Resident Evil: The Hades Memoirs
Michael Warren - The Fall of Rome
As Mayor of Raccoon City, it wasn't often that Michael got the opportunity to relax. With the majority of his staff either dead or evacuated, it seemed as good a time as any to cut loose and enjoy himself.
In his right hand, he carried the stainless steel.38 calibre revolver he'd been keeping in his desk for the last twenty years and never used. The old girl had seen more action this past week than she had ever done in her life. His mansion was on the outskirts of the city, at the top of a steep incline with only one road leading to it, but the zombies still found a way up there, and he needed to be ready for them.
In his left, he clutched the bottle of vintage scotch that he'd been keeping locked away in the kitchen for a very special occasion. Before, he'd needed to keep his wits about him so that he could organise an effective plan to defend his city, but now it didn't seem to matter. He was never going to get another chance to enjoy the bottle, and so he'd gulped down half of the sweet firewater in the first minute. A pleasant, warm glow had descended on him, and he was quite happy to continue topping it up as he walked back through the mansion to his study.
There was a zombie standing in the foyer, staring idly at the ceiling, wearing the pin-striped skirt and jacket of one of his aides. He seemed to recall a woman with the same tight bun at the back of her head manning the phones before things had really gone downhill and he'd dismissed them all. Apparently, she hadn't wandered far. That was the kind of loyalty he treasured in his staff.
Grinning to himself, he levelled the old pistol and fired.
His aim was off by a few feet, and the bullet blew apart a priceless painting hanging on the wall in a shower of glass and shredded canvas. He started laughing, even as the undead female turned to stagger towards him. Letting his guffaws trail off into a chuckle, he took another swig from his bottle and cocked back the hammer a second time, this time putting a slug through her left eye and dropping her to the tiled floor.
As blood spread in a gory halo around her head, he marched past her and into the hall that led to his office, what had once been the very hub of the city's survival effort. He strode past the desks that had been dragged into the corridor, where his employees had been sitting, compiling reports, making calls, and generally trying to put the place back to rights. It hadn't worked, of course, but it had been a valiant attempt and not a one of them wasn't a hero for all they'd done.
He walked past the abandoned workstations, the piles of documents scattered about, the corpse of one of his advisers hanging from a beam in the ceiling, hovering a foot above an upturned chair. Tucking his weapon into his belt, he pulled open the door that led into his study.
It was as he had left it, though he had only been gone for a few minutes - half an hour, at most. His veneered wooden desk stood at the centre, a sturdy rock amid the mounds of paperwork covering it and the floor around it. Behind it was his chair, a good, comfortable model with padded leather back and armrests. Beyond that was the window that overlooked Raccoon City - his city.
In the corner of the room, by the door, sat his wife, waiting for him as always. She hadn't left his side throughout this whole ordeal. Through days of fruitless toil and frustration, she had been there. It reminded him of why he had married her.
"I'm back, Andrea," he said, "sorry it took so long."
She didn't respond, keeping her head bowed, lustreless blonde hair obscuring her features. He moved to his desk, trampling the shattered remains of the coffeepot he had broken in frustration, seconds before he had resolved to find a real drink. Clearing a space by sweeping a stack of unnecessary files onto the floor, he set his bottle down and retrieved a crystal tumbler from the tray beside the water jug. He poured himself a generous measure, his hand shaking despite his best efforts, and then let out a sigh.
"You're still angry with me, because I sent Joanne away, aren't you?" he asked her.
Her silence told him more than words ever could. She had loved Joanne, maybe even more than he had. They had been so much alike, so beautiful, so effervescent, two women born for the limelight that his position provided. Michael knew that she must have missed her daughter, so very much. And now she was gone, and it was his fault.
"I didn't have a choice," he told her, knowing that it would come as poor consolation, "he knew things. He knew about the money. I couldn't spend my last days in this Godforsaken city as a prisoner. I'm the Mayor, for Christ's sake. I'm too important to wind up in some cell. Who else was going to try and keep this city together, hmm?"
He was right about that much, at least, and she knew it. He was the leader of this city, and had been for two decades. Five consecutive terms he had held the highest office in Raccoon, and no one was more trusted with the position than him. Each of his opponents had fallen, time and again, to his campaign. The people loved him. No one else could have risen to the occasion the way he had, saved so many lives. He certainly couldn't have achieved all that he had from inside a cell. He just wished he could have done more.
But then, it was hardly an ordinary situation. This wasn't an earthquake, or a flood, or some manmade disaster. The dead were coming back to life and hunting down the living. It was the stuff of nightmares.
"And besides," he continued, hammering the point home, "I'm sure Brian's intentions were perfectly honourable. He's a good man. We campaigned together, remember? Hell, I supported his whole bid to become Chief of Police. He wouldn't be where he is right now without me. I'm sure Joanne was on the first helicopter to take off from the Central Precinct. She's probably safe somewhere out there as we speak. She's a smart girl - beautiful too, just like you; I'm sure she'll land on her feet."
He sighed again, running a hand over his face, his bloodshot eyes, his dry lips, and the thick stubble that was now covering his jaw.
"But how, in God's name, did he find out about that money?" he asked the room at large, swallowing the scotch from his tumbler in one gulp and banging it back down on the desk, "not that it matters. I always did what I thought was right. Umbrella were our biggest employer, even back when I first became Mayor. They wanted planning permission, or some nosey asshole reporter gagged, that was fine by me. I poured that money back into this city, built a new hospital, built two new police stations and refurbished the old museum for them to use. I built this city, me, no one else!"
He poured himself another drink and walked past the desk, stumbling slightly with his intoxication, using the edge of the table to prop himself up. He placed his hand against the wide window overlooking the city, staring out at the plumes of smoke that rose into the blackened sky. The fires were now completely out of control, with nobody to manage them now that the city's infrastructure had completely collapsed. He leaned forward, putting his forehead against the cold glass, and shut his eyes, a tear rolling down his cheek.
"And now I'm watching it burn," he muttered, "I built this place brick-by-Goddamn-brick, and now look at it - finished, done, destroyed. I feel like Nero, seeing his empire die in flames. These last few days, it feels like something's been working against me, trying to ruin me."
He growled, opening his eyes and taking another sip of the amber liquid, feeling course down his throat, fuelling the fire in his belly. He tried to pick out the Central Precinct below, amid the devastation, but it was hard to tell one building from another at this distance.
"It was probably that son of a bitch, Irons," he snarled, "he put them on to me - the Goddamn press - and they won't leave anything alone. They probably had it all over the front page even in the middle of this mess. They turned my people against me, made them think that I was the villain, those poor misguided bastards."
He turned away and stumbled to his desk, sliding into his chair, setting his tumbler down and staring into its ochre depths. When he spoke again, his voice came low and despondent, practically a whisper.
"People don't trust me anymore, Andrea. I can't protect them."
His sorrow was broken by the sound of the door bursting open. His head shot up, his hand snatching his revolver from his belt and aiming it at the entrance as two strangers, a man and a woman, rushed in.
"What the...? Who the hell are you?" he barked, rising out of his seat and cocking back the hammer of his weapon in response to the shotgun and semi-automatic pistol pointed at his face, "what the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Holy shit, Cody, it's the Mayor," the female said, hesitating, the barrel of her weapon sinking.
"Yes, that's right; this is my mansion, now what the hell are you doing here?" he asked them, his tone little more than a growl.
"Mister Mayor?" her partner muttered slowly, holding his hands up, and his handgun with them, to show that he was no threat, "what are you doing here, sir? You didn't escape?"
"I'm the Mayor of this city, boy," he responded, "people have a right to expect the very best from their elected officials."
"We were wondering, sir," the girl began, interrupting the other male before he could speak again, "if you knew any way we could get out of this city. We... We were kind of planning on staying until the army came to sort things out but... We heard a radio transmission. They're going to turn this entire area into glass in a few hours, tops."
He looked them up and down as he lowered his weapon. Their was a familial resemblance; they both had dark hair and eyes, but where he was portly and short, she was tall and more lean, though still quite stocky for a woman. She might have been the antithesis of his daughter. They certainly looked like they'd been down in the city for a week. Their clothes were filthy, smeared in muck, oil and blood, as was their skin. Grass stains on their trousers told him that they'd been walking across his lawn too, and he admired their determination for having come so far. It was just a shame that it had all been for naught.
Michael let out a humourless chuckle. "I'm sorry, but everyone who was leaving already left," he told them, though he derived no pleasure from confirming that they were doomed, "there's no way out of this city anymore. If they are going to destroy Raccoon, as you say, then all that's left is to await the inevitable."
"You mean, there's nothing?" she asked, incredulous," no helicopters, nothing?"
Andrea let out a groan from her corner and the two newcomers both started at the sound, probably thinking they had heard a zombie.
"My wife," he said, by way of explanation, when they looked back at him, "she has been very sick these last few days, though I've managed to get her the very best medical care even during this crisis. Still, she won't have long left to suffer, from what you say. That much is a blessing, at least."
"She ... doesn't look okay," the boy, Cody, replied, handing his pistol to his companion and moving to the stricken woman's side. As he walked, he reached to the pack he was carrying on his shoulder, which was emblazoned with a red cross.
"Wait, please don't touch her..." Michael insisted, but the female, whose name he hadn't learned, interrupted again.
"Don't worry, Mister Mayor," she said, "my brother worked at a clinic before all this started. He's saved hundreds of lives just this week."
"I don't know about that, 'Chelle," he said, his dirty cheeks turning ruddy as he withdrew a penlight from his satchel and moved to take hold of Andrea's jaw.
He withdrew screaming, her teeth clamped around his fingers, gnawing at his flesh. Michael let out a groan. If he had looked more closely then he might have seen the straps tying her to the chair. They had become necessary once Andrea had become too difficult to manage, when her violent fits had sent two of her doctors back to their own hospitals as patients. The girl let out a loud curse and aimed the pistol she had been given at the bound woman and her struggling brother, but he lifted his revolver once again and pointed it at her head. She looked back at him, stunned.
"Don't," he warned dangerously, as her sibling started to scream and cry for her help, before his voice took on a pleading note," don't!"
She didn't listen to him. Two guns flashed, the noises deafening in the enclosed space. Her shot punched through Andrea's forehead, painting the spines of the books on the shelf behind her red with her brain matter. The throaty gurgle she had been emitting died in her throat as she slumped in her seat. Cody fell to the floor, clutching his wounded hand. And then she dropped to the ground too, a ragged exit wound in the side of her skull.
Michael watched her collapse, wide-eyed and disbelieving as he looked at the corpse that had once been his beloved wife. A single, perfect droplet of crimson began to roll from the circular puncture in her head, over the bridge of her nose and down to her slack mouth.
"I asked you," he sighed, closing his eyes as he walked around the desk, "I asked you not to touch her."
The younger man was still on the ground, sobbing and babbling incoherently as he held his damaged fingers. He brought the revolver's cold, dark eye around to aim at the boy's head. Before he could even begin to beg for his life, or whatever else he might have been trying to say, the Mayor shot him, the loud bang leaving him momentarily deaf. When his hearing returned, it was to the silence of three dead bodies.
-x-x-x-x-x-
The doors to the mansion burst open as he applied the sole of his boot to them, knocking them aside so that he could carry the prone Andrea out into the warm, morning air. There was a gritty feeling to the wind and a smoky stench on the breeze. No matter where he went, he couldn't forget that he was in a war zone. At least out here, he could try to forget that his last official act as Mayor had been to murder two people who were simply looking for a way to escape the insanity.
He held her tightly in his arms, almost like the time he had carried her across the threshold. He had been a good deal younger and fitter back then, but she would still have been as beautiful as ever in his eyes, if it hadn't been for the slack mask that her face had become. Death warped the features, transformed them, made them ghastly. He longed to see her alive again, one last time, but he knew that she would not awaken.
The least he could do was prepare her a grave amid his flowerbed, the one he liked to tend from time to time, when his hectic schedule permitted it.
But even as he walked down the stairs to the gravel path that would lead him to her burial place, something cut through the sky overhead. He glanced up and saw a white streak, many white streaks, against the bleak, black heavens. And as he turned his eyes to the city, he saw them, immense, burning blooms blossoming outwards, their fiery petals consuming the buildings, devouring the streets, and pushing up into the sky. Their buds rose and their leaves spread out from their stems, immense explosions that devastated the metropolis that he had helped to build, that he had watched be slowly destroyed.
With a great rumbling, the tide of fire washed across Raccoon, erasing everything in its wake, the waves crashing against one another, overlapping, as the systematic bombardment did its work. They began to race towards him. Even at such a great distance, he could feel the heat.
He clutched his wife, his beautiful wife, Andrea, tightly to his chest and squeezed his eyes shut, a tear rolling down his cheek, and let the flames wash over them both.
-x-x-x-x-x-