Resident Evil Legends Part Five - City of the Dead

by Andreas Leachim

  Chapter 23

  Ada Wong held her breath as she pushed the bathroom door open a fraction of an inch, just enough so that she could see out. The convenience store was empty except for one zombie standing by the cooler, staring stupidly into the glass doors, apparently studying the numerous plastic bottles of Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

  Outside, however, was another matter. There were at least five zombies that Ada could see meandering around the parking lot and the gas pumps outside, and who knows how many that she couldn’t see. One zombie, a man wearing a gray business suit, was standing right outside the door.

  Ada let the door close, cursing herself for her stupidity. She was too careless, too much in a hurry, and – she had to be honest with herself – too scared. While trying to drive out of the city, she turned a corner too fast and skidded right off the road. The Corvette struck a parked car and she barely managed to crawl from the wreckage before the zombies converged on the scene. The suitcase with all her equipment and supplies was left behind.

  When she ran from her car, she only had one remaining bullet in her small pistol, and she used it almost immediately, so now she was completely defenseless. She ran for dear life and made it to the convenience store, but now she was stuck in the bathroom. That was hardly an improvement. She needed to get out of there, and the sooner the netter.

  There was a plunger behind the toilet. Ada leaned it against the wall and then kicked down hard on the end of it. The wooden handle cracked and broke, and Ada knocked off the broken half with the rubber piece, leaving herself the broken wooden handle with a jagged spike on one end, the closest thing she could get to a weapon.

  What she really needed was a gun. Sometimes gas stations and convenience stores concealed firearms underneath the counter for clerks to use in case of a robbery, but Ada didn’t expect to find one there. For now, a sharp stick was the best she could do.

  She opened the door again and peered out. The zombie in the business suit was still standing right outside. If Ada wanted out, she would have to go through him. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself and focused on her hand-to-hand combat training.

  She snuck out of the bathroom and took a few fluid steps across the convenience store, the wooden handle braced against her arm. The zombie turned and noticed her just as she pushed the glass door open and swung her arm up to jam the handle straight into its eye socket. She felt the handle scrape against bone, and pushed harder as the zombie fumbled for her, driving the handle right into its brain. It gurgled, blood gushing from the wound, and fell to the ground. Ada held onto the handle and it slid back out, coated with gore.

  She looked around for the easiest escape route, and took off as the other zombies noticed her and started walking forward. She ran across the parking lot and jumped the chain link fence like an Olympic hurdler, and ran across the street, where there were fewer zombies.

  All she wanted was to get away, she didn’t have a destination in mind. As she ran down the street, she tried to recall the layout of the city, which she had studied before going out to meet her contact the night before. There must be somewhere nearby that she could find a gun. A gun store, a sporting goods store, a shooting range ...

  The police station. She wasn’t far from the police station. She even remembered driving past it the day she arrived in town. There would certainly be guns there.

  There would also be lots of zombies, if she guessed correctly. The police station seemed like a logical place to go for help, and would have drawn a huge crowd of people seeking shelter from the epidemic. Ada doubted that it was safe there at all, but she had little choice.

  She stopped in her tracks when she heard a helicopter hovering overhead, and looked up to see a huge combat chopper sailing low across the city. It was a military helicopter, but she could see no Army insignia on it.

  As it passed from view, she continued on past storefronts and fast food restaurants and more gas stations. Zombies loitered in the street, reaching feebly at her as she ran past. She considered checking nearby cars to see if the keys were inside, but decided that getting weapons was her first priority.

  The police station was a giant square building, four stories tall, squeezed in between a bank and a small office building. It loomed over the avenue like an enormous church, taller than any other building within several blocks, so it was kind of hard to miss. Ada saw it long before she got there.

  She ran down a side street, intent on entering through a side door. The front door was probably not the safest bet. Zombies meandered here and there in the narrow street, but she ran right past them.

  But when she made it closer to the building, she stopped again. A crowd of fifty zombies clogged the alleyway leading behind the station, blocking her way. Ada climbed a chain link fence and dropped down on the other side, squeezing along the even narrower alley right behind the nearby bank. The zombies on the other side of the fence moaned and tried to reach for her, their fingers poking through the fence. Ada carefully ignored them.

  The zombies were congregated around one of the doors, which were broken down, so Ada could not enter there. In fact, it might be better if she didn’t enter on the main floor at all, since the zombies were surely all over. She expected the station to be full of zombies, and it looked like she was right.

  She turned the corner down the alley, walking in between the police station and the bank, edging past a pair of empty dumpsters by the bank’s side door. Some of the zombies followed her, although they were still separated by the fence. The groaned and snapped their mouths open and closed, trying to stick their arms through the fence to reach her. Ada caught herself looking at them, almost feeling sorry for them, and then forced herself to look away and to focus on the matter at hand.

  The Raccoon City police station was not a modern building constructed of glass and stainless steel. It was a hulking architectural behemoth, oozing with gothic style, out of place in a bland American town like Raccoon City. It looked like a museum in medieval Germany. All the windows were decorated with large windowsills, and each story had a thick ledge going all the way around the outside of the building. Halfway down the side of the building, maybe fifty feet from the door, there was a corner recess with a long metal pipe leading up the side of the building. That pipe, Ada decided, was going to be her way in.

  She pushed one of the dumpsters against the fence and climbed on top. With the small crowd of zombies reaching for her, she took a breath and concentrated hard. Taking one last deep breath, she took a step onto the top of the fence and then leaped across, jumping right over the zombies. She landed on the pavement and immediately scrambled across to the police station, heading right for the corner. She grabbed the metal pipe and braced her feet against the wall, pulling herself up. Her boots gripped the wall perfectly and she climbed right up the drainpipe like a telephone worker scaling a telephone pole. By the time the zombies managed to reach her, she was already out of their grasp. Of course, if she lost her grip and fell, they would be waiting for her.

  When she reached the second floor, she put her foot out onto the ledge and braced herself. She pushed away from the drainpipe and grabbed the edge of the nearest windowsill, teetering precariously on the ledge, a mere ten feet away from the hungry zombies below.

  She crawled to the window and looked inside. It was a small office room, and it was empty. Ada laid on her side, inches from the edge, and swung her foot into the window. It took her a full minute of banging on the window with her boot before it finally broke. She kicked away all the glass and crawled inside.

  She tumbled to the floor and laid on her back among all the broken shards of glass, breathing heavily, staring up at the ceiling.

  But she barely had time to catch her breath. She glanced up at the office door and saw a face on the other side of the glazed glass window, staring in at her. The zombie outside smashed his arms through the glass and pushed against the door. Ada shielded her face
as more broken glass showered into the room.

  She scrambled behind the desk, crawling along the broken glass. The door smashed off its hinges and fell over, the zombie coming inside, groaning after her. He was an overweight man with a blue dress shirt and cheap black clip-on tie. Ada kicked the desk chair at the zombie and it bounced harmlessly off his legs.

  She yanked open the side desk drawers and tossed them aside, looking for a gun. She found one in the top drawer, a small revolver in a worn leather holster. She pulled it out and aimed it just as the zombie was about to grab her legs. She put two bullets into his head and he flopped over backward.

  Another zombie stumbled into the room, this one a female wearing a police uniform. Ada lifted herself up, kicking away the dead zombie’s legs, and shot the other zombie as well.

  She leaned against the desk and waited for her breath to slow down, keeping her eyes on the doorway in case any more zombies came to investigate the gunshots. She tucked the revolver into her jacket pocket and went to the dead female cop, taking her service Beretta and the extra bullets stored on her belt.

  Thus armed, Ada poked her head into the hallway and saw no zombies. However, she didn’t think her current weapons were going to be enough. She needed something a bit more powerful than a pistol, especially against the crowd of zombies waiting for her outside. The armory was her best bet at finding an assault rifle, or at the very least some shotguns and more ammo for the pistol. Of course, Ada had no idea how many zombies were between her and the armory, or even where the armory was.

  It occurred to her that getting out of the police station alive might be even harder than getting in.