"I'll tell you later," Lisa said quickly, then addressed the stern-faced man again. "We'll be in touch."
"Excellent," the stern-faced man said. "Then I shall leave you and Sergeant Rappalo to your own affairs." He reached into an inner jacket pocket and pulled out a business card, which he handed to Lisa. She took it without saying a word. "Until then, Miss Stanridge." Lisa nodded, and then the stern-faced man turned and left.
Cy walked up to Lisa, giving her a questioning look as he did. "What was that about?" he asked. "What did you just do?"
"Made arrangements for possible future employment," Lisa said, showing him the business card. Both of Cy's eyebrows shot up once he saw what was printed on it. He again gave Lisa a look. "You can't be serious," he said.
"Oh, but I am, Cy, and I want you do to it with me," Lisa said firmly.
"But—" Cy began.
"Please," Lisa said earnestly, although her voice remained firm. "Somehow I get the feeling this is what I'm supposed to do now."
Cy looked at her for a bit before he spoke. "You're talking about that spirit vision thing again, aren't you?"
Lisa nodded. "Running Elk said I would know the signs of what I was supposed to do with my life after the Outbreak when they happened, and that they would be unique to me alone. Once I saw them and knew them for what they were, then I needed to go in the direction they were pointing me." She moved close to him and slipped an arm around him, and he in turn slipped an arm around her. Her voice softened as she continued. "Consider this, Cy. I can't race anymore but I can still drive. In just a few weeks I'll be able to walk again without this brace and crutch, and it won't be long before I can run too. I even got my 'Cuda back, and that was nothing short of a near miracle. I'm now a celebrity, although it's not for what I had hoped it would be for. It's for the Outbreak, and for what's in my blood. Furthermore, there's you, and how you're now a part of my life that I don't ever want to give up. I can't go back to what I was and I don't want to either. All of this and more is pointing me to a new life I need to live, just like the Great Spirit wants for me, and that new life needs to be doing something to make sure that what happened to me, you, Raul, Mercy, Mom, Dad, Randy, and all those other poor people in Metro City never happens again if I can help it." She now gave a gentle laugh. "Joining up with that new government outfit that Mr. Creepy represents is the way to go. I know it." She now looked lovingly at him. "I hope you'll join up too. You're a survivor, just like me, and ... and I need you with me. Understand? I need you with me."
Cy bowed his head down until he and Lisa were touching foreheads. He looked lovingly into her beautiful brown eyes. "If that's what you really want, Lisa," he said softly, "if that's what you really think you need to do, then who am I to say no?"
"Then you'll do it?"
"I'll do it."
"Oh, Cy!" With that she raised her head up enough to kiss him.
It was about five minutes later when Del Cutter opened the main gate to the Kramerville Autoplex, and let out a green-and-black 1971 Plymouth HemiCuda with two occupants. The female driver of the vehicle waved at him, and he waved back with a big grin on his face. The driver then gunned its 426 Hemi engine, the tires squealed, and then it literally took off. It almost went on two wheels as it snapped around the corner from the autoplex's main drive to the highway, and then it barreled down the end of the highway leading out of Kramerville, its engine racing and the 'Cuda picking up speed all the while. It sailed down the highway until it went over a small rise far away, and then it was lost to sight. Del grinned, and let out a big sigh. He had done the famous Lisa Stanridge a big favor, both she and her Army boyfriend were happy, and that freaky government guy was gone, gone, gone. He looked again at the end of the highway, let out a short laugh, and then turned and headed back to his office. That bunch had been his last customers for the day. It was time to go home.
THE END
(end credits music - "Ghost Dance" by Cusco)
Read on for a free sample of Z-LEVEL 10
Afterword
This story, like its predecessor Projekt Regenschirm, started out as a Resident Evil fanfic. In fact, it's the only one I ever completed in novel form. Its name is Resident Evil: Exodus - The Tale of Elza Walker, and you can read its final form on the Wattpad® free e-book service on the Internet. I wrote Exodus to demonstrate to Capcom that both the character of Elza Walker and the basic plot of the cancelled game known today as Resident Evil 1.5 could not only be reworked, updated, and made to work with the rest of the Resident Evil franchise, but that this could be done in such a way as to be just as enjoyable and exciting an adventure as any regular Resident Evil title released to retail. To make a long story short they politely declined to do anything with it, although they said it was very good and they praised my creativity. They also told me something else at the time which I've never forgotten. They said I was such a creative person that I needed to be writing my own original stories with my own original characters, instead of basing my work on theirs. That of course was when I rebooted Regenschirm, which then stood at 75% completion, from being my second Resident Evil fanfic novel into my first independent and non-derivative work, with all of their material removed and my own original material inserted in its place. To my great surprise it was immediately accepted for publication, and thus I now had my own original survival horror universe in which I could be creative without having to worry about infringing on somebody else's work. Capcom's advice had been sound, and I'm glad I listened.
There still remained the problem of what to do with Exodus. It was a finished work, not an unfinished one. Initially I released it as a free fanfic novel without charge of any kind, and Capcom did not object to that. I also gave Capcom written permission to data-mine it for whatever they wanted for their own projects, and again there was no objection. However, when I formally requested legal permission to have Exodus commercially published, and I did so twice, I was greeted with silence on both occasions. That was as good as saying no. They get to do that. After all, the Resident Evil franchise is their intellectual property, not mine. That's when I decided there would be no third attempt. Instead, I would do with Exodus what I had already done with Regenschirm. I would take it and strip it down to its core essentials. I would retain all of those ideas, concepts, characters, and plot points that were uniquely my own, discard all of the derivative Capcom material and replace it with my own, and completely rewrite it as an original work. Fortunately, I already had Regenschirm at hand to provide the necessary replacement backstory, so I adapted my efforts accordingly. I also realized that this reboot would free me of having to worry about the story hitting certain points at certain times and with certain characters, as it had to when it was still a Resident Evil fanfic novel. I could have my characters do whatever they needed to do whenever they needed to do it and in whatever location my revamped plot was leading them, instead of having to always line up their actions with this particular scene from that game or this other scene from that other game, and so on. Finally, I could not only keep those characters that were original to me but I could take the best ideas and concepts I had for my revamped versions of Capcom's own characters in the story and use those as the basis for building up more of my own original characters to replace them. That is why although Escape has the same general framework as Exodus, the two are very different when it comes to the particulars of their content.
I think the most drastic change I made with regards to the characters that appear in Escape was with Lisa Stanridge, the story's main heroine. She still has the same fiery personality, independent streak, drive and determination, playful sexiness, and sense of caring with which I imbued my reinterpretation of Elza Walker for Exodus. It is there where the similarities end, however. I made Lisa a Cherokee Indian (well, half-Cherokee) because Amerind women playing significant roles in American horror stories are a very rare breed. That fact alone would set Escape apart from the pack. I could find only one other such example on a casual Internet search,
and that is the character of Martha from the 1999 motion picture Ravenous. Doing so also allowed me to tap into Cherokee mythology and inject some true horror into my rebooted tale in the form of the Raven Mocker. Escape is not the first time that the Raven Mocker has appeared in Western media, but hopefully the way I present her is unique. Finally, Lisa's Cherokee heritage also allowed me to briefly touch upon the supernatural in other ways, and how it has and still may be affecting our lives even today -- and I get to do so in a way that hopefully pays proper respect to the Cherokee people and their long cultural heritage. None of those elements are present in Exodus. They are unique to Escape.
Escape was not the sequel to Regenschirm that I first intended to write. I had other ideas for sequels and spin-off stories. It is the sequel that I wound up writing because of the way things went with Exodus, that earlier completed work. Even so, I'm glad I finally decided to take up the challenge of rebooting that work into this form. As with Regenschirm, I would like to think that I wound up with a better and more entertaining story in the process. That's also not to mention one that's only half the size, given how my writing skills have improved since I wrote Exodus. Of course, only you the reader can be the judge, so I will leave it up to you. As for me, I have other books to write. Thankfully, not all of them are horror stories.
Take care everyone.
Richard Evan Mandel
1 May 2020
Suggested Soundtrack
"All Along the Watchtower" (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) - main titles
"Silent Running" (Mike and the Mechanics)
"Sober" (Tool)
"One of the Few" (Pink Floyd)
"Black Hole Sun" (Soundgarden)
"What If" (Creed)
"I Put a Spell on You" (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
"Woke Up This Morning" aka The Sopranos Theme (Alabama 3)
"Demon Speeding" (Rob Zombie)
"Prayer for the Dying" (Seal)
"Prologue" (Lorena McKennitt)
"The Bomb Run" from Dr. Strangelove (Prague Philharmonic)
"Land of Confusion" (Genesis) - final battle music
"Sirius" (The Alan Parsons Project)
"Ghost Dance" (Cusco) - end credits
About the Author
"Richard Mandel" is the pen name of author Sam Pettus. He is a writer of fact and fiction who choses not to limit himself to any particular genre or choice of material. His published works prior to this one include two video game histories (Service Games: The Rise and Fall of Sega and The Hunt for Resident Evil 1.5), an original World War II era survival horror novel (Projekt Regenschirm), an original pulp fantasy novel (Passage to Portos), and an age-spanning romance (Autumn Spring). He has written fan fiction for both the Resident Evil and Tolkien communities, he has written fan timelnes for both the TV series Hogan's Heroes and for the works of Japanese author Leiji Matsumoto, and he is a noted contributor to the world of classic Star Trek fan tech references. His published works are available through your nearest brick-and-mortar bookstore or online e-book seller, and his various fandom efforts can still be found on the Internet and downloaded for free at your leisure.
Mr. Pettus is a graduate of Arkansas Tech University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics, and he also served a brief stint with the U.S. Navy. After that he went into the civilian sector and worked a wide variety of jobs in various industries. He has worked in the retail industry, the manufacturing industry, the nuclear power industry, the information technology (IT) industry, and with various private firms. He jokes that at one time or another he has held almost every kind of job "from custodian to corporate vice-president and a lot in between." He also spent part of this time exercising his growing writer's skills as a records clerk, a procedure writer, and a developer of training materials for certain of his employers. After losing a well-paying IT job due to the nationwide wave of layoffs from the Bush recession of the 1990s, Mr. Pettus eventually found new and long-term employment as a mail processing clerk with the US Postal Service. He has been with them ever since, and it is this job that he uses to both finance his writing and his other creative endeavors. Mr. Pettus currently lives in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
CHAPTER 1
Fluttering wings lifted its tiny body off of the fallen branch it was perched on. Carried in part by the wind, the beetle zipped between the trees. It often fed in the morning hours and food was plentiful in the wooded area it lived in. In fact, it was almost too plentiful. Its antennae were overwhelmed with the sense of smell. Odors usually travel in whiffs of scent, usually dissipating quickly like ghosts as the wind carried them away.
But even in the wind, the odors were plentiful. Food was abundant, so abundant that the insect’s sensory systems felt overloaded. In the generations preceding its birth, pheromones would be picked up in pores of its antennae, bound with proteins, then carried through the nerve endings. Its brain could only handle so much. But now it was overloaded.
The many sources of smell were in motion, lumbering below it in dormant states. It had fed off many of them before, unknowingly infecting itself with a contagion its tiny brain would never understand. Lacking intelligence, it never noticed the connection with feeding off these organisms and the intense aggression and hunger it subsequently developed. Whenever it drew near to other species, it would viciously lash out. Hunger, thirst, and procreation didn’t factor into its reasoning. There was just an overwhelming desire to devour the flesh of others.
With the sense of smell so abundant, the bug could not use its antennae to lock on to a specific source. It had to use its eyes to determine where to land. It dove several feet down, planting its six legs on the neck of a rotting human corpse.
It had been dead a while, its smell rising with the late summer heat. Maggots had grown and collected inside a gaping hole in its stomach, a wound that had likely ended its life. Its eyes were open, shriveled back into their gaping sockets. Slumped against the trunk of a tree, its skeletal face seemed to stare endlessly into oblivion. The bug scurried along the neck, moving up near the jawline. Using its mandibles, the bug peeled flakes off its skin. It moved upward, exploring the lower jaw and chin of the dead organism.
The lips were gone, exposing rows of jagged teeth rooted in rotting gums. The bug brushed the inside with its antennae, detecting the gooey remains of the tongue. It was softer than the rotting skin tissue. The jaw was slack, allowing the bug to crawl inside.
As it did, a loud whirring sound passed by above the trees. A heavy downdraft hammered everything below, causing the plant life to sway as though in protest. The combined sound and physical sensation clicked a surviving receptor in the dormant brain.
The bug was halfway inside when it felt its exoskeleton cracking. The jaws came down on it, severing it in two. Its abdomen fell away, spilling innards as it rolled into the grass. Its head and thorax slipped down into the black, slimy gullet of the very thing it fed off of.
Spurred by the vibration, the corpse looked to the sky. Whatever passed above, it was moving. Movement and sound were indicative of prey. It clicked its jaws together, biting the air, picking up any trace of scent. The sound increased, the strange object descending in the distance.
Driven by an infinite desire to feed, it pushed itself upright. It rocked back and forth on wobbly limbs. With its muscle mass heavily decomposed, it had to shift its weight to move forward. Slowed by this handicap, it was easily surpassed by the others that walked among it. The more freshly dead were able to manipulate their muscle tissue more efficiently, thus they could move with greater speed. It was all the corpse could do to keep up with them.
Soon, over a hundred of its brethren flocked ahead of it, their moans filling the air as they converged upon the possible source of food.
CHAPTER 2
Vertical draughts pounded the ground below as the Boeing CH-47 Chinook reached its destination. The pilots put the ninety-eight-foot long aircraft into a slow descent, stopping at one-hundred and fifty feet above the ceme
nt parking lot of a county hospital. Thirty thousand pounds of steel balanced as the rotors pushed a heavy downdraft on the crowd of the undead that lumbered along the hospital perimeter.
Inside its fuselage, seven marines stared down at their landing site.
“They said Level 5!” Private Dunn bickered. “This is not a Level 5!”
“Dunn, if you don’t shut your mouth, I swear I will sew your lips with barbed wire!” Sergeant Keegan said. Private Dunn turned from the starboard shoulder window. The six-foot, broad shouldered marine’s eyes were blazing with ferocity and alarm. The desire to protest was still there, and the will to suppress it was crumbling like a dam in a raging river.
“Sir, I’m not seeing any survivors,” one of the pilots spoke through the headsets.
“Oh, you’re seeing them alright!” Dunn said. “They’re right there below us. You just can’t recognize them because they’re now walking piles of pus!”
Staff Sergeant Keegan prodded a finger in his face.
“That is the last time I’ll tell you, Marine!”
Dunn tensed, quivering ever so slightly as he contained his rage. The anger was stronger than the fear. Despite his spiraling emotions, he was never insubordinate, though that was simply due to the fact that he respected the sergeant. Keegan was a man equal in height, though sporting a greater muscular frame. The Staff Sergeant was bordering on forty, twenty of those years being in the service. His hair had gone prematurely white, and his face was rife with the features of a man fifteen years older. War and chaos had a way of doing that to a person. The fall of mankind only perpetuated it.
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