After what seems like an age but is only a few seconds, the Chinooks’ dance comes to a catastrophic end. The tail of the helicopter spins, sending the lowered landing ramp careering into the stationary rotors of one of the grounded helicopters below, as the Chinook loses height.
Harris sees the impact a second before the sound of the crash reaches his ears. The force of the crash sending the nose of the huge Chinook upwards and flipping it into the air, like a whale breaching out of the ocean. And like a whale crashes down into the sea on its back, so does the Chinook.
Spinning rotors first, the Chinook slams down into the hardware below. Two helicopters, both fully laden with fuel and ordinance, a fuel truck and other support vehicles are all in its path. A fierce bright white light flashes an instant before a massive explosion erupts near the centre of the landing zone area. Fuel tanks of the Chinook rupture as do the two helicopters in the crash area; the fuel truck’s resistance is futile, and it explodes along with the helicopters. A fireball blasts hundreds of feet into the air at the epicentre and rushes out horizontally, sending an immense shockwave with it. Surrounding helicopters are blasted off the ground and incinerated, their ruptured fuel tanks adding to the fireball and extending it to engulf the next helicopter or fuel truck. Each new explosion has a domino effect and engulfs the next piece of equipment to it.
A chain reaction now ensues as the heat rises. Ordinance starts to explode as the heat reaches new high temperatures. Hundreds of thousands of bullets start to fire without a trigger being pulled as their cordite reaches critical mass. Bullets fly in all directions and hit the first things in their path or shoot off into the air. Bombs and rockets explode as safety mechanisms and casings are melted.
This phase makes the initial explosion resemble the ignition of a gas barbeque. Gargantuan explosions follow one after the other as the heavy ordinance goes off and spreads out from the centre, each one causing the next. Mushroom clouds rise up in every direction and melt into one big continuous one in the middle, the smoke pushed together by air rushing in to feed the flames from the outside.
Each new explosion spreads the carnage further out, to new hardware, waiting to be engulfed. The chain reaction is out of control and won’t be stopped until there is nothing left to feed it.
Some helicopter pilots try to take the initiative before the destruction has spread to their craft. Those far enough away and with their engines already started hastily lift off and fly away from the danger zone, to save themselves and their helicopters. Other pilots who are either too close to the destruction or too slow to react either burn in their seats or are blown out of the sky, adding to the inferno and spreading the chaos to new areas of the landing zone.
Corporal Harris and his team were far enough away from the initial explosion to survive, and they looked on in shock and awe at the initial Chinook crash and the following fireball.
To Harris’s credit, he was quick to react, seeing that the Chinook’s crash would be the tip of the iceberg. He understood almost straight away what would follow that crash.
“We have got to get out of this area!” he shouts, desperately, at his men. “The whole area is going to explode.”
His men don’t argue; they see all the ground crews that have survived, so far running for their lives, away from the landing zone with panic across their faces. The only decision that needs to be made is which way do they go? The direction, from which they have just come back from their break, lined with more helicopters, just waiting to explode. That path only leads to the hangars laden with ordinance, which could easily go up too.
“This way!” Harris shouts as he starts to run off in the opposite direction as the bigger explosions start to ignite.
Everyone is going in the same direction, as fast as they possibly can. Harris and his men join the stream of people coming out of the landing zones, from between the masses of stationary helicopters. Caught in the expanse between the terminal buildings and the erupting landing zones, they all run straight ahead, desperately trying to get to open ground.
A shock wave travels out into the expanse, knocking two people off their feet in front of Harris. They don’t stay down to lick their wounds, but scramble back to their feet straight away and are off running again, their fear driving them. The explosions are getting close to the outer edge, where lines of Apache Attack helicopters sit ominously waiting to detonate. The expanse is wide, but not wide enough; anytime now, it will be an inferno that will surely engulf the terminal building.
Harris leads his men as they try to outrun the impending disaster. The expanse narrows the farther they go, which bunches all the people up and their progress isn’t helped by airport transport equipment abandoned in the middle of the tarmac.
Harris barges past some of the slower people, their panic not making their legs carry them fast enough for him. Their protests and whimpers as he pushes past are disregarded; it’s not his problem they are too slow.
One panicked idiot of a man is scything his way in the opposite direction against the tide. The man’s eyes are wide with terror. He won’t find any escape down that way, Harris thinks to himself, bloody twat.
Progress slows as some kind of bottleneck forms up ahead. A massive explosion detonates behind, Harris doesn’t turn to look. The force of the blast and the heatwave feel like they are virtually on top of him, his desperation to get clear escalating. The bottleneck is getting worse, however; what the fuck are these people doing? “Keep moving,” he shouts. Suddenly, he starts seeing faces, frightened faces, coming towards him. More idiots going the wrong way; no wonder his escape is slowing down. Some people lose their minds at the slightest sign of danger, for fuck’s sake.
“You’re going the wrong way!” he shouts at them uselessly.
Even above the deafening sounds of the explosions behind him, Harris hears a new sound, the sound of human screams ahead. What the hell is going on up there, the fire hasn’t reached that far, he asks himself? Whatever it is it can’t be as bad as being burnt alive or blown to bits. Harris presses forward.
A small lull in the explosions allows Harris to hear a shout and the penny finally drops. The people falling out of the floundering Chinook, before it crashed, flash before his eyes. Those weren’t people falling; they were infected, so that is why the Chinook went out of control. That is what Harris heard shouted; he heard someone shout ‘Zombies’.
Harris comes to a standstill, panic and fear gripping him, the same as everyone else, his mind floundering. Turn back to fire and explosions or go forward to whatever awaits there? His body turns backwards, then forwards, then back again; finally, he decides and turns forwards.
People are scattering, running in every direction, some even back into the maze of exploding helicopters. One in complete panic runs into the terminal building, headfirst into the solid brick wall that runs along the bottom of the building. Her head bounces off the whitewashed wall, knocking herself out, and the only evidence left is a small red patch where her head hit.
Harris looks forward for a path through the melee. He sees one and starts his run. Only a few strides in, something flies at him from above. Harris sees the Rabid infected Zombie over the heads of the people; it is flying at him as if on wires. The Rabid’s claw-like hands are outstretched ready to dig into its prey, its grey face turned to evil as its mouth opens ready to bite down. Harris tries to bring his rifle up to shoot at the vile beast, but he is too slow.
The Rabid lands on Harris, hitting him around his shoulders. Harris goes flying off his feet backwards, but the Rabid doesn’t let go of its catch; its claws have dug into his prey. Harris’s arms flail, trying to fight the thing off him. The Rabid is too strong and too quick and is already sinking its teeth into Harris’s stomach. The beast bites out a large chunk of flesh from his belly, taking some of his innards with it.
Harris’s fever-pitched screams of terror are futile but as quickly as the Rabid attacked, it is gone, jumping away, on to its next victim. Harris’s screams continue only
for a second, then abruptly cut off as his body starts to violently convulse, twisting and turning as the infection ravages his body. Another scream lets out from deep within his throat as his blackened eyes snap open. This time, the scream is different; it is the deathly scream of death.
The assimilation of Harris is fast and with his rebirth complete, there are only two things the creature understands; to survive, and to feed. A deep burning hunger consumes the creature completely. It jumps up onto its haunches, head darting around, looking for prey, smelling it out. The sweet smell of fresh raw flesh is all around, making the pain of its hunger heighten. The scent pulls it off its haunches, directing the creature, its legs releasing like two tightly wound springs. Flying through the air, the new inexperienced Rabid misses its target but it isn’t deterred. Hunger driving it, it hits the ground, its hands and feet catching it and then it’s up, its legs powering it across the tarmac, towards the closest smell of prey. Almost by accident, it slams into a victim. The woman tumbles to the ground, her pungent scent irresistible. Before the woman has a chance to scream, the Rabid bites deep into her neck, through the veins and arteries buried there. Ripping the flesh free, the Rabid gulps the sweet meat down feverishly. More, the creature needs more, before the meat turns and the virus takes hold. Its head whips down hungrily again for seconds, but before it bites, the detonation vaporises it instantly, incinerating the woman along with it.
Chapter 9
Josh leans against the handrail that runs all the way along the wide expanse of windows on the side of the Terminal 5 departure lounge that looks over the inside of Heathrow Airport. On either side of him are the north and south runways and in front of him are more terminal buildings. Away to the left are the cargo buildings and Terminal 4, the side of the airport where they were taken into quarantine and where they took off from on their fateful mission.
The airport's lights glisten in the darkness of the night and along with the landing lights from the multitude of aircraft flying in and out of the busy airport, Josh starts to get lost in them.
The departure lounge is pretty quiet, and he just had to get up for a while to stretch his legs and gather his thoughts. He strolled around for a while before he found this little oasis towards the end of the windows, where the light is dim and some of the bustle from the people that are around is cut off by surrounding plants and pillars. He has stayed in view of Emily as he said he would, and she can see him through a gap if she needs him.
Unfortunately for Josh, gathering his thoughts is not proving easy. They keep jumping from one torturous event that has happened over the last days to another, with the image of his Dad’s anguished face at the forefront. In time, he may come to terms with having to leave him behind but right now, the guilt is stifling, and the image of his father will stay with him forever. Josh is trying hard to quell the new demons that have taken route inside him to haunt him, but he knows they will get a lot worse before they get better; it is going to take time.
Josh looks at his phone again, in the hope that he has missed a call from Lieutenant Winters, but he hasn’t. He cannot wait to get out of this place and as far away from London as possible. This place in Devon that Catherine has arranged for them to go sounds idyllic. A good place for them all to start some healing. He has to hold it together until they get there and stay strong for Emily, but right now he feels like he is climbing a mountain with no end in sight.
“Hey Josh, are you okay?” Catherine says, coming up behind him and putting a hand of support on his shoulder.
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
“That’s only natural, Josh; you have been through terrible trauma over the last few days. Give it some time, it’s all very raw at the moment.”
“I was just telling myself the same thing, but I can’t help thinking about him,” Josh says, his head bowing down.
“Of course, you can’t, you’ve just lost your dad and in awful circumstances.”
“Lost or left to die?”
“No Josh, lost; you know that there was no other option. It’s horrible but it’s the truth, there was no way he could have got on that helicopter.”
“No, but there must have been another way, I could have stayed with him, but I abandoned him, I didn’t even have the guts to put him out of his misery.”
“From what you’ve said, Josh, he was still your dad when you left him, so no you couldn’t do that, nobody could have. And there was no way you could have stayed with him for many reasons but two of them are we would have lost you too and Emily needed you. You did the right thing no matter which way you look at it.” Catherine squeezes Josh’s neck reassuringly.
“Maybe, I don’t know. I know we need to get out of this bloody airport though.”
“We all do, I’m sick of the sight of it. Things will look better when we’ve gone, I’m sure,” Catherine agrees.
“Definitely, we should go as soon as we can, no waiting until morning.”
“No arguments from me on that, the sooner the better. I’m sure Lieutenant Winters will sort it out as soon as he can.”
“If anyone will, he will.”
They both fall silent for a moment, staring out the window at the airport beyond, letting their conversation settle.
“At least it’s stopped raining. Shall we go back over to the others?” Catherine asks.
“Yes, I’m ready and thanks, it’s good to talk.”
“I’m always here if you need to talk, Josh, it will be good for you, good for all of us to talk about what’s happened.”
An intensely bright light flashes into the night sky. Both Catherine and Josh’s heads dart to the right, in the direction it came from. “What was,” Catherine starts to say but she falls silent as in the distance, a large fireball follows the flash, rising into the sky and lighting up their faces. The light is followed by a dim booming sound an instant later, as if it’s thunder following the flash of lightning.
For a moment, Josh is taken back to the roof of the Orion building and the storm that overshadowed the dire mission. His stomach drops as those feelings return with a vengeance and a horrible feeling hits him that the same nightmare has followed him here.
“My God, that was a big explosion; what was it?” Catherine asks nervously.
“I don’t know, but it came from the direction of Terminal 4 where the landing zone for all those helicopters is. Maybe one’s crashed. I hope that’s all it is.”
“What do you mean, what else could it be?” Catherine asks, worried.
“Nothing, I’m sure it is a crash or some sort of accident.”
“Josh, you obviously meant something, so what was it?”
Josh looks at Catherine, who stares at him with concern written all over her face, waiting for her answer. “I just hope it isn’t anything more sinister.”
A look of realisation of what Josh means spreads across Catherine’s face. As it sinks in for her, Josh thinks he sees a look of fear try to surface but it is only fleeting as her face turns into one of determination and resolve.
“What do you think the chances of that are? We are still a long way from the infected zone and Heathrow is supposed to be well fortified,” Catherine asks.
“It is well fortified. I saw it when we flew over today. I’m probably thinking of the worst; it’s probably just an accident.”
“No Josh, I think you are right, we have got to think that way. Anything could be happening. It already is!”
People are gathering along the stretch of windows to see what the flash of light and noise were. Worried voices are chattering, trying to figure out what has happened. Alice, Emily and Stacey come up behind them, followed by their escort from upstairs.
“What’s happening?” Alice asks as they arrive.
“Don’t know,” Josh says, looking down at Emily. “It looks like there has been an accident over by Terminal 4.”
“What sort of accident?” Emily asks. “Are the Zombies coming, Josh?”
Josh doesn’t know ho
w to answer her because if they are, they need to be prepared. Another even brighter flash of light blazes from the same direction and an eruption of flame and sparks shoot up into the sky. This explosion looks different from the last, the fire travelling into the air faster and spreading its blast wider. The shockwave that travels across the distance from the blast hits the windows in front of them. The shockwave is much fiercer and hits with the sound of a loud crack. The windows rattle in their frames, threatening to dislodge and everybody standing at the window ducks as if they would shatter, including Josh.
“That explosion is different; that was like a bomb going off,” Josh says urgently, not thinking of saving Emily’s feelings.
“Josh, I’m scared,” Emily cries.
The second blast is quickly followed by another and then another. The windows rattle again, visibly flexing in their mountings. Josh pulls Emily away from them, just in case they do shatter. They aren’t the only ones moving back; everyone has the same fear.
Explosions keep happening, some more violent than others. The bright glow in the distance makes it obvious that whatever is going on, the carnage is spreading.
“It has to be the helicopters in the landing zone,” Alice says. “One must have exploded for some reason and it is spreading to the others.”
“Yes, and they were full of missiles and bombs,” Josh points out.
“There had to be well over a hundred helicopters there when we landed. This isn’t going to end any time soon if that’s what it is? The fire teams won’t be able to get near it,” Alice adds.
Everyone watching through the windows goes quiet as they watch the explosions continue as if it were watching an organised fireworks display. A display that shows no sign of ending.
“What are we going to do, just stand here and watch?” Alice asks.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Josh replies.
“Try to phone Lieutenant Winters, see if he knows what’s happened,” Catherine suggests.
Capital Falling Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 53
