Nemesis: Resident Evil III
Chapter Six: Bar Jack
The zombies outside sounded angry and frustrated as they clawed and pounded at the heavy wooden door of Bar Jack, but Jill wasn't too worried about them, since the door had already proven itself during her own attempts to get into the small building. It was actually kind of convenient that circumstances had forced her into there, since not only was there a chance that the owner kept a weapon of some kind under the bar, but the back door of the place would save her from having to go all the way around the block, and therefore get her a lot closer to the police station.
So far the inside of the bar was quiet, with only the light squeak of the slowly turning ceiling fans reaching her ears, and as she stood there by the front door where she could see almost the whole place, the young woman's eyes watched carefully for any movement. Aside from the bathrooms off to the side, Bar Jack consisted of one single open room that was illuminated by a series of old glass-domed fixtures left over from the 70's, which cast the place in dim yellow light.
A payphone booth was sitting in the corner next to a long coatrack, and the only other light came from the owner's prized Pinball machine, whose bright colors had been flashing throughout the bar since… well, ever since she had started going there. Besides that, the only other features were the bar itself, with its dozens of glass bottles stacked in front of a large mirror, and all of the photographs that lined the walls. Some of them were historical images of Raccoon City's founding and things like that, but most of the framed pictures were of the different customers.
Bar Jack had been around for a long time, so one of the photos was of the owner with an Umbrella executive when the company had just moved into town, and there was one of Chief Irons and Mayor Warren when they were both a bit younger. Going down the rows of them and actually feeling good for a moment when her mind was taken off the current state of the city, Jill spotted one from a few years ago of the Raccoon City High School basketball team, on which Chris Redfield's little sister, Claire, had played… and there was one of STARS after they had been formed… and there was even one of Barry Burton and Tobias Liquid after they came back from Desert Storm, and…
Suddenly the young woman's brief happiness changed into a startled scream as a zombie, which must have been just standing there motionless around the corner for the longest time, lunged at her when she got closer to look at the photographs. It groaned and snarled, drooling heavily as its big arms reached out wildly to grab any part of a potential victim that they could, and they would have succeeded if her reflexes were any slower. She managed to grab its wrists to keep the monster from getting a hold of her neck, but the deranged man was so much bigger than her that its advance caused her to be forced backwards.
Managing to hold her ground for a second in an attempt to push the monster backwards, this attempt was unsuccessful, and now the young woman was stumbling backwards even more quickly than before, but instead of hitting the wall, she gasped when the back of her legs connected with something metal, followed by the sound and feeling of shattered glass when the zombie tackled her right on top of the pinball machine. This impact seemed to have brought the machine to life as well; it's retro-futuristic lights and sounds filling the room as she used all of her strength to keep the monster from biting her.
It was in a rage, snapping its jaw full of rotting jagged teeth over and over again while trying to get to her face, and most of her body was trapped both by the frame of the machine to the sides, the zombie which was now pinning her down by laying right on top of her. Jill's elbow was pressed hard into its neck to keep the teeth away, while struggling to keep it from getting control of her arms by grabbing onto her wrists. The bumpers and pillars of the game were jamming into her back in a really uncomfortable way, and the funny part was that she could easily reach her pistol, not that it would do much good being empty… but then her hand felt something else.
Glass! The whole top case of the Pinball machine had been shattered when her ass went through it, and now there was a piece of the thick glass right next to her free hand… a very long and sharp piece of glass. Taking a risk in moving her arm more so that she could pick it up, the zombie now grabbed her other wrist and forced it down in order to quickly go for her face… and it might have succeeded if the young woman hadn't stabbed the piece of glass right into its eye at the same time.
Now groaning in what almost sounded like pain, the infected man was put off balance enough for Jill to try and get one of her legs up underneath its stomach, when the left side of the machine they were lying on collapsed out from under them. With the world suddenly turning sideways, and then a loud crash as they hit the floor, the young woman immediately started kicking the zombie in the face and chest while scooting away, and then picking up a wooden bar stool the moment she was able to get to her feet.
The stool didn't break like in the movies when she brought it down on the infected man's back, nor did it on the second or third time she did it, but the monster kept trying to get up, so for the next hit she aimed at its head. Whack! Whack! Whack! Hitting the zombie in the back of the skull again and again, Jill was relieved when its head finally busted open and the monster was still, because honestly she had been running out of energy to the point where the bar stool fell from her shaking hands just as its foul-smelling blood started to stain the carpet.
"Oh, my God… oh, my God." She panted, kind of stumbling over to the bar and sitting down to catch her breath. "This is so much harder… without bullets."
Sitting there on the bar stool for a couple minutes, the young woman caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and couldn't help laughing a bit, since the way her hair was all messed up and her clothes were wrinkled and disheveled… it almost looked like she had just gotten done having sex. Yeah, if only that were the reason for her current appearance, she thought while grabbing a nearby bottle and pouring a shot of whatever was in it into a small glass. This was no time to get drunk, but a shot of, uh… Vermouth might help calm her nerves.
Jill was no stranger to taking shots, so the Vermouth went down real easy, and sure enough she started to feel a little better pretty soon after. It was tempting to have more, although she didn't care for the taste… yeah, she still had to get to the police station and use the radio, and to do that she needed to see if there was a weapon under the… hey, what the hell? Getting up from the stool and leaning over the bar, the young woman could now not only see herself in the mirror… but the start of someone else… someone who was hiding under the bar.
Whoever it was down there, they weren't moving, so… were they dead? The last thing she needed was another zombie waiting to ambush her when she reached around to find a weapon… well, there was one way to test it… which involved picking up that bottle again. Smash! Glass and alcohol went everywhere when Jill tossed it down onto the floor right next to the waiting figure, and what followed was not the groan of a zombie, but the surprised yelp of a human.
Sighing with relief as the mysterious person scrambled out from under the bar, she was just glad that it was a real person instead of a zombie… at first. The young woman had expected to find a frightened survivor hiding under there, maybe the bar's owner or some random person who was just trying to survive, but when the terrified looking man jumped to his feet, smacking the shards and fluid off of himself, the first thing Jill felt was anger when she saw who it was… and even more so when she saw that he was armed.
"What the… are you fucking serious right now?" She demanded, about to throw another bottle at him. "Did you somehow not hear me fighting for my life over here a minute ago?"
The frightened looking man who was now standing across the bar from her was no random civilian, but Brad Vickers, the STARS Alpha Team pilot who had once abandoned them die in the forest outside the Spencer Estate. Sure, he had come back for them hours later when everything was said and done, but this time… this time he had just hid back there while she nearly got killed, when it would have been really easy for him to stand up, and, oh, I don't know, shoot the fucking thing.
"That thing… that thing chased me in here!" The pilot yelled back, as if that were some kind of justification. "I was trying to be quiet so that it would give up and leave like the others, but then you came in, and I didn't want it to know I was still here, I'm… I'm glad you're all right, though."
"Oh, you're… you're… you're glad I'm all right?" The young woman asked, hardly believing what she was hearing. "Well, that makes everything all better, then, doesn't it? Here, let me thank you."
Jill's temper might have been a little short with him after everything she had been through, especially since this was the second time he had left her to die, and this moment of rage caused her to pick up another glass bottle and throw it at him. Brad jumped out of the way with another startled yelp as the bottle broke part of the mirror as it shattered behind him, and she was about to toss another one at him, holding back long enough to demand that he give her one of the extra clips he had for his pistol, which he did; sliding it across the bar toward her, but then saying something about bullets not going to do her any good and that hiding was the only way.
"What the hell are you talking about?" The young woman asked, lowering the bottle to reload her weapon. "I've been unarmed all day, and it was pretty awful, so… why in the hell wouldn't bullets do me any good?"
"Because he's coming for us, that's why." Brad answered, a little more of the color draining out of his face. "He's coming for us, and we're both gonna die."