DOCTOR SCOTT WESKER (PROLOGUE)
A bizarre incident occurred on the outskirts of America's suburb, Raccoon City. It was later revealed the terrible disaster was caused by the T-virus – a mutagen toxin created by the international enterprise Umbrella Incorporated – for using in bio organic experiments. The Raccoon Police Department's S.T.A.R.S. team immediately began an investigation into the affair. The case was apparently closed, thanks to the efforts of the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Zachary Wesker, Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers and Brad Vickers. But the Umbrella Corporation experiments were far from finished.
Umbrella had always hidden their unjustifiable actions from the public, for their personal gain and future at the expense of their consumers. This unfortunate accident would be the one that would mean the end of Raccoon City, thus tipping the scales. The real incident was put in motion during July 1998 but escalated to disastrous levels the months after.
It was Saturday 29th, September 1998. It all began with a determined woman and a rookie police officer, shortly after they arrived in a dead Raccoon City. It was a deadly game of wit and survival.
Claire Redfield, an acclaimed college student, arrived at an empty street, far outside the city centre. The ominous cold air brought out the darkness of the night, the streets were always dangerous at times like this, and she only just heard that through word of mouth.
She wasn't prepared to ride her motorcycle through the town alone in the dark, the total absence of life was far below unsettling. With short breaths, Claire checked inside the diner, of course, it was empty. The state of the mess inside was looked as if the customers and staff left in a sudden rush. Plates and crockery were littered all inside, her intuition was screaming at her not to go inside, but her curiosity got the better of her.
Claire went inside and called, "Helloooo? Anyone here?" Her eyes darted around the room and bar, nothing responded to her call. "Hello?" She peered around over the bar and noticed a person. "Excuse me?"
The person in question was what appeared to be feasting on a fresh corpse, looked like a cannibal to Claire's eyes. Whatever it was, it stared at her with a hungry look that may never be satisfied.
Claire gasped as the cannibal rose from behind the bar and reached for her in a sudden twitch. "Whoa!" she exclaimed. The cannibal crawled over the counter and shuffled to Claire. "Look, I'm sorry I bothered you. I didn't see anything, okay?" The 'cannibal' didn't respond, in fact, it opened its arms and went on real close to Claire. "Are you listening?!"
Claire bumped into the wall and looked back outside. Banging on the windows were some more of these cannibals, they possessed the same hungry death stare for her. They heaved their weight on the glass, trying to get inside, at this moment Claire began to feel a bit claustrophobic. She made a run for the rear door seconds before the cannibal lunged at her.
The door opened before she grabbed hold of the handle and walked into the sights of another figure, it was a blond man in R.P.D. uniform, early twenties and was armed. She covered her face and was nearly sure she was getting a bullet to the head.
"Wait! Don't shoot!" she cried.
"Get down." Claire ducked and let the officer execute the cannibal tailing her. He offered Claire his hand back on her feet; friendly and a gentleman, he was. "You okay?"
"Yeah." She coughed. "Thanks, Officer."
"Hey, Leon Kennedy, nice to meet you. And you are?"
"Claire, Claire Redfield."
"Listen, it's too dangerous to stay here. You need to come with me to the Police Department. It'll be a lot safer."
Leon and Claire fled the diner quickly, though some of the shuffling cannibals from the streets followed Leon and lingered outside the restaurant. There was no clear way to get back to their respected vehicles, but luck struck when Leon pointed out a vacant police cruiser, vacantly sitting on the pedestrian walkway. The keys were still in the ignition, Leon buckled up, pulled out and took off on the main road.
Being the expert driver he claimed to be, Leon still had the occasional problems driving through vehicle wreckages and small roadblocks. They drove east towards the Police Department, left for the pedestrian path time to time but remained on the main road.
"What's going on in this town?!" Claire said. She stared out the window to see the city's absence of life. Walls smeared with blood and graffiti were as common as the dead bodies. Some of them walked. "I just got here, and the whole town has gone insane."
Leon tried to get the cruiser's radio working since all the stations were full of static he lost his cool and hit it with his fist. "All the stations are out."
"So... you're a cop?"
"Yeah. Today was supposed to be my first day on the job."
Claire choked. "How's your first day coming along?" she said, lightly. She had hoped it would soften the tension. She was wrong.
Leon chuckled morbidly, though remained alert, watching the road like a hawk. "Take a wild guess," he replied charmingly.
"Your guess is as good as mine here. What can you make of this crap going on?"
"I have no idea, and I figure you don't too, from you asking. Although it doesn't take a genius to see that some people are a bit cannibalish."
"A bit?" Claire tampered with the radio. It started working until it blew a fuse and went kaput. "Damn it," she exclaimed. "I think I can get it running again." She unsheathed a serrated combat knife from her left shoulder and tried to remove the radio from the slot. "Maybe the radio has an idea on things."
Leon noticed a blue emblem, decorated with gold S.T.A.R.S. engraved on Claire's knife. "S.T.A.R.S.? You with the special forces?"
"It's my brother's. That's why I'm here, to find him, and my boyfriend."
"Damn..." Leon cleared his dry throat. Not because he found Claire gorgeous or something, and he was shy about it, but there was no way she was single, and it was hard to ask. He knew that. "Uhm… What are their names?"
Sparks shot off the cruiser's radio, scaring Claire, but she resumed with determination and went back at it with her knife. Using the tip as a screwdriver. "Chris, Chris Redfield and Zachary Wesker. I lost contact with them both a while ago. I'm trying to pick up on their trail."
"I hope you find them; this is not a place to be a loner."
With a scowling expression, Claire cursed and made a move to the glove box, giving up entirely on the radio. "There's gotta be something in here that can help us."
"Let it go, Claire. We'll be at the station soon; they'll have answers. What are you hoping to find in there anyway?"
"Anything that isn't junk."
Inside the glove box wasn't the junk Claire was dreading. There wasn't anything inside at all, just a single loaded Browning HP handgun. She took it and checked the sights. It was a good handgun. High damage and accuracy at the expense of a smaller magazine.
"I knew there was a gun in here."
"Did you now?"
Suddenly, a cannibal crawled in between Leon and Claire, driving a wedge through them. The surprise and fear in Leon's eyes threw his driving into the gutter, as he lost most of the cruiser's control and careened off the road and ramming through anything on the path. Mowing down lampposts, garbage cans and anything in its path.
The hijacker tried biting at Leon while he and Claire struck its face as hard and as often they could, though up close they had no emotion or any expressions on their pale faces, maybe cannibal wasn't the right term. They just didn't care.
Leon swerved through in a zigzag pattern, from one side of the road to another, grazing a parked sedan in which that tilted the cruiser to the side. With a sharp right turn, Leon threw the weight to one side and swivelled out of control before rear-ending a firm brick walk.
The sudden stop in speed launched the hijacker through the rear view windshield and at the wall, killing it instantly with fatal head trauma. Leon and Claire shortly recovered from a minor case of whiplash, mostly through groans, grunts and slight cursing. The pain phased out quickly.
There wasn't much time, a large eighteen wheeler in the distance accelerating at their cruiser at full speed, it was commandeered by another one of those things. The two felt tense and had to ditch the vehicle ASAP. They exited opposite sides leaving the massive wheeler to ram the cruiser into the wall, causing a glorious fiery explosion, leaving a hellish wall of flames to separate the two. Hellfire raged amongst the smouldering wrecks.
"Claire!"
"Leon?!" Claire replied, throwing her voice.
The excessive smoke and fumes made Leon's voice hoarse; his tone was soft albeit loud. "Head for the station! I'll meet you there!" he called, softly.
Minor shellshock ringed around both of their heads from the fiery eruption, and with intense flames shrouding the sky above with a blanket of thick smoke, there was no way to get through without serious singing. In spite of their limited ammo, Leon and Claire had to solely rely on just their handguns to reach the R.P.D. safely.
Stray vehicles and lumbering 'things' was the norm, the buildings were all boarded up, and it was only around a small left turn towards the gun store. Claire bobbed and weaved through the small street into the only open building to seek refuge.
It was a gun store, Robert Kendo's. The store was looted from anything and everything that proved to be a weapon, not a single gun or bullet was seen to the naked eye. Claire walked to the counter and was immediately put in her place when a middle-aged man in a vest sprung up from behind the counter and held her at gunpoint.
"Freeze!" he yelled. "State your name and business!"
Claire surrendered and put both of her arms above her head. "Don't shoot! I'm not one of them!"
The man groaned and put away his shotgun, letting Claire relax her arms. "Sorry about that ma'am. I thought you were one of those things out there."
"What the hell is going on here?"
"Hold on." The man walked past Claire and locked the door behind her, then addressed her. "I have no idea, darlin'. By the time I noticed something was wrong it was too late, the town was already infested with zombies."
"Zombies?"
"What else could they be? It's the only real word for them. Haven't you heard?"
"Heard what? I only just got into town."
"Damn…" He shook his head. "This infection was all over the news and radio, the last few days. Mass suicide, paranoia and acts of cannibalism being of the few."
"I gotta get out of here." She walked to the back door.
"You take care of yourself now, you hear?"
Claire looked back. "You're staying here?"
"It's safe here for me. I'll be fine."
Claire left the gun store, and after a few steps towards a flight of stairs, she overheard something smash back in the shop, followed by some gunfire and screaming. The struggle attracted her to head back inside, but after some sounds of pure silence she knew she was too late, she couldn't save him.
Even if she kicked the door down and opened fire on whatever was in there, it would be for nothing. She let go of the door and faced the fact that the friendly man was gone.