CLAIREMBER
Day 2 - Birkin
Sherry grinned. "Guess what?"
"What?" Claire asked.
"Mr. Simmons got me a PlayStation!"
"Oh he did, did he? Do you like it?"
"It's a lot of fun. Not as fun as when you or Leon visits, but still fun. Here, I'll show you."
Sherry took Claire's hand and led her to the TV she and Leon had gotten the lab to put in Sherry's room. Now a gray box with a circular top hatch sat beside it. A single controller lay neatly upon the hatch.
Sherry grabbed the controller, powered up the TV and Playstation, and sat cross-legged on her gray-sheeted bed. Claire sat beside her. The last game she'd played was Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo. Her boyfriend at the time, Todd, had it, and sometimes they played it together. She waited for the cute, colorful characters – which were now made out of polygons, not pixels, she'd heard from her college roommate, Elza – to load.
A silhouette of a man – a real man, not a cartoon one – appeared. He stood in a dark hallway. As he walked away, the camera flew at him. He turned, looked at Claire and Sherry, and screamed. Animated blood splattered the screen. The scene cut to a close-up of the man's eye, which froze. What Claire supposed was the game's name rushed from inside his iris and filled the screen.
Sherry selected "New Game." The picture went black.
Foreboding trumpets growled as "1998 - JULY" bled onto the screen. The blackness lightened to reveal a shot of clouds that looked as real as the man.
"Games have really come a long way, huh?" Claire said.
Sherry smiled and nodded. "They're like movies now."
More real people gathered on-screen. They were all dressed in tactical gear and standing in tall grass under a night sky. One was a woman wearing her hair tucked under a beret. Another, the man from the opening – tall and spiky-haired in a green vest. In a way, he reminded Claire of her brother, Chris.
The shot cut to growling, fanged creatures and then the people running through the grass to get away. Claire glanced at Sherry. The girl sat, chin in hands, watching with great intent.
The screen went black again. Words crept across the bottom:
"They have escaped into the mansion where they thought they would be safe. Yet…"
Animated characters – consisting of polygons, just as Elza had said – of the people appeared. They were standing in a grand foyer with a big staircase.
"Which one are you?" Claire said.
Sherry pointed to the character of the woman in the blue beret. "Her."
Claire watched as Sherry steered Blue Beret from the foyer to a dining room, and then into a hallway. At the end of the hallway, the screen panned in on a gray-skinned bald man in a green jacket, bending over a body. The man looked over his shoulder at them.
A zombie!
Claire glanced again at Sherry. The girl didn't seem fazed at all. On the contrary – she looked centered and focused as she ran Blue Beret back into the dining room.
"You're not bothered by this?" Claire asked.
Sherry shook her head. "Mm-mm."
"Not even after –?"
"No. Are you?"
"Well, no, but…nevermind."
The character traversed several rooms, some of which contained more zombies and even zombie dogs. Rather than running away from the monsters, Sherry had Blue Beret shoot them until they bled out and died.
"What on Earth do you see in this?" asked Claire.
Sherry shrugged. "My friend Emily's big sister Tina had this game. We used it to play together."
Blue Beret entered an attic. A big snake slithered forward. Sherry shot it with the character's bazooka, but for every hit she landed, the snake bit Blue Beret. Blue Beret sank to the floor, the snake still circling her, as the screen flashed white. Her bloodied body appeared. Red lines scratched the screen to spell, "YOU ARE DEAD."
"Damn." Sherry looked at Claire. "I mean darn. Sorry. It's just, we never made it past this part. Tina was gonna buy the strategy guide, but then…you know."
Claire nodded. "Have you asked Mr. Simmons if he can find them?"
Sherry looked away. "I found them, on my way to the police station. Their dining room window was busted open. One of those skinless things with their brain sticking out had gotten them."
"Oh God." Claire took the girl's hand. "I'm so sorry, Sherry."
"It's okay." She stared at the blood-red letters. "I wish we could have gotten the guide. Maybe we would've beaten the game."
Claire squeezed her hand. She noticed the controller.
"Mind if I try?"
Sherry looked surprised and then smiled. "Sure!"
Claire took the controller. She started a new game using the other available character, the green vested guy who looked like Chris. As Not-Chris, she followed Sherry's path to the snake. As Claire kept the character's distance, she blasted the snake again and again. It got a couple of chomps on her. She kept the character moving and blasting.
The picture froze. The shot cut to the snake slithering away through a big hole.
"Oh my God," said Sherry. "Oh my God, oh my God, you did it! Thank you!"
She hugged Claire, who hugged her back.
"What do you say we keep playing?" Claire asked.
Sherry grinned. "Yeah!"
