Carlos was fairly suspicious of the woman against his chest and stomach as they rode through the streets of the suburb, but he was even more confused about how empty and lifeless everything seemed. No kids were playing in the street, no couples were playing in their lawns, no dogs were running around, the mailman's truck was just sitting in front of Old Man Wesley's house, and cars and newspapers were scattered about dotting the streets like a horror movie set. There wasn't even an evacuation line with trucks escorting people out in a designated order. Everything was just dead. What happened to him? What happened to his wife? What happened to his neighborhood?
"My God," he whispered to himself.
As his eyes searched for some sign of life in hopes that his wife maybe tried to call for help and was sitting in a house somewhere, he looked at the helmet-less driver named Connie who was hard-pressed on finding some tanker. How did this woman know where to go? Or what to do? She wasn't a part of the biocontainment unit like he was, and she wasn't really equipped for war like his security squad would have been in case of this kind of emergency, yet for some reason she had more grace in handling her situation than any soldier he had trained or had the pleasure of working with. She wasted no time with trying to figure out where to go and seemed efficient in combat when she led him out of his house and onto the bike.
The V-Strom began slowing down as they approached two Umbrella tanks. Carlos began to loosen his grip on Connie and was giving her some space to move until he saw about four to five Umbrella soldiers lumbering about as though they were black bears in a deserted forest of houses. Immediately, Connie pulled Carlos close to her again and revved up the engine. The bike lifted from the ground to do an almost sixty-degree wheelie and sped off as Connie hit the throttle. Carlos didn't catch the helmet-less Umbrella soldier as he limped towards them. He had serious bite wounds on his neck, and it appeared to be snapped or twisted graphically in some way. His eyes were especially gruesome in appearance: a grayish blue that blended with the white. That soldier was infected, and the rest were probably the same.
The soldiers roared and ran toward them at almost full speed. Two soldiers held up their guns to fire and Carlos could see one of the soldiers dropping his gun and then leaning back to stop running. He was the one who jumped onto Connie and tried to force her off the bike by tackling her down. Carlos abruptly removed the soldier's helmet to identify his incompetent coworker and yelped when he saw that one of his own men had skin ripped off at the cheeks with the blood coagulated in the wounds and his eyes were a deathly pale blue-gray color. Connie decided to take action and threw the man off her and the bike, forcing him to land head first onto the concrete. The bike was tilted at a dangerous angle and inevitably forced her to use the brakes and her left foot to propel the vehicle back upwards to straighten out. When the bike was steered straight again, she removed her shotgun from its holster on her back and used one free hand to shoot two of the Umbrella undead in the neck and head respectively.
"You can't shoot and drive at the same time! You'll crash!" Carlos warned.
"You just shut up and - !" Connie demanded.
The tank aimed its missile launcher at them, forcing the woman to shut up faster than Carlos. BOOM! The missile fired from the tank's cannon and Connie veered to the left in time to dodge the projectile and crash into another undead. Her shotgun was now lost as it clattered to the ground. The tanker tried to fire at her again, but she stopped the bike right next to it and prohibited any further use in trying to kill them. Carlos rushed to get off the bike and hit another undead soldier in the head with his bat, but the soldier had his helmet on and only fell back before slowly rising to stand and attack again. Wasting no more time with the undead, Carlos kicked the helmet off the soldier's head and stomped on him before firing his pistol and killing the soldier with a vicious headshot. When a hand clasped on his shoulder, Carlos snapped around, jumped back, and aimed his pistol at the person's head. Connie held up her hands and then gave him a look.
"If you're done beating the shit out of your men, could you help me get rid of the bodies?"
"What bodies?" Carlos questioned. Within seconds, a bomb went off and startled him as he ducked away from the fire. He looked at Connie, who looked back at the tanker, and watched as she retrieved two machine guns from the downed soldiers. She tossed an AR-34 rifle to him and hurriedly climbed onto the tanker. The hatch was opened and smoking, so she tried desperately to wave the vapors away. Carlos then asked, "When did you plant a bomb?"
"You gonna help me pull these guys out or not?" Connie asked, looking at Carlos with an annoyed glare. Carlos grumbled in resign and climbed onto the tanker, helping Connie pull out two of the now burned men out. Once they were done, Connie tapped his soldier and said politely, "Thanks, Carlos."
"Connie, the infected are now only 100 feet from your location! You have to leave now!" Red Queen ordered in an almost desperate voice.
Carlos and Connie looked into the distance and saw dozens of undead creeping up to them. They hurriedly hopped into the tank with Carlos locking the door and Connie taking the helm at the tank's controls. Once the tank began moving, Carlos took another glance at Connie as she directed the vehicle further away from the undead and down the street. This woman was doing all she could to help him, and he didn't even care enough to try to protect her. His only motive for going anywhere with her was finding his wife, but after he saw the undead coming their way he was beginning to lose some hope. He had to make a decision right here and now. Connie risked her life to save him from being overwhelmed with infected, even going so far as to find him in his abandoned home. Had he escaped the perimeter of his house and found the tank with the soldiers he would have still been dead from either being shot by a tank's missile or being infected himself.
Silently, as he looked about the small space, Carlos was beginning to remember a very useful skill and saw the missile launcher's weapon and accuracy stats. He licked his lips with thought and then looked at Connie as she turned down a street. She was hopping about a little, possibly showing some nervousness as she whispered to herself. He didn't know her motives for helping him, but he couldn't care about them either. Fine, he had his motive for this personal mission; now, he had to add another to the list, survive this disaster and help the woman who was helping him. Surprisingly, Carlos began to push a few buttons as if he somehow knew how to operate a tanker. He was sure he didn't. While he was a security officer for the Umbrella Corps facility where he worked, he only knew basic skills in handling firearms and mixed martial arts. When did he drive a tanker or handle its artillery? Regardless, Carlos looked through the telescope, locked on to a group of undead heading them off at the pass, and guided the cannon to fire.
"Yes!" Carlos cheered, killing several undead in the blast.
Connie jumped in surprise and said, "What the fuck was that?"
"Someone has to cover your ass," Carlos started, aiming at another group and firing. He then continued, smirking a little, "May as well be me."
__________________________________________________________
The infected just kept coming. One by one they would moan and run towards them or walk at their leisure. Teenagers, workers, and elderly people were coming for them to sink their teeth into their soft, tender flesh. Neither one of them knew how they got away from Umbrella after they were subdued at the cargo ship Arcadia. The most they remembered was Alice helped them defend the people but were overwhelmed by guards. Everything else happened so fast. They were fighting one after the other, punching and kicking and firing back, and then... nothing. Just a black puzzle piece missing from the vivid and colorful picture. The most either of them knew when they woke up was that they were in an Umbrella facility, and some woman neither of them knew was saving them from mutations that escaped their confines.
Connie was her name. She was a player in a game called survival and she was damn good at it. Unlike their comrade, Alice, Connie had the Red Queen on her side. They didn't know anything about the AI construct but she did. Connie wasn't dressed in much. She wore a green t-shirt with spaghetti straps, a black bulletproof vest, two bandoliers that formed an X across her torso, a denim jacket and mini skort, a utility belt, leggings, leather gloves, a deep red scarf, and combat boots. That wasn't much for a zombie killer, but it was enough for her. Claire held some respect if not suspicion for the shorter black woman.
"Connie, are you there?" her brother demanded, shooting the last of the infected.
"Chris! Claire! We have power!" Chad exclaimed, prying the doors to the underground train open.
Chad Kaplan was a security officer trapped in the same facility like them, but he was dressed for combat. Black fatigues, bulletproof vest, mail mesh on his arms, and a good amount of ammo for his machine gun. He leapt into the train to scope out any infected or mutated while Claire and Chris followed behind. Claire was at the door, trying to fend off some of the infected so Chris could get on the train with them, and ready to close it. Chris was about to give up on the walkie talkie but tried to contact Connie one more time as he ran to the train doors and fired a few more times before helping Claire shut the door. He managed to find a block of wood sturdy enough to barricade the door and slipped it into the door handles.
"Black, can you hear me?"
"I'm here, Chris. We're on our way to the station. Standing by."
"We're ahead of you," Chris informed, nodding to Claire to tell her to help Chad. "Claire found the backup power generator for the train. Chad got us on it. How long are you gonna be?"
"I'm in a tanker. The infected are starting to close in on us. We'll be a while."
"We? Who the hell is 'we'?"
"Later. You and the others get that train moving to the station and guard it. We have to leave out together or we'll all die. Where's Chad?"
The train shook a bit, making Chris look behind him to see what was going on. The infected were still banging at the doors. He tuned them out to hear for Chad or Claire. When the train started moving forward, he turned back to the door and saw that the pounding of the doors was becoming less frequent. They were going at a steady pace now. Chad was coming up to Chris and smacked his shoulder. He held up his gun but an obnoxious comrade decided to force the walkie talkie in his face and snatch his machine gun away. Chad looked at the device and started rolling his eyes before talking.
"Kaplan."
"Chad, I need your help with something. There's a survivor with me who said his wife is missing. Her name is Alessandra Henriquez Oliveira. Did you find any survivors on your end at the facility?"
"Besides Sunshine and Daisy, no," Chad answered, earning a snort from Chris at the nicknames he had given them. Chad barely knew the man and was already a favorite...in a strange but charming way. Not that he was homo, he just found it amusing to call the hard ass of the group Sunshine. Or would it be better to call him Daisy? "Who's the survivor? Where'd you find him?"
"His name is Carlos Oliveira. He was in the suburban part of the area. I found him in his home. He doesn't remember anything about the evacuation units, the virus spread, nothing. He just woke up in his armor. I think you'll like him, though. He loves baseball."
"A man after my own heart," Chad commented.
A loud thump shook the top of the train, making Chris lead the way to Claire. If anything managed to climb on the train, they could disconnect the other cars. The only one they really needed was the driver's car. When nothing else sounded, Chad walked cautiously behind Chris and began holding his breath. He could hear both their heartbeats pounding in unison. Out of nowhere, as if he had been in this situation before, Chad began to remember steering a train very similar to this one.
He was covered in blood and wounds - mostly bite marks and scratches - and was desperate to get to his group of survivors. Ghost images of two women and a man all trapped in a lab flooded with water struck him. One of the women had her dark brown hair braided in a French style and was slowly giving way to infection as she was being carried out of the lab by the man. There was also a woman with auburn to light brown hair. He started remembering their faces and names as he put little pieces of a complex puzzle together. They were all trying to escape the infected just like he and the others now. He should've died, though. He fell from some piping and was being overwhelmed by dozens of infected all clawing at him. His heart began to pick up its pace at the memory. He was terrified, yet somehow he escaped through the air ducts. He was out of bullets from his handgun and lost all hope of going home to live another day. He should've died...but he didn't. He was bitten by undead and scratched at, but he managed to disable a computer and save his group. Then, they ran to the train together, and...
Immediately, Chad knelt to the floor and aimed his gun to the center of the walls surrounding him. A mutation had boarded the train in his past! The thumping could easily be another one, but he wasn't about to die because of it. He may not remember what happened to him after the mutation broke through the door, but he definitely remembered one breaking through. Chris crouched low and cautiously took some steps back to make sure his sister was covered. Claire then joined them, armed with two handguns, and began to scope out the cars.
When all was quiet again, Chad spoke in a whispering tone, "Chris, watch your sides. Claire, away from the doors. Something might be on this train with us."
"Your guess is as good as ours, Princess," Chris remarked, covering Chad's back.
Chad was in no mood to respond to the ridiculous nickname. He instead spoke through the device and said, "The suburbs were one of the first places hit after the spread. She's dead by now. The city's full of infected. You were only able to detect that person out of pure luck."
"If she was infected then why wasn't he? They were in the same house prior to anything that's happened. There was an evacuation unit left behind where we were, which means she was taken but he was left behind, so she's out there somewhere. Help me find her...please."
Chad shook his head, seeing this task as a useless thrill, and then replied, "Alright, I'll see what I can do. Was she an employee of the same facility?"
"He says she was a pencil pusher. Find whatever you can."
"Don't leave without us, Brown Sugar," Chad said in a flirty but alert tone.
"Let's move," Chris said, looking up at the ceiling as if something would burst through.
In fact, something did: a Licker. Unfortunately for it, though, it was fighting against someone who already faced its predecessor and two people who faced an axman...