Resident Evil 2 Remake Novel: Claire's Story.
Chapter Four: R.P.D.
Previously in the last chapter.
Just when Claire was about to sob at the implications her first male friend is dead and she was all alone in a zombie-infected city, a familiar voice came from the other side of the inferno fire, causing her to snap her head towards the direction where it came, tearful blue eyes filled with hope.
"CLAIRE!" Leon's call out voice came from the other side of the inferno fire. "CLAIRE, ARE YOU OKAY?! ANSWER ME!"
'Oh, thank the heavens!' Claire breathed out a huge sigh of relief, a smile appearing on her face. 'Leon's still alive and survived the explosions. Once we meet again, I'll kick his ass for worrying me.'
"YEAH!" Claire yelled, standing up from her kneeling position. "I'M ALRIGHT, LEON! HOW ABOUT YOU?!"
"I'M FINE!" Leon shouted, happy to hear Claire's voice. He had sadly assumed she died in the explosions. The rookie officer's happiness vanished when he spotted zombies rising from the ground behind him. "BUT I CAN'T STAY HERE! IT'S NOT SAFE! TOO MANY ZOMBIES!"
"Oh, shit…" Claire's smile of finding out Leon was still alive vanished when she spotted zombies walking towards her, forcing her to draw her handgun. "GO ON AHEAD! I'LL MEET YOU AT THE STATION! BE CAREFUL AND STAY SHARP, LEON!"
Claire's survival journey in the zombie outbreak in Raccoon City has officially begun.
(In the Present; With Claire)
As the wave of zombies began to close in on their fresh lonely prey, intending to eat and devour living flesh, Claire knew she had to run through the street she's in to reach the R.P.D. It was the only option she had at the moment since she doesn't have enough ammo to take out all out all the zombies. She only has five left bullets left with one extra in one of her pouches. If she tries shooting the incoming zombies, then she is just wasting her remaining ammo as they would either get stunned or staggered backwards before resuming their usual slow walk.
Zombies being stunned or staggered backwards whenever receiving a bullet anywhere on the body are always like that during the movies and it's no wonder why Claire isn't firing her gun at the moment, despite her wanting to do so.
Which is why Claire is planning to save her remaining ammo until she reaches the R.P.D where a few zombies are possibly waiting or roaming around. That way, she can use her remaining ammo on them and can get inside the station without any trouble whatsoever. It's a genius tactical plan, one that'll make Chris and Jill proud of her for coming up such a plan.
With a plan in mind, Claire turned towards the direction where she needs to go in order to reach the R.P.D and began running through the street she was in, away from the incoming wave of zombies she noticed a moment ago after finding out Leon survived the explosions. As she ran, she noticed there was an huge increase of destruction on the street, which is way bigger than the destruction she and Leon saw upon arriving in Raccoon City.
There were still inferno fires and abandoned cars around with the latter acting as blockades, but there were tons of trash littered on the ground with building debris and numerous dead body parts. The dead body parts was something Claire didn't like to see because it causes a sickly feeling to appear in her stomach and she had to resist the urge not to vomit. There's a key difference between dead body parts in the movies and dead body parts in real life. There was also a tremendous amount of stained blood on the ground that is starting to become wet because of the heavy rain.
"I can't stop, I gotta keep moving onward…" Claire said, continued to run through the street she was on, dodging a couple zombies and going around the blockade cars. She did not once fire her gun because she's still planning to save the remaining ammo she had left until she reaches the R.P.D and she was going to follow the plan she made all the way to the end.
Eventually, Claire came across another block barricade with numerous abandoned cars on the other side after reaching the end of the street, making her released an annoyed sigh. 'Oh, come the hell on! What's with all the stupid block barricades in the city?! Does the outbreak really want me and Leon to travel on foot without using any vehicles for protection?! As well as walking through this barricade?! Apparently, it does even when there is a huge risk of getting bitten by zombies!'
Regardless if the outbreak wanted Claire and Leon, who is probably running from zombies at the moment, to travel on foot, she had no intention of walking through the block barricade when there is a chance a hidden zombie might jump out and bite her. She needed to find a much safer alternate route to reach the R.P.D in one piece and quick before a massive zombie horde shows up. If it happen, then not only she's extremely screwed but dinner.
Luckily, during the run towards the other side of the street, Claire had spotted a dark alleyway that wasn't blocked by anything, except a lone zombie nearby, and can be used as an alternate safer route to get away from the zombies. So, she ducked into it after avoiding the lone zombie that spotted her when walking towards the entrance and ran all the way towards the other side where she witnessed another zombie rising extremely slowly from its slumber state. It had been lying against the wall near a dumpster and a small inferno fire. "It's like the end of the world!"
Claire took a sharp left after reaching the other side of the alleyway to avoid the still extremely slow-rising zombie and ran down a flight of steps, followed by another flight to reach the bottom level before running up two more flights. Upon reaching the top that led to a different part of Raccoon City with this street having more destruction, a sigh mixed with relief and happiness left her mouth as she spotted the place she had plan to visit in order to find Chirs. It was also the place she and Leon promised to reunite after getting separated. "The police station! Almost there…"
The R.P.D was a large, wide three-story building surrounded by a high stone wall and having an iron-bar gate for an entrance with the R.P.D initials above. It has a clock tower on the left side, a helicopter balcony on the right side, a long courtyard in the front with a cemetery on the left and a fire escape on the right and a underground room below the entrance.
When Claire went to visit Chris in the R.P.D for the first time, he told her a rather interesting story about the place. Turns out, the R.P.D wasn't always a police station but an art museum with a public library. Everyone in Raccoon City loved spending time in the art museum because they could enjoy the peaceful silence, reading a good book in the library and enjoy the fascinating wonders of art sculptures, along with the portraits hanging on the walls.
However, the art museum got close down when there had been an increase of crime rate going on in Raccoon City, resulting the R.P.D to be created to handle the crime and remake the entire building to a proper police station, even going far by removing the amazing portraits off the walls. Though, the officers did keep a few art sculptures on display because they want the people to still remember the art museum before it became a police station.
The story was interesting to hear, though Claire wonder why the R.P.D turned an art museum into a police station.
Claire began making her way through the destruction street to reach the gate entrance of the R.P.D. She had made the right decision of saving her remaining ammo until reaching the R.P.D because there are a couple zombies waiting or roaming around, which were all taken out by a shot in the head, due to it being the weakest point. Claire ran with such focus, carefulness and swiftness like Anna said because even the slightest bit mistake could cost her to lose her very life.
Unfortunately, Claire had underestimated how many zombies there are near the R.P.D because more are starting to appear from nowhere at an alarming rate – some even came out from a nearby school bus, making her gain such a very horrifying thought about zombie children. She very much hoped there isn't any in the city because the image itself was very bad – which forced her to make a mad dash at the gate entrance. Luckily, she was already near it, so getting inside wasn't a problem, as well as locking the gate to prevent zombies from getting in.
'And stay out there, you dead freaks!' Clarie thought, glaring at the zombies through the gate entrance where they are currently poking their arms out and rattling on it. "I don't know how long until the gate can last, but I hope I have enough time to find Chris in the R.P.D. I also hope Leon can find another way inside the station since the entrance is definitely not an option at the moment.'
As much as Claire wants to think about Leon and his safety about getting to the police station unharmed, she had a purpose of coming to Raccoon City and that was looking for her older brother who had not only stopped answering her calls but disappeared in August 1998. While it may be cold and heartless to forget about a recent-made friend, finding a sibling is much more important. So, with a heavy heart as she pushed any thoughts about Leon out from her mind, Claire made her inside the R.P.D building.
The inside of the R.P.D, the main hall, was large like the building outside and elegant-beautiful, despite the fact the place was messy. It had two floors with Claire being on the first floor, polished tiled floors with blood-stained footprints, polished brown wood design, a couple medial beds and curtains, two shutter doors on the first floor, one on each opposite side, two walk-way railings on the second floor, a couple wooden doors, a reception desk and two grand-looking staircases on the other side of the entrance leading to the second floor with a very tall, marble-white female statue standing on a raised platform in the middle.
Like when Claire and Leon were driving through the extremely dark empty streets after arriving in Raccoon City moments ago before things became worse, the R.P.D was completely devoid of any life. There wasn't even a single person around and it was making Claire extremely worried. Has the police station got overrun by the zombies when the outbreak started? She really hoped not, but the way there's many blood-stain footprints on the floor, her hope was dashing like before.
"Anybody here?!" Claire called out, her voice echoing loudly as she looked around in the main hall, hoping any person could respond back to her. But like in the Mizoil gas station, she got no reply back after calling out, which forced her to accept this dreadful fact: She was all alone in the R.P.D with no survivors and no one to talk to.
Despite this being a depressing thought, it won't stop Claire from trying to both a survivor and Chris.
Since standing around at the entrance won't solve anything, Claire decided to explore the main hall to see if there's anything useful for her to use. Other than a couple 9mm ammunition rounds for her gun, which she quickly loaded into said gun while putting the rest in one of her pouches, and a medical spray if she gets hurt, there was nothing useful in this room. It also didn't help some doors she found were locked that needed a special key to open, except the right-side door on the second floor, which lead into a waiting room.
The main hall and the waiting room are the only two rooms Claire could explore in the R.P.D.
It was then Claire remembered she passed by a laptop when she first grabbed a box of 9mm ammunition rounds that had been on the reception desk during her exploration, so she quickly backtracked her steps from the second floor, walked quickly across the first floor to reach the reception desk and headed towards the laptop after walking around a polished wood railing. From there, she pressed a key button to let the screen reveal four live camera feeds, along with a map of the first floor. The camera feed's color were black and white.
"Come on, Chris," Claire muttered to herself as she continued looking through the camera feeds on the laptop, hoping to find her older brother. "Where are you?"
Suddenly, one of the camera feeds, the bottom right, detected movement, making Claire turned her head towards that feed. She watched as a figure run in view of the camera feed in a different area before coming to a stop, turning around and pulled out a gun to shoot two bullets at something. The something revealed to be a zombie who came in view of the camera feed and endured two bullets to the chest as it stumbled towards the figure. The figure, seeing bullets weren't doing damage, fled down the hallway with the zombie following.
"Oh, shit…" Claire swore after seeing the zombie on the camera feed, but didn't take her eyes away. "They're inside, too…" She pressed a key on the laptop to switch the camera feeds to find the running figure. Upon closer inspection, the figure revealed to be a male police officer holding a flashlight in his left hand.
"David! Marvin! You there?!" The male officer yelled, pausing directly in front of the camera feed and turning around to keep an eye on the zombie that was making its way towards him. He put his gun away to reach into his back pocket to pull out something. "I found a way out! It's in here!" The officer turned to look up at the camera and held up his right hand to reveal a small notebook that holds the information to escape the R.P.D.
The zombie that had been chasing the officer began to closed in on him and he quickly put the small notebook back in his pocket before taking out his gun and firing a bullet at the zombie's chest, staggering it but not stunning it. It then lunged at him and grabbing him in a power struggle as it tried to bite his neck, but the officer managed to push the zombie off and away from him with the cost of losing his flashlight.
"Send reinforcements! East hallway!" The officer yelled, giving one last look to the camera before running away from the zombie, which is starting to once again chase after him.
When Claire lost sight of the officer on the camera feed, she quickly typed in a few keys on the laptop to see where she could find him. The map of the first floor in the R.P.D appeared on the screen and the hallway the officer had been in with the zombie began flashing red. Claire now knows where she needs to go.
"I should help this guy," Claire stated, turning around and began making her ways towards the shutter that will lead her to the east hallway. "I hope I get there quick before that zombie overpowers him again."
If only Claire knew she was never going to reach the officer in time.
And done! That's the ending of the chapter! Sorry if it took nearly a month for this chapter to be written. I had to do lots of editing on it, rewrite things for Claire's point of view and add new sentences. Editing chapters takes a lot out of you, so I'm glad I got this done.
Next chapter will be about Claire's journey in the east hallway to try saving the male officer, only to witness a horrifying scene and meet another officer.
Write a review if you like this story and enjoy the chapter.
Next Chapter: Marvin Branagh.