Escape From Raccoon City

Chapter Eleven

“Jill? Jill!”

The voice woke her and she jerked upright, not knowing where she was. The last few moments were a mystery; the last thing she remembered was jumping out the window and then plummeting to the ground.

She looked underneath her body and found newspapers, and lots of them. She was sprawled across a pile of bundled newspapers stacked up on the loading dock next to the newspaper office for delivery that morning. The pile had tipped over and now the newspapers spilled off the dock and across the ground behind the van. Jill crawled to her feet and climbed off the pile, her head pounding and legs unsteady.

She looked up to see flames pouring from the upper windows, thick black smoke lifting into the night sky. All around her was smoking debris and broken glass, including a huge chunk of burning wood that caved in the roof of the yellow delivery van. Jill absently felt lucky that none of the debris landed on her.

She still had the two ammo packs over her shoulder, and found the assault rifle lying on the pavement a few yards away. She almost lost her balance when she bent over to pick it up.

“Jill!” came the worried cry again.

“I’m over here!” Jill shouted, slinging the gun back over her shoulder, and stepped away from the loading dock. She glanced back and wondered how in the world she managed to land exactly on the pile of newspapers. They cushioned her landing just enough to prevent any broken bones. It was a miracle, really. The early morning workers must have stacked the papers there right before the infection hit. If Jill had chosen to jump out of a different window, she would have landed on the edge of the dock or even right on the pavement.

Carlos ran into the alley, a look of profound relief on his face. “Oh, man! Are you okay? What happened? How did you get out here?”

Jill staggered toward him and he took her arm. “It doesn’t matter,” she gasped painfully. “We have to get out of here.”

“I found a car,” Carlos said excitedly, “and the keys were inside! We can drive out of here! Come on, it’s right down the street.”

Carlos draped Jill’s arm over his shoulder and helped her walk down the street. The building continued to burn, sending flaming scraps of paper down to the street below like volcano ash. The fire crackled and snapped and more glass shattered. Jill painfully turned her head to look up at the fire as it swirled up into the sky.

The creature might have been right in the center of the explosion, but it wasn’t dead. Jill knew they couldn’t wait here long, because the creature would come back. There must be a way to kill it, but whatever it was, Jill hadn’t figured it out yet. So far, blowing it up only seemed to make it more angry.

“Where’d you find that stuff?” Carlos asked, eyeing her gun.

“There was another Umbrella soldier inside,” Jill answered. “I’m sorry, Carlos, but he was a zombie. I had to shoot him.”

“It’s okay, I understand.”

He led her across the street to a car parked on the sidewalk with the driver’s side door hanging open. Jill went to the passenger side and got in, while Carlos got in as well and took the wheel.

Jill rested her head and closed her eyes, letting herself rest for a moment, her breath still coming fast and her heart racing. She opened her eyes and cradled the assault rifle in her lap, as Carlos backed the car up and pulled back into the street. The tires bumped over the curb and Jill tilted her head wearily, looking into the rear view mirror.

The car drove forward slowly, weaving past more cars as Carlos tried to get them through the traffic jam. A female zombie wearing a waitress uniform pressed on the side window and groaned, but Carlos ignored it and drove right past.

Jill glanced back into the rear view mirror and saw the burning newspaper building in the reflection. She watched the fire intently for a moment, and saw something burst through the wall on the third floor and fly down to the street, shooting out of the building like a rocket, followed by a cascade of flaming wood and debris. It soared downward and landed directly on an abandoned car, crushing the roof with a heavy impact, making the car bend almost in half as flaming wreckage rained down around it.

Jill quickly turned around to look out the back window, gripping the rifle tighter. Behind them, the creature jumped off the smashed car, shaking its trenchcoat to swat away the flames. Its burnt and charred body seemed larger than before, as if the flames had fed it and made it grow. It glared at the retreating car and then began to run after it.

“Carlos!” Jill cried. “Step on it!”

Carlos hit the gas and the car sped forward down the blocked street. He swerved around more cars, the tires squealing on the concrete, as he and Jill bounced against each other as the car rocked back and forth. Jill changed position so that she was kneeling on the passenger seat, facing backward, and raised the gun to her shoulder.

“No, don’t!” Carlos shouted. “It’s too loud! Point it out the window!”

He spun the wheel and the car skidded across the next intersection, past a car that was flipped onto its roof. More zombies lined the sidewalk and reached out slowly as the car sped past.

The creature ran down the street after them, arms pumping like pistons, the ragged trenchcoat flapping behind it. It barely slowed down as it ran in between the cars, gaining on the car as Carlos had to keep slowing down to avoid crashing.

“Which way do I go?” he shouted.

“It doesn’t matter! Just drive!”

Jill climbed into the back seat and drew her pistol to shoot out the back window. She used the machine gun to break away any loose shards of glass around the edge, and then crouched down to aim the gun through the opening.

She rolled to the side as Carlos steered the car down a side street, since the main street was blocked. He glanced back at her nervously and then faced forward again, gripping the wheel tightly as the car hurtled down the avenue.

Jill had never fired a machine gun like this before, but she knew enough about weapons not to hurt herself. She braced the stock of the gun tightly against her shoulder and hunkered down over the back seat, lowering her head to look down the barrel of the gun. She tried to keep a steady aim as the car swerved to the left and right.

When the creature came into view, Jill aimed carefully but hesitated before opening fire. She’d already seen how little the creature was effected by bullets, but what else could she do? As the car slowed down to maneuver past more abandoned cars, the creature gained ground and quickly caught up with them. Carlos swore angrily and steered the car up onto the sidewalk, smashing aside metal garbage cans and large blue mail boxes before spinning the wheel to get them back on the street. The creature pursued them relentlessly, only half a block behind them now. Every time they got ahead of it, Carlos had to slow down to keep from running into something.

Shooting the creature in the chest or the head didn’t seem to slow it down, but earlier today, Jill managed to cripple it by driving a truck into it and crushing its legs. That gave her an idea. She turned to look out the front windshield and directed Carlos to keep going straight.

“Go as fast as you can!” she shouted. “Get some distance between us!”

“But the road is blocked!”

“I know! Just do it!”

Carlos slammed down the accelerator and the car roared down the empty avenue, leaving the creature in the dust. But at the end of the street, there was yet another blockade of abandoned cars facing in all directions. Carlos hit the brakes and the car screeched to a shaking stop, white smoke shooting from the tires.

Jill took a deep breath and aimed carefully as the creature ran at them. She slowly pulled the trigger and the gun boomed with a blast of gunfire.

The creature’s knee burst apart with a splatter of blood and it immediately collapsed to the ground, sliding to a stop. It howled and slammed its fists against the concrete, and crawled back up on one leg. It seemed impervious to gunfire, but it wasn’t bulletproof. Even a monster like that couldn’t run after them with its knees blown out.

Jill took aim again and squeezed the trigger. The creature screamed in frustration as its other kneecap blew apart and it fell back to the ground, unable to stand. It lifted itself up and bellowed again, pulling itself along the ground, dragging its wounded legs behind it.

“Good shooting,” Carlos said in disbelief, looking back at the wounded creature. “So where am I going now?”

“Just take that alley,” Jill said, turning around in the seat. She held the assault rifle across her lap and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I know where we are. It’s not very far to the city park from here.”

Carlos backed up and drove the car down a nearby alley. Behind them, the creature continued to scream and howl furiously, crawling after them. Jill knew that before too long, its legs would heal and it would be able to run after them again, but at least for now they had some breathing room. Maybe it would give her some time to figure out a way to stop it again.

She was so tired of fighting it. Ever since she first encountered the creature, it haunted her like a spectre, dogging her every move. She understood why Brad was so scared of it. The creature pursued him first, before Jill found him in the restaurant.

Maybe if she wasn’t so utterly exhausted, she could put the pieces together, but the more she thought about it, the more she lost track. Brad’s apartment was partially demolished by a huge metal container dropped from a helicopter. According to Brad, the creature was inside the container, and immediately came after him when it was released. So that meant Umbrella must have deliberately dropped the creature into the city. But why would they do that?

The city was already overrun with zombies. What purpose would it serve to release some other creature they made in their lab? After all, the infection of the city was not an intentional act. Jill knew that, even though she still hated Umbrella for it. The city’s infection was an inevitable consequence of the accidental outbreak at the lab. But why would Umbrella make the infection worse by releasing more of their creations into the city?

Brad told her that the creature was chasing him. And now, long after Brad’s death, the creature was still relentlessly chasing after Jill. She’d traversed half the city and still the creature was after her. She was missing something, some important detail that would put it all into proper context, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

There was some kind of reason behind it all, but Jill was too mentally drained to figure it out. It wasn’t important anyway. The only thing she had to worry about was getting to the park and hopefully getting out of the city.

She would have time to solve mysteries later.

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