A/N: Here's chapter 4 and such. I would appreciate if more of the readers reviewed my story. I like it when people do, it gives me some sort of satisfaction. I'll take pretty much any criticism, as long as you're just not telling me I suck throughout the entire review. But anyways, let's get on with the story shall we?


"Sanity is a cozy lie."-Susan Sontag


Chapter 4
A Close Call

Leon could have proclaimed how unfair this was, how complete bullshit all of this was, but he was busy not dying. The only thing that was going through his mind was, 'Ohshitohshitohshit,' over and over again. This was, what one might call, a dire situation. There was a large crowd of infected behind him and Chris, and they had to escape down this dinky ass fire escape.

Chris was a few steps ahead of Leon on the escape. They were making slow time going down, mainly due to the fact that it was only a couple of feet wide on each set of stairs. They often stumbled in their panic, and could hear the group of savages gaining. Leon was expecting the worst to come, and quite soon at this rate. They needed a plan. Leon certainly didn't have one, so everything rested on Chris's shoulders.

"Chris, I hope you have a real good fucking plan!" Screamed Leon. Chris glanced back at Leon, and started to run again while saying, "Well, I thought you would come up with something Mr. Hero, but don't worry. I've come up with a great plan. It's called, 'We need to get the fuck off of here before we do anything else.'" Leon could detect the blatant sarcasm plastered all over that statement, but he still trusted Chris, and was pretty sure that he had something planned. He knew Chris had a way of pulling things out of his ass like that.

They had somewhat increased the distance between themselves and the insane mob of infected. Mainly because the infected were tripping over themselves and trampling each other in the process.

Leon and Chris got off of the fire escape, and that's when Leon noticed the smell. It was a familiar one, and it was also all over his hands. He slowly lifted his hands to his face and sniffed them, he knew it. It was,
"Gasoline?" Leon asked Chris. Chris only grinned at Leon in reply. He then pulled out a lighter, flicked it to produce a bright orange flam, and pressed it against the ladder of the fire escape. The flames quickly spread up the escape, and wrapped themselves around the infected.

They burned like kindling. Leon and Chris could hear the screams of pain and torture spew out of the infected mouths. Some of them jumped over the sides, but in vain. They had either been too engulfed in flames and burned as they fell, or simply died as the hit the ground from severe, life ending injuries.

Either way, they had gotten away from the group, albeit a bit differently from what Leon expected. They were leaving now, away from the burning group of psychos. They could now breathe, and could actually try to formulate some kind of plan.

Chris spoke up after a few minutes. "In case you're wondering, I saw you get attacked by the group after the bomb went off. Instead of chasing you and possibly getting us both killed, I made a sort of plan. Dump gas on that fire escape, and save you in the apartment over. Call me paranoid, but it looks like it saved our asses. Though, it really does blow that it's our people this time. But even so, we had to do what we had to do, right Leon?

Leon hadn't realized this. He froze there on the spot. What had he done? He was killing people at home. Killing those he had once sworn to protect. He had just realized that he couldn't do this.

"I can't keep killing them Chris," Leon said before the images came again. Images of death, bloodshed, and terror. Images of what he had done in Spain. They haunted him once again . They tormented him, filled his head with the sounds of the victims tortured and agonized screams. It tore at Leon, and he was powerless to stop it.

Leon collapsed on to the ground. These voices and images were just too much for him to handle. He was losing the fight to keep his sanity intact. He wanted it to end, he wanted them to finally kill him.

"Leon, what's wrong?" Chris asked in surprise and alarm. He crouched down and tried to pick Leon up off of the ground. It was to no avail though, as Leon just pushed Chris away. "Just back the fuck off Chris," Leon said through clenched teeth. It looked to Chris as he was having a migraine. It was obvious to Chris that he was in pain, but this was no place to have an episode.

"Leon, get a hold of yourself. We don't know if there are more infected coming after us. I know this is hard for you right now, but you have to get over it REAL FUCKING QUICK, okay?"
*Whack* Leon had heard about enough of Chris's bullshit. He hit Chris with all of the strength he could muster, and realized Chris really did have a thick skull. The punch knocked him to his knees, but he was soon up. He gave not an angry or provoking stare, but almost a solemn, pitying one.

"Leon, stop being a bitch," he said. "I'm sorry I offended you or whatever, but we really don't need to be fighting right now. This isn't one of those times when you can throw a fit. There are more pressing issues, and they need to be taken care of now."

Leon still continued to stare at Chris, hints of rage in his eyes, but he soon calmed himself. Chris was right, they didn't need this right now. He was still angry at Chris though, but asked, "Where are we going then?" Chris smiled a little. "I'm glad you asked, " he said, "There's this guy I know, who may be able to trace these calls you've been getting. It's a few miles away though, so we'll have to be careful. How about it?" "Sure," replied Leon. There was nothing else they could do anyways, and that would possibly help gather more info on what the fuck was happening.


They had been walking for about 20 minutes now. Leon didn't know there were so many allies in DC, and was just as surprised to learn that Chris knew most of them. He made a mental note to ask Chris to teach him about all of these allies. "Just a little bit more, and we should be the-" Chris started to say but was quickly cut off. The reason had jumped on him and was currently trying to stab him.

As luck would have it, they had walked by a group of about five infected. They had heard Leon and Chris coming, and had actually lied in wait to ambush Chris and Leon when they came around the corner.

Leon pulled Chris's assailant off of him, and started to kick the infected. At first it was reluctantly that he did this, but he realized that he had to put his life first, and that these people were infected, hungry to kill. Leon was hit from behind by something large. He turned to see a man with a 2x4 swinging back to hit him again. Leon ducked under the swing, and threw the man to the ground. Chris saw this and screamed at Leon, "Stop being a bitch and kill them! There's nothing else you can do!"

Leon was still far too reluctant to kill them ,and it wasn't until one of them stabbed him with a letter opener that he changed his mind. He decided that they weren't going to show him any mercy, and that he would die if he didn't start fighting back. So he grabbed the woman who had stabbed him, and snapped her neck. It gave a sickening crack, and she dropped like a stone.

Chris had now turned the assailant with the knife over, and used his gun to insert a third eye in the man's head, spilling brain matter everywhere. "About time you manned up," said Chris as he sunk another bullet in to an infected. Leon only sighed and used the infected Chris killed's knife to stab another in the brain via eyeball. There was one left now, and it went down with a fight.

It started to strangle Leon, preventing Chris from getting a clear shot. Leon punched this assailant, a rather large woman, in the stomach, but did not cause any visible damage. In fact, it seemed to only anger her. Chris came over and punched the woman in the face. She let go of Leon and reeled back from the blow. Chris took this opportunity to shoot her. The bullet tore the top of the woman's skull off, sending bits of such, along with blood and brain, everywhere. She dropped to the ground, her angry stare piercing Leon like a knife.

Chris looked at Leon and said, "Now, shall we get going?"


They arrived at an apartment unfamiliar to Leon. Chris didn't bother knocking, and just let himself and Leon in. "Hey Jackson!" he screamed, "Get your ass in here!"

Leon was stunned at the sight of the apartment. Television and computer monitors lined the walls. They had access to files from company computers, security camera's from around the city, and what Leon guessed would help him, tracking software from phone companies. In the middle of the room was a central hub, complete with keyboards, sound systems, more monitors, and the most CPU's he'd ever seen. If anyone could help, it was this guy.

"Chris, fucking knock next time." A man was walking in now. A gaunt, small one. He was about five foot seven, had a thick beard, and wore a plain black shirt and blue jeans. He also looked like he had never seen the sun.

"Fuck you," stated Chris. "Leon, this is Ben Jackson. Jackson, this is Leon Kennedy. There, you guys are friends."
"It's a pleasure," Ben, who apparently went by Jackson, said to Leon. "Chris has filled me in with what's going down. Other than what the news is saying, how there're psychotic fucks killing everyone."
"Yeah," replied Leon. " Chris said you could help me find this guy, is that true?"
Jackson laughed. " Is it true? Of course it is! He calls, you keep him on the line long enough, and I find out where he's calling from. Don't worry about setting things up, I get that done quickly."

And right on cue, "Restricted" called again.
Jackson typed something on his computer and said, "Keep him on for about 20 seconds so I can get a reliable reading on his location."
Leon answered, "Yeah?"
"Such a surprise. You're still with use Leon, and Chris too I hope."
"Yeah, he is too."
"Excellent. But just remember Leon, I will have you killed. But before you die, I want it to be my face you see."
Leon was getting a bit worried now, but he tried not to show it. "Why do you want me dead so bad?"
There was silence for a little bit, and Leon had started to wonder if maybe the caller had hung up, but then he spoke again. "You don't deserve to live, not after what you did back in Spain. I'm going to hurt you like you hurt me Leon. There's just no way to get around it."
"Fuck you then. You won't kill me," was Leon's reply.
"Goodbye Leon, We'll talk again soon." The caller hung up after that.

Leon turned to Jackson, "Did you get it?"
"Yeah," Jackson replied, "But I'm a bit confused."
"Why's that?" Chris and Leon replied simultaneously.
"Well, this thing has never been wrong before, but…"
"But what!" Leon screamed.

Jackson looked at him, "It says the call came from the room above us."