City of the Dead

Chapter Ten

Ada Wong, also known as Vanessa Cooper, also known as Agent Takashi, spent most of the previous night trying to make contact with her informant, to no avail. She was up until the early hours of the morning, spending time at half a dozen popular nightclubs in the city, getting plenty of attention from a variety of single men, but failing to locate the man she was supposed to get information from. She gave up at four-thirty in the morning and came back to the hotel. She took the time to doff her evening dress and remove the tiny pistols from the holsters on her thighs, before flopping onto the bed and falling asleep.

Ada rarely slept for more than five hours. Being a light sleeper was a benefit in her line of work, where it was necessary on occasion to wake up immediately at the slightest sound. She opened her eyes, her whole body tense, before relaxing and closing her eyes again. She rolled onto her side and looked at the clock. It was almost nine-thirty.

The blinds were closed, but thin slivers of sunlight slipped between the blinds, invading the warm darkness of her room. She sat up in bed and turned on the lamp by the bed. She also flipped open her laptop computer and got out of bed while it booted up.

Until her informant contacted her, there was little she could do. Money had already traded hands, promises had been made, and all that was left was for the informant to come through on his part of the deal. Ada hated waiting, as she hated being vulnerable, but she didn’t have many options.

She used the bathroom and took a moment to look at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess, and her face needed a thorough cleansing to remove her makeup from the night before. She felt hungry, but breakfast could wait. A shower was a definite priority after a night of hanging out in nightclubs full of cigarette smoke and sweaty strangers.

She reached into the shower stall and turned on the water. While she waited for it to get hot, she wandered back out into the main room and stripped off her underwear, tossing it into a pile with her other dirty clothes. As she was about to return to the bathroom, she glanced down at the laptop screen.

The words “Log-In Unsuccessful - No Connection” flashed on the screen. Perplexed, Ada pressed a button on the keyboard and the log-in screen blinked twice before reverting back to the previous message.

Ada frowned and sat on the edge of the bed, bringing up the laptop’s internet browser. As soon as she tried to go to the homepage, the screen flashed an error. “The website is not available. Please check your internet connection.”

She picked up her cell phone and flipped it open. The screen showed no bars. She looked at the cell phone screen for a few moments, as if she expected it to magically start working again just because she wanted it to.

“What the hell?” she muttered.

Shaking her head, she started to walk back to the bathroom. After she took her shower, she would go down to the front desk and find out why her laptop and phone weren’t working. There must be some reason. She could understand if the internet was just down, but it didn’t make sense for her to not have any cell phone reception. Last night her phone had worked just fine.

She paused at the window and opened the blinds by pulling on the string hanging from the top of the frame. The long vertical strips of plastic slid along the top of the track, clicking together like beads on a billiards score string, and swayed gently back and forth at the end of the track. Bright morning sunlight flared across the hotel room. Ada squinted her eyes and briefly looked out the window before turning away to walk to the bathroom.

Something stopped her. She halted abruptly in the doorway and stood there for a moment, her brain going over her brief glance outside. She looked over her shoulder, and took a few hesitant steps back to the window. Her eyes grew wide at the view and her breath caught in her chest.

Raccoon City was in ruins. Long columns of smoke rose up into the air from a dozen places across the city as fires burned out of control. Looking straight down at the streets in front of the hotel, Ada could see smashed cars scattered across the crowded intersections. People far below her ran in frenzied groups. Others stood around stupidly, or staggered unevenly down the sidewalks. Ada thought she heard the distant pop-pop-pop of gunfire.

She stared out the window in absolute shock for only a few seconds. Then her training finally kicked in, and she bolted to her suitcases, which were lying on the floor by the bed. She pulled on some clothes as quickly as possible, dressing in black leather pants, black boots, and a long sleeved red shirt. She flipped the smallest of her suitcases upside down, dumping everything onto the floor. Then she quickly loaded all her important equipment into the case. Her modular assault rifle and other weapons, the metal cylinder containing the syringes, her purse, and her laptop. She pulled out the suitcase’s long nylon shoulder strap to carry it over her shoulder, even though it was too large to carry comfortably.

It was definitely time to go. Ada pulled her hair up, twisted it into a messy ponytail, and grabbed her small guns off the nightstand, sticking one in each of her pants pockets. On her way out the door, she grabbed her black leather jacket as well.

The hallway was eerily silent. Ada didn’t even bother to close the door to her room before she left. She crept down the hall, her arm against the suitcase to keep it from bumping too much against her hip. She encountered no one on her way to the elevator, and pounded on the down arrow with her fist.

The elevator doors opened with a chime and Ada got inside. She reached for the button for the bottom floor, and then reconsidered and pressed the second floor. The doors closed and she felt the uncomfortable shift in her stomach as the elevator descended.

She pulled out one of the pistols and held it in her hand uncertainly. It only held two bullets, and it was not a very powerful gun. If she came up against anything serious, she didn’t know if it would do much to protect her. She licked her lips nervously as the elevator doors opened up, revealing another empty hallway.

She went to the stairs and went down to the bottom floor. There was no door at the bottom, just an open entranceway to the front lobby. Ada poked her head out and looked around, seeing no one. As soon as she stepped out from the stairway, though, a man emerged from around the corner.

He wore a respectable gray business suit with a red tie. Leaning to the side as if drunk, he gaped at her with an open mouth and wide eyes. He took an awkward step towards her.

Ada aimed her gun at him. “Get away from me,” she ordered, her voice as sharp as a knife. Her finger rested lightly on the trigger.

The man seemed not to hear her, and walked forward like a man sleepwalking. His mouth twisted into a grotesque parody of a smile, and he emitted a soft groan.

“I’m not joking,” Ada said fiercely. “Take another step and you’re dead.”

One more step, and she fired. The bullet hit him right on the bridge of the nose, shattering the soft cartilage and penetrating the skull. He tilted over backward and fell like a downed tree. The gunshot echoed around the open lobby and Ada lowered the gun with a sigh.

As she stared down at the dead body, another figure appeared in the lobby, coming slowly towards her. She brought the gun up immediately, but this time it trembled in her grasp.

It was the desk clerk. She recognized him from his outfit. But this time it was covered in blood from the horrific wound on the clerk’s neck, a wide open gash with flaps of loose skin hanging down. The side of the clerk’s face was ripped up as well, and one of his eyes was missing. He limped forward, leaving a trail of blood drops along the floor back to the desk. His arms hung limply at his sides and his head tilted to the side, exposing more of the wound.

Ada managed to pull the trigger again, and the bullet struck the clerk on the edge of his cheek. He jerked off balance but did not fall down, his arms flopping uselessly against his torso. He opened his mouth to groan grotesquely, and more blood spilled down the front of his shirt.

Ada tossed the empty gun aside and pulled out the other. This time she took more careful aim and shot the clerk right in the face. He tumbled to the ground, his head smacking into the marble floor with a sickening wet sound.

She wasted only a second standing there in fear. She ran out into the lobby and ignored the blood spilled all across the top of the front desk and puddled on the floor. Another man emerged from the back offices, his mouth covered in gore. Ada ignored him and ran outside.

There were more of them outside, lots more. Some had blood on their faces and others ignored their serious injuries, wandering around like gruesome sleepwalkers. They looked around dumbly until they noticed Ada, and then they began shuffling towards her. She ran past all of them and hurried into the parking lot.

She ran to her red Corvette and tossed her suitcase into the passenger seat. She got inside and started it up, the engine roaring to life. Slamming her foot onto the gas pedal, the cars tires spun and blew out white smoke. The Corvette squealed out, rocketing from the parking lot and to the hotel’s central driveway.

There was an old woman standing in the driveway, oblivious to the Corvette, her eyes wide open and staring blankly. Splatters of blood marked the woman’s flowered dress. Ada drove right into her, the woman’s body crunching against the hood and flipping up over the roof, cracking the top of the windshield. She spun into the air, cartwheeling wildly, her tiny shoes sailing off in different directions, and crumpled to the ground.

The Corvette skidded out into the street and sped away from the hotel.

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