A Sanguine Vision (Leon Kennedy x OC) [BOOK 4]

Chapter 8: Prey

"Retreat!" Chris barked through the walkie, but Leon and I didn't need to be prompted before we launched back down the hall we came from.

"You people," The voice says, a breathy laugh haunting her voice. "You really don't know when to quit." That voice. It's the woman who dosed me at the bar. The one who kidnapped Rebecca.

"That's the woman from the hotel."

Leon's eyes darted to me, his chin dipping in understanding.

"I'm sure you thought you'd take us by surprise here?" She hummed, "I suppose I could reward you for your annoying efforts."

The clink of metal sounded around us, like the tapping of heavy, concurrent piano keys. Click, click, click.

I looked to my right, following the sound until my eyes landed on one of the barred metal doors. Shit.

It only took a second for the door to shoot open, revealing five reanimated corpses shoved into the small office. Their hollow eyes had already set upon us, the promise of food causing their feet to move.

Leon skidded to a halt, throwing out his hand to stop my forward motion as the rest of the doors up the hall slammed open, each no doubt filled with the living dead.

The first corpse threw its decaying fingers toward me, mouth dripping with tarry, black saliva and cracked teeth. I used my pistol to slap the arms away, giving myself room as I backed away and fired. Leon threw out his leg, his boot colliding with the head of a zombie who'd lunged for him from the other side of the hall. The force sent it backwards, jaw dislodging and left dangling by only a thin strip of tendon.

I looked back, noting the two rooms a few feet behind us open, its occupants sauntering toward the commotion in the hall.

"Behind," I said to Leon, spinning around and firing at the first two heads I laid eyes on.

"Clear the path, we need to take the long way." Leon called, voicing blinking in and out between the ringing of bullets.

I followed the command in a heartbeat, firing at two more corpses dressed in slacks and dress shirts stumbling towards us. A woman whose rotting chest was exposed above the neck of her tank top stumbled forward from my right side, howling with delight that brightened her dark, blood stained eyes.

I threw my elbow into her face, avoiding her lunging mouth as I shattered the brittle bones in her nose. Dark blood sputtered free, painting the carpet between us as I jammed my pistol into her wounded face and pulled the trigger.

Two more bullets cleared the immediate path behind us, "Now!" I called, signaling Leon.

He turned, ducking out from another rotting set of hands and running alongside me.

"Do you know where we're going?" He asked, turning to take in the small horde following us, the tick of his jaw as he turned back around was all I needed to see to know we had quite a crowd following us.

I gritted my teeth, combing through the schematics I'd been studying earlier, the small white lines of the top and bottom floors blurring together. The soldier we'd found in the hall had been assigned to the lower floor so there must be a staircase nearby, but I didn't remember one noted on the map? Screw it. We needed to get back to the entry hall from the second floor and make it to the main stairs.

"Shit. Maybe next right, then two lefts?" The first and second floor had been surprisingly different, making differentiating the two while running for my life seem like an impossible task.

I hope to God my memory doesn't lead us down a dead end...

"I do love this game of cat and mouse," The woman's voice cooed. "You feel that terror? That is what your allegiance to the warmongers you call a government has earned you."