haul was sliding dan- gerously at each frantic swerve, the driver had a full load. In the split-second that it took to digest that information, to pray that it wasn't gas or oil, the tanker had halved the distance between them. She could actually see the flames painted across the dark green cab, but even then it wasn't real until Leon broke their stunned silence. "... maniac's gonna ram us," he breathed, and then they were both stabbing at the seat-belt releases, Claire praying that the crash hadn't locked them somehow... The sound of the belts letting go were inaudible beneath the rising monolithic growl of the oncoming tanker and the echoing crunch of cars being side-swiped left and right. It would be on them in a heartbeat. "Run!" Leon shouted, and then she was pushing her way out of the squad car, cool air against her sweaty skin and the scream of the truck's engine blocking out everything else. She took three giant running leaps and then felt as much as heard the impact, the asphalt shaking be- neath her feet even as the crash of rending metal thundered behind her.
One more flying step, and...
KABOOM!... she was being pushed, shoved roughly off her feet by an incredible pressure wave of heat and sound. She managed to kick off against the ground as the tanker's explosion turned night to day in one brilliant instant. An awkward shoulder roll, grit biting into her heat-blasted skin, and she landed behind a parked car in a gasping heap. There was a brief, clattering rain of smoking debris, and Claire was on her feet, stumbling back into the street to search the towering flames for some sign of Leon. Her heart sank. The tanker, squad car, and what had once been a hardware store were all envel-oped in an inferno of chemical fire, the street com-pletely blocked by the mass of twisted, burning destruction.
"Claire..."
Leon's voice, muffled but audible through the wall of curling flame.
"Leon?" "I'm okay!" he shouted. "Head to the station, I'll meet you there!"
Claire hesitated for a second, staring down at the handgun she still held tightly in one shaky hand. She was afraid, scared of being alone in a city that had turned into a living graveyard, but it wasn't like there was much of a choice. Wishing that circum- stances were different was a waste of time.
"Okay!"
She turned, trying to get her bearings by the smok- ing, flickering light of the wreck. The station was close, a couple of blocks away and there were creatures lurching out of the shadows, from behind cars and inside darkened buildings. With single-minded purpose, they sham- bled into the strange light of the blazing accident, making small sounds of hunger as they came - two, three, four of them. She saw tattered skin and rotting limbs, gaping blackness where eyes should be - and still they came, moving slowly toward her as if homing in on living flesh. Beyond the fiery wreck, she heard gunfire - two shots from perhaps a block away, then nothing -
- nothing but the crackle of consuming flame and the soft, helpless cries of the shuffling dead.
Leon's on his own now MOVE!
Claire took a deep breath, spotted an opening with-in the lethal crowd closing in on her, and ran.
Chapter Six
Ada wong fit the shimmering disc of metal into the slot on the statue, patting it into the opening until it was flush with the marble. As soon as it was in place, she heard the shift of hidden levers and stepped back to see what would happen. Her footfalls echoed through the massive lobby of the RPD building, the sounds reverberating back to her from three stories of open room.
Another key? One of the subbasement medals? Or perhaps the sample itself, hidden in plain sight... wouldn't that be a happy surprise.
If wishes were horses. The water-bearing nymph made of stone slid forward at a slight angle, the pitcher at her shoulder dropping a slender piece of metal atop the lip of the defunct fountain. The spade key. She sighed, picking it up. She already had the keys; in fact, she had everything she needed to search the sta- tion, and most of what she needed to get into the lab. If it wasn't for someone at Umbrella dropping the bomb, the job would have been a walk. Easy money.
Instead, I get a three-day vacation sans comfort, I get night of the living standoff, I get to play Put the