Before long, the group set out again, heading toward the police station. Along the way, Fang Zheng asked the gun shop owner how all this had happened, but the man's answer surprised him.
According to the gun shop owner, similar incidents had been occurring throughout Raccoon City for over a month. Most involved people being attacked while alone at night, knocked down, and bitten by their assailants. The official notices claimed they were simply groups of hysterical lunatics, but the gun shop owner had his doubts. Raccoon City was neither particularly large nor small, and such reports had been rare before. Yet recently, they had been appearing one after another.
That was why his business had been booming—also why the gun shop had looked as though it had been looted clean when Fang Zheng and the others entered.
Of course, although the situation had been unstable lately, the police chief and mayor had taken turns reassuring the public, so people had more or less remained calm. After all, everyone lived, worked, and made their lives here. They could not simply pack up and leave over something like this. So, like the gun shop owner, many chose to lie low and wait for things to settle down.
But at noon today, everything suddenly changed.
If they had to compare it to something, it was like a patient lying in a hospital bed. Though not in great spirits, he could still eat, sleep, laugh, and talk. Then, in the next instant, his entire body convulsed and he fell unconscious—straight from the ICU to the crematorium. That was Raccoon City now.
The gun shop owner did not know exactly how it had happened. He only knew that by the time he realized what was going on, Raccoon City's streets were already filled with