Putting the confusion to 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
