A red motorcycle tore through the midnight air, its engine a screaming banshee that shattered the silence of the highway.
Claire Redfield leaned into the curve, her ponytail a whip of reddish-brown against the dark sky. She'd been riding hard since Kansas, the vibration of the bike settling into her bones like a dull ache. The adrenaline that had fueled her departure was beginning to sour into a deep, marrow-chilling fatigue.
She needed caffeine. She needed a map. Mostly, she needed the familiar, sharp bite of a lemonade to wash the road dust from her throat.
She pulled up in front of a place called "J's Bar," though the neon sign humming overhead looked more like a diner. She killed the engine, and the sudden silence was more jarring than the roar had been.
It was too quiet.
The streets of Raccoon City were a graveyard of abandoned cars and flickering streetlamps. No sirens. No chatter. No late-night revelers. Just the rhythmic tink-tink-tink of her cooling engine and the unsettling feeling of a thousand unseen eyes.
"Does everyone in this town go to bed at nine?" Claire muttered, her brow furrowing as she pulled off her helmet.
She pushed through the glass door. The wind chime above didn't even ring—it just hung limp, as if the air itself was too thick to move. Inside, the diner was bathed in a warm, deceptive amber glow. Everything looked normal. Coffee was still steaming in a pot behind the counter. A half-eaten slice of pie sat on a booth table.
But there wasn't a soul in sight.
"Hello?" Claire called out. "Is anyone working?"
Her voice flatlined against the acoustic tiles. No response.
She was about to turn around and find a more lively spot when she heard it: a wet, rhythmic sound from the back of the room.
Schlick. Crunch. Tear.
It sounded like someone working a steak knife through gristle. Curiosity, that stubborn Redfield trait, pushed down the rising bile of her intuition. She set her helmet on the counter and moved toward the sound, her footsteps ghosting over the linoleum.
She peered around the corner of the kitchen partition.
A man was crouching on the floor, his back to her. His shoulders were heaving in time with the wet sounds of his meal.
"Hey, sir?" Claire asked, her voice tight. "You okay? Do you need help?"
The chewing stopped.
The man didn't stand. Instead, he turned his head with a slow, mechanical jerkiness—a movement that sounded like dry wood snapping.
Claire's heart stopped.
The thing wasn't a man anymore. The skin was a mottled, bruised grey, sloughing off in wet patches to reveal the raw, dark meat of the muscle beneath. One eye was a milky, clouded orb that threatened to spill from its socket; the other was a black pit of rot. Dark, viscous fluid dripped from its chin, staining the floor.
In its grey, claw-like hands, it clutched a human forearm. The bone was white and jagged where it had been gnawed clean.
Claire felt the world tilt. Her stomach lurched, a wave of cold nausea hitting her so hard she nearly doubled over. Her legs felt like they'd been poured full of lead.
The creature let out a low, guttural rattle—a sound that wasn't a voice, but a vibration of hunger. It looked at her, and Claire saw the primitive, singular intent in that dead eye.
"Sorry... to disturb you..." she whispered, her voice a fragile thread. She began to back away, one agonizing inch at a time. "I'll just... I'll leave you to it."
The monster didn't care about the apology. It dropped the arm with a heavy thud and began to haul itself up. It moved with a staggering, drunken gait, its joints popping as it scented the fresh, living air she carried.
The internal string holding Claire together finally snapped.
She spun on her heel and bolted. She didn't head for the front; she crashed through the swinging kitchen doors, lungs burning as she sprinted past greasy prep tables and toward the back exit. She threw her shoulder into the heavy metal door.
"Move it!" she hissed to herself.
The door flew open, and Claire stumbled out into the alley—right into the muzzle of a 9mm handgun.
A young man in a dark blue police uniform stood there, his face a mask of sweating, raw tension. His hands were rock steady on the grip, the sight aligned perfectly with the center of her forehead.
"Whoa! Hey!" Claire skidded to a halt, throwing her hands up. "Don't shoot! I'm human!"
"Get down!" the officer barked.
Claire didn't hesitate. She dropped, covering her head as a thunderous crack echoed through the narrow alley.
The bullet whistled inches above her hair. Behind her, the thing from the diner let out a wet gasp as its skull shattered, its body collapsing into a heap of dead weight and cooling blood.
Claire stayed on the ground for a second, gasping, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She looked up at the officer. He was young—maybe mid-twenties—with blonde hair and a face that looked like it belonged on a recruitment poster, if not for the haunted look in his eyes.
"It's not safe here," he said, his voice a controlled rush of adrenaline. He reached down and hauled her to her feet. "The station's our best bet. It's fortified. Move."
Claire looked at the "R.P.D." patch on his shoulder, then at the nightmare on the ground. "Raccoon Police? What the hell is happening to this town?"
"I'm Leon Kennedy," he said, ignoring the question as he checked the alley. "And I don't think anyone has an answer yet. Just stay close."
The gunshot had been a dinner bell.
From the mouth of the alley and the shadows between the buildings, more of them appeared. Staggering, moaning shapes—residents who had once been shopkeepers and neighbors, now reduced to shambling husks of meat.
"Run!" Leon growled.
They burst out of the alley and onto the main drag, their boots pounding against the pavement. Everywhere they looked, the dead were closing in. It was a sea of rotting grey flesh and reaching hands.
A police cruiser sat idling in the middle of the street, its lights painting the carnage in rhythmic strobes of red and blue.
"Get in!" Leon yelled, firing a round into a zombie that had lunged from behind a mailbox.
Claire yanked the passenger door open and dived inside. A silver Browning HP sat on the seat next to a spare magazine. She grabbed it, checked the chamber with a practiced flick of her wrist, and felt a shred of her confidence return.
But the car wasn't empty.
A shadow lunged from the backseat, a snarling, decaying face snapping at her throat. The stench was unbearable—the smell of an open grave.
"Leon!" Claire screamed, twisting away as the thing's teeth gnashed inches from her jugular.
Leon reached for his sidearm, but three more of the things were already slamming their bodies against his driver-side window, the glass spiderwebbing under the pressure. They were trapped.
Beep—BEEEEEP!
A deafening, continuous horn blast tore through the air. A pair of high-beams, bright as God's own eyes, cut through the dark.
An old, battered Ford sedan came roaring out of the gloom like a battering ram, tires screaming and engine howling as it aimed straight for the cluster of dead surrounding the cruiser.