JILL'S PLAN WAS TO SKIRT THE TOWN TO THE southeast, sticking to side streets and cutting through buildings as much as possible; the main streets weren't safe, and many of them had been blocked off in an at-tempt to corral the zombies, before things got too bad. If she could make it far enough south, she should be able to cut across farmland to Route 71, one of the feeders to the main highway.
      So far, so good. At this rate, I'll make it to 71 before it gets completely dark.
      It had taken less than an hour to make it from the suburbs to the apparently empty apartment building where she now stood, shivering a little from the damp chill that pervaded the poorly lit hallway. She'd dressed for ease of movement rather than protection from the elements – a tight shirt, a miniskirt, and boots, as well as a fanny pack to hold extra magazines. The body-hugging outfit clung to her like a second skin and would allow her to move quickly. She'd also brought a plain white sweatshirt for when she made it out of the city, which she now wore tied around her waist – for the time being, she'd rather suffer the chill and have her arms free. The Imperial was a slightly run-down apartment building at the southern edge of uptown Raccoon. Jill had discovered from her earlier excursions that once in-fected, the T-virus zombies went in search of food as soon as they could, abandoning their homes and taking to the streets. Not all of them, of course, but enough so that cutting through buildings was generally safer than being out in the open. A noise. A soft moan coming from behind one of the apartment doors farther down the hall. Jill froze, gun in hand, straining to hear which side it came from, and realized in the same moment that she could smell gas. "Shit," she whispered, trying to recall the layout of the building as the oily, pungent scent filled her nos-trils. A right turn where the corridor T-ed ahead, and…… and, another right? Or is the lobby right there? Think, you were here two days ago, Jesus, that's gotta be a massive leak…
      There was another groan from up ahead, definitely coming from the apartment on the left. It was the mind-less, empty sound that the zombies made, the only sound they could make as far as she knew. The door was cracked open, and Jill almost imagined she could see the shimmering waves of gas-thick air pouring out into the hall. She gripped the Beretta tighter and took a step back-wards. She'd have to go back the way she'd come, she didn't dare risk firing and she didn't particularly want to fend off one of the carriers bare-handed; a single bite from one of them would pass the infection on to her. Another step backwards, and… Creak. Jill spun around, instinctively raising her weapon as a door swung open perhaps five meters back. A shuffling, stoop-shouldered man lurched out into the gloom, cut-ting her off from the back entrance. He had the sallow skin and dead eyes of a virus carrier, as if the fact that one of his cheeks had been ripped off wasn't proof enough; zombies felt no pain. As this one opened its mouth to moan hungrily at her, she could see the base of its gray, swollen tongue, and even the reek of gas couldn't entirely overwhelm the sickly sweet odor of its decaying flesh. Jill turned, saw that the hallway ahead was still clear; she had no choice but to run past the apartment with the gas leak and hope that its resident was too slow to try for her.
      Go. Now.
      She took off, staying as close to the right side of the hall as she could, feeling the effects of the gas as she pumped her arms for more speed – a soft distortion of light, a sense of dizziness, an ugly taste at the back of her throat. She ran past the cracked door, distantly relieved that it opened no wider, suddenly remembering that the lobby was directly to the right. She rounded the corner
      – and bam, collided with a woman, knocking her down. Jill careened off her, hitting the stucco wall with her right shoulder hard enough that a light powder set-tled over them. She barely noticed, too intent on the fallen woman and on the three figures still standing in the small foyer, shifting their dumb attention to Jill. All of them were virus carriers. The woman, dressed in the tatters of a once white nightgown, gurgled incoherently and tried to sit up. One of her eyes was gone, the red, raw socket shining in the overhead light. The three others, all male, started toward Jill, moaning, their gangrenous arms raising slowly; two of them were blocking the metal and glass wall that led into the street – her way out. Three on foot, one crawling, reaching for her legs, at least two behind her. Jill scuttled sideways toward the security door, weapon pointed at the peeling forehead of the closest, less than two meters away. The wall of mailboxes behind him were made of metal, but she had no choice, she could only hope that the gas fumes were weaker here. The creature lunged and Jill fired, simultaneously leaping for the door as the semi-jacketed round tore into his skull…… and she felt as much as heard the explosion, sssssh-BOOM, a displacement of fiery air that shoved her in the direction she'd jumped, hard, everything moving too fast to separate, to understand chronologi-cally – her body, aching, the door dissolving, the world blotted out in shades of strobing white. She tucked and rolled, hard asphalt biting into her shoulder, the horrific smells of flash-fried meat and burning hair washing over her as shards of blackened glass peppered the street. Jill scrambled to her feet, ignoring all of it as she spun around, ready to fire again as flames began to eat the remains of the Imperial. She blinked her watering eyes, widening them, trying to see past the swimming flash spots that covered everything around her. At least two of the zombies were down, probably dead, but two others stumbled around in the burning wreckage, their clothes and hair on fire. To Jill's right and rear were the remnants of a police blockade, barrier rails and parked cars; she could hear more of the human carriers on the other side, shuffling and moaning. And there, to her left, already turning its slack and rolling head in her direction, was a single male, his ripped clothes slathered in drying blood. Jill took aim and squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet through its virus-riddled brain, walking toward it even as it crum-pled; there was a Dumpster just past the dying body, and past that, several uptown blocks of shopping dis-trict, now her best choice for escape.
      Have to head west, see if I can work around the blockades farther along…
      With the immediate danger past, she took a few sec-onds to catalog her injuries – abrasions on both knees and a bruised shoulder speckled with grit; it could have been a hell of a lot worse. Her ears rang and her vision still suffered, but those would pass soon enough. She reached the Dumpster and did her best to lean over it, to see down either side of the overcast north-south street in front of her. The bin was wedged be-tween the side wall of a trendy clothes shop and a decidedly crunched car, limiting what she could see. Jill listened for a moment, for cries of hunger or the distinctive shuffling sounds of multiple carriers, but she heard nothing.
      Probably wouldn't be able to hear a brass band at this point, she thought sourly and hoisted herself up. Straight across from the Dumpster was a door that she thought led through a back alley, but she was more in-terested in what lay to the left – with any luck, a straight shot out of town. Jill jumped down, glanced to either side, and felt ten-drils of real panic wrap around her brain. There were dozens of them, left and right, the closest already mov-ing to cut her off from the Dumpster.
      Move, Jilly!
      Her father's voice. Jill didn't hesitate, took two run-ning steps and threw her uninjured shoulder against the rusting door straight ahead. The door shuddered but didn't give. "Come on," she said, unaware that she'd spoken, fo-cusing herself on the door, doesn't matter how close they are, gotta get through… She rammed the door again, the cloying scent of their rotting flesh enveloping her, and still the door held. Focus! Do it, now! Again, the authoritative voice of her father, her first teacher. Jill gathered herself, leaned back, and felt the brush of cold fingers against the side of her neck, a rush of putrid, eager breath across her cheek. Crash, the door flew open and slammed into the bricks behind, and Jill was through, running, remem-bering a warehouse ahead and to the right, her pulse racing. Behind her, rising wails of disappointment, of frustrated hunger, echoing through the alley that was her salvation. A door ahead.
      Please be open, please…
      Jill grabbed for the handle, pushed, and the metal door opened into silence, into a well-lit, open space,
      thank God…
      … and she saw a man standing on the main floor, just below the landing she'd stepped onto; she raised the Beretta but didn't fire, quickly assessing him before lowering it again. In spite of his torn and blood-spat-tered clothes, she could tell by his desperate, fearful ex-pression that he wasn't a carrier… or at least not one that had changed over yet. Jill felt relief course through her at the sight of an-other person, and suddenly realized just how lonely she'd been. Even having an untrained civilian with her, someone to help who could help her in turn… She smiled shakily, moving toward the steps that led down to the main floor, already making changes in her plans. They'd have to find him a weapon, she'd seen an old shotgun at the Bar Jack two days before, unloaded, but they could probably find shells and it was pretty close -
      – and together, we can probably get through one of the barricades! She only needed someone to keep watch and to help her push some of the cars out of the way. "We have to get out of here," she said, forcing as much hope as she could manage. "Help isn't going to be coming, at least not for a while, but between the two of us…" "Are you crazy?" he interrupted, his fevered gaze darting around. "I'm not going anywhere, lady. My own daughter's out there somewhere, lost…"
      He trailed off, staring at the door she'd come through as if he could see through it. Jill nodded, reminding herself that he was probably in shock. "All the more reason to…" Again, he cut her off, his panicky voice rising into a shout that reverberated through the open space. "She's out there, and she's probably dead like the rest of them, and if I won't go out there for her, you gotta be insane to think I'm going to go out there for you!"
      Jill jammed the Beretta into the waist of her skirt, quickly holding up both hands, keeping her tone sooth-ing. "Hey, I understand. I'm sorry about your daughter, really, but if we get out of the city, we can get help, we can come back – maybe she's hiding somewhere, and our best bet to find her is if we get some help."
      He backed up a step, and she could see the terror be-neath his anger. She'd seen it before, the false fury that some people used to avoid being afraid, and she knew that she wasn't going to be able to get through to him.
      But I have to try… "I know you're scared," she said softly. "I am, too. But I'm… I was one of the members of the Special Tac-tics and Rescue Squad; we were trained for dangerous operations, and I truly believe that I can get us out of this. You'll be safer if you come with me." He backed up another step. "Go to hell, you, you bitch" he spat, then turned and ran, stumbling across the cement floor. There was a storage trailer at the far side of the warehouse. He crawled inside, panting as he pulled his legs in. Jill caught just a glimpse of his red and sweating face as he pulled the doors closed after him. She heard the metal clink of a lock, followed by a muffled shout that left no question as to his decision.
      "Just go away! Leave me alone!"
      Jill felt her own burst of anger, but knew it was use-less, as useless as trying to reason with him any further. Sighing, she turned and walked back to the steps, care-fully avoiding the depression that threatened to take over. She checked her watch – it was 4:30 – and then sat down, going over her mental map of uptown Rac-coon. If the rest of the streets out were as thoroughly overrun, she was going to have to veer back into town, try from another direction. She had five full magazines, fifteen rounds in each, but she'd need more fire-power… like a shotgun, perhaps. If she couldn't find shells, she could at least club the bastards with it. "The Bar Jack it is, then," she said quietly and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, wondering how she would ever make it.

      THEY REACHED THE CITY IN THE LATE AFTER-noon, 1650 by Carlos's check, and prepared to drop out over a deserted lot. Apparently there was an under-ground facility or somesuch nearby, owned by Um-brella; at least that's what they had been told at the briefing. Carlos got in line with his squad, assault rifle slung over his shoulder as he hooked himself to the drop line and waited for Hirami to open the door. Directly in front of Carlos was Randy Thomas, one of the friend-lier guys in A squad. Randy glanced back at him and pretend-growled, pointing his forefinger and thumb at Carlos, a mock-gun. Carlos grinned, then clutched his gut as if shot. Stupid shit, but Carlos found himself re-laxing a little as their leader pulled the door open and the roar of multiple choppers filled the cabin.
      Two by two, the men in front of Carlos slid down the dual rappelling lines anchored to the body of the heli-copter. Carlos stepped closer to the opening, squinting against the whipping wind to see where they'd be land-ing. Their 'copter cast a long shadow in the late-day sun and he could see men from the other platoons on the ground, lining up by squad. Then it was his turn; he stepped out a second after Randy, the thrill of the prac-tical free fall sending his stomach into his chest. A blur of passing sky, and he touched down, unhooking from the line and hurrying to where Hirami stood. A few minutes later, they were all down. Almost in unison, the four transport 'copters swung west and buzzed away, their noise fading as dust settled around the assembled troops. Carlos felt alert and ready as the squad and platoon leaders started to point in different directions, assigning routes that had been plotted before they'd left the field office. Finally, as the helicopters grew smaller, they could hear again – and Carlos was struck by the silence of their surroundings. No cars, no industrial sounds at all, and yet they were at the edge of a decent-sized city. Weird, how one took those noises for granted, not noticing them at all until they weren't there. Mikhail Victor, platoon D's supervisor, stood quietly with Hirami and his other two squad leaders, Cryan and that creepy Russian, while the supervisors of A, B, and C platoons gave directions, the squads moving out briskly and with a minimum of noise. Their bootsteps seemed overly loud in the still air, and Carlos saw looks of vague unease on some of the passing faces, a look he knew he wore. Probably it was so quiet 'cause people were at home sick, or holed up somewhere, but it was kind of eerie anyway, the stillness… "A squad, double-time!" Hirami called, and even his voice seemed oddly muted, but Carlos put it out of his mind as they started jogging after him. If his mem-ory served from the briefing, they were all headed roughly west, into the heart of Raccoon City, the pla-toons fanning out to cover the greatest area. Within a hundred yards, squad A was on its own, thirty soldiers jogging through an industrial area not so different than the one that their field office was in; run-down lots strewn with trash, weedy patches of dirt, fenced stor-age units. Carlos scowled, unable to keep quiet. "Fuchi," he said, half under his breath. Smelled like a fart in a bag full of fish. Randy lagged back a few steps to run alongside Car-los. "You say something, bro?" "I said something stinks," Carlos muttered. "You
      smell that?"Randy nodded. "Yeah. Thought it was you."Ha, ha, you kill me, cabraln." Carlos smiledsweetly. "That means 'good friend,' by the way."Randy grinned. "Yeah, I bet. And I bet…"Hold up! And shut up, back there!"
      Hirami called a stop, holding one hand up to ensure silence. Faintly, Carlos could hear another squad a block or two north, the beat of their boots on pavement. And after a second, he could hear something else. Moans and groans, coming from somewhere ahead of them, faint at first but getting louder. Like a hospital population had been kicked out into the street. At the same time, the bad smell was getting stronger, worse and familiar, like… "Oh, shit," Randy whispered, his face paling, and Carlos knew at once what the smell was, just as Randy must know.
      Not possible.
      It was the smell of a human body rotting in the sun. It was death. Carlos knew it well enough, but never had it been so huge, so all-encompassing. In front of them, Mitch Hirami was lowering his hand uncertainly, a look of deep concern in his eyes. The distressed, wordless sounds of people in pain were getting louder. Hirami seemed about to speak…… when gunfire erupted from nearby, from one of the other squads, and in between the blasts of automatic fire that ripped through the afternoon air, Carlos could hear men screaming. "Line!" Hirami shouted, holding up both hands with the palms turned to the sky, his voice barely audible over the stutter of bullets. Straight line, five men facing front, five back the way they'd come. Carlos ran to get in position, his mouth suddenly dry, his hands damp. The short bursts of auto-matic fire just north of their position were getting longer, drowning out whatever else there was to hear, but the stench was definitely getting worse. To cap his worries, he could hear distant fire, soft, clattering pops behind the closer blasts; whatever was going on, it sounded like all of the U.B.C.S. was engaged. Carlos faced front, rifle ready, searching the empty street that stretched out in front of them and T-ed three blocks ahead. An M16 loaded with a thirty-round mag was nothing to scoff at, but he was afraid – of what, he didn't know yet.
      Why are they still firing over there, what takes that many bullets? What is it…
      Carlos saw the first one, then, a staggering figure that half-fell from behind a building two blocks in front of them. A second lurched out from across the street, followed by a third, a fourth – suddenly, at least a dozen plodding, stumbling people were in the street, coming their way. They seemed to be drunk.
      "Christ, what's wrong with them, why are they walk-ing like that?"
      The speaker was next to Carlos, Olson his name was, and he was facing the direction they'd come from. Car-los shot a look back and saw at least ten more reeling toward them, appearing as if out of nowhere, and he re-alized in the same moment that the gunfire north of them was dying out, the intermittent bursts fewer and further apart. Carlos faced front again and felt his jaw drop at what he saw and heard; they were close enough that he could make out individual features, their strange cries clearly audible now. Tattered, blood-stained clothing, although a few were partially naked; pallid faces stained red, with eyes that saw nothing; the way that several held their arms out, as if reaching for the line of soldiers, still a block away. And the disfigurations – missing limbs, great hunks of skin and muscle torn off, body parts bloated and wet with putrefaction. Carlos had seen the movies. These people weren't sick. They were zombies, the walking dead, and for a moment, all he could do was watch as they tottered closer. Not possible, chale, and as his brain wrestled to accept what he was seeing, he remembered what Trent had said, about dark hours ahead. "Fire, fire!…" Hirami was screaming as if from a great distance, and the sudden, violent chatter of auto-matic weapons to either side snapped Carlos back to re-ality. He aimed at the swollen belly of a fat man wearing ripped pajama bottoms, and he fired. Three bursts, at least nine rounds smacked into the man's corpulent gut, punching a rough line across his lower belly. Dark blood splashed out, soaking the front of his pants. The man staggered but didn't fall. If any-thing, he seemed more eager to reach them, as if the smell of his own blood incited him. A few of the zombies had gone down, but they con-tinued to crawl forward on what was left of their stom-achs, scraping broken fingers across the asphalt in their single-minded purpose.
      The brain, gotta get the brain, in the movies shooting them in the head is the only way… The closest was perhaps twenty feet away now, a gaunt woman who seemed untouched except for the dull glint of bone beneath her matted hair. Carlos sited the exposed skull and fired, feeling crazy relief when she went down and stayed there.
      "The head, aim for the head…" Carlos shouted, but already, Hirami was screaming, wordless howls of ter-ror that were quickly joined by some of the others as their line began to dissolve.
      – oh, no
      From behind, the zombies had reached them.
      Nicholai and Wersbowski were the only two from B to make it, and only then because they'd both taken ad-vantage where they could – Nicholai had pushed Brett Mathis into the arms of one of the creatures when it had gotten too close, gaining a precious few seconds that had allowed him to escape. He'd seen Wersbowski shoot Li's left leg for the same reason, crippling the soldier and leaving him to distract the closest virus car-riers. Together, they made it to an apartment building's fire escape some two blocks from where the others had fallen. Gunfire tatted erratically as they climbed the rusty steps, but already the hoarse screams of dying men were fading to silence, becoming lost in the cries of the hungry damned. Nicholai weighed his options carefully as they scaled the fire escape. As he'd predicted, John Wersbowski was a survivor and obviously had no problem doing whatever was necessary to remain one; with as bad as things were in Raccoon – worse, in fact, than Nicholai had been led to believe – it might pay to have such a man watching his back.
      And if we're surrounded, there would be someone to sacrifice so that I might get away…
      Nicholai frowned as they reached the rooftop, as Wersbowski stared out at what they could see from three stories up. Unfortunately, the sacrifice element worked both ways. Besides, Wersbowski wasn't an idiot or as trusting as Mathis and Li had been; getting the drop on him could be difficult. "Zombies," Wersbowski muttered, clutching his rifle. Standing beside him, Nicholai followed his gaze to where squad B had made its last stand, at the broken bodies that littered the pavement and the creatures that continued to feed. Nicholai couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed; they'd died in minutes, hardly putting up a fight…
      "So, what's the plan, sir?"
      The sarcasm was obvious, both in tone and in the half amused, half disgusted expression he turned to Nicholai. Obviously, Wersbowski had seen him offer up Mathis. Nicholai sighed, shaking his head, the M16 loose in his hands; he had no choice, really. "I don't know," he said softly, and when Wersbowski looked back at where they'd fought, Nicholai squeezed the assault rifle's trigger. A trio of rounds hammered Wersbowski's abdomen, knocking him sprawling against the low cement ledge. Nicholai immediately raised the weapon and aimed at one of Wersbowski's shocked eyes, firing even as com-prehension flooded the soldier's flushed face, an aware-ness that he'd made the fatal mistake of letting his guard down. In under a second it was over, and Nicholai was alone on the rooftop. He stared blankly at the oozing body, wondering – and not for the first time – why he felt no guilt when he killed. He'd heard the term sociopathic before and thought that it probably ap-plied… although why people continued to see that as a negative, he didn't understand. It was the empa-thy thing, he supposed, the bulk of humanity acting as though the inability to "relate" was somehow wrong.
      But nothing bothers me, and I never hesitate to do what needs to be done, no matter how it is perceived by others; what's so terrible about that?
      True, he was a man who knew how to control him-self. Discipline, that was the trick. Once he'd decided to leave his homeland, within a year he didn't even think in Russian anymore. When he'd become a merce-nary, he'd trained night and day with every manner of weapon and tested his skills against the very best in the field; he'd always won, because no matter how vicious his opponent, Nicholai knew that having no conscience set him free, just as having one hindered his enemies.
      This was an asset, was it not?
      Wersbowski's corpse had no answer. Nicholai checked his watch, already bored with his philosophi-cal wanderings. The sun was low in the sky and it was only 1700 hours; he still had much to do if he meant to leave Raccoon with everything he needed. First, he needed to pick up a laptop and access the files he'd cre-ated only the night before, maps and names; there was supposed to be one locked up and waiting for him in the RPD building, although he'd have to be extremely careful in the area, as the two new Tyrant seekers would surely be there at some point. One was pro-grammed to find some chemical sample, and Nicholai knew there was an Umbrella lab not far from the build-ing. The other unit, the more technologically advanced creation, would be set to take out renegade S.T.A.R.S., assuming there were any still in Raccoon, and the
      S.T.A.R.S. office was inside the RPD. He wouldn't be in any danger as long as he stayed out of the way, but he'd hate to get between any series of Tyrant and its target if even half of what he'd heard was true. Um-brella was taking full advantage of the Raccoon situa-tion, taking proactive steps – using the new Tyrant models, if that's what they were, exactly – in addition to data gathering; Nicholai admired their efficiency. Nicholai heard a fresh burst of gunfire and reflex-ively stepped back from the edge of the roof, looking down to see two soldiers run past a moment later. One was injured, a ripped, bloody patch near his right ankle, and he leaned heavily against the other for support. Nicholai couldn't identify the wounded man, but his helper was the Hispanic who'd been watching him on the helicopter. Nicholai smiled as the two stumbled past and out of sight; a few of the soldiers would have survived, of course, but they would probably suffer the same fate as the injured man, who'd almost certainly been bitten by one of the diseased.
      Or the fate that surely awaits the Hispanic. I wonder, what will he do when his friend starts to get sick? When he starts to change?
      Probably try to save him in some pathetic tribute to honor; it would be his undoing. Really, they were all as good as dead. Amazed by how predictable they were, Nicholai shook his head and went to get Wersbowski's ammo pack.

      ON HER WAY TO THE BAR JACK, JILL THOUGHT she heard gunfire. She paused in the alley that would eventually lead her to the tavern's back entrance, head cocked to one side. It sounded like shots, like an automatic, but it was too far away for her to be sure. Still, her spirits lifted a little at the thought that she might not be fighting alone, that help might be on the way…… right. A hundred good guys have landed with bazookas, inoculations, and a can of whoop ass, maybe a steak dinner with my name on it to boot. They're all attractive, straight, and single, with college degrees and perfect teeth… "Let's try to stick to reality, how 'bout," she said softly and was relieved that she sounded fairly normal, even in the dank and shadowy quiet of the back alley. She'd been feeling pretty bleak back in the warehouse, even after finding a thermos of still-warm coffee in the upstairs office; the idea of trekking through the dead city one more time, alone -
      – is what I have to do, she thought firmly, so I'm doing it. As her dear, incarcerated father was fond of
      saying, wishing that things were different didn't make it so. She took a few steps forward, pausing when she was about five feet from where the alley branched. To her right was a series of streets and alleys that would lead her further into town; left would take her past a tiny courtyard, with a path straight to the bar – assuming that she knew this area as well as she thought she did. Jill edged closer to the junction, moving as silently as she knew how, her back to the south wall. It was quiet enough for her to risk a quick look down the alley to the right, her weapon preceding her; all clear. She shifted position, stepping sideways across the empty path to look in the direction she meant to go
      – and heard it, uunnh, the soft, pining cry of a male carrier, half hidden by shadow perhaps four meters away. Jill targeted the darkest part of the shadow and waited sadly for it to step into view, reminding herself that it wasn't really human, not anymore. She knew that, had known it since what had happened at the Spencer estate, but she encouraged the feelings of pity and sorrow that she felt each time she had to put one of them down. Having to tell herself that each zombie was beyond hope allowed her to feel compassion for them. Even the shambling, decomposing mess that now swayed into view had once been a person. She didn't, couldn't let herself get overly emotional about it, but if she ever forgot that they were victims rather than mon-sters, she would lose some essential element of her own humanity. A single shot to its right temple, and the zombie col-lapsed into a puddle of its own fetid fluids. He was pretty far gone, his eyes cataracted, his gray-green flesh sliding from his softening bones; Jill had to breathe through her mouth as she stepped over him, careful to avoid getting him on her boots. Another step and she was looking down on the court-yard -