Chapter 2: The Dying City

September 27th, 1998

Jill hurled herself over the debris, throwing her arms out to turn her fall into a somersault. She sprang back up without losing hardly any momentum, pulling her pistol from its side holster and firing twice behind her. The groans of the undead seemed to be stopped behind the wreckage she'd leapt over, but she wasn't taking any chances.

She sprinted forward, and saw that her alleyway was rapidly approaching a dead end with what looked like a heavy door as the only possible way out. Gritting her teeth, she went all out, jumping forward and kicking both legs out fiercely as she did. The door was obviously very thick metal, and though the impact shook throughout her body, it had jarred the door open. She picked herself up quickly as she heard the barking of dogs, darting through the open door and then throwing all her weight behind the door to seal it. It closed just in time, and she knocked a metal bar across it to wedge it in place. It wouldn't hold; she could already see the door shudder from the sheer weight of all the undead, but it would slow them down, and she continued running.

She wasn't quite sure how long she'd kept running before she found the door that lead to her temporary refuge; a warehouse that she and another survivor had holed up in. She threw it open and bolted through, slamming it shut behind her. Jill panted heavily, her breath ragged and her heart pounding. "Dario…" she gasped. "Are you…here?"

"Here," his voice echoed in a monotone. She hadn't expected any more, really, but she'd take what she could get.

Finally catching her breath, she walked through the warehouse towards where she knew he would be curled up. "I was able to get a few supplies from the apartments, but there were no survivors, and it doesn't look like any rescue has been planned. This place won't be safe for much longer, so we need to leave, okay?"

"Won't go," he muttered. She rounded the box where she knew he had not moved from. He was on the floor; his knees were held tightly to his chest, and he was rocking gently back and forth. "Can't go." His eyes were wide and empty, looking forward at nothing in particular.

"Dario, please…" She knew from a cold, logical standpoint that taking him with would drastically decrease her survival chances, especially since he wasn't likely to recover any time soon, and she certainly wasn't going to leave him a gun when she only had one. But she had to try. "She wouldn't want you to stay and die like this."

"They ate her." His voice didn't raise, even at that statement. "Ate her. My little girl. She just started college; wanted to be a doctor. And now she's dead."

Jill sighed sadly. He'd been repeating this information for several hours, but she'd held hope that when she pulled him out of the path of the zombies he could stay as mobile as he had been. But he seemed determined to stay and die. "Listen, I can't stay here. This place won't be safe for long, and I'm not ready to die just yet. I'm sorry, but if you won't come under your own power, I'll have to leave you."

"Go. I don't care. They'll eat you too."

She clutched her pistol, walking towards their supplies. "Not if I have anything to say about it." Jill gathered what she would need to take with. As she did, a fleeting thought crossed her mind.

Where are you?

With nothing else to occupy her mind, the memories came back. The night that had started everything…or rather, the end of it…

She felt herself awake from sleep, slightly cold. She drew her arms in to herself, feeling her hat crushed next to her stomach. For a moment, she remembered nothing, and a sense of peace began lulling her back to sleep. But then she remembered, and she jolted awake, her eyes flying open. "Dante!"

He wasn't there. Nor were the three that had accompanied him. The only occupants of the helicopter were the six S.T.A.R.S. members.

Her sudden awakening had roused Chris from his own rest. He blinked at her, confused, and then realized what she was looking at. "Where'd they go?"

"Could they have fallen out?"

He shook his head. "The door would be open, and someone would have noticed. Hey, Brad!" He turned to look at the pilot. "Where did our friends go?"

He looked back at them. "Huh? What are you talking about?" He frowned as he saw the much emptier passenger area. "Hey, where'd the weird people go?"

Jill felt the pit of her stomach drop. No…it couldn't be…they had said they couldn't stay, but they couldn't be just gone...

"No…"

She sighed, forcing the memory away and stuffing a spare clip into her sweater pocket. Absentmindedly, she ran a hand through her hair, brushing against the tiny red ribbon tied in the back. I'm not going to die. With her weapons and items ready, she exited through the warehouse's back door, giving a fleeting look at the area Dario was before closing the door.

The open streets were horrible.

The alleys were no picnic, but they did mean there were relatively small corridors that the zombies were funneled into. That kind of bottlenecking slowed them down, made them trip their fellows up, step all over them…not to mention that there were fire escapes to go up and over if need be. Out there, however, they were milling about, shuffling back and forth while the occasional distant sounds of screams and shots echoed.

Thus, she made no attempt to leave the alley she had come into, even staring down three zombies. She disposed of them, searching the area until she'd found some items that could come in handy; lighter oil, a shotgun, and a few handgun bullets. The shotgun, much to her relief, had a nearly full tube. "Nearly", as she'd found it clutched in the hands of its previous owner, the barrel pointing up into a head that was no longer there. Thankfully, it had a strap already attached; it was no problem to sling it over her back for easy access, even while using her pistol primarily.

It was quite fortunate that she'd found the extra firearm when she had, because it was shortly after that she encountered a demon.

Jill cursed as the purple gas rose up from a broken pipe, gathering into a cloud the size of a large dog. She stared at it, slowly raising her pistol and pointing it at the cloud. But nothing was happening.

Suddenly, it disappeared, and she heard a growling laughter from behind her. Jill whirled around, firing quickly. She had a glimpse of a spray of blood from…some sort of ethereal greenish octopus with glowing eyes before it snarled and was covered by the same purple gas from before.

The two are connected. But how? As an experiment, she fired into the cloud of gas; as expected, nothing happened. Unfortunate.

The gas disappeared, and once more she turned to fire. This time, however, there was just another cloud of purple gas. Every time I turn around this thing is behind me! Wait. A sudden idea struck her. She turned her back on the cloud, and then immediately turned back. She saw the outline of multiple tentacles and glowing yellow eyes before it faded into the gas cloud once more. It only appears when I'm not looking at it. She growled to herself. This is ridiculous; how am I supposed to shoot it? She stared into the gas cloud, and it disappeared yet again. This time, however, she made no move to turn.

Jill heard a hissing behind her, and holstered her pistol. I sure hope this works… The hissing grew louder, and she heard it edging closer. Just a little more… A loud, hungry screech ran out, and she heard movement coming right for her. Now! She spun the shotgun around to point over her shoulder. BANG!

She whirled around, and saw a translucent tentacled figure collapse to the ground before it dissolved into greenish blood. Jill let out the breath she'd been holding, cocking the shotgun before returning it to hang across her back. That was insane and ridiculously lucky. He'd have been proud. She smirked for a moment before continuing on her way.

"Glad to see you're still alive, Jill."

"You too, Brad." She reached down to help him off the floor of the bar they were in.

"Yeah, thanks to you. If you hadn't shown up when you did, that zombie-"

"Never mind that for now! Where is everyone? And what's being done about evacuation?"

Brad laughed, but it lacked any real mirth. "'Evacuation'? We're a lost cause, Jill. There's no one coming for us. Well…" A dark, fearful look came over his face. "Not to help us, anyway. But there is someone…or something coming for us. Both of us."

Jill blinked, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You'll see, sooner or later. He's after S.T.A.R.S. members; he won't let any of us escape." Brad walked to the door, looking backwards. "We'd better split up; I don't know how he's tracking us, so maybe it might confuse him or something."

"Brad-"

"Take care of yourself, Jill." And with that, Brad had left.

Jill sighed, searching through the bar for things that might help her. With nothing complicated to occupy her mind, it drifted back…

"What do you mean, you're leaving?"

They were in the S.T.A.R.S. Office; Chris was stuffing several things into a rucksack near his desk, and Jill was standing in front of him, with her hands on her hips. They'd been talking for minutes about Chris's distancing from the rest of the team, and then Chris had suddenly said he was leaving.

Chris smirked at her. "I'm done with it, Jill. I'm tired of dealing with the snide comments that Irons has been making, I'm tired of hitting a stone wall when it comes to investigating Umbrella, and I'm tired of waiting for a lead to take legal action against those corrupt monsters. I'm turning in my badge and packing my bags."

She stared at him, shocked. To hear Chris say such things, when she'd been hoping he would stay to help with the legal action against Umbrella. "But Chris, what about the case against-"

"How are we supposed to take them down legally, Jill? Dante and his friends had all the evidence with them when they left to…wherever they went. We have no case against them. But that's not going to stop them from making more monsters, again and again until another one happens."

A chill came over her. "'Another one'…what?"

"Another outbreak. It's not even an 'if'; you saw how insane the experiments in that place were. Wesker might be dead, but there's a dozen more that think just like he did; throw biology in a blender and set it to 'science', and they're happy. But I don't want them churning out lizard people or zombie tigers or any of the other freaks of nature they can think up. You've heard some of the messed up stuff that Rebecca saw; this is normal for them."

Jill was silent for a few moments. "So what are you going to do?"

"How do you kill a zombie?" He tucked a clip-on laser sight into the bag, and then cinched it up. "You gotta take out the brain."

She finally understood. "The Umbrella Main Offices." He nodded. "Chris…you'd be throwing everything away. You'll become a criminal."

"Not if I do it right." He grinned at her confused look. "I might be able to get sanctioned by a government agency if I can bring back just enough evidence that they can't ignore, but not enough that they try to continue it."

"But until then, you'll be considered a terrorist."

He set his jaw into a hard line. "This is for Claire. I don't want her to ever have to go through something like this. If Umbrella can't exist, it can't hurt anyone anymore."

She sighed. "Chris…"

CHAPTER END

And so we check in on Jill. She's got her work cut out for her, that's for sure! Anyway, hope you're all doing well!