Authors notes: (21/06/12) I've altered the previous chapter because there were aspects I was still unhappy with. Now instead of James threatening Chief Irons while in the Mask, James comes across the mutilated form of Chief Irons after he was attacked by the mutated Berklin, and finds a secret stash of weapons hidden somewhere in the torture chamber where he finds the Chief's remains in.

Edits 27/05/2019 Updated grammar, spelling and James Name.


Chapter 11

September 29th Early Morning

The hideout was attacked last night. A helicopter dropped a large capsule onto the building and it ripped through the roof into the lower floors. The capsule contained a creature, a large creature that was almost unstoppable. It was man shaped, pale faced in large leather overcoat. No matter how many bullets we all pumped into it, it still kept coming.

I feared most for my life when the creature ripped a heat radiator from the wall and tossed it at our party. I unfortunately was hit in the stomach by it and I was sent smashing out a window into the street below; which was still populated by a sea of those undead monsters.

The impact from the capsule must've damaged the building in some way, because the undead had found a way into the floors above the ground floor. This was good luck for me, because it meant there were fewer undead for me to deal with on the ground. But I had lost my weapon and I couldn't fight in my current condition. My ribs and legs felt like they were broken at the time.

Luckily however, I spotted it, the Mask! It was just laying there on the floor, it was reachable. I slowly crawled over the road as fast as I could aware that some of the undead had picked up my scent and were following me. One of the monsters grabbed me and began to sink its teeth into my arm, but not before my free arm had grabbed the Mask and rammed it onto my face.

I felt the raw power and energy; and after that everything went completely insane.

First, I went nuts killing Zombies left right and centre with whatever weapon my imagination took a fancy to. That was when I saw him. David, that traitor! He was in a small car ploughing through the masses of undead. I'd never felt more angry in my life and I set about pursuing him. I forced his car to crash and I pulled him free, leaving him for a zombie dog to feed on him.

I raced back to the hideout, pushed the zombies back out of the buildings upper floors back into the inaccessible lower levels. I also removed the route they had taken to gain access. Rushing back upstairs I confronted the giant creature, that I had decided to call Frank, and blew him up with a bomb I'd produced from my mouth.

After the blast I'd assumed him dead.

Still in the Mask I decided to go to the RPD to steal weapons for the hideout; and I went totally insane. Wearing this thing is like being on drugs, only what's happening is real. Sometimes it's as if my mind refuses to accept what I'm doing as being possible and dismisses it as just a fantasy, because most of it fades once I remove the Mask. But I remember meeting a reporter called Ben in an underground Cell. A dismembered Chief Irons. Battling and defeating a giant spider by placing it in a giant bath. Confronting what looked like an advanced cancer patient, and I even came across Frank in an underground cave who tried to kill me, again.

I don't understand, but 'Frank' knows about the Mask. I don't know how, or why he's after it, but I had to get rid of him, so... I know this sounds ridiculess to anyone reading this, but I produced some cement out of nowhere and poured it around his legs. The cement hardened pretty quickly, and using a massive jack hammer I burst a water main and flooded the area we were in, so Frank would drowned. Insane, but I know it was true.

After I killed Frank I returned to the hideout at sun rise, removed the Mask and with a bag of weapons on my shoulders I re-entered the hideout.

Then I blacked out when someone hit me from behind.

-From the Diary of James Richards


James finally realised he was alive when he woke up to a groggy feeling in his head. It felt like a massive hangover, as if he'd spent all night drinking, got into a fight with someone who played football with his head.

He opened his eyes. He could see objects, people sitting around him, but his brain couldn't make sense of who they were. He knew he should know them but his mind was drawing a blank.

Suddenly, a very sharp smack across the head started to bring him back into the waking world.

"Wake up, you dipshit!" Shouted a very harsh sounding voice. James groaned loudly as his mind came back into sharp focus. He tried to reach up to feel his head but his hands were bound behind his back tightly.

The person, whoever it was, grabbed him by the ears and forced James to look into his face. It was Jacob the little shit!

"Glad you could join us worm." He smile an evil smile, and he whacked James on the head with the butt of his gun. "I wanted you to feel the full force of that."

"Where's Carl?" James managed to say through the pain ringing in his head.

"Dead, like all the motherfucking Red Skulls!" Jacob laughed loudly sitting on the edge of a desk, on which where the bag of weapons he'd retrieved and all of his possessions including his diary, and the Mask!

"What? But how?" James asked suspecting what had happened.

"While we were gone looking for supplies this place was attacked by some great big motherfucking nightmare." Jacob said. "Some weird big guy and some freaky green guy. Zed's started coming into the building and a couple of these long tongued freaks joined the party to finish the job off."

Okay, that wasn't what James thought had happened. He expected Jacob to have came and killed everyone in the building.

"When we returned there were so few Red Skulls we easily shot the rest of them." Okay, in a way, James was right.

"They offered you shelter from this!" James said, feeling irritable because he hadn't had enough sleep again.

"Yeah, but the war for the hood is all that matters! Now we are in total control of the streets." Jacob smiled again like an animal. He now had some kind of insane glint to his eye. "By the way, while we were hunting, I think I found a friend of yours."

Someone else entered James' field of vision. It took James two seconds to register who it was. It was David! That rat who'd left him to die. The same rat who he'd left to die at the jaws of a zombie dog.

"Hiya, pal." David said in a tone which made it clear he was not his pal. Jacob had allied himself with a cop after he'd tried to shoot James for being a cop?! What the actual fuck?!

"Yeah, ironic isn't it?" Jacob said "I ally myself with a cop. But he is a bent cop, one who bends 'my' way. So he's okay in my books. Without him we could never have picked off the Red Skull survivors."

James didn't know what to say, he wasn't very good when it came to confrontations, If only it was night and he still had the Mask, then he'd have something to say, and some injuries to inflict.

"Then you showed up out of the blue, with a bunch of weapons." Jacob smile again. "Thanks for the presents by the way."

"I want to know where you got these from." David said picking up a double barrelled shotgun from the bag on the table and he levelled it at James for a few seconds before pulling the trigger. It clicked, it was empty. "These are from the hidden cashes in the police station. How on earth did you find them? More to the point, how on earth did you get them, you spineless coward!"

"Doesn't matter!" Jacob bit. "They belong to the hood now."

James had just had enough. He'd been beaten, shot at, frightened out of his wits. He'd like nothing more than for it to end. "Just shoot me and get it over with!" he spat.

"Oh no, we got better things to do with you." Jacob said. "I said 'when they're eating you it'll give me a chance to get away' and that's all you're good for. You mess with my woman, you pay the price." Jacob smacked James across the head again and walked away, out the door leaving David alone with James.

Idly David picked up James' diary and began to read. Oh god! If he reads the part about the Mask he'd surely shoot him!

"That's private!" James shouted trying to get to his feet, but he felt off balance with his hands behind his back and he fell over.

"It's gone public." David countered, turning page after page. "Geez!" He said flipping through the pages. "April 17th, moms birthday" and he continued through every single page. "You really have no life."

James felt beads of sweat start to form on his forehead. "You've really been writing a lot the last few days." David said. "What were you writing about, wetting the bed? Running scared?" He scanned the pages before closing the diary. "Shame I can't read it, I could've done with a laugh."

Inside James gave a sigh of relief. "You mean you can't read it?" he asked.

"Of course, I can't read it!" David said, opening the book and he shoved it into James face. "Look at it! You call this hand writing? It looks like algebra." James' held breath was exhaled. All those years his teachers and parents had complained about the state of his handwriting, and this time it had saved him.

David tossed the diary onto the table and he picked up the Mask. "What are you carrying this piece of junk for?" He flipped it over in his hands and started to raise it to his face. James held his breath as it made contact with Davids face. But nothing happened and he lowered it.

"Ugh! This thing reeks!" and he tossed it back onto the table.

"Why have you sided with this bunch of murderers?" James spat at him.

"Hello! Survival, James Survival." David wrapped his knuckles on James head. "I have a better chance of surviving with these low lives then I had with you tagging along behind me, wanting to hold my hand through this nightmare."

"But they're dangerous gang members! You're still a cop to them." James said trying to plead to David to help him escape.

"Yeah, but I simply had to convince them I wasn't their enemy." David said, James gave him a clueless loo. How on earth could he bargain with these murderers? "Jacob was once arrested for possession of cannabis. Once someone carpeted my hands with a little bit of green paper then said cannabis suddenly vanished. No case, and Jacob was released."

"You son of a..." David pulled out a gun and pointed it directly at James' head.

"Don't push it James. I've been through thick and thin. I've been assaulted by zombies, fired at by the army, attacked by some green freak, zombie dogs, I've even dealt with your incompetence! I was so close to becoming one of those walkers until Jacob shot the dog down."

So that's how David escaped becoming a walker. The bent cop put the gun back into his holster and he picked James up her the scruff of the neck, and tossed him into the arms of a bunch of waiting Green Baller guards. "Put him with the others." He ordered. But they didn't move, they just stared at him coolly their sun glasses shielding their eyes. "I said put him with the others! Do you want me to get Jacob back here!"

They obeyed, but only after deliberately waiting five full seconds. Perhaps David's relationship with these murderers was not as close as he thought.


James was dragged to a large, bare room and he was thrown in with the others. Quickly gathering his wits he recognised the only two who were in here. Professor Marcus, still in his creased suit, and Elaine Grant, who looked at him with dislike.

"James?" Marcus asked shocked. "I thought you were dead!"

"No, but I feel like it." James said, coming to his senses. He positioned himself so he was sat on the uncarpeted floor, and he felt bile try to force itself up into his mouth, but he quickly forced it back down.

"What happened?" Marcus asked him. James decided against telling him the truth for fear he thought him insane.

"I must've been knocked out in a broom cupboard. I only woke up a couple of hours ago when they found me." James explained to him, but a quick glance at the expression on Elaine's face showed she didn't believe him. She had seen him in the Mask after all.

"These Ballas are animals." Marcus spat. "They killed Carl, Mike and the other Skulls without hesitation once they got back. They took advantage of a weakness, they saw their chance to take over and they took it."

"What happened to Janine and the other survivors?" James asked, wondering about the other non-Red Skulls.

"One of those Ballas took Janine into a back room, we haven't seen her since." Marcus replied, "As for the others, they were either injured or infected from the attack. Jacob had them all thrown onto the first floor."

"Why?" James asked scratching an itch at the small of his back.

"I'm guessing Jacob sees the undead as a moat for his castle. He thinks as long as the undead are out there, no other street gangs or police will dare attack him."

"There aren't any other street gangs, there are no police. There's no one left, doesn't he realise that?" James asked feeling a new sense of loathing for Jacob.

"I think the streets were the limits of his world. He was born here, taught here, and he wants to die here. The world as he knows it has ended, and he just can't accept it. So he clings to the only thing he can. The code of the streets, and the code of the streets is to kill his rival gang and keep the police at bay."

"Sounds like he won't be interested in leaving Raccoon City." James stated out loud.

"No, he'll try to survive here as long as possible. When and if rescue comes he'll probably be very hostile towards them. While we're all here he holds position and power. The idea of rescue means he'll lose that power."

"Dave isn't going to like that, he wants out of this city."

"Dave?" Marcus asked.

"Another cop, the one who abandoned me. He's still alive and he's working with Jacob now, for as long as he needs him." James knocked his feet together. There was an annoying itch on the sole of his left foot that he just couldn't get to.

"That doesn't fit his profile." Marcus said, "Jacob would be mistrusting of cops."

"He trusts this one, he's as bent as they come." James added.

"That explains it, I guess." Marcus sighed.


David went through James' belongings again. How the heck did he manage to gain possession of these weapons? He must've found someone while he was out there someone who must've been killed, and like the spineless coward James was, he stole these weapons off their corpses and hightailed it back here before he was zombie chow.

His diary didn't reveal much. Most of it was going to be mindless drivel anyway. Like July 18th, Ant Margret's birthday. It was trash. Plus with his hand writing like this David couldn't understand what he was talking about, but the few words David could make out was 'David,' 'Elaine' and 'Mask'. David looked at the odd wooden Mask on the table and he picked it up. Why was he carrying this thing around with him? He flipped the thing over and looked into it. In Davids mind it was just like all the other trash Derek had in his pawn shop.

There was suddenly a lot of commotion coming from outside. David moved to the door and opened it and saw a couple of Jacob's goons dragging a man by the shoulders. The man looked Jamaican, was black with long dreadlocks. He had a big back pack on his back and he was in pretty bad shape. Blood oozed from his nose and his body was covered in scars. Had he been attacked?

They were followed by the scrawny runt Jacob bring up the rear. "What happened to him?" David asked.

"The boys happened to him." Jacob said. "That guy's got a really interesting story to tell." He turned to his goons. "Hey, bring him in here." Jacob nodded to the empty room David was standing in and the two big brutes dragged the man inside.

"The guy is called Jeff, he used to go out and scavenge supplies for Carl and his Skulls. But he's been doing much more then scavenging, haven't you, Jeffery?"

Jeff was thrown into the corner of the room. He had the look of a hunter about him, or a professional killer; not a simple scavenger. He tried to get up but one of the goons knocked him back down. He seemed pretty docile and David could see why. He had a hole in his stomach that went right through and out his back. From the blood splatter on his shirt it was from a long rang gunshot.

"Come on, Jeff. Talk!" Jacob said signalling for one of his goons to kick Jeff in the stomach. "We saw you running away from someone. Someone who was shooting at you." Jacob reached forward and removed the back pack from Jeff's back, opened it and tipped what was inside onto the table. There was a portable radio, a camera and other recording equipment. "What are you doing with this shit? Why have you been videotaping those monsters attacking people?" Jacob signalled for his body guards to kick him again. Jeff coughed and spat up some blood and he groaned loudly.

"You dragged your ass all the way back here. Wouldn't it be a pity if we hung you out like a zombie stake?"

"I... I..." Jeff tried to say wheezing. "I... I... am..."

"Say what? You're what?" Jacob asked. He was enjoying this far too much.

"I am... a supervisor" he panted.

"A what? Explain motherfucker!" Jacob ordered, "and what the fuck happened to your Jamaican accent?" Jeff was talking very clearly and very calmly with no accent.

"I... I work for Umbrella. I'm part of a specialised team, we were sent into this contamination zone to collect data on the B.O.W.'s."

"B.O. what's?" Jacob asked.

"Biological Organic Weapons." Jeff explained. "Those creatures out there. The zombies, the mutations. They were all created by Umbrella as the next generation of super weapons, gene manipulation, and mutations."

David knew these freaks were not natural, but he could hardly believe what he was hearing. Raccoon City was practically built by Umbrella and the work created by Umbrella. To hear that they were the cause of all this was like someone saying Jesus was a murderer.

"You expect me to believe they released these freaky ass monsters into the city on purpose?" Jacob asked.

"No, not on purpose." Jeff breathed as he continued to bleed out. "There was an incident in the main lab. Somehow the virus escaped and began spreading into all corners of the city."

"So it was an accident." David stated.

"What about that fucking giant white trash freak?" Jacob growled. "That giant fucker that was dropped on 'my' hideout!"

Jeff spat out a blob of blood. "That is a specialised B.O.W. A Tyrant. They were dropped in from another department." So there was more than one of them, David supposed, whatever they were talking about. "Some to prove their battle effectiveness. Some to collect certain objects of interest to Umbrella."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, I'm only instructed to observe the Tyrant. But the one that came here was supposed to do battle with a specific individual. Some guy in a green mask, and obtain something from him." Jeff winced from the wound in his side, and he groaned.

Davids eyes pricked at the mention of a mask.

"That green guy wasn't made by umbrella?" David didn't know if he believed that. The green guy seemed pretty friendly with those zombie dogs from last night, and he was capable of doing things no normal man could possibly do. "What about rescue? Surely Umbrella would mount a rescue team if this was their fault. This is their town, after all."

Jeff started to laugh darkly. "There will be no rescue."

"Why the hell would I wanna be rescued?" Jacob asked with an insane tone in his voice. "When finally I run the streets at last!"

"In a matter of hours there will be no streets." Jeff added mysteriously. "The spread of the infection is too fast. There is only one contingency plan, total destruction."

"Meaning?" Dave asked.

"Exactly that. Destruction. By thermal nuclear missile." Jeff gave a slight smirk that David didn't like. "The entire city will all be destroyed in the blast."

"The motherfucker is lying!" Jacob shouted and sounding more like he was trying deny it than actually accusing Jeff of lying.

"I am not lying. Think about the situation. Umbrella cannot allow the infection to spread beyond the city limits. They have their hands in many pies, including the production of nuclear weapons. To keep this all quiet they'll drop a nuclear bomb on the town and blame the blast on the city's ageing nuclear facility."

"If all this is true, who the fuck was shooting at you?" Jacob asked, probably fishing for a reason, any reason not to believe him.

"I was sent here to observe and record the B.O.W.'s in action. But one of the supervisors decided he could get a much bigger take if he eliminates all other supervisors and steals their research."

"Whoa, whoa, peddle back, all this shit..." Jacob said, motioning at the equipment "...is worth money?"

"A lot, a hell of a lot. If you help me get to the evacuation chopper before the bomb's dropped at dawn, I'll split it between us." So that's why he was spilling the beans like this. The promise of getting out alive, since he can't rely on his colleges anymore. Jeff looked at Jacob. "You need my contacts, and you will have money to rebuild your gang in some other street."

"How much are we talking?" David asked.

"Hey, you ain't believing all this shit! We ain't leaving, we've finally won the streets, I ain't giving it up for some fuck ass promise of money. I'll stay and fight to defend the streets." Jacob's eyes went crazily wide as he stared at David to make his point clear.

"How are you going to defend the streets against a nuclear bomb?" and for once Jacob actually fell silent.

"A cool 5 million." Jeff said answering David's question and trying to tempt him.

"You expect me to believe all this shit is worth that much?" Jacob asked, disbelievingly as he picked up one of the video tapes. He removed it from its plastic case, flipped open the protected guard. Slowly and nonchalantly he pulled the black tape out and enjoyed the look of horror on Jeff's face as he did so. He kept pulling until the tape snapped. "Now it ain't worth jack shit!"

"You idiot!" Jeff shouted. "You dumb shit! Don't destroy the evidence, it could make us ric..." his words were stopped when Jacob, without hesitation, pulled out his gun and shot Jeff square in the head, spraying the far wall with blood.

"No motherfucker calls me a dumb shit!" Jacob said. "I am the king here! I AM THE KING! THE KING! GOT THAT!" He said, talking to the corpse. "AH! Get this mother fucker out of my kingdom." He ordered of his two goons. They unceremoniously picked up Jeff's body, opened a window and threw the corpse into the street. David could hear a couple of zombies clearly giving a sharp moan as the body landed on top of them. The goons shut the window before the undead got wind of their scent.

"Bon' Apatite, you dead mother fuckers!" Jacob called through the closed window, defeating the point of closing it in the first place.

David however, wasn't so dismissive of Jeff's prediction that the city only had a matter of hours to live, and they would all go with it, whether undead or not.

When Jacob left the room with his goons David slipped a couple of the video tapes under his uniform as well as a few sealed documents that he had no doubt were instructions on where to meet this chopper. He'll read these when he can get away from Jacob's prying eyes. The guy was clearly cracking up under the pressure and if he found out David was reading these documents he'll probably do the same to him as he did to Jeff.


"Did you hear that?" Marcus asked.

"They can't do that can they? Blow up the city?" James asked. The pair of them had listened to the walls when they heard commotion coming from beyond the wall. The walls were so thin they could hear everything clearly.

"It's the most logical thing to do." Macrus said. "If Umbrella won't do it the US government will. The entire city is overrun. They probably think anyone left alive is not worth rescuing. This way, they burn the virus and any evidence of Umbrella's involvement."

"The bastards!" James genuinely felt angry. If he had the Mask he'd hunt down those Umbrella bastards, wherever they are in the world, and he'd make them pay for what they've done. But a solid wall stood between him and the Mask, and daylight stood between him and its powers.

James rubbed his head against the wall to scratch at an annoying itch on his head.

"Are you okay?" Marcus asked.

"I just feel a bit itchy, must be the heat." James said, he felt warm. Very, very warm. "Can you scratch my centre back, I can't reach back there with my wrists bound."

"What are you talking about, it's freezing in here." Marcus said. James didn't feel cold, he felt like he was in an oven. He started wriggling his arms. There was a really bad itch just on his left arm halfway to the wrist, but after a couple of minutes of wriggling his arms all he'd managed to do was draw his left sleeve up a little. Then James noticed Marcus and Elaine looked worried. Marcus quickly backed away.

"What?" James asked.

Using his left foot because his arms were still tied behind his back, Marcus pushed up James' left sleeve. "James have you been near any undead?" Marcus asked, his eyes wide. James hesitated because Marcus would simply not believe how many undead he'd been near last night. But there was something in Marcus' voice that James didn't like.

"James..." Elaine spoke for the first time, and looked both surprised and horrified "...you've got a bite."

It was as if the world had just stopped to James. He blinked once, twice and didn't say anything, hoping to god he'd misheard what she'd said. He was suddenly numb to the world. It felt like hours before he spoke again. "What?" He finally asked.

"You've got a bite on your left arm." Marcus stared at it, "and you're showing the first signs of..." he trailed off.

Was it when he allowed the zombies to chew on him while in the RPD? Surely he thought he'd be protected by the Mask. No, he didn't have any bites on any other part of his body. It was just in one spot as far as he was aware. It must've been before he wore the Mask, and the closest any zombie came to biting him in this form was last night, while he was fumbling to put the Mask on, with that zombie woman crawling all over him. She must've bit him and he hadn't noticed.

He didn't want to admit it, not even to himself. After all he's been through, after all the effort he's done to survive this nightmare, and now it would be practically over in a number of hours. If a nuclear blast didn't get him first then this simple bite would kill him anyway.

He was infected, and the moans of the zombies outside now sounded like they were calling for him to join them.


To Be Continued...


Authors notes: Another cliff hanger, hold on in there for the next chapter, shouldn't be too long.

Though I am aware that in the games the US government launched the nuke that destroyed the city I had a feeling Umbrella might've had the same thing planned to cover their backs, like in the movies where they destroy the city and blame it on the cities old nuclear facility, but the US government got wind of what was going on and decided to react accordingly.