The First Dusk
Danny Tyler carried the heavy cardboard box up the steps to his newly rented apartment. Moving his belongings from his beaten-up car to his new home took four flights of stairs and ten trips through the dank building. Thankfully, this was the final trek to the fourth floor. It was a good job, too. His brow was shiny with sweat and his legs were about ready to buckle from exhaustion. But at least the drive into Racoon City today was oddly quicker than usual.
In fact, he had finished moving into his new home faster than he’d expected. The traffic today was strangely nonexistent. It was quiet, almost eerily quiet for a late Saturday afternoon. The city layout meant that even at the best of times, cars ground to a halt at red lights and traffic backed up quickly. But today, the crossroads were near empty. It was as if most people had stayed home and as he took the exit off the main highway; his route into the city was clear, which made for record time.
He kicked the apartment door shut with his heel and then set the heavy box on the kitchen counter that cut the studio apartment in two. He slid into the small bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. In the mirror above the sink, he glimpsed himself—short brown hair, tired eyes and sun-tanned pink cheeks beneath dark stubble and lips bent into a faint smile. It was September 26th, 1998, and he was happy to be back in Racoon City.
He had grown up here in a modest house in the suburbs with his parents and younger sister, Hannah. He had gone to high school here and had even attended a local college. The lure of starting an honest career in journalism had taken him to New York City. But after five years in the Big Apple and its busy streets, teaming with the hum of life, it felt good to be home. Racoon City offered something big cities often didn’t—serenity and safety.
He had accepted a job offer from a local newspaper. Not that there would be much to report on in this remote region of the United States—nothing interesting ever happened in a sleepy place like Racoon. But he would be back home and close to his family.
His tiny apartment was bleak, but it would do as the launch pad for his new life. At first glance, it looked much worse than it was. The beige walls were infected with a patchwork of dark damp blotches—the pipework had now been apparently fixed, so in the near future, he would give the place a lick of fresh paint. Then he would polish the hardwood floor to bring out the rich oak brown color hiding beneath the trampled in dust and grot.
But the first item on the long renovations list was to track down where that pungent stink was coming from. It was a sickly stench that smelled like raw sewage, seeping out of a plughole. But it wasn’t the pipes. Perhaps it was a dead rat that had died somewhere in the apartment, its carcass now a soppy, rotting mess of fur. The body decomposing in the month between the old tenant moving out and him moving in. But if that was the case, surely there would be the buzz of plump flies, he thought.
He put his hands on his hips, brushing back his gray denim shirt over a black t-shirt and sighed. It wasn’t all bad. For his stretched budget, the rent was good for somewhere so central. It was a lucky find. A real bargain. It was just down the road from the local Racoon Police Department’s new station and a few blocks from the park.
When he was a child, the RDPs’ new home was once a museum. But Racoon City wasn’t exactly the sort of place that attracted an abundance of tourists. So, with the almost nonexistent footfall of visitors, the Mayor had opted to close the museum and instead repurpose the building as a police station to better serve the community. It was a cool move; he thought. He was interested to see what the main entrance hall looked like now it was the station’s reception.
There was a heavy thump above. The impact was so powerful it shook the dangling pear-shaped bulb hanging by a cord. His gaze rose to the ceiling, watching the shifted dust float in the air. Perhaps the tenant above was moving furniture around. An icy shiver rippled across his skin at the prospect of perhaps something more sinister at play. After all, something felt a little eerie about the apartment block today. It was a bizarre feeling he couldn’t shake that made his skin itch with nervousness.
When he first came to view the apartment a month prior, the local realtor he had contacted knew the people passing them on the stairs. It was a friendly place, filled with warm smiles and happy families. But since arriving a few hours ago, he hadn’t seen a single one of his new neighbors while he was stomping up and down the stairs. Nobody had stuck their head out to say hello or welcome him. Today, it felt almost like the building was abandoned.
It wasn’t, though. Earlier, in one apartment on the second floor, he heard slow and repetitive dull thumps when passing by with a box, as if someone was banging their forehead over and over against the inside of the door. Then there was the raspy groan he thought he heard. A long and gruff moan. It was stupid, really. His tired mind was probably just playing tricks on him after a long drive. There was a radio humming a rock song quietly in that same apartment, which was a resemblance to normal life, so he shook it off and got on with his day.
Right now, there were more important problems on his mind. His throat was dry and prickly with thirst on this muggy fall day. He took a can of soda from the fridge and held it to his neck. The cool aluminum felt nice against his skin that was hot with sweat. He flicked the switch on the wall and the four-slat ceiling fan above didn’t move—it was dead. Another thing he would need to fix.
He walked across the room, cutting around the double bed pushed up against the opposite side of the kitchen counter divider. The mattress was a dirty cream color, with a splotch of vile yellow sweat from the previous tenant. He would flip the mattress tonight. His new bed would arrive from a local shop next week. There was also a desk, an office chair, a table, and two chairs tacked onto that same order.
Hopefully, all the furniture would arrive on time. An old friend of his had also just moved back to Racoon City and had landed a job working at the Racoon Police Department. The officers slapped the nickname ‘Rookie’ on him at the station, which his friend wasn’t too pleased about—he was top of his class at the police academy, after all. They had both organized a Saturday night of pizza and cold beers while catching the baseball game on television. A small housewarming party of two to toast to them both starting their new lives in Racoon City.
He felt suffocated inside the stuffy walls. There was only a single window in the entire apartment, and that was at the foot of the dirty bed. He pulled the slat blinds up with a clattery clunk and opened the window to soften the pungent stink still lingering.
The summer air was muggy and there was no trace of salvation in the form of a soothing breeze. He clambered out onto the green metal fire escape that zig-zagged down the redbrick apartment block. The road below was quiet and lined with parked vehicles. But oddly, there was still little to no traffic.
The panicked shrill of a siren made him jolt with electric shock. His hand found the metal railing, and he leaned over to see what all the fuss was about in the street below.
There was an RDP patrol car on the side of the road. The roof bar was now pulsing red and blue as the driver urgently peeled from the sidewalk, cut a wide arc in the road, and sped away between the buildings lining the road.
Racoon City had one of the lowest crime rates in the United States. Whatever report had come in over the police radio had to be serious enough for sirens and a rapid response. Perhaps it would be something to write about when he started his new job at the local newspaper. He would follow up with the RDP on Monday.
He sat on the green steps of the fire escape and snapped open the can of soda. The rest of the night he would spend unpacking and cleaning, then debating if he should sleep on the possible mite-ridden mattress or in his sleeping bag on the floor.
He didn’t start his new job until Monday, September 28th. Perhaps tomorrow, on his only day of downtime, he would visit his sister, Hannah. She lived on the other side of town with her husband and their six-year-old daughter. They would likely go for a walk in the park and grab a cheeseburger in one of the many diners over a long chit-chat. His parents were on a cruise in the Mediterranean, so he would check in on them in a few weeks.
“Danny, here’s to your new life back in Racoon City.” He toasted to himself before taking a generous sip of fizz. It felt refreshing on his dry lips.
His gaze rose to the horizon, watching the sunset paint the sky blood red as it sank behind the jagged dark horizon of the Arklay mountains in the hazy distance. Only, he felt the sky was a deeper shade of red tonight. It felt almost ominous.
