Nick pressed himself up against a brick wall of an old building, two blocks from where he was supposed meet up with delta squad.
Or at least the members are delta that aren't dead yet… Nick thought.
Nick peeked around the corner. He could already see the rally point two blocks away, a new looking building under construction. There were several zombies, milling about in the wide street.
Nick wasn't going to run across the street shooting his way through the undead. Though the zombies in his way didn't pose much of a threat, he was far more worried that a jumpy Delta squad sniper, would shoot him first, and then wonder why he hadn't reached them yet.
Better to let them know where I'm coming from...
Nick turned his head towards the radio on his combat vest; "Bavo-1 to Delta, to you copy?" Nick's reply was nothing but empty static… "Bravo-1 to Delta, do you copy?"
Either their not here yet or… Nick began to get an uneasy feeling in his stomach.
Nick motioned to Parker that he should follow him, as he prepared to move towards the building. Parker nodded in understandment and tensed himself.
Nick began to move closer to the corner of the wall. Once he was at the very edge, he snapped around the corner and raised his rifle. The zombies closest to him began falling to the ground as 5.56mm rounds tore threw their brain cases, sending them sprawling on the street. Zombies further away had just enough time to turn their heads towards Nick before a hole blossomed in their forehead, sending a spray of blood and brain tissue onto the street.
Once Nick had decided that the population of Zombies had been properly "thinned out," he began his sprint towards the rally point. Nick ran ahead as Parker followed him closely behind, delivering the "coup de grâce" to any zombie that had hadn't been shot in the head.
After a quick sprint, the two soldiers made it to the building's entrance. The door was open just a crack… a mistake Delta would not make.
It's amazing what stress can do… Nick thought to himself as opened the door and surveyed the immediate area.
He scanned his surroundings, ensuring his rifle was always pointed wherever he was looking.
As he heard the sound of footsteps behind him, following the slamming, and locking, of the steel door behind him, he decided that the area was secure. Nick turned around as Parker walked towards him.
"Where's Delta, sir?" Parker asked.
"Don't know, lets take a look arou-," Nick was cut short by a hiss of static from his radio.
As the signal strengthened, Nick could clearly hear Admiral Hammond's voice. It was a voice that Nick would never forget. After all, Hammond had been his first commanding officer. He had trained under him, and months of shouting and barking orders had stitched Hammonds voice into his bones.
"This is a message to all US military personal deployed in Raccoon City. " The admiral said.
Nick and Parker looked at each other concerned. If an Admiral was communicating directly to soldiers on the ground, then either a miracle had occurred or…
"The United States Government has determined that the biohazard in Raccoon City, cannot be contained, and that the only solution to this crisis is complete and total sterilization. As of 0200 hours October 1st 1998, Mission Code: XX, will go into effect."
"What are they going to do? Spray down the city with some chemical?" Parker asked Nick.
"No… They're going to bomb the city, make sure the virus can't escape." Nick said shaking his head.
The admiral's voice came back on the radio, "All troops in the containment area are now ordered to return to their predetermined extraction points. If you cannot reach an extraction point, please contact your commanding officer for further orders." With that the admiral's voice cut to static.
Nick shook his head and said to Parker, "Wait here and secure the entrance, I'm gonna go see where Delta is, at least the building isn't too big."
"Got it, sir!" Parker said.
Nick began walking down a hallway adjacent to the entrance, his footsteps, along with the rustle of his gear, echoing in the hallway. After waking past two dead "undead," Nick felt reasonably secure.
He let his almost-empty magazine clatter to the floor, and slapped in a fresh one. Pulling back the bolt with a click that echoed throughout the hallway. After walking past another small group of dead "undead," Nick let go of his rifle with one his hands, carrying it casually by his side.
So Delta did come through here… Nick said as he walked by a dead zombie slumped against the wall, its head blown cleanly off. So here the hell are they?
As Nick rounded the corner he froze. The next hallway to the right ended with what appeared to be a janitor's closet. But what stopped Nick in his tracks, was what was seeping out from underneath the door… A small pool of crimson liquid was growing out from the closet, widening at an alarming rate.
Nick slowly advanced towards the janitor closet's door, with both hands now securely gripping the rifle. Stepping through the crimson liquid, Nick slowly placed his hand on the doorknob, and swung the door open.
Darkness stared back at him, and he couldn't make out what was inside the closet. Satisfied that nothing would come rushing out of the darkness, Nick slowly switched on the flashlight mounted on him M16A4.
As the beam of light cut through the cover of darkness, the empty stares of Delta squad's members stared back at him. Nick looked at the pile of decapitated, mauled and cut-in-half corpses, unable to tear his eyes away. Nick was surprised he didn't loose his stomach right then and there.
Some of the bodies had been cut cleanly in half, and other seemed to have been impaled by something. Though, much more grotesque were the decapitated heads staring back at him in the soup of blood…
At that moment Nick felt curiously vulnerable, as if someone was watching him. Nick spun around, pointing his rifle down the empty. Nick decided that it was best that he returned to the entrance where Parker was.
"Parker!" he yelled as he was about to round the corner that would lead him to the entrance. Just as he rounded the corner the sounds of crushing bones echoed down the hallway. Nick stopped cold as he tuned the corner, unable to believe what he was seeing.
20 feet away from him, was Lieutenant Parker. However, he was now held up 3 feet off the ground. 3 claws were stuck in the middle of his face, and protruded out the back of his skull.
A woman about the same size as Nick stood naked next to Parker, three shining silver claws, which were smeared with blood, were where her right hand should have been. Her skin was almost completely white and her blond hair hung just to her shoulders. Blood from Lieutenant Parker's head ran down her arm and then down her chest, forming lines of crimson red.
Parker's legs and hands were twitching in an eerie fashion, as the last signals his brain was able to send reached their destinations.
The woman turned towards Nick and looked him straight in the eye and smiled. She flung Parker's corpse to the ground and began walking towards Nick.
Nick snapped up his rifle and fired at the advancing woman, but she simply shrugged off the 5.56mm bullets striking her. Her wounds bled, but quickly stopped and seemingly healed a few seconds later. Nick kept firing; the cling of shell casings hitting the floor, along with the bang of his shots filled the hallway. Once his gun went "click" instead of "bang," Nick cursed as he fumbled for a fresh magazine. He looked up as he finished reloading. The woman was moving at an unnatural speed, and Nick rolled away just in time to avoid being impaled by her clawed hand.
Nick quickly got up as the woman's crashed into a wall, attempting to pull her clawed-hand out of the concrete wall. Nick reacted quickly loading a grenade into his grenade launcher.
"Lets see you take this!" Nick yelled as he fired the grenade at the creature, taking cover behind a pillar. The close proximity of the explosion rattled Nick bones, but he quickly swung out from cover once the dust had settled.
Nick couldn't believe his eyes as the woman slowly stood up from the ground; the gash where the grenade went off was steadily healing.
"What the hell did they inject into you?" Nick said before he realized that he could not fight… whatever he was fighting. Nick quickly dashed up a stairwell, slamming open the door, which led to the roof.
Before Nick could make it a foot away from the doorway he was grabbed by his vest from behind and thrown. Nick hit the ground 10 feet away, sending his M16A4 clattering off of the roof's edge. Before Nick cold get up, the woman grabbed him by the neck and lifted him off the ground.
Nick stared into her face. She couldn't have been older than he was, and was roughly 6 feet tall, making her a little shorter than he was. Her eyes ere what scared him the most, they were a dark crimson, and seemed to be filled with rage. As she continued to stare at him and smile, Nick recognized her.
"Jade?" He managed to gasp.
Her grip on his neck began to get tighter and tighter. Nick reached down to his waist and pulled out his HK MK23 pistol, raised it up to her face and began firing, point-blank into her face. She quickly raised her clawed hand and smacked the weapon away, cutting open Nick's hand in the process. As the wounds on her face slowly disappeared, she glanced at him in anger.
"Jade, stop this!"
Before Nick could react she had drawn her clawed hand back, and thrust it through Nick's stomach…
Nick stared at his former comrade, blood dripping from his mouth.
The woman withdrew her clawed hand from him and let him drop to the ground.
Nick saw her turn around slowly walk back towards the stairwell until she disappeared from view.
As Nick's vision began to blur, he could see the ever-widening circle of blood around him…
When he finally gave up fighting, and closed his eyes, the burning pain in his stomach and hand slowly dissipated throughout his body. As consciousness slowly began to leave him, it felt as if though something was moving inside of his chest…