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gates and the man he had shot, who had managed to get to his feet
through pure adrenalin and was frantically looking for an escape route.
           I couldn’t wait any longer.
           ‘Get over the fences,’ I shouted to those
nearest.  ‘Get over.  You’re trapped.’
           One or two began to climb as the ghouls closed
in on those on the extremities of the crowd.  I ordered ten of the men to each
side and told them to give as much covering fire as they could manage.  They
did their best but it was impossible.  Every time they shot one it just got
straight back up again.  This increased the panic.  Nobody knew what we were
dealing with.  It seemed like it was an indestructible army, bent on death and
destruction.
           A lucky few managed to get over the fences and
scrambled to the building, but the vast majority were eaten alive as the blood
crazed mob moved in on them, clawing and tearing at them as they pulled them
apart and devoured them.  The injured man was one of the last.  I won’t forget
his face.  He had his hands through the railings, begging for us to open the
gate as they fell on him and pulled him into the throng.  His screams only
lasted for a few seconds, then the only thing I could hear was the sobbing of
the few we had saved and the grinding and chewing of the dead as they feasted
on their prey.
           I turned and walked back to the guard room.  I
felt the bile rising in my throat and, after twenty years as a soldier, twenty
years of seeing some of the worst things humanity had to offer, I suddenly
threw up.
     
    Thomas Buckle
    18:00 hours, Friday 15 th May, Barking, East
London
           We made it as far as Tower Hamlets, before the
driver got cold feet and said he wanted to go home to his family.  The radio
was full of news, telling people to stay indoors.  I paid him for the trip and
jumped out.  The streets were busy enough, but there was a feeling in the air
that all was not right.
    I had to walk the rest of the way
home.  I couldn’t face the underground.  I doubted I would ever be able to go down
there again.  The memories of those people on the platforms, who were lined up
for a train and became food for the dead, have stayed with me to this day.
    When I finally made it home, late
that afternoon, I had seen some pretty gruesome things.  When I got inside the
house and switched on the news the BBC were saying that the army was to be
deployed on the streets and that the RAF had already flown several
reconnaissance missions over the capital.  I had seen a couple of jets, which
was unusual, but the strangest thing was the lack of civilian airliners in the
sky.  They had been almost non-existent all day.
           The house was empty.  That didn’t surprise me. 
My wife would have been at work.  She was a nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital
and I knew that she would be busy.  According to the news there were thousands
of casualties.
    I checked my phone.  I had ten missed
calls on my mobile, all from my wife, but every time I tried her phone I
couldn’t get through.  The system was creaking under the weight of usage. 
           A lot of the neighbours were packing cases and
loading their cars with anything and everything they could.  Kids were being
bundled in next to dogs and cats, valuables of all sorts and spare fuel cans. 
People were moving out for the long haul, not heeding the government’s advice.
           I decided to wait around until my wife got
back.  There was no way I would be able to get back into town.  The footage on
the evening news told me that huge parts of the city were now no-go areas, so I
mooched around for an hour or so, wondering what we were going to do.
           I decided, eventually, to get prepared for
leaving.  If everyone else thought they would be safer elsewhere, then we
should go too.  The car was almost fully fuelled, which was a good start and I began
to load it with