Somewhere above, a helicopter buzzes, and I assume it’s Dan cooling the engines of the Lynx. As the buzzing fades, Alice and I are nearly at the North West turret; this door is closed too, but there is a hole where the lock used to be.
“Did you pull the door closed?” I whisper to Alice.
“Yes,” she whispers back.
Cautiously, I take up a position against the turret’s round wall to the right, beside the door. Alice stops short and goes down on one knee slightly to the side of the door at the edge of the walkway and aims her rifle at the door. She covers me while I put my ear to the edge of the door and listen for any noise from inside, anything that gives me a clue to the situation in there, but nothing can be heard.
I push the door gently with my hand and it swings slowly inwards, and as it does, Alice visibly tenses behind her rifle as if expecting Rabids to spring out on the attack. I’m ready too, but no Rabids appear and Alice gives me the all-clear signal. The doorway and the steps beyond are empty; everything seems eerily quiet, in fact.
Alice joins me standing in the open doorway; I’m still listening for any sign of activity from beyond the stone stairwell that winds down in front of me. She stops short of my position and covers the rooftop with her rifle, waiting for my move or instruction. And she waits patiently.
In the little time since we exited the Lynx, Alice has acquitted herself professionally and calmly, and we are starting to build an unspoken understanding which is vitally important in our line of work. This comes as a relief, having encountered so many overzealous gung-ho idiot soldiers who act before they think, which often leads to injury or worse for them or members of their team.
Taking my time at the doorway, virtually all my concentration is used in listening for any activity from below, a tactic similar to letting your eyes get used to the dark.
My mind blocks out as many of the sounds from the outside world as it can, and gradually my ears acclimatise, and sounds start to rise up from the innards of the Tower. The sounds are faint but unmistakable, the inhuman groaning and retching sounds of Rabids sending chills down my spine. There is no way to tell how many of those things are down there, but they are definitely there and the only positive thing I take from it is that they are subdued at the moment. If they weren’t, their screams would be clear for us both to hear.
“Okay, Alice,” I say, turning to her and speaking in a low voice. “I can hear hostiles down there, I can’t tell how many, but they are obviously subdued at the moment. So we are going to take it slow and quiet. I’ll lead and take any out that I need to with the silencer. Only fire if you have to. We need to keep them subdued for as long as we can, understood?”
“Copy that, I’ll follow your lead, Andy,” Alice whispers back.
With my head tucked back behind my M4, I cross the threshold of the door and move into the Tower. We descend the spiral staircase nice and easy, Alice staying a couple of steps behind and just to the right of my position as much as the narrow ancient staircase will allow, her rifle pointed forward and down the stairs. Her head flicks back at regular intervals to check our six but my head stays looking forward, eyes and ears scanning as we wind downwards farther into the building. Even with the light coming through the slits in the stone of the outside wall, the light dims somewhat as we move farther down. My eyes easily adjust at the speed we are moving, so do my ears. The haunting sounds of Rabids are now clear for both of us to hear, still some way off and still subdued, but I can tell there are a number of them, at least.
As we reach the last few steps before the entrance to the third floor of the Tower, I stop, so does Alice behind me. My hope that the third floor would be clear of Rabids doesn’t materialise; their groans are close, and so are the shuffling noises as they move only feet away from us. A shadow crosses the small part of the floor that I can see beyond the stone stairs.
Signalling to Alice to hold her position, I gradually inch forward in an attempt to gain a view of the third floor, my back pinned against the wall behind me. Slowly edging farther forward, I reach the bottom step but the view I get isn’t what I was expecting.
Stretching out in front of me is a narrow stone passageway with openings on the left into what I presume is the main room of this floor, and that is where the sounds of Rabids are coming from. The first of these openings is directly at the foot of the stairs. I lean across, taking my weight onto my left foot to try to get a look, my rifle now gripped across my chest.
As I lean out, the room beyond the opening comes into partial view. I note the positions of the various displays that are dotted around the wooden floor in the part of the room that I'm able to see. My main concentration, however, is taken by the Rabids that seem to be shuffling slowly and aimlessly around the dimly-lit room with their heads down in some kind of stupor, raspingly groaning to themselves. There seem to be three male and one female as far as I can tell, not that this makes much difference. But one does have his soldier’s combat uniform on which I find hard to take. It isn’t Josh though, as it has dark brown hair, unlike Josh’s blond. Watching them shuffle across the wooden floor, only four of these monsters have come into my view and they are all moving slowly.
As I start to calculate taking the four out with my silenced rifle, a fifth one suddenly appears and shuffles directly across the opening that I'm looking through, not more than a couple of feet in front of me.
Nearly jumping out of my skin, I pull back from the opening and pin my back as tightly as possible to the wall. The Rabid’s shuffling comes to a stop directly by the opening. My hands lift the rifle slowly up ready for the attack I feel is imminent. I daren’t look back to Alice to see if she is ready and just hope and expect that she is.
Moments pass. What is it waiting for?
My heart is beating so hard as the adrenaline rushes through every inch of my body, that surely Alice and all the monsters in the next room can hear the thud of its beat. Suddenly, there is an almighty retching noise, the shock of it nearly making me fire my rifle into thin air, the unholy sound chilling me. The retching continues in bursts as if this creature by the opening is trying to puke up its own stomach, unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. The smell then hits my nostrils, I know the smell of death all too well, but this is something else, malignant, unnatural and sickening. It brings bile up into my own throat, I force myself not to turn away from its source.
A minute or so passes of this horrendous noise, and the smell only gets stronger, it fills my lungs and seems to seep into my stomach. I manage to hold my stomach down and then the noise stops as quickly as it started. The sound of shuffling starts again as the Rabid moves on, away from the opening. I afford a look back at Alice and see straight away that she found the whole episode as frightening and sickening as me, she is looking quite green as I'm sure I am. When she sees me looking, she gives me a thumbs-up and even attempts a weak smile. This girl—sorry, woman—is made of tough stuff.
The Rabid couldn’t have seen me as its head was down, but I felt sure it must have at least glimpsed me as I moved back away from the opening. Maybe it was more concerned with whatever it just ejected or tried to eject from its stomach.
I move farther back up the steps to Alice.
“Jesus that was a close one,” I whisper close into her ear.
“I thought I was going to faint,” she whispers to me, which I don’t believe for a second.
“Right, I count five in there, including our noisy friend. I’m afraid one is in combats,” I tell Alice, “I’m going to get to the second opening to give me better angles to take them out. You take the position I just had and cover me, and don’t shoot unless absolutely necessary, okay?” Alice nods affirmative, looking confident but concerned.
Quickly, I reach and give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and then move back down to the bottom step.
Leaning again and looking out of the opening onto the room, I only see three of the Rabids, towards the far end of the room. Two are shuffling about slowly
whilst another is not moving at all and looks like it is staring at something on the floor in front of it. A fourth appears, this one across on the other side to my left and also going towards the other three, but I can’t see our fifth friend.
As the fourth—the one in combats—moves past the entrance I’m looking out from, I gamble and move swiftly, low and silently across the opening and behind the next wall. My M4 is pointed straight down the passageway as I wait to see if I have been seen, and I rely on Alice to cover my back and the first opening.
Nothing happens, so I look back at Alice, my M4 still pointed down the passageway and she gives me another thumbs-up. I signal to her that I have positions on four targets but not on five, and she signals back affirmative.
Slowly, I move down to the second opening, and once in position, I ease my view around until I have sight of the room. The first three Rabids are directly in my sights and by my reckoning, the fourth will be shuffling into view anytime now. There is still no sign of number five, but I can’t give up the chance of having four in the same vicinity so signal to Alice to be ready.
Raising the M4, I aim it just to the left of the head of the Rabid farthest to the left of the three. I steady myself and wait.
The fourth Rabid in its combat uniform is soon in my vision and moving towards the others, and as its head moves across into my sights, I fire! In an instant before the first one’s head explodes, I am retargeting and focusing on the second Rabid, the one I aimed just to the left of. I fire again. Immediately, I swivel to the right, taking aim at the third that is shuffling around. And I fire, my last target is the Rabid staring at the floor. Her head is just raising up as I fire my fourth shot; the bullet caves in her nose and the back of her head erupts.
In a few instants, the four Rabids are down, with barely any noise, my M4 only spitting as the silencer does its job of displacing the hot supersonic gases that would normally make the bang as the bullets exit the barrel.
Where is the fifth Rabid? Scanning the room, I can't see it anywhere, and Alice moves into the opening to my left and also takes a knee. But she keeps farther back using the opening walls as cover. A sound echoes from opposite me, coming from one of the stone openings across on the other side of the room. These lead to what looks like another room on the opposite side of the building. Another sound comes from the same direction, then I see a hunched silhouette move slowly across in that room, but I spot it too late to take a shot as it disappears behind a wall. My aim moves to the right to the next opening.
Breathing steadily, controlling my heart rate and body, I steady myself ready to take my shot when the Rabid next appears.
The silhouette starts to come into view and I focus my aim, my finger moving to the trigger of the M4. As I'm about to squeeze my shot away, a fast shuffling noise starts to my far left down by Alice, and for a second, I ignore it. Squeezing the trigger, the silhouette falls, and I swivel on my knee towards the shuffling noise coming on my left, adrenaline pumping.
Just beyond Alice, the fifth ‘retching’ Rabid is waking out of its stupor and starting to build up speed, coming towards me, its groaning building. Keeping my composure, I refocus my aim, its head now moving randomly from side to side though as its body starts to come back to life. As it draws almost level with Alice's position, I prepare to shoot but miss my chance.
Just as the Rabid stumbles level with Alice and just before I shoot, Alice, with amazing speed, lifts from where she is taking cover in between the walls of the opening. In one rapid motion, she steps out into the room, swings the butt of her rifle around, her hands spread along the rifle’s body. With an almighty, ferocious force, she smashes it into the face of the Rabid.
This male Rabid, who must be at least 5’11”, has no chance. His head shoots backwards with the sound of a dull thud and cracking, as the butt of Alice’s rifle breaks the bones in its face. The thing’s legs fly forward as it almost does a backwards somersault before hitting the ground, the back of its head first. Alice swoops around, unsheathing her combat knife in unison and swinging the knife down and around, burying the knife deep into the Rabid’s head through its right temple. She ends up on one knee behind it, the Rabid’s body going limp.
It doesn’t move again.
Alice is still for a few seconds as she looks down at the Rabid’s face which has her knife still sticking out of its temple. Eventually, she pulls the knife out of its head and wipes both sides of the blade deliberately across the dead Rabid’s chest, cleaning the blood from the blade on its clothes.
I’m momentarily rooted to the spot in awe, taking in Alice’s very impressive moves in taking down the hostile, and I pick up a few pointers if I’m honest. Who said an old dog can’t learn new tricks? I’m almost overwhelmed by her manoeuvres. Alice has obviously honed her combat skills and they are proficient indeed; they must be for what she just did.
Alice has soon taken up a covering position behind her rifle and we both scan for any other threats that may be still in the room. What noise we did make in dealing with the Rabids on this floor doesn’t seem to have alerted any others on the floors below.
When I’m satisfied there are no other Rabids in this room, I signal to Alice to come over to me. She stands, walks sideways towards me, stepping slowly and deliberately to not make any sound, all the time scanning with her rifle around the room and as she reaches me, I stand.
“You don’t take any prisoners,” I joke in a low voice to her, “I’m impressed, nice moves. Lieutenant Ward, well done.”
“Thanks,” she whispers and blushes slightly. “Anyway, you can talk, you took four out before I could blink…and then another.”
“We need to check the next room is clear, there may be more than just the one in there,” I tell her.
We make our way past the various exhibits of old Tudor weapons, armour and such like. Some of the displays are damaged or their glass display cases broken, and we are careful not to tread on any of the debris so we don’t make unnecessary noise.
The body of the silhouetted Rabid I shot is sprawled across the floor in the next room. The contents of its head are sprayed across the floor, the moist blood and brains glistening in the dimming light. We tread around it and see that this room, which is smaller than the main room, is clear.
"There looks like there is something through there," I say to Alice, pointing at more openings on the other side of the room.
"Yes, that's the passageway, it leads right around the outside of this floor. On the right, it leads to the top of the chapel where I climbed up. It looks down onto the chapel below and would be a good vantage point for us to see into the second floor," she says.
"Okay, we’ll have a look. Just let me just radio Dan."
I pull the radio off my chest. Dan will be wondering what our situation is. He knows to wait for me to contact him unless something crops up at his end which can’t wait.
“Dan, over.” A few moments pass. “Dan, over.”
“Receiving, over,” comes Dan’s voice, a little too loudly as he shouts over the noise of the helicopter and I hastily adjust the volume on my radio.
“We have had contact, nothing serious and we are proceeding. Any developments with you, over?”
“Nothing to report, Boss, just doing a bit of sightseeing around London." Dan, always the joker, which isn’t a bad thing by any means. “The Colonel has been on, ranting, but I’ll give you the full story later, over.”
“Copy that, don’t stray too far on your sightseeing tour. We may need a lift sharpish mate, over.”
“Don’t panic, Boss. I’m ready and waiting, over.”
“Okay, thanks, Dan, over and out.”
Re-clipping the radio to my chest, I give Alice a look. “Ready?”
Moving through the opening, we go right and I'm taken aback on seeing the structure in front of me at the end of this passageway. There is a walkway that goes straight down to my right a short distance, then ends by the wall of one of the rooms next door. And then to
my left, the walkway circles around to the right. Thick square stone pillars are joined with arches at the top, which reach up to the roof of the Tower and border the walkway on the inside; the openings between them look over the chapel that must be below. Looking through the pillars, I see they circle right around to the opposite side too. The walkway must also circle around the same way, following the arches to that side. I move behind the nearest pillar and Alice moves to the adjacent one on the right, both looking out carefully from our positions, down onto the chapel below.
The scene before us as we peer around the pillars is awful, and we are both silent as we take in the shocking view. The chapel is only lit dimly from the setting sun but that doesn’t hide the slaughter that has happened down there.
Even thicker stone pillars or columns surround the chapel below. This time, they are round, but in the same formation as up here. The entrance must be a way to the right past the end of the row of columns, but out of sight. I can just about see what has to be the altar, nestled just in front of the arch of columns below and just to my left. Wooden pews then run down the middle, either side of a central walkway. Imagining how delightful and elegant this little Chapel would be—especially viewed in this low setting sun—is easy. Right now though, it is anything but; it is heinous.
Dread again burns into my stomach as the realisation sinks in that there’s only death down there, and the odds of me finding Josh safe and well are extremely slim. I could be looking at him now without realising.
Twisted, mutilated bodies, at least fifteen of them, cover the chapel's stone floor, which is stained with patches of deep dark red blood. Many of the bodies are in combat uniforms. The wooden pews which I’m sure were once lined up neatly down each side of the central walkway of the chapel are askew and have yet more bodies draped over them. One of the pews is even on its side across from us, propped up lengthways against one of the columns. The whole scene is like something out of one of those sick horror stories or a Spaghetti Western where everyone gets shot up in the church at the end of the movie, Quentin Tarantino style.
Capital Falling Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 19
