The Apocalypse

Racoon City Tuesday 4th April 2004

"Caroline, Caroline wake up we're here." I said, one hand shaking my daughter who was fast asleep in the passenger seat, her dark brown hair shading her face from view.

"What where?" she asked groggily, stretching slightly as I parked the car in the driveway of our new home.

"Your new home Racoon City" I replied.

My names Alexandra Rivers, Alex for short, and about 4 months ago I finally decided to leave San Francisco and my old life to start a fresh in Racoon city. My daughter Caroline who is 12 years old this year isn't really happy that she had to leave all her friends behind, but she knows that living here will make us a lot happier. Besides my parents live up here so we'll be able to see them a lot more. Lucky for me I got a job in the Umbrella Corporation, hopefully it's a lot better than my old job of just answering phones all day and giving debt advice. Looking back I hated my old life first of all I had a boring job and abusive drunk husband, who I recently divorced thank the lord!

"Mum" Caroline said, taking me back to reality from my little inner monologue of memories.

"Yeah. What is it hun?" I asked, as I took the keys out of the ignition and looking over at her.

"Do you think the kids in school will like me?" she asked, twiddling her thumbs idly.

"I'm sure they'll like you, and even if some don't its their loss not yours" I replied, as I opened the door and got out to go and unload the boot of all our things. Caroline also got out the car and followed me round the back of the black Land Rover.

"But what if they make fun of me?" she questioned, I looked down at her as she looked away up at the trees, blinking away tears. I rested a hand on her shoulder, she looked up her watery blue eyes searching for an answer.

"Why would they make fun of you? You're the best kid in the world" I answered opening the boot of the car and reaching in for some of the luggage that was in there. I grabbed Caroline's suitcase out and handed it to her.

"But what if I'm different to everyone else and they don't like me or they already have friends and they don't want to be friends with me?" she asked on the verge of more tears, as she placed the suitcase on the floor, I stopped unloading the car and hugged her.

"I'm sure they'll love you. You'll just have to wait and see what their like, right? Help me carry these into the house and we can go get some ice cream or something. Deal?" I answered, as I began once again to get the luggage out of the car.

"Only if I get strawberry ice cream" she said picking up some of the smaller boxes and headed to the front door.

"Then it's a deal. Help me out and we'll go get ice cream." I said, picking out a few more boxes before travelling the small distance to the front door. I got out the keys and opened the door, the new clean smell of the house wafted out of the door and I sighed, a nice new start. Caroline went in first carrying her boxes up stairs.

'Hopefully this move was for the best.' I thought, watching her walk up the stairs and turning right before placing the boxes down and running back down to help me. After we had brought in all the boxes and locked the car, we began unpacking everything, Caroline had picked her room…well since it was a two bedroom house she had the room which was slightly smaller than the master bedroom, but was still bigger than her old room. She set about fixing her room as I unpacked the rest of our things.

The house itself wasn't that big, a semi-detached house on the east side of the city, in a cute little neighbourhood. The garden had been kept in shape, not overgrown or anything and the drive-way was big enough for our land-rover. The interior was quite modern and had just been done up. A little conservatory at the back with a small garden, the kitchen had all new cabinets fitted and the bathroom was a good size to. The living room also had newly fitted cabinets and furniture. In the upstairs of the house there were two bedrooms, a study and a bathroom, which again had all been re-done. Walking to the far right door I twisted the handle and pushed the door open, finding the master bedroom.

'This house is just lovely' I thought, placing the box I held on the bed. I walked towards the window, looking out down at the garden which had been kept perfectly intact. Across the fence there must have been hundreds of other houses just the same as ours, all the same windows, the same conservatories, the same brick work basically the same everything.

'Huh talk about boring'

Tying up my long brown hair, I turned around and left the room to go find Caroline. Opening the other door leading to the second bedroom I found her taking things out of her boxes and putting them on shelves and in drawers. Blue tacking posters to the walls and putting photo frames on the window ledge.

"Well aren't you a good girl unpacking already" I said leaning against the wall. She'd already arranged her books onto one of the shelves across from the bed, and was just about to start organizing the rest of the room. "Wanna go get that ice cream now?"

"Yes please" she replied happily, she jumped up from her sitting position, quickly navigating through the boxes. She grabbed her coat which lay on the bed, before she darted out of the room and down the stairs. I followed her, grabbing my shoes from the porch, I picked up my keys as Caroline quickly laced up her shoes.

"You're in a hurry!" I laughed as I opened the door and walked towards the car, clicking the keys to open it. Caroline beat me to the car and once the doors were opened she clambered in, quickly fastening her seatbelt. I climbed into the driver's seat, buckling my seatbelt. "What's got you in such a hurry?"

"I want my strawberry ice-cream" she answered smiling cheekily. I shook my head, maybe I shouldn't have promised her ice cream…

"Alright, but you know we have to go shopping for food, which includes other things than ice cream. Then we can get ice cream, or would you prefer we eat ice cream for the rest of our lives?" I said, she was about to say, most likely anyway, that she wanted to eat ice cream for the rest of her life. "And that was a joke."

"Yeah, I got that." she replied, in a cheeky sort of manner. When did she get so cheeky? We drove off towards the supermarket, our trusty SAT NAV guiding us all the way. I never really liked maps and after a couple of weeks living here I'd probably know my way around. It only took us 5 minutes tops, quite convenient, but the only trouble was finding a parking space.

"Keep your eyes peeled for a space Cazza" I said, slowing down and continually looking from side to side. We finally got parked five minutes after arriving, they really need to expand their car park. We sifted through the aisles grabbing things we needed, necessities like toiletries. Somewhere between the bread aisle and the canned food aisle I accidentally walked into a man, I fell to the ground and in doing so hurt my backside. Why can't they put carpet in supermarkets?

"I'm sorry, didn't see you there." he apologized, offering his hand to help me up. I took it, brushing myself off. Well at least chivalry isn't dead.

"No worries, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. It's was my fault really." I said, looking at him, he had short, spiky brown hair and was quite tall and muscular. He was quite a hunk.

"The names Carlos by the way, Carlos Olivera" he greeted, smiling. God that smile could make any girl faint…

"Nice to meet you Carlos, my name is Alex, Alex Rivers" I greeted, returning his smile. " And this is my daughter" I pointed towards Caroline, who at the time was looking at some of the cakes.

"Hi there!" he said smiling down at Caroline, she looked up at me, before turning her attention to Carlos.

"My name is Carlos, what's yours?" he asked, as Caroline walked over to us.

"My name is Caroline" she answered, smiling shyly up at Carlos, she then looked at me as if to say 'Can I go back to looking at the cakes now?' I nodded.

"Newbie in town?" he asked, as he grabbed some bread.

"Yeah, just now actually. How'd you guess?" I replied, he chuckled a bit as if I'd just told him the punch line of some inner joke.

"Oh, round here everyone basically knows each other, kind of a tight-knit community. And you're a face I haven't seen round here." he answered, shrugging as if it were a natural thing to know.

"Really? That's kind of hard to believe" I questioned sceptically, he chuckled again.

"Every newcomer says that, but nearly everyone around here works for the Umbrella Corporation." he answered, I nodded though it still seemed a little farfetched. "By any chance are you working for Umbrella?"

"Starting tomorrow I am. Why?" I replied, he was about to reply to my question, but Caroline interrupted him.

"Mum can we go get that ice-cream now?" Caroline interrupted in a whiny voice, I shook my head.

"Sorry Carlos, but this one has been wanting ice-cream since we got here. I'm sure I'll see you around." I apologized, he shook his head.

"No need to apologize. I'm sure we will." he said, as he waved goodbye. Once he was out of view, Caroline began making kissing noised, I playfully punched her in the arm.

We paid for the food and other things, and walked with all out goodies to the car and packed them into the car. We then found an ice-cream shop all thanks to the trusty SAT NAV. We found the ice-cream shop with ease, we ordered one strawberry ice-cream and one vanilla ice-cream, ate them and drove back home.

When we came home, I cooked up some baked on toast for tea because we didn't really feel like thanks to the ice-cream and sweets we'd eaten earlier. As it was getting late and we both had to get up in the morning for school and work, we got changed into our pyjamas and I made sure the front and back doors were locked and all windows were closed. I really had a kind of fear of burglars since I was a small child, when our home was burgled in the middle of the night. I wanted to make sure that Caroline wouldn't be put through that. I trudged up the stairs to Caroline's bedroom where she was lying in bed.

"Night night" I said kissing her forehead "Sweet dreams"

I switched her lights off and closed the door, before making my way to my bedroom and climbing into the most comfy bed ever. I drifted off into a dreamless sleep instantly.