Chapter 33
Leon pressed his back into the wall, his heart racing. “Jesus!” he shouted, “I’m not a zombie! Don’t shoot!”
He waited for a moment and then poked his head out. But the woman was no longer standing there, she was all the way down the hall, running away from him. He got to his feet and ran out after her.
“Hey! Come back! I said I’m not a –”
He jumped out of the way as a pair of zombies lunged at him from the adjacent hallway heading off to the right. Leon scrambled along the wall, past the oncoming crowd, avoiding their grasp. He only had a handful of bullets in his Desert Eagle and couldn’t afford to waste them.
As he dodged the zombies, he felt stupid for running after the woman without looking. She was firing the shotgun down the hall, so he should have known that there were zombies there. But he was so stunned to see another survivor, he ran out without thinking.
Of course, the first thing the woman did was try to shoot him. He had no idea why she was running away from him, but it didn’t matter.
She was out of sight already, having turned a corner. Leon ran after her, and saw that the hallway turned off to the left, past a break room with vending machines and plastic tables, and ended in a pair of staircases. Leon paused momentarily before heading up to the third floor. The woman must have gone upstairs, he decided.
Leon reached the top of the steps and looked around. There was a long hallway heading in front of him, and two more leading to the right and left. The woman was nowhere in sight.
“Hey!” Leon shouted. “Where are you?”
There was no reply, so Leon went forward cautiously. No zombies came when he shouted, so for the moment he felt reasonably safe. He walked to the end of the hall, passing more small offices and a photography lab. Unlike the lower floors, the third floor seemed fairly undamaged by the infestation. There was no blood all over the floor and none of the rooms seemed to be trashed. If there were any survivors, they would certainly be on the upper floors.
Leon ran his hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck, looking around disappointedly. The woman, whoever she was, had disappeared. She must have gone down one of the other halls, or maybe even to the first floor. Why she ran away in the first place was a mystery though. She probably was just surprised, or scared because she fired the shotgun at him.
Leon didn’t hold it against her. He had been shot at plenty of times when he was a Ranger. Of course, he was wearing body armor those times, and was actively shooting back.
The hallway opened up to a wide foyer with some plastic chairs lined against the wall and a large mural on the wall, some artist’s rendering of the Raccoon City skyline. Right ahead of him was a stairway heading back down to the second floor. Leon walked through the foyer and turned left, where the hallway continued, and stopped in his tracks.
There was a dead zombie sprawled on the floor, dark red blood staining the gray floor tiles. Leon stepped forward, glanced at the dead zombie, and then looked around nervously, as if expecting an ambush. He knelt down and looked at the body.
The zombie was a young woman wearing a red skirt and white blouse, her arms spread out at her sides. Her legs were chewed on, blood pooled around her knees. But there was also a small bullet hole right in the center of her forehead. The blood around the bullet hole was already dry, so the zombie must have been shot a few hours ago at least.
Leon slowly stood up and looked around again. There were only three directions: down the stairs, down the hall in front of him, or back the way he came. The dead zombie was shot facing the stairs, so Leon guessed that whoever shot it came from that direction. And if they were as low on ammunition as Leon was, they would not have wasted a bullet unless they absolutely had to.
Leon walked down the hall, glancing into the rooms. There was a multimedia room with a large projector screen, a communications room with a radio and several computers, and a pair of lavish conference rooms. This part of the police station was clearly for the higher-ranking officers and distinguished visitors. All of the rooms Leon checked were empty.
There was another room with several cubicles for administrative work, and a long glass case along the wall that displayed newspaper clippings and several plaques commemorating outstanding service. At the end of the hall were several large offices, which Leon guessed belonged to the Chief of Police and other high-ranking commanders.
The first office was empty, as was the second. The third office actually led into a small waiting room with a desk for a secretary and several chairs. The name card on the inner door read “Chief of Police, Brian Irons.”
Leon stared at the door for a moment, unsure what to do. Whoever killed that zombie almost certainly came this way, and this was the last room to check. If no one was in there, Leon was out of luck. And if someone was inside, they might have been infected already, and all the office contained now was another zombie.
Leon tried the door, but it was locked. He rattled the doorknob for a second, and then banged gently on the door, opening his mouth to ask if anyone was there.
A gunshot rang out and a tiny hole blasted through the door right above Leon’s shoulder, inches from his face. He frantically jumped backward as another bullet blasted through the door at chest height, little splinters of wood fluttering into the air.
“God damn it!” Leon shouted, bracing himself against the wall. “I’m not a zombie! Put the gun away for God’s sake!” His heart pounded so hard he thought he was going to have an aneurysm. What are the odds he would run into two other survivors and both of them would immediately shoot at him?
There was silence for a few moments and then the lock on the door clicked. Leon swallowed hard and said, “I’m not infected or anything. You’re not going to shoot at me again, are you?”
There was no answer, so Leon carefully turned the doorknob and allowed the door to swing open, although he remained partially hidden behind the edge of the doorjamb, against the wall.
The office was surprisingly small, dominated by a huge wooden desk that stretched almost all the way across it. There were two upholstered chairs in front of it, and the rest of the office was crammed with pictures and statues and artwork stacked on shelves along both side walls like a supply room at a museum.
Behind the desk sat a huge man with a scruffy reddish beard and small, intense eyes. His forehead was dotted with sweat and his hair stuck out in all directions. The man glared suspiciously at Leon, a small revolver in his trembling hand.
“Who are you?” he rasped.
“My name’s Leon Kennedy. I’m just another survivor, that’s all. I saw a dead zombie down the hall and came this way, hoping to find another living person.”
“Kennedy?” the man said, tilting his head. “I know that name. You just transferred to the S.T.A.R.S. unit, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Leon said, surprised. “I came to Raccoon City today to look for an apartment and ... well, I found all this. How did you know that?”
“I’m the Police Chief,” the man grunted. “I’m Brian Irons. I signed your transfer form just the other day.”
Leon came into the room, holding his hands out, still worried that Irons might twitch and pull the trigger again. He closed the door behind him and sat down on one of the chairs. Irons watched him like a hawk.
“I’m trying to get out of here,” Leon said. “Do you know if there is any place in this city that’s still safe?”
“No,” Irons said with a jerk of his head. “The city is overrun. You shouldn’t have even come here. This building is a death trap.”
“Tell me about it,” Leon said. “I came here with a woman who was looking for her brother, and now we’re separated. I was hoping to maybe find some other survivors though.”
“Who were you looking for?” Irons asked.
“Someone named Chris. The woman’s name is Claire.”
A strange, creepy smile
curved Irons’ mouth. “Little Claire is here? She’s a nice girl, I met her a few times. If you see her again, you can tell her that Chris left Raccoon City already. He got out when he could. If I was smart I would have joined him.”
Leon leaned forward. “Listen, just what in the hell happened? Do you know anything about this weird disease?”
Irons’ vacant stare seemed to bore right through him. He wasn’t even looking at Leon, he was staring into nothingness. His breath came in short, sharp gasps as a bead of sweat trailed down the side of his face.
“Yes, I know what happened,” he said softly, looking down at the surface of his desk. “Maybe it’s a good thing that you showed up here. I’m not going anywhere, but maybe if you get out alive, you can tell them what really happened.” Irons swallowed hard and wiped his face with his hand, searching for the right words.
“A man named Albert Wesker was the commander of the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team,” he began, “but he also worked for the Umbrella Corporation. He was one of the scientists at their laboratory out in the mountains. For years, he worked at both places, but no one knew about it but me. I knew about it because I helped him fake all his transfer forms and records when he first came to work here. He ... he was paying me, you see. He paid me bribes for years to keep it a secret.”
“Why?” Leon asked. “Why did he work here?”
“I don’t really know,” Irons admitted. “A couple of reasons, I guess. He wanted to know about any investigations that involved Umbrella or the facility. That way he could direct the investigation to keep the work they did there a secret. They did illegal things there, stuff I don’t even know about. But I know they disposed of dead bodies more than once, and Wesker handled the investigations.”
“And you kept all this quiet?”
“Yes,” Irons said gravely. “At first I didn’t really know what I was involved in, but I took all those bribes for years. If I tried to expose Wesker, he would expose me as well. I was ... I was afraid, and I’m ashamed of myself for it ...”
“That’s not important now. How did all this happen?”
Irons swallowed again and took a deep breath. “It started a couple of days ago. Wesker came to me and said that he needed the Bravo team to go on a mission, but he ... he wouldn’t tell me exactly what was going on. He said there was an incident at his laboratory. So we faked a distress call and sent Bravo team out into the mountains. We lost contact with them almost immediately, but we couldn’t tell anyone what was going on. Wesker came up with some story about a secret government facility, and the rest of the S.T.A.R.S. team bought it, at least for a little while.”
“What happened to them?”
“Wesker didn’t tell me. But we never heard back from them. Our regular protocol is to send backup after 24 hours, so the next day, the Alpha team went out as well. Right before they left, Wesker came here and told me that I would never see him again. That he was finished working for Umbrella. And he ... he implied that the S.T.A.R.S. team wasn’t coming back either, although he didn’t come right out and say it.”
“Did they come back?”
“A few of them did,” Irons said hesitantly. “Four members of the team made it back, and they told me what they witnessed at the laboratory.”
After a moment, Leon urged him on.
“They discovered an outbreak exactly the one that’s happening here,” Irons said emotionlessly. “They found the whole place full of ... full of zombies. Umbrella was doing some kind of medical research there, and they made this disease that turns people into zombies. I don’t understand any of it, I don’t know how its even possible, but the whole laboratory was full of zombies. And there were other creatures as well ...”
Leon didn’t want to ask what he meant by that. Instead, he asked, “How did the outbreak reach the city? Did the officers bring it back with them?”
“I don’t know how it spread so fast, it all seemed to happen at once. We got a few scattered calls in the early morning about strange behavior and people being attacked, but all of a sudden people just started to change. I think the disease must have gotten into the city’s water supply. It’s the only way it could have infected so many people at the same time.”
“Jesus,” Leon whispered. It made sense. He originally speculated that the disease was spread through the air, because it seemed like the only way so many people could have been infected at once. But if something got into the city’s water supply, then everyone who used water in the morning would have been infected. That’s why most of the zombies appeared to be people who were dressed for work, like all the zombies in the industrial park. They got infected and then went to work, where they turned into zombies a short time later.
He glanced up to see Irons crying. “I’ve been a police officer for thirty years,” he said, his voice cracking. “And I’ve lived in Raccoon City my whole life. I never thought I’d see my home destroyed. And it’s all my fault ...”
“No, stop that,” Leon said. He didn’t need Irons to blame himself for all of this, although for all he knew, Irons was right. “You said that other guy did all of this. What was his name?”
“Wesker.”
“Do you know if he made it out alive?”
“He’s dead,” Irons said, gritting his teeth. “When Chris and the others came back, they said they saw him die. Saw it with their own eyes. If they hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it. He probably had some desperate plan to escape. I guess that son of a bitch finally got what was coming to him. He got killed by one of his own creatures.”
“Listen, you have to come with me,” Leon said. “I’m totally lost in this place. You know how to get out of here, you can get us to safety. If we can get out of here, I’m sure that we can get out of the city.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Irons said, his hand resting on the revolver on his desk. “I know that. I’m to blame for this whole disaster, so I don’t deserve to make it out alive. I’m going to die here.”
“Don’t say that.”
“If you can make it out, you can tell the world who’s responsible for this. But I can’t go with you. I can’t live with what I’ve done.”
He picked up the gun and raised it to his face. Leon realized what he was doing a moment too late, and jumped out of the chair, reaching out to grab the gun.
“No! Stop!”
Irons stuck the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. His head snapped back and he flopped over to the side, blood gushing from his nose. The gun tumbled to the floor and Irons’ body slumped down across the desk
Leon turned away and closed his eyes, shaking his head sadly.
He came to the police station to look for survivors. The first one he found ran away from him, and the second one committed suicide. He wasn’t having very good luck. He looked down at Irons’ body and had to feel sorry for the man. Irons survived the infestation, only to be overwhelmed by guilt in the aftermath. Leon wondered what Irons would have done if Leon hadn’t showed up. Would he have just sat in his office until the zombies found him, or would he have eventually taken his own life anyway? If someone like Claire found him, would he still have killed himself?
Leon picked up the revolver and saw that there were no more bullets. Irons had saved the last one for himself. Leon set the gun on the desk and left the office.
He walked down the hall until he made his way back to the dead zombie in the red skirt. He considered going down the staircase nearby, but chose against it. If Irons came from that direction, it probably meant zombies were on his tail. Instead, Leon walked all the way back to the staircase he came from. He hadn’t checked the hallway that headed to the left and right of the stairs, so he picked a direction at random and tried to find another way out.