Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Eight

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Everyone had been killed out of the rescue mission brought on by Umbrella. The half dozen soldiers had been ill trained for the battles against countless zombies. Even a hunter had managed to bring down a few of the scientists. They hadn't even made it to the elevator; the entire place was crawling with undead and other abominations. Their demise had long since passed, the remains bare from the countless feasting cannibals. The soldiers had managed to keep most of them at bay, but eventually they all ran out of rounds and it was in the period of reloading that they were overtaken. Umbrella had known the purging of the complex had been unsuccessful, but the man in the black tie had only seen it as a small temporary setback, an annoyance more than anything. He ordered the exhausted first shift to continue working until replacements would arrive. He would then send a larger squad to get rid of the pests. The dozen or so bodies of the soldiers and the second shift lay in the middle of the floor, in the center of the masses of roaming zombies. They had long since lost interest in the Umbrella workers; there was nothing left to be interested in. So now they waited for the next party unfortunate enough to make the decision to walk through those double doors.

****

It had taken him God knows how long, but he had finally made it. Jim Bowman looked at his watch. "Three hundred twenty hours," he muttered, "Not too damn bad if I do say so myself."

He had pulled his truck to the side of the road roughly a mile from the school to change into his camouflage suit, knowing that he stood no chance of getting through Umbrella's sight if he was in normal civilian clothes. Wearing what he was now, he shouldn't have too much of a problem getting through the security.

"I just have to act like I know what the hell I'm doing."

He had decided to leave the truck where it was parked. It was in a back alley next to a nearby convenience store and a small run down house. Strapping the firearms he had brought with him to his body, he silently walked down the deserted streets to the campus. Bowman was unsure if the people of Arden Springs had been evacuated, or if they were just sleeping, as normal people do at this time of night. In the distance, he heard the automatic fire of M-16s, accompanied by the faint shouts of soldiers.

"Hold on a little bit longer, Devon…Just a bit longer."

****

Claire and Bobbye had talked about everything they could think of to pass the time. Everything from past relationships to family trips were spoken of. They would even chuckle at their stories, seeming to genuinely enjoy the moment. However, their smiles would soon fade as the gloom of their situation would set in. But Bobbye had realized that the time they had spent wasn't nearly as hellish as she first imagined. She would have truly enjoyed it had they didn't have to pause between nearly every sentence to watch out for things that could dismember them. Bobbye hadn't really known Claire much deeper than the surface, and their friendship seemed to be blooming into the third dimension. Bobbye was listening intently to Claire's pitiful but quite humorous story of how Leon took Claire to a restaurant near Chicago before their trip to find her brother.

"So, he pretty much decides to take me out to help get my mind off things, and we end up going to this fancy French restaurant. But when he gets there, he won't let the valet park his car."

Bobbye raised her eyebrows in disbelief, and a smile cracked her lips. "You're kidding."

Claire grinned, and shook her head. She stared at the table; her eyes locked in remembrance as she continued. "Nope. The valet finally convinced him that it was his job to drive the car to the parking spot, so Leon gave him the keys. And as the poor guy's getting in, he says to him, 'I suppose you're going to want a tip too, huh?' It was so embarrassing."

Bobbye chuckled a bit while cautiously glancing around her surroundings for threats. "Not exactly the extravagant type is he?"

"No," she murmured, "no, he's not."

There was a short silence before Bobbye urged her to continue. "Well comrade, go on! What happened next?"

Sinking back into the story, she giggled quietly to herself. "Well, we get inside, and he pretends he can speak French, so as he's looking through the menu, he keeps making all these confused faces at it, and his mouth was moving with the words like a six-year-old trying to read. It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. Of course, he wouldn't ask me for help, or the waiter for that matter, so he picks the easiest thing for him to say. After the waiter left, he looks at me and says, 'yeah, I took a couple of years of French in high school.' He is the worst liar in the world, I swear."

"So," Bobbye attempted to predict the outcome, "I bet when he got his meal he was completely surprised at what he had gotten, right?"

Claire's face confirmed Bobbye's guess. "Boiled squid."

"That's so sad," Bobbye laughed, shaking her head. "I'd hate for that to happen to me."

"The evening was pretty much downhill from there."

"No good night kiss?"

Claire seemed shocked at Bobbye's inquiry. "Are you kidding? I'd practically have to hit him over the head and demand something like that! I wasn't about to do that. He's one of the sweetest guys, and I really like him, but…"

"Not exactly the sharpest crayon in the box when it comes to relationships." Bobbye finished her statement.

"Exactly."
There was a short silence. Claire mused for a minute, then asked Bobbye another question. "Hey Bobbye, why do you say 'comrade' all the time?" Bobbye smiled at her words, and Claire continued. "I mean, you're not exactly Russian, or a Communist, I just wondered why you said it."

"I don't know," Bobbye smiled through her words. "I guess it's just my word. No one ever uses it, and I just wanted something different. I've been using it since I was a freshman in high school."

"Wow."

"Yeah. It's pretty fun to see the reactions of the people that aren't expecting it. You should have seen Devon's face the first time I used that word in front of him."

Claire cocked her head at the new subject. "Really. What'd he say?"

"Well, he got sort of confused. You know, that look where he's not quite sure if he heard you right, but doesn't want to ask you again?"

She laughed aloud. "Oh yes, I know the one. He's quite good at it. It's a lot like Leon's."

"Well, finally his curiosity provoked him to ask the same thing, and after I told him, he was like, 'oh.' So each time I'd use that word afterwards, that same look would creep on his face, before disappearing again. It went like that for a week. I don't think he quite gets it to this day. He just accepts it, I think."

"That Devon," Claire shook her head. "I remember when I came here at the start of my freshman year. I was in his geology class, and he made it a point to get to know me whether I liked it or not."

"That sounds like our Devon."

"Well, at first, I thought he was pretty annoying, but after I got to know him, I don't know…He just kinda grew on me."

"Yeah, well…" Bobbye trailed off before eventually finding the rest of her statement, "…He seems to do that." Her tone slightly changed with her next sentence. "Do you think that Dev and Demi are okay?"

Claire frowned, unsure herself. "I don't know. I hope so."

This seemed to be enough for Bobbye at the moment. Her thoughts flashed back to Bethani. Not the one lying on the floor in the adjacent room, cold and lifeless, but the one of her memories. The one that would argue with her, and always try to outdo her, to no avail. It was going to be hard to continue in life without being able to talk and be with her. The same went with Lori and Eric. She didn't want to think about that right now, though.

"Hey Bobbye," Claire said, "we should get going, it's almost three-thirty. That card will work soon." With that, Claire and Bobbye rose out of their chairs, stretching casually while looking around once again for danger. "I'm sure Devon and Demi will eventually find us again."

"How are we going to get down?"

Claire walked to the edge of the patio, and looked down to the ground, seeing a few stray zombies wandering around about fifty yards from the building. "I don't want to take a chance with that tyrant being downstairs…Let's just climb down the side."

"You mean jump?"

Claire smirked at Bobbye's perceptiveness. "Yeah, pretty much."

"That's going to hurt."

Claire spun around to face Bobbye in playful competitiveness. "Wow. All this coming from Miss Athletic? I'm amazed."

Bobbye cocked an eyebrow, acknowledging the challenge, and began to walk to Claire. However, instead of stopping in front of her, Bobbye jokingly pushed the girl out of the way, and proceeded to lift herself over the cement edge of the patio, landing squarely in a patch of large bushes. Bobbye cursed herself under her breath as she quickly surveyed a few scrapes on her arms, and looked up to see Claire leaning over the rail, her ponytail dangling in front of her face.

"How was it?"

In usual sarcastic tone, Bobbye retorted, "Great. You should try it sometime."

****

"Finally, after all this time…It finally happened." Devon was leaning against the medical cabinet, with a sleeping Demi on his chest. He stroked her hair absently, as he looked at his watch, which was displaying 3:30. Thoughts of her once again flooded his mind. "It only took practically the end of the world."

Not much had happened after that heart-stopping moment. He had stroked her rose hair out of her face, and gently pressed his thumb to her lips and brushed it to the side. 'Now I have a reason to get the both of us out of all this,' he had said. Devon had wrapped his self-inflicted wound, then decided that the two should sleep for a while, to regain strength and to pass the time. It hadn't come easy for Devon, as his mind was working furiously with the recent turn of events, both tragic and wonderful. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head, but softly, so as not to bother her. He lingered for a minute to catch the aroma of her hair, which smelled of a sweet herb he didn't know. Maybe jasmine, he didn't know much about such things. But it seemed everything she was doing was luring him closer to her. One of her hands rested just above her head on his left pectoral, while the other was gently wrapped around his injured right hand. Her fingers tugged slightly at the wrapping in her sleep. Her breathing was peaceful and deep; it seemed that nothing was wrong at all. He looked around the room casually. Due to the table he had tipped over, Lori wasn't visible from his angle, which was a godsend, since his eyes often fell over that general area. This was his world as far as he was concerned. Nothing else seemed to exist except the disrupted Medical Office, and the objects within it. He continued to stroke her hair as she sighed deeply, and her hands began to move, signing to him that she was waking up. She groggily tilted her head to look up at the face of her pillow.

"Are we still okay?"

He wasn't quite sure what she meant by that statement. She could have been referring to their safety, or their relationship state, but it didn't matter. Each subject harbored the same response.

"Yeah, we're okay."

She sat up on her own weight, wiping her tired eyes. "What time is it," she mumbled.

"Three-thirty."

"Oh." She was silent for a second as she looked into his eyes. Devon began to wonder if she was expecting him to say something. Finally, she spoke again. "Should we get going?"

"To where?"

She shook her head, "I don't know. Let's try to find a way out of here."

He softly kissed her forehead before whispering, "I'm trying. I'm trying."

****

Jim Bowman's moment of truth had come. He took a deep breath and walked into the crowd of identical soldiers, all outfitted in the same camouflage that he was in. As he began to walk through the crowd, he received no odd looks.

"They're not catching on…Then maybe I can…"

He searched the back of one of the unmarked vans to find a bunch of papers, which he decided to confiscate, and jumped in the back to acquire a couple of the M-16s resting on the back racks of the compartment. After grabbing a number of clips, he hopped out, and slung the two shoulder straps over himself, the nylon crossing in the front. He was quite literally a walking militia. He was covered from head to toe with weapons of all sorts, and they clanked around as he walked. As he began to walk into the campus, he heard the sharp words of a man behind him.

"Halt, soldier!"

"Damn."

For a second, he was half tempted to turn around, guns blazing, but decided against it. Slowly, he faced the man, a moderately ranked soldier with an icy glare. Bowman had no problem returning the look.

"State your business of wandering onto the campus without orders, soldier."

Bowman kept his temper to a minimum, noting the fact that he obviously outranked the hostile man, despite Jim's age. Jim's words were few, but effective. "Special operations, sir."

The man frowned, as Jim began to grow slightly anxious. "Special operations? Where's the rest of your men then, soldier?"

"I'm the only one, sir."

"Would you mind telling me why they're bringing in a one man team for such an operation, soldier?"

"I'm one of the few to survive the assault on Raccoon City…sir." Bowman's adrenaline had begun to rise, and as a result, he became somewhat defiant. "I know how these things work, sir."

The soldier cut his eyes at the young man, as he calculated his statements. Jim's stone face didn't waver, and the soldier took it as a face of someone that was speaking the truth, or knew what he was talking about. At any case, the Umbrella soldier dismissed him.

"As you were, soldier."

Bowman decided not to deliver a courteous departing gesture. The only one he could think to offer was the one-finger salute.

"You stupid moron. I hope I remember to kill you."

Jim walked from the line of soldiers into the middle of the somewhat deserted campus. His guns were audibly striking each other, which could be heard for quite some distance. Bowman rounded a corner, out of the sight of the malicious military, and slumped against the wall in relief.

"Damn. Wasn't too sure if that'd work. Now, where the hell are you, Devon?"

He reached into his side pocket, pulling a cigarette from the pack and lighting it with his zippo. He took a drag before placing it on the side of his mouth to puff at his leisure, and continued his search for his friend.

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