SAVEGUARD ⟼ leon s. kennedy

v. with your help

The body shuffles forward, out of the door.

Although body is not the exactly best way to describe the chunk of flesh and innards shambling in front of me. It shuffles forward, into the milky light of the moon, and I wish it would turn, turn around, go back down the stairs, and disappear into the void, forever.

On its neck, a huge bite mark. The bite is the size of a human jaw, with human teeth, but surely, no human has that type of strength to bite so deeply, so thoroughly. Purple veins run up and down its arms, its fingernails chipped and bloody. The eyes are the colour of flour, bulging, with the same purple veins circling the eye sockets.

I scramble behind Leon, my fingers shaking against the hilt of my Glock. Its texture under my fingertips calms me down enough to not feel like my heart is about to explode, but it is Leon's direct headshot at the thing that finally lets me breathe again.

"Ugly son of a bitch," he mutters, clicking his flashlight on. "Back up a bit," he tells me.

I nod. I couldn't move if I tried.

Leon casts a quick look at the body, crouching to inspect it. I keep my eyes on his back, scared to look at whatever the hell it is that just ate his bullet. Instead, I follow the crease of his shoulders, the curve of his biceps, and try to think about how he is human, real, alive, not realising how tight my grip is around the hilt of my Glock.

Then, we hear it, our heads turning in unison towards the door.

More moans. More groans. More wheezing. More feet stomping up the stairs.

Leon snaps upright, and in a flash he's in front of me again.

"Time for some target practice," he says to me over his shoulder.

The door bursts open, and five more bodies walk out, shambling, gurgling. Each one is in a varying stage of decay, the worst having skin peeled away, a hideous mixture of blue and red. No eyes. I yelp at the sight of it, fear tightening my muscles.

Leon shoots the first two in the head, and they tumble forward, falling on top of the other as if dominos. He shoots the third one in the leg, and the limb snaps off, and the body starts crawling toward us.

"All yours," he shouts, and shoots the fourth one.

The gunshots ring loud in my ear, but I grip my gun tight and aim at the crawling sack of meat, and shoot. I miss, and I shoot again, hitting its shoulder. I hear Leon emptying his mag on the fourth body, and I shoot the one on the floor again, this time the bullet cutting straight through its scalp.

It hisses, and writhes.

"Don't hesitate," Leon calls, and he leaves our formation to handle the last body, the one with blued skin, with black eye sockets.

The one on the floor stretches its arm out, inches away from my foot. "Fuck off," I gulp, and shoot it three, four, five more times, until it finally, finally, stops twitching and moving.

I shudder and return my attention to Leon. The blue one seems to have more strength, and Leon takes a step away from it, as he quickly reloads his gun. I shoot it, in the chest, in the neck, in the eye socket. I miss more shots. It's still standing, and panic grips my neck like a noose.

"Give me a break," Leon tells it, and shoots it twice right through its ear. It falls, almost on top of him, but he dodges and it catches on the railing. He kicks it, and it topples over, and my eyes lock with Leon's as we hear the sickly splash of the thing hitting the surface of the ocean.

I aim at the other bloodied bodies, while Leon flashes his light down he stairwell. My eyes are wet, but my throat is dry, and I am stuck there, made of stone, until finally, finally, I hear Leon's voice: "All clear."