Resident Evil: Like A Rose
The road stretched out ahead, mile after mile of it passing and then vanishing over the horizon in her rear-view. Her bike's engine roared with restrained fury beneath her, its vibrations fuelling the bubbling mix of adrenaline and apprehension seething in her stomach. Wind whipped at her, its cold bite failing to penetrate her leathers; every jolt in the road tried to unseat her, but she was in control. Usually, there was something deeply cathartic about the experience; it felt the way she imagined her brother felt when he was flying jets in the U.S. Air Force. Unbridled speed and power at her disposal; it was a rush.
She rode around the state for fun and relaxation every opportunity she got, but tonight wasn't about fun or relaxation; that whole week hadn't been about fun, and she hadn't felt relaxed in god only knew how long.
It had been months since Chris had last contacted her. At first, she'd thought he'd just lost track of time, as he sometimes did; he was a S.W.A.T Sergeant in Chicago, and his girlfriend was a Detective with the M.C.U. On top of that, they were both members of S.T.A.R.S, a specialist task force made up of the cream of the law enforcement crop, and they both had a lot of responsibilities. That was fine by her; she was a College student herself, and terminally busy with her engineering course. They were both independent people, with their own lives to lead; there would be times when they'd just be too busy to keep in touch every day.
But then, it had been Summer, and her course had finished for the year, leaving her to sit and wonder where the hell her brother was. She'd called his office, but the usual desk-Sergeant, Royce, was on paternity leave, and his replacement didn't know who Chris Redfield was, let alone where he was. It had only been once the other man had come back, in the middle of September, that she'd learned the truth. Chris had been assigned to a serial murder investigation in a place called Raccoon City, as part of his S.T.A.R.S duties; he'd only expected to be gone a month or two, but instead he'd just disappeared.
Worse than that, the R.P.D was claiming that both he and Jill had been indirectly responsible for the death of several other members of their team, including the commanding officer, after a night of drug-fuelled reckless behaviour.
Claire didn't think she had ever heard so much bullshit before in her life.
Term was starting anew and she'd been in the midst of preparing for her final year, but the news made her rethink her priorities. If Chris was in that much trouble then she needed to find out what was going on with him, and help out any way she could. She couldn't risk sitting on her hands waiting for him to contact her; if it turned out later that she could have helped him in any way then she'd never forgive herself. He was her only family, each of them all that the other had left, and she'd always vowed to be there for him when he needed it, just like the time he'd been discharged from the Air Force. And so, she'd told her tutors that she'd be taking a hiatus for a family emergency, packed some clothes and left for Raccoon.
She'd spent a few restless nights in crummy motels on the road, sleeping for a couple of hours here and there, but overall being too wired to do anything but pace. She tried calling the R.P.D, but they weren't inclined to speak to her, probably because she was just a civilian, although Royce didn't seem to be faring much better. He'd promised her that he'd check on the situation, and she'd called him nightly at first, but he rarely had anything new to share. In the end, she'd decided to just stop wasting her time with the phone, but that left her more of the night to spend being agitated.
She'd been riding most of the day and all evening, and had only been a few miles away when she felt fatigue starting to take over. It was never a good idea to drive tired; that was doubly true for when you rode. Grudgingly, she'd pulled into yet another motel for yet another night of half-sleep, hoping that she'd at least get enough rest to chew up that last stretch of interstate in the morning and arrive in the city for noon. Instead, she'd seen all the occupants standing in reception watching a news broadcast about the ongoing quarantine of Raccoon; apparently, her destination was now a plague hotspot.
That had clinched it; she'd climbed back on her bike and burned out of there, without even thinking about booking a room. There wouldn't have been any rest for her after that, anyway.
So now here she was, on the road again, wearied body protesting, tired mind borne up by restlessness, concern for her brother and the instinctive knowledge that she needed to keep her eye on the highway. The engine hummed beneath her, while heavy bass pounded in her ears, the crooning of the Stone Temple Pilots drowning out the noise beyond her helmet. Part of her was glad that she hadn't needed to spend another night tossing and turning. She wanted to be here, on her bike, on her way to Chris, doing something.
"Kicking while I'm trying to sleep; I got the mud beneath my shoes..."
Lights appeared ahead, gathered too closely to be the city. As she approached, she was able to discern a cluster of glowing crimson brake lights, cars stopped in the middle of the road in front of her. Floodlights hovered above them, illuminating the vehicles ranked in every lane. Most of them had been abandoned, their occupants standing in a large group before a barricade manned by soldiers in camouflage fatigues and a couple of grizzled men in C.D.C jackets. They all looked edgy and unkempt, probably having been there since the quarantine had begun days ago. Each of the troopers clutched an assault rifle to their chests; one of them was even manning a fixed emplacement, as though they were expecting trouble. Disease control was serious business; they couldn't afford for anyone to get in or out. There was tension in the air, a fever pitch, stretched tight like elastic fit to snap.
"Rubber band, rubber band; gun in hand, gun in hand I wanna use..."
She pulled up, surveying the situation ahead through her visor, licking her lips surreptitiously as she looked at the parking lot in front of the military's blockade and the mass of humanity between her and the road to Raccoon. There was no way through here, that much was obvious, but there was no way that the army had every road and dirt trail into the growing metropolis covered. There probably weren't enough soldiers in the state to surround the whole city. And that meant that there was a way in, a way to find Chris, if she could only find it.
"Roamin', roamin', roam; get away, I gotta get away..."
She swung the bike around, heading back down the highway, her resolve tempered by the knowledge that Chris might be in danger, or hurt, and in need of her help. Of course, some small part of her, perhaps the rational part, asked her what she could really do for him; if he was there and sick then what could she hope to achieve other than getting them both infected. But that wasn't her voice speaking; when it came to helping her friends and family, she didn't make excuses.
"And I think I think too much; I don't care, yeah, but I don't care..."
If he needed her then she wanted to be there for him. And if it turned out that either of them had caught the disease, then she'd just stay there with him. If not, then she was going to get him out of there, even if that meant hog-tying him and dragging him out by his ankles.
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It was well and truly dark by the time she arrived in Raccoon. In the end, she'd found a small dirt road, probably a hiking trail or something similar, that led into the forest, seemingly away from the city, before veering back in the direction of the suburbs. The streets were empty, devoid of life, some with abandoned cars blocking lanes, most with trash spilled out over the sidewalk, probably by stray dogs. It was everything she would have expected from a plague town, where people were afraid to leave their homes for fear of contracting some disease, where lawlessness and destruction soon followed. Everything but victims lying dead or dying in the gutters. In some parts of town the power was out, but she avoided those areas; she didn't need to be wandering around in the pitch black.
If her brother was anywhere then it was probably the police station; unfortunately, she didn't have a clue where that was.
She rode deep into the city, stopping in one of the more well-lit areas, and spied a diner at one side of the road, still brightly lit and apparently open for business. With any luck, someone there would be able to point her in the right direction. She pulled up to the curb and stopped, flicking down the kickstand and pocketing her key, before removing her helmet and shaking loose her hair from where it had gotten tangled inside. The first thing she noticed was the smell, a rancid stink assaulting her nostrils and making her cringe even before she had gotten off her bike.
"I am smelling like a rose that somebody gave me on my birthday deathbed..."
She sniffed the air, an ill-advised move given that a lungful of the stench almost made her retch. There was a reek of burning, as though something was on fire not too far away; in fact, when she looked around there was smoke drifting up behind the buildings, but that was only the half of it. She was a student and, even if her own hygiene habits were impeccable, she had unfortunately lived with others who weren't so considerate; she had experienced some pretty bad smells in the past. But month-old garbage, mildew-encrusted bathrooms, not even raw sewage from burst pipes, could compare with what she was faced with now.
There was another odour it reminded her of, one that she, thankfully, hadn't encountered for two years. During her first semester at college, a friend's housemate had gone through an obscenely public breakup with her fiancé. Claire had never really known the specifics, but she had told everyone that she was going to stay with her parents for awhile. Two months later, she had been called upon to kick down the girl's door and investigate the strange stench that was gradually making the house unbearable to live in. The sight of the young woman's corpse, practically liquefied by the heat, melted into her bed sheets, had been enough to make her vomit right there and then, but the stink stayed with her for months afterwards.
That was what the air in Raccoon reminded her of - death.
"I am smelling like a rose that somebody gave me, 'cause I'm dead and bloated..."
Then again, she didn't know what else she expected. The city was falling apart, anyone could see that. Trash littered the pavements and sometimes the roads, some of the drains were overflowing from a lack of maintenance, and in their houses the diseased dwelt, slowly dying. Doing her best to ignore the smell, though that was no easy feat, she dismounted from her bike, tucking her helmet under her arm. She felt clammy under her jacket, so she unzipped the front, letting the cool evening air infiltrate her leathers.
She pulled open the diner's front door, looking around for any occupants and finding the place eerily empty. A cheerful neon sign opposite the door proclaimed "Emmy's" in bright, garish lighting; the place had a retro feel, welcoming and quaint. Varnished wood gave the room a warm aesthetic, and the bright primary colours, the red of the bar stools and booth seats, added a vibrant appeal. An old-fashioned juke box sat by the door, a model she recognised from one of the campus bars. On any other day it might have looked inviting, the kind of place where she would have come to eat lunch, or maybe drag Chris for an impromptu family outing.
Instead, its lack of patrons and location at the epicentre of the plague town made it seem almost sinister. She felt her chest tighten as the door swung shut behind her, but she steeled herself; she needed to at least look around before she started freaking out.
Setting her helmet down on the nearest table, she popped an earphone out and let it dangle across her chest, listening for any sign of life. She heard a shuffling sound, something moving from behind the counter at the other end of the room, and then there was a wet noise followed by a light groan. Frowning, she walked cautiously towards the noise; she couldn't even begin to guess what she had heard until she rounded the corner and found herself standing over a pair of corpses.
Or at least, it looked like a pair of corpses at first. The waitress was definitely dead; her stomach had been ripped open, her shredded uniform caked in dried blood, lengths of intestine strewn about carelessly. The meat of her arms and legs had been gnawed away in patches, and her throat was a gory wound. The sight of her body alone was enough to make her recoil in horror, and that was before she saw the chef.
He looked up at her, not dead enough to stop moving, but nowhere near alive. His skin was grey and peeling, facial muscles hanging slack and expressionless around the bloody hole of his mouth, milky white eyes reflecting her own horrified face back at her. His crimson-crusted hands reached out for her, inviting her to join the meal as the new main course, and when she backed away he rose, following her.
But he was dead; he was practically rotting. This was a corpse and it was walking towards her, slavering, hungry, dead, but so very alive, caught in a limbo between the two. It couldn't happen. It was impossible. She refused to believe it, even with the proof before her very eyes.
"Whoa, yeah, yeah; and she says it's natural..."
The dead man limped forward and, suddenly, she was gripped by the most savage, primal fear, her mind reeling at the thought that she might be eaten, torn limb from bloodied limb by another human's teeth. This wasn't like anything she had ever experienced before; if he'd been human then the old rules would still apply, her brother's lessons, her own martial arts' classes, might have been useful. But he wasn't human, and this situation was beyond reality; it was a nightmare where the dead walked and feasted upon the living. There would be no going back after this; even if she survived, she could not undo the damage that had been done by witnessing, by experiencing this. Life would never be the same.
"I feel I've come of age; when she peaks I start to run..."
She stopped before she could reach the entrance, however, when she saw the ghoulish faces pressed to the glass, skeletal fingers clawing, palms hammering, a kind of dull, lethargic desperation in their blank eyes. Her heart leapt into her throat when she realised that she was trapped, and this wasn't just the work of an apprehensive mind in an unfamiliar place; this was instinct, a primal knowledge of mortality. If she didn't act now then she would die, and with that realisation she stood, paralysed.
"You can't swallow what I'm thinking..."
She turned, her pursuer still stumbling towards her, rendered lame by whatever had turned him into a mindless cannibal, but hastened by his apparent hunger. He was slow and clumsy, she noticed, as he staggered into a nearby table and sent a tray stacked with glasses tumbling to the floor. Lifting her hands in a pacifying gesture, she backed away from him, matching his pace so that they remained the same distance apart at all times.
"Hey, listen to me; whatever's wrong, I can help you, alright?" she insisted, hoping that he might have been sentient enough to be reasoned with, "can you understand me? Just stay back, okay? Don't come any closer."
He lurched closer and she caught the stink of decay once again, stronger this time, radiating from him in waves that made her stomach flip-flop in her gut. She gagged, covering her nose with her hand and stepping away from him, but she was running out of room.
"I am smelling like a rose that somebody gave me on my birthday deathbed..."
Her free hand touched the table beside her, fingertips touching her helmet where she had left it, and she realised that she was now backed up right to the door, and god knew she couldn't escape that way. The only way to go was directly through the man, the corpse, now staggering towards her. He didn't pause for even a moment, hands reaching for her, jaws opening wide, a hungry groan escaping from his throat. She whipped the helmet around, slamming it into the side of his skull and sending him reeling, blood flowing from the crack in his head. But the blow didn't faze him for long; he turned back to her and she hit him again, his cranium fracturing with an audible crunch. He slumped over the counter behind him and then dropped limply to the floor, still moaning.
Adrenaline pulsed through her, heart racing in her chest as she stood staring down at him, makeshift weapon still clutched in her hand. He stirred, reaching out for her foot with his hand, and she jerked her boot up out of his reach, before stomping down on the back of his head. This time, the split in his skull turned into a full-grown fissure and he stopped moving, a throaty death rattle escaping his lips as he sagged, deflating as he released his dying breath.
"I am trampled on the sole of another man's shoes, 'cause I walk too softly..."
Before she could think of what to do next, the glass of the door shattered behind her, decaying bodies spilling through into the diner, two, three, four, landing in a heap in the entrance. And, as she watched, they started to clamber up, dragging themselves in her direction and then resuming their swaying march towards her. Even with glass shards embedded inches deep into their flesh, they were undeterred; they didn't even seem to notice.
"What the hell is going on here?" she asked, backing away from them, before fleeing for a second time, this time in the direction of what looked like a back door glimpsed behind the counter.
It wouldn't have been the first time she'd gotten into a fight where she was outnumbered; it was a trait that ran in her family to speak her mind, and that often got her into trouble. But those had never been battles that she couldn't win. These monsters weren't human; they didn't feel pain or fear. They'd drag her down and eat her, just like the waitress, and there would be nothing she could do about it. They were slow, though, and stupid, which meant that she could evade them, and that was what she would do. There was nothing to be gained by standing her ground; at least this way she'd live to fight another day.
"I run through the world, thinking 'bout tomorrow, thinking 'bout tomorrow..."
She pushed through the door into a corridor stacked with crates and boxes, throwing it shut behind her and slamming home the bolt. With any luck, that would keep them at bay until she found a real exit to the diner. Hurrying along the passage, she hurdled obstructions, focusing on another hopeful exit at its very end. She jerked it open and nearly ran headlong into yet another of the walking corpses; with a surprised cry, she leapt backwards and caught her foot on something behind her, slumping onto her backside. Her helmet dropped out of her hand and rolled away across the floor.
Her second earphone bounced out of her ear, the music stopping dead.
"Shit!" she yelled out, as the creature loomed over her, but in the next heartbeat there was a bang that echoed through the alleyway behind it and it lurched forward, collapsing to the floor right next to her.
She kicked it away, but quickly noticed the bloody hole in its forehead; much like the chef, it wasn't getting back up. Looking back at the open doorway, a hand reached towards her, but unlike the grasping limbs of the dead that were following her, this one was open, waiting for her to take it, offering her support.
"Come on; let's move!" her saviour said, voice somewhere between a command and a plea.
She looked up at him, a slender young man clad entirely in navy blue, the letters "R.P.D" emblazoned across his front. In his other hand he was holding the compact bulk of a semi-automatic handgun, which she recognised from repeated trips to the gun range as a VP-70. His eyes locked with hers and then his head snapped from side to side, looking for more danger. She didn't know him, but suddenly she felt a sense of kinship with him, another survivor in a town full of the hungry living dead - full of zombies.
"Right," she agreed, clasping his hand firmly and letting him haul her back to her feet, "let's go."
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