Raccoon Times, August 26, 1998
       MAYOR ANNOUNCES 'KEEP CITY SAFE' PLAN RACCOON CITY
      –On the front steps of City Hall, Mayor Harris announced in a press conference yesterday afternoon that the City Council will be hiring at least ten new police officers to join the Raccoon police, in response to the continued suspension of the Special Tactics and Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S.), in effect since the brutal murders that plagued Raccoon earlier this summer. Joined by Police Chief Brian Irons and all of Raccoon's Council members, Harris assured the gathered citizens and reporters that Raccoon City will once again be a safe community in which to live and work, and that the investigation into the eleven "cannibal" murders and three fatal wild-animal attacks is far from closed.
      "Just because no one else has been attacked in the last month doesn't mean that the elected officials of this city can relax," Harris stated. "The good people of Raccoon deserve to have confidence in their police force and to be secure in the knowledge that their political representatives are doing everything possible to ensure each citizen's safety. As many of you know, the S.T.A.R.S.'s suspension is likely to become permanent. That unit's gross mishandling of the murder investigations and its subsequent disappearance from Raccoon City suggests that they don't care about this community – but I want to assure you that we care, that myself, Chief Irons, and the men and women you see here today want nothing more than to make Raccoon a place in which our children can grow up without fear."
      Harris went on to detail a three-point plan designed to bolster public confidence and keep Raccoon citizens from falling victim to violence. Besides hiring between ten and twelve new police officers, the citywide curfew will remain in place through at least September, and Chief Irons will personally head a task force of several officers and detectives to continue searching for the killers who took the lives of eleven people between May and July of this year…
 
      Cityside, September 4,1998
       RENOVATION OP UMBRELLA COMPLEX PLANNED RACCOON CITY
      The Umbrella chemical plant just south of downtown Raccoon is due for major construction efforts, slated to begin next Monday. This will be the third such structural renovation in the last year for the thriving pharmaceutical company. According to Umbrella spokesperson Amanda Whitney, two of the laboratories inside the main plant will be fitted with several million dollars' worth of new equipment designed for vaccine synthesis, and the building itself will receive a state-of– the-art security system. In addition, all of the connected office buildings will be upgrading computers over the next several weeks. But will this be a problem for downtown traffic? Said Whitney, "With the Raccoon police building just finishing up yet
      another one of their renovations, we know that local commuters are getting pretty tired of blocked streets. We're going to do our best not to get in the way of downtown traffic; most of the construction is internal, and the rest we'll be doing after business hours." The courtyard in front of the RPD building, our readers may remember, was recently repaved and landscaped after several mysterious cracks appeared in the cement and topsoil; traffic had to be diverted around two blocks of Oak Street for six days. When asked why so many "overhauls" as of late, Whitney replied, "Umbrella has stayed ahead of the competition for as long as it has by keeping up with current technology. It's going to be a busy couple of months, but I think it will be well worth the effort when we're finally through…"
 
      Raccoon Weekly Editorial, September 17, 1998
       IRONS TO RUN? RACCOON CITY
      Mayor Harris may be in for a rough race next spring. Weekly sources inside the RPD are saying that Brian Irons, chief of police for the last four-and-a-half years, may be running for the city's top office in the next election, facing off against the popular and as yet unopposed Devlin Harris, already in office for three consecutive terms. Although Irons would not confirm his possible entry into the political arena, the onetime S.T.A.R.S. member also refused to deny the rumor. With his approval rating at an all-time high ever since the cessation of this summer's savage murders (as yet unsolved) and the planned expansion of the RPD, Chief Irons may indeed be the man to knock Harris out of City Hall; the question is, will voters be able to forget Irons's alleged involvement in the 1994 Cider District land scam? Or his rather expensive tastes In art and interior design, which have turned parts of the RPD building into something more like a museum than a working office? Assuming he means to throw his hat into the ring, this reporter – for one – will be looking forward to examining Irons's financial records…
 
      Baocoan Times, September 22,1998
       TEENAGER ATTACKED IN CITY PARK RACCOON CITY
      At, approximately 6:30 P.M. last night, fourteen– year-old Shanna Williamson was accosted by a mysterious stranger in downtown's Birch Street Park on the way home from softball practice. The man came out from behind a row of hedges at the south end of the park and knocked Ms. Williamson off of her bicycle before attempting to grab her. The teen managed to get away with onty a few scratches, running to the nearby residence of Tom and Clara Atkins; Mrs. Atkins alerted the authorities, who conducted a thorough search of the park but found no sign of the attacker. According to the girl (through a police statement issued earlier this morning), the man appeared to be a transient; his clothes and hair were dirty, and she described a bad odor coming from him, a "smell like rotten fruit." She also said that he seemed drunk, staggering and falling after her as she ran. With the plague of cannibalistic murders from May to July still unsolved, the RPD is taking Ms. Williamson's encounter very seriously; the assailant bears a striking resemblance to eyewitness reports of the "gang" members spotted in Victory Park last June. Mayor Harris has called a press conference for later today, and Mice Chief Brian Irons has stated already that with the first of the newly hired police officers expected next week, regular patrols will extend their routes to include the downtown park blocks…

       SEPTEMBER 26, 1998
      With the guys waiting outside in barry's truck, Jill did her best to hurry. It wasn't easy; the house had been tossed since the last time she'd been there, the floors were strewn with books and papers, and it was too dark to navigate around the debris easily. That her small home had been violated was upsetting, though not much of a surprise. She figured she should just be thankful that she wasn't really the sentimental type – and that the intruders hadn't managed to find her passport. She grabbed random handfuls of clean socks and underwear in the cramped darkness of the bedroom and stuffed them deep into her weathered backpack, wishing she could turn on the lights. Packing a bag in the dark was harder than it sounded, would be even if one's house hadn't been trashed; but she knew they couldn't afford to take any chances. It was unlikely that Umbrella still had all of their houses staked out, but if there was anyone watching, a light in the window could draw fire.
      At least you're getting out. No more hiding.
      There was that much. They were headed for foreign soil, to storm enemy headquarters and very likely get killed in the process, but at least she wouldn't have to hang out in Raccoon anymore. And from what she'd read in the papers lately, maybe that was for the best. Two attacks in the last week… Chris and Barry were skeptical about the danger, even knowing what the T-Virus did to people – Barry thought it was some kind of a PR stunt, that Umbrella would "rescue" Raccoon before anyone got hurt. Chris agreed, insisting that Umbrella wouldn't crap in their own back yard, so to speak, what with the Spencer estate disaster so recent. But Jill wasn't prepared to assume anything; Umbrel– la had already proven that they couldn't contain their research. And with what Rebecca and David Trapp's team had faced in Maine… Now wasn't the time to think about that – they had a plane to catch. Jill scooped the flashlight off the dresser and was about to head for the living room when she remembered that she only had one bra with her. Scowling, she turned back to the open drawers and started to dig. She had enough clothing already, chosen from what Brad had left behind when he'd fled Raccoon; she and the guys had been holed up in his vacant house for several weeks, ever since Umbrella had hit Barry's house, and although none of Brad's stuff fit Chris's tall frame or Barry's massive one, she'd been able to make do. Lingerie, however, wasn't something the S.T.A.R.S. pilot had stocked up on. She didn't particularly want to hop off the plane in Austria and have to go bra shopping. "Vanity, thy name is underwire," she muttered softly, pawing through the rumpled heap. She found the elusive article only after she'd gone through the drawer twice, and crammed it into the bag as she jogged toward the small front room of the rented house. It was only the second time she'd been there since they'd gone into hiding; she had the feeling she might not be coming back for a while. There was a picture of her father on one of the bookshelves that she wanted to take. Stepping nimbly through the dark clutter, she hooded the flashlight with one hand and trained the narrow beam at the corner where the shelf had been. The Umbrella team had knocked the whole thing over but apparently hadn't bothered to go through the books themselves. God only knew what they'd been looking for in the first place. Clues as to where the renegade S.T.A.R.S. were hiding, probably; after the attack at Barry's house and the disastrous mission at Caliban Cove, she no longer had any illusions about Umbrella simply ignoring them. Jill spotted the book she wanted, a rather lurid-looking paperback entitled Prison Life; her father would have laughed. She picked it up and rifled through the pages, stopping when the light fell across Dick Valentine's crooked grin. He'd sent the picture along with one of his more recent letters, and she'd tucked it into the book so that she wouldn't lose it. Hiding important things was a habit she'd gotten into young, one that had just paid off yet again. She let the book drop, the need to hurry suddenly forgotten as she gazed down at the photo. A faint smile played across her lips. He was probably the only man she knew of who looked good in the bright orange jumpsuit of a maximum security pen. For just a moment, she wondered what he'd think of her current predicament; in a roundabout way, he was responsible, at least for her getting involved with the
      S.T.A.R.S. in the first place. After he'd been sent up, he'd urged her to get out of the business, even saying that he'd been wrong to train her as a thief…
      … so I take a legit job, actually working for society instead of against it and people in Raccoon start dying. The S.T.A.R.S. uncover a conspiracy to create bioweapons with a virus that turns living things into monsters. Obviously nobody believes us, the S. T.A.R.S. that can't be bought by Umbrella are either discredited or eliminated. So we go underground, try to dig up proof and come up empty-handed as Umbrella contin-ues to screw around with their dangerous research and more good people are killed. Now we're off on what will probably be a suicide mission to Europe to see if we can infiltrate the headquarters of a multibillion-dollar cor-poration and stop them from destroying the goddamn planet. What would you think, I wonder? Assuming you'd even believe such a fantastic tale, what would you think? "You'd be proud of me, Dick," she whispered, scarcely aware that she'd spoken aloud and not at all sure if it was the truth. Her father wanted to see her in a less perilous line of work, and compared to what she and the other ex-S.T.A.R.S. were currently up against, burglary was about as dangerous as ac– counting. After a long moment, she carefully placed the photo into a pocket of the backpack and looked around at the broken remnants of her small home, still thinking about her father and what he'd say about the strange path her life had taken; if things went well, maybe she'd be able to ask him in person. Rebecca Chambers and the other survivors of the Maine mission were still in hiding, quietly networking through the
      S.T.A.R.S. organization for support and waiting to hear what she and Chris and Barry could tell them about Umbrella's headquarters. The official HQ was in Austria, although they all suspected that the minds behind the T-Virus had their own secret complex elsewhere – which you won't find out if you don't get your ass in gear; the guys are gonna think you stopped to take a nap. Jill shouldered the bag and took a final look around the room before moving toward the back door, through the kitchen. There was a lingering scent of rotten fruit in the dark air, coming from a bowl of apples and pears on top of the refrigerator that had long since disintegrated into mush. Even though she knew better, the smell caused a chill to run up her spine; she hurried for the closed door, trying to block out the sudden vivid flashes of memory of what they'd found at the Spencer estate…
      … rotting as they walked, reaching out with wet and withered fingers, faces melting with pus and de– cay -
      "Jill?"
      She barely contained a cry of surprise at the sound of Chris's soft voice just outside. The door opened, Chris silhouetted against the darkness by a distant streetlight. "Yeah, right here," she said, stepping forward. "Sorry it took me so long. Umbrella's been through here with a bulldozer."
      Even in the bare light she could see the half grin on his boyish face. "We were starting to think the zom-bies got ya," he said, and although his tone was light, she could hear real concern beneath it. Jill knew that he was trying to ease the tension but couldn't find it in herself to smile back. Too manypeople had died because of what Umbrella had un– leashed in the woods outside of town; if the spill had happened closer to Raccoon… "Not funny," she said softly. Chris's grin faded. "I know. You ready?"Jill nodded, although she didn't feel particularlyready for what lay ahead. Then again, she hadn't felt ready for what they were leaving behind, either. In a matter of weeks, her concept of reality had undergone a massive shift, turning nightmares into the common– place.
      Evil corporations, mad scientists, killer viruses. And the walking dead… "Yeah," she said finally. "I'm ready."Together, they stepped outside. As Jill closed the door behind them, she was suddenly struck by a strange and ominous certainty that she would never set foot in the house again, that the three of themwouldn't be coming back to Raccoon City at all…
      … but not because anything happens to us. Some-thing will happen, but not to us.
      Frowning, hand on the doorknob, she hesitated for a moment and tried to make sense of the bizarre thought. If they survived the recon, if they were successful in their fight against Umbrella, why wouldn't they come back to their homes? She didn't know, but the feeling was uncomfortably strong. Something bad was going to happen, something…
      "Hey, you okay?"
      Jill looked up at Chris, saw the same concern on his youthful face that she'd noticed earlier. They'd gotten pretty close in the last few weeks, although she suspected that Chris might like to get a bit closer.
      Oh, and you don't?
      The sense of impending unpleasantness was alreadyfading, other confusions and uncertainties stepping in to take its place. Jill shook herself mentally and nodded at Chris, letting the feelings go. The flight to New York wasn't going to wait for her to indulge in self-analysis… or to worry about things that she couldn't control, imagined or otherwise.
      Still, that feeling… "Let's get the hell out of here," she said, and meant it. They moved out into the night, leaving the house dark behind them, as lonely and silent as a tomb.

       OCTOBER.3, 1998
      Twilight had settled across the mountains, painting the jagged horizon in shades of purple dusk. The winding blacktop snaked through the gath-ering darkness, surrounded by shadowed hills that towered into the cloudless sky, stretching toward the first faint glimmerings of starlight. Leon might have appreciated the majestic view a bit more if he wasn't so goddamn late. He'd make it to his shift on time, sure, but he'd been hoping to get settled into the new apartment first, take a shower, get something to eat; as it was, he might have time to hit a drive-through on his way to the station. Changing into his uniform back at the last rest stop had saved him a couple of minutes, but basically he was screwed.
      Way to go, Officer Kennedy. First day on the job and you'll be picking cheeseburger out of your teeth during roll call. Very professional.
      His shift started at nine and it was already just after eight; Leon let his boot ride a little heavier on the gas, even as his Jeep whipped past a sign that told him he was half an hour away from Raccoon City. At least the road was clear; except for a couple of semis, he hadn't seen anyone for what felt like hours. A nice change, considering the traffic tie-up just outside of New York that had cost him most of the afternoon. He'd actu– ally tried to call the night before to leave a message with the desk sergeant that he might be late, but there'd been something wrong with the connection.
      Nothing but a busy signal.
      What little furniture he had was already moved into a studio apartment in the working-class but basically decent Trask district of Raccoon City, there was a nice park not two blocks away, and it was only a five– minute drive to the station. No more gridlock, no more overcrowded slums or random acts of brutality. Assuming he could survive the embarrassment of showing up to his first shift as a full-blown officer of the law without having unpacked his bags, he was looking forward to living in the peaceful community. Raccoon is about as far removed from the Big Apple as you can get, thank you very much – well, except for the last few months. Those murders…
      In spite of himself, he felt a tiny thrill at the thought. What had happened in Raccoon was horri-ble, of course, sickening, but the perps had never been caught and the investigation was really just getting started. And if Irons liked him, liked him as much as the heads of the academy had liked him, maybe Leon would get a chance to work on the case. Word had it that Chief Irons was kind of a prick, but Leon knew his training had been top-notch – even a prick would have to be a little impressed. He'd graduated in the top tenth, after all. And it wasn't like he was a stranger to Raccoon City, since he'd spent most of his summers there as a kid, when his grand– parents were still alive. Back then, the RPD building had been a library and Umbrella was still several years away from turning the town into an actual city, but in most ways it was still the same quiet place he remembered from his childhood. Once the cannibal killers were finally put away, Raccoon would be ideal again – beautiful, clean, a white-collar community nestled in the mountains like a secret paradise.
      So I get settled in and a week or two passes, and Irons notices how well written my reports are, or sees how good I am on the target range. He asks me to take a look at the case files, just to familiarize myself with the details so I can do some footwork and I see something that no one else has seen. A pattern, maybe, or a motive on more than one of the victims… maybe I run across a witness report that reads wrong. No one else has caught it because they've lived with it for too long, and this rookie cop just comes along and cracks the case, not a month out of the academy and I…
      Something ran in front of the Jeep.
      "Jesus!"
      Leon hit the brake and swerved, shocked out of his daydream as he struggled for control of the vehicle. The brakes locked and there was a screech of rubber that sounded like a scream. The Jeep half-turned to face the darkening trees that lined the road-and came to a stop on the shoulder, dying after a final lurching jolt. Heart pounding and stomach in knots, Leon opened the window and craned his neck, scanning the shadows for the animal that had darted across the highway. He hadn't hit it, but it had been close. Some kind of a dog, he didn't get a clear look – a big one, anyway, a shepherd or maybe an oversized Dober– man, but it had looked wrong somehow. He'd only seen it for a split-second, a flash of glowing red eyes and lean, wolfish body. And there was something else, it had seemed kind of…
      … slimy? No, trick of the light, or you were just so shit-scared that you saw it wrong. You're okay and you didn't hit it, that's the important thing. "Jesus," he said again, softer this time, feeling both relieved and suddenly quite angry as the adrenaline leaked out of his system. People who let their dogs run loose were idiots – claiming they wanted their pets to be free and then acting surprised when Fido got squashed by a car. The Jeep had come to a stop just a few feet away from a road sign that read RACCOON CITY 10; he could just make out the lettering in the growing shadows. Leon glanced at his watch; he still had almost half an hour to get to the station, plenty of time – but for some reason, he simply sat for a moment, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. Cool pine-scented air breezed across his face; the deserted stretch of road seeming almost unnaturally quiet – as if the landscape was holding its breath, waiting. Now that his heart had resumed a more normal pace, he was surprised to find that he still felt unsettled, even anxious.
      The murders in Raccoon. Weren't a few of those people killed by animal attack? Wild dogs, or some-thing? Maybe that wasn't someone's pet dog at all.
      A disturbing thought – and even more disturbing was the sudden feeling he had that the dog was still close by, maybe watching him from the darkness in the trees.
      Welcome to Raccoon City, Officer Kennedy. Watch out for things that may be watching you… "Don't be an asshole," Leon mumbled to himself, and felt a little better at the sound of his no-nonsense adult tone of voice. He often wondered if he would ever outgrow his imagination.
      Daydreaming like a kid about catching bad guys, then inventing killer dog-monsters lurking in the woods – let's try to act our age, eh, Leon? You're a cop, for God's sake, a grownup…
      He started the engine and backed onto the road, ignoring the strange sense of unease that had some– how managed to take hold of him in spite of his mind's chiding voice. He had a new job and a nice apartment in a nice little up-and-coming city; he was competent, bright, and decent-looking; as long as he kept his creativity glands in check, everything would be fine. "And I'm on my way," he said to himself, forcing a grin that felt out of place but suddenly necessary to his peace of mind. He was on his way to Raccoon City, to a promising new life – there was nothing to be uneasy about, nothing at all…
      Claire was exhausted, both physically and emotion– ally, and the fact that her butt had been aching for the last couple of hours wasn't helping matters much. The thrum of the Harley's engine seemed to have settled deep into her bones, a physical counterpoint to the butterflies in her stomach – and of course, the worst of it seemed to emanate from her extremely sore and overheated ass. Plus, it was getting dark and like an idiot she wasn't wearing her leathers; Chris would be totally pissed.
      He's going to yell his head off, and I won't even care. God, Chris, please be there to scream at me for being such an idiot…
      The Harley buzzed along the dark road, the sound of the engine echoing back at her from the sloping hills and shadow-laden trees. She took the corners carefully, very aware of how deserted the winding highway was; if she took a spill, it could be a long time before anyone happened by.
      Like it would matter. Take a spill without your gear on, they'll be scraping pieces of you off the asphalt with a squeegee.
      It was stupid, she knew it was stupid to have left in such a godawful hurry that she couldn't be bothered to suit up – but something had happened to Chris. Hell, something may have happened to the entire city. Over the past couple of weeks, the growing suspicion that her brother was in trouble had become a cer– tainty and the calls she'd made that morning had cinched it for her.
      Nobody home. Nobody home anywhere. Like Rac-coon moved and forgot to leave a forwarding address.
      It was definitely creepy, although she could give a shit about Raccoon. What mattered was that Chris was there, and if something bad had happened to him… She couldn't, wouldn't think that way. Chris was all she had left. Their father had been killed on his construction job when they were both still kids, and when their mother had died in a car crash three years ago, Chris had done his best to take on a parental role.
      Even though he was only a few years older, he'd helped her pick a college, find a decent therapist – he even sent her a little money each month beyond what the insurance policies paid out, what he called "walk-ing around cash." And on top of all that, he called her every couple of weeks like clockwork.
      Except he hadn't called at all in the last month and a half, and hadn't returned any of her calls. She'd tried to convince herself that she was silly to worry, maybe he'd finally met a girl, or something had turned up on the S.T.A.R.S. suspension thing, whatever that was all about. But after three unanswered letters and days of waiting for the phone to ring, she'd finally put in a call to the RPD that very afternoon, hoping against hope that someone there might know what was going on. She'd gotten a busy signal. Sitting in her dorm room, listening to that soulless mechanical bleat, she'd started to worry for real. Even a small city like Raccoon had a voice-mail answering system set up to field calls. The rational part of her mind told her not to panic, that a downed line was nothing to get freaky about, but already, her emo– tional self was screaming foul. She'd gone through her address book with trembling hands, dialing the few numbers she had for friends of his, people or places he'd told her to call if there was ever an emergency and he wasn't at home – Barry Burton, Emmy's Din– er, some cop she'd never met named David Ford. She even tried Billy Rabbitson's number, although Chris had told her that he'd disappeared a few months earlier. And with the exception of an overloaded answering machine at David Ford's house, she'd gotten nothing but busy signals. By the time she'd hung up, the worry had trans– formed into something close to panic. The trip to Raccoon City was only about six-and-a-half hours from the university. Claire's roommate had borrowed her riding gear to go out with her new biker boyfriend, but Claire had an extra helmet – and with that feeling that was not quite panic spinning through her fright-ened thoughts, she had simply grabbed the helmet and gone.
      Stupid, maybe. Impulsive, definitely. And if Chris is okay, we can laugh about how ridiculously paranoid I am 'til the cows come home. But until I find out what's going on, I won't know a moment's peace.
      The last of the day's light was draining from the strip of cloudless sky above, although a waxing, nearly full moon and the Softail's headlight gave her enough light to see by – more than enough to see the small sign ahead on her left: RACCOON CITY 10.
      Telling herself that Chris was fine, that if anything weird had happened in Raccoon, somebody would have checked it out by now, Claire forced her concen– tration back to handling the heavy bike. It would be full dark soon, but she'd be in Raccoon before it was too dark to ride safely. Whether or not Raccoon City would be safe, she'd find out soon enough.

      Leon reached the outskirts of town with twenty minutes to spare, but decided that a hot dinner was going to have to wait. From his previous visits to the station, he knew that there were a couple of vending machines he could hit up for something to tide him over. The thought of stale candy and peanuts didn't sit well on his growling stomach, but it was his own damned fault for not taking New York traffic into account. The drive into the city proper did a lot to soothe his still rattled nerves; he passed the few small farms that lay east of town, the fairgrounds and storage sheds, and finally the truck stop that marked the separation of rural Raccoon from urban. Something about know– ing that he was going to be patrolling those back roads before long, keeping them safe, gave him a surprising sense of well-being and not a little pride. The early autumn air from the open window was pleasantly brisk, and the rising moon bathed everything he saw in a silvery glow. He wasn't going to be late after all; within the hour, he'd officially become one of Rac– coon's finest. As Leon turned the Jeep down Bybee, heading for one of the main north-south streets that would take him to the RPD building, he got his first hint that something was very wrong. In the first few blocks, he was mildly surprised; by the fifth, he found himself slipping toward a state of shock. It wasn't just strange, it was… well, it was impossible. Bybee was the first real city street, coming from the east, where buildings outnumbered empty lots. There were several espresso bars and cheap diners, as well as a bargain movie theater that never seemed to run anything but horror movies and sexy comedies – and was therefore the most popular hangout for the youth of Raccoon. There were even a few generically hip taverns that served microbrew and hot rum drinks for the winter college-student ski crowd. At quarter to nine on a Saturday night, Bybee should have been teeming with life.