A/N: This is the last chapter, and it's reaaally long, but so much happens in this scenario, I wasn't sure how to cut it down. It's not a continuation of Decisions, Decisions. More like an alternate ending, same as with the game. Thank you for reading! :)
...
End of the Road
...
This was the second Umbrella facility David had entered in the past week. It was also the second he had been trapped inside. He didn't enjoy repeating himself.
He had serious reservations about helping these Umbrella scientists. It was one thing to save a person's life, it was another thing to commit to a plan and throw your lot in with them.
Every so often he found himself contemplating how long he had stayed with this group for. Perhaps he would have escaped sooner alone. Or perhaps he would be dead. Questions were pointless, but they stayed in his mind anyway.
David did not like scientists. Neither Linda nor Carter seemed repentant about the nightmare their organisation had caused. Scientists like them didn't see normal people as people. That was how their consciences let them get away with experimenting on humans, and creating something like the T-Virus.
The only reason the survivors were working with them now was for the cure Linda had promised.
"There's Hunters all over the place," she sighed, glancing up from her computer. "Carter's gone to take care of that little problem, but he'll probably need some help. I also need someone to retrieve the cure capsule."
"You don't have it with you?" Alyssa asked.
"Carter was just finishing up working on it in the lab when I went to arrange our transport out of here. We thought we'd have more time to collect our things."
"I'll go get your cure," Kevin volunteered. "Someone else can be on babysitting duty." He gave David a pointed look, which the plumber didn't respond to. He didn't much give a shit what the cop did, so long as he did it nowhere nearby.
"I'm sure Linda needs some help with something, right, beautiful?" Jim asked hopefully.
She glanced at the younger man in amusement. "If you want to make yourself useful, you could fetch me the files on P-Base and V-Poison so I can check a couple of things."
"Uh, are those... somewhere dangerous?" he asked.
"They're in that filing cabinet," she replied, pointing across the room as she refocused on the computer screen.
Jim looked immensely relieved, hopping off his stool and heading over to the files. "No problem! Whatever you need, Jim's your man."
Mark smiled and shook his head. "Sometimes I really feel old, and it's safe to say this is one of those times. Brings back memories though."
"Hard to imagine you acting like that," David said, jerking his head in the direction of Jim's ingratiating routine.
"When I was younger. A lot younger. I knew my wife before I went off to fight in 'Nam, but she wasn't interested in me then. I was too much of a boy, too foolish, too much of a dreamer. When I came back... I wasn't that boy any longer."
"You hoping that'll happen with Jim?"
"Lord, no," Mark said vehemently. "Those years before the war were the happiest of my life. When I met my wife afterwards, she was shocked how much I'd changed, said she was surprised how much she missed the old me. She put up with me though, all those years of pain that the war caused me. When I see her again, I want to tell her how much I appreciate her sticking by me all this time. I should've said it before."
David grunted in agreement. He wasn't good with sentiment, but he appreciated what Mark was saying.
Alyssa and Jim broke into an argument as she started grilling Linda for information. David suppressed a grin. If anyone could wheedle information out of these scientists, it was her. He wasn't usually a fan of talkers, but unlike Kevin and Cindy, she didn't just talk to voice the empty thoughts in her head. Alyssa was cunning, shrewd, and she cut through bullshit without giving a fuck what people thought.
"I guess we're stuck looking for this Carter," Mark said, getting to his feet. "I hope this guy's got some good tricks up his sleeve, because I am not interested in dealing with Hunters again."
"We don't need him," David said. "We can just kill every last Hunter between us and the exit."
"It's a good idea to accept help when you can," Mark replied. "That way you stay alive longer."
They headed into the hallway with guns at the ready. The glare and smoke from the fire obscured David's surroundings. It was damned annoying. Even with a war veteran at his back, he didn't want to get sloppy. At the end of the day, you could only rely on yourself.
A footstep behind him. David whirled and trained the gun on the newcomer.
Yoko stared back up at him with kitten eyes and he lowered the gun with a sigh.
"What are you doing here, child?" Mark asked her. "You'd be safer staying with Jim in the lab."
She chewed her lip, saying nothing. From what David had observed before, she would probably prefer to have her leg gnawed off by a Hunter than spend time with Jim.
"I want to come with you," Yoko said. "I used to work for Umbrella, I could be useful."
Mark nodded and beckoned her as they set off again. David was less pleased. It wasn't that he disliked Yoko. The trouble was that she relied on others too much. He knew Kevin didn't mind that, but the cop seemed to worship himself so much that he probably welcomed distressed damsels. And Mark was the type to take younger and more inexperienced people under his wing to protect them.
David... wasn't like that. He didn't like having people rely on him. He wasn't even sure why Yoko would trust him like that, it was clear most of the others didn't. With Mark he had a mutually beneficial partnership, but they could both take care of themselves so there was no pressure. The girl, though, she followed him around like he was her personal bodyguard, and it made him feel like he had to watch out for her.
Damn, things were easier when he was on his own.
The Hunters didn't take long to arrive. Their claws clicking on the metal floor gave them away before the group saw them.
He and Mark held their ground and gunned down the creatures, with Yoko firing a few shots too. The other man still favoured his handgun, despite the better weapons that had been offered. David figured his reluctance had something to do with his time in Vietnam.
One of the Hunters leapt through the air and David ducked out of the way. The creature smacked down where he had been a second ago, its claws raking the metal. David blasted it a couple more times with the shotgun, avoiding its dying lash of claws as it sank to the ground.
"Tough bastards," Mark grumbled. "What exactly could Carter have to help us fight these?"
"Something worse, probably," David replied. That sounded like the sort of thing scientists would do – unleash a greater horror to fight a minor horror.
The observation mezzanine was through a large room filled with Hunters. They were trapped behind a laser wall, unable to touch the group and zapped by lasers when they tried.
"What could this be used for?" Mark wondered.
"Experiments," Yoko said, eyes narrowed as she watched the Hunters prowling.
They could see Carter up in the observation window, messing around with a computer terminal. Presumably the glass was reinforced, otherwise the Hunters would have burst through and killed him by now.
The three of them headed up to meet him.
"Seems your guess wasn't so far off the mark, son," Mark said grimly.
As he entered, David saw what the older man meant. Beside the terminal where Carter worked, a monster waited inside a tank. It looked almost human, but insanely tall and pallid. The creature's eyes were closed, as though it was asleep, but he was quite certain the plan was to wake it up.
"Oh good, you're here!" the scientist said from his terminal, sounding distracted. David and Yoko approached him, leaving Mark to stare at the creature. "I'm just missing part of the code fragment that will help me control him. You see that collar there? I can use it to reprogram him to target only the Hunters. You should be able to obtain the code if you take an MO Disk down to the mainframe." The scientist looked away from the terminal, blinking expectantly at them.
"I don't take requests, pal."
"Well then, I guess you're doomed," replied Carter, looking far too smug.
"You're gonna rely on that?" David asked, jerking his head at the creature in the tank. "You nuts?"
"Everything will be fine, Chief."
David narrowed his eyes. It was increasingly frustrating having to deal with these people. If he'd gone his own way, he wouldn't be running stupid errands for scientists who wanted to get them all killed.
If they really could make a cure though...
Damn.
He left for the mainframe with an MO Disk, muttering to himself. "Dick. Throwing me to the wolves. Are all scientists pricks?"
"Most of them," Yoko said quietly. He glanced at her, and was surprised to see a small smile. Well, she more than anyone had reason to feel that way. Forget exposing Umbrella, he ought to kill them all. People like them, all they knew was how to destroy.
It was a short trip to the mainframe, but involved fighting a few more Hunters. If this new creature could easily taken down these things, how much easier would it find it to turn on the humans? He hoped this stupid code thing worked.
Yoko took care of the data for the MO disk. David and Mark stood guard and kept an eye on the door.
"I'm not convinced some bit of code on a computer can control something like that," the veteran said.
"It should work... in theory," Yoko said softly.
"Yeah. It's the 'in theory' part that's worrying me."
"It looks human," David pointed out. "Doesn't that mean it can think for itself?" The zombies they'd met so far didn't have much in the way of brains, but they were just bodies. This thing was something else.
"It's a Tyrant," said Yoko. "I remember... experiments. Not many people can survive the transformation, but those that do... they become pure killing machines. It can think on a rudimentary level, like a predator, but it doesn't have any capacity for reason and emotion like a human." She turned round, meeting each of their gazes. "If it did turn on us, it would show no mercy."
"Then we won't show it any either," David replied. Just one more fucker looking to eat a bullet. He could deal with that.
They took the disk back to the arrogant little scientist and watched as he woke the thing up.
Its eyes opened slowly, but it didn't need to adjust after sleeping. Instead, charged straight through the reinforced glass and landed amidst the Hunters.
They shrieked at it, clearly seeing it as a threat. As they launched themselves, talons swiping, the Tyrant beat them back. It didn't have any fancy moves, just raw power. David could hear the bones snapping as it punched them and threw them across the room.
Once it was finished, it stalked towards the hallways where the other Hunters lurked.
"Incredible, isn't it?" Carter asked excitedly.
"Son, that thing is a monster," Mark said in a flat tone.
"Don't worry, this little device here will stop anything bad from happening." He waved a bomb remote. "One button press and bam, a chip in his head will blow."
"I don't have a whole lot of faith in this fancy technology," Mark murmured to himself, eyeing the devastation the Tyrant had caused below.
David glanced at Yoko. She was shivering, hands clamped over her upper arms like she was trying to make herself smaller. "Hey," he said as gently as he could. She didn't seem to hear him.
"Yoko?" he placed a hand on her shoulder, and she startled, looking up at him before glancing back down at the dead Hunters.
"I feel sick."
"This isn't first time you've seen one of them kill?"
She shook her head. "No... It isn't."
David didn't pry any further. Everyone was entitled to their secrets. Whatever she had gotten mixed up with in her past, it seemed to him that she had paid enough times over for it.
Mark led, heading for the elevator where they were supposed to meet Linda, while David brought up the rear. Carter seemed to have gone on ahead.
The Tyrant moved through the halls, seemingly unaware of their presence. It didn't try actively to help them or harm them. It just looked for Hunters and killed them brutally. Yoko cringed away from the creature whenever it came near, dropping back until she was close to David.
"It doesn't look at us, but I feel like it's watching us," she whispered.
"It's a hunter as much as those reptiles," he replied. "It knows we're weaker, but it probably hasn't factored these." He indicated the shotgun in his hands, and she gave a small nod.
It wasn't much, but it was all he had for reassurance. The presence of several guns strapped to his body sure made him feel more comfortable.
They continued through the corridors, all of which looked strangely similar. The three of them ended up taking a wrong turn and appeared at an elevator that would take them down to a basement level. Yoko mentioned that it would likely have access to the sewers. That wasn't much of a surprise, given Umbrella's fascination with hiding freaks in the sewers. No wonder the city had gone tits up.
The three of them were just about to turn back when the door at the end of the corridor opened and Alyssa came tearing through.
"Get in the elevator!" she yelled.
David immediately did as she said, and the other two filed in after him. Alyssa skidded into the elevator, followed a moment later by Jim.
The elevator doors closed, and they descended. Alyssa slumped against the wall, chest heaving. She looked like she had just run for miles. Jim wasn't much better, and he had a look of sheer terror to go with it.
Mark clasped the younger man's shoulder, steadying him. "What happened, son? Where are the others?"
"I... I don't know," Jim panted. "We were with Linda at the elevator. Fuck, what if she's dead? That big guy that Carter woke up showed up out of nowhere and killed him. Then it hit Linda and she fell. It came after us, but we managed to get away. It was smashing up the other elevator when we ran for it."
"That thing's way too intelligent," Alyssa said. "It destroyed the cure, threw the bomb switch away and stopped us getting to the surface."
It really was a predator then. They had been right, something worse than the Hunters had been unleashed.
"Did you try fighting it?" David asked.
"Did we–?!" Jim spluttered. "Did you see what that thing did to the Hunters? It didn't even flinch when they were tearing it up with their claws!"
"We shot it a few times when it killed Carter," Alyssa sighed. "Fucking nothing."
Silence fell on the group as they digested this new information. The cure was destroyed, and likely their only source of a new cure was dead. A monster was hunting them. And they were travelling deeper into the Umbrella facility instead of escaping. David had had better days.
"What about Kevin?" Yoko asked. "Or Cindy and George?"
"We didn't see them," Alyssa replied heavily.
When they opened the elevator doors, they were met with the sewers. At least they could escape this way. They would still be stuck in the city, without a cure, but Linda's helicopter might still be out there waiting. Even if it wasn't, there wasn't a chance in hell that David would just stay here waiting to die.
The sewers stank, but even Alyssa and Jim weren't really in the mood to complain. Three of the group were potentially dead, and everyone here had to deal with the fact that they had abandoned them.
Mark seemed particularly unhappy about it, probably because of his military history. He tended to see all of them as his soldiers. It probably stung particularly badly because he liked Cindy and George. Yoko seemed the worst affected, since the pretty much idolised Kevin. The cop had been her hero figure, the kind of person she clearly wanted David to be.
Meanwhile, he just got on with it. His own survival took priority over grieving.
It wasn't long before they found some hope.
Down below, among the refuse of the sewer, lay Linda. She looked in pretty bad shape. It wasn't much of a surprise considering how far she had fallen. Somehow, she seemed to be moving slightly.
"We have to get down there," Alyssa said. She took off running without looking to see if the others would follow. There didn't seem to be any kind of ladders to get them down safely. Eventually, they managed to find some kind of waste chute large enough for them all to jump down into the filth and sewer water.
Neither Alyssa nor Jim complained about that either. A new mood had taken them over, now that the chance for a cure was back on the table. Everything they needed was inside Linda's head. All they had to do was get to her and make sure she survived.
"Damn, you must be made of iron," Jim exclaimed.
Linda gave a shaky laugh. "I don't think my arm or my ankle agree with you. I'm sure something's broken."
"I wish George was here, or Cindy," said Jim. "They'd know what to do for you."
"I'll bind your arm to your body," said Mark. "It's all I can do to help. I'm no doctor, but I've done it before."
"I knew we shouldn't have woken up that monster," Linda sighed in frustration. "I told him. Carter… And now the capsule's gone too. That was the one thing we had to make it right."
"You can make another though, right?" Alyssa asked.
"Sure, if I can get out of here and convince the government to let me try. I'll need your help; Rodriguez said he wasn't going to hold that chopper for long."
Linda squinted at something beyond them, and they turned to see the distant figures of Kevin, Cindy and George.
"Are they... still alive?" Jim asked. "Or did they change?"
"They're definitely still alive," Alyssa said. "I refuse to believe that Kevin would still have that goofy smile on his face even as a zombie."
David smirked. He had to admit he felt… relieved. Why? He didn't really like any of them, though the doctor wasn't bad. Whether they lived or died shouldn't mean anything to him. Yet it did make him feel a little lighter.
Kevin waved an arm at them and started over, followed by Cindy and George. The waitress was having to lean on the doctor, and seemed injured. Probably the Tyrant's doing. Had they killed it, or was it still roaming around upstairs?
David froze. Some rushing noise drifted to them from far away. It was getting closer.
Yoko looked up at him. "Is that–?"
In a split second, he grabbed hold of her wrist and clamped his hand around a pipe, before a wave of water crashed into them from above.
The others screamed as the current dragged them away. With a stab of horror, he saw Linda swept clear of the pipe Jim was clinging onto. The water hit them relentlessly, the foul liquid trying to get into David's nose and mouth to choke him.
Yoko's hand was too slippery in his, and he tightened his grip.
His pipe wrenched free of the wall and David was yanked backwards into the tide, Yoko's hand slipping free. He couldn't even see her as the filthy water gritted his eyes. He felt himself being battered around like a ship in a storm, and wildly reached out for any kind of anchor.
He fastened his hand around something cold and metal, and it bit into his skin like a garrotte. He couldn't let go now or the water would take him.
Moments later, as suddenly as it had come, the tide died down.
David sagged to the ground until the water was only waist-height. He rubbed his eyes and looked around.
The only one left was Jim, who was still clutching a tattered length of pipe and whimpering. His eyes were shut fast, as though whatever was happening couldn't be real if he didn't look. Just David's luck to be stuck with a man-child.
"Get a hold of yourself," he snapped in frustration. "We're not dead yet."
He grabbed Jim by the arm and forcibly dragged the other man into a standing position.
"Yeah, not yet!" Jim cried, irate. "It's just a matter of time though, right? Have you counted the number of shitty things that keep happening to us? We just lost Linda twice and she's the only one with a cure! And what about the others? What if they're all dead?"
"It doesn't matter," David ground out. "We just need to keep moving."
Jim looked at him askance. "You're not honestly telling me you don't care? I don't believe it, yo."
David looked away. "It doesn't matter what I think. It happened. We have to move."
He left the bewildered man and waded through the water, collecting a couple of things he'd dropped. The shotgun he had been carrying was gone, but he still had a couple of handguns.
The sound of splashing behind him suggested that Jim had decided to follow after all.
David had meant what he had said. There was no point in tearing his hair out over the loss of the cure, or his allies. He still felt that kernel of anger and bitterness at their loss. He had liked some of those people. Despite his reservations, he had gotten attached to them and come to respect them.
He could still feel Yoko's hand slipping free of his, impossible to hold onto in the torrent. She shouldn't have trusted him to protect her. He had known that nothing good could come of it.
David pushed the thoughts away and stalked through the sewer. The water soaking his clothing was cold and disgusting. It had also washed some heavily decayed zombies into their path. He shot them down without breaking stride.
All that mattered was getting to that helicopter.
Something was moving in the water up ahead. It was impossible to be stealthy here. David gripped his handgun and approached cautiously. He hadn't forgotten about the Tyrant. Behind him, Jim followed uneasily.
They rounded the corner, and David stopped dead in his tracks. Mark.
Jim made a noise somewhere between a yelp and a squeal of excitement, before rushing forwards and grabbing the big man by the arms, trying to pull him to his feet.
"Oh, easy there, son," Mark groaned. "I think I might've hurt something. I'm not exactly as fit as I used to be."
"You're alive!" Jim exclaimed. "You're okay!"
"I managed to grab onto this strut, but I saw the others get swept all the way down this tunnel. God knows where they ended up."
David found his voice. "Can you walk?"
"I–"
Mark grabbed them both by the arm and dragged them behind the struts that supported the upper platform. They stopped moving as he motioned them to be silent.
Above came the heavy tread of something that couldn't be human. It was slow and patient, like a predator picking up a scent.
David glanced at Jim. The other man was a liability. He could be unpredictable when nervous. If Jim ran now, when Mark was injured and all David had was a handgun... The only person worse in this situation was Kevin, who would probably start shooting at it like an idiot. He levelled a death glare at the subway worker. Jim recoiled, but he stayed put and stayed silent.
A few minutes later, the footsteps faded and the Tyrant disappeared. Mark made them wait a little longer in case it was a trap, until he finally exhaled and nodded.
"That thing showed up when the water came. I don't think it saw me since it was watching the others get washed downriver."
"You think maybe it caused it?" Jim asked. "Opened a sluice gate or something?"
That wasn't something any of them wanted to consider.
"Hey, look!" Jim grabbed something off a heap of rubbish. It was the detonator for the Tyrant's head. "That was dropped down here at the same time as Linda. How the hell did it get over here?"
"Cindy's group may have found it," Mark suggested. "Could come in useful if the Tyrant returns."
David shrugged. He didn't want to put his faith in something the scientists had cooked up. Look where that had gotten everybody so far.
They headed up the ladder, wanting to get moving before it returned. Mark had difficulty, due to some pain in his chest. David hoped that his internal organs hadn't been damaged. Mark was strong, a survivor. David had done him wrong by writing the man off as dead so easily. He deserved to be reunited with his family.
The manhole at the top of the ladders opened out onto the main street.
The last time David had been here, it had been in chaos. Fire, zombies, abandoned cars. Now it looked like the scene of a natural disaster. The road had been churned up and the walls of buildings had collapsed onto it. The helicopter would be further down the street, but they would only be able to reach it directly by clambering through the debris – and David didn't fancy taking the long route.
Something slammed through the debris of a nearby building.
The Tyrant. It started twitching and jerking. The monster threw its head back and roared as a huge talon burst out of its fist. Its body started to contort as it transformed into a true monster. The human appearance vanished and was replaced with something of claw and muscle.
"Jim, the detonator," David growled.
"I ain't getting close to that thing!" he yelled, clutching the control.
David moved to rip it from the other man's grasp and do it himself, when the Tyrant launched itself forwards. If the previous version had been deadly, this thing was a nightmare.
The ground seemed to shake as it charged, and even though he threw himself to the side, the sweeping talon battered his shoulder. He managed to shift into a roll and get away, but he felt like he'd been hit by a freight train. The claw had immense reach, and threw wreckage into the air like confetti.
Mark drew the creature away with gunfire before it could reach Jim. It turned slowly, as though considering who would make the best victim. There was no way Mark could go toe-to-toe with that thing. Even uninjured, he was the least agile of them.
David eyed the mountain of debris that lay between them and the helicopter. He could just about see a tunnel through to the other side. A plan formed.
He darted over to Jim and snatched the bomb remote out of his hands. "Get through to the helicopter!"
Jim needed no motivation to run away, and he was off in a second.
David started to move away from the tunnel, firing at the Tyrant. It turned its attention towards him, and he started to circle towards Mark, forcing the other man to limp round to the tunnel, so that they still had it between them.
The Tyrant charged at David. He leapt out of the way again, hitting the ground heavily and rolling clear as the claw gouged the pavement where he'd landed. "Mark, go after Jim, now!"
"Roger that!"
The Tyrant looked up from David to Mark and started towards the veteran as he made his way through the tunnel.
Fuck, this thing was too smart.
David sprinted past it and into the tunnel. The creature roared and charged after him. He narrowly avoided being skewered by that claw in the confined space.
He flipped the switch on the detonator. The Tyrant howled, keeling forwards as an explosion fired in its head.
David shot out of the tunnel before it could crush him. It lay there, completely immobile. He didn't trust that it was dead. One of the others would probably have a better explanation, but all he knew is that these things rarely died so easily.
Inside the helicopter, Linda's contact was waiting. Rodriguez wasn't pleased with the news about Linda, but he wasn't keen on waiting for her to show, either. David felt an inexplicable guilt well up inside him at the thought of leaving the city now.
"How you got a map of the city?" Jim asked. "Of the sewer layout?"
Rodriguez nodded, laying it out on a crate and frowning as the subway worker peered over it. "What the hell are you even looking for?"
"These tunnels aren't so different to the subway network. I think..." He trailed his finger along one of the tunnels, tapping his finger where it intersected with a manhole. "I think I know where they might've washed up."
"If they're alive," Rodriguez pointed out.
David met Jim's eyes, and then Mark's. He nodded silently. If they were going to do this, then he would too. How could he fly off and save his own skin when a coward, and a man with more reason to escape than any of them, were prepared to go and rescue a bunch of strangers. It's not like they even had a cure. If he had to die, why shouldn't it be for this?
They took off, leaving the safety of the helicopter to follow Jim's map through the decimated streets.
It was unnerving how silent it was. Where were all the zombies? Dead? Or was something happening elsewhere that had drawn them away. For all he knew, there could even be an expiration date on that virus before it ate up their whole bodies. They could even turn on each other.
They moved through the eerie street quietly, but something was nagging at David. He felt like prey. It was the feeling of being watched.
As they came off the footbridge, Jim narrowly avoided having his leg blown off by a mine. The man managed to stumble and drop his lucky coin onto ground, only to reel backwards as it got blown into shrapnel.
David thought the guy might turn around there and head back, but instead he started chuckling like an idiot. "I knew it. I knew that coin was lucky. It saved my damn life!"
"Goddamn," Mark sighed, rubbing his face with a hand. He looked sick. For a second, David thought it was his injury. Then he realised that the shock of encountering a landmine here, in Mark's hometown, must have brought back bad memories.
There was no time to stop, but they had to move more cautiously now. It was making David sweat, the idea of having something so dangerous lurking anywhere underfoot. This was worse than zombies. At least he could fight them. Why was it that people were always the most dangerous creature?
Getting through the side roads and back alleys was difficult. What hadn't been barricaded was full of corpses, with one sinking its teeth into Mark as he struggled to keep up with his injuries. David had wanted to leave him in the helicopter, but the veteran wouldn't let others go without him.
Luckily, the zombie triggered a landmine, eviscerating it and throwing Jim clear. David was just hauling him back to his feet as they heard a yell further down the street.
His breath caught in his throat as he saw the shuffling but determined figures of the other survivors approaching. At their head was Alyssa, limping and supporting Kevin, waving an arm over her head to attract attention. Cindy seemed to be unconscious in George's arms, but she couldn't be dead – they would have left her otherwise. And best of all was Linda being supported by Yoko. Their cure was safe. They were safe.
Ignoring his weariness, he sprinted the distance, trying to keep his expression composed despite the overwhelming relief.
"Damn, am I glad to see you guys," Kevin grunted.
David took the cop's arm and slung it over his shoulder. That allowed Alyssa to take some of the weight off her ankle.
"We thought you were dead!" Jim exclaimed as the group reached him.
"And you came for us anyway?" Alyssa asked in surprise, glancing at David. He ignored it, but couldn't help feeling a quiet satisfaction.
"No one gets left behind," said Mark.
"Damn right," Kevin said with a quiet chuckle. For all his bravado, he seemed surprised too that the others had come back for them.
They made for the overpass as quickly as they could, Linda concerned that her pal might have flown off and left them. David found himself not caring much. They had the cure, and they were safe. They could find another way out if need be.
Jim and Mark were fussing over Cindy, who barely seemed aware of them. The subway worker drifted over to Yoko and started yammering about their adventures. David met her gaze, and the student gave him a small smile. He returned it. How had it taken this kind of catastrophe for him to find people he could like and trust?
As they neared the helicopter, David heard a low growl, something predatory. From the mountain of debris where he'd hit it earlier, the Tyrant appeared. It smashed its way through, looking even more insane and murderous than before.
"Get on the chopper!" David ordered. "Go, I'll hold it off!"
He took aim with his handgun, using what few bullets he had left to keep it distracted while the injured made their escape. A small part of his mind registered this as suicidal, but he didn't care. The others weren't in any state to face this thing.
The gun clicked as he ran out. In that second, the Tyrant swiped at him, and in his exhausted state he reacted too slow. The claw caught his leg, tearing into the flesh and breaking bones. He howled in pain as he was thrown aside like a rat. The pain blinded him, leaving him barely aware as a pair of hands grabbed his arm and dragged him to his feet.
"Lean on me," said Alyssa. She steered him to the chopper, bowing under the extra weight on her ankle. The others appeared in the doorway, covering their escape with what bullets they had left. Mark hefted a rocket launcher onto his shoulder, approaching the Tyrant with a grim expression and taking a knee.
"We've gotta go!" Rodriguez yelled.
Mark's rocket hit the monster straight in the chest, and it let out a howl of pain, finally collapsing.
It drifted out of sight as the helicopter lifted into the sky, carrying them away from the dead city. Away from the missiles sent to destroy it. Away from their previous lives, their ties. And perhaps to a new start for all of them.