Nemesis: Resident Evil III

Chapter Thirty Eight: Raccoon City Park

The rain was coming down a little harder than it had sounded like from inside the security office, and combined with the cold wind of steadily dropping temperatures, caused Carlos to shiver a little as he and Jill left the relative safety of the building. America was so much colder than where he was from, and although Honduras was a shit-hole, at least there were no zombies running around eating people in the streets. Yeah, this was going to be his last trip to the United States for a long time, the young man thought as they rounded the corner of the building, heading toward the park.

Regardless of how bad things were in Raccoon City, he had honestly not wanted to leave the security office, since the last two days had actually felt like a much needed break while waiting for the young woman to recover from the T-Virus. Carlos had been worried sick the whole time that she wouldn't recover, but it had been nice to just be able to sit down and relax for a while; eating junk food and reading almost half of that book about the wizard kid… and then things had gotten even better after Jill woke up.

Of course, after what was probably the best sex of his life, neither one of them had been in any condition to make the journey toward the old water treatment plant, so they had taken a nap together on the couch, and it was just about midnight by the time that they actually got moving again. Screech, using a key that was hanging up on the wall of the office, the padlocked metal gate, which had a closed for construction sign on it just like the young woman said, the long metal gate that had the words RACCOON CITY PARK above it, slowly opened, revealing what looked like a whole different area of the world.

Beginning only a few dozen meters from what had probably been a pretty busy street, and illuminated by metal fixtures that looked like smaller versions of really old fashioned streetlights, the park kind of reminded him of the courtyard behind City Hall, with its green grass and carefully trimmed hedges. There were a lot more trees, though, big tall oaks that would have blocked out the moonlight, even if there hadn't been a thick cloud cover. The leaves were changing color and starting to fall off, which was expected since it was October now, but they still blocked a large portion of the falling rain… at least most of the time.

A small canal ran through the center of the park, with stone bridges crossing it every now and then, while metal benches and decorative statues could be seen along most of the concrete pathways, many of which were blocked off with construction fences. Thankfully, Jill said that the cemetery was in the other direction, which was great since Carlos didn't really want to climb over a bunch of construction equipment, but… hey, at least there didn't seem to be any zombies around.

"I'm just glad the lights are still working." The young woman commented as they crossed over one of the small stone bridges. "Come on, the cemetery's this way."

"Yeah, because a graveyard is the best place to be during a zombie outbreak." He grumbled, constantly looking around for movement. "Whatever you do, don't step on the graves, okay?"

Jill scoffed a little at this advice, and then began to explain to him that a graveyard was probably one of the safest places to be, since even if the T-Virus managed to leak down into the bodies' coffins, how were they supposed to dig themselves out of six feet of compacted soil? They would be trapped, since as far as she knew, zombies didn't have super strength, and with there being no people hanging around in the cemetery, then the infected population had no reason to go there.

"You seem to know an awful lot about this stuff." Carlos commented after she was done. "Don't tell me you figured all that out during the one night you spent at that mansion you told me about?"

"Not at all; I used to spend a lot of time with my partner's kid sister, before she went off to college." She explained, looking around before starting down another path. "All she had was him, so I figured she could use some girly time now and then, but all Claire ever wanted to do was watch monster movies and spray graffiti on public buildings… so we watched a lot of monster movies."

Snap, something moved from off to the side, causing the two of them to freeze in place, looking around for the source while also listening for any more twigs breaking. It seemed like nature had turned against them, at least in this once instance, since the wind was making it hard to listen, while the rain and darkness didn't do much for them being able to see any approaching threats. These miniature lamp posts didn't put out nearly as much light as the streetlights downtown, leaving most of the park in darkness, except for the walkways themselves… he didn't want to give away their position, but there didn't seem to be any choice but to turn on their rifle's flashlights.

"Carlos, over there!" The young woman exclaimed, aiming her beam at a large oak tree. "Something just went behind it!"

Turning toward the tree in question, the young man added his light beam to hers, trying to keep both sides of the large tree covered so that if there was a zombie or some other kind of monster hidden behind it, the thing wouldn't be able to leave cover and sneak up on them without being spotted, itself. However, Carlos was just starting to think that he could see a figure crouched down behind it, when he gasped after feeling the unmistakable metal of a gun barrel being pressed into the back of his neck. Quickly his eyes turned to Jill… but she was already putting up her hands after experiencing the same thing.

"Don't fucking move." A stern voice whispered as the weapon's hammer was pulled back. "If you wanna stay alive, you're gonna very slowly take your hands off those rifles, and put them on your heads, interlocking your fingers."

At the moment there wasn't much choice but to obey this person, since the young man couldn't risk anything happening to Jill, so the two of them did as they were told, allowing their weapons to hang on their shoulders by the slings, and putting their hands on their heads just as two more people came out of hiding… one of which had been what he thought was a zombie behind the oak tree. The ones who had their pistols pointed at their heads were wearing UBCS uniforms, while the others were wearing street clothes just like any citizen of Raccoon City… and all of them were armed.

"I don't recall the park being on any unit's mission venue." The one behind Carlos said, pressing the barrel in harder. "So you better have a damn good reason for not being with the rest of your team… unless you're a deserter… the company doesn't like that at all."

"Hey, wait a second, I know this one." One of the civilians interrupted, walking up to Jill. "This is that chick Dario and the others kicked out of the warehouse back uptown a few days ago; claimed she was going to the police station to use the radio to send help back for us. What happened, sweetheart, did you take a wrong turn?"

"No, she didn't." The young man spoke up, using the only idea that he could think of, even though it was ridiculous. "She left those assholes to die on purpose and… and we came here because we're Supervisors, and, uh… orders are that we're all supposed to report in together... right?"

Drawing upon what he had heard being said between that lady doctor and Nikolai before he executed her in the hospital, Carlos hoped that these people were Supervisors as well, even though it was a longshot. Jill seemed to understand, quickly agreeing that she had left everyone in the warehouse to die because Umbrella's data was the most important thing, and then after a few moments of silence… the armed men lowered their weapons.

"Don't feel bad, sweetheart, I ditched those idiots, too after a while." The civilian laughed as everyone started to relax. "It wasn't even a day before the food was gone, so I recorded everything I needed from them, and then opened the rollup door while they were all asleep. The zombies came in, I went out, and the rest is history."

"No one cares about the small stuff." The other UBCS man said, causing them to quiet down. "Are any of the others with you? I mean… are we really the only ones who made it? Just the seven of us?"

Strange, Carlos thought as he looked around while they were all muttering to each other, including himself and Jill, there were only six people standing there on that pathway… well, maybe they had a man staying back to watch their basecamp, or maybe manning the radio or something. The point was, that even though the young woman was visibly saddened by the news of what happened to the people she had left back uptown in that warehouse, the four Supervisors had accepted that they were part of the group, and even allowed them to put their hands down, but... what were they going to do now?

"Well, if this is it, then this is it." The first UBCS man decided, taking one more look down the path to see if anyone was coming. "Come on, we've refitted the cemetery's maintenance shed as a temporary basecamp… radio check-in time is in in… ten minutes."

The young man was nervous now… a lot more nervous than he had been before, since these Umbrella Supervisors had a tendency to be, well… less than noble… but at least it was safer to travel in a group of six, instead of just him and Jill going it alone. Hell, if they were lucky, the Supervisors would have their own way out of the city, and if the only contact with headquarters was by radio, then there was no way for any of them to know that he and the young woman were fakes.

Everyone kept their weapons up and ready as they headed down the trail that led to the graveyard, with each of the Supervisors looking out in a different direction while at the same time laughing about what they each intended to do with their bonuses. Yeah, as long as he and Jill could play it cool, and pass themselves off as company douchebags for long enough, maybe these guys were their ticket out of Raccoon City for good this time.