This is it, this is the worst day of my life.
Joseph always had it rough. He grew up in a poor family and he barely had enough money to support himself now. He recalled thinking that the worst days were when little kids would cause a ruckus near the front of the bus, or when he'd get caught in heavy traffic, or when he would think that he might not have enough money to pay for his shitty little apartment. Now he knew how wrong he was.
They had made it to the police station. The trip had been far from easy. Those zombies came out of nowhere. Hundreds of them flooding the streets so suddenly, forcing James and him to take detours. And when they took those detours, there would be even more of them.
But somehow they had made it. The zombies that had been hunting them earlier seemed to have given up when they entered the RPD. When they got inside, Joseph immediately realized something was very, very wrong.
"…Where is everyone?" James asked. The RPD was void of any kind of human life. No officers, no civilians, no one discussing any plans of transporting people out of the city. Nothing.
"Are we the only ones here?" Joseph asked. James took a few steps forward, taking in his surroundings. The station was ridiculously huge and very tastefully decorated. It wasn't surprising, the mayor put a lot of pride and money into Raccoon City's police force.
"Were we too late?" James asked. He felt a pang of fear at the thought of being left behind in this mess. Despite the kind of training he had in the Air Force, the odds of just the two of them escaping were slim. Joseph looked down at the spotless floor. His mind struggled to devise a plan to escape. As he was concentrating, he thought he saw something shift across the tiles. He couldn't distinguish its shape, but it was very small and covered with thick, black veins.
Joseph gave a cry of shock and stumbled back. James immediately turned around.
"Joseph?! Joseph, what's wrong?!" he asked. Joseph was staring down at the floor with panic-stricken eyes. The thing he saw was gone.
"Didn't you see it?! That…thing was there! It was moving around on the floor!" Joseph looked at James, and saw him staring back at him as if he had gone crazy. James walked calmly towards him.
"I-I'm not lying!" his voice grew more frantic, trying desperately to make James believe him. He felt the younger man's hand on his shoulder.
"Hey, Joseph, are you feeling okay?" James asked. Joseph tensed up, his cheeks felt like they were burning.
"W-what do you mean?" he asked.
"What I mean is that, no offense, but you've been acting a little odd," James replied. A little…?
Joseph sighed heavily. He suddenly felt very tired.
"I don't know…maybe I'm just imagining things," he said. He wasn't too sure of what was happening to him. It all seemed to surreal, maybe he was imagining things. If he was, he sure had one hell of an imagination…
"Look, why don't you just stay here for now? I'll go see if I can find help. Maybe there's still some officers in the building," James said. At this point, I could use anyone's help.
"But you don't have any weapons," Joseph said.
"I have a knife. That's good enough," James said with an arrogant smile, though truthfully, he didn't feel arrogant at all. He looked up, noting the door that was nearest to them. He would start there first. He glanced back at Joseph.
"I'll be right back, okay?" James said.
"I really don't think this is a good idea…" Joseph sighed.
"It'll be fine. I promise. I don't plan on dying yet," James said. He walked away and opened the door that was to his left. Before he went in, he looked back and saw Joseph sitting down near the statue that was in the center of the police station. He had a distant look on his face.
'That guy's kind of creepy…' James felt guilty as soon as the thought entered his head. He hadn't paid much attention to it at first, but he wondered if Joseph wasn't one of those paranoid schizophrenic types. He wasn't sure, but he knew that it couldn't be good thing to be paired up with a psychopath.
'He saved your life, so shut up,' he mentally scolded himself. He entered the next room.
James found himself in a waiting room, or at least it looked like one. There was a reception desk built into the wall on his left, with chairs neatly lined up on the opposite side of the room. In the center was an odd cylinder-shaped statue. At the end was a small wooden wall with desks lined up against it. The wall was covered with all kind of notes.
He walked to the reception desk. It was too dark to see through the glass.
'No one's here either…' James thought.
Moan.
James quickly reached for his knife and whipped around. He scanned the room, looking for whatever had made that sound. The room looked empty, had the moan come from another room?
No. It came from this room.
The only part of the room he hadn't checked was behind the wood wall that the desks were up against. He tightened his grip on the knife, turning his knuckles white. He walked cautiously towards the location of the sound. His heart was beating faster with every step he took.
Cough.
James stopped.
Do zombies cough?
He quickened his step and walked around the wall. He looked down at the figure on the floor.
Oh my god…
It was a wounded police officer. He was propped up under a window and clutching his arm, which was soaked with blood and twisted in an odd position. He was thin-looking for an officer and he had dark brown hair that was drenched in sweat. His uniform was soaked from the blood dripping down his arm. The cop looked up at James as soon as he stepped into view.
"S-so…there's more survivors…" he said, then grunted in pain. James walked over to him and kneeled down next to him, examining his arm.
"Looks pretty nasty. What the hell happened?" he asked.
"A monster…" the cop mumbled, "it came out of nowhere. It was the most horrifying thing I ever saw."
The only monster James could think of that the cop was talking about was those zombies, but he couldn't imagine them doing something like this to a person's arm.
"What's your name?" he asked. The cop looked down at his injuries.
"…William Cromwell," he said.
"I'm James. I'm going to go find some medical supplies for that injury, okay? Do you know where they would be?" he asked.
"Uh…t-the only place I can think is the S.T.A.R.S. office, but it's too dangerous to go by yourself…" William started to stand up.
"Don't. I can get them myself," James said.
"Do you have any weapons on you?" William asked.
"Um…a knife," James replied sheepishly. William lifted an eyebrow. He started to reach for the gun that was safely tucked away in its holster, when suddenly the door came off its hinges and shattered on the ground. Standing on top of the broken door was the monster William had been talking about. It stood in between James and William, cornering the young officer. The monster seemed uninterested in James as it closed in on William, who was fumbling to get his gun out and was breathing hard.
James saw his opportunity to attack when it had its back turned to him. He ran at the monster and drove the knife deep into its spine. The monster shrieked in pain and reared back, throwing James to the floor. It regained its composure, now oblivious to the knife that was lodged into its back. Its attention was now focused on James.
Ah…shit…
The monster slowly approached him. James started to scoot away, looking behind him to find something to fight it with. Unless he could fight it off with a desk, there was nothing useful. Suddenly the thing leapt at him with its large claws exposed. James fell on his back and watched with wide-eyed shock as it descended very quickly upon him.
Gunshots rang out and the creature squealed in pain. Chunks of its head exploded in a spray of blood and brain tissue. James quickly rolled out of the away just as the heavy body fell to the floor with a loud thump. It didn't get back up.
James got to his feet and looked at the dead monster. He then looked at William, who was still pointing his gun at the monster.
"That…" he said, "is why it's dangerous to go alone."
William flipped his gun and held it out to James.
"I can't exactly help you like this, but at least take my gun," he said. James accepted it. It felt nice to be holding a gun again.
"Thanks."
"There's more ammo in the desk drawer over there," William reached into his shirt pocket and tossed a small silver key at James. He caught it easily. James walked over and unlocked the desk drawer, then snatched the ammo that was inside.
"The police keep ammo in the strangest of places," James commented.
"We…we had to. With the riots and the chief's strange idea of moving all the weapons and ammunition into inconvenient locations. The other officers began secretly storing ammunition in places that were easy to get to. It wasn't enough though," William replied.
"Why on earth would the police chief put all the weapons an ammo in inconvenient places during a riot? And what about all the civilians that were supposed to come here?" James asked.
"I…I don't know. Maybe he didn't want them to be stolen, but even that doesn't make much sense…As for the civilians, most of the officers that were going to escort them out were already dead or zombies. Most of the civilians died off," William said. James felt like he had been punched in the gut. If an entire police force had been slaughtered, what were his chances for survival?
James' thoughts were interrupted when William grunted in pain. He would have to worry about his survival later.
"Well, all this talking is getting us nowhere. I'm going to get those supplies. I'll be back in a little bit. Just hang on," James said. He walked through the opened doorway. As he disappeared down the hall, William was left to wonder how he was going to carry out his duty as an officer when he was stuck in a situation like this.
