RESIDENT EVIL
A N A M N E S I S
Written by Nick Blackford
Based upon Capcom's Resident Evil created by Shinji Mikami
Chapter Nine: A Ghost of the Static
The journey towards the outskirts of town was uneasy. Nathan sat despondently in the back of the ambulance with Celeste who had taken a kitchen drawer on the way out of the flat and filled it with knives and a selection of other make-shift weapons from the kitchen. She stared glumly into the drawer as its contents rattled.
Lisa and Mike hadn't seen what was in the flat, but they knew Amanda wasn't with them and that whatever Celeste and Nathan had seen meant the worst. Suddenly the radio, which was still stuttering a mixture irregular noise and silence burst into incoherent speech.
Lisa leant over and quickly and tuned the radio in an attempt to clarify the voice. Beneath the fuzz the husky, panicked voice of a man began to come through.
"I'm gonna stop." Mike said, and slowly the ambulance pulled over from the main road.
The four passengers waited, the voice was gone, a ghost of the static that had slipped away as quickly as it had begun its disjointed murmur.
"Who do you think it was?" Lisa finally asked frustrated, none of them had caught a word the voice had tried to say.
"Could have been one of those recorded emergency broadcasts." Mike suggested, they all waited, listening for the voice to come back. "Then again, radios can pick up all kinds of shit." He said.
"You think we can use that one to get through to anyone but the hospital?" Celeste asked.
"Another ambulance maybe? The police? To be honest I'm not sure. No harm in trying." Lisa said, she took the radio and spoke into it. "Hello? Can anybody hear us? We're in an ambulance on..." She turned to Mike.
"Lincoln Road" He said after glancing quickly at a street sign outside.
"We're on Lincoln Road, if anybody can hear us, please respond." She put the radio down.
"What does it matter? We've got a good thing going on here; wheels and weapons. We should just get out of town." Nathan said.
"He's right." Celeste added. "They'd probably need us more than we need them anyway. They'll slow us down. We should spend as little time here as –" Celeste was cut off by the return of the voice on the radio.
"… Hear you!" The fractured voice cried. "Please… trapped…." The voice spluttered underneath the crackling of the radio, only the odd word got through.
"Where are you?" Lisa cried after snatching the radio back.
"Didn't you hear me?" Nathan barked, Celeste felt the irritation she could see in his face.
"The Raccoon…. Quickly… They're outside." The radio suddenly drowned the struggling voice out completely.
"The Raccoon? I know where that is." Mike said nostalgically. Memories blurred by the worst years of his life crept from the crevices in his mind. Suddenly he was there again, surrounded by the smoke, by the glaring lights, the music that he was playing and the people who looked up at him, people who wanted to be him.
In that moment of quiet, while Mike dreamt of the perfect life he'd let slip through his fingers, Lisa inwardly mourned her workmates and Nathan wondered where Amanda was, where she lay if she had lost her way and fallen to one of the grim wanderers outside. Celeste hadn't suffered the loss the others had and as she read the faces of her companions she hoped she never would.
"Oh God." Lisa dropped the radio and continued to gape. In the commotion none of them had noticed the accumulation of figures in the road ahead, they were at a distance and walking with the same clumsy demeanor as the woman they had attacked earlier, more of the same, whatever they were. Nathan leant forwards to get a better look through the windshield.
"Oh give us a fucking break." he whined as he collapsed back into his seat. Celeste made sure she also sat back down as Mike restarted the engine.
"Hold on." Mike warned, the ambulance swerved quickly into the road and with surprisingly swift precision the awkwardly handled vehicle sped passed the moaning gathering.
"Lisa was it?" Mike asked.
"Yeah." She replied staring at the radio again.
"You've never seen anything like this…working at the hospital, have you?" In the safety of the ambulance the thirst for answers had replaced Mike's fear. Such bizarre events warrant reason, any reason.
"No," She said glumly. She looked back at Nathan and Celeste, neither of them was listening. "It's some kind of mass-hysteria, an epidemic maybe. All the medical knowledge in the world wouldn't explain what managed to tear those holes though." She glanced above Mike at the gaping hole in the roof of the ambulance; the metal had been torn back, peeled like paper.
"This is stupid. We're going to get ourselves killed picking up everyone we come across on the way out." Nathan whispered hurriedly to Celeste. She sat opposite him, leaning towards him so he didn't have to raise his voice.
"I know, look, if things get out of hand we'll all just leave okay? Neither of them want to put us in any more danger, it's just the idea that we might be that guy's last chance…"
Nathan suddenly pictured Amanda. What if she was okay? What if someone else had been her last chance and she'd gotten out of the flat alive, to some place safe?
"Yeah." Nathan said nodding softly. Celeste was taken aback by his reaction; there was something about Celeste that allowed her to get underneath his tough exterior. Celeste didn't understand it, but she didn't question it either; either way the pair of them, strangers, understood each other through and through.
"This is it," Mike said. They had arrived, one of the stores behind them was on fire, illuminating the street with flickering warm light while crackling loudly. In front of them was The Raccoon, a large bar that had attracted the elite socialites of Raccoon City, its impressive appearance was an excuse for the over-priced drinks and door-charge. The neon lights above what remained of its doors glared a garishly bright green in the darkness. "It's changed a lot since I last saw it though." Mike said taking the keys out of the ignition.
The group clambered out of the vehicle, they had all cautiously checked the surrounding street but it stood eerily empty, devastated but desolate.
"The guy on the radio made out like there was something outside trying to get in." Lisa said, staring at the club's doors; one of them was hanging from the hinges, the other splintered in two on the floor. Both were covered in bloody hand prints.
"Looks like we were too late." Lisa said, hanging her head.
"I'm going to take a quick look inside, you lot can wait here." Mike said.
"At least say something first, it looks dark in there. And take this." Nathan said before passing Mike one of the knives he'd collected from his kitchen. It might have been cowardly of him, even cowardly to let Mike go into the bar alone, but the knife served as some kind of recompense.
"Yeah. Thanks." Mike turned to the doorway, it was dark inside, almost pitch black but he could see just enough to know there wasn't someone standing in front of him, waiting for him to step into their grasp. Part of him couldn't believe where he was, his old haunt. How different the circumstances had been the last time he'd been there.
The others watched attentively as Mike disappeared into the bar without them.
"What's that?" Celeste whispered.
"What?" Nathan said back, Lisa looked round as Celeste winced, she was trying to listen to something. And there it was, distant but definite, the sound of metal jingling, like spare change in a persons pocket as they ran.
"Sounds like…" Celeste waited, the sound was getting louder, closer.
"RUN!" Nathan yelled suddenly, "Hey man! Get out of there! Hurry!" Nathan, Celeste and Lisa scrambled back into the ambulance.
"What is it?" Celeste flustered.
"Dogs, loads of 'em." He pointed outside and sure enough there was a pack of them, five all together flocking towards them from the distance.
"Mike!" Lisa screamed from the window. They waited, there was nothing else they could do.
"If he'd heard her he would have been out by now." Celeste thought to herself, her heart racing. As the three of them watched in horror from the safety of the ambulance, the entire horde of dogs darted passed the vehicle and straight into the bar.
"Mike!" Lisa screamed again, but only silence screamed back.
