Resident Evil
Code: Veronica
A novelization of the video game by Rohe Ashley
Author's Note: I am going to try to be as close to the main plot of the game as possible, including weapon boxes and carrying limitations, the use of herbs and the amount of ammunition available. Of course, for the scenes between what's presented in the game a little creative license is warranted. Also, in the interest of necessary trimming (to tell the entire game would be a novel of considerable size) I've truncated certain areas and scenes. Of course, I'll try to be as true to the nature of the characters as I possibly can. If, at any time, you feel I haven't done this or the writing could be improved upon, please let me know. I don't claim to be the greatest RE player in the world and as such could use a little coaching in the more subjective areas. Thank you.
The America mid-western town "Raccoon City" has been completely decimated due to the T-virus outbreak that was instigated by the international corporation "Umbrella."
Claire Redfield, who arrived in Raccoon City to search for her lost brother Chris, and a rookie police officer Leon S. Kennedy managed to escape the city, but their ordeal was only a prelude of things to come….
Prologue: Paris, December 17, 1998
It had been a few bullets, maybe a dozen, bouncing harmlessly into the walls, the floor at her heels, the thunder of two sets of army issues pounding along behind her, the acrid stink of oil and hot cordite discharge filling the wide hallway. Her own booted feet had skid to a stop before the huge, plate-glass window that headed the corridor, her arms thrown up, a stainless steel Glock 17 9x19mm lax in her fingers as she shielded the glare of the Huey suddenly floating outside.
Her breath dragged in harshly, high-pitched in her throat, eyes the color of the moonlight's silvery-blue shine widening in shock. She could see the smooth rotors of the Gatling gun spinning, charging with that unmistakable whine and sputter.
Claire Redfield stumbled, dove for the floor to her right, rolling to her feet in a new hallway, an access junket, as the rain of bullets turned the window and her pursuers into dust.
She scrambled to her feet and started back at right angles to the way she'd come, the speed she'd put in her steps before doubled, no trebled, as she raced for the swinging-open stair access door just within her sight at the other end of the new hall.
Her feet slapped the high-shine linoleum in tandem with her racing heart, the shattering scream of machine gun fire bursting the windows in her wake like her very presence made it so. Tiny slivers of glass, gnarled in her hair, splitting skin along the back of her neck, went unnoticed. In the roaring hell she raced through she could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing but the hammer of her heart somewhere in her throat and the blinding, pulsing, all-consuming thought that bleated over and over in her mind like a ritual.
Gotta find Chris. Gotta find Chris. Gotta find Chris.
Had she dared more than a glance to her left she'd have seen the kaleidoscope spray of red laser, a night-sight that bathed her body in a sick, greenish glow, giving the gunman a perfect shot.
If she ever thought she could outrun a helicopter, now was the time to prove it and just as the tankard-gray roaring beast, the Umbrella logo prominent along its bloated side, caught up to her she'd reached the door and was flying through it, already in a leg-swinging jump.
She hit the floor on the same shoulder, rolled and came to her feet gasping.
The muted, somnolent cha-chunk of a hundred semi-automatic and old- fashioned pump-action shotguns was her greeting.
She was in some kind of hangar and staring down the gathered forces of Umbrella's private army.
Leather creaked as her shoulders raised her arms, the Glock hanging from a finger as they came towards her.
She swallowed, stepping back a bit, her expression utterly blank. Over the shoulder of the nearest grunt she could plainly see several canisters of what could only be hydrogen, oxygen, gasoline or some other flammable material stored cooling in an oblong tank.
Her fingers extended, splayed in the moonlight filtering down the wide set of emergency access steps behind and above her.
She dropped the gun at the same time her body hit the floor. A fingerless- gloved hand snapped the weapon from the air before it could clatter to the floor and in the same instant fired off three rounds into the nearest canisters before its owner threw herself over onto her face, ducking for cover.
The chamber exploded in white-hot light and fire, the thirty or so faceless grunts now reduced to maybe one or two that were still alive, rolling in agony-spasms around on the floor.
A bit of shrapnel thumped her back, not enough to hurt, but the din had drowned out the sound of footsteps coming down the steel stairs. She only heard it when they were a riser or three above her and as she lifted herself up, rolling onto her back, snapping up her weapon… Claire sighed inwardly.
Those were her last three rounds. Her gun was empty. The guard's wasn't.
What she could see of his expression beyond the sight of her empty weapon and his loaded one was cold. Dark-skinned. And very pissed off.
"Don't move," he growled, the barrel of his gun unwavering.
He reached down and dragged her to her feet by her hair, getting a handful of glass for his pains and a smirk from his captive.
He returned the expression right before he slammed her in the side of the head with the butt of his piece.
Claire went, not ungratefully, down into the darkness. She was tired as hell.
1
2 Chapter One: The Prison
When she stirred she thought, for a moment, that the shot to the head had done something to her sight. All she could see was blackness interspersed with pinhole flashes of light.
Then she tasted the hot, stifling air, smelled the burlap and groaned. They'd tied a sack over her head and from the smell of it, it had last been used to haul manure.
She twisted, not surprised that the numb feeling from the elbows down was because her wrists were bound behind her.
She could feel warm air, however, brushing across her legs, hear the unmistakable skitter-whip of chopper blades. She could feel the ground swaying sickeningly beneath her and recognized it as the feel of a Huey setting down.
She was sitting on what felt like a hard, metal bench and lifted her head, straining for anything beyond the yowling whine of the blades.
Nothing. She couldn't hear a damn thing. She could feel, however, the gut- wrenching thud of metal on asphalt, the jolt that sent her doubling over down onto her jeaned knees and thighs without the use of her arms to catch her as the chopper hit ground.
Then, suddenly, strong arms grabber her from behind, sinking calloused fingers into the soft flesh of her forearms.
She felt another set of hands groping up between her thighs and inside the sack over her head muted a startled cry. Were they going to…? And she couldn't even defend herself.
No. The hands there were unsnapping the seatbelt and restraints that had held her sitting in her seat if not entirely upright.
She breathed out, swallowed, and remained silent. Whoever it was didn't need to know how scared she was.
"Get up, bitch," commanded the voice that dragged her to her feet.
She was being pushed and shoved along and noted, with some surprise, that she was still wearing the clothes she'd been caught in. She could tell the feel of them anywhere. Her favorite jeans and black half-tee. A brown leather choker and matching strip of rawhide that held her long red hair back from her face. Her lucky leather vest. Was Chris's Zippo still in the pocket? If she was to be a prisoner why hadn't they stripped her?
Questions she didn't have the answers to were the ones she avoided, usually. She concentrated, instead, on feeling every sensation she could since sight and touch was no longer available.
The warm air glided over her bare stomach as she was pushed, stumbling, out of the chopper and onto what felt like solid ground. The pinpoints of light were suddenly everywhere, illuminating the inside of the sack, giving her a view of charming brown burlap.
And suddenly, after a hopping, tripping ride down a dozen steps, she was enclosed in cool darkness.
She felt hands behind her, unsnapping her cuffs, fingers dragging the sack from her head.
She took her first few gulps of sack-free air shaking her head, though she would have much preferred the stuff outside to this dank, musty kind.
And before she could do much of anything but take a first look around a voice behind her, the same one that'd spoken in the chopper, was speaking again.
"Your identification number is WKD-44-96. Welcome to your new home."
She turned and was staring down the butt of another gun, the face beyond it pale, nondescript, just another one of Umbrella's grunts. The make of the weapon was longer, an assault rifle. It slammed into her face and once again, she descended into darkness, only this time she went pretty goddamned pissed off.
She awoke, again, in semi-darkness, the rumbling she'd filtered into her dream as one of those massage-a-beds you got in a cheap motel room much more real in the cold, hard floor she was lying on.
She pushed herself up just as the metal shaded lamp above her shivered and flickered warily, another rumble making pebbles dance on the hard-packed dirt, plaster flaking down, sifting and scattering from the upper right corner.
She rubbed the side of her head, the bridge of her nose. Would these people never get tired of smacking her in the face?
As the last vestiges of her dream faded and she realized she wasn't, in fact, sipping a martini and watching MTV as she fed quarters into a king- size vibrating bed, she sighed. She looked up, the semi-darkness more an inky, permanent kind as the lamp gave one final sputter and went out.
What the hell was going on up there? She drew in air that tasted and smelled more humid than she remembered, ripe with fire and salt with destruction.
Whatever it was, it must have been one hell of a party. She scowled, an expression her brother Chris often laughed at.
Thinking of him made her head hurt worse, a dull throb accompaniment to the ache in her heart when she thought of him.
No. No, I won't think of him. Not here. Not until I at least figure out where I am.
The thought came as easy as it was to shove him out of her mind. She rubbed her sore, chaffed wrists, trying to make something out of the total darkness that engulfed her.
She could see, barely, as her eyes adjusted the rusted metal bars that ran ceiling to floor and made up one wall of her cell. Cautiously she approached them, still rubbing the side of her head before one hand joined the other, pressing, lightly gripping the bars before her. All she needed was a tin cup.
The dank little room was perhaps twelve feel across, eight feet deep. Not much room, she decided, as she turned and surveyed it. As she turned back to the door set into the right half of the bars she felt the upper swell of her right breast, blinking, then grinning. The lighter was still there. They hadn't taken it.
She was just thinking about lighting it, maybe so she could see the shapeless bulks of shadows beyond the bars when movement caught her eye to the left.
The door leading out was open and into its threshold came… something.
It looked like a man but Claire felt her breath go just the same, the stumbling, shambling form an all too potent reminder of the horror Umbrella was capable of.
She saw, though, that it was a man. And he wasn't doing too well. His form was another shadow, just as bulky, just as ominous. He came to the door of her cell and stopped there, as if waiting for her to say something.
And she wasn't scared. For some reason, facing this dark, shuffling, shambling man frightened her not at all. Mostly because even as she flicked the Zippo alight and moved to the door of the cell, she could tell he wasn't going to hurt her.
She was startled just the same, to see the face of her captor now the face of her salvation. The dark-skinned, strong-featured, mustachioed soldier from back at the Paris lab was the same man pulling open the door of her cell and jerking his head for her to exit as he stepped backwards, hand over his stomach, and fell weakly into the single desk chair in the outer room.
But he still wasn't going to harm her. He couldn't hurt a fly. He wore a ratty, grime-streaked white tee shirt and standard fatigues and although Claire could see no visible wounds, nothing that'd soaked into the tee shirt anyway, the way he clutched at his stomach confirmed her original assessment. He was hurt and she was suddenly flushed with compassion for him, holding the lighter out in front of her.
She watched, silent, as he rummaged around in his pocket and came up with a small, clear plastic vial roughly the size of a shot glass. He peered darkly down into it, the slight illumination from her lighter enough to punctuate his growl as he saw the contents were empty.
"Perfect," he muttered, tossing the vial to the floor in disgust. It bounced and clattered a few feet away. Claire ignored it for now, watching her captor with wide, somewhat dulcet eyes. She knew any medicine he'd need in a syringe was an internal injury, otherwise, she'd be the first one hunting up a Band-Aid.
She stepped hesitantly out of her cell, the lighter growing hot in her fingers, casting wavering light over the rest of the small anteroom. Her guest and his chair plus a cluttered desk and a few papers tacked to the wall were the only furnishings. She ignored those, too, save the first and swallowed again, a dry click in her throat as she approached him.
He looked up at her then, waving a hand impassively, absently, as if her presence wasn't so much noticed and remembered but taken as par for the course in the new misery his life had become.
"Go on," he mumbled huskily. "Get out of here. This place is finished. I don't know it might have been a Special Forces team," he mumbled, trailing off a moment. Then his head lifted and he looked right at her. "But in any case, this prison's been taken over. Our troops have been wiped out."
Claire blinked, making her circuit out the door of the cell and against the adjacent wall.
"What are you saying?" She'd wanted her first words to be a little more eloquent than that, but considering the impact of what he'd just said, she kinna blurted it out before she could help it.
The man's brows raised and he smirked. But only slightly and definitely not at her.
"You're free to leave the complex," he said magnanimously, as if he alone had imparted this great freedom onto a little girl who didn't stand half a chance out there among the—His voice grew serious again. "But you may as well know you have no chance of getting off this island."
Ah. So she was on an island. Well, at least that was something. She curled her fingers tighter around the lighter, shifting it to the leather part of her gloves and not her fingertips, which were slowly roasting against the hot brass.
"And what about you? What're you going to do?" Scared little girl was right. She had no idea where she was or what was going to happen when she left this room. At least this man knew his way around. Plus, she was worried about the way he held his stomach. She had to help him if she could. Despite an all-consuming hatred of his employer, he'd been kind enough to hobble down here despite obvious pain just to let her out.
"Don't worry about me," he replied, the edge gone from his voice again.
She parted her lips to protest but could see a second later that even if she did, it wouldn't make a difference. He'd passed out cold.
She sighed and turned, stooping down to pick up the bottle he'd tossed away. The small, smudged label identified it as hemostatic suspended solution. Hemostatic. She filed that in her mental Rolodex, keeping it accessible in case she ran across any more. If she did she'd hightail it back here. It was the least she could do for him.
For now, however, it would seem she was on her own and her first solo move was to search her benefactor's pockets. No offense and she felt bad for doing it, but if the place was indeed under attack she had to arm herself.
He, unfortunately, wasn't packing, but his combat knife was lying on the desk beside a prison manifest that she scanned it briefly, recognizing her own name among the list of new arrivals: Alice Walker, I-Chen Hong, Matt Simmons, Steven Burnside, Kittery DuPree and on and on down to the very bottom where the manifest was signed and dated by a member of the Paris Umbrella Unit.
The man who'd brought her from Paris, the one that was now unconscious beside her, had to be that signature. The name was Raval. Rodrigo Juan Raval, to be precise.
Rather outlandish, Claire thought, as she tucked the combat knife into her belt, but she couldn't help a small smile.
She scraped through the other papers, finding nothing else of interest, and turning on her heel she poked her head back into her cell to make sure she hadn't missed anything.
She breathed in deeply, a sudden memory flashing into her head.
She was alone, wandering the deserted, boarded-up, desolate halls of the Raccoon police department, desperately praying that Leon had made it safely behind her and hadn't come into contact with one of those what-ever-the- hell that thing had been in the hallway.
She'd found her way outside and the cool night air had been a welcome relief from hot, rotting stench of death permeating the hollow halls of the station.
She'd received a nasty scrape up the side of her arm from the razored tongue of that abomination on the first floor and was starving to boot. She was also afraid. Afraid that thing had infected her with the T-virus and that fear was making her hot enough to want to get some air, even if only for a moment.
Some kind of green, bushy, visceral plant matter set in twin pots, probably the pets of a former RPD officer turned the living dead, had been growing out there on the landing.
She'd picked one, curious, bringing it up to her face with her good hand. It smelled like mint and when she'd taken a bite she found that while it didn't taste very good, the odd root made her swollen, aching arm feel immensely better. It still hurt, but it was far more bearable and she had her aiming hand back good as new. Also, she didn't need to be a particularly experienced botanist or even a biochemist to know the strange herb was helping to flush her system of traces of the T-virus.
Claire remembered the smell of that root and found herself breathing it in now.
She'd closed the lighter off, fearful of wasting the fuel, but flicked it on again briefly to illuminate the corner of the cell. A single frond of the familiar herb stuck up defiantly from a cracked corner of the cell.
She didn't bother to think about why it was there, though the answer would've been clear enough if she had.
She snapped the lighter closed and stuffed the palm-size plant leaf into her jeans, straightening up. Above her, another rumble shook the earth followed by a hollow BANG that sent a waft of choked, burning air her way from the opened door of the anteroom.
Stepping back out of the cell she glanced to her right and saw a small, red box sitting on the floor near where Rodrigo had thrown his medicine.
She didn't even have to examine it. She'd know that box anywhere. Umbrella outfitted its people with top-quality handguns and ammunition. The Elite Force brand was the only kind of handgun and shotgun bullets that came in a box like that. They'd been scattered like gumdrops all over the underground lab in Raccoon.
She picked up the somewhat shoddy red box, a Doberman's head in cameo-white profile on the lid, shaking it, half expecting it to be empty. To her surprise the distinct metallic rattle of fresh rounds greeted her ears. She pried off the lid and did a count of the contents. 15 9mm rounds, hollow points, strafed casing. Not bad. Now if she only had a gun to use them with. She stuffed the box into her back pocket, unsheathed the combat knife and with a final deep breath and a wish of luck to Rodrigo, she turned and stepped out the door of the cellblock and into the hall.
3 Chapter Two: Old Friends, New Friends
Claire was starting to feel stuffed. In the hallway she'd picked up another box of bullets and what looked like two ink ribbons for the old- fashioned spool-top typewriter sitting on a dilapidated table halfway down. She didn't know exactly what she was going to do with the latter findings, the urge to test out her current WPMs not particularly pressing. But deep down Claire Redfield was a pack rat. If it wasn't nailed down she was going to take it along with her and see if it could be of any use.
She hit a bend in the hall, a few haggard, hanging pieces of drywall and a shower of broken glass highlighting cloudy moonlight filtering down from the open set of stairs before her.
The smoke was thicker here, much more acrid, and as she began to climb and a light, chilling rain started to pour down over her, she quickly saw the source.
What looked like a small utilities truck had crashed into part of the crumbling wall that surrounded the small graveyard she'd stepped into. It was burning merrily, the rain sizzling off the flames and slowly devouring them.
Just then, licking tongues of fire finally penetrated the hull of the truck and reached the gas tank. A white-hot eruption of light made Claire jump back, a rain of corrugated metal coming with the shuddering BOOM of the explosion, ringing in her ears and showing electric blue negatives behind her clenched eyes.
She lowered her arm just in time to see a metal briefcase clatter to the floor inside a ring of fire, however, and it perked her interest. Cases like that were often used to hold custom handguns or machine guns, insulated to protect from fire. She started to walk towards it, thinking she'd stomp out the flames, when the fire-crusted door of the now decimated truck swung open.
The thing that flopped down from the driver's seat used to be human and in an instant all her memories and experiences back in Raccoon came flooding back to her.
She backed away, wordless protest caught in her throat as the hobbling, infected, diseased zombie picked up her scent and swung around, arms coming up and out as it slowly staggered towards her.
She thought she'd left this kind of nightmare behind. Thought she'd never have to see one of these rotting-from-the-inside-out carriers, their minds reduced to the palling charm of the flesh, their own skin falling off in chunks, pain no longer a concern. Only the hunger.
Claire stumbled back as her pursuer began to approach, a deep, guttural moan coming up from its throat as it shuffled towards her.
Her heel slipped in the thick mud already forming in the rain and she went down onto her hands and heels, crab-walking back away from the groaning, adroit, burning zombie still stalking towards her.
And suddenly a white, skeletal, emaciated hand plunged up out of the mud and grabbed her wrist.
Claire cried out, flipping over onto her knees and pushing up into a stand as all around her the soft earth erupted, squelching, bone-like limbs, grinning skeletal faces emerging from the mud to surround her. They were flopping, paper-like in their teetering shuffles towards her and as she pivoted, she slid down into the dirt again.
Claire was up like lighting, however, dusting the mud from her jeans, her breath whistling, moaning in her throat as she searched desperately around for an escape.
She could go back the way she came. And then what? Sit it out in that cell with the dying Umbrella guard? Praying that help came before these things learned how to use a doorknob?
No. She spotted her salvation in the door that led back out of the graveyard and into, she assumed, the main grounds of the prison. It was through the open space of a low, wrought iron fence, straight ahead and to the right of her position.
The door was wide, thick, rusted steel and she half-prayed it was open, all this flashing through her mind in the second or two it took to send the message to move from brain to feet.
She headed in a straight line whipping the combat knife to ready and when the white, walking corpse blocking her path made a lunge for her throat she jabbed it in the torso with the knife, letting it crumple, groaning and slobbering, at her feet. She broke into a free sprint, hearing them behind her, their moans of desperation and ultimate despair as she reached the door, flung the handle and sprinted through, slamming it behind her and leaving them to their misery.
Once she was clear of the graveyard and was catching her breath, leaning back against the door she'd just come through, she blinked her eyes and took a slow, objective look around.
She was in some kind of courtyard. It was too dark to see much beyond the stalled tarp-covered jeep in the center of the walled-in space. High guard towers armed with raillery-chain machine guns stood like silent sentinels and Claire immediately turned and started walking toward the nearer one, thinking maybe she could use the perimeter radio to wire for help. At the very least she could get the lay of the la—
3.1 B-B-B-B-OOM! B-B-B-B-OOM! B-B-B-B-OOM! B-B-B-B-OOM!
Claire dove for cover behind the fallen jeep as a white-hot searchlight suddenly blared to life inside the gut-pounding spray of bullets slapping earth. Someone in that guard tower was firing at her!
But hadn't Rodrigo said there was no one left?
Claire got her bearings as her hands pushed her up against the tire wall of the transport. Her eyes blinked out the storm of dust, her ears tuned low the splitting barrage of fire and she glanced down between her legs.
Part of a dead body was extended from out beneath the truck. But it wasn't the blood-splattered dead hand she smiled at. It was what was held in the cold, dead fingers.
With the scant light thrown by the swinging searchlight through the scattering raindrops she could just make out that the butt was blocky, most likely German or Italian. But it wasn't until she'd ejected the clip into her hand, her fingers wrapped around a perforated rubber grip and she saw the sleek wooden finish that she recognized a Beretta 9mm; 14 in the clip and one in the chamber. Rapid fire bursts, three to six. It wasn't a Glock and it didn't have the kick of a more potent Colt Python or .357. But it would do.
She spun on her knees, daring to duck her head out of her cover as wild bullets splattered to the left and right. Whoever it was, it was a lousy shot and she took careful aim before a three bursts from her own weapon shattered the searchlight and cast the courtyard back into darkness. Another two shots disabled the chain gun by knocking the rotor pin off, rendering it useless to anyone not aiming in one direction. She was about to take aim again when a rather plaintive wail came from the darkened tower alcove and she could just barely make out the form of what looked like a man or woman holding up its arms.
"Wait wait! Don't shoot!" cried a male voice.
Claire wasn't off her guard. She knew the diseased couldn't form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence… but it didn't mean she was out of danger. Slowly, keeping the Beretta drawn, she poked just a bit of her head out again, trying to get a look.
"Who are you?" she called out into the rain.
"Huh?" came the voice again. It was male, and it sounded young. The treble pitched, cracked as it tried to dip into lower octaves. "You're not a zombie."
No shit, she thought but didn't say.
"Well great! Wait right there, I'm comin' over."
She still wasn't off her guard even as she heard an ordinary pair of muddy high-topped Keds hit the dirt a moment later and the mysterious gunman showed himself. He was young. From what she could see, as she stood up, he wasn't much past 17 or 18 at best. He had the same affinity for collars she did, although his was studded leather and chain. He wore simple greenish-orange fatigues and a yellow tee shirt under a green vest. His hair was messy and reddish-brown like her own, but hung down into his face in that careless shag most young guys seemed to prefer these days. His face was pop star handsome around wide, friendly green eyes, his smile quick and trying-to-be-sexy.
Claire was moved not at all. She jacked the load of the Beretta, sending another round into the chamber as he walked towards her.
"Uh, sorry about that little… misunderstanding. But I thought you were one of those mon-" He said it as he came towards her and she cut him off, leveling the gun into his face, using it to push the aside the hand of greeting he extended.
"Shut up," she growled. "Make one wrong move and I'll shoot," she said as she circled him, getting her back to the open area as the rain showered down on them both now.
His grin vanished, but the amusement touching his eyes, making them dance, was still very much in evidence.
"Relax, beautiful. I said I was sorry. My name's Steve."
Despite the lame attempt at charm, she was mollified if only because she would have done the same thing had he come bursting out of the door to the cellblock in the black of night with the walking dead wandering around like a family picnic. She lowered the piece, keeping it double gripped at her thigh as she looked him over.
"I was a prisoner on this island," he continued casually when she brought the gun down. "And I'm guessing that you're not from Umbrella either." He turned away from her, extending his arms, stretching casually. Her brows rose. Was this guy serious? He was acting like the destruction, the fires interspersed with the legions of the undead was no big thing.
"No, I'm Claire. Claire Redfield," she stated, still watching him warily.
"Claire," he mused, humming it in his throat. "Nice. I'll remember that."
She cocked her head, a mix of amusement, incredulity and annoyance creasing her brow. God, he was cocky. Like this was some kind of ice cream social or something. But two heads were better than one and if she had someone to watch her back their progress would be a lot easier. She wondered how good his shot was.
"Hey, I hear there's an airport around here. Once I find it I can finally escape from this crazy island. I'll see ya!" And he was waving his retro- cuffed wrists in her face and taking off before she could even blink. How abrupt. So like most teenage guys she knew and she cracked a half-smile before she snapped out of it and went after him. If he knew about an airport, she was going with him whether he liked it or not.
"Hey, wait up!" she called out. He stopped and flapped his arms disgruntled, shaking a finger at her, sighing.
"I don't want you following me, lady. You'll only slow me down." He grinned again and took off, vanishing through one of the three doors leading into the courtyard. She blinked again and rolled her shoulders back, the pouring rain now effectively soaking her to the skin and making the thick tendril of her ponytail slap wet against her neck. It was uncomfortable and she realized, in that moment, that his was one of the names she'd read on Rodrigo's manifest. So he'd come from Paris, too? What had he done to get himself into this?
She sighed, shrugging it off. More of those questions she couldn't answer. She was on her own. Again. But when she caught up with that little brat she was going to ask him about it before she kicked him in the seat of his pants for running out on her. So much for chivalry.
She turned from the door he'd run through and decided to take a look around the courtyard before following after him. She'd already found a handgun and there were other bodies to check, plus the guard tower Steve had come from.
She took a quick, sweeping survey of the area, noting the door she'd come through, the one Steve had exited through, another, smaller side door and a fourth. This last one looked a little more official, an old-fashioned drop- block deadbolt guard sealing the double doors together. It was probably the main door to the prison and if Steve was wandering further into it, she might just make it to that airport ahead of him.
She quickly approached the door, slipping the reloaded Beretta into the back of her jeans where her draw was best and jogging through the mud up to the huge wooden doors.
Her heart sank, however, when she'd reached it. A metal plate was set into and blocking the mechanism to release the block of wood that dead bolted the doors together.
She was in Raccoon again for a moment, remembering in a montage of images and flicker-flashing trips through the slide show of her brain. Red Jewels. Chess Plugs. Jaguars, Serpents and Eagles, oh my.
"The fun just never stops here on Umbrella Island," she muttered as her slim, strong fingers traced the impressed outline of some kind of medal. It looked like the cut would fit circular and molded like a Gryphon or maybe a hawk. Whatever it was, she'd need it to unlock this gate.
She had no choice but to explore the island paradise a little further. She walked back the way she'd come in and expended the clip of busted Beretta held in the dead grip of another grunt. Shame. She could have gotten into a little two-hand combat. But at least the gun had a full magazine and the Beretta was standard issue for the Umbrella employees. She wouldn't have to bother stripping down casings with an inadequate bowie knife to make them fit.
She slipped the clip into her pocket, tried both doors of the guard towers, both the one Steve had emerged from and the one opposite it, and found them locked. Likewise, the side door wasn't locked but refused to budge no matter how hard she pushed at it. Like it'd been nailed shut from the other side. The knob turned freely under her hand, however, and that was particularly frustrating since she couldn't afford to waste the ammo blowing the wood to smithereens.
With no choice left to her she followed the lead of the cocky teenager, drawing the piece out from behind her, checking to make sure it was locked and loaded and that the safety was clicked off before her boot nudged the oblong, rusting green door open and she proceeded out of the relative safety of the courtyard and into the dark.
4 Chapter Three: New Toys
Steve Burnside had little doubt that the Redfield girl could handle herself. She'd marked that cotter pin under the chain gun in one shot, taking it out and scaring him half to death. Not only that, but when he'd finally gotten a good look at her he'd seen that past the knock-out blue eyes, the perfectly wan features flushed the pink of the leather vest she wore with the kickass Angel design on the back, the sloe and intimate curve of her hips trapped in belted low-riders… and what was he thinking about? Oh yeah. She was gorgeous, but she also had a strong, determined set to her jaw that had frightened him a little.
He'd gone up against the walking dead in the last few hours of new freedom, the same rumbling that'd awoken Claire in her dank little cell had also roused him from his, the guards scattering like mice when someone flips on a light. One had remained behind, trying to maintain the calm of the prison, not to watch in horrified silence as his comrades fell one by one to the shuffling, groaning, flesh-eating monstrosities that'd suddenly appeared in the sloughing remains of old friends clothes… and flesh.
Steve had awoken, pleaded released half-heartedly, watched in his own horror as the single guard left behind changed before his eyes. One minute the man was bandaging a rather vicious-looking bite mark on his left forearm and the next he'd been scratching rotting flesh off his stomach, turning to watch Steve Burnside with cataract-white eyes that saw nothing beyond the need for food.
He'd also been somewhat amused as the guard tried to get at him. Walking repeatedly into the bars that separated himself from his next meal.
Someone might say shock had rendered Steve utterly nonplussed by what was happening. In reality, he'd expected it ever since he'd arrived in this place. It was enough time to dull his senses to the nightmare creatures that slopped messily and stinking of rot from normal human beings, savage and bloodthirsty.
All that aside, Claire intimidated him. And it wasn't just her good looks. There was something about that girl. Were he unfortunate enough to slip up, to find him self rendered utterly brain-dead but for the lust of human blood… shambling… rotting… stinking… well, were that to happen, Claire Redfield was the last person he'd think about trying to take a bite out of.
As for Claire Redfield of the sloe hips and flushed cheeks, the latter couldn't have been paler as she winced her eyes shut and fired off a round into the rotting skull of the zombie trying to take a piece out of her shoulder.
The area behind the door from the courtyard had been empty, but a long, low bunkhouse dominated the yard's right side. Beside it and to her immediate right there was a locked chain link fence and she could make out, her hand shielding her eyes from the spatters of tapering off rain, a door beyond the gate.
Since she couldn't go that way now she decided to try the quarters, thinking maybe she'd find a key or at least a long, thick pipe or piece of metal to smash that lock.
The minute she'd opened the door, though, the low, rotten stench of death filled her nostrils. There were three of them, the further pair wandering aimlessly about a long, solid-looking wooden table scattered with empty dishes, half-eaten food and various papers and magazines.
The one nearest the door, however, set off a howling moan as he turned for her, his sick, rotting flesh visible through a torn prisoner's tunic. He set off the other two and as a trio they lifted their arms.
Claire's heart throbbed in her throat as she drew back the lock on the pistol. As she did it Bachelor Number One took a mad, eyes-rolling, throat- moaning lunge for her shoulder and she cried out in disgust as she felt cold, acrid breath steal across her throat. She shoved him from her, sending the barrel of the nine up under his chin and pulling the trigger. The wall and ceiling were suddenly decorated with a startling mosaic of gelid crimson and brain matter gray. The thing crumpled at her feet, a lake of thick yellow pus and soupy, partially congealed blood forming around it.
She dispatched the other two quickly, somewhat surprised and then anxious because it took six separate shots to down them. She finished off both with the flat side of her heel against skull but as she reached into her back pocket, drawing out shells to reload, she began to realize that at three shots apiece she'd have to begin practicing her dodging skills lest she run out of ammo.
She did a quick survey of the room, swiping half a box of Beretta shells from a mess of what looked like a pretty good steak dinner before the drone of flies and the rot of decay got to it. She felt her gorge rise, looking away from the table and let out a high, hysterical scream of laughter. Food could make her sick while punching holes in what used to be human beings couldn't. Go figure.
But she stopped herself before she could laugh again. She knew, from experience, that letting her own raw, desperate play for survival stew in her head too long was going to make her careless. It'd taken the cool, no- nonsense solidity of Leon Kennedy to bail her out last time. This time she was alone with no one to piece her back together once she started cracking up.
She swallowed thickly and moved on into a small kitchen alcove. She hated cockroaches and it looked like a pretty fair colony had made a home in the fine cracks and gouges in the plaster here. But the map tacked to the leading wall drew her attention away and she absently flicked one of the little buggers from her wrist as she tore paper from tape. Besides, these were nothing compared to what she'd seen below Raccoon City and she bowed her head over the map, scanning the faint blue lines intently.
She figured her position pretty easily, stepping out of the alcove and looking to the door opposite the one she'd come in. If the map was right there should be a shower and bunk area beyond it, and if the Umbrella people were leaving half boxes of shells on the dinner table there was probably more to be had where they stored things pre-crisis.
It occurred to her then, as it had in Raccoon, that the same sense of last- ditch desperation that was in these people was reflected in this room, this island. They'd seen what was coming. Their friends and colleagues turning to mindless, flesh-eating automatons, smiling faces suddenly rotten, doughy, turning on each other, turning on themselves. They'd done what they could to prepare and the world around her was in a state of suspended animation as the battle was taken, fought… and lost. It accounted for the scattered papers, the overturned chairs and tables, the sense of urgency applied to objects that were useful in the maelstrom of activity and never touched again. Until now.
She should be sitting in her dorm room, listening to Metallica, studying for her Midterms. Making out with boys her age and slapping hands when they went too far, purring ascent when she didn't mind that they did. Eating junk food. Babbling to girlfriends. Getting drunk, getting high.
Not here. Not among the waking and walking dead.
Claire cleared her throat, shaking off the soft, aching waves of pity that'd contorted her face into lines no 19-year-old should have to wear. Pity for these people, or what was left of them. Pity for herself.
Dwelling on it was another trap Leon had dragged her out of. She thought of him, cracked a smile, and turned on her heel, heading for the bunk area.
Once inside she was slightly disappointed, the disheveled beds racked three on three and lining the walls were pitifully empty of both supplies and ammunition. A few personal affects, torn photographs and choppy-script letters, was all she got for ten minutes of messing around through thin cotton blankets and half-shattered foot lockers. But at least there were no zombies and as she turned to go, thinking maybe she'd check out the back shower area and the alcove, something caught her eye. She walked over to the first bunk she'd searched and turned up the corner of the mattress, pulling free the metal object that'd glittered so brightly in the dim room.
It turned out to be the spiral binding of a small, ratty blue notebook, bloated with water damage, the ink smeared in the pages as she flipped it open and began to scan the tiny print:
4.1.1 May 13th
4.1.2 This room stinks of death. Based upon the information I've found, I
4.1.3 believe that I'm far south of the equator.
4.1.4 Lucky for me that Bob in the bunk below me, is one of those interesting
4.1.5 types of guys...
4.1.6
4.1.7 May 16th
4.1.8 Today Bob told some crazy story of why he was put this place with me.
4.1.9 Bob said that he used to be an attendant of the head of this place. This
4.1.10 "boss" named Alfred supposedly placed him in here because of a tiny
4.1.11 little mistake.
4.1.12 What does that mean? What's going to happen to me?
4.1.13
4.1.14 May 20th
4.1.15 Without warning, a group of military men took Bob to the building behind
4.1.16 the gullotine stand.
4.1.17 At midnight, I'll sneak out of here to see him.
4.1.18 I've been hearing that anyone taken to that building never comes back.
4.1.19 On top of that, there are these REALLY large plastic bags being
4.1.20 constantly being removed from that place. I'd better pray for Bob...
4.1.21
4.1.22 May 21st
4.1.23 I was wrong. I shouldn't have gone there. What is going on in there?!
4.1.24 All I could here was some insanely creepy laughter and the sound of Bob
4.1.25 screaming. I don't know what to do. I can't stop thinking about it...
4.1.26 Is that going to happen to me?!
4.1.27 I can't let it...
4.1.28 I just can't...
4.1.29
4.1.30 May 27th
4.1.31 Since my last entry, all of my fellow inmates have been taken to that
4.1.32 building! I know that I am next...It's obvious that we are all here to
4.1.33 be used as Alfred's guinea pigs. There's no way out!
4.1.34 What am I going to do?!...
Claire was profoundly glad the pages beyond this last were blank and she set the diary aside, drawing a deep, shuddering breath. What the hell kind of place was this?
She found herself staring down the answer as she rubbed the bridge of her nose, her eyes smarting from the strain. When she opened them her lip curled in disgust, the watermark on the mattress an outline of Umbrella's famous cartouche.
"Rotten bastards," she muttered, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand and sighing off the feeling of dread that'd punched a pit in her stomach. It still wasn't the time to come unglued and she set back on her original course, ducking her head into the shower stall first but starting with delight as she saw a full box of rounds sitting like a present from Santa on the windowsill below the row of them lining the back wall.
Delighted, she took up the box and pried it open, already emptying the rounds into the chest pocket of her tee-shirt when the window beside and above the cracked one she stood in front of suddenly shattered inward with a roaring scream of protest.
Claire screamed too, but not because her arms were peppered with sharp shavings, though it hurt like a bitch. The mottled, diseased carrier who'd done the damage was in her face, crawling through the window to get at her and she stumbled back, aiming for it's twisted, rotting nose.
A hand shot out from under the last bunk on her right, taking the heel of her boot and sending her swaying to balance as a muffled groan accompanied the fetid chomp of brittle teeth and soft gums into her ankle.
Claire felt disgust and anger well inside her, running in rills like the blood from her arms and she cracked the gun twice, swinging it forward then down and capping both head shots better than she thought herself capable of. She was shaking when she finally stumbled back out into the main room, her breathing coming hot and heady from her throat, making her dizzy as she slumped down into one of the chairs along the wall.
The thing had gotten her, and she felt blood warm and tacky soaking into her thick sock. She leaned over and forced herself to inspect it, the wound not very deep but she shivered with revulsion anyway, seeing the three or four blackened teeth it'd left behind, bone pulling right out of the rotting jaw of the carrier.
She gasped, blinking back tears of rage and disgust as she plucked out the shards of gritty bone and yellow enamel. It still wasn't time to come apart, goddamnit! She forced in a few deep, calming breaths and reached into her hip pocket, drawing out the frond of the plant she'd found back in her cell. It was pretty well crushed by now but she swallowed it anyway in two huge bites, immediately feeling her ankle grow numb. She looked down again and sighed relief. The stuff worked here just like it worked in Raccoon. The wound had stopped bleeding and was already crusting over as blood congealed red and white, her body's internal repair processes speeded up by the medicinal herb.
She'd stopped her shaking, too, and rubbed her eyes with her fists, clearing away any remaining tears. She wasn't going to sit here in Hell Bunkhouse sobbing like a little girl. She was going to get her ass up, go back outside and find that damn medal so she could make her away off this rock.
That diary had said south of the equator. That accounted for the warm winds filtering through cold rain outside. Depending on where she was, if she could get an idea once she could see a coastline, it was a matter of a very long boat ride or a very short plane ride, assuming Boy Wonder found that airport he was babbling about. Then on to the nearest safe house where she could contact Leon in Europe, or even Jill and Barry back in the States. One of them would have heard from Chris by now. She was sure of it.
"Hell, I'd swim at this point," she mumbled, pushing to her feet and moving back to the door.
As she pulled it open, her encounter suddenly flashed through her head again. The zombie that'd broken the window… he hadn't slammed it with his fists. Or even his head. Had he, it would have shattered in chunks, not harming her a bit. She looked down at the peppered red of her arms. That window had exploded. The only thing she knew that could do that was buckshot at close range, a handful of rocks, a baseball bat… or maybe machine gun fire.
What the hell was a zombie doing with a machine gun? Curious, she walked back over to the door to the back room and poked her head inside.
Yes. There, amid the rotting decay of headless disease carries. She stepped carefully around the corpses that were already drawing flies and carefully peeled back the thick yellow tunic of the one still propped halfway through the broken window like a crash test dummy.
She breathed through her mouth and gave a tug, jerking the long handles of two bulky black objects from each of its knurled, bony hands.
She exited the back bunkroom and set them down gently onto the table top to examine her find, reaching up to drag the hanging lamp closer by its metal shade.
And she laughed. That had to be a total fluke. The thing had come across a set of Calico M-100P semi-automatic pistols, had shambled past the windows, tasted her scent through the opened one and had turned to get her, accidentally firing off a few rounds. She hadn't heard it because the glass was breaking around her.
No matter. Whatever the reason, she now had some very sizable firepower at her disposal.
She unhooked the blunt, rectangular clips off both weapons and peeked inside, her laugh toning down to a grin, but that grin very wide indeed.
She was loaded for bear and snapped the magazines back into place, slipping the Beretta into her jeans and testing out a double grip. Her arms spread wide, the thin black metal barrels pointing east and west, then north and south, then crossed one over the other as she posed languidly and with a decided cock to her head, studying the sights.
She shook out the moldy green straps attached with hooks to the butt and casing of each pistol and took out her Beretta again, laying the handgun down on the table as she arranged the pistols across her back. They were sweet, their weight making her feel powerful, but she only had one magazine each. So far, the Beretta was doing well against the walking dead and if she knew Umbrella, some more of its bizarre, deadly creations were probably roaming this island. Best to save the heavy fire power for when she'd really need it. For Claire had no doubt there was a lab here somewhere. There was always a lab where Umbrella conducted its immoral, illegal experimentations on any number of living things. What better place than a remote island in the middle of nowhere? She thought about that prisoner's diary as she adjusted the straps firmly, riding them up so the pistols would be easy to reach without sublime effort.
The rain had stopped, leaving a humid, misty thickness to the air and back out on the porch she briefly considered using her new acquisitions to blast the lock off the gate then just as briefly reconsidered it. Having an ex- Green Beret for a brother had taught her a few things. Namely, the shabbiest lock was the one you did not shoot. Thin metal casing, hook and latch tumblers and assembly-line construction tended to give those kind of locking mechanisms a wicked recoil on anything more savage than a good kick or a hard smack with a blunt object.
Since she hadn't found the latter and was wary of the former she decided to go the long way, peeking at her map to judge her position.
She clattered down the rickety stairs, caught so in her thoughts that she didn't hear the deep, throaty growl that issue from the lee beneath them.
She was actually thinking about locks. A solid burst from the Calicos might not be so hot on a flimsy holding gate… but it would do some serious and non-threatening damage to the massive iron one locking her in here. She half turned back towards the courtyard, decided on it before another thought came, unbidden and fleeting, into her head.
You're not exactly up to your ass in ammo you know. You've got thirty rounds for the Beretta and a clip each for the pistols. What happens if there's something worse than zombies on the other side of that gate?
That gave her pause and she stood a moment, thinking about it. If the map was right, there was a utilites service and security office ahead of her. There was bound to be something there, even if it was just more shells for the Beretta.
With a sigh of the inevitable, the more logical Claire Redfield once again reared her head and she was turning back to the narrow, stone throat ahead, already walking down it. As she went she trailed a hand along the wall to her left, checking the map again as she rounded the corner at a right angle.
The building she was touching was what, if the charred and ruddy brick of the bunkhouse was on her left?
Her brow furrowed, the map pulled out and once again unfolded, her head bent over it studiously as she walked forward.
She felt the ground change under her feet, grow soft and yielding, slippery like mud. She looked down over the edge of the blueprint and jumped back, a cry of disgust mixing with pity forced up out of her throat and echoing around her.
A dead body, presumably of another prisoner or a guard, lay sprawled, half buried under the shallow trench beneath the raised bunkhouse.
Her heart drummed in her chest, speeding up a moment as she stared down at him. Faded, ripped fatigues clad the lower half of his body, a pair of boots splattered with mud and gore locked in rigid and rigor mortis.
Sour gall, bitter and hot, rose in her throat and she felt a wince of tears in her eyes, wondering if he'd had a family… a wife and children who'd never see him again.
She drew a shuddered breath, shaking her head and preparing for what she knew she had to do. If this was a guard, he might have been armed. If he'd been armed, he might still have the weapon or extra shells on him. She tried to ignore the grim reality of this, her pity for the man mixing sick distaste for the act of looting the dead.
But before she could come forward again the body moved and Claire cried out again, snapping the Beretta out and down, ready to fire should this prove to be another hapless victim of Umbrella's cannibal virus.
But no. The body wasn't moving of its own volition and around her rose the thick, throated growl again as the corpse was dragged in a skitter of dust and pebbles beneath the bunkhouse, into the inky darkness below it.
Claire could feel tension burning in her ears, her throat and her eyes went wide and blue as a summer's sky, flicking side to side warily.
Somehow, that growl was achingly, hauntingly familiar. And if she remembered correctly, it would take three or four rounds to get rid of the skinless, four-legged horrors that were Umbrella's chief perimeter security force. Cerberuses. Hounds from hell that still retained the sleek, muscled physique of the champion-bred Rottweilers they'd spawned from, rotting from the inside out.
She looked ahead of her a moment, listening for the distinct, chilling rattle like rain on a tin roof. The wheezing pant, the clabber of skinless paws on macadam.
Aside from the first growl, however, there was nothing and she moved ahead hastily, casting one look back and grimacing in disgust at the pool of congealed blood left in the wake of the body. If the Cerberus was feeding, he'd be preoccupied long enough for her to get away and she booked it, breaking into a run, arms pumping her faster as she skid around the next corner and ran the length of the corridor, not stopping until her free hand flew out and caught the lever latch of the thick, rusted metal door on her left. Ahead, the dooryard beyond the locked gate looked chilled and sweating fog in the aftermath of the shower. She did no more than glance at it as her body's inertia jolted her to a stop off the strain of her grip and she turned to the door, rattling the lever up and down and feeling it give. It wasn't locked. She breathed a shaky sigh of relief for small favors and let herself in.
5 Chapter Four: Busting Out
Steve leaned in on his hands, tapping a few pointed, merciless strokes at the keys, tilting his head to the side as he examined the small, blurry picture. He'd found the dossier without much trouble, he was raised on Doom II and Napster, and now thought of Claire again as he stared down into newsprint black and white eyes that had to be the same shade of blue as hers when in color. Digging into Umbrella's computer files hadn't been nearly as challenging as trying to decipher their pages and pages of encrypted techno babble. It seemed like these guys wrote a field report in the time it'd take to walk off the field, into the woods, have a smoke and a beer and still come back on time to give Corporate their comeuppance. After mouse-clicking his way through five or six full scrolls of some garbage about a town called Raccoon in Eastern Bumfuck USA he'd finally come across the goods.
"Chris Redfield," he mused softly, scanning the three or four lines of print beside the photograph. It wasn't much, but it was enough to tell him that whoever this guy was, related to Claire or not, he was in some serious shit with the big uglies in Umbrella's upper echelons. According to the dossier, this Redfield cat had infiltrated Umbrella's B.O.W. lab in Europe. Some half-cock ex-cop called Kennedy was with him and Steve's frown flashed into a grin for a moment. S.T.A.R.S.? The hell kinna faggy name was that for a supposedly elite band of Navy-trained mercenaries hired out by the local law to do the job they couldn't?
But he was frowning again as he scrolled down to the page below the photograph. He tapped again, rubbing the thin, just-starting-to-be-square line of his jaw, a day-old beard that would have pleased him otherwise scratching raspily up and down as he did so.
Despite amateur hacker status he really didn't know too much more than he'd started with when he came in.
The security office consisted of little more than a few metal detectors book-ending a U-shaped hall, a few old crates with some pretty craptastic ammo and the little anteroom with the computer he stood in and in front of now. He'd unloaded a few rounds into the rotting faces of the one or two deadheads hanging out in the hallway, crunched with mild satisfaction through what remained of their skulls and blasted out the computer mechanism on the metal detectors, rendering them useless.
He didn't realize he was going on pure aggression now. Sending a white-hot slug through the leering, rotting grin of what used to be a human being touched him no more than almost being ravaged by one had. The only emotion he could feel without filter was anger. Impotent, useless anger than seemed to flare up and fire out of the extension of himself he'd picked up off the dead guard back in his cell. The Beretta was now more than a defense tool. It was his way of letting out all the blind fury he was feeling. Towards his father. Himself. This island. The world. And most of all towards Umbrella. They'd put him here. They were the reason for and behind this nightmare.
The small room had a door leading off it and when the doorknob refused to turn he almost blasted it off. But since it was a small room and his anger wasn't drowning out his common sense he'd vetoed that idea and started messing with the computer instead. Maybe he'd find a map of his hellhole and a clue to the whereabouts of the airport he'd heard about. Or maybe he'd find some really good porn and take a well-need break from this fucked- up place.
Or maybe he'd find a huge dossier full of strange faces and endless, rambling notes and a picture of a square-jawed, intense young man who looked amazingly like the only thing that made him feel anything but anger lately. This Redfield guy… he looked like Claire.
"Chris Redfield?" He said it again, this time questioning it as much as his thought process would allow.
Footsteps echoed behind him, the partition that bisected the small room making a wicked echo of what would have been a light tread.
"What are you doing here?" came the soft, lilting voice behind him. He turned and looked at her and almost smiled. He hadn't realized how lonely he'd been. The only other person alive, breathing, not lusting for his blood or trying to rip his throat out. And she was lovely.
But he didn't smile at Claire. He more… smirked, and flapped a hand at the screen behind him. Chicks didn't dig all that sentimental shit. He'd have to be tougher. As cool as she was or cooler. He closed the few steps that separated them.
"Chris Redfield. Is he a relative of yours or something?"
The fleeting look of pure delight that crossed her features twisted at his heart. But she was cool, good at playing her cards close to her chest when it came to her emotions. The delight warred with concern and curiosity before both faded back to her pale, lovely, and utterly nonplussed expression.
"You mean my brother?" Try as she might, she couldn't keep the anticipation from her voice, though. Steve locked onto it and mused his next words.
"Ahh. You're siblings." He turned from her and walked over to a glowing slide-card lock that was beside the locked door. He tapped at it, flicking a few strands of red hair from his eyes as he did so. "Well it seems your brother is under surveillance by Umbrella." The security box made a few electric-muted taps as he bapped at it.
"What?!" He turned to look at her and now she was animated. She rushed up to the glowing computer screen and immediately bent over the keys, her blue eyes snapping as she scanned the lines of type. Steve stayed where he was, only taking an occasional peek at her over his shoulder as the unmistakable sound of two-finger-punch typing came from behind him.
"I've got to contact Leon and tell him to let my brother know he's being monitored. It's a good thing I have access to an outside connection from here," Claire extrapolated, clacking away.
Steve smirked, but it had a hard time coming even if wasn't a real smile anyway. Who was Leon? And why did he feel the sudden twist of jealousy in his stomach at the mention of the name? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her when that all consuming and utterly winning sarcasm took over.
"That file shows the latitude and longitude of this place." He snorted derisively. "Why don't you send your brother the coordinates and ask him to come help?"
Claire, who was busy trying to type out a coherent e-mail to Leon, brightened. She toggled down the screen that showed her Hotmail account and looked back at Chris's dossier, scanning it for a pair of digits framed by directional shorthand. She located them and beamed, tossing it back over her shoulder at him.
"Thanks! I'll do that." She went back to her typing as Steve finally turned, halfway, towards her.
"He-ey, I was just kidding." He was still smirking, only now, the heat of bitter anger laced his tone. "There's no way he could get here, even if he is your brother."
Claire picked up on it this time and she straightened, her brow furrowing, watching him poke and prod at the open switch box on the wall.
"Yes he can," she said, not quite defensively, but ready to be. "I'm sure of it."
"No way," Steve muttered, more to himself than to her. He gave a final, definitive smack at the fuse box and turned to her, the smirk gone. In its place he wore a sneer of flushed anger. But his eyes. His eyes were hurting beneath their blaze and Claire was startled by it, empathy making her step toward him a little.
"He won't come," Steve continued, moving towards her, almost as if to ward her off from coming near him. He was the aggressor here. He was in charge. There was a tight, immutable steel-like wrack of his sinewy frame and his hands curled into fists at his sides. "You'll just end up disappointed if you rely on others. Believe me, I know!"
Well, it wasn't exactly the way he'd meant for that to come out. He'd wanted to curse at her. To call her a duped and docile little ninny who was out of her fucking head if she thought anyone would come and help them. He was so frustrated, though, that it came out sounding prissy and lame and because he couldn't bear her pity, he stalked out before she could give any. The door slammed heartily pissed off as he exited, trying to get her face out of his head. He didn't need Claire Redfield to feel sorry for him. He didn't need anyone.
Claire, on the other hand, who had been ready to comfort him, instead raised her brows.
"What was that all about?" she asked no one in particular. Of course, no one in particular didn't bother to answer and so she was alone again. Steve had been so angry. She'd wanted to ask him why, to make him talk about it because that was her nature. But part of her, the selfish part, had wanted to maybe get him calmed down so they could continue on together and now that seemed out of the question.
She'd followed his path, the trail of dead bodies, discharge scoring, gutted electrical boxes belching sparks attached to the hall walls outside. She couldn't help but wonder if someone that tightly-wound was good to have as a companion anyway, even if he was a dead shot.
He had, however, overlooked a few boxed of handgun ammo lying scattered across some large crates in an alcove along the hallway. She'd picked them up and stored them in a hip pack she'd found lying crumpled beside the larger of the wooden boxes.
There'd also been three small, green and gray flocked containers that looked for all the world like the blunted cases Chris carried his pool cues in.
But Claire recognized them even if Steve hadn't. They were rounds for a grenade launcher. She'd become a pretty good shot back in Raccoon and emptied the six cartridges, orange and blue, into the pack as well. The sharp, pungent odor of gunpowder radiated from the rounds painted a noxious, florescent orange. The ones painted blue were light, almost as if nothing armed them but their thick, metal shell. Fire and B.O.W. gas rounds. She knew that even before inspecting the machine-punched emblem on the flat side of the compact, salt-shaker-like cylinders. If she carried them very carefully and somehow managed to find a launcher in this hellhole, she'd be very well off indeed.
However, Claire was a practical girl. The odds of some Umbrella schmuck just leaving a HK79 manual grenade launcher lying around were slim to none. Besides, she was beginning to feel like a walking armory, and she turned in place, inspecting the small room in the dim, bluish light of the computer monitor. She would have to store some of her gear. It wasn't safe to carry live grenade rounds on her no matter how tempting it was. They'd roll and smash into each other as she walked and the hip pack was already bulging at her waist. She couldn't risk going at a run with such unstable ammo, especially the B.O.W. gas. When she found a launcher, not likely, but possible, then she wouldn't mind so much. For now, she'd have to stash her windfall somewhere safe.
A very large, very deep steamer trunk stood in the alcove between a messy desk and what looked like the key and die machines she'd seen in hardware stores. She ignored the machine and flipped open the lid of the trunk, peeking inside. It was as deep as it looked, the sides padded with egg- carton foam.
"Perfect," she muttered, unloading the cartridges slowly, one by one, from her pack and down into the softness. They'd be safe enough there until she needed them.
She closed the lid of the trunk and turned, leaning against it a moment as she thought about the last few minutes. The door off the bunkhouse had led into a dank, copper-smelling courtyard. It was rank with the odor of old blood, blood that'd been there long before the T-virus leak. She'd dispatched a few of the undead and run past a wire mesh fence that boxed in what looked like a smaller courtyard and a white building beyond it. Her map labeled that building infirmary and now that she thought about it, a first aid kit wouldn't be so bad to have on hand.
She hadn't inspected the fenced in yard because of the one or three undead she'd seen loaming around in there but now, as she thought about Steve again for a reason she couldn't define, she wanted to go back.
Her eyes flicked over to the monitor again and for a moment her gaze and her brother's locked. Her smile was sad… and beautiful.
"Wherever you are, bro, keep yourself safe and your eyes open for the big nasty."
Rest time was over, although it was just now that Claire was beginning to feel the first strains of fatigue. She was mildly hungry, too, and it was the thought of maybe finding some rations in a first aid kit that got her moving.
Before she left the monitor room, however, she deep a lazy, almost somnolent sweep of the bookshelves that lined the partition walls and the messy desk to the right of her.
She picked through the kind of textbooks she had for her college biology course, a moue of distaste darkening her features.
She sorted through the mounds of paperwork heaped in toppled, toppling and about-to-topple piles on the sparse landscape of the walnut office desk. She jerked open the shallow drawer beneath it, ready to sift through more paper and a flash of gold made her stop. Her fingers batted aside half- gnawed No. 2s and a steno pad filled cover to cover and end-to-end with stunted, backwards copperplate script.
She handed up the round, heavy object and for a moment she was so dumbfounded she almost dropped it.
Here she was, trying like hell to weigh the risk of blasting the shit outta that heavy front gate and going on a little further with what felt like a fruitless search… and some Umbrella moron had just left the key lying in a desk drawer?
But it wasn't a mistake. The round medallion was roughly the size of a coaster and molded on it, wings spread, was a hawk mid-flight, one tiny, glimmering, golden eye trained up at Claire.
Code: Veronica
A novelization of the video game by Rohe Ashley
Author's Note: I am going to try to be as close to the main plot of the game as possible, including weapon boxes and carrying limitations, the use of herbs and the amount of ammunition available. Of course, for the scenes between what's presented in the game a little creative license is warranted. Also, in the interest of necessary trimming (to tell the entire game would be a novel of considerable size) I've truncated certain areas and scenes. Of course, I'll try to be as true to the nature of the characters as I possibly can. If, at any time, you feel I haven't done this or the writing could be improved upon, please let me know. I don't claim to be the greatest RE player in the world and as such could use a little coaching in the more subjective areas. Thank you.
The America mid-western town "Raccoon City" has been completely decimated due to the T-virus outbreak that was instigated by the international corporation "Umbrella."
Claire Redfield, who arrived in Raccoon City to search for her lost brother Chris, and a rookie police officer Leon S. Kennedy managed to escape the city, but their ordeal was only a prelude of things to come….
Prologue: Paris, December 17, 1998
It had been a few bullets, maybe a dozen, bouncing harmlessly into the walls, the floor at her heels, the thunder of two sets of army issues pounding along behind her, the acrid stink of oil and hot cordite discharge filling the wide hallway. Her own booted feet had skid to a stop before the huge, plate-glass window that headed the corridor, her arms thrown up, a stainless steel Glock 17 9x19mm lax in her fingers as she shielded the glare of the Huey suddenly floating outside.
Her breath dragged in harshly, high-pitched in her throat, eyes the color of the moonlight's silvery-blue shine widening in shock. She could see the smooth rotors of the Gatling gun spinning, charging with that unmistakable whine and sputter.
Claire Redfield stumbled, dove for the floor to her right, rolling to her feet in a new hallway, an access junket, as the rain of bullets turned the window and her pursuers into dust.
She scrambled to her feet and started back at right angles to the way she'd come, the speed she'd put in her steps before doubled, no trebled, as she raced for the swinging-open stair access door just within her sight at the other end of the new hall.
Her feet slapped the high-shine linoleum in tandem with her racing heart, the shattering scream of machine gun fire bursting the windows in her wake like her very presence made it so. Tiny slivers of glass, gnarled in her hair, splitting skin along the back of her neck, went unnoticed. In the roaring hell she raced through she could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing but the hammer of her heart somewhere in her throat and the blinding, pulsing, all-consuming thought that bleated over and over in her mind like a ritual.
Gotta find Chris. Gotta find Chris. Gotta find Chris.
Had she dared more than a glance to her left she'd have seen the kaleidoscope spray of red laser, a night-sight that bathed her body in a sick, greenish glow, giving the gunman a perfect shot.
If she ever thought she could outrun a helicopter, now was the time to prove it and just as the tankard-gray roaring beast, the Umbrella logo prominent along its bloated side, caught up to her she'd reached the door and was flying through it, already in a leg-swinging jump.
She hit the floor on the same shoulder, rolled and came to her feet gasping.
The muted, somnolent cha-chunk of a hundred semi-automatic and old- fashioned pump-action shotguns was her greeting.
She was in some kind of hangar and staring down the gathered forces of Umbrella's private army.
Leather creaked as her shoulders raised her arms, the Glock hanging from a finger as they came towards her.
She swallowed, stepping back a bit, her expression utterly blank. Over the shoulder of the nearest grunt she could plainly see several canisters of what could only be hydrogen, oxygen, gasoline or some other flammable material stored cooling in an oblong tank.
Her fingers extended, splayed in the moonlight filtering down the wide set of emergency access steps behind and above her.
She dropped the gun at the same time her body hit the floor. A fingerless- gloved hand snapped the weapon from the air before it could clatter to the floor and in the same instant fired off three rounds into the nearest canisters before its owner threw herself over onto her face, ducking for cover.
The chamber exploded in white-hot light and fire, the thirty or so faceless grunts now reduced to maybe one or two that were still alive, rolling in agony-spasms around on the floor.
A bit of shrapnel thumped her back, not enough to hurt, but the din had drowned out the sound of footsteps coming down the steel stairs. She only heard it when they were a riser or three above her and as she lifted herself up, rolling onto her back, snapping up her weapon… Claire sighed inwardly.
Those were her last three rounds. Her gun was empty. The guard's wasn't.
What she could see of his expression beyond the sight of her empty weapon and his loaded one was cold. Dark-skinned. And very pissed off.
"Don't move," he growled, the barrel of his gun unwavering.
He reached down and dragged her to her feet by her hair, getting a handful of glass for his pains and a smirk from his captive.
He returned the expression right before he slammed her in the side of the head with the butt of his piece.
Claire went, not ungratefully, down into the darkness. She was tired as hell.
1
2 Chapter One: The Prison
When she stirred she thought, for a moment, that the shot to the head had done something to her sight. All she could see was blackness interspersed with pinhole flashes of light.
Then she tasted the hot, stifling air, smelled the burlap and groaned. They'd tied a sack over her head and from the smell of it, it had last been used to haul manure.
She twisted, not surprised that the numb feeling from the elbows down was because her wrists were bound behind her.
She could feel warm air, however, brushing across her legs, hear the unmistakable skitter-whip of chopper blades. She could feel the ground swaying sickeningly beneath her and recognized it as the feel of a Huey setting down.
She was sitting on what felt like a hard, metal bench and lifted her head, straining for anything beyond the yowling whine of the blades.
Nothing. She couldn't hear a damn thing. She could feel, however, the gut- wrenching thud of metal on asphalt, the jolt that sent her doubling over down onto her jeaned knees and thighs without the use of her arms to catch her as the chopper hit ground.
Then, suddenly, strong arms grabber her from behind, sinking calloused fingers into the soft flesh of her forearms.
She felt another set of hands groping up between her thighs and inside the sack over her head muted a startled cry. Were they going to…? And she couldn't even defend herself.
No. The hands there were unsnapping the seatbelt and restraints that had held her sitting in her seat if not entirely upright.
She breathed out, swallowed, and remained silent. Whoever it was didn't need to know how scared she was.
"Get up, bitch," commanded the voice that dragged her to her feet.
She was being pushed and shoved along and noted, with some surprise, that she was still wearing the clothes she'd been caught in. She could tell the feel of them anywhere. Her favorite jeans and black half-tee. A brown leather choker and matching strip of rawhide that held her long red hair back from her face. Her lucky leather vest. Was Chris's Zippo still in the pocket? If she was to be a prisoner why hadn't they stripped her?
Questions she didn't have the answers to were the ones she avoided, usually. She concentrated, instead, on feeling every sensation she could since sight and touch was no longer available.
The warm air glided over her bare stomach as she was pushed, stumbling, out of the chopper and onto what felt like solid ground. The pinpoints of light were suddenly everywhere, illuminating the inside of the sack, giving her a view of charming brown burlap.
And suddenly, after a hopping, tripping ride down a dozen steps, she was enclosed in cool darkness.
She felt hands behind her, unsnapping her cuffs, fingers dragging the sack from her head.
She took her first few gulps of sack-free air shaking her head, though she would have much preferred the stuff outside to this dank, musty kind.
And before she could do much of anything but take a first look around a voice behind her, the same one that'd spoken in the chopper, was speaking again.
"Your identification number is WKD-44-96. Welcome to your new home."
She turned and was staring down the butt of another gun, the face beyond it pale, nondescript, just another one of Umbrella's grunts. The make of the weapon was longer, an assault rifle. It slammed into her face and once again, she descended into darkness, only this time she went pretty goddamned pissed off.
She awoke, again, in semi-darkness, the rumbling she'd filtered into her dream as one of those massage-a-beds you got in a cheap motel room much more real in the cold, hard floor she was lying on.
She pushed herself up just as the metal shaded lamp above her shivered and flickered warily, another rumble making pebbles dance on the hard-packed dirt, plaster flaking down, sifting and scattering from the upper right corner.
She rubbed the side of her head, the bridge of her nose. Would these people never get tired of smacking her in the face?
As the last vestiges of her dream faded and she realized she wasn't, in fact, sipping a martini and watching MTV as she fed quarters into a king- size vibrating bed, she sighed. She looked up, the semi-darkness more an inky, permanent kind as the lamp gave one final sputter and went out.
What the hell was going on up there? She drew in air that tasted and smelled more humid than she remembered, ripe with fire and salt with destruction.
Whatever it was, it must have been one hell of a party. She scowled, an expression her brother Chris often laughed at.
Thinking of him made her head hurt worse, a dull throb accompaniment to the ache in her heart when she thought of him.
No. No, I won't think of him. Not here. Not until I at least figure out where I am.
The thought came as easy as it was to shove him out of her mind. She rubbed her sore, chaffed wrists, trying to make something out of the total darkness that engulfed her.
She could see, barely, as her eyes adjusted the rusted metal bars that ran ceiling to floor and made up one wall of her cell. Cautiously she approached them, still rubbing the side of her head before one hand joined the other, pressing, lightly gripping the bars before her. All she needed was a tin cup.
The dank little room was perhaps twelve feel across, eight feet deep. Not much room, she decided, as she turned and surveyed it. As she turned back to the door set into the right half of the bars she felt the upper swell of her right breast, blinking, then grinning. The lighter was still there. They hadn't taken it.
She was just thinking about lighting it, maybe so she could see the shapeless bulks of shadows beyond the bars when movement caught her eye to the left.
The door leading out was open and into its threshold came… something.
It looked like a man but Claire felt her breath go just the same, the stumbling, shambling form an all too potent reminder of the horror Umbrella was capable of.
She saw, though, that it was a man. And he wasn't doing too well. His form was another shadow, just as bulky, just as ominous. He came to the door of her cell and stopped there, as if waiting for her to say something.
And she wasn't scared. For some reason, facing this dark, shuffling, shambling man frightened her not at all. Mostly because even as she flicked the Zippo alight and moved to the door of the cell, she could tell he wasn't going to hurt her.
She was startled just the same, to see the face of her captor now the face of her salvation. The dark-skinned, strong-featured, mustachioed soldier from back at the Paris lab was the same man pulling open the door of her cell and jerking his head for her to exit as he stepped backwards, hand over his stomach, and fell weakly into the single desk chair in the outer room.
But he still wasn't going to harm her. He couldn't hurt a fly. He wore a ratty, grime-streaked white tee shirt and standard fatigues and although Claire could see no visible wounds, nothing that'd soaked into the tee shirt anyway, the way he clutched at his stomach confirmed her original assessment. He was hurt and she was suddenly flushed with compassion for him, holding the lighter out in front of her.
She watched, silent, as he rummaged around in his pocket and came up with a small, clear plastic vial roughly the size of a shot glass. He peered darkly down into it, the slight illumination from her lighter enough to punctuate his growl as he saw the contents were empty.
"Perfect," he muttered, tossing the vial to the floor in disgust. It bounced and clattered a few feet away. Claire ignored it for now, watching her captor with wide, somewhat dulcet eyes. She knew any medicine he'd need in a syringe was an internal injury, otherwise, she'd be the first one hunting up a Band-Aid.
She stepped hesitantly out of her cell, the lighter growing hot in her fingers, casting wavering light over the rest of the small anteroom. Her guest and his chair plus a cluttered desk and a few papers tacked to the wall were the only furnishings. She ignored those, too, save the first and swallowed again, a dry click in her throat as she approached him.
He looked up at her then, waving a hand impassively, absently, as if her presence wasn't so much noticed and remembered but taken as par for the course in the new misery his life had become.
"Go on," he mumbled huskily. "Get out of here. This place is finished. I don't know it might have been a Special Forces team," he mumbled, trailing off a moment. Then his head lifted and he looked right at her. "But in any case, this prison's been taken over. Our troops have been wiped out."
Claire blinked, making her circuit out the door of the cell and against the adjacent wall.
"What are you saying?" She'd wanted her first words to be a little more eloquent than that, but considering the impact of what he'd just said, she kinna blurted it out before she could help it.
The man's brows raised and he smirked. But only slightly and definitely not at her.
"You're free to leave the complex," he said magnanimously, as if he alone had imparted this great freedom onto a little girl who didn't stand half a chance out there among the—His voice grew serious again. "But you may as well know you have no chance of getting off this island."
Ah. So she was on an island. Well, at least that was something. She curled her fingers tighter around the lighter, shifting it to the leather part of her gloves and not her fingertips, which were slowly roasting against the hot brass.
"And what about you? What're you going to do?" Scared little girl was right. She had no idea where she was or what was going to happen when she left this room. At least this man knew his way around. Plus, she was worried about the way he held his stomach. She had to help him if she could. Despite an all-consuming hatred of his employer, he'd been kind enough to hobble down here despite obvious pain just to let her out.
"Don't worry about me," he replied, the edge gone from his voice again.
She parted her lips to protest but could see a second later that even if she did, it wouldn't make a difference. He'd passed out cold.
She sighed and turned, stooping down to pick up the bottle he'd tossed away. The small, smudged label identified it as hemostatic suspended solution. Hemostatic. She filed that in her mental Rolodex, keeping it accessible in case she ran across any more. If she did she'd hightail it back here. It was the least she could do for him.
For now, however, it would seem she was on her own and her first solo move was to search her benefactor's pockets. No offense and she felt bad for doing it, but if the place was indeed under attack she had to arm herself.
He, unfortunately, wasn't packing, but his combat knife was lying on the desk beside a prison manifest that she scanned it briefly, recognizing her own name among the list of new arrivals: Alice Walker, I-Chen Hong, Matt Simmons, Steven Burnside, Kittery DuPree and on and on down to the very bottom where the manifest was signed and dated by a member of the Paris Umbrella Unit.
The man who'd brought her from Paris, the one that was now unconscious beside her, had to be that signature. The name was Raval. Rodrigo Juan Raval, to be precise.
Rather outlandish, Claire thought, as she tucked the combat knife into her belt, but she couldn't help a small smile.
She scraped through the other papers, finding nothing else of interest, and turning on her heel she poked her head back into her cell to make sure she hadn't missed anything.
She breathed in deeply, a sudden memory flashing into her head.
She was alone, wandering the deserted, boarded-up, desolate halls of the Raccoon police department, desperately praying that Leon had made it safely behind her and hadn't come into contact with one of those what-ever-the- hell that thing had been in the hallway.
She'd found her way outside and the cool night air had been a welcome relief from hot, rotting stench of death permeating the hollow halls of the station.
She'd received a nasty scrape up the side of her arm from the razored tongue of that abomination on the first floor and was starving to boot. She was also afraid. Afraid that thing had infected her with the T-virus and that fear was making her hot enough to want to get some air, even if only for a moment.
Some kind of green, bushy, visceral plant matter set in twin pots, probably the pets of a former RPD officer turned the living dead, had been growing out there on the landing.
She'd picked one, curious, bringing it up to her face with her good hand. It smelled like mint and when she'd taken a bite she found that while it didn't taste very good, the odd root made her swollen, aching arm feel immensely better. It still hurt, but it was far more bearable and she had her aiming hand back good as new. Also, she didn't need to be a particularly experienced botanist or even a biochemist to know the strange herb was helping to flush her system of traces of the T-virus.
Claire remembered the smell of that root and found herself breathing it in now.
She'd closed the lighter off, fearful of wasting the fuel, but flicked it on again briefly to illuminate the corner of the cell. A single frond of the familiar herb stuck up defiantly from a cracked corner of the cell.
She didn't bother to think about why it was there, though the answer would've been clear enough if she had.
She snapped the lighter closed and stuffed the palm-size plant leaf into her jeans, straightening up. Above her, another rumble shook the earth followed by a hollow BANG that sent a waft of choked, burning air her way from the opened door of the anteroom.
Stepping back out of the cell she glanced to her right and saw a small, red box sitting on the floor near where Rodrigo had thrown his medicine.
She didn't even have to examine it. She'd know that box anywhere. Umbrella outfitted its people with top-quality handguns and ammunition. The Elite Force brand was the only kind of handgun and shotgun bullets that came in a box like that. They'd been scattered like gumdrops all over the underground lab in Raccoon.
She picked up the somewhat shoddy red box, a Doberman's head in cameo-white profile on the lid, shaking it, half expecting it to be empty. To her surprise the distinct metallic rattle of fresh rounds greeted her ears. She pried off the lid and did a count of the contents. 15 9mm rounds, hollow points, strafed casing. Not bad. Now if she only had a gun to use them with. She stuffed the box into her back pocket, unsheathed the combat knife and with a final deep breath and a wish of luck to Rodrigo, she turned and stepped out the door of the cellblock and into the hall.
3 Chapter Two: Old Friends, New Friends
Claire was starting to feel stuffed. In the hallway she'd picked up another box of bullets and what looked like two ink ribbons for the old- fashioned spool-top typewriter sitting on a dilapidated table halfway down. She didn't know exactly what she was going to do with the latter findings, the urge to test out her current WPMs not particularly pressing. But deep down Claire Redfield was a pack rat. If it wasn't nailed down she was going to take it along with her and see if it could be of any use.
She hit a bend in the hall, a few haggard, hanging pieces of drywall and a shower of broken glass highlighting cloudy moonlight filtering down from the open set of stairs before her.
The smoke was thicker here, much more acrid, and as she began to climb and a light, chilling rain started to pour down over her, she quickly saw the source.
What looked like a small utilities truck had crashed into part of the crumbling wall that surrounded the small graveyard she'd stepped into. It was burning merrily, the rain sizzling off the flames and slowly devouring them.
Just then, licking tongues of fire finally penetrated the hull of the truck and reached the gas tank. A white-hot eruption of light made Claire jump back, a rain of corrugated metal coming with the shuddering BOOM of the explosion, ringing in her ears and showing electric blue negatives behind her clenched eyes.
She lowered her arm just in time to see a metal briefcase clatter to the floor inside a ring of fire, however, and it perked her interest. Cases like that were often used to hold custom handguns or machine guns, insulated to protect from fire. She started to walk towards it, thinking she'd stomp out the flames, when the fire-crusted door of the now decimated truck swung open.
The thing that flopped down from the driver's seat used to be human and in an instant all her memories and experiences back in Raccoon came flooding back to her.
She backed away, wordless protest caught in her throat as the hobbling, infected, diseased zombie picked up her scent and swung around, arms coming up and out as it slowly staggered towards her.
She thought she'd left this kind of nightmare behind. Thought she'd never have to see one of these rotting-from-the-inside-out carriers, their minds reduced to the palling charm of the flesh, their own skin falling off in chunks, pain no longer a concern. Only the hunger.
Claire stumbled back as her pursuer began to approach, a deep, guttural moan coming up from its throat as it shuffled towards her.
Her heel slipped in the thick mud already forming in the rain and she went down onto her hands and heels, crab-walking back away from the groaning, adroit, burning zombie still stalking towards her.
And suddenly a white, skeletal, emaciated hand plunged up out of the mud and grabbed her wrist.
Claire cried out, flipping over onto her knees and pushing up into a stand as all around her the soft earth erupted, squelching, bone-like limbs, grinning skeletal faces emerging from the mud to surround her. They were flopping, paper-like in their teetering shuffles towards her and as she pivoted, she slid down into the dirt again.
Claire was up like lighting, however, dusting the mud from her jeans, her breath whistling, moaning in her throat as she searched desperately around for an escape.
She could go back the way she came. And then what? Sit it out in that cell with the dying Umbrella guard? Praying that help came before these things learned how to use a doorknob?
No. She spotted her salvation in the door that led back out of the graveyard and into, she assumed, the main grounds of the prison. It was through the open space of a low, wrought iron fence, straight ahead and to the right of her position.
The door was wide, thick, rusted steel and she half-prayed it was open, all this flashing through her mind in the second or two it took to send the message to move from brain to feet.
She headed in a straight line whipping the combat knife to ready and when the white, walking corpse blocking her path made a lunge for her throat she jabbed it in the torso with the knife, letting it crumple, groaning and slobbering, at her feet. She broke into a free sprint, hearing them behind her, their moans of desperation and ultimate despair as she reached the door, flung the handle and sprinted through, slamming it behind her and leaving them to their misery.
Once she was clear of the graveyard and was catching her breath, leaning back against the door she'd just come through, she blinked her eyes and took a slow, objective look around.
She was in some kind of courtyard. It was too dark to see much beyond the stalled tarp-covered jeep in the center of the walled-in space. High guard towers armed with raillery-chain machine guns stood like silent sentinels and Claire immediately turned and started walking toward the nearer one, thinking maybe she could use the perimeter radio to wire for help. At the very least she could get the lay of the la—
3.1 B-B-B-B-OOM! B-B-B-B-OOM! B-B-B-B-OOM! B-B-B-B-OOM!
Claire dove for cover behind the fallen jeep as a white-hot searchlight suddenly blared to life inside the gut-pounding spray of bullets slapping earth. Someone in that guard tower was firing at her!
But hadn't Rodrigo said there was no one left?
Claire got her bearings as her hands pushed her up against the tire wall of the transport. Her eyes blinked out the storm of dust, her ears tuned low the splitting barrage of fire and she glanced down between her legs.
Part of a dead body was extended from out beneath the truck. But it wasn't the blood-splattered dead hand she smiled at. It was what was held in the cold, dead fingers.
With the scant light thrown by the swinging searchlight through the scattering raindrops she could just make out that the butt was blocky, most likely German or Italian. But it wasn't until she'd ejected the clip into her hand, her fingers wrapped around a perforated rubber grip and she saw the sleek wooden finish that she recognized a Beretta 9mm; 14 in the clip and one in the chamber. Rapid fire bursts, three to six. It wasn't a Glock and it didn't have the kick of a more potent Colt Python or .357. But it would do.
She spun on her knees, daring to duck her head out of her cover as wild bullets splattered to the left and right. Whoever it was, it was a lousy shot and she took careful aim before a three bursts from her own weapon shattered the searchlight and cast the courtyard back into darkness. Another two shots disabled the chain gun by knocking the rotor pin off, rendering it useless to anyone not aiming in one direction. She was about to take aim again when a rather plaintive wail came from the darkened tower alcove and she could just barely make out the form of what looked like a man or woman holding up its arms.
"Wait wait! Don't shoot!" cried a male voice.
Claire wasn't off her guard. She knew the diseased couldn't form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence… but it didn't mean she was out of danger. Slowly, keeping the Beretta drawn, she poked just a bit of her head out again, trying to get a look.
"Who are you?" she called out into the rain.
"Huh?" came the voice again. It was male, and it sounded young. The treble pitched, cracked as it tried to dip into lower octaves. "You're not a zombie."
No shit, she thought but didn't say.
"Well great! Wait right there, I'm comin' over."
She still wasn't off her guard even as she heard an ordinary pair of muddy high-topped Keds hit the dirt a moment later and the mysterious gunman showed himself. He was young. From what she could see, as she stood up, he wasn't much past 17 or 18 at best. He had the same affinity for collars she did, although his was studded leather and chain. He wore simple greenish-orange fatigues and a yellow tee shirt under a green vest. His hair was messy and reddish-brown like her own, but hung down into his face in that careless shag most young guys seemed to prefer these days. His face was pop star handsome around wide, friendly green eyes, his smile quick and trying-to-be-sexy.
Claire was moved not at all. She jacked the load of the Beretta, sending another round into the chamber as he walked towards her.
"Uh, sorry about that little… misunderstanding. But I thought you were one of those mon-" He said it as he came towards her and she cut him off, leveling the gun into his face, using it to push the aside the hand of greeting he extended.
"Shut up," she growled. "Make one wrong move and I'll shoot," she said as she circled him, getting her back to the open area as the rain showered down on them both now.
His grin vanished, but the amusement touching his eyes, making them dance, was still very much in evidence.
"Relax, beautiful. I said I was sorry. My name's Steve."
Despite the lame attempt at charm, she was mollified if only because she would have done the same thing had he come bursting out of the door to the cellblock in the black of night with the walking dead wandering around like a family picnic. She lowered the piece, keeping it double gripped at her thigh as she looked him over.
"I was a prisoner on this island," he continued casually when she brought the gun down. "And I'm guessing that you're not from Umbrella either." He turned away from her, extending his arms, stretching casually. Her brows rose. Was this guy serious? He was acting like the destruction, the fires interspersed with the legions of the undead was no big thing.
"No, I'm Claire. Claire Redfield," she stated, still watching him warily.
"Claire," he mused, humming it in his throat. "Nice. I'll remember that."
She cocked her head, a mix of amusement, incredulity and annoyance creasing her brow. God, he was cocky. Like this was some kind of ice cream social or something. But two heads were better than one and if she had someone to watch her back their progress would be a lot easier. She wondered how good his shot was.
"Hey, I hear there's an airport around here. Once I find it I can finally escape from this crazy island. I'll see ya!" And he was waving his retro- cuffed wrists in her face and taking off before she could even blink. How abrupt. So like most teenage guys she knew and she cracked a half-smile before she snapped out of it and went after him. If he knew about an airport, she was going with him whether he liked it or not.
"Hey, wait up!" she called out. He stopped and flapped his arms disgruntled, shaking a finger at her, sighing.
"I don't want you following me, lady. You'll only slow me down." He grinned again and took off, vanishing through one of the three doors leading into the courtyard. She blinked again and rolled her shoulders back, the pouring rain now effectively soaking her to the skin and making the thick tendril of her ponytail slap wet against her neck. It was uncomfortable and she realized, in that moment, that his was one of the names she'd read on Rodrigo's manifest. So he'd come from Paris, too? What had he done to get himself into this?
She sighed, shrugging it off. More of those questions she couldn't answer. She was on her own. Again. But when she caught up with that little brat she was going to ask him about it before she kicked him in the seat of his pants for running out on her. So much for chivalry.
She turned from the door he'd run through and decided to take a look around the courtyard before following after him. She'd already found a handgun and there were other bodies to check, plus the guard tower Steve had come from.
She took a quick, sweeping survey of the area, noting the door she'd come through, the one Steve had exited through, another, smaller side door and a fourth. This last one looked a little more official, an old-fashioned drop- block deadbolt guard sealing the double doors together. It was probably the main door to the prison and if Steve was wandering further into it, she might just make it to that airport ahead of him.
She quickly approached the door, slipping the reloaded Beretta into the back of her jeans where her draw was best and jogging through the mud up to the huge wooden doors.
Her heart sank, however, when she'd reached it. A metal plate was set into and blocking the mechanism to release the block of wood that dead bolted the doors together.
She was in Raccoon again for a moment, remembering in a montage of images and flicker-flashing trips through the slide show of her brain. Red Jewels. Chess Plugs. Jaguars, Serpents and Eagles, oh my.
"The fun just never stops here on Umbrella Island," she muttered as her slim, strong fingers traced the impressed outline of some kind of medal. It looked like the cut would fit circular and molded like a Gryphon or maybe a hawk. Whatever it was, she'd need it to unlock this gate.
She had no choice but to explore the island paradise a little further. She walked back the way she'd come in and expended the clip of busted Beretta held in the dead grip of another grunt. Shame. She could have gotten into a little two-hand combat. But at least the gun had a full magazine and the Beretta was standard issue for the Umbrella employees. She wouldn't have to bother stripping down casings with an inadequate bowie knife to make them fit.
She slipped the clip into her pocket, tried both doors of the guard towers, both the one Steve had emerged from and the one opposite it, and found them locked. Likewise, the side door wasn't locked but refused to budge no matter how hard she pushed at it. Like it'd been nailed shut from the other side. The knob turned freely under her hand, however, and that was particularly frustrating since she couldn't afford to waste the ammo blowing the wood to smithereens.
With no choice left to her she followed the lead of the cocky teenager, drawing the piece out from behind her, checking to make sure it was locked and loaded and that the safety was clicked off before her boot nudged the oblong, rusting green door open and she proceeded out of the relative safety of the courtyard and into the dark.
4 Chapter Three: New Toys
Steve Burnside had little doubt that the Redfield girl could handle herself. She'd marked that cotter pin under the chain gun in one shot, taking it out and scaring him half to death. Not only that, but when he'd finally gotten a good look at her he'd seen that past the knock-out blue eyes, the perfectly wan features flushed the pink of the leather vest she wore with the kickass Angel design on the back, the sloe and intimate curve of her hips trapped in belted low-riders… and what was he thinking about? Oh yeah. She was gorgeous, but she also had a strong, determined set to her jaw that had frightened him a little.
He'd gone up against the walking dead in the last few hours of new freedom, the same rumbling that'd awoken Claire in her dank little cell had also roused him from his, the guards scattering like mice when someone flips on a light. One had remained behind, trying to maintain the calm of the prison, not to watch in horrified silence as his comrades fell one by one to the shuffling, groaning, flesh-eating monstrosities that'd suddenly appeared in the sloughing remains of old friends clothes… and flesh.
Steve had awoken, pleaded released half-heartedly, watched in his own horror as the single guard left behind changed before his eyes. One minute the man was bandaging a rather vicious-looking bite mark on his left forearm and the next he'd been scratching rotting flesh off his stomach, turning to watch Steve Burnside with cataract-white eyes that saw nothing beyond the need for food.
He'd also been somewhat amused as the guard tried to get at him. Walking repeatedly into the bars that separated himself from his next meal.
Someone might say shock had rendered Steve utterly nonplussed by what was happening. In reality, he'd expected it ever since he'd arrived in this place. It was enough time to dull his senses to the nightmare creatures that slopped messily and stinking of rot from normal human beings, savage and bloodthirsty.
All that aside, Claire intimidated him. And it wasn't just her good looks. There was something about that girl. Were he unfortunate enough to slip up, to find him self rendered utterly brain-dead but for the lust of human blood… shambling… rotting… stinking… well, were that to happen, Claire Redfield was the last person he'd think about trying to take a bite out of.
As for Claire Redfield of the sloe hips and flushed cheeks, the latter couldn't have been paler as she winced her eyes shut and fired off a round into the rotting skull of the zombie trying to take a piece out of her shoulder.
The area behind the door from the courtyard had been empty, but a long, low bunkhouse dominated the yard's right side. Beside it and to her immediate right there was a locked chain link fence and she could make out, her hand shielding her eyes from the spatters of tapering off rain, a door beyond the gate.
Since she couldn't go that way now she decided to try the quarters, thinking maybe she'd find a key or at least a long, thick pipe or piece of metal to smash that lock.
The minute she'd opened the door, though, the low, rotten stench of death filled her nostrils. There were three of them, the further pair wandering aimlessly about a long, solid-looking wooden table scattered with empty dishes, half-eaten food and various papers and magazines.
The one nearest the door, however, set off a howling moan as he turned for her, his sick, rotting flesh visible through a torn prisoner's tunic. He set off the other two and as a trio they lifted their arms.
Claire's heart throbbed in her throat as she drew back the lock on the pistol. As she did it Bachelor Number One took a mad, eyes-rolling, throat- moaning lunge for her shoulder and she cried out in disgust as she felt cold, acrid breath steal across her throat. She shoved him from her, sending the barrel of the nine up under his chin and pulling the trigger. The wall and ceiling were suddenly decorated with a startling mosaic of gelid crimson and brain matter gray. The thing crumpled at her feet, a lake of thick yellow pus and soupy, partially congealed blood forming around it.
She dispatched the other two quickly, somewhat surprised and then anxious because it took six separate shots to down them. She finished off both with the flat side of her heel against skull but as she reached into her back pocket, drawing out shells to reload, she began to realize that at three shots apiece she'd have to begin practicing her dodging skills lest she run out of ammo.
She did a quick survey of the room, swiping half a box of Beretta shells from a mess of what looked like a pretty good steak dinner before the drone of flies and the rot of decay got to it. She felt her gorge rise, looking away from the table and let out a high, hysterical scream of laughter. Food could make her sick while punching holes in what used to be human beings couldn't. Go figure.
But she stopped herself before she could laugh again. She knew, from experience, that letting her own raw, desperate play for survival stew in her head too long was going to make her careless. It'd taken the cool, no- nonsense solidity of Leon Kennedy to bail her out last time. This time she was alone with no one to piece her back together once she started cracking up.
She swallowed thickly and moved on into a small kitchen alcove. She hated cockroaches and it looked like a pretty fair colony had made a home in the fine cracks and gouges in the plaster here. But the map tacked to the leading wall drew her attention away and she absently flicked one of the little buggers from her wrist as she tore paper from tape. Besides, these were nothing compared to what she'd seen below Raccoon City and she bowed her head over the map, scanning the faint blue lines intently.
She figured her position pretty easily, stepping out of the alcove and looking to the door opposite the one she'd come in. If the map was right there should be a shower and bunk area beyond it, and if the Umbrella people were leaving half boxes of shells on the dinner table there was probably more to be had where they stored things pre-crisis.
It occurred to her then, as it had in Raccoon, that the same sense of last- ditch desperation that was in these people was reflected in this room, this island. They'd seen what was coming. Their friends and colleagues turning to mindless, flesh-eating automatons, smiling faces suddenly rotten, doughy, turning on each other, turning on themselves. They'd done what they could to prepare and the world around her was in a state of suspended animation as the battle was taken, fought… and lost. It accounted for the scattered papers, the overturned chairs and tables, the sense of urgency applied to objects that were useful in the maelstrom of activity and never touched again. Until now.
She should be sitting in her dorm room, listening to Metallica, studying for her Midterms. Making out with boys her age and slapping hands when they went too far, purring ascent when she didn't mind that they did. Eating junk food. Babbling to girlfriends. Getting drunk, getting high.
Not here. Not among the waking and walking dead.
Claire cleared her throat, shaking off the soft, aching waves of pity that'd contorted her face into lines no 19-year-old should have to wear. Pity for these people, or what was left of them. Pity for herself.
Dwelling on it was another trap Leon had dragged her out of. She thought of him, cracked a smile, and turned on her heel, heading for the bunk area.
Once inside she was slightly disappointed, the disheveled beds racked three on three and lining the walls were pitifully empty of both supplies and ammunition. A few personal affects, torn photographs and choppy-script letters, was all she got for ten minutes of messing around through thin cotton blankets and half-shattered foot lockers. But at least there were no zombies and as she turned to go, thinking maybe she'd check out the back shower area and the alcove, something caught her eye. She walked over to the first bunk she'd searched and turned up the corner of the mattress, pulling free the metal object that'd glittered so brightly in the dim room.
It turned out to be the spiral binding of a small, ratty blue notebook, bloated with water damage, the ink smeared in the pages as she flipped it open and began to scan the tiny print:
4.1.1 May 13th
4.1.2 This room stinks of death. Based upon the information I've found, I
4.1.3 believe that I'm far south of the equator.
4.1.4 Lucky for me that Bob in the bunk below me, is one of those interesting
4.1.5 types of guys...
4.1.6
4.1.7 May 16th
4.1.8 Today Bob told some crazy story of why he was put this place with me.
4.1.9 Bob said that he used to be an attendant of the head of this place. This
4.1.10 "boss" named Alfred supposedly placed him in here because of a tiny
4.1.11 little mistake.
4.1.12 What does that mean? What's going to happen to me?
4.1.13
4.1.14 May 20th
4.1.15 Without warning, a group of military men took Bob to the building behind
4.1.16 the gullotine stand.
4.1.17 At midnight, I'll sneak out of here to see him.
4.1.18 I've been hearing that anyone taken to that building never comes back.
4.1.19 On top of that, there are these REALLY large plastic bags being
4.1.20 constantly being removed from that place. I'd better pray for Bob...
4.1.21
4.1.22 May 21st
4.1.23 I was wrong. I shouldn't have gone there. What is going on in there?!
4.1.24 All I could here was some insanely creepy laughter and the sound of Bob
4.1.25 screaming. I don't know what to do. I can't stop thinking about it...
4.1.26 Is that going to happen to me?!
4.1.27 I can't let it...
4.1.28 I just can't...
4.1.29
4.1.30 May 27th
4.1.31 Since my last entry, all of my fellow inmates have been taken to that
4.1.32 building! I know that I am next...It's obvious that we are all here to
4.1.33 be used as Alfred's guinea pigs. There's no way out!
4.1.34 What am I going to do?!...
Claire was profoundly glad the pages beyond this last were blank and she set the diary aside, drawing a deep, shuddering breath. What the hell kind of place was this?
She found herself staring down the answer as she rubbed the bridge of her nose, her eyes smarting from the strain. When she opened them her lip curled in disgust, the watermark on the mattress an outline of Umbrella's famous cartouche.
"Rotten bastards," she muttered, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand and sighing off the feeling of dread that'd punched a pit in her stomach. It still wasn't the time to come unglued and she set back on her original course, ducking her head into the shower stall first but starting with delight as she saw a full box of rounds sitting like a present from Santa on the windowsill below the row of them lining the back wall.
Delighted, she took up the box and pried it open, already emptying the rounds into the chest pocket of her tee-shirt when the window beside and above the cracked one she stood in front of suddenly shattered inward with a roaring scream of protest.
Claire screamed too, but not because her arms were peppered with sharp shavings, though it hurt like a bitch. The mottled, diseased carrier who'd done the damage was in her face, crawling through the window to get at her and she stumbled back, aiming for it's twisted, rotting nose.
A hand shot out from under the last bunk on her right, taking the heel of her boot and sending her swaying to balance as a muffled groan accompanied the fetid chomp of brittle teeth and soft gums into her ankle.
Claire felt disgust and anger well inside her, running in rills like the blood from her arms and she cracked the gun twice, swinging it forward then down and capping both head shots better than she thought herself capable of. She was shaking when she finally stumbled back out into the main room, her breathing coming hot and heady from her throat, making her dizzy as she slumped down into one of the chairs along the wall.
The thing had gotten her, and she felt blood warm and tacky soaking into her thick sock. She leaned over and forced herself to inspect it, the wound not very deep but she shivered with revulsion anyway, seeing the three or four blackened teeth it'd left behind, bone pulling right out of the rotting jaw of the carrier.
She gasped, blinking back tears of rage and disgust as she plucked out the shards of gritty bone and yellow enamel. It still wasn't time to come apart, goddamnit! She forced in a few deep, calming breaths and reached into her hip pocket, drawing out the frond of the plant she'd found back in her cell. It was pretty well crushed by now but she swallowed it anyway in two huge bites, immediately feeling her ankle grow numb. She looked down again and sighed relief. The stuff worked here just like it worked in Raccoon. The wound had stopped bleeding and was already crusting over as blood congealed red and white, her body's internal repair processes speeded up by the medicinal herb.
She'd stopped her shaking, too, and rubbed her eyes with her fists, clearing away any remaining tears. She wasn't going to sit here in Hell Bunkhouse sobbing like a little girl. She was going to get her ass up, go back outside and find that damn medal so she could make her away off this rock.
That diary had said south of the equator. That accounted for the warm winds filtering through cold rain outside. Depending on where she was, if she could get an idea once she could see a coastline, it was a matter of a very long boat ride or a very short plane ride, assuming Boy Wonder found that airport he was babbling about. Then on to the nearest safe house where she could contact Leon in Europe, or even Jill and Barry back in the States. One of them would have heard from Chris by now. She was sure of it.
"Hell, I'd swim at this point," she mumbled, pushing to her feet and moving back to the door.
As she pulled it open, her encounter suddenly flashed through her head again. The zombie that'd broken the window… he hadn't slammed it with his fists. Or even his head. Had he, it would have shattered in chunks, not harming her a bit. She looked down at the peppered red of her arms. That window had exploded. The only thing she knew that could do that was buckshot at close range, a handful of rocks, a baseball bat… or maybe machine gun fire.
What the hell was a zombie doing with a machine gun? Curious, she walked back over to the door to the back room and poked her head inside.
Yes. There, amid the rotting decay of headless disease carries. She stepped carefully around the corpses that were already drawing flies and carefully peeled back the thick yellow tunic of the one still propped halfway through the broken window like a crash test dummy.
She breathed through her mouth and gave a tug, jerking the long handles of two bulky black objects from each of its knurled, bony hands.
She exited the back bunkroom and set them down gently onto the table top to examine her find, reaching up to drag the hanging lamp closer by its metal shade.
And she laughed. That had to be a total fluke. The thing had come across a set of Calico M-100P semi-automatic pistols, had shambled past the windows, tasted her scent through the opened one and had turned to get her, accidentally firing off a few rounds. She hadn't heard it because the glass was breaking around her.
No matter. Whatever the reason, she now had some very sizable firepower at her disposal.
She unhooked the blunt, rectangular clips off both weapons and peeked inside, her laugh toning down to a grin, but that grin very wide indeed.
She was loaded for bear and snapped the magazines back into place, slipping the Beretta into her jeans and testing out a double grip. Her arms spread wide, the thin black metal barrels pointing east and west, then north and south, then crossed one over the other as she posed languidly and with a decided cock to her head, studying the sights.
She shook out the moldy green straps attached with hooks to the butt and casing of each pistol and took out her Beretta again, laying the handgun down on the table as she arranged the pistols across her back. They were sweet, their weight making her feel powerful, but she only had one magazine each. So far, the Beretta was doing well against the walking dead and if she knew Umbrella, some more of its bizarre, deadly creations were probably roaming this island. Best to save the heavy fire power for when she'd really need it. For Claire had no doubt there was a lab here somewhere. There was always a lab where Umbrella conducted its immoral, illegal experimentations on any number of living things. What better place than a remote island in the middle of nowhere? She thought about that prisoner's diary as she adjusted the straps firmly, riding them up so the pistols would be easy to reach without sublime effort.
The rain had stopped, leaving a humid, misty thickness to the air and back out on the porch she briefly considered using her new acquisitions to blast the lock off the gate then just as briefly reconsidered it. Having an ex- Green Beret for a brother had taught her a few things. Namely, the shabbiest lock was the one you did not shoot. Thin metal casing, hook and latch tumblers and assembly-line construction tended to give those kind of locking mechanisms a wicked recoil on anything more savage than a good kick or a hard smack with a blunt object.
Since she hadn't found the latter and was wary of the former she decided to go the long way, peeking at her map to judge her position.
She clattered down the rickety stairs, caught so in her thoughts that she didn't hear the deep, throaty growl that issue from the lee beneath them.
She was actually thinking about locks. A solid burst from the Calicos might not be so hot on a flimsy holding gate… but it would do some serious and non-threatening damage to the massive iron one locking her in here. She half turned back towards the courtyard, decided on it before another thought came, unbidden and fleeting, into her head.
You're not exactly up to your ass in ammo you know. You've got thirty rounds for the Beretta and a clip each for the pistols. What happens if there's something worse than zombies on the other side of that gate?
That gave her pause and she stood a moment, thinking about it. If the map was right, there was a utilites service and security office ahead of her. There was bound to be something there, even if it was just more shells for the Beretta.
With a sigh of the inevitable, the more logical Claire Redfield once again reared her head and she was turning back to the narrow, stone throat ahead, already walking down it. As she went she trailed a hand along the wall to her left, checking the map again as she rounded the corner at a right angle.
The building she was touching was what, if the charred and ruddy brick of the bunkhouse was on her left?
Her brow furrowed, the map pulled out and once again unfolded, her head bent over it studiously as she walked forward.
She felt the ground change under her feet, grow soft and yielding, slippery like mud. She looked down over the edge of the blueprint and jumped back, a cry of disgust mixing with pity forced up out of her throat and echoing around her.
A dead body, presumably of another prisoner or a guard, lay sprawled, half buried under the shallow trench beneath the raised bunkhouse.
Her heart drummed in her chest, speeding up a moment as she stared down at him. Faded, ripped fatigues clad the lower half of his body, a pair of boots splattered with mud and gore locked in rigid and rigor mortis.
Sour gall, bitter and hot, rose in her throat and she felt a wince of tears in her eyes, wondering if he'd had a family… a wife and children who'd never see him again.
She drew a shuddered breath, shaking her head and preparing for what she knew she had to do. If this was a guard, he might have been armed. If he'd been armed, he might still have the weapon or extra shells on him. She tried to ignore the grim reality of this, her pity for the man mixing sick distaste for the act of looting the dead.
But before she could come forward again the body moved and Claire cried out again, snapping the Beretta out and down, ready to fire should this prove to be another hapless victim of Umbrella's cannibal virus.
But no. The body wasn't moving of its own volition and around her rose the thick, throated growl again as the corpse was dragged in a skitter of dust and pebbles beneath the bunkhouse, into the inky darkness below it.
Claire could feel tension burning in her ears, her throat and her eyes went wide and blue as a summer's sky, flicking side to side warily.
Somehow, that growl was achingly, hauntingly familiar. And if she remembered correctly, it would take three or four rounds to get rid of the skinless, four-legged horrors that were Umbrella's chief perimeter security force. Cerberuses. Hounds from hell that still retained the sleek, muscled physique of the champion-bred Rottweilers they'd spawned from, rotting from the inside out.
She looked ahead of her a moment, listening for the distinct, chilling rattle like rain on a tin roof. The wheezing pant, the clabber of skinless paws on macadam.
Aside from the first growl, however, there was nothing and she moved ahead hastily, casting one look back and grimacing in disgust at the pool of congealed blood left in the wake of the body. If the Cerberus was feeding, he'd be preoccupied long enough for her to get away and she booked it, breaking into a run, arms pumping her faster as she skid around the next corner and ran the length of the corridor, not stopping until her free hand flew out and caught the lever latch of the thick, rusted metal door on her left. Ahead, the dooryard beyond the locked gate looked chilled and sweating fog in the aftermath of the shower. She did no more than glance at it as her body's inertia jolted her to a stop off the strain of her grip and she turned to the door, rattling the lever up and down and feeling it give. It wasn't locked. She breathed a shaky sigh of relief for small favors and let herself in.
5 Chapter Four: Busting Out
Steve leaned in on his hands, tapping a few pointed, merciless strokes at the keys, tilting his head to the side as he examined the small, blurry picture. He'd found the dossier without much trouble, he was raised on Doom II and Napster, and now thought of Claire again as he stared down into newsprint black and white eyes that had to be the same shade of blue as hers when in color. Digging into Umbrella's computer files hadn't been nearly as challenging as trying to decipher their pages and pages of encrypted techno babble. It seemed like these guys wrote a field report in the time it'd take to walk off the field, into the woods, have a smoke and a beer and still come back on time to give Corporate their comeuppance. After mouse-clicking his way through five or six full scrolls of some garbage about a town called Raccoon in Eastern Bumfuck USA he'd finally come across the goods.
"Chris Redfield," he mused softly, scanning the three or four lines of print beside the photograph. It wasn't much, but it was enough to tell him that whoever this guy was, related to Claire or not, he was in some serious shit with the big uglies in Umbrella's upper echelons. According to the dossier, this Redfield cat had infiltrated Umbrella's B.O.W. lab in Europe. Some half-cock ex-cop called Kennedy was with him and Steve's frown flashed into a grin for a moment. S.T.A.R.S.? The hell kinna faggy name was that for a supposedly elite band of Navy-trained mercenaries hired out by the local law to do the job they couldn't?
But he was frowning again as he scrolled down to the page below the photograph. He tapped again, rubbing the thin, just-starting-to-be-square line of his jaw, a day-old beard that would have pleased him otherwise scratching raspily up and down as he did so.
Despite amateur hacker status he really didn't know too much more than he'd started with when he came in.
The security office consisted of little more than a few metal detectors book-ending a U-shaped hall, a few old crates with some pretty craptastic ammo and the little anteroom with the computer he stood in and in front of now. He'd unloaded a few rounds into the rotting faces of the one or two deadheads hanging out in the hallway, crunched with mild satisfaction through what remained of their skulls and blasted out the computer mechanism on the metal detectors, rendering them useless.
He didn't realize he was going on pure aggression now. Sending a white-hot slug through the leering, rotting grin of what used to be a human being touched him no more than almost being ravaged by one had. The only emotion he could feel without filter was anger. Impotent, useless anger than seemed to flare up and fire out of the extension of himself he'd picked up off the dead guard back in his cell. The Beretta was now more than a defense tool. It was his way of letting out all the blind fury he was feeling. Towards his father. Himself. This island. The world. And most of all towards Umbrella. They'd put him here. They were the reason for and behind this nightmare.
The small room had a door leading off it and when the doorknob refused to turn he almost blasted it off. But since it was a small room and his anger wasn't drowning out his common sense he'd vetoed that idea and started messing with the computer instead. Maybe he'd find a map of his hellhole and a clue to the whereabouts of the airport he'd heard about. Or maybe he'd find some really good porn and take a well-need break from this fucked- up place.
Or maybe he'd find a huge dossier full of strange faces and endless, rambling notes and a picture of a square-jawed, intense young man who looked amazingly like the only thing that made him feel anything but anger lately. This Redfield guy… he looked like Claire.
"Chris Redfield?" He said it again, this time questioning it as much as his thought process would allow.
Footsteps echoed behind him, the partition that bisected the small room making a wicked echo of what would have been a light tread.
"What are you doing here?" came the soft, lilting voice behind him. He turned and looked at her and almost smiled. He hadn't realized how lonely he'd been. The only other person alive, breathing, not lusting for his blood or trying to rip his throat out. And she was lovely.
But he didn't smile at Claire. He more… smirked, and flapped a hand at the screen behind him. Chicks didn't dig all that sentimental shit. He'd have to be tougher. As cool as she was or cooler. He closed the few steps that separated them.
"Chris Redfield. Is he a relative of yours or something?"
The fleeting look of pure delight that crossed her features twisted at his heart. But she was cool, good at playing her cards close to her chest when it came to her emotions. The delight warred with concern and curiosity before both faded back to her pale, lovely, and utterly nonplussed expression.
"You mean my brother?" Try as she might, she couldn't keep the anticipation from her voice, though. Steve locked onto it and mused his next words.
"Ahh. You're siblings." He turned from her and walked over to a glowing slide-card lock that was beside the locked door. He tapped at it, flicking a few strands of red hair from his eyes as he did so. "Well it seems your brother is under surveillance by Umbrella." The security box made a few electric-muted taps as he bapped at it.
"What?!" He turned to look at her and now she was animated. She rushed up to the glowing computer screen and immediately bent over the keys, her blue eyes snapping as she scanned the lines of type. Steve stayed where he was, only taking an occasional peek at her over his shoulder as the unmistakable sound of two-finger-punch typing came from behind him.
"I've got to contact Leon and tell him to let my brother know he's being monitored. It's a good thing I have access to an outside connection from here," Claire extrapolated, clacking away.
Steve smirked, but it had a hard time coming even if wasn't a real smile anyway. Who was Leon? And why did he feel the sudden twist of jealousy in his stomach at the mention of the name? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her when that all consuming and utterly winning sarcasm took over.
"That file shows the latitude and longitude of this place." He snorted derisively. "Why don't you send your brother the coordinates and ask him to come help?"
Claire, who was busy trying to type out a coherent e-mail to Leon, brightened. She toggled down the screen that showed her Hotmail account and looked back at Chris's dossier, scanning it for a pair of digits framed by directional shorthand. She located them and beamed, tossing it back over her shoulder at him.
"Thanks! I'll do that." She went back to her typing as Steve finally turned, halfway, towards her.
"He-ey, I was just kidding." He was still smirking, only now, the heat of bitter anger laced his tone. "There's no way he could get here, even if he is your brother."
Claire picked up on it this time and she straightened, her brow furrowing, watching him poke and prod at the open switch box on the wall.
"Yes he can," she said, not quite defensively, but ready to be. "I'm sure of it."
"No way," Steve muttered, more to himself than to her. He gave a final, definitive smack at the fuse box and turned to her, the smirk gone. In its place he wore a sneer of flushed anger. But his eyes. His eyes were hurting beneath their blaze and Claire was startled by it, empathy making her step toward him a little.
"He won't come," Steve continued, moving towards her, almost as if to ward her off from coming near him. He was the aggressor here. He was in charge. There was a tight, immutable steel-like wrack of his sinewy frame and his hands curled into fists at his sides. "You'll just end up disappointed if you rely on others. Believe me, I know!"
Well, it wasn't exactly the way he'd meant for that to come out. He'd wanted to curse at her. To call her a duped and docile little ninny who was out of her fucking head if she thought anyone would come and help them. He was so frustrated, though, that it came out sounding prissy and lame and because he couldn't bear her pity, he stalked out before she could give any. The door slammed heartily pissed off as he exited, trying to get her face out of his head. He didn't need Claire Redfield to feel sorry for him. He didn't need anyone.
Claire, on the other hand, who had been ready to comfort him, instead raised her brows.
"What was that all about?" she asked no one in particular. Of course, no one in particular didn't bother to answer and so she was alone again. Steve had been so angry. She'd wanted to ask him why, to make him talk about it because that was her nature. But part of her, the selfish part, had wanted to maybe get him calmed down so they could continue on together and now that seemed out of the question.
She'd followed his path, the trail of dead bodies, discharge scoring, gutted electrical boxes belching sparks attached to the hall walls outside. She couldn't help but wonder if someone that tightly-wound was good to have as a companion anyway, even if he was a dead shot.
He had, however, overlooked a few boxed of handgun ammo lying scattered across some large crates in an alcove along the hallway. She'd picked them up and stored them in a hip pack she'd found lying crumpled beside the larger of the wooden boxes.
There'd also been three small, green and gray flocked containers that looked for all the world like the blunted cases Chris carried his pool cues in.
But Claire recognized them even if Steve hadn't. They were rounds for a grenade launcher. She'd become a pretty good shot back in Raccoon and emptied the six cartridges, orange and blue, into the pack as well. The sharp, pungent odor of gunpowder radiated from the rounds painted a noxious, florescent orange. The ones painted blue were light, almost as if nothing armed them but their thick, metal shell. Fire and B.O.W. gas rounds. She knew that even before inspecting the machine-punched emblem on the flat side of the compact, salt-shaker-like cylinders. If she carried them very carefully and somehow managed to find a launcher in this hellhole, she'd be very well off indeed.
However, Claire was a practical girl. The odds of some Umbrella schmuck just leaving a HK79 manual grenade launcher lying around were slim to none. Besides, she was beginning to feel like a walking armory, and she turned in place, inspecting the small room in the dim, bluish light of the computer monitor. She would have to store some of her gear. It wasn't safe to carry live grenade rounds on her no matter how tempting it was. They'd roll and smash into each other as she walked and the hip pack was already bulging at her waist. She couldn't risk going at a run with such unstable ammo, especially the B.O.W. gas. When she found a launcher, not likely, but possible, then she wouldn't mind so much. For now, she'd have to stash her windfall somewhere safe.
A very large, very deep steamer trunk stood in the alcove between a messy desk and what looked like the key and die machines she'd seen in hardware stores. She ignored the machine and flipped open the lid of the trunk, peeking inside. It was as deep as it looked, the sides padded with egg- carton foam.
"Perfect," she muttered, unloading the cartridges slowly, one by one, from her pack and down into the softness. They'd be safe enough there until she needed them.
She closed the lid of the trunk and turned, leaning against it a moment as she thought about the last few minutes. The door off the bunkhouse had led into a dank, copper-smelling courtyard. It was rank with the odor of old blood, blood that'd been there long before the T-virus leak. She'd dispatched a few of the undead and run past a wire mesh fence that boxed in what looked like a smaller courtyard and a white building beyond it. Her map labeled that building infirmary and now that she thought about it, a first aid kit wouldn't be so bad to have on hand.
She hadn't inspected the fenced in yard because of the one or three undead she'd seen loaming around in there but now, as she thought about Steve again for a reason she couldn't define, she wanted to go back.
Her eyes flicked over to the monitor again and for a moment her gaze and her brother's locked. Her smile was sad… and beautiful.
"Wherever you are, bro, keep yourself safe and your eyes open for the big nasty."
Rest time was over, although it was just now that Claire was beginning to feel the first strains of fatigue. She was mildly hungry, too, and it was the thought of maybe finding some rations in a first aid kit that got her moving.
Before she left the monitor room, however, she deep a lazy, almost somnolent sweep of the bookshelves that lined the partition walls and the messy desk to the right of her.
She picked through the kind of textbooks she had for her college biology course, a moue of distaste darkening her features.
She sorted through the mounds of paperwork heaped in toppled, toppling and about-to-topple piles on the sparse landscape of the walnut office desk. She jerked open the shallow drawer beneath it, ready to sift through more paper and a flash of gold made her stop. Her fingers batted aside half- gnawed No. 2s and a steno pad filled cover to cover and end-to-end with stunted, backwards copperplate script.
She handed up the round, heavy object and for a moment she was so dumbfounded she almost dropped it.
Here she was, trying like hell to weigh the risk of blasting the shit outta that heavy front gate and going on a little further with what felt like a fruitless search… and some Umbrella moron had just left the key lying in a desk drawer?
But it wasn't a mistake. The round medallion was roughly the size of a coaster and molded on it, wings spread, was a hawk mid-flight, one tiny, glimmering, golden eye trained up at Claire.