Chapter 31
When Brad Vickers first heard the horrific story of what Jill and the rest of the team went through in the Arklay Mountains, his immediate reaction was not to feel guilty about abandoning them there. Guilt came later, and it threatened to overwhelm him, but it was not the first emotion he experienced when he learned of what his teammates had faced.
His first reaction was to be relieved that he did not have to face those horrors himself. As guilty as Brad felt over his actions, his guilt was tempered with a sense of gratefulness that he was spared those horrors. Even when he came to terms with the deaths of Barry and Joseph and almost the entire Bravo team, he was secretly happy that he was still alive.
And even after Jill and Chris told their story to Chief Irons, even after Brad himself witnessed the giant albino and chained woman battling it out in the open courtyard, Brad could not really believe the truth about what happened that night. A sense of unreality lingered over the whole situation. He didn’t doubt what happened, but he could not adapt it to his knowledge of the world.
And then all of Raccoon City went straight to hell in less than a few hours, and Brad found himself fighting his way through the same sort of nightmare that Jill and Chris faced a few days earlier. Brad developed a much deeper appreciation for exactly what they went through.
He ducked down in between two parked cars in a fast food restaurant parking lot and tried to catch his breath. He had been running non-stop for blocks, and felt as if his chest was going to burst. Peering out over the hood of one of the cars, he saw two lone zombies standing across the street. The zombies were not as numerous as before, as far as he could tell. Hundreds of them seemed to populate the streets before, but now it seemed like only a few zombies were left meandering around. It was late afternoon now, getting close to nightfall, and long shadows spread across the streets as the sun dropped down behind the mountains. It would probably be dark in an hour, and Brad knew for a fact that he wanted to be indoors and safe when that happened.
The police station had to be safe. If any building in the entire city was prepared to face off an invasion like this, it was the police station. They had weapons, they had training, and they had plenty of room. Brad was only a few blocks away now, he could practically see the top of the station above the other buildings. If he could just make it to the police station, he would be okay.
Well, maybe not completely okay. His shoulder throbbed, and he dared lift up his sleeve to take a peek at the ragged bite wound one of the zombies gave him. He was bitten, and he thought that meant he was doomed to become a zombie as well. But so far, he felt fine. He was tired from all the running, but he didn’t feel sick. It was just a minor injury, nothing too serious.
Once he got to the police station, he could get bandaged up and take some antibiotics or something. He was exposed to the disease, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was infected with it. If he got medical attention in time, he would be okay. Getting bitten one time didn’t mean he was going to turn into a zombie any more than getting sneezed on by someone with the flu meant he was going to catch it. Jill acted like there was nothing he could do, but she wasn’t an expert on the disease. She didn’t know how the infection worked, none of them did.
As he thought about Jill, he turned to look back down the street, hoping to see her coming after him. He didn’t know where she was now. When he ran out of the restaurant, he thought Jill was right behind him, but when he turned to see, she was nowhere to be found. Brad waited for as long as he dared before continuing on to the station. She must have escaped the restaurant, but maybe she just took another route to the police station and he would meet her there.
He didn’t even consider the possibility that the creature killed her. Brad knew his limitations. If he managed to get away, then Jill must have been able to as well.
The creature was like nothing the others had talked about in Irons’ office. Chris and Jill talked about zombies and giant snakes and monsters with their skin stripped away, but that creature wasn’t like the others. It was almost like a man; it was dressed in that long black trenchcoat, and it didn’t stumble around like a zombie. It moved with a purpose, with a desire. Brad saw its eyes, and they were not the eyes of a zombie. They were the eyes of a monster with a very clear goal in mind, and as far as Brad could determine, that goal was to kill him.
When he finally caught his breath, he snuck around the edge of the parking lot, avoiding the two zombies, and hurried across the street. Once more, he turned around to look back the way he came, hoping to see Jill coming after him.
Amazingly, that is exactly what he saw. Jill came from around the corner, running slowly, seemingly out of breath. Brad ran towards her, waving his arms to get her attention. She looked up and waved weakly at him.
“Jill! Thank God you’re okay!” he cried.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jill panted.
“I’m sorry I ran away! I thought you were right behind me!” Brad apologized.
“It’s alright,” Jill said, waving him off. “We have to keep moving.”
“The station is just ahead. Come on. Is that thing still chasing us?”
“I don’t think so, I think it’s dead.”
Together, they ran down the street, barely taking the time to catch their breath. The two zombies down the street began to shuffle in their direction, but they easily ran past them. They saw a few more random zombies as they made their way to the police station.
“I wish we could find a car to drive,” Brad panted.
Jill shook her head. “Most of the main streets are all blocked. We wouldn’t get very far before we’d have to get out and walk anyway.”
They finally made it to the station, coming up the back way to the employee parking lot at the rear corner of the building. The lot was currently half full, the cars belonging to the officers who worked third shift or arrived for first shift before the epidemic struck. Brad leaned heavily on the hood of a car while Jill walked forward a bit, breathing hard, her hands on her hips as she scanned the parking lot.
She looked back at Brad and frowned. “How are you doing?”
“I’m just tired,” he said, shaking his head. “A little dizzy too, I guess. I haven’t eaten in hours. I’m okay.”
Jill chose to say nothing about it. She wondered how long before he got too sick to move, and what she would do when that happened. Somehow, she didn’t think Brad would be willing to take his own life when the time came.
She could see across the parking lot to the side door that led into the building, a door that she had passed through thousands of times in her life. She had never been afraid to walk through before, but things were different now. What had once been a place of safety and security was now an almost certain death trap.
“Brad,” she said quietly. “Look.”
He walked over to her and looked where she was pointing. The door to the station was broken right off its hinges, and was lying across the steps. Even from here, Jill could see a red splash of blood across the side of the doorway.
“We can still check it out, right?” Brad asked. “Maybe they just broke in there, but the rest of the station is still safe.”
“Take a look up at the place, Brad,” Jill said. “If there was anyone in there, they’d be looking out the windows, trying to see other survivors. They’d be on the roof trying to signal a helicopter or something.”
Brad looked up and saw that all the windows were empty. Windows on the upper half of the station reflected the setting sun, glinting orange, as it made its way down behind the mountains. The lower half was already bathed in the long gray shadow from nearby buildings. The station was tall and silent, and no sign of life was visible. For all they knew, Jill and Brad were the only living people with miles.
“So what are we supposed to do now?” Brad asked weakly.
“I don’t know. I can’t think of anywhere else that might be safe.”
r />
“We should find a car.”
“I already said that most of the streets are blocked. We’ll never make it through all the abandoned cars.”
“What if we drove to the outskirts of the city?” Brad asked. “Like farther out toward the mountains? Most of the jammed streets are here in downtown, right?”
“Yeah,” Jill said. “But we can’t get out of the city that way.”
“Sure we can,” Brad said, suddenly optimistic. “There’s a ton of old dirt roads leading into the mountains. We can find one of those and get out of the city that way. And besides, there’s bound to be less zombies out there, right?”
“Jesus, Brad,” Jill said, grabbing his arm, a smile spreading across her face. “That’s brilliant. That’s a great idea.”
Brad smiled back, but Jill could see how tired he still was. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow, and his breathing was labored already. How long did he have? Hours? Less than that?
“Okay, let’s find a car,” she said.
They methodically began to check all the cars in the parking lot, testing to see if they were unlocked and if any of them had the keys inside. Jill doubted they would actually find one, but it didn’t hurt to check. And there didn’t seem to be any zombies around, which was a relief. She kept glancing over her shoulder, expecting to see a sudden crowd of them surrounding the entire parking lot, but there weren’t any around at all. It was likely that most of them had gone into the police station and were now just staying inside.
She yanked on door after door, finding all the cars to be locked. Very few people left their cars unlocked, of course, but some people did. Brad was at the other side of the parking lot, checking other cars.
Jill came up to a rusted blue pickup truck with a large tool chest behind the cab. She tested the door handle, and it was locked as well. But almost as soon as she wiggled the handle, someone jumped up in the driver’s seat and mashed their face against the window. Jill shrieked and jumped back defensively.
“Jill!” Brad cried. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” Jill said, her heartbeat returning to normal. She lowered her arms and looked pitifully at the man inside the truck.
He was an elderly man with graying hair and thin glasses that were crooked on his face. Gasping horribly and scratching uselessly against the glass, the zombie tried to claw his way through the window. Glassy eyes glared at Jill and a mouth lined with yellowed teeth snapped open and closed. He wore a police uniform.
It was one of the older officers on the force, a man named Ned Collins. Jill didn’t know him that well, but she saw him occasionally working in the auto garage. He must have contracted the disease that morning and then come to work, but was too tired to get out of his truck by the time he arrived.
“I’m sorry, Bud,” Jill said, raising her gun.
She pulled the trigger and the zombie jerked back into the vehicle, the side window cracking into a spiderweb pattern but not shattering. The zombie sprawled across the front seat, blood pouring from the bullet hole above its right eye.
“I need your help, Brad,” Jill called over to him.
Before Brad could respond, an ear-piercing roar suddenly burst out across the parking lot, echoing off the police station. Brad froze in place and looked around frantically, fumbling with the gun at his belt.
“No!” he cried. “It can’t be!”
Jill quickly swung the door open and grabbed the Ned’s feet to pull him out of the truck. She pulled hard and stumbled back as the body slipped through the door and flopped to the pavement. Another bestial roar erupted somewhere nearby, and Jill drew her own gun, looking around.
“Brad!” she shouted. “Come on!”
Just then, from across street, a huge black shape emerged from an alleyway and barreled right toward the parking lot. It was the creature, coming at them like a charging rhino, the edge of its black trenchcoat flapping wildly behind it. Brad screamed and fired his gun ineffectively at the monster as it leaped across the sidewalk and landed right on top of the nearest car. The entire roof crumpled in like a sheet of aluminum foil, caving in under the monster’s weight.
It hunched down and howled at them, spittle flying from its crooked mouth, its one large eye seeming to glow red in its inhuman fury. It jumped off the car and sailed into the air, landing on the ground with such force that the pavement cracked.
“Brad!” Jill screamed.
He was frozen in place, paralyzed in fear, firing his pistol helplessly until the gun clicked empty in his hands. Jill couldn’t tell if any of the bullets struck the creature or not, but it didn’t even seem to notice the shots.
It crossed the lot in a few loping strides and grabbed the side of a small sedan, flipping the car up into the air with a guttural growl, as if tossing aside a toy. The car flipped upside down and crashed on top of another car, the windows exploding outward.
Jill tried to run forward but she felt as if her feet were stuck to the ground. Brad trembled, unable to move or run, the gun slipping from his hand. Raising her own gun, Jill aimed and fired off a shot, and saw the creature’s head twitch as the bullet struck it right in the temple. It turned to look at her and roared again.
The sound shook Brad from his paralyzation and he finally managed to scramble away from the monster. Jill ran forward and fired another shot, but the monster moved in a blink, jumping up into the air in Brad’s direction. It landed right in front of him and lashed out, grabbing Brad by his wounded shoulder and lifting him right into the air. Brad screamed in agony as the monster’s huge fingers crushed his shoulder in a vise-like grip.
Jill ran as fast as she could and fired two more times, striking the creature in the back of its misshapen head. It turned and swung its arm out so fast that she barely had time to dodge before she went flying into the air, her pistol spinning away from her. She landed on the hood of another car, cradling her head in her arms and holding her breath as she landed, so the impact didn’t knock the wind out of her. Stars swam in front her eyes, and her back twisted in pain as she slid off the hood, trying to get back to her feet.
The creature clenched its long, sharp teeth and looked at Brad, who writhed in its grip, crying in pain. It held Brad up and reared its other arm back, as if preparing to punch him.
Jill stumbled away from the car, gritting her teeth in pain, trying to find her pistol. She wound up on her hands and knees, her head still spinning. She looked up and managed to meet Brad’s frantic eyes as he struggled in the monster’s unbreakable grasp, his face pale and contorted in pain.
The creature roared victoriously and thrust its arm forward. With the sound of tearing flesh, a writhing purple tentacle burst from the creature’s muscled arm, splashing pinkish fluid across the front of Brad’s body. The tentacle squirmed like an eel and shot forward, striking Brad right in the face, cutting off his horrified scream.
Jill found her feet and staggered away toward Ned’s blue pickup truck. She climbed inside, wincing in pain, her nausea rising. She clenched her teeth and fought the urge to vomit, fumbling with the keys to the truck, which were still in the ignition.
The engine came to life with a grumble, and Jill slammed her foot onto the gas. The tires spun, fighting for traction, and the pickup lurched forward unsteadily.
The creature tossed aside Brad’s limp body and turned to face the oncoming truck, squaring its massive shoulders and leaned forward. It roared in defiance as Jill braced for the impact, pushing herself back into the seat. She closed her eyes.
The truck smashed into the creature, knocking it up into the air. It howled in pain and grabbed onto the hood as the truck almost skidded out of control, its legs dangling in front. Jill pulled hard on the steering wheel, her foot still pressing the accelerator to the floor, and the truck skidded past the row of parked cars. The creature roared and smashed its huge fist right through the windshield, showering Jill in bits of broken glass. She braced her
self again and drove the truck right for a large black SUV. The creature reared its arm back once more to smash through the windshield, its monstrous howl pounding in Jill’s ears.
Its howl of anger turned into a deafening screech of pain as the pickup truck smashed into the other truck, crushing the monster’s legs in between the two vehicles. The pickup truck smashed with such force that the back end lifted into the air and then fell back down, knocking Jill around in the cab. Her head smacked off the steering wheel, causing her to see stars again. The black SUV rocked back and forth, its entire side caved in.
The monster tumbled off the hood of the pickup truck, and Jill immediately put it into reverse and backed up. Steam rose up from the cracked radiator and one of the front tires rubbed against the inside of the caved-in wheel well. The truck was barely able to drive at all, but Jill was not done yet.
She backed up halfway across the parking lot and put it back into gear. Ahead of her, the monster tried to get back to its feet, but it could not stand with broken legs. It howled angrily and tried to crawl, dragging its twisted legs behind it. Jill hit the gas again and sped forward, aiming right at it.
The monster managed to get onto its knees just as the truck slammed into it, a split-second before Jill crashed straight into the black SUV again. One arm hung limply across the mangled hood of the pickup, but the rest of its body was crushed in between the two wrecked vehicles.
Jill opened the door and carefully got out, her legs trembling and her head still spinning. She took a deep breath and glanced down at the creature, seeing its massive body lying motionless, pinned between the pickup and the SUV. Watery pink blood dripped from its body and pooled underneath. Jill stepped away from the wreckage and walked unsteadily back to Brad’s body.
She didn’t have to get close to see that he was dead. The creature’s tentacle, or whatever it was, smashed right through his skull. There was nothing left of his face except a bloody, gaping hole.
Jill went down to her knees. Her whole body ached, although the nausea had passed and she no longer had the urge to vomit. There was nothing in her stomach to throw up anyway, since she hadn’t eaten in so long. But she was so tired, so incredibly tired. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and just fall asleep.
Her gaze drifted to Brad’s body, although she couldn’t bear to look at what was left of his face. She didn’t even know if she felt sorry for him. He was infected, and was doomed to die anyway, so what difference did it make how he died? Would it have been better if he grew sicker and sicker, until Jill was forced to put him out of his misery? Was that a better way to die?
What would Jill choose, when the time came? So far, the only reason she was still alive was unbelievably good luck, but she held no illusions that she was going to make it out of Raccoon City alive. She was absolutely exhausted, and pretty soon she would get careless, and some stray zombie would catch her when she wasn’t paying attention. As if expecting one to come up behind her right then, she looked up around the parking lot, but there were still no zombies in sight.
And if one of the zombies didn’t get her eventually, there were other things to be afraid of, as she already knew. A creature like the one that killed Brad. Another albino monster like the one they faced back in the science lab. A huge snake like the one in the mansion. Or maybe some other new monster, something she hadn’t seen yet. She glanced over at the dead monster and wondered if any more of them were running around.
The monster’s body shifted, and its arm slipped off the pickup’s hood and flopped to the ground. And as Jill watched, its fingers moved, clenching into a fist. And then the monster moved.
Jill stared in absolute disbelief as the monster moved again, slipping down from in between the two trucks. Its head lifted up to reveal its scarred, hideous visage looking right back at her. It tried to push itself upright and slumped back down.
“God, no,” Jill whispered.
The monster groaned and lifted its arm to grab the twisted front fender of the pickup truck, and with a grunt, it pushed the truck back a few inches.
Jill got to her feet and wearily looked around for her pistol, but it was nowhere in sight. It probably slid under one of the cars. She looked back at the monster and realized that bullets wouldn’t kill it anyway.
She stood there for a few moments, unable to decide what she could possibly do. There was no way she could run away, she was too tired already. She would collapse if she tried to run anywhere. And every second she waited, the monster got closer to getting up and coming after her. She walked away from the parking lot, looking around in futile desperation.
Suddenly, she heard something and turned around, looking up into the air. A steady thrumming noise in the sky revealed a helicopter soaring over the buildings a few blocks away. Jill caught a glimpse of it as it disappeared over the rooftops, flying away from her.
She went down the street, walking as fast as she could. Her legs felt like wet noodles, and her back hurt so bad she could barely concentrate, but she kept going down the sidewalk to the next street down, going in the direction the helicopter was flying.
If there was a helicopter, then maybe that meant there were other survivors. Maybe there was some kind of rescue effort going on. She only saw it for a moment, but it appeared to be a military helicopter of some kind. Maybe the National Guard was in the city.
Jill stopped at the next corner and leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees and taking a few deep breaths. She wasn’t going to make it on foot. What she needed was another car, but what were the odds that she would find another one with the keys inside?
She was on the street in front of the police station, and from the corner she could almost see the wide front steps that led up to the front doors. Sitting right in the middle of the street was a small white car, probably abandoned by someone when they drove to the police station. But there were no other cars on the street, and it seemed strange to be parked right there.
Jill went over to the car and found that not only were the keys still inside, but the car was actually still running. Someone drove it there and just left it running. Jill looked up at the police station and wondered if whoever left it there thought they might be coming back for it. She didn’t have time to worry about that now. She got inside and closed the door, taking another deep breath as she put it into gear.
She drove down the street, slowly at first. When she reached the corner, she looked in the rear view mirror. Standing by the side of the street, limping in her direction, was the creature in the trenchcoat. When it saw her car, it roared at her, trying to run but barely able to stay on its feet.
Jill kept going and left the monster behind her. In a few minutes she was already blocks away, and she couldn’t see it in the mirror anymore. Driving around jammed intersections and weaving in between more abandoned and wrecked cars, she made her way in the direction the helicopter had flown.
But she couldn’t quite get the monster’s deafening roars out of her head. It was almost as if the monster didn’t just scream, it was actually saying something. Its bestial roars almost sounded as if it was saying the word, “Stars.”