Chapter 9

Raccoon City, 1998

The young blonde ran through the necropolis, clutching her handgun as tight as she could. The handgun, now her sole possession and greatest lifeline, had only seven precious bullets left.

Her biker boots crunched loudly on the shards of shattered windows; announcing her presence and making her susceptible to an attack. She hopes that, if anything attacked her, it would be one of those 'zombies'. The monsters with the long tongues took way too much ammo for her liking. Though they were tough, those creatures were not the only ones she had seen…

A sigh escaped her dirtied lips. Exactly one day had passed since she had found Rick's decapitated body in the hellish Raccoon Police Station, sending her running out from that forsaken place. When she reached for his shotgun, she found out that the barrel was bent. She knew the gun was useless, so the entire venture was a loss.

The woman picked up the pace and started to run faster. She needed to get out of the city. Suddenly-- she heard the sound of a chopper close by. Her eyes scanned up to the clock tower in the middle of the city, where she saw a helicopter preparing to land.

"I'm saved..." she muttered under her breath. Just as the words escaped her lips, her eyes caught a brightly colored stream of light that headed towards her salvation.

Elza Walker watched in horror as her one chance of survival blew up right in front of her face.

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Airport

"Run!" Leon shouted sternly. The echo of gunshots echoed through the room as he kept taking down the undead, who came driven by the sound and smell of the living. Claire held Rani's hand tightly as they ran with the others, with Steve walking beside them. Greg helped the Senator walk while Angela and Leon covered the others.

Suddenly, a zombie lunged towards Greg and bit down hard on the SRT operative's forearm. Before Greg could react, the carrier sunk its teeth in and took a large chunk out of his forearm,

"Shit!" he groaned in pain. The blood was oozing down his arm and dripped onto the floor.

Davis flung his grotesquely obese body away from Greg and toppled onto the ground. His hands instinctively reached for his tailbone just as he landed.

"He got bit! He damn well got bit!" the fat man clamored up waddled away from the SRT member as fast as he could and tried to get away on his own.

Greg raised his hand to Angela and put a comforting smile on his face, "Stay back, go one with out me..."

The female SRT member tried to reach for him, "Greg-" she was cut off by another man pushing her hand down.

"Greg," said Steve, "You got this?"

The doomed man gave a toothy grin in response and nodded just before he raised his weapon. With all the calm professionalism and grace that a dying man could muster, he started taking shots into the horde of infected.

"No... Greg! GREGGG!!" Angela called to him, desperately trying to save him from his fate. A part of her begged for him to come, and maybe find a cure and be saved from becoming one of those things, but deep down she knew there was no hope.

No hope for any of them.

The group ran away from the scene and finally made their way into the lobby. Gunshots echoed in the ruined lobby, signaling that the survivors were not alone. As they ran on top of the remains of the burnt-out craft and scrambled up the wing, Leon's eyes scanned the area and saw a group of people shooting the zombies that were scuffling on the floor. A smile crossed his lips as he waited for the men to change clips before he called out to them.

Ark Thompson heard the shout and looked up at the wrecked airplane, and saw that people were standing on top of the wing. He squinted and tried to adjust his eyes to the blackness. A smirk crossed his lips when he finally recognized his old friend.

"LEON! OVER HERE!!" he waved his hand quickly before he took another shot at a bearded zombie. Ark swore under his breath. He and his men had been firing so many rounds that most of them, including him, were down to their last clip. Just how many of these damned things were here? How many people must be added to the list of sacrifices?

Senator Davis started to panic as he saw a zombie approaching him. This zombie was not like the others: long claws extended from what were once fingernails, and instead of shambling, the thing was running. Panicking, the startled senator slid down the broken wing of the plane. Just as he started to slide, he carelessly shoved Rani, knocking the little girl off. Rani let out a yell just before she connected with the hard ground.

Rani looked up with a daze and saw three of the monsters closing in on her. Paralyzed with fear, the only thing she could do was scream in terror as they closed in on her. Claire heard the scream and looked down, just in time to see Rani cowering with fear as she was about to be overtaken.

Thinking quickly, Claire leapt off the plane and landed onto the ground next to the little girl. It wasn't until she landed that she remembered she had no weapon to defend herself or Rani with.

Steve was about to follow her, but was suddenly grabbed by the crimson head who had startled Davis.

"Clai-"

"CLAIRE!!" yelled Leon loudly. He leapt after her and landed just in time to start shooting the zombies that were about to bite his wife. One zombie went down with a clean shot, and just as Leon trained his sights on the second, Claire pulled the knife out of Leon's chest sheath and stabbed the zombie into its skull. The creature let out a gasp of shock and its eyes went back into its sockets just before the legs gave way. Just as the zombie fell, Claire planted her foot into the zombie's skull and kicked hard, freeing the knife from its fleshy sheath.

The agent looked at his wife and panted, "You alright?"

Claire gave a sweet smile and nod to her husband, "Barely." her eyes shifted down to Rani and her smile grew, "Are you ok?"

"Claire..." whimpered the little girl. The young woman picked her up and held her in her arms.

"Let's go," stated Leon as he led them back over to the others.

"Thank you." the redhead shifted her eyes side to side and looked around, "Where's the Senator?"

Their heads turned over to Ark and the others, only to spot none other than the fat man running over to them.

"Finally!" Shouted the bastard, "I'm over here!"

Steve pulled his gun and aimed for the back of Davis's head, "That prick,"

"Stop." Leon said and raised his hand. Although nothing would have given him more pleasure than seeing the senator pay for his assault, they could not touch him. How would he explain to the President the reasons for Senator Davis having a bullet in the back of his brains? Instead, he opted to remain professional and not let his emotions control him.

Leon turned back to the group and pointed at the exit, "Let's run to the light."

The group started to run toward the light coming from the ambulances, search lights, and news crews outside. Their friends met them at the exit with loaded arms and wide smiles. It seemed that the three survivors had survived yet another outbreak by just the skin on their necks.

Who said there was no such thing as miracles?

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Spencer's Facility

Ada and HUNK followed closely behind Krauser, whom was leading them to Sherry Birkin's holding cell. The further the trio went, they found more intimidating and terrible the B. locked away in cages of imprisoned in stasis than the previous ones. Luckily they didn't run into anymore Hunter Omegas that would put Ada and HUNK's lives in danger.

Krauser was already infected with the T/G virus, so the only way the Hunters could injure him was with their terrible claws.

"Just a little bit closer," muttered Jack under his breath. He noticed that the air was getting colder as goose bumps formed on his muscle-bound skin. Maybe the air conditioning was cranked up too high around here, to keep the specimens 'fresh'.

A few steps further and Krauser saw a large door open with stagnant water pooling around the opening. The ice crystals and cold mist that blew from the opening told the crew that what was inside must be an industrial-grade freezer. With a glance inside, HUNK and Ada caught the site of dead bodies hanging up on meat hooks. Some were laying in body bags hanging up from the ceiling, and one decapitated human body laid wasted on the floor. HUNK grabbed the metal handle and closed the door quickly. They did not need to find out if anything was alive in there.

Ada started to head down the hallway more and saw fingers scattered all over the floor. Index, middle, ring, pinkie, even thumbs were all over the bloody floor. A trail of the crimson liquid looked like it was flowing from the room in front of them.

Where did all these come from?

She reached for the door handle and started to open the door. Just as she did, the woman saw something in the dark room and quickly pulled her hand back from the knob.

A pair of sharp teeth bit into the metal handle and ripped it right off of the door. The spy looked at the mangled monster and saw that it didn't have any fingers on its own 'hands'. Ada took her shotgun off of her back and pumped it.

The monster let out a low cry and rose to its feet. It came into the light of the hallway and Ada took note that it looked like a human zombie, but it was bulkier, shorter, and it apparently had a strange dislike for fingers. It wore rags on its body, barely covering it's privates. It also seemed to have sharp rows of teeth. If this thing was faster than it looked, this could prove to be a huge challenge.

Ada pulled the trigger on her shotgun and blasted a chunk out of its shoulder. Chunks of meat and blood splattered on the walls behind it. A small sound came from it, like a child whimpering from pain.

HUNK heard a gun shot and went down the hall just in time to see Ada fighting the B.O.W. His boot stepped on a finger and he looked down at it; then kicked some aside so he could get better footing. Ada's eyes shifted over and then quickly saw the little fat monster lunge for her. She used the shotgun to block its blow; but after it pulled back, she saw that it bit her gun in two. Frustrated, Ada threw the broken pieces at the monster and unstrapped the Chicago Typewriter from her back.

HUNK was two steps ahead of her and turned the burst on his TMP, spraying a stream of hot lead into the creature's frame.

"What the Hell is all this?" shouted Krauser angrily. He walked casually to the two agents and took one look at the monster. "Great," he sighed, "the fat kid is awake."

Letting out another sigh that oozed with disgust, Jack jumped onto the back of the monster and heard it screech loudly. He unpinned a grenade from his belt and shoved it down the monster's throat. He quickly did the same to another one and then jumped back into the room that the monster had come from. Ada and HUNK followed Krauser and slammed the door shut after they ran inside.

A loud explosion shook the room. A few seconds later, a click could be heard and the room lit up.

Bones were scattered all over the floor; picked clean of any flesh, tendons, and even ligaments. The skeletal hands that were strewn all over the room were missing all five of their digits, no doubt the ones that littered the floor outside.

HUNK swept the study and found a bloodied research journal on the desk

August 20, 2003

We got a new subject today from a closed facility. And I have to say, that it's a very odd one. Speculations from the scientists are that this specimen was actually a young boy, infected back in Raccoon City. As subjects go, this is quite a strange one. It eats everything from its meals, except for the fingers. Instead, the subject opts to bite them off and spit them back out. The most plausible explanation is that the fingers offer almost no meat. However, considering that the subject eats even the skin from its victims, perhaps there is a more deep-seated psychological reason for this.

It seems to have all of its emotions intact from when it was a regular human: Contentment, Sadness, embarrassment, surprise, fear, anger. The subject has been reported to even shown signs of affection (and what some may point out as "love") towards the female staff, especially the nurses who tend to it occasionally. Though none of this love is sexual, more like a love of a parent. To be more specific… to a Mother.

This 'Glutton' can eat solid metal. It once bit a stun rod in half while trying to get away from a researcher. Noted that it did also eat the researcher except… for his fingers.

It does not like to be mistreated. Nor does it like being in the glass containment tubes. Though sadly, he's eaten most of my staff, and I have to put him in isolation.

I have made a hypothesis on why it does not like to eat digits. It may sound bizarre to some, but I have studied him for two years no-

HUNK saw that the rest of the journal was missing. What looked like gnarly teeth marks all over the bottom of the page gave some indication as to its fate, along with the head researcher.

"Let's get going, Sherry isn't gonna wait forever." stated Krauser. He finished reloading his guns and opened the door; seeing blood and gore scattered every where.

"God damn Spencer..." growled Krauser under his breath. He wished he was the one that would give that bastard the final blow.

A/N: Strange, eh? I don't know why I thought of the glutton, or his dislike for fingers. Why fingers? WHY!? I thought maybe he didn't like fingers because he was pointed at and made fun of as a child. (So now you know that! XD)

I wanted to write some original stuff compared to the crap called Degeneration. Oh and the Elza part, I loved tying that in with RE3. Hey, it could so happen! :) I don't know why I'm giving her more flashbacks, I might just make an RE1.5 fic about her. But I have to update all my other stories too... Damn!

Thanks for reading y'all, I appreciate it! :D Also a HUGE thanks to ArthasvsLeon for being my new beta!! 8:3 This chapter is for you! :D