Crossing over to the other side of the open doorway to get a view of the other side of the small interior, my hopes of finding a bottle of anything liquid diminish. Aside from damaged packets of food discarded on the floor, everything edible looks like it has been seized by the desperate residents of this road.
The shop looks clear, but before I enter, I pick up a squashed loaf of bread in a plastic wrapper off the pavement and throw it inside. The loaf slaps onto the floor halfway down the centre aisle. This is a tactic I believe I’ve seen on a Zombie film or TV show, designed to see if any Zombies jump out when they hear the new noise. Nothing moves inside and suddenly I feel slightly ridiculous for trying it. Dan would be pissing himself laughing at my display and I would just have to cower in embarrassment. I do miss the banter and his sense of humour.
I cross the threshold into the shop in hope, more than an expectation, of finding a missed bottle or can. The M4 moves around in front of me, checking corners and blind spots. Before I look for anything to quench my thirst, I make sure I’m alone inside the gloomy shop.
The shop is clear as are the two tall Coca-Cola-branded fridges. I don’t have to open their doors; I can see that I’m too late, looking through their glass fronts. In fact, it is just as I thought from outside, that the place is empty of anything edible and there are definitely no beers. I’m wasting my time here, so I go to leave. On my way out, already glancing out of the door, I notice a bottle of shampoo on the floor, half-hidden by the shelves. If a bottle of shampoo can fit underneath the shelves, maybe a bottle of drink could have rolled under them. In the scramble, one could have easily been dropped and inadvertently kicked under.
Stopping, whilst still watching the door, I lower onto one knee and then put my left hand down onto the floor. Quickly, my head goes down to look underneath the steel shelves. I feel totally exposed as my eyes go down to look, but it’s worth it. When I get back up, I have two bottles in my hand, one plain old water and the other fruit infused water.
Saving the trendy fruit-flavoured water, which goes into the only free pocket I have in the front of my jeans, I twist the top off the plain bottle and gulp half the bottle down. My dried-out mouth swills the last mouthful, letting it soak in before swallowing. After a second’s consideration, my arm comes up again and I finish off the bottle. There was nowhere to store it anyway, what with all the ammo I’m carrying.
Exiting the shop, I carry on down to the bottom of the road, going through my manoeuvres without incident.
Stopping just shy of the end of the road, before it joins Praed Street, I take cover behind a telephone box that is standing on the corner of the junction, next to a wall.
Praed Street looks like a war zone, compared to the side street behind me. The commercialised main road, with its shops, restaurants and more than its fair share of hotels, due to its proximity to Paddington Station, line both sides of the street and has been a battlefield. Burnt-out buildings and cars are everywhere I look. Smoke clogs the street and my view. Dead bodies are dotted around in countless contorted positions and mutilated states. Women and children were not spared the nightmare, harrowing images entering my brain from every direction. Across the street, the body of a woman mounts the tall spiked railings of an iron fence. Three spikes protrude out of her back. Her doubled-up body must have hit the spikes with tremendous force. The hotel above her has an open window, from which she must have taken her desperate jump to escape. Blood has stained the grey railing red bellow her body. The trail continues down to the wall the fence is mounted on and further down, to the pavement.
I wish I couldn’t comprehend the horror that had unfolded here, but unfortunately, I can, I know it well and it fills me with dread. I have to put all of my dismay to one side though, gather my resolve and concentrate on my objective.
I’ve got to head right and follow this long street all the way down to Bayswater Road. I do my work, scan the path of the next part of my journey, pick a hold point, check my six and move, rinse and repeat.
Steering clear of the buildings, especially the ones with open doors or broken windows, I flag them as high risk of hiding Rabids ready to attack. Progress is slow, but as my mother used to say to me when I got my driving licence, better late in this life than early to the next. A motto I never heeded back then or for most of my life.
At the second hold point, a Rabid presents itself. The creature is stumbling around aimlessly in the middle of the road. The young teenage girl, in light blue jeans and trainers, has long blonde hair that reminds me of Emily. She swerves around until she bangs into something, causing her to change direction until she hits another immovable object and changes her direction again.
I bring the M4 to bear, aiming at the back of her head. My sights are filled with her blonde curls as my finger hovers over the rifle's trigger. Shoot, for God’s sake, put her out of her misery, I tell myself. I can’t though, as much as I try, I can’t shoot her. “Fuckin hell,” I whisper under my breath and look for a way past the young girl.
Drawing the rifle in, I drop down, out of sight behind the rear of the car I am using for cover. Staying down low, I edge to the side of the car and peer around its corner on the opposite side to the floundering young Rabid. The pavement is passable if I work around the dead body that spans the width of it. If I time passing the gaps right, the cars lining the side of the road will give me cover. The young Rabid doesn’t look like she is taking much notice of her surroundings, anyway, judging by how many times I’ve just watched her bump into things.
Staying low, I go around to the side of the car and move down its side. Without pausing, I carry onto the next car, but the gap is too small to worry about. The next three cars are also behind me before I reach a piece of road with no cars parked on this side. It is about two car lengths’ gap with no cover to the next parked car. Looking at the road from behind my cover, I cannot see the Rabid, so quickly move to traverse the empty space. Back behind cover, I keep working my way down until I am nearing the Rabid’s position in the road. I know I’m near without having to look. I can hear her feet dragging on the road and an immature growling sound. Typical of any teenager some might say.
A smell is in the air also, one I am becoming over-familiar with. The distinctive stink of Rabids. I can’t remember my nose being so sensitive to the smell before today. Apart from when that one retched virtually in my face as Alice and I entered the Tower of London. I can even smell it over the aroma of rotting bodies that are also in the air. Is it caused by the infection; is it one of the side effects that you can smell these fuckers from a distance? If it is, as much as the smell churns my stomach, I can see how it could be useful.
Another empty space at the side of the road appears, just at the wrong time. I am virtually level with the young Rabid and there is no cover to move forward behind. I have two options, to either do what I couldn’t do before and shoot her or wait until her back is turned and go for it.
She has gone quiet, stopped moving. Peering carefully over the bonnet of the car to see her exact position, it takes me a moment to find her. My nerves suddenly fizz in fright as my eyes meet hers over the top of the bonnet to my left. My head stays perfectly still, hoping I’m mistaken, and she hasn’t actually seen me. My hands tighten their grip of the M4, ready to bring it up as my finger curls around the trigger. A second or two passes and the girl turns away from me to carry on her sad dance in the middle of the road.
Ever ready, I move quietly and quickly down the pavement to the next parked car and away from her. As soon as I reach the body of the car, I stop and drop to my haunches, pressing my back against the car’s doors, the M4 across my body. I take a breather and try to work out what just happened. I was sure the young Rabid was looking straight at me, but then why didn’t she attack? The only explanation I can come up with is because she can’t see. That must be why she is stumbling around aimlessly in the middle of the road? Our eyes meeting must have been a coincidence.
Putting the confusion t
o bed, I move to continue working my way down Praed Street. My passage is going as well as can be expected. Occasionally, I rest up for a minute behind one object or another. The rest is more to allow my concentration to recover than my body. I am flabbergasted at how quickly my energy and strength have returned. There is no substitute for getting your muscles moving to get them back to normal; the body is a wonderful thing.
Of course, just as my confidence rises, I begin to see a problem coming up, one I should have expected as I know the area well enough. The problem is the reason that there are so many hotels on this street: Paddington Station. The station backs onto Praed Street, ahead on my right and is the location of one of its main entrances. The same location is also where the biggest hotel on the street is, the Hilton Hotel.
I hold up well short of the area outside the station and hotel to take in the carnage. The wide façade of the hotel was once beautiful. The building always reminded me of a French chateau, with its two tall protruding towers at each end, topped with intricate grey slated, arched rooves and spires. The gorgeous building is now a shell of its former self. The limestone body is blackened from fire and peppered with bullet holes. Curtains blow out of the building through the smashed windows and there is a hole in the side of one of the towers, probably caused by an RPG.
Bodies fan out from the building, littering the road and pavement outside the hotel, too many to count. In amongst the bodies, I can see camouflaged uniforms. The scene is unreal, heart-rending, and that isn’t even the main reason I’ve stopped.
Rabids are mingled in with the dead, at least six or seven of them. Only two are on their feet, the others are down on their knees, hunched over bodies, gnawing at the meat and bones of the dead.
Trying to contain my feelings, I search for a way through the disgusting butchery as my anger grows. There isn’t a way through that won’t get me seen. I’m either going to have to go back to the nearest side street and go around or make a stand.
Anger and disgust override my reason and I shift to a better firing position. my rifle rested nicely as I look through its sights. Taking aim at the first standing Rabid, I fire, and the beast drops, lost in the other bodies below. The second standing Rabid hasn’t noticed anything as I fire again, killing it. Even more oblivious are the hunched-over gnawing Rabids, and I take another seven shots to kill the five of them.
There is no reaction from anywhere else to my cull and as far as I can tell, there aren’t any more Rabids to add to my tally. I’ve been lucky, as my action could have resulted in giving away my position if there had been any more around. It was stupid. I should have circled back and taken a back road, but then there would have been the guilt for letting that feast continue.
After double-checking for any sign of new movement, I leave my covering position. First off, I cross the wide road to the opposite side of the street to the hotel and station. It's marginal but there are fewer bodies to step over there. The road crossed, I take cover and scan the area in front of me once more from the new angle before I attempt to carry on. Dead bodies are still plentiful on this side of the road; the harrowing scene doesn’t end just because I’ve crossed one road. Shops line the pavement, their customers now slaughtered in the street. At the entrance to the underground station, there is a concentration of the dead piled up, some caught in the crossfire of the fight, but many are mutilated.
In the near distance, a screech pierces the relative silence. A gunshot rings out after the Rabid sound and I look past the harrowing scene in front of me to see if I can spot where it came from. The low light and smoke haze spoil my view of seeing anything in the distance, however, and my eyes return to the carnage in front of me. The gunshot reinvigorates me somewhat though. There is at least somebody else out there fighting, so could I be nearing the troops?
Moving forward, I enter the bloodshed. Taking it slow and steady, there is no chance of averting my eyes from the disfigured bodies I have to traverse. They may look dead but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are. Each one within striking distance has to be looked at to see if it’s a threat; the gore is endless. The muzzle of the M4 cuts through the hanging smoke, crisscrossing from target to blind spot and back to check my six, as I go forward one step at a time.
Another screech, closer, stops me dead in my tracks, I crouch down, reducing my presence. I’m caught in the open and the nearest cover, a bus shelter, is still meters away past the entrance to the tube station. Only my head moves as I search for the source and the chilling noise. Time passes with no repeat of the noise or sign of movement. My legs straighten and I take another step, desperate to get out of this abhorrent area. Out of the corner of my eye, I see movement near the tube station entrance. An arm reaches into the air from low down on the ground, a head coming up to join it in slow motion. I actually feel sorry for the mangled Rabid whose body is almost obliterated. The young man’s eyes look like they are caught between fierce evil and agonising pain.
A shot to its head ends its torment.
Carefully, I pick my way through the grim path, between the bodies, eager for it to finish. I stay well clear of the tube station entrance where the lights have failed. The darkness inside offers nothing but terror. I’m almost too scared to look into the shadows out of fear of what I might see lurking there, I must, though.
My relief is palpable as I cross the intersection with Spring Street, leaving the mass of bodies behind and finally reaching the cover of the bus shelter. My breathing is heavy when I lean my back against the shelter, my guard still up. I don’t know how much more of this tension I can take; my nerves are nearly shot.
Taking a minute to get my breath back, I reach behind and pull out the fruit water from my pocket. The bottle is damp with the sweat that has soaked through my jeans and the liquid is warm, but gratefully received.
I look at the terrain ahead, and the carnage doesn’t end but it isn’t as bad as the hell I’ve just come through. Praed Street has ended, I notice from the street signs, I’m now on Craven Road. Let’s see how I get on, on this road, I think as I push my back off the bus shelter.
Hold point follows hold point on my never-ending journey. My technique makes it slow going but it's working well. I scan each area until I’m satisfied it's clear, then I make the short hop to the next hold point. Eventually, I see the end of Craven Road approaching. The morning hasn’t got any brighter thanks to the smoke and the sound of Rabids has been intermittent. I’ve had to shoot my rifle four times since leaving Paddington Station behind. Each shot was a kill shot, all of the Rabids half asleep. I’m sure I am closing in on the troops because I can hear the fighting, and the sound of gunshots is drawing nearer.
Bayswater Road is close now, as I reach the end of Craven Road. There is a short side street off to the left that joins onto it. Dark green treetops are visible at the end, as I turn the corner, even through the smoke. The trees are on the outer edge of Hyde Park, one of London’s many green open spaces. I will come out near the opposite end to where I watched the chaos start to unfold on the corner of Hyde Park and Oxford Street. Back when I was happily oblivious, sitting in my towel on my bed, fresh out of the shower, watching the news on television. That seems like a previous life now, but so much has happened since that morning. Emily was next door getting ready for school; now where is she, at Heathrow? I hope so, or somewhere safe at least.
Chapter 16
“We are evacuating.” Colonel Reed announces to his inner circle of cronies. “RAF Heathrow has been compromised and we cannot afford to let the command structure be compromised, especially with Operation Denial continuing and making progress.”
Lieutenant Winters had been expecting the announcement all night. He is not surprised that Colonel Reed has delayed his decision; he doesn’t like to admit defeat. Not that he has now; he will consider this a tactical retreat. Winters did think that the announcement would have been made before now. It was obvious it had been coming all night, despite Colonel Reed’s efforts to retrieve the sit
uation. Perhaps the cold light of morning has cleared the Colonel’s mind.
Winters must be hearing different reports and seeing different data to the Colonel. Operation Denial is certainly continuing but—in his opinion—far from making progress, it’s bogged down and stalled badly. Nonetheless, Winters stands at ease at the back of the forward command area, letting the Colonel and his top brass carry on their delusion, waiting for his next orders.
Josh and his sister Emily are on his mind. He has let them down. He had told Josh he would arrange transport out of here, but he has failed. They are all still holed up in the Terminal 5 building. Transport would have been easy enough to arrange but getting them outside and to it safely had proved beyond him. Twice, Winters had tried to divert the new troops in the building to escort them to the transport, but each time Colonel Reed had demanded more troops for one task or another, and Winters’ troops had been re-tasked.
Now that Colonel Reed has announced the evacuation of the command structure, Winters is struggling to see how he is going to get them to safety at all. Colonel Reed won’t be bothered who is left behind, as long as his chosen few are evacuated safely. Captain Richard’s children certainly won’t be near the top of any priority list for evacuation.
Winters has completely tuned out of Colonel Reed's blabbering; he’s had enough of the fucking idiot. Winters has seen it happening gradually over time, Colonel Reed losing his edge. Ever since this crisis started, he’s been all bluster and bravado, with little or no substance. Reed’s perceived status overrides every decision he makes, and those decisions are becoming more and more atrocious.
Capital Falling (Book 3): Resurgence Page 17
