Raccoon City : Demon's Gate
Chapter 4
Author's Notes: Before I get started, let me just apologize for not updating when I promised. Unfortunately life seems to call us back to the world when we're diving into fantasy... Anyhoo...
JoJo10 - Ehm...I think you'll be surprised. Brad, um... Well, you'll see. wink, nudge
...Ba-bump...Ba-bump...
2:24 A.M.
Back at the shelter-shed.
Rowan wasn't really surprised at what was waiting for her when she returned to the shanty little shed that they claimed and a safe haven. Her departure didn't gone unnoticed, especially since about two hours had passed since she left the place barred from the inside. Kristin was standing outside of the shed doors, which were propped open by the lonely figure of Sarah sitting against it. Both were holding melee weapons - Kristin clutched an axe, and Sarah held onto a sledgehammer. As she drew near, Rowan not only noticed the anger and worry contorting their faces and consuming their eyes, but also the heavy coats of crimson that colored their weapons. Before them were three limp bodies of what had once been humans. About ten feet further from where the three bodies lay in a heap, there was another...with its head severed from its neck and lying at its side.
"Nice aim," Rowan murmured to herself, grinning half-heartily at them. Her grin was met by fierce-looking scowls.
So, when she was in hearing range of them, she was berated with angry words like "What were you thinking?", "We were worried!", "Where the hell did you go?"
They also grew suspicious when they noticed that, when the note Rowan left behind said she headed off to get food, her hands were empty save for the crowbar hanging limply in her hand. Although Rowan was deathly tired, exhausted to the bone with both grief, anxiety, and lack of sleep, they pushed questions onto her, wondering where she went, what she did, and so on. So Rowan told them what happened in the time she left to the time she came back, and when she finished, there was an eerie silence in the wake.
"There's survivors?" Sarah whispered hopefully, her eyes lighting up in an instant. "Cops?"
Kristin, hearing the last word, suddenly slapped her head. "Oh...How stupid were we? We should've gone to the R.P.D.! Cops, guns...squad cars! We could have had them go and pick up our..."
She glanced at Rowan as she spoke, and immediately her mouth closed.
But Rowan shook her head, although she felt her heart sink lower. If they had gone to the R.P.D. instead of this damn shed... or if they had run off to their homes in an effort to warn their families, maybe...
"I told Brad we'd meet him at the R.P.D. and we'd be there either today, or early tomorrow. After all...we do need to get some supplies and stuff in our stomach's until we go anywhere." She stared down at the bloody crowbar in her hands. "And better weapons."
Sarah began to grin and stand up, but Kristin held out her hand. Clapping Rowan firmly on the shoulder, she turned her towards the shed. "Later. You sleep. You look like the walking dead."
At that remark, Sarah and Rowan both shot her looks, and she lowered her head upon realizing what she said. Rowan sighed, turning towards and walking into the shed. Sarah and Kristin followed behind her, closing the door as Rowan took a seat on the ground against the wall, leaning her head back against the metallic siding. She was barely aware of somebody resting their head against her lap when she succumbed to drowsiness and welcomed darkness.
Of course, the darkness that was sleep quickly stained scarlet. Even in dreams there was no relief from the torment she and the others had endured. There was no escaping that dagger of reality that kept twisting into her mind. Rowan's last vision in her dreams that were falling quickly to nightmares was that of her mother, blood-stained and torn, rising from the ground, opening her mouth in an unearthly groan. That groan turned into a screech as she suddenly flew forward, arms lashing out.
In a second, that scream became Rowan's as she jolted forward with a start, covered in head to toe with sweat. Kristin, sitting near the double door of the shed, jumped in shock and fear, while Sarah, curled up like a cat beside Rowan with her head resting upon her lap, shot awake the moment Rowan uttered that shriek from her mouth. Sarah's voice joined Rowan's, and the latter stopped, staring blankly at the younger black-haired girl who backed against the wall of the shed in sudden fear. The cold sweat that dampened her face told Rowan that she was not alone in having a nightmare. Apparently, she woke Sarah up with her own scream before the latter could wake her up with one of her own.
One glance to her side also told Rowan that Kristin had didn't gain a wink of sleep. In the few hours that had passed while Sarah and Rowan dozed, her eyes seemed to sink, her white eyes standing out against the miniscule circles forming beneath her eyes. Rowan gave a little grimace as Sarah's nonstop shriek of terror continued, and a brisk nudge in the ribs from her made the other girl stop her ear-splitting yell.
"Christ, Sarah, you sound a banshee," Kristin murmured in a low voice. Now Rowan also noted that the corners of her eyes were wet, and the whites were slightly red.
Crying.
Rowan rose a brow at her, inching forward slightly on all fours. She blinked at Kristin. "You alright?" she asked, vaguely aware that Sarah, embarrassed by the comment towards her cry, was trying to compose herself, brushing her shirt and whatnot.
Kristin shrugged. "Yeah," she replied. "Just...I guess it takes a while for this all to sink in..."
Sarah snickered from behind. "Especially something like this; something that sounds like it came straight from a post-apocalyptic movie..." The smile faded away at the disturbed look on Rowan's and Kristin's faces, and then a worried look came to her face. "You don...don't think Raccoon's the only place affected, do you?" Her voice was slightly slurred, as she had just woken up.
Rubbing at her eyes and the moisture forming in the corners courtesy of her dream, Rowan shrugged her shoulders, letting them sag. "Doubt it... Something this bad... But, if we are the only place, help should be coming soon."
"If there's anybody left to call outside forces," she heard Kristin whisper under her breath.
Sarah shifted uncomfortably and Rowan sat up straight, yawning and stretching her arms and then standing. She glanced around, looking down at her belly and wincing a little at the grumble that came from within. Running like they had yesterday and going on that very early morning expedition had used a lot of energy. Occasionally rumbles and moans coming from the other two's bellies told her that she wasn't the only one hungry. Briefly Rowan cursed at herself from within her mind, silently wishing she had also made a run to a grocery store or something before heading back to the shed. Who could tell how long they would have to stay at this shelter?
Or move to another one? That was another thought... Imagine an entire mob of the undead making their way to the shed and assaulting the fragile walls of it with pounding fists anxious to reach food. How long would this shed hold in case of that? And how long would it be until one of them got sick because they didn't have much of blankets, heat, or anything to keep them dry, what with the coming of winter and the frost that formed over the late night hours?
"We'll have to head to the R.P.D. soon," Sarah spoke up, and Rowan wondered idly if she had read her mind. "We can't stay in a crappy little shed all the time."
"We need to get some food, too," Rowan added.
Kristin nodded at each of their suggestions, looking towards them. "The nearest place is that Shop 'n Bag about four blocks away. We can worry about weaponry later - the cops would be able to protect us anyway when we go there...hopefully tonight?" She threw an inquiring look at each of them.
Sarah shrugged. "Sounds good to me. Food first, I'm hungry."
"You always are," Kristin added with a hint of a laugh. The corners of her lips pulled upwards just so.
Rowan rubbed the back of her scalp absent-mindedly, then looked to the two. There was the tiniest glimpse of a smile upon her features, but it faded quickly. Somewhere within she did have a sense of humor that wanted to be released, especially with such a dismal atmosphere, if only for the sake of cheering up the other two. "Food it is, then... Cash or credit card?"
...Ba-bump...Ba-bump...
5:28 A.M.
Navigating through the streets was actually relatively easy compared to stalking through the trailer park with the moon neglecting to shine upon it with all of the smoke. The area they were in was surprisingly fire-free, although they could see the faint embers of distant flames far away. And they were not in complete darkness, for dawn was just beginning to arrive, the sun peeking above the horizon and firing rays of light that managed to lighten the cloud of smoke above them. Even if they were in an area where there were no flames, the smoke from other collected as one large canopy over the city.
Still, they couldn't shake that eerie feeling of impending doom and something of a ragnarok in which they couldn't help. They were poorly armed as it was, and couldn't rush to help the sounds of the odd scream penetrating the dawn air - for most of them were far from where they were. They made a few attempts to run to aid the ones that were closer, but almost every single time the victim was pushed to the ground between the time he or she screamed and the time the three children arrived, and were devoured. Almost meaning that there was only one that wasn't being eaten when they arrived. There was one man they saw limping away from a group of two zombies, bites marking his upper arms and ankle. When he looked up to see Kristin, Rowan, and Sarah, he stared blankly and froze where he was, and rose the gun he had in his hand towards his head.
So their numbers were still to three by the time they stood in front of the small grocery center. The fear of losing one of their group caught onto them when they saw the state of the shopping area, and all three held back for a long moment, their hands tightly grasping their melee weapons, their faces pale and anxious with uncertainty.
The store wasn't exactly a very large one, nor very popular. It was merely there for all who were too lazy to drive or walk all the way to the Shop Rite about fifteen minutes away. However, even if it was small, it attracted enough customers to keep it running. the entire shop stood around fifteen feet, and it was wide enough and long enough to accommodate everything the modern store had. But now...the shape it was in gave the feeling that everything inside it was putrid and spoiled and rotting, just like that ominous scent that drifted from it.
The windows were broken in numerous places...well, those windows that weren't shattered to the point where they no longer existed. There were deep, circular embeddings in the concrete walls, each the size and shape of a bullet, and the one thing that gave the hope away of there being somebody within the store that was armed was the fact that there was a body near the door, a gun held loosely in his right hand, the scarlet liquid seeping from his skull where another hole similar to those in the wall marked it. Something probably a little more disconcerting was the fact that there were stains of crimson stretched across the wall, leading both to where the body was and going inside and out, like the zombies that sauntered here could not hold themselves up straight enough and had to lean on something in order to continue on their hunt for food.
None of the three girls moved at first, and none of them seemed to even breath at the sight before them. Would it be safe to enter something looking so ominous, something that seemed like a gate leading into the very depths of Hell?
After about five minutes past, still none of them moved. Then Rowan stepped forward with her hands raised in the air, the crowbar glinting in what little sunlight managed to peek through the broiling clouds of smoke in this part of town. She moved forward, slowly and hesitatingly. Only when Sarah joined her side with the sledgehammer lifted in an offensive manner did Kristin join them with her axe. After briefly checking to see if the gun was loaded only to find it empty, they moved inside quickly and quietly, as if hoping that, if they should meet something within, they would be able to scamper past it and right back out the door.
Inside was no better than outside. Here and there were spatters of blood on the floors, the shelves, and the cans and other food items near them. At the cash registers nearby, there were one or two mauled-looking bodies slumped over. They would have thought them dead if they didn't twitch every so often. More bodies littered the floors, some completely blown away, with proof lying in the holes in their heads, if they had any, while others lay with bites upon their bodies and no signs of final death on them. These Rowan, Kristin, and Sarah avoided as best as possible.
Then again, it's not always possible to step around a corpse that is 'alive' enough to hunger for fresh blood. One lashed out in an instant after Rowan passed it, its arm latching strongly on her ankle, its creamy eyes gazing at it hungrily. Before the wretched moan could emanate from its mouth, Kristin's axe met its skull and it was no more.
But the moan alerted the others. The two cashiers were standing with a start, attempting to move forward but finding it difficult with the obstacle of the cash registers and the wooden boards surrounding them, preventing them from moving anywhere but around their cubicle unless they had the intelligence enough to open the wooden boards' doors...and they seemed to lack intelligence. The ones that were not destroyed and on the ground began to either stand or drag themselves along the linoleum floor, groaning hungrily.
And, to the girls' utter horror and fear, more of the noises sounded from outside. Apparently they had better hearing than was thought.
"Ah-shit!" Sarah hissed. "Shit! They're waking up!"
"And more are coming!" Kristin half-shouted, jumping from one foot to the other while jerking the axe out of the skull with a sharp tug. "We need to get out of here!"
"And starve to death?" Rowan asked with more vehemence than she wanted. "C'mon...grab what you can!"
As Rowan made to run for one of the hangers holding the plastic bags, Sarah shot her a look of disbelief. Kristin simply stared open mouthed.
"Are you insa-" Sarah began angrily.
"Do you want to get out of this damned city or not?" Rowan hissed, the tension seeming to change her attitude rather quickly. She thrust one bag to each of them as she came back, keeping one for her own and beginning to run down the nearest aisle, hastily dodging the waking zombie that began to stand and lunge at the front of the aisle.
As Sarah stared blankly after her, Kristin nodded and began to run past the same zombie, towards the place of dry food. "Shit... Grab what you can!"
"Make sure it doesn't have to be cooked!" Rowan called. She was running out of the aisle shoving a box of trail mix into her bag.
Sarah blinked, but she followed. She made to run past the same zombie the other two evaded, but paused after passing it, She swung around just as it did, stuck out her foot and kicked sharply at its knee. It lost its balance and fell, and the young black-haired girl made a dash for the aisle the farthest from the doors, anxious to get out of sight from the horde of tens that made their way from the streets and to the shattered windows of the market.
She shrieked.
Rowan was the first to respond to that. Alarmed, the thirteen-year-old ran for the source of Sarah's voice, and was alarmed to find about five zombies lurching for her. Sarah was waving her sledgehammer around frantically, missing most of them in her blind panic. "Sarah!"
Rowan ran to her, waving her crowbar wildly in hopes of hitting them. The sharp edge of the metal bar met the skin of two of them, making them swing around to meet her. A second swing of the bar brought one down as it buried itself into the hard skull of it, but the other that turned around was now reaching its arms out enough so that its fingers grazed her-
-and then it, too, fell as the head fell from the shoulder with one fatal swipe from Kristin's axe. She stood beside Rowan now, and the two of them both rushed to meet the crowd of three zombies.
Sarah, in the meanwhile, wasn't as offensive as they were. In her fear she had dropped the sledgehammer, and seeing her fault she made to reach for it and was immediately lunged at by the nearest undead. Noticing the futility of her actions, she groped the shelves for anything hard. A can's surface met her fingertips, and she brought it across the forehead of the beast before her. It stumbled backward and fell, attempting to stand again, and Sarah began to stomp on its head in a determined demeanor.
She held up the can for a moment, raising a brow.
"String beans," she murmured, and giving a frown of disgust lobbed it at the second closest zombie, a female with the skin of her neck flapping loosely.
It groaned in surprise and also fell to the ground, and before it could get back up Sarah swept her arm through the shelf and sent the cans flying down onto the body. Buried under the metal, it struggled before it stood in the midst of the aluminum cans.
From ahead of her Kristin let out a bark of laughter. "Now i that's /i using your resources!"
Experimentally, Kristin snatched up something from the shelf - a can of peas - and threw it at the last zombie. Also surprised, it fell just as Sarah snatched up her hammer and slugged the one she knocked over with it.
The sound of breaking glass and shards of the substance rubbing against the hard floor alerted them to the presence of the fifteen or so stumbling in from outside. The next few moments came in a rush - the three scrambled from where they were and, sticking together like a loosely organized pack, grabbed at whatever box of dry food and package of un-cookable substances came in their path. By the time the all emerged from the aisles, their full bags were hanging from their once free hands.
And there was an army of undead waiting for them.
"Ah...fucking Hell," Kristin hissed. Rowan rose a brow - that was the first she ever heard her say the f-word.
"Uhm...," Sarah began, and trailed off. Her face was worried as the horde drew nearer.
Giving a shrug, Rowan rose her crowbar. "Alrighty then, women! Charge!"
They charged.
What happened next could have been the equivalent of a bomb exploding, or something like that, for there were bodies of the undead husks of the humans flying through the air as a sledgehammer slammed into their chest, or a head or a limb flying free into the air as an axe made its sweep, or just the confused groans as a sharp smack from a crowbar made them fall. About seven fell before there was a clearing in the horde large enough for the three to run through. Shoving through the restless and hungry dead with what force they could muster, they found their feet and took to a run, each holding a bag and a weapon, and with Kristin holding her infamous purse.
Behind them, the once-living corpses of zombies moaned hungrily as they wandered the super-market, some heading to chase after the three only to return to feast on the unanimated corpses inside.
...Ba-bump...Ba-bump...
Sarah hadn't been able to stop laughing for the first few minutes after the raid on the market. There were fresh tears rolling down her face, but not from sadness or weakness. Kristin was grinning madly, Rowan was shaking her head from side to side, not capable of mustering up a chuckle but smiling softly, her eyes still marred with that odd weariness within.
Not until Kristin slapped Sarah hard on the back did the black-haired girl silence herself, coughing instead. Then it was Kristin's turn to laugh. Rowan made no sound, despite the odd glee and release from tension around her. There was something clinging and engulfing her heart that she couldn't seem to rid herself of, and although the antics of her friends lightened her spirits just a tad, she couldn't seem to get up.
Surprisingly, Sarah was the first to notice her demoralized state and, ignoring the now-in-stitches Kristin, walked up to the brunette, one hand raised tentatively before resting on her back.
"No worries," she whispered meekly, smiling. The corner of Rowan's mouth twitched upward as Sarah lifted her grocery bag into the air. "And 'sides, I snagged some Swedish Fish. I know you love 'em." To prove herself, she lifted the package out of the bag after rummaging through it, tossing it sideways to Rowan.
The 13-year-old caught it quickly, looked down at it, and found her stomach churning at the red coloration of the candy fish. She shoved it in her jacket pocket, not capable of looking at the red gummies - they looked more like a deep crimson to her eyes.
Sarah sadly smiled back at her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a little hug with it. "Anyways, we're almost to the shed."
"Crappy little shed," Rowan murmured under her breath. The light uplift of her lips now turned into a weak little smirk. "Can't wait to find a better place to hide out..."
"Maybe in a ma-" Sarah paused as she realized what she was saying. She shook her head after throwing off an apologetic look, but fell silent, incapable of finding anything else to say.
Luckily, Kristin wasn't so muted. She pulled herself out of her hysteria to break the silence with a hiss and a point ahead of them, where two shadowy figures were stumbling forth from an alleyway. Apparently, they were heard - and the appearance of those two sickly specters made Rowan's heart sink lower and tremble. She couldn't hide the thought that they were no different from them once upon a time.
Alerted by Kristin's warning, Sarah shot a look back, now only aware of four more heading in their direction from behind, two with their jaws literally hanging like they broke off of a hinge, and the other two with bodies so ragged and torn. Only now their desperate moans broke through the moment of triumph engulfing the group.
"Can we take them?" Kristin asked. She tried to lift her axe, struggling to support its weight with a full hand.
Rowan shook her head. "Can't. We're loaded." She indicated the bags they held.
Sarah looked from one group of zombies to the other. "Well...we can just walk past them," she pointed out. "They're too slow to worry abou-"
A sharp bark from the left contradicted her cut-off statement. As Kristin mouthed a, "What the Hell?", another sounded in response to hound nearby, this one behind them somewhere to the right. And then a third.
Rowan's eyes widened. She was shouting as quickly as she took to a run. "Run! Dogs!"
"Dogs?" came the older of the group's response, the large dark-brown haired girl running after her. She didn't need to ask - Rowan mentioned them once she returned to the shed after her excursion to the trailer park. Hounds infected by whatever it was that attacked the humans, now becoming quite cannibalistic and as flesh-hungry as their human counterparts. And unaffected by pain.
They breezed towards the two undead humans before them, then were past them just as three limber figures exited various hiding spots behind them - three dog-beasts that now caught sight of running meat and took the invitation, charging after them, drool dripping from their jaws and down their chins as loud and hungry snarls erupted from their throats.
The surviving trio hardly make it past half the block when Sarah gave a yelp as one of them was suddenly in the air beside her, leaping for her and missing by a scanty few inches. Kristin's nerves as another jumped at them kicked in, and she swung around waving the only thing she could really use as a weapon in the air - the shopping back filled with cans and boxes. The metal within the bag enabled it to strike the side of the beast just as it made to lunge again after landing.
With a yelp of surprise, the dog was flung to the side of the street while the bag split open and spilled cans all over the street. There was a brief flash of disbelief on Kristin's face as the bag emptied, but once Rowan shouted, "Forget it!" to her, she dropped the plastic baggie and kept running.
The dog that was struck didn't stay down. It stood, growled, and ran after them again, and it seemed this time with more speed as rage fueled it. The other two picked up on it...they became faster, too.
"Can't shake 'em!" Sarah shouted Another leapt, its jaws wide, its dull-clawed paws reaching out...
Rowan was quick to defend, crowbar lifted into the air and she swung at the beast. But it was too late. As the dug was flung back by a chance strike at the neck's spinal cord, there was a small trickle of red making its way down Sarah's shoulder, and a hiss of pain issuing from her mouth.
In the instant they slowed to fight, the other two gained up. The air was suddenly full of two hounds wanting to take a bite out of flesh. Kristin aimed with her axe, pulling back and swinging with plenty of power, being lucky enough to catch one in the front leg, slicing through bone and tendon. It fell with the stub of its front leg bleeding, and Rowan could clearly make out the surprised look on her friend's face. The dead weren't supposed to bleed...
Unless...
She was pushed to the ground suddenly. The last dog leapt straight at her, barreling into her chest. The bag she held fell from her grasp as she was pushed to the ground. There were jaws and a snarling, feral face just before her own. Its paws pressed against her, not breaking the skin but feeling like it would. It lowered its jaw, growling and snarling, closer to her neck, and desperately Rowan tried to hold it back from her.
There was a splatter of deathly looking blood, a yelp from the creature, and it fell. Sarah slowly picked up the sledge resting on its back, and after shooting her a look of gratitude Rowan wiped away the blood splattered on her face with great distaste, careful not to get it by her mouth or eyes.
...Ba-bump...Ba-bump...
Without any wound cleaning solutions nearby, there was nothing more they could do for Sarah's scratched arm than to bandage it up with a piece of Kristin's blue sweater. They had to worry now about the scent of blood that would emanate from the wounded girl, and to Rowan, how long it would take before...it happened.
It didn't take long for her to guess that a single bite from one of these creatures, or even a scratch, could lead to infection. She saw it from her stepfather, healthy as a horse before and suffering after a few scratches from their old infected cat. Now she saw and understood why whatever happened to the city spread like wildfire, why there were so few survivors, and why, now, she should fear Sarah's wellbeing. She wondered if she should tell them...but from the look of downcast on the two girl's faces, they seemed to be coming to the same conclusion.
Desperate to lift the faces just a little, even when her's was so down, she walked to Sarah and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and Kristin took up the other side. With a nod to one another they walked on, two holding grocery bags now, all armed with melees.
There was silence as they headed back to the shed they called shelter, broken occasionally by Sarah's comments and jokes and old conversations started by them of things of old, and what they would do once they got out of the city. Despite the scratch on her shoulder, Sarah was smiling, and Rowan forced one upon herself.
They didn't notice that ominous-looking manhole cover, the deep scratches of claws that seemed to be able to rip through metal apparently formed from the other side of the cover leading into the sewers. They didn't catch a glimpse at any of these things by trying to avoid thinking about anything related until it was too late.
Sarah was the only one to step on the manhole cover, with the others on either side. And the moment she did, the added weight of a sledgehammer and a grocery back to her own body mass made the metal beneath her feet crack and snap. Surprised by the sudden movement and not having quick enough reflexes, Rowan and Kristin lost their grip of her shoulders and were too late to try and pull her back up.
There was a splash, a groan and then a string of curses. In the faint gleam of the sun trying vainly to poke through the clouds, they could see Sarah trying to stand in the murky water she fell in, the look of absolute disgust on her face striking a humorous cord in Rowan and Kristin. The bag lay beside Sarah in the sewage, the sledgehammer beside it, and as the fallen girl looked down at the items it was clear she wasn't going to be picking it up any time soon.
"Blegh!" came her disgusted voice as she tried to wipe the slime off of her skin. "God-fucking-damn it to Hell!" A snicker came from Kristin, and Sarah glared at her from below. "You wanna come down here?"
Rowan managed a chuckle and inched closer to the broke manhole. "No, but we'll get out outta there." She reached an arm down.
Giving a 'humph' and something of a growl, Sarah sloshed through the sewage that went up to her ankles, her grimace priceless.
As the sewer-child started to reach an arm up, she froze. So did Rowan and Kristin. There was the sound of rushing water...dim, but steadily growing. As if something were moving down there. Alarmed, both of the girls above ground now had their hands reaching into the sewer, desperate to get Sarah out of there.
"Sarah, c'mon!" Kristin hissed. The femme beneath them nodded and tried to jump for their outstretched hands that wouldn't grasp her's.
They didn't really know what happened at first. First Sarah was there, taking a leap of faith towards their palms. Then there was a flash of scales and the slime coating it, quickly disappearing into the darkness of the sewers.
And Sarah was gone.
...Ba-bump...Ba-bump...Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep...
Sorry I took so long, guys. Won't happen again, I hope...
Next chapter will be being worked on next weekend and the one after that. It'll probably be done int two/three weeks, if luck allows.
Meh...