Escape From Raccoon City

Chapter Eighteen

After he left the sewers, Hunk headed down an abandoned residential street on his long trek out of the city. His leg burned in agony, almost certainly infected despite his attempts at first aid. He limped, wincing in pain at each step he took, one hand supporting his leg and the other loosely holding his pistol, which was down to two shots now. His face was dotted with sweat, the exertion clear on his features.

He gritted his teeth and forced the pain back, to little effect. At this point, he had to face facts. He was not going to make it out of the city, wounded as he was.

He paused in the middle of the street, looking around with a tired, hopeless expression, and walked up to the sidewalk to a nearby house. The front door was wide open, like so many other houses. UBCF agents had probably checked these houses much earlier, before being forced to retreat against the hordes of undead.

Hunk went to the front door and reached inside to switch on the lights in the front hallway. He leaned in the doorway for a moment, breathing heavily, listening for any sounds inside. Slowly, keeping his attention firmly on the hallway in front of him, Hunk stepped inside, keeping his gun aimed straight in front of him.

After a thorough inspection, he determined that the house was empty, but in the kitchen he saw the back door smashed off its hinges and a huge mass of blood smeared all over the floor. He barely reacted at the thought of what had gone down, and didn’t even care about the children’s toys lying in the middle of the living room. He was long past feeling any sympathy for the residents of Raccoon City.

He walked into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet over the sink, knocking aside prescription bottles until he found what he was looking for, a tube of Neosporin. Wincing in pain, he sat down on the toilet and pulled off his pants to expose the bloody bandage wrapped around his thigh. The bandages were soaked with sticky blood, and he cut them off to expose the ragged gash on his leg.

He would have preferred to wash the wound out, but he wasn’t about to use any water from the sink. Even as tired as he was, he could still think clearly. Instead, he just used a handcloth to wipe away most of the blood, and then smeared the entire wound with Neosporin, gasping in pain as he did so, his hands trembling. It wasn’t as good as hydrogen peroxide, but it would have to do.

He managed to limp to the master bedroom and knocked everything off the large oak dresser, photographs and candles and other items, then emptied out the drawers, dumping their contents onto the floor. He was looking for a sewing kit, and after a few minutes found one in the closet under some blankets and shoe boxes.

It was years since he’d stitched a wound closed, and that time it was a wound on someone else. He sat on the bed and steeled himself to the task ahead. Very carefully, very slowly, each movement of his hand sending a spike of pain through his leg, he used a needle and thread to stitch up the wound on his thigh. By the time he was done, his face dripped with sweat and he was completely exhausted. He knew that if he laid down in bed, he would fall asleep immediately.

But instead, he stood up on wobbly legs and limped to the closet again. He took out a gray dress shirt and cut it into strips, which he tied around his leg as makeshift bandages. And then he pulled off the rest of his dirty, bloody UBCF uniform and got dressed in a stranger’s clothes. He put on a pair of baggy jeans and a white t-shirt, and over that he pulled on a dark green hooded sweatshirt with the words “RCHS Raccoons!” on the front in bold yellow letters. He couldn’t find a pair of shoes that fit him, so he put his black boots back on and walked back to the kitchen.

He checked the clock and did some quick math in his head. No one had specifically told him what Umbrella’s ultimate plan was in case of an emergency of this magnitude, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that simply sending in more soldiers wasn’t going to do the job. Something much more powerful was needed. The only possible way to deal with the undead infestation like this was by destroying the entire city block by block. If Hunk’s hunch was correct, right now at some nearby military airport, a fighter jet was loading up on incendiary bombs, or maybe even something with a bit more punch. He was determined to be out of the city long before it came here.

He had some time, though. It wasn’t even midnight yet, and there were still probably a few UBCF units still in the city at the command station. Hunk figure he had four or five hours to get beyond the city limits. More than enough time, he hoped.

Ignoring the absurdity of the situation, he prepared some sandwiches and ate them at the kitchen table, only a few feet away from a gory murder scene. He was too tired, too weak, and too hungry to care about the people who used to live here.

Quite frankly, he didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.

He drank a can of soda from the fridge to wash down the sandwiches, and then retrieved his gun and his combat knife, the only weapons he had left. He made his way back to the front door and went outside. He didn’t bother to turn the lights off before he left.

Whatever happened now, Hunk figured that his employment with Umbrella had reached its inevitable end. He had remained a loyal employee throughout most of the crisis, but he was done. Everyone had a breaking point, and Hunk had reached his.

He didn’t feel like sitting through the endless interrogations and debriefings that he was sure to face if he made it out of the city. They would stick him in a room for days and he’d have to answer the same questions over and over. Umbrella would pick him apart, examining his testimony for any inconsistencies, looking for poor decisions or questionable judgment on his part. He would be forced to remember every gruesome, violent, terrible moment of the last few days, and repeat them all in exacting detail.

And the funny part was that after his interrogation was over, regardless of his answers, he would be returned to the UBCF with a promotion and a raise. Umbrella had lost too many men in this disaster. They couldn’t afford to terminate anyone who managed to survive. They needed every single person they could get, especially those with command experience. Experienced soldiers would be in short supply.

But Hunk wanted none of it. He didn’t want to sit through their pointless interrogation, and he didn’t want their promotion. After the last few hours of limping painfully through a deserted city full of the undead, Hunk decided it was time to change careers. Besides, there were plenty of other private military organizations that would be happy to have someone with his background. Maybe he’d go back to doing federally-sanctioned black ops work for one of the numerous security companies that the Pentagon contracted out to. The pay might not be as good, but at least he wouldn’t have to fight undead creatures and other biological monstrosities.

A few blocks later, he stumbled upon a crashed police cruiser, and helped himself to the weapons in the trunk, including a Glock and a combat shotgun. Thus armed, he continued down the street, heading for the mountains in the near distance. By his reckoning, he was only a few miles away from the outskirts of the city. He would leave the city with time to spare.

A few more miles was all he had to go, and then he was done. He continued down the lonely, silent street, hoping that his luck held out just a little bit longer.

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