Chapter 8:
The duo glanced up at the walkway waiting for a sign of movement, but none came. Whoever the kid was seemed to be hiding again, not that they could blame her. They looked at each other and Veronica shrugged unsure of what to do. Claire sighed then cleared her throat.
"Hey! Little girl?!" she called up. When no response came, Veronica chimed in.
"Are you still up there?" Again no response, so Claire tried again.
"It's safe now...It's over." There was a moment of silence that made the two girls almost believe the kid had left until the sound of small steps caught their ears. Meekly walking to the edge of the platform, the girl peeked over the railing down at them.
"Are you sure?" she asked, voice small.
"Yeah, I promise. Everything's fine," Claire responded with a nod. While it wasn't entirely a lie, Veronica knew differently as she merely nodded alongside her. "We just need you to lower that ladder for us." The kid looked at said ladder then back at them.
"Will you help me find my mom?" she frantically asked. Veronica and Claire glanced at each other in surprise.
"...Your mom is down here?" Claire responded.
"I think so." She paused, her face deflating. "I hope so."
It made Veronica's heart hurt to hear that. Seeing this little girl reminded her of her sister. The thought of Lily going through this all alone was heartbreaking. Not to mention, that both ladies knew that the probability of finding her mom alive was low. Veronica turned to the other.
"Claire, we can't leave this poor girl alone," she whispered. "She's just a kid."
"I agree, but do you really think we can find her mom?"
"I don't know, but the least we can do is try." Claire sighed then nodded before looking back up to address the child. "Yeah...of course. We'll help you."
The young girl smiled softly then looked over to a control box next to the ladder. She messed around with the controls for a moment before the ladder slammed down to the floor in front of them. The two girls looked at each other in relief then began climbing up to the walkway above them.
"Thank you," Veronica said as soon as she made it to the top. As they waited for Claire to join them, she took a look into the room they were supposed to walk into before the fight. There she found some gunpowder in a locker and a green herb, which she pocketed. After a few minutes, Claire finally got to the top of the landing.
"Sorry I took so long. I went to grab some ammo I saw lying around down there. Even found another grenade," she explained. Veronica nodded in understanding. The two girls looked to the kid only to find her waiting at the bottom of some stairs across the walkway from them.
"This way!" she pointed out.
Once again the duo glanced at each other then jogged over to follow the little girl. From there, they walked up the stairs in awkward silence, unsure of what to do or say. Veronica decided to go onto autopilot with how she treats her sister and her friends from school. Easy enough.
"So, uh, what's your name?" she asked.
"Sherry," she replied, still a little shyly.
"Well, that's a nice name! And how old are you, Sherry?"
"Twelve. I just started seventh grade!" she explained with a small smile on her face. Explains the uniform. As she had that thought, Veronica noticed the gold pendant hanging around Sherry's neck. She noted that it was a nice piece of jewelry before continuing the conversation.
"Wowie! Seventh grade? That's cool!" Veronica looked over at Claire to find her looking back in endearment. She blushed a little but kept her cool as she went back to conversing with the young lady.
"Mhm! What're your guy's names?" Sherry asked. She seemed to be becoming more comfortable with the two girls, so that was a good sign.
"My name is Veronica!"
"And mine is Claire!" said girl added. "It's very nice to meet you, Sherry!"
"It's nice to meet you guys too!"
They walked into a control room of sorts that overlooked all the machines below them. They walked past it only to find the walkway had ended with a drop-off. Off to the side, a section of the floor was hanging in the middle of the room away from where it was supposed to be.
"How do we get through?" Veronica inquired looking over the edge. The little girl at her side shrugged.
"It won't move."
Claire hummed then jogged back to the control room to see if she could get it back into place. There was a lever that stood high against all the other buttons, so she pulled it. It seemed to work as the separated platform began moving over to continue the walkway. It locked together with a loud thud much to their happiness.
"You got it!" the girl cried happily. From there, they continued forward, their footsteps clanging against the metal beneath them noisily as they made their way across.
"So...what's your mom like?" Claire asked.
"She works at Umbrella. She's making an important new medicine." Now that wasn't an answer they expected.
"Umbrella? That big pharmaceutical company?"
Big was an understatement. Veronica's family even used their products back in California. Not to mention that Raccoon City endorsed the company in everything it did. The big sign at the city limits basically screamed it.
"My mom's always at work," Sherry continued, though her tone changed to one that was kind of sad. "I don't get to see her much." Claire seemed to sense it but tried to keep things positive.
"Well, hopefully, you'll get to see her again soon."
"Yeah! I'm sure we'll find her!" Veronica added.
The walkway led them to a small room that looked like it may have been some sort of storage room or breakroom for employees. There was a desk with a typewriter on it and next to it was another giant box. Against the wall was a locker and in it was another pouch, which Claire gave to Veronica to use since she had two already. Besides that, the room didn't have much in it, but to their surprise, there was a ladder that led to some sort of manhole above them. This could be their exit!
"Let's take a quick break in here. My feet are starting to hurt," Claire said while hopping onto the big box to sit on. Veronica nodded then decided to sit next to her so that Sherry could sit on the desk. There were no chairs in the rooms, so these would have to do.
"So...where's your dad?" Claire asked, trying to keep the awkward silence away.
"He, um...worked with my mom but...He's gone," Sherry answered, her gaze falling to her feet. Whatever the meaning behind 'gone' was, it wasn't good.
"Wow...Both of my parents are gone-it's just me and my brother." Sherry gasped softly.
"Oh...I'm sorry." Claire shook her head.
"Don't be. It means we've got something in common and...that's a good thing, right?"
Sherry nodded with a small smile as she began swinging her legs over the edge of the desk. The other two sighed in relief that things were starting to work out with the new addition. Not to mention, it was nice to get a moment of peace after dealing with a monstrosity that nearly killed them. Just a few minutes of this was nice before they had to head out to whatever lies beyond the manhole.
Veronica yawned, exhaustion hitting her after the adrenaline had run down. Without thinking about it, she laid her head on Claire's shoulder and closed her eyes for a moment. She didn't realize she was doing it till Claire wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She was about to panic and get up when Claire laid her head gently atop hers. Relaxing in her touch, Veronica couldn't help but feel her heart skip in her chest.
"So," Sherry's voice suddenly cut in, "Are you two like boyfriend and girlfriend?"
The two girls blushed and slowly pulled away to look over at Sherry. She was staring at them with curious but also knowing eyes. Despite being only twelve, the kid wasn't that naive. Veronica cleared her throat before answering.
"Oh, no! We're, uh, we're just friends! We've only known each other for a few...hours now?" she questioned. "How much time has passed?" Claire shrugged.
"Honestly, I couldn't tell you. I haven't been keeping track." Claire then looked back to Sherry. "But regardless, Veronica and I are just friends. But just so you know, if we were dating, we would technically be girlfriends. Y'know, instead of boyfriend and girlfriend."
"Oh, ok! That makes sense since you two are girls," Sherry nodded to herself. "Well, you guys act like it, so…" she trailed off as she focused on her feet and realized one of her shoes was untied. As she tied them, the two girls glanced at each other with pink faces before getting off of the box.
"We should, uh, we should get our stuff together," Claire suggested.
Veronica nodded in agreement unsure of what to think after such an awkward conversation. They emptied their pouches and organized themselves for the journey ahead. They took out things that didn't matter anymore, reloaded their guns, and made more ammo with whatever gunpowders they had left. It took them a moment on deciding on whether to keep the station's maps, but considering that they had no idea if this was the way out for sure, they kept them just in case.
Finally, after a few minutes, they were ready to go. The trio made sure they had everything one last time before making their way to the ladder. Claire decided to go first to make sure the coast was clear above them. She reached the manhole lid and grunted as she slowly lifted it to check her surroundings. After a minute, she deemed it safe and shoved the lid out of the way. She climbed out first then helped the other two out.
Once the three girls made it to the top of the ladder, they found themselves in the station's underground parking garage. Carefully glancing around, they couldn't see or hear any of the undead nearby, much to their relief. Police cars were skewed randomly around the lot, some broken while others just left abandoned. There were a couple of regular cars as well as the square S.W.A.T.-like trucks too.
The walls were all concrete except for the iron shutter gate that was currently shut closed on the other side of the lot. A police car's lights on the outside were left on, shining into the room better than the actual lights of the place were. If anything, the lights seemed to be turned off. Sherry noticed this and pointed over at it excitedly.
"Over there!" She took off towards it with the two elders following closely behind. Finally! An exit! Once they got to the shutter, she peeked out to the outside world. "It's closed."
Claire hummed curiously as she took a look at the yellow parking meter next to the gate. While she did that, Veronica peered out of the shutter to see what could be going on in the outside world. It was hard to make out anything since the gate sat at the bottom of a sloped driveway and all she could tell was that the street above looked empty. It was eerily quiet. As she looked, she could vaguely hear Claire mutter a "Dammit. We need a keycard." beneath her breath.
Suddenly, the distant sound of a man coughing from somewhere in the garage caused Veronica to spin on her heel, her eyes darting around nervously. The warning from Marvin repeated in your head as she made sure that there was no one around.
Claire looked over at her, surprised by her sudden reaction. She must've not heard it. The sound was gone allowing the quietness to settle back in and making her feel uneasy. It was very faint when she heard it, almost as if she dreamt that it happened.
It was too hard to see the entire garage in such low lighting, but from where she stood, she couldn't see anything. All she could make out were three doors on either side of the room. Each one had a light above it that was red, probably meaning that they were locked. If this didn't work, they might have to turn back or try to unlock the doors. But regardless, she couldn't see where the noise came from.
"Veronica? What's wrong?" Claire broke the other girl's trance. Keeping her eyes on the room around them Veronica put her hand on her holster.
"I thought I heard something," she said cautiously. They both listened to the wind blow, but no new noise came. "Maybe it was nothing." She finally looked over at the other. "You said we need a keycard?" The other girl nodded. "Let me see."
The girls switched places so that Veronica could look at the machine while Claire stood next to Sherry. Veronica realized that Claire was right, and that it was a police issued machine. She couldn't MacGyver some sort of solution up since she wasn't proficient in tech. She turned to shine her light into the dark corners of the lot only to find more cars.
A nearby one parked just a few feet from her caught her attention. Well, this is a parking lot. Perhaps someone forgot a keycard in their car! She walked over to it and shined her light through one of the windows. She couldn't see much, but then again she needed to get the door open. The only problem was that she could accidentally set off the alarm. She stood there and tried wracking her brain for a solution. As the older did so, Claire glanced over to the shutter, then an idea came to mind. She hummed and knelt down to grab hold of one of the shutter bars.
"Come on…" she motioned for Sherry. "Here, come help." She knelt down and grabbed hold of one of the bars to shutter. Following her lead, Sherry began trying to lift it, but to no avail. It was either too heavy or locked down by the parking mechanism. They huffed for breath feeling a little disappointed at prolonging their journey. Claire looked up at Sherry from where she was crouched.
"And you're sure this is the way?" she asked. Veronica looked over from where she stood to listen in. She was having a hard time thinking of anything, only coming up with outlandish things she saw on T.V.
"This is how my mom took me last time."
"Sherry!?" a gruff man's voice called from the darkness beside them. Taken by surprise, they all looked over towards the shadow walking towards them. So I did hear something. Claire got to her feet and stood by Sherry protectively, while Veronica backed away from the car by a few steps.
"I've been looking everywhere for you, Sherry. Brave little girl to leave your house in the middle of this mess…" The two young women looked over at Sherry curiously, only the girl looked just as surprised. Even though they were excited to see someone else was still alive, something about this was off. Why was he only addressing Sherry, a kid?
The man finally reached the light and was revealed to be an overweight man that looked to be in his 40-50's. The grey hair on his head and painter's mustache was slightly frizzy but still combed. The bags under his eyes were noticeable and the wrinkles around his face gave away his age.
He was dressed in a white button-up shirt that was beneath a grey vest. His sleeves were folded up to his forearms and a maroon-colored tie hung beneath his collar. He had on black slacks and scuffed-up black shoes. Around his wrist was a silver wristwatch. This man was someone of high status from the looks of it. Or at least seemed to be.
Looking him over, Veronica got a weird vibe coming from him and she wasn't sure if he was as friendly as he seemed. She looked over at Claire, unsure of what to do. The feeling made her want to back away further, but she felt frozen to the spot. And she had every right to feeling that way.
Suddenly, a hot clammy hand clasped itself over Veronica's mouth causing her to shriek in surprise. A strong arm wrapped around her neck tightly and the hand dropped, freeing her voice. But before she could try wriggling out of her captor's hold, she could see the barrel of a handgun being pointed at her from beneath her chin. His eerie smile faded and instead, his whole demeanor changed into a terrifying calmness.
"VERONICA!"
"CLAIRE!"
Claire tried reaching for her gun but stopped as the stranger pressed his gun closer to his victim as a warning. She shut her eyes tightly, her heart racing in her chest. Oh my god, I'm going to die!
"Don't even think about it. On the ground, hands behind your head." Collectively, their hearts stopped and their blood ran cold.
"You can't be serious," Claire tried but was stopped by a single warning shot at the wall behind them. The bullet whizzed past her head and shattered the windshield of a random car. Veronica's heart stopped, worried as hell that he was going to shoot Claire. He was all too serious. They looked over at the damage then back at the stranger.
"On the ground. Now," he told her. Claire's eyes flicked between him and Veronica, before landing on her companion. She could see the fear in her eyes and that alone made her comply with his orders. Tearing her eyes away, the younger stared at the attacker with a fury that Veronica had never seen before. None of them were prepared to deal with being shot at by a living person and it was more terrifying than any zombie.
Claire was furious at the guy, but she was more upset with herself. She had broken the one most important rule that Chris had drilled in her for years during training. She had let her guard down and now she was paying the price.
Claire slowly got onto her knees with her hands raised high above her head, her eyes never leaving him. She watched as he dragged her companion with him to walk closer to where they were situated. Veronica had no choice but to comply with teary eyes.
Suddenly, the man unwrapped his arm from around Veronica then shoved her away from him and onto the concrete floor. She yelped as she caught herself by landing on her hands and knees harshly, a bruise no doubt forming on her palms. Lifting her head up, she could see Claire looking over at her with worry in her eyes.
"Over there. Get moving," the man ordered, gesturing to the other side of Claire.
He waved his gun to gesture to Veronica to move. She turned her head to see the warning look he gave her and took the hint. She crawled over to mimic Claire's pose next to her as he began reaching into his back pocket to produce two pieces of rope. He tossed them onto the floor in front of Sherry.
"Sherry, tie their hands." She hesitated.
"Why are you doing this-!?"
"Shut up. Tie them," he ordered. She still hesitated.
"Ok, then." He walked over and stood directly in front of Claire. He lifted his gun and aimed it at point-blank. Veronica had to give it to her companion, she was very brave. Claire looked like she was ready to punt this guy to next Tuesday, but she was calm even with a gun pointed at her. If anything, Veronica felt like she, herself, was going to break down. "You tie them up now, or she dies." She seemed to finally get the idea and picked up the ties then went and did as he said.
"Leave her alone! She's just a kid, " Veronica seethed.
"Shut up. Or you'll regret it." She gritted her teeth, anger rising enough to almost drown out the fear. Though the adrenaline was helping with that she guessed.
"What's this all about?" Claire questioned while her hands were being tied behind her. He kept his gaze on them as he backed over to the machine, the gun still aimed between the two of them. Veronica felt Sherry touch her arms and easily let her tie her hands behind her back. This poor girl.
"Child endangerment, for starters," he said while inserting a keycard into the machine. It beeped as it accepted it then the gate began to rise.
"I'm sorry," Sherry whispered as she finished tying Veronica's wrists together.
"It's going to be ok, Sherry. We'll find you!" the brunette assured her.
"Sherry, come here," the man commanded. She hesitated, unsure of whether to do so.
"What are you going to do to her?" Claire asked.
"None of your fucking business."
"If you hurt her, I swear to god, my brother is S.T.A.R.S. and I will fucki-" To stop her from talking, he walked back over and kicked her in the chest onto the floor. She grunted at the impact and tried wiggling her hands as much as she could to try and escape her binds.
"CLAIRE!" Veronica cried out.
"Sherry, get over here!"
"YOU ASSHOLE!"
He seemed to be done with this whole ordeal as he turned to her with irritation written all over his face. It went by so fast for her that she didn't have enough time to comprehend what he was doing. He suddenly raised his gun then pelted the handle against the side of her forehead. Her head whipped to the side on impact, her body following the momentum. There was a moment of pain then she was falling over onto the concrete. The room spun just before her vision suddenly faded to black.
"VEE!" Claire craned her head up to see her companion out cold on the concrete floor. Rage filled her being even as he knelt beside her and lifted her by her neck to get her to look at him.
"What's your name?" Claire only glared at him, seething with rage. He pressed the gun barrel closer to her neck. "I know your friend over there already said it, but I want to hear it from you. It's much funner that way. So unless you want to end up like her, what's your fucking name!?"
"Claire!" she hissed through gritted teeth. The man looked back up at Sherry who was scared shitless in her spot.
"Sherry, you come with me now or say goodbye to Claire!"
"OK, OK! I'll go!" she cried, rushing to his side. "You better be taking me to my mom." The man dropped Claire from his hold then got back onto his feet.
"Absolutely," he said with a raise of his arms. Claire grunted at his feet, trying to wiggle out of her ties. She managed to sit up and leaned towards Sherry.
"Don't listen to him! He's full of shit!"
The man was done with her attitude and swung his gun hand angrily across her face. That seemed to be his favorite move. Her world rocked as she fell over. She could barely take the time to register the hot pain across her cheek and the rattling of her teeth from impact.
There was a trickle of warmth on the side of her lip, but she couldn't think about that now. Sherry was being grabbed by the arm and being pulled away by their assailant. Just a few feet away, she noticed a large shard of glass from the broken windshield lying on the floor.
"Stop hurting her please!" Sherry pleaded.
"Don't tell me how to do my job," the man warned as he began pulling her out of the garage. The gate's timer had finally run out and was beginning to lower.
"Stop! Let me go! Let me go!" Sherry tried pulling out of his strong grasp but to no avail. Hearing her cries, Claire crawled back towards the shard of glass and tried cutting through her ties as fast as she could.
"Obviously, nobody taught you manners! We'll fix that." There was a clang of something small hitting the floor that Sherry dropped in the struggle, but that wasn't important. Claire was almost free.
"Let me go! Let me go!" Claire finally freed herself and quickly got to her feet. She made it to the gate only for it to drop down right in front of her. Leaving them trapped once again and with Sherry being taken away by some stranger. She could only see red.
"I'LL GET YOU, YOU FUCKER!" she screamed before kicking at the gate in anger.
The sound of the metal clanging rang in the air as she watched Sherry disappear in the street above them. Breathless from the encounter, she turned and picked up the item Sherry had dropped. It was her pendant. She gave one last look out the shutter while wiping the blood from her lip away with the back of her hand.
"Stay safe, Sherry." She turned to face the garage then saw Veronica's unconscious body still on the floor. "Vee!"
Being so overcome with the thoughts of trying to save Sherry, she had almost forgotten about her knocked-out companion. She quickly ran over and knelt at Veronica's side before untying her hands. With her binds out of the way, she tried to gently turn her over onto her back, letting her head rest in her lap. Despite all the movement, Veronica wasn't waking up.
"C'mon, Vee! Come back to me!"