Chapter 17
Josh seems to have got over his close escape from the plunging Lynx. I know it will hit him at some point. The torment of his experiences over the last two days, especially yesterday in the Tower of London—where God only knows what horrors he witnessed as his regiment was torn to shreds—will hit him. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder will creep up on him over the next few days as he has time to sort through his memories and starts to file them in his head. The shock of what he has seen will start to bed in, he will start to relive the horrific events and the guilt of surviving when so many of his friends and comrades did not, will start to pull him down. I know this from my own experience of PTSD, but unfortunately, he doesn’t possess the coping mechanisms I have been taught and honed over many years to deal with the stress. Even my well-practiced methods don’t mean my demons go away; they never do, they are always there haunting me, as Emily will attest to.
Right at this moment, I have got to make sure that Josh and the rest of us have a chance to deal with our demons, somewhere down the line. We have got to stand our ground on this rooftop for another forty-five minutes. The only other option is to take cover inside the building and that would mean surrendering the roof to the Rabids, surrendering our only evac position. That is not an option, we make our stand here on this desolate piece of ground, we make our ammo last and we fight the enemy.
“Ammo, check!” I shout as Josh and I join the rest of our team across from the mouth of the doorway, the Browning silent for a moment.
“Just reloaded, last can,” Watts spits out to me from behind the Browning, his concentration focused ahead of him. Dixon on his left flank and Downey on his right flank have their rifles aimed in the same direction and both update me with what they are still holding.
We need to conserve the last remaining can for the Browning; it will be vital to cover our evac when it finally arrives.
“Okay, listen up. Watts, conserve your ammo, only fire if you absolutely have to. Dixon, take first shot, then you Downey, then me and then Josh. I will throw down grenades if they build up. We gotta make the ammo last forty-five minutes, understood?” Just as I finish, Dixon fires twice, taking out another Rabid.
“Understood, Sir,” Dixon says, his gaze not wandering.
Rabids only try to attack sporadically, in ones and sometimes twos. They are all despatched quickly by Dixon, with the help of Downey when needed but I don’t have to fire my poised M4. My gut still tells me that it is just to test our defences, sacrificing a few of their kin to do it. A larger more determined attack is coming, I can feel it, so what are they waiting for?
My question is quickly answered, the crashed Lynx’s fuel tanks finally blow, and it happens.
The blast from the left, behind us, is dulled by the seven floors of the Orion building that separate us from the explosion. The decibels it creates are further saturated in the pouring rain. The boom is still loud enough and together with the flash of orange light from the detonation, it is the trigger the Rabids have been waiting for.
They don’t catch us by surprise, and we haven’t been distracted by the explosion; we are prepared for the assault. Dixon fires first, shooting early as we see the first of the Rabids’ heads appear above the pile of bodies on the stairs. Dixon’s shot is excellent, straight through the forehead of the beast whose head whips back and it drops, yet another body added to the malingering pile.
Following straight behind the first doomed creature are two more, and this time, Dixon and Downey both fire their weapons. One is hit, but it’s only a body shot, which it doesn’t even register, and it doesn’t slow it down. It breaks out into the open air before one of Dixon’s rapid-fire bullets splits its head. The second evades Downey’s shots completely as it springs up onto the side of the stairwell wall, grabbing onto the door frame near the top and seemingly to defy gravity, it springs into the air from there and comes hurtling towards us.
As the third in line to shoot, I do, firing at the flying creature as gravity does finally take hold of it and it arches down towards the rooftop. My automatic fire hits the Rabid in multiple places but it isn’t until it hits the ground that I get my headshot and kill it.
Dixon and Downey are now almost constantly laying down rapid gunfire into the doorway as Rabids keep coming. Josh joins in the defence and takes down his fair share of targets while my concentration stays on the flying Rabid.
With my Rabid down, I release my M4 to hang at my front and grab two grenades, pulling the pins as I do. The three men firing are just about keeping the horde at bay and Watts has resisted getting in on the action, conserving his ammo as ordered. I wait for a gap and throw the first grenade through it and down into the stairwell, shouting “GRENADE!” as it goes. Before the grenade explodes, the second one is following down, and I have taken back hold of my M4.
Two explosions meld into one as the grenades go off, and as the blast escapes through to the roof, it brings with it Rabids. The force
