Chapter Two.
Outside, it was still raining. Claire was soaked to the bone in seconds and Anderson thought of offering her his coat. He didn't, but the thought was there. Movement in the graveyard made Anderson turn his head.
The grey, rotting bodies of five men stood up and were covered in muck. Moaning, they turned their dead faces towards him and Claire while beginning their slow stagger. "Ugh," Claire said. "Those poor people."
A path led around the graveyard and back to the prison. They could easily have made it to the prison yard without fighting the infected corpses, but Anderson took a sharp detour into the cemetery, towards the zombies. "One moment," he said.
He threw one bayonet into the forehead of a zombie as he ran forward. Before the creature fell, he yanked the weapon out and sliced the head from the next one using scissoring motion. He gave the headless body a hard kick, sending it into the other three, which he unceremoniously dispatched as they tried to get their rotting bodies back to their feet.
Claire screamed, making Anderson turn. Two of the creatures had gotten around behind him and forced Claire to dart between the graves, heading for the door to the prison yard. He hurled both bayonets, one piercing a zombie between the ears and the other striking the second one's neck; the rain had obscured Anderson's vision and thrown off his aim.
Finding the door locked, Claire turned as the zombie with the bayonet sticking sideways through his windpipe lurched towards her. She sidestepped it and pulled the bayonet out, kicking the zombie in its bloated stomach, rupturing it and sending putrid black guts spilling down its grey thighs. With a disgusted moan, she drove the bayonet through its eye.
Retrieving the first bayonet, Anderson came over to Claire and got the other one from the skull of the last zombie. "I see you don't scare easily," he said.
"I thought I was done with these stupid things after I left Raccoon," she said, looking down at the corpse. A mixture of pity, disgust, and disdain had come over her face. "This is going to get worse, I can just tell."
Anderson certainly hoped so, but didn't voice his opinion. He reached into his coat and pulled out another bayonet. "Take this," he said. "Until you find something else."
Claire took the bayonet and looked it over. "How many do you have?"
He contemplated saying "As many as the Lord gives me," but didn't. She seemed to be somewhat of a godless person, despite the angel depicted on the back of her red vest. She wouldn't understand. "I've got quite a few," he said. "I can spare them."
"Are these bayonets? How come they have a sharp edge? Aren't bayonets supposed to be used for stabbing?"
He sighed. "I modified them, does it matter? Now what about yon door?"
Claire walked over to it and jiggled the handle. It was a large double door made from cheap metal. Anderson stood in front of it, shunting Claire to the side. He drove a bayonet into the lock, destroying it. "I'll go first," he said quietly.
The stink of a dead body made him turn his head to the left. There was the body of a guard lying there, his arms and face chewed to pieces. His gun was still in its holster. As Claire took the gun and began the odious task of searching the mutilated body for spare bullets, the spotlight in the guard tower nearby snapped on and was followed by the tat tat tat of machinegun fire.
He felt the sting of bullets strike his left leg, and moved to get himself in front of Claire, who had already dived behind a crumbling bit of wall. Squinting into the spotlight, he hurled a bayonet into it, shattering it while Claire came around behind and opened fire on the tower.
"Hey, hey!" a voice that sounded like it was being squeezed through a tight gap shouted. "Hold your fire, I surrender."
Anderson recognized the voice and smiled. "Steven," he shouted. "Stop shooting innocent people and come down here."
Footsteps echoed through the yard from Steve's running down the stairs on the other side of the tower. He came around wearing fatigue pants and a denim vest over a black shirt. Around his neck was a tracking collar that some prisoners wore. "Oh man, am I glad to see you," he said, walking up to Anderson and holding his fist out. He dropped it when it became clear Anderson wasn't going to bump knuckles with him. "Who's the chic?"
Anderson frowned along with Claire. "This is Clare. Claire, this is Steven, a prisoner here."
"Ex-prisoner," Steve said. "And it's just Steve. What's with the new duds?"
Anderson looked down at his clothes and blades. He was glad to see Steve was alive, but wasn't happy about having to provide more explanations. "Didn't I tell you? I'm a priest. I found some of my things down near the beach."
"He's a special agent from the Vatican," Claire said, chiming in. "He was sent here to infiltrate the prison and get dirt on Umbrella."
Anderson shot her a look, but decided there was little harm in Steve knowing who he worked for. Both might end up dead by the end of everything and there wouldn't be a problem. He wanted them to live, but if they didn't, then it was the Lord's wish.
Steve looked Anderson up and down, his eyebrow raised. His confused look turned to one of horror when he saw Anderson's leg. "Oh my God, I shot you!"
Eyes narrowing at the Lord's name taken in vain, Anderson shrugged. "Just a scratch." He tapped the bloody hole in his pant's leg with the end of a bayonet; the wound had already closed and the bullet forced out. "That cannon you were using, does it detach?"
Steve, still looking worried over Anderson's leg, looked up at the tower. "Uh, I don't think so. It's too heavy anyway, I don't think I could carry it."
"Here," Anderson said, handing Steve a bayonet and taking another out of his coat. "This should do until you find something else, like Claire here."
Holding up the blade, Steve looked at it skeptically. "Is this a bayonet? Why's it sharp?"
Without answering, Anderson walked across the prison yard, back towards the mess hall. Beyond it was a building where many guards worked and prisoners were sometimes executed. Anderson was curious as to what was inside and didn't feel like answering stupid questions.
Hearing the footsteps of the two young people behind him, he kept his eyes peeled for attacks from the sides as he went through the door. He would have to trust in their own abilities to keep themselves from being attacked from behind.
There was a flimsy mesh door to his right between the prison wall and the mess hall which also doubled as a bunk area. A hard kick to the mesh door broke the padlock, the door to the building he wanted to investigate was on the other side of the mess hall.
He was about to head through the door when he heard something thump on the other side of the wooden wall. Claire and Steve jumped in surprise while Anderson turned, his curiosity peaked.
"I'll be right back," he said. "Wait here."
He went past them, back through the mesh door and down to the other end of the mess hall where the door was. Neither Claire nor Steve protested; Anderson sensed he might be making them a little uncomfortable.
The inside of the mess hall was just what Anderson thought. It was messy before, but had now become an unmitigated disaster. Blood and spilled food were covering the broken furniture and overturned benches. The six rotting prisoners scattered about all turned their grey, peeling faces towards him and approached with their arms raised.
Anderson decided to make quick work of them, what with Claire and Steve left to their own devices. Leaving them might have been foolhardy, but he felt confident they could take care of themselves for five minutes without him around.
There was a whir of bayonets, blood, and violence. It was short, too short, Anderson thought as he made his way into the sleeping quarters where the stench of human rot was thickest. There were many bodies slumped on the beds, those that had been to sick to avoid being eaten.
Towards the back, near the showers, was a dead guard with two machine pistols in holsters by his hips. Anderson picked them up and looked out the window where Steve and Claire were talking in whispers beneath the eaves of the mess hall. He hoped they weren't planning on doing something sinful with one another, but by the looks on their faces it was the last thing on either's mind.
He tapped on the window with the tip of a bayonet which gave them both a scare. Smiling, he broke the glass with the blade. "I found something for you," he said and picked up the two machine pistols. He held them through the opening and was amused when Claire roughly handed Steve her pistol and collected the machine weapons herself.
"Thanks," she said. "Did you have your fun?"
"No," he said. "These rotting vessels are little more than trash, a byproduct. I'm hoping the engineered freaks turn out to be more fun."
"Ha," Claire said, her eyebrow raised. "I'm sure you'll think so when you meet one."
"I'll be right out," he said, deciding not to goad the girl any further.
He was back in the destroyed mess hall when he heard the low growl of an animal and Claire shouting to Steve, telling him to get back. Slowly, he made his way to the door, listening to the sounds of battle.
Shaking his head and chastising himself, he burst through the door and leapt the railing of the porch. He was at the padlocked door when he heard the high pitched death yelp of a dog.
Claire looked quickly to him as he came close. Steve was behind her, his pistol pointing down the corridor made by the mess hall and the prison wall. A dead Doberman lie not ten feet away, patches of its skin were missing and its entrails were hanging out.
"There's more of them," Claire said. "At least two."
"Save your bullets," Anderson said, walking in front of them down the dirt path. He could see where the dogs had chewed holes in the mesh opening beneath the building. A large swath of blood leading from outside in, suggested they had been dragging their meals beneath to eat. "Come out, come out," he said, tapping the wall with a bayonet, wondering what the looks on Steve and Claire's faces were like. "Here, doggie."
Something black and smelling like sour meat bolted out of the hole, past Anderson. He backed up quickly, wanting to keep himself between the animal and his companions. The dog jumped at him only to be skewered by a bayonet though its head.
The other had opted to sneak out, sizing up the situation and crouching near the entrance. Anderson threw the bayonet in his left hand through the dog's skull, pinning it to the ground and killing it.
He listened, hearing only Claire and Steve's breathing. He supposed they had much more to fear than he did after all. "Sounds like that's the last of it," he said, retrieving the blade.
Fear was still on their faces. With their weapons, they could have defeated the dogs themselves and so he knew it was him they were scared of. They probably thought he was a religious fanatic who would kill them for being heathens. While that wasn't completely untrue, he was forced to consider the fact that he might be showing off a little bit too much.
"Thanks," Claire said. "But I'm not sure we absolutely have to exterminate everything on this island."
"Maybe not tonight, no," Anderson said, looking up at the sky, feeling the rain lighten. "But this place will have to be cleansed, lest the disease spread."
"We're on an island," Steve said. "Like, a remote one. This place just needs another good bombing."
Anderson sighed, praying that he found a way off the island soon. He'd send these two on their merry way and then do his work. There was likely more than one way off the island, and even if there wasn't, Maxwell would wonder what was taking so long, eventually, and send someone to pick him up.
"I've changed my mind about you two," he said, and saw their faces turn once again to terror. "We'll make leaving our first priority," he added quickly to calm them. "I have little to fear from this place, but you two don't belong here at all."
"I'm staying," Claire said. "At least until I find something to use against Umbrella. No offense, but you don't seem like the type who makes things public."
Anderson snorted, although Claire had a point. Any info he dug up on Umbrella would be made public in order to attack them above the board. The information would also be used to attack them covertly and with violence.
"Have it your way," Anderson said. "I'll give your pieces their last rites if something happens to you. Follow me then."
He walked past the two of them and opened the door into the other half of the prison. Steve looked as though wanted to say something, but held it.
To be continued…