Keep shooting

He couldn’t just run away as the officer might still need his help. Leon took a deep breath and fired rapidly at the blonde. Luck finally found him this time as one of the bullets hit right between Katherine’s eyes. She was shocked for an instant and heavily fell to the ground. The wound didn’t heal up like the last time and she was lying over there without any movement, like a real dead corpse.

Leon swiftly came up to check the wounds of the officer, but unfortunately the officer did not make it. Losing someone really hit hard on him, let alone losing a future colleague. He closed the officer’s eyes.

But he did not have more time to mourn. He quickly ran outside the storage, only to find out that the door to the store was locked from outside by someone, or something. With all his strength, he couldn’t open it from the inside.

“You gotta be kidding me?” He gathered his courage and returned to the storage to find another way out.

Behind layers of shelves he found a bunch of spare keys which could open a door to the store counter. Just when he smiled for his good luck, he heard some strange noises coming from inside the storage.

Suspiciously, he pointed the flashlight towards the noises. Katherine, who was keeping the same shocked expression before she fell, was sitting up from the dead. The wound between her eyes was healing, though not as fast as the wound on her shoulder before. At the same time, the officer’s corpse started twitching.

“Jesus Christ...” Leon did not want to find out what's going to happen next. He opened the door in a hurry and rushed out into the store counter.

As he was locking the door behind him he saw the bald security guard slowly getting up. The guard growled like an animal, revealing the bloody fangs in his mouth, and move towards him. Without any hesitation, he jumped agilely over the counter and ran to the exit.

It was at this moment that a ponytail young girl in a red jacket came up and opened the door from outside. He immediately raised his gun.

“Don’t shoot!” The girl cried out with her hands in the air.

“Get down!” Leon shouted firmly.

The girl quickly crouched and almost at the same time, Leon pulled the trigger and took down a monster which was about to grab on to her. He quickly ran out of the store and locked the door behind him.

“You alright?” He asked.

“Yeah, I think so...Thanks.” The girl, still in a state of shock, stood up.

“You can thank me later, when we’re safe.” Leon looked at their surroundings and held his gun more tightly.

The gas station was flooded with dozens of those blood thirsty monster in mere minutes and he didn't even know where they were hiding before. Luckily, they moved so slowly that, he thought he could manage to pass through the gaps between them with the girl. However, he realized that most monsters were coming from the direction of his car, which meant it would be extremely dangerous to reach it. On the other side, the officer’s police car, with its door opened, might be their best bet.

The bald guard slapped on the door behind them, which caught their attention. Through the window on the door, Leon saw Katherine walking out of the storage after she broke the lock, with the turned officer behind her. The monster that just got a head shot started moving again and was about to get up. There’s no time to lose. They must escape at once.

“Come on!” Leon yelled and headed to the police car.

The girl was brave enough to follow and, after pushing aside a monster in her way, made it to the car. Lucky for them, the key was there.

“Hold on!” Leon started the car and back it into the highway. With a smooth turn, it headed straight towards the city, leaving all the monsters behind. The blonde crushed the door and walked into the heavy rain. Watching the police car gradually fading away into the darkness, she smiled.

“What the hell is going on?” The girl looked around anxiously.

“I don’t know...” He shook his head, “Hopefully, they’ll have some answers at the police station.”

“Wait, you’re a cop?” Like finally found something to hold on to, the girl asked in surprise.

“Yeah, Leon S. Kennedy. You are?”

“Claire. Claire Redfield.” She smiled in relief.

“Live around here?” He tried to release the tension in this small car.

“No, looking for my brother. He’s a cop, too.” Claire was clearly more relaxed.

“Well, it’s a good thing we found each other.” He sighed, “I don’t know what to expect anymore...”

After a couple minutes they arrived in Raccoon City. The Emergency Broadcast System was at work and advising all citizens to take shelter at the police station due to the citywide outbreak. However, aside from the broadcast and the rain, the city was in dead silence.

“Oh my god, this is so unreal...” Claire lowered her head in frustration.

“The police station’s not much farther. They’ll know something.” Leon assured her.

“Yeah, but...what if we’re the only ones?” She crossed her fingers and looked at her companion, the only human alive she saw tonight, “What if there’s no survivors...”

“No. There’s survivors. It’s a big city...there has to be.” His voice was becoming lower and lower, as if he knew it was just some kind of self-consolation to keep him going. If the city was full of those monsters, those like that Katherine, then...there would be no hope.

Claire understood the desperation in Leon’s words and stopped talking. For a few minutes there was only silence in the car, before it was broken by another bad situation. The road ahead of them was blocked by barricades and dozens of abandoned vehicles, which prevented them from driving further.

“Look like we’re walking from here.” Leon said. He knew the risk but he had no better options.

It was at this moment Claire noticed something was moving at the side of the road. In the dim light, two of the monsters were ferociously biting a man on the ground. One of them heard something and looked up at the car with a bloody mouth.

“More like running.” She gasped in horror.

“Yeah, good call.” Leon nodded.

But before they could do anything, they were surrounded by monsters. These ones were moving faster than those they encountered at the gas station, probably because these ones have feasted on more blood in the populated city area.

“Leon! We gotta back up!” Claire yelled but was interrupted by the dazzling headlights behind them, “What the...”

An oil tanker was charging towards them at full speed. The trucker, unusually pale, looked blankly at them with a strange smile on his face and didn’t seem to have any intention to slow down.

“Holy shit.” Leon looked at Claire in despair and shouted, “Claire, get out! Get out NOW!”

Their efforts were in vain as dozens of those monsters were still blocking the door. They could not get out of the car and they could not evade the tanker. All they could do now was hold on to something in the car to minimize the damage.

The tanker crashed directly into the car. With the heavy impact, Leon almost lost his consciousness.