Capital Falling Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Winkless, Lance

  The only positive to be taken looking down into the chapel is that I can only see two Rabids stumbling about; one is behind the columns on the far side from us and the other near the back.

  There’s another moving; it is one of the ones on top of a pew. The creature’s legs are dangling down the back of the pew and its head is on the seat, but it is backward, face up. The thing’s back is hideously broken over the top of the wooden pew. The body and legs are nearly parallel to each other, its head moving with its dark hole of a mouth wide open and its arms are flailing around but it seems it is paralysed from where its back is broken, and can’t get up.

  Making a mental note to put it out of its misery if I get chance, I move back from the pillar, towards the passageway so I can talk to Alice more freely. She follows without me having to say anything.

  Alice has a very sad look about her; many of the dead down there were her comrades, her friends, so I’m sickened and can only imagine how she feels.

  “I’m sorry, Alice, and sorry you saw that. There was nothing you could have done for them, you got out just in time.” I try to console her, but the words seem flat.

  “I could have tried something, done more,” she whispers.

  “No, Alice, no you couldn’t. I’ve been in the same situation when these monsters come at you in full flow in big numbers, you get the fuck out as quickly as possible. Second guessing yourself now is pointless; if it had been viable, you would have stayed and fought but it was carnage down there, that is plain to see,” I say vigorously, trying to pull her back. Apart from which, it is the truth.

  Her head lifts. “I’m okay, it was just shocking to see.”

  “Yes, I can imagine.”

  “What’s the plan then?” she says, trying to raise a smile.

  “Maybe it’s futile but I’ve got to see if Josh is down there, alive or not… or turned… so I’m going on, but I don’t think you should. You’ve come far enough, you wait here or on the…”

  “No fucking way. I’m carrying on,” Alice cuts me off, looking me straight in the eye.

  “Alice,” I start.

  “I’m in, end of, now let’s get on with it while we still have light!”

  “Fair enough, have you got any coins on you?” I ask.

  Alice gives me a confused look but tells me, “Yes.”

  Back behind the same pillar overlooking the chapel, I have the Rabid in the sights of my M4, still on the far side of us beyond the columns. I squeeze the trigger; the rifle spits its bullet and the Rabid falls straight down into a pile on the floor. Swinging the M4 right, I fire again and the Rabid at the back of the Chapel falls. Finally, I take aim at the Rabid with its back broken over the pew and fire, giving the wretch some peace.

  Pulling the M4 in, I give Alice a nod and we quickly and quietly follow the walkway as it bends around to the front of the chapel. I lie down beneath the centre arch in the opening between the two pillars at the very front, the altar directly below. Alice lies down beside me on my left, coins jangling in her hand as she does so. As Alice gets into position, I point my M4 straight down towards the back of the chapel, using the floor to steady my left arm that is holding the gun.

  As I’m checking my sights, Alice urgently says, “Two o’clock, behind the columns.”

  Adrenaline fizzes through me and my M4 pivots on my elbow, down and right to two o’clock. I quickly have the target in my sights and as soon as I have the head shot, I take it. Through my rifle sight, I see the bullet take the top of the Rabid’s head off and it drops.

  “Good call,” I tell Alice.

  She is acting as my spotter; the coins are for her to throw down into the chapel in the hope the noise will attract any Rabids in the other rooms on this floor, bringing them to investigate. They can then be eliminated safely from our position. There is a risk of other Rabids on the floors below hearing the coins too, but I doubt the noise will be enough to penetrate the thick stone floor.

  The last time Alice saw Josh, he was in the room beyond the chapel. If we are going down there, it would make sense to clear out as many Rabids as possible, but quickly.

  I’ve run through in my head what I will do if Josh has turned, succumbed to this virus and if I see him coming through into the chapel, or if we come across him when we go down to the second floor. All I can do is put him out of his misery; if he has turned, he is already dead. There is no way I can leave him as a monster, and he wouldn’t want it, it looks like hell on earth. I have tried to prepare myself for the shock that will hit me if he has turned, but I guess I won’t know for sure how I’ll react until it happens—if it happens.

  "Let’s try this, Alice. Throw the first coin."

  Alice throws a coin down, and it hits the stone floor with a loud 'ping' and bounces several times with diminishing pings as it goes. And we wait.

  "Again," I say, and Alice throws again, but still with no result.

  Alice is just about to throw another coin but stops mid-throw.

  "Eleven o'clock," she says.

  "I see it."

  What looks like a female Rabid stumbles out from behind the far-left column, its head half down, and I wait until it gets farther into the chapel with its head in my sights. When it’s a good distance in, I fire, and my M4 spits out its bullet, hits its target and the Rabid drops. It is far enough in so as not to block any others from coming in or to possibly put them off; we don’t want a pile of them at the entrance.

  “Throw another one; we need to try and speed this up.”

  Alice does, but before the coin has even hit the ground, another Rabid appears to the right, a soldier, still with his helmet on. Not that the helmet will offer any protection from my bullet that will be travelling at over 800 metres per second. When the Rabid is far enough in, I shoot, aiming for the top of the helmet—and sure enough, the bullet pierces straight through, killing the Rabid instantly.

  Over the next five or so minutes, Rabids appear in growing numbers, both left and right and sometimes two or three at a time. Luckily, when they enter, they are all still half asleep and are easily dispatched, Alice throws coins down at regular intervals to keep them interested and keep them coming.

  The rate soon slows, however, until it comes to a stop. By the time it does, I’ve had to change my magazine once and counted thirty-six targets eliminated. Twenty-one of the shot Rabids were in military uniform, and I don’t know if Josh is amongst them! Many of them still had their helmets in place and even the ones that didn’t had their heads down. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise for me if Josh was one? But if we don’t find him, then I will have to check through all those bodies to see if he is there, a job I definitely don’t want.

  "How are we going to get down there?" Alice asks.

  "Well, it looks like one of the stairways must be open. How else could the Rabids on this floor have got up?" I ask.

  "I don't know, but all the gates were locked, and they weren't up here when I left. Maybe it was the noise I made getting onto the roof, and they must have gotten through one of the gates?"

  "Only one way to find out; the stairs we came down from the roof, I noticed the gate was still closed, so let’s check the others."

  With that, I move and follow the walkway around the back of the chapel; there is no time to lose. Sure enough, the gate on the south-west stairway has been forced open. They are not that robust and look like they are only to stop inquisitive tourists.

  "Same as before, Alice, I'll go first. I expect we will find more down there, so be ready."

  "I am," is all she says before we go.

  At the bottom of the stairs is a small alcove that opens straight out onto the main room of the second floor. The large room is directly beneath the one upstairs, and looks like the plan of this floor is virtually the same as the upper one, apart from that there’s no passageway around the outside on this floor.

  The whole floor has been turned upside down, displays smashed, and artefacts—including antique guns, swords and pi
eces of armour—are strewn across the floor. The larger displays have been moved into the far corner, presumably when the army moved in. These too are broken into pieces. Bullet holes riddle the walls all around. The fight here was substantial, further confirmed by the number of bodies covering the floor. The bodies are both civilian and military and most are in a bad way; some have been shot to pieces whilst others have been half eaten. The nearest one to me, that of a soldier, lies on its back with one eye staring at me. Its other eye, along with the skin on the left side of its face, is gone. So is that side of its neck, the flesh all eaten away.

  The scene is bone-chilling, I have seen plenty of dead bodies in my time but to see the way they have been mutilated, eaten and consumed here makes even my hardened stomach slightly queasy again. I can see no sign of life, only dead bodies, but am determined to find Josh, no matter what.

  Before I go any farther and before Alice has seen the horrors that await, I at least try and prepare her.

  "It's bad in there," I say turning to her. "Bodies are everywhere and they are mutilated, and many of them are in uniform, I’m afraid.”

  “Okay, Andy, thanks for the warning. I'm ready."

  Alice steals herself visibly; she is so determined to carry on, that much is obvious. And so we do.

  Stepping out carefully from the alcove and into the main room of the Tower’s second floor, I think I’m as prepared as I can be for the likelihood of finding Josh. Whatever condition we find him in, it doesn’t seem possible that his condition is going to be good and this is underlined as soon as I take my first steps.

  My presence as I move has an almost immediate doomful effect. The soldier with one eye that was looking at me starts to move, sending a shiver running down my spine. Its unblinking eye and then its mouth starts to open, and a low now-familiar raspy groan starts to form deep in the back of its throat.

  Holding my M4 with my left hand and not letting it lower, I unsheathe my knife from my side, bend my legs and in a fast motion, bury the knife into the side of its head; the groan is immediately cut off. I pull the knife out and—taking a leaf out of Alice's book—I wipe the blood across the dead soldier’s uniform. Slipping my knife back, I glimpse around toward Alice and see her attention is focused, covering the rest of the room behind her rifle as if she almost doesn’t want to look down at the horrors before us.

  We tread carefully as we move through the destruction surrounding us, not wanting to disturb anything. As we approach, bodies that look far too damaged for there to be any possibility of still functioning start to show signs of life—if you can call it that. Not all of them, but enough, begin stirring, their malignant stench rising up from the body-littered floor that encompasses us.

  When we see them move or start to hear them moaning we have to deal with them, we cannot risk the noise attracting others. The majority are dealt with, by either mine or Alice’s knife to the head. Or, if they are farther away, my M4 spits a bullet into their skulls.

  Most of the Rabids here around us are too damaged to pose a real threat, although one nearly grabbed my ankle before I saw it, and another was in the throes of dragging itself across the floor using its hands in an attempt to get over to us. The beast’s bottom jaw was hanging by just the skin from its cheek, the dangling jawbone bumping along the floor as it pulled itself forward, but this didn’t lessen its craving to try and devour us.

  As we go, my eyes keep flicking to the faces that stare up from the bodies that surround me; each time, I expect to see Josh’s face in some awful state looking back at me. Bodies are face down too, and those close to me which could possibly be Josh have to be turned over carefully to check if one is him. I can’t find him though. All I see are faces of other poor souls caught up in this hellhole, and there are too many of those to count today.

  We must make sure the whole floor is safe before we can start looking for his body properly; the first opening onto the next smaller room is about halfway down this main room on the right of us.

  As we reach the opening, I signal to Alice to hold. Using the wall of the opening as cover, I peer around into the room, my M4 pointing the way.

  "Fuck me," I inadvertently whisper out loud.

  "What, what is it?" Alice says back to me in a low, concerned voice.

  "The bodies are literally piled up in there!" I tell her.

  "Yes, I know, let me see,"

  Alice and I swap positions and I hear her gasp at the carnage. Unbelievably, it’s worse than the main room. Alice knew what to expect, she was in there fighting with her comrades, but in the heat of battle, the shocking destruction can be missed or blocked out, your brain prioritising survival.

  That room is obviously where the main fight happened, Alice said as much earlier. This main room is just the afters. This, I suppose, makes sense because that is where the only stairs from the ground floor below come up, in the north-east corner, opposite our position.

  At the mouth of the stairs, bodies are piled on top of one another as they were shot coming into the room, after exiting the stairs. Even in the dim light, you can see that the walls around the exit are coloured black and red and are damaged and pitted from the explosions and gunfire. The black from the high-temperature grenades that exploded, and all the red, is sprayed blood and flesh, arching around the opening. Bodies fan out from that corner and from the main body pile there in ever-decreasing circles. A low, almost constant Rabid groan rises from the floor that moves with half-dead Rabids in some kind of sick Dead Sea, many of them in uniform.

  "Is there any point in going in there? How can we find your son in that mess?" Alice whispers and then quickly turns her head to me. "Sorry, I didn't mean it to sound so blunt."

  "It's okay Alice, I know you didn't. But he’s got to be here somewhere. I'm going in to have a look, you stay here and watch my back."

  My knife is in my hand before I enter as I’m clearly going to need it, and my M4 is slung across my chest, held by my left hand and ready to be called into action. Alice is in position at the entrance where she can give me back-up if needed, whilst also being able to watch the main room in case anything unforeseen occurs in there.

  As soon as I take my first steps, the knife is doing its work; a civilian Rabid that has multiple bullet holes through its legs that weave their way up into its torso, flails its arms towards me. There must be twenty-plus bullet wounds in it. Its body is in ribbons, and even that does not stop it trying to grab me, but my knife does.

  Moving deeper into the room, trying to avoid the reaching arms, my knife is in regular use but there are just too many half-dead Rabids in here to deal with in time.

  My eyes are now seeking out the faces below me, urgently searching for Josh. The tension in my body is stifling, the sound of the groaning is all around me and it is getting louder. At first, I thought the volume was rising because I am moving farther into it, farther into the room, but it is now undeniable that more Rabids are groaning and groaning louder because I'm in here with them.

  Giving up trying to silence a few of the groans with the knife, I put it away and lift up the M4, the reassurance of its firepower giving me some solace.

  Now about halfway into the room, the groans are getting too loud and the tension in my stomach is telling me to get the fuck out. I try to bury this feeling as I have before in combat, now with little success. The Rabids are getting more active and agitated, and some that can are moving slowly towards me in any way possible, pulling themselves along by their hands or inching along using their bodies and heads, anything to get to me.

  I can’t see Josh anywhere; is he even here?

  Looking back at Alice, it is immediately obvious that she is now very nervous, she is holding her ground—but should she be? What am I asking her to do? Then Emily pops into my head and I know it’s time to go, and that Josh is lost to me.

  An ear-piercing screech sounds from my left, and my head whips around towards the source. It takes a couple of seconds but then I see it. A Rabid is stand
ing in the shadows of the pillar, at the opening at the far end from where Alice is, out of her line of sight. The screech continues piercing my ears, sending chills bolting down my spine and adrenaline coursing through my veins. The Rabid doesn’t move. It just stands there making this gruesome noise as if it is calling out. My M4 is on it instantly. I fire and the Rabid drops, but it is too late?

  Screeches rise towards me from the Rabids that surround me as they answer the call, their dark gaping mouths wide. I shoot a couple in some futile attempt to silence them as I start to back away, moving steadily. This is not the time to rush and make a mistake. Then it hits me and fear rushes through my entire body; the screeching is not just coming from the Rabids on the floor around me. It is coming from the stairwell in front of me, travelling up from the floor below. The calling has done its job.

  My urgency increases and I start to move at more speed whilst still watching my steps, keeping my sights on the stair opening, expecting Rabids to burst from there at any second. A shot rings out from Alice's rifle behind me, and I flinch and see a Rabid go down to my right. I hadn't even seen it. We have got to get out of here now.

  Just as I go to turn and make a break for Alice and then for the stairs, an old wooden door on the far wall that I had hardly noticed swings open; my M4 swings around as I prepare to fire.

  My finger curls around the trigger of the M4 as my brain tries to process what I am seeing. Josh, Josh is standing in the doorway. His helmet throws me for a second, but it is Josh. Infected or not, my son is standing in front of me in the doorway, my whole body a trembling wreck as it sinks in, and then his mouth opens.

  "Dad?"

  More gunfire blasts out from Alice's rifle, this time aimed at the stairwell, Rabids are coming. I've got to get my shit together and NOW!

  "On me, Josh!"

  I shout at the top of my voice as I turn away from Josh, back towards the stairs ready for the onslaught. A pair of eyes appear from the murk above the pile of bodies in the stairwell, then another pair. I fire and almost in unison, so does Alice. Both pairs of eyes disappear immediately. Alice shot the one to my left and I shot the one on the right. Alice has been trained well, taking the target on her side.