Resident Evil: Stranger
Before he died Arthur Landwin was an office worker.
Arthur Landwin commuted from a small leafy suburb outside the Central Business District of Raccoon City before spending a lingering 9 hours behind his desk placating irate customers for one reason or another.
Through the finger print smudged window of an old grey hound bus Arthur stared, squinting when the sun emerged from behind one of the cities large, drab grey buildings.
The city was put together like a modular puzzle; the smaller boutique stores and deli's holding up the towering buildings that Arthur marveled at as they mocked the domination of the heavens.
The sky the day that Arthur died was azure blue, punctuated every now and then with clouds that drifted wistfully on a warm, comforting breeze. The streets were full of the normal crowd; tight suited businessmen and pencil skirted receptionists ambling backwards and forwards on the sidewalks. To Arthur it seemed as if the people weren't making any progress at all, they all seemed to be playing an invisible game of tug of war that only ceased when the sun went down and the curfew kicked in.
Recently the murder rate in and around Raccoon City had been worsening, it wasn't normal. What further confounded Arthur was how simply bizarre the murders were. The murders were systemic in their execution, a ritual that seemed to be repeated each week; a man or woman bitten and gouged to death, normally as they hiked the abundant nature trails around the town. A rabid dog had been recently put down after biting several people as it rampaged through the CBD; Arthur had heard the people it had bitten had gone insane; then again he heard a lot of things. Brian Irons; the Chief of Police had enacted a curfew to try to stem the murders but it seemed his attempts at controlling the problem had been fruitless.
Now Arthur sat on the bus, reclining languidly on the torn leather of his seat. A Burger King wrapper below him scraping across the raised metal of the floor as the bus careened this way and that through the city streets. Arthur considered picking the burger wrapper up but the pain that radiated from his lower back convinced him otherwise.
Resting his head on the cool window Arthur longed for this jittering coach to reach his stop so he could descend the stairs (as he ritualistically did every single evening) and sit down to a home cooked meal that would inevitably taste like a bowl of newspaper. As Arthur longed a man slumped in the seat next to him heavily. With great effort Arthur raised his head from the window and glanced over at the man; a long coat covered his lanky form with tussled hair sitting atop a gaunt face.
This man looked sick.
Arthur rested his head on the window again. A red blur flashed by suddenly causing him to start.
Arthur craned his neck to see what the blur was and speeding around the corner was a Fire Engine; the ominous shrieking drone of its sirens still audible even after the Engine had disappeared around the buildings behind them. Arthur was craning his neck still, catching the attention of a woman behind him; a frumpy looking spinster with a large hat and creviced features stared intensely at Arthur as if challenging his glance.
Arthur mumbled an apology and turned back around. In front of his bus a pile up of cars blocked the road ahead and it was too late to turn, they hit the pile up and went spiraling into the air.
Arthur's consciousness returned to him slowly, in pulses. Arthur would be aware of the screaming, the smell and the feel of sharp glass nipping his skin and then the sensations would vanish and he'd be in darkness again only for them to return moments later with greater intensity.
Arthur managed to roll onto his back, emitting a loud groan as his shocked muscles struggled to process the instructions being sent to them. The sky to Arthur was a broken canvas of orange watercolor, he blinked and rubbed his eyes willing them to work properly again. Arthur managed to sit up and he looked around him as best he could; a hulking grey smudge lay in front of him emitting streams of orange blurs, grey blobs ambled backwards and forwards to and from the hulk, around him faster grey smudges darted midst the orange mess as it moved with each gust of wind that blew around him.
As Arthur's vision slowly returned he saw Raccoon City was an inferno of dereliction, in a litany of destruction the once quaint city was now an immolated ruin; cars piled up in haphazard stacks burned fiercely blocking streets and alleys, people ran blindly dodging the fire and the violence and others grasped them and bit into them, covering them in sheets of people. Screams and the sound of gun fire and the hideous crackle of burning filled Arthur's ears and the smell of burning corpses filled his nostrils turning his stomach and forcing his lunch onto the road.
When Arthur recovered he noticed the hulking grey smudge was the bus; it had overturned and flung Arthur through the window spreading glass and shards of metal amidst the myriad shards of metal and pieces of glass already on the road. Arthur knelt down and looked into the window he had been thrown out of; the man who had landed heavily on the seat next to him before the crash was on all fours, biting deeply into a corpse that had been roasted black by the inferno within the bus.
Arthur screamed and the man turned his head slowly to look at him; one eye socket leaking milky fluid, teeth dangling from mashed gums set within his blackened visage. The man exhaled deeply producing a moaning sound and then began to claw his way out of the interior of the bus, clambering through the twisted window frame before standing up.
Arthur stood abruptly and faltered backwards. The man was on fire but seemed to feel no pain, his smashed face and torn body, his charred arm which dangled loosely from a shining, exposed elbow socket did not seem to register with him. All the man seemed to care about was getting to Arthur and he knew this, so he ran.
Arthur ran through the ruined streets of Raccoon City, people around him falling to groups that covered them; screaming as the group tore pieces of them off and sat on the road and fed on them.
Arthur's mind, still foggy from the bus crash struggled to process all of this…horror. The buildings around Arthur were giants, threatening to stamp on him and end his life as he darted past their gleaming windows.
Screams flooded his mind, screams and words. Words, words like "No" and "God" and "Please" filtered through the hideous screaming as it cut through Arthur's mind like a knife. Gunshots rang out in the cacophony, cracking loudly amidst the sounds of carnage as fleshy pieces were torn from bodies and bones cracked under the influence of the ghouls who feasted upon their nutritious flesh.
Arthur dodged the people as they reached out to him, or for him. The people gave chase in an ambling shuffle with arms outstretched, bile thick vomit falling out of their broken faces.
Arthur felt his strength failing, his reserves of energy depleted almost visibly in front of his eyes in the form of an ethereal counter that was rapidly ticking down. It was as if his body was saying "No more pal, that's it, there's nothing left."
Arthur stopped running outside of his building. A tall, shining monolith with the street number in bronze above the maw like entrance. In the failing afternoon light Arthur saw what he had left behind and what lay in front of him; behind him the ruined city burned like Rome with it's occupants cannibalizing one another in a revolting display of gluttony, if he continued he faced a police barricade that had failed; cars strewn with gore and parts of bodies were clearly parked quickly, yellow barriers were knocked over onto corpses and bullet casings littered the concrete like shards of glass from the crashed bus. Exhausted and with his only other option to continue until his strength failed completely Arthur swiped his ID card through the revolving door reader and stepped through into the reception area.
The reception area was dark and brooding, through the tinted windows afternoon sunlight burned like fire. In the darkness beyond Arthur recycled air ventilated loudly, the elevator was stuck and pinged rhythmically. Arthur walked slowly through the darkness, his chest heaving as he recovered with labored breaths from his marathon run through the tomb that was Raccoon City. Arthur came to the elevator door and gasped; a mangled body lay half eaten through the doors, they slid shut smoothly then opened again as they hit the cadaver.
With morbid curiosity seizing him Arthur knelt down and examined the body more closely. The corpse was different; circular wounds penetrated the suited chest like clean gun shots and the head seemed to have had the skin pulled off of it. Arthur recoiled and knelt down again, he grabbed the hand of the corpse and dragged it out of the elevator, the doors slid shut gratefully bathing Arthur once more in the thick darkness. Arthur fumbled with the elevator controls until he found the up button and the doors opened flooding the elevator hall with light. He climbed into the elevator and pressed the "13" button intending on going straight to his office and calling the police; the image of the barricade entered his mind and suddenly this seemed like a futile pursuit however Arthur was in over his head and he needed help.
The 13th floor was as dark as the reception. A broken fluorescent light sparked and swung with a distinct squeak from the roof as Arthur exited the elevator. Files and Manila folders lay strewn across the plush, blue carpet that felt spongy under Arthur's feet, soaked and dyed deep red with blood.
The thing that worries me, thought Arthur is the fact that I don't see any bodies.
The hallway was empty apart from Arthur and cubicles that sat silently around him, calendars and family portraits hanging crookedly, some stained with smatterings of blood. At the end of the hall was Arthur's office, the pale white door open crookedly.
Why is my office door open? thought Arthur grimly. Could his haven be occupied by these violent, blood thirsty ghouls?.
Arthur crept stealthily up the hall, starting as the light above him sparked loudly. As he moved Arthur could faintly hear a light tapping sound drifting through the silent hallways and what almost sounded like breathing…labored breathing.
Nudging his door open Arthur saw nothing out of the usual; his desk was neat and piled with customer complaints, his computer was on, the eerie blue green glow of the monitor bathing the walls of the claustrophobic work space.
Arthur went to his desk and took a seat, pain lifted from his fatigued body and a satisfying sense of relaxation washed over him. The computer monitor intrigued him, Arthur pulled the chair closer to the desk and noticed someone had tried to type an e-mail. The e-mail was addressed to .us.
"Please help me everyone is dead something is wrong please send help it will find emrkl."
It looked like he got interrupted, thought Arthur What did he mean by "it will find"?
The tapping sound from before resumed and Arthur walked out into the hall to investigate. Suddenly he felt himself being lifted off the floor, screaming Arthur began to struggle and was aware of a shrieking sound coming from above him. Thick mucus dripped from something on the roof.
A fleshy protrusion pierced Arthur through the shoulder and pushed through his chest spraying a fountain of gore in front of him. Hot pulses of agonizing pain shot through Arthur's body as if his blood was boiling.
Arthur felt whatever had him fumble and drop him heavily onto the floor. Arthur scrambled across the floor to the elevator, pursued by a rapid tapping sound from above him. Flooding the hallway with light was the open elevator door, with a final burst of effort Arthur pushed himself into the elevator, turned around and came face to face with the most hideous thing he had ever seen.
A skinless visage stared at him blindly hanging upside down from the roof outside the open elevator doors, an exposed brain pulsed hideously and a long whip like tongue cut audibly through the air. Thick mucus dripped from the creatures humanoid body, exposed muscle and sinew throbbing with each movement the monster made. Arthur kicked the ground floor button on the control panel and the doors slid shut.
The creature shrieked and bashed itself against the doors rattling the elevator. As it descended the horrific noises grew softer until only the humming of the elevator mechanisms could be heard.
Arthur's wound hurt intensely. Thick red blood flowed from the perfectly circular puncture the creatures tongue had made, with each heart beat more precious blood flowed onto Arthur's torn work shirt.
The agonizing stab of pain Arthur had felt when he was attacked returned and he seized on the elevator floor. He knew what was happening, last Christmas Arthur had suffered a severe heart attack and had almost ended up in a wheel chair. It was happening again and with all he had been through Arthur knew he wasn't going to live through this one. The elevator descended to the ground floor and Arthur felt consciousness fading, he seized again and felt himself slip into unconsciousness.
RPD transfer Leon Kennedy; a body armored young officer with short brown hair pressed himself against the slick concrete of an alley wall. Purple twilight shrouded the ruined Raccoon City in a mournful night shade that obscured the nightmare from the outside world. Leon had stumbled into this hell and now he was going to have to fight his way out. One of the crazed people stumbled into view; a torn work shirt covering a circular wound in his chest, the creature turned to Leon and let out a low sigh as if it was moaning.
Might as well start with this one, thought Leon, raising his handgun.