***
Thomas Duckett came awake as his wife Carla gently shook his shoulder. He mumbled sleepily and looked at the glowing red numbers on the alarm clock on their nightstand.
“Honey, wake up,” Carla said, shaking his arm again.
“I’m awake,” he muttered. “It’s two-thirty in the morning, honey.”
“I hear someone on the back porch.”
“What?”
“Listen,” Carla whispered. “Someone is on the back porch.”
Thomas listened carefully and heard a quiet thump and the unmistakable sound of someone stepping on the loose board right behind their back door. He sat up in bed and was immediately awake. There was someone out there.
“Do you hear it?” Carla asked nervously.
“Yeah,” Thomas replied. “I hear it.”
He slid out of bed and crept over to the window. Their bedroom was on the back side of the house and the window looked into the back yard. Very carefully, Thomas slid the edge of the curtain aside and looked toward the back porch. The rear porch light was on, as always, and Thomas could clearly see someone standing right next to the back door. The intruder faced the other way, so Thomas could not see his face, but he wavered unsteadily on his feet, as if a slight breeze might tip him over.
Their house was on the very edge of Raccoon City, and his backyard ended where the Arklay Forest began. None of his neighbors lived very close by. He didn’t know anyone who would have any possible reason to trespass on his property at this time of night. With that in mind, Thomas moved away from the window and walked over to their bedroom closet.
“Is someone there?” Carla asked, holding the blanket up to her neck.
Thomas opened the closet and dug around quietly in a small plastic chest on the floor, taking out a small wooden box containing his personal firearm. “Some guy standing on the back porch. Looks like he’s drunk or something.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going outside to scare him off. I want you to call the cops right now.”
As Carla fumbled with the phone, Thomas loaded a clip into the pistol and flipped off the safety. While surely no expert with guns, he bought it for home safety a few years before and fired it a few times at the local shooting range, so he knew enough to use it properly.
Wearing just a pair of loose pajama pants, he walked through the house and went out the front door as quietly as possible. The front porch light was on as well, and there was no one in front of the house. In bare feet, he walked across the lawn and around the side of the house.
He took a deep breath and held the gun firmly in his hand. If the trespasser was a burglar, he would have already broken into the house. He wouldn’t just be standing stupidly on the back porch. Thomas assumed he was some homeless drunk or maybe a drug addict just wandering around. He was prepared to just scare the man off, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.
He edged around the side of the house and aimed the gun at the man standing on his back porch. The light above his head illuminated his blue work shirt and trousers, like the outfit a mechanic or janitor might wear.
“Don’t move,” Thomas said loudly.
Right away, the man on the porch jerked up at Thomas’ voice and turned around to face him. His face was filthy dirty, smeared with grime, and the look on his face was completely blank, like some kind of store mannequin. He opened his mouth and let out a soft groan that raised the hairs on the back of Thomas’ neck. The man took one step down off the porch.
“I said don’t move,” Thomas said louder, the gun trembling in his hand.
The trespasser did not seem to her him, or if he did he just ignored it. He staggered forward on clumsy legs, staring blankly forward like a robot, mouth agape. Thomas took an unsteady step backward.
“I said don’t move!”
The man kept coming, one awkward step at a time. When he had traversed half the distance to Thomas, he lifted one arm and moaned again.
“Don’t come any closer!” Thomas shrieked.
The gun went off suddenly, and the trespasser jerked sideways as the bullet ripped into his shoulder. He almost lost his balance but quickly regained it, wobbling back and forth and staring down at the hole in his shoulder. He said nothing, and then returned his attention to Thomas and took another threatening step forward.
Thomas held the gun in both hands and pulled the trigger, the gun jumping up, the recoil hurting his wrists. He fired again and again, each bullet hitting the man in the janitor outfit right in the chest. Fabric split apart and spurts of liquid burst from the bullet holes, but the man just kept walking forward, barely even noticing the gunshots. Each burst of light from the gun barrel reflected on his lifeless white eyes and illuminated the grime on his face, which Thomas realized was not dirt at all, but dried blood.
When the gun clicked empty, Thomas was too afraid to move. The trespasser came at him, arms outstretched, and lunged right at his throat. Thomas screamed as the man bit into his throat, and tried to fight him off. But it was far too late for that. He fell backwards, the man falling down right on top of him, biting further into Thomas’ neck, tearing into the flesh and splashing blood.
Resident Evil Legends Part Five - City of the Dead Page 4
