Infestation
Chapter 1: Covent Garden
It had been four weeks since the rock had crashed into the centre of London, it had come from outer space and was no bigger than a house, it had smashed into the ground near Earl's Court and by shear chance had hit the underground line and was embedded under there still blocking one of the lines completely.
If only it had been a rock than the city would still be fine, a few killed and close to a hundred injured, now the dead littered the streets in there thousands. Nothing could have prepared the clustered citizens for the massacre that came in the weeks afterwards. Few believed it was actually happening until it was smashing in their windows to get them. However the rock carried a sleeping menace, one that man had come across once before, although a certain corporation would deny it.
The city was weak and was growing weaker by every pressing hour, the authorities of the country, what was left of them, and what was left were the army, had quarantined the city 2 weeks ago while it was still able to. Walls were being erected slowly around the city, anything that was London and north of the Thames had a high wall around it, and some parts of the south, with soldiers on top all with orders to shot anything that moved. Survivors scurried around trying to find any safe place or simply hid and waited for the inevitable. Electricity was dead and running water was hard to find, apart from one building, the Weyland-Yutani building that loomed over the river like a dark obelisk. It's bright yellow letters acted like a second moon, its lights were visible as the few workers who were there looked out over the city in their haven of safety.
A few survivors had gathered at Covent Garden, by chance it seemed, and had manned a form of defence against the onslaught of the xenomorphs. Their weapons were raided from military checkpoints that had been over run, police stations or had simply been at home. The central building had remained untouched in it's square over the centuries and it's columns stood strong even now. Its shops had been raided to form barricades in the square building and the restaurants on the top floor had been ransacked to feed the women, children and militiamen. One man who looked over his post facing in the vague direction of Leister Square was Gene.
Gene was a young man he had worked at Weyland-Yutani, he'd quit the job last week though and now found himself huddled amongst these random people fighting for his life. He was sat next to and aging taxi driver and a police officer. The three of them were hunkered down in and old café on the top floor. The police officer held and pulse rifle, the taxi driver a sawn off shotgun and Gene a pulse pistol. His hair was scruffy and matted with sweat, his old leather jacket had seen better days and his jeans were covered in dirt and least his military style boots were still holding together. He had a bandoleer slung across a shoulder with flares in them. His job at the first sign of trouble was to illuminate the area for the others in the building so they could see what they were shooting at.
Gene glanced at his watch and saw it was coming up to 2:00am. He nudged the taxi driver next to him he woke with a startled grunt.
"My turn now" Gene said matter of factly.
"Okay son, you get some kip now" the man said waking himself up.
Gene smiled, he leaned back where he was crouching against an overturned table and closed his eyes, listening and focusing on the sound of the rainwater drizzling the roof. Soon he settled into a nightmare filled sleep.