-Chapter 17-
"Damn,"
Vash said as he continued to frantically search for a weapon, any weapon to
defend himself with, "This place is like a damn maze!" He eyed the
walls, aided by the faint light from the window overlooking a beautiful center garden.
The sound of faint, raspy, breathing suddenly filled the hallway, accompanied
by a slight click click click of hollow nails on metal.
Hearing this,
his search became more frantic, he finally found an emergency axe behind glass
with bright red words saying For Emergency Use Only but he didn't care,
to him it was an emergency. He quickly headed over to the glass enclosed
axe and pulled on the metallic silver handle, opened the glass box, and grabbed
the axe; held it with both hands. He slowly walked further down the hallway but
stopped when he heard another sound coming from behind him, the sound of
metallic boots on the hard marble floor. He looked back and saw the man in the
trench coat stalking slowly behind him. He looked forward again, only to see a
shadowy figure clinging to the ceiling.
The figure
slowly crawled into view, causing him to take a sharp step back in surprise, he
gasped softly. The Licker. he thought to himself, remembering the
constant anti-B.O.W. and anti-Umbrella press conferences on
television that came as a normal thing on all the government channels like
C-SPAN, CNN, and any other government news channels that were showing it at the
time, now he was glad and horrified at the same time. Glad that he actually
paid attention to those broadcasts and horrified that he was actually seeing
one in the flesh rather than the sketches and photos that Claire Redfield and
Leon Scott Kennedy had recovered from some police files in the Raccoon City
Police Department along with lab reports from a secret laboratory deep below
the city detailing the Licker's physical appearance, behavior patterns, and
other revelant notes about it. The Licker may not have eyes, but an
extremely powerful sense of hearing. Damn... he thought to himself again.
This Licker
looked slightly different from the ones that had been pictured in the conferences
on television, only in coloration though and some physical body frame. On the
reports, the Licker had been depicted as a skinless six foot long monstrosity
with three hind talons on each foot and five unevenly positioned claws on its
forearms, with its shoulder blades protruding from its muscles, no eyes, an
overly exposed brain and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. The Licker in front
of him has a dark grey and dark purple shade to its muscle, its muscle on its
arms enlarged two times the size of the ones in Raccoon, and it's leg muscles
equally enlarged in size compared to its arms, its brain was enclosed in a
thick translucent bone helmet, it draped out its tongue slightly, showing rows
of "teeth"; this one appeared to be six inches longer than the other
one.
It crawled
slowly towards him. Instinctively, he took a few more steps back; he narrowed
his eyes, gripping the handle of the axe tighter. This damn thing is
different from the one shown on TV, I've got to think of something fast so that
I can escape from this thing and try to find Razor and Kat. He
thought to himself. Then suddenly thought up a solution to his problem; a risky
chance, but still, a chance to flee, he hesitated, and then acted.
He held the
handle of the axe with one hand, rearing his arm back, aimed for the monster's
protected brain, hearing both the raspy breathing of the Licker and the slow
and steady metallic footfalls of the man in the green trench coat. One... he
counted silently to himself, Two.... Three!
He snapped forward his arm, hurling the blade at the monster. As intended, the blade of the axe drove itself into the target, causing the Licker to screech (even though it was more like a howling roar) in either defiant pain or anger. He ran towards the man in the trench coat when he saw the Licker start crouching and then leaping at him; slid between the man thing's legs, looked straight forward on the smooth marble tile. He slowly got up, seeing the Licker dive onto the other man blindly, slashing him. He watched in relief as the man actually grabbed the Licker, lifted it, and tossed it at the wall, seeming to focus his attention on the sudden threat. Vash ran the other way, his ears filled with the agonized screams of the Licker.