Raccoon City was a mess from the air.
Helicopters hovered over Raccoon City here and there, invisible to most of the survivors due to the black clouds of smoke and the looming rain clouds. They watched, and waited, for signals here and there. One such chopper heard its signal, the bells of the clock tower, but had gone down from an anti-aircraft rocket minutes later.
It had been about five hours since the UBCS landed, and already reports were coming in from the Watchdogs. Most of the mercenaries had been cut down, the most optimistic reports saying that only thirty percent had survived, but the writing was on the wall. The mission to gather data from the mercenaries had failed, which left the Watchdogs with only one mission: to gather as much data from the area as possible. This wouldn't be an easy mission, as the choppers could see.
The streets were clogged with the undead, as well as the occasional bio-weapon that could be seen. Flocks of undead birds waited on rooftops, thankfully unable to escape the city due to the mysterious workings of the virus. The animals from the Raccoon Zoo had turned, wandering the streets and killing anything in their path.
The city was screwed.
Mad Jackal RunChapter 2: Taking stock of the situation.
Story by Atticus Black
Garcia had made it, but he wasn't sure about the others. He had ran for some time, fighting through the zombie crowds until his rifle went dry of ammo, and ditched the now useless rifle before he left Ema Street, heading nowhere in particular. Finally, he had run out of energy and ducked into the subway, managing to close the shutter there. He had been sitting in front of the shutter for some time, catching his breath and worried about how he was going to get out of town.
He clutched his H&K USP, now down to around a magazine and a half for the .45 caliber handgun. He also had his knife, but was worried about getting into hand-to-hand combat with one of the zombies. He looked ahead in the flickering overhead lights towards the door that led further into the subway station, fear clutching at his gut. Garcia was unsure what happened to his flashlight, so he was worried about running into a dark area. Walking down the stairs, he pushed the double doors open with his gun, scanning the room quickly from the doorway. A lone zombie tottered next to the turnstiles, wearing office garb, his white shirt covered in blood. Other than that, it looked clear.
Garcia walked out quickly, aiming and firing in one smooth motion. The lone zombie crumbled and let out its last moan before it even knew Garcia was there. Garcia stopped, paying attention to his surroundings. If there were more, they would have heard that.
A minute or two later, and Garcia had not heard a thing, nor did he see any more zombies heading his way. He quickly ran towards the other street entrance and up the stairs, gasping as he saw the fire. Somehow, a car had gotten jammed over the other entrance to the subway terminal and had caught fire. It was an effective, if dangerous barrier. He turned and walked back into the main terminal, quickly checking the rest rooms and the ticket office. The rest rooms were empty, although the blood everywhere had been a bit disconcerting. However, the ticket office was a mess.
A lone body rest in the office, his head missing from the jaw up. A sawed-off shotgun was clutched in his limp hand, resting in his lap after the suicide blast. Garcia held his breath and pried the gun from the man's hand, rummaging through his pockets for shells. The man was dressed in a subway worker uniform, and had five shells in his jacket pocket. Checking the gun, Garcia found that it held four shells and only had three in it. He reloaded a shell and tucked the rest into one of his vest pockets, shutting the door and turning away from the office.
Garcia tried the turnstile and pushed it open easily, entering the other side of the terminal. He looked down both sets of stairs, seeing that the tunnels were dark; the lights were off. "Great," he said, and saw that there was an employee area behind a metal door. It was locked, but Garcia was a rather muscular man, and kicked at the door until it opened. The door led to a poorly lit hallway, which he began walking down, clearing rooms as he did so.
After ten minutes of jogging down corridors, scanning empty and dark rooms, Garcia finally ran into opposition. A trio of zombies, dressed in subway worker uniforms, was lurking in the locker room. Garcia aimed his new shotgun and fired twice, tagging the zombies in the face and decapitating the three of them due to their closeness in the cramped room. Behind them was a fourth worker, gnawed to pieces. Reloading, Garcia cleared the rest of the room and checked the lockers. He found an aluminum baseball bat, and took it, deciding to use it over the knife if he had to fight with a melee weapon.
The rest of the sweep was uneventful, although the stairs leading to the power room has been locked. Garcia re-entered the control room for this terminal and saw a bank of security monitors on one console. He looked through them, seeing several zombies meandering in a stairwell, as well as a few on the track. A subway train was parked on the track, which Garcia decided to use to escape this area. If he was lucky, he'd end up near the edge of town and escape, hopefully making it past the National Guard that had quarantined the town. According to the console next to the security monitors, the train was powered down. He powered it and the terminal up and left the room, heading for the stairs to the subway track.
He entered the first track and saw that this was the wrong track, as it lacked a train. He walked back up and went to the second track, grinning as he saw the train parked there. Several zombies were on the track and trying to climb to where Garcia stood, but he ignored them and checked the subway cars. They were clear, except for blood and dropped possessions. He entered the control room and powered up the train, starting it down the track…
Outside Jack's Bar stood a crowd of those things, many of whom were scrabbling at the door to the building, which had been cleverly replaced by a table stolen from the employee area and nailed to the frame. To add to the matter, Amir had drug the heavy desk down the stairs and pushed it in front of the table, as well as the barrels from earlier. The few rioters smart enough to be scrabbling at the unbroken windows did not have the strength to beat through them, although he was worried about how they would hold up against more of them.
Amir had been searching and fortifying the building most of the night, deciding to turn this place into his own little headquarters before he started his mission to find survivors. He'd found a nailgun and spare nails, as well as a bunch of boards and scrap lumber. Unfortunately, he found no weapons or ammunition in the building, which annoyed him greatly. There was plenty of alcohol, so he made a few Molotov cocktails for when he decided to make his run. He sat at the bar now, slowly downing vodka from a bottle, annoyed at the lack of food.
Placing the bottle down, Amir decided to begin his hunt for survivors. He retrieved two of the cocktails and headed for the stairwell, exiting the building through the window into the alleyway. A dumpster provided access back into the building, but he pushed it away last night to block the alleyway entrance to the street in front of the bar. A human could get in the window, but one of those rioters would have difficulty, as they seemed to lack finer dexterity. He looked in the direction of the street in front of the bar, seeing a lone figure shamble past the dumpster. "Another rioter…" he thought, and walked the other way, climbing over the parked car that blocked the other end of the alley.
He was in a different part of the alley, one that bordered a large, hotel-looking building that had a fire burning on the third floor. The other side was an apartment building. Amir wanted to avoid both of them, afraid that they contained more crazed rioters. He crept up to the end of the alleyway, seeing that it ended in a staircase, leading to the back section of a third apartment building. Sighing, he realized he would have to enter one of the buildings or backtrack. He walked down the stairs, deciding to check on the closest one to him, and crossed the small area. An open window invited him in, so he entered…
Irene crept through downtown Raccoon City, careful to avoid contact with most everything. She had managed to outrun a small crowd of the infected, as well as a pack of infected dogs, and dodged past several carriers on her way through the city, finally arriving outside her apartment building. She ducked inside, sweeping the room with her shotgun, before walking towards the stairwell. She lived on the third floor of the building and even though the walk would hurt her, especially with all of her gear, it was safer than the elevator.
She entered the stairwell, listening at the door. She didn't hear any moans in the room, so she started walking up the stairs, aiming the heavy gun forward as she walked. Her diligence paid off, the door to the second floor landing open and half a dozen carriers were walking towards her. She fired, hitting the first few with her blast and knocking them down, before closing the door on them. She watched the door for several seconds, hearing the sound of the infected people, her former neighbors, rubbing against the door and weakly pounding at it, before continuing up the stairs.
Irene entered the third floor hall and cautiously pressed forward, aiming down the hall at a lone zombie, one of her neighbors. The girl was dressed in a sports outfit and was rubbing against the window, not noticing her killer until it was too late. The shotgun bucked in Irene's hand, breaking the window and toppling the zombie to the floor. Walking towards the second to last door, she fumbled with the lock and opened it, entering her small apartment.
The apartment was small, made more so by the furniture crammed into it. She closed the door, locking it as well, and placed her finds down, taking off the vest and jacket as well. Leaving her small arsenal on her couch, with the exception of the handguns, she entered the kitchen and began making a small meal. She had been out most of the day, running from the infected citizens and the occasional infected animal, and she needed the food.
She had been eating a sandwich when she heard the clatter of automatic weapons fire from downstairs, on the second or first floor. She panicked, tossing the sandwich onto her plate and retrieving the assault rifle from her couch. She heard it, off and on, for several minutes, wondering who was doing the shooting and if they were friend or foe. Finally, she heard heavy steps on her floor, and stood silently aiming the rifle from her position in the kitchen doorway. The footsteps stopped by her door, obviously examining the corpse near it, and nearly jumped out of her skin when the person tried the door, turning the knob several times but finding it locked. The person then knocked on the door and began saying something, which she could barely make out through the door.
"Is there anyone in here? I am with a rescue team and I am here to evacuate civilians…" The voice was muffled through the door, but it sounded like a male, and by the way he stressed certain words it was obvious English wasn't his first language. She debated with herself for a few seconds, then decided to let him in. If he was dangerous, she had an assault rifle and would spray him down. "Hold on, I'm opening the door," she said loudly, and walked towards it, rifle aimed at the door frame. She one handed it while turning the lock and stepped back. "It's open!"
A dark skinned man with black hair and a goatee, wearing the military outfit she had seen earlier stepped into her apartment, obviously shocked to see her aiming a rifle at him. "Do not shoot!" he shouted and stepped back, hands in the air. He was about six feet tall and decently muscular, and was carrying an assault rifle similar to her own. His face, although cute in its own way, was currently twisted into an expression that summed up the phrase "Oh shit." She lowered the rifle, seeing that he wasn't a threat, and he relaxed to an extent. He extended his hand cautiously and unsurely, saying, "I am Private Amir Naidaheb with the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service. We are here to rescue the civilians. You are?"
She took the hand, shaking it once, and said, "I'm Irene Bryant with the Raccoon Daily News. What's this about an Umbrella Bio-whatsit team?" She smiled, as Amir began talking about the mission he had been assigned, gesturing when he ran into a word he didn't know well. Apparently, Umbrella had sent in over a hundred soldiers to rescue civilians and aid the Raccoon Police Department in abating the crisis, but considering the RPD was non-functional at the moment due to a lack of manpower it seemed like a moot point. That, and according to Amir the UBCS had most likely been overrun, like most everyone that took the fight to the zombies. Amir had managed to get away and had secured a building for holding civilians until they could get a plan to get out of town.
Irene had been annoyed that Amir didn't have a surefire method out of town, but he told her that the squad leaders did know where to go, and had radios to boot that could talk to the Umbrella helicopters that stayed near the city. Unfortunately, his squad leader had almost certainly been killed by the zombies a few blocks north of the building, and the others locations were a mystery.
"So what's the plan now, Amir?" Amir shook his head and said "Well, I was going to take you back to the building and search for more survivors…" Irene scoffed at the idea, saying "You're going to leave me alone in a building I don't know, taking me away from my safe apartment? Tell you what. You get more people into that building of yours that are armed and can defend it and then I'll go with you." Amir started to protest, but Irene shook her head, pointing towards the door. "I'll stay in here, and I'm plenty safe with all of these guns," she said, gesturing towards the couch. Amir lowered his head, looking defeated. "Fine. Well, in case you want to head there yourself, the building is south through the alleyway, the bar?" he said, as though a bar was a foreign concept to him. She understood. "That isn't too far…" she thought to herself as Amir left through the door, shutting it behind him.
Sergeant Kuan had made to the hospital, but it hadn't been easy. He had fired off five magazines of M4, taking down nearly two hundred zombies, and had only barely made it over the barricades into the hospital.
He sat crouched in the lobby, rifle over his shoulder and clutching the Glock 18. He didn't want to use the rifle in the cramped corridors of the hospital, as it would make combat unnecessarily difficult. Scanning a nearby map of the hospital, he saw that the elevator he needed to access to get to the third basement floor was two rooms over, and headed that way, carefully scanning the area with the heavy handgun.
He passed through the waiting room office and marveled to see that there were several leaches on the floor, crawling towards him. He stepped over them and watched as one jumped at him, causing him to press to the side to avoid it. "Tricky little fuckers…" he thought. They were probably T-Virus creatures, which is why he was avoiding them as much as possible. He stepped through the door to the next office, shutting the door heavily behind him, which alerted the zombie in the room.
The man was a doctor, who had had his throat torn out. Ordinarily Kuan wouldn't have bothered putting him down, but the zombie shuffled at him at high speed. Kuan aimed the gun quickly and put a trio of rounds towards his head, smiling at the quickness of the handgun in his hand. The zombie collapsed with a groan, a round finding purchase in its eye.
Kuan entered the elevator and found the third basement button, tapping it quickly and stepping to the back of the elevator in case there was zombies in the hallway. While he rode the lift down, Kuan had smiled, thinking of the viral cure that awaited him after he got down there. "Aquino was working on a sample. Hopefully he left his notes or a sample down there…" he thought.
He heard a loud and cheerful "DING" as he arrived at B3, and he aimed the gun forward as the doors opened. A lone zombie shuffled towards him, which he put down with a single headshot and waited. The doors caught on the collapsing corpse and held open, but Kuan did not hear anything from the barren hallway, so he stepped out, leaving the zombie body in the way of the doors. He didn't want any unexpected company while he was down here.
Ross was truly beginning to see how thoroughly screwed over he was.
The good doctor hadn't been as well prepared for the situation as he would have liked. He joined the company before mandatory combat training for the scientists was a necessity, and had neglected the option of training in it at a later date. Ross was also not in the best physical condition, what with being a scrawny "nerd" and almost fifty. Finally, he only had a shotgun with twelve rounds. He was surprised he managed to take out the zombies in the morgue, let alone what he had been doing for the past five hours.
Earlier, he had escaped his floor through the ventilation system, arriving safely at the elevator and barely evading the MA121's present on the floor. He took the elevator as far as he could go, arriving at the first basement floor, a full hundred feet below the surface of the Earth. Umbrella didn't fuck around about hiding their labs, burying them far underground and setting up the elevator systems so that they could only be accessed in the lab. To add to the protection, the entire first basement floor was centered on security. While this was all well and good for keeping the place safe from your typical corporate spy or thief, it didn't help a damn against the virus carriers or escaped bio-organics.
Ross had arrived at the first basement level and had been forced to run right as the elevator opened. The level had several zombies lurking around, former lab security as well as unlucky scientists and maintenance personnel. Many of them were trapped in various checkpoints after the lockdown had been initiated, but Ross had to free them in order to escape. He had barely gotten up from the security terminal before the first zombies were on him, and had been running for the stairwell since then, firing only to knock the zombies out of his way. Adrenaline was a hell of a thing.
Finally, he made it to the stairwell that connected the lab to the outside world. There was a lift, but he didn't have the codes to get that out of lockdown, so he was forced to run up the several flights of stairs, chased by the relentless but slow virus carriers the entire way. He finally collapsed near the top of the stairwell, within sight of the door that would lead to the warehouse, totally exhausted from the workout he had been getting that day. Ross sat against the wall, deciding to reload while he was there, annoyed to find that he only had five or so shells left for the heavy gun.
Nearly a dozen flights below him a throng of zombies was meandering up the staircase, their moans a hellish cacophony of sound and rage. Ross knew that if he didn't get out of there quickly he'd be torn limb from limb, so he got to his feet and limped towards the door, his exhaustion causing him pain in every step. Pulling a keycard from his waist, he quickly scanned it through the reader and opened the door, collapsing on the other side, waiting for the lock to kick back in. The room he was in, the warehouse security room, was empty except for a bit of blood on the floor. He heard the ding and pulled himself away from the door, hoping the heavy steel would keep the zombies back for a time.
He limped over and plopped down into a comfortable rolling chair, the shotgun in his lap as he scanned the security monitors. The warehouse hadn't been breached, or at least in a way he could tell, yet there were a dozen or more zombies scattered around here and there. They were mainly workers who maintained appearances at the shell warehouse, although there were a few security guards and another unlucky science team member. One of the workers or guards probably had been infected and spread it to the others.
There were a few bodies here and there, probably killed by the guards, but there was the possibility that they were recently killed, or that they had gotten a second dose of the virus. He really hoped they hadn't gotten a second dose of the T-Virus, as he would really hate to deal with a mutated zombie or a RE3 "Licker" unit, the monsters that came from such an incident.
Looking around, Ross saw that the weapons locker was open. He rolled the chair over and looked through it, noting with some displeasure that most of the heavier stuff was gone. He saw a full box of shotgun shells as well as a few spares, a 9mm handgun that hadn't been loaded, and a half-dozen clips for the 9mm. He scooped them up, stuffing shells into his shotgun then his lab coat, and placing the pistol clips in his pants pocket, sliding the light handgun into his other coat pocket. Ross looked over back at the monitors and was surprised to see himself in the monitor, the room being the focus of one of the four monitors for a few seconds.
Ross was a rather plain looking older man, with thinning and graying brown hair and a pair of delicate looking glasses. He was dressed in a lab coat, khaki slacks, and a light blue button-up shirt and dark blue tie, which was white, white, and light gray in the colorless monitor. Ross was surprised at how old he looked in the monitor, noting that it was a rather different change than his usual appearance. Sighing, he got up from the chair, his legs protesting from the exertion, and began the arduous task of putting down the walkers in the warehouse, so he would have a chance to think and get his act together. The twenty plus shells he had picked up, plus the 9mm handgun, would make a world of difference when he made his run for the extraction point.
Amir had left the apartment building in defeat, knowing that it would be difficult to find more people in this land of death.
He had walked out the front doors, heading for the "Uptown" area he had seen on a map of the town (which, in his haste, he had forgotten to take), hoping to find survivors among the citizens or police. Right now, he was trying to find his way around the charred wreckage of the Main Street when he heard gunfire and screams close by. He hurried back up the stairs for the bridge and saw that the shots were apparently coming from inside the North Mall, which was locked down. Swearing, Amir realized he would have to break in. Hefting his assault rifle, he began firing at one of the metal shutter's locking mechanisms…