Author's Notes: Okay, so this was initially meant to be the final chapter, but it turns out that I had a lot more to cover than I'd thought. So there will indeed be one last chapter to follow this one – the final battle. This entire chapter is my take on the Desperate Times scenario in Resident Evil: Outbreak File 2, which does in fact, take place on September 29th, just hours before the beginning of Resident Evil 2. This is confirmed when you finish the scenario playing as Kevin, where you will see a police cruiser drive by the van the survivors escape in, in the opposite direction towards the precinct. It is hinted that Leon and Claire are inside the cruiser. We also see Marvin, injured from the final battle, enter the room we find him inside, in Resident Evil 2. He's holding his side in pain from the zombie fight – the same fight that will serve as the final battle for this story.

Spoiler Alert: For those of you who haven't yet played the Desperate Times scenario in Resident Evil: Outbreak File 2, this is a warning. This chapter contains major spoilers for this scenario including the objective, and plate locations, cut scenes … everything. There, now you can't say I didn't warn you.

Now, on with the show.

XXXXX

September 29th, 1998

Evening

The number of survivors holed up in the Raccoon City police station had dwindled to just a few remaining people. Tony the dog keeper was still alive, left to consider his fate in the first floor waiting room – the very same room where I had encountered Jake for the first time. I hope he didn't notice the hole in the ceiling I had caused when I decided to raid the evidence room for some possible weapons. There was probably more on his mind than the damage done to the property anyway, like his life or the fragility of it, for instance. I felt sorry for the bigger-built dog keeper, who had shown his passion for those animals as he tended to their every need down in the kennels. And how did they repay him now? By threatening to tear him limb from limb, of course. Such was the nature of whatever they were infected with – the strange disease killing anything alive and reanimating them as creatures that fed on living flesh. I'd watched horror movies before, and we seriously felt like we were in one. The only difference is everyone was a main character, and in this story, nobody was discriminated against. The threat was all the same regardless of our positions in this twisted tale, how old we were, or our intelligence level.

Tony had started acting up while we were discussing any possible routes out of the precinct, and sort of condemned himself to isolation as a result. Rita and I were happy to oblige, leaving him there in the waiting room where he stood in a corner like some kind of statue, thinking about God knows what. Rita was busy typing away on the computer in the main hall at my work station, surfing the station's archives for a complete map of the station. The building served as an art museum in the late 1800's and there was a likely possibility of some tunnels sealed up when it had been converted into a police station.

There was only one computer terminal on that huge oak desk and I decided to make myself useful by reloading whatever few bullets were left into the firearms before me. We'd spent an hour like that, me stuffing the individual bullets into the magazines, sliding them into the firearms (and mind you, I was getting quite good at it), while Rita scoured the system's archives. Neither of us said a word to each other for a long time. She was busy paying attention to every little bit of detail that met her intense gaze through the liquid crystal display screen, while I stared off into space as my body performed the repetitive task of reloading. And then the main door opened.

Rita and I jumped to our feet at the sudden motion. I swiped a handgun from the table and tossed it to Rita who snatched it expertly out of the air with one hand. With my free hand, I had a shotgun aimed at the intruders, holding it like Cranky did along one arm like some kind of gun toting killer. If one didn't know any better, one would have gotten the impression that we had years of assassinations and gun fights under our belts. I suppose in a situation like this, you had to either learn to shoot real fast, or die. Maybe that was why we were still alive.

"You guys sure look happy to see me," the familiar face noted sarcastically upon entering the main hall, seeing the look of anticipation in our expressions. He casually brushed a lock of brown hair away from his eyes and upon seeing the fear in our faces dissolve upon recognition, spread his arms out to greet us.

"Kevin!" Rita cried, the relief apparent in her tone and the way she tore herself away from the computer.

"Officer Ryman!" I said happily, dropping the gun and running full speed towards him.

Rita crashed into his arms, wrapping hers around his neck, throwing him off balance. As Officer Kevin Ryman fought to regain it, I threw myself at the both of them, taking all three of us to the cold marble floor.

"Whoa, whoa!" Kevin cried through fits of relieved laughter, with the both of us on top of him. "I'm happy to see you guys too, but this is a bit much, don't you think?"

"Don't ever fucking do that to us again!" Rita said, punching him on his armored chest piece. "God, Kevin, we assumed you were dead!"

"I could just as easily be," Kevin replied, getting back to his feet. "You have no idea what I've gone through the last couple of days just trying to escape this damned town." Kevin extended a hand to me and pulled me to my feet. "I expected you to be out of here by now," he said to me, his tone bordering on a scolding. "When I last spoke to you, you said you were planning on leaving town that night."

"That was the same night all of this went out of control," I replied, "the same night you went missing. I don't think I need to tell you why I never made it."

"What's important," Rita interrupted, "is that we're all alive and well. Really, Kevin, I'm so glad to know you're okay."

"And it looks like you brought some friends with you," I added, noticing the group of seven fellow survivors that Kevin had most likely protected during their mad tour of a zombie infested Raccoon City. A quick glance and I knew this was one of the most diverse groups I'd ever seen. Among them was a sweet blonde waitress, a young oriental student, a hard edged blonde woman in a maroon suit, a gruff security dark, a mechanic of sorts with a dark gaze, a cultured uptown middle-aged businessman and a loud ghetto boy.

Kevin turned to face the group and smiled nervously, rubbing the back of his head. "These are my co-workers," he said, motioning to me and Rita. "Rita Wilcox, and Kenneth Feng."

"I'm sure the state government would be pleased to hear about you hiring a ten year old," the suited woman noted, looking at me curiously. She seemed to be questioning the fact that it was legal to be letting me work.

"I'm fifteen," I added defensively.

She straightened in surprise, but decided not to pursue the matter. "Never mind Alyssa," Kevin whispered to me, "she's one of those crazy reporter types – doesn't know how to talk to people without getting under their skin."

"Alyssa Ashcroft?" I asked, looking at her. Her face beamed with a smile at me recollection of her name.

"The one and only," she replied. "I see you've heard of me?"

"You're the journalist who found that photograph of the zombie on one of Raccoon's earlier victims," I said.

"Well," she began as she tossed a lock of hair behind an ear, bathing in the credit I was giving her, "I wanted to publish the story, but the Chief of police had it confiscated from me on the grounds that it would cause an uproar – and who the hell cares, I mean, Raccoon's citizens deserve to know the truth, right? - and for other 'unknown' reasons and sometimes, I swear the creep as ulterior motives or something…"

Kevin rolled his eyes as Alyssa continued blabbering away and looked at me, blaming me with a simple gaze for what I had started.

"Well the article wasn't kept properly," I added, "because it got mixed up with other clippings from past papers and the kind of information I discovered …" Kevin slapped a gloved hand over my mouth, promptly cutting me off. I scowled in annoyance and tried talking through his glove, but my voice only came out as a muffled mumble from his strong grip on my lower face.

"Alright, folks," Kevin announced to his traveling party, "we're going to be taking some refuge in the police station, and hopefully get something to eat and get some well needed rest."

"We're trying to secure an escape route," Rita added. "There have been countless attempts – like a route through the sewers though I'm not entirely convinced that's the safest way. But we've finally come up with a theory that might make sense."

I bit down on Kevin's finger hard enough for him to feel it even through the glove. He yanked his hand back and cradled it. "Holy shit, Kenny, if I didn't know any better I'd have thought you were a zombie."

"We're thinking that since the building used to be an art gallery, there might be some sealed tunnels from those days," I explained, ignoring Kevin's scowls.

"I'm printing out an updated map of the place right now," Rita said, and I am going to discuss our chances with Marvin. "Meanwhile, you guys can rest up here, and maybe get something to eat from the caf…" Rita was silenced when she spotted me shaking my head at her, reminding her of what had transpired in the cafeteria not even a day ago. "…I mean the vending machines."

"Only if you don't mind salt and vinegar chips," I elaborated. "Everybody's eaten everything else."

XXXXX

Rita didn't let me into the chief's office in the east office while they discussed their plans in there with Marvin and two surviving officers. They did, however, leave the door open wide enough for me to hear everything that was going on. I sat at Officer Ryman's desk, folding scraps of paper from the recycling bin into basic origami shapes. I'd never been much good at it, but at least it was something to do to keep me occupied while I listened in on their plans.

"Take a look at this," Marvin said, unrolling the map Rita had printed out. "It's a map of this place back when it was an art museum. There should be a ventilation tunnel underground."

"And that'll get us out of here?" I heard Rita ask.

"It should. But it's so narrow, you might be the only one who can fit through."

Great. So there was a way we could take out of here, but only Rita could fit through the hole. Well, I was probably skinny enough to do the job as well …

"So I'll get help and come back, right? Looks like it's a race against time."

"Now that we've lost communications, there's nothing else we can do. All right, everyone, we've gotta hurry up and find a way into that tunnel! It's gonna be our way out of here."

The officers' footsteps made their way out of the cramped office and I turned around in Kevin's swivel chair to face them. "A secret tunnel, huh?" I asked them.

"That's right," Marvin concluded, "and it may be our only way of escape. Rita's offered to go make an exit and come back with some help. But first, we need to get in."

I don't know why, but suddenly, an idea sprung into my head. In the underground parking lot, the Chief Irons handed me a bunch of crescent shaped metal plates, each one with a jewel of a different color embedded in the center. I remember he said something about those plates opening some kind of escape tunnel …

"Won't the tunnels give the zombies another way to enter the precinct?" I asked, using the same logic the chief used against me.

But Marvin only cocked an eyebrow in confusion. "It's supposed to be a ventilation tunnel," he explained. "There's no way a person could go through it standing up. I doubt zombies know how to crawl for prolonged distances."

"So … the chief lied to me?"

"What?" Marvin asked, gripping me by the shoulders. "You know about those tunnels?"

"The chief told me about them," I explained, "but he said it would be dangerous to access the tunnels because the zombies could use them the same way we do, and gain access to the precinct …"

"God DAMN that man!" Marvin cursed, driving his fist into the wall. "I swear, he's trying to kill us all!"

"I know what tunnel you're talking about. It's the one by the fountain, right?"

"Yes, yes!" Marvin said excitedly. "Did the chief tell you anything else about it? Like how to access it?"

"We need these plates …" I reached into my pocket to pull them out. But when I felt nothing, my heart dropped to my chest. Marvin's expression faded from a smile into a devastated frown, changing along with my own facial expressions.

"They're not here," I reported. "Oh God, I swear, I had those plates. He gave all of them to me!"

"We have to find them," Rita said, pounding a fist into an open palm. "Please, Kenny, think! Have you used them at all?"

I racked my memory for any recollection of what I might have done with those plates. Did I leave them at the main desk? Or maybe I put them in the bag with the other weapons Cranky and I had gathered from the apartment block? No – I hadn't seen the bag since we got here. What had I done since then? I remember babysitting Sherry, meeting Ben the reporter and … oh no … I went scrounging for weapons in various areas of the precinct. I remembered the interrogation room, picking up weapons, taking a plate out, putting it on the shelf, replacing it with some boxes of ammo and forgetting to re-pocket the plate when I ran out of there like a bat out of hell after seeing those pink monsters …

"They're …" I gulped, realizing I was about to tell these fine officers what they really didn't want to hear. "The plates are scattered throughout the precinct." Yeah, those metallic clangs I was hearing weren't just a figment of my imagination. Those things were falling out of my damned pockets!

"Where?" Marvin demanded, taking me by the shoulders again. He looked intensely into my eyes. "Tell us, Kenny. Try to remember. We're counting on you. All of us are."

I stared at the ground, racking my brains for memories of the past few days. "The … the interrogation room," I replied, pointing in the direction. "The morgue …" I paused again. "The waiting room …" With every new location I revealed, the beaming smile on both Marvin's and Rita's faces grew and grew.

"How many plates were there?" Rita asked, when I recalled as many as I could.

"Four or five," I replied, "I'm not sure."

"Well, what are we waiting for then?" Marvin said, clapping his hands together. "Let's go get those plates and get the hell out of here!"

"I can go with Rita to the tunnels too," I offered. "I can fit, probably easier than she can." I didn't mean to insult her, but nonetheless, my comment earned me an angry stare from her.

"Yes, but you can't drive," Marvin said. "We need a transport truck to get us out of here. And now, I suppose, Kevin and his friends too."

XXXXX

Back out in the main hallway, I explained the situation to Kevin and the rest of his group. Through the discussion, I got the opportunity to get somewhat familiar with his crew. They were the most varied group of survivors I had ever seen, each one with his or her own special talents, and it was no wonder they had managed to survive together. It almost seemed as if fate had brought them together to work as a team, as if they were destined to live through the hell that Raccoon City had become and escape to tell their individual stories.

Yoko Suzuki sat on the steps of the raised floor at the front of the main hall, watching me intently with an interested gaze. She was a short girl with narrow Asian eyes, jet black shoulder length hair and a round innocent face that could've passed as a teenager around my age, perhaps even younger. But it was the calm and collected, almost mysterious way she composed herself that suggested life experience beyond her appearance. And therefore it had only come as a slight surprise that she was the youngest of Kevin's group at twenty years old. She carried a dark brown knapsack strapped over both shoulders that seemed to weigh her down. Upon inspection, I discovered boxes of ammunition for nearly every handheld firearm imaginable – nine millimeter rounds, shotgun shells, magnum rounds, and even some healing herbal concoctions wrapped neatly with scrap pieces of paper. She didn't seem particularly strong nor agile, nor battle hardened, but if she had any strengths, it would have been that backpack of hers, allowing her group to carry more useful items than they would have otherwise could.

Alyssa Ashcroft was the journalist who I previously became acquainted with, having discussed my findings with her earlier regarding the zombie photograph she had confiscated from chief irons.

"I brought it to the precinct because I thought the information would be beneficial to the police department in solving the mystery of the cannibal attacks," she explained, "but instead, that fucking piece of fat took it from me spewing off some bullshit about not wanting to alert the public. I swear, I should have just published it in an article and then we wouldn't be in this huge mess in the first place."

Alyssa gripped a handgun in her right hand, her index finger hovering over the trigger at the emotional peak moments of her frustrated rants. She had to be calmed on numerous occasions by Mark Wilkins, a thickly built security guard with the gentlest of demeanors, sharply contradicting hers.

"You better save those emotions for the next time we encounter those undead things," he said. Mark was among the most level headed of the group. He didn't speak much, but when he did, I got the feeling that it was important and deserved our attention. Yet I couldn't stop staring at the light reflecting of his bald head. It looked like his skull wasn't made of skin and bone, rather of smooth glass or maybe even crystal, and if we rubbed it for luck …

"I'm almost out," the suited man said who turned out to be a doctor at the Raccoon Hospital by the name of George Hamilton, inspecting a strange looking gun in his hand. It didn't look like a regular handgun although it could be held like one. The contraption was made of silver and resembled a flare gun with a thick, short barrel.

"What is that?" I asked, my curiosity finally peaking.

"Oh, this?" George asked, raising the odd looking weapon. "It's a capsule shooter. It fires healing pills made from the recovery agents found in the herbs that Cindy's storing in her special case. And speaking of which, Cindy, I'm going to need some more blue and red herb concoctions, if you can spare them.

"I don't know if I can," she replied regretfully. "If we run into any venomous creatures, we may be needing them."

"Cindy!" I cried, the name ringing a bell. She was a sweet looking girl with a smile that seemed light up the room. She wore her silky blonde hair up in a pony tail, and a blue and white striped waitress uniform. "Cindy," I repeated, calmer this time around, "are you a waitress?"

"No, she's a fucking playboy bunny," Alyssa snapped. "As if the uniform didn't give it away."

"At J's Bar," Cindy replied sweetly.

"Have you met anyone named Cranky?" I asked urgently. "I mean, his name is … his name is Craig. It's been a few days since you might have met him. He came into your bar a few days ago when all this started happening and …"

"I can't say I recall," she said honestly.

"He's about yay tall," I pressed, hanging my palm high above my head, "bright red hair, and flirts with anyone sporting anything remotely resembling breasts."

"Oh my gosh," she said, covering her mouth, "that's the man that came into the bar before just before the outbreak went into full swing! He said he was coming into town looking for his little brother! Do you know him?"

"I'm who he was talking about," I said.

Cindy looked at me with disbelief. "You're his … brother?" she asked.

"Adoptive," I elaborated, and she nodded in comprehension.

"Okay, that makes more sense now. You're, what, Japanese? Or Vietnamese?"

"Chinese, and he's a red headed Irish boy, I know. I didn't believe it at first either, but yeah, he's my brother."

"You're very lucky to have someone care about you so much," she said.

"Until he left to go look for you just yesterday."

"He didn't!"

"Yeah, believe it. He did. And I was hoping you were able to find him."

"No, I'm sorry," Cindy apologized, "I haven't seen him since that day. Oh, Kenny, I'm so sorry. I hope your brother is okay."

Upon hearing her words, fear found its way into the depths of my guts, forcing itself in there, making a home for itself. I tried forcing the fear out, convincing myself that Cranky was a capable fighter, an expert gun wielder, but nothing worked.

"Yo, man," Jim Chapman, the subway worker said, throwing his arm around my shoulder, "I say you don't got nuttin' to be worrying about. I saw the homie myself, and believe me, those zombies ain't got nuttin' on him. Those zombies fall apart when you hit them with a stick! Your bro's fuckin' jacked, man! It'll definitely take more than a couple of zombies to take him down!"

Jim smiled at me, his large grin showing pearly white teeth in stark contrast to his dark brown skin. His naturally black, curly hair was dyed blond giving him more of an unnatural, comical look. And that, combined with the smile on his face, forced me to mirror the expression back at him. "Atta boy," he said. "We don't got no time to afford all this sad shit. How else do ya think we made it this far?" As uplifting as his words were, there was a look in his eyes that betrayed them. I sensed sympathy behind them, and a hint of fear for his own life, though I wasn't about to mention my thoughts to him.

Throughout the entire verbal exchange, the only man to not say a word was the dark haired one leaning against the wall, gazing out the windows set in the teal doors, out into the courtyard. He was dressed a cheerful yellow colored jump suit, though his dark expression was anything but. His black hair was worn back as a short ponytail at the nape of his neck.

"Now that we've got the pep talk over with," he said with a shockingly raspy voice, "what do you guys say we get those plates the kid was talking about and get the fuck out of this joint?"

"I know exactly where a few of them are," I said, heading towards my workstation, where Rita stood working hastily on the computer. I pulled a sheet of paper from the recycling bin and sketched out a rough map of the main floor – at least, only the hallways and rooms that were important, and would lead them to where I thought I heard the plates fall during my earlier treks through police station.

"There's a plate here," I said, mentioning to a room I had sketched on the first floor. "This is the interrogation room." I scribbled the words out beside the square that represented the walls. "It's divided down the middle by a two way mirror, and you can get to the half I accessed via the left door. The right is blocked with debris. There is a shelf here where I accidentally left the plate. I had to book it out of there when I saw a monster. Be careful. It could still be there."

"The next plate is on the second level in the waiting room. This room is also divided, only this time by a makeshift barrier. Access it through the second floor mezzanine," I pointed towards the emergency ladder in the main hall that lead up to it, "and go through that door. The plate will be on top of the shelving cabinet to your left."

"Why did you leave it there, of all places?" Kevin asked.

"I was planning on hiding all of them up there," I explained, "but I'd only managed to get one up there before I was confronted by a fellow survivor." I didn't bother explaining the mysterious Ada Wong – it would've taken more than a few simple words to express my distaste for the woman, and besides, it wasn't exactly an issue of importance.

"Anyway, you said there were four or five," Alyssa continued, "and you've only covered two sofar. Where are the others?"

"Um … I thought I felt something fall out of my pocket in the morgue," I recalled.

"The morgue?" Cindy asked, bewildered.

"It's not that bad," George said, waving off her horror, "I'm around those kinds of things all the time. I'll take a look there if it makes you feel better."

"It's not some ordinary morgue," I said. "The bodies are all over the place in there. And with the threat of them reanimating into zombies, I don't think you should go alone."

"And the fourth plate?" Alyssa asked, getting irritated with how easily distracted I was from the task at hand.

"Right," I said, "the fourth one … now this one I'm not sure about, but I think it could be in the safe in the East Office."

"What the hell is it doing in a safe?" Kevin asked.

"I don't know, but I think I left it there by accident!" I cried defensively. "I swear I didn't mean to scatter them all throughout the precinct. I just left them in my pockets and absentmindedly took them out and forgot to keep them on me! Besides, it wasn't like I knew they were needed for our escape!"

"Alright everyone," Kevin said, addressing his entire group. "Let's split up and find these plates."

"We still don't know if there's a fifth one," Alyssa noted. "We only have confirmation on four different locations. If we do indeed need a fifth one, where can we even begin to start looking? It's been days since the kid lost them and I doubt he can retrace his steps that far back. It's a miracle he can even remember the placement of four of them."

"Right now, all we can do is pray there isn't a fifth one," Kevin said grimly. "We'll save the one in the waiting room for last. It's the closest and probably the safest to get to."

"There are creatures all over the station," I explained, "particularly in the east wing interrogation room and the basement levels."

"Cindy, Mark," Kevin ordered, "you two come with me to the interrogation room." The pretty waitress and the bald security guard walked over to Kevin's side. "We need to conserve our ammunition," Kevin explained to Cindy. "You're the one with the herbs. Stay between Mark and I at all times. I know my way around this place so I'll take the front. Mark, you cover the rear. Kenny, I think you better give the map to the others."

"I'll cover the morgue," George said, following up on his earlier promise.

"I've got your ass covered," Alyssa added, joining him.

"The anti-virus pills I've got stored here are more useful against these viral monsters than any bullet you can fire at them," George protested. "Use your ammunition where it is needed."

"George is right," David, the mysterious man in the yellow jump suit piped up. "Conserving ammunition is our top priority. If anyone can pull this off without firing a single bullet, it's us." He tossed a wicked hunting knife up into the air, and caught it by the handle without even glancing once at the weapon as it traveled back into his palm like a wild animal, tamed by the charm of its master.

"Then Jim and I will get the plate in the office," Alyssa said. "What's the code, Kenny?"

"It was 2236," I replied, "though it changes sometimes. There's a sheet of possible combinations in the waiting room." I pointed to the only set of double doors on the first floor of the main hall to our left. "You can find out for sure in there."

"What about me?" Yoko asked.

"Yoko," Kevin ordered, "you and Kenny scour the place for any useful items but be careful. I don't want you two engaging any monsters. The moment you spot anything that doesn't walk or talk like a person, run the hell away, you got it?"

"Yes, sir," I replied. Yoko merely rolled her eyes.

XXXXX

As soon as everyone had gone, Yoko and I stood in the main hall with nothing but the sound of Rita's fingers hitting the keyboard rapidly for company. She looked at me and didn't even have to say anything as I understood immediately her confusion. She was looking to me as a guide. Between the two of us, I was the one who knew my way around the police station, being one who worked here, and having been trapped in this building for the past week. Christ, had it been a week already since I'd been beyond the precinct grounds? It was a big building, I knew that, but realizing that made me start to think of this place as a prison.

"There's someone who has to know about what's going on," I explained. "I think it'd be sensible for us to go and let him know."

"That wasn't a part of the plan," Yoko said.

Yeah, it was no mystery how a girl like Yoko survived with the others. She followed instructions well. And Kevin was a damned good police Officer who knew exactly what he was doing. I wasn't as good at establishing authority as Kevin, so I tried another tactic. I tried to reason with Yoko.

"There's a reporter down in the prison cells," I explained. "He's locked himself in there hoping for rescue to come. Now you've been all over the damn city, I'm sure, and you know more than me that no help is coming. We've been sealed within the borders of Raccoon. Nobody is getting in or out. If we're going to make a break for it via the tunnels, I'm not leaving anyone behind."

Yoko looked at me hesitantly.

"We'll probably find some useful things along the way," I said. "Come on, let's go."

Taking her by the hand, I headed towards the teal doors and out into the courtyard. The cool night breeze blew against our faces, fueling the fires burning out on the street. I then realized that now, not only were the streets abandoned, but completely trashed, more so than before. The pavement that made up the road could barely be seen from underneath all the broken glass, the twisted metal, the flaming piles of debris that were once vehicles. Most disturbing of all were the zombies that hung around just beyond the gates. The moment Yoko and I came within sight, they threw their rotting bodies at the metal fence, reaching hungrily for us with their decaying fingers, snarling through the bars like caged beasts. But it was Yoko and I, and any other survivors left that were the caged.

I instinctively backed away in alarm from the zombies, though it was obvious they weren't going to get anywhere near us unless the bars gave out. I accidentally crashed into Yoko, who held me still. "It's okay," she said quietly into my ear. "There are only three of them and they aren't as dangerous as they look."

I turned to look at her, wondering where these words were coming from.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "These things are responsible for …" They were responsible for everything that had happened to me, all the deaths that had occurred throughout the city and here she was with the nerve to tell me they weren't as dangerous as they looked?

"See that one?" she pointed to the one gripping the gates. It had once been a man. The only way I could tell was from the remains of a business suit that now hung in rags over his body. Patches of skin and muscle had rotted away, exposing the organs in his chest cavity. His intestines hung out from his abdomen in coiled ropes, but if he felt any pain, he wasn't showing it. "That one is in the advanced stages of decay. It can't catch up to you if it tried. The muscles and tendons holding his bones together are probably so rotted that it'd only take a broom handle to knock his head off. We wouldn't even need a gun."

Taking a second look, I noticed that she was right. I'd faced monsters before but always either had someone there to back me up, or ran for my life. Not even once, with all the creatures roaming the city limits, did I ever bother fighting back. Instead, this girl a few inches shorter than me, and definitely more delicate looking had survived the onslaught. If I could just follow her example, stop thinking of these creatures as unbeatable monsters but as mortal opponents, I just might have a chance at surviving.

The thought had calmed me sufficiently, and I took a moment to catch my breath. Before I could say anything, Yoko spoke gain. "What are we doing outside, anyway? You said this person was in the prison cells."

"We're going there," I explained. "But we're taking the safer route. Typically, we'd access the basement via the east wing, but with all those creatures roaming around, it'll definitely be unsafe for us – two unarmed civilians. Of course, unless you plan on using any of that ammunition in that backpack of yours …"

"But the only entrance to the interior is through the doors we just came out of," Yoko protested, "unless you plan on taking us there by the back route, which would mean we'd have to leave the gated courtyard."

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing," I replied, taking the girl by the hand. I led her towards the lawn just to the right of the teal doors, lined on either side by deciduous trees, their sun-dried leaves rustling loudly in the gentle night breeze. The setting sun cast its orange rays across the sky, turning it various hues of yellow, orange and red. The smoke from the burning car wreckage outside and from various parts of the city gave the air a grayish tinge. It looked as if the apocalypse was upon as. And as far as the fate of Raccoon City was concerned, it was.

The side gate was on the other end of the grassy lawn, but instead of taking Yoko through their, we hung another right down the stairs that led into an underpass beneath the main entrance.

"This only leads us back up," Yoko commented.

"Not if we take this route," I replied, pointing to a large ventilation pipe at ground level.

Yoko's narrow eyes went wide. "How in the world would you know about that?" she asked, bewildered.

"We had some prisoners nearly escape the station through these ventilation tunnels," I explained. "The chief was going to do something about it just before all this shit happened. We can use this to get inside into the parking garage. The prison cells are just beyond the garage and we can get Ben out of there. This is a much faster and safer route than navigating through those infested halls."

I dropped to the ground, belly first, and began crawling through the pipe. Yoko hesitated, but after I showed no signs of waiting for her, she sighed and joined me on the ground, crawling through the cobweb filled vent. We emerged on the other side to the cool air of the parking garage. I crawled until my feet were well away from the opening and got up, dusting myself off. I turned around to help pull Yoko out from the vent. After a few seconds of struggling, we were both able to breathe a sigh of relief.

"I must admit," she said, brushing the dust out of her black hair, "I'm impressed with your resourcefulness."

"Thanks, but we need to save the flattery for later …" I stopped talking because at that moment, a shrill alarm rang out through the parking garage. It was high pitched, loud, and threatened to burst our eardrums, stunning the both of us for a moment as we covered our hands over our ears, wincing in agony.

"What is that?" Yoko cried, though I could barely make her voice out above all the alarms.

"I don't know!" I yelled back. Whether or not she heard me, I couldn't tell.

"WARNING," a mechanical voice cried from the station's P.A. system, "WARNING!"

Suddenly, it hurt to breathe, my lungs began burning, my eyes started to water. I forced them open, only to find the familiar parking garage take on a yellowish color. Gas! Some kind of gas was leaking in here through the vents!

"Come on!" I cried, seizing Yoko by the hand again. She was too busy coughing and hacking to resist and I managed to pull her around some parked cars, hung a left, and through the doors that led into the prison cells.

XXXXX

We entered the cells through a mechanical sliding gate. The lock had been released, allowing us access to the actual rows of cells. There were only two, and the one farther down was where I'd last seen Ben Bertolucci. Something told me that he might have been dead, though logic suggested that there was no way that zombies could have broken through those bars if a normal human couldn't. Yoko followed closely behind.

"Ben?" I called out.

"Kenny is that you?" I heard him ask. I came into Ben's view, standing in front of his cells, watching him breathe a sigh of relief. The red tie he wore around his neck had been loosened, and so had the top button of his white dress shirt.

"Thank goodness you're okay," I said.

"Same goes for you too," Ben replied. "What's the situation like up there? I've been here for God knows how long now and every time I muster the courage to unlock the door to go up and check, something always holds me back."

"Just as well," I said, shaking my head. "It's bad up there, really bad. Most of the survivors are either dead, or resurrected as zombies. The remaining few have disappeared. I'm assuming they've died."

"How did you make it down here without running into anything?"

"There's a little secret way I discovered," I explained. "We came to lead you out of here. We're making our escape from this place and I've come to take you with us."

"Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what's crawling out there?"

"We're trying to gain access to a ventilation tunnel which leads out of the precinct. One of the officers is going to take the route out and grab us an escape vehicle, drive back here, and get the rest of us. We don't have to walk the streets."

"If you're gonna be all suicidal," Ben said stubbornly, "then be my guest. But I'm not about to leave this cell. Those zombies aren't the only things that are crawling around out there, you know."

"Ben, I can't leave anyone here to die!" I protested.

"You're not leaving me," he insisted. "I'm staying behind. I appreciate the thought Kenny, but I'm not leaving this cell. You and your friend are welcome to join me in here, but I'm not going out there."

I opened my mouth to shout at Ben, to tell him how ridiculous and childish he was being. Sooner or later, the zombies would make their way into the prison cells and he'd never get out, with or without a key. But I never got the chance to say anything to him as the doors to the corridor suddenly opened with an electronic hum. Yoko and I jerked our heads in the direction of the doors fully expecting a horde of zombies to come stumbling through.

"What the fuck was that gas!" I heard David cry. His familiar form clad in the cheerful yellow jumpsuit seemed to materialize from the darkness beyond, and was followed by George.

"David, George!" Yoko cried excitedly. "Thank goodness you're both alright!"

"You didn't experience that gas, did you?" George asked, worry written all over his middle-aged face.

"Actually, we sort of did," I replied.

"I have a feeling it's irritating the virus in us," he explained.

I suddenly leapt backward, away from Yoko. "W…what the FUCK!" I cried, pointing a shaky finger at all three of them. "You guys are infected?"

"We're keeping the infection rate down with these," George explained, holding up a little white pill between his thumb and index finger. "They're anti-virus pills, and completely halt the virus's development rate for about a minute or two."

"How did you contract the virus?" Ben asked, gripping the bars of the door in his hands.

"Likely through the water," David explained. "The sewers we entered beneath Raccoon hospital were infested with creatures that had advance mutation in them. We're thinking the outbreak might have started there. You two might have been infected too."

Ben and I looked at each other. "I haven't had any water from the tap," he said. "I was holed up here with the other survivors and we were given bottled water to drink. What about you, Kenny?"

"Same here," I replied. "Most of our zombies came from the various raids, and transferred the virus over to other survivors who in turn became zombies too. The only virus contact that's occurred here are from injuries."

"Are you sure of that?" George asked.

"Yeah."

"Well still, just to be on the safe side," he said, aiming his odd looking capsule shooter at me, "I'll give you one."

"No, no, hold on!" I said, putting my hands up to shield my face. Suddenly, I felt something small and hard punch me in the neck. It was traveling fast enough through the air to bruise my skin, but not dense enough to knock the wind out of me.

I looked up at George in horror. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I cried.

"It's okay!" Yoko insisted, trying to calm me down. The impact is only hard enough to shatter the case of the pill, which allows your skin to absorb the pill's contents."

"And if it hits fabric?"

"Then it's a wasted pill."

"So," Yoko said, turning to David and George, after the latter had shot another pill at Ben, "did you guys find the plate in the morgue?"

"Sure did," David said, "though I've gotta admit, Kenny's picked the best fucking places to leave those things."

"I've worked as a doctor and a surgeon for over twenty years and I've never seen anything like that before," George added. "I'm used to the morgues at the hospital but it looked like a bloodbath had occurred in there." He shuddered at the memory, looking like he'd be better off forgetting the entire scene altogether.

"Where's the plate?" Yoko asked. David held out the metal crescent piece with an amethyst crystal embedded in the center in his gloved palm. "I'll put it in my bag. Did you find anything else we could use?"

"Well, just a little file here," George reported, waving around a folder with the words "Top Secret" stamped in red ink across the tanned cover.

"Way to be subtle," I muttered under my breath.

"I'm not sure I can make out exactly what its trying to say with all these numbers," he admitted modestly, taking a glance at the papers within the folder.

Ben's eyes suddenly went wide upon seeing the file. "That's it!" he cried excitedly. "I've been looking for that damned thing! I knew I dropped it somewhere in this place …"

"Only you couldn't bring yourself out of the cell to go look for it yourself?" I asked, attacking him in the most unobvious way possible, but Ben had caught on.

"That's why I'll be the one who escapes this place alive, and you would be rotting in some zombie's stomach." Ben turned his attention back to George. "Hey, buddy, do you think I could have my files back?" he asked.

"Well," George replied hesitantly, "we might be needing to spread the word about who's behind this mess when we make it out of the city."

"When you just admitted you can't really decipher what it's trying to say?" Ben asked. George's lack of response told us he could see the point in Ben's claims. Without arguing, the good doctor handed him the file.

"You'd probably make better use of it than us anyway."

"Exactly," Ben said proudly, "I'm a reporter, after all."

"I knew he reminded me of someone," David muttered. George and Yoko smiled in response, but I didn't really get who he was referring to.

"Thanks," Ben said, taking the file from George's hands through the bars. "Here." He held up a plate in his hands identical to the one David had just handed Yoko, only this one had a sapphire jewel in its center. "You guys take this as a reward. I just found it lying around in the parking garage."

George, Yoko, and David all shifted their gazes to me at once. "I guess the first one I dropped was in there," I said defensively. "Besides," I continued, turning back to Ben, "I thought you never left your cell."

"Fine, I left once, but I had to pee, you know."

"Alright," David interrupted, "so come on, then. Now that we've gotten what we came for, lets all book it out of here."

"Ben's not coming," I said. "He's pretty adamant on staying in here."

David turned around and gave the journalist a look of bewilderment.

"The kid's right," he explained. "Don't worry, I've got my reasons."

David just shrugged, pulling me, and Yoko along with him with George tagging a few feet behind us, looking hesitantly over his shoulder at Ben, who had already gone back to bed on the cot in the cell.

XXXXX

We regrouped back at the main hall a few minutes later. I took David and George through the same vent that Yoko and I had entered. When we reached the parking garage, I had expected the yellowish gas to still be flowing into the space through the ventilation system, but was shocked to find it had dissolved and the air was breathable once again. Something strange besides the zombies was happening to the precinct. Who could have sabotaged the ventilation systems and what could their motivations be? George and David had clearly experienced it too, but they kept insisting that it was the basement hallways that flooded with the stuff, and not the parking garage like Yoko and I had argued.

The disagreement lasted all the way back to the main hall, where we found Kevin, Mark and Cindy standing at the base of the fountain centerpiece, inserting a plate into its base. The three of them turned around at the sound of our voices and I watched as relief flooded their faces.

"You found the plate right?" Cindy asked hopefully.

"We sure did," Yoko replied, letting her backpack slide down her arm onto the floor in front of her. She crouched down and began digging through it to pull out the plates.

"And we encountered some weird nerve gas," George said. "Fortunately, I had a supply of anti-virus pills in my medical case. I suspect the gas may be irritating the virus in our bodies. I've given Yoko, David and myself a shot. I'm not sure if you three experienced the gas too, but …"

"Christ, Kevin," I said, "don't tell me you've contracted the virus too!" The outcry caused Rita to jerk her gaze from the computer screen towards him.

Kevin didn't say anything initially, but looked at the floor solemnly, his head hanging with dread. "We experienced the gas," he said. Without another word, George went immediately to work, handing out whatever he had left of those anti-virus pills. "We've got the virus in us," Kevin went on, "all eight of us. It remains airborne for a little while, but from then on, it's only contagious if you get bit. But the virus is at home in water, and if any infected water is ingested …"

"Oh God …"

"You didn't drink any water from the tap, did you, Kenny?" Kevin asked, grabbing me by the shoulders, shaking me lightly.

"N … no," I replied. "They gave us bottled water to drink." Kevin let out a sigh and released me, walking back again to the fountain where Yoko was busy inserting the plates we had discovered. "Any sign of Alyssa and Jim?" I asked.

"No," Cindy said, shaking her head. "We'd only been in the main hall for a few minutes before you showed up. Is this your first trip back up here?"

"Yeah," Yoko nodded.

"Because by the time we got back here," Mark continued, "there was already a plate inserted into the base of the fountain. Which means between us three, and you guys, and the one already inserted here initially, four plates have been found. And there's space for one more."

"FUCK!" Kevin cursed loudly, smashing a fist into the stone fountain, only to pull it back towards his body in pain.

"That means Jim and Alyssa must've found the first one," I noted, "but where are they? Why didn't they wait here for us?"

"Perhaps they went to search for us," George suggested.

"No way," Mark interjected, "not with those crazy monsters running all over the place, and the gas leaking through the pipes."

"Rita," I called out, walking towards the computer terminal at my workstation to the rear end of the main hall, "do you know what's going on with the ventilation systems? It's leaking some strange gas in certain rooms. I thought it could be some malfunction of the system, but it's clearly intended when there's a robotic voice sounding some kind of warning."

"That's the defense system we recently installed because of the increase in the zombie population," she explained. "The gas was theoretically supposed to slow down the monsters and kill them."

"Except the doctor thinks it aids the virus manifestation in those already infected."

"Which explains the sudden increase in the zombies within the precinct," Rita realized aloud. Her fingers had stopped hitting the keys as she stood up, away from the keyboard and allowed the facts to sink it. "They're not all victims of other zombies. Oh God, Kenny, did we help create even more zombies for us to contend with?"

"That's why I couldn't find any other survivors," I told her, realizing it as the words were leaving my mouth.

The handle on the door to the second level waiting room turned and the door opened with an audible click, resounding in the expansive space. Kevin, his five fellow survivors and me and Rita looked up at the mezzanine and saw Alyssa and Jim emerge from the room. Alyssa glanced down at me from where she stood.

"Could you make the fucking plate any harder to get to?" she bitched loudly. "Leaving it on the shelf is one thing, but on the top? What are you, trying to kill us!"

"I … I didn't mean to," I swore. "I just forgot about them easily cause I didn't think …"

"Well we needed those things!" she screamed, cutting me off. I found myself hoping the woman wasn't like this all the time. There was a permanent stick shoved far up her rear and not even Kevin's happy go lucky nature had managed to dislodge it the slightest bit over the last few days. At least, that's how it appeared. If this was actually Alyssa in a better mood, I would've hated to see her initially when Kevin first ran into her on the night of the twenty-second. And speaking of Kevin, I found him leaping to my defense.

"Quit the bitchin' and come back down here," Kevin said. "Kenny works with us and we're damn proud to have such a hardworking kid like him devote so much time and effort – and he's not even on the payroll." Alyssa had nothing to say in return, and she just scoffed and headed towards the ladder with Jim walking meekly behind her.

"Well we found the fourth plate," she said, holding it out in front of us. Kevin's eyes widened with joy and he immediately threw his arms around Alyssa's shoulders, giving her a big hug which surprised her a little, considering just a few seconds ago, he was shouting at her.

"Wha … what the hell is wrong with you?" she screeched, pushing him away violently.

"That's actually the fifth one," I explained, pointing at the metallic crescent piece in her hand, "and the very last one we need to get out of this place …"