Our first circle around the building reveals nothing, and I tell Dan to take us higher the second time so we can get a look at the roof. Should Jim and Karen still be alive and have heard or seen the helicopter, that is where they will be to meet us if Stacey managed to get a message to them. But we don’t even know if she did.
“This is so strange,” Dan’s voice says as he comes through my headphones, but I’m not sure if he is speaking to me or to himself?
“You’re not wrong, the whole area looks deserted,” I reply anyway.
“What do you want to do then, Boss?” Dan says as he completes the second go-around, which also reveals nothing to us. There is no sign of anybody on the roof and my heart sinks as I feel for Stacey.
“Let’s have one last look at the front before we go.”
“Copy that,” Dan says and takes us around.
“Alice, how're things back there?” I ask as we go.
“Tim is pretty stable I think.” Her head pops through into the cockpit. “I think the bleeding is stemmed but Josh looks pretty beat; he’s taking five,” she says as only a Yank would.
“Okay, and how about you?” I ask her.
“I’m beat, to be honest.”
“I think we all are,” Dan says.
“Where are we,” Alice asks, “it’s hard to tell with all the lights out, it’s weird.”
“We’re over the City. Some friends work in one of the buildings so we are just checking it out,” I tell her.
“Okay, yes I see now, that’s the Cheesegrater,” Alice says as we come around to the front of it.
The beams from the Lynx again hit the building as we straighten up and light up a portion of glass façade; much of the light bounces off the glass wall that encases the steel frame of the tower. Some of the light does penetrate into the building, however, giving us a view of the floors within.
The offices within look devoid of life. Nothing is moving inside, so where have the staff all gone? I know for certain Karen and Jim were inside, and there must have been many other office workers when the curfew was imposed early this morning. Surely, they can't have taken the risk of leaving the building and going onto the streets; are they all still hiding somewhere inside?
As we hover about halfway up the building, I look above at the length of the property through the windscreen of the Lynx, the dark upper reaches of the building slope away from our position and up into the night sky.
"Take us up slowly," I tell Dan, "let's see if we can see anything in there."
The Lynx rises, the spotlights penetrating into each floor as we go, but each seems deserted, a ghost building sitting in this ghost city. Are Karen and Jim still hiding somewhere in its innards, and if so, then where?
Rising farther, we reach around three-quarters of the way up the tall tower in no time, but still, nothing reveals itself and I am just beginning to think that there is no sign of life within.
“There!”
Alice’s voice suddenly pipes through my earphones just before her arm appears beside me, pointing through the cockpit towards the right side of the building.
“Where, what,” I ask urgently, “I can’t see anything.”
“There on the floor, in the middle, far right, in the shadows,” Alice says in exasperation, thrusting her arm and finger.
“I see the fucker!” says Dan almost viciously.
I search again and then I see it, someone crouched on the floor with their head down, over something. It’s crouched over a body and then it sinks in what I’m looking at. Dan turns the Lynx slightly to the right, catching the scene in the full glare of the spotlights.
The crouching Rabid lifts its head up from the body it is feeding on below, blood circling the floor around its feast. The Rabid's pale skin shines in the piercing light that hits it, apart from its lower face which is glistening dark red with the blood of its victim. The creature raises itself onto its arms, one hand planted on the floor behind the head of the victim and one in front of the victim’s chest as if protecting its prize. It stares at us through the glass of the building, eyes wide, filled with hate and rage. And then the Rabid's mouth opens.
Even above the sound of the helicopter, through the windscreen and glass of the building, the screech that comes from the Rabid's mouth screams into my head if not through my ears. The head of the Rabid turns slightly to its left as it calls to others that must be in there with it, hidden in the dark!
The three of us in the cockpit area are silent, looking on as another Rabid appears to the left of the first, almost directly in front of us and emerging from the shadows. This one is on its feet, arms straight out in front of its body, a small female Rabid, her long dark hair hanging down each side of her head. Her face is tilted forward and down slightly. Her eyes are piercing through the glass at us. There is no sign of blood on her, maybe she hasn't fed yet, too small to compete for food.
Without warning, the small female Rabid breaks into a run, straight at us.
“What the hell!” Dan exclaims.
Before she is halfway across the room, in reflex, both Dan and I have rapidly pulled our side arms from our holsters and they are pointing out of the cockpit towards the oncoming Rabid. Dan is still in full control of the Lynx as his left
