As Cold Blood Runs

by Fuuraibou

(Complete Prequel to Eyes of the Beholder) In a short matter of weeks, Leon Kennedy's life will be shattered as he discovers love, hate, fear, and even himself in a struggle for his own life.

4. Ease on Down the Road

AS COLD BLOOD RUNS: CHAPTER 4

EASE ON DOWN THE ROAD

OK, you all know the drill by now. No, I don't own Resident Evil but whateverI make up, like Seth Hartford and this story is MINE!!! But I can't make any money off of it. (Walks off grumbling "Stupid CAPCOM bastards coming up with Resident Evil before I could...I'll show them...")

(And just a little measure of explanation, things are about to get a little confusing as I begin to introduce new characters into the plot, so first, not everything might be from Leon's POV, and they might not even be in first person view, as you're about to see.)

On the morning of the Lebannon Plant Raid: 6:00 AM

Bio-Port Headquarters, Lansing, Michigan.

Trevor Peters, commander of Bio-Port's RAID (Reconnasance, Assault, and Informative Directive) Squadron, stormed down the hallway of the office building near the Bio-Port corporate headquarters. He had just gotten wind of the failed raid on Umbrella Inc.'s chemical plant about an hour north of Lansing, near a little town called Lebannon. He was trembling in fear; he knew that the president would be angry. The new president of Bio-Port...a real mystery to everyone, but it's believed that he had some connection with Umbrella and what happened to the little midwestern town of Racoon City.

And there was something about the president...his eyes. The president never said what was wrong, but Trevor believed it had to do with Umbrella, Bio-Port, or both. Finally he reached the door, and he stopped and took a deep breath. Maybe he was in a good mood today. He better hope so. He opened the door, and walked in.

"Sir, I have news coming out of Lebannon," he said. The president was turned around in his chair, staring out the window behind him.

"What is it, Commander Peters?" the deep voice that came from the president asked.

"Well, the plant was destroyed this morning at 0530 hours, with our first recovery team still inside," he said. "We believe that it was the work of the government."

"No...it may have been under government jurisdiction, but it was someone else," the president rasped. "Redfield..."

"Excuse me, sir?" Trevor asked.

"Those damn Redfields. We must do something about them," the president rasped. Trevor was dumb-struck. Redfield? Who was Redfield?

"Well, what do you want me to do, Mr. President?" Trevor asked.

"I want you to send our finest RAID countermeasure unit to New York. Tell them to find these people," the president said as a file was tossed over the chair. It contained pictures of five or six people: five men, three women, two girls and a little boy.

"Will do, sir. How do you want them disposed?" Trevor asked.

"I don't want them disposed. I want them brought to me...alive," the president said.

"Yes sir...President Wesker.

Get out of my head: 7:00 AM

"All right, folks! Got a message from Stevens!" Jill shouted through the headsets. "We're landing on a private strip at NY International Airfield, and we'll meet him there. From there, it's happy trails." Those words were music to my ears. It had been about an hour and a half since we had evacuated the Lebannon facility, and we all were beat. Claire was asleep, snuggled up in my side, Ark, Seth, Carlos, and Sarah sat engaged in a poker game, and Greg, well, Greg was just a recluse. He sat on the bench opposite of Claire and I, just staring out a window. Something was really weird about that guy. I didn't want to dwell on it, so I turned my attention to what I saw was most important...Claire. I cupped her cheek with my hand, and even in her sleep, I saw her smile. Talk about tranquility.

"Hey, Leon!" Ark shouted. "You want in?" He had apparantly finished cleaning everyone else out, and wanted to start on me.

"No thanks, bud. Got something more important to deal with right now," I answered. Ark gave me a disgusted look, more so from not getting the chance of swindling me out of a couple hundred dollars than my outright show of affection for Claire. He turned back to the others, and I leaned back and closed my eyes. God, my cheek hurt.

(Tired?)

'What?! You again?'

(Leon, I'm part of you. I'll always be around.)

"Hey! We're almost there!"

'What do you want?!'

(The same things as you...to survive this and end up living a happy life somewhere...with Claire.)

"Dammit, Leon! You awake?" ..

'Get the hell out of my head!'

(It's my head too, ya know!)

"Something's wrong! He's not responding!"

'What the fuck did you do to me?'

(To properly rephrase that, what the fuck did you do to yourself?)

"Oh my God! Leon! Come on, wake up!"

'GET OUT, DAMMIT! GET OUT!'

(Wakey, wakey...)

'Fuck off!'

(It would be a good decision to wake up, Leon!)

"Someone get a doctor in here!"

'Doctor?! We're in a damn helicopter!'

(Oh really? Just take a look...)

I opened my eyes, and was greeted by an extremely bright light.

"Dammit, turn that light off!" I shouted as I shielded my eyes with the small pillow my head was resting on. The overhead examination light shut off, and I noticed Claire right beside me, and Chris, Seth, Carlos, Jill, and Ark surrounding me.

"What is going on here?" I asked as I sat up. I felt like I had been beaten all about my body with one of those industrial-strength sledgehammers. A tall, bald man walked over with a chart. I guessed he was a doctor.

"Well, it seems, Mr. Kennedy, that you suffered from a panic attack. From what I've gathered, you fell asleep on your flight over here from London, and just now woke up," he said. London? I gave Claire a weird look, but she winked at me. Cover-up. Good plan on her part.

"Yeah. Not too much to worry about then?" I said.

"On the contrary. You slipped into severe shock, almost on the verge of an epileptic seizure. You're emotionally and physically unstable right now. The best thing for you is rest...lots. You need to take a break," he said. Once again, music to my ears. Rest actually did sound good. I stood up along with the others, and shook his hand.

"Thanks for your help, doc," I said as we headed out of the exam room. I was still confused as to what happened to me. I only laid back to go to sleep, and something like this happened. What was wrong with me? My face was still contorted in confusion even as we crawled into the van, apparantly provided by Stevens, because Sarah was sitting in the driver's seat.

"Hey, how ya feeling, Cap?" she asked.

"Better, I think," I answered as I sat in the furthest seat back with Claire. Ark sat in the passenger's seat, and the other three sat in the seat in front of me. I leaned back, still tired. I tried to get some shut-eye, but I felt a prodding finger in my side.

"You ok?" Claire asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I answered. She seemed irritated at the way I answered her.

"Leon, for God's sake, what happened this morning?" she asked.

"It's just a little stress. I'll be fine," I answered her again.

"Well, while you were out, I kept hearing you say 'Get out!' What was that about?"

"Probably just a nightmare or something, nothing to be concerned with."

"But Leon, I am concerned. I don't want to see you this way!"

"Claire...sigh. It's just a recurrant nightmare. Something I've been dealing with since we got out of Racoon City."

"Well no wonder! It's been over 4 months. Leon, if something's bothering you, then you can talk to me."

"I know, Claire."

"I'm dead serious. I don't know what the heck I'd do if something happened to you," she said as she wrapped her hand around mine.

"Don't worry. The doctor said a couple days of rest, and I'll be fine," I said as the van pulled up to my parents' house. We all climbed out, and Sarah looked in our direction.

"You guys take a couple days rest," she said. "Mick said he'll keep in touch."

"Great..." I moaned.

Ark

Unnecessary Roughness: 9:30 AM

Leon was still asleep, but I couldn't blame him. The poor guy, he was going through hell. Amy had the kids out somewhere...I really didn't know where, but then again I didn't really care. Scott and Pat, well, I didn't know where they were either. Luckily, Leon had his key, and luckily his parents hadn't had their locks changed in six years. Amy, however, WAS home when we had arrived, but had just left. There were four of us in here: Chris, Carlos, Jill, and myself. Seth was crashed out on the floor, so that made five. That kid had gone through hell, too. Claire was back in Leon's parents' room, but nothing was going on, if you know what I mean. We sat there, watching the latest installment of the CBS National News. Boooooooooooorrrrrrrrring. We were almost in a catatonic trance, but we were awakened by Claire coming into the living room, and she plopped down by Chris.

"How is he, sis?" Chris asked.

"Well, he's asleep. He's messed up pretty bad," she answered. I was kinda confused. Leon was one of the most strongwilled people I knew, and here he was, broken like a twig in a tornado.

"Did he say anything to you?" Jill asked.

"No, he just kept saying that it was some nightmare," she answered.

"Well, if you ask me," I said. "I say that a nightmare doesn't nearly put a guy into a seizure."

"I know, but I really can't do anything until he tells me something!" Claire moaned.

"Well, all we can do is be supportive until he can beat this," Jill said matter-of-factly. We all were agreed, so nothing more on the subject was said.

Chris was concentrated on something else at hand, though. He turned to Jill.

"Any word from Barry, Rebecca, or Brad?" he asked.

"Well, Barry got us out of Racoon before it blew, and he went to Canada to spend some time with his family for awhile. Nobody's heard from Becky, and Brad..." Jill began. "Brad's dead." Chris hung his head in mourning for a brief second, and then stood up.

"Jill, any idea of Barry's phone number?" he asked. Jill nodded, and handed Chris a small slip of paper.

"All right. I'm going to go try to get ahold of him," Chris said as he went into the kitchen.

Trevor

Smoke and Mirrors: 9:30 AM

"GO! GO!" I shouted. The RAID soldiers stepped up by me, and we busted the door down in the ground-level apartment. We rushed in, and much to our suprise, nobody was home.

"I want the place searched top-to-bottom! No stones left unturned!" I ordered. I walked into what I guessed was the kitchen. The fridge was full, there were personal items all over the apartment, but they weren't here.

"Dammit!" I shouted. "They've caught wind of us!" The rest of my men came back around to me, and we huddled up.

"OK, I want the place torched. We can't leave any evidence that we were even here," I ordered. Gary, one of my RAID counterparts, began opening any natural gas valves he could find. I ordered that we exit the building, but before I followed, I flicked my cigarette back into the apartment.

WWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSH!

The apartment burst into flames as I ran for the van. I saw several other people in other apartments rush out to see what happened, but I was unconcerned. I signaled for the driver to go, and we did. Al wasn't going to like this one. I grabbed the carphone, and hit speed-dial 1.

"This is Wesker," I heard him grumble.

"No sign of them sir. But we torched the place," I said.

"That will do for now. You and your men catch a ride back to base. We'll begin new procedure from there. Good job, commander," he said as he hung up.

"To the chopper!" I shouted.

Leon

Eternal Abyss: 12:30 PM

I finally stirred from my sleep, and well, I was still in a lot of pain...physically and mentally. I looked at the alarm clock. "Damn," I said as I stood up and put on an old pair of jeans and walked into the living room, seeing nobody.

"Hey?" I shouted. "Anyone here?" Silence.

"I guess not," I said as I went into the kitchen to grab a Pepsi, and saw a note on the refrigerator door. It was from Claire.

"Leon,

Chris got ahold of another survivor: Barry Burton. He's coming down from Canada, and he's going to get us to a safehouse of sorts. Went to pick up our stuff at the apartment. Be back soon. I've got your phone, so if something happens, call.

Love ya lots,

Claire."

So, we were about to get the heck out of here. Thank God. I walked back into the living room, and turned on the TV to catch the last part of "Spotlight: America." And what I saw startled me.

"Early this morning, a pharmaceutical chemical plant near Lansing, Michigan was attacked by terrorists. But what baffles police: who did it?" the reporter said. Cool. We made the news. "After the attack, the plant, owned by Umbrella Pharmeceuticals International, was detonated, erasing any incrimintating evidence."

Damn. So Umbrella all ready knows.

"A quote from Umbrella's Director of Public Relations reads as follows: 'Although we don't know the identity of the attackers, we are sure that the justice will be served to the bandits.'" I didn't bother to listen to the rest of it. Plain and simple, it sickened me. I flipped the TV off, and went back into my dad's study and got on his computer. I opened up my email account, and didn't see any new messages that really mattered. So, I just went back into the living room, and caught the closing minutes of a pretty good hockey game.

Claire

Fight Fire with Fire: 12:45 PM

Our Explorer pulled onto the street in which our apartment sat on. People were crowded around, and I couldn't necessarily tell what had happened. That's when I noticed the fire engines.

"Oh God Chris, do you think..." I began.

"I don't know," he said as he pulled over, and hopped out. "But I'm going to find out. Ark, Seth, Jill, and I followed him, to what happened to be the hollowed out shell of our apartment.

"Oh my God..." I began. Jill looked at the wreckage, and drew up a conclusion.

"This is the work of Bio-Port, I just know it is," She said.

"What, do you mean the RAID squads?" Carlos asked.

"Whoa, just a minute. You meaning to tell me that this was caused by Bio-Port?" Chris said.

"No doubt," Carlos said. "Umbrella wouldn't have burned the place. They would've used wire-tapping and other surveilance."

"How exactly do you know this?" I asked.

"It was part of my UBCS training," he answered.

"Well, it doesn't even really matter." I said. "Whoever did this, they're playing with fire. And fire can burn."

Well, that sure makes things interesting, doesn't it? What's going to happen to Leon? What's going on with Barry? And will RAID strike again? You'll have to stay tuned, because Chapter 5 will be on the way soon. And things are just starting to heat up!