Chapter Text
It’s pouring rain outside, solid sheets hitting hard against the window.
You peek through the blinds, scanning the street and the distant outline of the city. It’s clear. The tension in your shoulders dissolves and you hold onto the relaxed feeling for as long as possible.
It’s been five days since the initial outbreak, and you’ve far surpassed your initial hysteria. Now the fear keeps you composed and alert, and you’ve successfully barricaded yourself indoors. After letting frantic stupidity have its run during the first two days, you’d started organising your stockpile.
Bandages and medicine, a collection of green and red herbs, canned and packaged food – all of it helpfully stolen borrowed from a few corner stores and little grocers you’d come across on the way to your current headquarters. They’re packed in a moderately sized duffle by the coffee table.
Feeling frazzled again because anything could be lurking under the cover of the rain, your paranoia resurging out of nowhere but with good reason, you run your fingers through your hair and pace agitatedly against the carpeted flooring of the small apartment you’ve found yourself in. The butcher’s knife secured to your belt scrapes against the fabric of your jeans with every step. It’s not your apartment – yours is probably on fire, full of zombies and dead bodies. You won’t be going back anytime soon.
Besides your college textbooks, there isn’t anything majorly important left behind that you hadn’t been carrying on you.
The watch your mother bought you is still strapped around your wrist and your favourite, large hooped earrings dangling from your lobes have yet to be ripped out by wandering hands. Other than that, you’ve only got the clothes on your back – and you’ve been wearing them for five days now. It must be magic that you haven’t started smelling musty just yet. Or maybe it’s completely masked itself by the scent of fear.
The only thing you can think of that would be immensely useful right now is the handheld radio that should be sitting on your nightstand. It’s probably broken by now, if not burnt up to a nice, plastic crisp. You’d give up an arm and a leg to hear a local news report. Every time you turn on the little TV propped on an end table in the corner of the room, all it does is replay the evacuation warning from the 24th.
It’s no use. They stopped evacuating as soon as they started, and the police can’t be trusted. They’d started shooting people in the line ups – it’s pure luck and good timing that you managed to evade the massacre, having been in the bathroom at the time. As soon as you were finished peeing you ran right out of there and to the other side of the city in search of a way out.
There isn’t one. Not from Racoon City or your nightmares. The roads are barricaded, contact with the outside world is completely cut off, the streets are littered with the walking dead, and anyone in a uniform or carrying a gun is someone to be wary of.
But you can’t stay here forever. They’ll find you eventually, and they’ll eat you. For real. Without killing you or seasoning you. They’ll eat you raw.
Stopping your pacing which had become more hurried as time passed, breath still coming quick but that isn’t unusual anymore, you peek through the blinds again.
The rain has stopped to a light drizzle, the night looking damp and dreary. You squint against the fuzziness of the window, trying to pinpoint the flickering lights beyond and the general area where you know the police station is. The massive clock is only barely visible, hidden by smoke and other buildings.
Days ago, they’d advised any remaining survivors to seek shelter at the RPD, but you’d refused. Despite telling your friends and several strangers what you’d seen, they took off anyway. You hope they’re not dead. Or worse. But if they are… you hope you don’t ever come across them.
But you’ve got no choice now. You can either sit here and wait until the government sends reinforcements in, probably killing everything and anything left within the city to quarantine it, meaning you’ll die – or, you can, again, try and find your own way out. Even if there’s no help at the station, they’ll have weapons. Guns. Something you can defend yourself with.
But to be honest, your dead either way. It’s just a matter of how you want to die.
You whimper unashamedly.
You really, really don’t want to leave this apartment.
And maybe you shouldn’t? Forget about reinforcements and secret government organisations. Put the conspiracy theories to rest. If you ignore your supplies and don’t eat, you’ll starve to death. If you go out, you’ll be eaten to death. The slower death inside sounds less painful than the one outside.
Yeah, you know what? this sounds like a better idea. Who’re you fooling? Of course you have a choice, and your choice is to stay in this tiny ass apartment until you die of natural causes. You nod your head vigorously to this line of thought, not caring how crazy you must look. Nobody’s alive left to see it.
You’re a coward, you are. You’d rather deal with the hunger pains and delusions, living your last several days lonely, depressed and paranoid.
And no shame about it too – dumb ideas worked the first two days. Not anymore.
Slapping your cheeks for being so stupid, you throw yourself onto the years-weary couch, deeply sniffing the heady scent of tobacco and old beer. You could even sleep until you die, provided no one interrupts you. If only you had some music.
Staring blankly at the ceiling and feeling calm – as calm anyone can be, in this situation–you slowly let yourself drift away to the light pitter-patter outside.
You’ve put yourself into a low doze, absently humming the chorus to Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go over and over because you’ve forgotten the rest of the lyrics. It’s as you get to take me dancing tonigghhhhht again that you hear it.
Terror strikes your heart in the same likeness of lightning striking a tree.
You're up on your feet in seconds, staring wide-eyed at the barricaded apartment door. Your breath comes out harsh and loud, and the fearful anticipation that has been simmering in your veins like chicken broth on medium heat immediately starts to boil. Every nerve in your body is sensitive and alight with fright.
They’re here.
A moment of deadly quiet passes – you strain your ears, stepping backward around the coffee table. There it is again. The prickling sound of something dragging against carpet. Like a wooden bat too heavy to lift, a small dresser being moved around, or a basket of laundry idly nudge along the ground.
Except it’s not any of those.
You press your lips together tightly, trembling. Fingers brush against the wall, sliding frantically until they meet the sill. Fuck it. Fuck it – fuck it – fuck it!
Your eyes dart to the duffel. Should you take it–?
A belching and groaning screech vibrates the air.
Never mind! You don’t need it. Time to go. You turn on your feet and slide the glass up. The fire-escape is empty and you hastily climb on to it, forcing yourself through the window. It’s awkward and hurts and everything is slippery wet outside – but you get out. You get out.
It seems like fleeing in fear is the only thing you’re good at nowadays.
Down the steps and ladder, metal thudding painstakingly loud in your ears as your feet hit hard against the grating, it takes every ounce of will you still have to stop yourself from sitting your ass down and start wailing.
You’re only nineteen – you still have two years of university left, your best friends are M.I.A, your dog is probably dead by now and you just want your mom. If anyone is too young and pretty to die like this, it’s you!
At least the rain has stopped.
Sniffling as you lower yourself down, hands holding onto the fire escape – you refuse to unlock the ladder because if there’s one thing you know, it’s that it’ll be loud, and these thing flock to noise the same way serial killers flock to useless girls in horror flicks – you close your eyes for several seconds before letting go of the landing. Your sneaker-clad feet thud against the pavement, knees bending to absorb the impact.
You made it.
Wiping your wet palms on your jeans, you squint down the street in the direction that’ll take you to the RPD. Despite knowing everyone inside could very well be dead by now – or that no one had made it there to begin with – it’s the safest bet there is now. You refuse to risk walking on the highway out of here. It’s too open, and the walking dead are fast.
Swallowing audibly, you take your first hesitant steps forward, pause to settle your nerves, and start again. On a normal day it should be a twenty-minute walk from hereabouts. But today isn’t a normal day, and it’s night time, and you can’t accurately recall the closest route. It’s too messy and unorganised in your mind’s office – all the filing cabinets are open and the little workers in your brain are too anxious to do their job properly. The archive files have flung themselves all across the floor. You’re just gonna have to follow the fires and hope you’re going the right way.
Breaking off into a light jog, you think how convenient it would be if you could jumpstart a car.
Maybe you’ll learn if you get out of here.
[--]
When you finally stumble within sight of the station, a light drizzle has worked itself up again.
There’s blood on your hands and up your right arm, trailing across your entire front in a horrific splatter. It’s sticky and thick and looks like black tar against the vibrant neon of your jacket. This isn’t even mentioning the dried stains from days ago.
Killing is a lot harder than you’d expected. The first zombie you’d seen on your way here you accidentally flung the butcher’s knife at it. Not stab it, or butcher it – you fucking threw a knife at it. Didn’t do anything except make you lose your only weapon.
After some ninth-grade acrobatic maneuvers you managed to skirt around the zombie, retrieve the knife with only a little bit of fumbling, and started hitting it as hard as you could.
Only when you’d dug it deep into the brain did it finally shut up and stop trying to eat you. You got the idea. Go for the brains, because nearly amputating its arm several times and piercing it right in the heart did absolutely jack.
Since then, you’d manage to kill three others and run away from the rest.
The white lights illuminating the giant RPD brings you relief in the same way a flood of water dousing the next-door fire brings. It gives you the same hope of survival that a lighthouse in a thick, rolling fog gives to a lost ship and it’s crew.
But when you’re eyes lower, spotting the crackling fires and abandoned and wrecked cars, zombies navigating around them like ants trying to find a breadcrumb you’d dropped days ago on the floor, you whimper. Your relief falls flat.
This is not good. This is very not good.
They obviously can’t get in through the main gates, so it must be locked and blocked completely. You swiftly crouch-run to a car stationed closer and hide behind it. They haven’t sniffed your scent just yet, so you searching for another way in.
But it doesn’t look like you can go in any other way – both sides of the building are shrouded in shadows, and you’re not familiar enough with the station to know where the visitor’s car park and the main garage is. You’re not willing to risk any more than you have to, and going blind in search of an entrance around the station is a definite no-no. It’s just not worth the possible risk of death. A risk that’s higher than the risk you’re already in, that is.
There’s no other option. You gulp.
Only one way in and one chance to get it right. If you fail, might as well just impale yourself on the fence tops. If you die, you don’t wanna be zombie chow.
Deep breaths. Slow breaths. Hold for seven, release in six, breathe in for another four. You ready your feet, sneakers grinding slightly into the asphalt. Fingers curl around the bumper, body poised and ready. You really need to take a piss, preferably in safety where the undead can’t interrupt you. And that’s a good as a motivator as any.
Three, two, one–
The heady air snaps against your face as you suddenly dash forward, running like your mother is angry and brandishing a slipper threateningly behind you.
A zombie notices you and turns, arms raised. You dodge to the left and slide amongst the length of a car. It screeches behind you, and like that, all of them up against the gate turn. They’re all dumb, little moths and you’re the overheated kitchen strobe light. Can’t afford to think or feel – there’s no time.
You run, and run, and dodge and slide and hop, hauling yourself on to the roof of a car. It’s not out of reach of their hands but it’s exactly the advantage you need. Every time a hand brushes against your ankle or calf, your heart nearly goes into cardiac arrest. It’s hard landing a jump without tumbling down into their waiting arms, so you keep pushing forward, moving from one roof to a hood and onto another roof continuously, not letting yourself pause for even a moment.
There’s only a few yards left till you get to the brick wall sealing the RPD in. You scramble along the top of the two wrecked cars placed perfectly against the wall, and, with a mighty kick off from one foot, your other slams into the wall. The momentum lets you boost yourself upwards. Fingers wet with sweat and blood curl around the steel frame.
You gasp and haul yourself up.
Yes. Yes–yes–yes–no!
A cry escapes your lips as something pulls your foot down forcefully, tugging off your sneaker. You fucking loved that shoe, dammit! Those were expensive! Your back burns with the effort to lift your shoulders above the edge of the wall, but the zombies learn and start climbing the car as well.
Heart pounding and curses falling frantically from your lips, you kick your legs out furiously, battling them away. In the process, your other shoe fly’s off, and your knife falls from your hip. But this time it doesn’t matter, barely even registers. Because you’ve done it – arms quivering like the leaves of a tree in a hurricane, you manage to get your entire upper body above the wall, following it by tucking your legs onto the narrow ledge work.
Panting heavily, you look down. There’s so many of them. Gotta be like, fifty or something. You’d have cried tears of joy if this many people came to your sweet sixteenth.
They’re all moaning and groaning, arms outstretched with a single-minded purpose: to eat you. Periodically, a blood-curling shriek escapes their throats and every time your heart beats a little harder, your fingers clench a little tighter.
God, you did it. You fucking did it. You almost died and you lost your shoes, but you – oh, you did it.
“Hah!” you crow, egging them on. “I made it! I fucking made it! Why don’t y’all just eat each other’s dicks, cause you ain’t getting mine, bitch!”
That feels so good.
You yell out a few more profanities that would have had your mother washing your mouth with soap if she could hear you now, before letting out a final “Woo!” and crawl over the pikes, lowering your body down the wall inside the safety of the front courtyard and drop down swiftly into a crouch. Your sock covered feet slam against the ground. At the same time, your bladder almost releases itself.
“Shit!”
At least you didn’t wet yourself during the run. How humiliating would that have been? Forget about having your intestines falling out and your trachea torn from your throat – you would’ve died right then and there.
You stand up and turn and, for the first time in days, the constant cloud of paranoia and fear that’d been hovering over you dissipates. You’re exhausted, can barely move a muscle now that the crowd of people-eaters is behind you – literally – but damn it all if the sight of the brightly lit Raccoon City Police Department doesn’t make you smile.
You can now pee in relative safety. And, if you’re lucky, you’ll find a working gun and some leftover ammo. You’re nearly certain that it doesn’t require a lot of skill or any skill at all to the point the barrel at your head and shoot.
Starving yourself, really? You’re too much of a sissy to deal with the pain.
Time to get this over with, cause there ain’t any other way out of this hellhole but death.