Commonality of human beings was a necessary & far too scarce trait in moments such as these; a pity as people were social animals, dependent on one another. The detective held no qualms that Leon & he were depending on each other, their wills to survive bringing them to a tense yet easy alliance immediately upon the discovery that neither was hostile. Yet the waves of indignance rolled off of Leon like waves in a river, comprised of his youth & those youthful ambitions for purpose. That sense of longing for optimistic appositeness was poignant & Connor felt it like a palpable thing, affixed in those bright eyes & in the way Leon looked at him. His mouth said one thing & his eyes betrayed him, as they did not so readily depict the politeness trained into the younger man in his childhood. There, his true self was made clear; Don’t underestimate me. Their eyes met, gazes locked in a single instance & something changed between them instantly. The detective was caught unawares as one corner of his lips drew upwards of it’s own accord, pleasure not so readily expressed manifested physically.
Leon was a scrappy thing, far stronger than perhaps even he knew, & while his determination did not dispel the desire to protect & serve there was a kind of relief, as the detective expected that same desire coursed through Leon with every heartbeat & by proxy extended to him. By no means did it make Connor feel safer, but it did help him to trust. A single nod was granted, communicative of his unspoken words of assurance, of thanks, the faint sound of an exhaled breath through the nose. He turned his attention forward once more & finally opened the door towards their new destination.
The room was seemingly barren of life, encompassed in blinding darkness which left the eyes momentarily without stimuli, the room barely perceivable. But as they ventured, Connor taking the lead, a flashlight was produced from a pocket, coming to life with a near inaudible click. It’s light pierced through the blackness like a beacon of hope but there was no such hope to be found here, only a bloodstained pathway littered with debris scattered to the old wooden floor. Without hesitation Connor traversed the short staircase into the large office, his steps nearly silent & movements fluid, but his eyes scanned the place with scrutiny held in his lightly knit brows, the gentle wrinkling of his worried forehead, as though it were not the fact that bodies had come to rest in this place, rather their placement concerned him.
Good… They haven’t moved since last time I came through here… Granted that had been over a day, the detective having been careful to compartmentalize the station & every room within it. His time spent trapped within these walls had not merely been implemented to serve the unfortunate populous which accompanied him, but to make a mental map of the RPD station. He knew what was where, what bodies had come to life & which lay dormant. He knew which doors were locked, which had been sealed by the lockdown, & where they would be safe in short intervals. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Until they could get that pathway to the parking lot open, this was their best shot.
Past the row of desks Leon led his charge, or rather his impromptu partner. It wasn’t as difficult to think of Leon as such as initially anticipated upon first viewing him, but the fogged lenses of exhaustion & dehydration had been cleaned somewhat, like expelling fog from a clouded mirror. He would have been lying if he said he didn’t see something of himself in the kid. At least he now had a face to put with the name. The banner made sense - Welcome Leon - as did the story Marvin briefly mentioned about a newcomer urged to stay away. Part of Connor wished Leon had done just that & never come, but a selfish, deeper piece of him was glad for the company. Company which presented opportunity.
The door to the hallway was unlocked & unobstructed, though the hall itself was less than vacuous. A single, shuffling corpse, & an ominous banging from somewhere to his left, around the other corner. Immediately the wheels in Connor’s head were turning, & while he barely seemed to, there was a pause, a moment of consideration. Neither creature had taken notice of them but soon enough one might. For a small, tense moment the detective almost wished he still had his knife, but Leon was in need & he could not be selfish. A shot would bring the attention of both monstrosities, & others were he unlucky. A solution came to mind, one bold & perhaps a little brazen.
Reason suggested another tactic but necessity & perhaps a hint of delirium from fatigue had his mind in an altered state, for without a word, only a gesture to guide Leon to the door bathed in light opposite their exit point, the detective switched off his flashlight, holstered his gun & began forward. But he did not move towards the door. Instead, he crept like a cat in pursuit of the zombified man, slow, methodical. Calculating. The creature was wholly unaware of him as he went, until he was behind it, hands raised & poised at the ready. A moment to ground himself, a second of opportunity as he struck. It was not the speed of Connor’s skills hands which may have brought about start, but the audible, sickening snap their produced as the cervical vertebra twisted & the spinal chord was violently disconnected from the rest of the body.
He faltered only an instance as the weight of the shambling corpse went completely limp & Connor braced himself, shifted into a wider stance as he carefully lowered the still gnashing creature to the floor. It’s jaws worked, teeth clacking as it tried uselessly to tear into the flesh of the man whom had just expertly disabled it, to no avail. It was eased to rest on the dirty tile & the detective took a shaking breath as he stood at full height, & expelled an equally trembling exhale.
All at once the cloak of safety lifted as they left the relative warmth and light of the foyer, the reality of what lay ahead once again gripping Leon tightly. Again the nightmare started itself, the darkness and stench of death seeming to seep into his very bones, heart beginning to race as his eyes struggled to adjust. Getting to the station had only been the tip of the ice berg, the first hurdle of many. But would he make it to the finish line? Was there even such a thing out there? So many people had already died, and so horrifically; why was he any different?
Once again the damp, bulky civilian clothes left Leon feeling inadequate and weak, a follower rather than a leader. He was, at least, armed, although ammunition was low and knifing those things felt a little too close for comfort. Regardless, he was in better shape than most, and he was confident in his own abilities. Provided he didn’t do something stupid like panic at the worst time, he would be fine. At least for a little while.
Gaze traveled upward as Connor’s flashlight reflected the banner hanging overhead, and for one second Leon felt his legs lock into place. The visceral reaction was unexpected, an invisible blow that took his breath away and left him feeling cold and shaky all over. They had been waiting for him to arrive, had planned a welcome party, no matter how small. These men and women of the RPD had anticipated his arrival and made sure to greet him warmly, and where were they now? Were they the corpses lying on the floor? At the desk? Did they die terrified and screaming? Or begging for even one minute longer? The thought was almost too much to bear, his stomach churning once again, but somehow Leon managed to hold it together, to push it back for another time. He couldn’t falter now; his depended on his own strength.
Without so much as a word, Leon started forward again, careful to avoid stepping too close to the bodies while at the same time attempting to get a decent look at them. What must it be like to turn into one of those creatures roaming the streets? Were they sentient at all? Did they know what had happened to them? So far Leon couldn’t imagine they knew, not when they seemed purely driven by hunger. They weren’t even animalistic and seemed to feel neither pain nor fear, only hunger. A horrifying way to die no matter how you looked at it.
In the dark the station felt somehow larger, impossibly vast and empty. The world itself dropped off several feet in every direction, but the cavernous hallway told Leon at least one thing: they weren’t alone. A single zombie, wandering blindly in search of its next meal--hardly a terrific threat, but a single mistake could be fatal. With a gun it would be easy to dispatch, but the shot would echo throughout the station, would draw attention like it had in the streets, and suddenly one zombie was five, was ten, and that was game over. No, they couldn’t fire unless it was desperate, and that’s where the knife came in--
Before he could even react, Connor was moving away from him, and although Leon wanted to protest he found he couldn’t speak, his voice mysteriously absent. For several agonizing seconds he could do nothing but watch in silent alarm, his heart thundering in his ears. It was stupid, he knew, but he could hardly suppress the nearly overwhelming urge to push the man out of the way, to be the one to protect and fight instead, but before he could even begin to mobilize it was all over. The creature had been disabled, their pathway cleared. Definitely a good way to conserve ammunition, albeit a dangerous one.
“Not bad.” His voice was soft, almost as though he hadn’t even meant to say anything, the words spilling out of him in relief. He had only just met Connor, but he felt drawn to him, the only light in the storm so to speak. Watching him die would be more than just a little traumatizing.
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