Part 4

Part 4

Christine Lawrence stumbled into the nurse's station, sobbing uncontrollably and wiping blindly at the bloodstains on her uniform. How she had managed to stay alive as long as she had was a mystery to her, but it seemed that her luck had finally run out. When she had been investigating a noise in one of the patient's rooms, she had been brutally ambushed by the person who had once occupied the room. The attack was swift, painful, and judging from the amount of blood she was losing, soon to be fatal.

Christine collapsed onto the floor, the severity of her wounds disabling her from going any further. Blood was everywhere, soaking into her clothes, pooling idly on the floor, staining her hair, extreme pain accompanying every drop she bled.

But even as she lay there, her mind racing with panicked thoughts of death, she began to wonder about her twin sister, Lena. Struggling to catch her breath, Christine struggled to stifle her sobs long enough to collect her thoughts. Selena, little Lena, her barely-younger sister was an officer for the city, and even though she knew Lena could take care of herself, there was no way she could've survived long in this city of horror. Maybe she had been killed on her beat...

Christine started to breathe in sobbing gasps, the tears returning at the thought of her sister's death. To die in such a brutal way, to never be able to see her again...

"Oh Lena," she choked, her vision dimming and blurring at the same time. "Oh...God..."

Summoning the last bit of strength from her aching, burning body, Christine pulled herself towards the desk at the other side of the room. But the strain was too much and she collapsed once more, crying out in despair when she couldn't pull herself back up in the slightest. She was now left completely defenseless, and instead of ending her suffering quickly like she had wanted to do (she knew for a fact that a 9 millimeter handgun was kept in a drawer at the desk for protection), she was going to bleed out. A long, excruciating death.

Christine closed her eyes and cried, praying for the end.

The hallway seemed deserted. The only sound that could be heard was that of the clock farther down the corridor on the wall, ticking away the seconds in a dull existence. Lena squinted and managed to make out the time, close to nine o'clock. Late summer sunsets used to be something she enjoyed, a little extra daylight to get things done. Not anymore, she thought bitterly. The sun had set on their way to the hospital.

"Something doesn't seem right," said Jace as he came to stand next to her. "I thought this place was supposed to be a battleground."

"It is," said Lena, glancing around and suddenly noticing how spotless this hall was. No blood, no gore, no bodies. Completely spotless. She frowned. "I think."

Jace flicked a switch on the wall and waited for the fluorescent lights above them to flicker on.

Nothing.

He flicked it again, and again, and again, but still nothing happened. "Power must be out," he murmured. Jace looked at Lena as if he just remembered something. "Uh, you did bring a flashlight, didn't you?"

"Flash--uh oh." Lena groaned at her stupidity. Of course she forgot to bring a flashlight, the one thing that would probably be more useful to them than a gun at that moment. "No, I don't have one."

Jace cringed and looked around. "Okay, okay, not a problem...uhm, a supply closet. I bet there would be a flashlight in an emergency supply closet."

"That's great," said Lena. "And do you happen to know where one would be?"

"Uh..."

She sighed. "I didn't think so."

"Looks like we're going to have to do this the old fashioned way." Jace reached into a pocket and pulled out a lighter.

"You smoke?" she asked.

"No."

A small flame leapt and danced from the top of the lighter and produced enough light for them to see about two feet in front of them. Better than nothing.

Lena had, in fact, been to this hospital on more than one occasion. Not that her health was bad, but she had stopped in every now and then to check on her sister. She had lied to Jace, not because she was dishonest, but because the less she had to think or talk about her sister, the more she could concentrate on what was important.

Which was, at that moment, finding a source of light.

"Shall we start looking?" said Jace.

The nurse's station!

Lena jumped. The thought was so urgent, and the feeling of anxiety that suddenly overwhelmed her was frightening.

Jace looked at her strangely. "Are you okay?"

No. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Let's go."

Shotgun held at his hip and the lighter in front of him, Jace started forward, and Lena followed with her Magnum held ready.

What if Christine's hiding here? she wondered. What if she's in the Nurse's Station? Or what if she escaped? She might not even be here. Hell, she's lived in the city longer than I have.

In all actuality, Christine could be anywhere; she knew the city inside and out. That was the only reason Lena even considered taking the transfer from New York. Christine had moved to Raccoon City when she was 17, desperate to get out on her own. Lena, ever the straggler, moved out of her parents' house when she was 18 and went straight to the Police Academy. By the time she had finished her training at the age of 21, Christine was already engaged and holding down a job at South Raccoon City Hospital.

Engaged to one of the doctor's here...Mom was so happy. Christine was so happy...

Suddenly Jace stopped, Lena almost running into him.

"What's the matter?" she asked, peering down the hall.

"Shhh," said Jace quietly, his gaze fixed on something at the end of the hall. Whispering, he added, "I heard something..."

Lena looked from Jace to the end of the hall. "A zombie...?"

"Stay here," he said quietly, and crept towards the sound.

Lena strained to hear what he was hearing, was unable to pick up any sounds other than her own breathing and Jace's footsteps.

Ignoring Jace's command, Lena crept down the hall after him, her gun held low in front of her. Although it was dark, she could still make out his form. He was pressed against the wall at the very corner, the Remington on the floor, the Berretta held tightly in his grasp. She paused, and waited to see what he was going to do.

Suddenly he jumped out into the corridor, his gun out in front of him and yelled, "FREEZE!"

She heard the mechanical clicks, beeps and whirs from someone operating machinery, and Jace took off running down the hall. Lena took off after him, rounding the corner just in time to see a shadow slip away from the mechanical glass doors at the end of this corridor. Jace stood resigned in the middle of the hall, staring down at a discarded flashlight.

Coming up behind him, Lena said, "What happened?"

Jace whirled at the sound of her voice, his gun nearly brushing the tip of her nose. She yelped, and Jace yelled out in turn. "Jesus! Don't do that!" he said.

"Well sorry," she snapped. She nodded to the glass doors. "What happened?"

Taking a deep breath and regaining his composure, he answered, "I saw someone. Male, wearing a lab coat, about my height. He was coming this way down the corridor, had a gun, I saw him begin to raise it. But then he turned around and ran to those doors. I don't know, but I think he might've locked 'em."

Lena brushed past him and went to the doors. Sure enough, the mechanical locks were enabled, and there didn't seem to be any override command available. Who could that've been? One of the doctor's?

Lena's heart leapt at the thought that maybe there really was at least one doctor left alive in this town. Finally, someone with the proper medical knowledge could treat the wounded at the police department.

But why was he going to shoot at Jace? Maybe he thought he was a zombie. But then why did he run? Jace said "Freeze". Zombies don't say "freeze"...at least I don't think they do.

She turned from the doors and looked to Jace, who now held the flashlight on the panel for her. "Well, we can't get into that wing of the hospital unless there's another way," she said. "But despite that, I think we have a lot of searching to do anyway."

"Why don't we just shoot the glass?" suggested Jace.

"Bulletproof. Besides, I think the morgue's that way. I don't think we really need an entire morgue roaming the halls. The place is deserted so far, let's not push our luck."

"Touché." He sighed. "So, where do we go from here?"

She frowned. "Good question. I don't exactly have a map, but..." She looked back towards the corridor they had come from. "...if we were to keep going straight from the hall we were in a second ago, there's a hall that splits off from that one farther down that leads to the east wing. The nurse's station is in the west, and the ward rooms are in the east."

"There would be supplies in the nurse's station, right?"

Lena nodded. "Most likely."

"Alright. Since you know what to look for, how 'bout I take the wards, and you take the station? That way you can load up on whatever it is you need, and I could see if there are any survivors."

She considered the plan for a moment, then nodded. "Okay, yeah. That could work. Oh, but, wait, what do we do about lights?"

Jace shrugged and handed her the flashlight. "I've got my Zippo. It's not much, but it's enough."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded.

"Alright. Lemme just radio the sergeant and we can get going."

It was all over. He hadn't expected the end to come so quickly, but things such as these never went as you expected them to. Sergeant Roy Roseleau lay bleeding on the floor behind the reception desk, where Lena Lawrence had stood not too long ago. Officer Lawrence, who had radioed him not 10 minutes earlier. She had called to report their progress, but as soon as she had told him about the survivor, Roseleau had abruptly cut her off, told her to switch objectives. Don't worry about the supplies, he had said. Just get the survivors out of that hospital and out of this town. What happened? she had asked, immediately sensing that something was terribly wrong. Taking a deep, ragged breath, Roseleau had explained.

There had been one final siege about half an hour after Lena and Jace had left. The zombies had broken the boarded-up windows in the back hall, and migrated to the very room where the wounded were being held. The living hadn't been able to put up much of a fight against the hordes, and weapons were scarce. People panicked. The battle hadn't lasted long at all before no one was left, and the monsters retreated with the newly dead.

There's no one left to save, Lena, he had said. Just help the ones in the hospital, but take care of yourself. Someone has to make it out of here alive. Someone has to tell everyone what happened here.

He then bid her farewell, and, tearfully, Lena had accepted the last task the sergeant would ever assign to her.

Now, he strength waning, Roseleau reached for the pictures of his family. School pictures of his children. A wallet-sized photo of his wife and himself standing in the garden of their new home. Closing his eyes, he held the images in his mind's eye, mixing them with the memories until he had a collage of his life.

His first day of school...first day at the Academy. Meeting his wife, Christy. His wedding day. His promotion to Sergeant. The births of his beautiful children.

Christy and the kids...gone. But not for long.

Plenty of men in his position would probably going through a state of panic at this point. But not him. He knew that he had done all he could to save those around him. He knew he had lived his life just the way he had wanted to. And he knew that he would be able to see his wife and children again...soon...