The new Wildcat drops like a stone, tail first, pivoting on the rotors that seem to be jammed in the glass walls of the police station. The helicopter falls fast, crashing through the foyer of the station below, tail first. A second later, a massive explosion rips through the foyer as the helicopter’s fuel tanks ignite, sending a fireball upwards to engulf the front of the building.
The aftershock and heat from the exploding Wildcat is fierce, and Mike and Alan are forced to duck down behind the flyover’s wall to take cover, both of them absolutely stunned.
“This is all going to shit, mate, and fast,” Alan says in a panicked voice.
In front of them on the other side of the flyover, their colleagues are still fighting, bullets are flying, grenades being thrown and rockets being fired. The men are fighting as hard as they can to keep the tide of monsters back; they are spread thin without enough firepower, but still, they fight on, not giving up.
Neither do Mike and Alan; they are up virtually as soon as the explosion has subsided, guns at the ready but the flow from under the flyover is now constant. Most of the targets are spreading out into the city, beyond Paddington Green Police Station that is now completely ablaze, the heat from it strong on their faces.
A large group is once again at the wall, climbing up, and the two men concentrate their fire on them as before, to try to keep them at bay. But they can’t stop them for much longer.
“I’m going to see what is happening on the other side, to see if we can get reinforcements. Can you hold them off here for a minute?” Alan shouts.
“Yes, mate, be quick and give me your grenades!”
Alan hands over his last two grenades and then runs across the road trying to find his NCO. The scene spread out before him as he reaches the other side is total carnage. The Edgware Road is a battlefield, hostiles are everywhere, fires too, and the battle is being lost; that much is obvious.
Alan’s fellow troops are firing in all directions. This seems to be having little effect, though. There is a concentration at the same point on this side of the road where the wall leads up, the same as on the opposite side where Mike is now by himself. Alan quickly looks down over the side of the flyover. A far larger mass of hostiles is trying to climb, and his comrades are only just keeping them back.
Deciding that there’s not a chance of any reinforcements being spared from here, besides which his NCO is nowhere to be seen, Alan decides on another course of action. He runs to the back of the nearest supply truck. Empty wooden and plastic boxes and crates lie scattered, discarded on the tarmac around the back of the truck. He looks inside.
The back of the truck is virtually empty, but he spots a few open crates that may still have some contents left. Alan climbs in to see what, if anything, he can scavenge that might help in their fight with the creatures trying to climb their wall.
The pickings are slim, however, but he grabs what he can, five or so magazine clips and four grenades are better than nothing but not enough, not by a long chalk. Jumping out of the back of the truck, he quickly re-joins Mike who is leaning over the side of the flyover, still shooting small bursts of fire down at the wall.
“How’s it looking, have you got them all?” Alan shouts.
“Funny fucker! Where are the reinforcements?”
“Looks like it’s just you and me at this party, mate. The party over there is getting way out of hand.”
“Out of hand? Are you taking the bleeding piss? What the fuck do you think is happening here, just a few mates over for a drink? Alan, tell me you have something?”
“You know me, mate, I never come to a party empty-handed.”
Alan puts the supplies he managed to get on the ground in between them, but neither is impressed by his stash.
“Well, that will keep the party going for about another fifteen minutes, mate if we are lucky. Then what we supposed to do, politely ask them to leave?” Mike half-jokes.
“God knows, mate; hopefully, one of the brass is about to make some kind of decision and get us out of here, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
Again, the two men concentrate on keeping the hostiles from climbing the wall, trying to conserve as much as possible of what little firepower they do have left.
Alan is sure he hears a screech over all the other noise and checks over his left shoulder, to see how the battle is going on the opposite side of the road. He is just in time to see a hostile jumping onto the road, the thing immediately shot to pieces by a nearby soldier. But it’s all too apparent they are breaking through. Another flies through the air and lands on top of the same soldier, knocking him off his feet and into the middle of the road. The creature immediately jumps again onto the sprawling soldier, knocking him back down as it bites into his neck. Alan swiftly lifts his rifle, aims and shoots the creature through the side of its head, blood being ejected all over the road. The creature falls limp.
Before Alan has time to take in what is happening, more hostiles land onto the flyover. Fuck, this is not good. They have definitely not held the wall that side.
Without turning, he shouts. “They have broken through on the other side, mate, we can’t hold here. Gotta fall back, mate!”
“These bastards are nearly to the top here, let’s move!” Mike shouts back.
The creatures are now coming over and onto
