Here's the next chapter, you guys. I don't really have much to say this time around except this: Thank you once again for reviewing and saving the story! Chap. 9 will be up shortly.
S.T.A.R.S. Girl
Claire slumped against the nearest wall, the hallway lights dim and of little comfort. Brad was sifting through an overturned trolley's contents, reams of documents, looking for something useful. "Umbrella's a lot like that old story, 'The Purloined Letter,'" he'd said. "Anything to hide, they hide it out in the open."
Through a nearby broken window, the sounds of a city infested with the unreal floated in. Moans of the undead, shouts from she knew not what, phlemy barks from undead dogs. Oops. Not "zombie dogs" Cerberuses. Chris had told her that over the phone, Brad reminded her constantly. She still had no idea why it mattered to them so much; maybe they wanted her to remember it wasn't some creul twist of fate or providence that had mutated these animals into what they now where, it was something tangible---a corporation. Umbrella.
She sighed and ran one hand through her ponytail, tugging at the forming tangles. Carlos was a floor behind them; she guessed they were on maybe the third level of the hospital. She crossed her legs, realising they shook. She'd been feeling calm, but the adrenaline was still in her body, and still working, too...
"Nothing here, really," Brad said from over by the cascading papers. "At least, nothing we don't already know." We. But "we" was Brad and Jill, not Claire. She hadn't payed attention to Chris' recitation of the incident at the mansion over the phone; instead, she'd been flipping through the phonebook, wondering if she should call perhaps some kind of phyciatrist. Now she wished she'd listened. "Ok," she said, pushing herself against the wall and away from it. "I'm worried about Carlos. Let's go back up and look for him." Brad cocked his head. "He's a big boy, you know," he said. "He claimed he'd come look for us."
"Maybe he needs help," Claire said, shoving Brad toward the elevator. They hadn't wandered far from it, for some reason; maybe the normalcy inside it comforted them. Claire stepped inside first and pressed the bright number 4 button. The hum of the wires sounded again. She glanced at her reflection once again in the glossy panels; she hadn't sorted out her tangles at all---she'd only made them worse. Brad looked about the same as the last time they had ridden it.
Ding. She waited for the doors to slide open, but they didn't. She waited a little longer. A little longer. "Hey, what's wrong here?" she asked. "I don't know," Brad said, pointing up at the numbers panel. "But that doesn't even say four." It glowed at the spot between three and four. Claire looked up at the sliding door on top of the elevator. "Give me a lift," she said to Brad. "Then I can pull you up and we can see where we're out." Brad nodded. "OK, but I hope you're not over 140 pounds. That's how much I weigh." He put his hands, palms up, against his knee. He nodded at her; OK.
"Lucky you," she smirked at him before stepping up to try and reach the trapdoor. "I weigh a spritely 120 pounds." "And oh so humble," she heard him say from below her. Then: "Hurry up." She could feel him beginning to wobble under her weight. He wasn't really that strong overall, and he'd been trapped in a decaying city with virtually nothing to eat or drink and precious few moments to sleep; she had to get her weight off him, fast. She banged on the trapdoor, feeling the locks on the other side weaken against her fervant thrashing. Finally it gave under her force and she swung it open. Brad heaved her up the rest of the way and she sat among the cables and the cobwebs on the roof of the car.
It was gray and some sort of mist seemed to be swirling about, wreathing around her and making strange shapes. She swore she heard laughter, or footsteps, or both. She looked around her. A bundle of rope was secured to a corner of the roof area for emergency's, and was easily unwrapped. "Grab this," she called to Brad, lowering it into the compartment and tying it to some kind of hook on the wall. "I hope its secure," she heard him call up. She pulled and he managed to get up there with her. "I told you we didn't need to do this," he snapped. "I told you Carlos would find US..."
"Shut up!" Claire snapped suddenly. "Listen." She was sure she heard footsteps now. They weren't the shuffling kind that accompanied the undead. They were the sounds of a living being striding through the fourth floors hall. "He's alive, whoever it is," Brad said. "It might not be Carlos."
"I know," said Claire, beginning to shinny up a wiry rope. "But let's get up there and see." Brad nodded, but when he stood he reeled a little. "You go on," he said. "I don't think so," Claire said, tugging his arm. "If we get split up we could all die." He nodded and chose another rope to try climbing up.
Claire finally reached the point where the door to the chosen floor was. "How do I open it??" she called back to Brad. "See if there's some kind of emergency switch from this side," he called up, still struggling up a cable. "Most large buildings have one for firemen." She looked and located it. PUSH, it instructed her in large orange letters over a clicker switch. "I see it," she said, resting a hand on it. She noticed that she was beginning to slowly slide down the rope, her sweaty hands unable to keep her at one point. She tried to readjust herself so she could pull the lever. It worked, and the door flung open.
She crawled onto the hospital's floor, and gave Brad a hand as he came up after her. She smiled at him. "We did it, not in good time, but we did it," she said, brushing some dust off her gloves. He snickered. "You're too much like Chris," he said.
"Let's see what we can find, like Carlos for instance," she said. The hallway was still dingy, and the walls and windows were cracked like on the third floor. Overturned carts and dead hospital personel (at least she hoped they were dead) littered the floor, along with blood, papers and other assorted debris. She stepped up to the next door. FILE ROOM, it read in emboldened letters. "Let's start here," Brad instructed. "Umbrella's gotta store some stuff in there." Claire opened the door for them. To see a horrible sight.
Carlos was standing near a metal table, the bpdy of some shot-riddled man laying a few feet from him. A tall man in a trenchcoat and army garb with graying hair had a pistol pointed at him, and an almost demonic gleam in his eye. But it evaporated as his sight snapped to Claire and Brad. "More of Oliviera's compatriot's, eh?" He spoke with a heavy Russian accent. "Stand by him. I'll shoot you next, so be patient." His mouth twitched, and formed into a strange shape, a mockery of a smile. "No shoving, you'll all get your turn. Now move."
Claire chanced a glance at Brad, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He mouthed something. Claire squinted, as if to say "what?"
"NOW." The man ordered them. "I'm not hosting a freeze-frame contest here."
Brad mouthed it again. Claire squinted. It looked like he was saying "Night fly by" or "Nickel Eye" or something. She twisted her face, again indicating her confusion. "NOW!" The man's harsh, military voice made her jump a little. But what really made her jump was Carlos' sudden exclamation and Brad grabbing her arm. "NO!" He launched them back into the hall, and her last view of the room was Carlos diving out behind them into the corridor and the man throwing himself out the window. Out the window! Out the goddamn fucking fourth floor window!
She heard someone scream "DIE, YOU BASTARD!" and then the crash of an explosion. Claire felt her body being thrown back into the length of the wall because of the shockwaves. She was slammed into a metal trolley. She didn't know exactly where Brad landed, but she could hear him hitting the ground with force behind her.
After a few moments she shook her head to clear it. Her neck throbbed where it had hit the metal cart. She looked out. Smoke was trickling out of the room they had just been in. She staggered and clambered to her feet. She wondered if it was safe to go in. She took a few shaky steps to the door and looked in.
The charred remains of the dead man were smouldering. She noticed he had something clutched in his hand. It occurred to her that he was the one to scream out "Die, Bastard," and maybe pull some kind of grenade. She coughed into her hand, then scanned the room. She say something lying over in a corner of the small room. An overturned book...She got the feeling it was important and ducked over to grab it.
She picked it up and flipped through it, gasping. Her eyes widened. It was a book with pictures, descriptions and names for all of Umbrella's horrors. She clutched it to her chest and ran out into the hall again.
Carlos was trying to free himself from a broken glass window that had entangled itself on his clothing. His cheeks were a little blackened with soot and he was glazed with sweat. He finally managed to loosen the glasses grip on him. Brad was holding the back of his head where he'd been thrown into the wall. He looked better than Carlos did, but Claire looked better than both of them at the moment. "Guys," she said, waving the book. "Look what I found!"
"What'd you find?" Brad asked a little groggily, standing up. "What does it matter?!" Carlos snapped from behind them. "We have to keep looking for an antidote!" "Fine. Claire, pocket it," Brad said, glancing at his palm to see if there was blood; there wasn't. "But..." Whatever, she thought finally, clutching it agianst her. Brad and Jill were already pretty well-versed monster-wise; they wouldn't be needing this right now. Right now.
"Our time's running out," Brad said suddenly. "So what should we do?!" Carlos snapped. "Let's start in the basement," Claire interjected suddenly, interupting their budding argument. "I mean...could it hurt?" "No," Brad said. "And it would be a good place to hide things from the public. Besides," he said, grinning suddenly, "Umbrella is sickeningly conventional."
The elevator useless, they had to bang open the door that lead to the stairwell. The windows that had once lined the sloping paths of steps were shattered, glass covering every step. "Looks slippery," Claire said, taking a delicate step onto the first stair. She rested her weight on it. They could make it down, but it would take awhile.
Sherry had lain back down on the pew by this time. She hadn't asked Leon any questions about what had happened. She hadn't even spoken. Her shoulder still hurt where Ada had shaken her; but it didn't matter now. She glanced at the piece of paper she'd taken out of her locket. Her family: Her father, mother and herself, perched on Daddy's shoulders in a pair of overalls.
Her family. She squeezed her eyes shut the moment they began to blur with tears; the horrible creature that had been chasing her, much larger than the zombies, calling out her name....
What could that thing be? It was hideous, neither human or undead. Or undead...she hated having to acknowledge that the other category even existed. She sniffed as quietly as she could, hoping Leon wouldn't notice. But the most horrible thing of all about that monster was the fact that it sounded almost like and looked almost like...
...Her father, William Birkin.
Momma, are you alive out there? She wondered, feeling a cold tear drip down her young face. Are you looking for me? I love you. I miss you. I want to go home...I want to escape...
Claire looked up in complete revulsion at the two creatures floating inside the glowing glass tanks. They looked almost like Hunters, yet they weren't. They were more...froggish. She shuddered. She didn't feel like looking in her umbrella monster fieldbook, but she didn't want to watch them sleeping in the horrible green substance any longer. Brad was in the process of creating a vaccine for Jill, as he had found the materials and equipment needed as described in a set of instructions Carlos had found.
Ding. Claire turned. "Vaccine's done," Carlos said in a military voice. "Let's go, people!" They rushed up a flight to the lobby. Claire was almost to the front doors, behind Brad---how'd he get so fast?---when she tripped over something. A wire. A wire that was linked to a...bomb. Ready to go off...SOON! "Guys, bomb!" She screamed. "It'll demoslish the hospital!" They stared at her open-mouthed for a second, and in the second she was aware of the true stillness within Raccoon City, how quiet and empty and dead it truly was, how only three living hearts were beating in this whole building, how the only real sound was the beep of the detonation equipment as one more moment went by---"GO!" she screamed at them, and they took off at a dead run, flinging themselves out the hospital doors.
Carlos flung himself into a backalley, Claire propelled herself to the opposite side of the farthest car, and Brad ended up inside that same car, where he covered his neck and hit the deck. (A/N: Damn, that rhymes!)
A deafening roar reverbated suddenly, and the crash of cement crumbling against itself, the shattering sound of glass being blown out, the rocking of the very gore-stained pavement beneath them sounded all at once. Claire felt the vehicle she was resting on being thrown about like a toy. It hit her and she fell on the ground, covering herself with her arms and making herself as small as possible. Debris hit her back painfully. She looked up. Smoke everwhere. She coughed and banged on the side of the car. "Brad!" she called, choking on the dust that had been solid cement minutes before. She heard him say something muffled, and climb out the door on her side. Claire gripped her shoulder, where a piece of glass had struck her, making her bleed. Brad had some cut that was sending blood gushing down his arm. But where was Carlos?
Carlos stepped out of a backalley, screamed something incoherent over the settling rubble's din, but pointed in the direction of the cathedral. Jill! Claire grabbed Brad's good arm and they were off, following Carlos back to the church as the hospital faded into oblivion behind them.
Leon glanced at his watch; they'd been gone an hour now, and as he sat by Jill, he could see that she was deteriorating. Her skin looked waxy and weak, her cheeks were pale, and on the rare occasion that her eyes fluttered open breifly, they were glazed and unfocused. Her wound was festering, bubbles of infection popping in the midst of the dried blood. The reddish muscle tissue that was exposed was turning purple, and some kind of pus was sifting out of it. There were no more fresh bandages. Leon glanced back at the door, then back at Jill. In his mind, he begged Claire to hurry.
Claire staggered into the church's front hall, her feet burning. She'd never run so hard in her life...The ceilings were creaking loudly. She wondered off-handedly if they'd hold. She wiped away a film of sweat from her forehead, and pulled back some glistening hair that dripped with persperation. Man, that creaking was loud...
Carlos and Brad had slumped against the wall behind her, out of breath. Damn that creaking...why was it so loud?...She tucked back a strand of hair that had gotten out of place. Damn, why was that creaking so LOUD?
No, why was that BANGING so loud. With a crash, something hideous jumped through the side of the building. Something indescribable...
Huge. Almost like a man, but not quite. Writhing...no, not it wrtithing. The hundreds of palish-purple tentacles that COVERED it were... The S.T.A.R.S. stalker.
"YOU GO ON AHEAD! SAVE JILL!" Carlos screamed back to them, getting ready to fight it. Brad took a step back, staring open-mouthed at the creature. "Why?" he asked despondently. Claire took a step toward him, smacked him. They had to go. There was no point in having all of them die. But why did Carlos always have to be the hero? Oh Johnny, no Johnny, why did you have to be a fucking hero? The joke she'd heard so long ago played itself in her head, like a voice on a tape recorder...She grabbed Brad's bad arm by mistake and pulled him. He followed her, wincing, but he kept glancing behind him.
They ran, pushing their lungs to the breaking point. Finally the doors to the chapel were visible. Claire threw herself against them, and so did Brad: they flung open. Leon looked up, Sherry sat up, but Jill did not move. Did not even blink. Were they too late?
DAH DAH DAUUMM! OK, so I've finally successfully pulled off a cliffhanger! Yay! ^_- The next chapter will be up soon, and it will explain about the man with the gun...although you all already know who he is. Also, do you guys think I should do a sequel when all is said and done? I've thought it out to some degree, for more information check out the summary for the proposed "Planet Hell" story in my profile. Tell me in your reviews!
S.T.A.R.S. Girl
S.T.A.R.S. Girl
Claire slumped against the nearest wall, the hallway lights dim and of little comfort. Brad was sifting through an overturned trolley's contents, reams of documents, looking for something useful. "Umbrella's a lot like that old story, 'The Purloined Letter,'" he'd said. "Anything to hide, they hide it out in the open."
Through a nearby broken window, the sounds of a city infested with the unreal floated in. Moans of the undead, shouts from she knew not what, phlemy barks from undead dogs. Oops. Not "zombie dogs" Cerberuses. Chris had told her that over the phone, Brad reminded her constantly. She still had no idea why it mattered to them so much; maybe they wanted her to remember it wasn't some creul twist of fate or providence that had mutated these animals into what they now where, it was something tangible---a corporation. Umbrella.
She sighed and ran one hand through her ponytail, tugging at the forming tangles. Carlos was a floor behind them; she guessed they were on maybe the third level of the hospital. She crossed her legs, realising they shook. She'd been feeling calm, but the adrenaline was still in her body, and still working, too...
"Nothing here, really," Brad said from over by the cascading papers. "At least, nothing we don't already know." We. But "we" was Brad and Jill, not Claire. She hadn't payed attention to Chris' recitation of the incident at the mansion over the phone; instead, she'd been flipping through the phonebook, wondering if she should call perhaps some kind of phyciatrist. Now she wished she'd listened. "Ok," she said, pushing herself against the wall and away from it. "I'm worried about Carlos. Let's go back up and look for him." Brad cocked his head. "He's a big boy, you know," he said. "He claimed he'd come look for us."
"Maybe he needs help," Claire said, shoving Brad toward the elevator. They hadn't wandered far from it, for some reason; maybe the normalcy inside it comforted them. Claire stepped inside first and pressed the bright number 4 button. The hum of the wires sounded again. She glanced at her reflection once again in the glossy panels; she hadn't sorted out her tangles at all---she'd only made them worse. Brad looked about the same as the last time they had ridden it.
Ding. She waited for the doors to slide open, but they didn't. She waited a little longer. A little longer. "Hey, what's wrong here?" she asked. "I don't know," Brad said, pointing up at the numbers panel. "But that doesn't even say four." It glowed at the spot between three and four. Claire looked up at the sliding door on top of the elevator. "Give me a lift," she said to Brad. "Then I can pull you up and we can see where we're out." Brad nodded. "OK, but I hope you're not over 140 pounds. That's how much I weigh." He put his hands, palms up, against his knee. He nodded at her; OK.
"Lucky you," she smirked at him before stepping up to try and reach the trapdoor. "I weigh a spritely 120 pounds." "And oh so humble," she heard him say from below her. Then: "Hurry up." She could feel him beginning to wobble under her weight. He wasn't really that strong overall, and he'd been trapped in a decaying city with virtually nothing to eat or drink and precious few moments to sleep; she had to get her weight off him, fast. She banged on the trapdoor, feeling the locks on the other side weaken against her fervant thrashing. Finally it gave under her force and she swung it open. Brad heaved her up the rest of the way and she sat among the cables and the cobwebs on the roof of the car.
It was gray and some sort of mist seemed to be swirling about, wreathing around her and making strange shapes. She swore she heard laughter, or footsteps, or both. She looked around her. A bundle of rope was secured to a corner of the roof area for emergency's, and was easily unwrapped. "Grab this," she called to Brad, lowering it into the compartment and tying it to some kind of hook on the wall. "I hope its secure," she heard him call up. She pulled and he managed to get up there with her. "I told you we didn't need to do this," he snapped. "I told you Carlos would find US..."
"Shut up!" Claire snapped suddenly. "Listen." She was sure she heard footsteps now. They weren't the shuffling kind that accompanied the undead. They were the sounds of a living being striding through the fourth floors hall. "He's alive, whoever it is," Brad said. "It might not be Carlos."
"I know," said Claire, beginning to shinny up a wiry rope. "But let's get up there and see." Brad nodded, but when he stood he reeled a little. "You go on," he said. "I don't think so," Claire said, tugging his arm. "If we get split up we could all die." He nodded and chose another rope to try climbing up.
Claire finally reached the point where the door to the chosen floor was. "How do I open it??" she called back to Brad. "See if there's some kind of emergency switch from this side," he called up, still struggling up a cable. "Most large buildings have one for firemen." She looked and located it. PUSH, it instructed her in large orange letters over a clicker switch. "I see it," she said, resting a hand on it. She noticed that she was beginning to slowly slide down the rope, her sweaty hands unable to keep her at one point. She tried to readjust herself so she could pull the lever. It worked, and the door flung open.
She crawled onto the hospital's floor, and gave Brad a hand as he came up after her. She smiled at him. "We did it, not in good time, but we did it," she said, brushing some dust off her gloves. He snickered. "You're too much like Chris," he said.
"Let's see what we can find, like Carlos for instance," she said. The hallway was still dingy, and the walls and windows were cracked like on the third floor. Overturned carts and dead hospital personel (at least she hoped they were dead) littered the floor, along with blood, papers and other assorted debris. She stepped up to the next door. FILE ROOM, it read in emboldened letters. "Let's start here," Brad instructed. "Umbrella's gotta store some stuff in there." Claire opened the door for them. To see a horrible sight.
Carlos was standing near a metal table, the bpdy of some shot-riddled man laying a few feet from him. A tall man in a trenchcoat and army garb with graying hair had a pistol pointed at him, and an almost demonic gleam in his eye. But it evaporated as his sight snapped to Claire and Brad. "More of Oliviera's compatriot's, eh?" He spoke with a heavy Russian accent. "Stand by him. I'll shoot you next, so be patient." His mouth twitched, and formed into a strange shape, a mockery of a smile. "No shoving, you'll all get your turn. Now move."
Claire chanced a glance at Brad, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He mouthed something. Claire squinted, as if to say "what?"
"NOW." The man ordered them. "I'm not hosting a freeze-frame contest here."
Brad mouthed it again. Claire squinted. It looked like he was saying "Night fly by" or "Nickel Eye" or something. She twisted her face, again indicating her confusion. "NOW!" The man's harsh, military voice made her jump a little. But what really made her jump was Carlos' sudden exclamation and Brad grabbing her arm. "NO!" He launched them back into the hall, and her last view of the room was Carlos diving out behind them into the corridor and the man throwing himself out the window. Out the window! Out the goddamn fucking fourth floor window!
She heard someone scream "DIE, YOU BASTARD!" and then the crash of an explosion. Claire felt her body being thrown back into the length of the wall because of the shockwaves. She was slammed into a metal trolley. She didn't know exactly where Brad landed, but she could hear him hitting the ground with force behind her.
After a few moments she shook her head to clear it. Her neck throbbed where it had hit the metal cart. She looked out. Smoke was trickling out of the room they had just been in. She staggered and clambered to her feet. She wondered if it was safe to go in. She took a few shaky steps to the door and looked in.
The charred remains of the dead man were smouldering. She noticed he had something clutched in his hand. It occurred to her that he was the one to scream out "Die, Bastard," and maybe pull some kind of grenade. She coughed into her hand, then scanned the room. She say something lying over in a corner of the small room. An overturned book...She got the feeling it was important and ducked over to grab it.
She picked it up and flipped through it, gasping. Her eyes widened. It was a book with pictures, descriptions and names for all of Umbrella's horrors. She clutched it to her chest and ran out into the hall again.
Carlos was trying to free himself from a broken glass window that had entangled itself on his clothing. His cheeks were a little blackened with soot and he was glazed with sweat. He finally managed to loosen the glasses grip on him. Brad was holding the back of his head where he'd been thrown into the wall. He looked better than Carlos did, but Claire looked better than both of them at the moment. "Guys," she said, waving the book. "Look what I found!"
"What'd you find?" Brad asked a little groggily, standing up. "What does it matter?!" Carlos snapped from behind them. "We have to keep looking for an antidote!" "Fine. Claire, pocket it," Brad said, glancing at his palm to see if there was blood; there wasn't. "But..." Whatever, she thought finally, clutching it agianst her. Brad and Jill were already pretty well-versed monster-wise; they wouldn't be needing this right now. Right now.
"Our time's running out," Brad said suddenly. "So what should we do?!" Carlos snapped. "Let's start in the basement," Claire interjected suddenly, interupting their budding argument. "I mean...could it hurt?" "No," Brad said. "And it would be a good place to hide things from the public. Besides," he said, grinning suddenly, "Umbrella is sickeningly conventional."
The elevator useless, they had to bang open the door that lead to the stairwell. The windows that had once lined the sloping paths of steps were shattered, glass covering every step. "Looks slippery," Claire said, taking a delicate step onto the first stair. She rested her weight on it. They could make it down, but it would take awhile.
Sherry had lain back down on the pew by this time. She hadn't asked Leon any questions about what had happened. She hadn't even spoken. Her shoulder still hurt where Ada had shaken her; but it didn't matter now. She glanced at the piece of paper she'd taken out of her locket. Her family: Her father, mother and herself, perched on Daddy's shoulders in a pair of overalls.
Her family. She squeezed her eyes shut the moment they began to blur with tears; the horrible creature that had been chasing her, much larger than the zombies, calling out her name....
What could that thing be? It was hideous, neither human or undead. Or undead...she hated having to acknowledge that the other category even existed. She sniffed as quietly as she could, hoping Leon wouldn't notice. But the most horrible thing of all about that monster was the fact that it sounded almost like and looked almost like...
...Her father, William Birkin.
Momma, are you alive out there? She wondered, feeling a cold tear drip down her young face. Are you looking for me? I love you. I miss you. I want to go home...I want to escape...
Claire looked up in complete revulsion at the two creatures floating inside the glowing glass tanks. They looked almost like Hunters, yet they weren't. They were more...froggish. She shuddered. She didn't feel like looking in her umbrella monster fieldbook, but she didn't want to watch them sleeping in the horrible green substance any longer. Brad was in the process of creating a vaccine for Jill, as he had found the materials and equipment needed as described in a set of instructions Carlos had found.
Ding. Claire turned. "Vaccine's done," Carlos said in a military voice. "Let's go, people!" They rushed up a flight to the lobby. Claire was almost to the front doors, behind Brad---how'd he get so fast?---when she tripped over something. A wire. A wire that was linked to a...bomb. Ready to go off...SOON! "Guys, bomb!" She screamed. "It'll demoslish the hospital!" They stared at her open-mouthed for a second, and in the second she was aware of the true stillness within Raccoon City, how quiet and empty and dead it truly was, how only three living hearts were beating in this whole building, how the only real sound was the beep of the detonation equipment as one more moment went by---"GO!" she screamed at them, and they took off at a dead run, flinging themselves out the hospital doors.
Carlos flung himself into a backalley, Claire propelled herself to the opposite side of the farthest car, and Brad ended up inside that same car, where he covered his neck and hit the deck. (A/N: Damn, that rhymes!)
A deafening roar reverbated suddenly, and the crash of cement crumbling against itself, the shattering sound of glass being blown out, the rocking of the very gore-stained pavement beneath them sounded all at once. Claire felt the vehicle she was resting on being thrown about like a toy. It hit her and she fell on the ground, covering herself with her arms and making herself as small as possible. Debris hit her back painfully. She looked up. Smoke everwhere. She coughed and banged on the side of the car. "Brad!" she called, choking on the dust that had been solid cement minutes before. She heard him say something muffled, and climb out the door on her side. Claire gripped her shoulder, where a piece of glass had struck her, making her bleed. Brad had some cut that was sending blood gushing down his arm. But where was Carlos?
Carlos stepped out of a backalley, screamed something incoherent over the settling rubble's din, but pointed in the direction of the cathedral. Jill! Claire grabbed Brad's good arm and they were off, following Carlos back to the church as the hospital faded into oblivion behind them.
Leon glanced at his watch; they'd been gone an hour now, and as he sat by Jill, he could see that she was deteriorating. Her skin looked waxy and weak, her cheeks were pale, and on the rare occasion that her eyes fluttered open breifly, they were glazed and unfocused. Her wound was festering, bubbles of infection popping in the midst of the dried blood. The reddish muscle tissue that was exposed was turning purple, and some kind of pus was sifting out of it. There were no more fresh bandages. Leon glanced back at the door, then back at Jill. In his mind, he begged Claire to hurry.
Claire staggered into the church's front hall, her feet burning. She'd never run so hard in her life...The ceilings were creaking loudly. She wondered off-handedly if they'd hold. She wiped away a film of sweat from her forehead, and pulled back some glistening hair that dripped with persperation. Man, that creaking was loud...
Carlos and Brad had slumped against the wall behind her, out of breath. Damn that creaking...why was it so loud?...She tucked back a strand of hair that had gotten out of place. Damn, why was that creaking so LOUD?
No, why was that BANGING so loud. With a crash, something hideous jumped through the side of the building. Something indescribable...
Huge. Almost like a man, but not quite. Writhing...no, not it wrtithing. The hundreds of palish-purple tentacles that COVERED it were... The S.T.A.R.S. stalker.
"YOU GO ON AHEAD! SAVE JILL!" Carlos screamed back to them, getting ready to fight it. Brad took a step back, staring open-mouthed at the creature. "Why?" he asked despondently. Claire took a step toward him, smacked him. They had to go. There was no point in having all of them die. But why did Carlos always have to be the hero? Oh Johnny, no Johnny, why did you have to be a fucking hero? The joke she'd heard so long ago played itself in her head, like a voice on a tape recorder...She grabbed Brad's bad arm by mistake and pulled him. He followed her, wincing, but he kept glancing behind him.
They ran, pushing their lungs to the breaking point. Finally the doors to the chapel were visible. Claire threw herself against them, and so did Brad: they flung open. Leon looked up, Sherry sat up, but Jill did not move. Did not even blink. Were they too late?
DAH DAH DAUUMM! OK, so I've finally successfully pulled off a cliffhanger! Yay! ^_- The next chapter will be up soon, and it will explain about the man with the gun...although you all already know who he is. Also, do you guys think I should do a sequel when all is said and done? I've thought it out to some degree, for more information check out the summary for the proposed "Planet Hell" story in my profile. Tell me in your reviews!
S.T.A.R.S. Girl