Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
AN: YOU. LIKED. IT. . . .????? Were you people sober when you read this? You actually liked it?? Really?? ::sniff:: They like me, they really like me!! I thought for sure plenty of people would flame me about the druggie seen in the beginning, but rest assured, I wouldn't have put it in there had it not been significant in the storyline. Thank you for all of your reviews, really. I appreciate them all. I must apologize for the lateness of this chapter. I've been swamped with homework lately, but don't worry, I promise I won't take that long for chapter four, if you people really do like it.
"Kill a man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god."
-Jean Rostand, Pensees d'un biologiste
Trowa stood at the open doorway, a wave of recognition washing over him as he stared at the gunman who just happened to be pointing the deadly weapon straight at his head.
"Heero?"
"Get down!"
The Latin pilot obeyed, letting his knees buckle under himself as he dropped to the floor, protectively covering up his lover as the boy started to come to.
/Bam, bam!/
Two shots, not to far above his head followed by a thud. Trowa wheeled around to see the body of the zombie cook lying on the hardwood floor, his skull caved in, a spreading pool of scarlet surrounding his head.
"C'mon, it's not save here, we hafta go."
Trowa nodded, struggling to stand and hold on to Quatre's limp body at the same time. He sprinted after Heero, who ejected a clip from his Beretta and slapped a fresh one home as they bolted down a grim and shadowy back alley, and Trowa had just a few seconds to smell the stench of death in the air, to notice that Duo was also with them, to hear the ghostly moans of the zombies before he realized-
-//we have no where to go. . .//
"There!" came Heero's voice, and Trowa and Duo looked to where the Japanese boy was pointed, both audibly sighing with relief as they stared at their salvation, an abandoned cop car.
//Let there be keys, let there be keys, please God, let there be keys. . . //Duo's mind looped over and over again, as if his desperate pleas would tip the scales. If only they could find a way out and get help. . .
Heero reached the black-and-white first, he flung the driver's side door open and crashed into the seat, dropping the Beretta into his lap and instinctively checking the glove box for the keys.
//Hallelujah!//
With the keys in one sweaty palm, hurriedly shoved them in the ignition as his friends joined him, Trowa and Duo squeezing into the front seats with Quatre draped over them. "Buckle up." Heero commanded, grimly remembering what happened the last time he had been driving a car. . .
Pain. Darkness and darkness, with pinpoints of light passing by. He was moving, but not by his own force. Darkness. A thousand images coming into focus for a split second before drifting into blurry haze. Pain. The torment of thousands, crying out to him. Out of the unpenetrable dark, pictures and sounds were starting to come to him as the pain lessened. It could only mean one thing. The people who were crying out for him were dying off, at an exponential rate. He slowly opened his eyes, to wake from one nightmare into another.
"T-Trowa?"
He stared up at his lover, whose face was drawn tight and tense, his usually unreadable stoic features pulled into a firm and grim expression, his thin lips pressed into a line. Sweat beaded his upper lip and forehead, his eyes wide, the beautiful green orbs now smoky jade with worry. He immediately looked down upon hearing his name called.
"Quatre," Trowa breathed, staring down at his delicate lover who lay wounded in his arms. Gently, Trowa ran his thin and tapered fingers through Quatre's soft blonde hair, trying his best to comfort him.
"Trowa. . ." Quatre rasped again, struggling to sit up. Trowa shushed him and softly pushed him back down.
"Hey, li'l buddy," came a husky voice and the little blonde looked to see Duo worriedly looking down at him as Trowa did.
"Where are we?" Quatre croaked.
"In a car. We're going to stop at the hotel to pick up Hilde, Relena, Sally, and Wu-man before we get the hell out of this place," replied Duo, shifting his weight to get a better look at Quatre. His brows furrowed. "Are you okay, Q-man? You didn't get bitten did you? Those things out they seem to like the taste of human flesh. . ."
Quatre smiled. Silly Duo, to be so worried. "Nah, m'okay. It doesn't hurt so bad anymore. It just felt like. . . well like people were screaming out in pain, and I-" the delicate blonde choked a sob back as he tried to continue. "I, I can't help them, and I think they're dying. . ."
"Shh," Trowa soothed, stroking Quatre's blonde locks again. "It's okay, just rest now. But. . . speaking of those. . . 'things'. . . /what are they?/"
Trowa's words were met with dead silence.
Heero, who had been driving in silence until then, finally spoke up. "I think I know what's on all of our minds. The problem is it's so childish and far-fetched we don't want to say it. Well, I'm going to say it. Those things out there are zombies, aren't they? Maybe it's not so far-fetched after all. I mean, they're here, right?"
"/Jesus,/" Duo breathed, summing it up in one word. "/Zombies?/ I mean, we've all heard the old campfire tales about them- flesheaters- but, who /made/ them? Why are they here?"
No one had an answer. Heero swallowed a lump in his throat and pressed the gas petal farther down, determined that this wasn't going to be the last place he ever saw again.
The rest of the ride went on in silence, each one of the boys mulling over their current situation. It seemed like a dream to them, a nightmare they would awake from. The deathly moans pursuing their car and the horrible stench of death reminded them that the nightmare they were in was real.
When they boys got to the small hotel they had all rented rooms in, Duo immediately bolted from the car, Heero right on his tail as they clambered up the external staircase. Quatre and Trowa were left to themselves in the car, Trowa still stroking the golden hair of his love, explaining to the small blonde the current situation they now found themselves in. Quatre /did/ look like he was improving, after a few moments of Trowa's ministrations, he relaxed, and sat up, hugging Trowa tightly.
"We're gonna get out of this, Kat," Trowa reassured, but for the first time doubt was seeping into his words.
Quatre nodded for Trowa's sake. Then he crawled off his love, sitting beside him as Trowa took his hands in his own and rubbed them softly as they waited in fearful silence for their friends to return. If they would return.
The hotel they had rented rooms in was anything but a four star Sheraton, it was a roach motel, the perfect hiding place for the Gundam pilots. Duo scrambled down a filthy and dark corridor, grimacing as he leaped over debris, splintered furniture, turned over chairs, dead bodies. He and Heero ascended the internal stairs on the third floor, tearing towards their rooms on the fourth floor.
"Hilde, babe!" Duo cried as he pounded on the door to their room, finding that he couldn't get it open, speculating that something massive was blocking the door. The girls and Wufei had made a barricade, but in order for one, something must've attacked them first. . .
Duo shook his head, trying to clear of the violent images that trickled into his brain, images of Hilde and the baby being savagely chewed apart by zombies, of Hilde crying his name out in pain and misery as blood-
"D-Duo?" came the desperate plea from the other side of the blocked door.
"Hilde? My God, it's good to hear your voice! You- are you okay?"
"Yeah, we're fine. . ." she trailed of, her frightened and soft voice replaced my that of a low grunt as Wufei pushed the offending object aside, and opened the door. "C'mon," he hissed, motioning with a VP70 to come inside.
Duo and Heero were only too happy to oblige, stumbling inside the chamber, Wufei checking behind them, sweeping his weapon side to side to make sure none of the things was out there. Satisfied that they were alone, the Chinese boy shut the door but left it unbarricaded, lingering by the exit with Sally, his gun poised, just incase.
"Hilde," Duo breathed again, running over to his girlfriend and wrapping his arms around her carefully, and they covered each other in kisses. Heero however, restrained himself, walking nonchalantly over to the young Vice Minister who looked up at him with large and wide blue eyes.
"Heero," she whispered, standing up and nearly throwing herself into his arms, draping her slender arms around Heero's back. To her surprise, Heero hugged back, encasing her in his firm and strong grip. "I love you, let's have a baby," he whispered in her ear.
Relena was a little taken aback; she practically did a double-take at Heero's decidedly undisguised straight-forward manner. "Heero, we're gonna get out of this," she said back, knowing that the only reason he asked her was to fool himself into thinking he would survive. You know bad things are happening in the universe when the perfect soldier has to deceive himself into surviving. Just what horrors had Heero seen already on this hellish night?
"Hilde, what happened?" Duo suddenly asked loud enough for everyone to hear, one arm still wrapped around his love, he own arms on her expanded stomach, rubbing it unconsciously. Thank God the baby was still alright.
"Well, we arrived into town, and the whole place went insane!" Hilde replied, her voice higher-pitched than normal.
"It started about an hour after you guys went out," Sally filled in, seeing that Hilde was too overwrought to continue. "We saw a few people stumbling along the streets, and the next thing you know, there was screaming and blood everywhere, and then they were banging on the door, trying to come in. . ." she trailed off, her gaze thoughtful for a moment. Then she brightened, locking an arm around Wufei's shoulders admiringly. "Thank God for Wufei. He protected us from them."
Wufei snorted, a hint of pride gleaming in his coal-black eyes. "I always said you onnas would fall apart without a man around."
Trowa and Quatre were still grasping each other's hands as the six survivors clambered down the exterior staircase, Duo supporting Hilde, Wufei and Sally at the rear, each armed with a gun.
"Thank god," Quatre smiled, finally feeling there might be some form of hope, however small, in the town of the dead they now found themselves trapped in.
"Hate this shit," Duo whispered to himself as he skirted a brick building, squinting in the darkness that entombed him. He swept Heero's Beretta in front of him, searching for any sign of the walking dead. His sweaty blue gaze darted to each side of the road as he cautiously stumbled towards an abandoned truck. There was no sign of the occupants.
The Shinigami bolted for it, reaching into his hair for his old set of lock picks, a few torsion bars and picks. Checking his surroundings one last time, Duo set the gun door next to him on the pavement as he went to work on the car door. After a few seconds, Chestnut heard a satisfying click, and he ripped the door open-
-"/Uuulllgggghhh....../"
"/Shit/," Duo hissed, scrambling for the gun, pointing it in front of himself with shaky hands as a young male came stumbling out of the shadows, one arm hanging at an odd angle, dangling off the shoulder by a thin string of sinew. His good arm reached out to him, his pasty white mouth murmuring a mindless cry of hunger-
-and it took Duo approximately 2.5 seconds to react, squeezing the gun's trigger and firing three rounds into the zombie's forehead.
"Oh, Duo," Hilde whimpered as three gunshots reverberated through the town. Until then the only sounds they had heard was the steady sound of the ominous wind blowing, the hungry moans of the zombies, and a lone crow's mournful cry every once in a while.
Relena was sitting next to her in the back of the cop car, and she squeezed her hand to soothe her. "Duo'll be okay."
"I hope so."
Hilde's prayers were answered, she sighed audibly with relief as a dusty red truck roared towards them, Duo's sweaty countenance in the front window.
It was decided that Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei would ride in the truck while Heero, Duo, and the girls would take the cop car. Heero revved the engine up and pulled forward, Wufei pulling in behind them. Their destination was the police station, the safest place in town. There, they could find weapons and ammo, and come up with a proper plan for survival.
Quatre sighed and settled against Trowa, the taller boy wrapping his arms around the small blonde's slim shoulders, a comfort in this demonic night. //Trowa, I promise, I'll be strong soon, but just let. . . just let me borrow your strength for now//, Quatre thought snuggling his head underneath Trowa's in the crook of his neck. Trowa kissed the top of his head.
/Thump./
"What was that?" Wufei asked hurriedly, taking his eyes off the road for a moment, gazing over at the pair of lovers. Quatre looked just as confused as the Chinese boy, but Trowa's face still wore no expression, save for his eyes, wider than normal, a testament to his feelings of confusion, fear, and wonder.
//Nothing, it's nothing//, Wufei told himself. He swallowed a lump in his throat and was just settling back into his seat when the smell of slaughter washed over him and something lunged from the bed of the truck.
Well, how do you like the way the story is developing so far? I plan to use a few elements from other games in the Resident Evil chronicles, namely, the Nemesis. Once again, I must thank you for your reviews, they really made my day!! ^ - ^