26: The Flood
Tuesday 22nd September, 1998
It was late evening. Not for the first time, Amber was glad that she'd been scheduled for a day off today and the early shift tomorrow. She'd spent the whole day within a five-foot radius of the bathroom and her ribs ached.
Morning sickness. Hah. If only it was just mornings. I must have spent half my shift yesterday in the bathroom. I really hope it goes away soon. I don't think calling in sick tomorrow is going to be an option.
Amber rested her head on the toilet seat and took a deep breath. It seemed to have stopped for now. She pulled the flush and picked herself up, then washed her face and hands.
There was a knock on the door.
"Amb? You okay, sis? Should I call a doctor or something? You've been in there, like, all day!"
She opened the door and saw Jason. He was holding a sandwich. The sight of it made her stomach try to crawl up her throat. Since her trip into the sewers with Carlsen, she'd started noticing smells far more acutely. Even the lavender-scented fabric softener she'd picked up from the grocery store yesterday had made her feel queasy. But food smells were by far the worst. Everything she'd tried to eat today had just made her sick.
"I'm fine, Jase," she lied.
The pause and the sceptical look that greeted this assertion reminded her that Jason wasn't dumb enough to fall for that.
"You're such a liar," he said at last. "All right, come on. Tell me. Are you sick?"
"Just something I ate," she lied again.
"Bzzz. Wrong. You've been puking up for days. Nobody gets that sick unless they've been eating out of the trash."
He's a little more observant than I gave him credit for. Damn. You'd think he wouldn't notice anything, ever, considering he spends all day playing those stupid games of his.
"You're going to turn into a zombie, aren't you?" said Jason suddenly. "One of those undead bastards bit you at work and you're going to die."
His lower lip was trembling, just a little. Amber sighed. Now she knew why he'd been so worried. She'd had the same thought, at first. Only her stubborn desire to hold out and wait for some hope had prevented her from redecorating her hospital room with her own brain matter. Thank goodness for her own pigheadedness.
"Well, not die. More like un-die," Jason corrected himself, ever the video-game geek, but she could see tears starting to glitter at the corners of his eyes. "But... they got you, didn't they? You're going to turn into one of those things!"
Amber shook her head. Her curls, which looked rather limp and sorry for themselves today, swayed with the movement.
"No, Jason. I'm not turning into a zombie. I told you, I'm fine."
"You're not fine," said her brother, sniffling. "You're totally going to die and stuff."
Amber wanted to be more sympathetic, but a day spent staring at the inside of a toilet had left her with only enough sympathy for her digestive tract. Rather irritably, she said:
"Jason, for the last time. Vomiting does not automatically equal turning into a zombie. I've been through the symptoms of the virus with you already. You know perfectly well that I would have been complaining of excessive hunger and thirst, itchiness, dizziness, headaches, necrosis, and lots of other things which are really quite hard to ignore."
"B-but you said nausea and vomiting were symptoms," said Jason, wiping his eyes.
"Not the only symptoms," said Amber, with an impatient sigh. "Look, I haven't been able to eat properly for days, I'm not itchy all over, and I'm pretty sure my skin isn't rotting! I think I would have noticed!"
"Are you sure?" said Jason. His voice still sounded shaky and uncertain.
"Very."
Jason suddenly frowned, and put his hands on his hips.
"In that case, it's about time you 'fessed up. Come on, sis. I know something's up. Lay it on me already."
Amber gave up. It was pointless arguing with him.
"Fine," she said. "You really want to know? I'm pregnant. There, I said it. I'm on my hands and knees throwing up every couple of minutes because I'm having a baby. Happy now?"
Jason's eyes boggled.
"You what? You're kidding me. You gotta be. Seriously? Like... seriously?"
"I have never been so serious in my entire life."
"But you don't even - "
Jason made a sweeping gesture with his hands, to indicate a distinct lack of the silhouette he'd been expecting. If his hand motions were anything to go by, he seemed to be under the impression that his sister was expecting some kind of extraterrestrial being, or possibly a dinosaur.
"You don't look - " he tried again, lamely.
"Not yet I don't," said Amber. "Give it time. In a couple of months, I'm sure I'll look like I'm having a baby whale. I expect I'll need some help around the house by then. You know, putting groceries away. Loading the dishwasher. Cleaning the toilet. That kind of thing."
Jason looked horrified.
"You mean chores? Aww, dude, no way! Why do I have to do stupid chores?"
"Because helping pregnant ladies is a nice thing to do, and because I'll chase you round the apartment with a broom if you don't," said Amber, folding her arms.
"This is totally weak!" Jason complained. "Ugh! All right, fine. But when I find out who knocked you up, I'll do to them what Master Kenji did to Dragon Lord Shinigami in Mutant Samurai Death Ninjas. Although I guess I'll need a Blade of Vengeance first. That might take a while."
"I think you're a little late for that," said Amber.
"You mean he's a zombie?" said Jason, scratching his head. "Well, I guess that saves me some trouble. I don't know where I'd get a Blade of Vengeance from anyway. It's not like they stock them at the Mega-Mart."
"No, Jason. I mean Joseph will not be there for the birth of our first and only child next spring, because he's already dead. There's not exactly much you can do to him now, except yell at that ugly memorial they put up in Ambridge Fields."
Jason's eyes widened.
"So you two... oh, hell. Amb, I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"I know you didn't, stupid," she said, giving him a shove in the chest. "That's probably why we're having this conversation."
Jason thought hard for a moment. If the way his eyebrows tried to meet in the middle was any indication, there was a considerable amount of work going on inside his head.
"Next spring, huh?" he said at last. "Do you need, like, baby clothes and stuff?"
"I will. Eventually. But please don't buy anything yet. I don't want to have a girl and find out she'll spend the first six months of her life wearing blue."
"You don't know what you're having?"
"Not yet."
"Well, congratulations, sis. I'm kind of looking forward to being an uncle. Hey, maybe it'll be a boy. Then you can call him Jason. You're going to name him after me, right?"
"I'll... think about it," said Amber, uneasy at the thought of having two Jasons in the family. She wasn't sure if the world could cope with two Jason Bernsteins. Or one Bernstein and one Frost. Or even Bernstein and Bernstein-Frost... that was another thing she'd have to think about.
"We should have some champagne to celebrate," said Jason, perking up.
"Yeah, no. I don't think so. You're not twenty-one yet, and I can't drink."
"You can't drink when you're pregnant?"
"Of course not, doofus!"
"Hey, how am I supposed to know this stuff? I don't even have a serious girlfriend yet."
"You – oh, never mind. I'm too tired to argue."
"Have you told Mom and Dad yet?"
"No, and don't you dare tell them," Amber warned him. "Don't you say a word to either of them. They'll both start fussing over me and I really don't need that right now. I have enough to worry about without being mothered to death."
"You have to tell them."
"I'll tell them when I'm ready, okay? Butt out. It's none of your business anyway!"
"What about work?"
"Oh, please, like Irons isn't going to drum me out of the force in disgrace in the next few days anyway. Unless I take him to a tribunal and say he's trying to fire me because I'm pregnant."
A smile crossed Amber's face at the thought.
"Hah! That would wipe the smile off his face, wouldn't it?" she said, starting to grin. "And even if that doesn't work, well, what the hell. Saves me the trouble of asking for maternity leave."
"Won't you lose your apartment if you can't pay the rent?" said Jason.
Amber made a face.
"Should I start calling you Mom? It's fine, Jason. Tim told me he'd help me out if I needed anything. I'm fairly sure he won't mind lending me a few bucks for rent. That kind of money's pocket change to him. Now would you mind butting out of my personal life and leave me alone? I'm going to lie down on the couch for a while."
"But I'm playing video games!" Jason protested.
"You're always playing video games," said Amber dismissively. "Be a cool little brother and let me watch the news for a while. I want to see how much worse things are getting in the city, so I'll know what we've got to deal with tomorrow."
"Don't you mean if things are getting worse?"
Amber let out a sigh.
"I know things are getting worse, Jason. I read the reports, same as every other cop in the city. If this keeps up... well, it isn't going to be pretty."
Suddenly depressed, Amber made her way over to the couch and lay down, resting her head against a cushion. She watched Jason grumble as he switched off his games console and tidied everything away, but he turned over to the news channel as requested, and curled up in an armchair with a gaming magazine, looking sulky.
Amber watched the news for twenty minutes, without really taking any of it in. A voice in the corridor outside shook her out of her stupor.
"What was that?" she said, looking over at Jason.
"It's that Howard guy," said Jason, without looking up from his magazine. "The one who's always losing his cat. He's out looking for her again."
"He still hasn't found her? But it's been days since she got out."
"No, I think he found her, and then she got out again. Don't know what's up with that cat. It's like she doesn't want to stick around."
Amber turned her gaze back to the television. A pretty female reporter was talking about the latest "cannibal attack" at a local shopping mall. Five people had been killed. The reporter's voice-over warned viewers of explicit violence and gore, and then proceeded to show it all in stomach-churning detail. There had been some blurry security-camera footage of a mob of zombies bursting in through the doors, followed by screaming people running away. Photographs of the aftermath showed blood on the walls, and mangled bodies being covered with sheets as paramedics and members of the coroner's office attended the scene.
"I can't imagine why," she murmured.
xxxxxxxxxx
Wednesday 23rd September, 1998
Amber groaned, and struggled to open her eyes. She'd been dreaming. What about, she wasn't sure. It had been a bad dream, dark and indistinct, but what little she remembered of it was already slipping away. Something chasing her. Something she knew, or had known, but no longer recognised.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and stared at the square of noise and colour in front of her until she realised where she was. She'd dozed off in front of the television. It was still showing the news channel, but something was wrong. When she'd shut her eyes last night, they'd been talking about an attack in the mall.
Now...
She watched the news in a kind of waking horror, unable to tear her eyes from the scenes of terror and madness which flashed across the screen. If there had been some kind of barrier holding back the zombie plague before, it had been crumbling and full of holes, but still just about functional. Now, it had finally broken.
"Oh, crap," she said, in a small voice.
Even the most oblivious news presenters couldn't smile and gloss over it any more. The dead were walking the streets. Not in ones or twos, in isolated areas, but in tens and hundreds, all over the city. The difference between last night and this morning was staggering. What had happened overnight to cause such a sudden, massive escalation? Why had the ranks of the undead swelled so alarmingly?
She picked up the remote and flicked through the other news channels, hoping against hope that the first one had got it all wrong. She'd wondered at first if she was still dreaming, but the rival networks all confirmed the news. Shaky footage of running, screaming people and crashed cars accompanied the reports.
"... dozens of people feared dead in the latest incident. The attack took place at a hotel in the Brentford area..."
"... an unknown virus spreading through the city's districts..."
"... startling reports of the dead rising from their graves and feasting on the flesh of the living. As a precaution, all mortuaries and funeral homes have been closed and hospitals are now refusing to..."
"... incredible scenes at Raccoon City General Hospital, with doctors reporting a five-fold increase in casualties..."
"... while Mayor Warren has appealed for calm, riots have broken out in Little Estonia, with protesters throwing stones and setting fire to buildings in neighbouring Fairview..."
She could have laughed out loud, and said that she'd told them so. She could have screamed and ranted at them in their foolishness for not listening to her. She could have wept at the sight of burning buildings and carnage in the streets she was supposed to protect.
Instead, she sat and watched, feeling numb. It was still dark outside; the tail end of the night, with one more slow, still hour before the dawn. Almost time for her shift at the police station - assuming there was still a police station left to go to. She shuddered at the thought of the police station ablaze, or reduced to rubble, overrun with zombies and awash with blood.
Amber's stomach remembered that she was awake, and gave a lurch. But with some difficulty, she managed to fight back the nausea and felt it settle low in her abdomen, grumbling uncomfortably. She couldn't be ill now. She needed to be on her feet, and doing something about all this. What, she didn't know, but she couldn't sit here any longer.
She had to get to the precinct.
"Jason?" Amber called out, getting up and looking around the kitchen door.
He wasn't there. She poked her head around the bathroom's open door in search of him, then reminded herself that he was a teenager. Of course he wouldn't be awake yet. She'd be lucky to find him awake at eight in the morning without intervention, let alone before dawn.
She knocked on her bedroom door.
"Jason? You there?"
There was some muffled grunting and the sound of cursing, and then the door opened. Jason was standing there in a T-shirt and boxers, rubbing his eyes the same way she had.
"What the hell, sis," he muttered. "It's still dark!"
Amber grabbed his shoulders and tried to shake him awake a little more. He yelled, struggled, and pulled away.
"Whoa, whoa, hey! Hey! What's wrong?"
"Everything," she told him urgently. "Whatever you do, don't go back to bed. Get up and watch the TV while I get dressed. You need to see what's going on out there."
Her brother's eyes opened wide.
"What? I – I don't understand - "
"It's easier if you see it for yourself. I'm not sure I even know how to explain what's going on out there. I think everything's finally starting to go to hell."
Something seemed to click in Jason's brain.
"Zombies," he said. "It's the zombies, isn't it? What's going on out there?"
"You'll see," said Amber, with a tight feeling in her throat.
She watched him stumble, bleary-eyed, from the room and into the kitchen, then the living room. She waited for a moment to hear his reaction, and cringed when she finally did.
"Holy shit! They're everywhere! What the – it wasn't like this last night! What the hell happened?"
"I don't know, but I'm going to have to get to work right away. They're going to need me out there," she called back. She shut her bedroom door and started grabbing underclothes from drawers and a fresh uniform from her closet, dressing as fast as her fumbling fingers would allow her.
Jason's horrified reaction was still audible from across the apartment as she ran into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her hair. She splashed some water on her cheeks and forehead, then raked her hairbrush hard through her messy curls, gritting her teeth against the pain and suppressing yelps as the bristles caught painfully in tangles. When at last her hair sat more neatly on her head, she tied it back in a loose ponytail, and went back to the living room to sit with her brother.
She found Jason sitting on the edge of the couch, hunched forward, his mouth dropping open. He didn't seem able to fully take in what he was seeing. The scale and enormity of the disaster happening around them was just too big, overwhelming all the thought processes of a drowsy boy in his late teens. Even if he'd been fully awake, she wasn't sure if he would have truly appreciated quite how much trouble they were in.
"Shit," was all he said. "Holy shit..."
"Oh, Jason," said Amber, trying hard not to cry. "I'm so sorry. It's my fault, I should have done more to stop this, or found some way to warn people sooner – I should have got you out of the city while there was still time. I'm sorry."
He looked at her, confused.
"No, it's not your fault," he said, after a few seconds. "You didn't do this. You tried to stop it, Amb. And I don't think there was anything else you could have done. You're just one person, and all this – it looks way too big for one person to have stopped. And there's probably still a way out of town, right? The traffic must suck out there, with all those crashes, but we can still get out. Look, if you have to get to work, I'll start packing. As soon as you get back, we'll leave."
"Jason, I can't leave. Not now. They need me. But you have to get out of town before they start closing off the roads. When I get to work, I'll call Brad and ask him to come get you, and Mom and Dad too. I'll make sure the three of you get out of here safely."
"I'm not leaving without you, sis," said Jason, shaking his head.
"Oh yes you are," said Amber sternly. "No, don't argue with me. I don't want to hear it. You, Mom and Dad are all I have, and you're getting out of town before it's too late to leave. I may have lost Joseph, but I'm not losing you too!"
Jason looked about to object to this, but then he changed his mind.
"All right," he relented. "Whatever you say. If you were right about this whole zombie deal, then I guess I should pay attention now too. All the people who didn't seem to be dying out there."
"Yeah," said Amber. "Look, Jason? I've got to go. They'll probably keep me at work longer than usual, because of what's going on out there, but I'll be back as soon as I can. Hopefully Brad's got you all out of town by the time I come back, but if he hasn't -"
If he's dead, thought her treacherous brain. He's in Masefield Park, which was thick with zombie attack reports the last time I saw the map on the office wall. It must be overrun by now. Brad was a STARS member, I know, but so was Joseph, and Enrico, and Richard, and Forest and Kenneth and the others, and they still died. Brad's just one guy on his own, and if things are this bad everywhere, then the whole neighbourhood's probably been wiped out.
"If he hasn't," she continued, trying not to let her face crumple at the thought, "then I'll come back and get you out myself. I'm not going to leave you behind, or let anything happen to you. I'll get you somewhere safe and – and come back to help my friends at the precinct. Now that everyone knows those things are zombies, they won't worry about shooting them any more. We can kill them, all of them, and..."
Jason didn't seem convinced.
"Amb, there's, like, hundreds of those things out there. Maybe even thousands. How are you going to kill them all?"
"I don't know, but I'll do whatever it takes to get rid of them, even if I have to burn down half the city to do it," said Amber, doing her best to sound braver than she felt. "If we don't stop them, they'll kill everybody. We can't let that happen."
"Can't you just evacuate everyone?" said Jason.
"I hope we can stop the zombies and contain the outbreak before it comes to that, but if it does, then they'll need me at the precinct so we can make a plan and get everybody to safety," said Amber. "Either way, I can't leave. I really wish I could, but I can't. Raccoon City needs me."
"I know," said Jason unhappily.
"Now remember what I said," Amber told him. "If Brad doesn't come to fetch you, then stay indoors until I can get here. Barricade yourself in the apartment if you have to, but whatever you do, don't go outside. For any reason whatsoever!"
"But – but what if zombies get in and break down the door?"
"Then get out through the window, come down the fire escape and head for the police station. No heroics, no trying to be a badass. And you only do that as a last resort, okay? The streets aren't safe and I don't want you to go out there unless you really, seriously have no other option. It's too dangerous."
"Okay. I won't."
Amber kissed the top of her brother's head, and ruffled his hair.
"All right. I'll be home soon. Stay safe."
Jason looked like he was going to cry.
"You too," he said. His voice was shaking, and so was he. "Just... promise you'll come back, sis. Promise me, okay?"
"I will, I promise. Hey, you don't get rid of me that easily."
She'd hoped to make him laugh. He didn't. Instead, he stared after her as she left the apartment, and then started to follow her out and down the stairs.
"What?" she said, looking back up at him.
"I don't want you to go out there," said Jason suddenly. "I'm scared you won't come back."
"Oh, for heaven's sake. Of course I'm coming back. I promised, didn't I? Look, just go back inside. Make yourself some breakfast. Play video games. I'll be home before you know it."
But he trailed down the stairs after her, only stopping as she reached the front door and opened it. It was quiet outside, and still cold. The night's chill wouldn't start to wear off until sunrise. Jason shivered a little as the breeze blew into the lobby.
"Look, there's bad stuff happening out there already," he said, pointing to a plumber's van that sat abandoned in the street. It had crashed into a street sign, and wisps of steam were rising from beneath the crumpled hood.
"Jason, really! It's not like there's a zombie sitting in it! Whoever crashed must have gone to get help, and - "
The sound of a blast and a high-pitched scream from back inside the building interrupted them. Jason stiffened, frozen by fear to the patch of tiles where he stood, but Amber shoved her way past him and ran to the source of the scream. It was coming from the ground-floor apartment of her landlady.
"Mrs Carmichael?" she yelled, hammering on the front door. "Are you okay?"
"Help!"
Amber wrenched at the doorknob and almost fell into the apartment. She recovered her balance enough to straighten up, and looked to her right. Her heart almost stopped when she saw the zombie. It was, or had been, a man in a pair of filthy plumber's overalls; it had grabbed the apartment's elderly occupant, who was struggling feebly to hold the creature at bay as it made a clumsy lunge at her neck. Amber drew her gun, but before she even had time to take aim, the zombie knocked the old lady backwards and bit her in the throat as she fell, tearing open flesh and cartilage. With a noise somewhere between a scream and a gurgle, Olive Carmichael went limp and the life faded from her eyes.
The zombie gave a low, tremulous moan and was about to feast on the old woman's lifeless body when Amber pulled the trigger and put a bullet through its head. It groaned, and fell; the second corpse landed across the first, its skull shattered by the bullet's impact. Blood started to soak the carpet underneath the bodies.
Jason stood in the doorway, staring at them.
"Was – was that your landlady?" he said eventually.
"Yeah," said Amber. "That was her."
"Huh," said Jason. "Well, I guess you don't have to worry about your rent any more."
"Jason!" Amber scolded. "I know she could be a horrible old baggage sometimes, but she just died, the worst way possible, and we couldn't save her in time, and that's what you have to say? Really?"
"Sorry. I just – sorry. That was messed-up. But I don't get it, why didn't she just shoot him? She had a shotgun! Right over there, by the bed!"
He pointed to an object half-hidden under the blood-spattered bed. Amber squinted, trying to make out the outline in the gloom, then saw what Jason was talking about. It was a pump-action shotgun, from what she could see of it. It looked as though it had fallen or been kicked underneath the bed in the struggle, and she could smell cordite in the room.
"Well that explains the blast we heard," she said. "She must have tried to shoot it before it overpowered her. Obviously she missed."
She went to retrieve the shotgun and examined it, with what she hoped was a critical eye. It was a twelve-gauge pump-action model – quite an old one, judging by some of the scuffs and scratches on the wooden stock, but still in good working condition. It had just been fired. The metal still felt warm to the touch, and she could smell cordite in the air.
"Remington," she said. "Looks like a Model 870. Seen a few of these in my time."
She tossed it to Jason, who goggled and almost dropped it on his foot.
"Here," she said. "Take this. She won't need it any more, but you might."
"What?" said Jason, appalled. "Dude, you can't just take things from a dead person's house! That's – that's stealing!"
Amber checked underneath the bed and pulled out a box of shotgun shells.
"I'm a police officer. We don't steal things, we confiscate them. There's a difference... kind of." She hesitated, not sure what kind of example this was setting to her younger brother. "Either way, hang onto it for now. We can always put it back when all this blows over. In the meantime, it could save your life."
"It didn't save hers," Jason pointed out.
"She wasn't prepared for this kind of thing," said Amber sharply. "But you will be. Here, you might as well take these. I hope you don't need them, but it's better to have and not need than the other way around. Hope you still remember how to use this thing. I know it's been a while since you and Dad went hunting."
Jason was still looking in shock at the shotgun when she handed him the box of shells. He blinked, then thanked her in a distant sort of way, and took them. He swung the strap attached to the shotgun over his shoulder.
"We should get out of here," he said.
"Yeah, you're right. One more thing before we go, though."
Amber kicked the zombie away from Mrs Carmichael's mortal remains, stopped to consider what was left of her landlady, then put a bullet very deliberately through her head. Jason yelped as the gun went off.
"Dude, what the hell! She's already dead! Why'd you do that?"
"Jason, for a video gamer, you don't pay a lot of attention to what happens in your zombie games! What happens to people who get eaten by the zombies?"
"They come back to – oh. Oh. Oh yeah. Do they do that in real life too?"
"Put it this way, would you want her busting out of here and coming up the stairs after you? Or would you do what I just did, to make sure she doesn't get back up again?"
Jason flinched.
"Okay, sis, you made your point. Come on, let's get out of here before the neighbours find out and think we did this. I'm not spending the zombie apocalypse in jail."
They left the apartment. Amber closed the front door behind them, very quietly.
"Maybe I should come with you to the police station," Jason suggested as they went to the front door again.
"No, you should stay here for now," Amber told him. "I have no idea what's going on down at the precinct, or if it's even safe there. For all we know, there could be zombies there for a mile in every direction. I'll go there and find out what's going on, then I'll call Brad and ask him to pick you up. He can get you to safety quicker from this part of town, especially if the roads are as bad as they're saying on the news."
"What about you?"
"I'll be fine, baby-bro. Don't worry about me. Just keep yourself safe here."
"Will you call me when you get to the precinct? So I know you're okay?"
"Of course I will."
Jason threw his arms around his sister, resting his head on her shoulder. She hugged him back, as hard as she could.
"I love you, sis."
"I love you too, Jason. Don't worry. I'll see you again soon."
Reluctantly, he pulled away and let her go. Amber smiled at him, to try to lift his spirits, then stepped through the doorway. Her last glimpse of her brother was of him standing in the foyer in his t-shirt and boxers, still holding the purloined shotgun and looking slightly lost and bewildered, before the door shut behind her.
xxxxxxxxxx
She'd driven past scenes she'd hoped she'd never see. Families running out of St James East's brownstone apartment blocks, laden with suitcases and whatever they could carry, or frantically piling precious possessions into their cars. A whole block of buildings aflame, with two fire crews trying to douse the fires raging through the structure. Entire streets cordoned off with fluttering crime scene tape, illuminated by the blue and red lights of emergency vehicles. Shambling figures on South Raccoon Street, chasing a screaming woman up the steps of the subway station.
Amber rolled up the car window when she came to the next set of traffic lights. The air outside smelled of smoke, and sounded like sirens. She tried to shut both out, and checked the car doors again to make sure they were locked.
It looked as if everyone in the city was sitting in slow-moving traffic, trying to leave town. As she sat at the lights, waiting for them to turn green, she wondered how many of her fellow citizens would make it out, and how many might be infected without even realising it. If they managed to leave the city, only to succumb to the effects of the T-Virus, there was no telling how far this chaos could spread...
The lights changed and she put her foot down, tearing through Central City, which should have been quiet at this time of morning. It wasn't, but she maintained her speed anyway, weaving in and out of traffic and then taking a hard right turn down a side-street to bypass the worst of the jams.
She was in Coburg now. Almost there. She sped down another side-street, then cut through a narrow alleyway, knocking over a trashcan and sending some empty cardboard boxes flying.
Ennerdale Street and the precinct were almost in sight when the car's engine started to judder alarmingly. She slammed her foot on the gas pedal, revving the engine and trying to keep the accelerometer up, but the needle was slowly creeping back the other way, towards zero. She tried again, hoping that her car would make it just a few more blocks, but the engine gave another shudder and then cut out completely. The car rolled to a stop a few yards down the street.
"No, no, not now, come on," she said desperately under her breath, turning the key in the ignition over and over again, trying to coax some life out of the engine and get the car moving again. "Come on, come on!"
The engine coughed, spluttered, and died again. She tried again, and a third time, then gave up. It was clearly useless. She didn't know why, when she knew there was a good half-tank of gas left in the car. Perhaps it was the starter motor, or some mysterious but essential part she didn't know anything about.
"Shit!"
She got out and gave the car a kick, to vent her fury at being let down at the worst possible time, then pulled the key out of the ignition, locked the doors, and started to run down the street towards the police station.
The first glimmer of dawn was starting to show on the horizon. The sky seemed to have lightened a few shades, and there was a smudge of green right at the bottom of the skyline which would become yellow, then orange and pink-red as the sun started to rise. In the pre-dawn light, the floodlit police station was a welcoming sight, still intact and serving as a beacon of hope and civilisation, at least for now.
She ran in through the front doors and found the lobby swarming with people. Cops were running back and forth, carrying equipment and weapons, while members of the public followed them around, bombarding them with questions and pleas for help. There were more people than she'd ever seen in the space in her life. Some were huddled and frightened, some were irate, others were weeping loudly and begging to know what had become of relatives or friends. A few of them were nursing injuries. All of them were confused, afraid and in need of shelter.
She saw Rita's face in the crowd, and was about to traverse the foyer to ask her what on earth was going on when she felt someone tug her arm.
"Excuse me? Officer? Please – I'm looking for my mom and dad. Can you help me?"
Amber looked down into the innocent round face and blue eyes of a young girl. She looked about eight or nine years old, small and slight even for her age. She was clad in a cute sailor-suit type outfit, accessorised with a gold pendant and a red hairband. She was adorable, but a distraction from Amber's main aim, and Rita was already disappearing into the west office.
Damn it, I don't have time for this. I'll find someone else to look after her, Amber thought, and was about to walk away when something in the girl's eyes pulled her back.
She looked so scared and alone. Her blonde hair was wispy, and a little dishevelled, and there were dark circles under her eyes, as if she'd been woken unexpectedly, or even kept up all night. The poor kid had been separated from her family, and pulled unexpectedly from a place of safety into one filled with uncertainty and turmoil, with no clue what was going to happen to her next.
Amber tried not to sigh. There was too much she could relate to in those eyes for her to turn down a heartfelt request for help.
"Lost, huh?" she said to the girl. She smiled. "No need to worry. You're safe here. Are your mom and dad here too? Did you guys get separated?"
The little girl shook her head.
"No. My mom called me from work last night and told me to go to the police station. She said she and Daddy would meet me there. She – she said it wasn't safe for me to stay at home any more."
Amber frowned.
"Where do you live, sweetie? Which part of town?"
"Newbury," said the girl.
The outfit suddenly made sense. East Raccoon Elementary School was a popular private school which sent most of its students on to St Michael's Catholic High, and she'd heard the kids there all had to wear uniforms. The poor kid probably didn't even get time to change out of her school clothes before being ordered to leave her home.
Amber felt a dull kind of anger in her chest. How could the girl's mother and father have told such a young child to walk halfway across the city on her own, at night, when they must have heard that the streets were crawling with zombies? What kind of negligent idiots were they?
"That's a long way to walk on your own, honey. That was very brave," said Amber. "So are your parents on their way here?"
The girl started to sniffle.
"I – I don't know..."
"There, there," said Amber. She put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "It's all right. I'm sure they'll be here soon. They might even be on their way right now. Where do they work?"
"They're scientists. They work for Umbrella," the little girl said. "They – "
She seemed to remember something, and fell silent. A guilty look crossed her little face.
"Oh," she said, suddenly downcast. "They... they told me not to talk to anybody. But you're a police lady. It's okay for me to talk to you, isn't it? Mom always said policemen are here to help us."
Amber's face had frozen at the mention of Umbrella, but she let it thaw into a smile again. The child seemed so sweet and trusting. It was hard to be mad at someone that young, when she clearly had no idea what was going on behind the scenes.
"Yes, you can talk to me," she said. "Your mom's right. The police are here to help everyone in Raccoon City and look after them."
"Will you look after me? Until Mommy and Daddy get here?"
"Of course I will. My name is Lieutenant Bernstein, but you can call me Amber. How about you, sweetie? What's your name?"
The girl looked down at her feet.
"Sherry," she said shyly. "Sherry Birkin."
"Okay, Sherry-Sherry Birkin," said Amber cheerfully, and the little girl giggled. "Let's go and ask my friend Rita if she can help us find your mom and dad. They might even be here already."
Sherry shook her head.
"No, I don't think so. I've been waiting in the lobby this whole time. I would have seen them come in through the doors."
"You've been waiting up for them all night?" said Amber in surprise. "Oh, sweetheart. You should have asked one of the other cops if they could find somewhere for you to sleep. You didn't need to stay awake all that time - we would have looked out for your parents for you. But you're such a good girl, being patient like that and waiting for them. Well done you."
Sherry smiled a little bit.
"So you go to East Raccoon Elementary, huh?" said Amber, for the sake of conversation. "I heard that's a nice school. Which grade are you in?"
"I just started sixth grade," said Sherry.
Amber tried to hide her astonishment. The little girl was older than she'd taken her for at first.
"So you're eleven?"
"Twelve," said Sherry, looking a tad irritated. "It was my birthday two weeks ago."
"Oh, okay. Sorry."
The girl still looked displeased, despite the apology. Amber tried to think of something to cheer her up.
"You know, we have something in common," she said. "It was my birthday this month too."
That seemed to do the trick. Sherry looked up.
"How old are you?"
"I'm twenty-four," Amber replied.
"You're twice as old as me," said Sherry straight away. "Which school did you go to? The same one as me?"
"No, I went to Raccoon City Elementary. I was meant to go to Fairview Middle School after that, but they merged with Green Street High that year, so I went straight there instead. Grades seven through twelve. Heh... those were the days. I bet you're looking forward to moving up next year, right?"
Sherry shook her head.
"Not really," she said quietly. "Dad wants to send me away to some expensive boarding school out of town. Mom wants me to go to St Michael's Catholic High, like she did. They've been arguing about it lately. It doesn't really matter. It's not like I have any friends anyway."
Amber's face softened.
"Aww, don't say that," she said gently. "I'm sure you have friends. And I bet you'll meet lots of great new people in junior high. Maybe your new best friend is just somebody you haven't met yet."
The little girl still looked downhearted, so Amber reached down and took her hand.
"Come on," she said. "Shall we go find Rita?"
Sherry nodded silently.
"Okay."
Amber led the little girl through the police station in search of Rita, and found her talking to another police officer in the corridor outside the east office. Officer Baxter was a middle-aged guy who'd spent the entirety of his time with the force in Traffic. Several well-meaning colleagues had promised to put in a good word for him with the Chief, or even offered to help him with the paperwork so he could get a transfer, although he'd politely rebuffed all their offers of assistance. Unlike his co-workers, he seemed unperturbed by his lack of career progression; Amber got the impression that he actually enjoyed Traffic, but nobody else seemed to agree with her theory that perhaps he was quite happy to stay put. One or two of the younger officers had been aghast at the suggestion that anybody would want to stay in Traffic for more than a few months.
I just hope he doesn't enjoy his job enough to go outside right now and give people tickets. If he saw where I'd ditched my car, I think he'd pitch a fit.
"Rita," she interrupted them. "I just got here and found this little girl waiting in the lobby. She's lost her parents. She said she's been waiting here for them, but they haven't come to meet her yet. I think she's been here all night. She's only twelve."
Rita looked dismayed.
"She has? Oh, the poor thing! Sorry, Baxter, I'll have to come back to you later. Can you speak to Marvin about finding somewhere safe for those people waiting out front? I was thinking we could put them in the library, but he'll know what to do. He always does."
"Sure, Rita. I'll go find him."
Baxter hurried off in the other direction, and Rita turned her attention to Amber and Sherry. She smiled, filling the corridor with her usual sunshine. Amber didn't understand how she could seem so upbeat at a time like this.
"Well now..."
"Sherry," Amber supplied. "Her name's Sherry."
"All right, Miss Sherry," said Rita cheerily. "I hear you've misplaced your parents. Well, don't worry, you're quite safe here until your folks turn up. Shall we find somewhere more comfortable to put you? You look all tuckered-out."
Sherry yawned and nodded.
"All-righty, I think the east office is pretty quiet right now," Rita told her. "They're all meeting in the video conference room for some kind of briefing. I don't think they'll mind if you curl up in a chair while they're gone. We'll tell the girls at the front desk to send your mom and dad your way when they get here. Can you tell me what they look like, and what their names are, so we can look out for them?"
"William and Annette Birkin," Sherry piped up. "Mom's got blonde hair, like mine. Daddy's blond too. They both have blue eyes. And they're scientists. Mom and Dad are both in work right now so they might be wearing their white lab coats over their clothes."
"Scientists, huh? They must be really smart," Rita commented.
"They are. Daddy's really smart. Mom says he's a genius," Sherry said proudly.
"I'm sure he is, sweetie," said Rita, and patted her on the head, oblivious to the look of sudden annoyance on the girl's face. "Okay, come with us. Amber'll stay with you a little while longer until we find someone to keep you company."
"I was hoping Amber would be able to find out what was going on around here," said Amber, with a meaningful look at Rita. "Amber has some stuff she needs to take care of before she settles down to babysit."
"Oh, Amber, please," said Rita, now looking a little flustered. "It's been crazy here. Marvin and I are trying to find someplace safe for all those people out in the foyer and – and – I don't even really know what's going on myself. It's like it all went wrong overnight."
"Fine," Amber tried not to snap. "I'll take her. But I need to make some personal calls. My brother's at home alone and I need someone to get him out of town."
"Amber, you can dance naked on the roof and collect-call the Pope for all I care," said Rita, exasperated, and Sherry giggled. "The way things are around here, I don't think anybody would bat an eyelid. Just – take care of that little one until I can find somebody with some more time to spare, okay?"
"All right! I already said I would. Okay, Sherry. You head on in there and grab a seat. Rita, go and tell whoever's on the front desk to watch out for her parents. I'll catch up with you later."
Amber led Sherry into the east office. It was deserted, and offered the promised peace and quiet. Sherry went to one of the desks and jumped up into a chair that was built for someone twice her size. She seemed tiny in the seat, like a little doll that someone had left behind.
"You okay, Sherry?" Amber asked her. "Do you need anything?"
Sherry shook her head.
"No. I'm all right."
"Take a nap if you want. I have to make some phone calls."
"Please, don't go," Sherry implored her, as Amber turned away.
"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere," Amber assured the girl. "Just a couple of desks away. I won't leave the room."
Sherry nodded solemnly, wide-eyed. Amber gave her the thumbs-up, then went across the room to one of the other desks. She picked up the phone and dialled the number for her apartment.
"Hey, Jason," she said, when her brother answered. "I'm here at the precinct. No zombies here, or at least none that I can see. Just a lot of frightened people looking for a place to hole up. I'm not really sure what's going on. I've been told to look after this lost kid who's on her own. But I'm going to call Brad now and ask him to get you, Mom and Dad out of town. Everything okay at home? You safe?"
"Uh-huh," Jason replied. "I've locked the front door and I already started packing stuff so we can get out of here. Call me when you've made contact with Brad, 'kay, sis?"
"Will do. Love you, Jase. Stay safe."
"You too, dude."
Amber hung up. She was about to dial Brad's number when she heard Sherry say, timorously:
"Was that your boyfriend?"
Amber almost dropped the phone.
"What?"
"I'm sorry!" said Sherry, shrinking down into the chair and covering her head with her hands. "I didn't mean to upset you. Was – was that wrong?"
"No," said Amber, breathing out slowly. "That wasn't my boyfriend. That was my brother. I'm trying to get him safely out of town. Your mom was right about it not being safe to stay at home."
"You have a brother? How old is he? Is he my age?"
Amber opened her mouth to answer, then stopped.
Her parents are Umbrella scientists. They could have sent her to tap me for information, or spy on what's going on here at the precinct. But then they already know how old Jason is. The note with those flowers they sent... the spiders... oh, what am I thinking? She can't be a spy. She's just a child. A lonely, frightened kid who wants her mom and dad back. Even Umbrella wouldn't be so sadistic as to send a child out alone in the middle of an outbreak to spy on one of their targets. At least, I hope not. If they did, then she's just as much a victim as the people they've killed. Either way, I shouldn't be too hard on the kid. She's probably as freaked-out by all this as I am.
It took some time for her to decide how to respond. Sherry was looking at her expectantly, waiting for an answer.
"No," Amber said at last. "He's in college. How about you? Do you have any brothers or sisters?"
Sherry shook her head.
"No. I'm an only child. And my parents are always working. I spend a lot of time on my own. But it's okay, I'm used to it."
Amber felt another pang of pity for the girl. No brothers or sisters, or friends, and mostly absent parents. She wondered how she coped with that kind of solitude, at such a tender age.
"What's your brother's name?" said Sherry.
"His name's Jason," Amber replied.
"It must be nice to have a brother," Sherry said, rather wistfully. "What's he like?"
Amber thought about her brother. She'd never really had to describe Jason to someone else before.
"He's a good guy," she said. She began to smile, a little, at the thought of him. "Very easy-going. He likes goofing around and making people laugh. People say we look a lot alike. He works down at the record store sometimes, when he's not in class. He used to be good at baseball in high school, but mostly he likes playing video games. He's really good at video games. He also likes stupid teen movies and shirts with dumb slogans on them. And he makes crazy sandwiches out of stuff he finds in the fridge. He calls them Leftover Sandwiches."
Sherry laughed.
"He sounds like fun!"
"He is fun," said Amber, still smiling. "I'm lucky to have him around, even if he breaks stuff a lot. Although he doesn't really mean to. He's just kind of a klutz."
"Me too," said Sherry, sighing. "Gosh. I wish I had a brother like him. So do you have any other family? Do you have kids? Or a boyfriend?"
Amber touched her stomach, without thinking.
No. No way. My brother is one thing, because they seem to know all about him already, but Umbrella doesn't know about this. And I'm not about to let them find out from some kid I don't even know. Who knows what she could blurt out to her parents when they're reunited?
"No," she said, which she reminded herself was technically true. "I don't have any kids. And I don't have a boyfriend either. Not any more."
"Why?" said Sherry, all innocence. "What happened?"
You don't want to know what happened, she wanted to say. You'll have nightmares for a week. Bad enough that Umbrella took him away from me, but having to explain that to someone whose parents work for those monsters is just too much. Sorry, kiddo, but you have no right to hear about me and Joseph. Not after what your parents did.
"He died," she said, after a pause. "He was a police officer, like me. He was trying to rescue some friends who were in trouble, but he – well, he got hurt and he died. I don't want to talk about it."
Sherry looked troubled.
"I'm sorry," she said, in a small voice. "That's really sad. You must miss him a lot."
"Yes. I do. But I don't want to talk about that either. Excuse me for a second."
Amber picked up the phone again and dialled Brad's number. There was no response. The phone rang, and rang, until the answering machine cut in.
"Hi, this is Brad. Leave a message with your name and number, and I'll call you back."
"Hi, Brad, it's Amber," she said, after the machine beeped. "Look, I really need your help. You must have seen the news. It's not looking good. Can you go to my place and pick up Jason? And then pick up my parents? I need you to get them out of town, if you can. Please call me at the precinct so I know you got my message. Thanks, Brad. Hope you're okay. Take care out there."
She called Jason again.
"Hi, Jason? Brad isn't picking up at home, but I left him a message... yeah, I know, answering machines suck. Hopefully he'll get my message soon and swing by to pick you up. Keep a lookout for him. And look after yourselfuntil Brad gets there, okay? But if he doesn't come and get you by tomorrow morning, I'll come back and get you myself. I'm not sure how I'll do that. My car broke down on the way here. I had to ditch it a few streets away... yeah, I know, that totally sucked. I might have to borrow a squad car, or get a rental if they're still letting people do that right now. Uh-huh. Okay, Jase, I gotta go. Like I said, stay safe. I love you too. Bye."
She put down the phone, sighing.
"Damn it – oh, sorry, kid. Excuse my language. It's been a difficult morning."
"That's okay," said Sherry. She was swinging her legs back and forth in the chair. "I won't tell anybody. People say bad words at school all the time and I don't tell."
"I... appreciate your discretion, Sherry. Thanks for that."
Her gaze drifted out of the window. There was no view outside from the office itself, but if she leaned back in her chair, she could see the hallway with the door out to the fire escape. Slats of golden light were starting to show through the blinds. A new day was dawning on Raccoon City – and so, no doubt, was the realisation that the STARS had been right all along. Too late, she thought, sadly shaking her head. Too late.
Sherry was sitting in meek silence behind the desk, like the world's smallest, shyest bureaucrat, fiddling with a pen. She seemed to be waiting for Amber to speak, or to act; once or twice she looked down at her lap, or the floor, but then she would look back at Amber again, eyes large and full of hope.
I don't know what you're waiting for, kid, she wanted to say. Or what you really expect me to do. I'm just here to keep an eye on you and make sure you stay out of trouble. I can't find your parents for you. In fact, I'd be kind of glad if they got what was coming to them... if it wasn't for the fact that they're all you probably have. Damn it, you just had to walk in here and be my problem, didn't you? I really don't need all these mixed feelings about Umbrella employees right now. It's much less complicated if they're all murdering bastards and I don't have to care if they get eaten.
She could still feel the kid's eyes on her, watching her. Irritated, she tried to shrug off the sensation, but when that failed, she got up from her seat and started walking around the room.
"What are you doing?" she heard Sherry pipe up.
"Thinking," said Amber, through gritted teeth.
"What are you thinking about?"
The baby. My friends. Joseph. How to get my brother out of this zombie-ridden hellhole. A big stick to beat your lousy parents with. Take your pick.
"What to do next," she said instead.
"About me?"
Amber suddenly felt bad about her dark mood. Poor kid. It wasn't her fault that she was here, the child of Umbrella scientist parents, and suddenly Amber's responsibility. She was small and scared, and trying to do her best in a bad situation. She was probably lucky to be alive, if the news reports near her area had been anything to go by. It wasn't fair to be so impatient with an innocent, frightened child who couldn't possibly understand her frustration.
"Just... generally," she said.
"Me too," said Sherry, in a small voice. "What if my parents don't come for me? What if they're - "
A look of great anxiety crossed her face. Amber shook her head and rushed over to her, to give her a hug.
"No, no, sweetheart," she said, as the girl started to sniffle. "Don't think things like that. I'm sure they'll be all right. They'll come looking for you."
Sherry looked up. Her blue eyes were moist with the beginnings of tears.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive," said Amber firmly. "If I had a kid out on their own in this city, with the way things are right now, I would move heaven and earth to come and find them. I'm sure you'll see your parents soon, Sherry. Don't worry. And you've got us to look after you until then."
"And you'll stay right here?" said Sherry, blinking away tears.
"For a little while. I've got other things I need to do, but I'll make sure there'll be someone else here to take my place. Good enough?"
"I guess," said Sherry, although she didn't look convinced.
Amber let her go.
"Sorry. That's the best I can do without making promises I can't keep. I'm sure someone more persuasive and reassuring will be along shortly."
That got a small smile out of the girl. Amber went towards the door, thinking to open it and look around to see if Rita or someone else was coming back to relieve her of her post, when nausea suddenly gripped her stomach. She groaned, and doubled over.
"Are you okay?" said Sherry worriedly.
"Yeah, fine. Just feeling a little queasy. I haven't eaten much the past couple of days."
"Mom says it's important to eat regular meals," said Sherry automatically.
"Well, she's right about that," said Amber, wondering all the while if there was a discreet way to throw up in a wastebasket without the girl noticing. There probably wasn't. She'd have to do her best to keep it together and not scare the kid by being suddenly and violently ill.
"You should eat something."
"Yes, I know. I will when I have the chance. I'll grab some coffee and something from the vending machine as soon as I'm done looking after you. Maybe that'll settle my stomach a little."
Her stomach disagreed, and so did her light head. Amber staggered a little, and went to lean against the wall until the dizziness dissipated. Having the support of the wall behind her seemed to help. She took a couple of deep breaths, and concentrated on the sound of footsteps outside, rather than how sick she felt.
The sound seemed to be coming closer. She went to move away from the door, but waited a second too late; the door slammed backwards on its hinges and hit her full in the face. The pain was so bad that for a second she saw stars, and almost swooned backwards. Something warm was running down her nostrils and onto her upper lip. It smelled and tasted like blood.
"Ouch!" she said, rather distantly. It felt almost as someone else was speaking in her place. Stars were still making everything in the office sparkle, like a low-budget special effect from a television sitcom.
"Officer Bernstein!" a young, male voice exclaimed.
Amber blinked in surprise. She knew that voice. Its owner was peering around the door, looking shocked at what had just happened.
Kenny. It was Kenny, she realised, with a sinking heart. He'd been talking about leaving town the last time she'd seen him. Why was he still here? Had he left it too late to make his escape?
Sherry was giggling. Amber tried not to glare at her, and pinched her nose to try and stop the flow of blood. She tilted her head back slightly, the way her mother had always advised her to do. It didn't help much. She only felt the taste of blood in the back of her nose and throat a little more acutely.
"Wow," she said, in a voice that sounded oddly high and nasal through her pinched nose, "you sure are in a rush to get somewhere, huh, Kenny?"
Out of town, I hope, she wanted to add, but Kenny was too busy apologising to notice.
"Rita sent me here to watch out for the abandoned kid, but I didn't realise you were already here!" he was saying. He looked appalled at what he'd unwittingly done, or at the sight of her nose gushing blood, or both. "You want me to get some paper towels for you?"
"No, no, I'll be fine," she tried to assure him, shaking her head. "It's just a small bump."
Another, more acute burst of pain and nausea went through her body, and this time she knew she wouldn't be able to ignore it. Before either Kenny or Sherry could say anything, she scrambled towards the door and ran out of the room.
"I'm really sorry - " she heard Kenny starting to say behind her, but at that moment, she didn't really care.
She made it to the nearest bathroom, but only barely. The taste of blood in her mouth had been the last straw for the horrible sick feeling in her stomach. When she finally managed to straighten up from the toilet bowl again, gasping for breath and trying to wipe the blood from her nose and mouth, she wondered how on earth she was going to make it through the day.
She closed the lid of the toilet, then sat down on it and buried her face in her hands.
Jason had been right. Going to work had been a terrible mistake. She should have driven straight to her parents' house, swapped her faulty car for theirs, bundled them into it with whatever they couldn't leave behind, and then gone back for her brother so that she could get the three of them out of town. Maybe there was still time, now that Sherry was being taken care of by the police station's young intern. Would anybody notice if she slipped out of the building for a couple of hours so she could get her family to safety?
Would anybody notice if she never came back at all?
She felt bitterly ashamed of herself for even thinking that last thought. No matter how bad the situation was here, she couldn't abandon her post. Her fellow officers and the people of Raccoon City needed her, and if she deserted them now, then her disgrace would follow her around for the rest of her life. What if one of her friends was killed because she hadn't been here to protect them? Marvin, or Rita, or David? Even if she lived to see each and every star in the sky burn out, she would never forgive herself for that.
Of course, that still left her stuck in a police station which might soon be surrounded by zombies, away from her family, who also needed her. That didn't seem like much of an improvement.
"Well, shit," she said to herself. "Now what?"
xxxxxxxxxx
Thursday, September 24, 1998
More people had arrived at the precinct today, seeking shelter, or missing loved ones. The officers of the RPD had done the best they could to accommodate the new arrivals, although Amber was starting to wonder how many more people the precinct could hold, and if they might soon reach the point where they would be forced to turn people away.
To her relief, at least one of their refugees had been taken away to safety that afternoon. Someone had come for Kenny – a young, muscular red-haired man who seemed to know him well, presumably some relative or friend of his – and the two had resolved to leave the city, despite Rita's protests that it wasn't safe for them to go outside, something with which Amber had been forced, reluctantly, to agree. She'd seen the chaos out on the streets, the jammed roads, the zombies. Two unarmed, untrained civilians would have next to no chance of surviving out there on their own. When Kenny and his friend had insisted that it wasn't too late to leave town, she'd given them a spare pistol, hoping to improve their odds even a little.
Now Kenny and his friend were gone, Rita was roaming around the building in search of someone else to watch over the girl in the east office, and Amber was sitting at her own desk in the police station's west wing, trying to think of some way to make herself useful. She'd assisted as best she could with trying to set up barricades at various points throughout the station, to protect the civilians inside and keep the zombies at bay, but she'd been sent away when she started to feel dizzy. One or two of the other cops had given her strange looks, as though they suspected she might have been turning into a zombie herself.
She was looking at the picture of Joseph on her desk, trying to work out what he would do right now, when the phone started to ring. Without even thinking, she picked it up.
"Raccoon Police Department, West Office," she answered.
There was some crackling on the line.
"Amber?" came a reply, after a second. "It's me, Brad. I got your message."
Her heart leapt.
"And?" she said urgently. "Do you have any news?"
"I hate to tell you this, but the whole of my neighbourhood is – well, it's overrun. There's no other word for it. They're everywhere. All over the streets. I can't even get out of my apartment building. I tried picking a few of them off from the window, but there's too many. I'm just wasting ammo."
Amber's heart sank, and took any hopes she'd had right down with it.
"You mean you can't even get out of Masefield Park?" she said faintly.
"Not unless I jump out of the window and crowd-surf zombies all the way to Little Estonia," said Brad abruptly. "I don't even know if it ends there. I wasn't kidding when I said they were everywhere. Every direction I look, there they are. Hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands. Not to mention fires, and wrecked cars, and people trying to block off the streets with piles of junk to keep the zombies out."
"Then you can't help Jason?"
She heard Brad sigh.
"Amber, I don't even know if I can help myself. Even if I could get to him, somehow, I don't think there's any way to get out of town. I can see the freeway up overhead. It's rammed. The cars up there run bumper to bumper and it doesn't look like they're moving an inch. They're all stuck where they are, just like me. You're better off staying at the police station. As for Jason, tell him to shelter in place and wait for help to arrive. I think there's some kind of Army or National Guard unit assembling on the outskirts, so hopefully they'll come to help us soon and take out those undead bastards doing it. I swear there's more of those things out there every time I look out the window."
That was not the news Amber had hoped to hear. Having military units descending upon the town might provide some small hope of rescue, but it was also a sign of how bad things were getting. She stared ahead, trying to process everything that she'd just heard.
"All right," she said finally. "I guess none of us are going anywhere for now."
"Yeah. I'm sorry. I wish there was more I could do. How is it at the precinct?"
"Not great," she replied. "People are still building barricades and we have a lot of frightened civilians in here with us. We have ammo, but I'm not sure how much, or how long our other supplies are going to last. We have a small stockpile for emergencies, but that'll only last for a few days. Once that's gone, I don't know how much longer we'll be able to hold out. If help really is coming, then they'd better get here soon."
"Yeah. Look, I have to go. The guy downstairs is trying to block up the front entrance and I don't think he knows what the hell he's doing. He could probably use a hand. I'll call you if anything changes here and I find a way out, but... you just take care of yourself, okay?"
"You too, Brad," said Amber, more softly. "Be safe."
"I have to go. Bye."
The phone clicked and went dead before she had chance to say goodbye.
"Bye," she said, into the silent receiver.
She put the phone down, stared again at the smiling face of her boyfriend in its frame, then closed her eyes in despair and slumped forward at her desk.