1.
Officer Rebecca Chambers exhaled noisily, blowing a loose strand of dark brown hair out of her face. Taking half a second to aim, she fired a round of bullets into the target at the far end of the room. Every single one hit within the inner two circles of the target, but her skill gave her no pleasure.
"How dare they? How could they do that to me?" she muttered under her breath. "And they call themselves my friends. Stupid men…who needs them?" Still grumbling to herself, she reloaded her gun with a quiet click. She was about to fire another round when a girl's voice interrupted her from outside the room.
"Rebecca! We're really sorry, but you have to understand! We were only trying to help. You know it's only for your own good." The handle of the door rattled, but Rebecca had locked it. The door did not budge.
"Go away, Jill! I don't want to hear it!" Rebecca yelled back through the door.
"Come on, Rebecca. Please?" another voice tried.
"No, Chris! Just leave!" She fired off the next round of bullets then, drowning out whatever they said next. Rebecca didn't want to hear their excuses.
It had begun that morning. Jill and Chris had invited her to eat breakfast with them—their treat. Rebecca had thought the offer strange and sudden, but had accepted anyway. Free food, right?
Bad idea.
She didn't know what was really in store for her then, though. She arrived at the appointed place on time. The hostess greeted her, and informed Rebecca that her group had already arrived and was waiting inside. So, she followed the waitress to the table, and for a moment thought there had been a mistake. It wasn't Jill and Chris sitting there, oh no. It was some stranger. He greeted her by name, but talked to her boobs instead of her face. Although feeling awkward about the whole situation, she stayed a couple minutes… only to find out that her so-called "friends" had set her up on a blind date. A blind date with some hideous, super perverted freak.
'I'll never forgive them for this one,' she swore silently.
"Please," Jill called earnestly, "just listen to our side of it." The doorknob rattled again.
Rebecca rolled her eyes and continued to ignore her. She didn't have time to hear Jill's lame attempt at a lousy excuse. She opened a new pack of bullets and reloaded her gun again. The target she had been shooting at for the last half an hour was in tatters, and the bull's eye pattern was impossible to make out.
Even though Rebecca was ignoring her, Jill continued talking. "We know how lonely you get. Chris and I are always together, but… we worry about you. We're your friends, and we want you to really be happy, Rebecca. You're so good at hiding it, but we can still tell. We don't want you to have to pretend to be happy anymore."
'Wow, she sounds like my mother,' Rebecca thought, rolling her eyes.
"She's right, Rebecca. We were only trying to help," Chris added.
Well they had failed at it. Miserably. Rebecca sighed. She knew what they said was true. A little bit, anyway. She wasn't happy at all. And she didn't know why, either. Rebecca just felt something important was missing in her life.
'Or someone important…' the little voice in her head whispered.
"Shut up!!" she screamed, both to her friends and herself.
She had tried so hard over the last almost two years to forget…him. But it was impossible. Even though she barely knew him and their time together had hardly lasted a day, he had somehow managed to make himself a permanent part of her life, haunting her every thought.
Billy Coen.
Just thinking his name sent a spasm of pain through her heart. She missed him. Even now, the memories were fresh in her mind, as if the incident on the train had happened only yesterday. Everything thing was so clear: their first meeting, their final goodbye.
Of course, Rebecca didn't know why she felt so connected to Billy. She barely knew him. Maybe it had something to do with being in a life or death situation with him. Maybe because he had saved her life, and she had saved his. Maybe because he had trusted her enough to tell her the truth about his past.
Whatever the reason, it was all because of him Rebecca was so mad at her friends. How could she ever even be remotely interested in some other guy when she couldn't get Billy out of her mind?
'I feel bad for blaming Jill and Chris, though. They have no idea I even met with Billy,' Rebecca considered, frowning.
Thinking of her first encounter with Billy brought her mind back to that night. The STARS Bravo team had flown to Raccoon City to investigate a series of bizarre murders nearby. Rebecca never could have guessed that the murderers were actually dead—and not even human at all. The team was almost to the city when their helicopter took a crash landing in the forest, but luckily there were no fatalities or major injuries. Rebecca and other members of the STARS Bravo team had begun to scout the area in hopes of finding help.
While searching, they came upon an overturned police car. Two dead policemen were strewn across the ground, staining the grass with blood. In the bushes nearby was a briefcase which had been flung open, presumably when the police car had crashed. One of the papers inside had a picture of Billy—dark hair, dark eyes. "Court order for transportation," it read, "Prisoner: Billy Coen. Ex-lieutenant, 26 years old. Court marshaled and sentenced to death July 22nd."
Rebecca and the rest of Bravo team assumed it was Billy Coen who had murdered the policemen to gain his freedom, and they began searching the area to hunt him down and put him back into custody. They all went off alone, and if they found him, they were to report back to the squad leader immediately. Shooting him was permitted. Their mission now was to capture him—dead or alive.
It was then Rebecca came to the train. She had no idea that the train's passengers were now nothing but an army of zombies. Rebecca shuddered at the memory of those mindless monsters that awaited them inside, driven only by the need to eat living flesh. It was the first time she had come across those foul, undead creatures, but it would not be the last.
But more importantly, the train was where she had met Billy. Those first few moments with him constantly replayed in her mind over and over again. By now, those first minutes were practically etched into her brain by now.
She was kneeling by the dead body of one of the train's staff. Rebecca wanted to get a better look at what had attacked him—something human, like Billy, or something far worse?
She had been trained to always keep her guard up and her senses keen. But Billy was sneaky and slipped past her guard. A bit too late, she heard him enter. He cocked his gun with a quiet click, and Rebecca knew he was holding a gun to her head. She slowly stood up and turned to face him, thinking for sure this was the end for her.
She recognized his face from the photo instantly. "Billy… Lt. Coen."
"So… you seem to know me," was his reply. "Been fantasizing about me, have you?"
Their conversation had been short. At the end, he turned his back on her and left, giving her the perfect opportunity to take out her gun and shoot him point-blank. But of course, she couldn't bring herself to do it.
And then she met up with him again, later on. He had saved her life that time. Rebecca was beginning to doubt he was a bad man—underneath his bad ass attitude, she was beginning to see that he really was a sensitive and sweet, caring individual. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all. And as they battled their way through the train, watching each other's backs, her trust in him grew stronger. She trusted him with her life, and he trusted her with his.
And then she received the radio transmission. Her leader, Enrico, informed her they had found more information on the convict, Billy Coen. According to him, he had murdered 23 people without any hesitation. He was ruthless and dangerous, and he would shoot her on sight like the others he had killed.
Yet there he stood, not two yards away from her. Sure, he looked a little rough with the tattoos and angry expression… but he wasn't dangerous. Not to humans, anyway. In fact, he almost looked sad. Like an abused puppy, blamed for a crime he did not commit. And that's what Rebecca thought had happened—he was framed. But she still felt she had to ask him about the truth. Rebecca needed to know for sure. And so she waited until the perfect moment to bring it up. Surprisingly, the moment came seconds after he had saved her life—again. Billy hesitated, but told her his story.
It happened during his career as a lieutenant in the army, at a war overseas. A spy had informed the group of a guerilla hideout deep in the jungles, and he and some others set out to find it. Well, something must have gone wrong because when they got to the correct coordinates, they were in a small, innocent village. They inspected the small town through and through, but it wasn't an enemy hideout or even anything resembling one. The villagers weren't involved in the war at all. But the general didn't want to return empty handed. He ordered the remaining soldiers to fire on the innocent people and kill them all.
Billy did not say if he participated or not in the slaughter. Rebecca felt sure he hadn't, though, and he had been sentenced to death for disobeying his commanding officer's orders. They didn't want word of the murder to get out to the public, so they decided on the easiest way to cover everything up—getting rid of the people who were there.
It was only a guess, but Rebecca felt like she was right. Even though she had only known him for a short while, she was sure Billy would never hurt an innocent human being. As far as she could tell, he was a strong, brave individual with a strong set of moral standards and ethics.
So when she got another radio call, asking if she had come across Billy Coen, Rebecca lied. "No," she told Enrico, her voice set with her decision. Billy had saved her life twice, and he didn't deserve to die. Her first real mission, and already she had disobeyed orders and lied to her commanding officer. But no one would ever learn about it, and there was not a single doubt in her mind that her decision was wrong. Rebecca knew that if she didn't listen to her heart, she would never be able to live with herself.