September 28. Raccoon City. 5:30 P.M.
John's order was an imperative, not a suggestion. While Evelyn and Leo went upstairs to pack the essentials (a backpack for her, Leo's hand as her anchor), John moved with brutal efficiency through Kendo's gun shop. He wasted no time on sentimentality.
He headed to the backroom storage, a place Kendo had kept well-stocked even in peacetime. John took the boxes labeled 9mm, 5.56x45mm (for his Colt Commando), and .45 ACP (for his pistols), ripping open the cartons with the tip of a combat knife and filling every pocket and sheath on his suit with pre-loaded magazines.
The weight of the ammunition was reassuring; the sound of metal clanking against metal was the only language that mattered now. His suit felt heavier, but safer.
Kendo, returning with a dark backpack and a loaded pump-action shotgun, watched the machinery in motion. "Ten minutes, you said," he muttered.
"Enough time to arm ourselves," John replied breathlessly, finishing securing his MP5 to his bandolier. "The kids are ready."
"Yeah. Evelyn only took her teddy bear and I grabbed some canned food and water. What's the plan now? The Hummer?" Kendo asked, referring to the imposing vehicle John had left parked precariously in front of the store.
John nodded, his face grim. "We'll take the armored vehicle. It's the fastest and safest. I left it halfway across the street so it would be easier to start. It should be..." John stopped. He had reached the store's front door, the one that faced the street. His gaze swept over the exact spot where he had left the Hummer H1.
The vehicle was gone.
In its place, there was only an empty space between two overturned cars, with fresh tire marks on the broken pavement, turning toward the main avenue.
John stood motionless for a second. There was no room for surprise, only for cold rage.
"Damn it," John hissed, the strongest curse he had articulated since the nightmare began. His voice was a icy whisper, but the intensity was palpable.
Kendo looked at the empty street. "No way. A survivor took it? Now?"
"Someone saw the armored vehicle, the weapon, and took the opportunity," John retorted. "It doesn't matter. We go on foot now."
Kendo gripped the shotgun harder. "On foot? John, the subway station... it's about five blocks from here. On foot, right now... it's a slaughterhouse. We're losing light."
The faint sunlight was no longer enough. Twilight had dissolved into an early darkness, broken only by distant fires and the flickering streetlights that had survived. The shadows were long, deep, and treacherous.
John Wick turned to look at Kendo. His face, barely visible in the gloom, was a mask of determination.
"Staying here is a slaughterhouse with a roof. Moving fast, in the dark, is an advantage," John explained, his voice low and efficient, like a tactical report. "The night covers us. It will make us harder to detect. But we must be silent. Any noise, any cry, is an invitation."
He paused, looking toward where the children were waiting by the staircase entrance.
"Listen to me, Kendo. This is a formation. My position is the spearhead. You are the shield." John took the lead, his MP5 pointed forward, covering the widest field of view.
"Leo, Evelyn, you stay between Kendo and me. Nobody gets more than an arm's length away," John instructed, without raising his voice. He addressed the children with a tone that was calm but demanded absolute obedience. "If you hear a sound, if you see anything, don't scream. Keep your mouth shut and move. Understood?"
Evelyn, clinging to her backpack and Leo's hand, nodded sharply. Leo, his eyes wide in the dark, nodded too.
John turned to Kendo, who had taken his place behind the children, his shotgun covering the rear. "I clear the way. You cover our backs. If you see anything moving, only shoot if it's an immediate threat. And aim for the head. Clear?"
"Clear, John," Kendo responded, his voice low and grave. The fear in his eyes had been replaced by the focus of a father defending his young.
The shop door, half-destroyed, was slowly pushed open by John. The street was a silent maze of abandoned vehicles and rubble, bathed in the unsettling reddish glow of Raccoon City's night. The air was cold and smelled of smoke and death.
John stepped out first, his silhouette absorbing the meager light. He began a slow, almost hypnotic movement, scanning the rooftops and shadows.
Kendo followed, his eyes fixed on the rear. He felt the small bodies of Evelyn and Leo, one ahead and one beside, moving rhythmically. The formation was a delicate sandwich of human flesh and steel, advancing street by street, moving into the night.
Five blocks. The journey to the subway station had begun. The factor of low light, which added distress and mystery for Kendo and the children, was a tactical blessing for John, allowing them to move like ghosts through hell.
The chaos wasn't limited to screams; it was the architecture of destruction. Each step was a challenge, a silent climb over broken bricks, ground glass, and ripped-off car doors. Raccoon City had become an urban charnel house. On the first street, John had to guide the formation around an overturned bus that was bleeding fuel onto the pavement. The darkness was so dense that the colossal buildings looked like mute ghosts on either side.
Two streets in, the silence of John's tactic was broken by the reality of the threat. Four figures staggered into the middle of the street, drawn not by sound, but by the faint crunch of Kendo's boots stepping on a puddle of putrid liquid.
"Two to the left, two to the front. Slow, but coming," John hissed without moving his head, his voice a thread of cold air.
Kendo tensed his muscles. He knew a shotgun blast here would be a sonic disaster, attracting the entire block.
John drew his silenced P30L pistol, a weapon he knew intimately. Without stopping the advance, and using Kendo's movements as a distraction for the infected, John fired.
Pfff. Pfff.
Two muffled sounds. Two silhouettes dropped without a moan, their heads perforated by the 9mm rounds. The other two infected, oblivious to the death that had just passed, continued their drag. John waited for them to pass a recycling bin and executed the remaining two with the same cold efficiency.
"Keep going. Fast, but quiet," John ordered.
The children, terror frozen on their faces, moved. Evelyn clung to her father, feeling the tremor of Leo's hand in hers. John and Kendo were now a lethal pair, John clearing the vanguard, Kendo watching to ensure no one got up from behind.
Everything seemed to be going according to John's plan. They had already passed three streets and the fourth was close to completion. Kendo's nervousness began to turn into a tense hope; the silhouette of the subway sign, though dimmed and broken, shone in the distance with the reflection of a fire. They were getting close.
It was then, halfway down the fourth street, that the darkness betrayed them.
A low, quick growl, different from the guttural moan of the infected, was heard echoing off the alleyway. John, who was in the lead, stopped the formation dead in its tracks, raising an open hand.
The scant light reflecting off the debris allowed John to see the ground-level movement: a pack, or what was left of one. They were dogs, but their eyes glowed like incandescent coals, a demonic red that cut through the gloom. They moved with terrifying speed and intelligence.
Damn it, John swore in his thoughts, an instant coldness running down his spine. These were a much bigger problem. The undead were slow and predictable; these creatures were fast, relentless, and probably guided by superior smell and hearing. They were too fast to dodge and too numerous for a silent confrontation.
Quickly, John identified a narrow alley to his right, next to a crumbling building. There was a large, metallic industrial dumpster against the wall.
John slid backward, nearing Kendo and the children, his voice reduced to an urgent, clipped whisper.
"Kendo, listen! They're dogs, they're coming through the alley and they're too fast. If we use the shotgun, the noise will kill us. We can't risk it. I need the kids to get into that metal dumpster right now. It's temporary, but it will cover them while we clear the way."
Kendo assimilated the order in half a second. "Got it! Evelyn, come on, it's now."
Evelyn, hearing the word "dogs" and seeing the enormous dumpster, went rigid. "No, Dad. I don't... I don't want to get in there," her voice was a small whimper.
Kendo instantly knelt down, grabbing his daughter by the shoulders. His voice, tense with urgency, was her pillar of calm. "Evelyn. Listen to me. You have to be very brave, my love. It's for one minute. It's the only place you'll be safe while we take care of them. We won't be long, I promise."
The girl looked at John, then at her father. She was terrified, but the conviction in Kendo's voice was undeniable.
Leo didn't wait. The boy slipped under Kendo's arm and scrambled over the edge of the dumpster with John's help, disappearing silently inside. His obedience was an act of pure logic, detached from panic.
Seeing Leo, Evelyn gave in. Kendo helped her climb, and Evelyn dropped down among the garbage bags and cardboard.
John carefully closed the lid, his mind already focused on the approaching growl. He moved to cover the corner of the alley, the MP5 raised, ready for the assault. Kendo, shotgun ready, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him.
The air filled with the acrid stench of carrion and wet fur. John pressed against the wall, using the faint light of a distant streetlamp to locate the most distracted target. About fifty meters away, at the mouth of the alley, an infected dog was frantically feeding on a body. The distance was extreme for a pistol shot in the dark, and the risk of missing and alerting the rest of the pack was unacceptable.
John raised his silenced P30L. He didn't use the sight, but muscle memory, aligning the barrel with the center mass of the moving silhouette. He inhaled slowly and deeply, exhaling a fraction of the air, locking the rest in his lungs as his finger tensed on the trigger. For a brief moment, the outside world ceased to exist; only the point between the gun's sight and the target remained.
Pfff.
The sound was a release of compressed air. The dog that was feeding stopped. Without a whimper, its head dropped heavily onto the corpse. There was no alert.
But the pack was already moving.
The slight change in the wind carried the fresh smell of gunpowder, the sweat of tension, and, worse, the scent of human flesh that the children and Kendo had just left by moving. Four pairs of red eyes rose in the darkness and, with a guttural howl, broke into a run.
"They're coming!" Kendo shouted, his voice tense as he raised the shotgun.
The dogs were a blur of fury and claws, their speed belying their putrefied bodies. John did not hesitate. He drew his second silenced pistol, the MP5 on his back, and moved with deadly fluidity.
The first dog leaped in a low arc. John didn't shoot it; he dodged it, spinning his body so the creature passed him. The instant the dog hit the ground, John shot it in the base of the skull with a shot that shattered the bone.
The second dog focused on Kendo. The man, though armed, was slower. He tried to raise the shotgun, but the animal was already airborne. Kendo covered his face with his forearm.
Before the jaws could close, John lunged, stepping between the attack and Kendo. He used his forearm, reinforced by the Kevlar suit, to deflect the bite, feeling a brutal impact. Without a whimper of pain, John used the dog's weight against it. He hurled it against the wall of the dumpster where the children were hiding.
The metallic crash of the dog against the steel was deafening and echoed down the street.
"Now, Kendo!" John hissed, freeing himself from the grip of the dog which, stunned, tried to get up.
That hit and John's intervention were the spark Kendo needed. Recovering, with his heart pounding in his temples, Kendo aimed the shotgun at the stunned dog.
BOOM!
The roar of the pump-action shotgun shattered the silence of Raccoon City. An explosion of lead and blood. The dog was pulverized in a red cloud against the dumpster. The noise was a death sentence for tranquility, but an act of survival.
The sound alerted two more dogs that joined the fray, but they were now disoriented by the blast. John took advantage of the sonic chaos. He slid onto the pavement, an armed ghost, his P30L firing with inhumane elegance. One dog took two quick, precise shots to the head. The other, trying to flank Kendo, was intercepted by three shots to the neck and chest.
The confrontation lasted ten seconds, but for Kendo, it felt like an eternity. When the last growl died out, only the inert bodies remained and the dull echo of the shotgun blast bouncing off the buildings.
John got up, his suit barely dirty, his eyes scanning the street. The smoke from Kendo's shot was the only sign of battle.
"The noise," John said, his voice barely audible. "It's going to cost us two more minutes of slow movement." He approached the dumpster and tapped the lid softly. "We're clear. Get out slowly, now."
The metallic lid lifted with a jarring screech, a protest of metal against the newly recovered silence. Leo was the first to emerge, driven by blind obedience, closely followed by Evelyn, who clutched her backpack.
Both froze at the edge of the dumpster, not from fear of the darkness, but from the reality of what had occurred in the last ten seconds. The air was still thick with the smell of gunpowder and, now, with the stench of fresh blood, viscera, and the chemical scent of John's clean work.
Leo saw the dogs' bodies, most with clean, mortal holes, but his eyes fixed on the impact of Kendo's shotgun: chunks of fur and dark flesh scattered grotesquely on the metal of the dumpster and the pavement. The boy's stomach, which had already endured the shock of the previous combat, could not withstand the assault on his senses.
He turned to the wall, doubling over, and vomited loudly, the acrid sound of acid hitting the cement.
Kendo reacted immediately. He crouched down, dropping the shotgun to one side so he could embrace Leo. He gave him firm, soothing pats on the back as the boy emptied his stomach. "It's okay, champ. It's over. Just breathe. Inhale, exhale."
Evelyn, on the other hand, remained motionless. Her lips were pressed into a tight line, her eyes fixed on a dead point between her father and John. She was pale, trembling slightly, but actively refusing to look at the remains of the dogs. Her survival mechanism was visual denial, an emotional fortress that surprised Kendo in the midst of the crisis. She clung to her backpack as if it were an anchor in a storm.
While Kendo comforted his adopted daughter, John did not waste a second. He quickly reloaded the magazine of his P30L. His face, devoid of emotion, assessed the scene. The roar of the shotgun, though it saved their lives, had been a sonic beacon in the night.
"Fast," John said, his voice low but urgent, looking toward the mouth of the street. "We have to run. The sound we made was too much. This will draw dozens."
Just as he finished the sentence, his eyes, trained to see movement where there was only darkness, detected the silhouette. Several infected were stumbling at the entrance of the fourth street, drawn by the echo of the shot. They were slow, but their number was alarming, and the response time was ending.
Kendo stood up, his expression hardened. He scooped Evelyn up in a single movement, carrying her against his chest. "Hold on tight, princess. Daddy's got you."
John approached Leo. The boy, exhausted and his mouth tasting of bile, looked up. John, without a word, simply lifted him with one hand under his armpits, holding him against his side, holding the child as if he were a precision rifle.
Both men ran, John taking the lead, his MP5 now in a firing position. They moved fast, Kendo holding Evelyn firmly, John shielding Leo, using his own body as a protective barrier.
The children instinctively closed their eyes, burying their faces in the men's clothes. They didn't want to see the approaching figures, the ones that were dragging themselves, with broken limbs hanging limply and parts of exposed bone shining horribly in the dim light.
The desperate race toward the subway station had begun.
They had barely advanced ten meters when John's tactic fell apart. The distant moans quickly amplified. Three infected burst out of a cross alley to their left, directly intercepting their path.
John did not hesitate. There was no time to stop, nor to use the suppressor.
"Leo! Cover your ears!" John commanded with a firm shout, without slowing his run.
The boy, clinging to John's side like a kangaroo, immediately obeyed, pressing his small hands against his ears.
John shifted his grip on his MP5, keeping the barrel low so as not to aim at Kendo, and executed a controlled three-shot burst. The bodies of the three infected twitched, their heads exploding in the gloom. Firing accurately, while moving, while carrying additional weight, was a ballistic feat that only a killer of his caliber could achieve with such calmness.
"Hold tight to my back, now!" John hissed at Leo, slowing down just enough for the child to wrap his arms around his neck, securing his position with his legs around John's waist. John used the brief respite to reload the MP5 in the harness with a speed the darkness could barely catch.
Kendo was in the same situation. Two more infected, noticeably more agile than average, came out of a gap on the right, getting dangerously close to Kendo's flank.
Kendo stopped, using the momentum of the run to pivot. "Evelyn, eyes closed and ears covered, now!"
The girl, who was accustomed to her father's commands, instantly complied, burying her face against Kendo's shoulder and closing her eyes.
K-CHICK! The sound of the shotgun's cycling mechanism resonated. Kendo aimed and fired twice in quick succession.
BOOM! BOOM!
The shots were not as clean as John's, and the infected did not die, but the massive impact of the shotgun pellets brutally hurled them to the ground, their bodies broken and unable to quickly get up. It was enough.
"Go, go!" Kendo ran again, with Evelyn still firmly held over his shoulder.
Finally, at the end of the street, the imposing structure appeared: the entrance to the South Raccoon City subway station. A gray, dirty brick marquee, with the main sign hanging crookedly and flickering from a short circuit. Beneath it, steep metal stairs welcomed them to the underground darkness.
John stopped at the edge of the stairs and gently lowered Leo, making sure the boy was steady on his feet. Kendo did the same with Evelyn.
John looked over his shoulder at the street. The initial group of infected he had seen had tripled. They were moving very slowly, but the mass was approaching, unstoppable.
"Hurry! Down! Now!" John ordered, pushing the children toward the stairs, covering their rear with the MP5 while Kendo and the children descended.
The group quickly sank into the cement and darkness. The metal subway door, though ajar and grimy, offered the illusion of a barrier. The journey on foot was over, but the underground hell was just beginning.
The descent was an immediate relief for the children. The underground air was cool and stagnant, a reprieve from the stench of the surface. The sonic chaos transformed into a muffled silence, broken by an unexpected noise: a murmur of voices, a collective sound of many people, which amplified as they descended the stairwell tunnel.
Kendo stopped on the last step, his face illuminated by a surge of hope. "John! Do you hear that? There are more people. The train is probably waiting for all possible survivors. It's an evacuation. We made it!"
John simply nodded, his gaze sweeping the shadows and ceilings, unable to lower his guard. His training told him that collective security was fragile, but the presence of other living humans was, undeniably, an advantage.
Evelyn and Leo, leaving the nightmare of the streets behind, also felt relief. The atmosphere was less chaotic, more controlled.
Reaching the station floor, the scene was a tapestry of human desperation. The weak, yellow emergency light revealed a large crowd of people scattered across the platform where the train was supposed to be waiting. It was a diverse group: injured people, others silently sobbing, mothers cradling trembling children, and men with stone faces, clinging to anything that could be used as a weapon.
Most of the survivors were immersed in their own misery or exhaustion, ignoring the arrival of John and the others, which allowed them to enter without causing a stir.
"Robert Kendo!"
An older man, with a wrinkled face and gray hair, approached Kendo. He was wearing a dirty flannel shirt and had an arm crudely bandaged.
"Larry! I thought you wouldn't make it here. I'm glad to see you," Kendo greeted his regular customer with forced cordiality.
Evelyn and Leo stood still, watching curiously. For them, it was the first time they had seen so many living people since the outbreak began.
"Did the train arrive, Larry? Is it waiting?" Kendo asked, the urgent question on everyone's mind.
Larry sighed, a heavy, disappointed sound. "Yes, Robert. It arrived. But about two hours ago. It left full, to the brim. We had to leave a lot of people out. Those of us who remain here are the stragglers or those who couldn't get on. But they said the train will come back. So, we have to wait."
Kendo let out a sigh of relief tinged with frustration. The train had narrowly escaped, but the promise that it would return was a lifeline.
Saying goodbye to Larry, Kendo, John, and the children headed toward the platform wall, a less crowded area. They could finally sit down and rest after the exhausting journey.
Kendo hugged Evelyn, cradling her against him. Leo nestled silently between John and Kendo.
John leaned against the cold wall, his inscrutable gaze still scanning the group of survivors, the tunnel, and the darkness he had left behind on the stairs. With an almost imperceptible movement, he touched his forearm. The spot was bruised and pulsed with a dull ache. It was the spot where the infected dog had bitten him before he hurled it against the dumpster. The Kevlar suit had protected his flesh; it hadn't broken the skin, but the brutal squeeze he felt against his bones was a physical reminder of the creatures' inhuman strength.
The wait had begun.
While John, Kendo, and the children found a respite underground, two kilometers away, a deep black armored Humvee (different from the stolen Hummer H1) tore across the broken pavement of Fifth Avenue. Aboard were not three, but seven soldiers from the Umbrella Security Service (U.S.S.). They were packed into the cab and the rear, a concentrated assault force.
Their uniforms were black ballistic material, with no visible insignia beyond a subtle embroidered umbrella logo. Most disturbing were their faces: hidden behind gas masks with bright red visor lenses, reflecting the distant flames like demonic eyes.
The driver, known as Viper, spoke without emotion, his voice metallic and filtered by the respirator.
"Position report. We are one and a half kilometers from the objective, Hunter. Infected traffic is light, mostly on foot. The main horde is converging on the store area."
The commanding officer, known as Hunter (the squad leader), was in the co-pilot seat, a man of unwavering presence who kept an H&K 416 assault rifle on his lap. His voice, grave and authoritative, resonated in the cab.
"Confirmed. Maintain speed. We need to secure the South subway station entrance before it gets completely dark. Maintain 'Whisper' alert level. No unnecessary civilian casualties before reaching the station."
From the rear, a distinct voice, from a support soldier named Echo, joined the conversation via the internal intercom. "Hunter, intelligence is confused about the main objective. Are we looking for survivors or a B.O.W. threat at the extraction point?"
"Both," Hunter replied with surgical coldness. "Shadow, confirm the Colonel's order."
Shadow, the communications specialist, who was in the center seat, checked his console. "Confirming intelligence. The subway station was used as an evacuation point. The train that left about two hours ago was overloaded and managed to escape the city perimeter. The order is clear: the escape is a delta-level containment failure."
Viper sharply turned the wheel to avoid an overturned car. "The order is clear, Hunter. Total elimination. All survivors in the subway station, as well as any stragglers who arrive, must be neutralized to prevent exposure. The train will return, or at least that's what they were led to believe. We want the rally point to remain attractive."
Another soldier in the rear, Hammer, whose specialty was heavy weaponry, intervened with a grunt. "What if they resist? Or what if the train brings something more than civilians?"
Hunter leaned back, feeling the slight rattle of the Humvee under his boots. "If they resist, they are eliminated with lethal fire. If the train brings B.O.W.s, they are eliminated the same way. This is a cleanup job, not a battle. We will proceed with caution. We don't want to attract the federal forces already prowling the suburbs."
Shadow adjusted his rifle. "Understood. Neutralization and securing of the subway evacuation point. No witnesses. The returning train will not find anyone alive."
Hunter ended the conversation with a final command. "Prepare yourselves. We are reaching the mouth of the subway. Hammer, Lance: perimeter containment deployment. The rest of you, with me. Maximum discretion from now on."
The seven soldiers remained silent, the only evidence of their imminent arrival being the grave roar of the diesel engine, a sound that would soon blend with the darkness of Raccoon City.