Cranky sucked in the air into his lungs, making sure to fill them with sufficient oxygen as he sat in his seat, the large cushions almost swallowing up his body. The roaring of the jet's engines filled his ears as they plowed him through the sky. The air inside the plane didn't feel particularly natural – more … recycled. It circulated between people's nostrils and the ventilation system so many times he could almost swear he was tasting the insides of his fellow passenger's lungs by the mere act of breathing. His head throbbed, like there was some kind of little man inside the depths of his thick skull trying to beat his way out through the bone. Cranky pressed his fingers against his eyes and temples, hoping to lessen the pain, but it only made the throbbing worse.

"This is the last time I fly Air America," he promised himself quietly.

He immediately clamped down on his own lips when a rather attractive looking stewardess approached him. Her uniform, consisting of a white dress shirt with a knee length black skirt, covered by a navy blue apron seemed a few sizes too small for her, enhancing her more feminine qualities. "Would you like some coffee or tea, sir?" she asked politely, leaning her head towards him as she pronounced the last syllable. Her dark blue eyes seemed to sparkle at that moment at the angle. Her pink, glossy lips sparkled as they curved slightly upward into a gentle, friendly smile.

"Actually," he said, reaching into his pant pocket, "I was wondering if I could buy one of those duty free items from the catalogue here."

"Oh sure," the stewardess replied, the smile never leaving her lips. "Which item did you want?"

Cranky reached into the pocket sewn into the rear of the seat in front of him and pulled a large catalogue, thick with pages. He flipped it open and turned a few pages, pointing to an item on a seemingly random page. "I want this one," he said, leaning over towards where the stewardess stood, leaning his head just so that he could see the bare tip of her cleavage.

"Good choice," she said. "This iron man watch is the perfect gift for anyone sporty. Who's it for?"

"This guy," Cranky replied, opening his wallet to take out a hundred dollar bill. He fumbled through the many flaps of the worn leather wallet until he came to a transparent flap that displayed what looked like a passport picture of a six year old child.

"Isn't he cute?" the waitress said, taking note of the child's jet black hair, round face and narrow eyes. "Who is he to you?"

"My little brother," Cranky replied proudly.

The stewardess cocked an eyebrow at him. Up to that point, she had been captivated by this young man that was purchasing a watch from her. Because he was seated, it was hard to say for sure but she was almost certain that he stood a few inches above her. His hair, cut close to his head was fiery red, complimenting his emerald green eyes. He wore a black T-shirt that hugged his body just enough to suggest a hard built torso underneath, but not to the point where it was tight fitting. He seemed reserved – judging by the brief exchange they shared thus far – and well mannered. That fascination quickly gave way to confusion, however, after hearing what he'd just said.

"Your kid brother is … Japanese?" she asked curiously.

"No, Chinese," Cranky replied, "but we both lived in Japan for pretty much all our lives."

"I'm sorry," she said, laughing nervously. "I don't get the relation."

"He was orphaned," Cranky explained, "right around the time this photo was taken. He ran away from the authorities who were trying to find him and I took care of him."

The stewardess could feel her heart melt. He really was a gentleman, taking care of such a young boy. "So how old is your little brother now?"

"Fifteen," was the reply, a sudden change of tone in Cranky's voice. "He's living in Raccoon City and isn't expecting me to show up. This is kind of a surprise visit."

"Well that's going to be exciting. Anyway, I'll go get you your watch and your change, mister …"

"Crankurt," he replied, "Craig Crankurt. But you can just call me Cranky." The stewardess smiled as she walked away, Cranky winking at her as she went. He kicked his legs out, extending them underneath the seat in front of him and rested his hands behind his head. His surprise visit to his adopted little brother had barely begun and he'd already met a gorgeous blond. This trip was going to be great, he had the feeling. "You're gonna fucking flip when I show up, Kenny."

XXXXX

"Thank you," a blonde haired girl said, placing the tab on the wooden barrel that served as a table. The customer, a high strung, tense woman paid her no heed, busily typing away at her laptop. The girl, Cindy Lennox, shrugged and continued about her business, heading towards the back of the bar, J's Bar, picking up a few empty drink glasses on her way behind the counter. She placed them in the sink and turned the tap on, being sure to soak them all in the hot water that poured from the faucet.

Beside her, a young man with a crop of short brown hair wiped his hands with a towel. "Nice lady, huh?" he said sarcastically, turning to face Cindy.

"Will …" she replied, wiping her hands off on her dark gray skirt. She gently took hold of the young man's red tie and pulled it out from behind his brown vest, straightening it skillfully. "You look like a slob." She tucked the tie back in and adjusted the collar of his dress shirt. "If you keep on looking like this while working, you know the boss is gonna throw a fit."

Will shrugged. "It doesn't matter. The regulars don't care what I look like. And they're the ones bringing in most of our income anyway, right? All they care about is how we serve them. And to be frank, Cindy, we're the best service team the boss has ever had."

"I guess," she said, sighing.

"What's the problem?" Will asked, holding her by the shoulders.

"Nothing," Cindy replied. "It's just that I don't want to have to rely on the service industry for my income. It's not that I want to move on or anything but … I just want to have something to fall back on."

"Well how are your medicinal classes at the university going?"

"Not too bad. I'm learning how to make herb cocktails."

Will snickered. "Sounds like some kind of marijuana dooby."

Cindy slapped his lightly on the shoulder. "It's actually for medicinal purposes – some real advanced stuff. Word's going around that this is the kind of stuff even the S.T.A.R.S. members practice on the field, when they are out of medicine. The herbs that grow around the Raccoon City area have exceptional healing abilities."

"Yo, waitress!" a large, gruff man yelled from across the bar, raising his hand. "How about some service over here, huh?" Will rolled his eyes in response.

"Don't worry about it," Cindy said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have been distracted." She walked elegantly over to where the man sat, just at another table-like barrel. Cindy could hear Will cursing under his breath at the audacity of the customer. But it was alright. Cindy was experienced in the service industry. And so was Will, so he should be used to this kind of customer. Yet for him to take such offense to a customer treating her with disrespect so personally, Cindy knew something was up with him. She'd known it for a long time, actually. Will fancied her.

"Here's your bill, Mr. Cavanaugh," Cindy said cheerfully, placing the tab down onto the barrel. The man acknowledged her presence with a slight grunt and waved her off. She turned around and headed back for the bar when the door chime suddenly sounded. Cindy's path changed course from the bar to the entrance, where the most interesting young man stood, looking completely lost.

"Table for one?" Cindy asked, her usual approach to customers.

The man shook his head. "I'm just looking for directions," he replied, "but thanks anyway. I was wondering if you could give me directions to Augustine Street from here. I've got a friend that lives at the junction of Augustine and Main."

"That's uptown Raccoon City," Cindy said, motioning outside the door. "You gonna wanna turn right after leaving the bar and walk about seven blocks north until you reach Augstine. You're on Main Street right now so there's no need to turn anywhere."

The man let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much for your help. You have no idea how much trouble you've saved me."

"Is this your first time in Raccoon City?" Cindy asked.

"Yeah, I just arrived about an hour ago from the airport."

"Well you picked a perfect time to come," she said with a touch of sarcasm. "Tourism into the city has dwindled within the last few months."

The man turned his head curiously. "Why is that?"

"Well I feel a little silly saying this to someone who's just arrived in town. But …"

"But …"

"Well," Cindy said, rubbing the back of her head nervously, "there've been these bizarre rumors about cannibal murders occurring in the outskirts of town. The media's taken a fairy tale and given it too much attention and it seems everyone is falling for it. So I'm just surprised you haven't heard them either."

"I'm just visiting my friend for a few days," the man said shrugging. "I don't care about the local legends and folklore, I just wanna see my kid brother. Thank you again … Cindy." Her name was quite obvious on the tag that she wore. "I hope to be seeing a lot of you while I'm in town." He extended a hand. "Call me Cranky."

XXXXX

Cranky headed north according to the waitresses directions. She was a pretty girl, in that plain, simple sort of way. He found her work uniform a little corny, though, a white shirt with sky blue vertical stripes. Her blonde hair hand hung messily around her face in loose wisps, but she had a pleasant aura about her. He knew she would be the kind of waitress he'd tip well, especially now since she'd helped him find his way around the city.

He mentally kicked himself for not staying in touch with his little brother. Cranky only knew that Kenny was in town through word of mouth. He'd gotten his address from a friend of Kenny's back in Osaka and jumped on the first plane out of Japan as soon as he'd gathered enough money.

But there was something nagging at him from the back of his mind. He thought he felt a little strange coming into the city. Something didn't feel quite right about it. There was a staggering number of drunk people on the streets, moaning as they shuffled along on numb feet. In a city like Osaka, where he had lived his whole life, being drunk in public was frowned upon, therefore people avoided public embarrassment at all cost. But it seemed that residents in Raccoon City had a different set of values.

The air around here was a little smelly too. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but if Cranky were asked to describe it, the best way he could describe the odor would be that of rotting flesh. It was a pretty harsh description, he realized, but there was only a hint of decay. He knew almost immediately that he couldn't live in a place like this, then wondered how Kenny managed to.

Somewhere in the distance, gunshots were fired, and a woman screamed. Cranky's eyes scanned the streets, hoping to see someone around that could help. But there were no police officers, not even civilians. Come to think of it, he'd hardly seen any people beside the strange drunks since coming into the city. Now something really didn't feel right at all.

Deciding that there was nobody to help him, Cranky dashed ahead, pinpointing the sound of the gunshot. He rounded a random alley, where he could best pinpoint the source of the sound and nearly died from shock from the sight that fell before his eyes.

There was the body of a woman lodged between a pair of large garbage dumpsters. From his angle Cranky could only see her feet poking out from between the dumpsters and … God, the smell. It was horrible. The only thing worse was the sound, the wet crunching sound of breaking bones. Cranky felt the color in his face drain. Was something eating the woman? She was not moving, but there was a pool of crimson beneath her body and it was growing pretty large. Then he noticed another set of legs, this one was positioned over the body, on its knees. The torso connected to the legs was also hidden by the dumpsters but it didn't take Cranky long to figure out who they belonged to – it was one of the drunkards.

Hold on, what was Cindy the waitress saying about cannibal murders? The girl clearly didn't believe a word of these "rumors" but here they were happening so close to her work place and yet she still didn't believe. Cranky had converted right away. Cranky hadn't an ounce of faith in his body, relying solely on his eyes to tell him what was going on. And this time, they were telling him that people in Raccoon City ate other people. What kind of sick cult ran rampant throughout the city? It was so obvious something was wrong with the place, how come the authorities weren't doing anything about this?

As if some higher being answered his question, more gunshots were heard and the body of the drunkard now lay motionless on top of the woman's corpse. Standing on the other side of the bodies, deeper in the alley stood a police man in a light blue shirt and navy blue pants. Gray hair poked out from underneath his hat. The officer kept his eyes and handgun trained on the bodies making sure that the cannibal was dead.

"Are you alright, man?" the officer asked Cranky, who was still too stunned to comprehend what he just saw.

"I … I think …" was all he could manage to choke out.

"We've got no time to chat," the officer said, raising his gun again, this time at Cranky.

He immediately shot up his hands. "Hold on, what's going on here?!" The officer fired, yet much to his surprise, Cranky didn't feel anything except the bullet breaking the air just beside his ear. Something moaned in pain from behind him. Cranky spun around to get a look at what could've made that noise and realized it was another one of those cannibal drunkards with a fresh wound in the center of its forehead. He turned back to face the cop. "Hold on, man, you can't just go around shooting people like that."

"The police have already reached the conclusion that these things aren't people," the officer replied calmly.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Cranky declared, throwing his hands up in frustration. "Just because they go around eating other people in broad daylight …" he stopped himself upon realizing how strange he must've sounded trying to justify what they were doing. After all, the policeman had just saved his life – potentially.

"There's more of them," the cop said, pointing behind Cranky. And he was right. There was now a small group of them, about six Cranky counted, heading towards them in the same manner – with arms outstretched and pupiless eyes gazing at them, moaning in different pitches.

"We can head back the way I came," Cranky suggested to the officer. "I didn't see any of these freaks on my way up here."

"That won't do us any good," the cop said as he motioned to a parked patrol unit. "Get in the car. We've got to get out of here."

As the car sped away into the fading light of day, Officer Raymond, as Cranky had learned his name shortly thereafter, made multiple calls for backup. At Cranky's suggestion, Officer Raymond had parked his car just in front of J's Bar, the same bar Cranky was at just under an hour ago for the sake of rescuing whatever civilians were inside, including the waitress, he hoped. As Cranky stepped out of the patrol unit, he took a deep breath of the city's air and once again confirmed the stench of death that lingered. He looked northward at the direction Cindy had told him to go earlier, the same direction that Kenny was situated.

"Please be safe, kiddo," Cranky prayed quietly under his breath.