Strike - "How about a third choice"

At the moment that Henry was distracted by the naked Sam, Claire gathered her strength and headbutted his lower jaw. The vampire backed up and was overwhelmed by the sweetness of his own blood when his fangs pierced his mouth.

“How about a third choice, fucker?!” Claire took that chance and gave him a sucker punch on his eyes to distance herself.

That didn’t deal significant damage to the vampire, only angered him. When Claire pulled out her gun and was ready to shoot, Henry slapped her hand and knocked the gun out. He furiously grabbed the naked, dazed Sam from behind, and was about to bite.

“No!” Claire yelled in panic.

Bang!

Henry’s head exploded into a mist of blood. His headless corpse, as well as a delirious Sam, fell to the floor. Claire looked to the side almost open-mouthed as Dustin, arrived just in time, used his magnum pistol to save the day. She took a deep breath and silently thank him for hitting the vampire’s head precisely instead of otherwise. Deep down she thought that it would still be better for Sam than being turned into a blood sucking vampire, however, for the first time tonight she didn’t know if she had the courage to take that shot.

“Hopefully he can’t regenerate from that.” Dustin slowly walked up and kicked the headless corpse in anger, while Claire grabbed the clothes on the floor to cover Sam.

“What...what happened to me? Ah!” Sam was still a little confused at first, but as soon as she found herself naked and saw the dead vampire before her, she cried in horror.

“It’s OK, it’s OK...You’re safe now.” Claire helped Sam to put on her clothes with a gentle smile, “Next time, don’t look at their eyes, alright? And keep yourself safe first.”

“But...I thought you’ll need help...” Sam sobbed quietly, “I’m sorry...I’m useless...”

“No, you did well! You distracted him. You bought us enough time for Dustin to kill it.” Claire softly hugged Sam to ease her up. Sam was still crying but apparently becoming more calm.

“OK, we don’t know if there are more of them out there. Let’s be careful.” Dustin, still enduring the pain, helped them up with his shaking hands, “We should check this guy’s room.”

“Yeah.” Claire nodded, “Thank you for saving us.”

“It’s my job.” Dustin smiled.

While Dustin was carrying the badly shaken Sam behind, Claire cautiously stepped ahead into the director’s room. There was a bedroom deep inside, but since they found no other threats, they started to search for anything helpful. Claire found a diary of the director, the content of which made her uncomfortable.

“Sam, you needed to see this.” Claire handed the diary to her with a worried look. Sam, fearing what she might learn from it, took it and started to read.

Sep. 22

Stephanie has been asking questions. That bitch is annoying and doesn’t know when to shut up. Takahashi was taking her to the NEST to participate in the latest experiment. Damn. I need to shut my mouth too or I’ll be next.

Sep. 26

People are missing every day. Maria is sick. The communication with the NEST or Takahashi has been cut off since three days ago. What the hell happened?

“Oh, my god...Steph...They were...” Sam was shocked.

“Do you know where this ‘NEST’ is?” Claire asked.

“No...But this Takahashi...I believed it was the chief medical officer of this factory, Sara Takahashi.” Sam was thinking about the last time she visited this factory, “She’s not working at this place, usually, but she has her own office, just over there.”

“OK. Let’s check that later, then we’ll find this NEST and find your sister.” Claire reassured Sam.

“There’s no way you can get to the NEST.” Dustin said calmly, “‘NEST’ is a codename only used for the Umbrella laboratory with the highest security in a region. Even if we know where one is, we don’t have the clearance to get in. I suggest we evacuate as soon as possible.”

“I thought you said you need to contact the company?” Claire wondered.

“Jesus...I did my job by going this far. This is the biggest Umbrella facility other than the Headquarters in the city, which, let me remind you, is half a city away. If this place has fallen, believe me, the Headquarters won’t be better.” Dustin spoke with his right mind, “At least we can save ourselves.”

“I’m not...leaving my sister behind...now that I know where she is...” Sam was frustrated.

“I’m not saying-”

“Hey. Let’s not go that far yet, OK?” Claire stopped them from starting an argument, “One step at a time, let’s just find a way out of this place.”

After a moment of silence, Dustin nodded and Sam stopped crying. Claire kept investigating this room, but found nothing else useful except for some ammo. She found the panel that controlled the lockdown, however, lifting it required a retina recognition from the director, which was unavailable right now.

They had **** but to proceed to find the chief officer’s room, where Claire noticed that there was a big diamond sign on the locked door. Using the diamond key to unlock it, they successfully entered the room.

The decoration of this room was very simple that, besides a desk and a few chairs, there was basically nothing in it. Claire found a pass key card with the officer’s name Takahashi on it, which she believed could be used on the elevator. There’s also a heart key in here. She remembered there was a room in the police station, behind the operations room, that has a heart sign on it. But hell, she’s not going back to the station again.

“Hey, look at this.” Sam grabbed a map from a locker after Dustin busted it, “There was a secret tunnel as well as a lift platform down on the B3 floor. That was not on the structural diagram that we saw in the staircase.”

“Well, I bet that platform could take us to the NEST. Let’s go check it out.” Claire sighed in relief and walked out of the room with Sam. Dustin couldn’t help but shake his head and follow.

With no more obstacles, they went back to elevator by going through the production room. Using the pass key card, they managed to get to the B3 floor, and found a huge area with at least ten thousand square meter. The other side of the room, where the lift platform with a tramcar on it was at, had a massive picture window. Through it, Sam recognized the view from the Raccoon City Zoo. Several animal signs in the area indicated that this placed was used to transfer test animals to the laboratory.

“Seems like Umbrella is well connected.” Claire was amazed at the scale of this place. How much did it take to maintain such a facility?

“You don’t say.” Sam was surprised too.

They approached the lift platform but found out that, as Dustin said, they didn’t have the clearance to activate it. Claire tried the pass key card of the medical officer, but it didn’t work either.

Just when they were about to check the secret tunnel on the south side of the room, the pipes on the ceiling suddenly broke, and a giant humanoid creature fell into the room. Sam was terrified and hid behind Claire, while Dustin reacted quickly and aimed at the creature with his submachine gun. When that creature stood up, Claire immediately recognized its green vines and fanged tentacles.

“Holy shit! That thing chased me here all the way from the station?” Horrified, she shouted while going to grab the grenade launcher.

“What the hell is that thing?” Dustin cried in fear. He rapidly fired the submachine gun but the bullets hit on it barely had any effect, “Damn it! Didn’t work!”

“What are we gonna do?” Sam sounded like she’s about to break into tears.

Looking at the grenade launcher in her hands, Claire made up her mind.