Nemesis: Resident Evil III

Chapter Nineteen: Downtown

"Keep moving, Jill." She whispered to herself, trying to catch her breath. "Just a little farther."

Now that the Pursuer had been neutralized, at least for a while, the adrenaline that the young woman had felt surging through her body during the desperate escape from the RPD was wearing off, leaving her feeling tired and sore. Aside from the nap she had taken in that uncomfortable office chair back at the uptown warehouse, she hadn't slept in what felt like forever, and her muscles ached from all the running and other strenuous things that she had to do over the past twenty four hours… not to mention the mental strain.

Having to see her fellow RPD officers getting overwhelmed at the police barricade had been awful, but at least her time at the Spencer Estate back in July had prepared her for the savagery of those infected with Umbrella's T-Virus, but as bad as all that was, nothing could have prepared her for that STARS hunting monster. Instinctively killing humans to spread the virus was one thing, but what the Pursuer had done to Brad went beyond instinctive, animalistic killing, almost to what could have been described as a near human level of sadism.

Instead of simply killing him and being done with it, the monster had beaten and broken the pilot's body, all while keeping eye contact with Jill as if specifically trying to frighten her so that… so that what? The beast had all but told her to run away before beginning the chase, and it had come so close to getting her, too. She had to remind herself that the Pursuer was no longer chasing her, nor doing much of anything while pinned between that truck and the parking garage wall… hopefully for a long time… but that didn't mean that everything was all right.

The young woman was tired, certainly, but now her stomach was growling so loudly with hunger that it was actually painful, while her mouth was so dry from not having any water since… hell, since yesterday. To make matters worse, Jill was now making her way through the downtown district of Raccoon City, where the buildings were a lot closer together, the streets were a lot less accessible thanks to damage and barricades, and most of the population had lived… meaning more zombies.

Every once in a while Jill would see a flash of movement, followed by screams or gunshots as a desperate survivor was forced to run from the infected, probably while out scavenging for food or supplies. The first few times she tried to get to them, but it seemed like they were always going the opposite direction, and by the time the young woman caught up to them, it was too late. Not only had the survivors been killed after running out of bullets or being cornered, but then she also had to use more of her own precious resources in order to get away if spotted, herself.

As a former police officer, Jill's first instinct was to try to save as many civilians as possible, but that just wasn't possible on her own, even if she had more ammo and felt better. So she just kept moving on, traveling down Warren Street for as long as she could after leaving the RPD, but needing to stop for a lot more rest breaks after her head started to hurt from dehydration. No one knew just how the T-Virus managed to spread through the city so quickly, but she knew that it could be both airborne and in the water, so using the faucets and drinking fountains was not the best idea… even though it was torture to see all of them.

Before the outbreak started there had been a lot of construction going on, especially in the older parts of the downtown district, all part of the Mayor's Renew Raccoon project, so Warren Street was blocked off by construction fences and equipment long before the barricades and car accidents finished the job. From there the only way through was a back alley of to the right, but that was also the direction of the plaza that the press building was next to, and thankfully there weren't very many infected around… hold on, why were there so few of them?

There were still some zombies shambling around, but compared to how many the young woman had to deal with back uptown, there were hardly any, but… but that made no sense because this was one of the most densely populated areas of town. Not that she was complaining, since dealing with one or two straggling zombies was a hell of a lot better than getting ambushed by a whole horde like at the warehouse, but it was still unnerving, like… like they were all hiding somewhere, just waiting to jump out.

And why not? The Pursuer had waited and then jumped out at her and Brad, the memory of which suddenly making her want to be off the streets as soon as possible as she stopped and took a look around. A muffled groan reached her ears, causing the young woman to turn toward a building with her pistol aimed… but then she stopped when she saw that the zombie was trapped inside the window of a building that had bars over it. The monster snarled and reached out toward her, regardless of there being several meters between them, and Jill just shook her head while walking away.

Besides the full clip inside her weapon, there was only one extra left in her pocket, and once that was gone, what? Just use those brass knuckles she took from Marvin's office to fight off the infected? No, she needed to get to the press building and use their radio… hopefully someone would be in range who could send help, although the more she saw of the condition of Raccoon City, the less likely that it seemed for any help to be available, but what else was she supposed to do? Just give up? Sure, that was probably just what Umbrella wanted her to do, give up and just become another victim of their virus… no.

Looking up at the sky, Jill saw that there were still a few hours of daylight left, although the shadows of buildings were starting to elongate, and the wind was picking up slowly, blowing trash and other discarded items around the streets. Whack! Sneaking up on another zombie who was too busy eating the face of another recently killed survivor, the young woman brought the grip of her pistol down hard onto the back of its skull. It had been on its hands and knees, leaning over its victim, so it was easy to hold down after the first blow, and then just keep hitting it until there was no more movement.

This was getting harder to do the more tired and hungry she got, but it was easier than trying to escape from several of them after a gunshot drew their attention, and thankfully Jill was able to keep this up until she reached the end of the alley, where a large public transit bus was blocking the way. Well, not completely blocking it, since whatever had caused it to crash had also acted as a kind of ramp so that the front end of the bus was embedded in the wall of a building about ten feet up, giving her just enough space to get on her belly and crawl underneath it to get through.

Emerging back on the main road, the young woman pulled herself to her feet and looked around, feeling a strong sense of relief when she saw that she had reached the beginning of The Arcade Shops. Thanks to the barricades and having to go around through the alleyways, it was the wrong side of The Arcade Shops, but still it meant that progress was made, and now all she had to do was skirt around the edge of the plaza to reach the press building. The plaza was a series of small buildings that sat together on their own, encircled by parking lots, meaning that there probably wouldn't be any barricades around it, so Jill started to make her way around… only to stop at what she saw around the first corner.

"Oh crap." She whispered sharply, ducking back behind the wall. "Crap, crap, crap."

To be fair, the young woman had been wondering where the majority of the downtown zombies had gone, and now she knew… they were gathered in front of the pharmacy like a Black Friday crowd, groaning and bumping into each other while some crawled in through the broken windows, while others… jumped off the roof? Seriously, there were about a dozen of the infected moving around on the rooftop of the building, and now and then one of them would dive off like they were about to start crowd-surfing at a Metallica concert.

Instead of being carried, though, the falling zombies simply smacked their heads on the concrete, causing a brief feeding frenzy, and that was all of it that Jill wanted to see. Of course, they just had to be gathered at the pharmacy, she thought, taking a minute to think of a better plan… after all, the pharmacy was in the middle of absolutely everything, so there was no way to keep going around without getting spotted by fifty zombies… God damn it, what was she going to do now?

Most of the roads that she could see from there were completely blocked off, so it looked like Jill was going to have to double back and go all the way around the other side… that is, unless she somehow found a way to sneak through the plaza without being seen. Maybe through one of the stores? She thought about trying to remove a manhole cover and head through the sewer tunnels, but honestly the young woman didn't want to do that anymore than going directly through past the horde.

One of the things she had learned about the T-Virus was that it didn't just infect humans; she had seen infected birds, dogs… fucking plants… there was no telling what kind of horrible things were lurking around where the zombies weren't, so it was starting to look like finding a way through one of the stores was the way to go. However, on this side most of the doors were employee access, and her hands were becoming too shaky to pick locks, but… what was that over there? The one building with an entrance that faced toward the street, with an illuminated sign above the door.

Of course, the Grill 13! Her head must have really bene out of it to forget about the most popular restaurant in Raccoon City, especially since she and all the members of STARS used to go there for dinner after getting off shift most days. Most of the RPD officers did, and there was even one time that Chris almost got into a fight with Tobias when STARS and Task Force Arklay ended up there at the same time. The two of them were arguing about… something, she couldn't remember what, but Tobias was amazing at pushing people's buttons, and… and if Wesker hadn't stopped them, who knew what would have happened?

Regardless, the Grill 13 was probably her best bet for getting through to the other side of The Arcade Shops, so she looked around to make sure that no infected creatures had spotted her, and then started making her way toward the entrance.