Author's Notes: The terror begins, at long last. Umbrella's newest creation has been unleashed, with dire consequences for the denizens of Neilson.

Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Resident Evil is a copyright of Capcom, inc., and I
assert no ownership of it. If by their request, or the request of an
authorized representative, I shall immediately remove this work from
fanfiction.net.

Outbreak: Chapter Four

Neilson City

Three Hours Later

"Jesus Christ, Dick." A gruff, boisterous voice cut through the cacophony of the wailing police sirens, the pervasive, sporadic roar of thunder, and the driving spattering of rain. "Who in the hell is this guy? Some kind of suicidal SWAT member?" The speaker knelt beside the gruesomely mutilated form of the man that had once been Erwin Mueller. Blood still slowly oozed out of the shredded mass of bone and tissue that had once been his body, aided along in its slow trickle across the street by the torrential downpour; pinkish, burbling rivers cascaded away from his still figure. Jagged, porcelain bones protruded sickeningly from the midnight-black uniform, coated with ripped muscle and flesh; his face was unrecognizable, nothing more than a cracked, bleeding wreck. Bits of brain pushed up through the shattered skull, resembling graying hamburger meat.

"Dunno, Bob." The other man, Dick Krychek, tugged the soaked raincoat closer to his body, shivering slightly in the frigid air. "I don't think this guy's SWAT, though; he's not wearing any identification. Why would he jump from the Central Planning Committee, anyway?" He grimaced, trying to shield himself from the shredding hail of crystalline water while he gazed apathetically at the body.

"Was he carrying any guns?" Bob Adams, running a gritty, calloused hand through his dark black hair, inquired to his partner.

"None that I could find, but he had some strange equipment on him. Real military stuff; high-tech night vision, some grenades, and a radio that looks like it might cost my year's salary." Krychek offered in reply, bending down to the corpse. He scanned every feature of the body that was still intact, taking note of the tattered and rent clothing, the manifold equipment pouches in its torn combat vest; he then noticed a small glint of cracked glass beneath the body.

A sudden, brilliant burst of electricity fell from the heavens, splitting the rain-occupied skies; it was a roaring, speeding pulse of glimmering white-hot energy, encompassed by crackling azure streaks. It fully illuminated the streets, but the two officers on the scene were too occupied by the shattered vials that were made visible to even register the ear-splitting boom of thunder. A gentle drip of a sickly, greenish fluid still poured from one of the broken vessels, seeming to repel the tenacious pull of the rain.

"What the hell's that stuff, Dick?" Adams questioned, inching forward to better assess just what the shattered glass vials held.

"Some kind of designer drug? Maybe we should get a sample to the narcotics division." Krychek's suggestion drew an aggravated grunt from Adams.

"Nah, I don't think that we should let this out of our authority until we find just who this nutcase is." Adams reached toward the jagged glass shards, an evidence bag in hand. Tentatively grasping at the sharp edges with glove-clad hands, he jolted and pulled away; a small trickle of blood dribbled down his index finger, a hole readily apparent in the glove.

"You all right, Adams?" Krychek reached for his partner's hand, examining the slight gash. "Looks like just a small cut. Let's hope that's not some kind of drug, or you could be screwed." He snickered, releasing the slowly-bleeding appendage.

"Yeah, right. I don't feel anything, so I think I'm okay. I think we should have this stuff tested, though." He tore off the glove, sucking irately at the digit; the minute amount of blood that it had wept had stopped, the wound already beginning to heal.

With that, Krychek collected the glass containers in one sweep, depositing the shards and one undamaged vial unceremoniously into an evidence bag.

"Heh, looks like you're just clumsy, Bob." Krychek chuckled, snapping off his gloves.

"Yeah, why don't you bite me, Dick?" Adams sighed, awkwardly rising from the supine form of Mueller's corpse.

"Sorry, got to get home early tonight." Krychek sniggered, slapping his friend good-naturedly on his broad, rubber-covered back, the drenched raincoat making a wet cracking sound. "You can stand to work alone tonight, right?"

"Oh, but of course." Adams mumbled, nursing his aching finger; it had stopped bleeding, but it throbbed horribly, as though the green liquid was some type of engineered irritant. Within his body, however, the virus was already taking effect; trillions of insidious, ingeniously-crafted particles scattered about his bloodstream. They adhered themselves to the body's own cells, transforming them into engines of their own destruction; the virus' progeny were now in production, starting to multiply exponentially as they drifted about the canals and streams of their host. His fate was sealed.

Stepping into the vehicle, the two men sent a message to the coroner, only receiving a bored, "roger that," in reply. Adams turned the keys, a sudden burst of roaring, stuttered noise erupting from the powerful vehicle's engine. The squeal of worn tires desperately trying to grip the soaked pavement soon followed, and the car disappeared from the alley in a flash of light; several officers milled about outside of the cramped, claustrophobic space that Mueller's body occupied, but none noticed the slow drain of the sickening, green-hued liquid into the drains; the water would soon be filtered back to the citizens of Neilson City, the process a result of their much-prized water recycling system.

In the intermittent, stroboscopic flashes of white and blue lightning, Mueller's corpse slowly twitched, fingers awkwardly moving as though the action was completely foreign to what had once been a man. Its mutilated eyes slowly cracked open, the once-steely blue of the deep-set orbs now a dazed and widely opened sea of gray. Within the shattered, crumbling orifice of its mouth, a low, throaty, pining moan came; it grew until it reached a keening wail, a hungry, frustrated anguish like that of a starved animal.

Then all was quiet, the abrupt spurt of activity seemingly lost to the impartial sheets of black clouds and pounding rain that hovered over the expansive city. But, in the abyss of darkness that was the secluded alley behind the towering skyscraper, the crushed muscles of its chest began to work again; gurgling, wet heaves for breath burst from the formerly dead being. In the periodic strikes of flickering lightning, broken bones and sinew slowly began to mend themselves, bringing new life to the obliterated, spiritless entity that had been Erwin Mueller.

The relative peace of the alleyway, only intermittently disturbed by desperate gasps and the wet spray of rainwater, was destroyed by the howling siren of the coroner's van. Tires crunched over the various small obstacles presented by debris within the alley, suddenly stopping as the brilliant yellow glimmer of the headlights fell on the slowly-rebuilding monster. The van doors creaked open, two men in green raincoats filing dutifully out of the large vehicle. They tentatively approached the immobile, hibernating creature, not yet aware of the horrid secret that its broken façade concealed; they carried a water-streaked, black plastic bag with them.

"'This this guy, Henderson?" One of the men asked dully, rubbing his darkness-obscured face.

"Who else could it be?" Henderson replied with a sigh, scanning the alleyway.

"Good point." The other man succinctly responded, his voice distracted and rife with exhaustion.

The pair walked cautiously toward Mueller's body, before jolting as it wheezed painfully, its excruciating gasp for air making their eyes widen.

"What the hell?! This guy's supposed to be dead! Jacobson, give me a hand here!" Henderson exclaimed, running up to the fallen mass of still- oozing tissue, blood, and flesh.

Suddenly attentive, Jacobson joined his partner, staring intently down at the bloody hulk. "This guy should be dead. He fell from up there, I heard." He motioned emphatically at the building that surged up from the concrete base next to them.

"Well, he's not. Shut up and help me lift him. I don't think he'll live for much longer; I don't think he'll live at all, though." Henderson grimaced, grasping the mangled arms of the body and trying to heft it up into a sitting position. Aided by Jacobson, his partner's face going white as some of the skin simply tore free, releasing a new river of blood over its gore-covered vest, he finally succeeded; its bones cracked and popped as it assumed its new stance.

"This guy's not gonna make it, Henderson. What can we do?" Jacobson choked out, biting back the vomit that threatened to rise into his mouth.

"Get him to a hospital, at the very least; I just don't get how anyone could take a fall from that height and not die. Didn't those idiots from homicide even check his pulse?" Henderson growled, disguising the fear and disgust looming over his mind with righteous anger. Reaching down, he pressed his fingers to the bloody and torn flesh of the body's neck, feeling for a pulse; he lurched back slightly when he felt the strong, consistent beat of the flowing blood through the nearly-exposed artery.

"What's the matter, Henderson?" Jacobson wondered, raising an eyebrow at the unexpected reaction of his experienced partner.

"H-his pulse. It's completely normal. How can that be?" Henderson stuttered, making an effort to lift the still-warm body.

"What?! Jesus, let me help!" Jacobson grasped the former-cadaver's back, helping to raise it to its feet; the two then dragged it forward, wincing at the hideous cracking sounds the feet made as they scraped along the rough cement.

Small rivulets of thick, crimson blood dribbled onto the pair as they lugged the desperately-breathing body back to the van; its eyes had opened again, unnoticed by the coroners that had become its saviors. The once- grayed eyes, however, had become narrow, radiant red slits; the beads of brilliant, heated ruby quivered, shifting to and fro as it familiarized itself with its surroundings. Its old mind had left it, any vestiges of humanity having been torn away with its plummet from the giant building, but it had developed a new consciousness; pulsating thoughts cascaded through the reforming brain. Thoughts of what it could salvage from what remained of the old "owner's" mind, meaningless recollections of past events that it didn't comprehend. It formed a new life for itself, the swift mending of the brain letting it mature in a matter of minutes; it could only see its needs and desires.

'Food,' a small voice tugged at the creature's brain. 'You need food to live. You need to live to be free. You need to make more of you.' Its head tried to twist, but it was held back by the insistent hands of the bewildered coroner that held him.

"Hey, Henderson, he's starting to move!" Jacobson hollered from the back of the dark van cabin, his partner manning the wheel of the speeding vehicle.

"Keep him still! With that kind of trauma, he shouldn't even stir at all!" Henderson growled, jerking about in his seat as he navigated the mostly-deserted streets.

'These two will do.' The voice was reaching a deafening pitch, tormenting the forming identity of the new creature. 'They will be your food. Make them your food.' It tried to question what was talking, why it could hear the voice and the blurred shape of the thing holding it couldn't. 'You mustn't disobey me,' the voice prodded, and the creature's lips slowly parted; the jaw muscles and bones had healed, a new strength endowed to them. Its teeth, formerly crushed, jagged knobs of bloody bone protruding through its gums had arisen again; they were sharp, lethal instruments, wet with bloody saliva.

"Gyah!" The monster moaned, a lusting, feral hunger pervading its animalistic voice. "Myyyyyyyy." A coherent word tumbled from its reformed mouth, slurred and pained. "Fooooood." With that, its face shot forward at the exposed neck of the awe-struck Jacobson, the razor-sharp, jagged surfaces of the newfound teeth digging into his soft, frail flesh. With a sickening, gruesome tearing, the skin gave way, a fountain of dark gore spurting from the wide opening the bite produced. Incited by the warm, metallic flavor, the creature continued to rip away at the struggling form of Jacobson despite his impassioned, agonized screams. It could feel the man's lifeblood surging into its own body, supplementing its returning strength; the tension in its skull was being relieved, the nagging demand for food beginning to abate.

"What the fuck is going on back there?!" Henderson shouted, slamming his foot against the brake pedal; the heavy van came to an abrupt stop, the feasting body of the creature hurtling forward in the cabin.

The creature could feel as much as hear the voice again, 'get up. He's bad. He wants to stop you. He's food, too.' It was like a lecturing parent with a small child, describing its goals in the simplest of terms.

"Bad." The monster groaned, starting to raise itself off of the frigid, metal surface of the floor. "Yoouuu. Bad. Eat." It growled its thoughts, the regenerating throat tissue still leaking dark ichors as it throbbed.

"What?! What the hell are you?!" Henderson stumbled back, the bent, teetering shape of the beast shuffling toward him.

"Hungry. Tasty." It moaned, its thick, bloated tongue sliding over its lips; it collected the blood that had collected there, the crimson fluids sending a shiver of excitement through its lurching body.

"Stay away from me! Stay away!" Henderson cried, his body quaking as he stumbled, crumpling to the ground near the dash of the van. "Don't come any closer!" He reached for the revolver that he kept near his seat, clutching the chilly steel of the grip. He desperately tried to raise it, the barrel arcing and wavering as he unsteadily trained the muzzle on the bewildered creature. Squeezing the chilly crescent of the trigger, the barrel snapped upward, a brilliant flare of orange blasting from the glimmering metal.

As the bullet smacked into the creature's chest with a dull, fleshy sound, it jolted back, staring down at the slowly-dripping wound perplexedly. The low-caliber round had found one of the manifold tears in the flak jacket, shredding reforming bone and muscle as it lodged itself into the gut of the now-still horror. It sniffed the air confusedly, tilting its head and then staring down curiously at the rounded wound in its stomach. It stood there for several seconds, the coroner gazing up at it in a tense, confused silence.

"Hurt. Bad." The words tumbled free from the terror's cavernous, blood-stained mouth, and it started toward the petrified man again. The stinging, oppressive stench of its own blood seemed to compel it to move faster; its reddened eyes were blazing with fury.

Henderson, paralyzed with an all-consuming terror, just stared into the murderous eyes of the dreaded beast as it lunged at his throat; his mouth opened in a mute shriek as it began to feed, his body twitching and flailing in a futile effort to escape the grasp of the heinous fiend. Sickening spurts of blood shot into the air, staining the monster's torn clothing and Henderson's own body as the inhuman abomination feasted, tearing free flesh and slurping it down with a seemingly insatiable appetite. Soon, all of Henderson's pain had disappeared, being replaced by a pervasive, senseless black; the slow trickle of viral particles into his broken and ripped body ensured that he would once again arise.

Its vile desire for blood and flesh satiated, the beast slowly rose from the obliterated body of Henderson. The immobile body still quivered slightly, occasional, base impulses coursing through its deadened nervous system, but all semblance of humanity and consciousness had been devoured by tearing, gnashing teeth of the creature. It had fostered two offspring, another pair of odious perversions of science that would soon rise to fulfill their most primal purpose; they would feed and propagate the abhorrent life of the virus.

"Good. Tastes good." The being that had once been Mueller snarled, appraising the fallen forms of the coroners. It had some primitive comprehension of their lack of life, and slowly cocked its head; the harsh, glimmering red of its eyes blinked several times, trying to fathom its own deed. Its flesh had all but been repaired, barely any indication of the severity of its wounds remaining. Turning away from the grotesque, maimed, flaccid bodies, it gripped the door handle with the uncertainty of a baby taking its first steps; a tentative rotation of its creaking wrist wrenched open the barrier to its progress, and it stepped slowly out onto the drenched pavement. For the first time, the consciousness that had come to exist in the formerly-abandoned body took notice of its surroundings, and stared up into the sky that seemed to have been broken open, a cataclysmic shower of shredding, icy rivulets hammering all that dared to stand beneath.

The being paid it no heed, instead taking more fluid, coordinated steps; soon its footfalls sped up in rapidity, the hideous entity running heedlessly along the abandoned streets. Within the blood-drenched interior of the van, as the last embers of life were extinguished from the forms of Jacobson and Henderson, their clothing shredded, their bodies disfigured and torn asunder, a new awareness took root within their now-vacant minds. A slight impulse sped through their nervous systems, and, almost in unison, a pair of fingers twitched.