Bruce inhaled
the air outside, and coughed, regretting it. The stench was terrible.
They were finally outside of the hospital, ready to forget what had
happened. However, it would not leave him, like the nightmares he
had. They came back to him, and suddenly he felt the pain.
He
remembered the beggings of his mother, the angry echoing of his
father"s voice, the tears that had ran down his face.
"Are
you okay?"
He snapped back to attention, and saw Misty
looking at him with concern, her hand on his shoulder. He smiled at
her, masking his fear of the memories.
"I"m fine,"
he whispered comfortingly. "Just glad to be out of
there."
"Yeah, me too," she sighed, kicking an
empty can of cola. "Still, where do you think she went? That
woman?"
He shrugged. "I don"t know, nor do I care.
I just want to find Baker and get out of here."
Misty nodded
in agreement, and the two started walking down the street carefully.
During their walk, he told her about what had happened in the
hospital, about Dr Oldring and what he heard from the cultists, and
in return she told him about the Hunter creature she had witnessed,
the dying woman and the spider. Both listened to each other"s
tales, and they started discussing about their lives before this. He
told her about his job and the reports he had done, and she told him
about her studies in college, and funny stories about her father
fishing.
It seemed like a matter of minutes, and she pointed her
finger at a giant building. The building was massive, with dark brown
bricks and about two floors. The entrance was a pair of red double
doors, and around the walls were small windows that were barred
up.
"This is it," she said happily. "We made it,
and with little encounters."
Bruce grinned. She was right.
Perhaps the creatures were dying already. He doubted it, but there
was a chance.
They sprinted for the doors, feeling more hopeful
about their survival. They reached the doors, and with triumphance,
he pulled the doors open, and frowned.
Three zombies in police
uniform turned around, and cried hungrily at him. They started
fumbling towards him, one falling over the dead body of a muscular
man wearing a ripped shirt and black shorts.
"I knew it was
too good to be true," he muttered to himself, and heard the
gunfire coming from Misty, one of the zombies slumping to the ground
at a head shot. She kept firing until the three were down, and the
two of them walked in, closing the doors behind them.
The room
which was the entrance was huge, the floors red marble. The room had
four doors, and the only other objects in the room were used bullets,
a desk covered in papers, a typewriter which had been in use before
being abandoned, and chewed up dead bodies.
Misty started walking
towards the closest door.
"Wait," Bruce said abruptly,
grabbing her arm gently. "What are you doing?"
She
turned to face him, and pulled her arm away. "That is the office
of Chief Elena Mets. If she is alive, she will be in here."
"She
could be one of those zombies and still be in there," Bruce
reasoned. "We can"t just go wandering around on our
own."
Misty stared at him, and he wished he had kept his
mouth shut. "Look, I appreciate your help and everything, I do.
But you must realise I have been surviving here for a while. I can
handle myself. If it makes you happy, we choose two doors each. We
explore them, and meet back here. I plan to check the office and the
cells. I suggest you look into those two doors: the armory and the
offices."
Bruce nodded without resistance. He didn"t
like the idea, but she was right. It hurt him to think it, but Misty
seemed more in control than he did most of the time.
"Okay,"
he said, raising his arms insubmission. "But if you don"t
return, I"ll come looking for you."
Smiling, Misty held
out her hand. "It"s adeal."
Bruce shook it.
"Deal."
Mayor Barry Wilkins whistled a song as he
shot down one of those zombies. He knew Umbrella had been up to
something, but he never guessed that it had been Viral Warfare. Now,
it seemed Umbrella found out about his curiosity and let loose the
beasts they had created to hunt him down.
It didn"t matter
now, he didn"t need to warn the people about Umbrella as most
were either dead or infected. Those he had seen alive had tried
killing him, blaming him for it all. It had been a terrible week, and
still he had heard gunshots around the precinct. Officers and
vigilante survivors were still around, but most were not cooperative.
The only man who had played nice had been Officer Roger Ryman, and he
had left the precinct to help out two other officers in the street.
Whether the man was dead or not was a mystery to him.
Barry
checked the handgun he had found. Only two bullets left. Cursing
Umbrella, he kicked the corpse of the freshly put down zombie. Things
were bad enough with the zombies and monsters, but there had been
reports of men with swords running about, killing or stealing people.
He had been worried about meeting these men, hoping they would be
wiped out along with Umbrella"s scientists.
Barry had
planned to run to the hospital, if not for what Ryman had told him
about people not coming out alive. At first, he had considered that
the people had found a saferoom and had hid there. However, that
hospital was also the area Umbrella had hidden their monsters, and he
had doubted his first thought instantly.
A gunshot echoed again,
coming from the main entrance. More joined it, and soon they stopped.
No screams.
"Survivors," Barry gasped with joy.
He
was about to run to the main entrance when he remembered what Ryman
had told him.
"Don"t run to any gunshots," Ryman
had told him. "Right now, people are shooting first and asking
questions later."
The very quote stopped him, and at that,
Barry sat down at a mahogany desk with a computer on it.
"Quick
rest, then I"ll-"
Before he could continue, he fell
asleep, hoping he would be alive when he would wake up.
