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,