the figure summersaulted backwards in a twisted heap and didn’t move again.

  “Nice shot,” said Tate, wincing as he opened and closed his battered hand.

  “Uh huh,” said Ota keeping his eye to the scope of his worn Dragunov sniper rifle.

  Ota’s rifle barked in three quick successions; his shots echoing into the distance.

  “It’s going to heat up fast out here,” said Tate. “Those shots are going to attract more Vix. Nothing else has come out of the building, so it should be clear. Wesson, set up out here to support Ota. Everyone else is with me.”

  “Copy,” said Wesson and headed for the PLAV.

  Tate pulled open the shattered door and looking over the top of his HK 93 he went inside with Fulton, Monkhouse, Kaiden and Rosse behind him.

  Light poured in the from the tall, arched windows that lined both sides of the long, narrow building. Dark, wooden pillars lined the middle of the building, reaching up to a attractive coffered ceiling.

  Tate quickly studied the dust covered marble floor and was reassured by the single set of footprints of the very dead Vix that there weren’t more inside. “Anyone see lockers?” asked Tate.

  The others also came up empty.

  “There’s a set of doors to the left,” said Kaiden.

  Following Kaiden’s prompt Tate saw a set of double doors at the end of the hall. One door was shut, but the other hung crookedly from broken hinges.

  “Let go,” said Tate.

  Weapons up, they fast walked to the doors, peering over the sights of their guns. Behind the broken door, natural light revealed a small room with wooden benches and two walls lined with lockers.

  Tate pushed open the working door and entered, frowning as two muted cracks from Ota’s gun echoed off the walls. “Wesson, give me a report,” said Tate into his radio.

  “Just stragglers,” said Wesson over the radio. “Light contact so far.”

  “Copy,” replied Tate. “We found the lockers and should be with you soon.”

  “I got it, Top,” said Fulton, pointing to a locker. “1171, right?”

  “That’s it,” said Tate as he fished a folded paper out of his pocket.

  Everyone stoped, glancing quickly at the double doors as bursts of machine gun fire thumped the air. Tate hurriedly turned the numbered dial on the locker as he read the combination from his note. The addition of Wesson’s light machine gun meant there were more than just a couple of Vix showing up.

  “It’s getting busy out here,” came Wesson over the radio.

  Kaiden keyed up her mike. “Status.”

  “Heavy contact. They showed up from nowhere,” said Wesson, trying to keep the strain from her voice. “Status is critical.”

  “Everyone out,” said Tate. “Get safely in the PLAV. I’ll radio when I need cover.”

  “You’ll get swarmed,” said Monkhouse.

  “I said go!” barked Tate.

  Monkhouse and Fulton looked at Tate in surprise. Unsure, Fulton looked back the way they’d come and took a reluctant step.

  “Nobody leaves,” declared Kaiden, freezing a confused Fulton in his steps.

  Tate glanced at her hotly.

  “This is not up to debate,” said Kaiden.

  Kaiden didn’t melt under Tate’s fixed glare and he turned his attention back to the locker. Pushing up the latch, Tate’s eyes went wide as he opened the locker revealing several bricks of C4 wired to a small box attached to the door.

  Monkhouse grinned appreciatively at the explosives crowding the inside of the locker. “Good thing you remembered to bring the combination. I’ll bet you anything he’s got all that wired up to a sensor. If the wires break, or it detects any impact everything around here goes poof!”

  Tate reached into the locker and took out what looked like a cell phone. He turned it over looking for some indication of what it was or what to do with it.

  Long rips of machine gun fire tore his attention from the device.

  “Multiple Vix,” said Wessons, the stress raising in voice.

  Tate shoved the device into his pocket and the team hurried to return to the PLAV as bursts of Wesson’s machine gun came rapidly one after another.

  Passing through the outside doors Tate didn’t need to see the situation because the volume of snarls and growls were enough to know there were a lot of Vix and they were dangerously close.

  “They’re swarming!” yelled Wesson over the rip of her machine gun.

  “Everyone inside the PLAV!” shouted Tate. “Cover fire, but don’t sto...”

  A shockwave hammered the team making their ears ring as an explosion flashed from the other side of the armored vehicle. Tate staggered as decayed limbs and debris whipped by in every direction from a billowing cloud of smoke and dust. Running to the PLAV, Rosse took a grenade shell out of his pouch and shoved it into the smoking barrel of his grenade launcher attached to his HK 556L.

  Operating on instinct, everyone fought through the confusion and piled into the PLAV, slamming the protective doors behind them.

  Taking a moment to shake it off, the team panted as beads of sweat streaked their faces and dust swirled though rays of light from the windows.

  “What the hell was that?” shouted Monkhouse, his voice ringing in the closed compartment, not that anyone noticed.

  “Hey!” objected Wesson. “Stop shouting.”

  “Am I shouting?” yelled Monkhouse. “I can’t hear.”

  “Damn it, Rosse!” said Tate, trying to get the hum out of his ears.

  “Sorry guys,” shrugged Rosse. “There was a mob of’em right there. I had to, or they would’a been on us before we got inside.

  “Everyone here?” said Tate.

  Everyone looked around, ensuring no familiar faces were missing. Shadows passed over the windows and the team felt their seats shift under them. Turning around they looked out the window. Hundreds of Vix surrounded the PLAV in every direction.

  “They didn’t clean the city out?” said Wesson watching as more Vix filled the ever growing mob.

  Tate climbed between the seats into the driver’s seat. “Maybe they did and more collected here.”

  “We need to report this when we get back,” said Wesson. “If they came at the city’s wall at once…”

  “We have to get out of here first,” said Tate as the PLAV’s engine growled to life.

  The Vix reaction was instant and frenzied. The nearest ones attacked the PLAV rocking it on its suspension as the rest pressed in or climbed over to reach the team.

  Tate’s amazement turned to worry as they piled over each other spilling onto the hood. Even through the armored shell the team could hear the scratch of bone as they scramble onto the roof until sunlight was blocked out from every window.

  The chorus of growls, hisses, snarls felt like a physica
l thing squeezing in on the team making the already tight space feel like it was closing in.

  “Top,” said Fulton, panic rising in his voice. “What are you waiting for?”

  “The hell with this,” said Tate putting the PLAV in gear and stomping on the gas. The engine roared as the vehicle lurched forward then stopped.

  “What’s happening?” said Kaiden as she climbed into the navigators seat.

  “I can’t get enough traction!” said Tate. “They’re packed so heavily around us we can’t move. Everyone hang on to something.”

  Tate threw the PLAV into reverse and hit the gas. It rocked backwards, but only a few feet before jolting to a stop.

  Before the Vix could fill the gap in front of the vehicle Tate shoved the gear into Drive and put the peddle down. The 8.4 liter, V8 direct-injection engine drove all eight hundred and twenty foot pounds of torque to the massive tires. The chunky treads spun, yanking under bodies, churning flesh and snapping bone until the front of the PLAV rose up on a pile of mangled corpses. The big, armored machine broke free as all four tires clawed up the crush of Vix.

  Tate hit his head on the ceiling as the nose of the PLAV plunged over the horde of Vix, tumbling the rest of the team on top of each other. He slammed his foot on the accelerator and they shot forward.

  The PLAV charged blindly ahead, its windshield covered with writhing Vix as Tate gripped the wheel with white fingers. Fear screamed in his head, he was about to slam into something. Destroying the engine, killing some of his team and stranding the rest inside this armored coffin, surrounded by Vix, until they starved to death.

  Tate forced himself to count off a few more seconds, though it felt like forever. “Hang on!” he shouted, then slammed on the brakes. Someone in the back screamed and bodies tumbled and cursed.

  Vix flew off the hood and roof, hitting the ground like rag dolls. In an instant they were on their feet, charging the PLAV.

  Glorious light flooded through the windscreen and Tate smashed his boot on the gas. The engine howled, launching the PLAV like a blunt missile. The few Vix that got in the way shattered into pieces as the armored truck pounded over the uneven ground of the park.

  Coming off the grass to the street, the gore-slick tires screamed across the asphalt as Tate oversteered the PLAV, sliding it sideways in a cloud of smoking rubber. Bile rose in Tate’s throat as the PLAV came off its left tires, threatening to roll. Time stopped as the big armored truck tipped, lingering on the edge of its tires, between escape and disaster. Slowly, at first, Tate could feel the PLAV begin to right itself, then free fall.

  Tate’s jaw clacked as the PLAV slammed back down, its four tires biting into the road.

  Nobody in the PLAV complained that Tate didn’t slow down until the town was a smudge in his sideview mirror.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE RANCH

  With the overrun husk of Temple behind, and the open prairie ahead, Tate decided to pull off the highway and examine the device he had taken from the locker.

  The PLAV had hardly stopped before the team eagerly climbed out, happy to stretch their legs and breathe fresh air.

  Tate and Kaiden walked around to the front of the PLAV where Tate turned the palm-sized object over in his hand wondering what to do with it. Its smooth, black surface was featureless giving no clue how to use it.

  Kaiden found a spot on the PLAV’s bumper, not caked with blood, and leaned against it, watching Tate with a subtle smile. He clenched his jaw seeing her expression from the corner of his eye.

  “Okay, what?” said Tate turning on Kaiden. “What?”

  “What did I do?” said Kaiden unflustered.

  “I know that look,” grumbled Tate. “You know what this is, but you’re letting me squirm until I ask you.”

  “That’s unfair,” said Kaiden. “I know it annoys you when I take over. I was trying to be sensitive.”

  Tate stared at her, unconvinced, and held out the device to her. “Just make it work.”

  “I don’t think it’ll work for me. Put your thumb on the center of it.”

  Tate followed her instructions and the face of the device came to life, displaying an image of earth. The image zoomed in until coming to a stop over their location and a map of their surroundings appeared.

  “I’m impressed,” said Kaiden. “Not everyone has this level of tech.”

  “It’s just a GPS,” shrugged Tate, unimpressed.

  “Give it a second,” said Kaiden.

  As they watched, the map turned into a real time, birds-eye image. They could see the PLAV and white squares bracketed each team member as they moved around.

  “How can Nathan slave real time imaging from satellites?” said Tate.

  “We may have underestimated our new friend,” said Kaiden meaningfully.

  The image zoomed out several miles then stopped adding a new icon on the screen.

  “That must be where Nathan is,” said Tate. “All right everyone, time to go.”

  The team loaded back into the PLAV and Tate moved his holster out of the way as he settled into the drivers seat, placing the device on the console so he could see the screen.

  He’d been a tier one Delta operator with access to the best military gear and had never seen anything so compact and powerful. How did she know what it does, or used biometric security?

  He and Kaiden had reached an understanding that he would reign in his suspicions about her, at least outwardly. Even though he trusted her, she kept secret how she had access to advanced gear and intel dossiers. She could have one, or multiple sources including black market, arms dealers, informants, or more worrying a splinter intelligence agency. What was she trading to her sources in return? She knew everything about the Grave Diggers, their clandestine operations against The Ring, secret and classified information about places and people. If their secrets were her currency, what were others doing with that information. There was no knowing whose hands that fall into.

  Every time these doubts surfaced Tate would repeat the same arguments he’d wrestled with before and it always came back to the same answer. Trust. He could play the guessing game in an endless string of ‘what if’ scenarios, or disregard everything but the fact that she had stayed with him through thick and thin, risked her life along side of him on missions, and been good a friend. So, he pushed suspicions back into a box and locked them up, hoping they’d stay there this time.

  “Notice I didn’t ask how you know about things like that,” said Tate, nodding to the device.

  “Just a lucky guess,” said Kaiden distractedly as she buckled into her seat.

  “Yeah,” muttered Tate. “That’s what I thought.”

  The PLAVs engine kicked over with a smooth growl and Tate pulled back onto the highway, but his thoughts began down a darker path. His subconscious drew comparisons between Nathan’s specialty tech while Tate was lucky to have cable TV. Anger brewed at unfairness of his life in spite of years of honor, character, and self sacrifice while others had life eating out of the palms of their hands.

  “In a hurry?” said Kaiden.

  “Huh?” asked Tate, coming out of his own thoughts.

  “I know we’re against the clock,” said Kaiden, “but slow down, cowboy.”

  Tate looked at the console and saw he was pushing 102 miles an hour. The PLAV was a lot of things, but a sports car it wasn’t. Warnings on the engine monitor showed the status of the cooling system and oil pressure were in the red and critical. Tate eased off the gas pedal and, one by one, the warnings disappeared.

  Kaiden silently looked at Tate, her face empty of any meaning. She knew something was on his mind, but she wasn’t going to push him. Coaxing feelings out of someone was for children and moody teens. Tate was a man and, in her opinion, adults decided for themselves if they wanted to express themselves.

  Tate didn’t always welcome Kaiden’s perspective because she had a knack for hitting a nerve, but he valued her unvarnished honesty, all the same. She saw the compl
exities within the gray area between the black and white of a situations, but empathy rarely swayed her from expressing the truth which made it hard to hear.

  “Am I the only one who feels like we’re operating in the stone age?” said Tate, wanting to get it off his chest. “The best we get is decades old equipment. Hell, even our uniforms are out of date.”

  “Where’s this coming from?” said Kaiden.

  “Fort Hood. It was like time traveling to the future. And this…” said Tate, pointing to Nathan’s device. “Instead of the kind of gear I’d have in Delta I’m fighting with rocks and spears.”

  Kaiden looked out the window, watching the open prairie drift by. Tate wanted to say more; just vent off the ball of anger he felt in his chest, but knew that would feed into it and he didn’t need the distraction clouding his head just before they went into action.

  The only sound was the steady hum of the engine until Kaiden turned back to Tate. “You aren’t in Delta anymore,” she said. “The family you knew is gone.”

  “Hang on,” said Tate. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Yes you did. Things like that tracker remind you of the life you walked away from. It’s gone. You can’t go back.”

  “Thanks,” quipped Tate. “That felt good.”

  “I could lie,” said Kaiden.

  “Sympathetic isn’t your style,” said Tate.

  “It’s not one of my people skills,” grinned Kaiden then turned serious. “Do you want little tugs, or should I rip off the bandaid?”

  “You mean there’s more?” said Tate.

  Kaiden only looked at him, waiting.

  “I won’t like it,” sighed Tate.

  “Nobody likes honesty,” said Kaiden, “It’s why I don’t have many friends.”

  “Hell,” resigned Tate. “Go on, but just… just give me the quick version.”