He stepped out and opened the gas cap, then stuck the nozzle in and began pumping gas into the tank. The power was still working here, barely; the pump nearly failed a couple times because of the power surging through it.
He looked up and saw Claire unlocking the washroom and entering into it. He looked back down at the nozzle.
A piercing scream cut through the silence of the country. Leon grabbed his pistol from the front seat of the SUV. He ran towards the washroom where Claire was. He entered and was fully exposed to a scene of absolute horror. Blood and entrails were splattered all over the floor and walls. A mutilated human head was in the corner of the small room and a severed arm was floating in the toilet. Directly in the center of the room was a woman, curled up on the floor in a pool of blood.
Claire slowly reached out to try to shake the woman and see if she was alive. Her hands brushed the back of the woman's neck and Claire immediately pulled her hand away, probably feeling the absence of heat that a normal human produced.
Leon used the toe of his boot to push the corpse of the woman over. He stared into the blank look of her eyes and then looked down her body to find the cause of death. He quickly found it, she had been gut shot.
The strange thing was, she wasn't a zombie, her exposed skin was devoid of the dark lacerations that normally covered a zombie's body. She had been shot for some other reason, and it wasn't suicide, a bullet wound in the stomach, although easily cured by modern medicine, was still one of the most painful ways to die.
From what he could tell from the man's head, he hadn't been a zombie either, but the tissue damage had been so severe that he couldn't really tell.
Leon stepped out of the room and onto the wooden walkway running around the side of the station. He could hear Claire, still crying inside the bathroom. He took several deep breaths and then walked over to the SUV. It had finished fueling. Leon looked at the amount readout. It read sixty-five dollars. Leon had wanted to laugh when he saw the price, but now he didn't feel like it.
He pulled the nozzle out of the tank and hooked it back up on the pump, then, showing a bit of foresight, he walked into the station. The small structure contained an amazing amount of merchandise for sale. He walked over to where the jerry cans were and took all four of the ones that were there, and then he used a stray piece of metal to open the cash register door and take the cash inside. He didn't feel completely right about it, but even through the money would have been of no use in Raccoon City or any other place where everyone was dead, they were heading towards what he hoped was civilization, and frankly, he was broke.
He wadded up the cash and stuck it in his pocket, and then he took the jerry cans and filled them up at the pumps. Claire finally came out of the bathroom and dried her eyes. "They weren't zombies Leon. Who could do such a thing?"
Leon finished filling the tank and looked up at her. "The same people that let the virus out in the first place."
Then, with almost a flash, the pieces fell together. Umbrella Incorporated. They had always been suspected of using illegal human experimentation for all their products, but there was never enough evidence to prosecute them. They had a lab right close to Raccoon City and last he heard, had been under some sort of fire from law enforcement agencies.
He looked up at Claire. "Umbrella has a lab that is close to Raccoon, doesn't it?"
She was still sobbing a bit, but blinked her eyes and said "I think so, that's what my brother Chris was so worked up about a while ago."
Yes, the pieces were all falling together now. Umbrella either accidentally released this virus or purposely released it. The fact that fluid transfer only spread the virus meant that there could be survivors that weren't exposed. That explained our discovery in the bathroom and explained what Jill was doing. Umbrella couldn't leave survivors that could finger them, so they set about killing anyone that survived the virus. Jill simply couldn't take killing innocent people and ended her own life.
"Why don't you go into the store and get anything that you think we'll need for the trip?" Leon suggested to Claire.
Claire nodded a little hesitantly, not sure she wanted to go in for fear of what she might see, but went anyway.
Leon opened the back door and loaded the jerry cans in. He then reached into the front seat and pulled out his AR-15. If Umbrella was killing survivors, it was only a matter of time until they came at him and Claire, and he didn't intend to give them the chance to take them out.
Claire came out, hauling two bags of food and water. The food was a junk food that would take more than the end of the world to go bad and the water was all bottled.
She then held up a cut-off double-barreled shotgun. "Look what I found under the counter inside." She hefted the shotgun and a box of shells. She hopped in and slammed the door shut behind her.
"Is it loaded?" He asked.
"I think so." She said.
He took the shotgun and showed her how to crack the barrel and reload the weapon, then ready it to fire again. Despite her protesting that she already knew how to use a gun, he felt that she appreciated his effort.
They got on the road again and started driving along a highway that would take them to the next town on the only map they had.
They drove for a long time. Claire fell asleep again, showing that the initial shock from their discovery at the gas station might be wearing off. Even so, she would probably need counseling to get over this, who was he kidding? He probably would to.
He drove through the night, not willing to wake Claire up, but half-asleep himself. He stopped at an intersection and turned onto a long stretch of highway. He sped up and cruised for several minutes along the road.
He crested a hill and saw, to his amazement saw a police car with its lights flashing, next to which, a military humvee sat. As he neared the checkpoint, he could see the figures standing around it, each wearing the US Army standard biosuit, each holding an M4 Carbine.
He slowed the SUV as he came even with the police car. One of the men held up his hand as a stop signal. Leon stopped the vehicle and then rolled down the window. The man stepped forward. Leon looked at the nametag on his tunic, ROCK, it said.
"Do you have clearance to work in this area?" the man asked.
"No," Leon said, "We were in raccoon city when it happened, were just trying to get out."
"You were in the city?" The man asked, then not waiting for Leon to answer said, "If you were in the city, you will need to be decontaminated. If you and the lady would just step over to humvee, we can clean you off and then get you to a hospital."
Leon looked over at Claire, who was now wide awake and listening to the conversation.
Leon stared for a moment into the emotionless black eyepieces of the gasmask the man was wearing, the said "Sure." And opened the door to get out.
The man turned and let Leon get in front of him and Claire on his side. They walked off the road and over to the hummer. They came around the side and Leon caught his breath.
Lined up along the side of the hummer, covered by sheets, were bodies, many showed blood on the sheets where their heads were, showing where they had been shot. He and Claire turned to look at the man. They were looking down the barrel of the man's M4 carbine.
Leon's gaze drifted down towards the man's chest, where something caught his eye. There in subdued colors, was a patch, the umbrella symbol. Then, the man fired.
Leon's head rocked back as he felt the bullet drill into his skull. As he fell backwards, he dimly heard another shot, but by the time it took to register in his mind, he was already dead.