Стефани Перри: City Of The Dead

,.. except me and the girl. I’ve got to do my job here, keep her from getting hurt. Poor kid, she can’t be older than nineteen or twenty, she’s probably terrified;

I’ve got to keep it together and shield her from further danger here, get to the station and—

“You’re a cop, right?”

The girl’s lilting but somehow sarcastic tone snapped him out of his panicked musings. He shot a look in her direction, noting that while she looked pale, she didn’t seem to be quivering on the edge of a break-down. There was even a trace of humor in her clear gray eyes, and Leon got a sudden strong impression that she wasn’t the breakdown type. A very good thing, considering the circumstances.

“Yeah. First day on the job; great, huh? I’m Leon Kennedy.”

“Claire,” she said. “Claire Redfield. I came to find my brother, Chris... ”

She trailed off, staring back out at the passing street. Two of the creatures were staggering into the path of the car from either side, but Leon hit the gas and managed to drive between them. The steel mesh screen separating the back compartment was down, giving him a clear look from the rearview mirror, the two shuffling ghouls were now plodding mindlessly after them.

Hungry. Just like in the movies.

For a moment, neither spoke, the obvious question remaining unspoken. Whatever had happened to turn Raccoon into a horror show didn’t matter as much as how they were going to survive it. They’d be at the station in a couple of minutes, assuming the roads stayed clear. There was an underground parking lot, he’d try that first—but if the gates were closed, they’d have to cover a short distance on foot. There was a small courtyard in front of the building, a park area—

Four rounds left—and maybe a city full of those things. We need another weapon.. . .

“Hey, open the glovebox,” he said. If it was locked, there was a key on the ring that should open it. Claire tapped the button and reached inside, reveal-ing the back of her pink sleeveless vest; the legend “Made in Heaven” was appliqued above a voluptuous posing angel holding a bomb. The outfit suited her. “There’s a gun inside,” she said, and pulled out a sleek semiautomatic. She raised it carefully and checked to see if it was loaded before digging out a couple of clips. It was one of the RPD’s old issues, a nine-millimeter Browning HP. Since the slew of re-cent murders, the Raccoon force had been carrying H & K VP70s, another nine-millimeter—the difference was that the Browning could only hold thirteen, while the newer issues held eighteen rounds, nineteen if you kept one chambered. From the way she handled it, Leon could tell that she knew what she was doing. “Better take it with you,” he said. The RPD kept a decent arsenal; assuming that there were still cops around, he could pick up his assigned

• and why are you assuming anything?

As Leon took the corner of Ash and Third a little too quickly, the realization finally hit him that the station itself might be crawling with corpses. Every-thing was happening so fast, he just hadn’t considered the possibility. He straightened out the car and let up on the gas, trying to come up with an alternate plan as calmly and rationally as he could. Maybe there was an organized defense at the station—but it wasn’t easy to feel hopeful with the stink of decay so heavy in the air.

We have three-quarters of a tank, more than enough to make it over the mountains; we could be in Latham in less than an hour.

They could drive by the station and if it looked—unfriendly, just get the hell out of town; sounded good to him. He started to tell Claire, see what she thought—

• when the horrible smell of slaughter washed over him and something lunged out of the back seat. Claire screamed and the monster that had been in the squad car all along grasped Leon’s shoulder with icy hands, its flyblown breath gusting into his face. It snatched at his right arm, pulling it toward its drool-slick teeth with inhuman strength.

“No!” Leon shouted as the car veered wildly to the right, jumping the curb and sliding toward a brick building. The creature was unbalanced, losing some of its grip; Leon jerked the wheel but too late to avoid the wall completely. Metal shrieked and a brilliant flash of sparks illuminated the groping hands and leering, ghoulish grin of their passenger as the speed-ing car shot back out into the street.

The dead thing swung its eager arms at Claire, and without thinking, Leon slammed on the gas and pulled a hard right. The car fishtailed, the back end crunching against a parked pickup truck in another burst of fiery sparks. The drooling corpse fell back into the padded seat but immediately pulled itself forward again, gnashing its teeth and clawing for the girl-The squad car sped down Third, Leon trying to control the wheel as he grabbed his weapon and half-turned, holding the Magnum by the barrel. He didn’t think to take his foot off the gas, couldn’t think of anything except that the zombie was about to sink its teeth into Claire’s struggling shoulder. He brought the heavy weapon down and across its face, the butt sliding across flesh that peeled away in a thick flap. Blood gushed from the wound as the grips crushed into its nose, cartilage separating from bone with a wet crunch. Gurgling, the creature clutched at its bleeding head and Leon just had time to feel a second’s triumph—

• when Claire screamed, “Look out!”

• and Leon looked up to see that they were about to crash.

Leon hit the zombie with his gun and Claire in-stinctively flinched from the splatter of blood, her horrified gaze finding that the street they were on was about to end.

“Look out!”

She caught just a glimpse of his white knuckles on the wheel, his clenched jaw—

• and the car was spinning, screeching, buildings and streetlights flashing by so fast that all she saw was a blur, and then—

BAM!

There was an explosion of sound, of glass shattering and metal compressing as the cop car slammed into something solid, throwing Claire against her safety belt. The impact hurled the zombie forward at the same time, and Claire reflexively threw her arms up as the dead thing crashed through the windshield—

• and then everything was still. There was only the ticking of hot metal and the sound of her own heart thundering in her ears. Claire brought her arms down and saw that Leon had already recovered, was already staring at the bloody, broken mess sprawled across the hood, its head hanging mercifully out of sight. It wasn’t moving.

“You okay?”

Claire turned and looked at Leon, suddenly having to fight off a semi-hysterical laughing fit. Raccoon had been taken over by the living dead and they’d just been in a serious car wreck because a corpse had been trying to eat them. All things considered, “okay” was not the first word to come to mind.

At the sight of Leon’s sincere and stricken expres-sion, the urge to freak out passed. He looked on the edge of a fit himself; allowing her devastated nerves free reign wouldn’t help anything.

“Still in one piece,” she managed, and the young cop nodded, seeming relieved.

Claire took a deep breath, feeling like it was the first she’d taken in hours, and looked around at where they’d ended up. Leon had managed a complete 180 at the very end of the street where it T-ed, the obviously totaled squad car facing back the way they’d come. There were no zombies in the immedi-ate vicinity, but Claire had the feeling that they wouldn’t have long to find cover; from what she’d seen so far, most if not all of Raccoon had been affected by—by whatever it was that had happened. She held the handgun tightly, trying to get her tangled emotions under control.