Apocalypse - Keith R. A. DeCandido [14]
Then they told her that she was suspended.
All for reporting something she’d seen with her own eyes—and shot with her own weapon.
Or, rather, the department’s own weapon. Which they took back, along with her badge, when she was suspended.
Apparently, being a highly decorated officer for her entire career didn’t mean anything. Helping save the mayor’s life when she was a uniform didn’t mean anything (well, why should it, that mayor wasn’t in office anymore, and even if she had been, politicians had short attention spans). Being put on the elite Special Tactics and Rescue Squad didn’t mean anything.
It should have. Her word should have meant something, especially given how high profile the S.T.A.R.S. were.
Those—those—things she’d seen in the forests of the Arklay Mountains were real. They really killed people. And she really had barely escaped with her own life.
But they were also linked to the Umbrella Corporation.
One thing Jill Valentine had learned working for the RCPD: you didn’t fuck with the Corporation. They owned the town—hell, they owned half the country. You didn’t mess with something they didn’t want you to mess with.
So instead of heeding the words of one of its most decorated officers and doing something to protect the citizenry from these undead monster-movie rejects, the RCPD instead chose to—or, more accurately, was forced to—condemn the decorated officer as a raving loony and suspend her for filing a false report that was a hundred percent true.
And now all hell was breaking loose all over Raccoon City.
Just as Jill had warned them would happen.
She put on a blue tube top and a pair of shorts—the temperature was in the nineties on this fall day—then, after a moment’s thought, put on her tall boots. At first glance, she looked like a run-of-the-mill twentysomething babe. In reality, she had freedom of movement for her arms and legs, and boots that could put someone down with one well-placed kick.
And Jill Valentine knew quite well where to place her kicks.
The next stop was her rec room. As she entered, she picked up the television remote, curious as to what the TV news was saying about the fact that the same monsters that she’d seen in the forest were now roaming the streets of the city. She was especially curious whether there was a statement from Umbrella.
The screen flickered to life, showing the happy-yet-concerned face of Sherry Mansfield.
“—ill no explanation for this wave of unexplained killings that is sweeping across the city. Husbands killing wives, children killing parents, perfect strangers attacking one another. A deadly crime spree with no apparent motivation and seemingly no end.”
No clue. That just figured.
Jill wondered whether Umbrella was covering it up.
She looked around her rec room. One wall contained several shelves full of trophies. Most were for sharp-shooting, plus a couple for pool playing. Her eyes then moved to the regulation pool table, her lucky stick lying diagonally across the green felt, the cue ball and the eight still sitting on top next to it. She’d been hitting the balls around this morning in another futile attempt to unwind.
Above the pool table was a neon Budweiser sign. That was a gift from Eamonn McSorley, the owner of the bar where she’d spent a good chunk of her mis-spent youth hustling men who made the mistake of thinking that this good-looking brunette teenager was an easy mark. Once she was accepted into the academy, she’d told Eamonn that pool hustling wasn’t something she could continue to indulge in, so she wouldn’t be coming around to McSorley’s Bar and Grill anymore.
So he gave her the sign. Given the amount of money she had brought into the place—word got around quickly about the teenage bombshell who couldn’t lose at pool, and every asshole in town wanted to be the one to beat her—it was, he said, the least he could do.
The two long walls of the rec room were taken up with targets.
Each one was full of bullet holes.
Jill had been meaning to get the things replaced. Now, though,