Chapter 12
Leon carefully set the blueprints down on the table. Part of him wanted to go back and tell Claire and Sherry immediately about his discovery, but the other part wanted to investigate further. He stood indecisively for a few moments, and then stepped farther down the white hallway, following the dirty boot prints.
Claire and Sherry were safe where they were. Leon justified it to himself by saying that he just wanted to make certain that this area was safe before letting them know. Once he checked it out, he would tell them.
He crept down to the end of the hall. There were signs on the walls warning of construction ahead and ordering that hard hats be worn. Leon peered around the corner and saw a wide lobby area with hallways heading in two directions. There were a bunch of cheap plastic chairs in the corner around two small tables.
After spending so long in the dimly-lit sewer corridors and dark passages, the bright overhead lights, shining off the white walls, hurt Leon’s eyes. He squinted until his eyes adjusted, and moved farther into the room.
More boot prints marked the floor from the workers coming and going, and black marks decorated the walls as well. The room was not complete yet, missing ceiling tiles and proper floors, but it was clear that this part of the underground facility was built before the other section. This was apparently the main break area for the workers, as it had a refrigerator, which was unfortunately empty, as well as a television set and a bunch of magazines and newspapers on a narrow table against the wall.
There were no doors, but there were hinges screwed into the wall for doors to attach to. Leon walked down one of the adjacent hallways, seeing unfinished rooms and more partial construction. Capped electric wires dangled from the ceiling, large sheets of drywall and boards of wood were propped up in places, and there was dirt and sawdust all over the floor. Whatever this place was, it was fairly large and complex, and Leon had no idea how many more rooms and halls there were.
He wondered what this place was supposed to be. If it was for Umbrella, he guessed it was some for some kind of scientific facility, but why were they building it underground? It didn’t make a lot of sense to go to all the trouble to build a laboratory underground when there were plenty of above-ground buildings they could use. The only reason to build it underground was because ....
Because they didn’t want people to know about it? What kind of research could they possibly be doing here that would require such secrecy? Leon didn’t know much about Umbrella other than they made pharmaceuticals and other chemical products, but after what Chief Irons told him, Leon didn’t doubt anything. Who knew what this facility was intended for? More bizarre experiments? Chemical testing? Human sacrifices?
Irons told him that the disease that caused the infection was created in a lab out in the mountains, but Leon didn’t think that only one lab would do experiments like that. If they were working on it in the mountains, they were probably working on it here in the city too. He wondered if Sherry’s parents were involved. Or had been involved. They were probably dead now with everyone else.
Leon walked down two more hallways and finally decided it was time to go back. Claire and Sherry were surely expecting him by now, so he reluctantly turned around and headed back the way he came. There clearly weren’t any zombies down here, and hopefully no spiders either, so he guessed that they would be safe. But once Claire and Sherry were rested, they would be on the move again. Leon was still in a hurry to get back to the city as soon as possible. He didn’t want to stay down here any longer than necessary.
He heard a noise up ahead and stopped cold. It sounded like a stray footstep scraping across the dirt on the floor. Leon held silent and moved against the wall. The sound came from the hallway to the right, and Leon cautiously waited at the corner.
It couldn’t be a zombie. He had just come from that way. Maybe it was Claire looking for him? That was a possibility.
From around the corner, the barrel of a pistol came into view.
As soon as the arms holding it appeared, Leon jumped forward and grabbed them, pulling the owner out into the main hall with a yank. He wasn’t surprised to see who it was.
The Asian woman from the police station shrieked in surprise and pulled away, trying to turn the gun on him. He pushed back and overpowered her, and they stumbled into the wall together. Leon hit the woman’s hand against the wall and the pistol clattered away.
“Who are you?” he shouted. “And what are you doing here?”
“I followed you, alright?” she shouted back. “Now let me go!”
“Not until you tell me who you are!”
The woman slipped her hand out of his grip and elbowed him across the face. He backed away, stars flashing in front of his eyes, and she swung her leg up to knee him in the stomach. He gagged and staggered back, and the woman instantly swung her hands down to bash him across the back of the neck. Leon fell down to his knees, wavering on the edge of unconsciousness, and dumbly reached up to grab her again.
She picked up her gun and took off, and Leon managed to stumble unsteadily back to his feet and went after her. He ran down the hallway and heard sudden gunshots up ahead. He drew his own gun, nervously wondering what the woman was shooting at.
Just as he turned a corner, the woman appeared and slammed right into him, running at full speed in the other direction. They fell to the floor together, and the woman wound up on her back, gasping for breath, the wind knocked out of her. Leon sat up and leaned forward, glancing down the other hallway to see someone run out into the open.
It was a blonde woman wearing a white shirt and jeans, and she waved a handgun frantically. The gun spat out bullets, the gunshots echoing loudly in the narrow space, and Leon scrambled away as the bullets flew over his head and struck the wall behind him. He dove around the corner and reached to pull the Asian woman to safety.
She crawled away, swatting his hand when he tried to grab her. She pulled out her own pistol and returned fire blindly down the hall, crawling around the other corner of the T-intersection. She got onto her feet and kept going back in the direction Leon had come from.
“Just what in the hell is going on?” Leon shouted. He peered down the hall to see the other woman turn and run screaming. He called after her but she didn’t slow down.
He stood up and quickly watched as each of the women disappeared in opposite directions. He paused for a moment, and ran off after the blonde woman.
The last three survivors Leon found had immediately shot guns at him: the Asian woman, Chief Irons, and now this other woman. It was becoming an annoying habit. But he needed to know who the other woman was. She was another survivor, and he wasn’t about to let her get away. Maybe she knew how to get out of this place, since she managed to find her way down here in the first place. But why did she shoot at him?
Sherry and Claire would have heard the gunshots and were probably coming to investigate right now, and Leon could only hope that they would be able to figure out where he went. As for the Asian woman, she would have to wait. But Leon felt certain that he would run into her again soon.