City Of The Dead

From the burning rooftop, Claire moved through a snaking hallway littered with bro- ken glass and past a very dead cop, a bloody testament to her fears about the station's safety. She quickly stepped over the body and moved on, her nervous tension growing. A cool breeze ruffled through the shattered windows that lined the hall, making the darkness alive; there were shiny black feathers stuck in the streaks of blood that painted the floorboards, and their soft, wavering dance had her jerking the semiautomatic toward every shadow. She passed a door that she thought led back outside to a set of external stairs, but she kept going, taking a right toward the center of the building. The way the helicopter had buried itself in the rooftop was gnaw-ing at her, inspiring visions of the old station going up in flames.

From the look of things, maybe that's not such a bad idea...

Dead bodies and bloody handprints on the walls; Claire wasn't happy about the idea of touring the station. Still, death by fire didn't carry much appeal either, she needed to see how bad it was before she went looking for Leon. The corridor dead-ended at a door that felt cool to the touch. Mentally crossing her fingers, Claire opened it and stumbled back as a wave of acrid smoke washed over her, the smell of burnt metal and wood thick in the heated air. She dropped to a crouch and edged forward again, peering down the hall that stretched off to her right. The hall turned right again maybe thirty feet down, and although she couldn't see the fire proper, bright, fiery light was reflected off the gray paneled walls at the comer. The popping crackle of the unseen flames was magnified in the tight corridor, the sound as mindlessly hungry as the moans of the zombies down in the courtyard.

Well, shit. What now?

There was another door diagonally across from where she crouched, only a few steps away; Claire took a deep breath and moved, walking low to stay beneath the thickening blanket of smoke, hoping she could find a fire extinguisher and that a fire extin-guisher would be enough to put out whatever blaze the crashed 'copter had created. The door opened into an empty waiting room, a couple of green vinyl couches and a rounded counter- desk, with another door across from the one she'd entered by. The small room seemed untouched, as sterile and quietly unassuming as she might have expected - and unlike just about everywhere else she'd been tonight, there was no lurking disaster in the mild shadows thrown by the overhead fluores- cents, no stench of rot or shuffling zombie.

And no fire extinguisher...

Not in plain sight, anyway. She closed the door on the smoky corridor and stepped toward the desk, lifting the entrance flap with the barrel of the gun. There was an old manual typewriter on the counter and next to that, a telephone. Claire grabbed for it, hoping against hope, but heard only dead air through the receiver. Sighing, she dropped it and ducked down to check out the shelves beneath the counter. A phone book, a few stacks of papers and then, half-hidden by a woman's purse on the bottom shelf, was the familiar red shape she'd been hoping to find, coated with a thin layer of dust.

"There you are," she murmured, and paused just long enough to stick the nine-millimeter into her vest before hefting the heavy cylinder. She'd never used one before, but it looked simple enough - a metal handle with a locking pin, a black rubber nozzle hooked to the side. It was only a couple of feet long, but it weighed a good forty or fifty pounds; she figured that meant it was full. Armed with the extinguisher, Claire stepped back to the door and started to take short, sharp breaths, filling her lungs. It made her feel light-headed, but the hyperventilation would allow her to hold her breath longer. She didn't want to keel over from smoke inhalation before she'd had a chance to put it out. A final deep breath and she opened the door, crouching her way back into the now noticeably hotter corridor. The haze of smoke had gotten thicker too, extending down from the ceiling in a dark and choking fog at least four feet deep.

Keep low, breathe shallow and watch your step...

She turned the corner and felt a bizarre mix of relief and sorrow at the sight of the burning wreckage right in front of her. She bobbed her head and took a small breath through the fabric of her vest, feeling her skin flush and tighten from the heat. The fire wasn't as bad as she'd feared, more smoke than substance and not much taller or bigger than she was; the flames that licked up the wall in orange-yellow fingers seemed to be having trouble catching, stopped by the heavy wood of a half-smashed door. It was the nose of the helicopter that drew her attention, the blackened shell of the smoldering cockpit and the blackened husk of the pilot still strapped to the seat, the melted mouth frozen in a yawning, silent scream. There was no way to tell if it had been a man or a woman; the features had been obliterated, running together like dark tallow. Claire jerked the metal pin loose from the handle and aimed the hose at the burning floorboards, where the flame danced in white and blue. She squeezed the lever down and a hissing plume of snowy spray whooshed out, blasting over the debris in a powdery cloud. Barely able to see through the billowing white- ness, she directed the hose over everything, dousing the wreckage liberally with the oxygen killer. Within a minute, the fire appeared to be out, but she kept up with the extinguisher until it ran dry. At the last spluttering cough of spray, Claire let go of the handle and took a few more shallow breaths, inspecting the smoking wreck for any spots she'd missed. Not a flicker, but the wooden door alongside the helicopter's flocked cockpit was still leaking ten- drils of black smoke. She leaned closer and saw a tinge of glowing orange under the charred surface. The area surrounding the burning wood had already been torched, but she didn't want to take any chances; she stepped back and gave the door a solid kick, aiming for the glowing embers. Her boot connected squarely with the hot spot, and the door flew open with a splintering crack, the scorched wood giving way in a sparking shower of cinders. A few landed on her bare calf, but she drew her weapon before stopping to brush them off, more afraid of what might be waiting behind the ruined door than a few blisters. A short, empty hallway, littered with jagged pieces of splintered wood and hazy with smoke, then a door at the end on the left; Claire moved toward it, as much to get to some fresh air as to see where it led. With the immediate threat of the fire over with, she had to start looking for Leon and thinking about what they'd need to survive. If she could check out a few of the rooms along the way, maybe she'd be able to find stuff they could use.

A phone that works, car keys... hell, a couple of machine guns or aflame-thrower would be nice, but I'll take what I can get.

The plain door at the end of the hall was unlocked. Claire pushed it open, ready to fire at anything that moved...... and stopped, feeling mildly shocked by the bi- zarre atmosphere of the lavish room. It was like some parody of a men's club from the fifties, a large office decorated with an extravagance that bordered on the ridiculous. The walls were lined with heavy mahogany bookshelves and matching tables, surrounding a kind of sitting area made up of padded leather chairs and a low marble table, all set atop an obviously expensive oriental rug. An elaborate chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting a rich, mellow light over it all. Framed pictures and delicate vases were situated through-out, but their classic designs were overwhelmed by the stuffed animal heads and poised, lifeless birds that dominated the room, most gathered around a massive desk at the far side -

- oh, Jesus -

Laid out across the desk, like some character from a gothic horror story, was a beautiful young woman in a flowing white gown, her guts ripped to bloody shreds. The corpse was like a centerpiece; the dried and dusty animals stared down at her with dead glass eyes... there was a falcon and what looked like an eagle, their ratty wings spread in simulated flight, as well as a couple of mounted deer heads and that of a nappy furred moose. The effect was so creepy and surreal that for a moment, Claire couldn't breathe...... and when the high-backed chair behind the desk swiveled around suddenly, she barely held back a shriek of superstitious terror, half expecting to see some vision of dark and grinning death. It was only a man, but a man with a gun, pointed at her. Twice in one night, what are the odds... For a second, neither of them moved... and then the man lowered his weapon, a sickly half-smile playing across his pudgy face. "I'm terribly sorry," he said, his voice as oily and false as a bad politician's. "I thought you were anoth-er one of those zombies."

He smoothed his bristly mustache with one thick finger as he spoke, and although Claire had never met him before, she suddenly knew who he was; Chris had bitched about him often enough.

Fat, mustachioed, and as slick as a snake-oil sales-man - it's the police chief. Irons.

He didn't look good, his cheeks flushed with high color and his porcine eyes rimmed with puffed white flesh. The way his gaze darted around the room was unsettling, as if he was in the grip of some kind of heavy paranoia. In fact, he looked unbalanced, like he wasn't all that connected to reality. "Are you Chief Irons?" she asked, trying to sound pleasantly respectful as she stepped closer to the desk. "Yes, that's me," he said smoothly, "and just who are you?"

Before she could speak, Irons went on, confirming Claire's suspicions with what he said next - and with the bitter, petulant tone in which he said it. "No, don't bother telling me. It makes no difference. You'll end up like all the others..."

He trailed off, staring down at the dead woman in front of him with some emotion that Claire couldn't place. She felt bad for him, in spite of all that Chris had told her about his rotten personality and profes- sional incompetence; God only knew what horrors he'd witnessed, or what he'd had to do to survive.

Is it any wonder that he's having trouble with reality? Leon and I wandered into this horror show in the last reel; Irons was here for the previews, which probably included watching his friends die.

She looked down at the young woman on the desk and Irons spoke again, his voice somehow sad and pompous at the same time.

"That's the mayor's daughter. I was supposed to look out for her, but I failed miserably..."

Claire searched for some words of comfort, wanting to tell him that he was lucky to have lived, that it wasn't his fault, but as he continued his lament, the words died in her throat, along with her pity.

"Just look at her. She was a true beauty, her skin nothing short of perfection. But it will soon putre-fy... and within the hour, she'll become one of those things. Just like all the others."

Claire didn't want to jump to any conclusions, but the wistful longing in his tone and in his shining, hungry stare made her skin crawl. The way he was looking at the dead girl...

... you're imagining things. He's the chief of police, not some perverted lunatic. And he's the first person you've met who might be able to give you some kind of information. Don't waste the opportunity. "There must be some way to stop it..." Claire said gently.

"In a manner of speaking. A bullet in the brain, or decapitation."

He finally looked away from the body, but not at Claire. He turned to gaze at the stuffed creatures perched on the edge of his desk, his voice taking on a resigned but somehow mirthful quality.

"And to think taxidermy used to be my hobby. No longer..."

Claire's internal alarms were doing some serious jangling. Taxidermy? What the hell did that have to do with the dead human being on his desk?

Irons was finally looking at her, and Claire didn't like it one bit. His dark and beady gaze was directed at her face, but he didn't seem to actually see her at all. For the first time, it occurred to her that he hadn't asked her one question about how she'd come to be there or commented on the smoke that had leaked into his office. And the way he'd talked about the mayor's daughter... no real sorrow at her passing, only self-pity and some kind of twisted admiration.

Oh, boy. Oh boy, oh boy, he's not just out of touch here, he's on a different goddamn planet... "Please," Irons said softly. "I'd like to be alone now."

He sagged down into his chair, closing his eyes, his head falling back against the padded back as if in exhaustion. As simply as that, she'd been dismissed. And although she had a million questions - many of which she thought he could provide answers for - she did think that maybe it was for the best if she just got the hell away from him, at least for now... A soft creaking sound, behind her and to the left, so quiet that she wasn't even sure she'd heard it at all. Claire turned, frowning, and saw that there was a second door to the office. She hadn't noticed it before - and that soft, stealthy sound had come from behind it.

Another zombie? Or maybe somebody hiding...?

She looked back at Irons, and saw that he hadn't moved. Apparently he hadn't heard anything, and she'd ceased to exist for him, at least for the moment. He'd gone back to whatever private world he'd been in before she stumbled into his office.

So - back the way I came, or do I see what's behind door number two?

Leon - she needed to find Leon, and she had a pretty strong feeling that Irons was a creep, whether he was crazy or not; no great loss that he wasn't up for joining forces. But if there were other people hiding in the building, people that she and Leon could help or who might be able to help them... It would only take a moment to check. With a last glance at Irons, sagging next to the corpse of the mayor's daughter and surrounded by his lifeless ani- mals, Claire walked to the second door, hoping she wasn't making a mistake.