Capital Falling Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Winkless, Lance

  The Squad cover their positions behind their rifles, while the Corporal talks into his radio, Jason covering up the road. He sees more movement and this time, leaves his finger off his trigger, seeing quickly that it is three more of their Squad returning. That leaves only six men still out on recces. Jason will be glad and feel more secure when everyone is back; he has a feeling that something is about to happen, but maybe it’s just the tension getting to him.

  Gunfire at different volumes is now sounding off at a regular rate, but none of it seems any closer to the first shots they heard, Jason thinks; it is definitely increasing in rate though. The more shots he hears, the more it seems to increase the fear he is feeling. He quickly looks around at the rest of the Squad, all of their eyes wide, searching for any threats. And most look pretty nervous and scared too, which somehow comforts Jason slightly, knowing he isn’t the only one bricking it.

  “The other Squads shooting might be farther into the city than us; how far d’you think we have come?” Den asks Jason.

  “I’d say about a ‘klick’, maybe a bit more,” Jason estimates.

  “Na, it’s more like two klicks”, somebody says.

  “Listen up,” Corporal Ford says, “From what they can see up there, the action is more North of our position, so we carry on. On your feet.”

  As the whole Squad gets up onto their feet, they see three more men coming back from their recce to re-join the main group, and they ask what is happening.

  “Tight formation,” Corporal Ford orders as he signals the Warrior to continue.

  Now the Squad, instead of spreading across the road, form up behind the Warrior, using it for cover. They all scan their areas avidly, their rifles at the ready, knowing for sure that this is no training exercise if they were in any doubt before.

  All too quickly, they come to a halt at yet another road that will need three men to leave the Squad and recce, all of them hoping that they aren’t the ones tasked with it. There is safety in numbers and that number is being cut to only three, for those who get the job, isn’t very appealing. They all have the same sinking feeling that the enemy is close, and the appeal drops even further when it also means leaving the ‘comfort blanket’ of the Warrior behind too.

  “Jason, Den and Tyrone, you’re up.”

  Even before the Corporal calls his name, Jason all but knows he will be going. He thought he had been lucky to have missed the last ones, but he would take one of those recces now, over this one.

  “Yes Sir,” Jason says for the three of them.

  The Corporal, who already has his map out as the three of them gather around him for instructions, looks up at Jason.

  “Right Jason, you are Team Leader, understood?” the Corporal tells him.

  “Yes Sir,” he replies.

  “This is Barnard Road,” the Corporal says, pointing at the map that he is showing to Jason. “It goes all the way down to this road, which is—” The Corporal pauses, looking, “…Swan Road, Swan Road is in Squad A6’s area but your team needs to recce Barnard Road, all the way down to Swan Road, including this school, here, Wilmot School. There are also three roads off Barnard. Two are cul-de-sacs and this road that goes down and around until it meets Swan Road; recce the two cul-de-sacs and that road down to Swan Road and then return, understood?”

  “Yes Sir, understood,” Jason replies.

  “Okay get moving, on the double!”

  Jason, Den and Tyrone break off from the main Squad’s right flank and run across the main road and into Barnard Road, Jason taking the lead.

  Curtains move as they enter the road and shadows can be seen moving behind the windows of the houses, as residents look out to see what is going on. Sometimes, they see worried or even frightened faces appear behind the glass. A few of the residents come out of their front doors, maybe in hope that it's over and the danger has passed, or they shout to the three men to see what is happening. The three soldiers don’t slow their pace or stop to talk to them; the best that they can do is to shout back for them to go back inside and lock their doors.

  As the entrance to Wilmot school approaches, they slow their pace considerably until they come to a stop at the sign for the school, which tells them that the school is a Primary school for younger children. Besides the sign is a small roadway that leads down into the school grounds and the school building that can be seen, to the right behind some trees.

  “We might as well check this place out first,” Jason says, panting slightly from the run.

  “I dunno, mate” Den replies, “I don’t like the look of it down there, it looks really spooky. They can’t be in there, look, the gate is locked, isn’t it?” he says referring to the steel red gate blocking their entrance to the road down.

  “We have our orders, Den,” Jason tells him.

  “Yeah, let’s get it over and done with, it does look fucking creepy, though,” Tyrone says.

  “Right, you first, Tyrone. I’ll cover while you two get over the gate,” Jason orders.

  “Yes Sir, Mr Team Leader,” Tyrone jokes as he goes for the gate.

  The gate behind them, the three soldiers make use of their training as they descend the slightly sloped road that leads into the school, covering each other as they move.

  Reaching the small car park situated in front of the main building of the school, they pause. They can see the school is quite dated, probably built in the 1980s, even though it has been refurbished by the looks of it.

  “Come on mate, that’ll do won’t it, it’s all locked up. Let’s get out of here,” Den says, looking at the dark deserted building, sounding very nervous.

  “We’ll just check the perimeter,” Jason says and starts moving around to the right of the building.

  “Bloody hell, mate, do we have to?” But Den has no choice but to follow Jason and Tyrone as they move, their rifles raised. A cloud crosses the sun, casting a shadow over the whole area, making it feel even more sinister. Den picks up his pace immediately to catch up with the other two.

  “You alright there, Den, feeling a bit creeped out?” Tyrone teases Den as he comes up behind him.

  “Schools creep me out, especially primary ones, all those small chairs and tables are just weird and don’t even get me started on the little toilets, they give me shivers,” Den replies.

  Tyrone chuckles to himself at Den’s confession as they come to the end of the building’s front and start to move around the side, after checking it is clear.

  The right of the building only has a narrow alleyway leading down the side of it, with overgrown hedges from the property next door overhanging across the top. Together with the sun going in, it makes it very gloomy, spooky even, and this quietens Tyrone’s chuckles as he starts to go off the idea of going down there. Jason feels it too, but he presses on; he doesn’t want to show his nervousness to the other two, never mind their orders.

  The alleyway is eerily quiet as they go into it, even the sound of gunfire they could clearly hear before is all but silenced by the walls all around and the overgrowth above them.

  “I got a bad feeling about this!” Dan half whispers, bringing up the rear as they move down slowly.

  Jason, bunched up behind his rifle, leads the way, his hands clammy on the rifle’s steel but still ready to fire. He turns his head to the side slightly, towards Den and Tyrone. “We got an open door here.” He pauses just short of it, contemplating what to do.

  “Just shut it, Jay,” Den suggests.

  “Shh, I think I can hear something,” Jason says, and they all go silent, listening.

  “I can’t hear anything, so shut the door and let’s get the hell out of here,” Den again suggests.

  They listen again and then they do hear something, a distinct ominous scraping, coming from somewhere inside the school. It only lasts a couple of seconds before it’s gone. Fear roots all three of the men to the spot, all of them unsure what to do; they are almost frozen and then the scraping starts again.

  “What th
e fuck is that?” Tyrone whispers.

  Jason manages to inch forward, forcing himself to try and hear the sound more clearly. The scraping sounds close, but how close inside the school is hard to tell—and then it stops again.

  “Who’s there, show yourself!” Jason shouts at the doorway.

  As soon as his shout ends, the scraping increases in volume and it's definitely moving now, moving towards the open door. Jason’s fear rises to a new level as the sound gets nearer, and he feels himself shaking and his arms go slightly numb with adrenaline. He doesn’t really register Den almost shouting at him to ‘shut the fucking door’. Jason is steeling himself ready to fire, his finger poised on his rifle's trigger.

  The scraping stops, just as something comes low and fast out of the doorway; it takes Jason a second to register what it is, but his body has tightened from the adrenaline. His finger inadvertently squeezes the trigger of his SA80 rifle and the bullet it fires instantaneously hits the open door.

  The bullet hits about thirty centimetres above the Fox’s head that is itself now frozen, its eyes locked on Jason, stunned from the loud shot of the rifle. Neither of them moves for a second, both looking at each other, then the Fox comes back to life, bares its teeth at Jason, snarls, before it turns and runs off down the alley, towards the light.

  “It’s a Fox,” Den says, stating the obvious, “I nearly shit myself; I hate foxes!”

  “Fuck me, Den, there isn’t much you do like, is there?” Tyrone says.

  Jason’s composure slowly returns, and he lowers his rifle, saying, “I didn’t mean to shoot! It could have been kids messing about in there, I could have shot one.”

  “Well, it wasn’t it was a fox and your bullet missed it. Don’t sweat it, mate,” Tyrone says in some twisted way to comfort Jason as lads do. “Right,” he continues, “I need a piss, it’s got to be clear of Zombies in there, else that Fox wouldn’t be in there. Come on, Den, let's find the little toilets.”

  “Hilarious, you are,” Den replies to Tyrone’s ‘piss’ take.

  “Hold up,” Jason says, “we don’t know for sure it’s clear, so let’s be careful.”

  But Tyrone is already past Jason and going into the doorway that leads into the school; at least he has his rifle raised, Jason thinks to himself. Jason follows him in, as does Den, reluctantly.

  “That’s what the scraping noise was; the fox must have had its nose in this!” Tyrone says as he kicks an empty can of beans down the hall that has bright but messy paintings stuck to the walls on either side. The can skids along noisily.

  “If the Zombies didn’t know we were here before, they do now. Keep the noise down!” Jason says.

  Tyrone and Den, who looked a bit sheepish, go off to find the toilets while Jason waits for them near the doorway to the alley.

  After a couple of minutes waiting, Jason wanders into the nearest classroom. Walking through the open door and seeing the miniature tables and chairs takes him back in time and the walls, covered in more bright paintings only increases his reminiscing. He goes over to the large windows, their panes of glass stretching virtually the whole length of the room to look out over the tarmaced playing area outside with a grassed sports field beyond it. As he arrives at the windows, he stands, reminiscing some more and then the sun comes out again, making him squint.

  Suddenly, the almighty sound of gunfire seems to envelop him, and he immediately assumes that Den and Tyrone are in some kind of trouble and they are having to use their weapons somewhere in another part of the school. The adrenaline, kicks in again, flooding his body and he is just about to turn to rush to find them when he realises the noise is coming from outside. His head moves closer to the window in front of him and looks up to the left and he sees where at least part of the noise is coming from.

  The Apache—that must be the one that was assigned to their Squad—is hovering not far away to the left and Jason can clearly see from the tracer bullets coming from beneath the Apache’s belly that it is firing heavily at the ground below it. If the Apache is firing that much, it is almost certain that the Warrior and his Squad are firing too, meaning they have contact and are under attack.

  Jason’s brain works hard to figure out what they should do; surely, they need to return to the Squad as quickly as possible to back them up. There is no point in carrying on with this recce now, the Squad has found the enemy. As Jason decides on that course of action, he sees the Apache firing missiles down at the ground, closely followed by a dulled explosion and then smoke mushrooms rising up from the ground. There must be one hell of a fight going on, and they need to get moving; their Squad is in trouble, but just as Jason is about to go, something catches his eye.

  Somebody is running across the grass of the sports field, but the sun in his eyes makes it difficult to properly see who it is. Is it a Squad member who has somehow got detached from the main Squad or a civilian spooked by the noise of the gunfire and trying to get away?

  All too slowly, it dawns on Jason what is running directly at him across the tarmac. He has seen them on television, and the fear rises in him to a new height as the realisation sinks in, and for a moment he is paralysed with that fear.

  Jason has a split second to decide to fight or run from the Zombie that is almost at the window…the window Jason is now involuntarily backing away from. Deciding that the creature is still outside, Jason goes to run, but his decision is too late. He knows that as soon as he sees the Zombie launch itself at the window.

  The Zombie hits the window directly in line with Jason who hasn’t moved more than a couple of metres back from it. Instinct takes over and he dives to his right as the Zombie smashes through the plate glass window, which shatters into shards and scatters all over the classroom and all over Jason.

  He tries to roll as far away as he can from the creature which has landed in the middle of the classroom, crashing into the small tables and chairs, sending them tumbling across the room. Jason’s role has gone as far as it can as he hits the wall underneath the classroom’s blackboard, coming to a sudden stop. His mind is a blur of fear and desperation, so whether his military training takes over his body or if it’s acting survival reflex, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that his head is raising from the floor at the same time his hands and arms are bringing his rifle to bear.

  Jason’s eyes meet the black pools of the creature’s eyes as it looks at him, and it doesn’t take its eyes off Jason as it slips and slides on the broken glass against the hard floor, trying to get up from where it landed. The male Zombie is almost up onto its haunches, its arms outstretched in front of it as it prepares to jump again, to jump at Jason, its grey translucent skinned face with a large fresh gash down the side which oozes dark red, almost black, blood, that drips onto the floor below. As the creature goes to jump, its grotesque mouth opens to reveal its black gums and yellow teeth, its lips all but disappearing as the mouth opens wider.

  Jason is transfixed in fear, his body pushing back against the unmoveable wall, recoiling as far as he possibly can from the horrendous creature in front of him. Jason’s finger is on the trigger of his rifle and somewhere in his mind, he knows he has to pull it, but his finger doesn’t seem to understand or register the fear confusing his body’s functions.

  The Zombie has no such confusion. Like a starving animal out hunting, it only has one thought, to catch its prey. And it jumps.

  As the Zombie jumps at him, Jason somehow resets his body’s functions just enough and he pulls the rifle’s trigger. The shot blasts out of the rifle and the bullet hits the flying Zombie’s body. It tears right through its body and then carries on its trajectory into the wall on the opposite side of the classroom. The Zombie’s body recoils from the bullet’s force but not enough. It is going to land right on top of Jason!

  If only the rifle had been switched to automatic.

  In reflex, Jason’s arms raise to protect him from the impact of the flying creature, bringing the rifle up with them. The Zombie lands on Jason and
out of sheer luck, it’s neck lands across the body of the rifle with a force that stuns it for a moment, but then it tries to press home its advantage and goes for Jason again.

  The Zombie pushes forward, its face and teeth only centimetres away from Jason’s face. It growls and gnashes its teeth, desperately trying to close the gap and to bite its prey’s face. Jason, resists, his body now using all its strength to push back against the rifle, to push that mouth away from him. He doesn’t even register the black blood and drool that are dripping down onto his face and neck, his only thought is to push and keep the creature off.

  His arms are failing him though, he can feel it, the strength gradually sapping away from them. Push, push, he desperately thinks, but the Zombie is winning, drawing its mouth closer a millimetre at a time, its strength overpowering his arms. Jason looks into the creature’s deadly eyes; is that going to be the last image he sees before the end?

  Multiple gunshots erupt from Jason’s left as Tyrone opens up his SA80 rifle into the creature that is attacking his comrade. Tyrone’s shots are good, measured, targeted to the Zombie’s body to ensure he doesn’t hit Jason, but they don’t seem to have much effect. The creature is still alive and still attacking. Thinking quickly, Tyrone flicks the rifle out of automatic, aims and takes a single shot to the Zombie’s head.

  The Zombie’s body immediately drops and goes limp, only its head staying up, held up by Jason. Tyrone steps forward and raises his foot, pushing it against the creature’s body which slowly rolls over until it flops off Jason and lands on the floor next to him.

  Jason seems frozen, his arms still raised, holding his rifle in mid-air as if he is still holding off the Zombie. Tyrone lowers himself down to Jason, whose eyes are wide. Still and in shock, his face is a mess, the left side and his lower chin and neck covered in a red/black substance.

  “Jason, it’s dead, you’re okay,” Tyrone tells him, “talk to me mate, can you hear me?”

  Slowly, Jason starts to come around, his eyes start to blink and close a bit to a more normal size and his arms slowly relax and lower the rifle.