"And I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal, I'm dying, praying, bleeding and screaming..."
Claire's head rested in her hand against the grate blocking the open window shaking from side to side and rolling her eyes. Ever since Mikey had rigged up the studio, the convoy members had taken turns at what they called Radio Apocalypse. Claire had been against the idea at first, but as Mikey had pointed out, anyone tuning into the emergency channel would still contact them regardless as to whether they played music or droned on about food and supplies.
He had a point, so Claire had agreed, as long as after every song they made the usual broadcast. Now, anyone who wanted to, could book some time in Mikey's van to broadcast to the convoy and any listening survivors. Every vehicle in the 95 person strong convoy had their radio tuned in to break up the monotony of the drive across the USA that Claire led them on in order to keep them alive at the end of the world.
Kmart had booked the afternoon slot and Claire had been subjected to 2 hours of depressing emo music.
The music wound down and Kmart's voice came over the radio. "You're listening to Kmart on Radio Apocalypse, if there are any survivors out there, we offer food and shelter and we take requests!"
Claire rolled her eyes again and laughed quietly.
"OK we have a caller on line one, hi caller you're on the air at Radio Apocalypse."
"Yeah this is Jill, long time listener, first time caller."
"Hi Jill! What can we play for you today?" Kmart's sunny voice replied.
Claire continued laughing as Jill's voice came over both the radio and the walkie talkies. "Oh this should be good." She turned up the volume.
"Yeah I was wondering if you could play 'Something Happy' by anyone else? It's getting fucking depressing Kmart, between you and the scenery I'm losing the will to live here!"
Kmart huffed. "Right, well, we don't seem to have any OLD people music, but this one goes out to Jill Valentine... "He was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious..."
Claire looked in the rear view to see Jill in the army truck behind her grabbing the sides of her head. She was pretty sure she could hear Jill screaming even from there. She picked up the hand held and pressed to talk. "Time to wrap it up K, we're coming up to a gas station in about 20 minutes. Get your ass over here."
Skater Boi finished and Kmart said her goodbyes to the listeners. The convoy slowed down to a stop and she ran up the side of the vehicles, waving at Jill as she passed before Jumping in the front of the Hummer.
"Hi." She greeted Claire as she clicked the belt on.
"You enjoy that?" Claire chuckled at her.
Kmart grinned and turned to the front to keep an eye out as they pulled up to their destination.
Carlos sauntered over to the hummer where Claire was leaning over a map planning the afternoon route out.
"Here we go K, on three..." Jill laughed and both she and Kmart tugged down their shirts at the front to mimic Carlos and his bullet proof vest just as the man himself did the same thing.
"Ha ha, very funny." Carlos said, but smiled at them anyway.
"Why do you wear that thing, I mean when was the last time a zombie shot at you?" Kmart mocked him.
"Those bandits we saw last month had guns."
Jill laughed. "You still didn't need it, they couldn't shoot for shit! Would have been more productive to throw the fucking guns at you and save the ammo."
Claire smirked at the memory of the badly arranged attack on the convoy. The end of the world it seemed brought out the very best and the very worst of humanity.
"All right children, lets get a plan ready." She said as she flattened the well worn map out.
"Is it time to start thinking about heading north yet?" Jill looked where Claire was pointing. "This fucking heat is killing me."
"Having to watch your skinny white ass parading around in next to nothing is killing me." Betty walked up to them sipping from the bottle of water handed out at each break point. "Don't you have any modesty woman? When do we head north?"
Claire kept the convoy in the desert during the winter months as driving in the north while more productive with resources was hellish in the cold.
"2 more weeks, then we'll start for Texas, make our way up the east coast."
"There ya go Betty, 2 more weeks of this fine form to look at. " Jill did a little shimmy in her shorts and cut off t-shirt.
Betty shuddered and tossed the bottle in Jill's direction smiling as the water dripped down the front. "Cool off Valentine."
Jill's mouth opened in a comic state of shock before she took off running after the ambulance driver.
"Whoa, where's the fire?" LJ spun around as Jill ran past. "Yo Carlos, you OK driving this afternoon, I got me a slot on the afternoon radio. He looked over at Claire. "Where next boss lady?"
Claire folded the map up and spoke to LJ. "Three more hours west, then we break for the night."
"All right! I will get you there in listening style." He walked back with Carlos leaving Claire and Kmart to get in the Hummer.
"Listen up people, we are heading west for about three hours, then we stop at remote spot outside a small town for the night. There is a water main on the map, so as soon as the area is cleared, we'll get the showers rigged up." Claire put the hand held down as a chorus of cheers rose up behind them.
"Ugh, worst thing about this desert, no easily available bathing water. I feel sorry for those guys in the bus, it's rank in there within two days." Kmart pulled out a book to read while she waited for LJ to come on the air.
"Better be nice to me then, or I'll make you ride with them." Claire smirked at her.
Kmart looked up in horror. "You wouldn't."
"Yeah bitches! Welcome to Radio Apocalypse, I'll be your host and disc spinner for the afternoon, so sit back and enjoy the ride and some smooth, soulful music. Oh yeah and we have supplies and shit if you can hear us."
Claire dropped her head to the side window again. "I don't know what's worse, your depressing teenage hormone music or LJ. Now I get to listen to three hours of what reminds me of bad seventies porn music."
Sure enough, the bass slap started the intro for LJ's first choice.
The worse thing about the desert, was not the unbearable heat during the day, but the sudden drop in temperature to almost freezing at night. But for now, it was early evening and a steady stream of people had taken their turn in twos and threes to clean up and wash their clothes in the hastily rigged camp showers, a golden find at a camping outlet they stopped off at a year or so past. The last of the convoy had finished bathing and now sat around several large fires eating from various cans handed out by the convoy food team led by Otto.
Claire and Jill had waited until everyone was settled for the evening before heading to the shower facilities.
Claire Redfield had started her convoy quite by accident. She had come flying out of Raccoon City on her bike when people started coming back to life, when the rest of the country followed in its wake, she traded the bike for the safety of the Yellow hummer that was the flagship and picked up a couple of people including the resident computer genius Mikey and the bar tender Otto. Forty survivors later, they came across Kmart living in her namesakes store. Kmart had attached herself to Claire like a limpet and the usually standoffish Claire had taken to the small blonde with equal vehemence much to everyone's surprise and amusement.
Carlos, LJ and Jill turned up looking very worse for wear after the convoy had been traveling for nearly a year. Carlos settled in easily, used to taking orders he quickly became someone Claire could rely on and hand responsibility to. LJ had a way with people that Claire envied, he fast became invaluable for morale. Jill? The first time they met was like throwing gas on a fire. Claire wasn't used to being questioned, again and again and again. Jill was used to taking orders. She was just as used to disregarding them. She kept mostly to herself only really relaxing around LJ and Carlos and Kmart. Carlos has explained that Kmart probably reminded Jill of a a girl called Angie that they had traveled with and that Jill had been close to.
Jill had teased the teen mercilessly as Kmart obviously had a bit of a girl crush on the ass kicking S.T.A.R.S members. And Jill could ass kick with the best of them. As often as Claire had wanted to get into a knock down drag out fight with the annoying brunette, she wasn't entirely sure she would win. As much as she had disliked her, every encounter they had with the undead left no doubt in Claire's mind that she was an asset. A snarky egotistical asset, but an asset none the less.
The turning point had come one day when they were camped out in a forest somewhere, Claire had told Kmart not to wander off but the teen going through her rebellious years had gone outside of the campfires and stumbled across a recently awoken snake. And as teenage girls are want to do, she screamed. She screamed loud enough to wake the dead, the undead and the undecided. Half the camp came running fearing the worst but Jill got there just ahead of Claire and seeing the snake curled up in what she thought was a threatening position, flung herself across Kmart, knocking them both to the ground and keeping the young girl covered for when it bit.
Mikey casually walked over and picked the snake up. He turned around with the large creature and a huge smile. "Relax, it's a rat snake, he wont hurt ya, will you mate. Damn he's a beaut!"
Jill had rolled off Kmart and was now flushing an impressive red. Everyone tried to look away to hide their smiles, mostly from relief that the snake was harmless but also having found the cool, calm and collect Ms Valentine with her ass in their air and her eyes screwed up tight waiting to be savaged.
"Yes thank you Steve fucking Irwin." She stood up and casually dusted herself off before meeting Claire's eyes. "Come on Redfield, get it out of your system." She sighed waiting for the redhead to burst out laughing. She hadn't expected to be grabbed in a full body hug by a terrified Claire.
"Thank you. I don't know what I would have done if she had been bitten."
Jill patted her on the back, somewhat confused. "No problem."
Claire moved away and looked at Kmart with more anger than Kmart had ever seen. "You and I are gonna have words."
Kmart gulped. Jill laughed. And Claire had been the best of friends with Jill ever since.
Jill became Claire's second. It was never explicitly stated, but it was known. And the zombies never stood a chance.
The radio duties had been taken up by a small group the convoy had picked up 6 months ago. An odd and overly religious group that kept mostly to themselves. As they moved toward the shower area, they passed by Mikey's news van where the odd little group was sat around listening to their own broadcast.
"That boy gives me the creeps." Jill whispered as they walked behind the plastic coverall hung between the branches. Claire laughed and started to remove her clothes, blissfully sighing as each piece was removed.
"I think he's harmless, I can't imagine growing up in such a religious community. I would probably have been exorcised by them."
"How come you only let them on the radio at night?"
Claire shrugged out of jeans. "Two reasons, one, I don't wanna have to listen to hymns while I drive, it's hard enough to stay awake as it is. Second, I don't want anyone that might pick up the signal to think I am gonna lead em to the promised land."
"Heh, no shit, you and me both Red. Ugh, I have sand in places I don't want to think about. K, you know the rules, no touching."
Claire shook her head. "You're such an ass. Not if you were the last woman on earth Valentine."
"I'm telling you Claire, all that hostility at first was you trying to get in my pants. If we were in kindergarten, you would totally have been pulling my pigtails."
Claire was busy washing her hair while Jill was shaving her legs with a razor that had seen sharper times. "You lie, you never had pigtails, I bet you were wearing army fatigues when you were 5. You're way more butch than I am. In fact if you don't get a date soon, people are gonna start wondering if you wanna get in my pants."
"In your dreams cupcake. Besides, have you seen what's on offer? I think I'll stick with Bob thank you."
Claire rinsed the soap out of her hair and looked over at Jill. "Bob? We don't have a Bob."
Jill grinned at her. "Battery Operated Boy. Fulfills all my needs and doesn't make me return the favor." She waggled her eyebrows comically.
Claire burst out laughing. "Damn you are disgusting."
They were still laughing when they came out of the shower and headed over to the fire with Carlos, his girlfriend Julia, LJ, Betty, Kmart, Mikey, Otto and Chase.
"What's for dinner?" Claire asked Otto taking the can from him.
"Spaghetti. Could be worse." He shrugged. "I'm looking forward to traveling back north. Get some fresh food. We're down to the last of the tins by the way."
Claire gulped the food down trying not to taste it. "We'll be heading back up in a couple of weeks, we have enough for 3 weeks?"
Otto tilted his head in thought. "I think so, I'll go double check, let you know."
Strangely the animals didn't seem to be affected by the virus. They had seen several infected animals along the way, always dogs. Carlos had a theory that only the animals that Umbrella had directly infected were mutated, the animals that were bitten were usually too small to have anything left to revive. The same seemed to be true for children. A blessing and a curse LJ had said. Small enough they were practically devoured, so at least they didn't have to deal with shooting tiny zombies. They all had enough PTSD without adding to it.
With infection free animals, food wasn't as scarce up north, but in the desert, nothing worth eating could live. The downside to going back north was that the undead population was much higher.
Claire nodded and opened her cigarette box, bringing one out, lighting it and inhaling loudly.
Kmart laughed at her. "You need to be alone with that?"
Claire raised her eyebrows and Kmart predictably blushed.
"Gimme a smoke Redfield." Jill called over.
"Fuck no, I only have 4 left. Where are yours?"
Jill shrugged. "Ran out. All that stressful music I have to listen to. C'mon, gimme."
"Nope. Deal with it."
The group around their fire subtly moved back, the fights between Jill and Claire were legendary, even when they became friends they could still clash, everyone wanted either a good view, or a quick getaway if it was going to kick off again.
"Pleeeeeeease? I'll be your best friend." Jill gave her a sickeningly sweet smile.
"That's it? That's all you got? C'mon, what's it worth to you?" Claire shot her an evil smile.
"I'll let you see me naked."
LJ spat his water through his nose. He started patting his pockets frantically. "I know I got one somewhere."
Claire rolled her eyes. "Forget it, I've seen you naked, I want my money back." She took an exaggerated drag on the cigarette to annoy the brunette.
"I'll let you borrow Bob."
"Who's Bob?" Kmart asked from her seat next to Claire and started patting her on the back as Claire was now choking and glaring but mostly choking at a laughing Jill Valentine.
When she finished choking and had gone back to her usual color, she threw a cigarette at Jill. "That is on the condition you never mention that again."
Jill grabbed the smoke and lit up in triumph. Kmart just shook her head. Adults were weird.
Otto had come back from his wandering with a package under his arm.
"Time we broke out that new stash we found back in that Mexican bar I think."
To a round of murmured agreements, Otto proceeded to roll a few joints to hand around.
As the adults around the fire became more relaxed from the weed, the talk as it usually did changed to happier days and 'no shit' stories.
Alice.
It was always Alice they spoke about.
Almost in whispers as though saying her name might finally summon her to the fire.
Claire always listened to their stories. Jill, LJ and Carlos had met Alice in Raccoon just before the blast took it out. Supposedly she had saved Carlos life when he got bitten, protected LJ from mutated dogs and rescued Jill from a church crawling with undead and some kind of mutated creature with a 6 foot tongue by driving her bike through a stained glass window no less. They all took turns in telling the story of how Alice had fought a titan of a creature before LJ stole an Umbrella helicopter to fly them out of the blast zone. How she was the coolest most badass thing since Lara Croft, how they had broken her out of an Umbrella compound after the helicopter crash, how over a year ago, she had driven off to find more of the anti-virus for a little girl called Angie. Alice they said was not infected with the T-virus, she was the T-virus, she had bonded with it and became a superhero.
Claire had no doubt that it was all tall tales told around a fire to lift the spirits. Hearing about a woman that could blow shit up with the power of her mind while single-handed wiping out a hoard of undead using a pair of swords and some witty comebacks. Who came back from the dead in the same gorgeous body that she left it in. It was too much for Claire to believe, even as stoned as she was.
And the conversation nearly always ended the same way.
"And she would just luurve you Ms Redfield." LJ slurred as Carlos and Jill nodded sagely.
"Oh yeah, pretty sure you wouldn't need Bob if Alice was here." Jill started giggling. It was an odd noise coming from the usually stoic woman.
"Seriously, who's Bob?" Kmart mumbled sleepily next to Claire.
"No one you need to be concerned about. C'mon, bedtime for post apocalyptic teenagers." Claire stood and bid the others goodnight as she maneuvered Kmart to the Hummer.
It was always the same conversation, always ending the same way. Claire couldn't help but think it was quite a kick that a super human like Alice would be interested in Claire.
Even if she wasn't real.
Two weeks later found Claire snoozing at 6am pressed against the side of the window. Kmart looked from her position in the backseat smiling, knowing that when Claire woke up she would have the impression of the window grate against the side of her face. Made all the funnier because no one would tell her, the redheads temper was not something that anyone wanted to provoke.
Anyone other than Jill of course, Jill would spend the morning being really nice and saying things like "Great weather eh Claire." or Kmart's favourite, "Looking great Claire." Each mention of the word great would make Kmart giggle and Jill smirk. It was unusual for Kmart to be awake before Claire so she quietly opened the back door and stepped out to get some air. Scratches behind her made her whirl around where she came face to beak with a large black bird with white eyes. "Oh this can't be good." She jumped back in the truck slamming the door hard enough to wake Claire up.
"Jesus K, I know you can't wake me up with coffee, but really?"
"Claire, I think we have a problem." Kmart whispered as another large bird landed on the hood.
Claire noticed the whites of the bird's eyes and as her gaze turned upwards she saw the hundreds of birds around them, all with the same diseased look. She leaned down slowly to pick up the hand held radio. "Wake up people, we seem to have overstayed our welcome, keep it quiet and try not to panic."
Several calls came back to her alerting her that the convoy drivers were ready to go. "K move it out people, quick and quiet, lets get the fuck out of here." She started the truck and heard the large vehicles including the 2 buses and the tanker start behind her.
As they pulled out onto the main road, the flock of birds took to the sky and started flying aggressively at the moving convoy. Claire kept her calm and reached for the hand held. "Jill pull off and head to the back."
"Roger that Claire."
She watched in the rear view as Jill's army truck with Carlos inside pulled violently to one side and took a wide circle to the rear of the convoy. Turning her head to Kmart she kept her voice steady so as not to make it worse. "You all right there?" Kmart nodded briskly, trying not to make things any worse by panicking. "It's all good K, they cant get in, they'll give up soon." She smiled to put some conviction behind her words. Conviction that she herself didn't feel.
"Claire they are going after the second bus hard and heavy." Carlos voice broke through the radio.
"Shit. Danny, how you holding up there?" She asked the driver of the second bus, an older man that was, ironically, a bus driver before the outbreak of the T-virus.
"Claire they are throwing themselves at the window coverings, like they are testing for weak points. They're starting to buckle Claire, this isn't looking good." He answered back.
Claire could hear the screams of the people in the bus and looking behind her she could see the birds breaking off and swooping down. She looked around desperately for some cover. They had no plan to deal with this, there were no infected birds, they seemed to have the sense to not eat infected flesh. There were hundreds of the crows, too many to pick off with gunfire. As she was trying to come up with a plan, Kmart screamed.
"Claire the bus has come off the road, it's stuck in the sand. Oh God they can't get out."
Claire looked behind her and cursed loudly. She turned the Hummer around and headed back, hoping by the time she reached the bus she would have a plan. There were too many people in there to evacuate, none of the other vehicles had room, even temporarily to hold them.
"Claire the bus is stuck in the sand." Carlos came over the comms.
"I see it, we're heading back. Otto, Mikey, Betty, keep going about a hundred yards, pull up and wait, engines running, we're gonna get the bus out. Chase stay with me, I'm gonna get up on the fire cannon, bring these fuckers down."
"Claire you can't go out there!" Kmart was wide eyed with terror.
"Kmart you stay in the truck, no matter what happens, you stay here and wait for me or Jill, you understand me?"
"Claire, don't, you can't go out there!" Kmart was practically screaming.
"Kmart!" Claire snapped at the teen to get her to focus. "It's going to be OK, you hear me?" She wanted to pull the girl into her and take the time to calm her down, but she was driving around the stationary bus, trying to distract the birds before she had to climb on the tanker in the midst of a killing spree of crows to save her people.
"Send someone else Claire. Please?" Kmart's voice softened as she pleaded for what she knew would be Claire's life.
Claire looked over at Kmart one last time before she jumped out of the Hummer. "Rank hath it's privilege K." She smiled sadly. Before she could get her hand on the door handle, Kmart pointed out of the window.
Jill had brought the army truck up next to the tanker and Carlos was jumping out and heading to the ladder at the rear of the tanker.
"Son of a bitch!" Claire shouted as she jumped out to lay down some cover for him. Praying her hands didn't shake and hit the fucking tanker. Jill had driven the truck to the front of the bus and was hooking up the towing mechanism to get the bus out. Chase climbed out the other side and ran around to stand next to Claire, picking off the crows that came too close to Carlos.
Kmart had her face pressed to the window watching the drama unfold, she screamed, the sound breaking Claire's heart as one of the crows made it through the bullets and went straight for Carlo's exposed skin. He grabbed the creature, throwing it down and stamping on it, but not before the damage was done. Claire watched with sickening dread as the blood ran down the side of his face. He continued on, finally getting to the cannon and letting a blast of flame across the air into the remaining birds. Feathers caught fire easily and as the birds flew around, they inadvertently caught the rest of the flock alight until all that remained was charred flesh and ash. The few remaining creatures took off to avoid the carnage.
The bus was free from the sand, Jill quickly untied the tow lines and dived back into her truck as the freed bus drove off to wait with the others further down the road. Carlos staggered off the tanker and climbed into Jill's waiting vehicle. Chase got back inside and headed off down the road. Claire was the last one out, waiting until all of her people were safe.
She got into the Hummer and hit the gas. Grabbing the hand held she barked out her orders. "Otto, Danny, Mikey, Betty & Chase. Wait for me to drive passed then form up behind me, let's get out of here before they think of coming back. Jill pull up the rear."
Several voices called back in acknowledgment. "Don't spare the horses guys, let's get some distance between us and here." She dropped the radio and pumped the gas pedal that took her off down the road to her other vehicles. Kmart was sobbing next to her but there was no time to deal with it now.
She watched as the vehicles lined up behind her, going much faster than they usually did, using up too much gas was the least of their worries right now. She spent so long looking behind her that she didn't see what was in front of her until Kmart screamed.
"Claire look out!"
Claire looked back just in time to see a body crash into the Hummers windshield. The bike it was attached to clattered across the tarmac, screeching metal clashing with the squealing of Claire's brakes.
As the Hummer came to a stop, Jill pulled up next to her and jumped out, guns ready to go, Carlos as her side, his face a grim picture as the blood continued to roll unchecked down his face. They looked down on the road, Carlos gasped and Jill covered her mouth in shock.
"Alice?" It was LJ's voice that broke the silence.
Alice? Claire looked at the unmoving form on the road. This was Alice? The superhuman zombie death machine Alice? The Alice that had saved Jill and Carlos and LJ? The Alice that was the only one to ever bond with the T-virus and spent her life trying to save the world.
Claire couldn't believe it. Alice was real, she had finally showed up.
And Claire had just killed her.
She dropped her head forward onto the steering wheel with a groan setting the horn blaring.
"What a shitty fucking day."