Chapter 8

Panting with both fatigue and terror, Claire slammed the door shut behind her. One of those things had grabbed her, actually grabbed her. She was close enough to see the yellowing teeth coming to take a bite out of her neck. And the stench...it was the worse thing she would ever smell, she was sure of it. Almost overpowering.

And the hands...oh God that feeling...

...cold and wet, both from the pouring rain currently drenching her, and from its own liquefying skin. It felt dead, yet at the same time, strangely alive.

Claire gulped a lungful of cold air. The yard she was in was clear, save for some debris and a few small fires, and devoid of any shambling corpses. She had to make a run for it. She staggered away from the door, slipping slightly on the wet earth. The hell if she'd hang around with only a fucking knife to-

-a searchlight snapped on suddenly, blinding her with a brilliant white light. Claire shut her eyes and raised her hands, grunting in confusion as she tried to make sense of what was happening. Then she heard the gunfire and toppled over out of reflex. She squinted long enough to see a pattering line of bullet holes dancing towards her.

Desperately, she scrabbled back on her hands, trying to get around the corner of an overturned truck that sat near the door to the cemetery from where she just came. The gunfire came inches from clipping her left foot as she huddle behind the hood, her mind running a few seconds too slow to process everything at once. She didn't even realize that someone was shooting at her.

Instead, she looked down, spying an item she had wanted since Paris: a gun. It lay a few inches from a motionless arm trapped beneath the truck. She snatched it up, her body almost automatically running through the routine.

-clip release, mag's loaded, insert, rack it, make sure the safety's off-

She was surprised at how smoothly her hands worked. Gone were the panicky hands that fumbled with the weapon in Raccoon City as the undead drew closer. Now they were experienced, ready to work at a moment's notice.

The gunfire paused suddenly, and Claire saw her chance. She leaned out from cover and looked into the spotlight, then aimed the gun and squeezed the trigger. Her first shot scored, putting out the blinding light permanently. Steadying the gun with her left hand cupped below it, she fired three more rounds into the tower where the light had sat. As soon as the first shot ricocheted off the concrete nest, a male voice yelled out, panicked.

"Ahhh! Wait! Don't shoot!"

Claire refined her aim. Now that the light was gone, she could see the watchtower clearly, sitting on the thick inner wall of the prison. Next to the shattered light was a mounted gun, and past that, two waving arms. She kept them in the sights of the gun, and her finger tight on the trigger, just in case the prick tried to shoot back.

"Who are you?" she called out in a commanding voice.

The frantic, waving arms slowed then ceased their surrender, and Claire could just make out a figure in the gloom and the after effect the spotlight had on her eyes. It paused, then waved to her again. "Wait right there! I'm coming down!"

The figure mantled the ledge, then shimmied down the wall. Claire flipped a mop of her rain soaked bangs off of her forehead, squinting as the figure came into the bad light. Most of the lights were out in the yard, save for the fires that burned around them. It was a young man, probably about the same age of her, perhaps a bit younger. He had a short mess of hair about the same auburn brown as hers. From the number she saw on the back of his jacket when he climbed down, she guessed he was a prisoner, or rather, a former prisoner of the trashed complex. The rest of the uniform was missing, replaced by a pair of worn camouflage fatigues and boots.

Claire leveled her gun at him, carefully watching his movements. He did just try to kill her after all. That didn't automatically make them friends. One wrong move, and he was swiss cheese.

He walked up to her, scratching his head apologetically. "Sorry about that, you kind of snuck up on me." He reached up to brush her gun away. "I thought that-"

"Shut up!" Claire snapped and slapped his hand away with the gun, then took a step around him, leveling the weapon in his face with one hand. "Try anything funny, and I shoot."

The kid raised his hands and took a step back, now against the overturned truck. "Easy, gorgeous," he said in a voice that clearly indicated that he wasn't intimidated. "I said I was sorry. My name's Steve. I was one of the prisoners here. I'm guessing you are too?"

"Yeah," she said warily, gun unwavering.

Steve grinned. "Thought so. I bet you were just transferred, right? Unless Umbrella decided to doll up their female inmates."

What the...is he checking me out?

Claire saw Steve's eyes glance up and down her form. Despite the fact that they were standing in a cold downpour in the middle of a viral outbreak, she recognized that look. She'd never been considered "beautiful" by school standards, since she tended to be a bit of a tomboy, but Chris always said she was a pretty girl, and she had received the looks of a few interested guys.

"So," Steve continued, "What's your name?"

"Claire," she replied tightly, "Claire Redfield."

"Nice. I'll remember that."

Claire finally lowered her gun. She didn't think that he could be any threat to her. He just seemed like the average guy: dosed up on testosterone and a self proclaimed ladies man. In other words, a total idiot. Though, come to think of it, he wasn't all that bad looking. He vaguely looked like one of those pretty boy actors from some popular drama movie. She shook the irrelevant thoughts from her head.

"So, we should try and get out of here," Steve said. "The front gate is locked, and it needs some weird key to open it. I was thinking maybe we could-"

Claire shook her head. "No, there's something I have to do first." She turned and began walking, heading for the first door out of the yard.

"Hey!" Steve called, jogging after her. "Do you think it's a good idea to run off like that? What if more of those things show up?"

Great, the last thing she needed was him to follow her around and discover about Wesker and his organization. She needed to keep far away from Steve. It was uncharacteristically cold of her to just leave him on his own, but he didn't hesitate to try and blow her away, so why should a few virus carriers be a problem? It wasn't like she was just going to let him fend for himself. If she found a way out, she would let him know. But Sherry came first.

"None of your business," she said. "Besides, you'll only slow me down. Just get the hell out of here, and don't let these things bite you. You'll regret it later. Aim for the head."

With that last bit of advice, she pushed through the door and headed deeper into the prison complex.


Damn it, I'm freezing. But at least I'm out of the rain.

Claire hugged her bare arms. The rain hadn't let up, but she finally found a building that wasn't destroyed or full of carriers. She was inside a small office building, close to what had to be the center of the prison. Behind her in the hall, the metal detector stood broken, several bullets through the controls. The hell if she was going to let it disarm her at a time like this.

Past the hall was a small room, filled with complex and expensive looking equipment which she ignored. Through another door she was greeted with a dim, quiet office, almost eerily so compared to what was happening outside. But she found what she was looking for: a working computer. She still didn't have a damn clue as to how to contact Wesker. The best she currently thought of was to raise a ruckus, then hope he would catch wind of it, as well as the location.

Whatever, just make sure you can even use the thing. Don't jump to conclusions headfirst.

She set her gun down next to the keyboard. It took her some time to browse through everything on the computer until she found a messaging system. But then something else caught her eye. It was a list of files, organized by name. She saw "Redfield" among them. Out of curiosity, she opened it, expecting to find information about herself.

"Chris?" she murmured in surprise.

Sure enough, her brother was staring back at her with his matching blue eyes from a picture in the file. She skimmed the details, then cursed aloud. Umbrella was trying to find him. They even knew he was in Europe! The file was loaded with personal information, probably taken from his Air Force records, or his time in S.T.A.R.S.

She clenched her fist tightly. There was no way she was going to let Umbrella get to her brother. She had to warn him...but say what? "Hey bro, Umbrella's about to kill you. How do I know? Well, I was captured while trying to sneak into a lab in Paris, working for the very man who set you up and tried to kill you. That's right: Wesker! Oh, and there's been an outbreak here! Hugs, Claire."

Okay, so I can't be that direct.

Instead, she opened the message system and started typing. Not to him, but to Leon. They had set up a little system to keep in touch, in case something happened. If everything went over smoothly with the government, maybe he'd even have back up. She typed just enough to get her point across:

Leon, I screwed up. Umbrella got to me. I'm okay for now, but there's been a spill at the place I'm being kept. It's Raccoon all over again. Don't worry about me, but FIND CHRIS. Umbrella is trying to locate him-

The door behind her opened, making her jump. She turned around, finding Steve standing in the doorway. He looked equally as soaked as she did.

"Glad to see you're still okay," he said as he shut the door and joined her. "Getting whatever it is you're need to do?"

"Yeah," Claire said, then turned back to the computer.

Steve looked over her shoulder. "Chris Redfield? Is he family or something."

"Yeah," Claire said again, distracted. "My brother."

"Ah, siblings," Steve said without interest, then began to paw through various drawers. "Getting him to come and rescue us?"

Claire paused. Why hadn't she thought of that? It would get Chris out of Europe and ahead of Umbrella. "That's a good idea," she admitted, "But I don't even know where this place is."

Steve dropped a clipboard he had found next to the keyboard. "That's got the coordinates of this place. Tell him to bring the army."

Excited, Claire entered the numbers and added more to the email to Leon. More evidence against Umbrella! If Chris and the others could get their hands on this, Umbrella was so finished! "Thanks Steve! That's a great idea."

To her surprised, he laughed as she sent the mail. "Hey! I was only kidding. I don't think your brother can help us, wherever the hell he is."

Claire straightened from her hunch over the keyboard, a confused anger on her face. "What the hell are you talking about? You don't know him!"

Steve laughed again. "You're right, I don't." He replied, almost nastily, then slammed the filing cabinet he was searching. "But I know family, and they always let you down. I almost feel sorry for getting your hopes up, but then again, it's you're own fault for putting so much trust in someone like that."

Claire bristled. Who the hell did he think he was?! He just dissed both her and Chris in the same breath, then barely acted like he did anything at all. Furious, she shoved him, hard, knocking him back into another cabinet with a bang.

"Fuck you, you little punk!" she yelled in his surprised face, her voice choked with anger. She snatched her gun off the desk and stormed out of the office, tears of anger lining her eyes.

Most of her feelings were aimed at Steve, but soon, she found herself feeling anger towards herself. She didn't see it right away, but it was blatantly obvious. Something had happened to Steve, family related. That was the only way someone could be so bitter towards something like that. And instead of talking about it, she decided to be a bitch and lash out at him.

She wiped her eye with the back of her hand. Screw it, screw it all hard. She just wanted out. She wanted out of this nightmare, she wanted Chris, and she wanted Sherry. But she was trapped on an island, Chris was far beyond her reach, his life in danger, and Sherry was being held by Wesker. And she just bitched out the only other living human she'd encountered.

God, what the hell is wrong with me?

Halfway back to the prison yard, Claire turned back and headed to the office. She wanted to set things right with Steve, but when she arrived, he was gone. Feeling even worse, she trudged back through the rain. The only thing that relieved her misery was a virus carrier that shambled across her path, which she gladly put down with a bullet to the head. But even that only helped a little; all she could feel was pity for the thing that used to be a living breathing human, even if they did work for Umbrella.

When she arrived back to the yard with a heavy heart, she was surprised to see that the large entrance gate was slightly ajar, instead of being sealed shut. She investigated closer, and saw the emblem of a hawk set into the door's latching mechanism. Was this the key that Steve had talked about? If it was, then that meant that he came through here, and she had a way out! The only thing left to do was to catch up to him, straighten the whole thing out, and escape.

About an hour later, she regretted being a bitch to Steve even more.