Chapter 7: Just Like Old Times
(MAT)
Brad led Mat into the living room of the apartment he'd broken into. It had apparently belonged to some who was into ballet, at least judging by the pictures on the walls. He didn't have time to examine them too closely, though.
"Are you armed?" he asked the pilot.
The other man nodded quickly, pulling a handgun from a holster on his belt. The weapon looked like the "standard" Samurai Edge the STARS used, but with a big compensator mounted on the barrel, similar to the one Barry Burton used. And Barry's was a .40 burst-fire Beretta 96 modification. If Brad's was anything like that, it'd be a very powerful weapon.
"Can you use it?" he asked next.
Brad nodded dimly. "Of course I can" he said, shoving it back into its holster. But Mat had seen the way he handled the weapon, and it was clear he wasn't comfortable with it. "Why? What's your plan?" he asked, as Mat made his way to the door, which he yanked open. "You're not planning on going out there, are you?"
Mat ignored him, making his way to the door across the hall. He tapped it with the barrel of the Colt. "RPD. Open up." There was no response, so he kicked it down, a large splinter of wood hanging where it had been chained.
"Jesus Christ!" Brad shouted, then exclaimed again when a zombiefied young woman stumbled out of the bedroom, arms outstretched. Mat shot her in the head, the Colt's report even louder in the confined space. The dead girl's blood splattered the walls, her head jerking back as she collapsed limply to the ground, more blood leaking from her shattered skull.
Mat stepped over the body and headed to the window. He yanked the curtain down, letting sunlight flood the apartment, bathing it in a warm, early morning glow.
"What the hell are you doing?" Brad demanded, as Mat squinted down at the empty street below. "What are you looking for?"
"Our new friend. The one who's out to kill us."
"Us?" Brad sounded unsure now. "Why is he after us?"
Mat didn't look at him; his eyes remained fixed on the street below, searching for movement. "Because we know what's really going on here, and Umbrella wants to make sure we don't tell anyone about it."
"Who's this we?" Brad asked. Mat turned and fixed him with a glare, and watched the older man's face drain of color. "I-I mean, I don't know anything about this! I-I'm innocent."
Mat shrugged. "That's up to you." He gestured to the door. "Feel free to leave and take your chances with Tall, Dark, and Ominous. I doubt he'll be willing to listen to your excuses, though."
"I-I think I'll stay with you."
Mat allowed himself a small smile. "Good call." He stepped away from the window, holstering the Colt and slipping the P90 off his back, clicking the fire selector switch to "1" with his right index finger. He stepped past Brad and headed for the door.
"Where are we going?" he asked, cringing when Mat kicked in another door, swept it once with his P90, then moved to the door across and did the same.
"We're leaving" Mat replied, shooting a zombie in the head inside the sixth apartment, rinsing, and repeating the process. "We're gonna head to the RPD building. I think I might know how to get my hands on something that'll make another run in with that…thing go a bit differently."
"What was that all about?" he asked once they'd cleared the hall.
"There's no one here" Mat replied, pushing the door to the stairwell open with his P90 and stepping into the dark, enclosed space. After a moment he clicked on a flashlight mounted on the side of the SMG, illuminating the eerily quite space. "I'd be willing to bet there's no one here at all." He paused, then amended, "No one alive, anyway."
He heard Brad step onto the stairs behind him, followed by the rasp of him drawing his big handgun. "That's comforting" he muttered.
"We're in a city full of zombies" Mat replied, half over his shoulder. "Please forgive me for not being very optimistic."
He reminded himself he needed to go easy on Brad. The guy wasn't combat trained, so there was no reason to expect him to be handling things well. On the other hand, Brad hadn't conducted himself well back in July, which meant Mat knew he wouldn't be able to rely on him under pressure. The STARS pilot was just as likely to run as fight. And if he did, then Mat would be really screwed.
They made it to the bottom floor without incident. Mat made sure to stack the odds in their favor; they never left the stairwell unto they reached the ground.
The door to the main building was shut. Mat pressed his shoulder against it, holding the P90 close to his body with his right arm, while his left hand reached out and grabbed the doorknob. He looked over at Brad. "Ready?"
Brad nodded gamely. "Sure. Why not?"
Mat twisted the doorknob, allowing the door to swing open, and was immediately hit by the rancid stench of decay. Without hesitation he changed tactics from "quiet steps" to "shock and awe," kicking the door open the rest of the way. It flew out, slamming into something solid on the other side and vibrating loudly.
Mat brought the P90 up to his shoulder and put a round through the left eye of a zombie lunging forward, the pasty-face young man looking confused, his mouth still wide open in a snarl as he dropped to the floor. He shifted targets and put another .224 caliber bullet in the forehead of the next zombie, causing him to stumble backwards, thumping against a vending machine and staining its big plastic window with his blood.
Mat stepped forward, sweeping his P90 for targets, then turned to wave Brad forward…only to find the gaping mouth of the zombie he'd hit with the door right in his face instead.
"Shit!" he exclaimed, brining the weapon up, but the dead man was too close, and the PDW's barrel struck him in the chest, the zombie pressing closer and closer to him. The zombie reared his head back, ready to take a bite…then stiffened, his moan cutting off midway as he slumped to the floor, thrashing.
Brad stood behind Mat, smoke drifting from the barrel of his handgun. Mat looked down at the zombie, who had two neat bullet holes in his back, one apparently having severed the dead man's spine. With a savage kick, Mat broke the man's neck, then turned to the pilot. "Nice shot" he managed weakly, trying not to think about how close he'd come to death. "Thanks."
"Y-yeah" stammered Brad, looking sick. "Let's get out of here, okay?"
That seemed like a good idea to Mat.
(JILL)
Fucking teenagers Jill silently cursed for what had to be the dozenth time in less than half an hour. She'd had to chase Rosa down, attracted the attention of a hunter, and the little bitch hadn't even had the decency to stick around, running off yet again, leaving Jill to deal with the monster.
The monster in question sprinted toward her, shrieking wildly, arms raised, mouth open as it charged. Jill fired her handgun, the Samurai Edge throwing lead downrange at the BOW, but as usual, the 9mm didn't do much to it. Jill knew she would've had to hit something vital to stop the thing, and she hadn't.
The thing got within five feet of Jill before she spun and kicked it in the face, causing it to stagger backward. Not content just to send the hunter reeling, Jill spun counterclockwise and kicked it again with her other leg, knocking it off its feet. Before it had the chance to get up, Jill jammed the Samurai Edge into the BOW's mouth and opened fire, putting two rounds through the back of the hunter's head.
The monster gurgled on its own blood, thrashing around and struggling to get up, before finally going limp in a widening pool of green bodily fluids.
Jill stood up and checked the magazine in her handgun. She had ten bullets left, and nothing in reserve. She needed to get her hands on more ammo, and soon, or she'd be screwed. And while Raccoon City wasn't by any means a gun-unfriendly town, there weren't that many places she could think of where she'd be sure to find ammo. In fact, only two came to the forefront of her brain. Fortunately, she was close to both.
Still, there were two civilians running around town, both of whom were her responsibility. She'd have to track them down before she could do anything else.
She headed back to the fence. Part of it was hiked up from where Rosa had crawled underneath, either because she didn't want to be a burden on Jill, or (as Jill suspected), she was just scared stiff.
Jill knelt down and worked her way underneath, managing not to snag herself on the chain links, which, while not quite being a miracle, was probably close enough for government work. Thus having exited the rail yard, Jill was now free…to reenter Raccoon City.
Fantastic she thought, irritable again. To make matters worse, the rising sun was starting to give her a headache. She'd been hung over before, probably much worse than she was now, but still. On top of everything else, she really didn't need this, too.
She made her way down the deserted streets of the city, handgun drawn and held at a low ready, her finger resting on the slide, the barrel aimed at the ground. She could hear various sounds in the distance: gunfire, moans, screams, explosions, generally nothing comforting.
For the first time, Jill wondered where the Army was. Surely people must've learned by now what was going on in the city. Washington would've authorized troops to be deployed; at the very least, there ought to be National Guard units crawling all over the city. While the average soldier probably wouldn't be equipped to handle a full-scale T-virus outbreak, they'd learn quick, and the Guard, not to mention the regular Army, would be extremely helpful when it came to evacuating civilians from the combat zone.
So, where was everyone? There weren't any troops in evidence; not even dead ones, which Jill found really troubling. It was unlikely the military would've been able to engage zombies in combat without loosing a few soldiers, so the fact that there weren't any zombies in uniform indicated they weren't even trying.
That could mean one of two things. Either Umbrella was keeping the military out of the city deliberately (meaning the Company had more reach than any of them had thought, itself a disturbing prospect). Or…
Or, the government had given the city, and the few roughly hundred thousand people who lived inside, up for lost.
Jill was spared having to think this through any further by a loud scream from up ahead. "Now what?" she muttered.
Suddenly, Rosa burst out of a set of swinging glass doors, screaming and looking over her shoulder.
"Wait!" Jill shouted, only to have the girl ignore her…again. Then again, Jill got a look at what was chasing her, and decided maybe she wouldn't hold it against her.
There were four crimson heads following her, arms outstretched in their oddly loping gait, similar to a hunter's. They panted a strange yellow mist from their open mouths, their glowing red eyes darting in her directions.
"Shit" muttered Jill, readying her Beretta. She didn't have enough ammo to take all these things down, but maybe she could shoot her way out of this mess…
Then two other monsters darted in amongst the crimson heads, scattering the super zombies. One of the tall, insect-like monsters stood, swinging a long, scythe like appendage, and decapitated the nearest one. The others rushed them, snarling, trying to rip the bugs apart with their claws, but the insects had thick armor, and made short work of the trio of infected.
Jill backed into a shadowy alley, watching the bugs as they destroyed the zombies. The two new monsters made a low buzzing noise, hunkering down to the road…and then vanishing completely.
Jill blinked. One minute, the two BOWs were there, and the next…they weren't. Like flipping a switch.
This is bad she thought, turning and making her way down the alleyway. Whatever these new monsters were, they'd made short work of one of Umbrella's more frightening creations. Who could say what they'd do to her, especially when all she had was a handgun?
She kept close to the walls, staying in the shadows as much as she could. At one point she froze, pressing herself against the muddy bricks, at a sound above her: a strange snick snick noise, like giant suction cups, along with weak, asthmatic breathing. Whatever the thing on the wall above her was, it didn't notice her, crawling along the building and disappearing out of sight. Jill waited a moment longer, then let out an explosive breath and hurried on.
She kept going, eventually coming to another doorway, this one rusted metal, with a big, handle. Jill carefully eased it open…and found the man she least wanted to see again standing on the other side.
"Dario!" she exclaimed, causing the man to whirl around, eyes wide and hunted.
"You!" he shouted back, his face white. Wherever he'd been, whatever he'd been doing, it had clearly had a negative effect on him. "I…didn't expect to see you again. Not after finding you and Rosa had left the warehouse."
I didn't expect to see you again, either. Not alive, anyway. Maybe shuffling around as a zombie… But Jill didn't say that. She figured it would've been impolite, not to mention a little unprofessional. She was still a cop, after all.
"Listen," she said, "we've got to keep moving. "Rosa's still out there, and-"
"Are you insane?" Dario asked. "There's no way I'm going back out there!"
"But there isn't going to be any rescue!" Jill shouted back.
"I don't care! How dare you ask me to go out there again!"
Without waiting for a response, he turned and ran to a storage container, climbing inside and slamming the door, locking it behind him.
Jill stood, staring at the door for a minute, then gave up. "Fine" she muttered. "Suit yourself, but I'm getting out of here."
(MAT)
Walking the streets with Brad was, if anything, even more unnerving than clearing the apartment building had been. Even if he had saved Mat's life earlier, he still found he couldn't trust the pilot. His eyes were darting everywhere at once, his face pale, his hands in a white knuckled grip around his handgun. He looked ready to bolt at any moment.
Mat inwardly shook his head, remembering the people he'd worked with in the past. He missed Rain and Enrico, not to mention Chase or Jill. They had the coldly obvious competence only experience could bring, and he knew they'd have his back. He'd known he could count on Chad, even though the man wasn't trained for combat. He'd even been able to trust Billy Coen, after a fashion. And of course, he knew he could trust Rebecca implicitly, albeit due to their history together.
But Rain, Enrico, and Chad were dead. Rebecca was hopefully with Chase, and hopefully they were both still alive. He even found himself not wishing any ill-will on Billy Coen; he didn't think of the man as a friend, and he couldn't forget that the former Marine was a murderer, but they'd been in combat together now, and that seemed to have had strange affects on their relationship, such as it was. On the other hand, he found he could conjure quite a bit of ill will for Jill. He felt guilty about that, since she might've been somewhere where she couldn't have reported for duty. Still and all, he was willing to wait for her to be proven innocent.
All the same, he didn't have any of the people he would've liked to be stuck in the zombie apocalypse with. He had Brad Vickers, and he was going to have to make do with that.
"Hey," said Brad, tapping Mat's chest and bringing him back to the here and now, "isn't that a person?"
Mat's head jerked in the direction the other man had pointed, and..."Son of a bitch" he exclaimed at the sight of the girl sprinting frantically down the street. It occurred to him a moment later that he really wasn't paying attention if Brad had noticed something like this before him. Still, there was a time and a place for such thoughts, and it wasn't now. "Let's go!" he shouted, clutching the P90 to his chest as he took of down the street after her. He heard Brad curse, then follow half a second later.
Whoever this girl was (and she didn't look old enough to be out of high school), she was fast. Mat remembered dealing with Elizabeth Warren a few hours earlier (with a pang of regret when he remembered he had no idea what had happened to her), and how she'd complained about her feet hurting her. This girl looked to be dressed about the same, but if she was having any trouble, she didn't seem willing to let it slow her down. Mat was weighed down with all sorts of random crap, from the food he'd grabbed at his apartment, to spare ammo for both his weapons (and two full Browning mags), to Lisa Trevor's diary, plus he was tired, and had no desire to chase this girl down.
"Hey…wait!" he managed to shout, his breath having a hard time coming. Damn it, why is there so much running today?
The girl slowed down a little, half turning to see him, confusion on her face at the sight of two men running toward her, clearly armed and clearly alive, confusion that turned to relief when she realized they weren't going to hurt her (not that Mat suspected he and Brad would've been in any condition to try).
Relief that was still on her face when the monster bug crouching in the shadows lunged forward, gibbering and hissing as it grabbed her. The girl didn't even have a chance to scream before it planted its spear-like nose in her forehead, her body twitching slightly as the monster began to suck her brain out.
"Oh, Jesus" sobbed Brad, suddenly and violently sick on the sidewalk.
Something hot ignited in Mat at the sight of the girl's face, her muscles slowly relaxing in death. She still looked relieved to see them, even though his shout had caused her to stop and gotten her killed. He clicked the P90 from 1 to A, brought the weapon to his shoulder, and opened fire. .224 inch bullets tore through the hideous bug's body, knocking it away from its victim, one round tearing its nose cleanly off. It landed on its back, but tried to rise. Mat fed it another burst, bullets tearing through the monster's body and striking the pavement below.
"C'mon!" Mat shouted angrily, eyes darting around for another target. He heard a rustling from the right, and turned to see another bug wiggling its way out of a dumpster. Without hesitating he fired a short burst into the thing's face, causing its head to explode in a spray of yellow-green gore. It slumped down, the dumpster's lid slamming down on its back.
"Mat…" Brad said nervously, trying to calm him down, but Mat wasn't interested. He'd had enough of this. He just wanted blood. He wanted to kill as many BOWs as he could, and as quickly and painfully as possible.
More of the bugs were scuttling their way, two rearing up on their hind legs and charging. Mat triple-tapped both of them, dropping the bugs in the street, where they twitched and spasmed and died, their fellows not slowing down.
Mat heard Brad cry out and spun to see an honest to God hunter sprinting toward them, head forward, making it look all the more like a shark. This was much too close to fight it, so he decided to change tactics.
"C'mon" he shouted to Brad, sprinting for an alley. He spun and fired the P90, a four-round burst into the charging monster, dropping it mortally wounded to the ground. Unfortunately, that burst terminated abruptly when he ran out of ammo. Without pausing he dropped the weapon, letting its sling catch it at his waist, smoothly drawing the Colt and shooting another hunter as it leapt over the one he'd just killed. His bullets caught it in midair and threw it back down. Mat kept backing up, shoving a new magazine into the P90 and clicking it back over to semi automatic. Brad wasn't shooting, and this looked like it was going to be a one man show.
Another hunter rounded the corner, and Mat opened fire, hitting the thing in the arm and causing it to spin around, shrieking in surprise. Two more sprinted around hot on its heels, but paused almost comically when they looked down the alley. Then, with a shriek of a different pitch, they turned and fled.
"Yeah!" Mat shouted, shaking his fist at them. "You want some more, you know where to come, bitches!"
"Uh, Mat…"
Brad was tugging on his sleeve. Mat turned around and felt the wind leave his sails. "Oh."
The monster, the monster, was standing about twenty-feet away, its teeth bared in a grimace. With a low growl it started forward.
"Oh shit" Brad said quietly. "We're fucked."
"Up!" Mat shouted, pointing to a fire escape. "Let's go!"
Brad needed no more urging. Without a backwards glace, he scrambled onto a dumpster, then leapt up and grabbed the ladder and began to pull himself up. Mat waited just long enough for it to possible, then jumped himself, wrapping his hands around the rungs…just as the monster grabbed his ankle.
There wasn't much of a contest. With a casual flick of its wrist, the super Tyrant pulled Mat off the fire escape and flung him several feet away. He landed hard on the ground with a groan, just in time to see the monster stomping toward him…and Brad ducking through a window. Chickenshit little bitch was the first thing that came to mind as he scrambled to his feet, taking aim-
The thing backhanded him again, and Mat slammed into a brick wall. He tasted blood in his mouth, his vision going red for a minute, his head spinning. He landed on his hands and knees, dizzy, a trail of bloody saliva falling from his mouth. He slowly, awkwardly scrambled forward, desperate to get away.
Then the monster smacked him again, this time sending him through the window of a store, glass shattering. He caught a glimpse of it charging past like a linebacker from hell, then slammed into a shelf, the thin metal coming apart under his weight. He landed in a pile of God only knew what, and lay there for a moment, trying to recover.
Then he heard a roar from outside and looked up to see the monster. It had its head thrown back, its arms outstretched, huge fists clenched as it bellowed in rage. Mat wasn't quite sure what it was mad about; it wasn't like someone had been using it as a punching bag. Then the monster was dashing forward, its heavy boots making audible sounds as they struck the pavement, its sickly pale fists clenched tightly. Mat suddenly remembered he had an urgent appointment…anywhere that wasn't here.
He scrambled to his feet, making an undignified sprint away from the creature, staggering drunkenly for the back door.
Fortunately, it gave out under his first, very weak shoulder charge, opening into a narrow alley.
Unfortunately, the hunter Tyrant didn't have any more trouble smashing its way through the façade of the store. It slammed through a shower of bricks, caught sight of Mat, and bellowed in impotent rage before charging again.
Mat turned and ran, managing to more or less do so in a straight line this time, feeling an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu, remembering his last encounter with this…thing, and how he'd only barely gotten away. And he hadn't had the shit beaten out of him last time, either.
The Nemesis plowed through the doorway, its huge frame shattering the brickwork above along with the door itself. It stopped to roar again before charging, head down. This one lacked the previous model's ridiculous arm-blade, but that just meant it'd probably try to beat him to death instead of impaling him, and that wasn't any more palatable to Mat.
He rounded a corner and took off down the street. He heard the monster pause, then heard it bellow when it caught sight of him again, profoundly wishing the thing would find another hobby, because he was this close to dropping dead right then and there.
He sidestepped a hungry zombie, clipped it in the head with the P90, and kicked it in the direction of Nemesis, who plowed it under like some sort of hideous undead lawn mower. The zombie roadblock still didn't slow it down much. And Mat was running out ideas.
Then he saw something up ahead, and had an idea. If it didn't work he was dead, but odds were, he'd be dead if he didn't try it, either.
Mat put on one last burst of speed and headed for the overpass, realizing he'd come in a complete circle. This was just above where they'd run into the Nemesis in the first place.
He didn't slow down, dashing for the edge…and jumping over the side.
He heard a confused below from the Nemesis from where he hung on, just out of sight. His arms were already sore, and he knew he couldn't do this for very long. The monster leaned over the edge, trying to find him. It didn't see his body on the ground, but after a moment it let out a huff and turned away, stomping off down the bridge.
Frantically Mat scrambled over the edge and back onto the overpass, sitting down next to the guardrail and letting out an explosive breath, watching the hulking behemoth as it stomped away. Then he peered back over the edge. It wasn't that much farther to the RPD building, and once he got there, Mat promised himself he'd go find the night watch room and take a nap. He felt like he'd earned it.
(JILL)
"Shit" said Jill, kneeling beside Rosa's body. The poor, emotional, stupid girl had a big hole in her forehead, like something had been driven inside. Her eyes were wide open, but her facial muscles had already relaxed enough that Jill wasn't sure she'd even known what hit her. If nothing else, it had been a quick end. Jill slid her eyelids closed, then turned to the body next to hers.
It was a big…thing. That was the best description Jill could give it. She'd seen a mutated beetle once in her dad's garden growing up. The thing had two separate bodies, joined at the abdomen, with eight legs, the six a normal beetle would've had, plus two more attached to the body protruding from its shell, along with an extra head. The thing had appalled the eleven-year-old Jill then, and this creature appalled the twenty-four-year-old Jill now.
Somebody had riddled the thing with bullets. A few had hit Rosa as well, although Jill suspected those had been post mortem. Shell casings littered the ground, and Jill saw several other bodies. It looked like somebody had gone crazy, massacring anything foolish enough to get in their way.
Jill picked up one of the casings. It was long and narrow, almost like a .223 caliber, but not quite. She looked at the base, and her suspicions were confirmed.
5.7x28mm
FN HERSTAL
"Mat" she said quietly, rolling the casing in her hand for a moment, before letting it fall back into the street. This meant Mat, and probably Rebecca too, were still alive somewhere in the city. In fact, it meant he, at least, had passed through here not so long ago. And I'm gonna find him Jill decided. I'm gonna find them both.
She moved on, past the bodies. She found an alley virtually choked with them, including a hunter that had apparently bled to death. There was a lot of ammo wastage here, and Jill was half surprised the area wasn't crawling with zombies from all the shooting.
Then she paused and walked back to the dead hunter. The green-skinned lizard's body was riddled with bullet holes; there was no question how it had died. Still, there was also a large indention on the monster's back, as if a gigantic boot had crashed down on the dying monster, stepping on it without a thought.
"Oh, you idiot" Jill muttered, stepping away from the dead hunter and toward a wrecked shop window. "Oh, you stupid idiot. What did you do?"
It was clear now why there hadn't been any zombies attracted to the sound of Mat's shooting, clear why there didn't seem to be any in the area at all. Something else had shown up instead. Jill had no idea where Mat was now, but it was clear he'd beat a hasty retreat.
It was also clear something had followed him. Something big enough to smash its way through two solid brick walls, apparently without slowing down.
With that evidence in mind, Jill decided to do the only thing that made sense to her. She turned, and went in the opposite direction.
If Mat was still alive, he'd make his way to the RPD building. Even if he wasn't, there were likely to be other officers there, and at the very least, Jill would be able to get her hands on more ammunition, or maybe even a shotgun.
She turned and made her way down the street, watching the shadows even more closely, hating herself for hoping the monster, whatever it was, was still after Mat, and therefore not lurking around the corner for her.
Sorry about the long gap. I've been really, really busy. I hope to start uploading once a week again.
-Godzillafan93