Chapter 18: Max's Inspiration

" Shit!" Max cursed. He placed his hands on the wall sealing off the carriage's door, cutting off their exit. He tried to push slightly, but he knew it would be useless.

Max now wished that their carriage had hit the wall instead of stopping right in front of it. Bashing down the wall would at least give them the chance to exit through the rubble. Now, they were stuck in the carriage with no further exit from here. Max slammed his fists on the metal walls of the carriage hard, trying to disperse his anger, getting frustrated that he was stuck in a metal box, literarily. He sighed as he sat down to think of what to do next.

" Do you think we can break out of this metal junk?" Kimmy asked, sliding her hands against the walls, which was technically the floor since their train had overturned, trying to feel if there was a crack or anything.

" Damn, this train is under such bad maintenance it can't even fall apart!" Max cried, kicking the walls of the train in frustration, stopping after his toe started to hurt.

" Maybe we can slowly pry it open…somehow…" Iris suggested.

" Well, even if there is a crack, are you expecting us to pry open a thick sheet of metal from its joints. We don't even have enough stuff around here for leverage," Max said staring at the mess around him. Most of the crates have broken up after the train fell over, cracking open and spilling its contents all over the place. Broken pieces of glass and cans of food were strewn all over the place. As if to confirm Max's point, Vanessa started crying.

" Aw, sucks, I didn't mean that…hey, please stop crying," Max said, feeling guilty now. He tried patting Vanessa on her head to calm her down, but it was of no avail. She just continued to cry, if not even louder.

Max put his hands up as he walked off to another part of the train, seeing that his efforts in pacifying Vanessa was of no use. Kimmy and Iris took over the job as Max continued searching for an exit from the train. Thankfully, the lights was still on, giving him enough visibility to look around the place. They were stuck in the train for almost an hour and Max guessed that the sun had already gone down by now. Nightfall was setting all over.

Max walked up to the edge of the carriage and carefully searched the walls. Despite them crashing off course, the train was relatively intact. He pressed his hands against the wall. Nothing seemed out of place. He applied pressure upon the wall. To his surprise, it budge slightly.

He observed the wall slightly. It was not entirely visible, but there was a small crack on the wall. He doubted that he could break open the wall, but he figured he could break open a hole from the crack. But then what? It was not like he could break out from a crack only about 5 inches in diameter. However, a thought did occur to him.

Kimmy watched as Max took out his combat knife and started slamming the blade repeatedly against the metal wall. Max gritted his teeth as he pounded the weak area on the wall over and over again.

Then, it happened. The knife sank into the metal sheet significantly. Max strained his body towards the left, pulling the knife hard. The knife moved along slightly. Max tugged once again. The knife edged itself once more. Max pulled again, but this time, Kimmy held onto his hand and pulled as well.

There was a sharp snap and both of them fell on top of one another, smashing into a couple of broken crates. Max winced, looking at the knife he was holding. The blade had broken from its shaft, rendering it useless. Giving a disgusted grunt, he tossed it aside and checked what he had accomplished.

A small crack had opened up just about enough to put a hand through. Max dug into his pockets and retrieved a grenade. Kimmy's eyes widened in fright.

" Wait, are you going to use that?" she asked, tentatively pointing at the explosive.

" We've got no other alternative out of this place than to blow ourselves out of here," Max explained.

" I must object…" Kimmy started.

" But…"

" Hey, wait, no buts. You are trying to blow us out. I must object to such a dangerous idea!" Kimmy scowled.

Max just flashed a silly grin as he pulled the pin off the grenade. Kimmy watched with her mouth agape as Max slid the explosive out of the small crack he made. " I don't think you would need to object anymore," Max said.

" Why you…"

" Berate me late, girl. It's going to blow soon," Max said, holding her hand tight as he led her to the back of the compartment. Max quickly pushed a few crates to act as a cover as all of them piled behind the crates. Max covered himself over the rest of them, wondering why he was being so protective as he waited for the grenade to explode.

The explosion was rather muffled, in Max's opinion. A bang went out, shaking the train as the shockwaves of the blasts rattled through the structure. The wall covering them from the outside absorbed most of the damage, blowing apart from the immense pressure of the explosion. As the dust settled, Max stood up to see the damage. The grenade had blown a large portion of the wall, leaving a smoking, gaping hole in the middle.

" Freedom!" Max yelled childishly. He scrambled out of the train and looked around. Dusk had settled around Specter Island, the sun now gone beyond the horizon. It was getting dark, and it was unsettling for him to be trapped on an island with zombies in the middle of the night.

As Kimmy, Iris and Vanessa slowly inched out, Max heard a buzz of static being emitted somewhere around him. He then realized he still had his radio. Taking it off his vest, he tried to speak into it.

" Hello, Phoenix, you there? Over," he spoke into the receiver. Nobody replied. He tried again. Same result.

" Gosh, I guess they are stuck somewhere. I just hope they are okay," Max mused, keeping his radio back on his vest.

" We should move along. The tracks are in that direction. We can retrace our steps from there so we might be able to meet them again," Iris pointed out. The damage from a careening train was obvious, looking at the broken signboards and disturbed gravel it had made.

" I think that's a bad idea. The hunters might still be around," Kimmy pointed out. It was a point well taken. Max had one magazine left in his rifle, and at best, he would be able to hold off two hunters at bay only.

" We'll circle around the area. Come on, Iris. I need your help in navigating this place," Max said.

---

" Hey, you alright?"

Phoenix vision came into focus. He was not sure how long he had been unconscious, but he assumed it was not long. He was lying on his back upon the train tracks. Mercury and Rick were looking worriedly over him. Brushing them back, he sat up, only to feel a throbbing pain at the back of his head.

" I'll live..." Phoenix said.

He saw in the distance that the train was on fire, having crashed to the side into a building after he blew it up with his grenade. Mercury, Rick and Dalton, who was approaching them at a distance, seemed to be in one piece. Shaking away his stupor, he got up.

" Where are the others?" Phoenix asked.

" Their train got derailed somewhere behind us. It crashed off course," Rick exclaimed, pointing to where they had originally came from. The carriage containing Max and the others were out of view.

" We should find them," Phoenix replied urgently, gripping his rifle.

" I don't think we can," Dalton sighed.

Phoenix hated the fact that he was right. Zombies were now approaching them, slowly staggering at the new arrivals. They would not be able to search for the rest of them when the zombies were cutting them off.

" We need to find a safe place to stay," Mercury said.

" Any suggestions?" Phoenix asked.

" There is a luxury apartment block nearby. It's pretty secure. It would be safe for us to stay in there for a while, provided we clean out the zombies inside," Rick suggested. The rest of them looked at him apprehensively.

" We don't have much of a choice. Rick, lead the way," Mercury said. Rick nodded and started running off. Dalton quickly followed, but Mercury noticed that Phoenix was not moving. He was looking at the general direction of where the last carriage had been seen.

" Hey, if they are alive, they will make it out. We can't help them now," Mercury said.

Phoenix still stared. Mercury wondered if he had even heard him. The zombies were getting closer now. Getting anxious, Mercury was about to try again when Phoenix spun around and nodded towards him, breaking off into a jog.

-

Rick stepped backwards as Dalton fired his shotgun at the on-coming zombie, neatly blowing its head off its hinges. He deftly spun his gun to the right to decapitate another with another shot. Both zombies still hobbled, moving towards them even without their heads for several steps, before falling down.

" Where next?" Mercury asked as both Phoenix and him caught up with Rick and Dalton.

" Um…down the road, about 7 blocks away," Rick said.

Dalton was already ready to dash off into the direction Rick pointed to when he felt someone grab him roughly by his shoulders. He was about to protest when he felt a strong hand cover his mouth tightly, preventing him from speaking. Both Phoenix and Mercury pulled him back and dropped down behind a large, damaged truck, motioning to Rick to do the same. Dalton wanted to ask what was wrong, but Mercury gave him a cold look, asking him not to speak.

Phoenix raised himself slightly to peek over the truck. Two blocks away, a group of five hunters came walking up the street. They took short, slow steps, as if they were having a stroll, once in a while snarling at one another. They dragged their claws of the floor, making eerie scratching noises as they walked.

" Hunters…" Phoenix said under his breath. Dalton leaned himself upwards to take a look before dropping down again.

" What the fuck are they doing?" Dalton cursed.

Phoenix took a look. The hunters apparently were not leaving. They had taken up position at the adjourning road in front of them, walking around in circles in front of an office block. They had been waiting for almost an hour, but the hunters decided to hang around the place, uninterested in going away. Phoenix had decided that it was prudent to wait instead of moving off, just in case the hunters sensed their presence, but their decision to hang around the block meant that they were stuck here. To make matters worse, night was approaching, and he could barely see the hunters in the dark, not to mention their black hide matched well with the dark sky.

He had tried to contact Max over their radios, but after the jump from the train, he had accidentally switched the frequency of the radio. So, he had to try to fiddle with the frequency knob to try and find the channel that was similar to Max's. He was still trying.

" When hunters can't find anything worthy of… well, 'hunting', they usually stay at one spot and wait for something to come by," Mercury said. At that very moment, a hunter squealed loudly, making loudly, horrible gnashing sounds. Phoenix squinted his eyes in the darkness to see what had excited the hunters. They were converging at a drain, one of them clawing at what looked like a mangled body of a rat.

" Looks like they just kill whatever that moves," Phoenix mused, sliding back down behind the truck.

" Great, this is just great!" Dalton exclaimed, his voice dripping with sarcasm, though he was careful to keep his voice low. " We should have bolted when we had the chance."

" And if we got spotted?" Phoenix questioned.

" We fire at them," he boldly replied.

" Not trying to question your bravery or stupidity, whatever it is, but we don't have enough firepower to take all of them down. If the whole group launches an attack, we are almost as good as dead, unless you have something as powerful as a rocket launcher," Phoenix replied while keeping his ears peel to the noises the hunters were making.

" We've pilfered some grenades from the dead Navy Seals," Dalton suggested after a while.

" These hunters are fast and alert. They'll scatter faster than mice if we throw a grenade at their direction," Phoenix said.

" Anyway, I've been wondering: Why are there such a large number of them here? Umbrella must be doing a hell lot of experiments here. There were roughly seven to eight hunters we fought back there on the train, now five more…" Phoenix said, looking at Mercury.

" There isn't a limit on how many hunters they would like to make," Mercury replied.

No limit, Phoenix thought ruefully.

" Zombies are approaching," Rick whispered loudly.

All of them turned their heads. Right in front of them, a group of zombies were moving towards them. They were trapped. If they fired their weapons, they would alert the hunters. Opting to not use their weapons will leave them vulnerable to the zombies.

Phoenix decided that they had run out of time. They would have to face the hunters head-on. He didn't like the prospect, but it looks like they had no other options. Which was why he was surprised when Mercury asked him to stay low when he spotted him raising his rifle.

" What are you doing? We will need to fight them off before the zombies arrive!" Phoenix said urgently. Mercury raised a finger to his lips, showing Phoenix a sign to ask him to trust his actions.

Phoenix was about to object when he heard a clatter of footsteps. The truck shook suddenly as something climbed on it. Phoenix didn't need to guess what had.

With a horrendous war cry that echoed in the night, several hunters leaped over the truck and lashed out at the zombies, most of them decapitating the zombies with their sharp claws, lobbing the zombie's heads into the air before ripping its body to shreds. All of them watched in horror, and fascination, as the hunters started to kill off the zombies, who were stupidly walking towards their deaths, in a way. The sound of flesh and bone ripping from its joints were nerve-raking, making Dalton's hair stand on its end.

Phoenix stole a quick glance at Mercury. His knowledge in Umbrella's creations was helpful, as he knew the creatures' behaviors and used them to their advantage.

As the hunters continued with their indiscriminate orgy of carnage, they did not realize four dark figures slipping into the darkness, away from all the violence.

---

" Phoenix was here to escort you out of this island?" Max asked.

" Yes. My father planned to escape, after knowing Umbrella's ownership of Strycorps, but he was wary that Umbrella might be watching his back, so he asked Phoenix to escort me out, just in case something unexpected happened," Iris replied. She had spent the last few minutes explaining why Phoenix came to Specter Island. Max raised his eyebrows suspiciously before glancing around the corner to look around for any signs of danger before proceeding. He was clearly not convinced of the explanation, Kimmy could clearly see that.

" You don't seem to believe her," Kimmy said her thoughts.

" Well, I haven't been in contact with him in a long while, but I think I know him better than that. Phoenix would not want to bring himself into such a mess. Okay, the outbreak is just too much of a coincidence. Besides, he is married already, if I'm not mistaken. Why would he risk his ass here for something like this?...Not that I have anything against you, Iris," Max said, waving towards them, signaling that the road was clear.

" He's married? I wonder what kind of woman would want to marry him," Kimmy joked. Max laughed.

He's much closer to Phoenix than what Phoenix was willing to admit, Iris thought. It occurred to her that Max was unaware that Phoenix's wife, and her sister, had passed away, an information Phoenix apparently did not share with Max. Iris wanted to blurt out about it, but thought the better of it. If Phoenix wanted to tell Max, he would. She didn't want Phoenix to get pissed about it, if he even found out. Besides, Max did not look like a person who was good enough to keep a secret.

Max looked behind a wall at a T-junction at a road. Nothing was around. He was about to motion the rest of them forward when something caught his eye. Somewhere down the road, beyond the T-junction, there was a shadow of movement. Something humanoid was walking around. However, it did not looked like a zombie, leaving another answer.

" Max?" Kimmy asked, seeing Max quickly double back, hiding behind the wall that covered them from the road. The nearby house had enough porch lights on to allow Kimmy to see Max's face going white.

" Hunters…" Max whispered. Iris gave a collective gasp.

" How many?" Kimmy asked.

Max stole another look. " Five…I think," Max said.

" What now?" Kimmy asked, leaning back on the wall.

" Well, I don't know. We can't outrun them, not with a kid around. We can't kill them, there is just too many of them. We can slip around them, but they are occupying one of the brightest areas around here. I'd like to avoid dark alleys," Max said.

" Grenades?" Iris suggested.

" I've got a couple, plus one more in my launcher, but it's probably not enough. They'll scatter too fast before the grenades can effectively kill them," Max said. " Anyway, we…we…"

Kimmy and Iris stared at Max, wondering why he was stopping in mid-sentence. He was looking slightly to the right, his jaw hanging slack and his eyes unfocused. Kimmy thought he had spotted something else when he broke into a broad grin.

" Firepower, eh? I think I've just found enough firepower…" he said.

Enough firepower? Didn't you just say that there was not enough? Kimmy wondered, seeing Max's broad grin.

Before he could explain his sudden inspiration, there was a soft crackle in the air. Max immediately grabbed the radio out of his vest and spoke into it.

" Phoenix!"

" You sound alright there. Are the rest of them still with you?" Phoenix's voice crackled over the radio. There was a lot of static, but his voice was audible.

" You worried about Iris?" Max scoffed.

" Don't avoid the question!"

" Yes, they are all alive and well. Where are you?"

" We have arrived at some luxury apartment around here. We are going to take shelter here for the time being. You should meet up with us at once," Phoenix said. It was more of an order.

" I know the place…but it's down that road," Iris said, pointing to the road where the hunters were spotted.

" Iris knows the place. We'll be arriving shortly," Max said.

" Alright, I'll see you soon," Phoenix said, ending the conversation.

" Wait a second, how are we going to get past these hunters?" Kimmy demanded.

" I have an idea," Max said.

" What is it?"

Max looked at the road, hoping the hunters had left. They had not. " Well, it's like this: I'll distract them, by running down the opposite direction there. The hunters will be after my tail. Once they are safely gone, the three of you head in that direction," Max thumbed his finger in the general direction of the road " And run as fast as you can."

" Are you insane, Max? You plan to become a decoy?" Iris gasped.

" I'm not allowing you to do this!" Kimmy said firmly.

" I have a good idea on how to deal with these hunters," Max said, trying to calm the other two ladies down.

" I just think you lack another half a brain to do so," Kimmy replied sternly.

" Why can't you ever trust what I do?" Max shot back.

" Because…"

Kimmy did not get the chance to complete her sentence. Placing both his hands on her shoulders, he leaned forward and pressed his lips on hers to silence her, which was very effective. Iris watched, her jaw dropping open, as Kimmy squirmed slightly under Max's grasp. Kimmy was not sure what she felt. She was ready to pound Max with her fists, raising them already, but she somehow could not. Max broke the kiss, not wanting to linger for too long just in case Kimmy came to her senses and didn't like it one bit. Vanessa just stared at the exchange quietly.

Max immediately tore into the opposite direction, moving as fast as his legs could carry him. Within two seconds, the hunters were alerted to his presence and were now tearing after him. Within several seconds, the hunters had passed the wall where the rest of them were concealed.

" Do you think we can trust him?" Iris asked.

" No…he was shaking as he kissed me…" Kimmy mused, looking worriedly at where Max had ran of to.

Writer's note: In RE3 there was a part where a hunter lobbed off the head of a zombie, so I'm getting an idea that hunters just kill whatever they see, with the exception of themselves.