The buildings were bordered with gravel, but the figures made little sound as they neared the rust streaked corrugated door.
The figures wordlessly lined up behind each other and paused.
“Razor One,” said Razor Lead, “open it.”
Razor One pushed the flimsy door out of the way, exposing a thick steel door. Next to it was a keyless lock sensor. Razor One opened a large pouch clipped to his belt and took out a small box, roughly the size of the lock sensor. He placed box over the sensor then took a flat screen monitor from the same pouch. Two sets of wave forms appeared on the monitor and, using the on-screen controls, Razor One started to align the wave forms.
Tate took a slow pull from his beer enjoying the sensation of sinking into his couch as the pain killers muted the throbbing of his dislocated shoulder. His book laid unopened, next to him, as he leisurely contemplated going to bed early. Halfway into another refreshing drink of his beer, his computer chimed.
He leaned over and pulled the laptop off the end-table, sliding it onto his thigh, and opened it up.
On the screen was an image of Nathan, or Tate thought it was until he started talking.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“How’d you open a video feed without… ah, never mind,” said Tate. “I’m all right. They tell me it’ll be a couple of months before I can use it, but that’s not why we’re talking, is it?”
“I wanted to share something with you,” said Nathan.
“Did you break the satellite’s encryption?” said Tate, sitting up.
“No. That’s turning out to be harder than I expected.”
“I got a lot of grief from Kaiden about giving that to you,” said Tate.
“I get the sense she doesn’t trust me,” grinned Nathan.
“She’s like that,” said Tate. “She said she had a resource who could break the encryption, but wouldn’t say who.”
“You should watch this,” said Nathan.
Before Tate could answer, another window opened on his screen. It showed a bare hallway, viewed from a raised position. Tate immediately recognized the hallway at Nathan’s place from the time he and his team had rescued Nathan.
The door opened and five masked figures entered and moved down the hallway, looking down their gun’s sights as they moved.
Adrenaline flushed through Tate as the watched the figures glide into Nathan’s workshop.
“Nathan,” said Tate, “where are you?”
“It’s okay,” said Nathan. “I was at another location when this happened.”
Two of the figures broke from the group, and began checking other rooms. The rest of them began searching the room, clearly looking for any hidden spaces.
“Is Vulcan 4 safe?” asked Tate, fearing the worst.
“It’s fine,” said Nathan. “I’ve got a handful of safe houses. They come in pretty handy.”
“Okay, I get it,” said Tate, his nerves jittery, but relieved to hear the news. “Someone hit your barn. You could have just told me.”
“Give it a second,” said Nathan.
Tate watched as the two figures rejoined the team.
“Nothing,” said one of them.
“It’s not here,” said another.
“We can set up, outside,” said one. “Grab him when he shows up.”
“And if he doesn’t have the satellite with him, then what?”
“We can make him tell us where it is.”
“No,” said another.
Tate leaned forward. The audio wasn’t good, but he thought he knew that voice. They stood with their back to the camera making it harder, still, to hear them.
“I know him,” they continued. “He wouldn’t talk. This mission’s a bust.”
The figure pulled off their mask and long, auburn hair spilled out. The rest of the team took off their hoods and slung their weapons, but Tate was locked onto the lone person with the auburn hair.
The assault team filed out and Nathan froze the video feed, capturing the last team member after they’d turned around.
“There it is,” announced Nathan.
Thoughts tumbled and clashed as Tate sat dumbfounded. All he could do was sit there, staring at the frozen image of Kaiden.
THE END
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Digging Into The Story
While reading this book you may have asked yourself, ‘When did this happen? In the future, or is this a parallel world, or what?’ You might (even) have gone back and reread some of it, thinking you missed the key sentence that explains it. To answer your (assumed) second question, no, this isn’t a parallel world. In answer to your (equally assumed) first question the answer is the near future. I know. That doesn’t exactly put a pin on a year, but if it’s any help in narrowing down a date, you probably have enough time to work out your evacuation plan and stock up on MRE’s before society is cannibalized by the undead.
I kept to current military gear because most equipment has a long service life before something new comes along. Look at the M14 rifle, for example. It first saw action in 1961 and is still in service 55 years later. I did cave to the temptation to come up with a fictitious weapon because, come on, it’s cool.
One Last Thing
If you think you’ve seen all there is to the Vix in this book you’d be very mistaken. I’ve grown up on zombie lore and, like you, feel that once the monster has stepped out from behind the curtain you’ve seen it all. What kind of storyteller would I be if I did that to you? There’s more to the Vix you haven’t seen yet, and judging by how creeped out people got from reading the early copy of my next book, I think you’ll enjoy it.
Chris grew up in California, where he still resides with his wife. In his spare time, Chris enjoys the beach and prepping for the coming zombie invasion.
Visit the author at his website: chrisfritschi.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chrisfritschi/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cj_fritschi
Email: [email protected]
Grave Mistakes (The Grave Diggers Book 3) Page 18
