There was nothing better than a long drive down Mica Street in the middle of the night. Especially if no one else were to be around. The lights of the buildings flashed past Leon Kennedy as he sped down HWY 20 out of the Mund Hills and into Raccoon City. The city had been amazingly quite this night, and Leon hadn't a clue why. All he knew was that his captain superior Jacobs had given him a ring calling his attention to the station. Also that Leon had a nightmare and couldn't sleep; he thought a drive would do him good. Boy, had he no idea what was coming.

After an hour's worth of driving, he came off HWY 20 and onto Piedro St. After a minute or two he came to the stop light. Lightly on the break he pressed as soon as the light went yellow, and his car slowed down right before the white line. As soon as the car stopped, things seemed at peace. The engine still ran, hwoever, and it made the night seem even more peaceful to Leon. Strangely enough, his engine was the only one he heard.

He saw alleyways on both sides of him. Both had dark paths that had no end to the human eye into darkness. At least to Leon's eye. He concieved eyes out of those atoms cast in darkness glared at him through that darkness. It gave him a shiver or two.

He flicked on the radio. The town was suddenly giving him the creeps and he needed a bit of music. The radio man Joe Bob at CTOTA on 141.3 had a Southern accent that reminded Leon of Joe Bob from 'The Stand' by Stephen King on the television. Joe Bo started the sound with: Hey gimme twenty bucks or none because I'll say today's gonna be a great day anyway! Hey, I've got a reckoning to say the new Dead movie's gonna suck major. Pardon my french, Cali boys and Cali girls, but Romero could have made mince outta the new Dead movie. I mean, mixing beer with voodoo ain't the ticket, man. But hey, who's giving a shift? The only dead thing you can expect to be great today is the collection of great songs. Starting with that Eagle's hit Hotel California!

The light went green and he went on down the road with the song lingering on his stereo system.

On a dark desert highway

Cool wind in my hair.

Warm smell of colitas

Rising up in the air.

And by the time the song was getting underway intot his part of the song, he had already shifted down Muerto St. Just like the name said, the street always seemed dead to Leon. He hoped a lot of people noticed, because the mayor of Raccoon City really needed to look into this part of town. It was pretty poor, and most of the time there were a lot of sad looking people walking about. Tonight, the streets were empty.

Up ahead in the distance,

I saw a shimmering light.

My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim;

I had to stop for the night.

A kind of shadow passed over the street as he moved on through. It could have been that the absence of people was the shadow, but he was not so sure. The air was rank with a smell that almost choked him as he inhaled. Damn peasants; they couldn't have moved somewhere else.

There she stood in the doorway

With the mission bell.

And I was thinking to myself

This could be heaven or this could be hell.

And he pulled a right onto Beaker St where he saw the same- nothing. There were clotheslines hanging from windows on both sides and above the street with rotten clothes that seemed to been worn by someone whose skin had melted away. Flies were buzzing around them.

Then she lit up a candle

And she showed me the way.

There were voices down the corridor;

Thought I heard them say:

The smell was even worse on this street. It smelt like burnt rubber and shit with pepper and mustard roasting. It made him gasp for a bit of air that he pressed harder on the accelerator to get out of there quicker.

Then suddenly a form appeared right in front of his headlights.

SCREEEEECH!

The car came to an immediate stop to where the form vanished from Leon's sight.

Welcome to the Hotel California.

Such a lovely place, (such a lovely place) such a lovely face.

There's plenty of room at the Hotel Californian.

Any time of year, (any time of year) you can find it here.

He had no idea if he had run over whatever was on the road or not. He couldn't see it over the dashboard and yonder between the lights and him.

Holy shit... did I just kill something?

He pulled on the handle and the jeep-door opened. He moved around the front, and was shocked beyond his mind.

Her mind was Tiffany twisted,

She's got the Mercedes Benz, oh.

She's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys

That she calls " friends."

The girl couldn't have been even eighteen years old. She lay motionless like a raggedy chinese doll with the long white dress that went down to her knees and the black hair strolling down her neck. She was lying on her chest with her face looking the other way. She looked pretty dead. But Leon had come across a body that appeared dead back in South Carolina when he was searching for a job as a county cop. Then he was dragged over to California because they the SC Police Department said his skills were needed with handling punks in the west. In SC, the body he came across was a teenaged idiot country boy who drank too much at a party and ended up left for dead by his 'friends' on the countryside. So Leon came and walked over to the body.

How they dance in the courtyard

Sweet summer sweat

Some dance to remember

Some dance to forget.

His shoes clapped against the cement as though they were dancing shoes against a dance floor, and his S.T.A.R.S became shiny blue when he stepped in front of the headlights. Now Leon was a very handsome man of twenty-three, single, white, and a damn good officer in S.T.A.R.S. Most of the guys at the precinct called him 'Brack-Boy' because of his brown hair and gray eyes. They said 'heck you'd look like Senator McKarson if he became a cop' and often added 'but unlike that pretty boy, Ole Leon's got the moves to impress Jodie Foster.'

Leon stopped dead before the body. The sight of the girl gave him more shivers than a coctail did when the guys at S.T.A.R.S welcomed him to the precinct. He remembered the stripper the guys invited over got him nervous and cautious over those... but she was alive. This girl appeared more dead than Jane Fonda would be in a few years.

So I called up the captain:

'Please bring me my wine.'

He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since

1969'

He bent over and nudged the girl on the shoulder. Cold as ice, but then he felt movement.

"Heya, you awake, girl?" he said

She gave out two moans as though awaking from a hundred year sleep. She started to sit up a bit. She still kept her face away from him.

She kept moaning.

"Hey, you should get home little girl," he said taking her by the arm. But when he pulled her, he couldn't. It felt like trying to pull rock out of a mountain side on a very cold day. She didn't even budge.

And then she looked around at last. But Leon wanted to look away as she turned to look at him. But he made himself look back, and the results of his bravery were disturbing. Her eyes were crystal clear with circles of black around them with a flame that made Leon want to jump back. She held him in her gaze for what seemed like forever, and soon Leon relized it was not love at first sight.

All over her forehead her own blood crawled down to drip down her chin and clot her white dress. At last Leon let go and moved back from her, but he was still locked by her. She finally began to stand, and the blood started coming down faster down her face, and soon her teeth were rank with blood. The only color on her face was her eyes and her bloodied lips. She looked like a corpse that had a blood pack dropped on her head. She made a bloody smile, and made a step towards him. She gave a slight moan as she walked towards him.

And still those voices are calling from far away.

Wake you up in the middle of the night

Just to hear them say:

"Girl, are you alright!" Leon gasped. She said nothing, but kept that bloody smile and that stalking walk. Soon she raised an arm and held it up in such a way that Leon took as an invitation to be embraced. But those lips were unsavory for kissing, Leon was afraid to say. She looked like she could have been pretty.

She moaned again, coming closer. He kept backing away from her until his thighs hit the bumper of his jeep. The girl seemed to have made her walking pace faster.

Welcome to the Hotel California.

"Now that's as far as you're getting, young lady," he threatened. She didn't heed him. Her head cocked to the side, her eyes widened, and she let her jaw drop. Threads of blood stuck to her teeth and hang off of the roof of her mouth. She raised the other hand, reaching for him.

Such a lovely place, (such a lovely place)!

Such a lovely face.

Leon finally found the courage to reach for his Colt .45 strapped at his side with such speed that the gun was already cocked by the time it was pointed at the girl. She paid no heed at all.

"Halt in the name of the law!" he shouted. His breath was raspy from the smell that now came from the girl. She smelt so rotten that he couldn't find a word to describe how dead she smelt. She was a foot away from touching the gun with her fingertips.

But he couldn't shoot her. So he actually jumped on top of the front and stood high above the girl, standing menacing from above. The girl halted, and looked up with the same look. She wanted him badly for some reason that he did not know. But then her tongue hung out, and that gave Leon's heart a reason to start beating like no tomorrow.

"I swear if you touch me girl, I'll have to take action," he said. But even he knew that wouldn't thwart an L.A. punk much less a crazed girl like this one. And as he suspected, she paid no heed. But to his surprise, she looked down. He lowered his gun a bit in inquiry.

And then amazing speed she grabbed at his foot.

There's many a room at the Hotel California.

What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)

Bring you alibis

He tried tugging his foot away from the grasp, but it was so strong that he feared if he tried harder he would rip his leg off.

And worse, she bent forward, cocked her head to the side and reached out with her neck with her teeth bared.

He feared the worst for what they were for that he immediately pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot was heard down the street and perhaps a few blocks down.

The grip on his leg was released upon impact of the bullet and the girl fell back and on her back. Leon grabbed at his foot to see if he was alright, and was relieved to see he wasn't bitten. He raised his gun again, and jumped down onto the pavement. He limped on the leg that was grabbed upon impact, and he grunted. That grip was horrifyingly strong. And then the worst happened.

Mirrors on the ceiling

Pink champagne on ice

And she said 'We are all just prisoners here

Of our own device.'

The girl rose again, with the same look on her fact. The bullet hit her square on the shoulder, and now the left side of her dress was covered in blood. It made her scarier than before, and she walked towards him again.

He was not going to risk anymore lost moments. He fired twice at her again, in the chest, but the shots only seemed like pushes that pushed her two feet backwards on her feet. She continued to stand, and the sight of her haunted Leon's mind. She continued to reach for Leon.

And in the master's chambers

They gather for the feast.

They stab it with their steely knives

But they can just kill the beast.

To hell with this!

He shot her twice in the head. The girl's head jerked back twice, and by the second time he heard her neck crack and she was thrown farther back than before. And then it was all silent.

He didn't care anymore if the girl was alive. He didn't even believe she was. he ran to the side of the car and opened the car door, and then halted. Standing behind the jeep were two men covered in blood staring at him. They had the same look the girl had. No smiles, but bearded open mouthed stares.

He opened the car door before seeing two more bloody figures standing in front of his car. Both were teenagers of different sex. The girl had blood in her hair and half her neck missing, while the boy had his ribs exposed. The smell grew worse, and it made Leon want to puke.

Soon the figures began to moan in want. And their mouths were bloody.

Then he saw a few more join those behind his jeep, and another join in front of his car. They were starting to surround him. And they didn't want his gun or his money.

He looked on the west side of the street and saw an alleyway. He did not want to risk being with these creatures, but he also didn't want to go down there. He had no choice, and he broke into a run, shooting two at the ones behind his jeep and then running into the darkness.

Leon ran for a long while, and then suddenly found himself in an office at the precinct. Once the desk in front of the window was nice and pristine, the lockers were not covered in graffiti like the blood now did, and the floors did not have dead and half-devoured officers lying there. But now Leon saw familiar faces lying pale and bloodied on the floor. Most of them had half of their bodies devoured, and even a body in the corner had bones exposed through the eaten skin.

He saw a familiar friend lying dead against the lockers in the corner. He was a black man he had been friends with since he moved to California. Now for some reason he had forgotten his name that only his completely blood-covered face was all he could place. Why couldn't he remember his name?

But all that went out the window. The eyes of the body flashed open and found Leon. The body pushed against the locker and rose up. Then he started walking to Leon, with the same look the girl gave him. And Leon froze as he aimed to fire. He couldn't pull the trigger and react so lightly. This was his friend. Or at least appeared to be his friend... no, it wasn't his friend.

And as the corpse came around to grab at him, Leon said a last goodbye and pulled the trigger five times. Thrice in the chest, and twice in the head. The man was killed. Again.

As the body fell down, Leon began moving backwards into the dark. And at that same time he felt hands grab him by the shoulder. He was spun around to face the dark, and he fire a shot in the dark. The figure that grabbed him, a huge and strange man in the dark, received the shot but did not react too much.

Leon pressed the trigger again, but there were no more bullets. He looked helplessly at the gun before looking up into the eyes of the man. One eye was as plain as any other with a fiery flame, and the other was deformed and horrible.

"Caught you, mouse," the big man said, and then letting go of a shoulder the big man reached for his neck.

And then darkness invaded his vision.

Leon sat straight up with his own hand to his neck, panting quickly and with a steady pulse. He saw no more of those eyes, and there was no big man in front of him again. He was wide awake now.

Leon found himself sitting upright in his own bed. It was night, so no sun. And it was raining, so things were getting washed away. Outside his closed window a tree branch rattled against the pained glass due to the winds passing through the forest in North Carolina. His house was set in a forest that the Carolinians called Carolina Trace. It was a beauty of a place with tall green trees surrounding him from all sides, unlike the desert-like places of California... California, that was a Hellmouth of a state. If Leon had the time and money, he would send a check to Joss Wheadon.

He wished he would never have to return to there.

And then it all came back to him like a hot kiss at the end of a wet fist in the dark. He saw the dead with his mind's eye. He could never forget the night of the living dead, movie and reality. The curse of the T-virus was so terrible it infected almost everyone in Raccoon City- more than once. He was just relieved God was on Man's side to live on.

But the wounds he got were not mortal. They were wounds of the mind that he could not heal. He could not get those faces out of his mind. Every night before he slept he cleaned his gun, loaded it, and kept it ready under his pillow. And every night he kept staring into the ceiling with the light on before his eyes closed and turned off the light. But even in the dark he would open his eyes and sleep with them awake. Sometimes he even saw the dead standing around his bed, hungrily staring at him. Sometimes they weren't bloody; sometimes they were without arms and legs. Sometimes he saw more than the dead. Sometimes he saw actual people staring at him. And one time he saw a single person standing at the end of his bed. A tall man without no hair and a long cloak. Leon could see him now... standing and staring at him at the end of his bed...

BILLLILILING! BILLLILILING !

The phone rang, and it made Leon jump. He grabbed the receiver quicker than a jackrabbit running from a wolf, and then slowly raised it to his ear. "Who is this?"

"Leon?" inquired the voice of his superior, Jacob Bridges. "You awake?"

"Do I sound it?"

"No."

"Well, shoot, General; what's up?"

"I just got a call from the White House asking me to do a favor. I thought I'd give you a ringer."

Leon's ears pricked. "White House? Why, what for?"

"Just come on over to Fort Bragg, my man. You'll learn in time. And please shut that damn music. Raccoon City has made the song sound like a reality." and then the phone went dead.

Leon hung up the phone. Almost without hesitation he turned on his lights and got into his S.T.A.R.S uniform. After Raccoon City, the force mover on over to the east with Leon following way behind. And then Leon got his .45 and holstered it to the side. He then got his keys and headed for the door. Before he unlocked it and opened it, he remembered Bridge's last request. The radio was still playing Hotel California on the radio and he reached to turn it off. But the last few lines he listened to before leaving his apartment and left the trace to Fort Bragg.

Last thing I remember,

I was running for the door.

I had to find the passage back

To the place I was before.

'Relax,' said the night man. 'We are programmed to receive.

You can check out anytime you like

But you can never leave.'