Chapter Four

October 3, 1998

A cold, hard floor. Wet, matted hair pressed against his cheek, his mouth dry and sticky. His body weak and trembling with dehydration. Bits of fragmented thoughts flickered in his mind as he opened his blurred, confused eyes. Swarming about him was the volatile, silver black of night. Leon Scott Kennedy awoke and gradually swam out of the unattached waters of his slumber. Silence.

He rose to his feet, the hot sweaty feeling of a fever sending incongruous chills down his back and face. He shook his head, opening his eyes wide in that dazed, disillusioned way. The darkness cut away at his sight, and he took a hazy moment to allow his eyes to adjust. Empty syringe needles were littered amongst the floor; dry blood smeared along his arm where he had been cut by the shards of the broken mirror. Finally it came to him that he was in his bathroom, and that he had overdosed on the sedatives that now lay scattered at his feet. And when did he break his mirror? And Jesus his head hurt.

Leon reached for the light switch, feeling about the wall until his fingers pinched the icy plastic. He flicked it up...and nothing happened.

"What the hell?" he whispered hoarsely.

Well, maybe the light bulb was out. Either way, his eyes had pretty much adjusted. In actuality, with the T-virus running through his veins, Leon didn't really need the light. He could see through the dark just fine. Nevertheless, light really was more of a comfort now.

Leon turned on the faucet and cleaned the blood off of his arm, looking at his exhausted, decrepit self in the mirror. He needed a shave, something to drink, maybe a couple of beers while he was at it.

Throwing away the used syringe needles, Leon tried to remember what all had happened the night before he had sedated himself. He and Joseph had fought just as he was getting ready for something...

Leon was about to splash his face with cold water when suddenly the faucet belched. He pulled his hands away instinctively. He watched, listening to that unnatural gushing, spurting sound as the faucet began to gurgle and throw up. The water was brown and...well guessing from the dank smell that came crawling out, Leon wasn't so sure it was even water. Dammit, he'd have to check with maintenance and the idiot running the plumbing system. A shower was considerably out of the question.

Taking off his shirt, Leon stepped out into his bedroom, feeling a cold chill adhere to his skin. He stumbled over objects blanketed by the blackness as he made his way to his closet. There he threw on a clean t-shirt and jeans, running his fingers through his long hair to sort of comb it. The cold, hard wood floor gave him initiative to put on a pair of socks and his sneakers as well. As he moved about his room, Leon felt a tingle of consciousness. Something didn't feel right about the apartment. Leon always left his trust with his subconscious, and at the moment it was buzzing. He recognized that feeling, the feeling that he was back in that mansion, two months ago.

Then it was his stomach's turn to tell him what to do. Geez, it felt as though it were on the verge of collapse. He yearned for a glass of water and a couple of Joseph's BLT's. Leon hadn't done anything but sleep for God knows how long, no wonder his stomach felt so decrepit and empty.

Leon opened the door to the rest of the apartment and stopped, confused. A massive dresser stood blocking the doorway, pressed right up against the frame and completely blocking him off from the rest of his apartment.

"Joseph...what the hell man..." Leon grumbled, suddenly very worried that Joseph had thrown some sort of party.

The aftermath of a Joseph kegger, yea that's just what Leon needed right now. His head throbbed, and he pressed his hands into the dresser. There was a lot of weight, probably more crap set up behind it. But why the hell would Joseph want to do that? Even the thought of an inebriated Joseph conjuring up some idea such as stockpiling furniture against Leon's door didn't seem to have any logic behind it. Baffled and not willing to care, Leon shrugged. He could try to just push it out of the way. It was a good time to see what this T-virus inside of him could do.

He put his hands around the edges of the dresser, slowly leaning in. He could feel his aching back and chest muscles being flexed as he began to push the weight away. It felt light enough, he could have toppled the whole pile of stuff over without breaking too much of a sweat, but Leon didn't want to hurt anything. He moved it all away from the door, just enough so that he could squeeze out into the family room and get a good look at this blockade of furnishings.

What the crap.

Joseph had probably piled every single piece of furniture in the apartment against Leon's door. Why? - Screw it. At this point, Leon didn't care. He turned and stumbled into the kitchen, scratching his head with the last bit of drowsiness flaking away.

Everything was pitch black with only the blue glow of the moonlight through the studio windows. Well, shit. The entire apartment's power was dead. It was freezing cold, Leon could see his breath as it was omitted from his chapped lips. The chills had set into his skin, and Leon was shivering uncontrollably. Then of course there was the dark. The dark was like a mask for the apartment, transfiguring everything into a twisted, cruel form of itself. It kept the details vague, isolating Leon from everything except the cold and the solitude. Dark was a reality that kept perception inexplicable.

"Joseph!" he called.

No answer. Leon folded his arms and hunched his shoulders as he sauntered down the hall towards Joseph's room at the end. The door was closed. That was weird. Joseph's door was never closed. It had been his sort of way of coping with the incident two months ago. He always had kept the door open, Leon assumed it was just a comfort factor in knowing he wasn't so cut off from the rest of the world. But it was closed now...

Leon went for the door and extended one of his folded arms. He clutched the handle-

-and immediately froze, his body becoming impossibly cold with a new awareness of something terribly wrong.

He kept his hand there for a minute, his fingers feeling something different about the door. His breath shivering all the more as he tried to bring his eyes down to look at the door knob.

Slowly he pulled his hand away from the door, feeling a sticky residue cling desperately between the doorknob and his finger tips. It was wet, slippery, and chilled. It was blood. Thick, infected blood.

Leon panicked and, without thinking, heaved his shoulder into the door. It slammed with a crash against the wall, and the smell came at Leon like a wretched phantom. It was the festering, hot, clinging smell that snaked through Leon's lungs and nostrils. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't scream.

The walls were painted with lashed streaks of red. Splatters thrown up against the wall. Dripping from the ceiling, the crimson was soaked into the sheets of Joseph's ragged bed. The floor was spotted with thick, gooey puddles that stuck and grabbed at Leon's sneakers. Blood. Blood was everywhere. But Joseph was gone.

"Joseph!" Leon cried, turning and sprinting back into the apartment.

He ran and slid to the front door. It had been broken open. Not just the lock, not just the hinges, but the entire door had been splintered right down the middle. Another collage of blood and blackish fluid in the form of hand prints was scattered along the door, in massive blotches on the floor and running down the walls.

"Joseph where are you!" Leon screamed as loud as he could, the horror slowly being pierced by realization.

There were holes in the walls, singed in black around the edges. They were bullet holes. The smell of rotting flesh ebbed and flowed like thick, polluted mud throughout the entire apartment, and that feeling. That distinct, creeping, tingling, twitching, edging, scraping, undeniably sick feeling that Leon had felt only once in his entire life. The epiphany of true fear.

Leon raced to the phone. Bringing the receiver to his ear, he felt the icy knife of helplessness sink deeper into his stomach. The phone was dead. Leon had to pause and listen for a moment to the lack of electric life from the ear piece, and as he did his pale green eyes caught sight of the outside through the kitchen window.

"Oh no..."

Leon dropped the phone upon the kitchen counter, drawn towards the window and the horror it beheld.

"Oh Jesus...please not again..."

An apocalypse.

The streets of downtown Trask district were of black shadow and lit only by the dancing orange of grim fire. Cars were crumpled and thrown upon sidewalks, windows were broken open, papers fluttering about in that cliché manner of a land left in abandonment. Tattered, rotten, scorched, defiled ruins; and from those ruins came nothing. No sounds, no cries, no laughter, nothing.

Leon stepped back from the window, turning back to face the darkness of his apartment. He swallowed the pulsing nerves that pleaded with him to panic, bracing himself against the countertop. His mind was flurrying: Where is Joseph? What had happened? How? When? Where is everyone? Are they all dead or has the city been evacuated?

Leon stumbled out of the kitchen, his mind refusing to slow. Questions continued to formulate, growing more and more complex upon one another's shoulders. And the fear. The fear was unstoppable. It came to Leon like every nightmare he had ever had. Deep inside his veins he knew all too well what this was. Umbrella was behind this; he knew it.

Leon fled back to his room. What was he going to do? Where was he going to go? Was the entire city even like what he'd seen outside? Was this even real? Was it just another nightmare? Maybe it was all a hallucination from the sedatives? No!

Leon stopped and gulped breath through his shivers, he slumped against his dresser, thirsty and exhausted. Whatever the case was, Leon had to do something. He opened his closet. Pushing aside his shirts, Leon took out a Nike shoe box, a heavy weight inside.

Taking his leather jacket, Leon sat down on his bed with the box, the silvery blue of the night swarming about him. There he stared for a moment, watching the box cautiously. He had promised himself the nightmare was over. He had promised himself he would never again dive into that horrible fear. He remembered when he first closed this box, the relief that came with it; the relief telling him he was safe. His fingers moving hesitantly, Leon opened the box.

It was his old gun belt and shoulder strap, the shining chrome of the desert eagle magnum awaiting him patiently. Leon took out the belt and laced it through his jeans, feeling the weight of the pouches containing the .357 slugs for his gun and the flashlight. He then moved into the shoulder straps for the magnum, a grim realization upon his face as he felt the cold steel of the gun in his fingers. He loaded one of two magazines and holstered the weapon under his arm. The grim realization in his eyes grew, and he knew that he had lied to himself. There was no safety.

Stepping out of his room, Leon slipped into his leather jacket and exhaled. He moved to close the door behind him when something caught his eye: a stickie note.

Leon reached over and snatched it from the dresser that had been pressed against his doorframe. His heart rising somewhat, he read the hastily written note upon the paper:

Leon,

City's infected. I'm at police station.

If it's been too long, don't come for me.

Joseph

Screw whether it's been too long or not. Leon folded the paper and put it in his pocket. He was going to the police station.

A calm, lucrative production. The city lay in ruin, nay, in sheer chaos. It were as though the very pillars and stalagmites of hell came searing up from the chilled concrete of Raccoon City. It was turmoil at its finest, and Mr. Death could smell it. He could breathe every mechanized bit of its chemically engineered hellfire. He let it pollute his limitless body.

His chopper wove amidst the growing bushels of smoke, the pilot searching for a safe place to land amidst the hushed aftermath of a massacre. Hunk checked over his equipment, securing the tight plastic and metal, allowing it to dig into his cheek bones. He sighed as he cuddled up against the sharp metal seat of the helicopter. closing his eyes, he allowed visions of his tasks to paint themselves out before him. It wouldn't be too hard, just a routine.

"Hunk, right?" came the ignorance, "Man, I've heard some shit about you."

Mr. Death opened his eyes, annoyed, and lowered a tolerating glance at the pilot.

"I've heard these stories- ...well you know, why they call you Mr. Death."

Mr. Death smiled. This one was more amusing than the others, his ignorance was...entertaining.

"Well hey," the pilot said, searching the scorched ruins for a decent rooftop to land, "Is that why they sent you on this one alone? Cuz...well whenever anyone else goes with you they always die. That's why they call you Mr. Death, ain't it?"

It was an intriguing thing about death in the Umbrella Corporation. Mr. Death could recall his earlier days in the midst of training, the days when he still thought death was some horrific and unexpected event. However, it didn't take him long to understand, that once you join Umbrella, death was simply part of the contract. Death was never glorified, nor was it feared. It was simply and understandably the dissipation of a coworker. It happens.

"Perhaps, you're frightened?" Mr. Death finally spoke, "You could be one of those to join my list of fallen comrades."

"Could be, Hunk."

Good, the boy was unresponsive to a death threat. That or he didn't know it. He was a rookie, so most likely it was the latter of the two. Nevertheless, Mr. Death liked his attitude, and hoped he would be flying the chopper that came to pick him up at the rendezvous point following his task completions.

"Hunk. We've found our landing spot. I'm going in for a quick drop off."

The chopper slowly descended towards a stable-looking rooftop, one of those that was higher up than the rest. Hunk rose and came to the hatch, looking down at the open ground and the ushering pull of the loud winds before him. So it begins, another run through of his skills.

"Oh, and Hunk?"

He turned towards the pilot, who had that bastard grin on his face.

"Good hunting."

What a statement. This made Mr. Death smile. He leapt into the shadows below.

"Claire?"

A soft whirring.

"Claire?"

It was getting louder. A radiant thumping that was constant.

"Claire?-"

"Hush. Just a second, baby."

Claire Redfield and Sherry Birkin sat huddled in the shadowy remnants of what was once the playroom for the orphanage. She did not know how many days it had been since the massacre hit the streets, she didn't know how much longer they could remain undetected in the little church. More than once had one of those monsters stumbled into the church, smelling the rotting flesh of corpses. Zombies.

After the massacre, Claire quickly came to terms with the fact that the living dead were currently populating the discarded streets of Raccoon City. What she had difficulty coping with was the fact that she could provide little to no protection for Sherry Birkin.

The two of them, wrapped in a stiff blanket, clung to each other as they listened to the sounds of the outside world slowly falling apart. Claire would stroke Sherry's hair and distract her with story books and little games, leaving the worries to plague her own mind. The simple facts were obvious: she had not one decent tactic for defense, their meager food supply consisting of the vending machines' goods and whatever could be found in the cafeteria was staggering, and the church itself was seeing more and more "visitors" each day. The stench of the rotting corpses wafted from the chapel, beckoning forth any curious monster.

When the zombies had first broken down the crude blockade that Claire had constructed against the doors, Claire would simply grab Sherry and run for the cellar. However, their was an entrance to the sewer down there, and Sherry became horrified each time they were forced to hide. She would scream of demons in the dark place. Claire had that nagging assumption that every adult takes to roll their eyes and say all knowingly that 'it was just her imagination.' Given the circumstances, Claire was more than willing to reconsider Sherry's wailings as more than just wildly childish nightmares.

So, Claire had sought out another place to hide. The hallway in the left wing that led to the orphanage's playrooms and bedrooms. The windows were all high above ground on the outside and the floor on the inside. The door to the hallway was not entirely noticeably, concealed partially in shadow. It also, thankfully, possessed a lock. Therefore, when a zombie would trudge in with the taste of blood at the edge of his lips, they would run for the hallway.

All eighteen times a zombie or some other horrid creature had come in, fueled by hunger, Claire had made her way to the hallway.

Claire alone would venture out into the rest of the church for food or whatever, armed with nothing more than a candle and the flashlight-turned-club (it's batteries had died out…huzzah). In short, their situation was not a pleasant one, and its value in safety was depleting steadily. Claire knew that soon, they would have to move. She simply did not like the idea.

So now the two sat, huddled in the far corner of the playroom. From the tall arched windows the moonlight shown in. That pale, silver gray as it mixes with the night's blue, the aura of a full moon. They sat between two bookshelves, facing the door across the carpeted floor. About were the scattered toys and playthings of the children. For some particular reason, as Claire listened to that strange sound coming from outside, she could not take her eyes from a ravaged doll amidst the other toys. It was old, made from nothing more than cloth and stuffing. It's blank stare and wide smile faced the ceiling above, it's pudgy little body beneath a flowery dress as it lay strewn across the floor.

The sound that she first heard was again becoming louder. That continual thumping sound, as air was stirred above them. Was it a helicopter? She listened intently, her fingers stroking Sherry's hair nervously as she held the little girl close. Then the sound became distinguishable. It was a chopper. Claire stood abruptly.

"Claire what is it?" Sherry asked louder, her little voice filled with frustration at Claire's distracted behavior.

"It's a helicopter, baby," she said, "Wait right here, I'll be right back."

Claire grabbed the flashlight that sat atop one of those plastic tables for children, the kinds with the yellow surface and the bright cherry red legs. She jogged out of the room and closed the door, calling over her shoulder, "Only open if you know it's me! I'll be right back!"

She took off down the hallway. The sound of the helicopter was not definite, and she had to make herself known. The orphanage, being that it was a newer building than the church, had a flat roof and an easy access to the top. Just a fire escape. She could get up there and…do…something. Claire pumped her legs down the hallway, praying to God that no monsters had found their way into this particular wing.

Through a door, and down another hallway, and she could see the window at the end. Her boots clopped against the tiled floor as she ran, passing by door after door, her eyes staring straight ahead instead of at the many bloody handprints along the walls and windows. She reached the window and grabbed at the handles. Dammit! It wouldn't budge.

The helicopter was close now, the noise was roaring above her. She had to get outside. Frantically she kicked at the window frame, finally able to thrust the first pane of glass open just enough so she could squeeze out onto the fire escape outside.

Once beyond the window, Claire clambered up the stairs, closer and closer. She could see a bright beam of light sifting through the smoke and clouds above. It was a searchlight, the chopper was looking for survivors!

She reached the rooftop and stumbled out past the air conditioners and many pipes leading down into the building. The chopper came into view, a sleek black build with a searchlight just below the cockpit. Claire's heart was pounding in ecstasy. They were saved. Oh thank you Lord, they were saved.

She began flailing her arms and jumping up and down, screaming frantically, "Over here!"

The helicopter seemed to slow in the smoke, not thirty feet above her. The powerful gusts of wind flew down at her, making her stumble somewhat was she waved for the pilot to notice. It's cool, mechanically developed wind felt so incredible as it pushed away the smoke and the smell of death. The light moved like a great eye, swiftly jerking here and there. Finally it's bright beam became fixated on her slender body as she jumped up and down in the air, waving for attention.

"Over here! Dammit come on! Land!"

Then, her jaw dropped and her eyes went wide. The helicopter swerved away and began to move back into the clouds. Claire watched as it reached for the distance, the moonlight still glinting on its shiny black body. As it grew farther and farther away, she saw something. An octagon looking symbol, with red and white triangles. It was the symbol for the Umbrella Corporation. Anyone from Raccoon City would have recognized it.

The chopper was eventually gone. Again she was encompassed only by the gently gasping winds as they fluttered mindlessly through her hair. Only the sounds of distant crackling gasoline fires and the caws of crows as they feasted upon the dead could be heard. She stood their, in utter disbelief. The pilot had seen her, she knew it. He had just stared at her, and then left. No words, no acknowledgement, not even an attempt to land. Now it was gone, leaving the odor of the dead to again come back to her. She hated that stench. She hated this church, what it had become. She hated this place.

"No!" She screamed into the night, throwing the dead flashlight amidst the air conditioners, "It's not fair! I don't-!...No! That's not fair!"

She kicked at one of the air conditioners and collapsed against it, brushing her hair out of her face as her cheeks grew hot and became etched with tears. She sunk, sitting down against the cold metal, and looked up at the sky, trying to pretend that she wasn't in some hell. Trying to pretend that everything was okay. She was just on her break at the diner.

She couldn't do it. She had to stay firm and under control, otherwise things wouldn't be normal again, they wouldn't make it out. What would Chris have done? Claire couldn't help but smile through the tears as she thought of her older brother, the hero. He wouldn't break down about this. Chris was strong, and Claire was certain that he was here right now, watching over here. In their little church that they grew up together, she was still alive and she knew it was because of him.

Defeated yet hopeful, she stood and picked up the flashlight-club, making her way past the air conditioners towards the fire escape. She was hungry, and she knew Sherry was. That little girl was so strong. She never complained, never antagonized, just sat their and agreed or disagreed. She was like a little adult, and while Claire thought it was nice, she knew it was wrong. Children should be children, they should be allowed to play and joke and wail and nag all they want. Claire wanted that for Sherry, and she knew that would be her determination for getting out of here. To give Sherry that kind of child hood. That and…well…the whole not being eaten thing was a nice thought as well.

She slipped in through the window and closed it, beginning the walk back to the playroom. Perhaps she'd see if Sherry wanted a candy bar or something. It wasn't healthy, but it was food.

She reached the main reception room that branched off into the other smaller hallways and stopped. The double doors to her left were wide open. The doors that led to the church. Claire stood in the shadow, looking at the bleak light that shown through the doorway, staring at the sweeping, uneven footprints that trailed through and dispersed throughout the other hallways of the orphanage.

The smell of death was back, and it seemed to lurk in every shadow of the room, watching her. They were here, they had somehow gotten in, and they were here.

Claire looked at the hallways around the reception room she was in. Their were two others. One was at the opposite end of the square-shaped room, the other was to her right, opposing the doors to the upper balcony of the church.

Trembling, Claire clutched the flashlight and stepped towards the doors that led to the church. She looked at the lock that now lay in parts upon the floor. The other sides of the doors had long, bloody scratches upon their surface. The monsters had known they were there. They had known, and they were just patiently plowing through the door this entire time.

Then she heard it.

A low, hissing sound. It came out soft, making a whistling sound as it formed into a quietly croaking groan. The sound was followed by a squashing, mushy thump. It was behind her.

Claire turned, her breath quivering as she looked over her shoulder. Shadow surrounded her as she stood in the rectangular form of light that pierced the darkness from the doors behind her. She could see her timid shadow in the rectangle of light upon the tiled floor, and whatever was in the darkness could see her.

Suddenly more squishing sounds, deliberate and fast as they waddled towards her. Moist footsteps. Claire wanted to scream.

Then she saw it.

Pale, yellowish green eyes without pupils or irises stared back. They looked at her crookedly, and beneath them she could barely make out the awkward, uneven glint of jagged teeth. Before it came into the light, Claire knew what it was. She knew who it was. The eyes didn't stand more than three feet off of the ground.

Claire began to cry as she watched the child waddle awkwardly out from the light, looking at her. The little boy's head was cocked to the left and back upon his hunched shoulders and slashed throat. His body had become bloated, and now hung in pus covered bulges of fat over the t-shirt and shorts. The boy just looked at her, mouth gaping, blood staining his shirt and the purplish blue skin.

Then she heard a scream, and Claire bolted past the boy just as it reached for her. She flew down the hallway that led to the playroom.

"Sherry!" she screamed, "Sherry I'm coming!"

The hallway ahead was L shaped, making a turn to the right and away from the light produced from the windows. Claire came to the corner and slid on her boots, slamming into the wall. From here she could see the door to the play room swung wide open, the moonlight emitted from the doorway.

The stench was strong as Claire ran for the door. It plagued the school halls and weakened her perception. She came to the doorway of the play room and screamed.

Sherry had clambered atop a toy shelf, now clinging desperately as it was shaken by a group of the demons. Through the moonlight of the high arching windows she could see them. Their pale eyes and gaping mouths and all of their sickly glistening bodies were illuminated by the moon's pale glare. The heaved at the toy shelf, all at once, in a sweeping movement, all groaning and spitting as they pushed against it, trying to knock it over. Sherry cried as she looked at all of their fierce, hungry eyes, their glare wanting her young flesh.

"No!" Claire screamed as loud as she could, grabbing the only thing she could find.

A broom.

She snapped the wooden handle in half, and held the two pieces like swords. The zombies slowly stopped rocking the shelf and turned to Claire. There were eight of them. She didn't hesitate as the first one lurched forth, a young man in a business suit, shuffling forward awkwardly. Claire stabbed it through the school with half of the broom stick, watching it fall back limply. The others came in upon her as she tried to strike at them.

"Sherry! Run!" Claire called, "Get out of here!"

The zombies kept progressing slowly, coming in closer and closer. Their weakened, decrepit hands were outstretched and wanting and their teeth gnashed at their ragged gums. Claire was backed into a corner, the zombies coming in closer and closer. They moved in mass, shuffling together, hunting together. For each one she beat down or stabbed, another was there to take its place until it again stood. Oh God there were too many of them, Claire choked as they came in closer, staring at her hungrily.

The nearest one reached out to bite at her and she kicked and struck it, horrified and crying. The others were in closer now. Claire, hunched into a corner, put out her hands and pleaded to God to receive her soul in heaven. She shut her eyes, then…as she felt their breath upon her, her racing mind flashed to one image: Chris.

She opened her eyes, and looked at them, all of them. They had been the ones to kill Chris. He had died like this. She couldn't fall the same way, not as long as Sherry needed her. The first zombie reached back out, clutching her last half of the broomstick and trying to take it from her. Claire looked at him, furiously, and tore his arm clean from its socket.

She stood, spurts of blood showering the walls and the shadowy figures around her, and beat back the remaining zombies with a broomstick and the still twitching arm. She could see Sherry behind them, huddled behind a book shelf. In one movement Claire jumped into the mass of zombies, pushing through, feeling their fingernails scratch and their hot breath and wet hair on her neck. She was now surrounded by the zombies, blanketed by shadow and held back by the groping hands. They felt at her, grabbed, and snapped their teeth. No.

Claire broke through, falling on the floor away from them. Quickly she stood and flung the arm at them.

"Sherry!" she extended her hand and the little girl took it.

The two burst out of the playroom and down the corridor.

"Claire!" cried Sherry, "Where are we going!"

"We have no choice, Sherry, we're going to the sewers," Claire explained regrettably. She knew Sherry wouldn't like it.

"What! No! There are the monsters!-"

"Sweetie!" Claire stopped for a minute and knelt down to Sherry, holding her at the top of the stairs that led down several flights to the sewer doors, "I believe you, trust me I do. But…there are monsters everywhere, and I don't think that there will be as many down in the sewers, okay?"

The girl looked at her, and Claire could see the trust just seeping from her eyes.

"Sherry…" Claire pleaded, "Please trust me. I promise I won't let anything happen to you, okay?"

Before Sherry could respond they both heard a rampant thumping of footsteps flying down the corridor towards them.

"Oh no," said Claire, it was one of the fast ones.

The monster burst into the room before the stairs and didn't hesitate as it tackled Claire.

"Claire!" Sherry called out.

Claire and the demon toppled down the stairs, landing on the platform below, the demon on top. Claire had both its hands and her knee on its chest, trying to push it away from biting at her face. She could see the teeth as the gums had been torn loose, and the lips dangled loosely and gently tickled at her chin, leaving little smears of blood and saliva as it began to growl and sneer at her, the glowing eyes staring wildly. Shaking violently, the demon's mouth drew closer, yearning for her as it howled and groaned in frustration at her resistance.

Suddenly a little foot kicked at the demon, and both it and Claire looked up to see Sherry kicking at it. The distraction was perfect. Claire grabbed the bottom jaw of the demon and ripped it clean out. It reared back and she grabbed at its tangled, matted hair. She twisted it to the side, snapping the demon's neck, and it fell limp on top of her.

"Oh, God," Claire shuttered as she pushed it off and came to her knees, panting.

"Are you okay?" Sherry asked.

"Yes…yes sweetie," Claire replied, hugging her, "I'm all right."

Above them, the other howls began to get louder.

"Come on," Claire said, taking the little girl's hand.

The two followed the rest of the stairs down into the basement where they found the heavy metal door labeled "sewers." Claire opened it and the two disappeared inside.