Extracting the Dragon (Lenora and David)

Lenora had not long been inducted into the police force but when she had been she had no idea that she would be dealing with things like this - things that should by all means have been dealt with exclusively by the Royal Guard. That was just how bad the situation had gotten she supposed, there had been many deployments from even them to try and add to the ranks fighting these things.

She herself had not seen one, but there were apparently a large wave of them coming up from the southern part of the country, Cornwall was now almost completely overrun with the buggers and now they were heading towards London.

If they were allowed to hit the main city the scientists stated it would be disastrous and the pressure was on the Government at the moment. Right now though, as the time was drawing near to when they were supposed to be arriving, she and the rest of her team, along with some of the Royal Guards were moving towards Buckingham Palace.

It was then that she heard it, a noise, much like a high pitched squeal, crackling like phlem was bubbling in their throat from the left flank. It's head was bobbing up and down violently, like a doggy on a car dashboard going over potholes, it was making unnatural angles to see on a human body - had this neck already been snapped?

"Sir?" she whispered softly "Sir what is this?"

David had been with the police force for many years now. Honestly he had stopped counting after eight years because it was going to get depressing when it reached ten years. He was at the peak of his physical fitness and had the perfect balance of strength and experience to make him one of the best officers on any force.

But in the last few days it had all gone to shit.

With panic spreading like wildfire even he, a senior detective and SO-19 operative, had been cut out of the loop of information. To be fair that was likely due to the fact that there wasn't much information going around anymore. Most of what the top brass had been getting was actually rumours started by the lower ranks and vice versa. It was confusing but all he really cared about was that he and his rookie were being sent to the big palace itself... home of Queen Bee.

Thankfully they both had pistols and their rifles at the ready in case anything went wrong. Like a strange figure approaching them. He frowned and unclipped the leather tab over his pistol's grip,

"Dead if it doesn't heed our warnings." he told her before gripping his pistol, still holstered, "Sir! Sir I must ask you to back away from the palace grounds... this area is off limits to the public right now!"

The deranged looking figure began to move faster towards him. David pointed his gun,

"Sir back away now or I will shoot!"

The figure was full on running at him now so David fired a shot into the chest... no effect. Narrowing his eyes, he fired three more rapid shots into the chest. Seeing they were not effective, he shot the thing in the head and it was flung backwards before being still. David refilled his clip with ammo,

"That man was not right in the head... we need to get into the palace now. If there are more of these people then Queen Bee is in danger... take point rookie, I've got your back."

Lenora almost, and probably did in fact gawp at her commanding officer Carnitine at what he said about the male in question. He looked really ill and perhaps they should be calling a medical crew to come and aid him instead of shooting him without any real just cause. It was true he was in a restricted area however, and remembering her training, no matter how sickly they looked, threats were to be dealt with in an appropriate manner.

Narrowing her eyes and taking out her own pistol as he approached the two of them, Lenora gasped when she saw him take a hit in the chest, right in the vital and keep on walking towards them. Not walking, rather sprinting! It took several more rounds from Carnitine to actually put the thing on the floor and she felt bile rising in her throat.

Her hands were trembling a little bit, never had she seen someone take a life in front of her, and never had she expected to take a life as she might have to do if one of these things appeared again while they were on their way inside.

"Yes sir!" Lenora squeaked, a little bit shocked still but she steadied her hand after a few deep breaths, kept her pistol drawn and moved further into the courtyard of the palace.

Things were not looking good.

Blood was everywhere, there were scatterings of bone, tissue and what looked like, organ matter strewn across the courtyard. Not only that but there was no sign of any Palace Guard, no army, and no other police.

"Officer Carnitine...something is wrong here. There are no other officers that I can see, the palace might already be compromised. Should we still enter the location without backup?" she asked, looking to her superior for advice "It might be detrimental to our objective to rush in, whatever they are, those things look like they've gotten inside."

As soon as the words had left her mouth, Lenora saw five of the things running towards them out of the Palace gates. Gritting her teeth, Lenora pulled up her pistol and shot at one of them, missing the first time as the bullet went whizzing past its head, however the next time it grazed the top, taking the top of its skull and brain along with it. Swiftly she turned the gun on the closest creature, shooting it almost point blank in the head.

David was not liking this situation in the least.

The thing that he had just killed had not been human and he was 100% certain of that. No living human being survived having their heart and lungs ejected out their back by a heavy metal bullet. A shot to the head killed it though?

This better not be any George Romero dawn of the dead shit or they were in a heck of a situation and he doubted that the rookie would be able to handle it. If his little niggling fears about the nature of the situation were right he was going to struggle with it himself to be perfectly honest. Taking a deep breath as he finished reloading his pistol, he holstered it again and instead readied his rifle,

"You know Officer Emmanuel... I believe you might be right. Rifle up." he ordered her, bringing his rifle up so that it was in a position to be fired immediately. He scanned the courtyard through the sights of his rifle, "I don't believe there will be any other backup Officer Emmanuel... In fact I believe that you and I are the back-up."

Gritting his teeth when more of the abominations charged at them, he aimed his shots and lined them up carefully before squeezing off single shots. No use in wasting the ammo... even if there were enough guns on the ground from the deceased royal guards. In fact... there was a Royal Guard waving at them.

But said guard had his lower body crushed by what appeared to be a section of the damn wall! David gestured for Lenora to advance cautiously with him. Reaching the royal guard, he looked down,

"F-f-fuck...!" the man stuttered out, grabbing at David's trouser leg, "F-f-fuck! Q-queen Bee... f-fuck she's gone! You... you need to... s-secure D-dragon!"

Dragon? David blinked twice,

"Dragon? Prince George?" he frowned, "Our orders are to safeguard the next in line. That's Flowers isn't it?"

The guard screamed in pain and squeezed David's leg,

"No! No you... they're all gone..." he managed to gasp out, "D-dragon is next in line... S-s-secure d-d-dragon! He should be... in west wing..."

The guard stopped moving and his grip on David loosened enough for him to move away from the still cooling-corpse. Taking a second, David nodded towards a set of double doors ahead of them, one door broken off it's hinges,

"What do you think Emmanuel?" he asked her, "I'm not ordering you on something this fucked up."

Lenora felt the adrenaline pumping through her veins now that the threats had been dealt with, however there was something that she still could not put her whole self behind, she just didn't know if they should be here right now. Those things, whatever they are, were vicious and they needed a head shot to go down, her aiming wasn't brilliant especially when she was rattled it was mediocre at best. Would she be able to handle this?

There was no time for doubting, she would handle it because she had to, there was no way that she couldn't. Either she handled it and lived to tell the tale or she didn't handle herself and became one of these piles of organ on the floor.

The half crushed soldier however was too much for her.

"Huh..." she breathed deeply trying to contain herself, before realising it was perhaps a little too late for that "Oh god..."

Moving to one side, Lenora vomited profusely onto the floor, the stench, the sights and the fact she had just had to kill potentially three people had made her stomach churn until she couldn't take it any more. She knew it was weak to show this, but she had to. Officer Carnitine would understand, wouldn't he?

"Apologies sir I just...couldn't take much more." she apologised, dusted her pride off and got herself ready.

The choice was in her hands? Well now was the time to see what kind of person she really was.

"If we go in there, we're most likely going to end up dead. We don't know how many of those things are in there, we know there is at least 10, with the Royal Family being those ten but there are the guards and the police. I do know, that if we don't try, I don't think I could live with myself if we left a baby in there to be mauled by those freaks."

Picking up two guns from the floor around them, Lenora gritted her teeth;

"I say, let's go rescue our monarchy."

David could not fault for Lenora for throwing up at this point. To be honest the only way he wasn't joining her was because he was focusing on the guard's face. And even that wasn't pretty considering the man was dying and he knew it. They all knew it. There was nothing you could say to someone who knew they were already dead.

The guard was dead and finally silent.

Letting out a deep breath he didn't know he had been holding, David took a deep breath and held it as he knelt down and rummaged around in the guard's pockets. Eventually he took out a wallet and removed the driver's licence before replacing the wallet. He looked at the licence,

"Phillip Lloyd." he read aloud before putting it in his pocket and patting Lenora on the back gently, "Don't beat yourself up about it Lenora. First time I saw something like this I fainted."

It was true... even if it had been almost eight years ago since that had happened.

There were periodic gunshot coming from inside the palace and that was a hopeful thing but she was right. The odds of coming out alive from the maze of corridors were slim to nil. But again she was right. There was a baby in there and not just that but it was the legitimate ruler of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He checked his guns were ready,

"Alright then Emmanuel... Lenora." he smirked a little bit, "Spoken like a true badass."

Leading the way into the palace, David turned them both right down a narrower corridor, his gun up and ready for action. One of the side doors burst open and something fast and snarling charged at them. He fired once and it fell to the ground, dead. Moving forwards, getting faster as he could hear commotion behind them, he burst out into a small foyer area... with four of the things just beating something vaguely human. Before he could fire though they were taken out by two very tired-looking soldiers,

"Dragon is behind the door in the corner." one of them said tiredly, "We'll hold them off... break a window or something. Godspeed."

David led Lenora into the room in question and immediately began barricading the door,

"Find Dragon..." he told her, "We need to get as much material as we need for the baby too."

Lenora couldn't help but grin widely when her Officer told her that she had spoken like a true bad ass, she had thought that she was pretty good in her speech making skills there and had she been in a film she knew that she would have had some pretty awesome background music to accompany her words. They weren't in a film though, and they were probably about to charge to their deaths.

C'est la vie, right?

"I tried sir." she smirked, holding one of the guns she had snatched off a guard up so that she could be ready for any of those freaks who came charging their way she moved into the Palace after David, hoping that they wouldn't get lost.

Following him, taking the same turns that he did, Lenora kept her eyes darting all around, from the side doors, to behind them, to the floors, and in front where they were going. She would have checked the ceiling but she was confident the mother fuckers had not learnt to climb just yet. Just a few minutes ago she had no proof these things on the news were real, now, she couldn't see any other explanation for them.

"You...you can follow with us as soon as we've collected everything we need." Lenora stated to the guards, not wanting to leave them behind, wanting to save as many people as she could "Good luck."

As she sprinted through the door, Lenora looked around, and found George in the crib in the corner of the room, wondering where his mother was she realised that she most likely did not want to know where his mother was. Instead she wrapped him up in his blankets, and took what seemed to be his favourite toy with her.

"I have Dragon." she whispered softly, "All is well and no injury."

Picking up what looked like a pre-packed baby bag, Lenora blinked; "Surprisingly organised, thank god. Should we...check on the guards or...are they?" she asked, gulping softly.

David didn't know what to do anymore.

They had rushed through the palace. They had ignored any and all signs of human resistance to these god-damn monsters. They had left two soldiers to die right outside this very room and they had secured Dragon.

But as he rested his forehead against the cold wood of the door, hearing the two soldiers screaming in agony as they were ripped apart, David didn't know what to do.

He had been given the order to secure Dragon and they had done that. Now what were they supposed to do? And there was no mistaking the fact that he was in charge of their direction. Lenora needed him to be the strong and the confident one. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and moved away from the door,

"Dragon has an escape-ready baby bag in his room at all times apparently." he told her as he checked his weapons again before moving to a window and examining it, "The guards are dead or soon will be... we need to evacuate with Dragon, there's no time to help anyone else."

Opening the heavy window, he looked down before waving her over as he held the window open on his shoulder,

"You and Dragon go first, it's not a long drop and there's a soft bush at the bottom." he told her, frowning when the door shuddered from an impact, "Once you're down there you take Dragon and the supplies and you run forwards alright?"

He paused before adding,

"When you reach the edge of the gardens... If I'm not following you..." he swallowed, "Then make your way north. Aim for Scotland or somewhere. Understood Lenora?"

Lenora could see that David didn't know what to do as much as she did, well, that was a lie, he knew what he should do in accordance to his duty, however his duty was something that was conflicted by what he was hearing and seeing. The sound of the guards being torn to pieces reminded her that they had left them to die, and she felt a cold stone of guilt plopping into her stomach.

She had killed, and there was blood on her hands for two reasons now. How could she look herself in the face after this?

"Understood sir." she stated with a firm nod "The safety of Dragon is our top priority."

Slipping out of the window, sitting on the ledge ready to drop, Lenora cradled George to her tightly with one arm, the safety snapped onto her gun in case she pulled the trigger by accident as she landed. The words that her commanding officer utter made her blood run cold. There was a very real chance she would be all alone in this if he didn't make it.

"...Understood." Lenora whispered softly, her eyes widened with fright but she was set in her gut to do what she could for this baby "Luck be with you David, I'll see you in a few minutes."

As she dropped down, Lenora bent her knees to take the impact and waited a few moments, steadying herself. Gritting her teeth Lenora took the safety off her gun, and ran, ran through the gardens as fast as she could the baby clutched protectively to her chest at all times, the sound of chasing and those growls began and she looked over her shoulder to see three of those things.

That she could deal with.

Shooting off controlled fire at their heads, a burst each with this machine gun, Lenora gasped, her breath a little ragged;

"You wont get me...no." she chanted as she started up running again, the edge of the garden in sight "No you wont get us."

David watched as Lenora and Dragon landed before they raced off... then the door broke inwards.

Pushing himself out of the window sideways was not a good idea but he didn't have any other option. Landing awkwardly, he swore loudly when he landed on his feet but without enough time to bend his leg properly. The result was either a sprained ankle or a broken ankle. Either way, David could almost feel himself being eaten alive or whatever it was that these fucking things did.

Limping onwards though, he took out his pistol, downing each and every thing that came running at him as he made it into a nearby Army jeep that seemed to still have keys in it. Climbing in, he closed the door just in time as several of the infected things crashed against the metal door. Closing his eyes for a moment, he then pushed the jeep into gear and went flying across the carefully maintained gardens. Passing Lenora and the baby, he planned to stop near the exit to garden... only to feel an infected grab him from behind the seat.

The jeep jerked from side to side a few times before it hit a fence and flipped, not once, but two times, skidding into a wall on it's roof.

David fell onto the roof of the car, now that it was upside down, and opened the door before falling out on the pavement instead. Groaning in pain as there were several pieces of glass stabbing into him, he drew his pistol out as the infected began to crawl out of the jeep after him. Aiming, he fired once before collapsing on the pavement,

"Fuck me... I knew my driving was terrible..." he joked before laughing, mostly at how horrible his own joke was.

Lenora squeaked when she heard someone driving towards her, but she assumed that it was David because infected freaks couldn't get it together long enough to drive she knew that much from what she had seen of them being in the palace. Biting her lip softly a swell of hope bloomed in her heart that she wasn't going to be alone in this, she would be able to make it to Scotland with David's help but she couldn't have done it alone.

As soon as the car began to swerve she knew that something was wrong and she could only do what he had told her, reach the exit of the garden which was where he was still vaguely headed yet she hung back slightly seeing that the jeep that he was in was about to turn over.

Hoping beyond hope that David would still be alive inside, Lenora hurried over to the jeep and saw him scrambling out of it, the infected being the cause of his distracted driving, luckily enough there was another vehicle not too far away. It wasn't as sturdy as a military jeep, being just a normal black USV however it was a godsend right now.

"Right sir, arm over my shoulder." she instructed "No time to waste that noise will have drawn every infected freak across the whole estate, lets move!"

Trying to ignore the sounds from behind her, Lenora albeit a little roughly helped David into the passenger seat, placed the baby in his arms and dove into the other side of the car, turning on the ignition.

Or at least trying to, as per usual it stalled and Lenora gave the steering wheel a good thwacking before trying again, this time it had the decency to work and she growled in victory speeding away from the palace as quickly as possible, not caring if they were going to be followed because now she could speed her way through the streets.

Turning on the blue in-built flashing lights of the car, Lenora took the time to calm down and put on her seat belt.

"Holy, shit." she whispered softly, her hands shaking "W-where to now David? We can't drive to Scotland in this, where is the nearest army base, maybe we can get there and they can airlift us and the baby to the Royal Estate there?"

David had to admit one thing to himself and he had to say it aloud too.

"That was cool."

What? Crashing a car like that, coming out mostly unharmed and then wasting a zombie-like creature was badass. Not just regular level badass either. That was the level of badass that only came from bad b-movie action flicks. He rolled his neck a little bit and pulled some glass out of his hands to let him push himself shakily up to his feet again.

And it seemed that his ankle was sprained rather than broken because even after all that he was still able to move it.

"Yeah... we have to move as fast as possible." he agreed, "We don't want to be caught out here by those things and... and something tells me that some civilians might not be too friendly either."

Strapping himself into the passenger seat, he counted at least a couple of bruised ribs before baby George was thrust into his arms. He sat their awkwardly looking at the baby. He blinked a few times and looked to Lenora,

"The hell do I do with it?" he asked her in a hushed whisper before George began to cry gently. His eyes widened in panic, "Fuck... fuck I think I broke it or hurt it... or... something! How do I make it stop crying?"

When she asked where they should be heading too he frowned a little bit as he thought about it. They weren't going to make it to where he's like so he might as well attempt to make it somewhere relatively safe,

"Oxford." he announced in the end, "There's a garrison there and it's far enough from the city to at least give us time to decide on our course of action."