Work Text:
<3 [8:34 P.M.]: I love you. Stay far away.
******
Hands gripped Tess’s torso, the pain of teeth ripping into the flesh of her left triceps muscle. Releasing a scream of pain and anger, she brought her free hand over and grabbed onto this- rabid man missing part of a cheek, and pried his mouth open enough to yank her arm free.
She didn’t have time to react as the man, though shoved back, set his eyes on his victim and began to push himself back up. Without thinking she held her arm to her side and pushed himself towards the door as fast as she could. The blood dripping from her arm was warm, uncomfortable, and painful.
Shoving the door open she set her eyes on her semi and turned back one last time to watch the disgusting image of what should be a man, stumble towards her. His eyes were dead, they held no emotion but that of hunger. Swallowing thickly, and gritting her teeth as if that would stop the pain, she rushed towards her truck.
“You’re fuckin’ crazy!” She shouted, struggling to open the door, “what the fuck’s wrong with you?!”
Instead of waiting for an answer, she pulled her door open and used her good hand to grasp the handle near the door and pull herself up. The sound of the door opening caught her attention for a moment, ducking inside her truck and looking towards the gas station she saw the man finally made his way outside. He was stumbling faster in her direction.
In a panicked decision, she quickly sat down and slammed her door shut. Looking towards the ignition, she found no keys.
“Fuck!” Slamming a hand into the wheel, she let out a breath and closed her eyes for a moment, “calm down. Breathe. Where are they, Tess?”
Her eyes glued onto the floor just below the steering wheel, a keyring was just barely visible. Reaching down she had just barely enough room to snatch them up. Once she had she began to sort through the keys-
BANG. BANG. BANG. The sound of the man beating against her door scared her, nearly dropping the keys again, gritting her teeth and grasping the hand of the door she shoved it open as hard as she could. It worked in knocking the man back, giving her just enough time to slam the door shut and lock it.
Turning back towards the keys in hand, finding the correct key she was quick to put it into the ignition and turn. The truck came to life, she struggled for a moment putting it into the correct shift, but once she had she drove off as fast as possible.
“What the fuck?! He bit me!” Looking down at her arm, still bleeding, she gritted her teeth.
She needed a hospital. The city nearby, Raccoon, they had a pretty big hospital. That would work.
****
The road ahead of her was deserted. No signs of life except for the caws of the birds- probably crows -and whatever else rustled in the tall grasses, trees, and bushes. It wasn’t that different from the few times she’s come this way. It had been a little more lively, but it was also during the day and with Roth . He wasn’t here this time. It was just her.
Sam let out a sigh of annoyance at herself, revved her Harley and pushed further on. Just slightly faster than she had been before, trying to outrun the unpleasant thoughts she felt were creeping up on her. Trying to replace the mild frustration she felt at Lara for ignoring her like she had and then- it was a cryptic text.
If she was honest, Lara should have known better than to send something cryptic. It only served to fuel Sam’s concern and need to check on her girlfriend, or, that’s what she hoped Lara considered them. She huffed. Lara hadn’t even called in weeks.
It took her fifteen minutes to reach the sign, once she had an uneasiness filled her. She stopped for a moment to second-guess herself. The sign, itself, was lopsided slightly. Like it’d been pushed over, which wasn’t new, this was a backroads way and the city didn’t really care about it. What bothered her the most was, beyond the sign towards the city she saw movement at the diner.
There were a couple of overturned cars like there’d been a crash, but no one was in sight. No one . This was a city. A city that normally bustled with life especially nightlife of its drunkards, criminals, and off-duty cops before they went home. It unsettled her.
She was here for answers, the truth, though. She was worried not just about Lara, but Roth, Jonah, Alex, Reyes even. No one had gotten back to her when normally they would because they knew the hell she’d bring if they’d gotten themselves into trouble and not told her. So, she took in a breath and continued to push on.
WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY.
The drive into the city wasn’t any better.
The moment she came close enough, she noticed broken windows, doors, blood even. Part of her she knew screamed to back out, go home and just wait . She couldn’t. She felt sick thinking about it but what if Lara or the others had been hurt? How could she ever forgive herself for not finding out?
Carefully she pulled up to the front of the small 50’s themed diner ‘Peaches’ and took her helmet off. Once she had she set it aside and fixed her jacket, a dark purple, white etched storm cloud on the back- Lara’s gift to her last year -and looked inside the front window.
There, past the dirty glass, looked like a man in the middle of the floor struggling to get up in a puddle of blood. Without thinking Sam gasped and rushed inside, the bell jingled but she focused on the man.
Carefully kneeling next to him, she placed a hand around his waist and used the other to pull his arm over her shoulder to help her pull him up.
“Let's get you over to a seat and I’ll call an amb-” she was interrupted by a low moan, she paused and looked towards his face, “what?”
Slowly, he turned to look at her, and as he did she gasped. He was...blue in the way a corpse was almost, part of his face was missing leaving flesh to hang from his mouth to his eye. Blood dripped. Sam was so shocked she froze.
Or at least she did until he made a guttural cry and snapped his jaws at her. She yelped and shoved him as far back as she could, he fell into a table and some chair falling onto the ground. Sam stared as she backed up to the counter.
“What the fuck?!”
The door jingled again, Sam’s head snapped towards it to find a man fall through the door and woman shuffle in moaning and reaching out towards her. She swallowed thickly and looked outside her eyes widened in fear. More of these- things were coming. They must have heard her drive into town and open the door.
Before she could pull away from the counter Sam felt hands come up from behind her, on the other side of the counter and grip her pulling her back just enough to try and gets its jaws into her neck. She yelled out and gripped the head just a few centimeters from her neck and held it there. It was a struggle, whoever or whatever this thing was, now had an advantage on her from this position.
“No! Let me fucking go!” She screamed in an almost pleading voice.
Hands grasped onto her feet, looking down for a split second Sam found the woman and the man she’d shoved off of her trying to claw at her jeans, or for any free skin to bit into. She shook a foot free and kicked the woman as had as she could on the nose. She fell back and the man didn’t seem to care. He continued to make these awful moans as he tried finding someplace on her to bite. More of them shuffled towards the door. The diner would be overrun soon.
The man trying to bite her neck tried to slam his head down with surprising force, Sam cried out in surprise and gripped under his jaw despite the blood coating it and probably her neck now, she did her best to force his head upward. She was struggling.
Thinking quickly, Sam did her best to turn onto her side and shove the man back with both hands after shoving his head back. It worked but his body bounced off the counter blocking the kitchen from the dining area and left him slumping against the counter she was on. Grabbing the edge of the counter Sam pulled herself over away from the man clawing at her and fell onto her back.
She let out a surprised breath of pain but otherwise was okay. Looking to her left she found an empty bottle of whiskey in a hole. She didn’t think twice about grabbing it as the man pushed himself up from the counter and turned clumsily towards her. The front doors opened again and she knew, without turning around, now was the time to get out.
She rushed forward, grabbing the man’s dirty shirt and wound her hand back before slamming the bottle against his head. He fell backward and Sam threw the rest of the bottle down at him before vaulting over the counter, and facing the crowd trying to crawl over each other to get to her. They sounded hungry. That didn’t sit well.
She turned on her heel and bolted for the backdoor. She knew where it was, she and Lara had used it enough.
She yanked it open only to be blinded by a bright light a second later. She leaned back trying to cover her eyes, but she saw the metal glisten in the streetlights.
“Wait! Don’t-”
“Get down!” The voice screamed, and she did as asked. She dropped to her knees without a second thought.
A gunshot went off and the closest body behind her dropped, headshot, leaving Sam to look back and stare for a second before a hand gripped her arm and yanked her up. She turned to probably beg them not to kill her, that she was normal, but the face she saw stopped her.
It was obvious she hadn’t slept, but brown eyes stared into her almost concernedly. Brown hair was tied up in a ponytail, but her face and hair were dirty. Blood was smeared across her cheek. Her R.P.D. uniform fared no better.
“Lara?” She asked almost incredulously.
Lara’s eyes softened for a second before she looked back at the diner. They were still coming. If Sam looked around she’d find the streets becoming full. She didn’t.
“Come on, love. We can’t stay here.” Lara said with a hint of fear.
The hand on Sam’s arms slid down into her hand, grasping it a little too hard before Lara picked a direction and ran pulling Sam along with her.