Darkness Arises

By E-Z B

Chapter 24: They Call Me X

Jake raised his submachine gun and fired a volley of hot lead into the Mr. X Tyrant's upper torso, gradually working his way up from the beast's chest into its stone cold face. The rounds only succeeded in snapping its head back and the beast looked down in its typical emotionless stare, unable to tell if it was angered by his attack or not.

Mr. X said nothing and grabbed a computer monitor from the nearby desk, drawing its arm back and chucking it like he was throwing a baseball. Jake saw the object flying in his direction and quickly ducked behind a desk.

"Damn, this guy's fast," the career criminal said checking his current clip, "but so was Nemesis and this joker doesn't seem to understand the concept of running." He carefully peeked his head up to see Mr. X walking robotically down the aisle after him and he was getting closer.

Breaking into another frantic run, Jake practically leapt behind another row of desks as he ran sideways firing his gun at the creature striking it several more times in the chest and neck before he stop and wasted the rest of his clip on the marching behemoth.

Jake looked down to the M-203 grenade launcher attachment strapped to his MP5, "Alright, time to see what the fuck you can do against this Terminator wannabe!" he said pumping the weapon.

Mr. X continued his relentless march towards the career criminal, the wounds in its chest slowly beginning to close up. Its mission was unknown, but it was programmed to eliminate anything that stood in the way, excluding Umbrella personnel.

Readying his grenade launcher, Jake stood up again and planted his foot firmly into the floor as he fired. The hissing round struck the Tyrant squarely in the chest and knocked it back a few steps, but nowhere near from its feet.

"Have another!" he shouted firing another explosive shell into the creature's chest, causing it to nearly stumble over another desk. The creature shrugged and brought its wrecking ball-like fist down onto the desk, obliterating it completely with its deathly touch. Jake took a few steps back and fired another round, catching the beast in the gut and causing it to buckle over slightly and limp a few steps before it continued its monstrous pursuit.

Jake quickly moved over into a corner to fire another burst that caught the monster in the shoulder and overturned a metal filing cabinet hoping it would get caught as it passed. Using the distance given, the career criminal quickly slid in a fresh clip and squeezed off a few extra rounds on Mr. X's head, who shook the rounds off like he was being pelted by beanbags.

"This fucker's going to take a little work," Jake thought as he waited for the beast to round the corner. As he expected, the brute dumbly walked into his trap, getting its massive foot caught in the overturned filing cabinet, leaving a large indentation in the metal surface like it had just stepped into a mud puddle. The creature grunted in frustration as it attempted to remove its massive foot, but it was stuck and left open for more attacks. Firing another round from his grenade launcher, the beast was struck in the head and knocked into nearby wall, leaving a large indent.

"Just keep coming to me and I'll have you down in no time, pal," Jake nodded firing another round at the brute and destroying a large portion of the wall behind it followed by another knocking the monster further back. He was getting low on explosive rounds and would soon be forced to retreat and reload. Just as he prepared to fire his next round he was completely caught by surprise.

Using all its strength, Mr. X lifted its leg up and literally heaved the filing cabinet into the air like it was kicking a soccer ball. It was something Jake wasn't even prepared for and he barely had time to duck beneath the large metal container as it went crashing into the nearest wall and crumpled like a soda can.

"Holy…" Jake didn't even have time to get the next word out as the brute was hovering over him with amazing speed and about to bring its foot down. Rolling off to the side as fast as he could, he barely missed the giant's massive boot and a small crater was left where his head once rested.

Before Jake could completely rise back to his feet, the giant shot out its massive hand and grabbed him by the back of his coat. Once again utilizing his superior speed, the career criminal struggled a bit before he managed to slip out of his trench coat and rolled himself over another desk. The giant only stared at him with its emotionless gaze and proceeded to tear his trademark black trench coat to shreds.

"Man, first these freaks ruin my favorite shirt, now they rip my favorite coat to shreds!" Jake thought to himself as he stood up and fired another round from his grenade launcher, "If they even touch my War Eagles there will be hell to pay," he thought as he felt the leather case in his pocket containing his prized sunglasses.

The robotic brute raised both its fists into the air and came down with a double hammer punch shattering another desk into pieces and then drew its arm back to attempt another haymaker punch on the career criminal.

Jake quickly sidestepped the attack and fired a few potshots into the giant's backside before firing another explosive round. By then his adversary had turned around, forcing him to roll backwards and fire another round into its chest. "Fuckin' A!" he grunted and then in an act of desperation, pulled out one of his Bowie knives from a shin holster and chucked it at the monster, catching it squarely in the right eye.

The brute was suddenly stopped dead in its tracks and let out a slight grunt as it stopped to pull the steel blade from its eye socket, a purplish blood spilling out from the socket where its right eye once was. Tilting its head back, the beast closed its massive fist around blood-drenched knife and the crunching of metal sounded. Opening its hand a second later, Mr. X let the piece of warped steel that was once Jake's Bowie knife clatter to the tiled floor. Lowering its head, the Tyrant allowed the last of its diseased blood to trickle from its face followed by the sounds of crunching bone and ripping sinew and then opened its right eye to reveal a new one had seemingly grown in place of the old one. By now the monster was visibly ticked off as a frown crossed its seemingly cement face and with another grunt, performed a powerful hammer punch to the tiled floor.

The entire room vibrated under the force of the giant's powerful strike and Jake was knocked from his feet like a rag doll, falling at the base of a water cooler and bringing his arms up just in time to prevent the half-full cooler from falling on his face.

More earth-shattering footfalls followed and Jake wiped the water from his face to see his ever defiant pursuer gaining ground on him once again, reaching one of its colossal hands out with fingers ready to clamp down on his skull like a vice grip and then crush it like an egg.

Trying to inch backward, Jake fired his last explosive shell into the beast's face and temporarily stunned it long enough for him to rise back to his feet. Looking up, he saw that he had been beneath an electrical box and then got another idea.

The Tyrant thrashed about wildly before him, blinded by that shell to the face. He noticed that the B.O.W. seemed to have enhanced hearing and would play that to his advantage. Firing another barrage into the giant's chest and face, the criminal's plan was working as he saw the beast stumble towards him and he ducked under a blind clothesline from his adversary and then knocked on the electrical box in front of him and then quickly dove off to the side. Acting on instinct the creature followed the sound of the noise and drove its fist straight into the electrical box.

A loud explosion followed by several lesser sparks occurred and within seconds waves of electricity were coursing through the behemoth's tank-like body, forcing to spasm uncontrollably, but making no screams of anguish as it convulsed and thrashed. A few violent pops later the brute collapsed to the floor and lay perfectly still.

"Damn…now that was a rush right there," Jake gasped supporting himself on a nearby desk. He had just emerged victorious over one of the Umbrella Corporation's top B.O.W.'s, a literal walking battle tank with a seemingly bottomless reservoir of endurance that had just come after him for no known reason. It was doubtful that this had been sent by Birkin himself, but then again after reading what Sebastian had written in his diary, he wouldn't put the doctor past being involved in such activity.

Still, the career criminal remained leery of standing in a room with the fallen giant. He had seen plenty of horror movies in his life to know that the bad guy never dies after the first confrontation and just stepping near it would mean the "dead" villain suddenly springing back to life and breaking the hapless survivor in half.

From near the giant's prone form, he noticed the glint of metal and from a safe distance laid two extra speed loaders for his magnum revolver that he hadn't noticed before. Jake silently crept towards the extra ammunition, never taking his eyes off of the sleeping monstrosity and knelt down to quickly swipe the extra ammo before quietly backing out of the room with MP5 trained on the downed brute the whole time.

Stepping back into the corridor he was met by another click coming from behind.

"Lower your weapon at once!" a voice came from behind, one filled with anxiety.

Spinning around with weapon raised, he found himself facing another young officer in a grime-spattered uniform with his head completely shaved, whom he recognized as George Scott, the officer who had spent a lot of time around Mayor Warren. In shaky hands he held a Remington M1100 shotgun, a look of unsure anxiousness in his blue eyes. Whatever was going on, he looked unsure to be pointing his gun at another human being and Jake gradually lowered his submachine gun.

"You're that Smith guy aren't you?" Officer Scott asked.

Jake nodded and then looked over to the office he had just emerged from.

"I-I heard a bunch of gunfire and some monster's screams. I thought the cavalry had arrived, but then I heard nothing so I was hoping somebody was still alive out here and I came to check," Officer Scott replied and then looked a little closer at Jake, "Is it just you or are there any other survivors around here?"

Jake nodded again, "Yeah, I encountered another fellow officer of yours, that Leon guy that was supposed to be starting today and he had some girl with him, says she's the sister of one of your S.T.A.R.S. members."

"Thank God, I was starting to think I was the last person left alive around here," the officer sighed falling back against the wall and slinking into a sitting position.

"What are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to have escaped with the others?" Jake asked looking down to the distressed officer.

George nodded slightly, "I was. I was trying to escape with them, but we were attacked by another one of those Licker creatures. Before I know it, I was in a hall all by myself and then I looked out and saw Lt. Bernstein running towards some convertible waiting for her outside the main gates. I tried running after her, but there were more of those zombies and I was forced back in side. There are still plenty of those undead bastards running around, so I had to find somewhere to hide." The officer rose slowly back to his feet and motioned towards a nearby green door, "I've been hiding in the press room for the past day hoping somebody would come to help and then I heard all the gunfire. Now that I see it's just you, I don't know if that will be enough."

Officer Scott the made his way back towards the press room and Jake followed closely behind. Once inside the officer locked the door behind them and took a seat at the back of the room.

The press room was rather small for holding press conferences, most of the space taken up by the tables, chairs and camera equipment. In the northwestern corner of the room was a furnace and on the wall behind the main podium were three statues of women with torches beneath them and on the wall near the entrance was a weird painting with a golden cog wheel attached to it.

At the back of the room, the officer had made a sort of "living quarters" for himself where several empty soda cans and food wrappers lay along with some boxes of shotgun shells that had been opened. Two blankets had been laid out behind a table along with a pillow he had found somewhere. The man's sidearm stuck out from underneath the pillow, a technique the career criminal himself had practiced.

"Any idea how much longer you plan on holding up in here?" Jake asked almost grossed out by the garish dark red wallpaper, "I doubt there will be any cavalry coming through to save us."

"No idea," the officer replied. "I thought I'd come out when somebody else showed up, but I was hoping there would be more than just you, unless you can find those two people who were just with you."

Jake remembered the radio given to him by Leon and he picked it up, "Leon, Claire, do you copy?" he spoke loud and clear, "I have found another survivor in the station's press room, an Officer George Scott. Do you copy? Over."

"Affirmative" Leon spoke over his radio.

"Got it," Claire replied from her line, "I shouldn't be too far away from you."

"How are you two holding up?" Jake spoke into his radio, the officer now getting close to him happy to hear the voices of other survivors.

"Heh, as good as I can be, just a lot of those Licker freaks crawling around here still," Leon replied with a slight chuckle.

"Leon, Jake, I've found the girl and I've cleared the helicopter wreckage that was blocking the corridor," Claire reported, catching the career criminal's attention.

"Wait, did you just say you found a little girl?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, her name is Sherry."

A little girl's voice was then heard, "Wait a minute, is that Jake? Jake, it's me Sherry!" she shouted happily.

"Hey kid, how ya' doing?" he replied, his rough glare softening a little.

"I'm doing fine, I found Claire and she's going to help me out!" she shouted gleefully, but then the line suddenly went dead.

"Sherry, Claire, is either one of you there? Answer me!" Jake shouted into his radio. A few tense seconds of silence followed before he finally got a reply.

"I'm here Jake;" Claire replied solemnly, "Sherry took off. We heard this loud roar and then she was talking about something out there much bigger than the zombies and then she ran away. I'm going to find her, just hang tight."

"I'll be on the look out for her too," Leon cut in, "I'm just coming down from the clock tower as we speak."

"Count me in," Jake replied and then set the radio down.

"That poor thing," George spoke, "all alone in this station with the living dead running about and something much worse."

A thunderous explosion obliterated a portion of the wall to their right and from the smoke appeared a familiar adversary.

"I thought right…" Jake said to himself as he stood face to face with Mr. X, who had returned to go another round.

"What the hell is that?" George asked raising his shotgun protectively next to the career criminal.

"A pissed off giant with a mighty big chip on his shoulder," Jake replied and withdrew his S&W magnum revolver. "You take him from the left, I'll take him from the right," he whispered to the officer.

Mr. X stared at both men as he began his march, his dark green trench coat now heavily blackened and covered in bullet holes from his earlier confrontation with the career criminal. Temporarily diverted from its mission, the B.O.W. had a new side objective in mind, to take out the human that had eluded its grasp before.

Jake nodded to George and began firing rounds into the beast's neck and face, causing it to stumble backwards and groan in pain, stomping on the ground and causing another earthquake and collapsing several ceiling tiles from above. Unperturbed, the giant strode forth and shattered a nearby camera with a slight backhand.

George pumped his shotgun and fired two blasts into the creature's considerable chest, the shells almost sinking in like they were striking a mound of clay. His last shots began to find their mark as he struck the creature in the head several times, purple slime spilling all over as the shells connected.

Affected by the blasts, the giant sunk down to one knee and pounded the ground repeatedly as its head shook and grunted a few times before it looked up, the purplish-black slime dripping from its face as its wounds healed.

"Shit!" George cursed as he fished through his pockets for any more shotgun shells he could find and struggled to reload the gun while backing up at the same time. Mr. X was now only a few feet away from him and in a few steps would be able to swing one of its tree trunk-like arms out and probably knock his head off in the process.

"Over here Frankenstein!" Jake hollered spinning a fresh loader into his revolver and firing a round that caught the beast in the side of its head. The Tyrant staggered from the blow and shifted its attention towards him. The crafty criminal rolled over another nearby table and fired two more shots into its forehead, knocking the brute backwards and splattering its blood all over the wall behind it. George rolled to a side of the monster and fired more rounds of buckshot into the monstrosity's tank-like surface scoring a few bloody shots on its head and neck area to send it wobbling a little more.

"Time for you to fall you piece of shit," Jake shouted and fired what was left of his current rounds into the lumbering behemoth's visage.

Groaning like a piece of broken machinery, the wounded Mr. X teetered drunkenly before it fell to the floor causing a tremor that nearly knocked both men from their feet and left spider webs of cracks all around its form.

"Come on, we have to find Leon and Claire!" Jake shouted and ripped the door open behind him.

"Right behind you!" George called out and hopped over the fallen behemoth, only to have it shoot its right hand out and clamp down on the officer's ankle. With a squeeze of its gargantuan hand, the bio-weapon crunched the human's bones like crumpling a piece of paper.

"Help me!" the officer screamed as he lay writhing on the floor in pain. Mr. X rose quickly back to its feet and lifted George back to his feet, throwing him against the nearest wall and knocking over more camera equipment. He tried weakly to raise his shotgun, but was knocked backwards by a powerful punch that shattered two of his ribs.

Jake saw the officer's predicament and flew through the air, delivering a powerful flying kick to the middle of the bio-weapon's back, knocking it forward a bit. "You were playing with me fuckface!" the criminal shouted and drew his remaining Bowie knife. With the fury of a wild animal, the career criminal began hacking away at the monster's neck and upper back areas, spraying black blood all over before finally stabbing the long blade into the back of the Tyrant's skull.

Mr. X growled in annoyance and backhanded the smaller career criminal with enough force to send him flying across the room, his fall broken by the thick Kevlar vest covering his muscular torso.

Despite being seriously injured, the distraction created an opening for George and he fired several rounds from his sidearm into the giant's neck and facial areas. Returning its attention to the officer, Mr. X grunted its displeasure and snatched the man's handgun away from him, crumpling it into an indiscernible hunk of twisted metal. Reaching down with its free hand, the B.O.W. grabbed the injured officer by his neck and hoisted him into the air, ready to crush his neck much like it had his ankle until a round found its way into the side of his skull.

Jake had only been knocked out for a few seconds after being tossed against the wall, but it had seemed much longer. He came through to find the gigantic Mr. X holding the injured George Scott in the air with one hand ready to crush his throat where he stood. His S&W M629C laid on the ground inches in front of him having fallen out of his shoulder holster when he hit the wall. Quickly scooping the gun up, he steadied his aim and fired a round into the side of the Tyrant's head.

Mr. X was stunned by the blow and released the injured officer turning its rattled gaze towards the career criminal, who by now had risen back to his feet and fired two more shots into its thick cranium, knocking it flat onto its back.

Jake was pleased with his work, but not finished. Walking past the injured George, he fired his three remaining rounds into Mr. X's skull to make sure he wouldn't get up again.

"Jake…a little help here…" George called out weakly reaching for him. The officer was badly injured by the B.O.W. and would be useless in a fight. He could tell that the man had shattered ribs that had probably poked into some of his vital organs and wouldn't survive much longer without proper medical treatment.

"I'm coming," Jake said and reached down to carefully lift the officer into a standing position with one arm wrapped around his shoulders and using his shotgun as a crutch in the other to avoid placing pressure on his injured ankle. "We've gotta get you far away from here," he said looking back to the fallen giant, who laid there unmoving and probably playing possum waiting for them to approach his prone form again so he could reach up and snap their necks like twigs.

Jake led the injured man through the unlocked door and back into the corridor where he led him around the corner only to be met with another gun to their faces.

Standing before them was a beautiful woman of Asian-American descent in a red cocktail dress with short, stylishly cut black hair pointing a Browning HP in their direction.

"Oh, you're both human" she spoke in a low cat-like purr, "I heard the footsteps and I thought more zombies were coming after me."

"Yeah, yeah look we're kind of in a hurry right now so you can lower the gun," Jake replied gesturing to the injured officer he carried, who managed a weak smile towards the woman.

"What's the big hurry boys," she spoke placing a hand on her hip and tapping her pistol lightly against the other, "Aren't we going to get acquainted?" adopting a sexier tone like she was trying to seduce both of them.

"Fine, I'm Jake Smith and he's George Scott. Not to sound like a dick or anything lady, but there's a sleeping giant in the other room who's likely to be very pissed when he wakes up and we want to be as far away as possible after seeing what he did to my companion here." Jake replied in a more urgent tone motioning towards the officer again.

"The name's Ada Wong," the woman answered, "probably just another nameless face to you who should've been out of here a long time ago, but we'll get to that later if you insist."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So you came all the way into this mess just to look for your boyfriend, huh?" Jake asked sitting on a desk with his muscular arms crossed in front of him.

Ada knelt down in front of a small sofa where George was laid out with his ankle heavily bandaged and surrounded by a large bag of ice. She was just in the middle of finishing a bandage wrapped around the officer's ribs when she turned to reply.

"Yes, I came to find my boyfriend. His name is John Fay and he's a researcher with the Raccoon division of Umbrella, Inc." she replied looking the criminal directly in the eyes, her almond shaped dark brown eyes meeting his bluish-gray ones.

"One of those researchers from the photo," Jake thought to himself. He assumed the man probably would have known William Birkin, but decided against asking Ada with a cop present. Being a researcher's girlfriend, there were probably even things she didn't know about the man that he was probably forbidden to tell her about.

"Okay," she said standing up from the fallen officer, "I've given him some morphine. He'll probably be out of it for a while, but at least he shouldn't be feeling any pain until we can get somebody through here to rescue him."

"Good, I have some friends here that should be on their way any minute now," Jake said peeking through the blinds of a nearby window still on the lookout for Mr. X, whom he assumed was probably somewhere close by.

"We don't have much time though," the woman replied walking over to him and standing near a desk, "Your friend appears to have some busted ribs and I can't tell if they've punctured any of his vital organs, but he probably won't last much longer unless we can get him some medical attention…"

Before she could say anymore, Jake placed his gloved hand over Ada's mouth and raised his finger motioning for her to quiet down.

"Shhh, can you hear that?" he asked leaning further towards the window. The woman followed suit and listened as they heard the thunderous footfalls that could only belong to Mr. X, the only problem was they could not determine exactly where they were coming from. George seemed to hear the footsteps too and stirred awake at the booming noises.

Jake again withdrew his S&W and Ada readied her Browning, she looked back to where George's Remington rest and kept a close eye on it. The duo listened for a few more footsteps and then they suddenly stopped.

"They stopped?" Ada asked slightly lowering her handgun and looking to Jake, who stood with his back to her. The career criminal could sense something coming from above.

"We're not out of the woods yet."

The ceiling collapsed above them and Mr. X came crashing down, leaving a crater in the floor where he landed and overturning the couch George rested on. The giant stared down both of them before suddenly turning its attention to George and grabbing him by the neck again. With a sickening snap, George Scott was no more and his limp body was tossed aside like a broken toy.

Jake nodded to Ada and the two proceeded to open fire on the giant, aiming right away for his head. Ada's bullets only seemed to mildly annoy the brute like mosquito bites, but the rounds from Jake's superior handgun had greater impact and forced the beast to stagger back several steps.

"Quick, get to the hall now!" Jake ordered as he ejected his spent rounds and slid a new speed loader into his revolver in one fluid motion. Ada fired what was left of her current clip and exited through the double doors behind them.

The career criminal waited for the woman and unclipped a grenade from his belt, "Now get to the other hall! We're about to have a fire in the hole!"

"Quite the bossy type aren't you?" Ada sarcastically shot back.

"Just go!" he shouted as Mr. X punched the double doors open and began marching towards him. Pulling the pin out with his teeth, Jake quickly rolled the grenade towards the brute and threw himself around a corner. A loud boom followed a few seconds later and peeked around the corner to see the beast knocked down, but not out cold. He quickly ran back to the hall where he had come from to find Ada waiting for him.

"Did you kill it?" she asked anxiously clutching her gun tightly.

"No," the criminal replied shaking his head, "but it's still pretty pissed off and you'd better be ready." He stood with gun trained on the door ready for the second it would come crashing through.

With a yank, Mr. X appeared, ripping the door from its hinges and tossing it aside as his massive form broke away fractions of the surrounding doorframe.

Cocking his might S&W, Jake began firing away at the approaching behemoth and Ada stood alongside him firing into the undead mammoth beast that had stalked him relentlessly from room to room. It was important for him to keep his cool, but this creature's endurance was starting to get to him. This would not crack away at his mental surface, he was the master and he was in full control of his emotions.

"Come on," he spoke in the coolest tone he possibly could, giving away no hint of fear whatsoever. The man continued firing his gun with the will of a man possessed, everything blurring around him as he focused on gunning down his attacker and sending him to a cold grave.

Ada Wong stood near the career criminal firing away at the creature's thick skull. She was getting dangerously low on ammo and would soon be forced to retreat. Finding her boyfriend wasn't the only thing she was looking for here in Raccoon City and she knew she had a lot more traveling ahead of her. This Jake fellow she was with seemed perfectly capable of handling himself and by his accounts had already survived two previous encounters with the colossus. Looking around, the spy spotted a ventilation duct that would probably be big enough for her to fit through. The mysterious gentleman would have to do without her.

Jake fired the last round of his current speed loader and reached into his side pack for another. "Ada, how are you holding up on ammo?"

No answer.

"Ada?" he asked again and turned to find the woman nowhere in sight. An opened ventilation duct confirmed her whereabouts, one that would be too small for him to fit through. "Damn…" he cursed under his breath and it was then that he turned to find the giant almost on top of him.

Reaching its large fist back, Mr. X prepared for another power punch directed at the criminal's face and seemed to pick up speed as it charged. Jake dodged the blow with another perfectly timed sidestep and the Tyrant drove its fist into the steel door of the interrogation room, leaving a large circular dent where it connected.

Jake stood off to the side ready to fire more rounds into the creature's face when he heard a loud plunking noise followed by the burning hiss of acid striking the Tyrant's back.

Claire Redfield stood behind the two combatants winking to the career criminal and fired another acid round striking the B.O.W. in the chest. "Figured you'd need some help," she spoke up loading another acid round. Jake resumed his attack, again aiming for the Tyrant's head while the woman kept the beast distracted with her damaging acid rounds.

Although it made no sounds, they could tell they were deeply infuriating the behemoth as it began to flail its arms around wildly in thin air, but was blinded by the acid and powerful magnum rounds being fired in its direction.

Jake fired away at the beast until his magnum again clicked empty and then he looked down to the four remaining grenades clipped to his belt and then back to the wobbling giant. "Claire, get out of here now!" he shouted ripping the grenade from his belt and bolting towards the woman, seizing her by the arm. Looking over his shoulder he pulled the pin and tossed the grenade at the feet of Mr. X.

The two survivors continued running long after the blast until they found themselves back in the main hall and they both fell over panting heavily.

"I see you've encountered that bald-headed freak too!" Claire gasped bracing herself on the nearby banister.

"You mean you've already encountered Frankenstein before?" Jake asked leaning against the wall near a window and looking over his shoulder to see if anyone or anything was outside.

"Yeah, right after I put out the 'copter fire on the rooftop I saw some weird unmarked helicopter flying overhead and it dropped this large canister," the young woman spoke making hand gestures to emphasize the width of the object. "I didn't want to find out what it was, so I went back inside hoping I could avoid it, but before you know it, that same brute came crashing through the ceiling and tried to kill me."

"Damn…" Jake said stepping back from the window and then turned to face her again, "Did you find anything else? You said you found Sherry."

"Yeah, I found her hiding in the back room of Chief Iron's personal storage room," Claire reported loading fresh acid rounds into her grenade launcher.

"Irons!" Jake grunted, punching his right fist into an open palm, "That fat, slimy bastard…" he snarled with great distaste remembering how the Chief had nearly ended his life.

"I found him too," Claire added, a look of disgusted horror crossing her delicate features, "he was in his office and he had the mayor's daughter laid out on his desk ready to do God knows what. I swear that creep is out of this world and I wasn't sticking around much longer to find out what else he had in mind."

"You're right, that fat piece of shit is out of his mind," Jake growled slapping a new speed loader into his magnum revolver, "That bastard tried to shoot me dead. I had his fat ass cornered and was about to put him out of his misery when our gigantic friend in the trench coat decided to crash the party."

"Oh dear God, Sherry…" Claire gasped placing a gloved hand to her mouth, "I'm going to have to find her before that creep can get his hands on her!" The woman looked closely at Jake again, "You said you knew her right? She recognized your voice when you came on."

"Yeah, yeah I was talking to her before you came along," Jake said now checking over his MP5, "I saved her from one of those undead mutts, I'd say I've won her trust enough by now."

"We have to find her before anything can happen to her," Claire spoke with greater urgency, "I'm going to search the west wing for her. If you find anything please let me know immediately!"

"You got it!" Jake replied with thumbs up and waited for her to disappear through the set of double doors leading to the waiting room before he turned on his heel and made his way back into the east wing.

With MP5 in one hand, he reached into his pocket with the other and pulled out the heart-shaped key he found in the west wing office.

"Let's see if I can find anything in those rooms I haven't touched yet down in the basement."

Author's Note: Well there you have it, the first official confrontation between Jake and Mr. X. It's probably not as epic as I thought it would be, but I did try to make Mr. X look like a relentless stalker whom you'd have to go through Hell and high water to avoid. Read and review and SPREAD THE SICKNESS, ONE MIND AT A TIME! \m/