radiated through the officer's ragged shirt.
"About two months ago," Branagh rasped, "the cannibal murders ... the S.T.A.R.S. found zombies
out at this mansion in the woods..."
He coughed weakly, and Leon saw a small bubble of
blood form at the corner of his mouth. Leon started to
tell him to be still, to rest, but Branagh's faraway gaze
had fixed on his own; the cop seemed determined to
tell the story, whatever it was costing him.
"Chris and the others discovered that Umbrella
was behind the whole thing . . . risked their lives, and
no one believed them . . . then this."
Chris . . . Chris Redfield, Claire's brother.
Leon hadn't made the connection before, although
he'd known something about the trouble with the
S.T.A.R.S. He'd only heard bits and pieces of the
story - the suspension of the Special Tactics and
Rescue Squad after their alleged mishandling of the
murder cases had been the reason the RPD'd been
hiring new cops. He'd even read the names of the
infamous S.T.A.R.S. members in some local paper,
listed along with some fairly impressive career
records...
... and Umbrella runs this town. Some kind of a
chemical leak, something that they tried to cover up by
getting rid of the S.T.A.R.S. ...
All of this went through his mind in a split-second;
then Branagh coughed again, the sound even weaker
than before.
"Hang in there," Leon said, and quickly looked around them for something to use to stop the bleed-
ing, inwardly kicking himself for not having done it
already. A locker next to Branagh was partly open; a
crumpled T-shirt lay at the bottom. Leon scooped it
up and folded it haphazardly, pressing it against
Branagh's stomach. The cop placed his own bloody
hand over the makeshift bandage, closing his eyes as
he spoke again in a wheezing gasp.
"Don't . . . worry about me. There are . . . you have to try and rescue the survivors. . ."
The resignation in Branagh's voice was horribly
plain. Leon shook his head, wanting to deny the truth,
wanting to do something to ease Branagh's pain, but
the wounded cop was dying, and there was no one to
call for help.
Not fair, it's not fair...
"Go," Branagh breathed, his eyes still closed.
Branagh was right, there was nothing else Leon
could do, but he didn't, couldn't move for a mo-
ment - until Branagh raised his weapon again, point-
ing it at him with a sudden burst of energy that
strengthened his voice to a rough shout.
"Just go!" Branagh commanded, and Leon stood up, wondering if he would be as selfless in the same
situation, working to convince himself that Branagh
would make it somehow.
"I'll be back," Leon said firmly, but Branagh's arm was already drooping, his head settling against his
heaving chest.
Rescue the survivors.
Leon backed toward the door, swallowing heavily
and struggling to accept the change in plan that could
very well kill him, but that he couldn't walk away
from. Official or no, he was a cop. If there were other
survivors, it was his moral and civic duty to try and
help them.
There was a weapons store in the basement, near
the parking garage. Leon opened the door and stepped
back into the lobby, praying that the lockers would be
well stocked - and that there would be somebody left
for him to help.
TEN
FROM THE BURNING ROOFTOP, CLAIRE
moved through a snaking hallway littered with bro-
ken glass and past a very dead cop, a bloody
testament to her fears about the station's safety. She
quickly stepped over the body and moved on, her
nervous tension growing. A cool breeze ruffled
through the shattered windows that lined the hall,
making the darkness alive; there were shiny black
feathers stuck in the streaks of blood that painted the
floorboards, and their soft, wavering dance had her
jerking the semiautomatic toward every shadow.
She passed a door that she thought led back outside
to a set of external stairs, but she kept going, taking a
right toward the center of the building. The way the
helicopter had buried itself in the rooftop was gnaw-
ing at her, inspiring visions of the old station going up in flames.
From the look of things, maybe that's not such a bad
idea...
Dead bodies and bloody handprints on the walls;
Claire wasn't happy about the idea of touring the
station. Still, death by fire didn't carry much appeal
either, she needed to see how bad it was before she
went looking for Leon.
The corridor dead-ended at a door that felt cool to
the touch. Mentally crossing her fingers, Claire
opened it and stumbled back as a wave of acrid
smoke washed over her, the smell of burnt metal and
wood thick in the heated air. She dropped to a crouch
and edged forward again, peering down the hall that
stretched off to her right. The hall turned right again
maybe thirty feet down, and although she couldn't see
the fire proper, bright, fiery light was reflected off the
gray paneled walls at the comer. The popping crackle
of the unseen flames was magnified in the tight
corridor, the sound as mindlessly hungry as the
moans of the zombies down in the courtyard.
Well, shit. What now?
There was another door diagonally across from
where she crouched, only a few steps away; Claire
took a deep breath and moved, walking low to stay
beneath the thickening blanket of smoke, hoping she
could find a fire extinguisher and that a fire extin-
guisher would be enough to put out whatever blaze
the crashed 'copter had created.
The door opened into an empty waiting room,
a couple of green vinyl couches and a rounded counter-
desk, with another door across from the one she'd
entered by. The small room seemed untouched, as
sterile and quietly unassuming as she might have
expected - and unlike just about everywhere else
she'd been tonight, there was no lurking disaster in
the mild shadows thrown by the overhead fluores-
cents, no stench of rot or shuffling zombie.
And no fire extinguisher. . .
Not in plain sight, anyway. She closed the door on
the smoky corridor and stepped toward the desk,
lifting the entrance flap with the barrel of the gun.
There was an old manual typewriter on the counter
and next to that, a telephone. Claire grabbed for it,
hoping against hope, but heard only dead air through
the receiver. Sighing, she dropped it and ducked down
to check out the shelves beneath the counter. A phone
book, a few stacks of papers and then, half-hidden
by a woman's purse on the bottom shelf, was the
familiar red shape she'd been hoping to find, coated
with a thin layer of dust.
"There you are," she murmured, and paused just long enough to stick the nine-millimeter into her vest
before hefting the heavy cylinder. She'd never used
one before, but it looked simple enough - a metal
handle with a locking pin, a black rubber nozzle
hooked to the side. It was only a couple of feet long,
but it weighed a good forty or fifty pounds; she figured
that meant it was full.
Armed with the extinguisher, Claire stepped back
to the door and started to take short, sharp breaths,
filling her lungs. It made her feel light-headed, but the
hyperventilation would allow her to hold her breath
longer. She didn't want to keel over from smoke
inhalation before she'd had a chance to put it out.
A final deep breath and she opened the door,
crouching her way back into the now noticeably
hotter corridor. The haze of smoke had gotten thicker
too, extending down from the ceiling in a dark and
choking fog at least four feet deep.
Keep low, breathe shallow and watch your step...
She turned the corner and felt a bizarre mix of relief
and sorrow at the sight of the burning wreckage right
in front of her. She bobbed her head and took a small
breath through the fabric of her vest, feeling her skin
flush and tighten from the heat. The fire wasn't as bad
as she'd feared, more smoke than substance and not
much taller or bigger than she was; the flames that
licked up the wall in orange-yellow fingers seemed to
be having trouble catching, stopped by the heavy
wood of a half-smashed door. It was the nose of the
helicopter that drew her attention, the blackened shell
of the smoldering cockpit and the blackened husk
of the pilot still strapped to the seat, the melted
mouth frozen in a yawning, silent scream. There was
no way to tell if it had been a man or a woman; the
features had been obliterated, running together like
dark tallow.
Claire jerked the metal pin loose from the handle
and aimed the hose at the burning floorboards, where
the flame danced in white and blue. She squeezed the
lever down and a hissing plume of snowy spray
whooshed out, blasting over the debris in a powdery
cloud. Barely able to see through the billowing white-
ness, she directed the hose over everything, dousing
the wreckage liberally with the oxygen killer. Within a
minute, the fire appeared to be out, but she kept up
with the extinguisher until it ran dry.
At the last spluttering cough of spray, Claire let go
of the handle and took a few more shallow breaths,
inspecting the smoking wreck for any spots she'd
missed. Not a flicker, but the wooden door alongside the helicopter's flocked cockpit was still leaking ten-
drils of black smoke. She leaned closer and saw a tinge
of glowing orange under the charred surface. The area
surrounding the burning wood had already been
torched, but she didn't want to take any chances; she
stepped back and gave the door a solid kick, aiming
for the glowing embers.
Her boot connected squarely with the hot spot, and
the door flew open with a splintering crack, the
scorched wood giving way in a sparking shower of
cinders. A few landed on her bare calf, but she drew
her weapon before stopping to brush them off, more
afraid of what might be waiting behind the ruined
door than a few blisters.
A short, empty hallway, littered with jagged pieces
of splintered wood and hazy with smoke, then a door
at the end on the left; Claire moved toward it, as
much to get to some fresh air as to see where it led.
With the immediate threat of the fire over with, she
had to start looking for Leon and thinking about
what they'd need to survive. If she could check out a
few of the rooms along the way, maybe she'd be able
to find stuff they could use.
A phone that works, car keys . . . hell, a couple of
machine guns or aflame-thrower would be nice, but I’ll
take what I can get
The plain door at the end of the hall was unlocked.
Claire pushed it open, ready to fire at anything that
moved...
... and stopped, feeling mildly shocked by the bi-
zarre atmosphere of the lavish room. It was like some
parody of a men's club from the fifties, a large office
decorated with an extravagance that bordered on the
ridiculous. The walls were lined with heavy mahogany
bookshelves and matching tables, surrounding a kind
of sitting area made up of padded leather chairs and a
low marble table, all set atop an obviously expensive
oriental rug. An elaborate chandelier hung from the
ceiling, casting a rich, mellow light over it all. Framed
pictures and delicate vases were situated through-
out, but their classic designs were overwhelmed by
the stuffed animal heads and poised, lifeless birds that
dominated the room, most gathered around a massive
desk at the far side -
- oh, Jesus -
Laid out across the desk, like some character from a
gothic horror story, was a beautiful young woman in a
flowing white gown, her guts ripped to bloody shreds.
The corpse was like a centerpiece; the dried and dusty
animals stared down at her with dead glass eyes...
there was a falcon and what looked like an eagle, their ratty wings spread in simulated flight, as well as a
couple of mounted deer heads and that of a nappy
furred moose. The effect was so creepy and surreal
that for a moment, Claire couldn't breathe...
... and when the high-backed chair behind the desk
swiveled around suddenly, she barely held back a
shriek of superstitious terror, half expecting to see
some vision of dark and grinning death. It was only a
man, but a man with a gun, pointed at her.
Twice in one night, what are the odds...
For a second, neither of them moved ... and then
the man lowered his weapon, a sickly half-smile
playing across his pudgy face.
"I'm terribly sorry," he said, his voice as oily and false as a bad politician's. "I thought you were anoth- er one of those zombies."
He smoothed his bristly mustache with one thick
finger as he spoke, and although Claire had never met
him before, she suddenly knew who he was; Chris had
bitched about him often enough.
Fat, mustachioed, and as slick as a snake-oil sales-
man - it's the police chief. Irons.
He didn't look good, his cheeks flushed with high
color and his porcine eyes rimmed with puffed white
flesh. The way his gaze darted around the room was
unsettling, as if he was in the grip of some kind of
heavy paranoia. In fact, he looked unbalanced, like he
wasn't all that connected to reality.
"Are you Chief Irons?" she asked, trying to sound pleasantly respectful as she stepped closer to the desk.
"Yes, that's me," he said smoothly, "and just who are you?"
Before she could speak, Irons went on, confirming
Claire's suspicions with what he said next - and with
the bitter, petulant tone in which he said it. "No, don't bother telling me. It makes no difference. You'll
end up like all the others ..."
He trailed off, staring down at the dead woman in
front of him with some emotion that Claire couldn't
place. She felt bad for him, in spite of all that Chris
had told her about his rotten personality and profes-
sional incompetence; God only knew what horrors
he'd witnessed, or what he'd had to do to survive.
Is it any wonder that he's having trouble with reality?
Leon and I wandered into this horror show in the last
reel; Irons was here for the previews, which probably
included watching his friends die.
She looked down at the young woman on the desk
and Irons spoke again, his voice somehow sad and
pompous at the same time.
"That's the mayor's daughter. I was supposed to look out for her, but I failed miserably..."
Claire searched for some words of comfort, wanting
to tell him that he was lucky to have lived, that it
wasn't his fault, but as he continued his lament, the
words died in her throat, along with her pity.
"Just look at her. She was a true beauty, her skin
nothing short of perfection. But it will soon putre-
fy... and within the hour, she'll become one of those
things. Just like all the others."
Claire didn't want to jump to any conclusions, but
the wistful longing in his tone and in his shining,
hungry stare made her skin crawl. The way he was
looking at the dead girl...
... you're imagining things. He's the chief of police,
not some perverted lunatic. And he's the first person
you've met who might be able to give you some kind of
information. Don't waste the opportunity.
"There must be some way to stop it. . ." Claire said gently.
"In a manner of speaking. A bullet in the brain, or
decapitation."
He finally looked away from the body, but not at
Claire. He turned to gaze at the stuffed creatures
perched on the edge of his desk, his voice taking on a
resigned but somehow mirthful quality.
"And to think taxidermy used to be my hobby.
No longer. . ."
Claire's internal alarms were doing some serious
jangling. Taxidermy? What the hell did that have to do with the dead human being on his desk?
Irons was finally looking at her, and Claire didn't
like it one bit. His dark and beady gaze was directed
at her face, but he didn't seem to actually see her at
all. For the first time, it occurred to her that he hadn't
asked her one question about how she'd come to be
there or commented on the smoke that had leaked
into his office. And the way he'd talked about the
