Chapter 7

Zero Hour 1.2

July 23, 1998

Raccoon Forest Outskirts

8:15 pm

Rebecca took her position just at the passenger's side of the jeep where she knelt on one knee and with her gun pointed at the forest. The captain had ordered them to surround the jeep and keep an eye out in the thick woods as Kevin tried to fix the jeep with Forest and so far everything had been relatively quiet… but that didn't exactly mean they were safe though. For a while now, she had been feeling like she and the others were being watched by something in the forest.

Looking at the others, it wasn't hard to guess that they too were very much aware of it. You could practically cut the tension in the air and the silence wasn't exactly helping either.

Everyone was too focused, not really wanting to get distracted with banter and get their throats ripped off as a consequence. So here they were, in a circle formation just silently watching out for monsters to pop out of the shadows… the absurdity of it wasn't lost to her.

Inwardly, she groaned.

The situation had changed so fast that almost all of the Bravo team had trouble actually believing that the things they fought were honest-to-god zombies. Hell, even she herself was still processing it.

Dewey took it the hardest.

He was in denial about the fact that actual walking corpses really did exist… and maybe he was right. Maybe these aren't actually zombies but just things that act like the undead movie monster. But wouldn't that comparison just confirm that these things were in all senses, actual zombies?

Urgh.

To hell with it. Rebecca was just going to call it what she saw. There were far more pressing things right now than to go on a tangent on what these things and it had seemed like the others were of the same mind.

Except for Dewey.

He ranted about how they might have been mistaken and that they probably just shot civilians asking for help. After all, those things never did reach them and apparently that was enough for Dewey to second guess.

She made a point in telling him that the missing limbs, the chunks of meat missing from their bodies, and the clear weakness to headshots were pretty clear indications..

But Dewey just couldn't believe it. As opposed to the others, he wasn't a trained military person like her so he had trouble with rationalizing the reality that is the walking dead…

He was breaking under the pressure, the way he twitched at every noise and how his breathing was ragged told her how panicked he really was. It hurt her that she didn't know what to do. She wasn't a psychologist and she was very much still dealing with her own turmoil about all of the things that had been happening.

Thankfully, the Captain saw this and put a stop to it, pulling her fellow rear guard to the side to talk to him. Hopefully that should keep Dewey from doing anything rash.

After a few minutes of quietly looking out into the forest, The sound of the ignition of the jeep caught their attention and it almost made them sigh with relief. But unfortunately the vehicle didn't start. Instead what they heard was Kevin cursing and hitting the hood of the jeep.

Captain Marini inquired as to what went wrong and Kevin answered that some parts of the engine were heavily damaged and won't be able to start without replacing them. A bout of curses from the others followed after that statement and Rebecca couldn't help but close her eyes and rub her forehead due to the incoming headache.

Just as she opened her eyes, she noticed something strange. She had her MP5 lowered to the ground when she massaged her forehead so the forest in front of her was totally shrouded by darkness… so there shouldn't be anything other than the eerie blackness of the dark forest. But instead, she saw a small dot of light in the distance.

How odd…

Her brows furrowed. She clicked the flashlight that was attached to her gun and squinted her eyes and sure enough, there was indeed something out there emitting light.

Calling over to her Captain, she told him what she saw and pointed to the direction where she saw the faint dot of light.

"I don't see anything." The captain said, squinting his eyes. He then noticed that Rebecca's flashlight was off and he clicked his own off as well. Sure enough, he could see a faint glimmer of something.

"Hm. Good find." He hummed once he saw it, stroking his mustache. "Any idea what that is?"

"Could be a cabin of sorts. Maybe for the local hunters?" She guessed. The Arklay Mountains were famous for the dense forest that was still pretty much filled with diverse wildlife so it wouldn't be any surprise at all to find a hunting lodge deep in it.

"Maybe…" Captain Marini muttered with a pondering look. He checked his watch for a second before turning to the guys who were tasked with fixing the jeep. "Is there really no other way to fix it?"

Forest was the one to answer, exhaling with exasperation. "No sir. Most of the engine is trashed and there's a huge hole in the fuel tank."

"Why not scavenge some of the helicopter parts? There has to be some parts of the engine there we can use." Sully suggested briefly glancing at the two.

Kevin and Forest shared a look before one of them answered. Leaning onto the jeep, Kevin shook his head. "The nuts and bolts could be usable, sure. Problem is, nuts and bolts aren't what we need." He tapped the jeep before continuing, "Helicopter engines and Car engines are two vastly different things so it would be mechanically impossible to jury rig two different engines and their parts together."

Sully bristled at his words and all he could do was to curse under his breath. Rebecca noticed that the others had the same disappointed expression as Sully too so she guessed that they all probably had the same idea.

A heavy silence followed as the situation became more dire than it already was. The batteries in their flashlights would die out soon and they really weren't privy to staying out here in pitch black darkness.

"What do we do now, sir?" She voiced to her captain. The worried tone was clear as she felt fear begin to grip her heart. Looks like getting out of this forest won't be that easy after all.

/-/

The forest was quiet and eerie as they made a straight path to the light source that she saw. The captain had decided that taking shelter at the supposed lodge was paramount to their survival.

They only encountered several of those zombie things along the way, promptly dispatched by well placed shots. Oddly enough some of them seem to require multiple bullets to the brain to bring them down. Rebecca wondered why they did, her analytical mind trying to form theories in head. For instance, it must be due to the state of decay of their bodies or more likely their brains. Fresh zombies might still have enough 'living' cells for the brain to hold on to motor functions, even when perforated by a metal slug.

It was definitely a stretch. She basically based it on the theory about decapitated heads in the French revolution that seemingly still had consciousness for a few seconds after being guillotined… It didn't make sense, she knew, but things stopped making sense ever since she investigated the murders so who knows really. She might be right or she might be wrong. All that matters is that some of these zombies are tougher than the others and dispatching them may not be as simple as shooting them once in the head.

Her inner musings were cut off as soon as they finally neared the source of the light and she found herself mistaken when she suggested that it had been a hunting cabin…

No. It was a huge ass train sitting in the middle of a forest.

"What the fuck?..." Sully mouthed as they stepped closer.

The thing was huge, painted red and black with highlights of gold running down the sides. It told her and the team that this wasn't some cargo train, this was a luxury passenger train. The light that she saw was actually the light that illuminated the back door.

The captain began to take stock of the new development, looking around and checking out the dimly lit windows. His flashlight ran along the side of the train, stopping at what looked to be some broken windows in a section further ahead of them.

"Shit. Cap, Y'think those things got to them?" Richard spoke, his MP5 trained at the forest as he kept his vigilance up.

"Impossible." Rebecca spoke up. "Zombies are slow. We all saw how slow they are. They can't –"

"Could be the dogs. Y-you saw how fast those things can run." Dewey said, his voice quivering.

"Could be." The captain hummed. "Or it could be something else." He continued. "Stay in position and watch for the forest, Sullivan and I'll check the inside, see if it's safe or sealed."

He looked back at the train and sighed, "With a train this fancy, somebody from the inside must have locked the doors to keep the passengers safe."

It was a good guess, Rebecca mused. Luxury Passenger trains like this have various protocols with regards to dangerous situations. There was a very good chance that the doors to the passenger sections were sealed in an attempt to keep people safe.

All of them did as they were ordered and took positions where they could cover every blind spot, each watching over each other in fear of losing a single member. They hadn't had a single casualty yet and they were adamant in keeping it that way.

Rebecca positioned herself in the back, directly to the direction where she could see the Captain and Sully climb up the metal stairs. Sully was the one to check the door handle. Slowly turning the thing with one hand, refusing to let go of his gun.

Surprisingly, the door was unlocked and it opened easily enough. Captain Marini shined his mounted flashlight and entered like he was on a SWAT raid, checking the doorway from side to side, looking for any ambush points or hidden hostiles. Sully soon followed.

There had been a tense silence as they all waited for their captain's assessment, military discipline took over as the minutes went by. Unfortunately, she, as she had mentioned before, wasn't military so she found herself lowering her smg down to rest her aching arms. The others seemed to understand, the MP5 might not be heavy but it wasn't light either. Hours of holding it in the same position had made her arms hurt.

She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see Richard giving her an encouraging smile. "You're doing good, Rookie." He said before turning back to the forest.

She mouthed a thanks and nodded, wincing when she massaged the arm that supported the stock of her gun. 'God, how many hours has it been already?'

She was just about to let the gun hang on its sling to rest her other arm when suddenly a loud shrill screech reverberated all throughout the forest. Her gun snapped up at the direction of the screech, the others did the same.

"W-what the hell was that?" Dewey gulped.

"It sounded far away." Forest added.

"Don't care if it's far away. Where the hell are the Captain and Sully?" Richard cursed as he wiped a sweat from his brow.

Rebecca turned back to the back entrance, looking at the darkened insides without any sign of their two team members. Another screech made her head whip back to the forest.

"D-do we…" She quivered, "Do we get inside?" She said nervously.

Before anyone could answer her question, Dewey suddenly stood up. "Hey… does anyone hear that?"

The other members looked at each other with perplexed expressions. Forest, who took up the position beside him, looked at him strangely. "What is it?"

Dewey motioned for them to quiet down a bit, leaning his ear to the forest. "That. Do you hear that?"

Rebecca herself looked perplexed, wondering what he was talking about, aside from the screeching sounds in the forest there had been nothing of note. The forest was quiet, ominously so…

Curious, she leaned out her ear to the forest and focused her attention to the dark canopy of trees…. And then she heard it.

Thud thud thud, rhythmic thudding like horses on a race track. It was faint enough to know that it was somewhat far away, deep into the darkness where her meager flashlight couldn't reach.

"What the hell?" Richard said, hearing it too.

"Is that a Helicopter? Could be Alpha team!" Dewey hoped but Kevin dashed it down. Kevin knew what helicopters sound like and whatever this was wasn't no chopper.

"Kevin's right. This is something else." Forest Speyer agreed as he tightened the grip on his gun. Rebecca did so too. The sound was becoming more and more audible by the second, clearly indicating that whatever this was, was coming their way.

"Guys, I think we should really get inside." Rebecca stepped back, her hands shaking. Whatever this was, it wasn't a slow zombie. Briefly, she glanced at the broken section of the train, making her imagination run wild.

They flinched when they started to hear trees being forcibly pushed down, the loud cracking of trunks audible enough to tell them that this thing was coming towards them, and that it was big.

She'd seen enough monster movies to know where this was going.

"Screw this. Guys, let's go!" Rebecca yelled as she bolted to the train, her fear and survival instincts winning out. Dewey followed behind her. She just knew that whatever this was, their MP5s wouldn't be enough.

"Wha– Wait! We have to wait for–"

Whatever Kevin wanted to say, it was lost when the loud screech from before came back, now very much closer to their position.

Kevin cursed as he followed and the other remaining members did as well. They all filled in as the sound of heavy and quick thumping became loud enough to feel the vibrations.

The door slammed shut as soon as the last member of Bravo Team entered what looked to be a passenger car filled with seats and carpeted floors. There were no sighs of relief however, as they all heard a loud screeching creature burst out of the trees.

The whole section tilted as the creature from the outside slammed hard into the side of the train car, causing them to stumble into heaps as shards of shattered glass pelted them. Rebecca managed to shield herself with her arms, feeling glass pelting her on the carpeted floor. Her heart leapt when the section that they were in was hefted to the side, threatening to flip over. Thankfully though the car managed to right itself up.

The sound of the monster screeching could still be heard from the outside. Loud and disorientating like nails being dragged along a chalkboard combined with the sound of a perforated tire. Rebecca almost tried to crawl to the other car in a panic before Richard, who had been thrown close to her, grabbed her arm and gestured for her to keep quiet and lay low. She turned to the others and saw that they too kept themselves to the metal floor.

They all heard the large creature's thumping steps as it moved around the train, all the while screeching and howling erratically for some reason. It sounded like… oddly enough it sounded like it was in pain. Every animal that had the capability to vocalize sounds always had a way to make its distress apparent, a kind of instinctual cry in response to the stimuli and Rebecca felt that the sounds this thing was making was the same. It was in pain. It was getting hurt. And judging from the shaking, yowls of pain and erratic sounds of movement, it seemed like something was actively attacking it. Was it another monster? Something that preyed on it? Was infighting even an issue to these things? So many questions to so many dangerous things.

It went on for a while. The creature just scuttled and moved while it screeched around the car for a good five minutes before suddenly, she faintly heard what sounded like man's grunt before the creature let out a final howl before they all felt it scuttle away deeper into the forest, finally leaving the group in blissful silence…

They all laid down on what they now recognized as a carpeted floor for a few more minutes before they could relax, each wondering whether this nightmare was truly over for a moment.

Richard was the first to move, slowly crouch-walking to the windows and peeking through the bent windows, his head swiveling from side to side before giving everyone a thumbs up.

And the sighs of relief finally came.

"That was too close." Dewey breathed, "Good call, Rebecca." He praised and the others agreed.

Rebecca gave her own thumbs up and chuckled. "Always… knew that all those movies would…come in handy one day. Haha.." she said in between breaths. "Is everyone alright?" Rebecca asked as she carefully sat up. Everyone gave her their 'okays' and 'alrights' before she turned to finally see where they were.

They seemed to be in a passenger car and she could have called it cozy due to the carpeting and curtains once had it not for the bent metal wall where the creature crashed into. That side of the car was ruined as several passenger chairs and luggage compartments were thrown to the other side due to the force of the impact. She was even surprised at the sight of a chandelier laid strewn over one of the seats. It would have made her pause at the thought of how it made no sense had it not for a sight that made her eyes widen in horror.

All around her were corpses. Unmoving corpses. Her heart dropped. Several bodies were underneath the mangled wall, crushed and sandwiched in between the bent metal and seats. She tried to move and make an attempt to help as there might still be survivors, but Dewey beat her to it.

She saw him check on the bodies and subsequently had his shoulders drop as soon as he shined a light to them… it didn't take much to figure that they were all dead. At least there weren't any zombies among them.

'God…did I really think that?' She chided herself. This whole thing was changing her perspective.

"Christ almighty, what the hell was that?!" Kevin groaned as he sat on a nearby seat. He rubbed his face in frustration, anxiety evident with how his hands were shaking.

"Something big." Richard answered without looking at him, instead he kept his eyes on the outside through the broken window. "Something very big."

"Yeah, no shit!" Kevin scoffed.

"I-I think we should keep our voices down." Rebecca stuttered, "In case there are more of those things."

Kevin looked at her, stress evident in his eyes. She worried that he might snap because of it but thankfully the guy just took a deep breath and nodded.

After all of that, they all took their time in trying to calm down. Each checking for any injuries or cuts on them and taking stock of their weapons. Rebecca checked to see if the various first aid sprays and medicine bottles that she packed were still intact and fortunately, they still were. Her head perked up when she heard the familiar sound of the crackling of a radio and she turned to see Forest messing with his radio.

He was trying to reach out to their captain to no avail as every frequency seemed to just be nothing more than foreboding static.

"Any luck?" Richard asked while he sat himself onto the seat opposite of the weapons specialist. Said weapon specialist shook his head grimly.

"I think we're being jammed. Must be those fuckers from Umbrella. What do we do now?"

Richard pursed his lip before leaning back and sighing. "We go find the Cap and Sully. They can't have gone too far." He paused and leaned out, resting his elbows on his legs, "It's been what? A couple of minutes?"

Forest shrugged. They didn't have time to check. Could have been more than ten minutes, maybe fifteen? Forest didn't know. It all happened so fast and time was relative. "So we just keep moving then?"

Richard nodded tiredly, he then turned to Dewey, who was sitting at the back. He was resting his forehead on his arm, mumbling or praying. The rest of the team couldn't blame him. Everything that's happened seemed to have come straight out of a horror movie. Zombies, monsters… shit, he wouldn't even be surprised if he'd see ghosts anytime soon.

It was then that they heard a metallic door being opened, startling the entire group. Immediately, guns were raised and flashlights were pointed to the direction of the sound, only for them to find that it had been Forest.

He stood with his back facing them as his whole attention was on the outside.

"Forest! What the hell are you doing?" Richard hissed. "Are you trying to get us all killed?"

The weapons expert only turned his head and spoke, "Hey Rookie, you're the expert on this horror shit right?"

Rebecca only blinked while Richard looked indignant. "What?" He said in confusion. Rebecca eventually nodded in confirmation and stood up from her seat.

"Why? What do you see?" She asked with mild curiosity. Forest only gestured with his head, telling her to come and see, so she did.

"For fucks sake, Speyer. Just tell us what's wrong!" Richard once again hissed at the man. This time Forest did answer, "The area is clear… but…" He paused and sighed, "This is way above our pay grade, man."

He swallowed a ball of spit and glanced outside before he continued, "Whatever that thing was, dropped something. Was hoping our resident little monster expert had anything to say about it."

Rebecca walked past several rows, not really needing to worry about the glass shards due to her heavy boots. She wondered what exactly Forest meant when he said that the monster dropped something. Admittedly, she would be lying if she said that she wasn't the least bit curious.

Upon reaching the door, Forest moved to the side and gestured with his hand, his other one still gripping his mp5 at the ready. "All yours."

She nodded and shined her light to the direction indicated by him and she gasped. "My God…"

There amongst the fallen trees and ruined brushes was what looked to be a large scorpion stinger that had its spike stuck on the trunk of a tree.

"Shit, we really are in a horror movie." Rebecca cursed. She shined the light of her gun up to the stinger part of the scorpion tail, inspecting it thoroughly. Along the way she saw how heavily damaged it was due to the sight of several gashes and slash marks on the rough exoskeleton of the thing. At the end, she could see noxious greenish liquid oozing out of the tree's wound. Her breath hitched as she imagined how that thing would have killed a person. With a stinger that size, you wouldn't even need venom.

Good lord, even the tail segments were the size of people…

"So we got mutant dogs, zombies and now giant bugs. What next? Fucking bigfoot?!" Richard threw his arms up in exasperation.

"T-technically, Scorpions aren't bugs. They're arachnids." Dewey corrected, earning a scoff from Richard, who shook his head.

"Whatever man."

Forest didn't say anything about Aiken and Edward's banter, instead he focused on Rebecca, who was still staring at the huge scorpion tail. He leaned onto the door and tapped her shoulder to grab her attention without startling her, "Got any two cents about this?" He asked.

Rebecca spared only a momentary glance before looking back at the thing. For a good while now, she's been staring at a particular spot where the scorpion tail was separated, the base of the tail so to speak, it was facing away from them but they could clearly see the several bits of yellowish flesh peeking from the damaged carapace. What caught her attention was something that glimmered under her light. Just barely sticking out of sight.

"Well… it's a giant scorpion. What else is there to say?" Rebecca answered, not taking her eyes off the shine of the metallic object.

Forest raised an eyebrow. "Huh. Was expecting a more…'scientific' answer."

Rebecca shrugged. "Could be the virus. Could be radiation. Who knows? I'm lacking a lot of details and information here, so We're practically in the dark here."

The Weapons expert hummed, "What do you think happened to it?"

Rebecca pondered before she did something that surprised her squad mates. She jumped from the train section's platform and began to make her way towards the scorpion tail. Forest called out to her with concern, grabbing the other two's attention.

"What happened?" Richard appeared right beside him, followed by Dewey.

"I don't know. She just jumped off!" Forest answered. They all followed her lead, trailing just behind her with their guns to their surroundings.

"Rebecca! What's going on?" Forest called out.

Rebecca didn't spare them a glance as she stood over the arachnid's appendage. Instead she immediately moved to the other side, looking for the object that caught her notice.

"There…!" She mumbled as she spotted the thing. It was buried deep with the creature's flesh. So deep that all she could see was a small glimmer metal that was poking out of the tail's carapace.

"You found something?"

"I think so." Rebecca breathed as she dug her gloved hand into the flesh. It squelched as she dug around the thing, searching for anything hard inside. After a few seconds of digging through the meat, she finally felt something. It was long. Flat. Tracing down the flat surface, her hand stopped as soon as she felt something bumpy and solid near to the other side of the tail.

She dug deeper. Looking for anything to grab onto until she finally found a rough part of the object that reminded her of a bike handle.

She heaved as she tried to pull it out. Forcing the thick object out of the mass of flesh. "Help me with this." She gritted. Richard was the one to help her first, grabbing her forearm and pulling her hand out.

Slowly but surely, the object slid out, revealing what it was to the group. Rebecca's eyes widened as soon as she saw it.

"What the hell? What was that thing even doing in there?" Dewey spoke. The others also seemed to ask the same question.

A thick blade that widened at the tip, a regular plastic handle that shared similarities to cooking knives, only it was thicker and bound in a leather wrap.

"A machete?..."

She took a closer look and found that the tool was in a rough shape, as if it had been used to cut through thick trees instead of tall brushes…

A gloved hand ran through the cutting edge, feeling all the jagged parts where the blade had bits of it nicked off. Her gaze then moved back to the tail, looking at the section where the base was cut off, and sure enough there were several parts that seemed to have slash marks on them.

"But that's… impossible..." Rebecca voiced her apprehension and shook her head. She looked at the machete in her hand with disbelief.

"Rebecca?" One of the guys called out but she didn't care enough to know who. She was too focused on the tool in her hand and the giant appendage on the ground.

She approached the thing and began to put the machete's blade on the slash marks that she saw, matching every single chip and scratch on the thick shell… and all of them fit. All of them.

"This is…" She turned to her teammates and wondered if she should voice out her thoughts on this. She wondered whether they'd believe that-

Fweeeee!

A train's loud whistle cut her off so suddenly that she flinched when it did. What followed was a loud hiss of steam before the sound of creaking metal jolted them out of their daze. The train was about to move again.

"Shit! The train!" Forest cursed beside her.

"Come on!" He pulled Rebecca back as the other two began to run back to the Train. Rebecca yelped in surprise and almost dropped the machete in her hand when he did but luckily she was able to hold onto it.

She was the last to make it to the train, just barely managing to grab onto the railing while the train began to move forward. She pushed herself up onto the floor and held tight as the train car that they were on was pulled roughly by the rest of the train. It had seemed that whoever turned this thing on was in a hurry.

Rebecca looked back at the open door and saw the trees swallowed up by the darkness as they moved on.

"Where do you think this thing's going?" She heard Dewey ask.

"Better question yet, who the hell turned this thing on?" Richard huffed while he sat down onto one of the seats. He noticed Rebecca looking dazed while facing the open door. Poor girl's mind must be a jumbled mess. He opted to close the door to snap her out of it. Things were still very much dire and he'd rather have her alert and awake.

It worked. He saw her blink once before shaking her head and rubbing her temples. He moved onto Dewey and patted his back for support. Despite his propensity to be a coward at times, the guy was reliable. Said man nodded and gave him a fragile smile as an assurance. He then moved on to Kevin, who was drinking from his flask. He didn't get to say anything before the man told him that he was alright. His attention went back to Rebecca and found that she was staring at the damaged machete that she held.

"Still holding onto that?" Richard gestured with his head.

Rebecca blinked once more before noticing that he was gesturing at the machete in her hand. She took a look at it and thought about the impossibility of the idea that this thing was used to cut off that giant stinger. There were a myriad of questions inside her head, all of them about the tool. Yet despite her other thoughts, there was one that stuck out the most.

Afterall, who else knows about these things? Who else had the experience to fight them? As fantastical as it may sound, there was someone out there trying to keep the city safe from the monsters. Back when that giant scorpion thing slammed into the train car, she recalled that she had heard a man's grunt before the thing screeched in pain… The image was vivid in her head.

A man in a green jacket holding a knife, facing off against these abominations.

So with that, she turned to look at the others. There was a tense minute before she spoke since it might sound crazy but then again, every event this night couldn't exactly be called normal… so to hell with it…

"Guys. I don't think we're the only ones investigating here…"

/-/

A/N: Well it certainly has been quite awhile huh? Sorry about that. There has been… a lot of things happening on my side so I can't direct all of my time writing stories and such. But don't worry though. I'm not stopping. Just slowing down.

Next Chapters are going to be Jaune-centric going forward with a few perspective changes here and there.

Happy new year and thanks for reading!