I put on the same clothes I’d taken off two hours before, grabbed another bottle of spring water from the refrigerator and swigged down half in one big gulp. The other half I poured over my head on the way to my car. If I had to hit the road in the middle of the night, I figured it was better to be wet and awake than dry and dead.
My Shelby Cobra rumbled to life and I headed for Victory Lake, confident I could get there in under 40 minutes. Hell, in a Shelby, you can get halfway to the moon in 40 minutes. I took an S-curve at twice the posted speed, then eased back on the pedal and thought about Billy.
He and I had been practically inseparable right through high school, despite that we were considered the “Odd Couple” of our class. Billy was a straight “A” student who never got in trouble, while I barely made passing grades and spent half my life in the principal’s office.
After we graduated, Billy enrolled at M.I.T, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Knowing I wasn’t ready for college yet, I enlisted in the Air Force. We didn’t see each other much for the next four years, although I’d get a letter from him every six months or so. I’m ashamed to say, I never wrote back.
A month after he’d finished gradate school, Billy went to work for the Umbrella Company in Raccoon City. About a year later, I returned home to join the S.T.A.R.S. team. Billy and I quickly resumed our friendship, and saw each other frequently before he announced he was being transferred to Chicago.
Now that I thought about it, it did seem odd that he wouldn’t have written to me at least once in the past year. At the time, I just figured he was busy. But now I knew there was another reason and, to judge by Billy’s terrified voice, a far more sinister reason, why I hadn’t heard from my old friend. What that reason was, I hadn’t a clue.
I cut through the deserted downtown section of Raccoon City and turned onto a two-lane secondary road running north as straight as an arrow. There was nothing else on the road this early, not even farm tractors, and I pressed the accelerator down hard. The Shelby’s big V-8 responded with a throaty roar and I felt my shoulders slammed back hard against the seat as the speedometer climbed to 110 MPH.
Five minutes later I spotted the first hills ahead and eased back on the accelerator. I’ve always gotten a thrill out of mountain driving, and I speed-shifted down to third, then second as the Shelby whipped through the first hairpin turn. The road became steeper as it climbed the mountain, and the curves turned into a series of hairpin turns. My arms were beginning to ache from whipping the wheel back and forth.
Then, just as I started powering through a sharp curve, a woman suddenly appeared in my headlights. I’m doing seventy-five and she’s close enough to be a hood ornament. I downshifted and slammed on the brakes, but I could see I was still going to hit her. So I did the only thing I could. I yanked the wheel hard and plowed the Shelby into the bank bordering the road.
The engine cut out when I hit, and for several seconds I sat there in the sudden silence feeling for broken bones and wounds. Fortunately, there were none, and I turned my attention back to the girl. She had apparently collapsed during the close call, and was lying on the pavement about ten feet from the car. I got out and hurried toward her. As I neared, I noticed with horror that her entire body was covered with gaping wounds.
I came real close to heaving at that point. I mean there were bones sticking through her skin and little geysers of blood where arteries had been torn apart. I fought back my nausea and knelt by her side. She raised a hand weakly and I took it in mine.
“Dear God, lady, what happened to you?”
“He…” her lips formed the word, but no sound came out.
Her throat was cut.
I forced myself to look down at the rest of her mangled body, and gasped at the sight of her lower torso. A huge section of her stomach had been ripped out — as if a Great White shark had bittenn through her middle–and her internal organs had popped out onto the road.
My hands and arms were covered with sticky blood by now and I could hardly breathe, the air was so thick with the stench of reeking intestines. Then, when I thought this nightmarish scene couldn’t get any worse, a terrified scream split the night. I turned in the direction of the cry and spotted a late model convertible pulled over with its top down about fifty feet up the road.
In the moonlight, I saw some kind of huge animal leap into the open car. At first I thought it was a big black Newfoundland. Then 1 realized this thing was at least twice as big as a Newf. The driver started screaming again, and I could see his arms flailing as he tried to fight off the beast. Then, suddenly, he was quiet.
I grabbed my Beretta automatic from under the Cobra’s dash and ran toward the convertible. Fifteen feet away I stopped and aimed the pistol skyward. At the sound of the gunshot the beast whirled and fixed me with a terrible glare. It had hellish red eyes, as if the pupils were oozing blood, and yellowed fangs that looked as fierce as a saber-toothed tiger.
A strange, guttural cry suddenly sprang from the animal’s mouth. “Kuooon,” it shrieked, raising the hair on the back of my neck. Stay cool, I reminded myself. You’ve got a gun, and it doesn’t. Chances are, it doesn’t even know what a gun is. Ipso facto, You, Chris Redfield, are in total command.
The beast leaped down from the car and took an ominous step toward me. Or not.
In the blink of an eye, the gruesome thing was two steps closer. I could smell it now, and the odor was putrid. Like decay. Like death. Time to get serious. I raised my pistol in both hands, took a breath and fired point blank at the creature’s head.
Nothing. No gushing blood, no fragmented flesh and bones. I might as well have been tossing popcorn at the thing. I mean, I know I hadn’t missed. Not from that range. But there were no bullet holes. Hell, the beast didn’t even look winded. What piece of devil’s work was this?
I emptied my pistol at the animal, and was about to make a break for my car, when it suddenly seemed to lose interest in me. The beast gave a final shriek, then turned abruptly and disappeared into the dark woods. For a long time I stood there shaking, the sweat soaking my shirt. Then I took a calming breath, reloaded my Beretta and very carefully approached the convertible.
The driver was dead, of course, ripped apart as cruelly as the woman I’d just left. Half his face was missing, and one eyeball hung from its smashed socket by a string of tissue. The moonlight was shining down directly into the man’s half-open skull, making his brain appear all shiny and pink. The rest of his body looked like it had just emerged from a meat grinder. Not much left you could recognize as human.
I’d seen a lot of deaths lately. Five, counting the two people who’d just died before my eyes. The first murder had happened six months before, and I’d been investigating the strange cases ever since.
Actually, the word “strange” didn’t half fit these killings. Something sinister was at work here, some force beyond a simple human murderer. I’ve been putting in 18-hour days looking for answers, but so far the only thanks I’ve gotten is a boot in the tail from the media. They keep insisting the police aren’t working hard enough on the case. Guess it goes with the turf when you’re a public servant.
I went back to my car and radioed in a report to police headquarters. I couldn’t leave the murder scene unsecured, so I wafted until I heard the approaching sirens, then took off again for Victory Lake. But now there was no way I’d be on time.
Chapter Two: The Necklace
Billy,” I called into the wet wind off the lake, acutely aware that I was half an hour late for our meeting.
No answer, just as there hadn’t been any answer to my previous calls. The night was still hot and I could feel the sweat dripping off the ridge of my chin. I turned and looked toward the moonlit parking lot. My silver Shelby was the only car there. Had Billy gotten tired of waiting and left? Or maybe he’d hidden his car in the trees so no one would know he was there.
I grabbed a large police flashlight from the trunk and began a search of the nearby woods and brush. I looked for an hour but found nothing. Except memories. Billy and I used to play together in this park as kids. Our favorite place had been the boathouse down on the lakeshore. On a whim, I decided to check the old building out.
The door creaked on its hinges as I entered the darkened building and snapped on my flashlight. I swept the light around the interior. There were a half dozen small boats and canoes lying around in various stages of disrepair, a couple covered with what looked to be years of cobwebs. The rest of the space was taken up with disassembled outboard motors and various pieces of machinery and tools.
“Billy, you in here?” I called out. “It’s me, Chris.”
No response. The night was dead still, but for the muffled sound of wind-driven wavelets lapping against the boathouse pilings. I was turning to leave when my light suddenly glinted off a shiny metallic object of some kind lying on the floor. I walked over and stared down at a gold necklace with a small gold coin attached.
I bent and picked it up, the blood hammering in my head. It was a necklace, one of two identical gold chains I had given to Billy and his fiancE, Rose, at their engagement party. I knew for a fact that Rose was terrified of the water. She’d never come near a boathouse. So it had to have been dropped by Billy. He’d probably lost it while waiting for me to show up tonight. If anyone doubted that Billy was alive and that I’d talked to him, here was proof of both.
So I now knew for certain that my old friend was alive, but I still had no clue what kind of trouble he was in. I also hadn’t figured out what connection Billy had to the chain of brutal killings that had Raccoon City in the grip of terror.
I decided to return to the latest murder scene and see if the investigating officers had turned up anything.
****
Five police cars, a tow truck and a meat wagon from the morgue were parked along the highway. I slid my Shelby in behind a squad car and passed under the yellow police tape cordoning off the scene of bloody carnage.
“You’re finally back,” a raspy male voice said above the din of police radios.
I turned and stared into the greasy face of Chief Brian Iron, head of the Raccoon City Police Department. Brian is the man who organized S.T.A.R.S.
“You were first on the scene, Redfield,” he said. “Mind telling me why you took off?”
“I thought I saw the murderer and gave chase, Chief,” I said, not wanting to tell him about Billy just yet.
“So you saw the perpetrator.”
“I saw something. I’m not sure what.”
“You’re not making much progress solving these murders, are you Redfield?” he said, reverting to the hypercritical leader the S.T.A.R.S. team all knew and loathed. The guy thought so much of his own law enforcement talents, he couldn’t imagine anyone else being nearly as competent.
“You want to take over for me, Chief? A man of your indescribable talents ought to have the case wrapped up in about an hour or so.”
“Don’t give me that sarcastic lip.”
“Get off my back, Chief.”
For a long moment he glared at me with the self-righteous fervor of a Wild West evangelist. The man was a walking ego. I’d even heard that he planned to run for mayor in the next election. Ten years before, Raccoon City had been a sleepy farming community, and the mayor was kind of a glorified dogcatcher. But then the Umbrella Company moved in and built a large research plant, and suddenly there were new faces and new buildings all over the place.
Before anyone knew what was happening, almost half the population of Raccoon City was directly dependent on the Umbrella Company for their livelihood. Suddenly the mayor’s job was a plum to be squeezed, a position of power from which a crafty politician might line his own pockets.
As the population swelled, crime had also increased. It got so bad that the Company proposed establishing a special crime-fighting force, paid for in half with corporate funds. The city had agreed, and S.T.A.R.S. was formed.
Brian had been the unit’s first commander. Then, two years before, he’d been promoted to chief of police, and the mysterious Lieutenant Albert Wesker had replaced him as head of the S.T.A.R.S. team.
“I’ll deal with you later, Redfield,” the chief finally said.
“Looking forward to it, sir.”
He started to say something more, then noticed the newly arrived reporters and photographers. I could hear the wheels turning. Here was a chance for Brian to get some media exposure, and he wasn’t going to waste this valuable time chewing out a mere detective from S.T.A.R.S.
“Give your account of the murders to the deputy chief in charge of the criminal section,” he ordered, then screwed his face up into a look of pained concern and headed for the gaggle of journalists. I caught his first few words, a memorized account of how hard he and his whole force were working to solve the murder spree. The man did his lines so well, he should have been paying dues to the Actors’ Guild.
A couple of minutes later, I noticed the deputy chief scowling at Brian with as much disgust as I felt. He must have felt my eyes on him because he turned and studied me, then walked over with a thoughtful look on his face. “Chris, I understand you came on the murders in progress.”
“Yeah. Almost ran over the girl.”
“We found shell casings on the road. From your weapon?”
“Probably. I emptied the magazine at the killer.”
“Then you must have gotten a pretty good look at the guy.
“I didn’t say it was a guy.”
“Stop playing games with me, Chris.”
I looked at the chief for a long moment, wondering if he’d have me tossed into the nearest rubber room when he heard my next words. Only one way to find out. “I don’t think these people died at the hands of a man.
“You want to run that past me one more time, Buddy-Boy.”
“The thing I shot at, it wasn’t human. It was some sort of immensely powerful animal, a huge black beast that resembled a dog. The biggest freakin’ dog I’ve ever seen.”
The chief said, “If it looked like a dog, perhaps it was a dog. Maybe a Mastiff or some other big breed. As for its vicious attack, that could be the result of rabies.”
“Rabies might cause an animal to bite a human, Chief, but the disease doesn’t suddenly turn dogs into powerful bloodthirsty beasts. If you’d smelled the awful stench of that beast, you’d know that putrid odor wasn’t the result of any known disease. And there’s something else. You can’t kill the thing with bullets. You can’t even slow it down. I know, I emptied my piece at it.”
“Why don’t you ride into headquarters with me, Chris. Give you a chance to tell your whole story along the way.”
“No thanks. If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to go home and collapse on my bed. I’ll file my report in the morning. It’s been a long grinding night and I’m whipped.”
I turned and began to walk toward my car. None too soon, apparently, because when I looked back I saw a reporter break away from the pack and take off in my direction.
“Can I talk to you, Chris?” the journalist called out running toward me with his coat tails sailing out behind. It was a local guy I knew and liked, but I wasn’t about to spill my guts to anyone yet. He was almost to the car when I turned on the ignition and threw her into reverse.
“I heard you witnessed the murders, Chris,” he said, running along beside the rapidly backing car. “When is S.T.A.R.S. going to do something to protect our citizens?”
“Ask Chief Iron,” I said, punching the Shelby into gear and laying a patch right in front of Brian. His furious face in my rearview mirror was a joyous sight to see.
The speedometer was edging eighty when I finally took my foot off the accelerator and let the car coast as I thought things through. Finding Billy was the key. I was convinced that he knew the secret behind the gruesome murders that had Raccoon City in the grip of terror.
But how was I going to find Billy?
My Shelby Cobra rumbled to life and I headed for Victory Lake, confident I could get there in under 40 minutes. Hell, in a Shelby, you can get halfway to the moon in 40 minutes. I took an S-curve at twice the posted speed, then eased back on the pedal and thought about Billy.
He and I had been practically inseparable right through high school, despite that we were considered the “Odd Couple” of our class. Billy was a straight “A” student who never got in trouble, while I barely made passing grades and spent half my life in the principal’s office.
After we graduated, Billy enrolled at M.I.T, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Knowing I wasn’t ready for college yet, I enlisted in the Air Force. We didn’t see each other much for the next four years, although I’d get a letter from him every six months or so. I’m ashamed to say, I never wrote back.
A month after he’d finished gradate school, Billy went to work for the Umbrella Company in Raccoon City. About a year later, I returned home to join the S.T.A.R.S. team. Billy and I quickly resumed our friendship, and saw each other frequently before he announced he was being transferred to Chicago.
Now that I thought about it, it did seem odd that he wouldn’t have written to me at least once in the past year. At the time, I just figured he was busy. But now I knew there was another reason and, to judge by Billy’s terrified voice, a far more sinister reason, why I hadn’t heard from my old friend. What that reason was, I hadn’t a clue.
I cut through the deserted downtown section of Raccoon City and turned onto a two-lane secondary road running north as straight as an arrow. There was nothing else on the road this early, not even farm tractors, and I pressed the accelerator down hard. The Shelby’s big V-8 responded with a throaty roar and I felt my shoulders slammed back hard against the seat as the speedometer climbed to 110 MPH.
Five minutes later I spotted the first hills ahead and eased back on the accelerator. I’ve always gotten a thrill out of mountain driving, and I speed-shifted down to third, then second as the Shelby whipped through the first hairpin turn. The road became steeper as it climbed the mountain, and the curves turned into a series of hairpin turns. My arms were beginning to ache from whipping the wheel back and forth.
Then, just as I started powering through a sharp curve, a woman suddenly appeared in my headlights. I’m doing seventy-five and she’s close enough to be a hood ornament. I downshifted and slammed on the brakes, but I could see I was still going to hit her. So I did the only thing I could. I yanked the wheel hard and plowed the Shelby into the bank bordering the road.
The engine cut out when I hit, and for several seconds I sat there in the sudden silence feeling for broken bones and wounds. Fortunately, there were none, and I turned my attention back to the girl. She had apparently collapsed during the close call, and was lying on the pavement about ten feet from the car. I got out and hurried toward her. As I neared, I noticed with horror that her entire body was covered with gaping wounds.
I came real close to heaving at that point. I mean there were bones sticking through her skin and little geysers of blood where arteries had been torn apart. I fought back my nausea and knelt by her side. She raised a hand weakly and I took it in mine.
“Dear God, lady, what happened to you?”
“He…” her lips formed the word, but no sound came out.
Her throat was cut.
I forced myself to look down at the rest of her mangled body, and gasped at the sight of her lower torso. A huge section of her stomach had been ripped out — as if a Great White shark had bittenn through her middle–and her internal organs had popped out onto the road.
My hands and arms were covered with sticky blood by now and I could hardly breathe, the air was so thick with the stench of reeking intestines. Then, when I thought this nightmarish scene couldn’t get any worse, a terrified scream split the night. I turned in the direction of the cry and spotted a late model convertible pulled over with its top down about fifty feet up the road.
In the moonlight, I saw some kind of huge animal leap into the open car. At first I thought it was a big black Newfoundland. Then 1 realized this thing was at least twice as big as a Newf. The driver started screaming again, and I could see his arms flailing as he tried to fight off the beast. Then, suddenly, he was quiet.
I grabbed my Beretta automatic from under the Cobra’s dash and ran toward the convertible. Fifteen feet away I stopped and aimed the pistol skyward. At the sound of the gunshot the beast whirled and fixed me with a terrible glare. It had hellish red eyes, as if the pupils were oozing blood, and yellowed fangs that looked as fierce as a saber-toothed tiger.
A strange, guttural cry suddenly sprang from the animal’s mouth. “Kuooon,” it shrieked, raising the hair on the back of my neck. Stay cool, I reminded myself. You’ve got a gun, and it doesn’t. Chances are, it doesn’t even know what a gun is. Ipso facto, You, Chris Redfield, are in total command.
The beast leaped down from the car and took an ominous step toward me. Or not.
In the blink of an eye, the gruesome thing was two steps closer. I could smell it now, and the odor was putrid. Like decay. Like death. Time to get serious. I raised my pistol in both hands, took a breath and fired point blank at the creature’s head.
Nothing. No gushing blood, no fragmented flesh and bones. I might as well have been tossing popcorn at the thing. I mean, I know I hadn’t missed. Not from that range. But there were no bullet holes. Hell, the beast didn’t even look winded. What piece of devil’s work was this?
I emptied my pistol at the animal, and was about to make a break for my car, when it suddenly seemed to lose interest in me. The beast gave a final shriek, then turned abruptly and disappeared into the dark woods. For a long time I stood there shaking, the sweat soaking my shirt. Then I took a calming breath, reloaded my Beretta and very carefully approached the convertible.
The driver was dead, of course, ripped apart as cruelly as the woman I’d just left. Half his face was missing, and one eyeball hung from its smashed socket by a string of tissue. The moonlight was shining down directly into the man’s half-open skull, making his brain appear all shiny and pink. The rest of his body looked like it had just emerged from a meat grinder. Not much left you could recognize as human.
I’d seen a lot of deaths lately. Five, counting the two people who’d just died before my eyes. The first murder had happened six months before, and I’d been investigating the strange cases ever since.
Actually, the word “strange” didn’t half fit these killings. Something sinister was at work here, some force beyond a simple human murderer. I’ve been putting in 18-hour days looking for answers, but so far the only thanks I’ve gotten is a boot in the tail from the media. They keep insisting the police aren’t working hard enough on the case. Guess it goes with the turf when you’re a public servant.
I went back to my car and radioed in a report to police headquarters. I couldn’t leave the murder scene unsecured, so I wafted until I heard the approaching sirens, then took off again for Victory Lake. But now there was no way I’d be on time.
Chapter Two: The Necklace
Billy,” I called into the wet wind off the lake, acutely aware that I was half an hour late for our meeting.
No answer, just as there hadn’t been any answer to my previous calls. The night was still hot and I could feel the sweat dripping off the ridge of my chin. I turned and looked toward the moonlit parking lot. My silver Shelby was the only car there. Had Billy gotten tired of waiting and left? Or maybe he’d hidden his car in the trees so no one would know he was there.
I grabbed a large police flashlight from the trunk and began a search of the nearby woods and brush. I looked for an hour but found nothing. Except memories. Billy and I used to play together in this park as kids. Our favorite place had been the boathouse down on the lakeshore. On a whim, I decided to check the old building out.
The door creaked on its hinges as I entered the darkened building and snapped on my flashlight. I swept the light around the interior. There were a half dozen small boats and canoes lying around in various stages of disrepair, a couple covered with what looked to be years of cobwebs. The rest of the space was taken up with disassembled outboard motors and various pieces of machinery and tools.
“Billy, you in here?” I called out. “It’s me, Chris.”
No response. The night was dead still, but for the muffled sound of wind-driven wavelets lapping against the boathouse pilings. I was turning to leave when my light suddenly glinted off a shiny metallic object of some kind lying on the floor. I walked over and stared down at a gold necklace with a small gold coin attached.
I bent and picked it up, the blood hammering in my head. It was a necklace, one of two identical gold chains I had given to Billy and his fiancE, Rose, at their engagement party. I knew for a fact that Rose was terrified of the water. She’d never come near a boathouse. So it had to have been dropped by Billy. He’d probably lost it while waiting for me to show up tonight. If anyone doubted that Billy was alive and that I’d talked to him, here was proof of both.
So I now knew for certain that my old friend was alive, but I still had no clue what kind of trouble he was in. I also hadn’t figured out what connection Billy had to the chain of brutal killings that had Raccoon City in the grip of terror.
I decided to return to the latest murder scene and see if the investigating officers had turned up anything.
****
Five police cars, a tow truck and a meat wagon from the morgue were parked along the highway. I slid my Shelby in behind a squad car and passed under the yellow police tape cordoning off the scene of bloody carnage.
“You’re finally back,” a raspy male voice said above the din of police radios.
I turned and stared into the greasy face of Chief Brian Iron, head of the Raccoon City Police Department. Brian is the man who organized S.T.A.R.S.
“You were first on the scene, Redfield,” he said. “Mind telling me why you took off?”
“I thought I saw the murderer and gave chase, Chief,” I said, not wanting to tell him about Billy just yet.
“So you saw the perpetrator.”
“I saw something. I’m not sure what.”
“You’re not making much progress solving these murders, are you Redfield?” he said, reverting to the hypercritical leader the S.T.A.R.S. team all knew and loathed. The guy thought so much of his own law enforcement talents, he couldn’t imagine anyone else being nearly as competent.
“You want to take over for me, Chief? A man of your indescribable talents ought to have the case wrapped up in about an hour or so.”
“Don’t give me that sarcastic lip.”
“Get off my back, Chief.”
For a long moment he glared at me with the self-righteous fervor of a Wild West evangelist. The man was a walking ego. I’d even heard that he planned to run for mayor in the next election. Ten years before, Raccoon City had been a sleepy farming community, and the mayor was kind of a glorified dogcatcher. But then the Umbrella Company moved in and built a large research plant, and suddenly there were new faces and new buildings all over the place.
Before anyone knew what was happening, almost half the population of Raccoon City was directly dependent on the Umbrella Company for their livelihood. Suddenly the mayor’s job was a plum to be squeezed, a position of power from which a crafty politician might line his own pockets.
As the population swelled, crime had also increased. It got so bad that the Company proposed establishing a special crime-fighting force, paid for in half with corporate funds. The city had agreed, and S.T.A.R.S. was formed.
Brian had been the unit’s first commander. Then, two years before, he’d been promoted to chief of police, and the mysterious Lieutenant Albert Wesker had replaced him as head of the S.T.A.R.S. team.
“I’ll deal with you later, Redfield,” the chief finally said.
“Looking forward to it, sir.”
He started to say something more, then noticed the newly arrived reporters and photographers. I could hear the wheels turning. Here was a chance for Brian to get some media exposure, and he wasn’t going to waste this valuable time chewing out a mere detective from S.T.A.R.S.
“Give your account of the murders to the deputy chief in charge of the criminal section,” he ordered, then screwed his face up into a look of pained concern and headed for the gaggle of journalists. I caught his first few words, a memorized account of how hard he and his whole force were working to solve the murder spree. The man did his lines so well, he should have been paying dues to the Actors’ Guild.
A couple of minutes later, I noticed the deputy chief scowling at Brian with as much disgust as I felt. He must have felt my eyes on him because he turned and studied me, then walked over with a thoughtful look on his face. “Chris, I understand you came on the murders in progress.”
“Yeah. Almost ran over the girl.”
“We found shell casings on the road. From your weapon?”
“Probably. I emptied the magazine at the killer.”
“Then you must have gotten a pretty good look at the guy.
“I didn’t say it was a guy.”
“Stop playing games with me, Chris.”
I looked at the chief for a long moment, wondering if he’d have me tossed into the nearest rubber room when he heard my next words. Only one way to find out. “I don’t think these people died at the hands of a man.
“You want to run that past me one more time, Buddy-Boy.”
“The thing I shot at, it wasn’t human. It was some sort of immensely powerful animal, a huge black beast that resembled a dog. The biggest freakin’ dog I’ve ever seen.”
The chief said, “If it looked like a dog, perhaps it was a dog. Maybe a Mastiff or some other big breed. As for its vicious attack, that could be the result of rabies.”
“Rabies might cause an animal to bite a human, Chief, but the disease doesn’t suddenly turn dogs into powerful bloodthirsty beasts. If you’d smelled the awful stench of that beast, you’d know that putrid odor wasn’t the result of any known disease. And there’s something else. You can’t kill the thing with bullets. You can’t even slow it down. I know, I emptied my piece at it.”
“Why don’t you ride into headquarters with me, Chris. Give you a chance to tell your whole story along the way.”
“No thanks. If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to go home and collapse on my bed. I’ll file my report in the morning. It’s been a long grinding night and I’m whipped.”
I turned and began to walk toward my car. None too soon, apparently, because when I looked back I saw a reporter break away from the pack and take off in my direction.
“Can I talk to you, Chris?” the journalist called out running toward me with his coat tails sailing out behind. It was a local guy I knew and liked, but I wasn’t about to spill my guts to anyone yet. He was almost to the car when I turned on the ignition and threw her into reverse.
“I heard you witnessed the murders, Chris,” he said, running along beside the rapidly backing car. “When is S.T.A.R.S. going to do something to protect our citizens?”
“Ask Chief Iron,” I said, punching the Shelby into gear and laying a patch right in front of Brian. His furious face in my rearview mirror was a joyous sight to see.
The speedometer was edging eighty when I finally took my foot off the accelerator and let the car coast as I thought things through. Finding Billy was the key. I was convinced that he knew the secret behind the gruesome murders that had Raccoon City in the grip of terror.
But how was I going to find Billy?