Into the police station

After parting ways with other survivors, Claire finally arrives at the Raccoon Police Department. With a slim hope of finding her brother here, she begins her exploration of the station.

Chapter 2 - Chase The Light

Along the walkway Claire arrived at the west courtyard of the station and noticed someone was trying to dig graves on the lawn. However, based on her understandings of the “victims”, they would rise again before the graves were even finished. That explained why all the graves were empty.

She hasn’t found an way into the station yet, so she ventured into the hallway beneath the entrance. The guardroom’s door was chained, of course. She’s getting used to the bad luck she had tonight. Moving forward she reached the east courtyard, where several dormant vampires were lying on the ground. She was just trying to sneak pass them, however, a runaway police helicopter crashed into the station and made a loud noise.

“Oh my god...” She prepared herself for a run, but the vampires were as still as truly dead. She kept moving with caution, and was finally stopped by a sturdy door in front of her. An hawk pattern was on the lock, which could be a hint to the key. There was a cutting tool lying in the wheelbarrow beside the door that could be used to cut the chains on the guardroom’s door. Maybe she would have a bit of luck there.

Just when she was about to go back, she saw a familiar figure coming out from the second floor to the fire escape to check on the crashed helicopter.

“HEY! LEON?” She yelled with joy.

“CLAIRE!” Leon poked his head with a smile and quickly ran down the staircase, “HOLD ON! I’LL BE RIGHT THERE!”

“OK!”

As soon as Leon approached her he noticed the iron door between them was more durable than he thought. He couldn’t open it by ****, nor has he found a key in his fancy pockets. By this time they both knew the only way was to find a key.

“Claire...I’m sorry. I don’t have the key.” Leon sighed helplessly.

“Don’t be. It’s good to see you made it.” She smiled with optimism. She has overcome many difficulties tonight, and she wouldn’t be stopped by a simple door.

“That makes the two of us. How are you doing?” He asked with concern.

“You know...Just surviving. I met other survivors but...got separated on the way here. And...haven’t find my brother yet.” She answered with a bit frustration as she’s not sure about whether she did the right choice to leave Sam to the U.B.C.S. mercenary. Even finding Chris in the police station seemed to be an unrealistic wish now.

“Claire, don’t lose hope...I’m sure we’re gonna find-”

The conversation was interrupted by the huge explosion from the helicopter. The fire bell rung immediately, which, like a dinner bell, awoke every hungry vampire in the east wing and in the courtyard. Numerous vampires were rising from the grass behind Claire and gradually closing in.

“Claire, you need to go...NOW!” Leon anxiously held on the fences.

“Don’t worry about me, Leon. You take care of yourself.” Claire pulled out her pistol and walked a few steps ahead firmly, before turning around and making a promise, “Hey...Let’s get through this. Both of us.”

Seeing Leon nodded was comforting enough for her to seize the courage to keep that promise. She swiftly ran between the slowly walking vampires and headed back in the below-ground hallway. After cutting the chains, she successfully entered the guardroom.

The room was relatively small with several wardrobes, on one of which a key with a hawk tag was hanging. Though what’s attracting her attention more was a quickdraw army pistol on the desk, along with a hand grenade. The pistol had more fire power, making it easier to slow the vampires down.

She walked out of the room and faced the approaching vampires without fear. With the large-caliber pistol she severed the legs of a few vampire in the front, and threw the grenade amidst them. A huge explosion blasted all the monsters into piece. By the time they regenerated, if they ever could, she would have left the scene already.

Claire stepped across all the corpses and blood and returned to east courtyard to unlock the hawk door. The explosion caused by the helicopter has already set the hallway on the second floor on fire, so going that way was not a good option. She used the cutting tool again to cut the chains on the door beside her, and through it, entered the station.

In front of her was the messed-up east hallway where blood and corpses were everywhere. The power of this area was mostly off, except for the watchman’s room, so it was almost dark in here. Even with the pistol in her hand she couldn’t feel any sense of safety. But she didn’t have any other choice but to start searching.

The east office door was also chained, but she didn’t cut them immediately this time. She kept going along the hallway and found a great amount of missing people notices on the wall. The preliminary estimate of the potential missing number was over 200. On one of the largest notice she saw a missing person named Stephanie Minervino, who looked quite familiar with Sam.

“Hope you find her at the clock tower, Sam.” She whispered. After taking a deep breath, she continued searching for the exit.

At the end of the hallway there was a closed shutter, with the fuse panel that controlled it missing one of its fuse. The door on the other side of the east office was blocked by something behind it, so there was no way for her to enter from here. Having searched every corner of the east hallway, she could only hope to find a fuse in the east office.

Returning to the east side, she cut the chains on the door and ventured into the east office. Lights were on inside and she immediately saw a black police officer sitting by the wall with his head down but still slowly breathing. He was extremely pale and covering a blood-dripping wound on his stomach with one hand, holding a fuse with the other.

That wound...It couldn’t have been inflicted by something else, right? It was a vampire bite. She held her pistol tightly and carefully approached the officer.

“Hey, are you alright?” She asked cautiously.

The officer woke up with a fury hiss. She could clearly saw the red eyes and a pair of fangs of his, so she immediately pointed the gun at him. What stopped her from firing was that, the officer showed a shocked expression afterwards and tried to touch his fangs with his shaking hand.

“No, no...I...I should have...I couldn’t...” He tried his best to finish a sentence but failed.

“What...what do you mean?” Claire was still aiming at his head.

“I tried...I tried...” The officer looked up at Claire and the shock in his eyes was fading away. All that’s left was hunger.

A terrible headache struck Claire when the vampire gazed at her. Before she could fully recover the office leaped towards her and grabbed her leg. Just about he was going to bite, a large-caliber bullet pierced his cheek and **** him backward. He growled in pain and stood up, ready for another attack.

“I’m sorry.” Claire gritted her teeth and this time landed a precise shot between his eyes to temporarily silence him.

Still shaken, she grabbed the fuse that rolled on the ground. Before the vampire fully healed up, she has around 5 minutes to check the office. Much to her surprise, there was a GM 79 grenade launcher lying on the desk inside the deputy office, with a flame round loaded in it. This should come in handy, she thought.

Just when she removed the chair with books that blocked the door to the hallway, she heard a strange noise came from outside, like something has dropped from the vent to the ground. She was alert at once and backed up for a few steps. What the hell was that?

Suddenly, something burst the door open...