Prologue. But First, the News
Raccoon Times, 9/15/'98Disease Sweeps Raccoon, Body counts rise, as do bodies.
This may be the last issue publicized by the Raccoon City Press. With only 3 members left, there doesn't appear to be much chance of another issue. Since most of our citizen's have fallen to the monsters, the Zombie's. As horrible as it may seem, that is the only label we can place on them. The sickness that creates these Zombies from our friends and neighbors is spread through contact of bodily fluids; blood, saliva, and on a smaller scale perhaps even the skin on their bodies, every cell and flake. If you have access to a weapon, a gun or a bat or something you can use, these things only die from head wounds. Shoot them in the head, crack their skulls, and snap their necks, whatever it takes. If you're lucky enough to see this issue, excuse the severe and informal presentation of the writing, but this has taken drastically low priority amongst our own survival. With this being our send-off issue to those of you with brains in your heads, at least uninfected ones, please, try to escape, leave this place behind, it's beyond saving.
1. Welcome to Raccoon City,
Izic tore through the streets, jumping garbage cans and skirting car wrecks, the M4A1 slung across his back bumping into his spine uncomfortably. The Desert Eagle, with its customized 10-inch barrel, was clutched in his hand, sweeping the 'deserted' streets in front of him. His team, Squad A, Team B, had dropped just outside Raccoon First Trust, since the building was easily defendable (Against what, they hadn't been told, and hadn't yet found out) building, and had the capacity to fit a lot of people, survivors of some chemical spill, that briefing had said, while an EVAC (Entire Vacation of Area Contaminated was the acronym, as opposed to the short form for evacuation, though the it was essentially the same thing.) team got the unaffected away. The effected, or infected, he hadn't heard well, were supposed to be violent and unreasonable, and so shooting to kill was authorized, and encouraged. His team had landed scant moments ago, in the courtyard of a church a block from the bank, when gunfire had erupted about five 3 blocks away, and three scouts, of which Izic was one, were sent to check it out. It was a bad news tri-factor; there was hostile contact already, and the operation wasn't even go for five minute's; the fact that the gunfire was audible from three block's away meant the firing was group effort, all the people there, 30 total, were unloading; and they'd been firing since they'd heard the first bursts, now stretching into automatic firing bouts, lasting about three seconds, and they hadn't stopped. What took that many bullets to die? Izic's pulse raced as he ran faster, and he darted into an alley, a burning car wreck ahead of him, and further provoking his thought's of unease about the cities state; it looked like a mass riot and a hurricane had blasted through the city; boarded up building's and fires and the stench of rot, of…of…
Death. Oh, Christ…Izic stopped, his heart racing, and realized two things as he stood in the middle of post-chaos. The first was that there was something very bad going on here. The logic behind the ever-present reek that haunted the air was that there were crashes, wreck's and overall damage to the city, (it had been obvious from the air) but his prior combat experience and the sense that came with it made it clear that something very, very bad had happened, there was no other way to describe it. The second was that the machine gun fire and small arms fire less than a block away had almost completely stopped, only moans and the occasional Kra-Kow, Ratatata and Tatatat remained.
Another bad sign.
Izic regained his step, double-timing it, panting as he jumped over debris and flung himself over a four-foot police barricade, his drop-and-rolling form regaining it's sprint as he kept barging forward…
Whoa…He came out on Main, the sight before him astonishing and terrifying. Laying all over the street, effectively taking up a block's length of sidewalk and street, spaced out, were the bloody remains of about 25 (rushed count) UBCS uniforms, bloody, tattered and contained the mottled corpse of the soldier within. Weapons, casing, and what seemed an ocean of blood, both dried and glistening. And yet, no assailants. No snipers, not insurgents, no masked figures with dynamite vests and automatic weapons, no tank…hell, Frankenstein's monster would suffice. The creepiest part of the whole bit was that there was nothing bad. Body's, weapons, blood, but no actual evil, no cause for it all. That was what was scary.
Wait! Kra-Kow! Whu-Argh!A yell, than a crisp pronounced gunshot from the alley across the street, and then a scream. Izic brought the magnum up, but there was no target, much less much hope the shot would hit anything coming out of that alley. He lowered it to his side, dropping it the last foot into the holster, and he felt the weight of it slide-landing into the holster. He grabbed the handle of the M4, and over the shoulder draw that had it in his hand and aimed, squarely framing the alley. Another gunshot, quieter, because whoever was firing was either going into a building or was out the other end of the alley. Izic lowered the gun, and sighed. It was too surreal. There were corpse's but nothing to blame them on, and someone was firing at something another block away, and his own unit was way back there…
"Oi! Izic!"
Izic whirled, gun coming up, his hand clasping the barrel grip as he sighted the gun…
"What the hell?"
It was Steward Garland, on of the other's dispatched to check out the firing. He had emerged from the alley the left of Izic, on his side of the street. Izic let the gun drop.
"Stew?"
Steward grinned, holding his hands up, but the grin turned grim as Stew took in the sights. Steward had witnessed Ethnic Cleansings some time ago, and while he fought against the massacre initiator's, he was used, or accustomed, to slaughter and blood and the like that accompanied it. Izic had taken part in two assassinations and fought countless battles in South America when his mentor had taken him from the orphanage, set him up with a weapon, and shipped him off. Before he had come to Umbrella, he had worked, starting at a young age, with some nomadic mercenaries, gradually moving from cleaning weapons to putting them to use as he moved up inside the company. But nothing he did looked like this.
"Helluva mess here." Izic replied, letting the assault rifle dangle by its strap.
"No kidding," said Stew, walking closer.
"Whaddya suppose did this?"
"Sniper? Firefight?"
"Naw. No one's alive here, and I only heard small arms fire and M4 shots."
"Yeah, same. I just don't get it."
"Same…"
Grunh…A groan of confusion from one of the UBCS men, and a twitch of the hand as the groan increased in volume.
Survivor!Izic and Stew turned fully toward the man whose hands were clasping in and out of fists.
"Hey, buddy!" Izic cried out, running toward the moving man. The scene of mayhem around them had yielded no answers, but someone living might have a say in the prospect.
"Ungh…"
The man on the ground pushed upwards, grabbing the gun ahead of him-Broken in two for some reason-and tried to pry himself up, the bloody, mottled face and upper chest revealing more wounds. Izic and Stew arrived at his side and began to help lift him. The man rose to a semi crouch, still semi-conscious and it was a good bet he didn't know anyone was helping him, but he fell on his rear as they tentatively let go. That seemed to snap him out of it.
"Guh…Huh?" He said, gazing at either of them with cloudy eyes.
"Hey man, you ok?" Stew said, sounding patronizing to keep the soldier's mind off of the obvious wounds and probably pursuant pain.
"I…I…Yes." The man replied, trying but failing to come into a coherent state of mind.
"What happened here, huh?" Izic said, casting another sweeping view of the desolate, lifeless street.
"Zombies." The man replied, the word rolling off of his tongue so lucidly.
"What?" Said Stew, raising his eyebrows. The man was obviously delirious, his thoughts of flesh eating monsters mixed in with the cloudiness of his thoughts thanks to the coma-like effect in the man's composure. He had a concussion, fell on his face, something provoking odd thoughts…
"Zombies." The man said again, more simply, as if he were explaining to children.
And just like that, he was back out.
His eyes clouded over, his arms went limp, and he fell backwards, his legs folding over themselves as he fell back, leaving Stew to ponder the existence of improbable monsters…
Not improbable.
The double creature feature's he'd seen as a kid and a teen on dates, the works of Romero and Savini…
"Jesus Christ!"
Izic was surprised by his own voice, as he noticed that the man who they had helped, questioned and then lost, had a rather obvious defection. His left foot was gone. Ripped off. As soon as Stew saw, his hands flew to his face, covering his mouth, his eyes going wide. Because the UBCS man about four feet away from 'Limpy' was holding the foot. And eating it. As the two began to comprehend that they were watching a cannibal act, that the man was missing half of his face, bitten off, and that the cannibal monster man had gazing at them as they look back at him in a transfixed gaze of horror.
"Gruh…"
It rose, and awkward, jerky, hazy climb from its bloody legs, and then it was tottering toward them, in slow, unsure steps, arms outstretched.
Zombie…It was about spitting distance from them before they realized they were in very serious trouble. Izic grabbed his rifle, bringing the weapon up and sighting the unholy monster before them.
Ratatatatatatatatatatatata!
Both Izic and Stew were firing, both had quickly drawn their weapons, and they were killing this thing, but it wasn't dying, it was just taking the abuse the 7.62 NATO rounds laid into it, Izic's Hollow-point bullets creating large red blossom's in the green camouflage uniform, and Stew's Full Metal Jacket bullets punching violent holes through it's chest…
And it fell, its broken chest a sodden mess of limbs…
And it was trying again to get up.
…Since the citizen's affected by the chemicals have come under a hallucinogenic state of violence and rage, and since they have lost sense of reason, fatal firing, as it is known, has been authorized, and is encouraged…
The briefing shot back into Izic's mind, running through again and again as the harried bundle of guts, splintered bone and flesh tried vainly to get back up…
And Izic grabbed the magnum from his belt, jerked it to point at the zombie, and took aim at one blank, hungry eye.
Krakow!
The magnum's boom was insanely loud, the 50. Action Express round blasting through it's eye, the round slamming the monster's head against the ground, the back pouring out gray matter and clear fluid, and a pink, runny substance, drool, ran from the monster's gaping mouth.
Izic was about to fire again when he was interrupted.
"Gruh…"
"Guh…"
"Arugh…".
All around the two, groans and rasps ran from the mouths of the 'corpses', and the sound of fingers and knee's on cement and asphalt rose to a hungry, mournful wail.
"Oh sweet Christ…" said Stew, his voice tight and whiny with fear.
"Fuck…" Izic chimed in behind Stew's already pitiful voice, echoing the fear.
It was unreal, they were in a B-movie, they had just killed something impossible, it didn't exist, the sound in the background a hellish symphony of terror…
And then the bloody figures began to rise, and so they began to run.