I have seconds before the wave reaches my position and the cluster bombs end their slowed descent. My jump left off the wall away from the road takes me down onto a small stretch of grass. The kit I’m carrying brings me down hard, and my knees give way to try to put me into a roll, but I come down straight and only manage to fall onto my side. There is no time to nurse my strains from the fall, my arms and legs scramble to get me back to the wall, to take cover. The day blazes bright as the explosions reach my part of the road. I cower behind the short wall, my arms pulling my head down into my body and my legs curling me up into a ball. Flames, shrapnel and debris erupt around the wall and come over the top of it. Pieces of rubble come down and hit my arms and back, I pray that the wall won’t succumb and collapse on top of me. Heat sears the atmosphere around my small pocket of sanctuary, and it burns the back of my hands as the ground shakes.
Finally, the heat dissipates as the last of the bombs have spent their fuel. None of the munitions dropped this side of the wall and I’m still alive, burnt, battered and bruised but still breathing. Slowly, my dust-covered hands and arms move down from my head, as pieces of debris fall away from me. More dust and debris trickles down my back, inside my clothes as my head comes up and my legs relax.
I look around and cough, causing more dust to fall out of my hair and into my lungs, I cough again. Rubble is piled up either side of me, the wall has collapsed on both sides. I’m one lucky son of a bitch.
Dust fills my nostrils and mouth as I push myself up from the floor coughing badly and spitting what I can out. I wish I’d saved that last drop of fruit water now. Getting to my feet, I can hardly see anything around me apart from the destroyed wall I cowered behind. Dust and smoke hang like a barrier and the wall now resembles an arch; it has disintegrated around where I was. I stumble over the rubble towards the road, brushing myself down and I then, see what saved me. The bolted-down metal frame of the park bench has only a few pieces of splintered wood still attached to it. Its steel bars are twisted and bent but its ground bolts held as did the wall behind it. If it jumped down either side of the bench, I would have been blasted apart along with the wall.
In front of me, the road of Notting Hill Gate is utterly devastated. Any vehicles that happened to be here are now no more than mangled pieces of metal, the last of their interiors burning to nothing. I put my head down to cough violently, from the acrid smoke and dust that I can’t escape. As my coughing eases, my eyes focus on the ground. Beneath my feet are vaporised body parts, barely recognisable, charred as black as the road. My gaze widens, across the road and pieces of burnt, dismembered flesh and bone are smeared over the road like burnt plastic, still smouldering for me to breathe in.
I stumble again to move forward, taking my rifle in my grasp, I have to keep going. A noise from behind makes me turn. A Rabid appears through the haze, untouched and undaunted by the explosions. Reinforcements are on their way to take up the fight. I don’t want to get caught up with them, now that the road is cleared. I need the troops ahead to recognise me as a friendly as I approach, if there is any chance of that?
I shoot the Rabid in the head, but more shadows in the haze are already visible and moving this way. I turn my back on them and break into a jog down Notting Hill Gate, towards the sound of gunfire. I reach and unclip the torch from the front of my rifle and raise it above my head, waving it from side to side. I approach on faith that the troops will see the light and recognise I’m a friendly.
That was too close for comfort, Captain Walker thinks to himself as the wave of explosions moves up Notting Hill Gate, destroying everything in its path. The jets came in extremely low and the Apache helicopters had only just cleared the airspace. That would have just about summed up this operation so far, if there had been a mid-air collision or if the jets had dropped their payload a second earlier.
Neither event happened and as the dust settles, Walker sees immediately that it has made a difference to the battle. His troops are pushing forward as the tide of zombies has been cut off. There are still many to clear up but without the constant wave coming up behind, his troops are mopping up nicely, at least for now. He has no doubt more zombies will be coming; after all, that is the plan. The noise of the helicopters and the constant firing, even when there is nothing to fire at is supposed to draw them into the kill zone.
“FALL BACK, FALL BACK!” he shouts to his men. They need to regroup behind the barriers before the next wave comes. Visibility is limited and shadows move everywhere in the swirling, low-lying dust cloud and smoke. He doesn’t want to risk leaving his men out there when he can’t see what’s coming.
One by one, his men fall back through the open gap and back behind the barriers, taking their last shots before they do. Captain Walker slaps all the
