Chapter 5

S.T.A.R.S. pt.2

Boom! Boom! BOOM! Was all Xander could hear from the loud retorts of his glocks and Marie's shotgun blasts. But to both of their dismay, the bullets seemingly had little effect.

As he jumped back, to see if Rose was behind him, he prepared to run until he heard the repetition of a high powered rifle, that ripped through the apes body. Before he could look over to see who was shooting, Marie poked him on the shoulder with her elbow. Following where she was pointing, he saw three zombies actually running towards them.

But as he lifted up his guns, they clicked empty.

"Hold my hand." Xander quickly said as he threw down his glocks, causing Marie to look at him funny, but do as he asked. "Now when I tell you too, jump over that way." he said as he slipped something into her hand and waited until the undead got closer. "Now!"

Marie and Xander then let go of each others' hands, dropping a length of wire between them. As the undead creatures approached, they stepped apart and pulled the wire taut, causing the demons to run into the wire, getting clotheslined by it, cutting off their heads.

Hearing the bangs of the assault rifles die out, Xander finally looked over to see who had saved his and the others lives'. There was a beautiful brunette, wearing a tight blue halter top, a miniskirt, boots, and a shoulder holster carrying a 9mm glock. And behind her stood a little blonde haired girl with a school uniform, carrying a heavy looking backpack. And beside her stood a tall deathly pale man, that looked like he was cuban or south american, wearing black tactical body armor, carrying an assault rifle.

"Who the fuck are you?" Jill Valentine asked as she stepped forward.


"So that's when we heard your gunfire and we came to investigate." Jill was saying, puffing on a cigarrette, as she and the group huddled together in one of the downstairs shops. Carlos had mistaken Xander for a military man, because he was the first to call out that their was a parimeter breach. After quickly dismissing that, they gathered some heavy furniture and the like and put it in front of the broken window so other zombies wouldn't find their way in.

"I'm sorry to hear about the team you lost." Xander told Jill sadly. Peyton Wells, L.J., Terri Morales, and Nicholai Ginovaeff. Those were just the names of a few of the innocent people who had lost their lives because of Umbrella's sick games. "But this...Dr. Ashford, do you really think he can get us out of the city?"

"As far as we know he's dead." Carlos said as he started to violently shake. "After we retrieved his daughter, we lost communications with him."

"Well did he atleast tell you how we could get out of the city, before you lost contact with him?"

"No..." Carlos answered, Xander's question as he began to cough a little louder and shiver a little more.

"Are you okay, man?" Xander asked worried.

"No." Marie said realizing what was going on. "He's infected."

"Son of a..." Xander started as he stood to his feet. "When the hell were you going to tell us that?" he asked as they started to argue.

"I wonder what all the fuss is about?" Angela Ashford asked. Her and Rose had become quick friends and had moved away from the others so they could talk privately.

"I don't know. You know how grown ups are." Rose answered with a smile. "So where are you from?"

"I'm originally from, England."

"Me and my brother Xander are gonna go there one day." Rose told her almost dreamily. "He said that he's gonna show me the world."

"Your brother?" Angie asked with raised eyebrows. "I highly doubt that...he is your brother." she said as she looked back at him arguing with Jill.

"My...my papa and mama are dead." Rose said as she lowered her gaze. "Xander takes care of me now."

"I'm sorry." Angie said sympathetically as she layed a hand on her friends shoulder. "Bugger this, I have to take off this backpack." she said as she slipped the item in question off her back and layed it down with an audible clunk to the floor. "It was bloody hurting my back."

"What's in it?" Rose asked, immediately curious.

"Something my father told me to keep safe." she replied as she pulled the bag closer to herself. "Hey that's a pretty necklace." Angie said changing the subject.

"Xander gave it to me." Rose replied as she looked down at it and undid the clasp. Handing it over to her friend, she saw a gold necklace around Angie's neck. "Who gave that to you?"

"Oh, um my father." Angie replied as she took off the gold necklace and as Rose could see it had a small pendant at the end of it. "Who are these girls in this picture with your...brother?"

"They're gonna be my new aunt's." Rose replied as she examined the pendant carefully. There was just something strange about it. "The one with the blonde hair is Buffy and the one with the red hair is Willow."

And that's when Angie realized just how close knit her and Xander were. Which left her to wonder that if something really did happen to her father, would somebody be there for her like that.

"Oh no!" Rose cried out as she held up Angie's necklace. The pendant part looked as though it were slit in half. "Did I break it?"

"No,no, no." Angie assured her as she took her necklace back. "You just undid a clasp for the secret compartment." As she went to close it, she noticed a tiny slip of paper in it and read it. Once she did so, her eyes went wide and she looked down at her backpack.

"Bomb, what bomb?" Jill asked after she convinced Xander and Marie not to kill Carlos. If he did change into one of the undead, she would be the one to kill him. Nobody else.

"Xander seems to think that because of what happened here, that the army is going to drop a bomb on the city." Marie answered.

"What proof do you have?" Jill asked as she looked at him.

"It's standard military procedure to...purify an area, if there's an outbreak of this size." Xander explained. Before Jill could ask another question, Carlos cut in.

"He's right." he said as he coughed again. "But, I'm not so sure that it's going to be the army that does it. From what I've seen, Umbrella will want to destroy Raccoon first, to avoid being exposed as the culprit."

"Good, thing we have proof." Jill said as she held up the video camera. On it was proof of what Umbrella had done to the city. The bio weapons...the zombies. She held in a tear though, as she thought about the people who had given up there lives to make sure that it had stayed safe.

"Xander! Xander!" Rose yelled out his name as she ran into his waiting arms.

"What is it soldier?" Xander asked with a smile as he scooped her up.

"I think me and Angie found a cure."


"Are you kidding?" Carlos asked at the end of Xander's tales of Sunnydale. After curing him thirty minutes ago of the disease, Xander had apologized to him for trying to kill him and the two had become friends.

"Every word of it." Xander told him as he helped move another box away from the broken window. He had told them of his plan to get to the barrier and out of the city. Not having any other plan at the moment they decided to follow him. "So what about you?"

"There's not much to tell." Carlos said with a shrug. "Where I'm from there's nothing but famine, disease, and war. I come from a long line of military men, so war was in my blood. And when Umbrella basically moved into our country they saw that in me and offered me a job. I send money back to my parents every week. I thought I actually had a chance to do good, but now..."

"Hey, man I would have done the same thing." Xander said as he clapped a hand on the older man's shoulder. "Don't beat yourself up. You didn't know what Umbrella was up to. Beside's your family was starving, what else could you have done?"

"I guess you're right." Carlos said as he let his shoulders sag as he picked up another box. Seeing that he was still kinda depressed, Xander decided to change the subject.

"So was your father in any major wars or just those of your homeland?"

"Actually he served in Nam." Carlos said, reliving all the stories that his father used to tell him as a child. But one of the stories stuck out to him at the moment. "I remember, I used to sit on his lap for hours as he told me some stories of his time at war."

'All my father did for me was beat me and make me get him some more beers.' Xander thought to himself, even as Carlos was still talking.

'Quiet boy!' the soldier in him growled. 'Olivera...damnit I think I know that name.'

'You know Carlos?'

'No.' the soldier realized. 'I know his father.'

"My father accidently stepped on a land mine." Carlos continued with his story. "But a soldier..."

"Pushed him out of the way and your dad lost his leg, but the soldier died that night." Xander finished for him.

"Ho...how did you know that?" Carlos asked. Then he thought about what he had told him. "The halloween possession. You were serious." At the time Carlos thought that Xander was crazy when he told him of the real things that went bump at night. But seeing first hand what had happened to Raccoon City, he was willing to believe a duck could pull a truck at the moment.

"Sargent Thomas Perry, sir." Xander said as he gave him a salute. One that made Carlos stand up straighter and salute him right back.

"My dad, looked for his family for years before he came back home." Carlos told him. "He wanted to somehow pay his family back, but he found out the soldier didn't have any. And since my father isn't here... I'm in your debt."

"But..."

"No but's, sir." Carlos said with a new found respect for Xander. "If you need anything, it's yours."

"Alright then." Xander said not wanting to argue. "I need you to do me a favor then."

"Name it."

"If...if anything happens to me...I want you to get Rose someplace safe. I want you to protect her."

"You have my word, sir." Carlos said as he put a hand on Xander's shoulder. "You love her don't you?"

"She's my sister." Xander replied as he looked back and smiled as he saw Rose and Angie, probably laughing from a dumb joke that he had taught her.

"So are you guy's ready to go?" Marie asked as she ran up to them.

"Ready." Carlos and Xander said as they moved the last piece of furniture out of the way.

"Good. Jill said that she spotted a van on the way over here. She's gonna hot wire it and we'll be out of here for good."

"Alright." Carlos said as he turned to leave. "Let's..."

"No..." Marie said as she held her stomach.

"What's wrong?" Xander asked as he immediately, ran up to her side.

"I feel...there's something not right here." she told him. She had felt this feeling before. It was when the first wave of zombies entered the city. Searching the room carefully, she suddenly looked above the ceiling and found her source of discomfort and took a step back.

Following her line of vision Carlos and Xander saw a strange four legged creature with no eyes and a grotesque long tongue clinging to the ceiling. Perhaps this was human once, but that was a long time ago.

As it started to move, the three foot long tongue swayed. Looking closer, Xander saw that the the pink fleshy tongue was covered in a thousand tiny barbs. This monster was the stuff of nightmares. Really fucked up nightmares. The kind serial killers have.

And what was worse, it was right above where Jill, Angie, and Rose were further down, in the mall.

"Ji...!"

"No." Xander whispered to cut off Carlos' shout. "That thing'll probably drop down and kill them if you shout." he said as he looked at it and noticed again that it had no eyes. Putting his hands together, he started to signal and prayed to God, that Rose remembered what he taught her.


"What the hell is Xander doing?" Jill asked as she looked up at him and saw him doing, what she thought were baseball signals.

"He..he's telling us to run." Rose said remembering the signal that he had taught her in the club.

"I'm not going to argue." Jill said as she stepped forward. "Now come on let's run."

As they got merely ten feet from where they were standing, the Licker dropped down from the ceiling making a low hissing noise. Sensing body heat, it whipped it's tongue out at the smallest, wrapping it around her leg and started to pull her back.

The creature's mouth then opened again to reveal row upon row of teeth. This thing was built to kill.

"No, Rose!" Xander yelled out as he prepared to run forward. Only to have Marie almost knock him over as she ran in a blur.

Taking out her machete, Marie ran past Jill and Angie with the speed of a cheetah.

"What the..." Jill commented as she turned around and finally saw what was about to attack them. As she was about to fire her glock, she saw that Marie was standing in the line of fire.

The creature's tongue suddenly started to retract, but before it could feast upon Rose, Marie showed up at it's side and chopped the licker's tongue in half. Letting out a wail of pain, the licker looked up at Marie and flicked out what was left of it's tongue and hit her in the chest.

The force of the blow took her off her feet, but as she started to be flung back, she turned it into a handstand and flipped onto her feet. Seeing that the monster started to jump into the air, she jumped up incredibly high and caught what was left of it's tongue. As it landed back on the ceiling, it started to reel her in like a bass with it's razor sharp tongue.

Not caring about the pain, the cuts to her hand, and the blood caused by the lickers appendage, Marie let go of it's tongue in time and within a blink of an eye, took two glocks out of her duster and opened fire. Even as she fell back, as if in slow motion she concentrated on the things body, the bullets wheezed into it with a metallic whisper.

Twisting in mid-air, she landed gracefully on her feet, her duster billowing behind her like a classic super hero, and without looking, fired off another shot into the air. The bullet hit the Licker square in the middle of the forehead. As it fell to the floor, from being riddled with bullets, the beast fell over and died.

"Whoa!" Xander exclaimed as he ran up to her. "And you said you didn't like guns." he said as he pulled her into a hug.

"What the hell are you?" Jill asked as she concentrated her glock on Marie. No way could a normal human, do what she just witnessed.

"I'll explain later." Xander said as he turned around to look at her. "Right now we need to get Marie treated and get the hell out of here."


"So you're what's called a Slayer?" Carlos asked Marie at the end of yet another one of Xander's stories. They had found the van, that Jill said she saw and she had hot wired it. To all of their mutual surprise, they didn't run into that much trouble, except for the occasional zombie here and there.

"According to Xander, I am." Marie replied, sitting in the back with the kids and Xander, as Jill made a sharp turn down a narrow street.

"At the rate we're going we'll be at the blockade in just a few more minutes." Jill called back to them. And then they all heard a violent roar. It was coming from somewhere close.

"What the hell is that?" Carlos asked as he looked out of the window. As if to answer his question, something that seemed almost entirely cloaked in black jumped from a high building further down in front of them in a crouch, destroying part of the street where it landed.

"Damn." Jill shouted as she screeched the van to a halt, jerking everyone forward.

As they all looked up at whatever the thing was, the beams from the van shone on something black. As it stood up from it's crouch, the group finally saw what it was.

"Oh fuck me!" Jill said, her mouth wide open in shock.

"Not again." Xander said under his breath.

"Ssstaarrrss..." Nemesis said as it hefted up his gatling gun.

A/N Just two chapters left. Review while you can.

TBC...

Please Review...