12. City of Monsters…What a Joke

David and Yoko walked the halls in silence for a few minutes, when David heard a commotion from behind him. He pulled out his folding knife and looked around cautiously as Yoko trekked on, expecting to see one of those things again. He then could make out voices from the floor below him, when an explosion erupted not but a few feet behind him through the wall. The blast knocked him back and knocked Yoko forward, the two of them on opposing sides of the blast, which made a giant, fiery crater and sent the floor between them collapsing to the floor below. David could make out Gill's voice and Jim's sniveling cowardice even through the fire. David looked at the gap between himself and Yoko as well as the raging fire standing in the wall like a gigantic, fiery wallflower.

"Keep moving," he said to Yoko. "I'll go around somehow, and we'll get to the lobby."

David disappeared from Yoko's sight from behind the fire, which caused Yoko wince from the heat. She looked around and saw a door down the hallway and walked through it, the label "Maintenance" on it. Inside was a small, tightly packed room with a small desk, twin lockers, and a toolbox. Yoko searched around a bit, seeing nothing in the room particularly special, except for a small notebook that lay on the desktop. She picked it up curiously and skimmed through the pages.

I met a man named Frankie today.

I killed him.

It didn't feet any different from the other ones, despite the face he was supposed to be my friend. Maybe I am as cold as they say I am. Maybe I really don't give two shits about human life. I don't see what's the big deal. He had to die. Everybody dies some time, why not get it over with?

The pen stinks. It sucks. That's all there is to it. I can't believe the family just let me stay here and rot. The whole thing was a big screw job, I should've seen in coming. But I was so naïve. I never trusted anybody before, and look what happens. But I'm gonna bust out, and I'll get that son of a bitch back for leaving me to die while the cops busted our asses inside out. From now on, I trust nobody except the man in the mirror. If you have a heart beat, I'm going to carve it out of your stinking, heaving chest and serve it to you on a fucking platter before you even get the chance to think about fucking with David King. Wait till Reno's boys see what I do with their prized petuna Charlie.

Johnny the Bull is a washed out loser. He kills out of sadistic joy. At least I do it for the money, and at least I got my own standards. Kids and women are out. He doesn't give a shit. It's the people like him that should be in here. All I've ever done was iced people who had it coming, nothing to it. They deserved to die, and I was the one who had to kill em'. Johnny the Bull is a joke, he has no style, no sense. He's just a kid playing He-Man, a stupid kid with no brains at all. I'd gut him myself if I had the chance.

I fucked Johnny's world up. Built myself a custom shank out of a toothbrush and shanked him good. Stupid bastard didn't even recognize me through the mask, and he probably thinks Rico did it. It'll play out perfectly, and the dumb bastard won't have a clue.

Raccoon City. It's not much but it'll have to do. The search parties will be combing the place, I gotta find a low profile job that'll keep me busy and get me some cash. No way in hell I'm going back to the fuckin' pen. You'd have to make me a corpse if you wanted even a chance at getting' me back there. I'll ice anybody who finds out. But nobody will. Nobody.

Chamberlain is going to die. I'm going to kill this stupid fuck and burn his ugly, decaying body in the fucking furnace.

There's a little girl on the third floor by herself. What kind of man leaves a child on their own? She talks too much, pisses me off, but she isn't bad, I guess. I hate the thought of kids being left alone…reminds me of the orphanage.

Yoko stopped reading when she heard a loud thud. She looked around the room and noticed a crack in the floor. She peered through and saw Gill lying on the floor, Johnny standing over him with the axe in his hand. As Johnny finished the job Yoko covered her mouth to keep from screaming and turned away from the crack. She looked again and saw Johnny spreading Gill's blood all over his chest and face and shuddering as if in a euphoric, almost orgasmic state, his entire body shaking with erotic pleasure. He put his head up, then opened his eyes, which met with Yoko's. Yoko gasped and stood up, her legs shaking. Had he seen her? She glanced through the crack again, and saw only Gill's blood soaked body, the axe that once rested in his head like it would a tree trunk now gone. Yoko stepped back when a door behind her burst open. She turned around and screamed, but saw that it was David, standing in front of a door she hadn't noticed, a fire raging behind him, apparently the room where the explosion occurred. Yoko absent-mindedly held the notebook in her hand, and David realized immediately what had happened.

"What the hell are you doing?" he said, advancing forward, the fire behind him growling with rage.

Yoko stepped away.

"What did you read?" David said, clutching his folding knife tighter. "How much did you read, Yoko?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know,"

David's face grew darker and colder despite the hellish flames that grew louder and angrier behind him.

"Now that you know…"

Suddenly the locker burst open and a zombie, arms outstretched, embraced David, gnashing its teeth that were only inches away from David's neck. He struggled with the thing keeping its face away with one hand as Yoko crawled past them under the desk. She then burst out of the room and ran down the hall, running as fast as she could.

She soon found another door that led to a stairway, which she followed until the second floor, which was blocked off from the first floor by the fire. She walked through a door and followed a hallway until she reached a staff room. In there she saw an opening behind a bookcase that appeared to have been shoved aside and walked through it. In the next room was a series of catwalks directly over the lobby, which was so far down a fall from there would kill a person. Yoko searched around and saw that the emergency ladder Gill mentioned was up.

"But," she muttered to herself. "The fireman said he left it down."

"He did say that, didn't he?"

Yoko spun around and screamed. Directly behind her, Johnny stood shirtless and covered in blood, tipping the head of the bloody axe head up and down with his hand and a smirk on his face. He walked towards Yoko, holding the axe forward near to her face, the blood on the sharp edges dripping down onto her shoes.

"What you got there, girl?" he said, eyeing the notebook, then snatching it out of her hand. He held the axe against her throat with one hand and began reading with the other, when David emerged from the shadows. Johnny smiled.

"King! There ya are!" Johnny said. "I was just gonna have a lil' fun with miss Yoko Ono here."

"What the fuck happened to you?" David said.

"I just gave that darkie we met earlier somethin' to think about. Damn, he died pathetically."

"Give me the book," David said, putting his hand out. Johnny's expression became suspicious.

"Hey I know you're David King and all man, I respect you and shit, but who the fuck are you to tell ME what to do?" he said, pointing to himself with the axe.

"Just give it to me, Johnny," David said, still putting his hand out.

Johnny slung the axe over his shoulder and laughed.

"Ya' know," he said. "I haven't read a good book in a long time. I'll bet this is the bitch's diary! Wouldn't it be nice to read her own words before she died? That's some cryptic shit, you'd love it King! Now let's see,"

"GIVE me the BOOK Johnny," David ordered aggressively.

Johnny began to read one of the passages in the book aloud.

"Johnny the Bull is a washed out loser…what the fuck? Johnny the Bull is a joke, he has no style, no sense. He's just a kid playing He-Man, a stupid kid with no brains at all…" Johnny read further. "I fucked Johnny's world up. Built myself a custom shank out of a toothbrush and shanked him good. Stupid bastard didn't even recognize me through the mask, and he probably thinks Rico did it. It'll play out perfectly, and the dumb bastard won't have a clue."

Johnny looked at the book and then David, his chest heaving in and out with an inner fire that swelled with each breath. The fires of hell burned deep in his eyes.

"You sorry son of a bitch," he said, tossing the book to the ground. "YOU fuckin' shanked me, YOU! You have ANY idea how much of my people DIED cuz of what you did! The war that raged between us and Rico's cronies all cuz of you? And you used it to escape, didn't you?"

David gave a half harrumphed chuckle.

"What…in the FUCK…is SO goddamn FUNNY!" Johnny said, squeezing the handle of the axe with both hands.

"You're still a pathetic IDIOT, Johnny." David said spitefully with intent to challenge.

With a loud roar Johnny lifted the axe and ran towards David, screaming wildly and looking more like a beast than a man. He swung the axe only inches from David's chest, then swung again with incredible force, this time hacking off a piece of the catwalk railing. Yoko cowered in the corner, watching the carnage unleash.

David pulled out his knife and ducked under a horizontal slash from Johnny, then ran past him while slicing his rib. Johnny let out a short yelp, then quickly regained himself and swung again. David jumped back and stood in a defensive position, his legs spread and his arms out, awaiting Johnny's next attack. The two circled a bit like lions, then Johnny brought the axe in a vertical, downward angle aimed at David's head, but David dodged to the side and grabbed the axe with one hand. He then stabbed Johnny in the rib with his knife, causing him to scream out in pain, but quickly Johnny responded with a head butt to David's face, stunning him and forcing him to stagger back. Johnny charged toward David, the knife still stuck in his ribs, when a section of the roof fell behind him, igniting the left side of the catwalk. Johnny turned back towards David, who was on his back, and slowly lifted the axe over his head while laughing like a madman. Yoko, out of desperation, ran forward and grabbed the axe, which Johnny had reared all the way back.

"What the!" he said, realizing what was going on. She struggled to try and pull the axe away, but Johnny's larger frame allowed him to easily shove her off. He then turned towards her and readied himself for attack, when David grabbed him from the shoulders and shoved him against the fire, then held him in there, charring his body and setting his jumpsuit on fire. Johnny dropped the axe, sending it far down onto the lobby floor, as he shrieked in excruciating pain, the smell of his burning flesh rushing through David's nostrils. David then pulled out his knife from Johnny's rib and stood back, letting the now flame consumed murderer flail about in agony. David then pinned him against the catwalk railing and sliced and stabbed him up to twenty times in the stomach and chest, then shoved the knife into his throat, stopping the horrific screaming.

"Just quit bitchin' and deal with it," David said, pulling his knife out and shoving him off of the railing, sending his fiery corpse to the floor with a vicious thud. David breathed heavily, then glanced over at Yoko, who looked at him with more fear than she did with the former axe murderer. David walked up to her and stared long and hard, his dark eyes making contact with hers, then turned his attention to the device that operated the ladder. He flicked it on, sending the ladder down to the lobby below, then looked at Yoko again.

"I didn't need your help," he said, pulling out the handgun he acquired earlier. "I had a gun."

Yoko gave no response. David gave a low, muttered laugh.

"But thanks anyway," he said, then climbed down the ladder. "Hurry up, we're almost there."

David and Yoko climbed the ladder down when they heard a door burst open in the back of the room. David readied himself for anything, but was relieved to see it was only Jim, a pair of women's underpants sticking out of his pants.

"Hey! If it isn't Yo-Yo Yoko and her Tarzan friend David Bowie!" Jim said gleefully. "How the hell'd you guys get here? You shoulda seen the shit I saw! Daaaayum! But good ol' Jim was just too fast for em', with they long, ugly ass tongues cuttin' people's heads off and shit."

"Just shut up, so we can leave," David said.

"You a cold ass mothah fucker, you know that man?" Jim said. "Where's the exit, my crew? Lead Jim to the way out!"

The three proceeded to the long hallway past the reception area. Jim's eyes opened wide as he saw the door.

"It might be electronically locked," David said. "Shit, where did Chamberlain put the controls again?"

"Ooooooh man, fuck that, let's break the shit down!" Jim said, rushing down the hallway. "Freedom at last! Thank you God! Freeee,"

Suddenly a large grating above Jim crashed to the ground, and Jim lifted his head to see a red skinned, disfigured licker, twice the size of the others, emerge from a large air vent. It lashed its tongue out, which wrapped around Jim's neck, then flung him backward into David and Yoko.

The large monster then crawled out of the vent and onto the floor, then slowly crept towards the three. David recognized the face of the monstrosity as that of Mr. Regis Chamberlain, the hotel owner.

"What the hell happened," David said, getting to his feet.

"OH SHIT! OH SHIT!" Jim said, scrambling away from the creature. "That's it! We're fucked man, we're FUCKED! We gonna DIE NOW!"

David reached for his gun when the monster whipped it out of his hand, then tripped him with its tongue. It dragged him around violently, knocking him against furniture and flinging him against the wall. David shook his head, stunned from the impact, then rolled to the side to dodge a whip attack from the thing's tongue. He then realized he was next to the fiery corpse of Johnny and rolled it over in front of him, using it as a shield, but easily the Regis Licker's tongue pierced through Johnny's body like a spear, then lifted it into the air and flung it aside as if it weighed nothing. David then tried to get up, but the thing grabbed him from the legs and lifted him upside down, pulling David close to its pale, empty eyes as if to taunt him. David barely recognized his old boss.

"I didn't think you could get any uglier," David said, spitting in the thing's face, which resulted in David being flung across the room and against the wall, knocking him dizzy.

"Just when you think it's over, BAM! Some big, ugly fuckin' MONSTER jumps out!" Jim said, running to the door he entered from, only to find himself cut off by at least five or so smaller lickers, all of which breathed heavily and slowly crept towards him. Jim panicked, tripping on his own feet, then pressed a button on the receptionist's desk, which set off a loud, whaling alarm. The lickers scampered around in shock and surprise, then began attacking the alarm positioned against the wall with their tongues.

Jim looked on in awe as Yoko tried to figure out what to do. She then spotted the axe sitting on the floor as the Regis Licker crept over to David's barely moving body. The monster that used to be Chamberlain let out its long tongue, ready to pierce David through the chest, when Yoko ran forward and swung the axe into the thing's back.

The Regis shrieked loudly, then tossed its tongue back, shoving Yoko violently against the ladder and pulled the axe out of its back, tossing it aside. The Regis approached Yoko, wrapping its tongue around her entire body, then lifted her up into the air and began to squeeze with the strength of an anaconda. Yoko screamed in pain when David shook his head and saw the axe lying by his side. He grabbed it, then noticed the Regis Licker still had Chamberlain's clothes on. David then pulled out his lighter and ran towards the monster, shoving the axe deep into the back of its neck like a mountain climber and flicking the lighter on, setting the thing on fire. It screamed loudly and waved Yoko around violently, but David reared the axe back and flung it into the air, cutting the licker's tongue in half and sending Yoko spiraling down to the floor with a hard thud. The licker then flailed about in pain, rolling left and right trying to extinguish itself. David pulled out his folding knife and walked up to the monster, then proceeded to stab it between the eyes hard and stomped it repeatedly as if driving a metal pike down. David then looked down at the horrible, disfigured mess that used to be his boss.

"Poor bastard," he said.

David then picked up Yoko, who unconscious, and called for Jim to follow.

"Holy shit!" Jim said. "Who the fuck was that!"

"My boss," David said.

"Dayum," Jim said. "You think he'll give you that big raise now after you stab 'im in the face like that! Sheeeit, wish I could do that to my boss!"

The three approached the door and David's fears proved right, the door was electronically locked.

"Break it down!" David said.

"Who the fuck you think I am Samuel Jackson?" Jim said. "I ain't bustin' my fist for nothin'!"
"Then get the gun," David said turning back to the lobby, but found that the other lickers were not approaching, the fire alarm having turned off.

"Aw shit," Jim said. "Those things are comin' now! WHAT WE GONNA DO!"

Suddenly the glass from the door behind them burst and they looked back to see a fireman hacking away at the door with his axe, then kick it down valiantly.

"You made it!" he said. "Hurry, now!"

The three ran through the door as a policeman armed with a shotgun stepped in and wasted the oncoming lickers. A fireman escorted Jim, David and Yoko to a nearby police van.

"Is she alive?" The fireman asked, pointing at Yoko.

"Yes," David said. "But she's unconscious."

"Is there anybody else in there?" he asked.

"No," David said. "Not alive, anyway."

"Oh thank you man thank you THANK YOU!" Jim said hugging the fireman. "Thank you mister fireman! Ya' know I wanted ta' be a fireman when I was growin' up, had the truck an' all that shit!"

In her unconscious state, various images flashed before Yoko's eyes. At first they were blurry, and she began to hear echoed, muffled voices. Soon the image of a woman, about in her late thirties became somewhat clear. She was dressed in an orange, leather Umbrella uniform, much like the one Yoko had found in her room. The woman's mouth was open as if in a state of shock, her hair tied back behind her head. She dropped to her knees and looked at her stomach, which was bright red with blood. Her intestines spilled out and onto the cold concrete floor. She then looked up at Yoko.

"Yoko," she said. "What…..have you……done?"

The woman then collapsed to the ground and died, a permanent expression of horror etched into her face.

Yoko sat up in the police van, sweating profusely and breathing heavily. She looked around in confusion until David put his hands on her shoulders.

"Hey," he said. "You okay?"

Yoko looked at David, not seeing the same darkness, the same coldness that frightened her so much before. She calmed herself.

"Are we," she said, not finishing her sentence.

"They're taking us to the police station," David said. "They have a temporary shelter there."

David then sat quietly, Jim sitting up front and chatting with the driver, although it would probably be more like annoying the driver than anything. Yoko looked at David.

"I'm sorry about your diary," she said. "I didn't know it was yours."

David didn't respond.

"But why," she asked hesitantly. "Why did you kill all those people?"

The answer was easy for David. "Money. I need money. Don't you? Doesn't everyone?"

"Yes," Yoko said. "But, you're not a bad person. I don't think so. You're so, so angry."

"Hmph."

"Why did you help me," she asked. "When that, thing, was going to kill me? You could have just left. Why did you help me?"

David didn't answer at first. "There's something about you," he said. "You're hiding something."

Yoko looked surprised.

"I can tell from your every movement, every step you take, it isn't fear; you act as if you're stepping on broken glass. And if you step too hard or too fast, you're gonna cut yourself and remember something you don't want to. I know what that's like, running from a past you wish you could just forget. But it never leaves you. Never. You just have to accept that it's going to be a part of you until the day you die. And it's not my time to die yet, or yours."

"You said," Yoko continued. "In your diary, you said anybody who found out about you, you would kill them."

"I don't kill people," David said. "Unless they deserve to die. And you don't, not yet. Besides, now that you know who I am, I need to find out who you are."

David sat up in his seat.

"Just who are you?" he asked curiously.

Yoko had no answer for him.