Capital Falling | Book 4 | Sever Winkless, Lance (most popular ebook readers TXT) 📖

bankers that would have swarmed around this area before the outbreak hit and the undead arrived. I am more of a pub man myself, but the thought of a drink right now, wine or beer, may have been too tempting to pass up. A pity the bar is locked up, dark and deserted, I joke to myself as I inch past it, my rifle poised.

On my right side, is yet another nondescript grey walled office block that has a CCTV camera pointing down in my direction. I wonder, in passing, if any of the countless cameras that cover London are still operational and if anybody is monitoring them. My guess would be that they are working, and somebody is in front of a screen watching and recording.

Ahead, I can see that the terrain opens out, but not before I need to pass another bar and more office blocks. One of the buildings has a clock reaching out from its frontage and over the alleyway. I notice that the clocks gold hands are showing 0620, assuming that the clock is still accurate I am running behind schedule. Despite the odds that I have turned up around the same time, if the clock has stopped being slim, I can’t help but glance at my watch to confirm. A stopped clock might be right twice a day, but my watch tells me that this clock hasn’t stopped, and I am behind schedule.

I put any time constraints out of my head, this is not the time to start rushing as it leads to mistakes and Karen and Jim are not going anywhere. I must be sure of our escape route to stand any chance of us reaching the boat safely.

Smoke drifting past the end of the alleyway as I approach its end is a tell-tale sign that I am about to leave the relative normality that I have seen so far since I entered the city. The smoke isn’t the only giveaway, glinting shards of glass on the roadside also tell their story.

I take cover in the doorway of a takeaway restaurant as I arrive at the expansive road at the end of the alleyway. Safety glass crunches under my boots as I step into the doorway to use it as cover and I scan my new surroundings. The road is in a state of chaos, even though nothing moves apart from the drifting smoke. At street level, there is barely a window that is not shattered, and bullet holes riddle the retail outlets that line each side of the road. Masonry is pitted, steel is pierced, and wood is splintered. My experience tells me that some of the bullet holes are from small arms fire, but the overwhelming majority of the destruction is caused by heavy calibre bullets.

Debris covers the entire area, pavement, and road, and in amongst the debris are bodies, dozens of bodies. I am sure dust from the destruction would be spiralling through the air with the smoke, if it wasn’t for the fact that much of it has congealed into the dried, dark blood that stains the street. Not even the rain has managed to wash the slaughter away.

The carnage is sickening, high-velocity ordnance has ripped bodies to shreds, and I am struggling in my shock to find one that isn’t torn to pieces in amongst the mangled flesh and guts.

Any relief that I felt in leaving the alleyway behind is squashed instantly as I scan the way ahead and see nothing but endless destruction and slaughter. My experience, unfortunately, makes it self-evident what transpired in this part of the city. I easily visualise the force that the military laid down here in their attempts to exterminate the enemy, and not just from the ground. Deep pit marks in the road assure me that the hailstorm of bullets thundered down from the sky to do their damage.

The sickness that threatens to push its way into my throat must be forced back down and I must move my eyes away from the carnage. Instead, I look ahead, trying to keep the death in my peripheral vision as I find my route on towards my destination.

Leaving the cover of the doorway, I step out into the road to press ahead. Bodies litter the road and the pavement alike, and I have no option but to allow the images of mangled bodies back into my head as I look to pick my way around them. I don’t move far until I find corpses that haven’t completely succumbed to their horrific injuries. My presence triggers a reaction from the undead corpses, just as it has with my previous encounters. The difference now though, is that they don’t reach out, or bare their teeth as I close in on them. Eyes and heads turn in my direction, as if I were a curiosity. Tattered bodies twist and move to get a better look at the stranger stepping near, or do they intend to rise and join me in the hopes they might find fresh flesh. None do rise; however, their broken bodies don’t allow it, despite their hunger.

Occasionally, I discover a Rabid that could pose a threat on the return journey with my passengers. These creatures must be dealt with and my M4 does so, quickly and mercifully.

Carefully, I choose my route in case any of the creatures do decide to try and taste the only meat on offer to them. I continue as quickly as I dare farther down the sickening road, towards a pile of burnt-out cars at the junction ahead.

The carnage is endless, as I fully expect it will be from here on out. I still remember vividly my conversation with Jim when the outbreak first happened, and his description of the chaos in and around Lloyds of London. That building is still ahead of me and there is no way this ruin will improve on my journey there.

At least six cars are melded together at the junction, the ferocity of