keys.
And the Tyrant, somehow the worst because you
could see that it had been human once; before the surg-
eries, before the genetic tampering and the T-virus.
So it wasn't just the T-virus loose in Raccoon. As
awful as the realization was, it wasn't exactly shocking;
Umbrella had been messing around with some very
dangerous stuff, breeding slaughtering, nightmare chil-
dren like some aberrant God without preparing for the
inevitable consequences; sometimes, nightmares didn't
just go away.
Unless ... unless they did this on purpose.
No. If they'd meant to destroy Raccoon City, they
would have evacuated their own people ... wouldn't
they?
It was a question that haunted her on her journey to
the police station. Seeing the Hunter had made up her
mind for her about what to do next; she simply had to
have more ammo, and she knew there'd be some in the
S.T.A.R.S. office, in the gun safe - 9mm, probably
shotgun shells, maybe even one of Barry's old re-
volvers.
The station wasn't too far away, at least. She stuck
to the growing shadows, easily dodging the few zom-
bies she passed; many of them had decayed too much
to move any faster than a slow walk. One of the
gates she had to pass through to get to the station had
been heavily roped and knotted, the knots soaked
with oil. She gave herself a mental kick for forget-
ting to bring a knife; lucky for her she'd picked up a
lighter at the Bar Jack, although she worried some
about the smoke drawing attention to her position
until she got through the gate and saw the heap of
burning debris farther ahead, just in front of Um-
brella's medical sales offices. Damage left over from
the riots, she guessed. She thought about stopping to
put out the flames, but there didn't seem to be any
danger of their spreading in the cement and brick al-
leyway.
So, here she was, standing at the gates to the RPD
courtyard. The rioting had been bad here. Trashed
cars, broken barricades, and orange emergency cones
littered the street, though there were no bodies amidst
the rubble. To her right, a fire hydrant spewed a foun-
tain of hissing water into the air. The gentle sound of
splashing water might even have been pleasant in an-
other circumstance - a hot summer day, children
laughing and playing. Knowing that no fireman or city
worker would be coming to fix the gushing
hydrant made her ache inside, and the thought of chil-
dren ... it was too much; she blocked it out, deter-
mined not to let herself start thinking about things she couldn't fix. She had enough to worry about.
Such as stocking up on supplies ... so what are you
waiting for, anyway? A written invitation?
Jill took a deep breath and pushed the gates open,
wincing at the squeal of rusty metal. A quick scan told
her the small, fenced yard was empty; she lowered her
weapon, relieved, and carefully closed the gates before
moving toward the heavy wooden doors of the RPD
building. A lot of cops had died out in the streets,
which would make this easier for her, as terrible as that
was; not as many carriers to deal with once she got in-
side...
Sqreeak!
Behind her, the gates swung open. Jill spun, almost
firing at the figure that crashed into the yard, until she
realized who it was.
"Brad!"
He stumbled toward the sound of her voice, and she
saw that he was badly wounded. He clutched his right
side, blood dripping over his fingers, a look of com-
plete terror on his face as he reached toward her with
his free hand, gasping.
"juh ... Jill!"
She stepped toward him, so focused on him that
when he suddenly disappeared, she didn't understand
what had happened. A wall of black had sprung up be-
tween them, a blackness that emitted a deep, rumbling
howl of fury, that started toward Brad and shook the
ground with each massive step.
"Sstaarrss," it clearly said, the word nearly hidden beneath a wavering growl like that of a wild animal,
and Jill knew what it was without seeing its face; she
knew it like she knew her own dreams.
Tyrant.
Brad fell backwards, shaking his head as if to deny
the approaching creature, staggering in a half circle and
stopping when his back hit brick. In the split second
before it reached him, Jill could see it in profile; time
seemed to stop for that instant, allowing her to really
see it, to see that it wasn't her nightmare Tyrant, but no
less horrible for that; in fact, it was worse.
Between seven and eight feet tall, humanoid, its
shoulders impossibly broad, its arms longer than they
should have been. Only its hands and head were visi-
ble, the rest of its strangely proportioned body clothed
in black, except for what appeared to be tentacles,
slightly pulsing ropes of flesh that were only half
tucked under its collar, their points of origin unseen. Its
hairless skin was the color and texture of badly healed
scar tissue, and its face looked as though whoever had
designed the creature had decided not to bother, instead pulling a too-tight sack of torn leather over its rudimen-
tary skull. Misshapen white slits for eyes were set too
low and separated by an irregular line of thick surgical
staples. Its nose was barely formed, but the dominant
feature by far was its mouth, or lack thereof; the lower
half of its face was teeth, giant and square, lipless, set
against dark red gums.
Time started again when the creature reached out
and covered Brad's entire face with one hand, still
growling as Brad tried to say something, panting in
high, wheezing gasps beneath its palm...
... and there was an awful, wet squishing sound,
heavy but slick, like someone punching a hole in meat.
Jill saw a flesh tentacle sticking out from the back of
Brad's neck and understood that he was dead, that he
would bleed out in seconds. Numbly, she saw that the
ropelike appendage was moving, swaying like a blind
snake, droplets of blood falling from its muscular
length. The Tyrant-thing grasped Brad's skull, and in a
single, fluid motion, it lifted the dead pilot and tossed
him aside, retracting the killing tentacle back into its
sleeve before Brad hit the ground.
"Sstaarrss," it said again, turning to face her, and as it focused its attention to her, Jill felt a fear greater than
any she'd ever known.
The Beretta would be useless. She turned and
sprinted, barreling through the doors to the RPD, slam-
ming and dead-bolting them behind her, all on instinct;
she was too frightened to think about what she was
doing, too frightened to do anything but back away
from the double doors as the monster slammed into
them, rattling them on their hinges.
They held. Jill was very still, listening to the pound
of blood in her ears, waiting for the next blow. Long
seconds dragged by, and nothing happened, but full
minutes passed before she dared to look away, and even
the realization that it had stopped for the moment
brought her no relief.
Brad had been right, it was coming for them and
now that he was dead, it would be coming for her.
SEVEN
GOD HELP ME, I'VE FINALLY SEEN IT FOR MYSELF;
God help us all.
They lied to us. Dr. Robison and the Umbrella people
held a press conference at the hospital just this morning,
and they damn near insisted that there's no need to
panic - that the cases being called in were isolated events,
that the victims were suffering from the flu; not, accord-
ing to them, the so-called cannibal disease that the S.T.A.R.S. were going on about in July, in spite of what a
few "paranoid" citizens are now saying. Chief Irons was
there, too, he backed the docs up and reiterated his views
on the defunct S.T.A.R.S.'s incompetence; case closed,
right? Nothing to worry about.
We were on our way back to the office from the press
conference, south on Cole Street, and there was a commo-
tion holding up traffic, a couple of stopped cars and a gath-
ering crowd. No cops on the scene. I thought it was some
minor accident and started to back up, but Dave wanted to
get a few shots; he still had two rolls of film left from the
hospital, what the hell. We got out and suddenly people
were running, screaming for help, and we saw three pedes-
trians down in the middle of the street, and there was
blood everywhere. The attacker was young, barely twenty,
white male - he was straddling an older man, and...
My hands are shaking, I don't know how to say it, I
don't want to say it but it's my job. People have to know. I
can't let this get to me.
He was eating one of the older man's eyes. The other
two victims were dead, slaughtered, an elderly woman and
a younger one, both of them with bloody throats and faces.
The younger woman's abdomen had been ripped open.
It was chaos, total hysteria - crying, shouting, even
some crazy laughter. Dave snapped two pies and then
threw up on himself. I wanted to do something, I did, but
those people were already dead and I was afraid. The
young man slurped away, digging his fingers into the
man's other eye, seemingly oblivious to everything else; he
was actually moaning like he couldn't get enough, gore all
over him.
We heard the sirens and backed off along with everyone
else. Most people left, but a few stayed, pale and sick and
frightened. I got the story from a chubby shopkeeper who
couldn't stop wringing his hands, though there wasn't
much else to tell - the kid apparently just wandered onto
the street and grabbed a woman, started biting her. The
shopkeeper said the woman's name was Joelle something-
or-other, and she was walking with her mother, a Mrs. Mur-
ray (the shopkeeper didn't know her first name). Mrs.
Murray tried to stop the attack, and the kid turned on her.
A couple of men tried to help, jumping the kid, and he
managed to get one of them, too. After that, nobody tried
to help anymore.
The cops showed up and before they even looked at the
mess in the street - at the freakshow kid lunching on his
fellow man - they cleared and secured the scene. Three
squad cars surrounded the attacker, blocking him from
view. The shopkeeper was actually told to close up and go
home, along with the rest of us. When I told one of the offi-
cers that Dave and I were with the press, he confiscated Dave's camera; said it was evidence, which is total and
utter bullshit, like they have a right...
Listen to me, worried about freedom of the press at this
point. It doesn't matter. At four o'clock this afternoon, one
hour ago, Mayor Harris declared martial law; blockades
have been set up all over the place, and we've been cut off
from the outside. According to Harris, the city's been quar-
antined so that the "unfortunate illness that is plaguing
some of our citizens" won't spread. He wouldn't call it the
cannibal disease, but there's obviously no question - and
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