by S. D. Perry
Leon stood in the ransacked basement weapons locker, adjusting the holster straps and thinking about where Claire might be. From what little he'd seen so far, the station wasn't too bad. Cold and dim and stinking of the bodies heaped in the hallways, but not as actively dangerous as the streets. It wasn't much to be grateful for, but he'd take what he could get. He'd killed two of his fellow officers and a woman in the tatters of a traffic patrol uniform on his way to the basement – the cops upstairs and the woman just outside the morgue, a few yards from the small room that housed the RPD armament. Only three zombies since he'd reached the station, not including the few he'd been able to avoid in the detectives' room, but he'd passed over a dozen corpses on the short journey and had been able to make out the bullet holes on about half of them, through the eyes or directly to the temple. Between the cleanly "dispatched" creatures and the number of weapons missing from the lockers, he dared to hope that Branagh had been right about there being survivors.
Marvin Branagh… probably dead by now. Does that mean he'll turn into a zombie?If Umbrella's really behind all this, it has to be some kind of a plague or disease, they're a pharmaceutical company – so how do you catch it? Is it a contact thing, or can you get it from taking a deep breath…
Leon dropped that train of thought, fast; as cool and humid as the basement was, the thought that he could be infected by the zombie sickness made him break out in a sudden feverish sweat. What if all of Raccoon was still hot, and he'd caught it just driving into town? The cluttered shelves of the storage room seemed to close in just a bit, in an anxiety flash of epic proportions. But before real panic set in, he heard his mind's voice remind him of the reality – and the acceptance of the reality came with it, allowing him to let go of the fear.
If you're sick, you're sick. You can eat a bullet before it gets bad. If you're not sick, maybe you can survive to tell your grandkids about all this. Either way, there's probably nothing you can do about it now – except try to be a cop.
Leon nodded to himself, sighing. A better plan than worrying about it, and he now had the equipment to boost his chances. The electronic lock for the weapons store had been shot through, saving him from having to go searching for a key card or shooting it himself; the door had obviously been pried open, the external locks and handle practically shredded. On his first dig through the room, he'd been disappointed, and not a little freaked. There had been no handguns at all and very little ammo left in the dented green lockers – but he had found a box of shotgun shells, and after a second, more desperately thorough search, he'd un– covered a twelve-gauge hidden behind a high stack of boxes. There were a couple of shoulder harnesses for the Remington model still hanging on a wall hook, as well as a bigger utility belt than the one he already wore; it even had a sidepack deep enough to hold all of the loaded Magnum clips. With a final cinch on the harness, he decided that it would be best to start searching the most obvious places first, every connecting corridor from every possible entrance. He'd head back to the lobby first, find something to leave a note on… Bam! Bam! Bam! Shots fired, close, and the echoing tone said it was the garage just down the hall. Leon yanked the Magnum out and ran for the door, precious seconds wasted as he fumbled at the mangled handle. The hall was clear, except for the dead traffic cop on the floor to his right. Straight ahead was the entrance to the parking garage, and Leon hurried toward it, reminding himself that he wanted to go in easy, that he didn't want to get shot by a panicked gunman.
Take it slow, get a good look before you move, identify yourself clearly…
The door, set into the wall to his right, was standing open and as Leon darted a look into wide and open space, his body shielded by the concrete-block wall, he saw something that startled him into forgetting about the shooter.
The dog. It's the same goddamn dog.
Impossible – but the sprawled, lifeless animal in the middle of the car-lined chamber looked the same. Even with the barest glimpse he'd had before, the slimy wet demon in canine form that had nearly scared him into a crash ten miles outside the city could have come from the same litter. Beneath the sputtering fluorescent strips that lit the cold, oil-stained garage, Leon could see how truly abnormal it was. There didn't seem to be anything moving, and no sound except for the buzz of lights. Still holding the Magnum ready, Leon stepped into the garage, deter– mined to get a closer look at the creature – and saw a second one next to a parked squad car, apparently just as dead as the first. Both lay in sticky red pools of their own blood, their long, skinned-looking limbs splayed brokenly.
Umbrella. The wild animal attacks, the disease…… how long has this shit been going on? And how did they manage to keep it quiet after all those murders?
What was even more confusing was why Raccoon wasn't crawling with support services already; Um– brella may have been able to keep their involvement with the "cannibal" murders silent, but how could they keep Raccoon's citizens from calling for help from outside the city?
And these dogs, like carbon copies… something else that Umbrella made up in their labs?
He took another step toward the fallen dog-things, frowning, not liking the dark conspiracy theories that were forming in his thoughts but unable to ignore them. What he liked even less was the look of the oil stains on the concrete floor; they were rust-colored and there were too many of the dried splotches for him to count. He bent down to get a closer look, so intent on putting to rest a sudden terrible suspicion that he didn't register the shot until he heard the high, singing whine when it blew past his head. Bam! Leon spun left, bringing the Magnum up and shout– ing at the same time…
"Hold your fire!"
… and saw the shooter lowering her weapon, a woman in a short red dress and black leggings stand– ing by a van against the far wall. She started walking toward him, her slender hips rolling smoothly, her head high and shoulders back. As if they were at a cocktail party.
Leon felt a rush of anger, that she could seem so calm after very nearly killing him, but as she got closer, he found himself wanting to forgive her. She was beautiful, and wore an expression of genuine pleasure at seeing him; a welcome sight after so much death. "Sorry about that," she said. "When I saw the uniform, I thought you were another zombie."
She was Asian-American, fine-boned but tall, her short hair a thick and glossy black. Her deep, satiny voice was almost a purr, a strange contrast to the way she looked at him. The slight smile she wore didn't seem to touch her almond-shaped eyes, which were scrutinizing him carefully. "Who are you?" Leon asked. "Ada Wong." That throaty purr again. She tilted her head, still smiling. "I'm Leon Kennedy," he said reflexively, not sure what to ask or where to start. "I… what are you doing down here?"
Ada nodded toward the van behind her, an RPD transport wagon that was blocking the holding cell area. "I came to Raccoon looking for a man, a reporter named Bertolucci; I have reason to think that he's in one of the cells, and I think he might be able to help me find my boyfriend…"
Her smile faded, her sharp, almost electric gaze meeting his… "And I think he knows all about what happened here. Would you help me move the van?"
If there was a reporter locked up on the other side of the garage wall who could tell them anything at all, Leon was eager to meet him. He wasn't sure what to make of Ada's story, but couldn't imagine why she would lie about anything. The station wasn't safe, and she was looking for survivors, just as he was. "Yeah, okay," he said, feeling caught off guard by her smoothly direct manner. It felt like she had taken control of their meeting, some subtle but deliberate manipulation that had put her in charge and from the casual way she turned and walked back to the van, as if there was no question that he would follow, he thought she knew it. Don't be paranoid; strong women do exist. And the more people we can find, the more help I can get to look for Claire. Maybe it was time to stop making plans, and just try to keep up. Leon bolstered the Magnum and went after her, hoping that the reporter was where Ada thought he was and that things wo
uld start making sense, sooner rather than later.
THIRTEEN
Sherry birkin was gone, and Claire couldn't fit herself into the ventilation duct to go after her. Whatever or whoever had screamed and scared the little girl so badly hadn't put in an appearance, but Sherry was history, maybe still crawling frantically through some dark and dusty tunnel. She had apparently been hiding by the duct for a while; there were empty candy-bar wrappers and a musty old blanket stuffed in the opening, the pathetic little hideaway tucked behind three standing suits of armor. Once she'd realized that Sherry wasn't coming back, Claire had hurried back to Irons's office, hoping that he might be able to tell her where the duct let out, but Irons was gone, along with the body of the mayor's daughter. Claire stood in the office, watched over by the dumb glass eyes of the morbid decor, and felt really uncertain for the first time since she'd hit town. She'd started out to find Chris, a goal that had expanded to include worries about zombie dodging, hooking up with Leon, and avoiding creepy Chief Irons, pretty much in that order. But in the few moments between meeting the little girl and that strange, howling scream, her priorities had shifted dramatically. A child was caught up in this nightmare, a sweet, little kid who believed that there was a monster stalking her.
Maybe there is. If I can accept that Raccoon's got zombies, why not monsters? Hell, why not vampires or killer robots?
She wanted to find Sherry, and she didn't know how to start. She wanted her big brother, but was just as clueless as to where he might be – and she had begun to wonder if he knew anything about what had happened to Raccoon. The last time she'd talked to him, he'd avoided her questions about why the S.T.A.R.S. had been sus– pended, insisting that it wasn't anything to worry about – that he and the team had run into some political trouble at the office and it was all going to be sorted out. She was used to his protectiveness, but thinking back, hadn't he seemed overly evasive? And the S.T.A.R.S. had been investigating the cannibal murders, it wasn't much of a stretch to connect the past flesh-eating activity with the current…
… which means what? That Chris uncovered some evil plot and was hiding it?
She didn't know. All that she knew was that she didn't believe he was dead, and that for now finding Chris or Leon would have to take a back seat to finding Sherry. As bad as things were, Claire had defenses – she had a gun, she had at least a little emotional maturity, and after nearly two years of daily five-mile runs, she was in excellent shape. But Sherry Birkin couldn't be older than eleven or twelve, and seemed frail in every sense of the word, from the dirt in her pixie blond hair to the desperate anxiety in her wide blue eyes – she had inspired all of Claire's protective instincts… Thump! A heavy, hollow vibration rattled through the ceil– ing, making the intricate chandelier in Irons's office tremble. Claire reflexively looked up, gripping her handgun. There was nothing to see but wood and plaster, and the sound didn't repeat itself.
Something on the roof… but what could have made a noise like that? An elephant being air-dropped?
Maybe it was Sherry's monster. The vicious scream they'd heard back in the private exhibit room had come through a duct or the fireplace, the origin of the cry impossible to pin down, but it could have been the roof. Claire wasn't particularly keen on meeting up with whatever had screamed, but Sherry had seemed certain that the creature was following her…
… so find the screamer, find the girl? Not my idea of the perfect plan, but I don't have much else to go on at this point; it might be the only way to find her.
Or maybe it was Irons up there and although her meeting with him had left a slimy taste in her mouth, she regretted not having tried to get more information out of him. Crazy or not, he hadn't struck her as stupid; it might not be a bad idea to find him again, at least to ask some questions about the ventilation system. She wouldn't know anything until she checked it out. Claire turned and went to the office door that opened into the outer corridor, where she'd put out the helicopter fire. The smoke had thinned in the adjoining hall, and although the air was still warm, it wasn't the heat of a fresh blaze. In that, at least, she'd been successful… Claire stepped back into the main hall, averting her eyes from what was left of the pilot…… and craa-ack!… She froze, and heard a massive splintering of wood followed by the thick, ponderous steps of some– one who must be huge moving through the corridor past the turn, the sounds deliberate and thundering. Guy must weigh a ton, and oh Jesus tell me that wasn't a door being torn apart… Claire shot a look back down the small hallway to Irons's office, her instincts telling her to run, her brain reminding her that it was a dead end, her body paralyzed between the two…… and the biggest man she'd ever seen stepped into view, shadowed by the thin haze of smoke drifting through the hall. He was dressed in a long army-green overcoat that only accented his size, and was as tall as an NBA star – taller, but with proportionate bulk. A thick utility belt was wrapped around his waist, and though she didn't see any weapons, she could feel the violence radiating off him in invisible waves. She could just make out his sickly white blur of a face, the hairless, sloping skull – and quite suddenly, Claire was certain that he was a monster, a killer with black gloved fists, each as big as a human head…
Shoot! Shoot it!
Claire aimed but hesitated, terrified of making a horrible mistake – until it took one massive step toward her on tree-trunk legs, and she heard the crunch of denting wood beneath its booted Franken– stein feet, and saw the black eyes, black and rimmed with red. Like lava-filled pits in a misshapen white boulder, blank but not at all blind, his gaze found hers – and he raised one meaty clenched fist, the threat unmistakable.
–shootshootshoot-
She squeezed the trigger, one, two times, and saw the impact – a flap of its lapel blew into shreds just below his collarbone, the second shot slicing cleanly through one side of the neck…… and he took another step, not a flicker of expres-sion passing over his rough-hewn features, the fist still raised, seeking a target, seeking to crush… The black, smoking hole in its throat wasn't bleeding.
Oh SHIT!
In a rush of adrenaline-boosted dread, Claire pointed the handgun at the creature's heart and pulled the trigger repeatedly, the giant taking another step, striding into the stream of explosive fire without flinching…… and she lost track of the shots, unable to believe that it could still be coming, less than ten feet away as the rounds hammered its mammoth chest…… and the gun clicked empty, even as the monster stopped in its thundering tracks, swaying from side to side like a tall building in a high wind. Without taking her shocked gaze from the reeling giant, Claire grabbed another clip from her vest and fumbled through reloading, her brain crazily trying to name this walking abortion.
Terminator, Frankenstein's monster, Dr. Evil, Mr. X
Whatever it was supposed to be, the seven-plus semi-jacketed rounds to the chest had finally taken effect. Silently, the towering creature slumped to his right, falling heavily against one smoke-blackened wall and sagging there – not crumpling, but not mov– ing, either.
Weird angle, that's all, he's dead, just propped up by his own weight…
Claire didn't move any closer, keeping the handgun leveled at the motionless giant. Was this the screamer? For as powerful and inhuman as it looked, she didn't think so; this was no primal, furious demon, howling for blood. Mr. X was more like some soulless ma– chine, bloodless flesh that could ignore pain… or embrace it. "Dead now, doesn't matter," Claire whispered, as much to reassure herself as to cut off the relentless stream of useless thought. She had to think, to figure out what this meant – this wasn't some freak zombie mutation, so what the hell was it? Why didn't it fall down? She'd emptied a mostly full clip – would somebody hear the shots, would Sherry or Irons or Leon or whoever else might be lurking around the station come find her? Should she stay where she was?
The creature that she'd already started to think of as Mr. X wasn't breathing, its muscular body per– fectly still, its face as closed as death.
Claire bit her lower lip, staring at the still impossibly standing, leaning creature, trying to think through her confused fear…… and saw his eyes open, his shiny black and red eyes. Without so much as a wince of pain or effort, Mr. X swayed back to a stand, blocking the hall, his giant hands raising again…… and with a mighty swing, he crashed his fists through the air, his long arms whipping just in front of her as she stumbled back. The momentum was enough for both of his huge hands to plunge into the wall across from where he'd leaned. The impact buried his fists, his arms stuck in the wood and plaster halfway to his elbows.
Me, could've been ME…
Back through Irons's office and she'd be trapped. Without giving the matter any further thought, Claire moved, sprinting toward Mr. X. She flew past him, her right arm actually brushing against his heavy coat,
her heart skipping a beat as the material wisped across her skin. She ran, hung a left and dashed down the hazy hall, trying to remember what was past the waiting room, trying not to hear the unmistakable sounds of move– ment behind her as Mr. X jerked his hands free.
