Nemesis: Resident Evil III

Chapter Four: September 28th Daylight

From recent experience, Jill had learned that staying outside in the open was a death sentence with the sheer number of infected people shambling around the city, so instead of running down the street as fast as she could in order to reach the police station, the young woman crouched down behind every dumpster, and ducked into every building that wasn't on fire that she could. So long as there were no zombies inside, she was content to hide under the window until the monsters passed by, and her most current shelter just happened to be a small boutique on Jack Street.

Like a lot of the shops that could be found in Raccoon City's uptown district, this was a little place for rich ladies to buy over-priced clothing and perfume that would have cost a third of the price downtown. Jill had never been inside before, although she had always meant to stop by during her seldom experienced girly moments when she would spoil herself, but… the selection of things inside the store was actually kind of disappointing.

She had never been one for perfume or gaudy jewelry, but having fashionable clothes never hurt anyone… in particular, a thick leather jacket that was placed around one of the display mannequins. This was no time to be fashionable, but given that her current clothing consisted of old hiking boots, ripped blue jeans, and a faded t-shirt, something like a leather jacket was welcome since it might very well save her life in the event that an infected person tried to bite her. The young woman's body type was pretty generic, so it wasn't much of a surprise when the jacket fit, but there was one more thing that needed to be done before moving on.

Ever since leaving her apartment the other day and deciding to help the cops instead of trying to get out of town, her long brown hair had been constantly getting in the way. Back at the Spencer Estate, her beret had helped keep it in place, but now it seemed that nothing was able to keep it from falling back into her face… with the only solution being a pair of large scissors that were on the check-out counter. Snip-snip, using one of the small mirrors that were more suited for looking at necklaces, Jill cut off a good portion of her hair so that it was now barely shoulder length, and… hey, she really did look good with short hair.

Now if only she could find a weapon to defend herself with until getting more bullets from the RPD… no, of course not, why would a place like this have any kind of a weapon under the counter? Okay, an empty pistol and her talent for kicking people really hard was not going to cut it, but it wasn't like the young woman could just materialize weapons out of thin air like the player's inventory in one of Joseph Frost's video games. Of course, being able to magically store things for later use would've been pretty nice in this situation.

Too bad that this was real life instead of a video game… if it was a video game, she'd probably be running around in a really impractical outfit like a skirt or a tube-top. Yeah, dressed like a hooker and carrying around a mini-gun or something like it didn't weigh a million pounds, and then she could've just cleaned out all the infected from Raccoon City all by herself. But no, instead she had to wait for the zombies to shamble on by, before trying to move onto the next building without being discovered. But where the hell was she going to find a weapon?

The most obvious choice was the gun shop ran by those Kendo Brothers, but it was literally miles away from Jill's current location, and besides the boutique, the only other notable place nearby was Bar Jack. Bar Jack, of course! The young woman was tempted to smack herself for not thinking of it sooner, since where was a firearm more likely to be found than underneath the bar of well… a bar? It was a small place, but in walking distance from where she was, so as soon as the last of the zombies had passed by, Jill carefully pushed the door open to leave.

With slight tinting on the windows to protect its customers from the glare, she had forgotten how bright the sun was shining, especially for early autumn, when things were supposed to start cooling down. Apparently someone had forgotten to give the sun that memo, because it was beating down hard on the city, especially now that Jill was wearing that heavy jacket. The infected didn't care about the light or the heat, just kind of pacing back and forth, or sometimes not moving at all as if lying in wait to ambush unsuspecting victims, but thankfully there were plenty of things for her to hide behind as she made her way toward the bar.

Oh shit, she thought, nearly walking right into a female zombie that had its back turned when she started to round the corner. Had the monster seen her, she wondered while crouching down behind a large blue mailbox? Had it heard her footsteps and started looking for where the noise came from? As long as it didn't surprise her, the young woman was confident that she could take down a single infected person in a fight, but the problem was that the noise generated from such a struggle would have brought others, and then… well, best to not let it get that far.

Wow, it was such a beautiful day with the sun shining down and not a cloud in the sky, that it was a little hard to believe that the monsters had overtaken the city… harder still to believe that somehow she was still alive after everything that had happened. Jill had nearly been killed several times at the Spencer Estate, and even more so during the last couple days, but just like before when her life depended on Brad Vickers airlifting them to safety, everything now hinged on her being able to call for help at the RPD.

Letting out a long sigh of relief once the female zombie started to walk away, the young woman moved from her hiding place as well, and now the sign above the door of Bar Jack was visible, even though it was still a good distance away. So she kept going, the young woman having to take a chance on moving out into the open when she ran out of cover, only to hear the sudden rasping of a zombie when she was forced to cross an alley right in front of it.

"Oh, shit!" She exclaimed in surprise, a lot louder than intended. "Shit, shit, shit."

Jill's first instinct was to go for her pistol as she backed away, remembering that it was empty only after it was drawn, but the weapon was still a piece of metal, so she bashed it into the side of the infected man's head. Whack! There was enough power behind the blow to make it turn sideways and stumble a bit, but not enough to knock it down, causing Jill to have to finish the job by pulling her leg back and kicking it in the rear as hard as she could, this time making it eat the pavement on its way down.

Too bad for her that the sounds generated by this brief struggle were enough to draw the attention of another nearby zombie, as well as another who was halfway across the street. Now the two of them were slowly shambling their way toward her, while the one she had already knocked down was starting to get up… and there was nowhere she could run to without getting the attention of even more of the deranged infected people.

Weapon, weapon, she needed a weapon, God damn it… but there was nothing around her except for the mailbox, which was bolted down to prevent vandalism, her empty pistol, which was not going to be enough against three zombies… and a metal, partially full trashcan. With no other option than to try it, the young woman grabbed the lid off the can and swung it into the face of the zombie closest to her as it was getting up, before picking up the can itself, and causing a bunch of wet, rotten trash to spill out onto the street as she slammed it down over the infected man's head.

Growling in frustration when the can pinned its arms while blinding it, the zombie walked right into a nearby light pole in its feeble effort to free itself, and as for the other two who were approaching… Jill ignored them completely while making a mad dash toward the front door of Bar Jack. Sprinting with all her might, the young woman ran right past several of the infected, having to push or punch a couple of them out of the way, and in turn gaining quite a following as the hungry monsters chased her.

Keeping ahead of them was not a problem, since a sprinting woman in good shape was far faster than a bunch of shambling zombies, but there was quite a lot of risk involved in this strategy. For one thing, there was a chance that the door to the bar would be locked, and if so then she would simply have to keep running until finding more shelter… or simply getting too tired to go on and the infected overwhelmed her. Without her lock-picking tools, nor the time to use them even if she did, the young woman's only hope was that the door was open.

"No!" She screamed when she ran into the door and it didn't move when she pushed it. "No, come on!"

The knob was turning, but the door didn't give in no matter how hard the young woman slammed her body into it, as if the dead bolt was in place… and now the infected were getting closer. The ones she had seen before, as well as a whole bunch of their snarling, drooling friends that they had picked up along the way were now shambling their way toward her just like they had done the previous day at the barricade… only this time Jill didn't have twenty cops there for backup.

Now the zombies were coming from the other direction as well, cutting off any possible escape route that she could take by running for it, so in desperation the young woman kept slamming herself into the amazingly sturdy wooden door again and again… until seeing something that would have made her laugh if not for the monsters who were about to get her. There, on a small metal sigh at the center of the door, was the word PULL.

Groaning and snarling as they shambled closer, the young woman felt the tip of some infected fingers brush across her hair just as she pulled the door open, hitting another of them in the jaw as she ran through. Grabbing the knob on the inside as she did so, Jill pulled the heavy door shut behind her as the zombies reached and clawed for her, with their frustrated groans being heard while she locked both the knob and the dead bolt to keep them out.