Chapter Two: Complications
As our convoy reached the one mile marker to Raccoon City, I couldn't help but worry about what was waiting for us. It seemed too off. The more I tried to dismiss the thoughts, the more they fought back.
"Would we really need to kill civilians?" I thought.
I wouldn't say I hadn't killed before, but those I had killed were militaries or militia. The idea of killing someone who didn't deserve it rattled me. Umbrella said they would "Terminate" anyone who failed to comply with this. I was too scared to even question what this meant. I started to wonder why we never saw any other vehicles on the road. That mixed with erie silence was sickening. I felt as if we were going straight into the gates of hell. No one seemed bothered by this too. They all seemed so quiet. It just seemed too off. Worry aside, I had a job to do and money to be made. I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and focused on the task at hand.
"Alright. We know the road we have to take right? The building she's in?" I asked.
"Yeah, go right down the main street then turn off to a large three story building." Garlan replied pulling a handheld device from his vest.
This was our radar. Umbrella issued them to us. They sense heartbeats, including ours, and have a direct sync to the commissioned owner of the device. This gives it the capability of showing the person's vitals along with mental health. I didn't know how they made those devices, but they sure were neat. They also came with a detailed overview of Raccoon City's road layout.
"See this road?" Garlan asked pointing to the screen. "This is the one. That building there is the pharmacy. Arklay Pharmaceuticals."
"We head straight there. In and out. Quiet as possible." I commanded. "The dossier said that mutations within this infection were possible with any host that it interacted with. So be alert to your surroundings. We don't need an accident on our hands."
I tried to keep my composure as best as I could.
"Echo Charlie Hotel Oscar, Do you read, over?" One of the other sergeant radioed over to us.
"We read you loud, Bravo Romeo Alpha Victor Hotel Alpha, What's your copy?" I switched my comms system over and replied.
"Radioing in to tell you that Beta Echo Tango Alpha will be joining your side of the city. Radio in to them and reunite if things go south, over."
I turned back to Garlan and pointed at his map.
"New plan, if we get separated then head here. Beta team will be there waiting for us."
I turned forward again as we approached the entrance to the city. Immediately, we noticed cars overturned and bodies on the ground. Buildings were on fire and blood flowed through the streets.
"Where were all the people?" I mumbled.
"Probably hiding in these buildings. It's what I would do." Brad replied.
"Yeah, me too." I agreed. "Help any civilians that you can, alright?" I commanded.
"That's not our mission here." Garlan retorted.
I turned to him and glared.
"Doesn't matter. Help who you can when you can. Alright?"
He glared back but then looked off into the road.
"Yes, sir."
We continued down the street eventually meeting a t-section. We followed Beta team to the right while the others went left. We were out of sight of the other teams when we rounded a corner to find an oil truck blocking the pathway. We pulled up side by side with Beta team's jeep and stopped the engine.
"Alright, seems we have to go on foot from here. Brad and Garlan inspect the area. Acie check the radar to see if anyone is around besides us." I ordered.
We filed out of the jeep and went separate directions. The seargent of Beta team approached me as I was inspecting the ammo count in our jeep.
"Elijah, right? Pete. So this trucks blocking the whole damn street, but there are buildings on both sides. One takes us directly to the alley closest to our objective. The other will take your team around the truck. My radar specialist said he hadn't picked up any heartbeats so we might be alone."
"Alright. I'll take my team and head in that direction. Designate that office building behind us as our rendezvous point. Listen, anything goes south, meet back there alright? Be careful out here." We both nodded.
He signaled his team to enter their building and they disappeared in the darkness. I finished loading the spare magazines we had then distributed them out between us all.
"We have one path. That building. Beta seargent said that it would take us directly through to where we need to go. We have four magazines of extra ammo and our sidearm. Do not hesitate to ask for ammo from one another if you need it. Be sparse with it though, seeing as we are leaving the jeep behind."
I walked over to the front door of the building which read.
"Apartment Complex Section B".
"Locked. Of course." I muttered.
The others stacked up along the wall as I kicked the door through. The interior corridor was filled with the smell of rotted blood and corpses. It forced a gag from all for of us. I had smelled rotting blood before but this was so much more unbearable. Much more disgusting and horrid. It was unimaginable.
"We gotta get out of this hallway." Garlan yelled. "The smells burning my eyes."
We quickly shifted to the stairwell and noticed a solid steel door leading to the back alley. Acie rushed to it and tried to move it but to no avail. It wouldn't budge without a key.
"Too thick to knock down. You'd break your shoulder if ya tried." Brad added.
"Well. Then we need the key. Split up and search the area for the maintenance area or owner of the building. Garlan, you and I will take the upstairs. You two check down here." I sighed.
"WE get the stench? What is that all about, Elijah?" Acie yelled.
"You two are manlier than I am. A little stink wont hurt you, right?" I replied with a small laugh.
"Fine, fine. But we better hurry. Im gonna fill this mask with vomit if we don't get that key soon." Brad said as he opened the door closest to him and walked inside.
Acie did the same but to the adjacent door. Garlan and I then headed up the stairs to find four more apartments that line both sides of the building equally.
"You go left, I got right?" He asked.
"Meet back in two minutes." I added.
We faced our doors and simultaneously walked inside. The smell from before seemed less strong here which gave me hope. I didn't want to spend my entire time here smelling rot. Who would? I stepped inside the apartments living room noticing three other rooms down a hallway in front of me. To my left was the kitchen. It looked untouched. Everything here seemed untouched. I gripped my rifle tight and began to search the room. I checked the drawers. Nothing. I searched through the cupboards. Nothing again. I noticed a stack of envelopes next to the microwave. I picked up the top one which looked to be a letter from the person who owned this building. I opened it to see if we could figure out where that key would be. It read.
"Dear, Cindy Lennox. I understand that you haven't been able to keep up with your rent. That bar you work at isn't paying enough is it? Or maybe you have another habit that might be sucking up your paycheck. Doesn't matter. I need that three months rent or you're out. Come by room 104. Tony, you know him right? Good kid. He keeps the on site materials I need there. IF I don't get my rent by the end of this week, return your key to him and get the hell out."
I sat the paper back down.
"Bingo. Room 10-"AhhHHHHH!" A bone chilling scream rang out through the building.
I ran out as quickly as possible running into Garlan who seemed fine.
"You alright?!" I yelled.
"Yeah, must have been one of the other two!" I agreed and we rushed downstairs to find Brad on the ground with what looked to be a man on top of him.
Acie quickly jerked the man off and drew his rifle on him. I helped Brad up to his feet noticing a large cut in his forearm.
"You alright, B?" I asked.
"Yeah im fine. Fucker got my with his knife!"
The man, who slowly stood back up, seemed to howl at us as he crept even closer. Acie warned him, even hitting him back again but this didn't seem to affect him. He kept on coming. Before Acie could fire a shot, Garlan sunk the tip of his knife into the mans skull causing him to fall limp to the floor. We fell silent for a moment before patching Brad's arm up. Acie broke the silence.
"What. The. Hell. Was that? Was it the infection? Didn't they say that they would act differently than normal?"
"Must have been. They don't seem too dangerous." Garlan replied.
"True. How you doing, Brad?" They asked.
"Im good. Got me in the arm is all. It ain't gonna kill me." He replied.
I finished stitching up his arm the best I could then noticed that the skin around his wound was changing to a purple pale color. I decided not to warn him. We needed all of us to be in the right state of mind. I also noticed Brad's device was flashing Orange.
"...Biohazard?" I thought.
I tried not to think about what that meant.
"Well, did you find anything upstairs?" Brad asked.
"I did. If that key is here. It will be in room 104. Someone named Tony lived there. He kept all the on site tools and keys." I replied.
We all shifted our attention to the door and stacked up on the wall next to it.
"Be careful here, those things could be anywhere. Be alert." I added.
"3. 2. 1. Breach!" I said as I opened the door. We rushed in to more darkness. The only light came through a barred window to the alley.
"Search for those keys. Once we find them, let's get the hell out of here." I ordered.
We split up to search rooms, me taking the living room, Garlan the bathroom, and Acie with Brad in the bedroom. I looked around finding absolutely nothing. The kitchen yielded nothing as well. As I opened up one of the drawers, a fork fell from it clanging on the concrete floor. I thought nothing of it until I heard a loud hiss from the hallway. This shook my core. Something was out there. It must have followed us in. I could hear scratching along the floor as it came through the hallway. The hissing became louder as I watched it walk into the light from the window. I quickly covered my flashlight. The creature was a muscle red and looked like it's skin had been peeled off. It didn't seem to notice me either. Only the noise of the fork. The thing's tongue shot out of its mouth and directly at the fork which it pulled back into its mouth, spit it back out, then moved to the furthest wall next to the window. It then climbed up to the ceiling corner and sat there looking in my direction. My brain scattered on what to do. This beast would surely kill me if it heard my movements. I had to think before the others got finished searching. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted an egg timer.
"Perfect" I thought.
I slowly and gently reached over to grab it. The creatures head movements followed my body as if it was able to see the heat meeting from it, but it only reacted to sound. Once I had the timer, I stood very, very still. Even my breathing stopped. The air itself got heavy.
"CLick...CLick...CLick...click..."
I turned the dial a good five times. I exhaled slowly, aimed for the window, and threw as hard as I could. The ringing vibrated through the silence as the timer burst through the window and into the alley. It screeched terrifyingly and juped after it, squeezing through the bars. I didn't hesitate to rush to the other rooms getting the rest of my team one by one as quickly and quietly as possible. Not even spirits themselves could tell we had even been there. Before we left though, I noticed that more of them ran from the alleyway and after the timer. We didn't stick around at all though and I quickly closed the door behind me. With my team in the corridor, I could finally breath again.
"What the hell was that about?" Garlan angrily demanded.
"Mutations. *Huff Huff* There were at least a dozen of them outside and one that followed us in here." I replied.
"Huh? A type of muatation with the t-virus?" Acie asked.
"Yes. We do not need to go this way. We can go through the other building with Beta. This way is way too dangerous." The rest of them agreed without any reluctance.
We left the building without another word and closed the door behind us.
"Watch the rooves and ceilings. They can climb and cling to surfaces. Alright?" I ordered.
We crossed the street with to extra complications and found ourselves at the door. It was a local hardware store that smelt like wood and steel mixed with even more rot. We entered the building and made our way to the back. No sign of Beta team. They had to have moved out already. More corpses riddled the floor though. That explained the rotting smell. We finally reached the back and noticed that the door was cracked open. We didn't hear anything coming from the other side so we decided it wasn't in the best interest to breach but rather just open it. So I did. The alley was narrow and riddled with garbage and again more corpses. This time, one of them stood out to me. We walked over to inspect it. The other bodies were civilian infected, but this one was from Beta team. Acie helped me flip him over. I regretted that. We saw that his mask was broken and a huge crater rested where is chest should be. The name badge read.
"Peter Scorseysin".
The Beta team's seargent laid dead in front of us. The sight of his corpse brought us to a chilling halt. I bent down to grab what was left of his name badge. I opened my wallet and placed the ID inside. When I stood up, though, I noticed my team frozen solid looking all around us. Infected and mutations alike appeared form thin air. From the rooftops to the gutters. We were surrounded.