Capital Falling | Book 4 | Sever

by Winkless, Lance

  “Okay,” I say turning. “The stairwell was horrific, but this is where the real danger starts. We are going to be out in the open with multiple points for us to be attacked from, which can’t be avoided. We will move in stages, from one point of cover to another, wherever I can find it. We will move swiftly but carefully from one covering position to another. When I stop for cover, you all stop behind me and get down until I am ready to move again, understand?” Everyone nods with worried expressions on their faces.

  “Keep your eyes peeled for anything that moves. If you see anything, let me know and point in the direction of the movement. Jim don’t fire unless you have no choice, because of the noise. But if you absolutely must, then do it and aim for the body.

  “If I start firing, that is not a signal for you to stop, only stop if I do. I could start firing before we have reached cover, so keep moving. Stay behind me, okay?” Again, they all nod.

  “Stealth is the name of the game, we don’t want to be seen, or heard. Are you ready?” I ask.

  They are as ready as they are ever going to be, so I turn, check through the pane of glass in the door once more and then begin to ease it open.

  Nothing has changed outside, so I open the door and go through. The way forward is clear, so staying low, I move double-time across and to the top of the escalator. As soon as I reach the escalator, I duck down and take a knee behind its side, my M4 pointing over it, resting on the handrail.

  My three companions follow me across in good order and duck down behind me when I stop. So far so good, I think as I peer down the escalator.

  From my vantage point, I can see the outside foyer area of the tower, with shattered glass and bodies covering the concrete. Beyond the foyer is the road and on the other side of the road, I can see one side of the Lloyds building.

  The bodies, in amongst the shattered glass below are frozen as they were when I passed them on the way into the Cheesegrater. That might change when my companions’ step onto the shattered glass and I curse myself for not taking the time to kill any Rabid threats down there before I stepped onto the escalator.

  I calculate that two bodies might be an immediate threat, the two near the exit, at the bottom of the escalator. Lining the head of the closest one up in the sights of my M4, I pull the trigger and put a bullet into the top of its head. The body jerks on impact from the bullet and a dull thud echoes up to our position. I quickly move the rifle to get the other’s head in my aim and take the shot. This bullet enters the back of the head, with another jerk and a dull thud.

  Across, nearer the road, I notice another body lying in the glass that could pose a threat. The corpse’s head is hidden behind one of the steel girders reaching up from the ground, however, and I have no headshot. I debate for a second whether to put a bullet in the bodies leg but decide against it. If the body is a Rabid and not just a corpse, shooting it in the leg might stop it from getting up but I’ve no doubt a deathly screech would quickly follow the injury. We don’t need that exposure, I will deal with the body if I must when we get down there.

  No other bodies are in the immediate vicinity of the bottom of the escalator, so I pull in my M4 and push myself up to mount the escalator. Behind me, nobody asks what I was shooting at or voices any concerns, they simply follow me, one by one onto the escalator.

  Three-quarters of the way down, I stop and aim the M4 out over the road. The descent has given me a good view of the area around the entrance to the Lloyds building and I check it for any movement. I notice behind me that they have all ducked down behind the sides of the escalator, which is encouraging. Nothing moves near the entrance across the road, so I continue down the last few steps.

  Stopping again at the bottom I quickly scan around before I step off and onto the shattered glass. No matter how much we all try to ease across the glass quietly, crunching noises meet every step we make and the sound echoes around the foyer. Each crunch grinds on me, the noise seemingly getting louder and louder, putting me on tenterhooks. The M4’s muzzle darts in every direction, expecting an attack at any moment as the crunching sound continues from our four pairs of treading feet. Eventually, however, the carpet of glass begins to thin out and with a little care where we are treading, the noise starts to diminish.

  As we go, the M4 spits out one bullet into the head of the body that was hidden by the girder, as it comes into my range. The roof high above comes to an end, so does the carpet of shattered glass. Thankfully, we finally reach the pavement at the side of the tower, where I stop behind one of its thick girders to scan the way forward.

  I am fairly confident that the carnage on the road leading away from the Cheesegrater building was almost entirely caused by high-velocity rounds fired by the military. That would mean that most, if not all the bodies should not pose a threat and are simply corpses. There is no guarantee of that of course, but I haven’t enough bullets, never mind time, to methodically put a bullet into each of the heads of the masses of bodies strewn out across the entire area. I will have to deal with any bodies that begin to move as they present themselves, if needed.

  The M4’s muzzle swings back in the opposite direction and I take another look towards the entrance area of the Lloyds building once more before we move. The building and what might still be contained inside is making me extremely nervous. I am not convinced that three exploding grenades would have been enough to deal with the amount of Rabids that appeared before me in there.

  “Prepare to move, stay right,” I order, as nothing moves on the other side of the road. “There are dozens of mutilated bodies along this road, so be prepared.”

  With that, I push myself away from the girder and break right onto the pavement in front of us. The first piece of cover I use is a burnt-out car by the side of the road, ten meters along the pavement. As soon as I stop, the other three lower onto their haunches next to me.

  Unfortunately, the position is right next to a body in the road that has the left half of its head blown away. Flies buzz around the fleshy red and white innards and the smell emanating from it is disgusting. I scan the way ahead as fast as possible to check it is clear and to identify our next piece of cover. As soon as I am satisfied, I move to get the group away from the body as rapidly as possible, not that there is any guarantee our next stop will be any more inviting.

  The stink of death at our next stop is overpowering, it hangs in the air like a thick soup. In front of the building’s pillar I stop against, bodies are piled up on top of one another, and do my best to ignore the carnage spread out in front of me where a swarm of flies move across the bodies like shadows. The narrowing pavement up to the pillar obviously congested the poor souls into a throng where they were cut to ribbons by a shower of bullets.

  Groans rise behind me as the full power of the smell of rotting flesh hits my companion’s noses, there is no escape from it. We need to get onto the other side of the road, to the path that Alpha used. That path was not as bad as on this side and we cannot go forward here, there is no pavement to step onto, only corpses.

  I look desperately across the road for another position for us to go to, but I suddenly see movement from ahead. We will have to endure the rank smell a while longer while I deal with the figure that is shuffling along on the opposite pavement.

  There is no doubt that the figure is a Rabid and I quickly have it in my rifle’s sights. Just as I’m about to pull the M4’s trigger, the Rabid disappears behind a bullet-ridden delivery van parked against the kerb on the other side of the road. Fuck, I say to myself, as I am forced to draw in yet another breath of contaminated air and wait for the Rabid to reappear from behind the van.

  I move the muzzle of the M4 across to the rear of the bullet-ridden van where I expect the Rabid to reappear, my finger tense against its trigger.

  “Andy,” a sickly sounding Jim says from below me just as the Rabid reappears. Ignoring Jim’s protests, I squeeze the M4’s trigger and watch the Rabid drop to the ground.

  “Let’s move,
” I order quietly, stepping away from the pillar and into the road.

  I see Jim and Karen get to their feet, but Tanya stays down. Jim, wobbling himself tries to get Tanya up but he flounders. I scan the area ahead to check nothing is coming before I quickly step back to help get Tanya up. Jim has hold of one of her arms but is barely moving her. I thrust my arm through the front of her armpit and keep pushing until I feel her other armpit which my hand goes under and then I yank her up and to her feet.

  “Take her Jim,” I order as I pull my arm free and get it back onto the M4. “Karen, help Jim.”

  As soon as I see Karen go to help, I am moving forward praying that they follow. They are slow bringing Tanya across the road, but they manage it, and they join me at the next covering point which is in a deep doorway just up from the bullet-ridden van.

  “Put her down there at the back,” I tell Karen and Jim as they come under the cover.

  “I’m okay,” Tanya says, trying to be brave, but she isn’t, her legs are still unsteady.

  “Get your breath back, Tanya,” I tell her. “We can stay here for a minute.”

  I leave Karen and Jim to mind Tanya while I cover us out of the front of the doorway.

  “She is looking better,” Karen tells me after a minute.

  “Tanya, how are you feeling?” I ask.

  “Much better. It was that smell, I couldn’t breathe.”

  “It was bad,” I sympathise. “Are you ready to move?”

  “Yes, I’m ready,” Tanya says confidently.

  I have already decided on the next covering position and I am ready to move, but I give them a second to get behind me. Once they are in position, I go, moving out of the doorway, going immediately left. I plan to get us all the way down to the main junction ahead and off this godforsaken road as soon as possible. Our cover is a car just short of the junction from where I should be able to scan all four roads that converge at the wide junction.

  With the car only meters away, a creature suddenly tears from the right, it runs straight into the centre of the junction. The male Rabid comes to a skidding halt, to stare straight at me. Before I can fix the beast in my sights, the Rabid lurches forwards and into the air. I fire my first round, but the bullets skims past the flying beast which hits the roadside to burst at me like an oncoming vehicle.

  I crash into the back of the car that I was heading for, my M4 coming thumping down across its roof to steady itself to fire again. I take my own advice and my next shot is aimed at the body of the beast that is no more than five meters away. This time the bullet hits, slamming into the right shoulder of the beast and knocking it sideways. Unable to catch its fall, the Rabid smacks into the road hard, headfirst. A whimpering cry escapes the creature’s mouth as it raises its head from the roadside. My third bullet cuts the cry off dead as it shatters the Rabid’s head, splattering its contents across the road.

  Gasping for breath, I turn my rifle urgently this way and that, expecting more Rabids to appear to join in the hunt, but none do. Heavy breathing from around my legs tells me that the others are here and waiting for my next move. I concentrate and establish my bearings. The left turn off the junction, that is the road that leads down to London Bridge, the one we will be taking.

  There is no movement, but little to offer us cover either, so we will have to make do with another doorway, even though I can’t see a decent one from my position.

  “Let’s move,” I say as I pull the M4 in and skirt around the left side of the car to leave the junction and the road of slaughter behind.

  I concentrate to control my breathing and my heartbeat as I move, which are both becoming frantic. Frantic breathing and heart rate leads to frantic actions and decision making, neither of which we can afford right now. I slow my actions down, making them more deliberate, and equalise my breathing rate.

  Gradually, my body slows down, and my thinking becomes clearer. I see a doorway that offers cover on the right of the road as we leave the junction and head for it. There is no indication of what the doorway is used for, I can’t even tell if it is an entrance for a business or for residents of the block it leads into, not that it matters.

  I stay on the outside, scanning the route ahead and let Karen and Tanya in behind me, but there isn’t enough room for Jim behind, so he squeezes in next to me. In the distance, farther along the road, I can just about make out the junction in the road where it splits left and right, near the area where I had my episode next to the burnt-out cars. Waking up with Alpha and the pack standing over me seems surreal to me now, like it happened in another lifetime.

  Concentrate, I tell myself, what’s your next move? The street is all but devoid of decent covering positions but there is a car some distance away, past the opening on the left that leads into Leadenhall Market. The car is father than I would like to go in one movement, but we have little other choice.

  “Let’s move,” I say and break cover, the car my target, unless I see a closer option as we go.

  The M4 is trained on the opening to the market as I go past, its undercover walkway leads down and towards the Lloyds building so I eye it with suspicion. Nothing moves, however, and I turn my sight forwards, but just as I do… Jim shouts.

  “Andy, in the market, they’re coming!”

  What is Jim talking about? I think urgently. I have only just taken my eyes away from there. I stop suddenly and spin to look back into the tunnel, which is lined with upmarket retail outlets and restaurants.

  I see them immediately, shadows careering towards us from deep within the tunnel, and from the direction of the Lloyds building. Panic rising in my belly overrides my confusion as to why I didn’t see the horde when my eyes meet the Rabid creatures. There are too many to engage with, I know that instantly. We need to run or hide and do it now, the beasts will burst onto this road at any moment.

  “This way!” I shout when I see the opening to a narrow underpass between the building on the opposite side of the road.

  My eyes meet with Karen’s as I turn to see if the others are with me as I bolt for the opening, her face is in shock and close to sheer panic as she runs behind me. Undead screeches and cries of the hunt, echo at us from within the tunnel and the chilling noises are close.

  I steal another look behind me just before I cross over the threshold into the underpass. Jim is bringing up the rear bravely, and I see the first Rabid burst into the road at terrific speed. For a second, I think I recognise the fearsome creature as one of Alpha’s pack that took me in.

  Other beasts pile out of the market, too many to count and they change direction instantly to follow us. As I enter the underpass, I cannot afford to stop or slow to let the others by. To do that, would slow us all down and mean certain capture by the horde, instead, I look ahead for cover or somewhere for us to hide, but all I am met with is concrete walls and steel fences. We must make it to the other side of the underpass and hope we find a sanctuary on the other side of it.

  “Run!” I shout behind me as I near the exit of the underpass and pull a grenade from my combat vest.

  A gunshot rings out of the underpass the moment I emerge from it and into the open air, the crack ringing in my ears takes me completely by surprise. I move slightly to the side and slam my brakes on to allow the others past and to throw my grenade into the narrow underpass. The confined space will create maximum exposure for the grenade and will take many of the horde out and slow the rest down.

  Karen flies by me, closely followed by Tanya but Jim is missing. Another gunshot rings out from the underpass and then another. My eyes dart to see Jim has stopped halfway down the underpass and is firing at the Rabids just coming through into it.

  “Jim, run!” I shout frantically, as I pull the pin out of the grenade.

  Jim, with his back to me, fires the Glock again, his legs spread wide to steady his aim.

  “Get them out of here,” Jim shouts in reply before firing again.

  I suddenly understand what he is doing, he is sac
rificing himself to let us get away, he must know he can’t hold so many Rabids back with just one handgun. There is no time to convince him otherwise, all I can do is respect him for his selfless actions. Jim keeps firing and I know he is going to run out of ammunition anytime now. I should have fucking given him extra magazines for the weapon, I think as I scan the courtyard we find ourselves in for an escape route.

  There are several possibilities, I see as I look, but there is a narrow walkway off to the right that I decide on, the opening barely visible. Karen screams after her husband, her hysterical voice carrying over the sound of the gunshots.

  I quickly look back down the underpass just in time to see Jim throw the empty Glock at the creatures closing in on him.

  “Tanya,” I shout pointing at the narrow opening. “Take Karen down there, drag her if you have to, do it now,” I order and shove a hysterical Karen to try and get her moving.

  Karen protests, but Tanya takes her by the arm and begins to drag her away.

  “Think of Stacey,” I shout at Karen and shove her again.

  My words hit home with Karen, and she reluctantly turns and begins to follow Tanya. I spin back towards the underpass just in time to see Rabids take Jim down, his screams both chilling and heartbreaking.

  Rabids engulf Jim in a feeding frenzy, but others slowly begin to move past the pile of withering bodies, and this time I horrifically recognise one of them. Alpha leads the horde towards me, its right side mutilated, the arm no more than a stump protruding from its right shoulder. Tattered flesh hangs down from the right side of its face and that side of the body is potholed from where shrapnel exploded into it. The gruesome injuries only seem to make the beast more terrifying and the look of despise on Alpha’s face is paralysing.

  I am suddenly conscious of the grenade in my left hand and without thinking, I roll it down into the underpass. The clink of metal bouncing pulls me out of my paralysing terror, I flick the M4 into automatic and begin firing constantly down into the underpass. While firing, I move right and behind a concrete wall just to the side of the underpass to take cover from the imminent explosion. I aim at Alpha, filling the beast with bullets and move my aim to the other Rabids coming at me and then the explosion hits.