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

goes completely limp, and I move back to the side to take cover, where a nagging doubt begins inside me. Was it a Rabid I have just killed, or was it just a man? How could I be so sure and shoot a bullet from just one quiet grunt? Supposing the man was gravely wounded, he might have only been able to manage a grunt and doesn’t one grunt sound much like another? No, I tell myself, one grunt doesn’t sound just like another, that was a Rabid grunt, no doubt, I try to convince myself.

I must put my misgivings about my actions to one side. The bullet is in and the man is dead, Rabid, or not, and I must press forward. Firstly, do I continue with option one and draw the creatures out or do I change my tactics? If there are people inside the offices, they are surely bound to come out, however, I decide to proceed, then if Rabids are behind any of the doors, I assume that they are trapped behind them.

Continue with option one it is, and I break cover, to move to find the optimal firing position.

Three-quarters of the way across the room, a desk is toppled over on its side, with its top facing the opening. The top is almost perfectly aligned between me and the opening and I take a knee behind the makeshift firing position, the M4 pointing over it.

“Jim!” I say loudly. “If you can hear me stay inside the office until I come to you.”

I have no idea if Jim will be able to hear my words from behind the office door and can only imagine his and Karen’s surprise at my sudden outburst if they do. The outburst is for their benefit, but also to alert the Rabids to my presence.

My aim is high and to the right, just inside the doorway, from where I expect the creatures to appear from. My heart is racing as I wait to see what will happen, my finger poised, brushing the M4’s trigger.

“Jim, Karen, stay inside the office!” the words fall out of my mouth as a desperate shout, my patience wearing thin as nothing emerges and I begin to wonder if anything is inside the storage room.

Do I hear a muffled shout of ‘okay Andy’, from behind me? Suddenly, a shadow moves ahead, breaking the dim light inside the storage room? I am not sure, but I am sure that I hear the groans and grunts of the undead.

A hand suddenly appears, it grabs the doorframe to pull itself out of the storage room, the fingers caked with dried blood. My aim is steady as I wait for the creature to emerge and show itself, I won’t fire though, not until it is completely out.

A chilling screech from my right shocks me to my core, my head whipping in the direction of the noise that has not come from the storage room. A silhouette flashes along the floor to ceiling windows on my right, the Rabid appearing out of nowhere.

I am being flanked by the undead, I panic as the owner of the blood-caked hand stumbles out of the storage room, its blood-soaked white shirt hanging out. Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I tap the M4’s trigger twice, firing at the Rabid emerging from the storage room already in my sights. I cannot afford the time to home in on the creature’s head, the bullets instead slam into its chest, knocking it flying backwards into the storage room.

Instantly, I twist my body, cutting the muzzle of the M4 through the air to try and get a shot at the Rabid flanking me. The creature is lightning fast though, it darts to the left and jumps onto the top of a desk where it launches into the air, directly at me. The M4 spits bullets up and into the air at the flying Rabid, its hate-filled eyes fixed on me as it closes in.

Unbelievably, the creature evades the volley of bullets that the M4 fires in quick succession, and I am forced to take evasive action as it descends, about to crash straight into me. I duck and roll underneath the flying Rabid, travelling until my legs are beneath me again, my knees plant on the floor and in one swift motion the M4 comes up and around until it is nestled back into my shoulder.

Crashing into the floor, the Rabid also goes into a roll but an uncontrolled roll that doesn’t end until it bangs into the tall windows at the outskirts of the office. The creature ends up in a pile with its back jammed against the glass, its head coming straight up intent on searching for its prey.

A short burst from the M4 fills the Rabids face with bullets that erupt out of the back of its head to smash into the massive pane of glass behind, which explodes outwards with an almighty, ear-splitting crash, shattering into a million pieces. With the support behind the Rabids back suddenly disintegrated, the Rabid immediately falls backwards toppling out of the building, disappearing from my sight in an instant.

If Karen and Jim didn’t know I was here before, they do now, my mind races as my right leg juts up from underneath me. The leg pushes me up to my feet and I am firing, shooting at the head of another Rabid emerging from inside the storeroom. My aim is true and bullets slam into the Rabid’s head, sending it flying backwards off its feet to crash on top of the Rabid that took a volley in the chest only moments before.

With my element of surprise gone to shit, I instead press home my advantage and close in on the storeroom. I fire again as the next Rabid presents itself to me, this one takes two bullets to the head before it has even turned towards the door, yet still, I press forward.

Another figure moves, this one still behind