CITY OF THE DEAD
Consciousness slowly began to creep its way back to him as all he could feel were the raindrops slowly pattering on his face, a warmth coming from somewhere and enveloping the right side of his body. His ears were buzzing and everything was a blur yet in his sights was a figure he couldn't quite make out entirely. Though distorted, he could still hear a voice calling him.
„Leon! Leon, get up! We have to get out of here!" the words were coming from a woman. The one he met at that gas station, Claire.
With a grunt of pain and help from Claire Leon managed to get back on his feet and soon his senses began to sharpen all at once. He thought it was all a dream, a nightmare he was going to wake up from at any moment, but the pain, the things he was seeing and the girl standing next to him proved that it was all real.
Raccoon City was overrun by the living dead.
One more time Claire shook Leon's shoulder gently, "You know the way to the Police Station?" she said in a breathless voice.
"Yeah, follow me..." the ringing in his ears wasn't even close to going away and he was having trouble standing on his feet but now wasn't the time to be struggling.
Behind them was a blown-up truck currently being engulfed by flames, in from of them was a maze of abandoned and broken-down cars, buses and ambulances, and from both sides a horde of rotting zombies were making their way towards them, intent on having a feast on their flesh.
Claire was the one who fired the first shot, taking one of the approaching flesh eaters down quickly and giving them the opening they need to get through to the alleyway. "Lead the way." She told him and Leon did so, pulling out his own Matilda but not firing off any of his own shots, he only had 3 left.
Dodging and weaving from the zombies grasp the two made their way to the alleyway and continued forward down past some steps, Claire taking another shot with her revolver to clear the way of an approaching zombie, and then up another flight of steps. 'She's being too loose with her bullets' Leon thought. He often had a problem with being too honest and saying what he was always thinking, "How many bullets you have left?" Leon let slip.
"3, you?"
"Same, let's try and keep what we have right now alright?"
"Whatever you say chief." She let out a grin.
If she was trying to say something with that it flew right past Leon's head, how anyone could be grinning at a time like this was beyond him. 'Please God don't let me be stuck with a psychopath right now, I swear if she starts cracking jokes-'.
Before he could finish his train of thought a ray of hope entered Leon's vision, the police station. It was a gothic monstrosity of architecture that was the pride and joy of Raccoon City and even now amongst all this chaos it looked almost unscathed, Leon could understand why people went to this place hoping to be safe.
"We're almost there, come on." He hurried up his pace and Claire followed suite, the two of them moving in tandem while keeping mind of the now hundreds of zombies rising from the ground or climbing over the barricades of vehicles.
"To your left!" Claire shouted and as Leon moved his gaze to where she was pointing he saw a zombie almost wrapping his arms around him. In a fit of instinct Leon remembered his training and dodged around the zombie's grasp in one fluid motion and pushed the zombie from the back causing it to fall over. 'Well at least they're not very nimble'.
The gate wasn't much further ahead when another explosion sounded off in the distance. He didn't know if it was another truck blowing up or something else but the explosion managed to garner enough attention to drive away more than half of the zombies chasing them. He felt bad, someone could have been part of that, maybe it was some other survivors. Before another thought could cross his mind, Claire snapped him out of it. "Leon, come on!" she said behind the opened steel gates of the police station's entrance.
Without saying another word, he followed through the gates and the two of them barred it closed, leaving a trail of shambling zombies behind them. A moment's respite was all it was but Leon and Claire both let out a sigh of relief. They weren't dead yet. "Whew…" Claire started, "For a second there I didn't think we'd make it."
"Yeah." Leon said in a tired voice. "Thank you."
"For what?" she looked at him with a raised brow.
"For not running away. You could have just left me after that crash."
"Why would I do that?" Claire seemed to be genuinely confused at the notion
"Nothing it's just that… forget it."
He almost admitted it out loud but managed to stop himself. In truth Leon had a history of being left behind, he had grown used to it.
After having a moments rest, they walked up to the front doors that lead inside the police station, Leon took the handle of the left door while Claire took the right one. Locked. "Great, what do we do now." Claire said.
"Hang on." It was probably a worthless hope, a gamble, but Leon did it anyway. He began knocking loudly on the door. "HELLO?! ANYBODY IN THERE?!" he shouted. Claire looked at him with disbelief for a moment before sighing and began doing the same, pounding the door even louder.
Just then, at the surprise of them both, they heard noises coming from the inside. "Hey! Hello?!" Claire began shouting louder while Leon put his ear on the door to listen in more closely, signaling his hand for her to quiet down. Once again, noises were coming from the inside but he couldn't make out what it was. It sounded like movement, or perhaps something being moved. A dragging noise, something scrapping on the floor.
"Jesus Christ-…" his eyes shot up as the words came from the inside. There were survivors in there. "Hold on, we're gonna open up the doors but we need to move all the barricades!" someone was shouting, the voice was somewhat familiar but Leon still couldn't make it out clearly.
Despite that the two couldn't help but let out a smile. 'Maybe I'm a psycho as well now' the thought flew through his head for a moment.
As the sounds of probably furniture being pushed around was getting louder and louder Leon turned around and faced the dozen or so zombies still trying to push their way through the gate. The rain was pouring and the moon was half covered by dark clouds. Yet in the darkness of the sky there was still fire that lit up the rotting faces of what once were residents of Raccoon City. He wondered how many of them tried running here and died trying, the hope of salvation making their common-sense null and void.
"Not how you imagined your first day going, huh?" Claire said as she walked up to him and the two stood beside one another, staring towards a now dead city.
"You can say that again."
"Not how you imagined your first da-"
"Ha ha…" he cut her off.
"Sorry. I tend to start babbling whenever I'm scared or nervous… and when I'm angry… and when I'm sad… and when-" this time she cut herself off. "You know I think I just like talking a lot."
Leon let out a chuckle. He couldn't really relate, whenever he felt any sense of strain his own instincts would always tell him to just shut up and focus.
He examined his Matilda that was still in his hands, finger on the trigger. Like he thought before there were only 3 bullets left in the clip out of the 12 he had at the station. Now that his thoughts were coming back, back at that gas station, he couldn't help but think of the policeman whose throat had been ripped out by a zombie, all because he distracted him for a moment. If he had simply reacted first, if he hadn't hesitated, then that man would still be alive. Guilt was something Leon often felt, it had become more and more frequent these past few years, or even this past week.
His thoughts were cut short when the door of the police station opened abruptly. In front of Leon and Claire stood two police officers, one was a light-brown haired man with similarly colored eyes and the other an older man looking like he was in his fifties with short greyed hair and green eyes. Out of the two of them Leon recognized one, "Ford?" he called out.
"Kennedy… Jesus Christ you're alive." The older policeman said as he the two grabbed each other's hand in a shake. "I thought you weren't gonna be coming, thought you might have-…"
"Not yet old man, not yet." Leon then showed his eyes towards his companion. "This is Claire."
"Nice to meet you, glad to see someone managed to live through this." She said.
"Claire… Claire Redfield?" David Ford looked at the girl with caution. "You're Chris' sister?"
"You know my brother?! Is he here, is he safe?" she began looking past the old officer into the main lobby, a vast open space filled with old equipment, barely working lights, half-broken furniture, and a massive statue in the middle.
"Easy now, come on let's get inside and close this off before more of those bastards break through. Marvin's probably got a good answer for you Claire."
As the two entered the police station David closed off the main doors and locked them shut while Leon shook the hand of the other policeman who opened the doors in the first place. "Elliot Edwards" he introduced himself as.
"Leon Kennedy, good to meet you officer."
"David told me all about you. I'd say it's good to finally meet you in the flesh rookie but with our circumstances…"
"Don't worry, feeling's mutual."
As Ford and Edwards lead them to the up the stairs towards the massive statue the formed the center of the main hall Leon took another glance around. Whatever this place was it didn't serve its purpose well enough. All around the ground were bloody footsteps and the walls had been littered with marks and splashes of blood. Whatever supplies could be gathered in terms of food, water, first-aid and ammunition was small to none. 'They weren't prepared for this. Of course they weren't, who could be.'
The statue in the center was a depiction of a woman in a flowing dress holding up a flag raised high in one hand and in the other a shield. Perhaps she was a representation of lady justice, a guardian for those who choose to serve and protect, if so she's completely abandoned this place.
Opposite the statue were two more officers, one of whom Leon could recognize, Marvin Branagh. The lieutenant was sitting on couch gripping his side where blood was splattered across, contrasting his blue uniform with a puddle of dark-scarlet red. Next to him was a woman in the same uniform, her hands coarse with blisters and fingers bloody.
"Marvin, look who we found." David showed him the two wet and tired survivors.
"Kennedy, I'll be damned… thought you weren't gonna show up."
"I was supposed to come here last week sir but they told me to hold back. If I knew I wouldn't have stayed as long as I did. I'm sorry."
"Don't blame yourself, Leon. It was an order from the Chief, not much you could have done." He said through gritting teeth and painful gasps before turning his attention to Claire. "And you are?"
"Claire Redfield." She said as she looked at the man in both fear and pity, trying to not stare at the lieutenants festering wound.
"Right, Chris' little sister." After he said that the lieutenant tried to get on his two feet before both his wound and the officed sitting next to him forced Marvin back down on the seat.
"Sit still you idiot, bad enough you got yourself nearly torn to shreds. Now you're going to bleed out." The female officer treating his wound told the lieutenant.
"Right." He turned his attention back to Leon and Claire. "You two have already been introduced to Elliot and David here. Marvin Branagh, and this here is Rita Phillips." He showed to the brown, short-haired girl currently managing the lieutenant's wound.
"Mr. Branagh, I'm sorry but… my brother, have any of you seen him." Claire cut the introductions short. All the R.P.D. officers took a passing glance at one another, Claire anxiously doing the same, before Marvin finally broke the silence.
"He's supposed to be on vacation in Europe, Paris, I think. We thought you would already know that." Marvin stated flatly.
For a moment Claire looked like she didn't believe him and Leon could guess that she wouldn't be here if she did know about it. Almost forcefully she breathed a sigh of relief, "Alright, that good to hear. Finally, some good news." She smiled.
Silence befell the room as Marvin turned his attention to a notepad in his bloody fingers. "So," Elliot broke the silence, "what do we do now lieutenant?"
"Well if this plan of yours has any value then we might just be in luck." From the coffee table opposite him Marvin put down the notepad and picked up a golden medallion in the shape of a lion. "David, let's try this out." He handed the medallion over to the other officer and David put it inside one of the holes and suddenly the lower half of the station began opening up.
"Well well well…" David said. "Edwards looks like I owe you a drink once we get out of this."
"We're not outta the fires yet." Marvin called back the attention of the two officers. From the looks of it we still got two more of those things to go, one on each side of this building. This building… currently being overrun by goddamn zombies." He grasped onto his wound once more while Rita sighed and pushed the hand aside to continue treating it. It was obvious the wound didn't get treated properly and from what Leon could see Rita knew that, but no one else was paying any mind to it.
"What about us lieutenant? We want to help too." He chimed in.
"I know you can shoot a gun as good as any of us here. Claire, what about you?" Marvin said.
"My brother taught me how to shoot, after two months he told me I was a better shot than he ever will be."
"Then I say you two get yourselves geared up. There's a pair of uniforms over down by the counter as well as some ammo."
The two nodded and after a few minutes both of them were kitted out in the R.P.D. Patrol Division standard riot uniforms. Leon having his body armor on the outside with a dark blue collared shirt and a white, long sleeved one under it along with padding on both his elbows and ankles alongside dark grey patrol trousers and black patrol boots. Claire had been similarly dressed with R.P.D. body armor and paddings along her elbows and kneecaps but she had decided to keep her red jacket and jeans underneath the armor.
"You really like that jacket, don't you?" Leon attempted some form of small talk.
"My brother gave it to me." She said with a smile.
"Well at least you can be sure he's not here, probably having the time of his life in Europe."
"I guess so…" the glimmer in her eyes and the tone of her voice showed Leon what she was really thinking.
"You don't sound so sure."
"No, I'm not…" she finished adjusting her paddings and began loading her gun with handgun cartridges. "It's just isn't like him to disappear like that, without even a word."
"You think something else is going on here?"
"Maybe… I'm just not sure what exactly…"
Leon looked around before moving in closer to Claire. "After we make it out of here, we can look for him Claire, don't worry." He whispered.
"If we get out you mean." She said solemnly, the cocky and grinning attitude from just ten minutes ago fading away.
"We will get out of this, I promise." Leon never heard himself be this confident in something, and yet now he was sounding like a completely different person.
Claire looked him in the eyes, her own sparkling blue irises reflecting his face, and the chipper attitude from earlier was starting to return. "I'll make sure to hold you to that."
