Leon Kennedy Just Wants Gelato

Preface: This is an account of April 20, 2017. Leon is a 16 year old orphan at the Portland QZ. Currently it's managed by the Fireflies, protected by FEDRA, and supplied by Umbrella.

The residents of Portland city have always been a special breed of hippies. The Cordyceps apocalypse had done absolutely nothing to change over the past 4 years.

It was wet and cold this April morning; around 46 degrees in farenheit.

The polluted waters of the Wilamette river were very choppy.

Leon Kennedy tugged the boat fueler line hard to reach the docked patrol boat. He undid the metal turnkey and shoved the nozzle inside. Then he whistled a signal to start the fueling process.

"Meeeowwwww."

Yep. Leon thought; a state of forced acceptance within himself.

He hopped onto the boat, focusing harder on his tasks.

He and a few other orphans were also on the docks , performing maintenance checks on the sea vessels.

Right now, he wasn't willing to waste a single brain-cell to diagnosis his current partner. He'd already done that, over the past few weeks. Fireflies were so busy finding a cure for this fungal outbreak but really, in Leon's opinion, they should've been developing mental health programs; just might as well give up on cures entirely at this point. Because since they were the last, the focus should be on themselves now; to find the way to carry on.

Leon couldn't get the 13-year-old boy to give him any real name-only Mewton. Leon had just decided to call him, 'Partner.' Leon was not going to enable the whims of a catboy, because he was afraid of what it could become; a CATMAAN?!

How would survivors manage, with a feral catman hissing and pissing in their tiny safehavens? Leon was only 16 but by god he would play the father to this costumed lost soul, so that his haunting visions could never come true.

"Mew?" Mewton cooed from the fueling kiosk on the dock.

"I don't understand what you're asking and I'm not answering that; I'm never gonna do it partner." Leon said coolly. There were dead bodies floating around the river. Somehow the infected had become much more buoyant. Leon started singing,

"Nevaaa. Nevaaa gonna answer to a cat. NOoo not today not yesterday or last NIGHT….or the daaaaay beforrrrre or the entireeee mooooooonnnnntthhh beforreee that."

And then under his breath ,"somebody shoot me." He whistled again and then returned the nozzle back to the kiosk. His short blonde hair was being tossed upwards in the wind. Two overweight FEDRA officers patrolled just off of the dock at a tiny checkpoint-a gazebo on the park.

"Partner, lets go check in to the fedra supply point now." Mewton's furry calico cathead mask peeked around the kiosk, and then the rest of his body appeared. He had furry cat arms and a turtleneck grey shirt with the words "FIREFLIES" in sharpie on the front and back. He wore loose yellow trousers and black boots. There was a machete hanging from his thin waist. Mewton quickly ran from the plastic docks over to the park. He waved his cat paws at the FEDRA officers and meowed at them. When they looked over, Leon saw one give him the thumbs up and hold a radio to his face.

Looks like they were good to go now. Mewton pranced back over and onto the patrol boat as Leon shifted the boat into gear. He even had a tail duct taped to his trousers. It rumbled to life quickly.

FEDRA had orphans doing supply runs all day every day, back and forth along the river. It was a good way to keep children on the water. Keep them busy, and away from the chaos of city zombie hell. And then at night, after FEDRA had counted them up like sheep, a Firefly would come and lead them to their quarters in the Douglas apartment complex. It was one of the few sections in Portland where every single adjacent door was marked with a green X. It just meant that, before FEDRA, the army had sacrificed many men to bust in and drag out infected.

The patrol boat cruised at a slow 5 mph on Wilamette and turned a slight right onto Columbia River. Roughly 18 nautical miles to reach his destination.

Leon whistled merrily. He looked over at catboy-shit, Partner. Partner. He mentally slapped himself. "You should learn to whistle, carries a lot further than your…meowing."

Going up Willamette was always a bit of a drag, because all of the infrastructure on the East side had been bombed heavily. The buildings were mostly annihilated, and the terrain was incredibly uneven. On the left side of the river, the municipality's heartbeat still thrummed. Pearl District, Northwest District and all the way out to Washington park were now considered part of the Portland Quarantine Zone.

Even though traveling the river was safe, the huge detour away from the airport was a problem for the urgent supply runs they sometimes had to do, for emergency care situations. Leon had heard about the army's project to clear a land path straight from the Portland International Airport to the burnside bridge; but that had been put on hold and put on hold again. There was an Army base just up north of Portland, currently active; Camp Bonneville. That was the closest weapons supply base to the QZ. Fireflies didn't want weapons inside the zone at all though.

When Leon docked the patrolboat at the PDX airport two hours later, he saw a submarine just ahead. His blue coveralls felt a bit damp as he turned off the engine. He had his rainboots on at least, so his feet were still toasty warm. There were two restaurant turned supply points on the shoreline just to the side of the deck. Leon and Partner hurried onto dry land and into the brick building with the curly Salty's logo sign.

The front desk was made up of sandbags, and the old woman currently there had grey curly long hair, pinned back on the sides with firefly ornaments. She had a heavily wrinkled face, and wore a long flowing black and pink floral wool dress.

"Ohhh Leon, what a pleasure to see you. When such a handsome young man takes the initiative to mentor a mentally retarded child it just makes my day!"

"Reeeowww." Mewton raised one paw up at her limply. Leon had already tried to correct her terminology over the past month, but it hadn't stuck. Luckily his partner could not possibly care less. Challenged, Sharon, it's supposed to be mentally challenged now.

"Hello Sharon. We're here for the first supply run of the day-but moreso for that gelato."

Sharon flipped through her inventory papers, licking her fingers.

"Supposed to be enough for all the kids. That's what Eileen promised."

"Refrigerated goods…1 parcel of ice cream; well if its refrigerated it's still on the nuclear sub."

"One parcel?! What the? Can you double check that; should be enough for 300 kids daily, for 2 weeks!"

Mewton was hissing a bit under his breath.

Eileen's choice of motivating all the orphans to perform tasks was always the ice cream. They'd just planted a massive farm at the park under her direction, all because she had promised gelato. That farm looked like a paradise, as the kids had erected greenhouse structures, hammered wooden containers and moved it all around to look like a work of art. Just for Eileen.

"Oh well it's best to ask those Special Forces guys in the submarine what happened. Maybe Eileen did order more but there was a shortage. It happens with every shipment."

Leon slapped his hands onto the sandbag desk. "Willl do Sharon. Will. Do."

"But you should stay a bit and chat. I've got a bunch of boardgames in my little bedroom back there, we could play scrabble?" Her bespectacled face was full of hope.

"Wow Sharon I'm soo. Tempted, very tempted. You look like a mean scrabble player. But my Partner and I are on a tight schedule."

"I could let you win…Oh well maybe you'd take me with you? I could really use a break."

"Sharon. You bring that inventory sheet with you, and I promise you can come with us. Might wanna, uh, radio FEDRA."

"Ohhh, righttt dearie." She disappeared as she went back to her bedroom and got a radio. "This is Sharon from the PDX inventory post. I'm headed back to The Douglas with the couriers."

"Sharon, can you please radio the submariners to let them know we're here?"

"What was that dearie?"

Leon cleared his throat and projected a bit more loudly, "I said. Radio the submariners to let them know we're here."

"Ohhhh. Oh. Ok young man." She fumbled with the dial on the radio and inspected it, "We have the couriers here to pick up uh…" she looked at her inventory sheet, "Supply shipment 54057." She pushed her spectacles back up the bridge of her nose.

Leon smiled, hitting the sandbag with his fist excitedly, "Alright lets go you guys!" Sharon went, grabbed her scrabble game and handed it to Mewton. "For the road young man."

Instead of going out the same way, the group went through the outside patio of the restaurant, where a forklift machine holding a palet was. It was also hooked up to a trailer. Mewton hopped in, but then hopped out as Sharon's arthritic body needed assistance from him and Leon to sit down on the plastic covered cushione pads of the trailer. Mewton had to hustle into the building a few more times to grab more items for Sharon; her inhaler, her small pouch, her cane (just in case), extra pillows to cushion her back, and a foldable chair. But finally they were ready. Leon drove the forklift down the ramp and onto the shoreline. He saw a veiled woman in a flowing maroon dress standing by the dock. Even through the rain and wind, Leon could tell she had a shapely hourglass figure. The veil was sparkling with silver jewels.

A marble-colored man squeezed out of the USS Indiana submarine, hauling up a parcel in one arm. There was a full pallet on the hull of the submarine, and a narrow ramp connecting the submarine to a tiny boat. So, once the tiny boat was filled, it would dock itself right next to them to so they could continue unloading and double checking the contents.

Leon for a second worried that he might have dirt on his face, so he checked his sideview mirror. He wanted to look his best for this lady. He didn't know why, but he just did.

He put the forklift in park and jumped out. Looking at the trailer, he saw Sharon holding a small open vial out to his partner.

"Whoa there Sharon! What are you doing over here?"

"Ohh I was just saying! Back at my church I used to help mentally retarded people all the time! This is just a microdose I was supposed to take today but clearly he needs it."

Leon slowed his speech down and spoke loudly at the old lady.

"Sharon he's 13. He's on duty with me. Can you just hold off till we get back?"

"ooooh, oo…well…Ok young man, I just noticed he has such a limited vocabulary and this magic mushroom is gonna help him with scrabble."

Leon felt very afraid that underneath that oversized catmask, his partner had already consumed it.

"Sharon what church did you go to?"

"Well…uh…well it was the Church of MDMA over a bit south of here in Portland."

He imagined himself grabbing the vial and tossing it out into the river, but instead he walked over to the big muscled grey man in a black trench coat. Leon felt his cock stirring as the woman finally turned toward him.

She took her veil off.

She didn't have lips. No, she instead had a gaping open red squarish mouth. Four large fangs decorated the ends. She had thick short tendrils around her scalp that moved lazily, expanding and contracting. Her eyes were bright red, and black veins decorated her pale young face.

His cock stirred in the opposite direction.

"Yourrreee cuuute!" she said with that strange mouth of hers. The red mouth closed and the fangs shut like a birds beak. Leon stood there, blinking stupidly.

"I'm Mr. X's daughter, Gloria! Who are you?"

Mr X came around beside them. "Hey, don't be impolite to my beautiful daughter."

"Uhhhh."

Sharon called from behind him. "Sir! Hello SIR! I have the inventory sheet here for signing. Leon! Leon!"

Leon felt his feet moving backwards, and he tripped onto his back. Sharon looked down at him worriedly. "Oh you look sick. Poor dear! Dear dear dear. I do have extras in my vial. JUST so you know young man."

He shook his head no. Clearing his throat he said, "Thanks Sharon, I'm."

Mewton came over and held out his paw to Leon, clumsily helping Leon up.

Leon hunched over and shook his head, slapping himself.

"Did you slip me mushrooms too Sharon?!"

"Noooo, I tried but…but you just said no! Would you like some dear?"

"Definitely the fuck not."

The wind blew harder, but the rain had stopped for a bit. The cold was still biting.

Mr. X got a pen out of his pocket and signed Sharon's sheet, even as she signed the sheet that he had given her. First in plain and then with her signature, along with the date.

Leon looked out at the PDX airport. There were FEDRA officers out along the perimeter, strolling with rifles. The airstrip was empty now, but there were lots of planes in the hangars. Leon took a deep breath and went back looking at his current crew. Mewton was nuzzling against Gloria's arm. She had prosthetic hands. Obviously Mewton didn't care much for appearances. Gloria was petting Mewton's head with her other prosthetic hand.

"You want to be pet little boy? Of course I can pet you, little silly!"

Aside from being really, ridiculously ugly, Gloria was eager to prove herself industrious to her father.

She went to the pallet on the boat and cut the straps holding the cargo, then carried the cold contents to the forklift. She even used the tendrils on her head to hold an extra box high in the air.

Mr. X went on to help his daughter unload the boat, while Leon tried to recover from his mini-heart attack.

"I don't mean to be a downer young man, but I doubt the gelato will stay cold if you're taking the river route." Sharon was now resting heavily on her cane, her golden spectacles up on the top of her head.

"Well Sharon, they never cleared the roads over here did they?"

"I don't suppose they managed to finish, but look at that young man in the coat; he's strong as an ox! I bet if you asked, he could help you drive over there today."

He looked Mr. X over. This was true. Somehow Mr. X had a fedora glued tight to his head.

"Can you make sure to put the gelato on top please, uh, Gloria, and uh Sir?"

The two stopped moving and looked at him.

"Sir, we were supposed to get many more parcels of gelato. Do you happen to know how the order became only 1 parcel?"

Mr. X stopped unloading and went up to Leon, looking down at him. Man this guy was tall. Probably too tall to go through a door. It was a wonder he managed to fit into a submarine.

"The payment from Eileen was only enough for one parcel."

"FUUUCK!" Leon shouted in anger. He'd seen tons of people, lining up to give Eileen their credits so she could order enough gelato for all of the kids.

"Are you driving the forklift over to Pearl district?"

"Whaaa-? No, no we can't. It's always been blocked."

Mr. X went back to the boat and continued unloading. Leon looked over Sharon's shoulder at the shipment list. Lots of different meats; chicken, beef, pork. Milk. All requiring refrigeration.

But she'd promised gelato. He couldn't let that go. All these orphans-himself now included, had absolutely nothing to look forward to in life. They'd lost their families, their friends-and continued to lose even more friends. For someone to deliberately break a promise; to take that away from them was the greatest theft and betrayal.

"Hey Mr. X, you work for special forces?"

Mr. X grunted, organizing the cargo onto the forklift.

"Well uh, maybe you got an opening? I could try out?"

Mr. X grunted. He wrapped cords around the pallet, securing all the boxes down.

He slapped his palms together and looked at both Mewton and Leon.

Mr. X, stated, "Tryouts. You drive this over to Pearl District with me and Gloria, then maybe."

Leon mulled it over. Would the gelato survive the trip if he got accosted by infected and then trapped in sharp rubble? It was only one parcel, and at this point it was merely symbolic. The meat and the milk would last a few hours. And then what? He'd have to drive Ms. Daisy back, remain her personal bus boy for…how long?

"You're on, Mr. X."

The marbled man gave him a thumbs up. "I got dirt bikes in the sub. Take care of my little girl."

"Mm." Leon nodded. His skin crawled as he felt her prosthetic on his shoulder.

"Haiiii there cutie. Never got a name."

"Gloria you're…quite transformed there."

Her hand instantly disappeared, and he inwardly sighed in relief.

"I put the veil back on." She said softly in dismay. One of her metal hands was holding down her maroon dress against the wind, and now the other was pushing the veil into her head tentacles, allowing them to suction cup hold it.

"He didn't mean that you're ugly dear. He's just so smallminded because he's so young." Sharon patted Gloria's slumped shoulder. Gloria wiped some tears from her eye with her prosthetic hand.

He was pretty sure right now that MDMA church-hood had ruined Sharon's brain. They were huddled in a circle against the wind. Sharon was rubbing her arthritic hands together.

"Youre right Sharon I am too young! Only 16 Gloria! So…hands off! I'm Leon by the way." He didn't want to leave the young girl too upset-after all she was really close and could probably slice his neck with those head tentacles. He counted six under the veil.

Sharon scoffed at him. Mr. X was coming onto the shore now with two dirt bikes and a few weapons on his back.

"Why, when I was only 13 I found my true love, Oswell Spencer!"

Shut up about your age Sharon! Shut up about it! Leon thought to himself. He was now scheming to fire himself from being a courier ever again for this clueless grandma.

"That sounds like true Alabama love story." Leon said dryly.

"He was 22, with a brilliant mind. He was such a looker."

"Tell us more." Leon said, meaning the total opposite. Even Mewton was shaking his cat head no slightly. Leon backed up as Mr. X stood over the group now.

"You wanna join the Special Forces Biohazard Countermeasures Security Unit, you need to prove to me that you have the mentality to handle it." Mr. X sounded like a military drill sergeant. His pointer finger dug into Leon's chest.

The group set themselves up into a small convoy; Gloria up front on her dirt bike and Mr. X behind on his custom dirtbike. Sharon and his partner were comfortable on the mass of cushions and blankets within the makeshift trailer. Gloria placed her veil onto Leon's lap, gripping his thigh lightly. "I'll protect you Leon darrrling." She fluttered her lashes at him, as he held one eye open to look at her. The black veins on her face were like worms, moving on their own.

"Alrighty." He managed to say. She pranced off to the motorbike and revved it up.

He felt another tap on his thigh and looked down. His partner was there, now holding a big dagger up.

"Whoa there tiger!"

Mewton scratched him.

"Oh you don't want to be called tiger; well we've got bigger problems to solve here partner so if you don't mind. You ate shrooms. I'm driving and you, partner, have to play scrabble with Mrs. Daisy. Go ahead and say otherwise. SAY IT."

Mewton just stood there.

"Exactly. The gelato is melting." Yep, he did eat the shrooms.

Mewton rushed back onto the trailer. It had huge shock absorbers and big thick wheels, so it was a comfortable ride. Except when it rained, and it kind of was raining right now.

They drove through the FEDRA guards and out of the airport into the ruins. Gloria's tentacles were dancing around her head. The clickers were already rushing towards the noise, but Gloria's tentacles sliced through their necks, decapitating them.

Leon could understand why Mr. X was such a proud father, even if Gloria would be single for the rest of her life. Clearly she had another purpose and some amazing skillsets to serve that purpose.

His hands were sweating uncomfortably as he maneuvered over large lumps of rubble, backing up and trying again. The engine was so loud. And there were bodies too, stuck in the rubble.

To be continued…this chapter is still a work in progress. Lemme know if you liked it