Leon found he was not the only one who had plans to see the first murder victim in fifty years. When he arrived on the scene, he was forced to park in the middle of the street, so numerous were the cars lining the sides of the road. Jumping out, Leon was greeted by the sight of thirty or so people crowding around one of his other deputies, Mike Martin. Mike wasn't hard to spot. At 6'4 and 280 pounds of solid muscle, it would be easy to mistake Mike for a small bear on hind legs. The neatly trimmed black beard didn't leave too much to the imagination. Mike looked hard pressed. Even from the distance, Leon could tell exactly what he was saying.
"You can't go in. You'll contaminate the scene. I don't care if you knew the victim; this is a sheriff's office matter now." Mike was one of those "by the book" cops. If it wasn't done according to regulation and rule, it was wrong. Despite that, Leon both liked and trusted the man, and often gave him the position of "unofficial second in command".
Leon pushed through the crowd of people. As he made his way, a silence fell in his wake; a silence like that of a graveyard. Whispers started up; Leon caught snatches of "That's him, the ex-agent," and "He's crazy, that's why they sent him here." He ignored the hushed conversation, and spoke to his deputy.
"Mike, what's going on?"
"Not really sure, sir. Some lady called in that somebody was lying dead in their back yard, missing most of their neck. Dispatch sent me out to take a look; said the caller was hysterical. Wouldn't give her name or address."
"Trace it?"
Mike gave him a blank look.
"Right, right… That's the problem with small town police operations; we never have the tech to meet all our demands…" said Leon. "How are things looking?"
"One corpse, sir. Whoever phoned it in wasn't kidding about that. They also managed to phone half the town. These people have been here for ten minutes, clamouring for a look at the body; a look at the scene; a look at the house, even. This is the problem with small towns, I swear I …"
Leon whistled and jerked his head towards the crowd of people, still whispering and furtively pointing.
"Oh. Right. I called EMS; they just left with the body. The only thing I had time to do was take some pictures of the scene, and confirm whether or not she was dead. Place was a mess. I'm not sure if you knew her or not sir, but the victim was Crazy Christie."
"The animal lady?"
"Yes sir."
Leon knew her. Rather, he knew of her. Christie was famous around town for collecting strays and keeping them in her backyard. The twenty something blonde's eccentric behaviour was almost legendary. At one point, the neighbours had called Leon and asked him to have her pets removed to a veterinary office. Of course, there was nothing Leon could do until the animals became a nuisance.
"Let's go take a look."
Mike and Leon left the spectators clamouring in the drive and opened the gate to the backyard. A peculiar site met their eyes. Leon wondered how one woman had the time and resources to feed so many animals. Cage upon cage containing dogs, cats, and even a few possums were placed around the back of the spacious backyard. A single doghouse with a door fashioned from iron mesh and railing sat in the corner nearest the back door. Not a single animal made a sound. All of them watched Leon with a feral glint in their eyes. A chill ran down his back. Something about the animals unnerved him. It was almost as if the animals were saying things in voices only they could understand.
We know what happened here. We know, but we won't ever tell. Because if we did, you'd have to believe us. Believe that all the fears and anxiety from your darkest nightmares are coming back to gnaw at your soul, the way a dog gnaws on a bone. And these fears… they're hungry. Ravenous, even.
The scene was made much stranger by the blood. A dark imprint on the ground marked the spot where Crazy Christie had breathed her last. Her body had lain long enough to leave an impression in the finely cut grass, better than any chalk outline. Dark reddish stains surrounded it, seeping into the depression caused by dead weight.
"Bad way to go," remarked Leon, " Seems like she crawled here from…"
His eyes followed a trail of the browning liquid to the structure in the corner.
"The dog house?"
Motioning for Mike to follow him, Leon approached the simple structure. As he neared the dog house, every animal in the backyard erupted into terrified noise. Dogs whimpered and barked frantically, cats hissed and mewed in terror, and the possums emitted high pitched shrieks. The sudden burst of noise froze the sheriff and his deputy in their tracks. Both of their hands dropped to the grips of their pistols. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. Animals that had been clawing at their cages, clawing to get out and run away, to hide… were silent. It was as if nothing had ever happened. An eerie silence settled over the backyard. In the distance, a crow cawed lazily in the air.
"What the hell was that?" said Mike, the normally unshakeable deputy looking undoubtedly rattled.
"Who knows?" replied Leon, "I've never seen anything like that before."
As he reached out a hand to remove the latch and open the dog house door, a growl and an explosion of activity from inside caused him to jump back a full body length.
Thrashing its way out of the dim interior, a dog leapt face first against the iron mesh. Patches of hair had fallen out, leaving skin the color of an angry red exposed. Blood matted the canine muzzle, flecking into the air as the maddened animal snapped and fought to get out of its prison. Mike cried out and stepped back, planting a boot straight into the rust coloured pool of blood behind him, and falling flat on his back in the mess. Leon stood, frozen in horror, as the realization of what he was seeing dawned on him. The dog's frenzied efforts began paying off, as the mesh bellied outward and began to tear in places. The animal's own blood began mixing with that of its dead master's, though it seemed not to feel any pain.
"Mike." Leon's voice was calm, almost devoid of emotion, though his insides were a roiling mass of fear and confusion.
"Go get the shotgun out of your car."
Mike hadn't moved. Leon turned; slapped him once across the face nearly hard enough to send him sprawling.
"Now."
Mike nodded, and turned, walking slowly towards the gate, like a man in a dream, the dead woman's blood sticking to his clothing like thick syrup.
"RUN, DAMN IT!" Leon's harsh call set him off as though the hounds of hell themselves were at his heels. And when Mike thought about it, they probably were.
Leon stood, facing the disintegrating door and wondering why the past always had to come crashing down with such startling suddenness. Worse than the truth of his government indenture was his past with biological weapons and their effects on people he cared about. Too often he had woken up in a cold sweat, fading memories of nightmares turning to relief.
A particularly loud impact with the grating brought Leon back into the present, sweat coating his palms and body, stomach a pit of cold acid, and eyes glancing frantically about. Unknowingly, he had drawn his USP, and had it trained on the dog. He didn't want to risk firing and making more holes in the grate though, not without being sure the dog would die. Mike returned, stumbling in his haste.
Leon holstered his sidearm and held out his hand. Mike gave him the weapon, a Remington 870 MCS. Leon racked the pump, ejecting a shell through the port on the side of the weapon, and ensuring it was loaded.
"God help us all," he whispered, as he brought the sights to bear on the animal he knew was undead.
The people in front of Crazy Christie's house were still quite unsure as of just what to believe about their small town Sheriff. Many of them decided that they had urgent business to attend to when the four shotgun blasts rang out in quick succession from behind the house. The street cleared in what would surely have been record time, if such a record had existed. When Leon and Mike returned to the front of the property, they were surprised to see that only one person had remained to ask questions. Their surprise turned to disgust when the woman turned around and revealed herself to be none other than Madison Scherer, toting her designer bag and a tape recorder, which she promptly thrust into Leon's face.
"Sheriff Kennedy. Care to comment on what just happened? Why the gunshots? Anything to state for the record yet?" Leon was about to tell where to stick her damn tape recorder when Mike spoke up from beside him.
"Miss Scherer, it's too early to make any statements. We had to take care of a rabid animal. That's all. A woman just died, please, have some respect and wait until we inform the next of kin."
"I see." Madison smiled thinly. "Any idea where the body is going?"
Mike rolled his eyes.
"Ma'am, I'm afraid I can't tell you that. If you'd like to inquire about the status of the body, you'll have to go through the fam-"
The rest of Mike's sentence was interrupted as Leon roughly grabbed a hold of his deputy.
"Mike. Where the fuck is that body going?"
Something in Leon's eyes held every facet of Mike's attention.
"Body's going to General Hospital up in Umber. About an hour's drive. Why?"
Leon wasted no time. He sprinted to Mike's cruiser, threw the shotgun in the passenger seat, and jumped behind the wheel.
"Get in!" he called to Mike.
Realizing that something terribly important was about to happen, Mike jumped in the passenger seat.
"Go home ma'am," said Leon, in a dangerously quiet, calm, emotionless voice. If you know what's good for you, go home, lock every last one of your doors and windows, and stay out of sight."
Madison had time to do nothing more than utter a few stilted syllables before Leon threw the car in gear and left a black residue along with the stench of burnt rubber in his wake.
"Sir, what the fuck is going on?" asked Mike, "There was definitely something wrong with that dog other than rabies. Don't feed me any bullshit, sir, I have a wife and child in this town. If something's going on, I need to know about it." As he spoke, Mike replenished the shotgun's magazine tube from a box of spare shells in the glove compartment.
Leon was silent for a moment, as the car ate up the miles between Mount Forest and Umber.
"Mike, this isn't something I talk about very often. It's not something I talk about with just anybody either. I'll tell you once, and that's it. Don't ask me again. This isn't something you can go to a party to and tell your friends, 'Hey, see that guy? Go ask him about this…' Do you get me?"
"I get you sir. Please, tell me what's going on."
"Do you remember the incident in Raccoon City? Well…"
Over the next thirty minutes, Leon told Mike everything about his
involvement in the incident at Raccoon City, leaving nothing out..
When he was done, Mike sat in silence for a moment.
"These…
zombies. They're a result of some freak virus?"
"Right. The virus was originally intended as a bio weapon, but the pharmaceutical lab developing it lost control of it and an outbreak started in Raccoon City."
"I see. And these zombies… they can only be killed by shots to the head?"
"Not entirely true. If you pump enough rounds into them they'll go down from sheer trauma to vital systems. However, the best option is to rupture the brain or sever the spinal cord."
Mike nodded. "Okay. I'm not entirely sure I believe you yet, but I don't entirely disbelieve you either. That dog was…"
"If we're lucky, you won't have to believe me. We'll go to the hospital, put the body under quarantine, and nothing will happen. If we're lucky."
As they moved closer and closer to the city of Umber, neither of them noticed the red Ferrari on their tail, a slim figure wearing sunglasses and a mysterious smile behind the wheel.