It was an abomination, at least eight feet tall, once
human, perhaps, but no more. Its right hand, normal.
Its left, a massive, chitinous grasp of claws. Its face had
been horribly altered, its lips cut away so that it
seemed to grin at them through sliced red tissue. Its
naked body was sexless, the thick, bloody tumor that
was its heart shuddering wetly outside of its chest.
Chris targeted the pulsing muscle with his Beretta
and fired, five 9mm rounds tearing into its ghastly
flesh; the Tyrant didn't even slow down. Barry
screamed for them to scatter, and then they were run-
ning, Jill pulling Rebecca away, the thunder of Barry's
.357 crashing behind them. Overhead, the 'copter cir-
cled and Jill could feel the seconds ticking away, al-
most believed she could feel the explosion building
beneath their feet.
She and Rebecca pulled their weapons and started firing. Jill continued to pull the trigger even as she
watched the creature knock Barry to the ground, slam-
ming in a new clip as it went after Chris, firing and
screaming, enveloped by a rising terror, "why won't it go down?"
From above, a shout, and something thrown out of
the 'copter. Chris ran for it, and Jill saw nothing else
nothing but the Tyrant as it turned its attention to her
and Rebecca, indifferent to the firepower that contin-
ued plugging bloody holes through its strange body. Jill
turned and ran, saw the girl do the same, and knew -
- knew that the monster was after her, the face of Jill
Valentine embedded in its lizard brain.
Jill ran, ran, and suddenly there was no heliport, no
crumbling mansion, only a million trees and the
sounds: her boots slapping the earth, the pulse of blood
in her ears, her ragged breath. The monster was silent
behind her, a mute and terrible force, relentless and as
inevitable as death.
They were dead, Chris and Barry, Rebecca, even
Brad, she knew it, everyone but her - and as she ran,
she saw the Tyrant's shadow stretch out in front of her,
burying her own, and the hiss of its monstrous talons
slicing down, melting through her body, killing her, no...
No...
"No!"
Jill opened her eyes, the word still on her lips, the
only sound in the stillness of her room. It wasn't the
scream she imagined, but the weak, strangled cry of a
woman doomed, caught in a nightmare from which
there was no escape.
Which I am. None of us were fast enough, after all.
She lay still for a moment, breathing deeply, moving
her hand away from the loaded Beretta under her pil-
low; it had become a reflex, and one she wasn't sorry to
have developed.
"Useless against nightmares, though," she muttered and sat up. She'd been talking to herself for days now;
sometimes, she thought it was the only thing that kept
her sane. Gray light crept in through the blinds, casting
the small bedroom in shadow. The digital clock on the
nightstand was still working; she supposed she should
be glad that the power was still on, but it was later than
she'd hoped - nearly three in the afternoon. She'd slept
for almost six hours, the most she'd managed to get in
the last three days. Considering what was going on out-
side, she couldn't help a flush of guilt. She should be
out there, she should be doing more to save those who
could still be saved...
Knock it off, you know better. You can't help anyone
if you collapse. And those people you helped...
She wouldn't think about that, not yet. When she'd
finally made it back to the suburbs this morning, after
nearly forty-eight sleepless hours of "helping," she'd
been on the verge of a breakdown, forced to face the re-
ality of what had happened to Raccoon: The city was
irretrievably lost to the T-virus, or some variant of it.
Like the researchers at the mansion. Like the Tyrant.
Jill closed her eyes, thinking about the recurring
dream, about what it meant. It matched the real chain
of events perfectly, except for the end - Brad Vickers, the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha pilot, had thrown something out
of the 'copter, a grenade launcher, and Chris had blown
up the Tyrant as it was going after her. They'd all got-ten away in time ... but in a way, that didn't matter.
For all the good they'd been able to accomplish since
then, they might as well have died.
It's not our fault, Jill thought angrily, aware that she wanted to believe that more than anything. No one would listen - not the home office, not Chief Irons, not
the press. If they'd listened, if they'd believed...
Strange, that all of it had happened only six weeks
ago; it felt like years. The city officials and the local
papers had enjoyed a field day with the S.T.A.R.S.'s
reputation - six dead, the rest babbling fantastic stories
about a secret laboratory, about monsters and zombies
and an Umbrella conspiracy. They had been suspended
and ridiculed, but worst of all, nothing had been done
to prevent the spread of the virus. She and the others
had only been able to hope that the destruction of the
spill site had put an end to the immediate danger.
In the weeks following, so much had happened.
They'd uncovered the truth about the S.T.A.R.S., that
Umbrella - technically, White Umbrella, the division in
charge of bioweapons research - was either bribing or
blackmailing key members nationally in order to con-
tinue their research unimpeded. They'd learned that
several of Raccoon City's council members were on the
Umbrella payroll, and that Umbrella probably had
more than one research facility experimenting with
man-made diseases. Their search for information about
Trent, the stranger who'd contacted her before the dis-
astrous mission as "a friend to the S.T.A.R.S.," had
turned up nothing, but they'd come up with some ex-
tremely interesting background stuff on Chief Irons: it
seemed that the chief had been in hot water at one point
about a possible rape, and that Umbrella knew about it
and had helped him get his position anyway. Perhaps
most difficult of all, their team had been forced to split
up, to make hard decisions about what needed to be
done and about their own responsibilities to the truth.
Jill smiled faintly; the one thing she could feel good about in all of this was that at least her friends had
made it out. Rebecca Chambers had joined up with an-
other small group of S.T.A.R.S. dissidents who were
checking out rumors of other Umbrella laboratories.
Brad Vickers, true to his cowardly nature, had skipped
town to avoid Umbrella's wrath. Chris Redfield was al-
ready in Europe, scoping out the company's headquar-
ters and waiting for Barry Burton and Rebecca's team
to join him ... and for Jill, who was going to wrap up
her investigation of Umbrella's local offices before
hooking up with the others.
Except five days ago, something terrible had hap-
pened in Raccoon. It was still happening, unfolding
like some poisonous flower, and the only hope now
was to wait for someone outside to take notice.
When the first few cases had been reported, no one
had connected them with the S.T.A.R.S. stories about
the Spencer estate. Several people had been attacked in
the late spring and early summer - surely the work of
some deranged killer, after all; the RPD would catch
him in no time. It wasn't until the Raccoon Police De-
partment had put up roadblocks on Umbrella orders,
three days earlier, that people had started paying atten-
tion. Jill didn't know how they were managing to keep
people out of the city, but they were - nothing shipped
in, no mail service, and the outside lines were cut. Citi-
zens trying to leave town were turned back, told noth-
ing about why.
It all seemed so surreal now, those first hours after
Jill had found out about the attacks, about the block-
ades. She'd gone to the RPD building to see Chief
Irons, but he had refused to talk to her. Jill had known
that some of the cops would listen, that not everyone
was as blind or corrupt as Irons - but even with the
bizarre nature of the assaults they'd witnessed, they
hadn't been ready to accept the truth.
And who could blame them? "Listen up, officers -- Umbrella, the company that's responsible for building up our fair city, has been experimenting with a de-
signer virus in their own backyard. They've been
breeding and growing unnatural creatures in secret
laboratories, then injecting them with something that
makes them incredibly strong and extremely violent.
When humans are exposed to this stuff, they become
zombies, for lack of a better term. Flesh-eating, mind-
less, decaying-on-the-hoof zombies, who feel no pain
and try to eat other people. They're not really dead,
but they're pretty close. So, let's work together, okay?
Let's go out there and start mowing down unarmed cit-
izens in the streets, your friends and neighbors, be-
cause if we don't, you could be next."
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Jill sighed. She'd been
a little more tactful, but no matter how well worded, it
was still an insane story. Of course they hadn't believed
her, not then, not in the light of day and in the safety of
their uniforms. It hadn't been until after dark, when the
screaming had begun...
That had been the 25th of September, and today was
the 28th, and the police were almost certainly all dead;
she'd last heard gunshots ... yesterday? Last night? It
could have been the rioters, she supposed, but it didn't
matter anymore. Raccoon was dead, except for the
brain-dead virus carriers that roamed the streets, look-
ing for a meal.
Between no sleep and a near constant pump of
adrenaline, the days had blurred together for her.
After the police force had been destroyed, Jill had
spent her time looking for survivors, endless hours
ducking down alleys, knocking on doors, combing
buildings for those who'd managed to hide. She'd
found dozens, and with some help from a few of
them, they'd made it to a safe place, a high school that
they had barricaded. Jill had made sure they were se-
cure before going back out into the city, searching for
others.
She'd found no one. And this morning, when she'd
gone back to the high school...
She didn't want to think about it, but some part of
her knew that she had to, that she couldn't afford to for-
get. This morning, she'd gone back and the barricade
had been gone. Torn down by zombies, or perhaps
taken down by someone inside, someone who looked
out and thought they saw a brother or uncle or daughter
in the crowd of flesh-eaters. Someone who thought that
they were saving the life of a loved one, not realizing
that it was too late.
It had been a slaughterhouse, the air fetid with the
stink of shit and vomit, the walls decorated with great
smears of blood. Jill had nearly given up, then, more
tired than she'd ever been, unable to see anything but
the bodies of those who'd been lucky enough to die be-
fore the virus could amplify in their systems. As she'd
walked through the almost empty halls, killing the
handful of carriers that had still been stumbling
around - people she'd found, people who had cried
with relief when they'd seen her only hours before -
- whatever hope she'd held on to was gone, lost with the
realization that everything she'd been through was
worthless. Knowing the truth about Umbrella hadn't
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