Nemesis: Resident Evil III
Chapter Eighteen: Escape from the RPD
Holding onto the railing so that she wouldn't fall, Jill raced down the concrete stairs, three at a time, into the basement of the RPD. Everything echoed more around her now, since the walls, ceiling, and floor were all concrete, including the footsteps of the Pursuer, who was rapidly closing in. A short distance from the bottom of the stairs, there was a directory sign where the corridor split into a three way junction, with the options of the Morgue through a set of metal double doors up ahead, and Maintenance off to the left, while Armory and Parking were off to the right.
The young woman had been working at the RPD long enough to know that the maintenance area was a dead end, as was the morgue, since there were no other exits inside and it only consisted of a single room, so without even needing to stop and read the sign, she made a sharp right turn, and continued sprinting down the hallway just as the monster was heard reaching the bottom of the stairs.
"Sstarss!" Its voice echoed from somewhere behind her.
Running right past the secured metal door that was labeled Armory, since she no longer had a key for it and it would take several minutes to pick, Jill rounded the next corner just as the Pursuer ran past the directory sign. It hadn't even stopped to consider the other directions, probably since it could hear her footsteps just like she could hear its own, and at the rate the monster was catching up to her, there was no way she was going to make it to the parking lot… so she did something that it probably wouldn't expect.
As soon as Jill rounded the corner, she stopped, turning around while readying the shotgun, aiming slightly upward to the approximate height of its scarred face, and pulling the trigger as soon as it rounded the corner. Boom! Click-click. Boom! Maybe it was her imagination, but there was an almost surprised expression on the Pursuer's face when it found itself looking down the barrel of her weapon, and the first shell stopped the monster in its tracks while making its head tilt back a little.
The second shell struck it in the neck and shoulder, making the Pursuer take a step back, as did the third and fourth when they hit the monster's chest and face respectively. Click-click Boom! The fifth shell slamming into its mouth was enough to actually put its massive body off balance completely, but now Jill only had a single shell left, and the Pursuer was already regaining its balance. Once the last shell was gone, she would be defenseless, since her pistol might as well have been a kid's water gun for as effective it was, but she had to do something…
In a quick scan of the corridor around them, while the monster finished standing up straight, the only thing that the young woman saw was a big fire extinguisher mounted on the wall right next to it, so she fired the last shell into the red cylinder instead. POP! Jill had never blown up a fire extinguisher before, and it sounded different than she imagined, although the effect was exactly as she had hoped. There was so much pressure inside of the extinguisher that the last thing she saw before the hallway was engulfed in a freezing white fog, was the Pursuer being knocked off its feet, and hopefully it would be lost in the whiteness while she ran away.
Sprinting as fast as she could, the metal door into the precinct's underground parking garage was at the end of this last stretch of corridor, so the young woman shoved it open as she charged through, and then wedged the now useless shotgun into the latch so that it couldn't turn. Jill didn't want to give up the weapon, but she needed to buy herself all the time she could to escape, so in addition to jamming the latch, she turned toward the large flickering vending machine that was right next to the door, and grabbed onto it.
Apparently this was a day of firsts for her, since she had never tried to tip over a vending machine before, either, and it was a lot harder than she imagined, given that the young woman wasn't exactly a big person. So she ended up having to jump up to grab onto the top rear corner of the machine, lifting her legs up to brace them against the wall next to it, and then pushing off as hard as she could. CRASH! The machine's light went out, and she could hear all of the soda cans being knocked around inside as it fell down right in front of the door, and it was a good thing too, since the jammed latch of the door started rattling just seconds later.
Hoping that this barricade would hold the Pursuer back for a little while, Jill turned her attention to the parking garage, where dozens of patrol cars and personally owned vehicles were still parked from the officers who were on duty when everything went to hell. She wanted to use one of them to drive away, but that just wasn't practical with how many roads were completely blocked off throughout the city, so instead she just ran toward the gate at the back. Unfortunately, the metal security grate was down, and she didn't have the key needed to release it, with the lock-picking tool not being an option because the lock was electronic.
"Oh, shit." She said, looking back as the door and fallen machine shook. "Think of something, Jill, think."
The Pursuer must have been hitting the door pretty hard, because not only was it shaking, but with every impact the vending machine slid another inch out of the way, and without being able to get the gate open, she would end up trapped inside the nearby holding cells if she kept running… no, there had to be another way. There were a couple of large RPD trucks inside the garage, but the first one that she saw was parked in front of the holding cell doors, and there really wasn't much room to turn it around… but there was another one.
Running over to it as the monster continued to slowly move the vending machine with the door, Jill was relieved to find that not only was the door of the truck unlocked, but someone had left the keys up in the sun visor as well. Hey, maybe her luck was changing, she thought when the engine started right up, putting the large vehicle into reverse, and driving the rear end into the security gate as hard as she could. The gate was tough, a lot tougher than she imagined, with only one of the corners being knocked out of its track while most of it simply warped to the shape of the truck's bumper… and then a roar filled the garage when the monster finally broke its way through the door.
"Sssstaarrsss!" It screamed, sounding enraged as it jumped over the broken vending machine to come after her again.
Jill's first thought was to ram the gate again, doing anything that she could to escape from the Pursuer as it ran across the parking garage to kill her, but then she realized… wait a minute, I'm inside a fucking truck. Switching gears to D, and then stomping on the gas, the tires squealed, kicking up a lot of smoke as she drive right toward the monster, lifting it off its feet when it was caught by the front end, and carrying the Pursuer with as she drove right toward the concrete wall.
SMASH! It was a good thing that Jill remembered to put on her seatbelt before trying such a desperate act, because the impact completely destroyed the truck's front end and showered her with a rain of glass when the windshield exploded… but the monster was pinned… pinned, and not moving. The impact had partially imbedded the Pursuer inside the concrete wall, with the truck's wreckage holding its powerful arms down at its sides, but who even knew if this was enough to kill it?
Not wanting to take any chances, the young woman pulled the hand brake so that the monster would have a tougher time trying to free itself, well… once her vision had cleared enough to do so, but then she started to panic when she realized that she couldn't get out of the driver's seat, no matter how hard she tried. Trapped! Oh no, she was trapped in there with the monster… no, wait a second, she wasn't trapped, her seatbelt was still on. Her body was a bit sore though, making it a little harder to walk once Jill pushed open the busted door and got out… but she had to keep moving in case the thing woke up.
The bottom corner of the security gate had been knocked open during her attempt to ram it, and it was a good thing that she was so slender built, because even after being hit by a two-ton truck, the gate barely moved at all for her… and if her breasts had been any bigger, the young woman might not have been able to crawl underneath it at all. Even with sucking in her already flat stomach and crawling on her back like a worm, Jill was just barely… barely able to squeeze herself through, but she had done it… she had gotten out of the RPD, and so far the monster was still not moving.
Scooting herself over to a shadowy spot over by one of the pillars, the young woman readied her pistol, because although she had managed to get away from the STARS hunting Pursuer, Raccoon City was just as dangerous as ever. There was still plenty of daylight left, though, meaning that it was going to be easier for the infected people wandering around to spot her, but the sun did feel really good on her face after being inside the police station for so long.
Now her thoughts returned to Brad, and another tear ran down her face when she had a vivid flashback of what that thing had done to him… no, she needed to hold back the tears… she could break down and cry for him after getting herself out of the city. The only thing that should have been on her mind right now was getting to the radio inside of the press building near the shopping plaza, which thankfully wasn't too far away… at least not as far as it would have been if she had gone out the precinct's front entrance.
Staying behind the pillar for a second to get a good look at her surroundings, Jill was getting a little nervous since the buildings downtown were packed more tightly together than in the uptown district, meaning that there would be less room for her to run away if she met up with the main zombie horde… which was still around there somewhere. Okay, it was time to get moving, so without allowing herself any more time for doubt or fear, the young woman stepped out from behind the pillar, and kept a constant lookout for threats as she walked into the downtown district of Raccoon City.