THE CRIMSON STONE

CHAPTER 6

To get to the village, Leon had to go up a winding path. A shed was located along the path. Inside it, Leon found several typewritten notes. And one of them said,

'It has been informed that Lord Steax's first batch of army is the villagers of this La Giga Island. They are the test subjects of type 1. They were infected through radiation. This type 1 zombie looks and acts humanely. However, once it detects a flaw in anything at all,, it will act like barbarians. Its eating habits are becoming more and more cannibalism-like. However, this kind of behavior is indeed needed by Lord Steax's actions. After all, he created them.'

"Hmm… I wonder what actions they might be," Leon wondered to himself as he continued further up the path.

Leon was on the out skits of the village now. He zoomed in on the villagers using his mini binoculars. He could see that the villagers were acting rather normally. For instance, there was a man cleaning up hay and a woman milking a cow near one of the barns. It was exactly like what the note said.

He took this as an advantage for him. As long as he walks into the village casually and does not bump into any of them, he is pretty much safe. With that in mind, he walked in the village. As suspected, the villagers didn't attack him nor mind his presence. Leon kept walking on, sneaking into houses one by one.

Eventually he came across a house which differs to the others. It was grander than the others. He peered through the window and saw that it was a security room, filled with computers. There were two type 1s in it however.

Leon climbed through the window slowly and did a stealth attack on both of the zombies by breaking their necks. There was one thing that Leon learnt from his zombie days, is that a zombie's weak spot is its head.

Leon quickly went over to the computer and began searching through the data. Through it, he learnt about Steax's whereabouts which is the castle in the middle of the island. He also downloaded the blueprint of the castle into is communicator. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eyes he saw Charlie on one of the computer screens on the wall. She was still in the cave until three Type 1s entered the cave and ambushed her from behind. Charlie was seen struggling to break free from their grasp until one of them put a cloth around her mouth until her body went limp. And she was then taken away.

"Shoot," Leon muttered under his breath and quickly started heading back to the cave.

The village was suddenly quite when he came out of the house. Too quite. He noticed that everyone was gone. Without wasting any more time, Leon headed back to the Cave. But before he got to the path he went through earlier, he was ambushed by the villagers. There were a lot of them. A few of them were equipped with weapons such as axes and rakes while the rest had their arms stretched forwards and just look really pissed.

Leon managed to dodge as axe one of them threw at him. He then made a run for it as he went passed them and went down the path. It was impossible for him to take them all down. Rather than wasting his ammo, he rather play run and hide. He checked his communicator as to where Charlie is, and saw that she was taken towards the castle.

"What is it with villains and castles?" he said to himself as he made his way to it.

In the castle…

Charlie opened her eyes and realized that she was lying down on a cold floor. She was somehow locked inside this small prison with hay strewn on the floor. Charlie got up and examined her surroundings. She was definitely in some kind of dungeon. There were several torches that are hung to the stone wall to illuminate the area.

"Where am I?" Charlie wondered to herself.

There was a guard in front of her cell with his back facing her. He didn't seem to notice that Charlie was awake. Dangling on his hips was a ring of keys.

"One of them has got to open my cell door," Charlie thought to herself as her brain began constructing ideas as to how she can get a hold of the keys.

She finally chose to sneak on the guard. As she took her steps slowly at a time, her heart beat with fear. She was half way there when the guard gave out a menacing sound, like a dog growling. Charlie stopped in her tracks, sweat trickling down her back. It was then that she realized that he was actually coughing. She quickly went behind him and crouched down. Her hand reached the ring of the keys and her fingers slowly grasped around it. As she was pulling it out, another guard opened the dungeon's door.

Lucky for her the other guard couldn't see her as she was hidden from his view by crouching behind the guard, who was quite big.

"Eckhard, the Lord summons you," the guard said and he turned around and left.

Eckhard, the bigger guard immediately walked towards the dungeon door, the ring of keys slipping of his belt easily since Charlie was still holding on to it.

"Success!" Charlie exclaimed softly.

She unlocked herself from the cell after a few random tries of the keys. She then remembered the ring on her finger. Leon said he'll know where she will be by tracking the ring down. Hopefully he'll come get her soon enough. Now all she has to do is find a hiding place and wait there till Leon finds her.

Therefore, she started to exit the dungeon through the door at the other end of the dungeon.

Back to Leon, he finally managed to out run the hoard of zombies from the village. He was now checking his tracking device on his communicator. It seemed as if Charlie is moving around the castle from one location to the next. He then, made his way to the castle.

Outside the perimeter of the castle, there were several of Steax's guards in black cloaks. Leon snuck up to one of them and killed it silently. He then wore the cloak which was made from a velvety-like material with its hoods up and followed the rest of them to the castle's main gate. Leon did this because he needed disguise himself in order to get into the castle.

The main door of the castle dropped down as they neared it and acts as a bridge for them as they crossed over the swamp that surrounds the castle. They went through the main hall and up a set of stairs. Slowly, Leon dispatched himself from the crowd without being noticed.

Leon then took out his communicator to track down Charlie's location which stopped at the level three of the castle.

Charlie was hiding behind a thick red curtain in one of the hallways she randomly picked. She felt safe behind it. Well, safer than standing outside like an idiot exposing herself. She is no chameleon. So, she waited there until her rescuer-came.

Leon hurried up the stairwell to the third level of the castle. He walked through a few hallways until he was at the same hallway as Charlie was. He paused momentarily as he searched for her

"Charlie! Where are you?" he whispered loudly.

The curtains on the right side of the hallway suddenly moved. And no sooner after that, Charlie emerged from behind it with a relieved smile on her face.

"Oh, it's you!" Charlie said happily as she ran to Leon.

"Glad to see you're alright, kid," Leon said to her.

"Yes, me too. So, how do we get out of this castle without getting slaughtered?"

A little bit surprised by Charlie's straightforward thinking, he answered,

"Well, according to the castle's map, the only way for us to exit the castle is by going through its sewer underneath the castle. It will lead us back to the village, and then back up will once again come for us," explained Leon. "Sounds good?" he asked.

Charlie nodded and said, "Good enough."

They then started to make their way to the underground sewer with Leon's communicator as a map to their only hope of escaping the castle. However, they still had to pass several obstacles such as the castle guards that frequently came walking through doors after doors, performing their role as guards basically.

Fortunately for them, they were able to avoid getting caught. And towards the end, they succeeded to get to the sewer. They were in a tunnel-like area where muddy water flows in between two walkway. Without further hesitation, they went in deeper into the dark sewer with Charlie using her torch light and Leon using the mini flashlight installed on his communicator which worked rather effectively. It illuminates a big circular light along the walkway. Corners after corners they turned into until they eventually reached a diversion on the walkway. One leading straight ahead whiles the other one leading to a corner on the left. Following Leon's map, they took the right walkway.

Suddenly, as they were walking along, the walkway started to rattle vigorously. They stopped dead in their tracks. It shook so badly that Leon had to hold on to Charlie to avoid her from getting thrown off the walkway and into the muddy water. The walkway then stopped rattling.

"What was that? " Charlie whispered weakly.

Leon didn't answer her. Instead his eyes focused on the figure that slowly emerged in front of them as it enters the circular light of Leon's mini flashlight. The air suddenly smelled of rotten egg. As the figure entered the light, it was seen that it was a disfigured human who was almost two feet high and an extended tail which swished swiftly behind it. The flesh at its abdomen was gone, exposing its torso. The second Leon's flashlight reached its face; it roared a deafening roar causing both Leon and Charlie to cover their ears.

"Charlie, run!" Leon shouted as he took out his hand gun. Just as he was aiming for its face, the creature jumped over him and went after Charlie.

Leon immediately chased after it. He was determined not to let it get to Charlie. Leon managed to shoot its legs and back. It squealed in pain, but did not stop its pace.

"Leon, help!" Charlie screamed as she was eventually at a dead end. The creature loomed over her.

Leon quickly shot it again but this time, in its head. The beast roared in pain and turned around to face Leon. Just as it turned around, it swished its tail directly at Charlie.

"Charlie, watch out!" Leon cried out to Charlie. Too late. It hit her and sent her flying to the other end of the sewer.

"Damn it, let's finish this buster" Leon said between gritted teeth and threw a hand grenade directly in the beast's mouth. He quickly ran for cover as the creature exploded. 'BOOOM!'