The Fall of Leon S. Kennedy
Chapter 1-2
Contamination
Nothing. This hall was just as empty as the room he’d just left. Was just as dark too, if not more so; Leon reached for his flashlight, snagging it from the inside of his jacket. He clicked it on, taking aim over the beam as he made his way down the hall. Not a sign that anyone had been there, nothing unsettled or out of place.
Nothing.
He couldn’t get over the fact that everything was a little too quiet, despite that thought being a little too cliché. Turning around the corner with the quick draw of his flashlight showed that there were again no rooms in this hall, either; empty. Despite being unable to remember, Leon knew that he shouldn’t be alone, that he wasn’t alone; at least he wasn’t when he first came aboard.
Unless they’re all dead- Leon thought to himself as he turned into yet another corridor. This hallway wasn’t quite like the others; there were 3 doors on either side, most likely housing the bunks in which passengers would stay. Just as he was about to open the door to the room closest to him, he heard a horrible, albeit familiar, squish.
-Or worse…
His light shown down the tight corridor, but something blocked it from illuminating the far wall. A man- a BSAA agent– was huddled over at the end of the hall, seemingly oblivious to Leon’s presence, or to the fact that he himself was kneeling in a puddle of blood.
“Hey… hey you,” Leon took a step closer, not wanting to believe it, but every part of him already knew what had happened. No one knew better about what that soldier had become than Leon; no one still alive, anyway.
Leon took yet another step, and the scent of decay wafted into his nostrils, like hitting a brick wall. As often as he’d experienced it, the smell was something he could never get used to, and it made him want to vomit. After numerous run-ins with this horrible virus and others like it, the monsters it created, and the lives it destroyed, Leon no longer felt fear. He felt guilt.
Unnnghh
The young man- the monster– turned his head, peaking over his shoulder at Leon. He started to move, getting to his feet with hunger in his eyes. Leon took a deep breath, immediately regretting it as it did nothing to ease his mind, only to breathe in that horrible, heavy, rotting stench. The thing staggered toward Leon. Like he had many times before, Leon took aim, but he found himself stuck, unable to pull the trigger, for the first time since Raccoon City. Something about what was left of the BSAA agents face made Leon remember-
“How much longer?”
“ETA: 4 hours, Agent Kennedy,” answered the mission coordinator. He was a young man, couldn’t have been more than the age of 30, “Agent McCarthy.” “He may be young, but he’s experienced” Leon had been assured prior to meeting the team. Leon nodded, anxiously. He’d been here before, many missions like this, many worse. But this felt… different.
“Do you think there’s anything to it?” a rookie soldier, one of the newer recruits, asked, referring to the confidential tip that led to this mission being ordered in the first place.
“Another mansion, another laboratory,” he continued, “Doesn’t this seem like the kind of thing the BSAA should be handling alone?”
“We’ve got enough on our plate, and if our intel was accurate, then we’ve got crucial information that can be vital in stopping another global outbreak from happening ever again, and maybe you’ve forgotten, but being a part of the BSAA isn’t just about hunting down BOWs,” McCarthy shot back. “It might just be a simple info extraction, but you should be glad you get a chance to work with someone like Agent Kennedy. The man is a legend,” he added. Leon smirked; McCarthy reminded him a bit of himself, the way he took every mission as serious as life or death. Leon looked away, trying to refocus his own thoughts.
He was consumed with the idea of a possible antidote; something that could have stopped that whole mess from ever happening, the thought that it could all be waiting to be uncovered, just waiting to put an end to this nightmare. Just 4 short hours away.
“So, what do you think about that guy that Umbrella had living there? The groundskeeper?” one of the new recruits mumbled to another. “They say he went crazy, killed his wife and kid with a giant meat hook, and that he still haunts the-” McCarthy cut them both off firmly.
“Stumph, Sanchez; are you out here to tell each other ghost stories? Don’t think for a second that if you screw this up, I won’t have Captain Redfield keep you sitting in the offices for the rest of your careers.”
“Yes, sir.” Agent Stumph and Agent Sanchez timidly answered back in unison as they fell back into preparations with the other agents, those who knew enough to keep their mouths shut. McCarthy kept his men focused on the task at hand. Leon admired that.
McCarthy turned to Leon with an apologetic smile on his face, “Sorry about that, Agent Kennedy. They’re just excited is all.” Leon understood, he was a rookie once, and he did his best in letting McCarthy know that it wasn’t an issue. More important things were competing for real estate in his head, and rookies telling silly stories weren’t one of them.
“McCarthy” Leon sputtered. The monster formerly known as “McCarthy” kept moving toward Leon, slowly but surely. Leon drew at McCarthy’s head, finding the courage to do right by one of his short-lived comrades. He came forward, unflinchingly, and was soon in arms reach. Trying to be as conservative with his munitions as possible, Leon waited for the safest moment and-
Bang!
-the lifeless, headless, body dropped to the floor with a splattering thud.
Leon shook his head in disgust, at the fact that he had to put down a promising young soldier, at the fact that he couldn’t have saved him in the first place, at the fact that someone would create something so destructive, and at the fact that he hadn’t wiped this virus off the face of the earth a long time ago, once and for all like he’d promised.
He decided to make his way to the pilot’s deck, where he’d previously met with McCarthy and the other agents. He was still in the air; he knew that much, he could feel the engine running. Someone had to be flying this thing… right? As hopeful as he felt, Leon was almost certain that he was completely alone up here, but figured it was still worth a look. He wasn’t a great pilot, but he might be able to land this thing if he needed to.
Leon went through each of the bunks in the hall way, only finding a case of 20 or so 9mm rounds and a flash grenade. It wasn’t much, but he was happy to find anything that he might have to use at some point. Survival was his new primary objective and, luckily for him, that was his specialty.
Leon stepped out into the corridor, past the decaying body, and down the hallway toward the pilot’s deck. Alert, he made his way toward the next corridor, a bridging hallway between the two main halves of the air-ship. The design, for maintenance purposes he assumed, had caught him off-guard. It didn’t make him anymore comfortable having to be in open air of a ship in flight, walking down a narrow path. If he was remembering correctly, the way to the deck should be at the end of this-
Blood.
Leon stood at the bottom of a stairway, in a massive pool of blood. He quickly took aim at the ceiling, purely from his past experiences, but then refocused on the puddle itself after seeing all was clear. There were long, thick streaks of blood leading away from the plasma stain, leading across the bridging platform. Leon wasn’t a blood spatter analyst, but he did know that most people didn’t normally bleed this much and walk away on their own. Alas, there was no one here.
Leon drew his weapon, first taking note that the door at the top of the stairwell was unmarked. It was a small closet of supplies; tools, clothing, a parachute.
At least I’ve got a plan B…
Sparing a second to strap the parachute to his back, Leon resumed his investigation. Stepping onto the bridge was like entering a wind tunnel, and the winter air cut through his jacket, enough to stop Leon in his tracks, even make him forget about where he was for a blissful half a second. The bloody mess went out to about the middle of the platform, before suddenly ending at the edge.
Poor bastard… I hope I can find a better way off of this ship…
Leon hustled to the other end of the platform, almost letting out a sigh of relief as he stepped into a sheltered area of the airship. His relief was short lived, however, as around the corner, he heard frantic splashing. After taking cover on the wall, he peaked around the corner to find that he was at the pilot’s deck—and that he wasn’t alone after all.
A figure stood in the middle of the room, only an unstable laugh accompanying his incessant stomping. It was a BSAA agent, Agent Sanchez. From what Leon could tell, Sanchez was alive, if not well. The bodies of his unlucky comrades were strewn across the floor, Sanchez standing over them, stomping and hacking with his combat knife. Somehow, he’d survived the attack. Something even Leon hadn’t been able to do; some psycho with a vendetta was the only reason Leon was still alive. Maybe, he thought, the rookie knew something about what had happened, but as Leon came closer, he was horrified by what he saw; Agent Sanchez was covered from head to toe in the blood of his zombified fellow soldiers, and his sanity was nowhere in sight.
Leon ducked into the room, sticking to the walls and the shadows, making a point not to draw any attention. Edging his way around the deck, he saw his way to the control panel was being blocked by a stray body… a zombie. Sanchez had somehow missed this one, or perhaps was saving this one for later. Leon drew his weapon, only to realize that his plan would fall apart if he’d made such a loud noise that Sanchez would surely notice, no matter how far gone he was. Somehow, he’d found himself more comfortable with having to deal with this monster than having to deal with the monster the rookie had become. As quietly as he could, Leon struck the outcast in the back of the skull, feeling it crack under his weapon.
THUD
Leon followed up with a swift, deadly stomp to the back of its head, feeling the floor beneath his feet, making a clear path to the ship’s control panel.
With a few taps of his fingers, he found that the airship was still on course, auto-piloting its way over the last 4 hours. The communications were out, but Leon had found himself to be pretty lucky already. There would probably be a radio at the destination; he just had to find it.
If I even last that long, if this virus doesn’t kill me by then…
The map shown indicated that he was close, just over a minute from his destination. Thank you, auto-pilot. Now, I’ve just got to find a–
A flashing light caught the corner of his eye.
No… You’ve got to be kidding me…
The ship was rigged with explosives; there was no landing this thing. It was all a part of the plan; that man’s, that asshole’s, plan. The ETA was an exact match to the time he had left before the ship got blown to hell.
Looks like he has plans for me after all…
Leon turned around, reluctant to prepare his descent, but the blood coated BSAA agent stood in his way, blankly staring back at him.
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I apologize for the wait on this second half of the first chapter, but I can assure you that I’ve revamped this story and hope that you, our readers, enjoy the changes that I’ve made. Please, feel free to leave feedback in the comments below, as well as through Twitter, by tweeting using the hashtag #TheFallofLeon. Follow me @TheBrentonCook, and let us know what you think of our fiction stories, as we continually try our to provide you with fresh, original, additional content.
