Authors: Stephen Knight
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, then 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.
“Let’s take a look around and make sure we’re good to go,” he said.
“I agree,” Ellenshaw added. “This is too important to just walk away from with nothing to show for it but high hopes.”
Acheson sighed, irritated by Ellenshaw’s presence even more now that the action was over.
They spent the next thirty minutes poking around the area, looking for hidden entrances, exits, or hide sites. The lack of a search dog made it more difficult—Acheson felt another twinge of regret at the loss of Zeke—but the humans were no less apt at ferreting out the telltale clues using methods other than scent. Communication with the TOC was fruitless, and Helena offered nothing substantive. Acheson regarded the collapsed mineshaft, mindful of the fading daylight. He felt worry squirming about in his gut, but there was nothing to validate it.
“It’s never easy, is it?”
Acheson turned around. A few feet behind him stood Ellenshaw, his hands on his hips, the bloodied bandage crumpled in one fist. He also surveyed the flattened hillock before them, his expression a rueful one.
“I used to do this, before you came on board. Not as artfully, and never with such great skill, but I’ve sent a few of these... things... back to Hell on occasion. And I always had a hard time believing a mission was truly complete.”
“You ever blow one?”
Ellenshaw studied him for a moment. “A containment operation? No... never, thank God. Though there were times when I was certain I had.”
Acheson motioned toward what remained of the mine. “I halfway want to dig everything up and make sure.”
Ellenshaw nodded slowly. “I understand the feeling.”
Sharon approached. She held her MP-5 in both hands, a combat stance that communicated to Acheson her uneasiness as clearly as a flashing neon sign advertised the location of a roadside diner.
“Area is secure,” she reported. “No fortified exits or hide sites, no evidence of foot or vehicular traffic that didn’t originate with us.”
Acheson checked his watch. “Okay... let’s boogie. Follow-on attack is scheduled to commence in a little over an hour. We need to be way clear before then.” The follow-on attack would be conducted by U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bombers carrying Longrod Penetrators, a munition that had been introduced during the 1991 Gulf War. An effective weapon, it had decimated scores of deeply buried Iraqi bunkers. On paper, their combat effectiveness stood at nearly 100%.