"Hey..."
"What are you spacing out for, Javier?" Rebecca asked, looking confused.
Javier shook his head, pulling his thoughts back to the present. He had to get through this part of the story first before worrying about the things in his head.
"Sorry," he said to Rebecca. "I was just thinking. Come on! We need to find the train tracks. They shouldn't be hard to find; I think they're right around here."
He immediately moved to the front and raised his Winchester M1897 shotgun. This police riot gun had many attachments, including a small "nuclear-powered" flashlight on the side. This meant he didn't have to awkwardly hold the gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
The flashlight cast a weak light into the dense woods. Although it wasn't very bright, he could at least see the path. If he had the chance, Javier decided he would have a super bright custom flashlight made next time.
He knew that flashlights in horror games were always "nuclear-powered" with an impossibly long battery life, but due to the nature of horror games, the brightness was always dim and would occasionally be turned off by various debuffs.
If he had the chance, Javier would ignore this ridiculous setting and get a super bright flashlight that could light up a whole neighborhood. He wanted to see what kind of monsters were hiding in the Arklay Mountains!
"Step, step, step..."
"Step, step, step..."
The footsteps of Javier and Rebecca echoed clearly in the forest. The Arklay Mountains were so silent that even the sound of them stepping on a rotten branch was loud. It was hard to imagine anyone being crazy enough to come to this place.
Luckily, Javier and Rebecca had good fortune. After searching for a short while, they found the train tracks. The path was covered with gravel and the tracks were rusty from not being used often.
"We found the tracks..."
"Now we just need to follow them to find the Ecliptic Express!" Rebecca exclaimed excitedly.
Finding the tracks in the wild was like finding a stream. It was a rare sign of a path. This way, they wouldn't get lost. By following the tracks, they would find the train and be able to return to Raccoon City.
Javier gripped his shotgun even tighter. If his memory was correct, the next part of the story was about to begin.
Sure enough, after walking a little further, Javier and Rebecca found the scene of an accident. It was a military jeep that had flipped over next to the tracks. Before they even got close, they smelled a foul odor. It was the smell of rotting corpses. As S.T.A.R.S. members, they were all too familiar with it.
"There are bodies..."
"And they've been dead for days!"
Javier and Rebecca exchanged looks. They both understood what the other was thinking and quickened their pace. They soon found several bodies next to the overturned jeep. They were all soldiers in military uniforms, and the jeep was also a military vehicle.
"Ugh..."
"How cruel—!" Rebecca said, covering her mouth and gagging. The bodies on the ground were horrifying. Their eyes were wide open, and their pupils were dilated, showing that they had seen something terrifying before they died. The ground was covered in blood, and their exposed arms and necks were covered in large and small bite marks.
The bites weren't from the mutated leeches, but from the fangs of a large beast. There were even intestines on the ground. If they hadn't eaten, Javier and Rebecca would have thrown up their dinner.
"What..."
"Who did this? Is it the serial killer or a large beast from the news? But... even trained soldiers couldn't defeat it. That's insane," Rebecca mumbled, covering her nose. She couldn't imagine what kind of person or beast could have done this. If it wasn't a person, what kind of beast was it?
A black bear? A tiger? Or maybe, something even crazier... a dinosaur?
If Javier knew what Rebecca was thinking, he would have laughed. Her imagination wasn't wild enough. It was obvious that they had been attacked by zombie animals infected with the virus!
The reason why the soldiers' bodies hadn't turned into zombies was that the T-virus's infectiousness was still very low in the beginning. What's more, it was a decreasing infection. Marcus had improved the original virus by injecting it into leeches. The mutated leeches would then bite and inject the virus into wild beasts, and those beasts would then bite humans.
The virus had gone through too many hosts, so its infectiousness was much lower than before. It was normal for the soldiers' bodies to not have turned into zombies.
"Wait, there's a black box here..."
"It looks like it was used to store some files. It says... Name: Billy Coen, Gender: Male, Former Marine Corps Second Lieutenant. Sentenced to death by a military tribunal for killing 23 innocent civilians during a mission. Ordered to be escorted to the Caucasus base for execution. This is a transport order. But what's strange... the body of the man on the order isn't here. He must have escaped," Javier said to Rebecca. While she was thinking, he had found a black box on the side and pulled out a military transport order from inside.
"A criminal?" Rebecca said.
"He killed 23 innocent civilians! He must be a cold-blooded killer. Could he have killed these people?"
Rebecca took the transport order from Javier. She looked at the young man in the photo, who was wearing a tank top, had messy hair, a rugged face, sharp eyes, and tattoos on his left arm. The document also listed his crimes. Rebecca had no sympathy for someone who killed innocent civilians. She even speculated that he might have killed the soldiers and that the bite marks were from wild beasts that were attracted to the blood.
But Javier shook his head helplessly.
He knew that Billy Coen was one of the protagonists of Resident Evil 0. He was a typical American soldier who was framed for a crime he didn't commit. Besides, there were no gunshot wounds on the bodies.
Even if a former Marine Corps Second Lieutenant was very strong, he couldn't have killed four or five armed soldiers with his bare hands. Rebecca's speculation was completely unrealistic.
"Alright,"
"This person isn't important for now. Let's find the Ecliptic Express first!" Javier said, grabbing the back of Rebecca's collar. He pulled her up and continued walking along the tracks, making her squirm like a wild cat.
"Ah..."
"Quick! Put me down—!"
Amidst their bickering, they didn't notice that several crimson eyes had appeared in the dense forest of the Arklay Mountains. They belonged to the infected beasts, which were staring intently at Javier and Rebecca.
...
Ten minutes later—
"Hurry, hurry...!"
"Javier, is that the Ecliptic Express?!"
After searching for a long time, Rebecca and Javier finally found the tail end of the Ecliptic Express. Although it was dark, they could faintly make it out. Rebecca excitedly pointed to it.
The entire Ecliptic Express was sitting still in the middle of the tracks. There was no movement, only a deadly silence. What was even more terrifying was that even though there was no sound, the train's cars were all lit up.
Weren't all the passengers of the Ecliptic Express supposed to be dead? Then why were there no bodies near the tracks, and no signs of life at all?
"Wait...!"
"Rebecca, something's not right. We need to be careful," Javier said in a low voice, grabbing Rebecca who was about to run toward the train. If he wasn't mistaken, the moment they opened the train doors, they would be met with a surprise attack!