25: Just Resting
The cemetery gates turned out to be locked.
"Not for long," said Renée, grinning, and produced a lockpick from one of her many pockets.
"Are you sure this cemetery thing is a good idea?" said Amber warily, as Renée set to work on the gates.
"Quite sure," said Christina. "It'll take at least ten minutes off the journey time, and it'll also save us from climbing over a lot of barricades on our way there. Why, are you scared?"
"Of course I'm scared!" said Amber. "Any sane person would be afraid of going through a cemetery, at night, when there are zombies around!"
"Why are you so worried?" said Christina, frowning. "All the people in here are dead. Personally I would be more concerned with all the people wandering round outside the cemetery. They're dead too. At least the people in here got the message."
"I guess," said Amber grudgingly – she knew Christina was probably right, but she wasn't at all happy about having to admit it.
"Got it," said Renée.
She pushed the gates open and they filed in, one by one.
A few weeks ago, in the daytime, the cemetery would have been – well, not a nice place to be, but pleasant enough if you ignored the fact that there were dead people mouldering quietly a few metres beneath the neatly trimmed lawns and rows of assorted tombstones.
Now, though, it was a sinister place of dark shadowy shapes and unknown terrors – the stereotypical spooky graveyard. There were even a few wisps of mist curling around the gravestones. It was all too easy to imagine a vampire rising from one of the tombs, or a mad doctor and his hunchbacked assistant heading towards a fresh grave with shovels, sacks and calculating expressions.
"This is so creepy," said Amber, as they picked their way through the rows of graves. "I feel like I'm gonna bump into Jekyll and Hyde, or Dracula, or something."
"Or Frankenstein's monster," suggested Renée. "Big scary dude made out of dead people. He'd probably feel right at home here in Raccoon City."
"Met him," said Lisa instantly.
"Yeah, an' we blow him sky-high!" exclaimed Jack, throwing his arms in the air and almost hitting Renée in the head.
"Ahem," said Lisa, with a little cough.
"Well, you blow him sky-high," conceded Jack, "But I save you life first."
"True," said Lisa, and ran out of things to say.
A gust of wind made the trees rustle; otherwise, it was quiet. Unnervingly so, in Lisa's opinion. She was desperate for something to break the silence; even the appearance of a zombie would have been a strange relief. At least then she'd have a reason to be afraid. Being afraid of silence was – well, it was stupid.
After a while, Renée cleared her throat.
"You know, I just don't get these epitaph things at all," she said, waving her hand towards the tombstones.
In front of the others, Christina rolled her eyes, but said nothing.
"What do you mean?" said Lisa, eager to keep the conversation alive.
"Well, take this one, for instance," said Renée, and she pointed to a grave that they happened to be passing. "Underneath the name and dates it's got "not dead, just resting". I mean, come on. Not dead… who's he trying to kid? And just resting? Does that mean his folks tried to bury the poor guy every time he took a nap? Imagine that, waking up after a couple of hours' shut-eye and suddenly wondering why it's all gone dark. Oh, hey, look at this one."
This headstone was black marble, with an inscription in gold letters:
Here lies Eric Christopher Strattle
Fell asleep on September 15th, 1998, aged 27 years
"Fell asleep?" said Renée incredulously. "They buried him because he fell asleep? Man, I'd hate to live in this town. I'd be scared to shut my eyes in case someone called the funeral directors. I wonder if the hospitals declare their patients medically dead every time they blink?"
"Live burial isn't funny," said Amber curtly. "I investigated an incident last year involving an accidental live burial. The relatives were in a terrible state. They sued the pants off the old Raccoon Hospital; the entire morgue staff got fired. It put the funeral director out of business too. A lot of people lost their jobs because of that incident. I'd hardly describe that as funny."
"Me either. It's dead serious," said Renée, poker-faced.
Amber glared at her.
"Hey, there be another one with "no dead'" on it," said Jack. "Look – that couple they find in the park a couple of weeks back."
A plain granite headstone this time, with a bunch of fading lilies left lying on the grave mound. The inscription read:
Josef and Susan Leidermann
Died September 8th 1998, aged 28 years
"Not dead, just asleep"
"Just asleep. Huh. They're fooling nobody but themselves," said Renée matter-of-factly. "Hey, I wonder what would happen if I leaned down and shouted "Hey, Mr and Mrs Supposedly-Not-Dead, this is your early morning wake-up call!". You think they'd sit up yawning or something?"
"Don't," said Lisa, shuddering. "Please. I'm freaked-out enough as it is without you putting thoughts like that in my head."
"Oh, don't worry," said Renée, giving the tombstone a pat. "Christina's right. These people are dead, and unlike the poor folks outside the cemetery, they're going to stay dead –"
A rotting hand suddenly burst through the grave, spraying soil everywhere, and groped blindly towards Renée's leg.
Renée screamed and leapt backwards, coming to land on the last resting place of Beatrice Lorraine Wrigley (died September 13th, 1998 - RIP). But this spot proved to be an even worse place to stand.
With an explosion of earth, Lisa's late neighbour erupted from her grave – apparently, Mrs Wrigley had decided that she didn't want to rest in peace after all. And neither, it seemed, did the people in neighbouring graves.
It was as though that one tap on the tombstone had sparked off a chain reaction. Zombies sprang up from the earth, one after another, showering the once-pristine cemetery with grass and dirt. Before they knew it, the living dead were everywhere.
"All the people in here are dead, you said. They're going to stay dead, you said," Amber said loudly. "Well, I don't know about you, but they don't look like they're staying dead to me!"
One of the zombies snarled at them.
"Perhaps, on reflection, the cemetery was ill-advised," said Christina.
"Really? You think?" said Amber sarcastically.
"Obviously some of the zombie victims were buried before people were aware of the T-Virus' side effects," said Christina, seemingly oblivious to sarcasm – and to the approaching zombies. "Nobody anticipated that those killed wouldn't stay dead and buried."
"Obviously," muttered Amber.
"Um, hello?" said Lisa. "I hate to interrupt, but in case you haven't noticed, we're surrounded by zombies! What are we going to do about it?"
"Panic?" suggested Renée.
"The plan - " Christina began.
"Screw the plan!" yelled Jack. "The plan sucks! We 'bout to get killed 'cause of the plan! Well, I got a new plan! We jump over the fence an' we run like hell! How's that sound to you?"
Christina's eyes swivelled. She took in the scowl on Jack's face, the fear in the eyes of the others, and the crowd of former coffin-dwellers heading slowly and inexorably towards them.
Thud. Thud-thud. The irregular sound of dead men's clumsy footsteps, occasionally punctuated with long, low groans. They were getting closer now, so close that the smell of death and decay seemed to be everywhere.
In theory, they could just kill the zombies. There were a lot of them, true, but that didn't really matter when both she and Renée had AK-47s at their disposal. But as they'd already discovered earlier in their mission, zombies were difficult to kill, and particularly difficult to kill quickly. Even when filled with enough lead to make a crateful of pencils, they still kept on coming. It was doubtful whether they could manage to keep the zombies at bay for long.
"Well?" said Jack impatiently.
"It looks like we don't have much choice," said Christina. "We have to retreat."
"You and Lisa go first," said Renée. "We'll hold off the zombies."
"Are you sure you'll be okay?" said Lisa.
"Just go. Don't worry about us," said Renée. "You and Jack get yourselves out. We'll be right behind you."
Lisa nodded.
"C'mon, Lise!" called Jack, who was already at the fence.
Although she wasn't the athletic type, Lisa decided that running was a good idea in this situation. She summed up as much energy as possible, and ran, covering the ground between her and the fence in a few seconds.
The fence that separated the cemetery from the rest of the world was a set of cast-iron railings which, Lisa noted unhappily, were topped with sharp spikes.
"How are we going to climb over that?" said Lisa.
"S'okay, I help you over," said Jack. "Up you go…"
He picked Lisa up by the waist and lifted her right over the railings, dropping her on the other side.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, Jack scaled the fence and tried to climb over without hurting himself. He was halfway over and was just about to climb down the other side when he heard a scream, and the sound of gunfire.
Distracted by the noise, Jack turned to look; his hand closed on empty air instead of the fence, and he lost his balance. With a cry of alarm, he fell forwards and landed in a heap at Lisa's feet.
Lisa had barely opened her mouth to say "Are you all right?" when Amber hurtled towards the fence and scrambled over the top, ignoring the tearing sound as the leg of her pants caught on the spikes and ripped. She rolled when she hit the ground, and lay there, panting.
A second later, Renée took a running jump at the fence, barely clearing it; she was followed by Christina, who winced slightly as she grabbed hold of the spikes and hauled herself right over the railings.
"Made it," gasped Renée. "We made it."
"Graaaaaah!"
Zombies came out of nowhere, and hurled themselves against the railings with an almighty crash. Half-rotted hands lunged through the gaps in the fence, trying to snatch at them through the bars.
Lisa screamed.
"Get back!" said Christina, shoving her roughly aside.
"Can they get through the fence?" said Amber.
"Perhaps. Either way, I have no intention of letting them try," said Christina. She and Renée trained their assault rifles on a small group of zombies, and unleashed hell.
Blood sprayed everywhere as bullets ripped through dead flesh. Zombies fell like snow, their groans drowned out by the roar of gunfire. Soon there were bodies littering the ground on the other side of the railings.
"Damn," muttered Renée. She'd run out of bullets. She removed the empty magazine, discarded it with a flick of her wrist and snapped a fresh one into place – small, swift, almost instinctive movements. Within the space of a few seconds she was ready to fire again.
Before long, every zombie lay dead. Renée sighed, wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, and turned round; her initial satisfaction in having felled the undead soon drained away when she saw the pale, shocked faces of the three civilians.
"What's the matter?" she asked them.
Amber laughed bitterly.
"What's the matter?" she repeated. "What's the matter? We almost died back there!"
She wasn't laughing any more.
"We barely escaped with our lives," she continued, "We've just seen a whole bunch of our late fellow citizens mown down with assault rifles. And now you're asking us what the matter is? Well, I'll tell you what the matter is – it's you two, that's what! You're both insane!"
"Actually, we prefer the term "sanity-impaired"," said Christina, surveying the carnage with her usual dispassion.
"I prefer the term "crazed mass-murderers who think it's a good idea to go through the cemetery at night in a city full of zombies"," said Amber. "What the hell is wrong with you mercs? Do you have some kind of death-wish?"
"No. But you seem to," said Christina, with a long, hard look at Amber.
Amber, however, was not impressed.
"Don't bother trying to intimidate me, Corporal," she snapped.
Their gazes were locked, chilly blue and defiant green, both women refusing to give an inch. Neither of them blinked, or looked away. The air between them seemed to solidify under the force of the intense, angry stare.
"I'm not afraid of you," said Amber quietly.
Christina's eyes narrowed.
"You should be," she said coldly. She turned and walked away from Amber in an abrupt movement. But although Christina was the one who had broken eye contact first, Amber was left with the distinct feeling that she hadn't won that round – not by a long shot.
"Well," said Christina briskly, glancing around them. "At least we got to our destination in one piece."
"We – we did?" said Lisa, taken aback.
For the first time since landing, she took a good look at her surroundings. On this side of the railings there were trees, a neatly defined gravel path lined with lamps, a couple of late roses blooming on a bush… and a bench.
The sight of this last object chilled Lisa's heart, as it suddenly dawned on her just where they were.
Without even realising it, she had come to the last place on earth she wanted to be – the very place she'd begged the others to avoid.
She looked back at the fence. On that side of the railings was the cemetery. And on this side…
"Raccoon Park," Lisa whispered.