Escape From Raccoon City

Chapter Two

There was smoke in the air, making her eyes water, and a thick layer of dust, choking her lungs. She coughed weakly and tried to roll over, but something held her down. Muffled noises seemed to come from far away. She heard thumping, shuffling sounds, and the crackle of fire. She tried to focus, but her senses were blurred, as if she was awakening from surgery and was still woozy from the anesthetic. Slowly, with some effort, she tried to open her eyes.

All she could see was a side of a metal panel and a nearby pile of broken bricks and dirt. She reached out and felt the debris, as if testing to see if it was real. Her arms were covered in grayish dust and spotted with dried blood. She tried to sit up but was overcome with dizziness, and glanced down to see a thick metal pole and large streetcar seat pinning her legs to the ground.

Gradually, Jill Valentine realized where she was. The streetcar. The explosion. The crash. It all came back to her as a series of single, unconnected images, and she was motionless for a moment, trying to decipher the images into concrete memories.

She looked around more carefully as the cobwebs in her head drifted away, examining her surroundings. She was inside a derailed streetcar, which was now lying on its side. Tufts of grass and clumps of dirt stuck through the windows, which were now pressed against the ground. Directly above her were the windows on the other side, out of her reach. The doorway to the next car was in front of her, but was blocked by a section of crumbling wall.

She pushed against the seat on top of her legs, but it was jammed in place. She wiggled her feet and felt a surge of relief that her legs weren’t broken. In fact, she wasn’t injured as far as she could tell. She ran a hand across her face and it came away clean. There were spots of blood on her arms though, probably the result of tiny shards of glass during the crash. But being uninjured was a moot point if she couldn’t move.

She listened closely, hearing the thumping noises again. With a creeping sense of fear, she realized what the sound was. Random bumps, scratches, and groans. Jill’s heart began to beat faster and she was overcome with a sense of claustrophobia. She was trapped in the streetcar.

She pushed against the seat but couldn’t get any leverage against it. She began to panic as she saw flickers of flame drifting up above the windows where she could see. There was a fire burning nearby, and for all she knew it was going to ignite spilled oil or something and the whole streetcar would burst into flames. Her attempts to free herself became more frantic and hurried, but she couldn’t move the seat an inch.

She wanted to scream for help but didn’t dare. The zombies were probably everywhere and as long as she didn’t make any noise, maybe they wouldn’t know she was there.

“Please,” she dared whisper, trying to budge the seat to no avail.

When a gunshot rang out just on the other side of the streetcar, she almost screamed in fright. She gasped and cried out desperately, “Help me! Somebody! I can’t get out!”

There was the sound of someone, or something, climbing up the side of the streetcar, and Jill’s breath caught in her throat. A head popped into view directly above her, but it was too dark to see who it was.

“Help me,” she pleaded, staring up at the stranger.

“Okay, hold on. I’m coming down,” the person said.

It was the young Hispanic soldier Jill met earlier. She couldn’t remember his name. He swung his legs over the broken window and lowered himself into the streetcar, dropping down beside her. In the dim light, she saw a bloody smear across the side of his face and more blood on the front of his uniform.

“I’m stuck. I can’t move,” Jill said.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I tried to pull you out already. I had to go find something like this.” He held out a solid steel pipe about three feet long and jammed it under the seat that pinned Jill’s legs. He crouched down and pulled up, using the pipe as a lever to bend the metal frame. Jill pulled herself back and managed to slide a few inches. The soldier grunted and pulled harder, the seat lifting up slightly. It was enough for Jill to pull herself completely free, and she gasped with relief as she examined her legs, as if to make sure they weren’t broken. A few seconds later she managed to get onto her feet.

“Thank you,” she said gratefully.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s just go.”

“How many are out there?” Jill asked.

The soldier paused and said evasively, “There’s a lot of them. But it’s okay. We can still get out of here with no problem.”

There was more bumping and groaning outside the streetcar, as their voices attracted more unwanted attention. Jill patted her pocket where she had put her pistol, but the gun was gone. It must have come loose in the crash, but there was no finding it now. Jill didn’t want to go anywhere unarmed, and she stood there indecisively, glancing upward.

“We have to go,” the soldier said, holding out his hand. “There’s like a million of those things outside, and they’re gonna find a way in here if we don’t hurry.”

Jill buried her fear, as she had done a hundred times already today. The soldier lifted her up and she grabbed the edge of the window, and pulled herself up. She sat on the edge and froze in shock as she gazed out across the open area in front of the streetcar.

There was a grass yard about twenty yards long that sloped upward to the train tracks, and it was littered with debris and wreckage from the tremendous crash. Beyond that was the blocked intersection, with dozens of cars smashed and wrecked from the high-speed collision, some of them smashed flat and others knocked onto their sides. The front streetcar lay among the destroyed field of cars, also on its side. Numerous small fires burned here and there, sending plumes of smoke into the dark sky.

And in among all the wreckage, packed shoulder-to-shoulder from the tracks all the way to the streetcar where Jill sat, were hundreds of zombies. Maybe even more than a thousand. They surged forward like a violent crowd at a rock concert, more than Jill had ever seen packed into one place. It was like a moving ocean of the undead, spreading back almost as far as she could see.

Jill quickly started to climb down the other side, which faced the building they had crashed into. The streetcar was lying half inside the building and half outside, and all the zombies were stuck on the outside, unable to get past the car. The inside of the building looked safe.

She reached into the streetcar and helped the soldier climb out as well. Together, they climbed off the streetcar and into the building. The lights were on inside, revealing a bright hardwood floor and beautiful wooden support beams to the high ceiling. They were in a central lobby area, and Jill saw several doors on the other side that led to smaller side rooms.

The building was a church. Jill spied a large white cross on the wall in the front of the lobby, and smaller pictures on the walls were of religious figures like the Virgin Mary. Sadly, even a church was not safe for them.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the soldier. “I don’t remember your name.”

“Carlos Oliveira,” he answered. “You said your name is Jill, right?”

“Yes, Jill Valentine.”

Carlos picked up his assault rifle, which he had left sitting on the floor when he went to help Jill. He held it in both hands, one finger resting against the trigger, aiming it in front of them. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Valentine,” he said with a youthful grin.

Jill was too tired to smile back, but she did reach out to touch the blood on his face. “Are you hurt badly? Maybe we can find some bandages or something.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said. “It was just a little cut. It stopped bleeding already.”

“Okay. Do you have another gun, by any chance? I lost mine.”

“No, just this.”

“How much ammo do you have?”

“One clip,” Carlos said with a shrug.

“That’s not going to be enough,” Jill said slowly.

“It better be enough,” Carlos said with a not-quite-convincing smile. “Cause it’s all we got. I don’t think we’re gonna find more.”

Jill looked around the building, futilely hoping that maybe they were safe here and wouldn’t have to go outside. But she already knew that they weren’t safe. Nowhere was safe, because the zombies always found their way in. The only option was to try to get past the zombies and escape that way. If they stayed in this building, they were just going to be trapped here. Jill was somewhat relieved that Carlos understood this as well.

“The zombies are only on that side,” he said, pointing at the streetcar. “They aren’t really on the other side of the building at all. But if we wait here, they’re gonna surround the place.”

“You’re right,” Jill said. “I’m just ... I’m so tired of all this.”

“You made it this far, right?” Carlos said.

Jill nodded.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I wanna get the hell out of this place. I don’t wanna stay here another minute. I don’t want to die in this stupid city.”

“I tried to get out of the city already,” Jill said. “But the roads are all blocked.”

“Do you know how to get to the park? Our main command station is there, and they have helicopters. If we can get there, we can get out of the city that way.”

It was the first time all day that Jill had actually been given a specific plan. All day, she’d been just running from one place to the next with no clear goal in place, just trying to find a safe location or at the least, a place to rest. The thought of actually getting out of the city for good was enough for her. They had a goal in sight now, something for her to focus on.

“Okay,” she said. “Lead the way. You’re the one with the gun.”

Carlos went to the doors at the end of the lobby and carefully opened them up. Outside was a wide rear yard, fenced in with a high brick wall. A stone walkway led from the doors out to a metal gate, and the walkway was lined with bushes and small trees. Together, Carlos and Jill crept outside, but there were no zombies, as the brick wall effectively kept them outside.

“Looks pretty safe,” Jill said.

Carlos went out first, his rifle aimed forward, the stock pressed against his shoulder. Wherever he looked, the gun was aimed. Jill came out after him and they walked out into the open.

Along the side of the walkway was a large propane grill and behind that was a line of red picnic tables. Jill imagined that the churchgoers had barbecues and cookouts during the summer, but right now the grill was closed up and the picnic tables were empty, since it was getting late in the year for grilling. She wondered if any of the people who attended this church were still alive, but quickly abandoned that line of thought.

“Come on,” Carlos said. “We can jump the wall. I don’t think there are any zombies over here.”

“Okay,” Jill said. “Help me up and I’ll see if I can –”

Before she could finish the sentence, there was a terribly familiar sound, a deafening roar coming from far on the other side of the yard and echoing across the front of the building. A hideous, inhuman scream. Jill spun around and backed up into the wall, her heart pounding in her chest.

Carlos jerked the gun up and swung it back and forth in the direction of the sound. “What was that?! Is it that monster thing again?” he demanded to know.

“Yes! It’s coming after us again!”

“I though we killed that thing!”

“I don’t know how to kill it! It keeps coming back!”

Suddenly, the creature appeared as it jumped from behind the brick wall and soared into the air, landing with a trembling thud in the middle of the yard, its huge feet making indentations in the soft grass. It stood upright and clenched its monstrous fists, appearing like a creature from her deepest nightmares.

Part of its long black trenchcoat was burned away from the explosion, revealing a bulging shoulder colored sickly grayish pink. No clear muscle mass, just a twisted lump of flesh growing out of the jagged hole. Its face was seared and scorched, its large yellow eye seeming to glow in the twilight, its twisted mouth a gaping sore revealing sharp teeth and red gums.

“Oh dios mio,” Carlos whispered, backing up.

“Shoot it!” Jill screamed.

The creature stared right at her and hunched forward to scream again, flecks of gray saliva spitting from its crooked mouth as it bellowed its hatred, the sound reaching into Jill’s chest and squeezing her heart with a hand of ice. She gasped for breath and pushed back into the wall.

Carlos remained still but did not open fire. They both already knew what effect bullets had on the creature. Carlos’s teammates had riddled it with bullets back on the streetcar, only to be brutally killed moments later. One single clip of bullets would hardly slow the monster down.

“Shoot it!” Jill cried out again. “Please do something!”

The monster stalked forward, swatting aside the trees and bushes in its way. It stomped to the walkway and took one leaping stride toward them.

Carlos squeezed the trigger. But he didn’t aim at the monster. He squeezed off a single burst of gunfire, and his bullets struck the large tank on the back of the propane grill. There was a sudden whoosh of escaping gas and then a spark, and the entire grill exploded in a stunning fireball. A flash of tremendous heat and a swirling ball of fire shot into the sky, knocking both Carlos and Jill to the ground.

The monster was blown off its feet and hurled through the air, flipping over like a rag doll and crashing limply to the ground, the side of its massive body charred and smoking, bits of fire burning on its tattered coat. It lay motionless, its huge arms and legs in random directions, a twisted chunk of metal from the grill embedded in the center of its torso.

Jill stood up, staring at the burning remains of the grill in awe and then at the smoking body of the creature. Carlos stood as well and lowered his rifle.

“I didn’t think that was gonna work,” he said quietly.

“It’s not going to stay down,” Jill said. “We have to go now, before it gets back up.”

“Look at it,” Carlos said. “It’s dead, it’s got to be.”

“Trust me, I’ve already killed it twice today, and it came back each time. I don’t think it’s possible to kill it.”

Just as Carlos said, there were no zombies waiting for them across the wall. Attracted by the crash, all of the zombies congregated on the other side of the church, and so far none of them had wandered to this side. Jill sat atop the wall and helped Carlos up, and then they jumped down to the other side and took off across the street.

Streetlights illuminated the barren avenues as they ran away from the church and the enormous crowd of zombies beyond it. They ran down the center of the street, avoiding the sidewalks and nearby buildings. Carlos scanned the left and right, his assault rifle always pointing forward. Jill, desperately wishing she was carrying a gun, followed closely behind him.

“We have to find a car,” she said. “The city park is miles from here.”

“You know the way there, right?”

“Yes, but won’t make it there on foot. We need a car.”

They continued down the street, passing a few abandoned cars without keys. Jill felt horribly exposed out in the open, and kept glancing over her shoulder every few steps, constantly checking to see if the monster was coming after them.

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