that. "Uncle Brian."
She knows. Of course she knows.
He half-dragged her into the lift and leaned her in
the corner, gazing tenderly at her angelic face. He was
suddenly overwhelmed by a rush of almost paternal
love for her, and wasn't surprised to feel tears well up
in his eyes, tears of pride and affection. For days now
he'd been subject to such emotional outbursts - rage, terror, even joy. He'd never been a particularly emo-
tional man, but had grown to accept the powerful
feelings, even to enjoy them after a fashion; at least
they weren't confusing. He'd also had moments when
he'd been overcome by a kind of strange, creeping
haze, a formless anxiety that left him feeling deeply
unsettled . . . and as bewildered as a lost child.
No more of those. There's nothing else that can go
wrong now; Beverly's with me, and once I collect my
things, we can hide away in the Sanctuary and get
some rest. She'll need time to recover, and I can, can
sort things through. Yes, that's it; things need to be
sorted through.
He blinked the already forgotten tears away as the
metal cage started to rise, unholstering his sidearm
and ejecting the clip to count how many rounds were
left. His private rooms were safe, but the office was
another story; he wanted to be prepared.
The elevator came to a stop and Irons propped
open the gate with one leg before lifting the girl,
grunting with the exertion. He carried her as he would
have carried a sleeping child, her cool, smooth body
limp in his arms, her head rolled back and wobbling
as he walked. He'd picked her up awkwardly, and her
white gown had hiked up, exposing the tight, creamy
skin of her thighs; Irons forced his gaze away, concen-
trating on the panel controls that opened the wall into
his office. Whatever harmless fantasies he'd had be-
fore, she was his responsibility now, he was her
protector, her white knight...
He was able to hit the protruding button with one
knee. The wall slid open, revealing his plushly deco-
rated and thankfully empty office; only the blank,
glassy stares of bis animal trophies greeted them.
The massive walnut desk that he'd had imported
from Italy was right in front of him and his stamina
was going fast; Beverly was a petite woman, but he
wasn't in shape the way he used to be. He quickly laid
her on the desk, pushing a cup of pencils to the floor
with his elbow.
"There!" he exhaled deeply, smiling down at her. She didn't smile back, but he sensed that she would be
awake soon, like before. He reached under the desk
and tapped the wall controls; the panel slid closed
behind them.
He'd been concerned when he'd first found her,
asleep next to Officer Scott in the back hall; George
Scott was dead, covered with wounds, and when Irons
had seen the red splash on Beverly's stomach, he'd
been afraid that she was dead, too. But when he'd
taken her to the Sanctuary, to his safe place, she'd whispered to him - that she didn't feel well, that she
was hurt, that she wanted to go home ...
... did she? Did she really?
Irons frowned, snapped out of the uncertain memo-
ry by something, something he'd felt when he'd laid
her on his hobby table and straightened her blood-
stained gown, something he couldn't quite recall. It
hadn't seemed important at the time, but now, away
from the hidden comforts of the Sanctuary, it was
nagging at him. Reminding him that he had suffered
one of those confused moments when he'd, when
he'd...
... felt the cold, rubbery jelly of intestine beneath my
fingers ...
... touched her.
"Beverly?" he whispered, sitting down behind his
desk when his legs went suddenly weak. Beverly kept
her silence - and a turbulent flood of emotions hit
Irons like a tidal wave, crashing over him, crowding
his mind with images and memories and truths that
he didn't want to accept. Cutting the outside lines
after the first attacks. Umbrella and Birkin and the
walking dead. The slaughter in the garage, when the
bright coppery scent of blood had filled the air and
Mayor Harris had been eaten alive, screaming until
the very end. The dwindling numbers of the living
through the first long and terrible night - and the
cold, brutal realization that had hit him again and
again, that the city - his city - was no more.
After that, the confusion. The strange and hysteri-
cal joy that had come when he'd understood that
there would be no consequences for his actions. Irons
remembered the game he'd played on the second
night, after some of Birkin's pets had found their way
to the station and taken out all but a few of the
remaining cops. He'd found Neil Carson cowering in
the library and had. . . tracked him, hunting the
sergeant down like an animal.
What did it matter? What matters, now that my life
in Raccoon is over?
All that was left, the only thing that he had to hold
on to, was the Sanctuary - and the part of him that
had created it, the dark and glorious heart inside of
his own that he'd always had to keep hidden away.
That part was free now...
Irons looked at the corpse of Beverly Harris, laid
out across his desk like some delicate and fragile
dream, and felt that he might be torn apart by the
feelings of fear and doubt that warred inside of him.
Had he killed her? He couldn't remember.
Uncle Brian. Ten years ago, I was her Uncle Brian. What have I become?
It was too much. Without taking his gaze from her
lifeless face, he pulled the loaded VP70 from its
holster and began to rub the barrel with numb fingers,
gentle strokes that reassured him somehow as the
weapon turned toward him. When the bore was
pressed firmly against his soft belly, he felt that some
kind of peace might be within reach. His finger settled
across the trigger, and it was then that Beverly whis-
pered to him again, her lips still, her sweet, musical
voice coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.
... don't leave me, Uncle Brian. You said you'd keep
me safe, that you'd take care of me. Think of what you
could do now that everyone is gone and there's nothing
to stop you ...
"You're dead," he whispered, but she kept talking, soft and insistent.
... nothing to stop you from being fulfilled, truly
fulfilled for the first time in your life ...
Tortured and aching, Irons slowly, slowly pulled the
nine-millimeter away from his stomach. After a mo-
ment, he rested his forehead against Beverly's shoul-
der and closed his tired eyes.
She was right, he couldn't leave her. He'd prom-
Ised - and there was something to what she'd said,
about all of the things he could do. His hobby table
was big enough to accommodate all kinds of
animals ...
Irons sighed, not sure what to do next—and won-
dering why he was in such a hurry to decide, anyway.
They would rest for a while, perhaps even take a nap
together. And when they awoke, things would be clear
again.
Yes, that was it. They would rest, and then he could
sort things through, take care of business; he was the
chief of police, after all.
Feeling in control of himself again, Brian Irons
slipped into a light and uneasy doze, Beverly's cool
flesh like a balm against his feverish brow.
NINE
THANKS TO A VAN PARKED IN THE ALLEY
behind Kendo's, Leon's straight shot to the station
had taken a few detours - through an infested basket-
ball court, another alley, and a parked bus that had
reeked from the sprawled corpses inside. It was a
nightmare, punctuated with whispering howls, the
stink of decay, and once, a distant explosion that
made his limbs feel weak. And though he had to shoot
three more of the walking dead and was wired to the teeth with adrenaline and horror, he somehow man-
aged to hold on to his hope that the RPD building
would be a safe haven, that there would be some kind
of crisis center set up, manned by police and
paramedics - people in authority making decisions
and marshaling forces. It wasn't just a hope, it was a
need; the possibility that there might be no one left in
Raccoon to take charge was unthinkable.
When he finally stumbled out into the street in
front of the station and saw the burning squad cars, he
felt like he'd been hit in the gut. But it was the sight of
the decaying, moaning police officers staggering
around the dancing flames that truly wiped out his
hope. There were only about fifty or sixty cops on the
RPD force, and a full third of them were lurching
through the wreckage or dead and bloody on the
pavement not a hundred feet from the front door of
the station.
Leon forced the despair away, fixing his sight on the
gate that led to the RPD building's courtyard. Wheth-
er or not anyone had survived, he had to stick with his
plan, put out a call for help - and there was Claire to
think about. Concentrating on his fears would only
make it harder to do whatever needed to be done.
He ran for the gate, nimbly dodging a horribly
burned uniformed cop with blackened bones for
fingers. As he clutched the cold metal handle and
pushed, he realized that some part of him was grow-
ing numb to the tragedy, to the understanding that
these things had once been the citizens of Raccoon.
The creatures that roamed the streets were no less
horrible, but the shock of it all just couldn't be
sustained; there were too many of them.
Not too many here, thank God...
Leon slammed the gate shut behind him and
pushed his sweaty hair off his brow, taking a deep
breath of the almost fresh air as he scanned the
courtyard. The small, grassy park to his right was well
lit enough for him to see there were only a few of the
once human creatures, and none close enough to be a
threat. He could see the two flags that adorned the
front of the station house, hanging limp in the still
shadows, and the sight resparked the hope that he
thought he'd lost; whatever else happened, he'd at
least made it to someplace he knew. And it had to be
safer than the streets.
He hurried past a blindly reeling trio of the dead,
easily avoiding them - two men and a woman; all
three could have passed for normal if not for their
mournful, hungry cries and uncoordinated staggers.
They must have died recently...
... but they're not dead, dead people don't gush blood
when you shoot them. Not to mention the walking-
around-and-trying-to-eat-people thing...
Dead people didn't walk . . . and living people
tended to fall down after they'd been shot a few times
with .50 caliber slugs, and didn't put up with their
flesh rotting on their bones. Questions he hadn't yet
had time to ask himself flooded through his mind as
he jogged up the front steps to the station, questions
he didn't have the answers for - but he would soon,
he was sure of it.
The door wasn't locked, but Leon didn't allow
himself to feel surprise; with all he'd been through
since he hit town, he figured that it would be best to
keep his expectations to a minimum. He pushed it
open and stepped inside, Magnum raised and his
finger on the trigger.
Empty. There was no sign of life in the grand old
lobby of the RPD building and no sign of the
disaster that had overtaken Raccoon. Leon gave up on
not feeling surprised, closing the door behind him and
stepping down into the sunken lobby.
"Hello?" Leon kept his voice low, but it carried, echoing back to him in a whisper. Everything looked
just as he remembered it; three floors of classically
styled architecture in oak and marble. There was a
stone statue of a woman carrying a water pitcher in
the lower part of the large room, a ramp on either side
leading up to the receptionist's station. The RPD seal
set into the floor in front of the statue gleamed softly
in the diffuse light from the wall lamps, as if it had
just been polished.
No bodies, no blood ... not even a shell casing. If
there was an attack here, where the hell's the evidence?
Uneasy at the profound silence of the huge cham-
ber, Leon walked up the ramp to his left, stopping at
the counter of the reception desk and leaning over it;
except for the fact that it was unmanned, nothing
seemed to be out of place. There was a phone on the
desk below the counter. Leon picked up the receiver
and cradled it between his head and shoulder, tapping
at the buttons with fingers that felt cold and distant.
Not even a dial tone; all he heard was the sound of his own heavily thumping heart.
He put the phone down and turned to face the
empty room, trying to decide on where to go first. As
much as he wanted to find Claire, he also desperately
wanted to hook up with some other cops. He'd
received a copy of an RPD memo just a couple of
weeks before, stating that several of the departments
were going to be relocated, but that didn't really matter; if there were cops hiding in the building, they
probably weren't concerned with sticking close to
their desks.
There were three doors leading away from the lobby
to different parts of the sprawling station, two on the
west side and the other on the east. Of the two on the
west, one led through a series of halls toward the back
of the building, past a couple of filing offices and a
briefing room; the second opened into the uniformed-
officer squad room and lockers, which then connected
into one of the corridors near the stairs to the second
floor. The east door, in fact the whole east side of the
first floor, was primarily for the detectives - offices,
interrogation, and a press room; there was also access
to the basement and another set of stairs on the
outside of the building.
Claire probably came in through the garage ... or
through the back lot to the roof ...
Or, she could've circled around and come through
the same door he had - assuming she even made it to
the station; she could be anywhere. And considering
that the building took up almost an entire city block,
that was a lot of ground to cover.
Finally deciding that he had to start somewhere, he
walked toward the squad room for the beat cops,
where his own locker would be. A random choice, but
he'd spent more time there than anywhere else in the
station, interviewing and working through schedul-
ing. Besides, it was closest, and the tomb-like silence
of the oversized lobby was giving him the creeps.
The door wasn't locked, and Leon pushed it open
slowly, holding his breath and hoping that the room
would be as undisturbed and orderly as the lobby.
What he saw instead was the confirmation of his
earlier fears: the creatures had been there - with a
vengeance.
The long room had been trashed, tables and chairs
splintered and overturned everywhere he looked.
Smears of dried blood decorated the walls, splashes of
it in tacky, trailing puddles on the floor, leading
toward ...
"Oh, man..."
The cop was sitting against the lockers to his left,
his legs splayed, half-hidden by a smashed table. At
the sound of Leon's voice, he weakly raised one
shaking arm, pointed a weapon vaguely in Leon's
direction - then lowered it again, seemingly ex-
hausted by the effort. His midsection was awash with
oozing blood, his dark features contorted with pain.
Leon was crouching at his side in two steps, gently
touching his shoulder. He couldn't see the wound, but there was so much blood that he knew it was
bad...
"Who are you?" the cop whispered.
The soft, almost dreamy tone of his voice scared
Leon as much as the still oozing wound and the glassy
look in his dark eyes; the man was slipping, fast.
They'd never formally met, but Leon had seen him
before. The young African-American beat cop had
been pointed out to him as sharp, on the fast track to
detective, Marvin, Marvin Branagh...
"I'm Kennedy. What happened here?" Leon asked, his hand still on Branagh's shoulder. A sickly heat
