Chapter 8: Hitching A Ride

October 1, 1998

7:34 PM

Chesterbaum Avenue, Raccoon City

They were everywhere, Officer Eddie Gabbor noticed. The creatures or zombies or whatever they were had taken over the city. It made no difference where he and Ben ran, there were always dozens of the monsters lurking about, shambling aimlessly down the streets, bumping into one another without notice or care. Blood and gristle clung to the tattered remains of their clothing, dripped from their mouths and everywhere the stench of decay followed the two police officers relentlessly – an entity all its own.

"Hurry up, brickhead," Officer Ben Tredd snapped breathlessly, running ahead of his partner. "You're lagging behind."

As much as it annoyed Eddie to admit that his partner was right he realized that in this case there was no other option. He was falling behind. Running over long distances, for extended periods of time, in a city full of flesh eating monsters had never been part of Eddie's training at the academy. Jumping over tall fences, yes but not this.

Every fiber in every muscle of the rookie's legs cried out for rest. His chest ached, each breath like drawing icy daggers into his lungs. Sweat and rain water continuously ran into his eyes, blurring his vision and leaving the young man half-blind. More than once the officer had tripped over himself trying to keep up with Ben. The run wasn't so bad though – he had lost any feeling in his feet long ago.

"Where are we going anyways?" Eddie asked, huffing and puffing as the two men charged up the sidewalk.

"I'll decide that in good time." Ben said, making no attempt to hide the irritation in his voice, nor any attempt to slow his pace. "Just give me some time to think. Come on, we've got to get out of this storm first."

Signaling his partner to follow with one hand, Benjamin darted across the open road and to the other side. He stopped when he reached the small 711 convenience store. The neon sign above the door was still lit and the glass front doors gave both men an excellent view inside the store. Lights were blinking on and off inside the shop, flashing across the tipped over shelves and food products strewn across the tile floor. From where he stood, Eddie was able to see the counter…and the spot where the cash register used to be plugged in. Not seeing a single person inside, Eddie waited for Ben to ease the door open before following inside.

The two officers stepped inside the store and moved around slowly, surveying the scene. Shelves lay overturned, their contents recklessly scattered across the ground. Freezer cases once containing milk and ice cream had been smashed and emptied. Glass shards from the freezers and broken light bulbs littered the dirty tile floor. Outside, lightning flashed, thunder roared and Eddie jumped a foot. Ben Tredd regarded the younger cop with a look of disgusted contempt.

"Relax, yellowbelly," He said, "it's not the weather that you should be worried about."

"Well sorry if I'm a little edgy, Ben." Eddie spat, whirling on his partner, sick of being demeaned every time he did or said anything. "But I wasn't exactly expecting to show up to work today and have a mod of fucking zombies show up and sink their teeth into everyone I fucking work with. Fuck, do you always have to be such a prick about everything?"

"Just shut up and let me think." Ben retorted harshly and Eddie could see it in the other man's eyes that he had struck a chord. The rookie knew he shouldn't have felt any guilt over what he had said to Ben, Tredd deserved it for every put down and harsh word he had dispensed, but after seeing the flash of pain in his partner's eyes Eddie Gabbor couldn't help but feel at least a little guilt nagging at him.

'Maybe he does care,' Eddie thought as Ben took a seat atop the counter and placed his chin in his hands, 'maybe he does give a damn about what happened back at the barricade. He knew all those people better than I did, he worked with them for years, I was only with them for a few days. Maybe it's getting to him more than he's letting on and being a shit head is just his way of dealing with it. I doubt a guy like Ben would be the type to tell you what he was really feeling.'

There was a loud thumping at the front door of the 711. Eddie turned his head to looking. Scratching at the glass with yellowed fingernails were seven of the zombies – creatures that had once been living, breathing members of the Raccoon community. Now they were mindless monsters whose only impulse left was to search for food. Pity welled up in the young officer's gut as he stared at the dead faces pressed up against the glass, apparently oblivious to the rain pouring down on them.

"You know," the rookie said, breaking the uncomfortable silence without taking his gaze from the pathetic shapes that slapped feebly at the glass doors, "they were just like us once. They had friends, family and jobs. They watched the same TV shows as us, read the same stories in the newspaper, played with their kids and drove to work everyday. Just like us."

"What's your point?" Tredd scowled, looking up from his hands.

"I don't know." Eddie shook his head, turning away from the creatures as they clawed at the barrier before them. "It's just…it's all messed up. All those people out there – the ones at the barricade – they all used to be normal folks like anyone else and now look at them." Eddie gestured to the doors with his thumb but Ben refused to look up. "They're monsters. They used to be your everyday average person and now they would – "

"Kills us without a second thought," Benjamin cut in, looking his partner square in the eye with a penetrating gaze, "yeah I know. It's best not to think about them being ordinary people anymore, it just makes it harder to pull the trigger when of 'em gets in your way."

"I killed one of them, you know? It was back at the barricade." Eddie said, reliving the events in his mind. There was screaming and the smell of blood and gunpowder filled his head until it swam. He remembered feeling the pavement sliding beneath him as Ben dragged him backwards. He remembered watching the woman his partner shot crumple to the ground and then he was firing too. Eddie could hear the shot echo in his ears, feel the pistol jump in his hand, as he sent a single round through the forehead of one of the cannibals. The realization that he had taken a human life struck the young man hard again, making his stomach muscles clench violently. "I can't believe I killed someone."

"If it makes you feel any better," Ben sighed, pushing himself off the counter, "he would have killed you without a second thought. It was either you or him and you decided that it wasn't going to be you. I'd say that's the smartest thing you've done since we got stuck together. Besides," he waved absently at the group of zombies still pawing vainly at the front doors, "look at them. I'd say you did that poor bastard a favor by putting a bullet through his head."

"Well I sure don't feel that way."

"Yeah, well you can cry about it later newbie, for now just help me move this shelf in front of the door. I don't think they're bright enough to figure out how it works but I'd rather not take that chance."

Eddie moved across the room and helped Ben lift up one of the overturned shelves. "Won't this trap us in here?" He asked tentatively and Tredd rolled his eyes.

"Jeez," he said, wedging the shelf in front of the doors with the other man's assistance. "Didn't you ever have a part-time job working in one of these dives? There's always a backdoor for taking out the trash at the end of the night."

"Alright, alright," Eddie said, dropping to the floor and rocking back on his heels. "What do we do next, genius?"

"Watch the smart mouth, brickhead." Tredd cautioned, then joined him on the floor. "First things first, we have a bit of a hike ahead of us and those things are crawling all over the place, so how are you set on ammo?"

"Four rounds left and then I'm dry." Eddie replied, ejecting the clip from his Beretta and counting the rounds.

"What about in your back-up weapon?" Tredd asked, ejecting the clip from his pistol and slapping in the last one he had.

"Back-up weapon?"

"You don't carry a weapon in addition to your sidearm?"

Frowning, Eddie shook his head. Ben rolled his eyes once more.

"Sheesh, you really are a newbie." Tredd reach down and pulled up the cuff of his pantleg, revealing a small ankle holster that held a snub-nosed .38 revolver. "It's just good policy to carry a spare in case a perp manages to get a hold of your pistol or, I suppose, if you wind up in an extremely fucked up situation like this. Here," Ben unholstered the handgun and tossed it to his partner who caught it awkwardly, "you take it. I should be okay."

"What if you run out?" Eddie asked, tucking the small gun into the back of his waistband.

"Then I guess I'll just have to get by on my good looks." Ben said with a sardonic grin. "Now, let's do the common sense thing and radio in to the station, I'll let you do the honors rookie."

"Dispatch this is Officer Gabbor requesting immediate assistance, the west barricade has been completely overrun, come in, over." Eddie let go of the button on his radio and waited to hear something. The only thing to be heard was the pitiful moans of the creatures outside. Panic stabbed at the young man's heart. "Dispatch please respond, over."

There was silence, followed by a short crackle of static and then silence again. Eddie sighed and looked over at his training officer. "Nothing."

"Typical," Officer Tredd said with obvious displeasure, "that's just typical. Just my luck too. Alright, if they can't tell us what happened then we're going to have to go and find out for ourselves."

"You mean head back to the station?"

"Duh." Tredd said as he rose to his feet, brushing his jacket off. "We need to find out why no one there is answering our calls, besides that's probably the only place in this city that hasn't gone totally batshit yet."

"That, and the fact that you don't have any better ideas at the moment right?" Eddie said bravely and couldn't resist the urge to smirk. It felt good to be on the offensive for once.

"Yeah, well at least I came up with the idea instead of just sitting on my rump so bite me, greenhorn." Tredd countered, tongue cracking like a whip.

"Clever choice of words." Quipped the rookie as he stood.

"Can it." Ben ordered as he started towards the back of the store.

Sure enough, the two cops managed to find the store's service entrance in no time. It was a single steel door, it's surface marred with dents and chips in the white finish, located at the far end of the shop. A garbage can lay on its side next to the entranceway. Ben eased the door open cautiously with his handgun upraised and the two men proceeded out into the darkness with their weapons drawn.

Outside the service entrance was a long ramp, slick with rain that Eddie assumed was used by delivery trucks for unloading product shipments to the store. Set up against the concrete wall on the right side was a brown steel dumpster bearing the yellow triangle insignia of the Raccoon Waste Management Company. Ben swept the area with his flashlight and Eddie did likewise, while everything appeared to be relatively safe the hungry grunts and groans of the walking dead were not far off. Together, the two officers moved up the steep ramp, their shoes scrapping the wet pavement beneath them as the rain continued to fall in sheets.

"Hey, Ben?"

"Christ, what is it now?" Tredd asked annoyed, sweeping his light left to right through the storm.

"I was thinking," Eddie replied, blinking as rain continued to drip down into his eyes, "you know about those cannibal murders that happened around here in June?"

"Yeah, what about 'em? How did you know about those anyways, I thought you were from New York?"

"We still get CNN there, Ben." The rookie said, thoroughly exhausted with the fact that his partner seemed to think so little of him as to assume he did not watch the news. "I was just thinking that maybe there's a connection with what happened in the Arklay Forest and what's happening right now. It's not like there's been a lot of time in between the two events or anything."

"Don't be stupid, brickhead." Ben reprimanded the rookie as the two of them moved past the metal dumpster. "That was an isolated incident, out in the middle of nowhere, that involved a small group of maybe ten people. An entire city is not ten people. Besides, the official investigation said it was probably some cult squatting in the old Spencer Estate."

"Yeah, probably," Eddie said, "but nothing was proven and the team Chief Irons sent to check it out came back with half their people missing and the rest of them were branded as drug addicts so their statement to the press was never released. The case they were working on was never even officially closed it was just swept under the rug. Don't you think that's a little strange?"

"What I think is that you need to stop thinking so much." Ben said, giving his partner a sour look over his shoulder.

"Well I'm just – " Eddie halted in mid-sentence as he heard something crash down behind him.

The two men whirled as one, training their lights across the area. The beams cut through the rain, falling across the wet pavement, the concrete walls and then the dumpster as one of the plastic covers flew open and a shadowy blur leapt out.

The shadow jumped out of the trash bin with such astounding speed that Eddie wasn't sure if he had seen it at all. He scanned around frantically with his flashlight, his heart quickening as his mind began to imagine what new horror this was: a six-armed gorilla, maybe? A hideous alien being that would suck the marrow from their bones? Part of Eddie's mind tried to tell him that believing such things could exist was childish but, before tonight, he had also thought it childish to believe in flesh-eating zombies.

It was Ben's light that illuminated the shadow first. Eddie heard his training officer, whom he had always thought carved from stone, gasp in terror. A moment later Officer Gabbor did the same.

The darkness around the shadow was swept away by Ben's flashlight and what Eddie could only think of as a demon was revealed. The monster sat perched on all fours, it's body long but not tall. It had no skin; twitching red muscle sinew glistened slickly in the pouring rain. At the tips of its thick hands and feet – the young cop did not know which were which – a set of smooth, piercing claws, as white as ivory, beat a steady click-click on the asphalt. Most horrifying of all, the mutant's brain was exposed, dark eye slits beneath a mass of spongy gray matter. The demon – there simply was no other name for it – breathed in ragged, raspy gulps of air. Eddie watched in disbelief as a length of red muscle rolled out over sharp nubs of teeth, extended to nearly ten feet in the air and snapped back into the creature's mouth with a quick flick.

"What the…" Ben began slowly but was unable to finish as the abomination flung itself at the wall on to his right. Those wicked claws dug deep into the concrete, holding the monster in place, and it hissed a terrible, shrilling cry before barreling towards the two officers with that same impossible speed. "Um…run!"

Eddie felt his partner tug at his jacket sleeve and then the two were racing up the slope, their feet slapping against the wet ground. Torrents of wind splashed water up into the rookie's eyes and for a moment he feared it would blind him, causing him to trip and fall to be left to the demon's mercy. As he ran, the only sounds Officer Gabbor was aware of was his heartbeat thumping painfully in his ears and the hasty click-clack sound of the creature scuttling behind them. Judging by the noise alone Eddie could tell it was gaining fast.

"Go!" Ben ordered as the two men reached the top of the slope. He paused, turned and fired twice at the crawling beast. The two rounds slapped wetly into what Eddie thought would have been the monster's shoulder, spraying the wall with blood and knocking the demon to the ground. It lay writhing on its back for a brief second, wildly failing its clawed appendages, then with horrifying grace and agility, the mutant flipped itself back onto its stomach and continued its charge.

Eddie looked around in a panic, vaguely aware that his partner was still firing behind him. His mind spinning and heart racing, the rookie had to force himself to stay calm and keep from charging off in a blind dash. He saw that the street split in two directions, left and right. To the left an intersection and an alleyway with a chain-link fence at the end but twenty or thirty of the zombie creatures were wandering lazily around the street and alleyway, heading in that direction would be suicide. Eddie snapped his head to the right and saw that it was a clear stretch of road all the way up to the intersection.

"Ben, this way!" The rookie screamed to his partner and began running but stopped when Tredd's rough hand clenched around his wrist and started to pull him in the opposite direction. Toward the cannibals. "Stop! What are you doing? Are you crazy?"

"Like a fox." Tredd muttered, pulling his protesting partner towards the mob of zombies standing in front of the alley. Behind him the monstrosity hissed its frustration and gave chase. "Get ready to duck and dodge, brickhead!"

"This is nuts!" Eddie cried in despair as Ben yanked him into the mass of creatures. The smell of disease and decay washed over the young cop in a sickening wave as peeling hands groped at his clothing and cold breath blew across his skin. His vision was filled with the sight of pale hands, dead white eyes, bloodstained clothing, and crumbling faces. Not far behind, Officer Gabbor could hear the demon shrieking.

A pale, bloody hand closed around Eddie's shoulder and he screamed in disgust, pushing the body it was attached to away from him with every ounce of strength he possessed. Ducking under another pair of rotting arms, Eddie halted as something wrapped around his ankle, nearly sending him sprawling. Looking down the rookie could see one of the undead laying across the floor, his gore stained fingers clenching tightly the cuff of Eddie's pant-leg.

"Get off me!" The young officer demanded, kicking hard at the arm. Eddie thought he might empty his stomach when he heard the arm crunch beneath the treads of his shoe. The grip loosened and Eddie charged forward, frantically shoving aside any of the creatures that got too close, trying not to think about how cold and pliable their skin felt to the touch. "Ben, wait up!"

"Come on, brickhead!" Ben called from somewhere up ahead. "My plan's working, just keep moving!"

Eddie lashed out with his flashlight, knocking one of the cannibals upside the head as it veered unexpectantly into his path, and continued to run. He risked a glance over his shoulder and finally realized what the reason to his partner's madness had been.

The scuttling demon had fallen well behind them now, slashing with outraged fury at the zombies barring its way. While the mutant's powerful claws tore thick gashes across the chests of the cannibals they did not seem to feel the injuries. No matter how much flesh it tore from the bone, how much blood it split, the zombies pressed determinedly towards the two living officers, creating a wall of decaying flesh that left the horrid beast behind. Its speed was no advantage to it now.

Looking away in disgust, Eddie could see his training officer standing at the lip of the alleyway, firing his pistol into the horde of walking corpses that pursued them relentlessly. The younger officer raced forward as fast as his tired legs would carry him. Adrenaline coursed ceaselessly through his bloodstream, his heart pumping such a rapid rate Eddie sincerely thought for a moment that the organ would burst in his chest. Breathing was becoming a terrible labor for the young policeman and for the short moment Officer Gabbor though about giving up, lying down and letting the horrid creatures that sought his life take it from him. This thought dissipated as quickly as mist in a strong wind, as Eddie saw something that sent fresh waves of excitement and hope through his aching body.

"Ben, look!" He cried in elation, pointing past the shaggy-haired officer.

Tredd dropped another of the zombies with two rounds to the head then glanced over his shoulder in the direction his partner was pointing. Standing on the opposite side of the fence was an eighteen-wheeler. The metallic blue big rig sat idling with the window rolled down and the chubby, red, frightened face of a man – a living man – poked out along with a hand of fat fingers that beckoned the two men towards him.

"Come on!" The driver shouted, his green eyes wide with fear. "Get in!"

"Go Eddie!" Ben said, turning his attention back to the mob of undead closing in on them. "Run yellowbelly!"

"What about you?" The rookie called back, even as he sidestepped towards the fence.

"I'm right behind you, now move!" Tredd's Beretta barked twice more and another of the walking nightmares sagged to the floor.

Without risking another word or another glance, Eddie took off, full speed ahead, towards the fence. The thought suddenly occurred to the young man that the fence was now the only obstacle barring his way from potential freedom of the madness of Raccoon City. Eddie felt his heart stop as a pair of peeling gray arms came around the corner and fall across his shoulders. His flashlight fell from his startled hands, crashing to the ground and, just before the light it gave off died, the rookie saw that where two more entrances to the alley: from the left and right sides. Two more entrances that were welling up with the rotting, flesh-eating terrors.

Screaming in terrified disgust, Eddie shoved the creature – a man in faded blue jeans and a white shirt covered in crust red stains – away from him. On reflex the Officer Gabbor raised his weapon and fired a single shot into the man's wretched visage, punching a hole beneath his right eye, and the body fell. Eddie was dimly aware of the gunshots fired by his partner as he too continued to open up on the cannibalistic mob. Eddie fired three more times, saw two more zombies go down, and then his back hit the chain links behind him …and his weapon clicked empty.

"Damn it!" Officer Gabbor swore, no longer aware of the reports from his partner's sidearm. He dropped the empty Beretta and immediately drew the sleek black nightstick in his utility belt. A chill ran up his spine as Eddie felt the zombies rotten hands and yellowed fingernails crawling all over his arms and torso, could feel their diseased breath drift across his neck. Reacting out of pure instinct the rookie began to swat wildly at the outstretched arms and empty faces. He was unaware of anything happening around him, everything was lost in a haze of crimson and misty terror, until his arm was too tired and the baton was too slick with blood to hold anymore. Eddie's fingers slipped on the slippery nightstick and it tumbled out of his hand, clattering to the pavement. He reached around for Ben's revolver but it was too late, a set of dead, peeling hands closed around his neck, pulling him towards a mouth of cracked, brown teeth.

"No!" Ben Tredd cried out and Eddie could feel those cold, clammy hands release him. He blinked in disbelief as his training officer wrapped his hands around the zombie's shoulders and pulled the creature back. Officer Tredd also had drawn his nightstick as well and brought it down across the undead's skull hard enough to crack through the bone. Blood rolled slowly out of the wound as the corpse staggered to the ground.

"Climb the fence, brickhead. Now, damn it!" Ben said, turning to level another of the shambling cannibals with his baton as more of their number filtered into the alleyway. Eddie had seen all the emotion in the look his partner had given him, all the anger and rage and frustration. He didn't hesitate as he vaulted himself at the fence and began to climb. 'Ben Tredd saved my life.' It was a truly strange thought.

"Move it, son!" The trucker called, gesturing towards him with one hand, voice tight with panic. "Run!"

"Ben!" Eddie yelled at his partner, crashing to the pavement in a heap before racing to the passenger side of the big rig and throwing the door open. Whirling around he turned to search for the senior officer.

Angry, exhausted grunting from behind him clued Eddie in to his partner's location. He saw Ben climbing the fence his scruffy hair and rough skin caked with blood and nameless bits of gore. Tredd clutched his pistol in one hand as he hastily tried to pull himself over the metal crossbar of the fence. Suddenly, Tredd's eyes and mouth shot open in an expression of sharp pain, the handgun clattered to the ground on the other side of the fence.

Eddie looked on in horror as one of the cannibals wrapped its pale hand around his partner's dangling leg and sunk its teeth deep into the flesh of Ben's calf muscle. He saw the Beretta fall, heard his partner's cream as the mob of zombies dragged him from the fence. Officer Eddie Gabbor stood frozen, completely unaware of the chubby fingers grasping at the sleeve of his jacket, his wide eyes fixed solely on the scene in front of him. Ben's last words echoed through the streets before the horde of cannibals swallowed him up, obscuring his body from sight, like the sea does to the foolish surfers bold enough to try and tame it.

"EDDIE!" Ben Tredd shrieked and then his words were drowned out by the unworldly moaning of the zombies as they overwhelmed the officer.

'They're eating him.' Eddie thought in mute terror, face gaping. The thought was the most horrible realization he had ever experienced. Slowly, numbly, the rookie cop raised the revolver, pointing it at the indecipherable mass of creatures that had killed his training officer. Eddie drew back the hammer, felt cool steel beneath his finger but then a hand was pushing his arms down , forcing him to lose any shot he might have had. A thick paw of a hand closed around his shoulder, whirling the young officer around so that he came face to face with the round, meaty visage and glowing brown eyes of the trucker.

"Don't bother son," the trucker said in a low voice, "it's useless. He's done for. Now, get in here!"

Glancing back over his shoulder Eddie saw only a shapeless mass of people that by all rights should have been dead, pushing and rattling against the chain-link fence that stood in their path. Eddie turned back slowly and, as if he were being controlled by some other force than his own will, accepted the trucker's outstretched hand and allowed himself to be pulled inside.

"Ben…" Eddie mumbled absently, unaware that he had spoken at all, as the truck rumbled to life and started off down the road. "This…can't be."

The trucker placed a hand on the rookie's shoulder and started to speak but Eddie couldn't hear a word he said. Suddenly, he was deaf and blind. It was frightening at first, as the darkness and silence stole over him, but then the young officer realized what was really happening.

He was blind because he was weeping and his eyes were closed. He was deaf because he could not hear anything over the pitiful, broken sound of his sobbing.

Author's Note: I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to you, my Readers, for my sub-par use of page breaks in previous chapters. Sadly, this site does not support some of my tricks for using them and I know this must have made things a tad bit confusing so I will try to be more careful in using them in the future. I hope you enjoy this chapter and pray that you will continue to read and review my work: I crave feedback. Look for a new update soon and for those of you reading Come Clean as well a new chapter should be up within the week. Thank you and enjoy.

The Extinguisher:(Please look in the Reviews section of this story to see what flames I am referring to.)

During this update's Extinguisher I would like to speak with the gentleman (or lady) who has flamed every chapter of this story thus far. Thank you very much for showing such a great interest in Three Days In A Nightmare! I am so glad that you have been interested enough to read every single chapter of the chronicles of the Raccoon survivors. However, I think you have mistaken the purpose of The Extinguisher. Its purpose is not so I can "bitch" at my readers who I believe to be an interesting and intelligent lot of people. Rather, its function is that I might answer the queries of persons such as your self who wonder why I have done what I have done. Allow me to do that now.

Yes, my knowledge of firearms may not be as wide as yours (something I'm sure I'll lose sleep over) but I can't help to notice that you aren't an author on this site. Perhaps your criticisms would mean more to me if you were a writer yourself and could actually show me some of your work. You may know about guns but do you know how to write an interesting story? Do you know how to write one full of action, conflict, plot twists and character development? Have you ever written anything at all? I ask simply because I would like to know what type of person is criticizing me. I can handle negative criticism and by all means go ahead and tell me what you dislike about this story, merely, your opinion would mean more to me if you yourself were a writer and understood that an interesting story goes beyond such small details as bullets and guns.

I hope you have found this educating and pray that you will continue to follow the adventurers of the Raccoon survivors as they try and escape the horrors of the city. I also pray that you will continue to give me feedback but please, if you insist on flaming as you have done so about minor details, e-mail them to me at and I would be more than happy to write you back and discuss such concerns with you or anyone else who has them. However, I would appreciate it if you did not take up space in the Reviews section with flames over such small issues as the type of rifle Ryan Pierce uses. I would also like to say that this is the last time I will mention you in The Extinguisher for reasons that your quips have been rather redundant, feel free to flame on though! I hope you have found this enlightening.