September 22, 1998
Raccoon City
Alan Redman hadn't slept within four walls and a roof in a long time. Of his 42 years, 11 had been on the streets, and after that long, any urge to improve his position had drained from him. His hair was long, gray and matted. Had he taken care of it he would have had an impressive lot on top of his head for someone his age, but nights spent huddled by sewage hadn't inspired him to maintain it.
It had been a failed business venture that drove him out of his modest house. He'd attempted to start a security firm, with his then best friend, Harrison Winkler. Things had been going well for several years. A good reputation and not a single lost dollar had seen their business bloom, but in 1987 Winkler had gotten a better offer, in the European branch of the Umbrella Corporation. His desertion had gutted Redman. For years the pair had decried the loss of small business to international bodies, going so far as to actively protest the building of a U-Mart in downtown Raccoon City. Evidently Redman had misjudged Winkler...money had been too good a benefit to turn down.
Things rapidly went from bad to worse. Winkler's greed had been surprisingly vast. With a superior knowledge of property law, Winkler quickly sold off the three branches of Redman & Winkler Security, leaving Redman with nothing but his own home to his name. Within a year, his savings run dry, and that too was taken. And so Redman ended up on the streets, quickly learning the tricks of survival in mean backstreets and local parks.
On this brisk September night, Redman hadn't expected to find the Hyperion Apartments building empty. It had been abandoned at the start of the 70s, and had become a hotspot for drug dealers and transients. Tonight though, it was strangely empty, and Redman took it upon himself to stake a claim in one of the rooms on the first floor. It was far more comfortable than he was used to; reminding him of his days back in college.
Sleep had been easy that night.
Hours later, with darkness well and truly settled, voices could finally be heard in the lobby of the building. Redman's eyes sprang open and he immediately grabbed at his pack of belongings. Theft of meagre belongings was common among the vagrant drug addicted, and Redman did not want to see his few dollars and scavenged sandwiches to leave him. The voices from downstairs were loud and obnoxious, clearly intoxicated, and suspiciously angry. Deciding to cut his losses, Redman resolved to sneak away.
He crept to the door of the apartment, and pushed the door open a fraction of an inch. Heavy footsteps and drunken laughter echoed up from the ground floor. Shadows thrown against the staircase indicated their imminent appearance, and fearful of a confrontation, Redman ran in the opposite direction, down the corridor towards what he hoped was another staircase.
Instead, all he found was a dead end and more apartments. Cursing under his breath, he forced open one of the apartments and slid into what appeared to be a guest bedroom. This room was particularly torn apart. The mattress on the bed ripped, and the vanity in the corner smashed into chunks. Redman slid to a seated position in the corner, his head in his hands, hoping it wasn't that damn biker gang he'd encountered last week who were taking up residence.. That would be just his luck.
Night continued uneventfully. The drunken shouting got louder, but not closer, and Redman was confident he would remain concealed. His eyes drooped as sleep started to encroach.
"Ow! FUCK!" He hissed.
Something had bitten him, hard and viciously on his finger. He looked down and cried out in surprise. A rat the size of a Chihuahua had his finger clenched firmly in its huge teeth, tearing savagely at it. Surprise and pain overtook him, as he flung his hand toward the wall, taking the rat with him. A small cracking sound was heard, and Redman was positive it was at least one of the rat's legs. Indeed, when the rat hit the ground, it found itself unable to walk properly, staggering about.
Redman swore, checking his wound. Almost all the padded flesh of his index finger had been torn away, and bone was just visible through the twisted, bloody mess. Redman went to kick at the crippled rat, but gasped to see it was crawling towards him on its broken legs, squeaking and, if possible, hissing at him. He could see his own blood dripping from its mouth. Shaken, he stomped on its neck with his boot and took primitive satisfaction at the squelching that accompanied it.
"Fucker." He whispered.
Redman smiled...and without warning doubled over, vomit spewing from his mouth. Dizzy, Redman slipped to his knees. Darkness clouded his vision with a speed that bewildered him. He was unconscious before his body slumped to the floor.
When Redman's eyes fluttered open, two things immediately occurred to him. 1, the sounds of the gang that had invaded the building were gone. 2, he was hungry.
Very, very hungry.
Pushing himself up off of the ground, his eyes glanced over his hand. Startled, he took a closer look. The finger that had been bitten was still smeared with blood, but underneath it, where he expected to see pink flesh, it was black; solid, jet black; like you would find coming out of a permanent marker.
He stumbled to his feet, his limbs trembling and his mouth feeling dry and cracked. A sudden wince of pain erupted in one of his gums, and Redman felt the taste of blood...his blood. And while normally this would have nauseated him, he felt...pleased.
Tremors continuing to shake his body, his limbs twitching uncontrollably, Redman staggered into the hallway, all hesitation to encounter the invaders completely forgotten. He could feel something inside him, slowly and systematically killing everything inside him, and he couldn't bear it anymore.
His stomach was in knots; he needed to eat something. He knew if he could just eat then things would be better.
Eat...
Eat...
Eat...
~~*~~
Greg had been running with this gang for about four months. They had their shit way more organized than the last group he'd fallen in with. These guys knew where all the good places to crash were, where all the easy targets for various acts of theft and thuggery were. Things had been pretty sweet with them.
On this particular autumn night Greg had his eye on the newest addition to their group, a homely 17 year old runaway by the name of Tamsyn. Being only 20 himself, Greg felt it was his chivalrous duty to protect her from the older and less savoury men who prowled Raccoon City's streets.
She was dressed provocatively. Not four hours ago she was part of one of their newest schemes. Dressed as a stereotypical hooker, with platform stilettos and a latex mini-skirt, Tamsyn lured fat, rich white guys into dark alleys where naturally, the toughest of the group waited with blunt instruments to scare whatever cash the man had on him into their hands. It had worked a treat.
Tamsyn's eyes scanned the people around her, and rested on Greg's. A small smile tugged at one side of her mouth. She slid over next to him, and went to whisper in his ear...
But before any noise could escape her throat the door to the apartment in which they were squatting shuddered. The noise it made was so loud that the three men seated near it leapt to their feet.
"What the fuck?" One of them exclaimed, reaching towards the back of his pants for the handgun that rested in his belt.
The door shuddered again. Everyone was standing now; Tamsyn had slipped behind Greg, fearful.
"Whose out there?" The first guy said, sternly. No answer. He repeated his question, but still no answer.
The door buckled; splinters of wood slipping to the floor.
The first reached out for the door handle, hesitant. As a tough street-gang member he rarely felt intimidated by anything, but his heart was thumping and sweat had quickly gathered on his forehead.
His hand rested on the handle, drawing in a breath for just a moment, before he finally turned it, pulling the door to the apartment open swiftly.
There, framed by the darkness of the hallway, was a vagrant, dressed in torn jeans and the most stereotypical of hobo trench coats. His head was lowered against chest, and everyone could hear his ragged breathing.
"What the fuck are you doing?" The first member said, pulling his gun out and letting it hang by his side.
The vagrant didn't reply, he merely stood there, shaking.
The first member repeated his question, angrier, and still the vagrant didn't reply...until...with a whimper and a visible, bodily shudder, he raised his head.
Tamsyn screamed.
His eyes were red, his nose dripping blood. One side of his mouth was drooped down almost to where his chin was, and around his neck were long, deep scratch marks, and, looking closely at his hands, they all could see the flesh from his neck were under his fingernails.
The group stared at him for a moment...stunned...
That is, until, his drooping mouth snapped open in a snarl, and his bloody hands snatched at the first gang member's face. He screamed and fell backwards, the vagrant falling right on top of him. For a moment nobody could tell exactly what was happening, until, with a soft squishing noise and a blood-curling scream, everyone gathered saw the vagrant's teeth sink into the man's flesh.
The man screamed, flailing, as the vagrant tore away half of his jugular in one swift action. The vagrant swallowed it quickly and followed it with another savage bite to the man's neck. His screams were now muffled with the blood that spurted upwards from his vocal cords and torn arteries.
The other gang members stared in disbelief for a moment, and it wasn't until the third bite that effectively ended all struggles from the dying man that any of them did anything.
The leader of the group, Kane, whipped his Glock handgun out from his belt, and with a yell of fury, let off five rounds in quick succession.
Kane was no half-assed shooter. He aimed with careful accuracy at the vagrants chest, confident he would strike him with no risk to any of his gang. Indeed, the five bullets struck his back and sides, but you would be hard pressed to have seen a reaction in the feeding tramp. Kane had shot several people in his life, and each time part of their body had disintegrated in a splatter of blood, or at the very least let a large jet of crimson shoot into the air. None of that happened with this monster. Instead, each bullet hit with a softened thump, leaving five dark holes in his body, but not a single drop of his blood fell.
His mind, in more calm times, would have gone to Kevlar or something similar, but this cannibalistic man was so far beyond what he was used to that the thought didn't even occur to him.
"RUN!"
Nobody knew who shouted it, except that they screamed it with such unbridled fear that you couldn't help but take heed.
Greg immediately grabbed Tamsyn's wrist, squeezing too tight and making her gasp. He dragged her backwards into one of the bedrooms and kicked the door shut. With nary a pause, he tossed Tamsyn onto a bed and dragged a dilapidated chest of drawers across the doorway.
The moment he released it, the screams of the men still inside the room began to ring out. A pair of hands started banging on the bedroom door, shrieking to be let in.
"Greg! Greg we have to-" Tamsyn started, but she was silenced when Greg's hand clapped across her mouth.
The door was shaking even more violently, as the man's cries for help turned to screams, and eventually to a choked gurgling, and finally silence.
As soon as his moans ceased, Greg leapt from the bed, allowing Tamsyn to finish her choked cry.
"What are you doing?" She demanded, curling up into the fetal position on the probably soiled bedcovers.
Greg ignored her question, as he flicked the latch on the window. He bent at the knees to push it up, but it was immediately apparent it was stuck fast.
"SHIT!" He hissed, "I can't open it."
"Ju-just break the glass?' Tamsyn suggested, bluntly.
Greg paused for a moment listening out for any more signs of violence from the rest of the apartment. It was quiet, but the trickle of blood that had started to seep under the doorway wasn't encouraging.
"Okay," Greg muttered, "Okay, this is what we'll do." He sat down next to Tamsyn and wrapped his muscular arms around her tiny and poorly dressed frame. "We're going to wait...I don't know...maybe ten minutes? Okay?" Tamsyn nodded. "And then, I'm going to smash the glass, and straight away, i mean straight away you're going to go out that window. There's the fire escape ladder out there, but we don't have time to lower it properly. Now, I don't have my gun, and I want you out of here as soon as possible okay?"
Suddenly Tamsyn's composure broke and she started slapping her hands against his chest.
"No! Stop saying 'okay' goddammit!" She spat, "Everything is NOT okay! We've locked ourselves in some fucking shit hole bedroom while some freak eats our friends! THIS IS NOT OKAY!"
Greg stared at her bewildered for a moment, and was about to open his mouth to offer comforting untruths, when the door once again started banging and shaking. Tamsyn screamed once more and buried her face in Greg's chest, her mascara streaking her cheeks.
Snarls came from the other side of the flimsy wood, from multiple throats. Greg's spine shivered as he wondered who else had joined the first horrific apparition.
Sliding off the bed again, he gently lifted Tamsyn to her feet and pushed her up against the wall next to the window.
"Cover your eyes, just in case." He softly commanded.
In the corner of the room was a clearly unused fireplace, and resting against it, by sheer luck, was its fire-poker. With the practised grip of a former baseballer, Greg held the poker up high and swung at what once had probably been an attractive (and clean) window.
A small sigh of relief escaped him as the glass gave way with ridiculous ease, and with a quick swipe of the metal rod the remaining shards fell from the window sill.
Grabbing Tamsyn again, this time a little rougher, he pushed her towards the window, and held her hand as she lifted one long leg out of the gap.
"Just grab onto the fire escape there Tammy, it's only one floor down so it's not too far!" He said encouragingly.
Her fingers shakily gripped the rungs of the ladder, as she pulled both of her legs out of the building. Her momentum swung her out further than expected and she pin-wheeled her legs in an effort to stabilise herself. She rested one on the ledge outside the window, but her platform pumps slipped on the wet granite. Tamsyn shrieked into the night as she slipped again, one of her hands slipping from the rung above her.
"GREG!" She called. She couldn't see him, as she faced the other way.
When he didn't reply, she bit her lip and reached up for the rung again. Reasserting herself, Tamsyn swung herself around so she faced towards the bedroom.
Tamsyn went to call for him again, but her voice fled her as she took in what she saw.
The door to the bedroom was splintered in half. The chest of drawers remained, but the entire top section of the door lay in pieces on the floor. Greg was pressed up against the window, frozen. Framed in the doorway, half on, half off the drawers, was the hobo that had interrupted their revelry. Fresh blood dripped from its mouth, splattering the floor.
"Greg..." Tamsyn hissed softly, "Greg get out here now!"
The vagrant slid down off the drawers and onto the floor, a chilling growl echoing from its gore-filled mouth.
"GREG! GET THE FUCK OUT HERE!"
Her shriek suddenly compelled Greg into action. Yelping like a wounded puppy, he turned to the window and clumsily lifted one leg up and out. Tamsyn reached out for him with one hand, planting her feet more firmly this time on the ledge just beneath her.
"Come on!" She moaned, her fingers wrapping around his wrist, pulling him jerkily halfway out.
A relieved and unconscious smile broke across Greg's face. He'd made it out!
"GREG!" Tamsyn's shrill and high-pitched cry broke the illusion of security in a fraction of a second.
The vagrant's hand clutched at Greg's ankle, the blackened finger where the rat had bit breaking as Greg started trying to tug it free.
"GET THE FUCK OFF ME!" Greg cried, wrenching his hand free from Tamsyn and bashing at the vagrants gnarled digits.
With a groan more animal than human, the vagrant leant its head in towards Greg's trapped leg, and, in a flash, bit down savagely into his ankle with a horrid crunching noise.
Greg's screams echoed throughout downtown Raccoon City, but naturally, no one bar Tamsyn was listening.
With as much force as he could muster, Greg kicked upwards with his wounded leg, smashing up into the vagrant's teeth, freeing it from his grip.
The cannibalistic attacker grunted and fell back, its head slamming into one of the metal bedposts, a cracking noise indicating its skull had smashed.
Another triumphant smile crossed Greg's face...but yet again it was quickly wiped away. His efforts to free his leg had come at a cost.
His leg carried on, on its course, its momentum sending it up, and him backward, straight out the window and down toward the pavement below. His and Tamsyn's panicked shouts mingled in the air, as the dark, water streaked concrete rushed up to meet him.
It was only a few meters, but as he plummeted that short distance, Greg knew what would happen. He was falling head first...there was only one possible outcome.
Tamsyn stared down at the ground, dangling free in space, her eyes fixed on the still figure below her. Gulping, fresh tears dropping down her face, she steadied her feet for the third time on the window ledge. She reached out and held onto the facade of the building, taking a moment to catch her breath, her head rested against the wall.
"Tammy...Tammy...just...climb down." She whispered to herself.
With another small moan, she eased herself backwards, her feet sliding down on either side of the water pipe that ran up next to the ladder. Her long nails scratched on the plastic as she started to carefully and gingerly let herself down, inch by inch, foot by foot.
About five feet above the ground she chanced it and dropped down to the pavement, wincing as her legs jarred momentarily. But any thoughts of her own pain vanished as she once again caught sight of Greg.
He was motionless on the ground, face up.
"Greg..." She whispered, crawling over to him. Her hands ran over his chest as she shuddered.
His head was twisted oddly, his neck at nearly a right angle to how it was supposed to be. His eyes were glassy, and blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth.
"Greg..." Tamsyn repeated, "No...don't...you can't..."
A sudden whirring of sirens caught her attention, forcing her to tear her eyes away from his blank eyes. The red and blue lights were still blocks away, but she knew that they were coming her way. And if there was one thing she had learnt in her time with the gang, it's that no matter what, when cops come, you split. No matter whose crying for help, you bail, no hesitation.
With a quick kiss on his already cold lips, Tamsyn stole away into a nearby alley, her stilettos and the sirens the only sound to indicate anything at all had happened.