Chapter 2 - The World's Gone to Hell

September 29th, 1998 - Tuesday

I woke to the sound of police sirens; there were even more than I had heard the previous night after my talk with Holly.

Oh no! What if something happened at Holly's house?! I quickly jumped out of bed, but not before catching a quick look at my alarm clock's time-display; it was 4:57 A.M. As tired as I was, I still managed to make it to my window. I pushed the curtains out of the way a little, and peeked outside; there was a massive build-up of cars. There were probably seven cop cars and thirteen vehicles owned by just random people scattered all over Fox Street. The police sirens along with the constant blaring of car horns ensured that I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep... at least, not without trying real hard.

I decided I'd go downstairs and see if someone else was up. Once I reached the bottom of the staircase, I spotted my parents and my older sister, Leslie, standing in the living room.

"What's going on?" I asked. They had all obviously been whispering, because my normal-volume voice startled them.

"What the hell are you doing up at 5:00 in the morning?" Dad asked me. I gave him a "What are you talking about?" look.

"I heard police sirens outside!" I exclaimed. "It sounds like they're everywhere!"

"That's because they are, dear," Mom told me. "We just watched the news; apparently there's a group of serial killers on the loose, and they've already killed a lot of people in Downtown Raccoon City."

"They haven't killed anyone from around here, have they?" I asked, starting to really worry about Holly.

"Not from what we've seen," Mom assured me. "They said that these killers have been on the loose for some time though, because they think they had something to do with a bunch of deaths a few months ago."

"You mean the 'Arklay Mountains' thing?" I asked her. She nodded her head.

"Alright, well you guys stay here," I said, rushing for the door.

"Whoa, where in the hell do you think you're going?!" Dad called after me.

"I have to check on Holly!" I yelled to him.

"Are you insane?! There's killers on the loose!" He yelled at me.

"I'm just going across the street," I told him, and I ran out the door, knowing he may very well be coming after me.

Outside was a horrible sight; not only were the cars that had been piled up on fire, I could also make out bodies littered around and inside the vehicles.

What the fuck happened here? I thought as I looked at the surrounding carnage. I thought Mom said the news made sure there were no deaths from this area...?

I heard some moaning coming from one of the the vehicles, but I thought nothing of it. Whoever was dying was far beyond my help. I hurried past the burning wreckage, and I finally made it to Holly's front yard.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" came a scream from inside. It was definitely female. I had to hurry.

I quickly grabbed for the door knob on the front door, and pulled hard. Dammit; locked. Looking to my left, I saw a window. It was just low enough for me to bust out, and still be able to climb through. I looked around the ground for something I could possibly use to throw at the window; luckily, there happened to be a shoe about ten feet away from me, sitting by one of the burning cars. I ran over to it, picked it up, and checked its weight. For a shoe, it was extremely heavy. I slung it at the window, and it luckily busted out enough glass for me to climb into the house through it. At the same time the glass burst, the high-pitched scream I had heard got even louder. It was definitely Holly's scream.

I climbed through the window, cutting my hands while pulling myself over it. Holly's screaming sounded like it was coming from upstairs. I ran to the steps, turned the bannister, and hopped up the stairs. Once I reached the top, I clearly saw why Holly was screaming. There was something pushing up against a door; I assumed that she was on the other side of that door, trying to keep the thing out. Thinking about what I should do, I decided that I should try to attack it with something. Just as my eyes searched the hallway for an item to use, the creature suddenly turned around, like it sensed me.

The creature was possibly the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen in my life; its eyes were sunken into its head, its skin rotting and peeling off in a brownish-green color. I noted the creature's right shoulder; it had literally been ripped apart. The creature had looked like a corpse of a human being... but that wasn't possible; humans can't come back to life, it was a fact. It actually even looked like one of the victims from the news story I'd seen the day before.

As I continued to stare at the creature, it walked toward me with its arms outsretched, a deep moaning and groaning emiting from it. It took me a moment to realize what was going on; I had only one way out of this.

I bolted down the hallway for the stairs behind me. Running as fast as I could, I actually almost tripped down the steps. Luckily, I made it to the bottom unharmed, and I looked to see if the creature was following me. It had attempted to follow, but it failed miserably. Whatever the thing was had horrible legs I'd guessed, because the moment it reached the first step, it fell down, hitting every step on its way down back to the ground. Blood shot from its mouth each time it hit a step, and I was beginning to think it was going to be dead once it reached the bottom.

The creature hit the floor with a sick "SPLAT!" spraying blood everywhere. Holly was still screaming upstairs.

"Holly!" I yelled up to her. I ran back up the steps, not even bothering to see if the monster was dead. I knocked on the door the monster had been pushing on, and I heard some whimpering.

"J-Jo-Joey?" I heard Holly's unmistakable voice studder on the other side.

"Don't worry Holly, I'm here," I told her. There was a clicking noise as the door was unlocked, and then opened. Holly pulled me inside, and then closed the door and locked it. There was a woman inside the room with us, and I assumed it was Holly's mom.

"What was that thing?!" I asked her, doubting she'd know either. "It looked like a person... but..."

"That was my father," she told me, tears flowing down her face. "He just... he changed into that thing."

That thing had been Holly's dad... how in the hell did he change into a monster like that? He had looked like a zombie from one of those low-budget horror movies from the 60's... well, only grosser.

"That was your dad?!" I asked her. "How did that happen?"

Her mom stepped forward, opening her mouth to speak.

"I got up out of bed to use the bathroom, and he was standing over me..." she told me, shaken. "He tried to bite me, but I pushed him off of me... oh God, what happened?"

Whatever had happened to him, I knew it probably couldn't be fixed. But it did get me thinking; how the fuck did he become that? I'd never read about anything factual like that in my life.

"I'm sorry... I don't know what's happened to him, but I don't think we can fix it," I told them, feeling like a doctor telling a patient that they were going to die. "We need to get out of here; you guys can stay with my family at our house. We'll explain what happened, they'll understand... well, they'll understand as much as we do."

"How can you be sure he can't be helped?" Holly's mom asked me, completely in denial.

"Mrs. Scott... he fell down your stairs... I don't think he made it," I sad to her sadly. She began to uncontrolably cry. "Now, if we don't get out of here, I think whatever happened to him is gonna happen to us."

I grabbed Holly's hand and walked off, pulling her. I could hear her mom's footsteps behind us. We quickly walked down the stairs, almost tripping over Mr. Scott's corpse. Holly's mom dropped to her knees by the body.

"Oh George... oh God, George!" she cried, leaning over the body. "What did we do to deserve this?"

For some reason, the whole time I was expecting Mr. Scott to return to life, and attack Mrs. Scott. Luckily, that never happened. After a minute or two, she stood up.

"Alright, let's go," she told me.

I unlocked the front door, opened it, and we walked outside.

I blocked the sight of all the bodies out this time, and ignored them. I concentrated solely on getting us to my home. After a few seconds, we were on the porch.

It reminded me of the night before; me and Holly sitting there with life completely normal, our whole lives ahead of us...

I rapped on the door about twenty times before it finally opened. Dad stared blankly back at the three of us.

"What happened?" he asked me, his eyes darkened.

"Um, I'm actually not really sure," I told him honestly, and walked inside with Holly and her mom in tow. I pulled Holly up the stairs, leaving her mom to mingle with my parents.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"My room," I replied when we reached the top of the stairs. I opened the door to my room, and shut it once we were both inside. I sat on my bed, and she followed.

"I'm sorry," I told her. I laid back on my bed, and she laid back resting her head on the crook of my arm. "We're going to find out what happened to your dad, I promise..."

"Joey, what's going on?" she asked me. "Last night was great, it was the best night of my life, and now? Now... the world's gone to Hell." She started to cry, and I pulled her closer to me.

"Don't worry," I told her, hoping she'd calm down. "Like I said, we're gonna find out what happened... we'll go to sleep, and when we wake up, we'll be in seperate houses again... it'll all turn out to have been just a nightmare."

"Joey, you know that's not true... this is not a nightmare... this is the real world," she said. "Why was it my dad that this had to happen to? Why couldn't it have been someone else?"

"I don't know," I told her. "Actually, I want to check something out."

I picked up the remote from the end table sitting by my bed. I pressed the large red button at the top of the remote, and my TV came on. Instead of some early-morning re-run of Seinfeld or an infomercial, the blank screen of my TV was replaced by images of a city area... Downtown Raccoon City is what the caption at the bottom said.

"I've never seen anything more horrible," the terrified voice of a woman said. "Raccoon City has become the site of a major biohazard; civilians have been turned into flesh-eating creatures of the night, and it seems as if they're numbers are growing. As of now, the source of their transformations hasn't been identified... this is truly an unbelievable story. Science can't explain the events currently playing out... whatever's going on, it seems that nobody can stop it. We-"

She was suddenly interrupted by a noise I had heard earlier; the moaning and groaning of those monsters. Holly and I watched in horror as one of those zombie-like creatures stepped into the camera's view, and attacked the reporter. She screamed momentarily, and then fell to the ground. The view then changed as the camera was dropped. We could hear the footsteps of somebody running off; presumably the cameraman. Suddenly, at least fifty zombies walked into the shot behind the first one that had appeared. That's when I turned the TV off.

"Oh my God!" Holly called out. "What's going on? Seriously Joey! Oh God... what's going on...?" I pulled her closer to me than I'd ever before. I stroked the back of her head.

"It's going to be fine..." I told her. "It's going to be fine... let's just go to sleep. If something happens, our parents will tell us."

It was strange... sleeping in the same bed as Holly. That night, I'd felt a lot more grown-up than I was; taking control of the situation and acting bravely about all of it... maybe I was just being stupid.

Eventually, Holly fell asleep, but I couldn't, and it wasn't just because of the sirens and car horns outside. I kissed her neck, and held her tightly.

I didn't know what was going on at all, but one thing was for certain; Holly was right: the world had gone to Hell.

XXX

Author's Note: There you have it people! The first sign that this actually is a Resident Evil fanfic! An actual zombie-encounter... of course, there may or may not but definitely will be more of those to come. Let me know if you're liking the story so far, and what your thoughts and opinions on it are! Constructive-criticism is always welcome: and remember, I said constructive!