Where Darkness Lurks
Every day Alexandra Sinclair passes by a door on her way to work. The door is in a wall of a seemingly non-descript building. One day Alex finds the door is open and she decides to investigate. Being curious is a trait many people share. However Alex's curiosity rises as far as putting her in unintentional danger and life threatening situations. It was one of her many talents, and unfortunately this situation was going to be no different.
Upon entering a large open room, Alex notices that walls are completely bare and the room empty of furniture. A hole the size of a car lay in the middle of the floor. Walking next to the edge she peers down into utter darkness. "Whoa," she says as she stares into the abyss. Suddenly, something shiny flashes over her head. Alex twists to follow it with her eyes. Her foot catches on the floor and she trips over herself, falling backwards into the blackness.
Down, down, down she falls. Her body smashes through what feels like boards crisscrossing the hole. Each board feels like a swinging baseball bat to her body. Finally Alex lands on a pile of junk at the bottom. A soundless scream escapes from her lips as the air is knocked out of her body. Curling up in a ball, and writhing in pain, Alex takes in deep rasping breaths. Very slowly, she sits up right and looks around. A dim light shines down a hallway leading from the hole. Seeing no other way out, Alex limps down the hallway.
A juncture split the hall, but the light seemed to be coming from the right tunnel. After several minutes, the tunnel opened up to an eerie old underground train station. It looked like some huge monster reeked havoc on a once nice station. Old train cars littered broken tracks, debris scattered the marble floor, and the only light came from a stream vent 3 stories up on the surface. "Why is this here? And how the heck, am I going to get out of this mess?" Alex said to no one. Out of no where an animal like sound pierced the silence. Alex nearly jumped out of her skin. The sound came from the largest tunnel leading to a downward slope.
After reading many scary stories in her childhood, Alex knows that if you hear something "animal like" down a dark scary tunnel, don't stick around to see what it is. Spinning around and sprinting down a random tunnel, Alex blindly trips over something and crashes sprawling to the ground. Looking into the poor light, Alex sees that she tripped over a man lying face down in the dirt. "Ohmygosh!" she cries. She crawls over the man, and pokes him with her finger. "Sir? Are you ok?" Getting no response, Alex prods him harder. "Excuse me Sir? Can you hear me?" A moan comes from the figure. Grabbing the back of his shirt, Alex hauls him to his feet and puts his arm around her shoulders. "Don't you worry, Mister, I'll get you to a hospital." Alex says hoping to encourage him to move. The man turns his head to look at Alex. Noticing his eyes for the first time, she sees they are grey and empty of life. "Whoa…dude I think there's something wrong with your eyes," Alex says in a worried voice. Suddenly the man's hand raps around her neck, cutting off her air, his head moves to take a bite out of her. Reflexively, Alex punches the man in the stomach, and as his grip looses, she pushes him backwards impaling him on a jagged piece of pipe sticking out of the ground. The zombie slowly rises from the ground with the pipe still impaled through his abdomen. Alex's eyes widen with fear, and looking around her, Alex sees a myriad of zombies appear out of the darkness behind her. People with only some of their limbs attached, and their heads rolling limply on their shoulders. The ravenous look on their dead faces was more than enough to send Alex screaming at the top of her lungs, and running as she had never run before deeper into the tunnel.
Completely out of breath and her hurt leg throbbing, Alex comes to a stop. Looking about her, she sees that the tunnel has widened to a large corridor with doors on either side. Trying each of the doors, finding them to be locked, Alex continues walking. Finally, a door opens and Alex wanders into a laboratory. The lab is a complete mess with papers and broken glass scattered everywhere. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps comes from the corridor.
Franticly looking for a weapon, Alex grabs a computer keyboard and hides on the side of the doorway. The door slowly opens, and raising her weapon above her head, Alex brings the keyboard crashing down on the intruders head. With a yelp, the figure falls to the ground. Alex jumps on him. "TAKE THIS YOU ZOMBIE!!" Alex screams as she beats her victim's back with her deadly keyboard. "AAAHHH, Hey!! STOP!! I'm not a zombie!!" Cried the person. With her weapon still at the ready, Alex asks "Who… who are you?" The man replies weakly "Could you get off me first?" Realizing that she was sitting him, Alex embarrassingly gets off of him. The man before her looked to be in his mid-twenties; he was wearing a black shirt, jeans, and a brown bomber jacket and he was carrying a gun. "So you're not a zombie like them?" asked Alex. "No. My name is Leon. Leon S. Kennedy, I work for the government." replied Leon. "Are you a cop?" she asked. "Not exactly. I'm an agent, investigating this tunnel to the west, that's how I found this weird underworld and ran into some of the Infected. I shot them and heard a scream back here. That's where I ran into you." said Leon slightly irritated as he rubbed the new bump on the back of his head. Suddenly the sound of growls and moaning came up from the corridor. "The Infected? You mean that a virus turned these people into zombies!?" she whispered frighten. "Is it contagious?" she asked. Leon looks at Alex and says "Only if you they bite you." The candor in his voice made her believe him.
Leon grips Alex's arm. "Let's get out of here." He said urgently. Opening another door, he turns to Alex. "Stay close to me." He says. "Ok. I'm Alex by the way." she replies. They move further into the laboratory, passing strange machines covering the walls. It occurred to Alex that scientists were creating these monsters. That would explain the secret laboratory, and by the look of it, someone tried to obliterate the evidence. However, one computer was not broken.
Wandering away from Leon, Alex moves to a control panel with different colored buttons. Under the word emergency in big bold letters, was a red button. "I wonder what this does." thought Alex. She pushes the button, but nothing happens. "Huh. I guess it's broken." Alex said a moment to soon because suddenly a red light began to flash and a computer voice announced "Thank you for activating the self-destruct button. All personnel please proceed to the emergency exits." Leon turns and glares at Alex. "What did you do!?" he demands. Before Alex could answer, a horde of zombies' kicks open the door and pours into the room. Leon grabs his gun and shoots a couple of them in the head.
He takes hold Alex's arm and they race out into the hall. Taking twists and turns, they try to elude their pursuers. Then, up ahead they see sunlight pouring out of an opening in the ceiling. "Quick! Find a ladder!" Leon yells. Panic surging through her, Alex searches for something they can use to climb out. Her hands land on a coil of rope. "Leon! We can use this." Alex tosses the rope to him. He attaches a piece of scrap metal to the end of the rope, and using it like a grappling hook, he throws it through the opening. It catches on the edge, and Leon gives it a tug to confirm it's secure. "Ok Alex, you go first and I'll hold them off." Alex starts climbing the rope. Behind her she can hear gun shots, and zombie growls.
She reaches the opening and struggles to lift herself out. The hole opened to a brightly lit ally way. "And no one has noticed this hole, Why?" she asks sarcastically. Looking back down, she sees Leon, climbing up the rope. At the bottom, dead faces stare back at her. The sound of an explosion comes from the hall, and a raging inferno comes hurling towards Leon, still dangling from the rope! As he reaches the opening Alex grabs him and helps pull him up out of the hole. Leon grabs Alex and pushes them away from the opening, just as huge explosion bursts forth. Still holding her in his arms, Leon rises from the ground rather shakily. He looks at Alex and asks "You ok?" She nods silently. In the distance sirens wailed, and as the fire trucks, ambulances, and unmarked government vehicles approached, Leonturns to Alex and asks "Do you need a lift home?" A smile spread across Alex's face. She said "Well, sense I'm probably fired from my job anyway, I would love a lift home." Taking her hand, Leon and Alex get into the car and they drive away.