SERVE AND PROTECT 3

He dreamt he was back home in New York. Back in his cramp little apartment he got just to move out of his parents place as soon as possible. Everything was just like he left it, the shutters were closed, the food was still in the fridge, his miniature tv laid opposite his bed almost a head too small for him. He remembered his mother always telling him to come back home until he can actually afford something livable. But he wouldn't listen. Why should he? He was a kid fresh out of high school with sweetheart ready to spend the rest of their lives together. What could possibly go wrong?

"Leon…" he heard a voice calling to him.

The apartment soon started to fade away, as did the feeling of home, that feeling of warmth and safety. A tune played in his head, an oasis of calm in the form of a few keys on a piano, a soothing melody of a guitar and a faint whispering in the distance. The small bells rang throughout his ears making his eyes yearn for sleep. A safe haven, a secure place, a moment of relief.

"LEON!" in a jolt his eyes shot up as he awoke from his sleep, sharp pain pulsating through his chest.

David was in front of him, holding onto Leon's shoulders tightly and shaking him. As soon as he was pushed back from his sleep the policeman breathed a sigh of relief. "Good, you're not dead yet…" he said. Leon noticed the old man had acquired some bruises on his face, as well as having his uniform be covered in what Leon assumed to be dirt or dust. Worse still, what wasn't dirty seemed to be covered with blood, still fresh.

"David… you're…" he tried to speak but both the massive headache and the coursing pain in his chest made him stop for a moment.

"Don't worry, this ain't all mine." He always did have a habit of reading Leon's thoughts.

With heavy breaths Leon managed to get back up on his own two feet, leaning on the wall where he woke up to try and steady himself. "Where are we?" Leon's eyes darted around the small, cramped room. A table with three folding chairs, three steel lockers, a single light that would flicker ever so slightly every now and then and a second room judging by the opened door to his left.

"Break room." David said as he sat himself down on one of the folding chairs and planted his gun on the table, unloading it. "I don't know why but the zombies don't try to enter this room, almost like it's off limits to 'em." David looked at the magazine for his Lightning Hawk that he unloaded before jamming it back into the gun.

After he finished looking around his surroundings Leon once again started feeling the pain in his chest, causing him to stagger. Looking down, he finally saw the source of his pain. A bundle of bandages was shoddily covering his torso and left shoulder. "Sorry, I was never really good at First Aid. But hey, at least you're not bleeding anymore." David said.

"How long was I out?" Leon asked.

"Less than 5 minutes probably." David pulled out Leon's Matilda out of his back pouch and tossed it to him, he never even noticed the gun wasn't in his holster. "That nasty gash on your chest is thanks to the Lickers."

Leon raised his brow in confusion, "Lickers? Is that another type of zombie?" after him and Claire managed to escape from the gas station, he spotted a few dogs in the streets leading to Raccoon City. Claire didn't seem to notice, too focused on the burning city in front of them. Those dogs however, something about them wasn't right. Their skin looked tighter as if it was convulsing within itself, there was no light so he couldn't get a better glance at them but Leon could also swear the dogs had missing pieces of flesh.

"Kid, I have no fucking clue what they are. You may not have been able to see them at all, they're fast like that and that wound of yours is proof enough for you to listen to me when I tell you this; If we run into another one of them, do not try and fight them, do not try to run from them, if we see one you follow my lead and be as quiet as possible."

"Quiet? Why?" the words slipped out of his mouth.

"They're blind, having a brain for a head will do that for you. With that blindness comes the benefit of us being able to just walk past them if we're careful enough but if the worst happens you just try get the hell out of there, got that?"

Leon bit his lip for a moment, anything that was so messed up that it had a brain for a head was probably something Leon didn't think would be too threatening. From the way the captain was talking about them however, he didn't know if he could actually take one on. If they were so fast that Leon couldn't even react to them attacking him how was he going to actually shoot them. At the same time though, he didn't like what the captain was implying.

"Am I understood rookie?" he stared at Leon, jumping out of his chair and getting so close Leon could hear him breathing through his nose.

"Yes sir." Leon said reluctantly.

"Good." David calmed down immediately and backed off from Leon's face. "I've been trying to contact the others. Helicopter must have done something to the comms because all I've been getting is static." He sighed.

"So… what do we do now?"

"The only thing we can do; go after that medallion."

Both of them holstered their guns to their sides and picked up their flashlights. "Here" the captain tossed something towards Leon. Catching it, Leon opened his palm to see a small thin barrel extension for his gun, a stabilizer. "That dinky little gun of yours doesn't do much damage against regular zombies, much less the Lickers. The least you can do is focus on your aim a bit more, this'll help with that."

Leon simply nodded and attached the stabilizer to the barrel of his Matilda and took point on the door with David. "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Alright, let's go get our ticket out of here."


Meanwhile…

She slammed the door open with her leg and immediately two zombies noticed her. Off on the other side of the massive bookshelf in the middle of the library was the sounds of meat retching and bones crunching, it was probably another zombie eating another dead officer. The ones off in the distance weren't the problem though, it was the ones in front of her she focused on with her revolver. 'Conserve your shots' she repeated Elliot's words to herself as she moved her sights from the zombie's heads to their ankles. Shot after shot she switched between each of them, filling both pairs of legs with a bullet each and then stunning the closer one with a bullet to the head.

The other zombie tried to grab her, she was a skinny little woman shorter than her, it wasn't too hard to dodge out of the way of the grab. In a fluid motion she reloaded her revolver but not fast enough as the two zombies still had enough strength in their legs for one of them to almost be in her face again. This time she didn't have enough time to dodge and the zombie grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to dig his teeth into her face. Unlike the skinny woman this one was a large and almost barrel shaped man with thick arms, she could barely keep him away when the other zombie joined in from Claire's right side. There was no way for her to try and slip her way out of this, time for plan B.

She thrusted the barrel of her revolver into the left zombie's mouth and let the trigger lose as the thing's brains got blown out from the back of its head. It wasn't much but as the zombie fell over she had just the right amount of breathing room to push back the small one and fire two more bullets, pulverizing one of its legs and making it fall on the floor face first. Mimicking Elliot, she pulled out her knife and stabbed its head as strong as she could.

"Phew…" she breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat off her brow. Miraculously, the zombie on the other side apparently noticed none of that and continued to eat. She preferred it that way though as she had no intention to waste any more bullets. 'I could try and burn them, but I don't know how useful that'll be.' She thought whilst reaching for the handle of her grenade launcher that was still slung over her back. It might have just been her imagination but she could have sworn that she saw a few zombies crossing through the burning truck, completely ablaze, that crashed the car her and Leon were in when they first entered Raccoon City.

If the things felt pain they hid it well, shrugging off shots to the head like it was nothing and continuing to go after their prey after losing limbs even. Fire was painful when it burned you but burning doesn't just make you feel pain, it sears your flesh so she assumed that if anything else the zombies would just be left with so little muscle on their bodies they just couldn't keep going, that was her hope at least.

She wasn't too keen on proving her little theory as the staircases leading up to the second story of the library was right next to her. As she crossed up, she noticed the doorway leading to the main hall's 3rd floor. The only complication would be that the two paths leading to said door were blocked by destroyed floorboards that made holes back onto the first story. One of the holes was too big for her to cross even if she tried to jump, however, the other one pathway was just close enough for her to try and risk it.

Taking a few steps back, Claire took a running start. 'Gym class don't fail me now.' Breaking into a spring she locker her legs down low to gain more mobility and as the hole came closer and closer Claire waited for the exact last moment before pushing herself off the ground into a giant leap.

She made it, barely, and with a few short breaths she continued onwards through the door.

The 3rd floor was almost just a balcony that connected the east and west wing of the police station. The lights were out and for a moment Claire had to adjust her eyes to the darkness as the sound of rain once again started to shower her ears on the roof. Down below however there was still light and from afar she could see Rita and Marvin near the same place they had left them, Elliot wasn't there with them so Claire assumed he was still on his way as the statue still only had one medallion on the contraption below it. As she took a close look though she noticed that Marvin wasn't sitting on his sofa but was lying, gripping the wound in pain as Rita typed something into the portable computer on the table.

"Hey!" she called out to the pair but in reality it was probably Rita who was the only one that heard.

"Claire?" she looked in disbelief, "What are you doing up there? Did you and Elliot get the medallion?"

"We got it, but on the way back we got separated by a helicopter crashing down into the building. Elliot's on his way but I'm gonna try and meet up with David and Leon on the other side." She explained, much to Rita's continuing confusion.

"So that was that noise…" she could hear the girl say in a slightly hushed voice. "Listen, if you find Leon and David tell them to hurry it up, Marvin's looking worse and worse and I don't know how long he's gonna make it. Our radios aren't working so there's no way for us to contact each other."

"You got it!" she gave a thumbs up and grinned a cocky smile to which Rita rolled her eyes, optimism was apparently looked down upon in the R.P.D.

"Just be careful kid, y'hear?" she said with annoyance as Rita continued whatever she was working on with the computer.

She wasted no time getting to the west side door, thankfully there weren't any zombies here so she didn't need to waste any more bullets. The door leading to the west 3rd floor was locked with a switch lock.

The door opened to a dark and dreary storage room with lines of shelfs and boxes piled on top of each other. Dust flowed almost graciously as the door slammed shut behind her and the last bits of light faded from the room. It was time for the flashlight again. Ever so slightly she could hear breathing, it was obviously not a human, she could recognize that noise anywhere at this point. 'Conserve your ammo, conserve your ammo, conserve your ammo…' she kept repeating to herself whilst trying to be as silent as possible, edging closer and closer to the door on the other side that lead to somewhere she hoped didn't have any more zombies, or whatever those 'Licker' things Elliot had described.

One of her footsteps steeped on a floorboard that was feeling extra squeaky that day and she physically flinched. For a moment she felt like Elliot. The zombies almost started hissing as Claire picked up the pace and ran through the door. Quickly she darted her eyes around her surroundings and spotted a wooden chair. Without even thinking she placed the chair in a good enough position to stop the zombies banging on the door, blocking it as effectively as a flimsy wooden chair.

There was no time to rest however as she heard footsteps coming up the stairs behind her. These footsteps weren't the same as the ones zombies usually made however, they were fast and controlled. Could this be one of those things? She didn't want to take the chance and so she pulled out her gun and aimed down her sights. As the footsteps got closer to her she jolted up to the beginning of the stairs and once again aimed her gun forward. To her surprise, as well as relief, it wasn't a Licker. It was Leon and David, the latter of which was holding the maiden medallion in his hands.

"Claire! Thank goodness, I was worried getting worried." Leon said with a big smile.

"I could say the same, our radio's got funky once David started to call us about the chopper. We thought it was a rescue but… I'm just glad you're safe." She almost hugged him but thankfully stopped herself. "Oh, and you too David."

"Yeah, yeah, sorry if I'm the third wheel here."

"What? What do you mean?" Leon looked at the captain in confusion, the same way Rita did with Claire. She couldn't help but giggle a bit.

Her smile soon faded however as she finally noticed the massive wound on Leon's chest that was covered with bloody bandages. "Oh my god what happened?!" she hovered her fingers over where most of the blood was staining the bandages. "Are you okay Leon?! Don't tell me one of those things actually got you?"

The rookie cop waved off her hand like a real war hero and gave her a smile. "Trust me, it feels a hundred times worse than it looks. But I'll live."

"That's good to hear…" she almost sounded like a mouse.

"Alright kiddo's play time is over, we gotta get out of here." He started heading for the door Claire had blocked with a chair.

"Yeah, sorry I think there's not really any way for us to get to the main hall through there." Almost on cue the zombies began pounding on the door again. Elliot would have probably jumped up into the air like a cat but David seemed almost unfazed, in fact he seemed more annoyed than anything.

"Shortcut it is… follow me."

The room they were in had two doors, the one that Claire just went out of and another one to the left side that lead to the rooftop. Once they exited the room she finally breathed in some fresh air but the downside to that was the rain once again started pouring on them.

"Great, now I'm wet again." And she had just dried off. Leon looked at her for a moment before the realization came to her.

"You wanna rephrase that?"

"I've made my choice police boy."

"Less chit chat more movements kiddo's let's go!" David was calling them down from the lower floor he reached using a ladder.

The two shrugged and went along the ladder. Claire was the first to go down after David. Once Leon started to descend the latter however the metal bars began to crack and Claire and David had to dodge out the way for Leon not to fall on them. The grunt of pain coming out of Leon's lungs made her sorry she didn't at least try to catch him, that wound was also probably being a bitch to him.

"You alright?" she leaned to give the squirming Leon her hand. He simply nodded in response and got back to his feet with Claire's help.

"Welp, looks like we ain't going back up there any time soon." David commented as he put his hands on his hips.

"Hopefully we won't have to come back here any time soon." Claire said.

Going past the open rooftop Leon, Claire and David ran at a brisk pace back into the station and went through the upper west hallway. Leon was obviously struggling to keep up the speed as he began limping and placed a hand on his hip. 'Come on Leon, we're gonna make it through this, we're almost there.' She whispered words of comfort to him in her mind but she could never let the words come out her lips.

They finally reached the door the lead to the main hall. It was a locked door, one with the keyholes. "No!" Claire cried out as she pushed and pulled the handle violently. "Rita! Elliot!" she tried calling out to the others whilst banging on the door.

"Step back Redfield." David lightly pushed her out of the way.

"What are you-" Leon tried to speak but was interrupted by a loud gunshot from David's Lighting Hawk.

"Boom." And with that he kicked the door open and ran through to the main hall.

"WE'RE HERE! WE MADE IT!" David shouted as he ran for the railings. Leon had fallen behind though and Claire didn't want to leave his side. She tried to have him put his arm around her but Leon simply smiled through the pain and continued on limping. While her eyes were all on Leon though she turned back to see David had vanished suddenly, his shouting gone to the wind.

As the two approached the railings Claire looked over to the main hall and saw all of her worst fears come to life.

They were dead. Rita, Elliot, Marvin, all of them were dead. "No…" Leon gasped as David was standing amidst the three corpses. It didn't take long for Claire and Leon to join up with David and that was when she saw it all. For the first time since the gas station she began feeling disgust.

Elliot's face was completely pale and his mouth was wide open along with his eyes, both full with fear. His face was not the worst part though, the worst was what he was missing, his entire lower half had been crushed to a gory mess. All the way up to his waist his guts were split between a mush of organs and intestines. His legs were almost half a meter apart from where his upper body was but they didn't fare any better. She never thought legs could bend so much, in so many ways.

Rita's head was completely crushed as her bloodied body lied slumped over next to Marvin. It didn't seem quick though, next to her left foot Claire could spot one of her eyeballs while the other was still attached to what was left of her skull. Her left arm was similarly broken almost worse than Elliot's legs but in the crushed remains of Rita's left palm was a pistol, Marvin's pistol. Her right arm however seemed to be almost completely gone, it wasn't ripped off however, it looked like it was blown up by a grenade.

David looked around in pure dismay as Leon's eyes were fixed on Marvin. In an instant though their horror was snapped away as Marvin began coughing. His only wound was the one Claire and Leon found him with in the beginning.

"Marvin! Marvin oh Jesus Christ what happened?" David ran to the continuously coughing lieutenant, dropping his Lighting Hawk from his hands. As the captain shook him Claire began noticing something, Marvin stopped coughing, and that coughing began to be replaced by moaning. The realization came to her not fast enough though.

"David get b-" she couldn't finish her sentence as the once thought alive lieutenant jumped up at David and sunk his teeth into the captain's neck. The scream of pain made Claire's ears ring as she began panicking and fumbled around with her holster trying to get out her gun.

Leon beat her to the punch though, shooting Marvin square in the head, making his head blow up in chunky bits. He managed to grab David's gun, it something she should have thought of herself.

Claire pushed Marvin's headless corpse off of David who looked forward in the distance as if his entire world had come crashing down. She tried to push the captain back on his feet but to no avail. Eventually David got himself up by himself and sat down on the same sofa Claire saw Rita and Marvin sitting not even an hour ago.

Silence befell the main hall as no one knew what to say. She looked at Elliot's horrified face and remembered what he had said to her. 'You were right, I wasn't ready for this.' The zombies she could handle, they were already dead, she didn't know them. But these people, she knew their names, Elliot gave her the speed loader, she wore the same armor as them and though less of the detective for flinching at the same thing she couldn't do right now.

"David," Leon cut the silence, "give me the medallion, let's get out of here." His eyes were nothing like a minute ago. There wasn't anything of the goody two-shoes she saw in those eyes when he smiled at her. The only thing left was the same fire she saw in her brother.

The captain remained empty looking and didn't respond. His skin was beginning to pale as his hand tried to cover up the bite mark slowly dripping blood on his blue-collared shirt. Either out of frustration or desperation Leon wrenched the medallion free from David's other hand and limped towards the statue, placing it inside one of the two remaining sockets. As he did so the statue's lower bust started to open up again, revealing another layer to the secret entrance.

"Get me the other one will you Claire?" he pointed towards Elliot's upper body that had the unicorn medallion next to it. Claire did so, she made an attempt to keep herself as far away from Elliot's face so she didn't have to look at him again. Tossing it to Leon he placed the final medallion into its socket and the entrance fully revealed itself.

It would have been a time for celebration, they did it, they managed to survive. But they didn't. Claire and Leon managed to survive, if even that. Marvin was a zombie, now a corpse, Elliot was torn in half with his legs twisted like they were stuck on a wheel, and Rita stopped resembling anything of what Claire could remember her as. And David… he was as good as dead, but Leon seemingly didn't care.

"Come on." He limped over to David and reached out his hand with a stern face.

"No…"

"I'm not leaving you here."

"Then I failed your parents. I failed all of the people in this city. I failed everyone in this station. I failed you."

"You didn't fail David. Come on, let's get out of here." Tears started swelling in his eyes as the rookie's stern face started to break away.

"Just go Leon…" his voice was nothing but hushed whispers.

"Give me your hand David. Don't-"

"THAT IS AN ORDER ROOKIE!" his scream filled the entire hall as blood gushed violently out of his wound and the captain jumped up from this sofa.

Leon didn't even budge. He stood as still as the statue behind him before Claire put a hand on his shoulder. She didn't say anything, words couldn't express how she felt, and nothing she said would convince him to move. She and David glanced at each other for a moment, and she understood.

Her hand moved from his shoulder to having a firm grip on Leon's hand as she began pushing him towards the entrance below the statue. All the while Leon never broke eye-contact with David and yet Claire continued to guide him below. Without words she opened up the gate and as the two entered she turned back to take one last look at David who was taking Marvin's gun away from Rita's palm.

"Take care of yourselves, you hear?" those were the last words Claire heard from David before the entrance completely closed itself off and her and Leon were left by themselves in the darkness.

Even though it was pitch black, Claire could see Leon's reached out hand fall limply. "I guess it's only us now."