"Look out!"

She caught just a glimpse of his white knuckles on the wheel, his clenched jaw…… and the car was spinning, screeching, buildings and streetlights flashing by so fast that all she saw was a blur, and then… BAM! There was an explosion of sound, of glass shattering and metal compressing as the cop car slammed into something solid, throwing Claire against her safety belt. The impact hurled the zombie forward at the same time, and Claire reflexively threw her arms up as the dead thing crashed through the windshield -

– and then everything was still. There was only the ticking of hot metal and the sound of her own heart thundering in her ears. Claire brought her arms down and saw that Leon had already recovered, was already staring at the bloody, broken mess sprawled across the hood, its head hanging mercifully out of sight. It wasn't moving.

"You okay?"

Claire turned and looked at Leon, suddenly having to fight off a semi-hysterical laughing fit. Raccoon had been taken over by the living dead and they'd just been in a serious car wreck because a corpse had been trying to eat them. All things considered, "okay" was not the first word to come to mind. At the sight of Leon's sincere and stricken expres-sion, the urge to freak out passed. He looked on the edge of a fit himself; allowing her devastated nerves free reign wouldn't help anything. "Still in one piece," she managed, and the young cop nodded, seeming relieved. Claire took a deep breath, feeling like it was the first she'd taken in hours, and looked around at where they'd ended up. Leon had managed a complete 180 at the very end of the street where it T-ed, the obviously totaled squad car facing back the way they'd come. There were no zombies in the immedi– ate vicinity, but Claire had the feeling that they wouldn't have long to find cover; from what she'd seen so far, most if not all of Raccoon had been affected by – by whatever it was that had happened. She held the handgun tightly, trying to get her tangled emotions under control. "We…" Leon started to say something and then stopped, his eyes widening as he stared at the rear– view mirror. Claire looked behind her… and for a second, could only think that at some point since she'd left the university, she'd been cursed.

Cursed. Somebody wants me dead, that's all there is to it.

A semi was barreling down the street, still several blocks away but close enough for them to see that it was out of control. The truck veered back and forth, smashing against a blue pickup parked on one side of the street and then plowing under a mailbox on the other. Claire realized with numb horror that it was a tanker – and from the way the 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.

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 Bullet in the Brain and Let's Find the Reporter at the same time. The samples could be anywhere by now, depending on who survived. Assuming I make it out of here with the goods, I'm asking for a big goddamn bonus; no one should have to work in these conditions.

Ada slipped the key into her hip pack, then gazed unseeing at the upper balustrade of the impressive hall, mentally checking off the rooms she'd been through and the ones she'd searched more thor– oughly. Bertolucci didn't seem to be anywhere on the east side of the building, upstairs or down; she'd spent what felt like hours staring into dead faces, searching the reeking piles of corpses for his square jaw and anachronistic ponytail. Of course, he could be mov– ing, but from the information she had on him, it was improbable; the reporter was very much a rabbit, a hider in the face of danger.