This story is rated M for language, including violent and sexually graphic language, violence, and gore.
Hey, all you cool cats! Guess who's back with a new spring in her step and fic on her story list? Here's a clue: it ain't Paris Hilton. ;)
So, this isn't...my best work. I'm satisfied with it, I guess, but something about it still irks me-either the prose, or the closeness of the narrator's voice (rather lack thereof), or a combination of both, I'm not sure exactly, but something about it still irks me. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy it despite its flaws; I had fun adding a story to an otherwise unimportant character, and lots and lots of fun writing about Resident Evil's late chief of police. *evil grin*
And now, without further ado...
Brian
Beverly didn't know why, but she was starting to feel…well, uncomfortable around Chief Irons. She had no reason to: he had always been pleasant to both her and Dad, even after losing last year's election to him. The rape accusations against the chief, Dad had assured her, were just that: accusations ("made by manipulative women who had nothing better to do than tarnish a good man's reputation," he had said). Chief Irons had been kind enough to pull her away from all the crowd downstairs, which included Monica and Jessie from the debate club and some of the other kids who'd also fled the Homecoming dance, and taken her to his nice, quiet office where she didn't have to listen to any hysterical crying or people asking her when her father was going to send in the military as if she knew what he was doing. (Truth be told, she didn't even know where he was.) Why, he'd even given her his police jacket (which smelled heavily of Old Spice) to use as a blanket. But still the discomfort crawled up her spine, and spread over her skin like an itch she couldn't scratch.
Trying her best to shake the itchy feeling, she picked up the fresh cup of tea that Chief Irons had just set in front of her and sipped it. It was a little flat but hot, and right now hot was what mattered.
"I hope it's okay," he said, taking a seat across the coffee table. He picked up his own cup of tea. "If you want, I can run down the hall and get some sweetener."
She offered him the most genuine smile she could manage. "No, thank you, Chief Irons."
He returned the smile (which, for some reason, made the discomfort in her skin itch all the more, and she readjusted his oversized police jacket so that it covered her bare shoulders and cleavage). "Please, Beverly, call me Brian," he said.
"Brian," she repeated.
They'd never been on a first-name basis with each other before; it had always Chief Irons and Miss Warren. It felt kind of weird, but it was probably normal for people who were together in this kind of situation to use more intimate terms with each other. At least, that's what she'd always seen on TV.
"How are the people downstairs doing?" she asked.
"They're doing fine. I checked on them while you were sleeping," he said. "They're scared, of course, but who isn't?" He shot her another smile and leaned back in the plush lounge couch, taking a long sip of tea. "I also managed to contact your father."
"You did? Where is he? Is he okay?"
"He's in a camp just outside the sky, and yes, he is perfectly fine. He managed to contact the governor about the situation, and she has agreed to send in the military. It might take twenty-four, forty-eight hours, but everything should be over, said, and done with soon enough." Chief Irons paused for a moment. "He also said to tell you that he's glad you're safe and that you're to wait here with me until they get this mess sorted out." He took another long sip of tea.
Setting her tea down, she nodded. Before she was able to withdraw her hand, he had placed his own on top of hers and gently gripped her wrist.
"You don't have to worry, Beverly. You're safe here with me."
His hand felt big and clammy, like her Homecoming date Mitch's hand had. Mitch Lawson was one of the star players on the soccer team, and she had waited weeks for him to ask her to Homecoming. When Principal Haun had cut the music and requested they all calmly and orderly evacuate to the police station—and then gotten his head sliced off by that thing with the long tongue and giant claws that had jumped through the window behind him—Beverly had run with everyone else out the gym doors without a second thought about Mitch Lawson.
But that's not what made her pull her hand away and stand up; it was the fact that Chief Irons was touching her like Mitch and Jim White and Kenny Boyd and every boyfriend she'd ever had. She crossed her arms, aware again that she was wearing his jacket.
"Is something wrong, Beverly?" she heard Chief Irons say behind her.
"No. I'm just cold," she said, shaking her head.
She kept shaking her head as she focused on looking at what was in front of her, which was one of many bookcases that lined the left and right walls of the office. She kept shaking it because maybe if she did, she could shake the stupid discomfort with Chief Irons—the man who'd given her tea and his jacket, for crying out loud—out of her head. She had just had the scariest moment of her life, but guess what, it's over now, you're safe and sound here with the chief of police—who you and Dad have known for years—so get over it.
"Beverly—" he started again.
"You have a lot of books," she said, keeping her eyes on the shelves of books. Nearly every shelf held a full row of books, except for the handful that held a stuffed animal instead. "You must read a lot."
"I do read a lot, but most of these are cardboard decorations—to make the room look cozier," he added.
Reaching out a hand, she tried to pull out one of the books, the spine of which read A Tale of Two Cities: by Charles Dickens. With it came the rest of the row—a whole row of fake books fused together.
"Those over there, though," he said, "those are real."
She turned and found him pointing at the bookshelf right beside his desk. She crossed the room, passing Chief Irons's twisted head, and paused before the shelf. Most of the books here were crime nonfiction—typical reads for a chief of police. But there, on the middle shelf—
"Taxidermy?" she said, turning to look at him. "You're a taxidermist?"
He chuckled, deep and uneven. "You couldn't tell?"
She glanced around the room at the stuffed animals setting on the shelves: the raccoon on one of the far shelves, the fox seemingly pouncing on a pheasant above the shelf with the fake selection of Dickens novels, and the hawk with its wings spread on a coffee stand behind the desk. "I always figured you bought them, or shot them and had someone stuff them for you."
"I do shoot them—in fact, I have a few hunting trophies back there beside my hawk—but I stuff them myself," he said with pride. "I try to give them poses that are beautiful and natural—pleasing to the eye, but true to the animal."
She crinkled her nose as her eyes fell again on the stuffed hawk, its wings frozen in flight but its talons never leaving the plaque on which it was mounted. "I never thought of taxidermy like that before," she said.
"Like what?"
"Like art."
"Taxidermy is very much an art form, Beverly. Just as a painter must compose his painting, a taxidermist must compose the body. The cuts must be very precise, and the stitches must be very tight or else the body will fall part. And then there's digging out the entrails. You have to be careful not to puncture the skin or break the bones—"
A gunshot cracked, followed by another, and another.
Chief Irons was standing up with his revolver at the ready before she'd even turned to look at him.
"Stay here. I'll check it out," he said, opening the office door. "And don't make a sound."
She'd just turned to look down at her now chilled tea when she heard a click! at the door. She paused a second, then walked across the room and twisted the door knob. It was locked.
Panic started to well up in her, but then she remembered that thing that had gotten Principal Haun (and probably Mitch) and all of those infected people wandering around in the streets like zombies. When she'd first gotten to the police station, she'd heard some of the other people who'd gotten there before she and the other students had saying that the people in the streets were zombies, that they'd contracted some mutated form of rabies from those long-tongued things or been revived by a subterranean radiation leak from one of the Umbrella factories outside of town. They'd also said that once you got it, you were dead, and you were dead quick. She didn't know if any of that was true or not, but she did know that Chief Irons had probably been thinking of the infected people and the monsters—of what they could do to her—if they somehow got in the station while he left her unguarded, and that was why he'd locked the door.
It would have been nice if he'd told he was locking me in, though, she thought.
Since she wasn't thirsty and didn't feel like sitting down again, she decided to wander around the office and see which other fake books Chief Irons had on his shelves. In addition to Charles Dickens were other names that she recognized from English class: T. H. White, James Joyce, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jane Austen (Beverly read one of her books three years ago and liked it), and Jonathan Swift. Below the stuffed raccoon was a fake book by someone named Richard Connell.
She moved to the shelf of real books—the ones about true crime and taxidermy—beside Chief Irons's desk. She started to skim the names on the spines but stopped when she noted one that didn't have a name on it. She pulled it out. It was a small book, about the size of her English-to-French dictionary, and it didn't have a title or author printed anywhere on it. In fact, it didn't have anything printed on it—just a plain, dark red cover. She opened it.
The first page was covered with scratchy handwriting that she recognized as Chief Iron's. (He'd sent her and Dad a Christmas card every year for the last five years.) After studying it a moment, she was able to make out what it said:
April 1, 1995
I'm going to keep this book on one of the bookshelves in my office. That way, they can all see it but won't suspect it because it's right there in the open, and I can take it down to my special place whenever I want! They're all so stupid and ignorant—I'll outfox the whole lot of them!
April 24, 1995
Oh, she (Miranda) was a beauty. Eyes as green as emeralds, hair so red it looked to be on fire, skin as white as the smoothest alabaster….I did so enjoy cutting through it to her insides, which were equally as beautiful. Her exquisite hands looked those of Aphrodite herself, especially after I posed them. I placed them over her head and puckered her lips into a seductive pout, then twisted her hips and spread her legs invitingly (she was a whore, after all)—
Beverly flipped to the next page (November 6, 1995 – Ah, the beautiful brown color of her (Alyson's) skin, like flesh-mahogany—!), then the next page (February 21, 1996 –Her (Cheryl's) hips were too wide, so I did some minor work with the saw —), then the next (July 1, 1996— She (Yoko) was heavily pregnant, so I took that into account when reshaping her stomach—). A sick feeling gripped her stomach like when she'd seen that thing cut off Principal Haun's head, only this one was much, much worse, but she couldn't understand why, because Chief Irons was a nice man who'd always been kind to her and Dad and hadn't raped those women and had taken her to his office and given her tea and his Old Spice-smelling jacket—
September 26, 1998
She (Beverly) is here in my office, sleeping as peacefully as a child under anesthesia. I gave her my jacket, so now whenever I wear it, I will think of her—perhaps even smell traces of her perfume. I'll be sure to wear it when the ship that is Raccoon City finally goes under so that I'll have one last memory to comfort me during my death: that of that bastard Warren's beautiful daughter lying on my worktable, her eyes closed as though in a sleep as peaceful as the one she's in now, her creamy white skin split perfectly down the middle and her insides bloody and exposed like a whore's cunt—
The grating of a key being inserted in the locked door startled her, and she had just enough time to whirl around, her hands grasping the diary behind her, before Chief Irons appeared in the doorway. He was bloody and panting, but grinning.
"One of the people downstairs panicked. He attacked a policeman, took his gun, and started firing. I unfortunately had to take him out," he said.
"Oh," was all Beverly could manage.
"What are you doing over there?" he said, looking from her to the bookshelf.
"I was just looking at your books." (She prayed to God that her voice wasn't shaking as much as she thought it was.) "Your real ones, I mean. I thought about reading one of them while I was up here."
"What's the matter, dear? You look awfully pale and shaken," he asked, still grinning.
"Nothing. I just…feel a little sick, that's all. From everything that's going on."
"Well, I assure you, Beverly," he said as closed the door behind him, "that everything is under control—well, the little mishap downstairs not withstanding—and that you'll be safe in your father's arms soon." He took a seat on the nearest couch. "In fact, I bet that in a few days, we'll both be laughing about this."
She mustered a smile (she hoped it was convincing) as her eyes flitted to the closed door. She had an idea.
"Um, Chief Irons?"
"I told you, Beverly: Brian."
"Brian," she repeated. "Is there a bathroom that I can use?"
"Of course, there's one just down the hall," he said, getting up and going to her before she could even move. "I'll walk you there myself."
He stuck out one bent elbow. Forcing another smile across her face (this one felt a little more convincing, at least), she quietly laid the diary on his desk with one hand while placing her hand on his forearm as steadily as she could. Inside her chest, her heart pounded against her ribcage so loudly that she prayed to God he couldn't hear it. As he led her out the door, she thought she saw his eyes flit to his desk, but when she looked, they were pointed straight ahead again, and his grin was as wide as ever.
They walked down the hall past both the door to his waiting room, which led to both the balcony above the lobby, and the door to the back hall, which led to the small helipad on the roof. At the very end of the hall was a small door that she'd never noticed before.
"Here we are," he said.
"Thank you,"' she said, still smiling, as she pushed open the door and walked into the small, green-tiled bathroom.
The first thing she did as soon as the door closed was to check it for a lock. There wasn't one. She went to the stall farthest from the door, went inside, and closed it. Now she stood in a boxed-in four-by-five area with nowhere to look up but up at the ceiling tiles. It reminded her of those pictures in National Geographic of pigs crammed into those small pig sties while they waited for someone to come along and slaughter them.
Did Mitch feel like this when he saw me run, before that thing got him?
She shook her head. You can't think about him now, Beverly. You have to think about you. You're smart; you got to the police station by yourself, and you can get out of this by yourself. (A mean voice in her head said she'd only gotten to the police station because she'd run in a big group with Monica, Jessie, and a bunch of other people from the dance.) You only have to think of how. You can run through the waiting room to the lobby—there are a bunch of people down there—no, wait, he has a gun, he'd shoot you before you even got through the door, and then he'd just lie and say he was shooting one of those monsters trying to get in. You can go back to the office and ask him to get you something to eat, then look for a gun while he's gone, and then shoot him when he comes back. No, wait—I didn't see a gun in there earlier—there might be one hidden in his desk—but even if I found a gun, he'd shoot me before I could even aim it. Oh, shit, come on, Beverly, think—!
"Beverly?" softly echoed Chief Irons's voice.
She wiped away a tear that slid down her cheek and said as evenly as possible, "Yes?"
"Are you doing okay in there?"
She moved her head sideways so that she could see through the crack between the stall divider and the stall door. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
Leaning against the wall, she wrapped her arms around her body and said, "I'm sure."
"Okay, just checking."
More tears were welling up in her eyes, so she bit down hard on her lip and rolled up her eyes to make them stop. Think, come on, stop being stupid and think—!
The ceiling tiles.
They were movable.
As quietly as she could, she stepped up onto the toilet, then onto the toilet paper dispenser. When her hands could lay flat against one tile, she slid it aside, grabbed the lip of the wall, and pulled herself up into the darkness.
"Beverly?" echoed Chief Irons's voice again.
She quickly lowered herself and answered, "Yes?"
"I have a confession to make. I know that you read my diary."
Her heart stopped.
Oh, shit.
Twisting her hips around, she quickly placed her foot on top of the stall door, threw all of her weight into her arms, and hoisted herself up just as Chief Irons opened the door.
"You bitch!" he screamed.
He ran to the stall, ripped open the door with a loud clang!, and grabbed at her still-dangling feet. He missed, and she jerked them up and started crawling towards the waiting room. She'd gotten maybe four feet when she felt one of his big, clammy hands clamp around her ankle and yank her back towards him.
"I've got you, you bitch!" she heard him laugh.
She rolled onto her side, trying to twist her ankle out of his grip, but he held on and clamped his other hand around it. As he dragged her across the tiles, her fingers brushed a piece of piping, and she wrapped her hands around it and forced herself not to let go, even when he yanked on her so hard that she thought her spine was going to break.
As she looked behind her she saw his laughing face, demon-like in the up-turned shadows.
"Come on, Beverly, be a good little girl for your Uncle Brian and let go," he said.
Gritting her teeth, she drew back her free leg and drove the heel of her shoe into his face as hard as she could. He howled and let go, and she scrambled forward into the pitch black.
She had gotten maybe fifteen feet when the tile she set her knee on collapsed, and the next thing she knew, she was aching and sprawled across the floor of the back hallway, pieces of ceiling tile around her. Clawing her way to her feet, she took off down the hallway to a metal door. She twisted the handle; it wouldn't open. She flipped up the door lock and had just opened the door when behind her came a loud smash! She turned to find Chief Irons standing at the far end of the hallway, his eye swollen. He had his gun raised.
She launched herself outside just as a bullet smacked into the wall beside her and found herself on a balcony with two flights of metal stairs that led down to a small gravel courtyard. She ran down one flight of stairs and was halfway down the last one when a second bullet ricocheted off the platform behind her. As her feet hit the final step, she noticed out of the corner of her eye Chief Irons running down the first flight. Crunching across the gravel courtyard, she reached a door, twisted it open (it was unlocked, thank God), and was almost through it when a pain like someone stabbing her with a white-hot poker shot through her side. She looked down.
There was a hole in her dress, and from that hole seeped blood.
He shot me. He shot me!
About ten feet to her right was the door to the R.P.D. detective office. From inside came shuffling noises, like people scuffing their shoes across the floor.
Police officers!
Forcing herself onto her feet, she limped through the door and laughed when she saw three policemen walking around at the front of the dimly lit room. Another one was just standing off to the side, looking at the books on a bookshelf.
"Oh, thank God you're here!" Beverly said, limping toward him. "Chief Irons is trying to…!"
The man turned around. Even in the dim light, she could make out the milky eyes, the blank stare, the half-rotten greenish skin, the smell of decay, and the blood caked around his mouth.
Oh God, no. Please, no…
He staggered towards her, his mouth hanging open, a soft moan coming out of it—a soft moan of hunger. She took a step back, and another and another, but then he launched himself at her, throwing them both on the floor. She shoved him off her before he could orientate himself enough to attack her. Behind her was a long table that stretched almost the whole length of the room; ducking under it, she started to crawl to the door at the other end of the room, where she knew there was a door that led into a hall that was connected to the lobby.
Gunfire echoed through the room. She looked back and saw that the infected police man who had tried to attack her was now lying in a pool of blood, a bullet hole in one side of his head. Through the table legs, she could make out Chief Irons's pant legs and loafers standing in the doorway through which she had entered.
"I know where you're hiding, Beverly," he said, walking to the bookshelf. Turning, he slowly went around the table to where the infected policeman had tried to attack her. As he closed in on her with each foot step, she noticed red spots on the floor.
My blood! she thought, cupping one hand over her wound.
As quietly as she could, she dragged herself to the end of the table.
"Found you," she heard him say.
He fired off two shots that missed her as she launched herself at the double doors and threw them open. The three infected police officers started after her, but she was already out the door before they could even reach her.
As she ripped open the door to the lobby, she heard Chief Irons yell, "Out of my way, you stupid bastards!" followed by more gunfire. She opened her mouth to scream bloody murder—
The lobby's empty.
She stood there a moment, trying to understand.
The lobby's empty.
The lobby's empty.
But…where's Monica? And Jessie? And the other kids from the dance? What happened to everyone?
In the middle of the room was a large fountain with a statue of a man carrying a water pitcher in the center. Behind the fountain was a receptionist's desk; she limped to desk and looked over the counter.
Nothing.
She limped around the desk to the other side of the room.
Nothing.
She was all alone; no police officers, no detectives, no classmates, no survivors at all—just her, the infected people, and—
Oh, God.
She limped towards the double doors that led to the police office. She didn't have time to think about what it all mean; she just knew that if she didn't get somewhere safe and get there fast, she was dead, and the closest place most likely to have someone who could help her was the police office.
She reached out a hand and twisted the doorknob. It was locked.
Oh shit, why does it have to be locked—?!
"Beverly! Oh, Beverly! Come out, come out, little Beverly!"
She froze.
"Now Beverly," echoed Chief Irons's voice, "we both now you're injured and you're tired and you're weak, and I'll find you no matter where or to whom you try to run, so why don't you make things easier on yourself and give up?"
Twisting slightly, she glanced behind herself to see if there were any drops of blood leading to her (there were a few) and felt an object in the jacket's pocket swing against her side. She reached inside and pulled out a set of keys. The one on top was marked POLICE OFFICE.
Thank you, God!
She guided the key into the keyhole (it was hard because her hand was slippery from the blood) and slowly, slowly, slowly turned it. The lock popped with a silent click! Turning the door knob, she pushed the door open as slowly as she'd turned the key—
One of the hinges squeaked.
Before Chief Irons could even scream her name, she was through the door and twisting the lock back in place.
"Beverly!" she heard him yell on the other side of the door as he pounded on it. "Beverly! Open up, you bitch!"
She whirled around. The room looked like the site of a massacre: furniture knocked around, blood splashed across the floor, dead police officers lying everywhere….In the middle of the room, still mostly intact, were two rows of desks facing each other. In the far corner was an office. She didn't see a door.
Come on, Beverly, think—!
The pounding stopped. Heavy footsteps stomped away from the door. She kept her eyes on it, though, waiting for the footsteps to come back and the pounding to start again, but they didn't.
Pocketing the keys, she pulled back the side of the Old Spice-smelling jacket and looked at the bullet wound. She wasn't a doctor, but it didn't look too bad; the bullet had entered through her side and left. What was bad was the amount of blood she was losing. Already it had soaked the whole side of her dress, staining the white satin dark red—not to mention, she was starting to feel faint (although that might had more to do with nerves than losing blood—God knew her nerves weren't doing too well right now).
She went through the drawer of the nearest desk for some tape and a roll of gauze but found nothing at all—only a letter to some guy named Leon welcoming him to the R.P.D.. At the next desk she found only a spool of Scotch tape.
She was about to check the next desk when she heard footsteps in the lobby.
"Oh Beverly?" came Chief Irons's voice from the other side of the door. "Guess what I found on the member of R.P.D.'s finest who tried to gnaw on your pretty white neck?"
She heard a soft jingling noise.
Keys!
"Unfortunately, they're not labeled, but there are only ten of them, so it shouldn't take long to find the right one," he said. "Let's think of it as a kind of Russian Roulette, shall we?"
Spinning around, she started to lower herself under the desk but stopped; that would be the first place he'd look. She glanced back at the office—that'd be the second place he looked. There was a metal door in the far corner across from the office, but she doubted she could reach it before he got the door unlocked.
Oh God, come on, come on, Beverly—!
On the right side of the doors were a set of pretty big lockers with the body of a dead policeman sitting against it. The locker door next to him was open. She didn't know if she could fit in it, and she didn't care—she threw herself inside and pulled the door shut. The policeman slumped over in front of it.
No sooner had he slumped over did the lock on the door click. Chief Irons appeared, his eyes combing over the floor as he moved forward past the desk at which she'd sat, gun raised. Peeking through the locker door vent, Beverly skimmed the floor for drops of blood; there were a few by the first desk's chair—the one that belonged to Leon or whatever his name was—that were definitely hers, but the rest looked to be from the dead police officers on the floor.
"I know you're in here, Beverly," Chief Irons said as he rounded the set of desks and started coming towards the lockers. "You can't hide from as skilled a hunter as I."
Suddenly, he stopped. He bent down, touched the floor, and held his fingers up to the light. He was rubbing something between his fingers and thumb—fresh blood. Her fresh blood. Standing up, he started again towards the lockers (for a brief second, she thought he was looking at her through the vent) but paused when he noticed something on the adjacent desk. He picked it up; it was the spool of tape that she'd found. He dropped it and ran to the metal door across from the office.
Beverly didn't know how long she stayed inside the locker, waiting for Chief Irons to realize she hadn't gotten away and come bursting back through the door, but it must've been a while, because she started to feel faint. The tight space filled with the scent of Old Spice, making her head ache almost as bad as her side. She removed her hand from her wound (which caused the clotted blood to tear away and the wound to start bleeding again) and pressed one sleeve of Chief Irons's oversized jacket to it.
Chief Irons still hadn't come back. She hadn't heard any gunfire or screaming since he'd been gone; maybe he'd given up on finding her for now.
The faint feeling developed into a dizzy feeling. She was thirsty, hot, cramped, and wanted to sleep so, so badly.
Okay, that's it: I'm going to count to one hundred, and if he still hasn't come back, I'm getting the hell out of this thing.
She got to ninety-seven before she decided that she was close enough and undid the locker door latch. Throwing her weight against the door, she shoved it open, pushing the police offer's body aside with it. As soon as she stepped out, she dropped to her hands and knees. Her heart was pounding, her head was pounding, and her vision blurred so badly that she thought she was going blind.
After a minute of just kneeling there, her vision cleared, and the pounding in her heart and head slowed. She glanced sideways at the body beside her, and then at his gun and radio holsters. They were both empty. Turning around slowly so that she didn't make herself feel fainter than she already did, Beverly crawled beside the row of desks to two more dead police officers. Their radio and gun holsters were empty, too—empty like the lobby, empty like the detective department, the police department, the entire city—
Is this my punishment for leaving everyone? she thought as she laid her head against the cold floor, tears welling in her eyes. She closed them, and the wetness slipped through her eyelids, down her cheek, and pattered against the floor. I shouldn't think like that. I still have Dad. He won't abandon me. He'll help me, I know he will; since Mom died, I'm all he has left—
A weird static noise made her jump. It was faint and crackly, but it sounded like…yes, it was!
A human voice!
Wiping the tears from her cheek, Beverly pushed herself up and followed the voice to the office, where there was someone laying face-up on the floor beside the desk. It was Marvin Branagh, the head of the police department; she recognized him because he'd gone to some of her father's speeches and because he'd dated her chemistry teacher Ms. Court last year. The front of his shirt was torn and blood-soaked as though something had bitten him (she tried not to think about the long-tongued creature), and his eyes were closed.
"Officer Branagh!" she said, crawling to him. "Officer Branagh!"
He didn't respond.
She shook his shoulder. "Officer Branagh!"
He still didn't respond.
She placed one finger between his jaw and neck; it was faint, but she could make out a pulse. "Officer Branagh!" she tried again, shaking his arm. "Please wake up! Please—!"
"Attention, citizens of-City," crackled the same voice from her right. Hooked to Officer Branagh's belt was a small Walkie Talkie. "My name is Carlos...C.S.. We are currently plotting...rescue mission and complete evacuation of Rac...n City. Please report the checkpoint at...ower. If you need assistance, radio us on Chan... I say again: my name is Car..."
Pulling the Walkie Talkie off of his belt, Beverly jabbed the side button and said, "Hello?"
No one answered.
She jabbed the button again. "My name is Beverly Warren. My father is Mayor Michael Warren. I'm at the Raccoon City Police Department. If you can hear this, please send help—someone is after me—please—"
The door at the front of the room creaked.
And then a heavy set of footsteps entered.
Chief Irons.
Heart pounding, head hurting, and hands slick with blood, she forced herself behind Officer's Branagh's desk. There she propped herself up against the wall and bunched the torn, bloody end of her dress around her so that it wouldn't stick out.
And then she waited:
Waited as the footsteps made their way toward the back of the room.
Waited as they paused in the doorway of the office.
And then:
"I told you I'd find you, Beverly," said Chief Irons quietly as he took one, two, three slow steps into the office. "You're a very stupid girl for thinking you could outfox me."
The radio that Beverly had dropped crackled again. "Hello? Hello?" came the voice as it rose into the air high above her head—as Chief Irons picked up the radio. "Say again—there was too much static on the line. I repeat: if anyone's there, please say again, over—"
Crunch.
The radio crashed to the floor, causing springs, screws, and tiny bits of broken plastic to roll under the desk with a soft tink-tink-tink—
There was something under the desk.
A handgun.
"So you know what I'm going to do to you as punishment?" Chief Irons was saying as he started around the desk. "I'm not going to kill you. No, I'm going to keep you alive as long as possible, make you watch and endure every excruciating moment as I—"
Beverly grabbed the gun and raised it as Chief Irons rounded the side of the desk. He stood there a moment, staring at her, his eyes emotionless.
"Don't come any further," she said.
"You're not going to shoot me, Beverly," he said.
She tightened her grip on the gun.
"My father's coming with the military," she said, even though it hurt her head so much to. "You said so yourself. And when they get here, you're going to be really, really sorry."
He stared at her a moment, then threw his head back and barked a long, hardy laugh.
"What's so funny?" she said.
Wiping the tears from his swollen eye with the back of the hand that held the revolver, he said, "I lied."
Her heart stopped (but her brain, oh her brain—!).
"I lied about contacting that rat bastard you call "Father," and about him calling in the military, and about…well, everything, really," he continued with a smile that made her skin crawl and head hurt even more. "The truth is, everyone is dead. They've been dead for three days now. The barricades fell while you were sleeping off the sedative that I put in your tea, and now everyone is either dead or as good as dead, including you, my dear Beverly. Pretty soon, it'll just be me left: the honorable captain who goes down with the ship—the U.S.S. Raccoon City!
"And do you want to know what the funniest part is, Beverly? Your dear father arrived here with armed escorts mere hours before you and your little friends—he came in through the back door so that none of the survivors of his beloved city would see him, of course—snuck past me and the rest of the R.P.D. onto the roof like the miserable weasel he is, and flew the emergency helicopter straight off into the night! Just think: if only he'd waited a few hours, maybe you, his cherished daughter, might have made off with him and survived…but alas, we'll never know, will we?"
He laughed again, and this time his laughter hurt her ears and made her brain spin around and around like egg beater prongs in a bowl of batter. Her vision was beginning to blur, to fade, and her grip on the gun was slipping.
"Now why don't you be a good girl and lower that gun—"
Gritting her teeth, Beverly pulled the trigger.
Click!
She pulled it again and again and again.
The only thing the gun did was go click-click-click, like a busted wind-up clock.
Chief Irons barked another laugh. "I told you: you're not going to shoot me. The clip is missing. You can't shoot anyone if the clip is missing."
He laughed again and continued to laugh as everything around her went black.
xxx
When light finally broke through the black, forcing it to part like storm clouds after a hard rain, the only thing she felt was pain: pain in her side from the bullet wound, pain in her eyes from the glaring light, and pain in her skull from her blood-dry brain trying to work right.
She tried to move—tried to curl her toes and fingers if only so she'd know she was still alive—but couldn't; all she could manage was rolling up her eyes.
Standing over her was a dark shape with glowing red eyes.
She opened her mouth to scream but found her throat too weak and dry to. And then she didn't want to scream, because she realized that the black shape was just the stuffed hawk, with its wings spread for a flight it could never take, mounted on the coffee table behind Chief Irons's desk.
She was back in Chief Irons's office, lying on his desk.
The cold air of the room chilled her skin, made her shake more than she was already shaking.
Just as she was about to force herself upright, she heard Chief Irons's voice—low and husky like a snake's hiss—from the foot of the desk:
"Oh good, you're up," it said. "I'm almost finished setting up downstairs. And then, Beverly, the real fun can begin."
His heavy footsteps turned and disappeared into the wall. Rolling her eyes down, she could make out a narrow space where the wall used to be: a slide-away trap door, it looked like. She thought it looked like. She didn't know—it hurt her head too much to think.
But oh, she could still feel. And thoughts raced inside her head:
This is what happens when you leave everyone: everyone leaves you back, even your own father.
Fresh tears welled up in her eyes.
Mitch, Monica, Jessie…I'm sorry.
A gunshot—from outside, in the hall.
Someone else is still alive!
It hurt—it hurt so, so much—but she forced herself to roll off the desk. She smacked onto the carpeted floor with a loud bang!—one that she was sure Chief Irons had heard—but she couldn't bother with that now. There was someone—someone just outside, someone who could help her!
Digging her bloody fingers into the carpet, she pulled herself towards the door. She opened her mouth to scream, but her throat was too dry, too hurt, to get out much more than a whisper. She tried again and again, and finally, she got out a strangled moan that didn't carry any real sound but was at least an improvement over no sound at all. She opened her mouth to try again, and—!
Thick, clammy fingers gripped her neck, squeezed her throat until she wouldn't breathe, and twisted her onto her back. In the bright light, Chief Irons looked black and shadowy with his two brown eyes gleaming like hellfire.
"Please," she gasped. "Please, Chief Irons."
"I told you, Beverly: my name is Brian," he said.
And with one swift jerk—one last twinge of pain that she barely felt—he snapped her neck.
As she laid there, the vision fading from her eyes, the thoughts in her head disappearing into some unknown darkness, she looked at the hawk that Chief Irons had killed and stuffed.
Forever frozen in flight, no matter how hard it tried—never to escape the grasp of the predator.
xxx
Brian wasted no time in gathering Beverly's body and laying it across his desk. As he gently and expertly positioned her arms by her side, squeezed then softened her face with his thumbs until the expression of shock on her face became an expression of peace, and closed her beautiful, beautiful green eyes, never again to open (well, at least until he found two marbles in his collection that suited them), he thought about the gunshot he'd heard while he was on his way up from his special place. He didn't dare check to see who had fired it now—not when lovely little Beverly lay strewn across his desk like a rag doll—but he would. Just as soon as he was finished, he would.
Speaking of beautiful Beverly, goodness, what a fighter she'd been. He hadn't expected that from her, or anyone with the last name of Warren; besides the fact that he was an out-and-out coward, Michael had been too much of a pathetic, lowly doormat—always letting someone else write his policies, always asking someone else for his or her opinions, always blaming someone else for his mistakes—for him, Brian, to think that his daughter was capable of anything besides looking good and dressing nicely. Perhaps she'd take after her mother (whom, Michael had once told him, lasted six months longer than the doctors had given her).
Well, he wouldn't make that mistake again, no sir. He was Chief Brian Irons, and Chief Brian Irons was entitled to making mistakes just as much as Joe Nobody was, but unlike Joe Nobody or any other member of John Q. Public, Chief Brian Irons learned from his.
Beverly now looked like the peacefully sleeping princess he'd always envisioned her as instead of the disobedient bitch she'd turned out to be. He stood there a moment, gazing down at his work with pride, before turning his attention to the door. He knew he should go hunt down the wrenched gunman before he got too far away, but…he'd have to clear the wreckage in front of his door, and after the long day he'd had, he just wanted to rest in his arm chair for a while—maybe re-read a few of his old diary entries while he awaited the final plunge of Raccoon City into the abyss of hell. If he was lucky, maybe the gunman would clear the wreckage himself and walk right into his office (there was a sign in the hall that showed that this was the Chief of Police's office, and who better to turn to in a city-wide crisis than the Chief of Police?), and he'd get to treat himself to a final dose of fun.
Brian chuckled.
the end.
Thanks mucho for reading and/or reviewing (in this case, I hope you do review so that I can find out what it is about this story that irks me so much), and I hope to see guys next time. Until then, keep it frosty, bros. -Aqua xo