“How’s my boy doin’?” Nacho asked. He couldn’t see the monitor from where he stood, flash-bang and MP-5 at the ready.
“Great, Nacho. You did a real good job with him,” Acheson said. Delgado had trained the team’s K-9 detachment, and they all knew Zeke was something special. It was a sad fact that the K-9s were usually the first ones to go when a containment operation went bad. Acheson hoped that Zeke would be around for years because he was the best scout they’d had.
“He’s in the den,” Ellenshaw whispered.
It was then they spotted them, lying supine in the dank darkness several meters beneath their feet. Acheson gritted his teeth when Zeke approached the first one—a small form, rendered in gray and white. A child. Dark hair. Eyes closed. Mouth open. Fangs visible.
“How deep’s this cavern?” Acheson asked.
“Approximately five meters below the mineshaft,” Chiho said.
Acheson nodded.
The display revealed more forms, lying motionless in the dark confines of the cavern. Twenty, perhaps thirty of them. Maybe a dozen women, several men, and a handful of children. The confines were so close that Zeke must have been walking on their cold bodies. Deep in the sleep of the dead, they did not stir.
In the middle of the menagerie lay their target. A huge casket, so dark that even the camera’s light-intensification electronics couldn’t read its detail. A growl came over the speaker, and the camera came to rest. Zeke reached his limit. He would get no closer to the casket.
“Bingo,” Acheson said.
“Strange...” Ellenshaw sounded troubled. “How did they get the casket in there? There must be another opening.”
“If there’s another exit, it must be camouflaged.” Acheson pointed at the sun. “But even Osric can’t travel while it’s light out. If there’s an escape route, he’ll never be able to use it.”
“We have to make sure.”
Acheson smiled grimly. “We’ll make damn sure, Robert.” He stalked back toward the mine’s opening. “Let’s get it on, folks! Nacho, call Zeke out of there. Sharon, Jules, get the FAE ready.” He pressed the PTT button on his transceiver. “TOC, this is Two-Six.”
“Two-Six, TOC, go.” Static.
“We’ve verified the infestation is at these coordinates. We’ll be smoking the hole in two minutes. Stand by.”
Sanders’s voice was all business. “Roger, Two-Six.”
Nacho whistled into the shaft twice. “Is he coming out?” he asked Chiho. “Can he hear me?”
She nodded, still staring at her display. “Yes, he’s—ah!”
Inside the mineshaft, Zeke snarled and howled. His snarls trailed off into a series of yelps. Everyone froze.
“Gud damn it!” Cecil muttered, his first such exclamation in at least an hour.
“Is he all right?” Nacho shouted.
“One of them was awake,” Ellenshaw said, staring at the display. “It was waiting for him. A woman. On the cavern ceiling—”
“Impossible!” Acheson said. “They’re dead when it’s daylight!”
“Evidently, Osric is more powerful than we thought.”
“You mean they took out my dog?” Nacho said. “Motherfuckers!”
Cecil looked back at Ellenshaw. “Holy shit Doc, are you sayin’ they can come outta there?”
“They won’t get the chance,” Acheson snapped. “Nacho! Throw that flash-bang!”
“Motherfuckers,” Nacho muttered as he pulled the pin and hurled the grenade into the mine. A second later, the gut of the mine was briefly illuminated by a bright flare. A single, thunderous report echoed throughout the shaft.
Acheson advanced toward the mineshaft opening, his gait unwavering. “Cecil, you’re with me. Sharon, you and Julia get the weapon ready. Cecil and I will secure the hole. Nacho, give them cover as they bring in the FAE.” He glanced at his shotgun’s firing configuration, then looked over his shoulder at Chiho. She stood next to Ellenshaw, and Acheson pointed at him.
“Chiho, keep him out of the way.” He waved the others toward the shaft. “Let’s move it, people!”
Acheson stopped at the mineshaft’s threshold and slipped on his PVS-7 night vision goggles. Cecil did the same, trailing his boss by a few yards and off to one side.
“It’s gonna be tight in there, man,” Cecil said. “You keep well to the left, okay?”
“Roger that,” Acheson acknowledged. “Fight’s on!”
Acheson charged into the opening, slowing just long enough for Cecil and Nacho to catch up. He hugged the left wall of the shaft, while Nacho stayed to the right. Cecil’s bulk filled the center. He coughed from the dust the flash-bang had kicked up.
A chill descend upon him despite the Arizona heat that penetrated even through the dusty rock. The black scorpions were no longer torpid, and they flitted about beneath his feet. He crouched as he walked, reducing his silhouette; scorpions crunched beneath his boots. Cecil was a few steps behind him.
Ahead, the hole in the floor of the cave grew larger through the NVGs. Despite the sophisticated gallium-arsenide arrays that augmented the light and allowed for visibility in the near-darkness, it remained black and enigmatic.
Chiho’s voice whispered over Acheson’s headset: “Two-Five and Two-Seven entering the shaft. FAE armed and ready.”
“Rog—”
A shape burst out of the hole with such speed that Acheson’s fire went astray. The flurry of silver-jacketed anti-personnel shot missed entirely, burying into the rock right above the hole. Jolted, Acheson took a step back.
The vampire clung to the wall like an ungodly insect. As Ellenshaw had reported, it was female—a Latina teenager. Its long, raven-black hair was dusted with rock sediment, and its clothes were spattered with fresh blood. It watched the three men draw near with dead eyes. Silver irises stood out in sharp relief against black scleras, and wide slitted pupils lent a feline look to them. As he drew near, it opened its mouth and hissed, revealing two pair of fangs. Traces of Zeke’s blood still lingered on its serpentine tongue. Acheson brought the shotgun up. The vampire stared at it and grinned wildly.
“Guns can’t kill us, little man,” it said, its voice low and murky as air pushed through dead vocal chords. Acheson grimaced. Apparently this one had been a vampire for quite some time. Only the older ones could speak. The newly Undead were barely more than animals, ghouls the master vamps controlled and trained until they eventually returned to sentience. The vampire facing him could have been a dozen years old. She turned her pale face toward Acheson, and her eyes glinted in the dark like a cat’s. Even through the NVGs, Acheson could sense their power. A small voice wormed about in his mind...
Give up. Do not resist. Come to me.
Acheson returned the smile and pulled the trigger. The AA-12 bucked in his hands as the shot exploded from the muzzle with a brilliant flash. The three-inch magnum shell ejected automatically. Most of the vampire’s head disappeared in an eruption of ropey black ichor. The body fell to the ground and thrashed about madly.
Acheson fired three more rounds into the creature. One blast decimated one of its taloned hands. The other two penetrated the creature’s thorax, bursting it like a balloon. More foul-smelling ichor boiled forth, thick as hot tar. The thing continued to thrash about, but with waning vitality. Already it was shutting down, entering its recuperative cycle, where over the course of time it would heal itself completely. If the job was left undone, the creature would stalk again.
“Cover the hole!” Acheson shouted to Cecil. His ears were ringing from the gunfire in the confined area, and he could barely hear his own voice. He stepped forward and slammed one of his boots against what remained of the vampire’s throat as he reached into his knapsack with his right hand. His fingertips brushed against the smooth wooden surface of a stake carved from ash. He plucked it from the knapsack and, gripping it tightly, knelt over the vampire and slammed the stake through its ribcage with all his might. The resistance offered by undead skin and bone was mi
nimal, and the stake passed through without any trouble. The vampire went into a death knell, its legs and remaining arm slashing through the air with enough force to break Acheson’s legs had he not already scuttled out of range. A gurgling rasp came from its ravaged throat before the vampire fell silent.
Through the hole in the mineshaft floor came a chorus of snarls and howls, accompanied by the slithering sounds of vampires hauling themselves out of the cavern below.
“Clear!” Acheson reported as he crawled over the corpse, not wasting a second. Ahead, another ghastly figure emerged from the hole like a trapdoor spider. Acheson saw, to his horror, that it was the first child Zeke had crawled over. Her whey-colored hair was limp and dank, framing a face that was gaunt and angular. Death had made her no more beautiful than Acheson reasoned she’d been in life. Fangs glistened as she hissed through a wide-open mouth, tongue flailing.
Acheson raised his shotgun...
... and the vampire leapt toward him like an arrow launched from a bow. He pulled the trigger prematurely. The blast succeeded in disintegrating her left foot, an injury that didn’t slow her in the least. The vampire batted the weapon out of his hands with a lightning-fast move and descended upon him like a locomotive, driving him into the ground. It hissed and spat and slashed at his ballistic armor, its talons shredding the tough fabric that covered the Kevlar beneath. Acheson went for his MP-5, but it was trapped beneath him. He grabbed the creature by the throat and rolled over onto his back while struggling to keep its fangs away from his neck and face.
“Shoot it, Cecil, shoot it!” he shouted. Despite his frantic attempts to maintain a distance, the vampire grabbed hold of his armor and pulled itself toward his neck. Undead physiology overwhelmed living almost immediately. The vampire’s jaws parted wide, dislocating like a snake’s...
Crack! The vampire’s head snapped back as a nine-millimeter round from Nacho’s MP-5 drove a furrow through its skull before exploding out the back. The ghoul hissed and reared back, just in time to receive the full brunt of Cecil’s drawn stake. The vampire released a keening wail as Cecil gored it before collapsing backward like a sack of potatoes. It thrashed once, then stiffened.
“You all right, man?” Cecil yelled, advancing toward the hole. He didn’t wait for an answer and instead began firing bursts down the dark maw. Every fourth round was a tracer, and they flashed through the mine like lightning.
“FAE, now!” Acheson cried into his headset, rolling to his feet. He straightened his NVGs, then swept up his fallen shotgun and fired two rounds into the hole with one hand. He’d regret it later. The shotgun’s kick would leave an ache in his wrist that would last for days. With his left hand, he pulled a white phosphorous grenade from his belt. He dropped the shotgun and ripped the pin free with his right hand while clamping down on the can-shaped explosive’s safety spoon with his left. As Cecil pumped grazing fire into the hole, Acheson hurled the grenade. It went off with a muted thump that reverberated throughout the mineshaft. Acrid smoke boiled upward from the darkness, and carried on it were the howls of demons.
“FAE coming in!” Sharon’s voice was calm and crisp over their headsets above the gunfire as Cecil continued pouring rounds into the hole. Another vampire emerged, its skin and clothes and hair smoldering from the grenade blast. Cecil consolidated his fire on it for a moment, driving it back into the darkness. The 5.56 millimeter rounds blasted its left arm and shoulder into shreds.
Acheson took up his shotgun again and shouldered Cecil aside as the abomination thrashed its way back to the surface, howling and spitting. He fired burst after burst into it, the AA-12 jerking in his hands, driving it back down into the hole. It howled with every shot, losing ground to the force of the shotgun’s onslaught, until finally it fell backwards into the roiling smoke.
The AA-12’s trigger locked—it was empty. Acheson dropped it again and tore his MP-5 from its carry rig. Cecil resumed firing into the darkness, the reports of his SAW echoing throughout the shaft.
“FAE comin through!” Nacho yelled from behind them. “Acheson, toss a grenade, man!”
Acheson pulled another grenade from his belt, armed it, and tossed it into the hole. It would hold them at bay long enough for the team to make its escape... or so he hoped.
“Fire in the hole!”
THOOMP! The mineshaft shuddered again, and more foul-smelling smoke roiled out of the hole. Cecil continued firing, his lips moving soundlessly, the sweat trickling from his bald head, rolling down his cheeks and onto the casing of his NVGs. The tracers disappeared into the smoke like comets into a black hole.
Acheson felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Sharon, who along with Julia carried the fifty-pound fuel air explosive that would put the vampires below to sleep for eternity.
Acheson emptied his MP-5 into the hole before he stepped aside. Sharon and Julia dumped the FAE into the pit. It was already armed, its timer winding down from 20 seconds.
“Fall back!” Acheson shouted.
The team retreated from the mineshaft, with Cecil as rear guard, firing at yet another demonic abomination as it scrabbled out of the hole. It scurried after them, mindless of the bullets that tore at it, blasting away fragments of its anatomy. Cecil’s M249 ran empty, and the big man had no choice but to run as fast as he could. Pausing to rearm would bring certain death.
“Hey, a little help here!” he shouted when he felt the vampire’s claws rake his back.
Acheson dropped back, drawing his last firearm, a SigArms P220. He emptied the entire magazine of .45 caliber rounds into the creature, catching it with a neat grouping that would have made even the most seasoned Delta Force trooper proud. The assault merely slowed down the vampire, but gave Cecil time to bolt past Acheson with his spent M249 SAW hanging from his shoulder by its patrol strap.
“Thanks,” the big black man gasped while running like hell. Acheson was right behind him. The mouth of the mineshaft loomed closer, and as the two men bore down on it, a figure stepped into the gloom. It was Ellenshaw.
“Ellenshaw, get the fuck out of here!” Acheson yelled. He could hear the vampire snarling, only milliseconds behind him. No time to reload, no time to fight, but plenty of time for Acheson to die thirty feet from the safety of bright sunlight.
Ellenshaw raised his weapon, an M4 carbine equipped with an M203 grenade launcher mounted beneath the barrel. Ellenshaw squared himself and firmed his grip on the M203’s trigger.
“Mark, move to your right!” he shouted as Cecil passed him.
Acheson did as he was told, his right shoulder contacting one of the wooden supports that held up the mine’s ceiling. At the same time, a dull thump reached his ears as the M203 spat out its 40-millimeter round in an explosion of sparks. The projectile zoomed past Acheson like a freight train hurtling along at 250 feet per second. There was a startled choke behind Acheson as the round impacted its target, followed by frantic screaming as light flared. Ellenshaw had hit the vampire with a phosphorous round.
Acheson grabbed Ellenshaw’s shoulder, dragging the older man with him as he ran into the brassy, late-afternoon sunlight. From the mineshaft, the burning vampire shrieked like a banshee. Acheson yanked his NVGs off his face.
“Gud damn it!” Cecil howled, tearing the ammo box off the SAW. His NVGs were pushed up on his head. “I almost crapped my pants!” he said as Acheson dragged Ellenshaw away from the mineshaft.
“Did you drop the FAE?” Ellenshaw asked, stumbling along.
“Damn right,” Acheson panted. “Cover, everyone!” He pushed the older man to the ground behind a cluster of rocks, then landed on top of him. Acheson clasped his hands behind his head and hunkered down, making himself as small as possible. Beside him, Sharon did the same.
God smote the earth with a hammer.
The ground undulated beneath them as the FAE exploded, sending seismic energy radiating through the desert with the force of a tsunami, dislodging rock and dust. The entire hillside surrounding the mineshaft rose up a few feet, t
hen slammed downwards like an abandoned building during a demolition, spewing dust and rock amidst a sound like a thunderclap. Fissures opened in the earth around the mine, including one good-sized sink hole that had lain dormant for ages. Acheson squirmed as pebbles and rocks and even a few small boulders rained down around them.
Eventually the thunder died away, leaving in its wake a dissipating cloud of filth and the sounds of settling earth.
Acheson coughed and pushed himself off of Ellenshaw. His NVGs were destroyed, the tubes smashed. He tossed them aside and shook Ellenshaw’s shoulder.
“Robert? You okay?”
Ellenshaw groaned and turned over. Blood welled from a cut in the center of his forehead. Acheson helped him into a sitting position with one hand, the other going for the first aid kit in his knapsack. At the same time, he looked for the rest of his team.
“Everyone all right? Sound off!”
Through the settling dust came coughing replies. “A fuckin boulder landed on my weapon,” Cecil reported. “Barrel’s twisted like a pretzel!”
“Too bad it wasn’t your head,” Nacho said, clambering to his feet. He inspected his MP-5 for damage.
Acheson pulled a bandage from his medical kit and pressed it against Ellenshaw’s forehead.
“Hold that here,” he said. “You’re bleeding.” With that, he pushed to his feet and trotted back toward the mine.
The hillside was a sunken, misshapen mass riddled with fissures. A fuel air explosive was the most powerful non-nuclear weapon made, ideal for blasting a landing strip in a dense jungle or collapsing an underground bunker. They were dangerous weapons to employ, but the nature of the team’s work sometimes left them with few options. Anything in the blast would be instantly immolated. Which was exactly the point.
Still... Doubt was something Acheson had learned to live with, but the nagging worry in the back of his mind was strong enough to give birth to a new breed of caution.
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