City of the Dead

Chapter Nineteen

Traffic was backed up for at least five miles, sitting motionless on the winding mountain highway heading into Raccoon City. Occasionally, cars drove past in the other direction, all of them vehicles that turned around rather than wait in complete gridlock. No traffic came from Raccoon City, and no traffic was able to get in. The two-lane highway was a standstill.

Claire Redfield shook her head and pulled her motorcycle out of the line of parked cars and drove slowly along the side of the road up to the front of the line. She was sick of waiting, and wanted to see just what in the world was the hold up. She’d been waiting for almost two hours now, and barely moved ten feet in that whole time. She wasn’t going to wait all day.

Frequently, guys who were trying to sound clever asked her why she was riding her boyfriend’s motorcycle. But the Harley Davidson Fatboy she rode was all hers, and it was the only vehicle she owned. When Claire turned sixteen, she opted for a motorcycle instead of a car, much against the wishes of her parents, and she had been riding bikes ever since. Sometimes her brother Chris teased her about it, but deep down, she felt that Chris was just jealous.

Chris was the reason she was trying to get to Raccoon City in the first place. The cryptic message he left for their parents worried the whole family, and Claire took it upon herself to go and talk to Chris personally. They knew about the failed police mission, since it was all over the news, but Chris didn’t give them any details. He said that something bad happened and he would be gone for awhile, but Claire had spent most of her life looking out for her older brother, and she could tell that he needed her help.

She was dressed in dark blue jeans, brown boots, and a pink denim vest over a plain black t-shirt. The weather was chilly enough that she wore a black leather jacket while riding, but it was currently folded up and stuffed in one of the Harley’s travel bags. Of course, she also wore a black motorcycle helmet, and black motorcycle gloves were on her hands. The back of her pink vest was decorated with a painting of a woman with angel’s wings, leaning over a large bomb, with the words “Made in Heaven” written in fancy yellow script.

Her motorcycle rolled slowly along the side of the road, and she let her feet drag on the gravel. Some of the people in cars gave her dirty looks, but she ignored them.

She rounded a long curve in the highway and saw a roadblock up ahead. There was actually a line of concrete road dividers stretched across both lanes, and flashing red lights and signs warning that the road was closed. Claire somehow expected a tractor trailer jack-knife or some other major accident. But she didn’t see any police cars or ambulances, just the blockade. As she rolled closer, a few more cars turned around and drove the other way.

Half a dozen men in white and orange emergency hazmat uniforms could be seen far beyond the roadblock, next to some parked trucks, but none of them seemed to be doing anything except standing around. But they were not the only people on the scene. Standing near the roadblock, facing the traffic, were a pair of armed soldiers.

Claire rolled forward until one of the soldiers caught sight of her and then squeezed the brake. The Harley slowed to a stop and she planted her feet. As the man came up to her, she lifted the helmet off her head and set it in her lap. Her shoulder-length brown hair was tied into a messy ponytail.

“Sorry, honey, the road’s blocked,” the soldier said, his assault rifle dangling off his shoulder. He wore a green and brown camouflage uniform, but it was unlike any U.S. military uniform Claire had ever seen. There was no rank insignia on his shoulder and his gun was not standard issue.

“I’m not your honey,” Claire said evenly. “Why is it blocked?”

“There’s been an accident. A truck hauling hazardous waste crashed about a mile down, so they stopped all traffic.”

“For how long?”

“Indefinitely. It might take days to clean up the spill.”

“No one can get through?”

The soldier nodded bluntly. “Nope, the road is closed.” A whisper of a smile came to his lips, and he added, “Sorry, honey.”

Claire looked at him and said nothing. She casually backed up the motorcycle and turned it around. She heard the soldier chuckle behind her as she began to drive away.

Claire learned long ago that a man will underestimate a pretty woman in almost any situation. The bigger the man’s ego and the prettier the woman, the more he will underestimate her. Claire was hardly the prettiest girl on the block, but the soldier apparently felt that her intelligence was worth insulting just the same. He probably thought that it was cute that she drove a motorcycle, as if she did so in order to be taken seriously.

If he hadn’t been holding a gun, Claire would have knocked him on his ass. He wouldn’t be the first guy to make some snide, sexist comment and wind up with a black eye for his trouble.

Claire slowed the bike and took account of her surroundings. She’d visited Raccoon City enough times to know the general layout of the city. She’d even gone riding in the mountains once or twice when she came to visit her brother. She tried to think about how the highway came into the city. If she remembered correctly, it came down along the western side and swung up to bring commuters into the southwestern corner of the city. She tried to envision where she was in relation to the city, and what direction she needed to travel in.

She looked into the trees off to her right. The highway twisted through the Arklay Forest, and there was nothing but trees on each side of the road. If her guess was right, she could reach the city by going straight in that direction.

She looked behind her and saw the soldier talking to one of his partners. They were probably talking about her. Her guess was proven correct when they both chuckled about something and then looked right at her. Claire smiled and put her helmet back on, although she left the visor up.

She hit the gas and drove right off the highway. Her bike bumped down and up over the gully, kicking up dirt and leaves as it drove up through the grass into the trees. She slowed down enough to glance back over her shoulder, and was not surprised to see soldiers pointing at her and shouting.

She could not drive very fast, but she could move fast enough to keep ahead of them. Motorcycles, even Harleys, were not meant to drive on an uneven forest floor covered in branches and roots and full of hidden holes and gullies. Claire laughed as her bike bumped and bounced across the ground, gunning the engine to speed across open sections, trying to keep as far as she could from the trees, since their gnarled roots would cause a problem.

She eased up on the gas and held herself firm as the motorcycle rolled down a hill, sliding down the wet leaves and grass. It crunched into a rocky section of ground and then splashed through little streams here and there. Claire hoped that her suspension didn’t get damaged.

She kept in a general straight line for about fifteen minutes, although she had to circle around dips and small ravines and downed trees. But she managed to stay on the bike the entire time, avoiding anything that might get her stuck or knock her off.

She drove up a hill and slowed to a stop when she saw the city greeting her through the trees a little ways ahead. When she got close enough to get a clear view, she stopped and slowly removed her helmet.

There was smoke in the air, she could smell it. There was something else in the air too, something she couldn’t quite place. She overlooked a residential area, and could see down to rows of houses lined up along quaint little streets. But something was wrong, something didn’t look right.

She squinted at what appeared to be a crowd of people milling about in the middle of the street. They were too far away to see clearly, but Claire got chills watching them. They were just standing around for no particular reason. She spied along the yards and houses, but saw nothing out of place. But it just looked strange, she couldn’t explain why.

Very carefully, she drove her motorcycle along the edge of the ridge until she found a spot with a flat enough area for her to drive down into the city. Her bike slid down a slight hill and bumped up onto the street. Claire let it roll to a stop and looked around.

The house right in front of her had its front door wide open. Both cars were in the driveway. Claire looked at them for a moment and then shrugged. She flipped her visor down and hit the gas. Her bike roared to life and zoomed down the street.

She turned at the next intersection and headed for the city. She kept her head down and eyes forward, and when she approached a stop sign, she slowed down enough to glance to see if any cars were coming, and then she drove through without coming to a stop. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed someone walking down the sidewalk in her direction, but she didn’t look too closely. She had wasted two hours sitting in traffic, and now she was anxious to get to Chris’s apartment as soon as possible.

She went about six blocks and left the residential area for a four-lane street packed with gas stations, supermarkets, fast food restaurants, and strip malls. It was also packed with cars.

Claire stopped the bike and pulled off her helmet, staring in disbelief at the wreckage strewn across the entire avenue. Smashed-up cars, burning wreckage, shattered storefront windows. The entire street was a scene of mayhem and destruction.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

There was a dead body lying in the street, curled up against one of the wrecked cars. Before she could even get off the bike, she suddenly spotted another body slumped against one of the gas station pumps, blood pooled around its motionless body. And another dead body lying on the sidewalk. Claire could see them everywhere she looked.

She realized what the smell was. It was the smell of death.

Sensing movement off to her left, she turned her head and saw someone coming towards her from a fast food parking lot. It was a man wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, but the collar was ripped open to reveal a bloody gash across his neck. His skin was so pale it was almost white, and his eyes were wide open and staring at her. He reached out with a hand covered in gore.

There were more behind him. An entire crowd of people spilled out from behind the restaurant, all of them looking half-dead. Claire’s helmet slipped from her hand and clattered to the pavement.

She hit the gas and sped away, weaving in between wrecked cars in the street. She didn’t know where she was, so she picked a direction and drove up onto the sidewalk to avoid the gridlock of abandoned cars. Bodies were everywhere, just sprawled in the street or crumpled up lying in the grass. All of them were mutilated, chewed on or mauled up, their faces and throats covered in blood. A few of them started moving when she drove by, as if reanimated by the sound of her motorcycle. Bloody figures emerged from the traffic jam, lurching in her direction as she sped by.

She saw more people walking around, all of them stumbling like drunks, their faces pale and eyes unblinking. They moaned or grumbled when they noticed her, and immediately began to stumble in her direction. Claire rode right past them, barely able to concentrate on what she was seeing.

The blockade. There was no hazardous truck accident at all. The roadblock was there solely to keep people out of the city, but it also kept people in. And the soldiers guarding it weren’t regular soldiers like the National Guard, they were an independent military force. Some kind of mercenary outfit. Hired to block access to the city and keep whatever was going on here contained.

Some kind of disease? Claire could not even imagine what kind of disease could do this to people. Some kind of drug, maybe? Something sprayed over the residents to drive them insane and ... and what? The people she saw had mortal injuries and they were still on their feet, still walking around, still alive. But you couldn’t live with your throat completely torn out or your face half ripped off. These people shouldn’t be alive, they couldn’t be alive.

But then what? What was the alternative?

“Chris,” Claire whispered. “Where are you?”

She kept going down the street, passing more wrecked cars, blocked intersections, and destroyed storefronts. And everywhere she went, there were more people milling around. In one crowd she saw a man wearing a green and brown camouflage uniform.

She wasn’t going very fast because there was too much in her way. When she found an open stretch of street she sped up, but most of the time she was barely able to keep her speed above fifteen miles an hour. Instead of watching in front of her, she kept looking to the side at all the destruction and at the crowds of people, unable to look away from the devastation that surrounded her.

She didn’t see the open manhole until the last second. Her front wheel fell right inside and the bike smashed into the opening, throwing Claire over the handlebars and down to the street. The bike flipped upside down, the front wheel a mangled wreck, and smashed down onto its side.

She’d only been going about twelve miles an hour, so her fall to the street wasn’t much worse than if she’d fallen while running as fast as she could. But the abruptness of it made her feel as if she’d crashed while going over a hundred. She landed flat on her back, knocking the wind out of her, and her body tumbled across the pavement, her arms up to protect her head. After it was over, she groaned in pain, trying to get onto her hands and knees. She winced in pain as she got onto her knees, her head spinning. Luckily, her pants and jacket took most of the contact with the road, leaving her arms free of scrapes and abrasions. She didn’t even think she was bleeding anywhere.

Unsuccessfully, she tried to regain her balance. After a few tries, she managed to get onto her feet, but she could not stay upright. Her legs wobbled and she fell back down. Blinking away the blurriness in her vision, she looked up to see people coming toward her.

“No, no, no, no,” she whispered frantically, struggling to get to her feet.

The bike was totaled, she knew it immediately. Riding away from here was out of the question. She gritted her teeth and got up, pushing herself upright. Her head pounded and her legs felt like wet noodles, but she staggered away from the encroaching crowd and limped down the street.

Even limping, she could move faster than they could, but there were so many of them that there was nowhere to go. She hurried down the street, past a few two-story buildings with convenience stores and appliance rental stores on the main floor and apartments above. There was a dance studio and a realtor’s office and a payday loan store. Claire limped down the street as more people emerged from alleys and from behind wrecked cars.

She turned down another street and saw an entire city bus on its side, fire flickering from the shattered windows. Two smashed cars were up against the bus, and several dead bodies were lying around. Claire looked down and saw that one of the corpses had a bullet hole in its head.

She slowed down and limped up to the sidewalk to get around the bus, when a woman wearing a police uniform suddenly lunged out from an open doorway. Claire screamed and swung her arm up to knock the woman away, and they both fell to the ground. The woman groaned and her fingers scraped against Claire’s boots. She crawled away and tried to get to her feet, screaming for help, but the woman grabbed her leg and pulled her back. Claire kicked out and struck her in the face.

Rolling onto her back, Claire tried to scramble away, but she smacked the back of her head against a fire hydrant. As she lay there stunned, the woman got to her feet and took a step forward, reaching out for her. Claire looked up into the dead woman’s bloodshot eyes and felt as if her life was about to flash in front of her eyes.

A loud gunshot rang out, and Claire flinched as the woman’s head jerked back and she flopped over. Claire felt a strong arm pulling her to her feet.

“Come on, let’s go,” a rough male voice said urgently.

Claire let herself be pulled forward and shoved through a doorway into one of the stores nearby. She looked around and saw an entire wall full of guns. She felt dizzy and sick and wanted nothing more than to just lie down.

“Hey,” the man said, suddenly suspicious. He grabbed her arm. “You ain’t been bit by any of them, have you?”

Claire shook her head. “No,” she said wearily. “I crashed my motorcycle. I’m still kind of dizzy.”

“Oh, alright then.” The man was shorter than Claire, with a pudgy build and a scruffy brown beard tinged with gray. “That makes sense. I didn’t think there was anyone left running around outside. I heard you scream and came out to check.”

Claire shook her head and felt as if the weight of everything she had seen was about to knock her down, and her repressed emotions about to come spilling out like a torrent. But instead, she just asked desperately, “What happened to this city?”

The man put his hand on her shoulder supportively and leaned forward as if to give her a secret. His voice was low and threatening. “I’ll tell you what happened. It’s the end of the goddamn world, that’s what.”

<--Previous Chapter|Next Chapter-->