Contagion : RE2 (Re-Released)

by DirtyMonk

The most underrated RE fanfic on the web. Disturbing and violent, it is a grittier version of the RE2 you're used to. Read if you dare.

5. Part I : Raccoon City (21-37)

Part I : Raccoon City

21

4:33 P.M., Northeast Section—the place where nothing happens.

The yellow tickets flapped from the gentle breeze. Their crumpled noises traveled though the streets from where they were attached to the cars' windshields. A whole row of them resting in the street had bright slips under the blades of their windshield wipers. The breeze caused the paper slips to occasionally slap against the glass surface, uttering a faint fwap-fwap every now and then.

Leon Kennedy pulled a blade back from one of the wipers. His other hand positioned a ticket so that it could be pressed under the windshield wipers once he let go of it. He then released the black slab and let it slam onto the windshield. The wiper made a dull thud against the thick surface.

"I guess that makes this gimpparking violator number 98," Leon said as he scribbled over the ticket. He shot out a glowing smile. "And that makes me one step closer to promotion—one small step for mankind right there, ladies and gentlemen."

Leon sighed and brought an arm back to wipe the sweat off his forehead. Surely Irons could've done better into choosing a more boring assignment for Leonhis poor soul had been writing parking tickets all day long. So much for patrolling the Northeast Section. Writing tickets was one thing, but doing this shit for nearly six hours had rough consequences on the educated mind. That dumb-fuck Irons was gonna pay.

If Officer Kennedy was to write tickets for his whole career, then he'd most likely end up in the nearest mental asylum. Really, he would. Nobody spent years in academy so they could spend their remaining post-graduate life writing parking tickets for half the fucking city.

But for one day, there were sure a lot of cars being parked longer than they were supposed to. Now, why is this happening, Officer Kennedy? Any sort of answer or explanation? Why do you think people would just leave their cars here while you just walk around and stick those slips everywhere? Why, Leon, why?

Leon turned his head around to search for any answers to his self-doubt.

Nothingthere was absolutely nothing. The streets were empty. He was alone here. Alone with the sound of flapping tickets and that cool brush of wind.

"Now I'm really gonna kill Irons once I get back," Leon muttered to himself. Not only did the fat chief give him the most boring day of his lifehe placed him in one creepy area. Geez, it looked as if everybody died and Leon was the last man left standing. He shook himself from the thought. If someone was watching him that very moment, that person would probably assume Leon was shivering to himself. Actually, that person would be right. Leon was shivering a little. Who wouldn't? Leon hadn't seen anybody since he arrived in the Northeast Section. The place was beginning to remind him of a scene ripped straight from Stephen King's The Stand.

Leon finished tallying the total number of fines he gave out. Once he was finished with the cars down Fairmount Drive, he was able to remind himself that police work, no matter how boring it was, still remained an American privilege after all. He smiled at the number before him. 100 was a good number. Hell, it was a great number.

"First day on the job," Leon grinned before his accomplishment, "and I score the R.P.D. a centennial homer for my grand debut." He laughed out loud. I guess the day's torture wasn't so bad after all, Leon thought happily to himself.

A crow perching from a lamppost above cawed at him. It began cawing violently as if it were trying to regurgitate something, rather than making its usual noise. And the crow was hugeLeon practically saw it as a large, menacing black spot from where he was standing. It continued to scream down at him.

Leon began taking careful steps up the street from where he came from. He gave the bird a welcoming smile. "Well hello there, big bird," he said in an almost mocking manner of speaking, "are you enjoying this day the same, bittersweet way I am?"

Something was trying to make its way up the crow's throat. It was actually trying to regurgitate after all. A small lump pumped its way up the bird's neck, causing its body to widen and contract. It suddenly began pulling its head back, shaking as its mouth spread apart to show Leon the darkness behind its beak.

Blood trickled from its mouth. It dribbled all over the lamppost.

"What the" Leon cried out.

A whitish object spilled from the crow's gaping mouth. It rolled away from the crow, dropping from the lamppost. It was coated in a thick layer of shifting blood. The syrupy liquid broke away from the object, creating dozens of droplets to accompany its fall. Leon watched its downward journey.

It came down on the asphalt, impacting against it in a splattering smack. The object jiggled as it lay in a puddle of blood. Leon looked down at it in disgust.

It was an eye. A human eye.

Small tendrils of veins streaked from its side as Leon continued to stare down at it. The iris was brown in color, staring up from behind its layer of jelly and cytoplasmic film. The blood around the eye glistened in a hellish, fiery color. The searing heat that was roasting the city caused the reddish material to thicken and dry up on the frying-pan surface of Fairmount Drive.

"Why you sick lil birds," Leon scowled, his head moving to focus on the crow perching above. "Now that's why we people don't like you crows. Cause you're all never hesitant to scare the living shit out of us!"

The crow sat there, still perched above. It squawked in return.

Leon sneered at it. He threw his body upward hoping to scare away the animal. It didn't move—instead, it kept its beady eyes locked on him. Leon shook his head. He didn't have time for vomiting crows. The Raccoon City Wildlife Department—or whatever they were called—usually took care of these things. Leon had no part in birds swallowing peoples' anatomies. Even though he'd probably regret saying this, Leon could care less about abnormal crows and pigeons picking off the dead. It didn't matter whether he saw a sparrow coughing up the withering remains of some guy's testes or a jackdaw hurling a set of ovaries. Leon simply didn't care. This wasn't part of his job, he'd be sorry to say. Although it was a rather disturbing thing to lay eyes upon (especially being alone here as he was), there was hardly anything he could do about it. Although Leon did wish he could pluck some lead rounds into the freak for spitting that eye at him, but first thing's first. Leon's gotta finish his own all-American job before trying anything insane, just as his patented name bore.

"I'd love to end your misery, big bird," Leon said as he walked off. "But I guess that's somebody else's job."

He walked back to his carwhich was around a hundred more cars down the street from where Leon was strolling down.

A hundred cars, each with a yellow slip attached to it. Leon chuckled evilly.

It was, and it really was, Leon Kennedy's first day on the job.

Let's face it, 69 was a magic number. Forget 23. Leon was no baller (and he wasn't black either), and that number was only truly magic to one person, and everyone knew it wasn't Leon Kennedy to begin with. So out of the top of Leon's head there was the beloved 69, the wild, maaaad crazy number that perfectly defined himself. Not to be stealing any patents or anything, as far as he was concerned, there wasn't anybody that truly owned the number 69. The number had a general appeal—it didn't belong to just one person, it belonged to whomever chose to characterize with it.

And Leon Kennedy had it. It was his own magic number.

"HQ, this is 0069—post 3," Leon spoke over his intercom, smiling over his given number. "Completed my patrol of the Northeast Section, over." He then let go of the button on his handset. He waited for confirmation.

Leon continued to wait. His smile dissolved. There was no response.

"HQ," Leon repeated, "this is 0069—post 3." He let go of the button, waiting for some reply.

"I hear you just fine, Kennedy," a harsh voice crackled through the communica-tions system. It was Irons. No other voice sounded more depressing.

"Irons," Leon said, "I'll be proceeding to my Secondary AssignmentI'm awaiting your confirmation."

"You do that, Kennedy," Irons replied. The tone of his voice made him feel uneasy. Not only was it the tone that made it all seem awkward and out of placeit was the fact that Irons was now in charge of the station's communication. Usually, it was the lovely voice of the operator that kept contact between the cops, but for this reckoning moment, it was the grating voice of Irons. Leon bit his lower lip. He soon found himself gnawing on it as he thought about the whole situation. Something was up.

Something, just something was going on behind Leon's turned back.

He slammed the mic back. The coiling wire hanging loosely from the machine swayed back and forth. Leon stood beside his car, resting his arms over its top. He looked at the buildings and scanned the deserted streets. From a far distance, a silver can rolled across the sidewalk and bumped against a store wall. It had a red-white symbol labeled over it. Leon could guess it was a container for the new Umbrella Cola from how it was designed. It stayed in place, canceling out all potential movements the wind might force it into performing.

So they need me to interrogate The MeatHook Mangler's wife Leon thought, puzzling over the nature of the assignment, they want me to talk to Mrs. Birkin while the rest of the R.P.D. has the Mangler himself pinned down' at the barn. Tell me Irons, doesn't this plan sound like a bunch of bullshit, or is it just my crazy side speaking?

It's a bunch of bullshit, his mind acknowledged. He nodded.

Thank you.

But Leon had a job to do, no matter how phony this all sounded—he was, by the way, finally doing police work for a change. This was the thing he wanted to do ever since he was kid watching John Wayne blast away those baddies on the monochrome television. So he guessed nothing could stop him from being a part of the law. Yep, he was the law. Leon Scott Kennedy was the motherfuckin law!

"Annie Birkin," Leon said as he twisted the ignition, "baby, here I come!"

He leapt into his Caprice and rolled awaytoward the Eastern Section.

22

5:45 P.M., Central Section, Raccoon City—Midtown Area.

A black Mustang GT roars through the street, unwary of the pedestrians rushing away from the car's path. The driver is accelerating at more than a hundred miles per hour. And the driver is dead—his carotid artery slashed by the passenger right beside him. His blood is spewing from the gash in his neck. It splashes against the windshield to produce a vivid red.

The car is headed for a barricade of R.P.D. squad cars.

The group of officers, some sergeants and lieutenants—all with families and children—pull out their firearms from behind their police cars and open fire. The bullets fired from their standard issue pistols penetrate the Mustang's windshield. But the car doesn't stop. It continues to zip by, unscathed by the fiery handguns. It rushes closer. The men scream and turn away, shouting orders in the bright sun. The black car smashes into the thick wall of cars, shelling away fragments of aluminum and glass all over the Midtown Area. The Mustang explodes. Its bursting flames spread forth and engulf the fleeing officers. They holler from within the bulbous mass of inferno. Their remains incinerate and disappear from the chaos happening around them.

It is contaminating the city—this chaos—it continues to infect and wipe the sections of Raccoon City. It is behaving like the virus Umbrella created.

"The situation has become far too insuppressible for city officials to handle!" Ben Bertolucci shouts from a 48" Mitsubishi monitor. His face is practically pressed against the camera broadcasting his message. It fills the large television, making his small head a lot more massive than it really was. The broadcast is becoming grainy; the image begins scratching its way toward snow at certain periods as it deteriorates.

"Northern, Central, Northwest" Ben begins to yell into the monitor. There is a large crowd behind him, screaming almost louder than he is. "All areas excluding the Northeast and Eastern Sections have been in state of total chaos! All citizens are encouraged to stay indoors until the problem is resolved. Concerning the contamination, there have been reports of zombies' and strange creatures lurking the corners of the city. Chief Irons of the Raccoon City Police Department has assured officials that these manifestations' are of no concern and such rumors are not true!

"While Irons has confirmed that these reports are untrue, we advise everybody to stay indoors until clearance has been issued. This is Ben Bertolucci, for KE—"

Suddenly, someone—or something—from the crowd seizes Ben by the shoulders. The dark figure from the deteriorating image lurches its face onto Ben's neck, chewing through it. He screams. From the jerking camera, the bloodcurdling scream of Ben Bertolucci can be heard from the blur caused by the camera's rushing motion.

More figures join alongside Ben's struggling body. He gets sucked into the crowd as if it were the vacuum of space. They are biting him. They are tearing him apart.

"Godammit, somebody—somebody help me! Norm, get me out of here!" Ben hollers from the developing swarm around him. The riotous noise of the streets continues undisturbed. "They are k-k!" Ben struggles to squeeze the words out his mouth, which was already beginning to gag up with blood. "They arek-killing—Me! Rhona, Fred—a-anybody, help Meeeeeeeeeeee!"

A voice is heard from off the camera. It is the cameraman's voice. He seems to be sharing Ben's fate.

"Get the fuck off me, you freak!"

Moans, then wailing from off camera.

"Shit, shit! I said off—OFF I SAID!"

The focus on Ben Bertolucci's flailing limbs break away, twisting off to dive down into the bloody concrete. Another sound rushes forth from the television. This time it is not a voice making it. It is

Squirmingthe sound of clothes tearing

Then a scream that ends with a bubbling gag.

On the television, the image then slides away to focus directly at the sky. The man had fallen back with the camera still in his hands. The dense noises in the street continue. And the broadcast continues as well.

Something red leaks into the camera's lens. The liquid rolls away, flooding half the screen in a nightmarish crimson.

The image then blips to the vertical, multi-colored bars of the technical difficulties setting TV stations always display. The monotonous eeeeeeeee sound now emanates from the TV's speakers. It'll stay that way for the rest of the day.

A few feet from the 48" big-screen TV, a corpse sits on the couch watching the ill-fated broadcast as if he were still alive. The light from the screen illuminates the bald man sitting in the partial darkness of his house. His eyes are still—they haven't blinked for hours. A warm Miller Draft is clutched in his right hand while the remote rests in the other. A small stream of saliva runs from his mouth.

The eeeeeeeee from the television continues.

Under the dead man's tilted head, a large hole is bored through his stomach. Blood streaks from all directions where his abdomen burst. It trails through the rest of the house and leads into the kitchen, where a hiss could be heard.

That hisswas a Breeder's hiss.

23

"Pharmacy orders!" Nathan shouted once he stepped into the Nurse's Station. The place was surely Hell turned inside out, but Nathan had to do this. He was getting community service hours for this. Really, he was—no joke!

A blonde woman of about 5'6" turned around and gave him a cold stare. She then threw a reluctant nod and began rummaging through the basket. "Aid Spray here," the nurse said as she conjured a white canister labeled with a small cross. It was enclosed in a plastic bag. Nathan came up and widened his folder so she could drop it in.

The woman paused before letting the spray canister go.

"Now I want you to be very careful," she said, staring into Nathan's eyes, "I don't want you touching this—it is a highly sensitive substance, and it could be easily contam-inated. A couple of these were distributed by Umbrella a while ago. I need you to be very careful, understand?"

What's with the lady, Nathan thought, she doesn't trust me with this thing? So it's because I happen to have a shaved head, ain't it? I have that thuggish look, like I'm about to rob everything, nice. "Yeah, I understand," Nathan replied, "I'm not that curious, lady, don't you worry."

The woman smirked at him and dropped the spray can into his pharmacy folder. "Good, because I meant what I said," she said.

Nathan closed the lid to his large folder. After three floors, the weight in the paper container was beginning to show some progress as Nathan felt its increased mass. "Okay then, thank you very much," he made a small wave.

When Nathan turned around, another nurse stepped in front of him. She stopped him, looking down at his shorter self. "Excuse me," the nurse commanded, "what are you doing here?"

Nathan's weary face formed a puzzled expression. "Pharmacy orders—"

"No, you are not supposed to be here," the 5'7" woman interrupted, "don't you see how dangerous this place is, now? The hospital is in emergency protocol—we are having biohazards, harmful substances, threats, fires—you name it. We can't afford having volunteers wandering around this atmosphere, you understand?"

"So that means I can go home?" Nathan asked enthusiastically. Finally, the long day was to end and sleep seemed closer than ever.

The nurse sighed. It was one of those frustrated, well-didn't-you-know kind of sighs. "Yes!" she cried out. "Why weren't you called to go home any sooner! Godammit, the last thing we need here is more lawsuits! Get your fanny back home, that's an order!"

Nathan's eyes widened. "What, really?"

"Yes, yes!" she clamored, her face nearly turning red. The way she said it sounded as if she was in the middle of some steamy sex. The words squeezed from her sneer at him. "Get out of here," she finally said, calming herself down. "Just leave, I'll be happy to cover you if the Service League bitches about your absence, now go!"

Nathan nodded slowly, his eyes still holding that look of awe. He then brought himself to stroll down the fifth floor hall, ignoring the pandemonium around him. He kept his eyes focused to the ground, looking thoughtfully at the smooth surface.

All this time, he could've been sleepinghe wasn't even needed here in the first place! Although they did call him here for emergency reasons, he had the chance to leave early! What the Hell, why didn't he do that? He had a test tomorrow!

Or, because of what was happening to Raccoon, was there a test tomorrow?

A smile came up on Nathan's face. I guess I might be liking this city-wide chaos after allif school's gonna be canceled the next day.

A hoarse voice interrupted his peace. "Get outta here, you fucking chink!" it cried.

Nathan turned his head to where it originated. It was from one of the patient's rooms. He stopped, peering inside with his narrowing eyes.

"The fuck you lookin at, you little man!" the old woman snarled.

Nathan raised his eyebrows at her. "A dirty little bitch," he answered while bringing his face to scowl at the old hag. What was an aging, leather bag doing in this hospital shouting racist remarks?

"Oohh" she hissed back, her eyes prodding at Nathan's sense of security.

Nathan continued to stand there. He watched the frail woman, as if she was some threatening beast bent on shredding his sanity. A gold necklace ran around her neck. Connected to the necklace, and resting itself on her wretched chest, a large key with a spade formed at an end glistened to catch Nathan's attention. The spade was bluish in its crystalline form. Besides the old lady's hideous face, it was the huge key that grabbed Nathan's attention the most.

"C'mere, you dirty little rat" the woman started again, "come on, I'll kick your little yellow ass!"

Nathan chuckled at the pitiful woman.

"Oh, so you think you're hard now, little manwait until you get a load of me!"

Her tongue came slithering outit was at least a foot long.

Nathan stepped back, disgusted by what he saw. Her tongue, purple and dripping with saliva, coiled around her cheeks, leaving a shiny film for Nathan to puke off of. It then moved around—covering almost a foot's distance around her head, and slid back into her mouth. Her mouth opened, cackling at him, chuckling with glee.

A nurse appeared at her side. "Mrs. Hubert," she said in a controlled voice, "I'm going to need you to take some of these—they'll help you sleep better."

Yeah, Nathan thought with growing abhorrence, you better sleep, you old witch. Best do the world a favor by choking on those pills while you're at it. Shit, I thought that guy from Kiss had the longest tongueguess I was wrong.

He walked off toward the elevators, clearing the old bitch from his mind.

Once the elevator doors opened and he stepped in alone, Nathan began to wonder how Sofia would react to the fact that they could leave now.

Oh Hell yeah! she'd probably scream at him. Hell fucking yeah, Nate, I'm going home! I'm outta this shithole, and you know you won't be seein my nice ass here again!

Nathan laughed to himself. Sofia was so moody. One moment she was scared and helpless—the next, she was some butt-kicking vixenand then later on she was some sweet, caring girl that didn't mind being "a little too comfortable" with others. Funny this way of hersit was actually so funny, it was beginning to get a bit scary.

The doors to the elevator closed. Nathan was standing in there alone.

The floor numbers displayed above the doors bleeped in reverse chronology. Nathan felt his weight shift as the elevator sank its way down. He was headed for the ground floor. He wanted to drop off the folder at the Pharmacy before heading up to the Lobby, where he'd finally tell Sofia the great truth. Then after that, he'd happily go home and leap into his bed. Leap into his bed and close his eyes until the dreams came to take him away for the next few hours.

Butbut something happened.

It was like a cue for the elevator. Once the lighting display above the entrance reached the panel representing the Ground Floor, everything went out. Everything meaning everything, including the lights. The lights were out. That also meant another thing Nathan learned earlier from Mr. Chau.

The power was out, and the auxiliary generator was unprepared for this.

"All personnel," the operator's voice waned through the elevator's speaker, beginning to die out from the power shortage, "please remain calm as power will be restored shortlyAll personnel"

"Ah shit," Nathan muttered to himself in pitch darkness.

24

Claire's eyes squinted at something approaching her from down the road. She brought the flat of her hand to shield her eyes from the sun above. She kept her solid gaze focused on the dark object resting beside the highway. It steadily grew in size, developing from a speck in her vision to a form she was glad to be seeing.

A welcoming laugh bellowed from her stomach. Thank God for trailer trash!

From the burning sun, and without it being a disappointment made from a mirage, the trailer sat under the reddening sun—its being there a part of Heaven's grace. Claire smiled. Finally, something that didn't place her any closer to the clutches of death. She could only now hope the folks in there had any gas to spare. Usually, they did. Many people who lived in trailer homes were (as far as her experience told her) generous to a certain degree. Just don't try asking those rednecks and beer bellies.

The sun was already starting to set, it was transforming the sapphire sky into an orange-red. Soon after the horizon, the sun will disappear, and Claire will be left alone in the darkness. And by then, she'd better do her job before Bartowen was to come. She better, because at this point of her life, mistakes were all she needed to get herself killed. She had the world's most feared crime boss to prove that.

And this idea of Chris paging her years later in need of her help better be worth her trouble trying to get into Raccoon City, just as it is worth for her life to be spared from El Diablo. Chris and his affiliation with that S.T.A.R.S. bullshit had best not make her drag her ass hundreds of miles to receive nothing but "Sorry Claire, I paged the wrong person—Did I really say all that stuff about me needing your help? Ha ha, when was that? Well anyway, I'm sorry, but I gotta leave now—I have an assignment involving a government conspiracy. I'm sorry to leave you here alone like this. By the way, it has been a while since I've seen you Claire, nice to see you again, bye!"

Shit, if she knew Chris was to say that once she saw him, then she should've taken the time to pack a gun before leaving for Raccoon. Who knows to what extent her brother could have in pissing her off in that royal, sibling-pain-in-the-ass fashion. He seemed like a master of that, concerning his part on remaining silent for a few long years while she continued to miss him. Did he really—and did he ever—truly miss her? Claire would later regret bringing this up again, but before she met up with Ethan, she had loved her brother so much, that whenever a wish came up for her to ask for, she always wished for Chris to come backshe really did. She missed her brother that much.

And it took him years to finally respond. Years, dammit. Years!

But Claire was always forgiving when it came to Chris. She forgave him for so many little things that happened when they were young. Things like some of the toys he borrowed and never returned, to the number of dirty pranks he sometimes pulled. Among this, she had plenty to apologize for herself. There was always that one time she accidentally caught his hair on fire right before his Senior Prom, and the moment when she almost killed him with the Smith & Wesson while he was teaching her how to fire it. Either way, they got along well for siblings. For brother and sister, a distant observer could always take them to be girlfriend and boyfriend sometimebut that person would've been dead if they ever began spreading rumors. Claire and Chris were a bit close for siblings, but they were never close in that mushy sort of way. They hardly ever displayed affection in the form of hugging or kissing. In fact, they tried avoiding that kind of contact as much as possible. It was like some communicable disease they could spread between themselves. Hugging was extremely rare, while kissing was considered taboo under all circumstances. Even though the rules seemed rather harsh (people had to let their emotions out sometime), they were happy around each other. Her relationship with her brother barely felt like a brother to sister thing, instead, it felt more like she was his brother, instead of her being his sister (orvice-versa). So reluctantly, she did want him back simply because she loved him as a brother. Although his reaction to their apparent reunion had better be a satisfying one—it better, or else she was to have one Redfield to slay before dawn.

The trailer sitting ahead of her grew in size. Claire began to frown at its appearance. It had that trashy look, like it came straight out of a shantytown. So it was pretty much a large, curved sheet of metal. Normal, average people never owned shit like this. Claire sighed. There was only one answer to this puzzle, and it was trailer trash rednecks and Southern extremists. Shit.

Claire had her rundowns with those kinds from her stay with the family during her Moto Cross days. Living in one (one much better looking than this one) herself, Claire never really saw the idea of living in a trailer home as something to be ashamed of. Really, all you needed to do was get a nice-looking one, and made sure it was clean enough to be comfortable to live in. She remembered hers to be clean enough to outdo some of the more luxurious houses from across the street. That definitely shut the snobs up. While they had so much room to spare, Claire had everything they had (and dreamed of) all compact and portable along with it. She awed them the same way a small-breasted girl suddenly developed in front of a guy that once ignored her. It was fun to do that.

Until the bastards with the sloppy Southern accents came.

There were numerous times when Claire and her Moto Cross team found themselves in danger of being assaulted by those low lives. Personally, to Claire, those types always gave people who lived in trailers a bad name. Every morning, their dirty little kids came out and picked on poor Teresa. It became clear to Claire she had to put all responsibility into protecting Teresa, even though she was Rose's child. But it was a lot easier than it sounded. Simply, all it took for Claire to do was to hold those shitty brats at gunpoint while threatening them to never try that againor else. Doing that usually silenced them for about a week as they cried to their washed-out, obese mothers saying that "the big girl across the street threatened to kill them." Ha. Claire soon began to enjoy it. It was funny watching the runts run as she pulled out Chris's old Beretta. Although Charlie had warned her about the potential consequences a while ago, Claire continued them. She especially loved using Henry's Colt handguns on Mondays, then on Wednesday switching to Charlie's ferocious knife before happily pulling out the crossbow for the weekends. Those little kids deserved to be traumatized. After all, they could've done the same to Teresa, who had done nothing to provoke them in the first place.

Soon after the scare tactics, the kids retaliatedwith their parents and siblings. With increasing numbers, the rednecks came at night and picked fights with the rest of the Moto Cross family. Claire suddenly found herself target of teenage sluts who were furiously jealous of her "pretty face" and that attractive appearance they were to never achieve during their lifetime. The situation quickly escalated to a point where it became some kind of trailer feud going on between the portable homes. Charlie and Tony had their nights with some of the truckers, as Claire, Ben, and Kristy usually ended up sending a whole horde of them to the hospital. Nobody was ever killed during those conflicts, which was only marginally good. Claire wanted a handful of them dead.

Except instead of having the rednecks killed, her whole family was slaughtered

Slaughteredby Bartowen, her present boss.

Claire sighed as she neared the trailer ahead of her. She shook away the thought of Bartowen and the tragic deaths. It was no time to cry about them anymore. She had to pull herself together if she wanted to live any longer.

The trailer was now close enough for Claire to see its details. She stopped a few yards from where it sat on the side of the road. Her eyes scanned it, noticing every imperfection the heap of garbage had. She grimaced.

It was shaped like a 50s toaster—its chrome exterior was showing its age. Marred by weather, it lost all its reflective quality as rust began crawling from each of its corners. The scratched windows also had its sign of wear and tear. The yellowing curtains behind them were barely visible through the frosting scratches. Mildew, spots of moss, and algae sprouted from under the vents. They were blackening the rubber lacquered around the windows. On the air conditioner, the mesh frame around it was coated with white calcium deposits. All in all, it was definitely a place Claire didn't want to wake up inside of.

She walked up to the door, noticing the bumper stickers pressed on the back fender. One of them read: DON'T LIKE MY DRIVING? Dial: 1-800-EAT-SHIT.

Claire nodded, pressing an amused expression from her face. She turned her head and saw another thought-provoking sticker. This one said in stenciled, red letters:

MY KID KICKED YOUR HONOR ROLL STUDENT'S ASS!

Claire shook her head, smiling to herself. She drew her breath out from the heat. The sun was scorching her legs and neck from behind. All this time she was engulfed in the same dry heat liable to kill off any normal person. The whole feeling of it made her wonder whether anyone could actually live in this tin box of a home through this weather. To be able to live through temperatures like this took a lot of courageit was possible to die in there! Claire knew that the air in a trailer could get really hot without an air conditioner. That was a definite fact, since she noticed that the dirty trailer she was standing by didn't have the air conditioner on

That was strange. Why didn't the person in there turn on the air conditioning? It would be suicide to sit in there without anything to cool yourself on.

Claire pulled the meshed door away, leaving the wood door before her. "Hello!" Claire shouted, beating against the door, "anybody in there? Hello!"

No answer.

She brought her fist back and repeatedly beat the door again. "I'm sorry to bother you right now," Claire said as her arm pedaled through the movement. "But can you please open the door? I need some help"

Still, nobody repliednot even a noise from inside.

A sigh exited from Claire's mouth. Maybe the guy's a lot saner than I last assumed, she thought, he probably left his home for a better place. Or, maybe he's afraid.

Claire grunted. She beat the door again.

"Can you please open up! I need your help right now!"

No reply. She blew out from her mouth, sighing again.

If nobody's here, Claire wondered, then maybe I can just break in and try to grab the gas before they get back. I know, I know, it's a bad thing, but nobody's here to find outand besides, everyone knows I can be one bad girlI've stolen shitloads before.

Claire then fingered the lockpick from her breast pocket. She held the metallic pieces in her fingers as she kneeled to focus on the gold doorknob. She slid the metal wires in, working her way around the mechanism of the knob. Her left fingers with the thin piece prodded the slit as the other hand with the precision release moved around to twist at the lock

Click!

Claire smiled, pulling her trusty tool out and clutched the knob to test it. It turned, just as she expected it to. And like a gift from Heaven, the upper bolt that kept the door from opening wasn't activated. She was actually in luck.

Her hand brushed back a lock of hair as she opened the door. It creaked, as the door swung from its rusty hinges. Claire peered inside.

Hot, dry air rushed into her eyes and face. It blew out from the opened door, searing her senses. Claire shook her head away and threw her body inside.

She shouldn't have done that.

Maggots. Flies. They were everywhere. And that sour, musty smell...

Claire's mouth dropped. Her face grimaced, quickly drawing her arms to press against her face. My God, it was horrible.

Hundreds—no, thousands of maggots were squirming all over the dead bodies strewn around the trailer. A whole cloud of flies swarmed from the sight of Claire's break-in, causing a thick mass of them to bellow up from the corpses. The mass shook in the air, heading towards her. The sound was terrifying. It scratched through the air, humming violently. Claire closed her eyes and ducked her head into her arms.

She felt them zipping around her exposed legs—thousands of them, crawling through her arms and hair as they rushed to fly through her. Their tiny legs, like bristles from some metallic brush, scraped across her skin. Their faces—each having a pair of those red, bulging eyes, pressed along various points of her skin. Claire grew sick. She turned around, eyes still closed, and leapt through the door where the sun still shone through. The itchthat terrible itch they made whenever they crawled around her

The ground came up on her, impacting against her boots. Claire brushed away at herself, making sure that her body was free from any flies that could've crawled under her clothes. She shivered.

Toughen up, girl, they're only a bunch of bugs, her thoughts whispered.

Claire felt dizzy, like she was about to puke. "Yeah, only a bunch of bugs," she said to herself, rolling her eyes before shaking her head. "It's easier said than done."

But Claire did have to keep her mind straight—she had to get to Raccoonand she needed to reach that destination soon. This opportunity was one in a million—how often did she find a loaded trailer with dead bodies? She'd best not blow this one before it got any worse. Claire took a deep breath and walked up to the trailer and held her breath before stepping back in. She looked inside once more.

A man with overalls stared at her with wide eyes. His mouth was open, gaping at her with a maggot-filled face. Small gnashes across his face—some purple and yellow with decaying pus—had colonies of them pupating and feasting on his remains. His whole mouth was covered with a pile of struggling white maggots. In fact, his entire body had them twisting and coiling into him. They moved around him like possessed rice.

Remember, they're only little bugsthey can't hurt you

Dozens of flies were copulating beside Claire's boots. Pairs of them were attached together, buzzing as they danced in the air. The females began to bloat with the bursting offspring under their bellies. Claire swore she saw at least a dozen flies try laying their eggs on her thigh. The slime oozing with pods of young larvae poured onto her skin. The moistened warmth touching her was petrifying. They wanted to eat her too. Just like the men in this trailer. They wanted to just lay their curved, white eggs over her face, hatch and tickle her as they nibbled on every part of—

Clairestop being paranoidthey're just fliesjust stupid little flies

She closed her eyes, nodding slowly. She swallowed hard. Claire shook the flies from her legs, slapping at them as they flew off her. She struck at a few of them with the back of her hand, causing some to ricochet from the tin walls. Claire brought her gaze to focus back on scanning the interior now.

A telephone caught her attention, but its cords were shredded. Claire tried to spot something else. Something redsomething plasticsomething that held gasoline

Like that large container sitting adjacent to that heateryes!

Claire continued to hold her breath as she stepped over the maggots wolfing the bodies. She reached over and grabbed the large container of gasoline. Its weight felt like at least three to four gallons under her hand. She pulled it free and got the hell out of that infested trailer!

Once outside, Claire sucked in the fresh air, savoring at how good it smelled. People often took for granted how great fresh air was. Life was beautiful. It was so beautiful without those godforsaken flies and maggots!

ButClaire Redfield still had a long walk back before filling up her bike.

And she better walk fast.

25

Nancy hugged the walls, gun drawn upward against the side of her face. She stood there in the corner of the hallway branching to Marcel's room. Nobody was here, not a living soul. And the power was out.

But the shouting and the outbursts from behind the double doors continued, echoing into the silent hall Nancy was standing in. The sounds were louder than they were before. Panic, wailing, screaming, and glass breaking made up the sounds pushing their way through the thick door and into Nancy's ears. They were muffled, but they still seemed so loud. Nancy took shallow breaths. Her eyes shifted, cutting short glances across the area. Her eyes soon grew accustomed to the darkness.

The phone on the counter grabbed her attention. She ran towards it, tearing away the handset from where it rested. She placed it next to her ear.

No dial tone.

Nancy threw out a disgusted expression, grimacing painfully. She struck down on the phone, hoping that it might bring the phone to work again. She strained her ears to search for any sign the phone could still work.

Nothing.

"Fuck," Nancy hissed under her breath. She slammed the handset down and pushed the phone away. She turned around.

Marcel's room was right before her. From the darkness, she could make out the silver plate on the white door marked: 4 WEST, ROOM 14. Nancy paused, her grip on the Glock tightened. If he was in there, she thought to herself, why is it so quietcould he still be in there, waiting for me even though there was some power outage in this building?

Nancy took careful steps to the door. Her left hand floated carefully toward the knob. She turned it, peering through the widening opening she made as the door slid open. Something is wrong here, she thought, this power outage was never supposed to happen—it was unplanned for. Something is definitely wrong with this whole plan. Somebody must have fucked up between the days because something is not right around here

She pushed the door, letting it swing on its own. Nancy had both hands readied on her gun. She watched the white door sweep to the right, unraveling what she either wanted or did not want to see behind them. Her heart suddenly leaped.

Marcel was dead. His head was smashed into the bed, flattened in a peach-colored, reddening mass. So was the rest of his body.

Nancy gasped, her eyes growing wide. From the darkness, the white around her iris caused a portion of her eyes to glow a brilliant white. Her hands suddenly grew numb in shock. All of a sudden, she felt chills racing through her limbs as the light bursting from the closed curtains lit a portion of Marcel's distorted face. Nancy saw it and felt like screaming, but she held it in—had to hold it in. There was no question whether or not the murderer could hear her. He was out there.

The MeatHook Mangler.

Nancy brought her gun up, forcing her eyes away from the mashed corpse on the hospital bed. What was going on? She thought the R.P.D. should've been out to handle the killer once he was occupied at the barn. What the hell was he doing here? The last transmission she received from Marcel was at the most, several minutes ago. There was no possibility that the Bureau and the R.P.D. could miss him heading down here. During that little amount of time, they would've informed her and Marcel already. How the Hell was it possible the killer was here?

Nancy heard something crash from outside the room. It sounded like glass.

Maybe it isn't just the MeatHook Mangler were dealing with here, she thought, her mind bouncing from one end to another, has it ever fucking occurred to anyone that there could be more than one killer in the city?!

FootstepsNancy heard footsteps coming from the hall. They were approaching her position. It was behind her. If she wasn't to turn around any faster, then whatever that came bursting from the doorway would have her in no time. Her clutch on her Glock .40 tightened. She felt the rough grip pressing against her palms. 18 bullets were in the clip. And she wasn't afraid to use any of them. She spun around, bringing her aim to fasten on whatever came in through that doorway.

The silhouette of a man dressed in a lab coat stood beneath the threshold. He had a large pole in his right hand.

"F-B-I!" Nancy yelled. Her left hand shot out her badge.

The man stood there, frozen in place like a statue. His dark eyes continued to stare at her. He then began to walk forward.

"You're wanted for arrest—don't you fucking move! Drop your weapon and—"

The man brought his pole back and swung at her. The large pole was aimed to slam vertically over her head. She dropped her badge.

Nancy dodged it, throwing herself to the left as she raised her firearm at the Mangler (Or so she thought so at the moment). The pole missed her and struck the ground, tossing fragments of the tile in the air. She pinned her gun's foresight on him and pulled the trigger—twice. The Glock bucked from her hands. It lit up the room as it spat the bullets, leaving the spent casings to spill from the top of the pistol. As the two bullets pierced the man's chest, sprouting cascades of blood, Nancy was able to see his shoulderand was able to confirm that it was William Birkin she was firing at—The MeatHook Mangler they all said he was.

But his right shoulder was way too large to be normalIt was massive! What the Hell was going on, it looked nearly twice the size of the other one!

Whatever it was, the bullets didn't seem to hurt him. All it did was throw him back a few steps. Nancy heard him grumble as he continued on her again. She didn't hesitate. She raised her pistol again.

Nancy fired five more shotseach of them impacting against Birkin's abdominal region. He shook in rapid successions from the roaring gunshots. Blood began gushing from the areas of impact. It drenched his lab coat in growing circles of red.

He was still alive.

The pole missed Nancy's face by less than a foot. It struck the wall, caving it in before sending bits of wood and plaster spinning across the air. Nancy fell to the floor, keeping her aim fastened up on the immense image of Birkin standing above her. She unloaded her clip on him, firing frantically while the gun made its shattering reports through the room. All eleven shots caused parts of Birkin to burst as each lead bullet tore through his flesh. He rattled while the stream continued to push him back to fall onto the floor. Nancy grit her teeth in rage. Even after the bullets were spent, she continued to pull the trigger, causing the empty chamber to sound out a click! click! click!

He was still alive.

Nancy watched in horror as the killer slowly rose to his feet.

Her breathing increased, creating shallow puffs of anxiety and panic. Nancy thumbed the magazine catch, causing the spent clip to slide down the butt of her pistol. It fell on her legs, laying there—it was unused garbage for now. She looked up with hopeless eyes while groping her waist for the next magazine.

He was raising his right arm to strike at her again. He did that so quickly. The pole's shadow crossed Nancy's terrified face. It rose above Birkin's head as he winded up for the next blow.

Nancy palmed the new clip into the gun, slapping it into place. The slide registered the new bullet, sounding out a metallic crunch. Nancy extended her arms to aim up at Birkin's face. Hit him in between the eyes, her thoughts clamored, hit em where he won't come back to! With the jerks of her thumb, Nancy triggered all 18 bullets of her pistol straight into Birkin's eyes and mouth.

Ordid she?

The pole came down onto Nancy's forehead, throwing her head back. She felt the back of her head hit the wall somewhereit all felt like one big, damn headache. Her vision of Birkin standing there above her helpless body abruptly blurred.

That wasn't The MeatHook Manglerher last thoughts confirmed. And she was right. Contradicting her last confirmed identification, it wasn't Birkin—the killer they were all searching for wasn't Birkin. It was somebody else.

The Mangler used hooks. This one, William Birkin, used a pole.

Nancy Garcia made sure of this when she saw it smash down her head a second time, blackening out the world around her.

So much for everything.

26

6:08 P.M., Central Section, R.P.D. Station—S.T.A.R.S. Hallway

"Hey maaaaan!" Casey shrieked while tugging at his trapped arm. It was fastened by a pair of handcuffs wrapped around a railing connected to the wall. "Get me outta these fucking cuffs! I ain't the man you want, go after The MeatHook Mangler, man—go after him! He's the true fuck-head out of all of Raccoon, maaan!"

"You shut that mouth, Casey," Willie commanded, drawing a quick finger down on him, "or I'm gonna leave you here with all those freaks that just came in here a minute ago, YOU GOT THAT?!" Willie felt like exploding in this boy's face the minute he began screaming when Eds cuffed him there an hour ago.

Casey shuddered, beginning to whimper. Tears shone in his eyes as he shook his head. He didn't say anything, nor retaliated in any way.

What a pathetic, little bitch.

Willie sighed, it was one of those pissed-off, I-dunno-what-the-fuck-I-should-do-with-you kind of sighs. "Casey" he calmed him, pulling out the keys from his pockets. He was actually thinking about unlocking the cuffs from the bastard. He had to, it was hell hearing the boy scream. "Man," Willie continued, the keys jingled in his fingers, "you better promise to straighten up that act of yourssince what I'm plannin on doin right now is like a Christmas present and a New Year's Resolution all rolled up in one joint you give me a changed version of yourself, and I promise you that you'll keep this present' for life, you got that boy?"

"I will, Officer Burrow," Casey nodded. "I will, man."

Willie then forced the key into the little bitch's cuffs. He'll regret this, but at least his ears will be spared for a lifetime. Damn, that boy had one nasty shriek. It sounded worse than Mariah Carey's highest scream pumped up six octaves.

The handcuffs released themselves from Casey's arm. Willie left it hanging on the railing as he bothered not to take the whole thing off. It swung a little, banging against the damp wall while forming a pair of C's on the opened end.

"Now, no more assaulting them teachers," Willie spoke over Casey once he was done standing up. "The moment I see your delinquent-ass with one againI swear little man, you're gonna feel that same pain by me, you understand?!"

Casey gulped, growing pale. "Anything, Officer—anything, man." He then shook himself, rubbing his shoulders. He grimaced. "Can I get outta here, maan? This place's scarin the shit outta me."

Willie looked around, checking the halls to see if any more of those things were sulking around. He nodded. The hall was empty. He looked back down at Casey again, shaking his head. The teen delinquent was scared—terrified of what was happening, and Willie could see it in his eyes. By now, his parents must have been dead alreadyor become one of those thingsthose, zombies.

"All right, you listen to me," Willie ordered, "I'm gonna get you to a place where you'll be safe in this stationI dunno where it is exactly, but I'm gonna try my best to get you there."

The kid nodded—he was actually complying. Perhaps there was hope for the next generation. Willie had doubted it was possible, but here he had living and breathing (along with white) proof such a possibility existed.

Willie pulled out his radio, flipping the switch before squeezing the button. "Eds," he spoke through the mic, "Eds, you there?"

The static was thick, but audible enough for Willie to make out Ed's reply. "Been here for 15 years, Wily B., what's the problem?"

"I got the kid up in the S.T.A.R.S. hallway, I'm checking if it's clear down there."

A grating noise caused by Ed's sudden exhale blew through the speaker. He was laughing. "That oughta teach the little turd!"

Casey flinched from Ed's voice, as if ashamed. "That's the cop who cuffed me."

"Yeah, well you deserved every bit of it," Willie turned his head and spoke over him. Willie hadn't planned on letting that comment leave his headbut deep inside, he was snickering like crazy. Little Casey was about to get the other end of his crime turned against him by justice itself (or what was left of it).

Casey's face flushed. "Hey man, I thought you were supposed to serve and protect—"

"Well I'll only serve and protect that stanky ass once you shut up!"

Ed's distinct laughter echoed from Willie's mic.

"Allright, Will! Let the runt have it!"

Willie snickered a bit and lightly tapped Casey' shoulder in almost the same fashion he did with Trisha Lockney's ass a few hours ago. "Chill, my little one, have patience," he said.

The face worn by Casey suddenly became a saddened one as he shook his head. "Stop making fun of me," he cried, almost sobbing, "I don't wanna die hereI'll be a good boy, but justman, just please get me home. I don't wanna die here"

Willie shook his head. What a pathetic little bitch, he thought over again. "Casey, if you just quit acting like the little bitch you are, I'll try my best to keep you alive—other than that, if you keep up that pansy shit, then I'll have to end your misery myself."

Casey remained quiet after that.

Officer Willie Burrow then continued on into talking through his radio. "Eds," he said, "so is that East Office clear down there? I need that place while I bring little shit here down."

"Garrett has the area clean, move in there whenever you're ready."

Willie nodded in satisfaction. "How's the situation with Eliza?"

"The mayor's lithe daughter is all cozy down here with me. I've got Wilson and Jordan at my side in case anything happens—who you got to back you up?"

"Casey's ear-splitting shriek," Willie smiled, throwing an eye at Casey, who did nothing but glare back at him.

Behind the static, Eds chuckled lightly. To Willie, it seemed as if the old man's optimism was already worn down by what was happening to the city. Willie sensed this from the sudden change in Ed's tone. It just sounded as if his time had finally arrived.

"We're all gonna make it through this," he said, trying to ease the low feeling Eds was beginning to suffer from. "I'm sure about that, Mr. Edthis whole thing will be over soon. I know of that."

"Yeah, you try telling me, Willie," Eds replied mockingly, "the radio's out, the TV's gone—Hell, I don't know whether or not I should start pissing my own pants any minute."

Willie froze. "What did you just say?"

"I said I don't know whether or not—"

"No, you said the TV's gone?" Willie cried out. "Eds, you know what that meansthat means we gonna be missin the rest of that playoff, man! Tell me, is this situation gonna get any worse or whatdamn."

Eds began to chuckle again. It was good raising the old man's spirits. All of it was a good thingthat is, until Willie himself had to change the subject.

"I know this may not be the most enlightening thing to bring up, butare you afraid? This whole thing that's happening aroundyou afraid of what's goin on?"

"Ha, and this coming from the guy who's just told me everything will be over soon"

Willie smiled. "Hey, I was just trying to lighten things up. But really, how you feel about this whole thing, Eds. How you feel about this riot-zombie thing?"

He heard a sigh crackle from the radio. "To tell you the truth, Will, I'm scared—not just scared in that I'm afraid of death' kind of scaredI'm scared that the end—our end—has just begun. And worse of all, there is no turning back."

"What you tryin to say? I thought you'd be optimistic—"

"Will, quit trying to hide it," he spoke hoarsely through the speaker. "I haven't received any note on the cops in the streets nor the barnI have no idea what the Hell's goin on with all the walking corpses and that other shit as well. What I do know for sure is that not all of us are going to make it out here alive. And that, I'm afraid, is one of the only things I'm actually sure about right now."

"Eds," Willie began to shake his head, "You have to believe—"

"Will, you know it already. It's over, everything's gone down to shit. Now, don't try to lie to me, but personally, do you think this whole thing is going to end happily?"

Willie took some time to respond, beginning to look up. He then thumbed the button. "With my helpof course," he said enthusiastically.

"With your help, you'll get us all killed," Eds replied.

Willie couldn't tell whether that was a jokeor a serious fact.

27

The afternoon rays peering from the hills caused the sweat from Leon's face to river down and drip off his chin. They fell onto his thigh and soaked a dark patch over it. If it were any bigger and centered around his crotch area, it would have looked like he pissed his own pants.

Orit could have also looked like a sudden ejaculation from his last hard-on.

Leon clawed at his balls, scratching at it without shame. Damn, was the heat itching his scrotum. It felt as if an ant took a bite out of the wrinkled sac, causing a slight prick to electrify his nerves. The pair of boxers he had on didn't necessarily help to lessen his itch either. They're being ruthless to my manhood, he thought, grimacing. He continued scratching away at his crotch while keeping his left hand on the wheel.

"Man, oh man" Leon groaned, beginning to think about sex and the heat baking his car. "This heat is starting to" he suddenly chuckled. "Starting to make me horny—yeah, it's fucking turning me into some sexual predator!"

Leon laughed to himself, his voice reverberating from the interior of his car. What he needed now was a woman on top as well as one to lay onto. Yep, that was the formula. It was kind of like having a shoulder there to lean toexcept you've got the female anatomy swallowing you up with those welcome lips. And it didn't matter what race was behind that pink opening. Either it be Black, Asian, Caucasian, or European—it didn't matter. Blonde, brunette, big ass, or humongous breasts—it was all good. Leon had a wild side, and this wild side was something he didn't mind letting outespecially if it was before a fine honey yearning for him from the window of the Motel 6. Leon smiled. Police life was beginning to turn out to be that dream he always wanted

The Eastern Section welcomed his passing car with silence and rolling newspapers. Not a living soul in sight. Soda cans, styrofoam cups, and small toys littered the streets. Nobody was out talking to their neighbors, watching their kids play out in the street, or even frolicking with their beloved pets. The place was absolutely dead.

It was deadeven for the residential area Leon was looking at.

The street his car passed had old houses as well as new ones brightening up the neighborhood's leaden appearance. Leon turned his head and saw one house blackened from a recent fire. Out of most the houses, this one seemed to catch Leon's attention the most. Rust stains discolored the sides of its exterior, causing a flamed decoration to lick downward from the edge of the roof. The aged, yellow tape wrapped around the house was enough to explain that whatever happened to it, was at least a few months old. Some of the tape was torn away to reveal a small entrance into the scorched home. Looked as if a lone visitor wanted to check the place out. Before the opening, there was a neatly- matted field of dead grass. Leon swore he saw something that looked like a rubber wrench (actually, it looked pretty real) lying in that frail lawn.

Then Leon saw something else...which was a lot more noticeable than that rubber wrench. A cavernous opening across the other side of the house caught his attention. It was huge, gaping with that serrated look around its edges—like the aftermath of an explosion. Either someone in there was experimenting on C-4 explosives, or the guy felt like lighting the gas valve to his entire tank. Total destruction was the first phrase in mind when Leon took this view in.

"Shit happens," Leon commented, shaking his head. "If all of that turned out to be some cooking accident, then man that chef's got some explosive recipe."

His car made its way down the street, passing through the older houses until the neighborhood began filling up with the newer, brighter-colored ones. After a few minutes of driving, the area suddenly became high-class—with the streets all clean with fresh tar and concrete. Lawns—all green, and adequately watered—grew beside each house as Leon drove past aisles of them.

"Now houses like these I wouldn't mind living in," he said, whistling out in admiration. "Talk about PleasantvilleOh yeaaah."

It was another few minutes until Leon saw the Birkin residence. It was located at the edge of the streetand the edge of civilization. Across the distance behind the house, a dried-out plain of bad soil stretched for miles into the hills and where the horizon would be. Leon could make out some green patches of vegetation sprouting over the crusted surface. He could also see the outline of a dead tree sitting in the middle of the expanse.

Leon neared his car toward the driveway and parked his Caprice smoothly—it was perfectly aligned. What a way to make a first impression—Leon was king. He was going to rewrite the image of the rookie cop.

Okay, that might've sounded a bit cocky there, Leon thought as he smiled. But baby! I'm a cop! I'm actually doin all the crap I've been dreaming about! I'm actually gonna live this shit!

Leon's smile widened when he pulled out his trustworthy VP70. His right hand fit the plastic handle perfectly, adding to all the comfort a maaaad crazy cop needed. Leon holstered it to his belt and looked up toward the entrance of the house.

"Annette Birkin, wife of The MeatManglin Hooker'" Leon said to himself with glee, "it's about time you and me share a nice, final round of Jeopardy—except for this time around, you're the contestant, and I'm Alex Trebeck." His eyes then narrowed. "And our topic iskillers and meat hooks."

28

6:24 P.M. The Barn—6 miles North of Raccoon City

The MeatHook Mangler is loose again. The serial killer whom society classified as William Birkin was off in his latest killing spree. Today, (the very same day Umbrella would wrap up its experiment) the killer had already added to his tremendous body count. He finished a great deal todayhis total equaling 32 victims slain, slaughtered, and maimed. Ironically, the total number matched his age, and he smiled from that coin-cidence. But The MeatHook Mangler was far from finished. He had one last chain of victims to go before moving on. And this one was to be his grandesta coup de grace, you might say. It was to involve the R.P.D.

Sure, there were innocent officers protecting the infected streets this time being; sure, there were brave, decorated sergeants and lieutenants alike giving their lives into comprehending him. But there was a selected few the killer did not like. Those were the few that turned against the justice system; they were the few who were corrupted. Corrupted by Umbrella. The killer did not like those few. The MeatHook Mangler wanted those few dead.

Deaddead.

He was to rip them to shreds if he couldtear them apart ligament by ligament. His meat hooks and sickle-shaped blades made the job easier. He would run the barbed tips through their soft flesh—he liked to start at their ears and continue until it reached the other end. After that, he would pierce their eyes with his fingers and feel the warm fluid run down his fingers as they screamed. Screamed in agony. Screamed in fear. Screamed as the thick, red liquid flowed across their cheeks like rivers of red ink

Then he'd hang them out to dry, decorating the city with his wrath. Yesss

The look of their faces all locked in screamstheir intestines pulled out to stretch around their necks. Yeshe'd strangle them with their intestines.

Kill

His teeth grit together.

RevengeDestroy Umbrella.

Kyle Somers unsheathed a set of his curved hooks, reflecting a ray of light into his eye while savoring the warmth provided from the sun outside. It was cold inside the barn. It was also damp, being cool to the touch.

Good, the bitter atmosphere brought him more attuned to his rage. After all, he wasn't to stop at UmbrellaKyle wanted more. Kyle wanted to destroy everything. He wanted to end the existence that created his suffering. The world was to feel the endand he was going to be its herald. Like the god Mercury delivering the message of death to the world. He couldn't stop at Umbrellahe just couldn't. The terror would begin again if he stopped there, it would grow back like the freshly-cut tail of a regenerate lizard. Umbrella would not be the end. They were not the end to the whole menace. Kyle knew the solution, and it was not a very pretty solution. The menace in the world were people—they created nothing but the destruction. They were all like Umbrella. Umbrella infected the worldlike mankind. Kyle wanted to end it all. He wanted to purify the world he was born in. Purify it by ending the human race.

If the Kyle that had died a few months back ever came to see the intentions of this new Kyle at workhe would have done everything in his power to stop him.

But he couldn't come back nowthat Kyle was dead. Umbrella murdered him.

And Umbrella will pay. The world that came to create it will pay as well.

But first things first, the R.P.D. he wanted dead will be dealt with now. He knew the remainders of them were waiting for him here. Chief Irons told him that. Irons had the whole plan set up. Everything was plotted from Umbrella using the authority of the Chief. Kyle was the latest murderer posing as his nearly identical cousin William Birkin. Umbrella ordered him to eliminate any key players that would serve as a direct threat to the experiment. Doing so would provide the media and the uncorrupted officers time to waste as they ignored the suspicion that would lead to the experiment. And at this moment, they were to gather all the remaining threats of the experiment to this barn and wipe them all out. Soon, the corrupted SWAT team would enter the barn and destroy the remaining R.P.D. from inside. After that, the experiment code-named Contagion would run its final order through the release of the Tyrant specimens. The rate of death would then be measured. The experiment would go as planned.

Or would it? Ha. Kyle Somers had some of his own plans in mind.

He first ignored Irons' order by refusing to eliminate the Rookie cop Leon Kennedy—there were other businesses Kyle wanted to be dealt with. A contradiction in ideas was present. Irons wanted the Rookie dead; Kyle wanted Umbrella to perish. The result ended in the annihilation of the scientists down in the Hospital Labalong with other murders he was grateful for. Kennedy would survive for the time being—there was no significance in his death for now. He was to die from the experiment anyway. There was no escaping the T-Virus. Along with thatthe new G-Virus was loose as well.

Kyle Somers laid out his blades on the table. He neatly assembled an armory of scalpels, hooks, knives, and other utensils over the table. The tools filled the tabletop, leaving no room for anything else. Kyle strained his ears and heard more squad cars parking outside the barn—their multi-colored lights flashed through the crevices.

"Step out with your hands behind your back!" the megaphone from outside blared. "We know you are in thereif you do not choose to comply, we will use force. There will be no negotiations, step out with your hands behind your back!"

Kyle ran the tip of his meat hook alongside his sharpening block. The sound that it gave out rang into his ears with slick satisfaction. He smiled.

The sound of a large truck arrived. Kyle peered from a small crevice on the wall and saw a small band of darkly-dressed men break out and close in toward the barn. They were armed with assault weaponsmost likely MP5s and others. The letters SWAT were written over their black vests. Kyle smiled again.

The end is near, he thought over, smiling. The end is near

He pressed the tip of his meat hook against the sharpening block in his left hand. He tightened both hands, bringing his arms to shiver as he added the pressure in between the tip and the block. With one sliding movement, he let go a bundle of shimmering sparks to shower over and disappear onto the table's surface.

His saviors had arrivedand they were to be his bait for destruction.

29

Leon held his breath before the door. All right Officer Kennedy, his thoughts pondered, what questions do you have in store for our lovely contestant? Will it be, Question A: "Ma'am, noises were heard last night from your neighborswas your husband fucking you really hard, or was he just busy hangin up new collections of a rather beefy body count? You tell me, bitch! I'm a copand there's no bullshit there! Don't you look at me like that! I am the law, and does this look like The People's Court' to you? Hell nooo it isn't. Right now, you're on Death Row, baby. Wrong answers will only get you closer to that lethal injection, so tell me what happened!"

Or Question B?

"Mrs. Birkin, I understand that your current relationship with your husband has been quiteshaky,' I must say. Can you please detail the latest events on what happened so that I can assure your safety? Doing so will only be helpful in serving to protect you, Mrs. Birkin."

Leon thought over the questions. Of course he had to do Question B. Question A seemed a good thing best reserved for his upcoming Cops episodes (if he was to get any). Yeah, that was a better idea.

But he still liked Question A.

"I guess today, I won't be squeezing answers out of this lady," Leon said to himself. "I have to make her comfortable before letting her spit out those details."

Leon chuckled as he felt the breeze blow at his hair. Since the afternoon back in the Northeast Section, the breeze had been growing in intensity. Guess Leon could now call that breeze windinstead of a breeze. Get it? Wind instead of a breeze!

Leon, his inner voice called out, scolding at his last pointless observation, you stupid dumbass! Get your mind straight and finish this assignment!

Leon then nodded before scratching his head. Pointless thoughtsyeah, pointless thoughts

He stopped at the door and knockedbefore beginning to bang at it.

"Hello, ma'am!" Leon hollered like a dying farm boy. "This is Officer Kennedy of the R.P.D., I'd like to have a word with you! Please open up!"

As if Leon hadn't noticed before, he found the doorbell and pressed it several times. The muffled chimes from inside made its way into his ears. He was hoping to get that woman's attention. Leon waited for her response.

After a whilethere was nothing. No response. Nada. Ziltch.

Leon sighed. He brought his arm back and rapped the door again. This time he was hitting it with enough force to shake the windows.

"Mrs. Birkin!" Leon barked, "If you refuse to open this door, I swear, lady, I'm gonna break it down and come after yah! This is Officer Kennedy, you have one minute before I bust in and arrest you!"

Nobody came to open the door.

That's it, Leon thought to himself, if that bitch doesn't wanna open the door for the lawthen I'm gonna have to do some unlawful entry. To act up on me on my first day on the forcethat's gotta take one big fuck—

The door openedslowly. It opened by itself.

A small gust of wind flicked some of Leon's hair. He backed away, wide eyed, staring at what caused it to open. He looked at the knob.

The bolts fastening the door were broken through—not by Leon's intensified knockingbut something else.

Leon took a deep breath as he drew out his pistol, holding it so that the barrel was facing downward. He backed himself beside the door, silencing himself. In the position he was in, the door was now to his right as he held down his VP70 with straightened arms. He then neared his head toward the door. For some reason, he was expecting something to rush out that doorway adjacent to him.

Leon examined the wooden slots where the bolts were supposed to slide into. They were smashed through. Splinters of the wood were splayed forth from where they were broken from. From the looks of it, somebody must of beat Leon to the bounty. That somebody forced his way in though the door and went insidenow the question is, how long ago did this event occur? Was it a minute ago? Last night?

Shit, it could've been anytime during the day.

Leon sidestepped until he was at the edge of the entrance. With his left leg, he swung his foot around and kicked the door open. He then spun around and burst through the doorway, gun drawn up and looking down the hall for any targets worth pumping some lead into. Nothing.

He was standing in a sunny hallway leading into the living room. To his right, the entrance to the kitchen was there, with nice tiles and pots placed around their respective places. Leon kept the grip on his gun firm and easy. He quietly stepped into the kitchen, scanning around with his pistol. His eyes shifted around as well. Amongst the silence Leon just stepped into, he saw the clean counter and the silver sink before him. The dishes were stowed away within the cupboards; the table had no food or stains on it. A large, forest-green bottle of Palmolive sat at the corner of the sink, looking unused. The glowing digits on the dishwasher winked at him. The place was clean. There was nothing, absolutely nothing here that could catch the attention of a watchful cop on assignment.

Except for whatever just moved in the corner of his eye.

He swung toward the movement in the living room, eyes widening to where he threw his aim at. Whatever it was, it scared the hell out of him. The white thing in the edge of his eye bulged, seeming to come forth and rush toward him. Leon readied his gun at it and prepared to pull the trigger.

He paused, staring at it. He relaxed his trigger finger.

The thing—or the white curtain swaying from the opened window—waved outward and feathered down at him. The wind outside caused its surface to ripple along its edges as it floated around the area it was confined to.

A sigh of relief exited from Leon's mouth as he kept his foresights aimed up at the curtain. He peered into the living room, continuing to take small steps through the area.

As Leon took his careful steps into the living room, a faint sound began to break the dead silence. It interrupted the haunting noise of the wind and grew louder with Leon's approaching steps. He strained his ears to hear it as the wind continued to blow through the opened window.

Creak

Leon stopped, swiveling his head to face its direction. It sounded like a rocking chair with old, dried out wood.

Creak

It was coming from the other side of the living room—just around the corner from where Leon was sneaking across. He stepped closer, hearing the sound become more clear to his senses. As it grew louder, it began to get monotonous.

SqueeeeeakSqueeeeeak.

Leon brought himself closer to where the sound originated from. He threw his backside against the wall beside the corner. Around that corner was where the sound was originating from. He tightened the grip to his gun. Whatever noise that was around the corner caused his heart to leapt out of control. It was as if some ghost was moving an object around...the ghost of Annette or something else.

He shrugged the thought of ghosts aside and threw himself to pivot around the corner while bringing his sidearm over his head in a similar fashion to chopping wood. When Leon went through the movement, readying his trigger finger to fire at will, he stopped short, staring through the sights of his VP70. His eyes widened in terror. Leon swallowed hard at what his eyes observed beyond the small bump protruding from the tip of his barrel. It was Annette.

Or what was left of her.

Her body floated a few feet from the table she was dangling overshe steadily inched back and forth while uttering that cacophonous squeeeeeak, squeeeeeak sound. Her body was supported in the air by a large meat hook. It was attached to a long chain coiling around the chandelier. From the position where Leon was looking at her, her body was slouched forward—forcibly bent that way. It was like that because of the meat hook forced through her abdomen. The curved hook began through her back while worming its way up from her left breast and into her right eye. The barbed end—syruped with drying blood and the strands of her hair—stuck out from the back of her head like a harpoon. Blood drenched her face, masking it with the blackening liquid. The liquid trickled down her legs and dripped onto the dinner table from the tip of her feet. Her toes became spigots of blood.

Leon continued to stare at the body hanging from the coiled rod. His arms were still held up to aim at her—he was simply too shocked to move them once he saw this. The fingers keeping the gun to his palms began to grow cold from the trembling in his hand. After a while, Leon shut his eyes and pressed his arm to his face as he turned around and bent over, shaking his head in horror.

"Oh, Jesus" he cried out, trying hard to pull the image from of his head.

But it was still there.

Annette Birkin continued to sway in his mind while the hook coiled out her breast and into her eye. Leon hadn't noticed this at first, but he saw her intestines—her fucking organs for crying out loud—pulled from her throat and tightened around her neck. Her throat was lacerated. Flaps of the skin were poking from where the intestines were tied around her neck. Her mouth gaped down at him, locked in an eternal scream. Instead of sound exiting her mouth, bundles of intestines poured from it.

Leon shook his head again, hoping the picture would go away with it. It still wouldn't. It was permanently grooved to the surface of his brain. What he just saw that very moment was to live on and torment him without taking a vacation.

"Dammit" Leon whispered, sealing his eyelids shut, "why, out of all the days in my life, do I have to end up seeing this on my first day on the job!"

He managed to regain control of his body and brought himself to lurch around the corner from where he came from. He rested his back to the wall and slid down to sit on his numbing ass. His head dropped to his knees.

The MeatHook Mangler, he thought while feeling the weight of his pistol pressing on his shin. Whywhy the Hell would he murder his own wife? How could he stand hoisting her up high over the ground like that?

The answer was sitting in front of Leon's face! Of course!

"The guy's a serial killer" Leon sighed to himself, "of course he'd do something controversial, something all sick and twisted like his reputation is."

But there was something wrong here, Leon's mind prodded, the whole idea of me coming down here has some dark ring to it that I don't like. I don't know what it is, but someone was here before meand he was probably waiting for me to arrive. He was expecting me here—knew I was to get here after he was done doing his thing. But for some damn reason, he didn't take advantage of it. He's not here.

The MeatHook Mangler was at the barnit was supposed to end right now.

The wind pushing at the curtains threw a gust causing the trees outside to make that swishing sound. Moving before Leon's blank face, the white curtain bulged forward like the sails to a boat.

He had to get out of here. Somehow, something eerie was happening that either involved the Chief or the whole city. The streets Leon patrolled were ridiculously empty; the important witness was murdered; the contamination was still running its course, and the awkward chase of that serial killer was about to end. What a day!

Leon left the house and walked down the porch toward his car. He felt sorry for the daughter having to live through this. Really, he did. She was the one that would probably end up in some intense counseling for the whole psychotic family deal. But what was her name? He paused for a moment, trying to remember what the estranged couple named the kid. Was it Shirley? Cherry? Sally? Cher? He forgot.

The intercom in his car was blistering from the heat. The rubber wire coiling from the handset felt soft and rather squishy. He stretched it toward his face.

"HQ—0069, I'm gonna need a forensics team down here at Cammy St. in the Eastern Section, over."

What Leon received in return was a distress call.

"All units," the voice crackled through the speaker, "repeat, all units on duty report to the barn outside Raccoon. Backup is needed. We will need as many officers here as possible. This order directed from the Chief shall be acknowledged under all circumstances, all units"

"Well looky here," a smile began to inch across Leon's lips. The darkness of the day was already beginning to vanish. "Looks to me as if the R.P.D. needs a welcoming hand" He tightened the gloves in his hands and backed the car out of the driveway. He continued to smile, forgetting what he last saw in the house.

Although when his eyes glanced at the bodies floating over Cammy Street, Royal Residential Housing, the cheery smile on his face disappeared.

More bodies hung from meat hooks. What Leon missed when he first came down here was revealing itself before his very-stunned eyes. Like cattle from the slaughter-house, masses of corpses hung from every house down the street. They swayed from the rough breeze. The bodies stood out in Leon's eyes as dark shapes. Dark shapes that used to be part of the living. Leon bit his lower lip as he drove away, trying to keep his sanity from slipping into the darker regions of disturbing thoughts. Even though it was his first day on the force, it better not be his last day also. It better not be.

Leon's squad car rushed away toward the barn, eventually leaving Raccoon City and the nightmare that followed. He was unaware of everything—unaware of the recent city-wide blackout, the loss of all media and communication, the loss of balance within the city limits, and the orders of Contagion. He was reluctant to be unaware of it all.

Beyond the Birkin household, in the vast plain stretching toward the mountains, the dead tree Leon initially observed sat crumbling in the distance. From the house, he was unable to see the bodies dangling from the gnarled branches. All this time, they were here. They dangled from the dead tree like Christmas ornaments. Meat hooks curved out from their bellies as they hoisted them up to dry in the sun. The MeatHook Mangler wanted it that way. The skin on some of the bodies pruned away to expose the pink flesh beneath. Their lips were pulled back to show their teeth in a fearsome sneer.

A batch of crows perching beside them tilted their heads to study the wrinkled masses. A few of them cawed when the wind brushed their feathers. One of them leapt on a corpse's shoulder and pecked at his eye. Another two followed the first, clawing into his shirt and tore away his chest, bringing blood to flow all over their dark feathers. They then burrowed their beaks into the man's heart, feasting on it as they tore away strips of the ventricle. They cawed in the breeze before the sun sinking in the distance.

By the time the crows finished with the corpse, the man's face was a gnashed mess of flapped skin and stringy flesh. They were hungry for more. The force that drove them to behave this way rested in their blood. The T-Virus colonized within the network of their bloodstream flowed abundantly, bringing out the evil contained from within their very existence. They left in search for better meat—to fuel and consume for the biological monster enslaving them. Their wings guided them through the breeze, bringing them over buildings and the dead below them. They wanted more.

They wanted live prey.

30

6:55 P.M., R.P.D. Station

Brian Irons walked up from behind Elliot Edward and shot him in the back. He did that so gracefully. Irons watched as his magnum threw Eds forward and slammed him onto the floor. The gun drilled a hole in him so round and symmetrical, he could look right through it and smile. In fact, as Eds writhed helplessly on the floor, clutching at his heart in a slow, painful death, Irons was smiling.

Beautifulit was simply exquisite.

He watched as Eds struggled with his life. The pool of blood surrounding the old man painted him red. After a while, the white skin of the frail officer soaked to a steady red. He sloshed in his own puddle while bringing his eyes to look up at Irons. The eyes were widened in disbelief, like a deer's eyes before a pair of headlights.

"There, there, Edward," Irons cooed coldly, "death is a pleasant cycle in life. There is nothing like the finale a soul undergoes before leaving the bodyit is as beautiful as birthif not more breathtaking."

"You—you b-bastard," Eds growled up at him, his mouth full of blood, "h-how could you? I suppose you fucked the r-rest of the R.P.D. as well!"

Irons stared down at him silently. His intentions were cold. He wanted to hunt them all down if he could—he had a change in heart for the remaining survivors. "Your friends at the barn are dead," Irons said, "they'll die in the same manner as I will execute everybody else in this fucking station. You think I'll stop here, Eds? Do you think me, the police Chief of the R.P.D., will stop here?"

Eds did not respond. To be shot in the heart, the old man was strong to have lived long enough to speak. Irons stared at the dying officer. Eds began to gag on the blood in his throat, coughing down to speckle the white floor with it. His face began losing its color as his twitching stopped. He died with his eyes open.

Irons stepped over his body, walking off toward the East Office. He would search for the mayor's daughter, Eliza. He was going to cherish this new trophy for his collection. He will kill everyone else if he has to.

And nobody was here to stop him, oh yes, nobody.

"Seal the windows!" Willie screamed from under the gunfire, "Garrett, seal all the fucking windows!" He raised his pistol at the zombie grabbing at him and blew its head back from where it came from. Willie then slammed the boards over the opening and smashed the nails through it, keeping it in place.

"We cannot hold them back any longer!" Rick cried from behind him, "Willie, we've gotta get outta here! They're all over the station, there's no way we can hold them back with the worthless police shit we have here!"

"Look!" Willie shouted from amongst the gunshots and screams. He grabbed Rick's shoulders. "We have to buy ourselves some time so we can fix this radio and warn the others about the current situation—it's all a set-up, I tell you! Everybody down at the barn is gonna die if we don't warn them this very second!"

Rick's eyes were filled with a confused mix of angst and puzzlement. He threw his hands to his head and screamed in frustration. "Willie, if we stay here any longer—we're all either gonna die or turn into one of those, those fucking things—your choice: you wanna stay here and die honorably for the R.P.D.—that's fine with me, but shit, I won't be there to support you!"

"I wanna go home to my lovely fiancée as much as you wanna see your bitch, Rick, but if you want to be on the winning side, you have to help me rally the rest of the cops to come down here and save our pretty assesyou in?"

Rick took a moment to reply. He eventually took a reluctant nod.

The boards shattered above them, spilling strips of wood all over Willie's head. Arms began shooting around, probing for something to grab. Rick stood up and pumped the zombies back with whatever slugs he had leftthere were only two clips left. Willie continued working on the radio. For some reason, it wasn't picking up the correct frequency. He twisted the wire and splayed the other end to meet another, as he pinched at the circuits and sliced around the knobdid he really know exactly what he was doing? Nope. What Willie was counting on was a miracle, and that miracle was supposed to come at aroundnow.

The radio crackled, brushing out the snowy sounds. It then sounded out a high-pitched screech of frequency that sounded like a teakettle's whistles. The grating crackle continued, causing Willie to lose his patience. He carefully shifted the wire around and heard the grating sounds begin to fadethen reappear again. Willie screamed in agony.

He brought his fist down on the radio, sending some pieces of its assembly to sail off and land on the floor. His bloody hands snatched up the radio. He pressed it against his face, hoping that it still worked and his message would get through.

"Everybody!" Willie yelled in frantic desperation, "all units! It's a trap—it's a fucking trap! Move out from the barn immediately! All units pull back from the barn! The SWAT team is corrupted!"

31

6:58 P.M., The Barn

The SWAT team opened fire on the R.P.D. Their weapons spitting bullets from inside the barn brushed holes across the cars and caused a few of them to explode. The MP5s impaled dozens of officers and brought a growing number of them to their knees. The SWAT inside kept their steady flow of fire consistent as they mauled the roof off of a squad car. They aimed with frightening accuracy, pinning down scrambling officers while nailing another with bullet after bullet from their machine guns. The gunshots rapidly bursting from their barrels rocked the barn with cacophonous roars.

"Move out from the barn immediately!" Willie's voice crackled from one of the police cars, "all units pull back from the barn! The SWAT team is corrupted! I repeat, the SWAT team has been ordered by Irons to eradicate the rest of the R.P.D.!"

Willie's miracle in making his radio work happened—but he was too late.

Ty Roberts threw himself over the hood to his car, taking five bullets in his chest. He fell back behind his Caprice and took in his last breath of air. In his own mind, he was acknowledging Willie's warning about the whole situation, and how it turned out to be right. It was a set-up, the whole thing did turn out to be too good to be true. He should of listened to Willie back at the coroner's house when he had the chance.

The R.P.D. retaliated with the force of their pistols and revolvers. They ducked behind their cars and fired back whenever they had a chance. A few of them tried radioing for backup. Amongst that few, a couple of them had their heads split apart from the zipping bullets. Their blood splashed all over the windshields. A female officer screamed as she fell over, her face shredded from the flying glass.

The SWAT team then tossed grenades at the barricade, each of them landing below a car. With a shattering flash, each car exploded in a fiery wall of flame, engulfing the screaming officers behind. A few of the Chevys flipped in the air, landing on the pile of corpses laying dead below. The team—with only two wounded, and one dead—picked off the remaining survivors. They did that so easily.

Kyle Somers watched with intent as the SWAT team sprayed their bullets outside. The noises rattled the barn, echoing into his ears as it sputtered and reverberated like the strike of a thunderclap. He watched the casings of ammunition rain forth from their weapons and pound the floor in silent thuds. The ground was already filled with hundreds of spent cartridges. Their gold-yellow appearance stood out from the darker complexion of the earth. Excellent, the R.P.D. was now dealt with.

Now it was time to finish off the rest of them—the corrupted portion, it was.

Kyle unsheathed a pair of hooks from the table and walked beside one of the SWAT members. The lost soul hadn't any idea Kyle was standing before him. He swung around and sent the barbed tip through his head—the horizontal swipe came in from one end of his ear and rushed out the other. The man screamed, his pleas muffled by the deafening gunfire; his hands shot up to his ears, which were dribbling with blood from the hook. Kyle picked up the machine gun the man had dropped and squeezed the trigger. He pointed it to his face, mashing the man's head into a pulp. Once the magazine ran dry, he snatched the pulley and hung the corrupted member using his other hook.

"A message to Umbrella," Kyle hissed, "you have sourly dampened my life to its fullest extentnow I shall return my favors." He turned around and picked up a grenade and a few extra clips of ammunition for the MP5. He reloaded the gun.

A bunch of them had gathered around one end, continuing to fire outside—they were unaware of the danger that lied ahead. Kyle pulled the pin to the grenade and tossed it into the center of the group. They gawked at the rolling projectile landing beside their feet, wishing to themselves that it wasn't a grenade. They then looked back up at him.

"The Hell—" one of them shouted. And their bodies sailed into the air.

The explosion shredded a few of them, ripping them apart while it splashed blood over the interior of the barn. Bundles of dust and other farm particles filled the air. A couple of them flew into a spiked bed of scrap wood, immediately impaled from the deadly myriad. They screamedscreamed in agony, just like how Somers wanted it be. Their blood painted itself over the walls along every surface around their vicinity. They clawed at the ground, trying to the reach for their weapons.

Kyle opened fire on all of them. His grip on the MP5 displayed a lot more control than his earlier experiences with firearms. He now knew how to use them, and he was to use them to their fullest extent.

The ones crawling over the ground shook painfully—wailing from the lead piercing them. Blood sprayed from their splitting wounds as it rushed out their mouths with ripping spasms. The gun in Kyle's hands shook and sputtered in his arms. The flash from the barrel was dazzling—it lit the barn in brilliant light. Kyle could see all the damage. A few of them opened up in a grotesque show of raw, gaping flesh.

"Somers!" a voice from behind him called out, "just what in God's name are you doing—"

He spun around, keeping his finger locked on the trigger and mangled the man behind him. A trail of bursting tissue ran horizontally across his stomach, ending at his hand, which splashed in bits of minced fingers. He cried out loud, holding at his missing hand before falling back to die.

"Somers, cease your fire! I repeat, cease your fire!"

Kyle sent the bullets to that voice as well. The SWAT member tried firing back at him, but instead took in the lead expenditures and fell from the beam above. He crashed to the ground in a dead thud. Kyle heard others rushing behind him just when his magazine began to exhaust. He darted at the bodies on the ground, letting go of his weapon.

The gunfire behind him caused the ground to shoot up before his feet as he threw himself onto the pile of bodies on the floor. He grabbed one corpse and rolled away, using it to shield the bullets coming his way. He pulled out a pistol from the body's waist and drew out his arm, rapidly firing at the targets he centered in his foresight. The corrupted enforcer he aimed at convulsed from each shot Kyle pumped into him. He fell back, tightly grasping at his wounds. After a few seconds, he died.

The body shielding Kyle burst apart. The gunner ahead of him using the shotgun took cover behind a wall. Kyle grimaced at the wound eating his left shoulder. A few of the bearings had been lodged there. Pain was only a reminder that you were still alive. He rolled and took cover behind a wall.

So they wanted to play a gameUmbrella's little puppets wanted to play.

Kyle crouched and grabbed two grenades, pulling off the rings from both of them. He waited, and watched for the man with the shotgun.

The gunner left his cover and fired in Kyle's position. The shot struck at the cement block he was hiding from, sending bits of solid grey matter over the ground. Kyle smiled and pitched both lemon-shaped explosives at the SWAT member. He chuckled.

The man reacted to the grenades by leaping off to one side, shooting at Kyle as he fell down. The explosion missed the gunman.

But the bullets Kyle hurled at him didn't

He left his place behind the corner and closed in on the writhing body. Kyle threw away the pistol he had on his hand and pulled out a scalpel. The almond-shaped blade shone at the edges where the surgical sharpness reached the height of its deadliness as a weapon.

The body of Capt. Sam Rubens desperately inched away from Kyle's approach. He glared at Kyle with fear-induced eyes as he dragged himself backwards in a crab position. The dangerous leader of the operation was now helpless before the murderer. He was the last of them, and he was reduced to nothing. Nothing.

"Rubens," The MeatHook Mangler called out melodiously, "have you ever felt the pain of a distraught Umbrella scientist who has been used, consumed, and left outside to rot away in his own garbage?"

Rubens gasped, his breath stuttering as he exhaled from his fading lungs. The SWAT commander refused to speak, only striving to slide away once Kyle drew closer.

"Well then" Kyle acknowledged. "I guess I'll take that as a nowhich will grant me the right to allow me to help you feel what it is like to be me, good Sam. And since you work for those clowns from UmbrellaI will take every pleasure in dismembering you piece by piece."

The look on Rubens' face flushed in despair. "You're crazy," he cried, shaking his head. "My God, what have they done to you?! You're fucking insane! They've twisted you—it's about your wife isn't it? This is all just nothing but a personal vendetta you wish to prove! I bet you—"

"Now, now, Rubens," Kyle interrupted. "I am not the crazy one who created this darker side of me—ask your superiors' that question. Ask the superiors who hired me and saw my wife as some opportunity for experimentation. Ask your brilliant superiors who chose to test their toys on Raccoon. Ask your fucking superiors who HIRED ME TO KILL! ASK THEM, RUBENS, TELL THEM WHAT THEY BENEFIT FROM ALL THIS! And you know what, Sam? I'm sick of all this experimentation. These wonders of science bring the worse out of mankindand you can sure as hell say that it has brought the worse out of me. Because of me, the fourth order of Contagion will be canceled, and Umbrella's little experiment will be put to a halt. For Umbrella to clean up, I'll just leave the city to rot as their precious G-Virus decomposes along with it. I'm sure Birkin wanted it that way"

"What did you do to Birkin? Just, what in Hell happened to the lab?"

Kyle paused a little, fidgeting with his scalpel. "Let's just say I've handled them in a way so creative, your mind won't be able to comprehend it." He smiled.

Rubens glowered up at him, gritting his teeth in rushing anger. "You bastard you—youyou wait and see what'll I do to you once I see you in HELL!."

"I've already seen enough of what you can do, Sam, and you've seen enough of those days as well. I'll make sure of it all ends for you now."

Kyle unsheathed his hook and sliced its edge through Rubens' severed abdomen. Rubens yelped pathetically, his arms spread out as he stared at the hook protruding from his abdomen. Kyle tied a rope to the end of the hook and heard him scream again before tossing it over the beams supporting the roof. He used the rope as a pulley mechanism to hoist up Rubens' body until it was level with his own face. Once he was finished with the process, he looked into Rubens' groaning face as the body swayed to and fro in midair.

He raised his scalpel at the dying man. Kyle Somers then cut him apart.

Using neat strokes with the scalpel, Kyle cut his shirt open, revealing the bare chest pierced with the silver hook. It jutted from his body, curving outward with rivers of blood sluicing over his belly. The series of bullet wounds inflicted on him showed up as smoldering, blown-out flesh. Kyle then stabbed the scalpel into the center of his chest, causing half of the whole surgical tool to sink under the bare skin. With one movement, he forced the scalpel down, cleaving apart the abdomen. Rubens' organs spilled out.

The slimy texture of the intestines, stomach, and the gushing heart felt warm in Kyle's cold hands. Blood rushed from the cavernous opening in buckets. They fell to the dirt ground, sending up a cloud of dust. Kyle relished the smell of Rubens' body. It reeked with that rusting stench of blood, along with the sour smell of bodily fluids and the acid oozing from his stomach.

The MeatHook Mangler then grabbed the rest of the bodies in the barn and hung them, filling the interior with a whole assortment of dangling corpses. He collected bodies from the R.P.D. as well. The inside of the barn was soon filled with floating remains of men and women swaying from the wind pushing them. Once Kyle finished his work, he collected the weapons from the dead and piled them inside the SWAT truck. He then set it aflame, watching the fire consume the vehicle and the contents inside.

After that, he went back into the barn and sat down, thinking alone to himself.

32

7:50 P.M., The Barn

Carlos Monterósa let his head bang against the car door. The silence was already too unsettling for him to remain still. He shouldn't be making any noises. In fact, he shouldn't even be moving at all. Whatever happened to the cops out here must have been intense so intense, it left cars all around him in blazes. He pulled the handset to his face.

"0519, requesting backup at the barn, over," he spoke into the mic. He had been repeating that message for over twenty times. And he hadn't had any response.

Carlos peered from behind his car, making sure the killer inside wouldn't see him. Just a minute ago, the flames seething from the SWAT truck had calmed, leaving the vehicle to waste away as a black, smoldering cube. Carlos remembered watching the man in the lab coat walk out with the container of gasoline and setting the vehicle on fire. It was an uncomfortable experience hiding behind his car while worrying The MeatHook Mangler would find him. All it took was one glance of those huge hooks, and your mind was suddenly in that fleeing mode. Pissing your pants would be the best thing you could do.

And that was why Carlos was trying to radio for backup since he got here.

Irons planned the whole operation to work—he schemed the entire planhow could it fail? He had what looked like half the R.P.D. here, along with his best assembly of the SWAT to back them up and you're telling me it all didn't work against one guy?

Carlos shook his head. Hell no, was it that way. Monterósa was a cop for five years—there was no way a plan so ambitious could end up in smoke and ashes. It was impossibleone guy took everyone out? Just one guy? Carlos couldn't bring himself to except the fact. It was all over his head.

Then there was the radio silence thing—what was the deal there? He was sure the rest of the department was already wrapping up the contamination thing back in the Northern Section, as well as the others. How could they refuse to reply to Carlos' pleas? The station was probably packed with cops without anything to dothat was usually the problem with the R.P.D. these days, there was just hardly any action going on. Life seemed to be so uneventful and boring. Well, after overlooking the events of the past few months, there were now a lot of exceptions to that problem.

Carlos thumbed his radio again. "HQ, this is 0519, I am in need of backup outside of the barn now, over." He sighed in despair. Nobody was coming—not a living soul

Although Carlos' luck changed. From the distance facing him, before the disappearing horizon reddening the sky, Carlos Monterósa saw a car. The car was driving fast enough to bellow clouds of dust behind it. It was headed for his direction—toward him. Carlos watched the details of the vehicle develop before smiling to himself. The black and white of the car merged together with the colorful siren, creating the one thing Carlos wanted to see since he got here. A squad carfinally, a fellow R.P.D. officer!

Except this R.P.D. officer was a little of something beyond his expectations.

This guy was driving fast enough to be eligible for a ticket. His Chevy Caprice cut across the dusty plain as if he were running from the sun. The car was definitely doing around 70 or 80 mphall Carlos can conclude about this guy for the moment is that he was either a gung-ho fanatic or some crazed-out Rookie.

Oh Jesusplease don't let this be some crazed-out Rookieoh God, please

The car braked, power-sliding freely across the rough earth until it stopped a number of feet from Carlos' face. The door immediately opened, bringing out a loud variety of noises. There goes the idea of being inconspicuous, Carlos thought, shaking his head at the cop ahead of him. The cop emerged from his car and slammed the door so hard, there was now absolutely no way the killer inside could have missed hearing that. Goddamn, what is he gonna do nextstart shooting in the air?

The officer, dressed in the strangest police outfit Carlos had ever seen in the course of his career, came out and greeted him. He was dressed in blue—with the tightest pair of pants squeezing his groin together. Geez, how can his privates live through that? Along his chest, he had on a bulletproof breastplate with the letters R.P.D. bolded over it. Along his hands, those finger-less, black gloves covered over them. Clutched in his right hand was a rather fancy pistol that Carlos couldn't identify. The cop smiled at him.

"Hey, sup hombre. Name's Leon Kennedy, a pleasure to be of your help."

Carlos looked up at Leon blankly. Ah, what the Hell, he thought, at least I've got somebody here to back me up. He then smiled back. "Hey, el gusto es mío," Carlos replied as he brought out a hand, "Officer Monterósajust call me Carlos."

"Carlos, eh?" Leon said, taking his hand. "It's a damn pleasure to be working for you on my first day."

The smile on Carlos' face began to deteriorate. "First day?" he asked in horror.

"Yep, first day on the job," Leon said, smiling before him. "Academy hardened me, showed me the ropes, and taught me how to shoot straight. Graduated number one in my class and am proud to be here to back you up."

Oh boy, Carlos thought to himself, this guy better be a lot better than I think he isoh boyI call for backup and end up getting an Academy graduate. Nice.

Well, but at least he said he was number one in his class, Carlos thought again, trying to make his contradiction brighten the situation. He then nodded his head slowly, very slowly. It was to be one long, long day today.

33

"So you're telling me that you've been waiting for backup once you got here, but haven't had anyone but me arrive?" Leon asked, surprised. "And what the Hell happened here!?"

Carlos nodded, pulling out his silver revolver. "Leon, I've tried radioing for backup for what seemed like days, and not a living soul has peered their ass down here but you. And to answer your question of what happened hereI simply don't know."

Leon nodded, bringing his eyes at the barn ahead of him. "So he's still in there—The MeatHook Mangler—he's still hiding back there in some corner wiping his ass."

Carlos nodded again. He flipped out the cylinder to his gun and checked the bullets inside. "I've seen the guy walk out a few times—I'm pretty sure he didn't know my whereabouts. But when you came sliding in, I think he's pretty sure both you and me are here now." He snapped the cylinder in place. "We've better rush in and nab this fucker while we still have a chance. I mean, he could try to escape."

Leon sat down next to Carlos. He tried doing that quietly this time—never meant to piss off the Mexican hombre when he first arrived. That was Leon's style, he was sorry to say—everything began and ended with a bang.

He thought out the plan in his head. Was it really going to work out with the two of them bursting in, guns drawn, while Birkin lurked inside? Something didn't sound right in that judgement. He had an idea.

"Carlos, I've got a plan here," Leon said out.

The eyebrows over his eyes rose in surprise. "Really?"

"YeahI've thought about this a little. You see the barn there?" Leon pointed at the strange construction of the building ahead of them.

"I seewhat are you trying to tell me. Make it quick."

"That's no ordinary barna killer of that caliber wouldn't hide himself in a place that was all open and empty like an average barn—there'd just be no place to hide. I'm guessing the interior of that thing resembles something like a maze—a little house of horrors where he's confident to rush out and kill whenever he wants to."

Carlos nodded to what Leon said. "Okay, and what can we conclude from this, Mr. Scholar."

Leon took a deep breath. Surely, he had feelings of how much this whole thing made sense to himit just came to him. "I'm saying if the place is like a maze—we'd better stick together, because we are at a 2-against-1 situation. If we were to stick close, then he'd only be able to get one of us—you got that? And if he either got you or me, then one of us could bag him right there while he was busy with the one he just pounced."

He saw a look of enlightenment from Carlos. "But what if he's already killed the one he's just caught? Orwhat if he takes that one hostage? What is there to do?"

Leon smiled. "If Birkin kills one of us, then that'll give either of us a chance to kill him right there without worrying about hitting the wrong guy. But if this Mangler wants to take a hostage to buy some time, I'd say one of us just shoot him regardless of what he may do to the hostageAcademy taught me that."

"You're shitting me, Academy taught you that? Damn, I wouldn't wanna be the one caught by him if you're gonna do that to me."

"No," Leon chuckled, shaking his head, "I was only playing with you. Anyway, the plan: if the place is wide and open, we can spread around as long as we can see each other. If the place is like a fucking mazethen I say we stick really close and never lose sight of each otherthat's my plan."

"Sounds like Academy crap to me," Carlos said heartily. "But it sounds good, Rookie. A bit crude, but nothing that'll get us killed."

Leon was beginning to like this guy. "All right then, Carlos, let's go catch The MeatHook Mangler, you follow me and look for my orders, got that?"

Carlos suddenly found himself noddinghe was actually taking orders from this Rookie cop. "Uhokay," he acknowledged, as if his mind was being controlled.

And the strangest thing was the fact that he didn't mind taking orders from this Rookie. Five years in the force and this Leon Kennedy only on his first day, Carlos Monterósa actually felt no shame taking his orders. Now that was strange.

The two policemen rushed toward the massive structure, guns drawn and ready for the hunt. One of them, a burly, young Veteran, stood by the gate with his .38 revolver held up to his right cheek. The other, a younger Rookie of about moderate build, held down his H&K VP70 before the opposite side of the gate. They both looked at each other, communicating with their eyes over how they'd get the gate open. The Veteran took a few glances at the wood entrance of the barn. He then nodded to the Rookie. The Rookie nodded back while moving his eyes toward the large bar locking the entrance in place. Once the bar was released, the door could be opened. Silence crept in between the officers as they sidestepped toward the door. A crow hovered over the barn, voicing caws directed at the dying day. Clouds were forming over the red-orange sky. They were dark, grey, and leaden in texture. They loomed ahead and began to cover the sun's masterpiece.

The Rookie grit his teeth and kicked up the black bar holding the entrance in place. It flew out from its base and flipped onto the ground. Once the dust fumed up from its impact with the dirt, the Veteran shot forward and kicked open the double doors. He used one well-placed thrust at the center. The doors flung open.

And the cops burst inside.

"What the Hell" Carlos gasped, eyeing the dozens of bodies hovering above them.

Leon swallowed hard, keeping himself from getting nauseous at the sight.

Blood dripped from above, raining over the both of them as it left red stains on their clothing. The bodies—all of the bodies—hung from meat hooks lodged through their abdomens. Leon saw one corpse that hardly looked like a body at all—there were so many organs pouring out of it, it nearly resembled a hunk of leftovers from the slaughterhouse.

Leon grimaced and put his gun forward, ignoring the bodies in order to scan the distance ahead. He turned his head around and gestured Carlos to follow him from behind. Carlos began to shake a little as Leon saw him rip his eyes away from the dead. He pressed his lips together and continued with Leon through the barn.

Leon was right about the place. The whole area was a maze, maybe a little too close to a maze also. It had a rather narrow hall winding into a shadowy region both of them were afraid to venture in alone. Carlos hugged the wall facing Leon as he side-stepped around the corner. Without being distracted from the blood dripping wherever they went, Leon studied the walls and the interiors with intensity.

He felt Carlos' footsteps behind him; the smell of the place was so thick with blood, Leon coughed from it. The air surrounding them felt uncomfortably moist, like the feeling of wearing damp clothes; Carlos twitched from it.

They moved along the walls, stepping around corners as they dwelled deeper into the inescapable dimension. Suddenly, the both of them found themselves entrapped in the shadows of the barn, with tiny shafts of light breaking through the walls and cutting the darkness. Red hay began appearing near their feet. Death seemed an inevitable aspect.

Carlos heard a sound behind him. The sound rushed from the shadows surrounding them. It seemed to rock the barn, making the bodies sway above them; the walls creaked to his side. He shot a determined glance at Leon. Why, we better bag this piece of shit, his eyes said, oh boy, this is the last place in the world I wanna die in.

Leon stood ahead of him—they were already nearing a corner that would lead into a larger space—they knew it from the light shining around it. The sound they just heard were doors to the back openingthe killer was around that area. If he was there to open the doors, then he had to be standing there, most likely unaware they had just rushed in. He eyed Leon as he neared him.

"Stick around and cover me," Carlos whispered, "I'm moving in there first."

Leon nodded, bringing his arms to rock a little from the gathering tension. He waited near the corner as Carlos made his way past him. Carlos stuck to the wall beside his right. The silver in his gun glistened into Leon's eye. He nodded to Leon.

Carlos swung around the corner beside them, bringing his gun over him and down at anything he was to aim at. Leon followed after him, stepping over and pivoting with his right foot around the corner in almost the same way. He raised his gun once he reached the other end—he had lost sight of Carlos for about one second before the movement, but was the mistake that crucial to his partner's defense? Oh yes.

Leon stared ahead, shocked at what he found around the corner. Carlos was gone.

34

Nathan pounded at the elevator door. It sent echoes through the darkness he was stuck in.

"Help me!" Nathan screamed, slamming at the thick metal with his palm, "somebody please get me out of this fucking elevator!"

Nobody replied. Instead, screams sounded from the other side of the door. Other noises were there also. Nathan heard occasional gunshots echo from the ground floor he lay trapped in. Then, accompanying every gunshot, there was a scream—or what seemed like a moan—rushing through the elevator into his ear. Nathan sat through those noises for about three hours.

Which began to drive him mad. Really, really mad!

But it also made him feel enormously tired at the same time. Nathan yawned.

It was strange he could actually be feeling so tired during this timewhatever that was happening out there sounded like a terrorist attack. Who the Hell can tolerate that? But Nathan hadn't slept last night and it seemed a good idea to doze off and catch a good number of hours while waiting for someone—possibly a fireman under these circumstances—to free him out of this elevator. I mean, what other way lead out of here? Nathan couldn't try some ninja trick by leaping out the elevator's top or something—he really didn't feel like pulling elaborate stunts today. After finding the elevator phone was out, along with his trying to pull the alarm knobs with no result, he began to feel there was nothing better than screaming his way outor sleeping for the time being.

Nathan stepped back in the dark until his back hit the wall behind him. He propped himself down on the floor and closed his eyes, clutching at the pharmacy folder with his hand. Oh well, so much for screaming. He fell asleep. He fell into deep sleep.

The guys should come in and open the doors, Nathan thought as he dozed off into dreamland. Yeah, that's right, they should come right in soonI'll just take a quick nap and they'll happily wake me up, and I'll go home. This whole deal ain't nothing to worry overI'll be fine, I know, I'll be finethat's how life ismost things fall into order againthat's itI'll be fineI'll just lay here and sleeeeeep the day away

What he didn't realize was the fact that not all of the things fell into order again...and this was one of them.

35

Leon spun around, throwing his aim in all directions. He swiveled his arm frantically. His eyes rolled around in its sockets, hoping for the Carolina-blue color of Carlos' uniform to appear in his eyes.

"Carlos" Leon hissed, being aware the killer could hear him also. "Where the fuck are you?"

A slight rustling in the dark cornerit moved around him. It seemed as if it was limited to wander only in the shadows and to avoid the light.

Leon took careful steps, slowly rotating himself to aim at wherever the sound was originating from. He paused, looking carefully around the large storage area he and Carlos had ventured into. The late-afternoon light bursting from the entranceway caused him to squint away as the sunlight drenched the interiors with a golden glow. Leon kept his aim ready. This was it. He was in a large area now—this was no maze anymore. The killer surely had skill in snatching Carlos as they were rushing in. This Birkin was either a professional, or somebody that was really into what he wanted. That was the distin-guishable thing. Leon Scott Kennedy wasn't against no cream-of-the-crop serial killer. He was pitched against an ingenious, psychotic Hannibal Lector rip-offon his first day on the job.

Great, real swell, he thought, God must be creative in shaping people's lives—either that, or he's gotta be a goddamn sadist.

A scythe fell from the wall toward his right. The sound caused him to spin around and throw his aim at it. He almost pulled the trigger. The rat, appearing from the wall where the scythe had fallen from, screeched and zipped across the beams. He sighed.

A chuckle appeared from behind him. It sounded maniacal, like the voice of insanity. It was Birkin.

Leon turned his head around, slowly. His eyes narrowed. He carefully stepped around and faced the voice coiling from the darkness. He raised his pistol at it. "Birkin," he called out, "you're wanted for arrestjust drop that hostage and come out with your hands beh—"

"My name is not Birkin" the voice whispered, it now originated from a different direction. "It's KyleKyle Somers."

"Well whoever you are, Kyle, show yourself immediately cause you picked one bad day to screw with me—I want you out here where I can see you. Any further statements will only have me turn into a raving lunatic—I believe we don't want any of that to happen, now, do we? So, you gonna comply, or you want me to chase after yah?"

He heard Kyle (or was it Birkin?) chuckle again. The low-pitched laugh stretched through the barn by echo. "A bit brash for a Rookie on his first day, isn't that right, Officer Kennedy?"

Leon's heart flipped. Not only did the fucker guess that today was Leon Ken-nedy's first day on the jobhe actually knew what his name was. He began to shudder, almost losing his concentration. The barn seemed to warp around him and close in as if it were poised to chew him to pieces. He spun around and leveled his foresight at the shadows behind him. Shithe was everywhere. One moment, he was on the right side—the next, he was behind him

"Now Leon, here's our little situation," Kyle continued to hiss, "you don't know where I am. I have your friend here with me. And also, my poor policeman, any bad decisions on your part will have this friend of yours killed right away."

"All right," Leon said apologetically. He realized his disadvantage. "You're right, Kyle, you winthere's nothing I can do now but walk around and act stupid while I'm trying to nab The Invisible Man—but for God's sake, don't you kill that hostage! This is my first day, and the last thing I need is to start my career with some personal demons, so you play niceor I won't."

Kyle laughed this time. The sound now carried from Leon's left side. He spun and threw his aim towards it. He was about to pull the triggerbut he couldn't. Carlos was in the way! If he tried shooting now, he'd risk his partner's life along with his own. Shit!

"Your humor befuddles me, Leon," Kyle began to speak out. His voice had a tone of rage embedded in it, as well as some kind of tormented sorrow that Leon couldn't dig out. From the sound of his voice, this Kyle Somers was already detaching from the William Birkin he had in mind.

"As a former scientist for Umbrella," Kyle continued, "I have been mistreated beyond the worst degree. And what I received from it was nothing but shit!"

Leon sniffed and refocused his aim at wherever Kyle's voice came from. "What happened, they didn't pay you enough?"

"No," Kyle said angrily, "my cousin, William Birkin, created a lethal pathogenic microbe that was to be used as a weaponand my wife, Laura, was used as one of their original tests."

Leon brought himself to blink a couple times. So, this Somers was actually William Birkin's cousinwho was out to seek revenge on a soda company? Umbrella experimenting with biological weapons? What the Hell? No way. He didn't believe it.

"All right," Leon said, brushing aside everything Kyle had just told him, "let's just cut the chit-chat and get to the fucking pointyou are William Birkin and that's final. There's no way a soda company could be out doing all that. You better show yourself or I'll just take you and the hostage along with it."

Leon heard a faint mumble from the darkness. It was Carlos pleading for his life. You just hang in there, buddy, Leon thought, feeling the sweat rolling down his chin. After we get this crazy fuck, I'll go buy you a drinkbut for now, hang loose.

Birkin grunted as he rushed around Leon, which forced him to turn around and re-fix his aim at the rustlings he gave out. Did he piss him off? Maybe. Looked as if Birkin here wanted to play some false-identity game and Leon got him mad. Big deal.

Birkin appeared at the entranceway. The light outside made him a silhouette.

"Freeze!" Leon shouted, aiming at him.

It wasn't Birkin. Nowait, it was Birkin. No. Leon didn't have an answer.

He looked almost exactly like William—his face was similar, his killer's glare was almost the same, his deadening sneerbut it wasn't William Birkin. What the Hell was Irons' point when they were all aiming for the wrong person?

"I've told you already," said The MeatHook Mangler, "William Birkin is my cousinmy name is KyleKyle Somers." The glare on his face sharpened, "And you've pushed me too far, Kennedy. And if you get any closer to that edge, I'll just let the blood flow from your colleague's throat"

Leon's eyes looked lower, widening at who was held hostage.

Kyle had a scalpel pressed against Carlos' throat. It was under his grimacing face, where his eyes were widened until the white of his eyes surrounded his irises. "Leon," he groaned as he struggled in his arms, "don't you listen to what he says—forget about me! Listen to your Academy training,' shoot him regardless of me!"

Leon lowered his eyes to focus his aim at Kyle. He shook his head. No Carlos, he thought, you're comin home with me. A few years from now, we're all gonna look back at this day as friends, and we're gonna laugh togetherbecause you're gonna make it home, hombre! You're gonna make it!

"Something is happening to Raccoon City," Kyle interrupted. "So far, you don't know about any of it, do you?"

"I've got no need to know, since I already have your ass where I want it to be," Leon replied behind his VP70.

Kyle sneered at him; his teeth spread across his parting lips. "Right now," he spoke in an almost chanting manner, "your city is being experimented on"

"Bullshit," Leon said. His aim on Kyle intensified.

"You don't believe?" Kyle raised an eyebrow. "Have you witnessed some strange occurrences lately? Empty streets, irregular behavior in animals, a sudden loss of communicationszombies?' It is the work of ContagionUmbrella's experiment on a city-wide population. The fourth order of Contagion was cancelled because of me, and I am hoping Umbrella will pay for their actions that provoked me"

Carlos struggled again under Kyle's arms. "He is shitting you, Leon! Shoot him, dammit! Shoot him now!"

"and to satisfy this price," Kyle continued, "mankind will pay for the actions of Umbrella as well. Did you know what kind of secrets the R.P.D. holds?"

Leon shook his head. He kept his aim on him.

"Your ChiefIrons is part of the conspirators hired by Umbrella to withhold this cityyou, Leon, should have been killed during your Secondary Assignment. Irons ordered me to eliminate you once you entered the Birkin household. I refused. You see, I had far better things to do than assassinate pathetic low-lives."

Leon couldn't handle it anymore. There was too much being revealed to him for his sanity to fully contain. His grip on the pistol began to shake. The entire R.P.D. was corrupted. It wasn't trueno, it couldn't be. Leon cleared his mind and kept his hands from shaking. The orange sky behind Somers glistened from the almond-shaped blade of his scalpel. The grip of his knife while he held it against Carlos' neck was firmcalm as his demeanor displayed.

"So now," Kyle said, "I'll open doors to a deal with you, Kennedy. Since I believed my decision to disobey Irons was nothing but a mistake, I'll give you five seconds to take that pistol of yours and kill yourself with itor your friend Carlos here will die."

"What?" Carlos cried.

"And what if I do blast myselfwill you spare him?" Leon asked.

Kyle's face didn't change. "No. He is to be killed either way."

Carlos' breathing began to grow more intense. "Shoot him!" he yelled, "Just shoot the fucking freak, Kennedy!"

"That doesn't leave a whole lot for me to choose now, does it?" Leon asked.

"Life isn't fair, is it?" Kyle replied.

Carlos moved around againit was a miracle Somers hadn't killed him already. "Leon!"

"Five" Kyle began to count down. He eyed Leon without any emotion.

Leon drew half his attention on Carlos. "Don't you worry, man"

"Four"

"Worry? I've got a scalpel held against my neck. Don't you try anything stupid, just shoot him!"

"Three"

Leon grit his teeth. The bumps serving as sights to his pistol fastened themselves over Kyle's head. He pulled back his trigger finger—

Kyle's eyes twitched. "I see since you're not obliging—" He snapped his scalpel arm back, forcing the blade to slash across Carlos' neck. He did it, he really did it.

Kyle Somers slit Carlos Monterósa's throat.

The shiny, blood-drenched blade disappeared into Carlos' throat as it slid through and traveled under his Adam's apple and exploded its way out from the side of his neck. Blood fountained from the thick gash under his chin; it flowed down his chest and caused the baby-blue color of his uniform to soak a dark red. The color began to spread across the shirt. As Carlos fell to his knees, his mouth blew open in a silent, inaudible scream. He couldn't make any noises. The severed vocal cords were the reason. Blood continued to gush and pour forth from his opened neck. Both his hands rose up and clawed at his gaping wound. Both his fingers were slimed with his own blood. They changed into a dark color as he felt the ticklish sensation of his own blood pushing its way out from between the mouth of the parted skin and cartilage. His life began to drain that very moment. Carlos tried to scream, but he couldn't. His voice became the blood jetting forth from his slit throat.

Although Leon did manage to scream. He was able to squeeze out a long, continuous "Nooo!" at Somers as his VP70 spattered three bullets. The three lead slugs slowly exited from the flames shot forth from the barrel of his gun and traveled through the distance separating both killer and law enforcer. They sailed, zooming faster than the speed of sound amidst screams and reportstoward Carlos' dying body. The three bullets punctured into his chest and splattered more blood everywhere. An extra pint forced from the opening in Carlos' throat. It flew through the air breaking into tiny red beads. He fell back, feeling Somers' legs under his shoulders before contacting the dirt with his head.

Leon's face contorted as he saw Carlos fall back. The smoke slithering from the tip of his barrel formed a snake that hissed at him. In his Academy days, Leon Scott Kennedy shot pimentos out of olives from ten meters. On his first dayhe couldn't even distinguish friend and foe alike from five meters. He meant to shoot Somersbut where had the bullets gone? Dammit, where was the explanation? But there was no time for explanations. Leon watched as Kyle readied to return his own set of projectiles.

Kyle winced as the pain in his left shoulder began to bother him again. With his left hand, he held up the .38 revolver that Carlos had holstered and rapidly fired at the Rookiehis left hand shook as he fired—the pain of his shoulder was beginning to make his inaccuracy even worse. But the bullets didn't miss Leon. Not all of them.

He watched as the cylinder from the pistol spun and the blasts lit the barn. A few of them zipped past the Rookie's head, nicking his hair and causing it to flail. Another pack blatantly missed him altogether and smashed into the wood cubicles behind him. But at least two made it into the uncorrupted Officer. Kyle grinned at the view.

Leon flew back, taking the shots with a twisted expression of pain as his dirty-blonde hair brushed forward. Kyle watched him fall back, dead from the two holes smoldering from the thick material on his chest. He laid still on his back. His greenish eyes were open, staring at the ceiling of the barn. Kyle smiled.

He turned around, walking toward his table of hooks and other utensils for destruction. He grabbed a large, shiny meat hook. Before he was to depart in one of their cars, he'd take the time to hang these two up as special trophies to his triumph. Fine specimens they were, indeed. Umbrella will pay, mankind will pay as well. He laughed. He laughed until the sound spread through the whole barn in one malicious chortle. The meat hook he held up glowed into his eyes. It'd shine more beautifully once blood was all over it. He laughed again.

His thigh and his right calf suddenly blew open. Pain screamed up his head from both legs. Blood sprayed and drenched from where the wounds appeared. He fell over, clawing at the dirt ahead. Someone had shot himtwice. Leon. It was Leon Kennedy. He cried out from the pain devouring at his legs and movements. Pain was only a reminder that you still alive. He grimaced, clenching his eyes shut. He slowly got up, stumbling awkwardly on his feet.

And began to run.

Smoke slithered from the tip of his VP70. Leon swore to himself that it formed a sexy angel telling him how great a shooter he really was. He kept his aim on Kyle while he lied on his back. In the position he was in, his chin was touching the burnt spots on his bulletproof vest.

Thank God for bulletproof vests, Leon thought, nearly smiling. He saw Kyle struggling on his feet to run. I ought to kill him, he thought angrily, but I won'tI'll have more fun kicking his ass before he goes to Death Row. He carefully aimed at Kyle's right Achilles Heel and let out another bullet.

The heel behind Kyle's right foot opened up in white tendrils of tendons and blown-out flesh. He crashed into the ground. Leon stared at Kyle's writhing body while he leapt up to his feet. He quickly ran to Carlos' body.

Carlos was still aliveexcept for the fact he was nanoseconds away from death. He gagged helplessly from his torn throat, trying to scream as his body convulsed from shock. No sound came out except for the sound of cackling blood rushing from his neck. Leon held his shoulders, watching with flowing grief. He looked at him straight in the eye, trying to understand what he was really saying.

From the weakening gesticulations, Leon watched as Carlos died with his eyes saying, What you waiting for, Leon? Go after him! Go after his fucking ass! You were the lucky one—now, don't let that luck turn against you! Nab the son of a bitch for me! He then stopped moving, cutting his struggles short as he stared blankly at Leon. He didn't blink.

Leon closed his eyes; it almost looked as if he was crying. He frowned in pain as he slid his palms down Carlos' eyes. Once the flat of his hand passed his eyes, they were peacefully shut. This could've been the start of a great career with you, Leon thought, adding pressure to his tightened lips, I'm sorry it had to end this way. He opened his eyes again, throwing it onto Kyle's struggling body. He grit his teeth in furious rage.

Somers was getting up again.

"Ah, Hell no you won't!" Leon shouted. He flew to his feet and sprinted toward Kyle, who was already limping off again.

His image rocked in Leon's vision once he began chasing him; the dark shape of him was growing larger in his eyes. Kyle's staggering limp soon became a ridiculous stride. How did the guy manage to do that after he was shot three times?

At least This MeatManglin' Hooker is slow enough for me give him one big, fat, tackle, Leon thought with added intensity.

How could it be? He thought he had killed Leon Kennedy. He had managed to shoot the Rookie twice, contacting in vital areas where he'd live a maximum of ten seconds before reaching the flatline. How was it possible a young man in his mid-twenties could withstand a bullet in the heart, as well as one in his lungs? Kyle snarled. Of course. The answer was there all this time.

Bulletproof vests. Leon was wearing one over his chest. Why hadn't he shot him in the head when he had the chance?

Kyle grumbled something under his breath and rushed along, hoping to reach the cars so he could escape. He had already heard Leon shout something at him as he was getting to his feet again. It sounded like something to discourage him from continuing any further. After that, he heard rushing footsteps catching up to him from behind.

Kyle Somers let out a gargling groan. He took larger strides in his escape. The pain was excruciating—it made him feel as if he were dragging balls attached to chains. But that wasn't enough to stop him from attaining his goals. From this perspective, Leon was a mere obstacle in Kyle's path. And that obstacle was to be dealt with when he had the chance. If only he had the chance

Leon hurled himself onto Kyle's back, spreading his arms to crush it around the muscular frame. He fell over him, bringing Kyle to smash down into the dirt face-first. He tackled him and held him down as he brought his fist back and struck at his head a few times. Kyle shook at every impact.

"Never—fuck—with—the—R.P.D.!" Leon yelled furiously; his voice trembled and broke a few times. He kept on repeating that statement as he beat down Kyle's head, causing small rivers of blood to streak down his cheek. The sweat that shattered away from Kyle's face landed on Leon's arm. They glistened over his arm like morning dew. Once he was finished, Leon pulled back his right arm and grabbed his handcuffs.

"You have the right to remain silent," Leon said as he unsheathed a pair of his handcuffs. "Anything you say" He spun the cuffs around and whacked a cufflink shut to one of Kyle's arms. "Can" He pulled back, tightening the cufflink hard. Leon heard a faint crack utter from Kyle's wrist. "And will be used against you in court or law," he finished before going on to cuff the next arm. "And if you need a right to an attorney," Leon added, "you can fuck that idea cause you'll be locked in maximum security before you know it!" He then reached to grab the other arm.

Right before Leon could complete the bondage, Kyle spun around and slapped him across the face using Carlos' revolver. The blow was painful, giving out a warbled thwop in his ears as he fell backwards. Kyle leapt on him.

He threw himself to sit over Leon's stomach. His arms shot into his neck, squeezing at it in increasing pressure while he pulled back and slammed his head down over the earth. Leon felt his senses wearing out as the world rocked vertically in his own eyes.

"Youbastard!" Kyle shouted. He continued on slamming Leon while adding more squeeze to his neck. Kyle's nose was broken, with blood running down his mouth. Blood was smeared over his cheeks as well. Some of it dripped all over Leon. "Do you, Leon Kennedy, think you can stop me from accomplishing my plans? Do you? Do you!"

Leon groaned from the pressure rushing up his face. His face was flushed in red from the choking. He brought his arm back and launched a right hook toward Kyle's head, striking at it with tightened fists. He repeated the action with the other arm, swiping left, right, left, right until Kyle flew over and fell onto his side. Leon roared in primordial rage, gasping for air. He tried to grab Kyle's other arm so he could successfully handcuff him.

But Kyle kicked him in his ribs. The thick boot contacted with his body and knocked the air out of him. Kyle lunged over him again, causing the both of them to roll across the dirt, struggling as they wrestled each other and screamed in frustration.

You're dead, Kyle's thoughts chided at the Rookie beneath him, so much effort placed into sabotaging Umbrellaonly to have it result to a crude fight with YOU. Leon Kennedy, you are to DIE RIGHT NOW!

His hand reached around his back and unsheathed his meat hook—a tool that was definitive to the term MeatHook Mangler. The hook in his right hand caused Leon's eyes to widen, showing more of the green tint in his eyes. Kyle Somers held him down with his left hand as his right clutching at the hook winded back. With one swipe, he was going to ram the harpoon tip across Leon's ears. After that, he was going to cut this nuisance into so many pieces, the remains will be impossible to identify.

The widening eyes in the struggling Rookie began to shake. Good, he was fearing him already. His strength was weakening to Kyle's very own whims. Kyle grinned—his insanity reaching its peak within him. It overflowed in his mind and poured over, coagulating his brain with nothing but death and destruction. Now, the very same Kyle Somers who held the shotgun to kill that Breeder three months ago completely disappeared. In this raging hate embellishing his mind and coalescing with this new rebirth of him, Kyle began to slobber in delirious glee and anxiety. The saliva dribbling from his teeth slimed his chin. His heart thudded continuously, screaming the name of his wife as his older self completely separated from him in the same way a lizard periodically sheds its skin. Kyle Somers was no longer a man. He was now a full-fledged, maddened animal that sought pleasure from the savage acts of homicide. He was to destroy every man and woman on this Earth. He was to kill them all and hang them out with his meat hooks.

Umbrella will pay, mankind will pay as well.

Leon shuddered from the sight of the meat hook held above him. Not only was he shuddering from thathe was also shuddering from the look in Kyle's face. The man was slobbering like some dog on rabies. His eyes were pulled open, stretching themselves to reveal the whiteness streaked with the red vessels in his eyeball. His lips drew back, showing the whole set of his front teeth as his saliva stretched down in one thin spittle.

Leon drew his foot back and kicked into The MeatHook Mangler's stomach. His thrusting contact with the killer sent him flying back several feet ahead of him. His body was suspended in the air for two seconds as he fell back. He landed with a thud on the hard dirt. Clouds of dust jetted from his sides. He lied there silently, while wriggling in pain. His arms and legs waded over the dirt; his face winced in agony.

Leon hesitated, watching Kyle struggle with himself as he tried to get back to his feet. He twitched while trying to step up—his limbs wobbled like rubber sticks. Leon watched as Kyle fell over again. His face landed into the dirt, powdering his bloody face with brown dust. He hacked a few coughs from the air knocked out of him. Blood soaked from under the layer of dust pressed against his face. He stopped struggling with himself and lied there on his face, panting helplessly. Leon shook his head in contempt at the mess before him.

Kyle Somers was wasted, Leon nodded to that. The guy was injured in so many places, it wasn't even funny. There were three shots in his leg, immediately debilitating him from ever walking again; a broken nose that covered his mouth with blood; a wound on his left shoulder that looked like a bullet injury; a handcuff crushing his left wrist—and to top it all off, multiple cuts across his head dripping with the red stuff. What more can a psycho ask for? And now, here was Leon Kennedy—one of the Rookies in the R.P.D.—sitting here before the killer that ruled the late-night newscasts. Shit. Leon could be making history from this all-star catch. He was gonna be on KEVL News side by side with Ben Bertolucci while headlines in the newspaper screamed: "Killer Comprehended by Talented Rookie on his First Day!" Holy shitLeon Scott Kennedy was gonna be a hero. Now that was something to brag about once he came home to visit his relatives.

He got up, stepping to his feet as he wiped the dirt off him. He looked at Kyle below. He was still lying in the same position, breathing in the dirt and coughing it back out. The whole process of him sniffing the ground and coughing sounded a little like sobbing.

"Kyle," Leon spoke over him. "Give it up while you have a chance."

He muttered something and coughed again.

"I mean it right now, Kyle," Leon said, "I want you to pull your other hand out and let me finish binding you. If you choose not to, I'm gonna have to use some force. Now bring out your other hand!"

Kyle had his hand under his belly for some reason Leon couldn't figure out at the moment. It was until his body shot up with rage and rammed his head straight into his stomach, did Leon know why Kyle had that hand held in for so long.

He used all his energy for the tackle throwing Leon back. The dust accumulated in his lungs flared out his nostrils like a bull. The Rookie fell back, landing with the back-side of his head hitting the ground. He screamed in frustration. With Kyle's other hand—whom he had hid from Leon—he drew forth the scalpel used on Carlos and brought it over his head with both hands. His fingers squeezed over the rough grip of the tool, causing both hands to form fists. The further he winded back, the more he was able to see the scalpel embedding into the Rookie's forehead. He began losing his footing before the Rookie, using it to gain momentum for his coup de grace on the hapless soul. Kyle Somers forced his scalpel down toward Leon Kennedy. He aimed to the bare skin of his forehead that stood before his soft brain.

Leon saw Kyle approaching over him. He threw his hands back, drew out his VP70, and fired continuously at the falling body. Leon showed no remorse. He continued to fire up at Kyle, pulling his trigger finger rapidly while his gun uttered continuous reports. Spent casings spun all over the ground beside his face. Blood spurted from Kyle's mouth. It spilled out of him like liquid-filled vomit. Holes burst from the back of his lab coat. The red liquid holding his life sprayed in multiple directions. He convulsed violently from each bullet exploding through him. Leon kept on firing.

He kept on firing until six—seven—eight—nine—ten bullets killed Kyle.

As Kyle fell over, wide-eyed with death, his head swayed in multiple directions as its base rolled freely around his joint muscles. He landed over Leon. The scalpel in his hands spun off.

Leon lied on his back, letting his head fall onto the dirt. He gave out one long, refreshing sigh.

It's over, he thought to himself, as Kyle's blood warmed his body, It's all over

36

Claire Redfield heaved the container over her shoulder and set it down beside her motorcycle. She then bent over, resting her hands over her knees. She let out an exhausted sigh.

Got to get going, her determination called out. Bartowen's watching—they're watchingcan't whine about sore joints and achy muscles. Must go on.

She wrapped her fingers around the handle of the container and lifted it up while twisting open the filler cap to her motorcycle. The strong dizzying odor fumed from the opening. Claire held her breath as she added the funnel to the small hole. She tipped the container and steadily poured the gas into the tank.

"This shit better work," Claire grumbled to herself. "I didn't drag this thing for hours only for it to flake out on me"

She continued to pour the gas in, while hearing the sound that dribbled and rolled like the noise of urinating. As she emptied the plastic container, she noticed the flame decorations over her fuel tank. Claire gave out a small frown while wiping some dust off of it with her palm. "Damn, and I just cleaned my bike also," she said.

Once the transfer was complete, Claire pulled the container back and set it onto the ground. She hadn't used all the gas in it. At least half a gallon was still left sloshing inside. She then took the filler cap and twisted it back on.

Something touched her feet.

Claire stepped back, nearly startled at what had just tapped the edge of her boot. It came from her motorcycle. Claire crouched and looked down at the metallic rod that served as her crash bar. Whatever it was, it reeked of the gasoline and was steadily coiling down the tubes and rolling off her exhaust pipe. Claire shook her head when she realized what it was. Her tank was leaking.

But it was leaking in such a strange way

All this time, she thought, all this time, while I have been filling up this thingit has been leaking without me knowing! How was it possible? How could I have missed something so obvious?!

Claire shook her head. She held her fingers against her forehead.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

How was it possible for it to leak without me knowing? Something had to happen in order for it to take place. Someone had to set me up—just came to my bike one day and punctured it without me knowing

But if someone did puncture it, the gas would've flowed more and I should've found out about it a long time agoespecially when I first left, and that other moment when I filled it up for the second time. Or

That hit man on the phonehe did it.

"This is a matter of trust, Redfield, it's a test from the Circle itself—you fall short because of gasyour head's mine, milady."

Claire cried in frustration and drove the heel of her foot into the Harley. The heavy motorcycle tipped over and fell onto its side. Claire watched all of this without remorse for her machine. A few scratches was all it'd getshe didn't care anymore. Here she was trying to finish a job for the same organization that wanted her dead. How could life get any more ironic?

The gas (that was to last her for the whole trip and back) dripped from the bottom of her tank and formed a puddle on the ground. Claire watched it grow with disgusted eyes. It continued to leak from her tank as if there were no end to it. A tiny stream of the leaking gas winded toward her feet. As Claire watched it touch her feet, she saw the tiny blips from her motorcycle reflected in the gas.

Something was attached to the bottom of her tank.

Claire hopped forward at it. She carefully examined the object that was attached to her motorcycle. It looked like a small device of some sort. Some kind of regulator for gas-leakage. The red light on it blinked silently. As the crimson glare winked at her from her bike's shadow, the gas streamed from its sides. Claire reached her hand at it.

The lights on it switched to green. The leakage abruptly stopped.

Clever, Claire thought, when I get near this thing, it stops letting out gas. Now, what if I ended this madness and ripped this fucking piece of shit off my Harley?!

She clawed her fingers around the device and yanked it off.

Claire was fully aware that by doing this, the gas would pour out from the larger opening she just made and quickly spout out at her.

But what she wasn't aware of was the fact that the device was programmed to explode once pulled from her tank.

When she ripped the knob from her bike, that menacing, eeeeeeeee sound she always associated with bombs began to shriek from the knob. In reflex, once Claire heard the sound and saw the gas begin to gush from the opening, she quickly hurled the device toward the other side of the road.

Claire dropped low behind her bike.

The ground dozens of feet ahead of her came up in the explosion. The bundles of sand and rock sent from the ear-splitting rumble whizzed by and reduced a nearby cactus into a slimy heap of hacked vegetation. A lizard tanning in the sun disappeared in a flash of red. A thick cloud of dust fumed into the air. Claire let out her breath as the sound of the trickling from the leaking tank spiraled down her ears.

Once the dust settled, everything around the five-foot radius of the explosion had vanished into a smoldering crater. Claire stepped up and stared at the damage in awe. If she had held the thing for at least a second longer, her remains would have been sent off into a similar crater lying in the middle of the road.

And those crows would be here, enjoying my remains, Claire thought in disgust.

She hoisted her Harley while using her hand to suppress the leakage in her tank. The tank had already lost a lot of gas from the constant pouring and the smell of the drenched road was too much to bear at the moment. Claire reached into her bags on the side of the motorcycle and grabbed a roll of duct tape. She then unrolled a strip using her teeth and taped it over the hole. She added more to the grey patch before dropping the tape back into her bag. After that, she refilled the tank with the remaining gas left from the container and threw her legs over her beloved Harley.

"It's so nice to be back on track." Claire smiled to herself. "Once I get this job done, I'm going to—"

A crow landed before her. It stood in the middle of the road. Blood darkened the feathers on its body, giving it a sickened look. One of its eyes were red—it glowed like a sparkling ruby. Stuck in between its beaks, whitened bits of flesh hung from its mouth as the crow parted its mouth wide, cawing at Claire. It began to spread its wings and close in on her with its stubby feet.

Claire Redfield stomped the ignition to her Harley, hearing it stutter to life in that deafening roar. In her mind, she smiled since the gas worked; on her face, she grit her teeth from this crow.

"Peck on this," she hissed in frustrated anger. As if there wasn't enough getting in her way already. She then gave the throttle a nice twist and the motorcycle took off, running over the bird in a juicy mix of crunches and pathetic caws. As her speed increased, Claire took out a towel and wiped the blood from her legs and bike. After that, she put on her helmet.

Wonder what's happening in Raccoon this very minute, she thought to herself, putting on her sunglasses.

37

8:46 P.M., Raccoon City

From the sky, a news helicopter—namely Skywatch, Channel 7—could survey the flames engulfing shops from the Northwest Section, just as it could observe the hordes of lifeless bodies scattered within the alleys of the Central Section. Among the acres of land span-ning outside the city—towards the north—dark patches of debris can be see from the barn where the recent standoff with The MeatHook Mangler took place. Towards the Central Section, hundred of cars are compacted into one another—dozens of them are fiery blazes. The R.P.D. Station, along with the Hospital, are situated within this area. In the Northern Section, similar masses of vehicles are found. The wreckage is immense. It fills the streets, causing havoc for the last line of police officers trying to escape the area. In the next hour, they will either be deador infected.

With a steady altitude of 1500 feet, the Skywatch, news chopper could see a relatively good view of the entire Northern Section. The well-known gas station named Taxago would be visible, as well as the Emmy's Restaurant. Popular stores across Downtown Ryuken Street, such as the ARUKAS tailor and Yuki's Electronic Boutique (which is already stripped bare from looters) could be sought out from among the masses. More so, an observant individual on the Skywatch could even see the rather obscure Kendo Gun Shop being raided by customers eager to protect their homes. Nearly half of the customers invading the store were not there for the gunsbut for something else.

Although there were certain things the Skywatch news chopper could not see, and those were things the entire city feared. It was the end of days for Raccoon City. Nearly every form of communications was cut—including radio, television and telecommun-ications. The power needed in the Central Section was momentarily out, and the area was at a complete loss of electricity for nearly three hours. Only auxiliary generators were answers to this problem.

And that is not all.

Many of the buildings are vacant, with strange noises echoing from their dark doorways. Blood fills the white walls of the only health center in Raccoon: Washington Hospital. The greater part of the R.P.D. has been eradicated—their chewed organs are what remains. Dozens of low growls can be heard from under the shadows of various buildings. Blood trickles from a windowthe heat causes it to grow thick and slimy on the pavement. Dogs turn against their owners. Kids watch as their parents devour their neighbors. Parents watch as creatures burst from their own children—with claws and tendrils waving about. Inmates in the nearby prison suddenly find themselves target of a creature scaling the walls. Its tongue manages twist some of their heads off. Screams are heard from all over Northern Section, where moans and that monotonous scuffling sound is heard as well. All over the City Limits sign of Raccoon, bullet holes and patches of red are pressed over it. Some of the blood manages to ooze off and drip from corners of the metallic sign, before drying on the burning asphalt.

The color of that blood looks similar to the blood splattered over the windows of the Skywatch helicopter as it falls to the earth.

"What the fuck is that?!" Officer Gumbo cried out. From the looks of it, it seemed as if the sky was falling down before his hell-bent self.

Before his partner could reply, the helicopter with the name "Skywatch" written over it dove down and hacked him in half with its spinning blades before crashing into the street. The spontaneous explosion then swallowed his partner, silencing his scream.

Blue strips and patches of metal thrown from the Skywatch ricocheted from various buildings and struck a few squad cars resting in the street. The pieces of the helicopter cracked some windshields and dented the cars, uttering some nasty shrieks. The last of the R.P.D. screamed their last orders and directed their weapons at the horde of walking corpses on the opposite side of the explosion. Out of the Northern Section, there were only three officers left.

"Whoever can hear me this very minute," Sergeant Freeman pleaded over his intercom. He was in a state of complete desperation. "Anybody left in the police sta-tionbackup is needed in the Northern Section—repeat, backup is needed. Casualties are high—"

"Freeman, behind you!"

He quickly turned around—his mic still in firm grip—and pressed the muzzle of his shotgun against the zombie's forehead.

It grabbed him, screaming with an open set of jaws as it pulled him in towards its bloody incisors. It had whitened eyeswhitened eyes that once belonged to Fred Anderson, former reporter for KEVL news. My God.

Goddam, I had lunch with you three days agoI met your kids for God's sakewe were buddies before this happenedI came to your house for dinner (your wife Wendy can sure cook one great casserole)and nowand now here you are, and this is what I have to do

He pulled the trigger, and Fred's head exploded.

Freeman's head exploded also. He did that to himself moments later.

"We have just lost Freeman—my God, Jesus, he shot himself. Can anybody back at the station hear me? Is there anyone back in the station? Backup is NEEDED RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT! WE NEED MORE UNITS DOWN HERE, THE SITUATION IS CRITICAL. CASUALTIES ARE OVERWHELMING—THEY ARE FILLING THE STREETS—AMMUNITION IS LOW, MORE UNITS ARE NEEDED CAN ANYBODY OUT THERE HEAR ME?!"

Then a few screams followed thatand after a few minutes, there was static.

And then there was silence.

Willie Burrow uttered a small, insane chuckle. It was funny that earlier, Willie was screaming to warn the officers at the barn while hearing a few of them groan for backup after the SWAT team had picked them all out. Then an hour later, he was hollering for backup in a station that was becoming infested with zombies. Nobody came—not even responded—when he called for help. And to top that off, an anger-ridden police Chief with a magnum was stalking the area as well.

And nowall the fucking police men from all over Raccoon were radioing for backup with no reply from anyone whatsoever. Willie heard almost all of them—including good ol Leon's, but he couldn't reply to absolutely any of them. And why was that? Because his fucking radio was broken for crying out LOUD!

He leapt to his feet and kicked the radio, smashing it against the wall with the tip of his shoes. It shattered into hundreds of plastic shards. Willie screamed as he stomped at all the remaining pieces using the heel of his foot. So much for communications. Nobody else could hear each other, nor speak to each other. Big, bad, shit-eating Irons cut all the transmissions. Willie had managed to hook up a radio so it could hear and reach out and touch someone at the same time. It was the news of the world. That was when the machine died down after his transmission to the barn. After that, all he could do was listen to everyone's pleas while he sat there, yelling into the mic without any reply.

He screamed again.

"You fucking piece of shit!" he hollered. "Oh Goddamn, if you've done the job that you were supposed tothe job you that were supposed to" He sighed as he repeated his phrase, thinking over the possibilities. "I wouldn't have had to kick your sorry ass," Willie finished, putting his hands to his face. He then sat down.

I should've been home by now, his wistful thoughts spoke out, I'd be chillin with my baby Lorraine in some hot tub or somethin—our baby would be kicking inside her as usual. Everything would be fine. There wouldn't be no undead reaching through the windows, nor skinless, four-legged bio-freaks scalin the walls. Everything would be all right

But that was fantasy and this was reality.

Once Willie found out about Eds' death, and who had caused it, Wilson had already become a zombie. Then Jordan abruptly disappeared. Willie heard that his arm was found in the Southwest Hallway, but others have told him that his corpse was lurking the station while stalking the rest of them. Eliza, the mayor's daughter, was without protection when the three died, and Willie lost her after the event occurred. This soon led to the frantic search for Eliza's whereabouts, and by then, every one of them began dropping like flies. They were either killed by Irons or grotesquely mutilated by something else. Adam's body was seen being devoured by a pack of zombies. Lee was found in the East Office—his chest blown open by a magnum. David Ford, who had been infected earlier, was immediately converted. Rick blew his legs off with the shotgun, but had to pay the price of being bit in the leg. After a while, Rick died from the shock. Willie could remember his screams once he was bitten. When his face grew pale and the intensity of his shivers increased, Willie knew that there were only a few minutes left before he had to add the bullet to the head before he came back for all of them. And he did come back. Rick's face burst in blood afterwards.

After Rick's death, plans changed. The city was overrun and there was no use to protect the station anymore. The entire population was infected, and they were scouring the streets the same way Jordan was stalking the halls as a zombie. The plan was to hold off for a little longer while locating any more survivors. When that was done with, they'd find an escape route near the station. That was the deal for the moment. But the one true question was the location of the escape route, which had been shrugged off by the others. Nobody was really sure where the route was, but after some time put in, it was sure to be found.

Everything was going as planned until the Lickers came back.

In the West Wing, Drake had his head twisted off by one of them. His dead body didn't stop twitching until two minutes after. The last clips of ammunition were spent, along with a few more lives. Casey, who was permanently paled from all of this, ran from Willie's protection and vanished from then on. He never saw the kid again. Dudley had his upper torso detached from the rest of his body, while Moore died from blood loss.

Two more died, both of whom Willie never got to be acquainted with. He finally came to know them from their reddened remains. And that was all.

According to Willie's point of view, there were only four officers left, including Willie himself. While he was inside the West Office trying to work his radio, Garrett, Davis, and Chan had been out searching for Eliza and the escape route. Willie was supposed to wait out for their return

He released a clip of ammo from his .45 pistol and examined it. The clip held enough bullets for him to maim a few lifeless bodies before it ran dry. He slapped the clip back up the butt of his silver .45 and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, renewing the situation in his head again.

They're not gonna come backsomething happened out there.

Willie sunk his face into his arm, resting it there for a moment. He waited.

A drop of sweat rolled down his left cheek. It went down fast, dripping from his face in the same way it did from athletes in those Gatorade commercials. He looked up again, watching the large room before him.

The bluish party hat and the confetti saved for Leon's first day on the job party sat silently among the litter of equipment on the table. So much for the party.

I'm sorry, Leon-man, Willie though to himself, shaking his head, I'd hate to break it to you any sooner, but your party's been canceled.

Willie then stood up and walked to the doorway that led to Hell itself. He opened it, and strolled right out.

He never knew that he was now the only officer left in the building. The rest of the survivors had perished.

8:50 P.M., Central Section—The Bank of the Best

According to records, the Bureau had sent a total of five undercover agents to do "a more thorough investigation" on the whereabouts of the biological terrorist known as The MeatHook Mangler. Even though the Bureau was informed of the R.P.D.'s confidence in the case, the field agents located within the perimeters would serve as a secondary precaution in the advent of any additional shortcomings the R.P.D. may have overlooked. Originally, the decision was conceived to provide a sense of security over the case, but with the current situation of Raccoon at hand, the decision quickly evolved into a necessity—a shortcoming that the Bureau itself came to overlook.

All five agents have lost contact with Headquarters. The Bureau provided 48 hours of silence before sending in reinforcements. That wasn't enough for any of them. Four of the agents were killed, including Special Agents Nancy Garcia and Marcel Gunning. The other two were presumably "infected" by an unknown pathogen, and were nowhere to be found. The last agent, stationed in The Bank of the Best, was still alive, and was unable to contact the Bureau under the loss of communications. She stayed inside the building, hiding from the terrors surrounding her.

Ada Wong sat under the teller's desk with her Glock held up beside her head. Within the silence consuming the atmosphere of the bank, her tense breathing was loud against her ears. But it wasn't as loud as the sound of those moans and cries from the other end of the bank. Those sounds generally rang louder in her head than anything else on her mind. It brought her senses together and made her more alert. Like a gunshot held next to your ear. It ripped and tore its way though your eardrums until it jerked you into position. That was how life was, and that was how her situation came to be.

Ada darted from under her desk, firing at the targets limping in her direction. She pulled her trigger fast, feeling the spent casings hitting her arm as they spilled from her gun. She had enough bullets to lastshe was sure of that. She was always sure.

8:50 P.M., The Barn

After cleaning himself up (turning that white towel of his into a disgusting red one) and putting on a replacement vest he had in his trunk, Leon dragged Kyle's body and threw it in the backseat of his Caprice. He paused a little as he saw the blood accumulate over the seats. The backseat of his car was now a mess. He shrugged.

In the future, Leon thought, smiling, every crook out there is gonna be afraid of getting a backseat ride in my car after they get a good glance of how dirty it'll get. He chuckled to himself. He wasn't going to clean this car, no way. The car was gonna strike fear in the name of all criminals. It was to be Leon's car, and no evil-doer was to escape its wrath. They'd all be afraid of Leon and his car, and at the first glance, they'd run.

Because Leon Scott Kennedy bagged The MeatHook Mangler! He had his blood all over the backseat of his car to prove it. Every suspect in Raccoon was gonna refer to Leon as the guy who nabbed the greatest killer on his first day. There'd be no end to the madness around Leon. Soon, all he'd do is look into the eyes of a killer, robber, or rapist, and they'd all know the answer

He's the guy who nabbed the greatest killer on his first day

And they'd stick up their arms and bow down to the almighty enforcer, begging him to cuff them up before they lost all their personal worth. What a life!

It was Leon's Kennedy's first day on the job.

He smiled again; with eyes dreamy before his first day on the force. He closed the door and went to the opposite side of his car. He suddenly felt apologetic for what he thought about.

"Man, am I so selfish," Leon grumbled to himself while he approached the front of his car. Really, he felt bad for feeling so happy at such a tragic time. In fact, he was already beginning to feel like shit. "Here I am so happy when somebody lost a life over thisshit, I should be grateful that Carlos was there—because if he wasn't, that'd be my blood in the backseat of my car."

Leon opened his door and rushed for the intercom. He pulled the mic to his mouth. "0069, I've bagged The MeatHook Mangler," Leon smiled warmly. "Repeat, I've bagged The MeatHook Mangler. Suffered some casualties, but I'm fine here. I'll also be needing some forensics here," he said, looking around at the burnt cars around him. "Looks as if something else happened here that might of involved more than the killer. And also, suspect is not identified as Birkin, there has been a mistake. The true suspect is Somers, repeat, Kyle Somers. And he's dead. I'll be here awaiting for backup to arrive, this is 0069, over." Leon let go some of his breath and released the button.

Loud, deafening static replied. It scratched into his ears.

He squeezed the button again. "HQ"

The static continued. Its sound grated its way from the speakers.

That's strange, Leon thought, it was just like how Carlos put ithe was trying to radio for backup, and all he got was nothingnothing but static.

And as if he was there all along, Irons' voice suddenly cut in.

"Good job, Kennedy," his hoarse voice replied from the intercom, "I can see you turned out to be capable all along. We're currently dealing with the contamination now. Remain at the barn until we arrive. If not within the next few hours, head back to the station. I've got a prize waiting for you."

Something was odd about the way he worded that, that gave Leon the creeps.

"Um, yeah," Leon replied, "I'll remained secured here until the Calvary arrives."

"You do that, Kennedy, you do that," Irons said. After that, he laughed. For the first time, Leon was actually hearing the bastard laugh.

And that laugh was one of the most frightening laughs he came to know of. Something was behind that burst of emotion, and that something was awfully disturbing.

Leon continued to hear it echo from his intercom until it deteriorated. He looked out into the distance toward the city and watched as the sunlight began to fade. It was getting dark soon, and Leon was sure he'd be out here at the barn until nighttime.

Looking at the barn, and noticing the number of bodies in there, he shivered.

8:50 P.M., Central Section, Washington Hospital—Ground Floor

Nathan Lieu was abruptly shaken awake by a noise behind the elevator doors. His dazed eyes saw nothing but darkness, except for the thin line on the elevator door from the light outside. Some sound woke him up, but he didn't know what kind of sound it was. It felt as if it came from a dream, rather than from behind the door ahead of him. But he didn't care. He was still tired, and his eyelids were still heavy. When he was this tired, nothing in the world mattered to him, (except Fiorella) and he was pretty much a brain-dead, walking and talking zombie.

Whatever that sound was, must have been from one of the rescue teams screaming orders, since that was what it sounded likea scream. But there was nothing to hear and see right nowNathan didn't feel like yelling for help anymore. He felt relaxed, and eased with his mind enough to be eager for sleep. This whole contamination thing wasn't much. Duane was right. It was going to be all over within the next day

As Nathan dozed off, the thought of someone finding him and waking him up continued to roll in his mind. Somebody was going to wake him up, he was sure of that. Things fell back into order again. Everything will be all be normal by tomorrow.

Someone was going to wake him up, yeah, someone was going to wake him upoh yeah, someonewas going towake him up

Oh yeahsomeone was going tosomeone was going to wake him up

9:00 P.M., Raccoon City

The light haze presented earlier in the day covered the horizon. It brought a purplish shade over the nightfall and killed the sunset, dispatching the day in one swift motion. Before the sun hid its face from the city, clouds assaulted the sapphire sky and converted it into a sickening grey mass. The atmosphere, once burning with the sun, now casts an eerie, dank look into the city. And strangest of all, a strong wind rolled from the hills and down into the city, causing unheard of noises to cut through the night. The wind uttered low, moaning sounds. The sound of that moaning resembled the noises made from the corpses wandering the night, along with the other creatures inhabiting the shadows of the city. Screams were occasionally heard, but they became lesser towards this time of day.

Everything else that followed was silence, dead silence.