There was a shrill sound, an ear piecing shriek. Then it repeated, in the void. In the dark, the sound resonated. Peter's hand reached out into the void, searching for the source of the clamorous shrieking to try and quiet it. His hand rested upon something cold and round and he felt until his index finger resting upon a raised button, he pressed it and the alarm stopped. Peter's eyes opened slowly, his vision blurred and out of focus. He sat up with great effort, stretching his tired muscles. With a grasp on reality now, Peter's heart sank. In his empty, bland apartment Peter was alone. His Parents were dead, his Girlfriend had left him recently as well. He was literally alone.
Peter sat, with his legs hanging over the edge of the bed. He stared out at the curtain of red brick and windows opposite him, watching his distant neighbor standing by his window, eating a piece of toast.
This is so incredibly beige thought Peter, a small frown drooping his mouth.
Peter stood and stretched, rubbing his aching neck, feeling nothing but a solid wall of stiff muscles.
Time to see a masseuse again perhaps thought Peter, too bad I don't get a happy ending.
With great effort the lonely man trudged across his bedroom floor towards the tiny ensuite bathroom. Peter checked his tongue, his eyes and gave himself a half hearted prostate exam.
Can't be too sure he thought.
With that, he left the bathroom and picked his suit up from the floor. It was an outdated grey affair, wrinkled and creased. He just didn't care anymore, and it was starting to show. Peter slipped into the suit, barely correcting the checkered tie that was hanging limply from his pale neck.
Peter turned back to the window, his distant neighbor persisted at his own, still nursing that toast. He too seemed drained, discontent.
Peter turned away and picked up his briefcase, containing a file he was supposed to have clarified. He hadn't done this however, upon arriving home last night he'd merely sat down and watched Conan O'Brien.
Peter walked up to the front door and picked his keys up from the bowl. He stood for a moment, with his eyes closed and his head turned up to the chipping plaster of the roof. For a moment he contemplated merely sitting on the couch in his pajama's and watching daytime television all day. However he already owed back rent, and god knows his Supervisor would tear strips from him if this report was late.
"Fuck it" Peter said aloud "Fuck this."
In the bus window Peter saw a tired looking man, his mouth frozen in a persistent frown. The man's dark eyes were adorned with black bags, his pale complexion mottled by the occasional freckle. This man, Peter's own reflection in the bus window, was tired. He'd lived in Raccoon City for as long as he could remember, it was somewhat of a tomb. The Umbrella Corporation took care of everyone, providing jobs and health care. This meant you could get comfortable though and not realize 20 years suddenly disappear.
At 38 years old Peter was now in that position. 20 years had mysteriously vanished, consumed by Raccoon City leaving Peter a skeleton picked clean of aspiration and promotion.
Peter leaned his head against the window, every minor imperfection of the road causing his head to silently bounce off the glass.
The city was passing him by in an incoherent blur. Apartments and tall, red brick buildings. Some newer, taller buildings seemingly made entirely of incandescent glass that reflected the morning sunlight luminously. People on the street in pencil skirts and tight suits jolted each other robotically, going from one job provided by Umbrella to another. They were passing Raccoon City memorial park now, the large fountain in the centre barely visible past the major works being done to a building. There was a nice restaurant near there. Peter remembered going for drinks at the restaurant with a friend from work, Caroline, although he quickly nixed any ideas of romantic engagement with her.
It was at this moment Peter noticed something strange. Well, not so much strange as merely noticeable. There was definitely an increased Police presence on the streets.
As the bus rounded the corner and passed the venerable Raccoon City Police building Peter saw an endless stream of cars going to and fro, lights on and sirens screaming. The first thing Peter thought was that someone was probably robbing the bank. He smiled, but he wasn't sure why.
One more corner now thought Peter, One more corner and I can start another identical day.
Peter sat up and was suddenly jolted forward, sprawling into the seat in front of his. Then there was darkness.
Burning.
Burning smell.
Peter coughed.
Pain now.
Pain and burning.
Was he burning?
Peter reached out, he couldn't see anything. He vision was blurred and all he could see were dark blobs shifting and a backdrop of intense red.
The pain was bad. Peter's back hurt immensely, the muscles in his neck were screaming.
"Shit…" Peter mumbled.
He suddenly realized he was on his front. His vision was returning in disorientating pulses, burning his retinas with images he couldn't comprehend right now.
Peter rolled over and sat up with great effort, one hand on his neck, rubbing the aching muscles. He could see now what was burning. The bus had hit a car and rolled, it was now engulfed in a maelstrom of intense flame. He could hear screaming and gunshots.
"What the hell is going on?" Peter asked no one in particular. He'd survived that bus crash? How? That doesn't seem possible, unless the bus had burst into flames after he'd been dragged out. Who had dragged him out?
Peter stood shakily, he needed to be cautious, if he was in shock he would do more harm that good walking around. Peter sat back down on the road, groaning. Cars around the crash site were parked haphazardly around him, others Peter recognized from the bus were strewn around him. Were they dead?.
Peter shifted around to look down the road in the opposite direction. He could see a line of Police cars acting like a blockade, designed to stop something progressing in this direction, they must have dragged the passengers from the bus.
Peter stood with great effort once more and walked slowly up the road towards the Police Officers. He was beginning to notice minor details about his current environment that he hadn't noticed before. There was a large amount of blood on the road, sand like pieces of broken glass and twisted pieces of metal strewn around him. The sun was hanging high in the azure blue sky, it was afternoon, Peter had been out for a while.
"Hey!" Peter shouted towards the officers standing in a line behind the cars. Some turned towards him, others stood with shotguns and handguns, pointing them shakily in the opposite direction.
One of the officers, a middle aged Woman pointed her handgun at him. Peter stopped and put his hands in the air, groaning as his stiff muscles protested painfully.
"What the hell?" Peter shouted, "Why're pointing a gun at me?!"
"You've got blood on you, is that your own blood?!" She shouted back.
"Why does it matter?! I was just in a fucking bus crash for Christ's sake of course it's my own blood!"
The officer conferred with another next to her.
"You were in the bus crash?!" She asked him.
"I just said that!" Peter shouted back.
The female officer gestured towards him. Peter put his hands down and walked the rest of the distance over to the barricade.
"What the hell is going on?" Peter asked. An officer walked up to him and began to dress his wounds. She sprayed an antiseptic aerosol on his cuts sending a horrible stinging sensation ringing through his body.
The female officer was shaking violently. Peter glanced at the other officers, dark, morose faces and shaking hands. He couldn't see what they were seeing, the street on the other side of the barricade was empty, just more corpses. In the distance Peter could hear gunshots and screams, panicked shouting and crashing sounds.
"Uh…" the female officer stuttered, in a panicked daze. "There are people, in the city, who are…"
"Who are what?" Peter asked, grimacing as more antiseptic was applied to a large wound on his right arm, the officer began to bandage it.
"You know about the murders in Arklay Forest?" she asked Peter. He nodded in response.
"I read about them in the newspaper. Groups of up to four people, eating hikers and stuff right? Cult stuff."
"No" she replied "Not cult stuff. That's what we thought. They came here, to Raccoon City, only they're not people. They're rotting and you can shoot them and they don't die and they're eating people for gods sake…."
The officer broke off and began to sob miserably. A male officer near her began to comfort her.
"Hey!" he said "get it together! We need you!"
She was on her knees, her shoulders heaving. "I can't" she said.
"Yes you can"
"I can't do it anymore" she sobbed deeply.
"We have a responsibility to protect these people" the male officer leaned down and grabbed her chin, directing her eyes towards his. "We are the only ones who can do this o.k.?"
Tears rolled down the female officers cheek. She stood up shakily and leaned against the patrol car, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. The male officer walked up to Peter.
"Since yesterday people have been getting attacked. The people they kill come back and the people they kill come back as well. It's like some sort of disease or something, but I haven't seen a disease like this before."
Peter scratched his head. "Why didn't you say anything on the news?"The officer shrugged.
"I don't know, that isn't my responsibility. My responsibility right now is to make sure you and anyone else we find survive until rescue comes.
He turned to the barricade, watching the terrified Police officers standing with their guns pointed at nothing. Clearly in shock, having a difficult time comprehending the confounding situation they now found themselves in.
"You know," he said turning back to Peter "we aren't trained for this. We're trained for riot control, sure, but this isn't like any riot we've ever seen. Tear gas doesn't work, bean bags don't work. We don't have any way to defend ourselves. Sometimes we get lucky and a few go down in the first volley of gunfire but they just absorb us, like a wave pulling a kid out to sea."
Peter stood silently, taking all of this insanity in. It was purely nonsense what they were saying. The evidence was compelling however. This destruction, death, this pure carnage was otherwise unexplainable.
"What can I do?" asked Peter.
The male officer wiped his face and sighed. "There isn't much you can do that we haven't tried. I wouldn't want you to put yourself in harms way for no reason. All I can suggest is that you find your loved ones and get the hell out of the city before you end up like one of them"
Peter stood silently. "What about you? What are you guys going to do?"
The officer shrugged. "Our job I guess. I became a cop to protect people, right now people need us more than they ever have. I can't leave, not while there's still hope that we can find survivors. Now, go, do what you need to do and get out."
Peter looked over the makeshift barricade, it was desolate on the other side. Cars were flipped, some were on fire. Corpses littered the street, laying impaled on the broken glass of a store front window. Peter could hear store alarms and screaming in the distance and gun fire from other police officers elsewhere in the city. Did he really want to venture into that nightmare?
"Caroline…" he whispered. She was the only one he cared about, even if she didn't know it. That day at the restaurant he had fallen in love with her. She had confided in him, treated him so well. Even if she didn't feel the same, he couldn't leave her to die in this hell. He also knew where to find her, the building.
"Well?" the male officer asked.
Peter looked at him, he had completely drifted into a sector of his mind filled with contemplation. He had made his decision.
"I'm going to find Caroline. It may seem like suicide to you, but without her I've literally got nothing left. It doesn't matter if I die, I just want to help her get out" he said.
The officer sighed and unholstered a Handgun from his belt. "You better arm yourself then, if you're going to go in, then go in prepared."
Peter took the gun. His lacerated arm was bandaged now and braced, so he'd have to use it with his left hand.
"Have you ever used a gun before?" he shrugged. "I used a rifle once when I was a kid and recently on a company hunting trip, it was a team building thing, I guess the fundamentals are the same."
"Just be careful with it, don't shoot unless you're convinced someone poses a threat to you alright?"
Peter nodded and took a deep breath. Two of the officers shouldered one of the cars and made a gap big enough for him to sidle through then they pulled it back into place.
He was on his own now.
Beyond the barricade of patrol cars Peter stepped into an alien environment. Spot fires littered the street, shadows crept eerily in smashed shop windows. Peter could see corpses laying atop toppled mannequins, their emotionless eyes staring from a severed head. Cars blocked his path and he had to squeeze between them or slide across bonnets to navigate the garden of damaged automobiles.
Further down the street the road ended in a sort of cul-de-sac of retail stores. At the end of the cul-de-sac Peter could see a pile of corpses heaped on the sidewalk, two men seemed to be kneeling in front of the pile.
"Hey" Peter shouted. At first he thought they were looters, combing pockets for watches and wrists for expensive watches. As he approached however a hideous revelation hit him. Closer to the pile and the two men Peter could see they were gorging themselves on the exposed necks, arms and mid sections of the corpses, blood and sinew spurting into the air with chilling cracks and squelching.
The men, sensing Peter's presence and responding to his shout stood up slowly, their heads lolling as they turned lazily towards him. Blood cascaded down their loose jaws, gore dripping onto the ground around them from their impromptu feast. Their eyes were milky, unblinking, like that of a cooked fish. A deep whistling moan escaping their mouths as they clawed the air in front of them, advancing on Peter.
"Hey…hey, stop." Peter stuttered and stumbled back as they advanced, paralyzed with the realization that these were the ghouls the Police Officers described.
As they moved towards him sickening details were made more apparent. The man closest to Peter had no skin on his knees, shining bone sockets glistening in the sunlight. The nose of one of the men hung loosely from his nasal cavity, dangling by a singular strand of sinew.
"Stop or I'll shoot you!" Peter shouted now, terrified. He extended his hand, the Handgun jittering as he shook violently. The men were resolved to advance slowly towards Peter, licking their lips and moaning expectantly. They were only a few feet away now.
Peter fired the Handgun, hitting one of the men in the chest. His shoulder rolled to the right as the shot impacted against him, blood and flesh squibbing into the air. He recovered quickly however and continued advancing.
Peter began to breathe heavily, it was true, you couldn't hurt them. His eyes darted from the retail stores around him, he contemplated going back. If he went back though he doubted he had the resolve to continue diving deeper into this nightmare. Peter crammed the Handgun into his belt and ran towards a service door nestled in an alcove near a boutique clothing store, one of the creatures lunging for him as he passed. The door was open but it was heavy. Peter leaned against the door with his injured shoulder and pushed against it, screaming as shockwaves of pain attempted to push him back, away from the door. He persisted however and the door began to squeal and creak as its rusted hinges worked. When it was open enough Peter squeezed through and slammed the door behind him, leaning his back against it and sliding into a sitting position.
"What…the…fuck…" he breathed heavily, in confusion, fright and despair. This was insane. What caused a man not to feel pain?, to feel compelled to feed on another?
Peter was in a dark place, the two man were scratching against the door, Peter could hear their fingers scraping against the chipping green paint.
He stood up and fished his Cell Phone from his pants pocket, flicking it open to turn the light on. What little illumination it gave him revealed Peter to be in some sort of maintenance room. Bags of cement were laying spilled on the floor. A heavy looking old work bench, one leg propped up by a phone book was piled with various rusted tools, nails and maintenance manuals. The atmosphere in here was dusty and humid, the air stale. A ladder near the work bench led up to a door in the roof, Peter climbed it, leaning his arm on one rung while grabbing the next with his left hand. When he reached the top of the ladder Peter shouldered the door open and pulled himself into the dimly lit hallway of a hotel.
It looked like something had exploded in here. The once opulent, maroon carpeting and deep red walls were pock marked and grey, plaster visible and dropping from the roof onto the floor, covered with over turned cleaning carts and luggage. Peter advanced cautiously down the hallway, hoping the elevator down to the lobby was functional.
Peter took the elevator down to the lobby. It was quiet, gun shots echoed outside. A fountain in the centre of the lobby seemed to roar in the silence, on any other day it would have been elegant, however now it only served to emphasize the chaos. Peter walked through the silent lobby, stepping cautiously over more corpses and glancing up at the large crystal chandelier above him that creaked ominously.
Peter could see daylight, in front of him the large double doors that led to the staircase to street level shined with afternoon vigor as the sun beat relentlessly onto the desolate city. Peter advanced over another pile of corpses and jerked forward, landing heavily on his injured arm. He flipped over and glanced down at his leg, one of the corpses had suddenly revived, the same milky eyes staring emptily at him. It was a young woman this time, she was probably very beautiful, dressed in an elegant black dress. Now her dark hair was tangled and wild, matted with dried blood. Her face was covered in scratches and a large portion of her cheek was missing, saliva and blood cascading out over gnashing teeth. She clawed meekly at Peter's leg, moaning pathetically. Peter kicked her in the head several times, finally severing her grasp, breathing heavily he skittered away and rolled over onto his side before finding his feet. The woman struggled to stand in her dress before finally managing, then she turned her eyes to Peter. A smile seemed to spread across her face as the two stared at each other.
Peter saw her as a ghoul, standing amidst a pile of corpses. Dead eyes and piteous moaning echoing in a place that invariably become a tomb for so many people.
She saw Peter as a meal, nothing more than flesh to tear from bone to satiate whatever hunger drove her.
"Run from it…" Peter whispered to himself, as she stood, smiling at him with a gaping hole in her face. The woman wavered and then reared her head back. She then threw her head forward, vomiting in Peter's direction. As the cloud of bile, blood and mucus hit him Peter felt an agonizing burning sensation grip his body. He screamed and staggered backwards, rubbing his arm and face furiously trying to clean the noxious liquid off of himself. With white hot pain clouding his vision Peter saw the woman advance and decided to leave. He turned to the double doors and dashed across the lobby, listening to the frustrated moaning of the woman behind him.
Bursting into the afternoon sun Peter ripped off his suit coat and rubbed his face and arm with it, trying to clean the last of the acidic bile from his skin.
He turned around, to look at the street. He was in the financial district, several blocks away from the Raccoon City Police Department and the blockade. With his arm and shoulder burning with torn muscles and bruised skin and with half of his face burned like someone set fire to it Peter screamed in pain and frustration. He threw his suit coat to the ground and screamed, then stopped and caught his breath.
Caroline was close. She in the Insurance Building. She and Peter worked for Raccoon City's biggest supplier of life and home and contents insurance. She worked in claims and Peter worked in case management, judging the validity of claims made by customers. They'd initially met at a company mixer, then became fast friends, often meeting for drinks after work. Peter had developed a deep affection for her, oblivious as to whether she felt the same or not. Whether she felt the same wasn't pertinent however, finding her was.
Loud moaning close to him caused Peter to turn around and look down the opposite end of the street. Advancing on him was a large mob of people, no, not people, things. They were all ghouls, all of them dripping with blood, with hands outstretched and milky eyes staring through Peter. They all advanced in a solid wall of sheer horror that moved down the street, unflinching in the face of fire or obstruction.
"No" said Peter backing away "No, no, no…"
He'd only seen corpses. Piles of corpses, they were all dead. The corpses were getting up, dead people were getting up. There were corpses everywhere on the street, in the hallway and lobby of the Hotel. Everyone was dead.
Death didn't work like that. When you died, you were a corpse. A corpse was just a deactivated cell for a spirit to work in. But now, something have re-activated them.
In a blind stumble Peter began to dash down the street. At his sides burning cars, groups of people passed him, staring with dead eyes as he penetrated the carnage deeper. A man was limping down the street towards him, quite far away, he screamed to Peter but he was too far away for Peter to tell what he was saying. A group was following him, shuffling quickly towards him, they absorbed the man and he emitted a foul, ear piercing shriek that slashed Peter like a knife. He was dead, there was no need to help him.
You need to find Caroline.
The male officer sat with his back to the barricade. A radio held to the side of his head.
"Powell, let me speak to Powell!" he said into the radio.
Static crackled, then muffled gunshots resonated through the device.
"He's dead! They're all dead! Holy shit! No!"
"Kurt…Kurt!" The male officer stood up and faced the empty street on the other side of the barricade.
Static crackled and a clattering sound pierced through the radio, more gunshots and screaming. Then there was nothing.
The male officer threw the radio to the ground and held his hand to his eyes.
Behind the line of Police Officers one of the victims of the bus crash sat up slowly, rigored joints clicking and snapping as it struggled to stand. Where one stood, others joined it and soon the entirety of the corpses were transformed to ghouls. The bus, still burning furiously, now nothing but a charred box of empty metal bathed the creatures in intense heat, cooking their flesh which dripped from broken bones as they began to shuffle towards the Police Officers.
A female officer crumpled her noise as a thick, noxious odor filled her nostrils.
"What is that smell?" she asked, turning to the direction of the burning bus blocking the other side of the road. She suddenly screamed and began to fire.
"Them!" she shrieked "it's them! It's not supposed to work that way!"
The other officers turned to the shambling group of zombies, too late to react as they lunged towards them. Some officers fired, one leapt the blockade only to be dragged by the shoe heavily to the ground on the other side.
Screaming and shrieking ensued as the group of numb monsters overwhelmed them. One ghoul pinned an officer to the ground, wrapping its jaws around her neck, biting down and crushing her trachea eliciting a sickening gurgle from her.
The other officers were torn apart like dolls. Arms separating from sockets, stomachs being dug out like someone eating ice cream with their hands.
Then different sounds filled the street, the crackling of the burning bus and snapping of bone, sinew and cartilage as the creatures feasted upon their first meal.
Peter looked up at his building. A towering monolith of highly polished black glass that glittered luminously in the harsh afternoon sun.
He had run several blocks to get here, trying his best to block out the nightmarish images of the ghouls feeding upon the corpses of what were once the citizens of the city. The entire city was a dystopian hell, burning wreckage plowed through store fronts and piles of corpses burning or sitting stagnating in the sun.
With the police dead or dying there was no law, there was nothing left. He needed to find Caroline quickly, and he needed to get out.
Peter limped up the stairs and into the entrance alcove. It was elaborate, carved from dark stone and polished to a high sheen that seemed to shine even in the dark. Looking through the front doors of the building Peter could see it was empty, a trail of blood leading to the rows of the elevators hidden behind a large marble wall with the company logo on it.
Peter swallowed heavily and swiped his I.D card, the front doors sliding open obediently. He stepped inside and was suddenly hit with a blast of air conditioning. It was certainly cold in here, the rattling of the conditioners above the reception desk ominous in such a quiet environment.
Peter's footsteps thudded heavily on the marble floor, reverberating loudly. He walked through the reception area over to the elevators, the blood trail leading to a jammed door that opened and closed rhythmically.
Peter drew the Handgun and pointed it in front of him, his hand jittering as adrenaline coursed through his body and his brain screamed for him to run away. He ignored his brain however, Caroline was in here, he knew it. The elevator doors were covered in a large amount of blood, hand prints giving Peter the impression someone had tried to hold onto the doors but slipped inside. The light inside the elevator was damaged and flickered, turning off periodically before flickering on again. Peter advanced on the elevator and spied a figure, slumped over against the far wall. As he moved closer, inching steadily, Peter could make out that the figure had been almost completely skinned. The victims face was completely pulled up, the teeth exposed in a macabre grin. The eyes stared, stuck in a perpetual look of surprise.
Peter turned away from the elevator, holding his breath as he heard a sound. It was quiet, almost indistinguishable amidst the thudding of the elevator opening and closing on the foot of the dead man. However he could hear it. It was like heavy breathing, the kind of sound a person might make with a distended tongue. It was definitely there, he just wasn't sure where.
Peter walked over to the next elevator and pressed the up button. He was going to start his search in "claims", that would be the best place to start.
The 5th floor was dark. The lights were damaged, there were holes in the roof and some of the fluorescent bulbs had been smashed. Cubicle walls had been bent and pulled over, pictures of unfamiliar families lay shattered on the floor.
Peter stood silently in the intermittent darkness, listening to that sound again. It was like it was following him; a simple, heavy breathing that ghosted him wherever he went. Peter wasn't one to be superstitious however and he simply attributed it to fatigue and fried nerves. He began to wind his way through the maze of cubicles. On any other day this would have been simply to navigate, however as some cubicle walls had been damaged they blocked his path and with his injured arm Peter didn't want to try moving them.
Caroline had an office at the back of claims near the photocopy room. She was the claims manager, auditing lists her team would produce throughout the day.
Peter continued winding through the dark floor, vaulting an overturned desk and slipping on some papers, tumbling to the floor on his damaged arm.
"Fuck…" he muttered, sucking in a quick breath of air before turning around. Sitting down, he froze. Something was in front of him, but he couldn't make it out properly in the darkness. The flashing lights gave him intermittent glimpses of a pale, pink humanoid. Something long and red lolled in the air in front of him. Whatever it was emitted that breathing sound. It began to move, it's long claws clicking on a felled cubicle wall. Peter sat silently, completely still, not even breathing. The creature, on all fours, moved past him, breathing heavily. When he judged it was a sufficient pace away Peter began to silently crawl forward, his hand resting on a piece of paper, crumpling it. He heard the creature stop and turn around. Peter fumbled at his waist for the Handgun, pulling it out and firing blindly into the general vicinity of the creature. The shots lit the area around him and Peter saw the creature skitter away behind a cubicle wall. He stood up quickly and began to limp swiftly the rest of the distance to Caroline's office. Peter thudded against a glass door and could make out "Caroline Smith - Claims Manager" in bold black lettering on the glass window in the door.
Caroline's office was a mess. Her desk was overturned, blood had pooled underneath it. Peter knelt down in the pool of blood and touched it, it was warm still. She was dead, she was dead and he could have stopped it. Peter lay down in Caroline's blood, tears welling in his eyes. If he had been quicker, he could have saved her. If he had been quicker he could have taken her away and they could have been happy for the rest of their lives.
The door to Caroline's office inched open with a deafening squeak in the death like silence. The creature had followed him. Peter watched it whip its long, serpentine tongue around, searching for him.
"I could have saved her…" Peter said to it.
The creature turned to him and squealed.
"I could have saved her…" Peter repeated.
It leapt on him, covering Peter in its hot, slick body. It was constricting him, it was hard to breathe yet Peter didn't resist. Then it plunged its tongue into his chest and there was darkness
The End.