With this we begin the Volume 2.
Get those stones going boys and tomboys, we need to get those numbers up!
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*****
"For the drinks," Atlas said. "And the conversation."
Tyrone looked at the money. He frowned.
"Son, that's too much. The bottle was forty bucks."
"Consider it an investment," Atlas said, putting his hand over Tyrone's when the old man tried to push the money back. "The world is getting crazy, Tyrone. Prices are going up. You might need to buy supplies. Or ammo."
After uttering those words, he didn't look back. He stepped out into the night.
The cool air hit his face. The parking lot was empty. The silence of Raccoon City rushed back in, drowning out the memory of the jazz music.
Atlas walked to his car. He looked back at the neon sign: STRIPS & SIPS.
He knew he would never see Tyrone again in a few days.
The nuke was coming in a few days. Tyrone lived in the city. Unless he evacuated in the next 72 hours, he was an Undead.
Atlas felt a pang of regret. He had saved the rabbits. He had fed the dog. But he couldn't save the man who had poured him a drink and shared a story. He couldn't save Rachel's dad, whoever she was.
"I can't save everyone," Atlas whispered to the darkness. "I'm not a hero. I'm a player."
He got into the Ford Expedition.
He started the engine.
"Level 20," he reminded himself, hardening his heart against the sentimentality. "Focus on the XP."
He drove away, leaving the flickering neon light behind in the rearview mirror, a lone beacon in a dying world.
---
[The Skies Above North America]
[Time: 2:00 AM (Sunday)]
Thirty thousand feet above the Midwest, a massive C-130 Hercules transport plane banked through the clouds.
Inside the cargo hold, the air was stale and cold.
This was Tiger Force. Umbrella's elite bio-hazard containment unit, pulled directly from the Siberian Research Branch.
They were tired. They had been in the air for thirteen hours, refueling mid-flight. They were jet-lagged, stiff, and irritable.
"How much longer?" a soldier grunted, checking his watch.
"We land at the private airfield at 20:00 hours," Commander Bill "Snake" Wilson replied. He was a mountain of a man, scarred and grim, chewing on an unlit cigar. "Then we board the train."
"A train?" The Lead Scientist, Dr. Barnes, scoffed from his seat. He adjusted his glasses, looking miserable. "We fly halfway around the world to secure a mothballed facility in the woods, and we have to take a vintage train to get there? Doesn't Dr. White have helicopters?"
"Airspace is locked down, Doc," Wilson said. "The Military has initiated Protocol 4-4 over Raccoon City. Nothing flies in or out without being shot down. The rail line is the only back door. As the front door is in full lockdown."
Barnes muttered something about budget cuts and incompetence.
They didn't know the truth. They didn't know that Dr. White had summoned them not as saviors, but as a desperate gamble. They were the last chips on the table.
---
[Not Far Away from Racoon City – Umbrella Private Airfield]
[Time: 3:45 AM (Sunday Night)]
The sun was setting over the horizon. A heavy, freezing rain began to fall, tapping rhythmically against the hull of the C-130 as it touched down on the hidden runway deep within the valley.
The ramp lowered.
Commander Wilson walked down, his boots splashing in the puddles. He lit his cigar, the flame illuminating the exhaustion on his face. Behind him marched two platoons of U.S.S. heavy infantry—fifty men in total. Following them were the thirty scientists, carrying servers and cryogenic cases.
"Welcome to Raccoon City outstrikes," Wilson grunted, looking at the dark, oppressive forest surrounding them. "Or the backyard of it, anyway."
"Is the transport ready?" Dr. Barnes asked, shivering in his trench coat.
"The train is waiting," Wilson pointed.
Sitting on the tracks, gleaming under the floodlights, was the Ecliptic Express. As agents were moving the expensive equipment they had brought from Siberia, they ensured everything was handled carefully.
It was surreal. A relic of a bygone era. A beautiful, art-deco locomotive that looked like it belonged in the 1920s, not the 21st century.
Polished brass, mahogany wood, velvet curtains. It was Oswell Spencer's personal toy, designed to ferry VIPs in luxury to the Training Facility before James Marcus died.
"Fancy," Barnes sneered. "Does it have Wi-Fi?"
"It has a bar," Wilson replied. "Get on board. We have a schedule to keep. Dr. White wants the facility secure by midnight."
The team loaded up in more than an hour. Eighty souls in total with millions of dollars of equipment. The best minds and the best guns Umbrella had to offer.
They boarded the train, laughing, complaining about the weather, confident in their superiority.
They were the Tiger Force. They had contained outbreaks in Russia. They were untouchable.
The whistle blew.
CHOO-CHOO!
The massive wheels began to turn. Steam hissed into the night air. The Ecliptic Express lurched forward, leaving the airfield and plunging into the dark, winding secure tunnels of the Raccoon city.
---
[The Arklay Forest – High Ridge]
[Time: 8:15 PM]
The aftermath of the heavy rain left the skyline obliterated by darkness. A thick suffocating blanket of clouds swallowed the moon and stars, choking out the light until the world was pitch black.
High above the tracks, perched on a cliff edge overlooking the valley, a figure stood in the rain.
He wore a pristine white lab coat that was soaked through, clinging to his pale, emaciated frame. His hair was long and wet, matting against his face.
He looked young. Handsome, in a terrifying way.
But if you looked closer, his skin seemed to ripple. It moved on its own.
James Marcus. Or rather, the Queen Leech mimicking his memory.
He watched the train winding through the valley like a glowing iron snake. He stopped singing the choir song. He could smell them. The fresh blood. The arrogance. The Umbrella stench. He could smell the desperation of his old student, Alexander White, trying to reclaim the facility.
"Alexander..." the figure whispered. His voice wasn't one voice; it was a thousand wet, squelching sounds layered into speech. "You send me gifts."
He raised a hand.
The forest floor around him began to move.
It wasn't mud. It was leeches.
Thousands of them. Slick, black, segmented nightmares. They poured out of the earth, out of the trees, out of his very cloths. They flowed like a river of oil, sliding down the cliff face toward the tracks.
The figure began to sing again.
It was a haunting, operatic aria. High and mournful.
"Dies irae, dies illa..."
The leeches responded to the song. They surged forward, a tidal wave of biological hatred.
"Eat," Marcus commanded.
---
[Raccoon City]
[Time: 10:30 AM (Sunday, June 9, 2002)]
The sun rising over Raccoon City with a deceptive brilliance. It was a beautiful Sunday morning. The sky was a piercing blue, the birds were singing in Raccoon Park, and the autumn leaves drifted lazily onto the pavement.
To the uninitiated, it looked like a perfect day.
To Atlas, it looked like the calm before a nuclear detonation.
He walked down Ennerdale Street, a steaming cup of black coffee in his hand. He looked like the picture of urban success—a tall, devastatingly handsome man in dark tactical jeans, a tight grey t-shirt that struggled to contain his new build, and a high-quality leather jacket.
But his eyes were constantly scanning.
He saw the cracks in the facade.
He saw the garbage piling up on the corners because the sanitation union had quietly walked off the job two days ago.
He saw the "CLOSED" signs on half the storefronts.
He saw the police cruiser speeding past with its siren silent but its lights flashing, the officers inside looking pale and terrified.
The "Skin Plague" was no longer a rumor whispered in corners. It was screaming from the headlines of the Raccoon City Times in the newspaper boxes: "VIOLENT RIOTS IN SUBURBS - POLICE DECLARE CURFEW."
Atlas turned a corner and approached the modest brick building with the sign: KENDO GUN SHOP.
But the usually quiet storefront was a riot.
There was a line outside, spilling onto the sidewalk. It wasn't a line of hunters or hobbyists. It was a chaotic parade of frightened fathers, sweating shopkeepers, and people who had seen things that logic couldn't explain.
"I need a shotgun for home defense!" a man in a rumpled business suit shouted, banging his gold card on the glass. "I don't care about the price!"
"Those wild dogs are in my neighborhood!" a woman sobbed.
"My neighbor's dog... It tried to bite me!" Said another man.
"Back of the line!" the owner shouted, his voice hoarse. He was trying to adhere to the law, checking permits with shaking hands, but the tide was overwhelming him.
Inside, the owner was fighting a losing battle to maintain federal order while the world collapsed. He stood behind the counter, a bastion of lawful stubbornness in a city going to hell.
"I cannot sell to you without a valid ID! Federal law does not stop just because you are scared!" the owner roared, slamming a stack of paperwork onto the counter. "Fill out Form 4473! The NICS phone lines are jammed solid! I can't get a proceed signal from the FBI!"
"Just give us the high-capacity mags!" a teenager yelled. "We need more than ten rounds!"
"Those are Pre-Ban! They aren't for sale!"
The man barked back, adhering to the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban even as the dead walked. "I can only sell you the 10-round civilian compliant magazines! That's the law!"
"We're out of 12-gauge buckshot!" a clerk yelled over the din. "And the 9mm hollow-points are gone!"
"Take what's left!" the owner signaled, unlocking the display case. He began placing the heavy iron on the counter—weapons that were legal, heavy, and loud.
"I have Ruger GP100s, Colt Pythons, and Smith & Wesson 686s! If you can't handle a revolver, I have Remington 700 hunting rifles and a single Winchester 1894 lever-action! I have a handful of Sig Sauer P226s and Beretta 92FS civilian models—ten-round mags only! And I have exactly two Benelli M4 shotguns left! That is it! One box of ammo per purchase! You fill out the registration, or you get the hell out of my store!"
"We are out of the Glock 19s! The Mossberg 500s are sold out!" the owner announced, wiping sweat from his brow. "If you want protection, this is what is left!"
"Take them or go home!"
Atlas stood in the periphery, watching the madness. They grabbed at the firearms like frantic shoppers at a fish market, haggling over the price of their own lives.
This wasn't an isolated incident. It was the new status quo.
All across Raccoon City, the story was the same. Every gun range was packed; every sporting goods store was empty. The Six O'Clock News had shown aerial footage of lines wrapping around city blocks. The citizens were scared, they were desperate, and they were buying anything that could shoot.
Atlas just shook his head. The whole city was loading its weapons, waiting for a war that had already started.
'This is America,' Atlas thought, a dark amusement curling his lip. 'Only in this country,' he mused. 'You can find a firearm in every bedroom, and yet they still clamor for more.'
He knew the truth. These laws, these background checks, this desperate clinging to procedure—it was all about to evaporate.
These weapons would keep them alive for perhaps two more days. Maybe three. But against what was coming? They were just buying a louder way to die. And mostly, they would just leave a lot of well-armed corpses for the zombies to feed on. He watched them snatching up the revolvers and the hunting rifles.