And speaking of. . .
On top of everything else, she needed to find another weapon, or more ammo for the nine-millimeter; she had thirteen bullets left, one full clip, and when those were gone, she was SOL. Maybe she should stop and check some of the corpses on the way back to the east wing; even in her panicked run, she’d noticed that some of them were cops, and the hand-gun was an RPD issue. Claire didn’t like the idea of touching any of the dead bodies, but running out of firepower was distinctly less desirable—particularly with Mr. X running around.
Claire walked toward the door and pushed it open, trying to get her thoughts organized as she stepped back into the dim hall. Leaving the office put a damper on her resolve; she had to suppress a shudder at the still vivid image of Mr. X as she closed the door behind her, suddenly feeling vulnerable again. She turned right and started back toward the library, deciding that she wouldn’t think about the giant unless she had to, wouldn’t dwell on the memory of those blank, inhuman eyes or the way he’d raised his terrible fist, as if driven to destroy anything in his way ...
. . . so knock it off already. Think about Sherry, think about getting some goddamn ammo or how to handle Irons, if you can find him. Think about trying to stay alive.
Just ahead, the dark wooden hall turned right again and Claire tried to steel herself against the task ahead; if memory served, there was a dead cop around the corner—
• like I can’t tell by the smell—
• and she’d have to search him. He hadn’t been too disgusting, at least, not that she’d noticed—
Claire turned the corner and froze, staring. Her stomach knotted, telling her she was in danger before her senses could. The body that she’d jumped over on the way to the S.T.A.R.S. office was now only a bloody, tangled mass, flesh and broken limbs and shredded uniform. The head was gone, although there was no way to tell if it had been taken away or just smashed into an unrecognizable pulp. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer or an axe to the corpse in the few moments since she’d passed it, beating it into a clotted smear.
But when, how, I didn’t hear anything—
Something moved. A shadow, soft and darting over the mashed remains some twenty feet in front of her, and at the same time, Claire heard a strange rasping sound, breathing—
• and she looked up, still not sure what she was seeing or hearing—that ragged breathing and the tick of talons on wood, the talons themselves, thick and curved, the claws of a creature that couldn’t exist. Big, the size of a full-grown man, but the resemblance ended there—and it was so impossible that she could only see it in pieces, her mind struggling to put them together. The inflamed, purplish flesh of the naked, long-limbed creature that clung to the ceiling. The puffed gray-white tissue of the partially exposed brain. The scar-rimmed holes where the eyes should have been.
• not seeing this—
The creature’s rounded head dropped back, the wide jaw opening, a ropy stream of dark drool pour-ing out and splattering over what was left of the cop. It extended its tongue, eely and pink, the rough surface shimmering wetly as it slithered out. And out. And out, the snaking tongue uncoiling and whipping from side to side, so long that it actually trailed through the ripped flesh of the corpse.
Still frozen, Claire watched in horrified disbelief as the incredible tongue snapped back up, flicking drop-lets of blood through the shadowy air. The entire process had taken only a second, but time had slowed to a crawl, Claire’s heart beating so fast that every-thing else was in slow motion—even the creature’s drop to the wooden floor, its body flipping in midair so that it landed in a crouch atop the mutilated cop.
The creature opened its mouth again and screamed—
• and Claire was finally able to move as the bizarre, hollow shriek erupted from the monster, able to point her weapon and fire. The thunder of nine-millimeter rounds drowned out the howl that echoed through the tight hallway, bam-bam-bam—
• and still screaming that chilling, trumpeting cry, the creature was thrown back, its claw-tipped arms flailing. Its spasming legs kicked up bloody chunks of the eviscerated body; Claire saw a ragged flap of scalp, one ear still attached, fly across the hall and smack into the wall with a wet slapping sound, sliding down—
• and the creature got its legs beneath it somehow and flopped forward in a boneless lunge. It spidered toward her, lightning fast, gripping the wood floor with its terrible claws and howling.
Claire fired again, unaware that she was also screaming as three more rounds hit the scuttling thing, ripping through the gray matter that protruded from its open skull. She was going to die, it would be on her in less than a second and its massive talons were only inches from her legs—
• and as suddenly as the attack had come, it was over. Every part of the sinewy body quivered and shook as liquid gray dribbled from its burbling head, the thick claws tapping wildly against the wood floor in a frantic tattoo. With a final whispering whine, the creature died. There was no mistaking it this time. She’d blasted through its brain, it wasn’t going to get up again.
She stared down at the monster, her shocked mind digging for something to relate it to, some animal or even a rumor of an animal that came close—but she gave it up after a few seconds, recognizing it as a lost cause. This was no natural creature, and as close as it was, she could finally smell it—the odor was not as pungent as the zombies’, it was a bitter, oily smell, somehow more chemical than animal. ., . . . and it could smell like chocolate-chip cookies, who gives a shit? Raccoon City’s got monsters, it’s time to stop being so goddamn surprised when you see one of them.
The chiding tone of her mind’s voice wasn’t partic-ularly convincing. As much as she wanted to feel brave and determined, to step over the monstrous creature and get on with things, she just stood for a moment—and for that moment, she thought very seriously about going back to the S.T.A.R.S. office, going inside, and locking the door behind her. She could hide, hide and wait for help, she could be
safe—
Decide, then. Do something, one way or another, stop this wavering and whining, because it’s not just you anymore. Will Sherry be safe? Do you want to survive at the cost of her life?
The moment passed. Claire took a careful step over the raw red flesh of the creature and crouched down next to the cop’s remains, using the muzzle of the handgun to push a torn piece of bloody uniform aside. She swallowed down bile as she poked through the rotten flesh and bone, working not to think about who the cop had been or how he had died.
Nothing, and she now had only seven bullets left—but she refused to panic, letting the disappointment fuel her determination instead. If she could search one bloody mess, she could search another. With a last look at the dead animal-thing, Claire stood and walked quickly toward the end of the corridor, her decision made: no hiding and no more running from the fear. At the very least, she could take a few of the monsters with her, raising Sherry’s chances of escape.
It would be better to die trying than not to try at all.
She wouldn’t waver again.
FlFfEEn
LEON FOUND ADA IN THE KENNEL, STRAINing to lever up the rusted manhole cover that the reporter had told them about. She’d turned up a crowbar from somewhere and had it wedged beneath the thick iron plate, her well-defined biceps lightly sheened with sweat as she worked the bar. She’d managed to raise the cover about an inch, but let it drop back into place as he walked in, the metallic clang loud in the cold, empty room.