Part 1

Ground Zero

It was September 22nd, a Tuesday. I remember it being a Tuesday because it was the fourth day of my four days "on". You see us guys in Housekeeping, in-joke I guess; we were the clean-up crew, we used to work in a four-on, four-off pattern. Four days off straight was great, but by the fourth 12 hour shift in a row you knew it. I'm only 24 and I was tired, Joe; he must've been pushing 60 so I'd have hated to think how fatigued he was. It also meant you had to work some weekends, which I had just done; so I owed my girlfriend, Jennifer, a visit. We'd spoken on the phone the night before; she shared her flat with this chick from Anaheim; Lucy, I remember she's from Anaheim on account of her being a Ducks fan; I'm a Blues fan but not many hockey fans in this town so it was nice to talk about it with her. Anyway, Jennifer; she lived with this Lucy, so she was always hard to get hold of on the phone. Don't really know why they didn't get the landlord to get a second phone line put in, guess it was one complaint too many; they were always on at the guy to fix leaky this, and change broken that. Jen, she was from New York; maybe things are different back East; but in this City most things are just a little run down and you just got to accept it and move on.

I digress. I have, had I guess now, a 1996 Ford Taurus; I prefer the older shape, this new model was all rounded and plump looking, but the guy gave me a killer deal on the six-cylinder so I couldn't say no. I was driving back, it was raining that night, and I pull into my space; my apartment came with a designated space, rather than a garage. Raccoon City isn't, sorry wasn't, a very big City; but there was usually enough night life, even on a school night, to create the usual urban din in my ears. So one of the first thing I noticed was that the city was quiet that night, much quieter than normal. I couldn't then, and I can't now, put my finger on what sense I was actually using; but maybe it was the smell in the air; but I thought then something was off. Something was odd. Something was maybe going on. Or maybe that's me putting what I know now onto what I maybe thought then.

In any case I didn't do anything about it did I? No, I got out of my Taurus, did I mention this thing was not only the horrid round one; but it was burgundy colored? Yeah I'm painting a real picture now aren't I! My work bag was on the floor of the passenger footwell and safely nestled on the passenger seat was a pizza box. I'd stopped off at that Italian place on 3rd on the way home, best pizza in the Midwest! I sling my bag over my shoulder and grab the pizza box, I went with extra toppings (funny how the memory of the little things stays with you at times like this), so was desperate to keep it flat to prevent spillage, and locked up the car.

Fortune favours the bold, or so I'm told, but it also seemed to favour the pizza-lover that night. As I approached the door that lead to all the apartments, there's eight in my building, was eight; well I guess they're still there, just nobody home anymore. And I was trying to decide how to juggle pizza box, the bag which was beginning to slip from my shoulder, and opening the door, when Latoya from number 5 was just leaving.

"Hey Michael," she said, she was born and raised in Raccoon; but her accent always seemed to me more southern. "Thanks!" I say rushing, as fast as a man can balancing a 16" (yeah 16" I was hungry!) Pizza, for the door she'd just opened. She quickly identified the situation for it's severity and held the door for me.

"No problem honey," she said as both a gratitude and farewell. I never saw her again, alive that is.

I decide not to risk anything and when I get to the door to my apartment I rest the pizza on the floor as I put the key in my door and turn. I hold the door open with my butt and reach back to the Pizza. The delicate car-to-house Pizza dance I had just executed flawlessly was all for nought, however. As I get into the apartment and turn to face the inside I almost leap out of my skin; and let the pizza fall to the floor.

It was the last, nice surprise I'd ever have. It was Jen! Like I said I owed her a visit and had made plans to go to hers tomorrow (Tonight was for Pizza, Beer, and N64; last level of Goldeneye! If only I was a good a shot in real life, maybe I wouldn't be where I am today…) But she'd decided to surprise me.

"Michael!" she exclaimed. "Hi!" she beamed, she was always doing thoughtful things like this. Paging me on my breaks at work, since I'd gotten my computer she even wrote me emails through the day (She was a secretary so worked on computers most of the day) so I'd have something nice to read when I got home. She was a real star. My star.

"Jen!" I exclaimed back, matching her pitch; her enthusiasm was always infectious. Sorry, bad choice of words.

"Thought I'd surprise you," she explained, then eyeing the pizza; "Good job you bought pizza enough for both of us."

She was always scolding me, light heartedly, about my eating. I was fortunate enough to have inherited a good metabolism; my dad played College Basketball and I played myself in High School, but I ate like a horse; and I was starting to put a little weight on.

"Sure is," I admit, undecided whether that was a good thing or not!

We kiss and exchange a bit more small talk. Then she asks me, and I mention this question in particular as it seems like maybe it's important now, "How was work?"

I was about to give my usual answer, "Long and hard," which would always set her up for the punchline; "Shame nothing else is." And I could see it in her eyes she wanted me to say it, but actually work had been weird these last few days.

"Actually me and guys have been up at the old Spencer Mansion," I tell her. "The where?" she asks back from the kitchen; the apartment is a one bedroom affair; an open plan lounge, kitchen, diner; with a single bedroom and en-suite.

She'd been digging in the fridge for a couple of beers. Having identified them easily, I was a guy living on my own; pretty much my refrigerator was beer and bbq sauce, she stood up.

The pizza box was now open and laid out on the coffee table. I kept the TV off, it seemed polite.

"The old Spencer Mansion, it's up in the hills outside the City, out on route 34. It's that big old place – "

She cuts me off. "Oh I always call that place Wayne Manor, you know like Batman?" she said sitting down on the couch next to me and passing me a beer. You see this is why, I knew she was the one. What other girl would, in her own head canon, name a place something from a comic book? I should've proposed, not then and there of course, should've done it back in July when we went to see her folks back East, they lived upstate now, and we took that walk to Ithaca falls.

"Why they got you all up there? Umbrella leasing out their cleaning services now?"

I chuckle, "Nah," I pause for a second; when you work for Umbrella you got to sign all kinds of confidentiality waivers, and secrecy declarations, so I do think twice before telling anyone, anything, but then I go ahead and tell her. "They got all kinds of crazy shit going on up there."

"What in an old house?"

"Nah, underneath it. There's a laboratory and everything."

"Umbrella are into some crazy stuff," she conceded. Both she and I, and about 40% of the city's population worked for Umbrella; either directly or indirectly, Raccoon is, sorry was, a bit like those old mining or industrial towns; that sprung up because of the employment offered by this one company, I didn't think you got those anymore but I guess when you're a diversified as Umbrella and you don't want to pay those big city taxes that's what happens.

"Yeah, and some of the stuff we were cleaning up. It was…" I paused to take a bite of pizza, talking icky would never put me off my food. "Nasty."

"Nasty like, blood – like loads of blood."

She frowned, pausing as the oversized slice of pizza bent in the middle under the weight of so many delicious topping.

"Oh," I think I was putting her off her pizza, "Have they been experimenting on animals or something? Were there any poor dead monkeys or dogs?"

"No," I thought back, there had been small fleshy parts in with the blood, but they sure hadn't looked monkey or dog. "No bodies."

I think she thought I was done, but it was still playing on mind mine; "That's not the weird part though. We were there with another clean up team, I'd never seen these guys before. We were all in hazmats so couldn't really talk much. But they were just there cleaning out filling cabinets and stuff."

"Guess their experiments didn't go very well," she surmised.

I opened my mouth, then thought better of it and closed it again. It's work you know, you don't really want to talk too much about it when you're with the most beautiful woman in the world. We eat up the Pizza, she lets me have about two thirds, finish our beers, then she takes my hand and leads me through to the bedroom.

I will remember her, I will remember that moment, for the rest of my life. It was the happiest I've ever been, and it was right before it all started happening.

We lay there, cuddled up, amongst the bed sheets. The clothes we'd been wearing discarded to the floor around us. Even though it wasn't that late, maybe it was 8; maybe 9 latest, I could feel sleep tugging at the edges of my reality. I turned to Jen, I could see her eyes were heavy as well. I laid there a moment watching the compressions of her chest, listening to the sweet sound of her breath as it began to finally settle back to the normal. She must've sensed me looking at her because she turned to face me. She smiled, a tired (and hopefully satisfied) smile. Her lips looked as if words were about to play out across them, but all of a sudden our moment was gone.

We both sat bolt upright, the previously quiet night outside was disturbed, by gunshots. Nearby gunshots. Like all cities of a certain size there was, very occasion, firearm's discharge. Sometimes it was the RPD with the beam bag Shotguns, or firing warning shots into the air, sometimes it was; well, crime, but I lived in a quiet neighbourhood; you didn't normally hear it nearby.

Then there was another gun shot, then a third. Then just as it all fell silent again, we were both startled, bad startled this time, by the phone ringing. I got up out of the bed, gesturing for Jen to stay put. Fortunately, remember fortune was still favouring the pizza eater as this point, my underpants were on top of the pile of clothes. I clambered into them as I half-sprinted, half-hopped, toward the lounge where the phone was mounted on the wall. I answer it, expecting… well I don't really know. A guy trying to sell me something, maybe, or Gary Stevens from Number 1; he was the building super, maybe he was just checking everyone was ok after he'd heard the gunshots. But it was my mom.

"Michael?" she said. My Mom had had me later in life. She and my Dad, he's been dead say ten years or so now, had married young; but was told they couldn't have kids. Don't know why, and never asked, but that's what they were told. So it was a total shock to them when, on my Mom's 40th Birthday she found out she was pregnant! Dad was 48, and had taken early retirement from the factory where he'd been a supervisor; on account of his health. They'd hooked him up with full pension and everything. Pensions won't be like that if my generation ever makes it to that age that's for certain! Anyway, Mom, lived on her own in Yorktown, it was a small suburb of Raccoon made up of mainly bungalows for retired folk. She played bridge with her neighbours on Thursdays, it was a nice neighbourhood. Anyway, she's; what 63/64 now, she's been retired since my Dad died; she got an ok pay out, and well… she looks and sounds like an old lady.

"Michael are you ok?" she asks. Not in the usual salutation way either, she sounded genuinely concerned for my safety. News of the gunfire can't have gotten to the news people already can it? Besides she never had CNN on, we'd gotten her premium cable a few years ago so she had too much choice to put the news on.

"Yeah Mom. I'm ok, what's the matter? Are you ok?" my heart is in my mouth as suddenly I think, is this the phone call where she tells me she's being rushed to hospital or she's had some test results and only just worked up the courage to tell me. Trust me, if you've elderly parents, your every call with them, in the back of your mind, you're terrified they're going to die. That feeling became even worse after Dad…

"Oh," she sounded as if she hadn't expected the question. "Yes, Yes, everything's fine out here."

I don't say anything, it's 9.30, I check the clock hung above the TV in the corner (Maybe me and Jen had drifted off?), why the heck was my Mom ringing me so late?

"Have you not got the news on?" she asks. Maybe she finally found CNN amongst the thousand or whatever channels she had.

"Nah Mom," I say, "I've got Jen over. We've been…" I pause, "eating pizza."

Jen can half hear my Mom's side of the conversation, the phone was loud, and she could sense the distress in my voice as well, so she's gotten up; half dressed and is standing in the doorway .

"Put on the TV Mickey."