Say Goodbye
The day after, while she's got Ether's PINpoint, Claire gets some work done.
She gets lucky in a public library near Sherry's house in California, and Altavista gets a dozen hits off Steve Burnside's name. The eleventh one is a newspaper article from the Chicago Tribune, about the disappearance of Ethan and Steve Burnside from their home in Naperville, Illinois, and the murder of 48-year-old Emily Burnside. The twelfth one is a crude webpage thrown together by several students from Naperville North High School, asking people to keep an eye out for their friend Steve. The photo on the site is a year-old yearbook shot, but it's still distinctly Steve.
Claire pulls out her phone and makes a few calls. On the sixth call, on the third ring, she finally reaches a member of the Burnside family: Mary Burnside, Ethan's sister. Claire tells her she's in town, and knows what happened to Steve.
One pinpoint later, Claire is sitting in Mary Burnside's living room, telling her what she knows, and what she saw. She's hesitant to believe this armed and strange girl, who looks, like Sherry said, like she lost a fight with a lawnmower... but Claire has the photo Steve carried with him, and she talks her way in. Claire omits certain details, such as the zombies, but Mary Burnside's heard her brother talking about Umbrella before. This story just confirms what she'd already suspected.
Mary tells Claire about Steve; how he worked summers around construction crews, and how he'd been working to get his pilot's license. She shows Claire a box of Steve's things, this tiny little cardboard box that's all Steve's really left behind. Inside, there's a bowling trophy, a student ID card, and a bunch of the other random bric-a-brac a kid accumulates over time.
Claire realizes she's been crying for the last ten minutes, and the first sob she lets out sets Mary off too.
She winds up staying for dinner that night, drinking more than eating, and talking about Steve. Mary eventually gets her act together long enough to make some calls of her own, and some of Steve's friends come over. They're a bunch of kids, a lot like Claire remembers her friends in high school, and Claire winds up having to tell the edited version of her story twice again.
It's not a wake, but it's the best she can do for now. It's a goodbye.
Maybe that's enough.
She gets lucky in a public library near Sherry's house in California, and Altavista gets a dozen hits off Steve Burnside's name. The eleventh one is a newspaper article from the Chicago Tribune, about the disappearance of Ethan and Steve Burnside from their home in Naperville, Illinois, and the murder of 48-year-old Emily Burnside. The twelfth one is a crude webpage thrown together by several students from Naperville North High School, asking people to keep an eye out for their friend Steve. The photo on the site is a year-old yearbook shot, but it's still distinctly Steve.
Claire pulls out her phone and makes a few calls. On the sixth call, on the third ring, she finally reaches a member of the Burnside family: Mary Burnside, Ethan's sister. Claire tells her she's in town, and knows what happened to Steve.
One pinpoint later, Claire is sitting in Mary Burnside's living room, telling her what she knows, and what she saw. She's hesitant to believe this armed and strange girl, who looks, like Sherry said, like she lost a fight with a lawnmower... but Claire has the photo Steve carried with him, and she talks her way in. Claire omits certain details, such as the zombies, but Mary Burnside's heard her brother talking about Umbrella before. This story just confirms what she'd already suspected.
Mary tells Claire about Steve; how he worked summers around construction crews, and how he'd been working to get his pilot's license. She shows Claire a box of Steve's things, this tiny little cardboard box that's all Steve's really left behind. Inside, there's a bowling trophy, a student ID card, and a bunch of the other random bric-a-brac a kid accumulates over time.
Claire realizes she's been crying for the last ten minutes, and the first sob she lets out sets Mary off too.
She winds up staying for dinner that night, drinking more than eating, and talking about Steve. Mary eventually gets her act together long enough to make some calls of her own, and some of Steve's friends come over. They're a bunch of kids, a lot like Claire remembers her friends in high school, and Claire winds up having to tell the edited version of her story twice again.
It's not a wake, but it's the best she can do for now. It's a goodbye.
Maybe that's enough.