Slowing down ready to pull up and stop, I tell the girls to be silent. Emily starts to say something but cutting her off, I sternly tell her, “Silence”!
One of the soldiers moves into the middle of the road holding his hand up, palm facing flat out towards us, signalling for me to stop the vehicle. He is dressed in full combat gear, with body armour, helmet, his comms earpiece, then a rifle across his chest and a sidearm. Two other members of the unit take positions with their L85 assault rifles pointed directly at our car. There is no way we are getting through this checkpoint without their say so.
Opening my window, the soldier moves around to the side of the car.
“All roads ahead are closed; there is no access, turn your vehicle around.”
I produce my military card and hand it to him. “I’m Captain Andrew Richards, Military Intelligence. I have been ordered to HQ by Colonel Reed. Open the barrier Corporal…?"
“Corporal Brice, Sir. I am sorry but I'm under orders to allow no vehicles past this checkpoint, in or out. All hell is breaking loose in there, Sir.”
He is not exaggerating, the sound of gunfire is constant and not too distant, explosions too. The unmistakable smell of combat is in the air.
“Thank you, Corporal Brice. I understand your orders, but this comes from the top. So, I am ordering you to open the barrier, understood?”
I sit there in silence, not wanting to overplay my bluff and wait for the Corporal to come to his own decision. Thankfully, the girls are silent in the back and I am positioned so he can’t see them through my open window. The Corporal seems in deep concentration for a couple of seconds and then looks at me.
“Do you have your sidearm with you, Sir?”
“Yes, Corporal.”
“Very well then, Sir, watch yourself in there, Sir,” he says, genuinely concerned and handing back my ID card.
“Thank you, Corporal, keep your men alert,” I say and immediately roll up my window.
The Corporal walks back around to the front of the car shouting orders and waving his arm, instructing his men to open the barrier. As soon as the barrier is open wide enough, I drive straight through the gap and into the unknown.
Chapter 7
My doubts about whether I have made the right decision to seek sanctuary at Orion for me and my girls continue to persist. Maybe I have underestimated the threat of this outbreak and these creatures, who were ordinary people going about their daily business only a short time ago. Have they reached as far out as the Orion Building already? Will they attack us before we even get any closer? I have to put these doubts aside; we would never have been able to defend ourselves at home. My task now is to get us to Orion and inside the building as quickly as possible, and hopefully before this plague or whatever it is, reaches the Paddington Basin area and the Orion Building.
The soldiers back at the checkpoint were probably expecting to see our car turn left towards Military HQ but the car turns right down Wellington Road and toward Lord’s Cricket Ground. The streets here are totally dead; there is nobody, no cars to be seen moving anywhere. We speed down the road.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you, Emily, back there.” She still hasn’t made a sound. “But you have to listen to what I am saying at the moment and do as I say, do you understand?”
“Yes, Dad, I’m sorry. I was only going to ask you a question.”
“That’s okay, sweetie, it’s not your fault. I just needed silence while I spoke to the soldier. Now, what did you want to ask me?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Emily replies.
“Yes, it does, Emily, you know you can ask me anything. I just needed you to be quiet right then.”
“Okay, Dad, I was going to ask you to tell me what is going on? Why were those soldiers pointing their guns at us?”
Emily is asking a fair question. She must be very afraid and confused and I haven’t really told her much. Yet there could be anything waiting around the next corner for us, any untold horrors. I can’t protect her from what we might see—in fact, not might—what we, in all honesty, are going to see and what is probably going to happen to us, if not on the road, then back at Orion.
I decide I have to prepare her and quickly!
“Emily, I am going to tell you what is happening. This will frighten you, but you have to remember that you are with me and I will protect you, okay?
“Yes, Dad,” she says quietly and nervously.
“Well, you know that there is trouble in the city and that there are lots of police and soldiers there trying to sort it out?”
“Yes.”
“The trouble is, an illness is turning people into very, very nasty people once they have it. They do horrible things to other people, and we must try to keep away from them, which is why we are going to my work. These nasty people will find it very hard to get in there and all my work friends will be there to help us.”
Emily is silent.
“Now, I don’t want you to worry too much. We will be safe when we get to my work and hopefully, we will get there without seeing any of these poorly people. I’ve told you what’s happening, Emily; now, will you do something for me?”
Emily now sounding extremely nervous and afraid, replies, “Yes, Dad what do you want
