With Rats and Jackals

by C M Forde

The final night of Raccoon City is at hand; hours earlier Leon Kennedy and Claire Refield made their escape, in a few more Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivara will make theirs. This is the story of the other survivors, The Rats and The Jackals.

Resident Evil:

With Rats and Jackals

by

C M Forde

Disclaimer: I don't own anything about Resident Evil, so there.



1

Flickering lights lit the grocery store in a deathly sick flourescent haze that cast shadowless darkness through the aisles. Cans of food lay scattered like bodies across the eerily clean ceramic squares, their clean cut symmetry seeming to dissolve in the riotous mess strewn across them. From some far corner of the store the sound of a liter of water dripping itself dry onto the now slick floor echoed like a ghost through the air. And somewhere, someone was screaming.

A brown hiking boot slammed into the growing puddle and thousands of droplets of water exploded into the air, fleeing their unwelcome intruder. She was hurrying, but for the moment seemed frozen in time as each liquid sphere reflected her entire form before smashing themselves against the cold hard ground and once more becoming no more than wet tile. Striking red hair hung motionless in the air for this instant, hanging by threads of nothingness in the still of the atmosphere that immortalized this moment of time. Her name was Rebecca Jordan, she had graduated from high school the year before. She wasn't the top student, she wasn't even in the top fifty percent, and her parents had never forgiven her for that, though it didn't matter now, her parents were dead. College had been unthinkable for her, more studying wasn't on her list of priorities. Instead she took the only job she knew she could have, she joined the Marines. They had trained her to run a computer, not to be in combat, an unlucky destiny. After eleven months in service she had decided to come home and see her family, she had a months leave, and this was her fifth day in Raccoon City. Her clothing was covered in the filth that permeates the alleys and back streets of a large city, and tears and rips had shredded them to almost rags. What remained were mutilated cargo pants, the pockets full of candy bars and cigarettes that she had stolen only moments before. Her tee shirt had once been white, but now was grey where one could see the fabric through the grease and dirt, it was torn halfway across one shoulder, a thin scratch two inches long marking where she had cut herself on the barbed wire outside the junkyard a day before. Slung across her shoulder was a small green backpack filled with water bottles, antiseptic bandages, and a single shotgun shell that she had found on a table inside a church, she had found nothing else there but the dead. Her face was as filthy as her clothes, but somehow it seemed to enhance the beauty beneath the thin layer of ash and mud she had acquired since leaving her house nearly three days ago. She looked no better than the dead that seemed to be everywhere in this city, and smelled no better either, a fact that had saved her more times than she could know; the only thing that made her different than they was her beating heart and the life that shone desperately in her emerald green eyes. Then the other boot landed against the wet floor and time moved on.

She came around the aisle at a sprint and barely had time to notice the shining silver barrel of the Colt 1911A1 .45 caliber pistol that fired at her from less than five feet away. The bullet tore through the air with a trailing wave of sound that followed it like a tail, air was forced aside as it approached and if one watched closely enough, they could see a small gnat being pushed away from its course by the power of the steel projectile. It caught her in the same shoulder she had cut, but just a grazing blow. Skin tore away from the bullet with a stream of sticky wet blood in pursuit and Rebecca was knocked from her feet to sprawl across the ground. As she landed one of the packs of cigarettes was crushed beneath her thigh, sandwiched between the thin fabric of her pants and a half melted Nestle Crunch Bar. She shrieked as she went down, and this was possibly the only thing that kept her from receiving another bullet that would have been better aimed. A strong hand pulled her to her feet and tossed her into a rack of shelves holding cereal boxes with cartoon characters proudly announcing that their cereals were part of a balanced breakfast. She looked up to see a dark man, strong in features and in stature, his own eyes gazing deeply into hers. He wore a mottled grey uniform that she recognized as military immediately, however it held no rank or insignia, and there was no name patch on the breast of his jacket. When he spoke it was with a stern voice that held a deadly edge to it. "You dead?"

She pulled herself to her feet as she answered, already running again by the time her sentence was finished. "Hurry, they're right behind me!" The man followed without an answer, his heavy steps pounding a beat out behind hers as they both ran for their lives. Rebecca passed the checkout counters without a backwards glance, one woman sprawled across her cash register still wore her name tag; beneath the blood, when the numerous flies surrounding her body didn't cloud it, one could see that her name had been Erica, and she was a trainee. The automatic sliding doors still worked, but speed necessitated their improper use. Rebecca dove through the glass as the doors started to open, and hundreds of slivers of melted sand surrounded her, the bigger pieces cutting into her skin like razors. She landed in a crouch and looked into the night more carefully than she had gone through the door, something that she had learned was essential during her stay in Raccoon City, caution was as important as speed.. Broken cars lined the parking lot, a fire burned unmolested a few buildings down, and more than a few dead bodies lay murdered on the cool asphalt; other than this, the night was quiet. She didn't see how the man came out of the store, but he took her arm in his hand and continued running, almost dragging her along. They turned into an alley and rushed onward, the man leading them between overturned dumpsters and over dead cars towards a heavy steel door that stood inlaid into the brick of a large wall covered in graffiti and blood. He let go of her arm and pulled a metal lever that released the lock on the door, the thick slide coming out of a hole in the brick to the side of the door. The door opened and he pushed her inside the darkened building before slipping through himself and closing the door behind him. Only a single naked light bulb hung from the ceiling above them, and the man pulled the ball chain attached to it to reveal a pair of keys hung on a hook beside the door, and it was one of these that he used to lock it tightly, Rebecca was sure that nothing was going to come through there that he didn't want to.

The man turned to her and spoke again, his expression hadn't changed since the first word came out of his mouth in the grocery store. "Any of those bastards bite you?" She shook her head, it was true. The man didn't seem to believe her, "Let me see, strip down." She frowned and began to protest when he raised the pistol once more, "I don't want you turning on me when I'm sleeping, now show me or I'm going to assume that you're one of them." She saw his logic, though something in her mind still protested against removing her clothing, but normal morals had slowly faded away during her time in Raccoon City, the only thing that mattered was survival. Rebecca removed her clothing quickly, the long worn and stiff fabric fighting to remain on her body as she pulled. Many of her cuts protested painfully, the slick clothing having dried to the blood they had produced and reopened the wounds as they were removed. She stood mostly naked before the man, her only covering a plain white bra and panties that had both been stained by her ordeal. The man moved to her quickly, examining every cut and bruise with both hands and eyes, looking for the tell tale signs of infected wounds, as she had said earlier, there were none. He glanced at the thin metal dog tags that hung from her neck and looked once more into her eyes, "You're a marine?" She nodded. He smiled approvingly and took a seat on an overturned bucket, "Alright get dressed." As if in modesty he turned away as she dressed, and for the first time she had the chance to look at her surroundings. She was in a large store filled with racks of clothing from front to back, all of it the same camouflage uniforms that the man wore. There was a counter to her left, small cardboard boxes lined atop of it filled with things that Rebecca couldn't make out in the gloom. On the far side of the store, thick plywood had been used to board up the windows with efficient lines, not a single bit of outside light leaked through their protective barrier. The floor beneath her feet was cold concrete, hard and reassuring in the deep darkness that surrounded her. Nothing else could be seen through the lightless curtain except a single military cot made out a few feet from her on the floor, a blanket rolled neatly up at its foot and a pillow at its head.

She turned when she had finished dressing and addressed the man, "Where are we?"

He looked at her and made a motion with his arms that encompassed the entire store, "Army surplus store, I work here, or rather, I used to. My name is Tyrus Johnson." He smiled that same smile she had seen before, "And you're Rebecca Jordan, US Marine Corp. It's nice to know that I'll have a leatherneck covering my ass tonight." He glanced over at her backpack, "So what do you have in there? Grenades? C4?"

She sighed, "Actually I'm a clerk, I haven't even held a weapon since boot camp. The only thing in that bag is water and bandages, sorry." The man didn't even try to hide the disappointment on his face. Rebecca felt bad for him, like something had torn a hole in her and eaten it raw, but there was nothing she could do, she was who she was. Instead of trying to console him she took her backpack and walked towards the racks of clothes, picking out a dark green jacket and camouflage pants that she thought would fit her well enough.

Tyrus spoke up, "There are some shirts that should fit on the table to your right, and there's a bathroom in the corner, it's got running water if you want to wash up." She nodded her thanks, though he wouldn't see it in the dark and found one of the shirts he had mentioned. It was black with a pocket on the breast, she took the smallest size there, though it still looked like it might be too big, and as an afterthought grabbed a pair of socks on her way to the bathroom. The room was lit with yet another pale yellow bulb hanging from the ceiling like an unimpressive artificial sun. The tile on the walls was stained with years of uncleaned grime and ants had made their surface into a half dozen tiny highways that trailed from hole to crack to a pile of garbage in the corner. The toilet was unmentionable, and Rebecca kept her eyes away from it, but she couldn't escape the smell. Her reflection in the mirror was marred by cloudy white mess that she couldn't determine the origin of, but even without it she wouldn't have recognized the woman who stared back at her. In the days she had spent running through the dead town, and cowering in whatever would keep her hidden from what was left of its denizens, she had grown harder in features and somehow seemed older than the nineteen years that were truly hers. Once again she removed her clothes and moved to the sink, releasing the water from the faucet and slowly trailing handfuls across her skin to remove the dirt that she had come to believe she would never be rid of. After a few minutes she was as clean as she thought she was going to get and from within her bag she removed the bandages she had stolen from the grocery store and studiously began applying them to her wounds. She ran out of bandages before getting even halfway done, the stinging bullet wound on her shoulder left open to the humid air that stank of musk and sweat. New clothes were soon donned, pants tightened as far as they would go with the straps built into the hips for that purpose, she would still need a belt, and with black shirt tucked into her waist, she rolled the sleeves up over the tops of her shoulders to help relieve some of the night's unnatural heat, the jacket she left, it would be too bulky. Chocolate and cigarettes transferred from discarded cargos to the new pockets of her BDUs, though she tossed the crushed package of Marlboro Lights into the corner. After lacing up her boots and shouldering her bag, a noise from outside caught her attention, a shuffling of feet somewhere behind the door, inside of the store. It could have been Tyrus, but she had learned better than to take chances.

Rebecca opened the door with inaudible care, unwilling to be trapped in a room with only one exit, she stepped slowly into the newly unlit area, the light near the entrance had gone out. Her eyes flitted back and forth across the room, between the clothing racks, and under tables, she saw nothing and the sound had stopped, whatever had made that noise, it wasn't Tyrus, he was nowhere to be seen. She would have been less on guard if it had been a real, resounding step, or even a whisper caught up in the black night air, but the shuffling of feet meant that death had arrived, a symbolism more true than she would have believed possible a few nights before. She listened, ears piercing the deadly darkness that swam in the enclosed building, but no sound came, the shuffle was gone. Two unerringly cautious steps brought her within hand's reach of the door to the outside hell, but her pants sagged down low on her hips, threatening to fall down her thighs and leave her legs tangled in a mess of thick canvas pant and be immobilized. She couldn't leave without a belt. Had she seen belts? She couldn't remember clearly, but knew that the store would have some somewhere. Once again Rebecca moved out into the ever-present darkness inhabiting the area, soon finding herself completely blinded by a black curtain that seemed to hang across the very air she moved in; she ran her hand along the nearest table, feeling for anything that could be used as a belt. Something warm touched her hand, and withdrew immediately. She barely had time to scream before an immense weight landed on her chest, knocking her back onto the floor, her head slamming painfully into the cold concrete. Strong hands grasped her neck, and her scream was cut off in her throat, tight fingers closing her windpipe. She felt the hands begin to twist, as if to break her neck, and the bones in her neck began to protest painfully, almost ready to part, then a blinding flash of light gave the hands pause. Rebecca couldn't see for a moment, the light unaccustomed to her heavily dilated pupils. She heard Tyrus' voice call out from the direction of the light, "Wait up, she's cool!" The hands loosened their grip slightly.

As her vision began to return she saw a fairly handsome man straddling her chest, his arms outstretched to her throat. He had brown hair that hung unkempt from a furrowed brow, and dazzling ocean blue eyes that glimmered with the light of fear and adrenalin, but most of all life. He wore the same clothing as Tyrus, urban camouflage BDUs, and a still holstered Beretta hung under his shoulder, Rebecca was glad for that, having been shot once already she didn't look forward to doing it again. A look of recognition passed across the man's face as he saw that she wasn't one of the blood thirsty crowd that haunted the streets of Raccoon City, but a survivor, like himself. He released his grip from her neck, but continued sitting on her chest, the shock of what he had almost done still paralyzing his thought process, a habit that had cost more than a few people their lives over the past few days. Rebecca coughed, the air in her lungs burning like acid as it tore through her throat, that had been too close. The man looked down at her with a cute expression of caring worry that made her feel sorry for her assailant, "You alright miss? Sorry about that." She nodded and coughed again as he pushed himself off of her chest, letting the air come through in heavy breaths that threatened hyperventilation. The man offered his hand and she took it, letting him pull her up onto her feet, he was strong. "Honestly, I'm really sorry, I didn't know." She waved it off, knowing she would have done the same thing in his shoes, and he began again, "My name's Peter Laurence."

After her coughing had subsided she answered him, her voice raspy from the strain on her throat, "Rebecca Jordan." She looked up at Peter, far up. He was over six feet tall, though not by much, and seemed very imposing from Rebecca's five-foot four.

Tyrus stepped up to them, the heavy duty flashlight in his hand casting devious shadows across the room, "I picked her up about twenty minutes ago in the grocery store, she's clean. I thought she might be able to help us out, she's a Marine."

Peter looked back down at her, seeming to size her up again, as if she had some magical power that he could only now see. Rebecca decided to put that thought to rest, "I'm a computer clerk, not a fighter." The tall man didn't seem to have noticed what she said, he still looked at her as if she might hand the world to him on a silver platter, embarrassed by his confidence, she felt hot blood run to her cheeks and turned away from his stare, he shouldn't think so much of her nonexistent abilities, it could get him killed.

He spoke to Tyrus, "I left Max and Kelly back at the truck, it's almost ready to go, Max said it'd only be maybe another four hours before he gets it running and we can get the hell out of here."

All Rebecca heard was 'out', a word she had lost all hope of hearing again, "We're getting out of here? We're leaving Raccoon City?"

Tyrus nodded, "Yeah, we found an armored SWAT vehicle yesterday down in one of the subway stations. Don't ask me what it was doin' down there 'cause I don't know, but the engine was shot to shit. We've been trying to fix it since then, and it sounds like it's almost done. Once we get that thing running, there ain't a damn thing on the streets that'll be able to stop us from gettin' outta here." Relief flooded through Rebecca in a waterfall of shattered stress, and for the first time in days she felt the nagging pull of sleep at the fringes of her mind. She hadn't realized how tired she was, how long had it been since she had last slept? Three days? Four? Somnolence took its full effect on her almost immediately and she collapsed into Peter's chest, where the man caught her between his powerful arms, by the time he had laid her on the cot she was snoring softly and a tiny bit of drool pooled at the corner of her mouth.

2

The streets had been relatively clear, there was nothing left in this part of town to attract the dangers that had come to inhabit Raccoon City over the past few days. The trio moved quickly through the town towards the subway station, the men had their weapons drawn and stayed a few feet ahead of the unarmed woman. The entrance into the subway was well barricaded, a jackknifed semi truck blocking all of the stairway on the right side, and a mostly destroyed police car jammed up next to it on the left. They had to climb over the top of the car, and after that met up with a double wall of steel barrels flaming like hellfires in the middle of the hallway, casting ferocious shadows back across the white tile that enclosed them in the underground tunnel. There was a four foot wide gap in the middle of the barrels, and Tyrus explained that they were used more as something to mask their scent than an actual barrier. After passing between them they came upon the great closed gates that barred entry into the subway, brassy iron bars protecting the turnstiles that had once let thousands of people through to the trains that would carry them back to home, and safety. So many people had once passed through here, and now they were all dead, the thought sent shivers down Rebecca's spine. Guarding the largest of the gates, one wide enough to let four men walk through abreast, was a woman in dark blue pants and what looked like a chain mail shirt; in her hands was an old wooden crossbow that looked to have come from the same time period as her shirt, and resting against the wall next to her was an ancient Scottish claymore, stained with the dry blood of Raccoon City's predators. The woman had blonde hair tucked up under a blue cap that read: Raccoon City Museum \ Security; it was not hard to guess where the woman had acquired her strange weaponry. She spoke as they came up, "Who's the girl?"

"Found her at the grocery store Kelly, she's a Marine," Tyrus said, "Where's Max?" Rebecca wished that Tyrus would stop introducing her like that, it wasn't as if she was a real Marine, just a clerk.

Kelly opened the gate with her free hand and led them through, giving Rebecca a quick smile as she passed. "Good to have you with us Red, we'll have a better chance at getting out of this if we stick together." The woman slammed the gate closed behind Rebecca with a resounding boom that echoed though the empty station, making the vastness of it seem eerily dead without the familiar roar of people. She followed Tyrus and Peter towards the loading platform, Kelly stayed at her position as sentry. As they came up the platform she saw what would be their saving grace, a large blue SWAT team van parked near the tracks. It was surrounded by large red stains on the ground and spent shell casings that glistened in the hazy glow of flourescent lights, as if some fight had taken place here without telling the rest of the world, a secret war for survival. From underneath the front of the truck came a young man no more than twenty in a grey jacket and a loose pair of wide legged shorts, he held a screwdriver in his mouth and his reversed baseball cap said 'Knives' in red letters above the fitter. He waved grease stained hands as they approached and dropped a wrench that had been in one hand down to the ground, it landed next to a large hunting rifle with a scope.

His voice was warm and friendly, "Hey guys, who's the babe?"

Tyrus started to speak, but Rebecca interrupted him, not wanting him to give any others false hope about her status as a Marine, "Rebecca Jordan."

"Eddie Gorman." The kid extended his hand towards her and she took it, smearing grease and oil across her fingers as she did so, he didn't seem to notice. "But people call me Max cause I take it to the max, ya know?" He did a quick one two punch as he spoke and Rebecca almost laughed out loud; once again, he didn't seem to notice. He looked up again and wiped his hands on his shorts, "Anyway, after we get out of here how about you and me go get a drink? Sound good?"

Rebecca smiled for the first time in days, "Sure, you fix that truck and I'm yours handsome."

The kid grinned and gave the other men a shrug, "Sorry guys, what can I say? The women just flock to me."

Peter shook his head in mild amusement, "Must be your great hygiene." He sighed and fixed his eyes on the kid, "How long until that thing is running and we can get the hell out of here?"

Max gave a thumbs up, "Already finished man, all that's left is to load up, hot wire the bastard and hit the streets. How's it on your end Pete? What's the best way out of town?"

The tall man nodded, "We can take Hugh up to Nathan, then cut onto the highway. I didn't see how blocked it is from there, but there's no way I'm going to let anything short of Godzilla stop us once we've gotten that far." As if on cue, a sharp crash shattered the uneasy calm that had come over Rebecca's mind, and Kelly came running towards them, her crossbow gone and the sword in her hand dripping new gore onto the already death stained floor of the loading platform.

"Hurry up with that thing, we've got company!"

Tyrus spun on her, "Why did you leave your post?"

As Kelly came up to them, Rebecca could see the unnerving stare of someone who had just escaped by the skin of their teeth, the woman's eyes echoing only terror, but like the rest of them, she had learned to think instead of panic, it was essential to survival. "I don't know how long that gate will hold," again the crash tore through the air, this time accompanied by the creaking groan of metal giving way. "We've got to get out of here, now!"

"I agree with Kelly." Max said, and ran around the front of the truck, climbing into the driver's seat. "Getting this started might take a few minutes, you're gonna have to hold that thing off."

Kelly shook her head and tightened her two fisted grip on the sword, "That's not going to happen, I must've stabbed that thing twelve times and it didn't even flinch. If that gate gives way we're screwed."

Peter frowned, "That's impossible."

"You say it's impossible," Kelly glared at him with a look that Rebecca was almost sure would turn him to stone, "After everything that you've lived through in the past few days, you say something's impossible?"

Tyrus nodded, "Personally Peter, I believe her. Let's just try and get the hell out of here." Rebecca wasted no time speaking, instead she headed towards the back of the truck. The back doors were left open, revealing two benches that ran along either side of the large enclosed compartment, and on the floor were a pair of discarded weapons, an MP-5 and a Benelli M-1, from the looks of them they were both unloaded. She sat down on one of the benches and folded her hands in her lap, there wasn't anything else she was going to be able to do for now, so she decided to wait where she wouldn't get in the way. As the crash roared a third time, she heard another clanging sound that made it all too easy to imagine that gate crashing down onto the ground under the weight of something huge and deadly. The truck hadn't started yet, and Rebecca wasn't about to get trapped in the back of a truck with something strong enough to break steel bars hanging around just outside, so she got up and made her way towards the back doors, but paused as a series of gunshots rung through the station's still air. Before she could get out of the truck, Kelly barreled into her on her way inside, she was screaming.

"Max, get this thing started!" Rebecca found herself on the bottom of a hundred pound weight that called herself a security guard, and scrambled to get out from under her, but the other woman was trying to move as well and all Rebecca managed to do was catch an elbow with her teeth, a ringing echo of pain jumping from her mouth to her brain. The gunshots continued to fire, and almost drowned out by them was the life saving melody of the truck's throaty V-8 purring to life, Rebecca breathed a deep sigh of relief despite the thrashing blonde atop her. After a few seconds the two men dove into the back of the truck as well, both yelling much the same thing that Kelly was. The engine howled and tires screeched in a banshee wail accompanied by the sickly dark scent of smoking rubber, but those sounds are not what caught Rebecca's attention, instead it was the inhuman scream of rage and frustration the rocked the side of the truck as if it had been hit. As they tore away, she caught one slight glimpse of their predator through the sweat soaked limbs and tired heaving bodies that surrounded her. Tight sinewy muscle glistened, exposed completely in the hazy light of the subway station, and warm yellow fangs as long as her fingers dripped sticky wet saliva from a gaping maw large enough to swallow her whole. Then it was gone, hidden behind the massed passengers riding in the only escape from this hell town. Then the truck lurched through the broken gateway, and the bent and broken steel bars were tossed up behind the spinning wheels, the jail cell silhouette created seeming to bar their only option besides flight.

Kelly finally managed to free herself from Rebecca and the two sat up in the back of the truck, only the blonde breathing heavily. She shook her head and removed her cap, letting her golden locks fall free past her shoulders as she wiped the sweat from her brow with a free hand. "That was a close one Red." The woman smiled and Rebecca could do nothing but laugh, but it was the full hearted laugh of a survivor sharing a deadly experience, it felt good. Tyrus took up in the joviality, but Peter stayed morosely still, his eyes filled with troubles beyond Rebecca's comprehension, there was something he was hiding, but she didn't care at the moment, she was alive.

3

Someone closed the door, and it was that sound that woke her. How long had she been out? She couldn't remember exactly, it couldn't have been too long though. Max smiled at her from where he stood near the back of the truck, as if he had just gotten in and closed the doors behind him. So, he was the culprit. He sat down on one of the two benches and rested a hand on her knee, Rebecca still lay sprawled on the floor. "Sleep well?"

She looked around quickly and took in Kelly sitting across from Max on the other bench. She was smiling at her as well. Slightly embarrassed, Rebecca posed a question, "Why did we stop?"

"Peter says he knows these roads better," Max shrugged with a half hearted sigh. "He and Tyrus went up front to take the wheel and left me back here with the ladies." He grinned playfully at her, "Not that I mind at all, I'd much rather be in the company of two excruciatingly beautiful women than behind the wheel of this hunk of junk. We'll have some fun while all they do is play with their shifters." He made an obscene hand motion and Kelly giggled like a little girl, a funny sight in her bloody chain mail. Rebecca smiled and sat up with her back against the wall.

"How long till we're out of town?" she asked, knowing that was the most important thing right now, just getting the hell out of Raccoon City. She had spent too much time in this town already, all she wanted was to be free of this place. The thought reminded her of a poem she had heard in the Corp between some of the combat guys, she didn't remember the exact words but she had the gist of it. "When the soldier goes to pearly gates. To Saint Peter he will tell. Reporting in to Heaven, sir. I've served my time in hell."

"Fitting." Rebecca looked up to meet Kelly's approving gaze, she hadn't realized she had spoken out loud and blushed immediately. The other woman merely nodded and leaned back again, "At times I wondered if I was ever going to get out of here. A few times I even considered ending it myself, just to avoid ending up like them," Rebecca suppressed a shudder, they all knew who they were, "but I couldn't bring myself to do it." She smiled and looked at Rebecca again, "I've never been so glad that I was a coward."

Max nodded along with them, for the first time since she had met him, his cheerfulness seemed to drop away, revealing a person who had lived through more than anyone was ever supposed to. "Yeah, there are no heros left from Raccoon City. The only survivors are us, the cowards, the rats and the jackals. We're alive because we had the sense to run away, the sense to hide. We've all watched friends and family die while we did nothing to help them, and that's why we're here and they're not." He seemed disgusted with himself, and Rebecca didn't know what to do, if there was anything to do. "The only reason we banded together is because we needed each other, I know that if the need had arose any one of us would have split and run, leaving the rest to die." That brought back uneasy memories of the moments before the escape on the subway, how she had tried to do exactly as he had just said, saved only by luck. She knew that if she had run then, she would be dead by now, gnarled flesh on the hungry jaws of whatever creature had been hunting them. A shiver ran down her spine, and Max mistook it for cold, wrapping his threadbare grey vest around her shoulders with a smile, "But we did what we had to do Rebecca, and we should never regret it. There was nothing we could have done to help them, if we had tried we would all be dead, and so would they."

She had no time to gauge her reaction to his words, as the truck shook violently from some impact. Kelly braced herself against the wall, and Max immediately checked the back door. He was knocked off of his feet as the doors were blown from their hinges and crashed into his body, sending him flying into Rebecca before she could move. The same screeching roar from the subway sounded behind them, and she froze in terror. It had followed them. Something was jamming her painfully in the thigh, and she could feel Kelly scrambling over the thick steel doors laying atop her, a panicked retreat that would no more save her from death than a scream. Suddenly something occurred to Rebecca, they weren't moving. Why weren't they moving? Surely the men in front would have at least started the engine by now. What was going on? Max groaned softly, apparently unconscious from the blow he had received; then the gunfire started, but it wasn't from anywhere near the truck, it was from somewhere of to the right. She heard the roar again, and then heavy tremors that shook the truck violently, as if the thing were running with a heavy lope. Max stirred, and Kelly moved slightly. One of the doors was lifted, and the blonde looked them over quickly, "Hurry, we've got to get out of here before that thing comes back!"

Rebecca nodded in agreement, "Get up front and start the truck" Without an answer, Kelly left her and Rebecca had a chance to look over Max. He was out, his pale scalp split open at his forehead and leaking blood. At the moment there was nothing she could do for him, so she left him alone and pulled the door back over the two of them, hiding in the dark blue hole that the creature had made for them, she doubted her hideaway would last very long if it found them, but it was all she had. Just as the truck started to life, a bloodcurdling scream echoed through the air, pain and death hanging on every moment that it lived in the atmosphere, then it was abruptly cut short, the voice was unmistakably Tyrus's. The truck suddenly lurched forward and began to move again, though Rebecca still did not dare to breathe a sigh of relief, despite the jutting metallic object that continued to press itself up under her ribs. As the vehicle picked up speed, she heard someone jump into the back, someone human. She lifted the door once more to see Peter gasping for breath and holding on to the handrail just inside of the door frame, an empty Beretta in one hand and a very large green bag resting at his feet. Behind him, she could see the street darting away from them, white lines moving like ghosts back towards the ruined city. Something large and red was in front of a building almost a block away, it looked like it was eating something, Tyrus. Rebecca almost turned away in disgust, but the sign on the building stalled her for a moment, so that's what they had been doing. Peter looked up at her and smiled, "Damn thing almost got me."

Rebecca said nothing, anger and hate filling her mind more fully than any sympathy could have, drowning out the pain in her side. She quit focusing on Peter and watched as the shape in the distance stopped eating and turned back to the truck, growing bigger and more distinct with each loping stride along the street. They could outdistance it, she was sure, but she was unwilling to take any chances as the crimson blotch grew larger and larger, she had to find a weapon, quickly. Peter still hadn't noticed the thing chasing the truck, he thought he had left that threat behind, and warning him wouldn't help at all, his gun was empty. Suddenly she realized what was pressing into her side, and she painfully yanked it away from her body, her ribs holding a slow ache from it that promised to persist for days to come. In her hand she held the discarded shotgun that had been left in the truck by the original owners, its wood and steel structure cold and reassuring in her hands. The red monster was getting ever nearer, and she didn't have much time. She pulled off her backpack and threw it over the door that still covered most of her body, her head and shoulders the only things left unprotected by the makeshift shield. Digging through her backpack, she found the item she had almost forgotten about over the past few days, a single red shotgun shell that had been resting fitfully on a card table in a Baptist church on the north side of town, its owner dead beside it. She loaded it into the magazine, how easily it slid into its proper place now that she had given it a home, and worked the slide, chambering the round with the unmistakable sound of a pump-action weapon at work. Peter didn't hear it, the engine sound and his own heartbeat must have been drowning it out. The red predator grew ever nearer, and Rebecca could almost believe that she could feel the thing's breath on her neck, its teeth on her skin. She raised the gun over the lip of the door and Peter started, he had honestly had no idea what she had been doing. The monster grew closer, and Rebecca took careful aim, sighting down the barrel as she had been taught in basic, she held her breath for a moment and slowly let it out, squeezing the trigger in time with the release of air. The gun fired and her target crumbled to the asphalt, rolling as he hit due to the speed at which the truck had been traveling. The beast, still at least two hundred yards away stopped over Peter's body and began to feast, if it had had any chance of catching them before, that slim percentage was gone now.

Rebecca frowned and dropped the gun, watching it slide down the length of the door to rest on the floor next to Peter's green bag. The bag he had taken from the Raccoon First National Bank, the bag that bulged with lumps created by pounds of hundred dollar bills. Max groaned again and opened his eyes, blinking heavily, "What happened?"

"Tyrus and Peter are dead," Max nodded as she spoke. There was no other need for explanation, they had all seen enough death to know not to ask. They had all done what was needed to survive, and that was all. Max wiped the blood from his forehead and Rebecca smiled, it was only a small cut at his hairline, he was going to be fine. She looked once more out the back of the truck, and caught the dark green paint of the Raccoon City limits sign catching the red hues of the tail lights across its face as it passed them by on the edge of the highway.