Best of Intentions: Falling Leaves (ch. 7) (Patreon)

To summarize the situation in Raccoon City -- shit was fucked. Shit was fucked bad. It was honestly shocking how the city could go from a little fucked up to an unmitigated, ass-blasting shit show over the course of eight hours or so. The police, led by Raymond, had managed to evacuate a large swath around central station, but everything beyond the immediate block?

Pure, uncontrolled, absolute chaos. Yet, at the very same time, there were people going about their day. They walked along the street, completely oblivious to everything that was happening.

It wasn't the age of information. Not really. Not yet. People weren't walking around with a computer in their pockets that tapped into the internet for news to be delivered to them instantly and constantly like people would be in the early two thousands. Meaning that if they didn't listen to the radio or watch the TV, they would have absolutely no idea what they were walking into. And I saw no greater evidence of that fact when we saw onlookers trying to call 911 when they saw looting or someone being attacked.

In a perfect world, everyone would have heard the emergency broadcast, and they would stay indoors. Everyone. However, we didn't live in a perfect world -- as evident of the ongoing apocalypse -- and while the people that just didn't get the message were a problem, a far greater one was the looters. People love a state of emergency. With all the cops dealing with something, it just made it the perfect opportunity to steal that 28 inch tube TV that you had been eying. Or a PS1.

The looters were like gas on a fire, making something that could, in theory, with some finesse and a dash of competence, be salvaged into something that could only be described as an absolute disaster. It was a mess. I would need to flip through a thesaurus to find some better words to describe it because all the ones that I knew fell dreadfully short. There were sporadic groups of police trying to seal up back alleys, or making attempts to evacuate people that had no idea what they were doing. Some were even arresting looters, completely oblivious to what they should be doing.

"You, you, you!" Jill shouted, grabbing hold of the police officers that had a half dozen men laying on the ground with their hands cuffed behind their backs. Gunshots rang out in the air, but they were a distant thing. What was far closer were screams of people panicking. Chris and I took up positions, looking down at the source to see undead chasing a handful of people. There were dozens and dozens of undead in the streets, coming out in force as they spilled out after tipping over a fence. "Guns up, aim for the head but if you can't, then hit the legs or center mass," Jill shouted at the three stunned cops.

I started firing, Fire Bolt slamming into the zombies as I pulled the trigger. They went up, their flesh flash burning while their clothing ignited. The people running panicked, tucking down and I saw one turn around to flee back towards the zombies, thinking we were shooting at him. I frowned when I saw him get bit, falling to the zombies that tore into him while the rest surged forward.

The men that were being arrested saw their chance and booked it, making two of the cops turn their attention back to them. They ended up giving chase, and it was when they diverted into an alley and screaming began, I knew that more dead were coming our way.

"We can't evacuate anyone like this!" I shouted out over the sounds of gunfire. Chris was scoring headshot after headshot, dropping as many as he could as fast as he could. A slight design flaw, I decided, pulling the trigger again. I needed to look into figuring out how to shoot a projectile from my gun. The cantrip wasn't cutting it with a small horde, even if it did have unlimited ammo.

"We know!" Jill snapped at me, dropping to a knee and firing at the zombies that stumbled out of the back alley.

There was no organization. No one really knew what they were supposed to be doing and it became an absolute mess. And those that did have a general idea were completely overrun by panicked people. I always had to suspend my disbelief when it came to stuff like the Walking Dead -- if there were fast zombies, then yeah, sure, I could understand. But slow ones? How could the military possibly lose?

The answer was people. People were fucking stupid.

"Rude, you need to break out that drone!" Chris exclaimed, popping in a new magazine. More undead were being attacked to the clusterfuck of noise.

"We need to fall back," Jill decided, grabbing Chris by his tac-vest to lead us away from the undead that were pouring through the back alley. Slowly, we fell back to the middle of the street and I crushed the impulse to do exactly what Chris suggested. I only had the drone for an hour, and I would need to burn a spell slot to bring it back. I had six, meaning that I had the drone for a total of seven hours. I had to use it sparingly and where it would matter the most.

Instead, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out an infusion. "Cover your ears," I shot back, lobbing it at the dead where they were starting to converge. It bounced lightly before coming to a stop. A half second later, the single loudest sound I had ever heard in my entire life emerged from the stone. It wasn't a sound that I had ever heard in real life, but it was a sound that anyone could imagine hearing.

The roar of a T-Rex.

Just as I hoped, the dead were drawn to it as I looped the sound. It muffled the sounds of gunfire, though not enough that some dead didn't draw attention to us. Wincing through the sound, we fired up on the dead, dropping bodies. Pure dumb luck ended up working out for me because they were so tightly compressed that when I ignited one, the fire spread. And, to be honest, it was a really good thing that I didn't have the fireball spell. I doubt I could have resisted using it.

When that pocket of undead were cleared out, the condition for the infusion wasn't met any longer and it fell silent. "We- where did the other cop go?" I asked, looking back and not seeing him anywhere.

"What was that thing?" Chris asked, trying to get rid of the ringing in his ears.

"A T-Rex," I answered, not seeing so much as a hair of the third cop. Did he seriously run away? Protect and serve my ass. "And, one second…" I said, reaching into my pocket to pull out another stone. Pressing it to my lips, I whispered what I wanted it to say and threw it forward.

"IF YOU WANT TO LIVE THEN FOLLOW US," the stone shouted in my voice. The six-second timer was a bit limiting, but it was enough to get the message across.

"That's convenient," Jill remarked, waving over a handful of shell-shocked survivors that seemed to have absolutely no idea what was going on. I took a quick look at them to see that they all seemed fine, but panicked when they saw more undead shambling our way. "Stick close to us. We're going to take you someplace safe," Jill promised while I reached into my backpack.

I had been saving it since I could only use it once a day, but if we were going to send back survivors, then we needed to know if they were infected or not. I refused to fall for the 'random asshole hides infection that causes the safe haven to collapse from within' trope. Which is why chose Detect Poison and Disease when I chose my Fey-Touched feat.

Producing a single yew leaf, I held it aloft before then, "Hippty skippity doo," I intoned like the words were somehow sacred instead of pure gibberish.

"What-" Jill began, cutting herself off when she saw my eyes glowing.

“You’re coming down with a cold, so you’re going to want to take some medicine for that. And you -- it’s eight in the morning, it’s too early to be drinking. Unless you spent all night drinking, then it’s perfectly okay,” I told the small group of people that were looking at me with more confusion than fear now. The one I was speaking to looked shocked for a moment, then shot his wife a nervous look -- and I was betting she was his wife based on the look that she was giving him. Someone had a drinking problem~!

Chris looked at me, “Nanomachines?” He ventured and I smiled.

“Nanomachines. They’re not infected,” I confirmed. That got a small breath of relief from Chris, only it was lost when the infusion was triggered by more undead nearing it. A loud drawn-out roar echoed through the streets, reminding us that we weren’t safe.

So began our attempts to organize the block in an evacuation. The good news was that the T-rex roaring managed to get a lot of people’s attention. Naturally, when they saw people gathering up, they would follow the leader because people were sheep. They ventured out of their homes onto the road, either joining us outright or getting scared and running back inside.

Naturally, the roaring and the sounds of people were drawing the attention of the dead too. Despite my reluctance, I was forced to utilize Dakka just to keep up with the dead that seemed to pour out of every nook and cranny. The people that we were escorting back to the station were of absolutely no help, doing nothing but screaming, crying, and shitting themselves at the sign of every shambling corpse.

More than once, they ran. Straight up fled. Away from the people that were trying to save their lives. And, worse, more often than not, they took a few others with them because when people saw people running, they felt the need to run too. We were forced to watch them go because if we chased after then a massive hole got opened up in our defenses. We escorted a hundred-odd people back to the central station, and a walk that should have taken five minutes took closer to thirty.

It was everything we could do. I knew that. I wore that on my chin, but it made it extremely clear that the rest of the city was absolutely fucked. We fought like hell to save a hundred people and probably twice that many were dying and going to raise back up. It was very different seeing it in person than knowing it in theory -- it was like we could physically feel Raccoon City falling into chaos. We were fighting, clawing, grasping for whatever we could but it would only be a small fraction of a much larger whole.

I saw it on both Jill and Chris’ faces when we finally did make it back to central station. Jill and Chris loaded up on ammo, their expressions grim. This was their city. They were police officers and, more than that, they were fundamentally good people. In a much better world, in a much kinder world, their efforts would be rewarded. Everyone would be saved and we could all fuck off right into the sunset.

“Here, have some trail mix,” I said, offering a bag of it to Jill, who looked surprised by the sudden offer. “People talk crap about stress eating, but it’s only a problem if you sit on your butt all day. So, have some -- or you’ll end up with headaches later,” I advised.

“Oh, thanks- wait, did you take out all of the raisins?” Chris said, helping himself before inspect the handful that he snagged.

“Of course I did. Someone told me raisins are basically just the grape equivalent of old people and I’ve never been able to get the image out of my head,” I told him, making Chris grimace.

His nose scrunched up, “Why would you do that to me?” He asked, and good. The image was in his head now. Maybe, hopefully soon, it would spread so people would stop fucking putting raisins in cereal. Raisin brand crunch? Delicious. Know what would make it even better? Take out the raisins entirely.

"Because misery loves company," I told him unrepentantly. "Come on. I have about five minutes left being able to detect the disease," I said, tossing the rest of the trail-mix to Jill. She caught it, but she didn't look happy about it. She was focused, but her lack of engagement seemed more sullen to me. Angry, even. Not at me -- I think -- but at the entire situation and our lack of control. She had been very brief with details about the memories this was dredging up, but I got the impression this was ripping open some barely healed wounds.

I wish a Cure Wounds could heal some mental damage, but no such luck. And, I hated to say it, but… she would have to deal with it for now. There wasn't any time for any of us to deal with our shit. In the days that followed, when we saved everyone that we could save, then we could take a moment to breathe and deal with deep seeded traumas.

"How does that thing work?" Jill questioned, her voice tense as we quickly ran through the streets. "Why does it only work for thirty minutes?"

"Serious eye damage," I answered, tapping my glasses as we ran. The sounds of gunshots caught our attention and Chris led the way to finding the source. "Once a day for thirty minutes, and I can only do it for thirty minutes instead of chunks of time," I elaborated. I was putting some serious consideration putting some levels into the Wizard class. It would grant me access to some better spells, but I'm not entirely sure it was a good idea.

Wizards needed to learn magic spells by copying them into their grimoire. Magic wasn't real in this world. Meaning, like my Infusions, I would have to puzzle them out from scratch. And that… they would spread me rather thin in a time when time was the most valuable thing that I had. Regardless of how useful it might be.

"It's useful while we have it, but don't rely on it. Gotcha," Jill heard what I was saying as we rounded a corner. I wasn't at all surprised to see undead shambling down the roads anymore -- even in the immediate perimeter of central station, you could easily find a handful. What I didn't expect was to see a good thirty of them swarming around what looked to be an coffee shop. They were battering at the glass windows and door, the screaming coming from within told us that some people got chased inside.

Surprisingly, there were a handful of corpses leading up to the door. Three of them, and we heard about five shots in total.

The three of us immediately opened fire on the small horde of undead, dropping the corpses. Jill and Chris were essentially a walking wall of gunfire with damn near aimbot levels of accuracy. It was actually stunning to watch. I'm guessing that they got a lot of practice in. Me, on the other hand, I went with fire and ignited a good dozen zombies, dousing them with what amounted to napalm. It took a few seconds for them to cook through, but soon enough they were collapsing in heaps.

Leaving us to enter the coffee shop- "Ted?" I blurted, recognizing the Walmart greeter that I met just before the city went to hell. He poked his head up from behind the counter, a gun in his hand.

"You're- You're Rude!" Ted returned with evident relief, standing up to his full height. That seemed to encourage the others. I saw a pistol in Ted's hands, but he didn't seem that comfortable with it, even if he was showing proper trigger discipline. "You were right! About everything! I-I should have listened to you back then, but- you're pamphlets and cards saved our asses. I went for the head, just like you said!" So, the pamphlets weren't a waste of money after all?

I was glad for it. I was happy that Ted listened and had made it. He acted decisively and calmly under pressure, and he was damn close to the finish line. He even managed to bring a dozen people with him -- some of which I even recognized as people that pulled a runner from us. It was real leadership material. Walmart absolutely wasted him.

There was just one issue.

My gaze slid to a middle aged man who sat in the floor, leaning against the wall as sweat dripped down his face. it could just be the adrenaline -- that stuff fucked you up after it left your system. I might have believed it if it wasn't for the fact that he was registering as infected with a disease. The T-Virus.

"I'm glad you made it this far, Ted." I waved him off, my eyes on the man. I didn't see any visual signs of injuries. He was wearing expensive shorts, loafers with high top socks, and a bowling shirt. He didn't seem like he was bit, but they could be hidden. "Have you checked everyone for bites?" I asked Ted while everyone else in the room seemed to be looking at me with awe. I see Ted was acting like my hypeman.

To that, Ted nodded. "None of us are bitten or scratched. I made sure of it, Mr. Rude." He sounded absolutely certain of it. Just then, Detect Poison and Disease faded away, burning my one use of it for the day.

"Just call me Rude," I muttered, my gaze going to Jill, who caught it before I glanced back at the guy. "Are you absolutely sure that none of you have been bitten?" I was trying to play it cool, but I saw some suspicion.

"Of course! But, erm, if you want to check-" Ted started getting freaky and immediately started taking his shirt off. It was Chris that stopped him.

"A quick frisk should be fine," Chris said, and it made sense. Pain was the body's warning system, and it was a lot harder to shrug that stuff off than people realized. A flinch would give away a bite wound, as would a bandage or a damp spot on the clothing. Ted eagerly proved that he wasn't bitten and I frisked him down. It was Jill that frisked the infected guy -- I watched his face carefully. He didn't flinch. Jill met my gaze when she was done and shook her head.

What the fuck? The guy was infected. He looked physically ill. And so far, Detect Poison and Disease hasn't led me astray. If he wasn't bitten, then how in the hell did he get infected?

"Can we go to central station now? Please? I… I don't want to be out here anymore," Ted requested, his voice a bit weak when he saw more zombies drawn in by the noise we created.

I made a snap decision, "Yeah, sure thing. But, some of you are going to have to go into a quarantine. No offense, but you're sick with something," I told the sick guy. I could see that pissed him off.

"That's not-" he started, but he cut himself off with a hacking cough. He hid his hand when he was done, but I saw flecks of blood in his short beard. "It's allergies. I'm fine," he protested. You absolute dingus. He was trying to hide the fact that he was sick. Did he know he was infected?

"We have doctor's onsite that could be able to help you with it, but it's a lot of people sharing a cramped space and we already have an epidemic going on if you hadn't noticed," I was trying to be polite about it. There's always that sliver of a chance that I was wrong. That I was mistaken. That, and I knew gunning him down here and now would be a step too far for the others. There was reasonable doubt if he was infected with the T-Virus. I could understand why Chris and Jill and Ted would t be onboard with me putting him down.

The dickhead glowered at me, "I'm not sick!"

"You're about to be unconscious, you mouth breathing moron-" I started to reply, but Jill smoothly interjected.

"You're going in quarantine or you're staying here," she decided in a no nonsense tone. That brought him up short. Ohh~! Fucking get him, Jill! Show him who's the boss! He looked like the kind of guy that was vaguely sexist, but in the 'product of his time' kind of way. "Is that understood?"

He worked his jaw but offered a curt nod. He shot a look at me and I flipped him off. Fuck that guy. He didn't deserve death for being annoying, but I would be less broken up about his inevitable demise because of the irritation he caused me.

The next mission became escorting the group back to the central station, who welcomed them with open arms. Ted proved a little clingy, though.

He swept me up in a hug and crushed me to his chest, "You saved my life. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're a saint!" There was a sob in his throat that I didn't at all know how to deal with, so I awkwardly patted his back.

"It's fine. You, ah, paid it forward. Just stay safe, alright?" I offered, thinking Ted was a decent dude. He sniffed, wiping off his eyes and waved me goodbye as he headed into the station. As soon as they were gone, I said, "That guy was infected with the T-Virus. I'm certain about it."

"He didn't have any bites," Jill replied, not arguing, but pointing it out.

"T-Virus doesn't just infect through bites. He could have slept with someone that was infected," Chris pointed out and I tried not to show my surprise at how easily they took me for it at my word. I didn't have any solid proof that he was infected.

Jill frowned, "Having a chunk bitten out of you would kill the mood." Also true, I imagined.

I pursed my lips in thought, my mind racing… "How did half a stadium full of people suddenly get infected?" I questioned, catching both of their attention. Everything was such a chaotic mess that I never stopped to think about it. I figured one zombie got in, bit someone, then the entire thing spiraled out of control. But that didn't make any sense -- it wasn't physically possible, even. Not on such a short time frame. Hundreds of people would have had to die, then get reanimated before chowing down on the fleeing people.

It only made sense if hundreds of people were already infected when they went to the game. Would people go if they got bitten? Maybe? Or maybe they just felt a little under the weather, but not enough to not go to the stadium? Where they turned and kicked off this entire mess… the latter was more plausible, but it ran into the same issue.

How did they get infected in the first place?

"You think it's airborne?" Chris ventured but Jill was frowning deeply, an expression of dawning horror finding its way onto her face. I think she had our answer.

"There were undead in the sewers before this," she breathed, looking at me like that was supposed to mean anything. "Rude. The water treatment plant for the city is connected to the sewers."

Oh.

Ohh…

Oh.

Fuck me.

That was so not good. That wasn't good at all.

"We have to do something about that. It's more important than just evacuations -- Chris, what water do you think these people are going to drink?" I asked Chris when he went to interject. The people trying to flee were in more immediate danger. Hands down. However, all it took was one person getting infected and hiding their symptoms. Then it would be too late. Everyone in the safe zone would be in danger.

"It's too late to save the water. Who knows what's floating in it now, and I wouldn't trust any Aquatab to kill the T-Virus," Jill seemed to agree. There was no point in saving people if they were being brought to danger.

"We have to split up," Chris decided, looking between us. That seemed like a bad call.

"Have you never seen an episode of Scooby Doo? That's a terrible idea. Especially when there's a giant monster out to kill you two," I reminded.

"That's exactly why we need to split up. There's one other member of STARS in the city -- Brad. I'll link up with him, if I can, and draw that creature away from you while you're saving the water supply. I'll spread word about the tainted water and delayed symptoms. I'm leaving the dirty work for you two," he said, throwing a charming grin our way.

I didn't like that plan. I didn't like that plan at all. I threw everything I had at Nemesis, and it got up and fucked off to adapt to everything I had thrown at it. It was meaner and tougher and I did not like the idea of Chris facing it solo. However, Jill rapped a fist against his, seeing the value in the plan.

Fuck.

"I want it on record that I told you this was a bad idea," I decided, accepting it for what it was. Do as much as I could but recognize that I couldn't do everything -- that was how I got through this. I wasn't a messiah who could save everyone and make it all sunshine and rainbows. As much as I didn't like it, Chris wasn't wrong about our priorities and I had to have a little faith that he could take care of himself.

In response, he flashed me a smirk and thumped me on the shoulder. "Don't worry. There's an even shot that it comes after you, you know." Oh, I didn't even think about that. Suddenly, I felt a lot more nervous about this venture.

"I… should probably go get my suit from the apartment-" I began, thinking that it would offer at least a little protection.

"Bad idea. That thing will slow you down, overheat you, and give you a false sense of protection," Jill immediately vetoed the idea.

My face pinched, “I worked really hard on that, you know.” To that, Jill gave me a huff and a small smile before grabbing me by the sweater. I met Chris’ gaze and returned the nod that he sent my way. He was a super cop. He could probably take care of himself better than I could. Actually, there was no probably about it.

So, I needed to have a little faith that things would work out.

Afterall, it wasn’t like everything could go wrong, could it?