The heavy wooden doors of the main hall swung open, then slammed shut.
Wesker entered first, Jill and Barry close behind. The three snapped into tactical formation, every sense on high alert.
Rot and dust thickened the air. Dim light pressed down on the hall like a weight, turning every shadow into a threat.
The terror of the zombie dog ambush in the forest still clung to them. Every nerve pulled taut.
Jill swept the room, pulse still hammering.
It had all started with the killings in the Arklay Mountains.
The woods outside Raccoon City had been quiet for years. Then, in the span of a few weeks, hikers and residents started turning up dead. Mutilated in ways no ordinary animal could account for. Local police investigated and came back with nothing. Panic crept along the edges of the town.
Worse still, S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team, sent into the mountains to investigate, had gone completely silent. No radio contact. No signal. Nothing.
Under mounting pressure, the department deployed S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team. Wesker in command. Objective: locate the missing squad and uncover the truth.
They'd found Bravo Team's helicopter in the dense woods, gutted and abandoned.
Before they could search the wreckage, the dogs came. Rotting, impossibly fast, swarming out of the trees. Joseph went down in the first wave. The chopper pilot panicked and fled.
Jill, Wesker, and Barry, cornered with nowhere left to run, had sprinted for the only structure in sight: a mansion, deep in the mountain forest.
Jill stared at the decaying interior. This place didn't feel like shelter.
It felt like a trap.
The moment they crossed the threshold, sounds erupted from the far corner of the hall. Scuffling. Struggling. Two shapes tangled on the ground in the shadows, and then one of them bit down on a part of the other that should never, under any circumstances, be bitten. The victim's leg pistoned out and launched the biter across the floor.
Clumsy. Panicked. The unmistakable flailing of a civilian caught off guard.
The kicked figure staggered against the wall, then slowly climbed upright. Its clouded eyes drifted between the man on the ground and the three armed newcomers in the doorway. It chose the newcomers and began shambling toward them.
Wesker's expression didn't change.
He stepped forward, sidestepped the lunge with an economy of motion, and brought the butt of his pistol down on the zombie's skull. One hit. It crumpled.
Clean. Efficient. Not a single wasted movement. Ryan watched from the floor, quietly stunned. That's what combat ability looks like. Meanwhile I've got a cheat and all I can do is lie here like a slacker.
He scrambled to his feet while he had the chance, steadied his wobbling legs, and brushed his clothes into some rough order. Every instinct told him to look normal. Scared, helpless, harmless. A survivor and nothing more.
Nearby, Wesker finished with the zombie and let his gaze drift toward Ryan. Casual on the surface. Beneath it, something sharpened.
The young man had been grappling with a zombie at close range, yet his body showed no wounds. No blood. Even his panic looked measured, almost rehearsed. Something about it didn't add up.
Wesker betrayed none of this. His composure held. He approached with unhurried steps and spoke, voice flat and even.
"Who are you?"
The question landed, and Ryan's mind raced. He was Ryan Cole, twenty-one, a college student on break. He and his buddy Derek had picked the Arklay Mountains for a hiking trip because they were idiots who didn't watch the news. Halfway up the trail, fog rolled in and the monsters came out of nowhere. Derek got bitten. In the chaos Ryan had spotted this mansion through the trees and bolted for it.
That was the story. That was what happened.
He dropped his gaze, letting his eyes go unfocused.
"I... my name's Ryan. Ryan Cole. I'm a college student. My friend and I were hiking out here. We got attacked by... by those things. I ran and found this place." He swallowed. "Is this your house?"
Jill studied him.
Pale face. Ragged breathing. Clothes disheveled. He looked like what he claimed to be: an ordinary kid, scared out of his mind.
Some of the tension left her shoulders, but the wariness stayed. Out here, in mountains crawling with monsters, nothing unknown could be taken lightly.