Title: Halloween '99
Fandom: Resident Evil (game 'verse)
Rating: PG-13+
Length: 520
Content notes: Mild bad language, suggestions of gore, underage smoking.
Author notes: I can't deal with how much I love Halloween.
Summary: Sherry goes back to Raccoon one year later, on the spookiest night of the year.

Raccoon City, October 31st 1998, 9pm.

“We shouldn’t even be here,” says Daniel, a hand fluffing up his hair. He’s dressed as Freddy Krueger, a bargain-rail costume from Target that his brother used last year. His hair is static with spray, and he isn’t the sort of kid to admit when he’s scared.

But he’s here at ten at night, in the middle of a ghost town with Sherry freaking Birkin, trying to pretend that he’s cool.

“Police tape is for losers,” says Sherry, ducking under the red tape. When she stands up again she’s reapplying a thick layer of red lipstick. Her face is whited out with make-up, and her white blouse is torn around the edges. She’s a zombie, and she has the lifeless stare down to a fine art. “Cigarette.” She says, poking at his shirt pocket.

Daniel steps back. “Hold on,” he says, alert. He doesn’t know much about Sherry, only that she’s a year or two younger than him and has some sort of family drama that turned her into a queen bitch. He wouldn’t even have come out with her tonight if she wasn’t the cutest girl in school, still under the status of ‘new girl’. He never stayed out past 8pm. Maybe 9.
“Cigarette,” she demands, and pretends to hold a gun to his head. He stares her down until eventually she laughs, and pokes his pocket again.

He takes the pack out, slides one through his fingers and hands it to her. Her hands are cool, and sticky with make-up. Daniel knows he shouldn’t be out here with her, way too late and in a town that looks like it’s been abandoned for too long.

Sherry lights the cigarette, doesn’t cough when she breathes it in, and they start to walk down the empty streets, the air above them roiling with smoke. Sherry smells like bubblegum and nicotine, and Daniel is wishing he chose a cooler costume.

“What the hell happened here?” He asks. The streets are lined with burnt out cars, trash cans upended, bloodstains on the cement. It looks like a movie set, and it doesn’t seem real to him. Sherry’s smoke makes him feel sick.

She’s looking around at it all as though it is a movie set, and she turns to him at just the right moment so that the moonlight catches her face. “Viral outbreak,” she says, off hand, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Daniel is sceptical. He knows a little of what went down in Raccoon, but only the spiel he’s seen on the news. Hopeville is only twenty miles from Raccoon, and gossip hit the fan pretty quick when Sherry turned up in class. He’s not entirely sure he believes in zombies, but there sure is something creepy about Sherry.

“Zombies,” he deadpans, “as in –?” and he raises his arms, cocks his head on the side and mimes mauling at Sherry’s neck. She laughs and shoves him back.

He’s just about to roll his eyes and tell her she’s completely crazy when he hears a sudden shuffling noise behind him.