XXXXXXXXXX
"Class, I'd like to introduce our newest student, Rebecca Chambers," Mr. Birkin announced.
Rebecca gave an awkward little bow and slunk towards her desk, in the back.
As Mr. Birkin began to ramble on about the regenerative abilities of the T-Virus, the girl next to Rebecca leaned over. "Hey, new girl, wanna come to cheerleading tryouts after school?" she whispered.
Rebecca blanched. "M-me? A cheerleader?" she gulped out.
The other girl nodded. "Shit yeah. Our team's been short one since Ada Wong graduated early, and you look like you could fill out a uniform quite nicely," she added with a wink.
Rebecca thought about it for a minute. "Sure, I'd love to come!"
"Great," the other woman said, extending her hand. "Jill Valentine."
"Rebecca Chambers," Rebecca replied, grabbing the hand and shaking it.
"I know, dork, Mr. Birkin just said it a minute ago," Jill teased.
XXXX
Rebecca and Jill sat together at lunch, with Jill doing most of the talking (i.e. pointing out the who's-who of Raccoon High).
"Those two over there in the corner -- the loner girls -- are Alice and Rain. They play girl's golf and are, well...hell, this is the twenty-first century, after all, and more power to them." Alice was rather tall with tomboyish features and a red evening dress, whereas Rain was a Hispanic woman decked out in a paramilitary getup.
"The guy sitting at the far end of their table is Matt Addison. He's...technically part of the team -- he dresses up as the team mascot, Nemesis."
"Oh my God, is he alright?" Rebecca asked, noticing several huge claw marks on his arm.
Jill waved it off. "Oh, he'll be fine. He got that in a fight with Licker the other day. That's Licker over there, actually," Jill said, pointing to the ceiling. Rebecca looked up and saw a vision of pure horror -- imagine a man with his skin flayed off, his brain put on the outside of the skull, and give him a five-foot long tongue and claws on all his limbs.
"He's kind of seeing Claire, though, so don't get any ideas."
"What? Who...who would date that...that MONSTER?"
"Claire? Oh, she's vice-captain of the cheerleading squad. And it's usually common practice for the cheerleaders to date a football player...and give them a little 'morale boost' before a game, if you know what I mean," winking and elbowing Rebecca gently in the ribs to further convey what she meant.
Rebecca, imagining a woman mating with that thing, had to suppress the urge to vomit. She tried to change the subject. "Are you seeing a football player, then?" She instantly regretted the question a moment later, out of fear that her new friend would reveal that she was going out with another monster.
"Oh, I'm dating Chris Redfield, captain of the football team -- oh, there he is! Chris, over here!"
Over walked a chiseled man wearing a Raccoon High Stars jersey, with 'Redfield' on the back. "Hey, babe," he called out, a greeting which would have ruptured the universe if it had been any more stereotypical.
"Hey, Chris, I was just showing the new girl the ropes around here. Going out to run a few laps?"
"You know it. Gotta get ready for the big game against the Plagas next week."
"That's my Chrissy-poo!"
"Christ, Jill, not in front of people!" He made a face and left, meeting up with a much older-looking person before exiting the cafeteria.
"Who was that with him? A coach?" Rebecca asked.
Jill shook her head. "That's Barry Burton, he's a center."
"He's a student? But he's BALDING!"
"Shh!" Jill shushed. "Okay, maybe technically he's a few decades old to be attending high school. BUt what the state board of high school football doesn't know won't hurt them, now will it?"
"I guess not," Rebecca conceded.
XXXX
Jill, Claire, and Ashley Graham (head cheerleader) watched over the prospective tryouts, none of whom had impressed them. Finally, it was Rebecca's turn. With butterflies in her stomach, she lifted up the pom-poms and improvised a cheer.
"Two-four-six-eight, who do we a-nni-hil-ate! Zombies! Zombies! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck zombies!"
"Perfect!" Ashley cheered.
"That's just what we're looking for!" Claire added.
"I told you you were perfect!" Jill crowed out proudly.
"So does this mean I make the squad?" Rebecca asked.
"You bet it does!" Ashley said. "Welcome to the squad!" She hugged Rebecca, who (after a moment of awkwardness on her part) returned the hug. "Okay, next practice is tomorrow at four after school. See you then!" She skipped off to the parking lot.
"Sorry about the hug, kiddo, Ashley's just one of those touchy-feely types," Jill apologized. "We'll have to replace her at the end of this year -- she'll be graduating, and going to college in Spain." She sighed. "What a shame, she could be shaking her booty at any professional football venue of her choice. Oh well, her call." She turned back to Rebecca. "So, what do you say, want to go to a victory party with us and the boys?"
"Sure, that sounds fun!" Rebecca said. Ominous, foreboding music played on the soundtrack.
XXXX
The three girls walked up to a big-ass Hummer taking up three parking spaces in the parking lot. Chris and another guy in a jersey were leaning against it, while the Licker crouched on top of it, as if waiting for prey.
"Hey babe," Chris greeted Jill again, pulling her into a kiss.
"Hey, Chrissyp...Chris," she amended, remembering his dislike of the name in public. "Meet our newest cheerleader," she said, gesturing to Rebecca.
"A pleasure. Rebecca, this is my fellow gridiron warrior, Brad Vickers. He's kind of a pussy, but don't let that scare you away," he winked.
"Cut it out, Chris," Brad said, annoyed. "Hi," he said to Rebecca, shyly.
"Anyway, let's get to the party at my place! WHOOOOOO!" Chris shouted out, like the retarded frat boy he would be in a few years' time.
After everybody piled into the massive vehicle and it pulled out onto the road, Chris started talking over his shoulder to Rebecca. "Hey, do you wanna try some green herb?"
Rebecca's jaw dropped. "Uh. Green herb. As in marijuana?"
Chris shook his head violently. "Nonono, green herb," he said, as if saying it made it sound like anything other than pot.
"I don't follow you," Rebecca replied.
"Just put some on your wounds, and your troubles just float away..." Chris smiled blissfully.
"Uhm..." Rebecca turned towards Jill, who gave an encouraging smile and nod.
"Think of it as a favor to me today, on my birthday," Chris added (which was the most dumbass rationalization possible).
"Uh, okay. Sure!" With a nod from Chris, Brad handed her several baggies with different colors.
"Okay, the green by itself makes you a little healthier," Brad explained. "When you mix it with the red, it maxes out your health. Mix it with blue and it'll get rid of any poison in your body. Mix it with yellow, and you increase your health by a bit, up to double your maximum health."
It took a few minutes for Rebecca to comprehend the load of bullshit Brad had just thrown at her. "It improves my health?"
"Yeah. Didn't you know the entire medical industry is a conspiracy designed to leech money from minorities?"
Rebecca stared at Brad, dumbfounded.
"I mean, come on, who the fuck actually believes in bacteria? I drop a few hamburger patties on the floor at McDonalds and instead of throwing them out, I brush the dirt off. Do I get a promotion? Noooo, I got FIRED because my manager believes in some stupid fucking Commie Nazi lieberal propaganda. And did you know that vaccines actually give you autism?"
Rebecca wondered if Brad would explode if she stared at him hard enough. "Right. And that business about doubling my health: I was unaware my health could actually be numerically quantified, inasmuch as the 'doubling' you mentioned earlier. Are there any side effects to this...green herb?"
Chris nodded. "Paranoid hallucinations and violent psychosis. Speaking of which...OH JESUS SHITFUCK CHRIST, THE ROAD IS OUT TO GET ME!" Christ violently yanked the steering wheel as he rammed his foot down on the accelerator, launching the Hummer into speeds previously thought to have been hypothetical.
"FUUUUUUUUUCK!" Jill screamed as she began clawing at her own face, making deep tears in the skin, rupturing the eyeballs. "I CAN STILL SEE THEM! I CAN STILL SEE THEM!" Jill's screams rose in intensity and incoherentness until her voicebox ruptured; she still quietly screamed until she passed out from lack of oxygen.
Brad violently began whipping his whole body against the passenger-side door, until finally it gave way and he popped out, at just the wrong time as his head made contact with a road sign, snapping the vertebrae and the spinal column like a twig, his body bouncing down along the asphalt scraping away big chunks of skin and shattering bones too numerous to name, his internal organs being liquefied from being bounced around inside of him so roughly.
Chris roared with rage at the road he was sure was out to kill him and steal his spot on the team and his girlfriend (whose bloody, disfigured face and inability to speak ever again ensured she would certainly be off the cheer squad). He had swerved off into a cornfield, plowing down dozens of stalks of corn until he broke through to the other side. He managed to keep the car going fairly straight as he entered a wooded patch, even managing to dodge the occasional tree. Finally, though, his luck ran out, and he struck a great big oak at nearly 200 mph. His body was hurled through the windshield as if it were a cannonball, where he himself had a face-first encounter with the tree. At that speed, his face was pretty much obliterated, crushing inward, shooting his brains out his ears like tubes of toothpaste.
Rebecca managed to unbuckle her seatbelt and stagger out of the Hummer. She fell to the ground and crawled along a few hundred feet, turning back only to see Claire and the Licker making the fuck out on top of the Hummer like it wasn't a steel coffin of insanity. She puked up the lunch she had eaten several hours prior, and then rememebered the cell phone in her pocket.
Just as she finished dialing the 9 and the 1, the Hummer exploded like it was a goddamn Hollywood special effect, creating a huge fireball and flinging flaming scraps of metal everywhere. One managed to slice right through Claire's phone (taking a few of her fingers with it), embedding itself in her shoulder. She screamed out and instinctively tried to pull the shrapnel out, but screamed in renewed pain as her fingers grasped the searing hot metal. Looking at the blood-spurting stumps where her fingers used to be, she gritted her teeth and held them to that which had severed them, painfully cauterizing the wounds. Tears rolled down her cheeks at the utter agony she felt.
She heard a creaking sound and looked up. The oak tree the Hummer had struck had apparently taken too much from both the crash and the explosion, as it was listing...right in her direction. She tried hard to get up, but was too late, as with a great crash it fell and pinned her to the ground, blacking her out.
XXXX
Rebecca came to with the sound of emergency vehicles nearby. She called out for help, "Hey, I'm over here!" but her words seemed strangely empty, like there was no echo to them. She tried to move out from under the tree, but couldn't. She watched as the police and paramedics picked over the burnt-out Hummer, the paramedics shoveling charred bones into body-bags. She tried to lick her lips to whistle, but her tongue wouldn't respond.
Finally, a policeman approached her. "Hey, Leon, here's another one," he called out. Leon S. Kennedy approached, and Rebecca again tried to say something, but couldn't. He knelt down and felt for a pulse.
"Damn, she's cold. She's been dead for a few hours," he said regretfully.
"What? I can't be dead!" Rebecca shouted indignantly, the words never passing from her lips. "How can I be dead?"
"Well, it might have something to do with the fucking tree using your torso as a landing site," Leon snapped back.
"Wait, you heard me?" she desperately replied.
"No, I can't hear dead chicks. Now shut up." He flipped her off and walked away.
"It's...it's impossible. I can't be dead! I didn't do anything wrong! Well, except get in the car with batch of crazy pieces of shit...but if that's wrong, then God help me, I don't want to be right! Please God, bring me back, just give me one more chance. Please God, I'm only 17!"
XXXXXXXXXX
The preceding was a dramatization of something that's happening in our high schools every day. The video game 'Resident Evil' has made kids think it's okay to take a holistic approach to medicine, what with their "Green Herbs" and "First Aid Sprays". Just the other week, John Johnson cut himself on an envelope while paying some bills. Instead of going to the emergency room, he sprinkled some oregano on it. Did it get better? No, he got an infection and DIED! So please, the next time you play Resident Evil, think twice about using a green herb -- instead, I urge you to find an in-game hospital, fill out some in-game insurance forms, and wait several in-game hours for a doctor to see you, discuss treatment options, and finally give you a prescription for a placebo antibiotic that will make you feel better.