Costly Refuge

Disclaimer: I do not own Resident evil, Capcom, or any pertaining relations, I wish I did, cause I wouldn't have been dumb enough to put RE:4 on the PS2.…retards..

As the group sped away in the van, looking out the back window at the quickly fading horde of ghouls they had escaped from, the cabin of the van was dead silent, save for the heavy panting of each of the hapless teenagers. They drove on until the horde was safely behind them and nothing more then a dot on the quickly darkening horizon. The ride continued in silence until, about an hour later, and night had fully fallen, the van sputtered and stopped, they were stuck, without any gas, on an abysmal interstate during Armageddon.

No one said a word as they climbed out of the van one by one, Alex looked down as far as he could see by the glow of the moon, as far as he could tell, the highway stretched on, flat, but not barren, for littering the highway were dozens of abandoned cars, trucks, every vehicle imaginable, speechless, the group had gathered in a semi circle around the sliding door of the van, "We uh, we should maybe just sleep in the van tonight.." Dylon said "No." Alex replied firmly, everyone looked at him like he had lost his mind, "Alex, we, We have to rest, I can't go on like this, no one can" Cameron said as calmly as he could. "we can't stay here, no chance, we are unprotected, and who says they aren't still following, they move slow but by daylight they could be here, I'm not risking us that way" Alex said, "ok Alex I've had it" Dylon spoke up quickly, "I'm sick of your 'I'm the quiet leader' bullshit" he said with a sneer. "If it wasn't for me you'd be dead, all of you, I'm the one who should be leading this group, not you, all you've done is come up with ideas that fail or get us killed" he said again, Taylor and Cameron looked shocked, Dan looked away, and Alex, while keeping a stern face, couldn't help taking a step back. "I say we're sleeping here in the van tonight, If you have a problem with that, then you go somewhere else." Alex looked in disbelief at Dylon's unflinching face. After an uneasy quiet Alex let out a deep breath and stared at the ground," then it's settled" Dylon finished, as he climbed back into the van without a word, Taylor and Cameron uneasily walked into the van without a word as Dan walked over to Alex, but as soon as his mouth was open Alex interrupted him, "don't say anything" Alex said darkly, his sweat soaked matted hair covering his eyes "he's completely right, what was I thinking, all I've done is mess everything up, all I do gets people killed, the school, Richard, my dad……" Alex trailed off. Dan showed the slightest trickle of emotion on his face at this, no one except Taylor had even mentioned their families, even though the image of the gore soaked, half eaten corpse of his mother festered freshly in his mind. "let's get some sleep" Alex said as he moved towards the van, Dan took one last look at the Twilight sky, before moving towards the decrepit van for the night.

Taylor woke with a start, she couldn't see at all, and the only sound was that of her companions heavy breathing, she could barely make out a figure, black on black, sitting upright on the backseat. Rising from her spot on the floor she moved to the backseat and sat next to her cousin, "still awake huh?" she said quietly, "someone has to be" Alex replied in a stern voice. Taylor brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them close to her, "Alex, what's going to happen if we survive, I mean….how do we know anyone else is even alive?" Taylor asked. Alex was shocked at just how calmly she had said such a heartbreaking thing and yet still proceeded to remain so calm. "Taylor…" Alex started, "there, there's no way we are the only survivors, I mean think about it, how can a group of teenagers in backwoods Sonoma county be the only survivors in the entire world, and we had the least warning, it may be true that everyone we knew is…" he cut off there, as Taylor hugged her knees a little tighter at the mention of loved ones. Alex thought back on what had happened when he ran off 2 days ago. He wondered if his father had made it, and was curios at how little it had mattered to him up till now. Alex's thinking was interrupted when stirring from the other side of the van and Cameron rose from his spot on the floor, his hair visibly askew in the half darkness. "oh, good, now I can sleep" Alex said light heartedly, Taylor sat still as Cameron and Alex traded positions. She stayed awake with Cameron for a short while, until eventually she dozed off.

It seemed Alex had only slept a few minutes, in 3 days now he had hardly gotten 9 hours of sleep, and it showed. After Cameron had taken watch Dan had taken over. The sun was visibly creeping over the hills on the side of the highway, revealing that they had been sleeping near a lake this whole time, it's still pristine waters unknowingly sparkling despite the Armageddon that had gripped the world. After a quick breakfast of beans and hard bread, Dylon and Cameron had gone out to siphon gas from one of the stranded cars. 2 minutes later a gunshot was heard and they returned with flushed faces and a jug full of gasoline, Taylor asked what had happened as they filled up the van but they remained silent of their ordeal, The thought of telling the group of the other car's young undead, 8 year old girl, occupant, hissing and twitching at the agony of an unreachable meal of human flesh. After the van was full they packed in and hit the road again, after only 20 minutes of driving they had reached the off highway shopping center, inside was a Wal-Mart, several fast food restaurants, A home and garden shop and some kind of bar, other then that the parking lot was completely devoid of life, or something similar…

They pulled up to the front of the store, readied their weapons and prepared for another hellish ordeal, slowly they opened the van door and quickly sprinted to the front doors, both were locked and heavily bared from the inside, "No…" Alex said, "well, what a surprise, another of Alex's plans fails" Dylon said snidely, receiving a quick slap on the back of the head from Dan, he then walked over to Alex, who now was banging his head against the glass doors mournfully. Dan, went to put his hand on Alex's shoulders, when he froze, Looking through a crack in the debris baring the doors was a dark figure…watching them….But this was not the stupid, reckless movement of a reanimated creature, it moved normally, Dan took a chance and pointed at the figure, which then proceeded to stand up and walk over to the light sliding through the cracks of junk, revealing a balding, dumpy man, though haggard, he managed to smile as he began moving things aside and opening the door, The whole group stood back as the man exited with a grin on his face, "welcome, welcome, please come in, I'm not sure if it's safe out there" he wore a Wal-Mart uniform with a nametag that read "Frank". nothing unusual about that, except that the front of his uniform was covered in blood. Cautiously the team lowered their guns and followed the man into the store, after they entered he shut the door once more and bared it again with the random items, after he was finished he looked upon them and beamed once more. "I'm so glad you made it, even more survivors, what a great surprise, we've been holed up here listening to the news, follow me, Ill introduce you" he said without missing a beat, the team, mouths agape, proceeded to follow the man into the Electronics department of the store, inside were a large grouping of cots and lanterns, but the most amazing part was that there were at least 10 people gathered around, some in collective circles, "everyone look" frank said," at once everyone turned and looked at the group of straggled travelers. Many gasped, and some showed no reaction at all, "They just showed up outside, c'mon, I'll introduce you, then you have to tell us how you got here"…

There were exactly 10 survivors, 11 if you counted frank, there was Nancy and George, who had a 11 year old boy named Jack, Nancy was also 3 months pregnant. There were these two gruff, bearded bikers, who said there names were Henry and Roy. There were 3 other Wal-Mart employees there, 2 were about Dan's age, a guy named Rick and a girl named Debbie, the third was the store manager, a strict looking woman named Catherine, the last two were a African American man, Crew cut and wearing a badge of the marine corp. His name was John, and his 12 year old son's name was Tyrone. Each of them greeted the crew warmly, After the formalities were over Dylon and Cameron proceeded to tell them the story of what had happened, Taylor went to go exploring with Jack and Tyrone, while Alex and Dan went to the television and generator that had been set up and watched the news, it was grim...

"-Phillip from New York telling us of the current situation on the west coast, sounds grim. In other news the first reports of infected in other countries have just come in, Mexico, India and other third world countries have reported almost a quarter of their populous dead, in particular the north eastern city of Matamoros is being referred to by the locals as "Ciudad ante las Muerto" or "City of the Dead" which calls again into question the eccentric fantasies that the infected are in fact the living dead.

"In other news the first officials from the long bankrupt Umbrella Corporation have stepped forth claiming to know a cure for this mad disease, there new official miss Garnet Marks had this to say..

"After the horrible happenings in raccoon city over 7 years ago, and the destruction of the main umbrella research facility, we were beaten and broken, but I promise you this, I will take this company in a new direction, from these ashes of this terrible disease, the phoenix of the umbrella corporation and the planet earth shall arise, stronger and more beautiful then ever."

The television then cut back to The main News Anchor…

"Strong words, Now we cut to Ashley in England as we continue our live, 24 hour coverage of , Earth, in crisis"-

Dan turned off the TV and waked away quickly, Alex didn't bother following him, he knew what he was thinking, The lab in the basement, the files, the reason it originated in California. This was all a ploy to get umbrella back in business, but why all this effort, why create these things, why kill all these people. And why did this just explode. Sure there were suspicious circumstances surrounding the nuclear reactor meltdown in raccoon city…but Alex was thinking this may go much deeper then he had feared.

Taylor Was as happy as it was possible to be at this time, she had met kids her age, and she had complete access to an entire Wal-mart. As they were exploring she saw some double doors that had been bared up, they read "Storage" on them and she was struck with an idea, "Hey Tyrone. What's back there?" Taylor asked, "Oh…I dunno, all I know is that we're not supposed to go back there…" He replied, Taylor was curios "what do you mean?" she asked, he looked at her darkly and said quietly "That's where we keep the sick.." Taylor thought for a minute, and gasped horrified as she stared at the door.

Dan was deep in thought, he had chosen a small corner in the electronics section and had plugged in his laptop, Umbrella Corporation, the lab in his fathers basement, something big was happening, and he thought his father was behind it, he needed to start from the beginning, he opened up his father's laptop and started looking through the dates on the file, the oldest one he could find was from 1997, it was labeled "The Spencer Mansion Affair".. thoroughly interested, he read, and was shocked at what he found.

Well how awesome was that, anyway, I'm noticing that the damn websites aren't working on my stories, so I'mgoing to do what Cameron did, to find the website with all the guns on it go to: www(dot)World(Dot)Guns(Dot)ru haha,there that should work, until then, sleep tight, don't let the zombies bite! haha corny….