TWENTY
MR. IRONS HAD BEEN A VERY BAD MAN. A
sick man. Sherry supposed she'd known it all along on
some level, but seeing his secret torture chamber, like
some mad doctor's workshop, made it a lot more real.
The room was just gross, bones and bottles and a
smell even worse than the zombies. Perhaps that was
why seeing the shape on the floor, the incomplete
body shape beneath the bloodstained tarp, didn't
bother her half as much as Claire seemed to think it
would. Sherry stared at it, wondering what had happened
exactly.
"Come on, sweetie, let's get going," Claire said, and
the forced note of brightness in her voice told Sherry
that Mr. Irons had been severely messed up. All Claire
had told her was that Mr. Irons had attacked her, and
then something had attacked him, and that there was
a chance they could get somewhere safe if they went
down into the basement. Sherry had been so relieved
to see Claire at all that she hadn't bothered to ask
questions.
Not big enough to be a whole person under there . . .
did he get eaten? Or chopped into pieces?
"Sherry? Let's go, okay?"
Claire laid a hand on her shoulder, gently pulling
her away from what was left of the police chief. Sherry
let herself be led toward the dark hole in the corner,
deciding that it was best to keep her questions to
herself. She thought about saying that she didn't care
that Mr. Irons was dead, but she didn't want to
appear rude or disrespectful. Besides which, Claire
was trying to take care of her, and Sherry didn't mind
that at all.
Claire went down the ladder first, and after a
second, called up to her that it was safe to come down.
Sherry stepped carefully on the metal rungs, feeling
really happy for the first time in days. They were
doing something, they were getting out of the RPD
station and headed for escape; whatever else happened,
it was a good way to feel.
Claire helped her down the last couple of rungs,
lifting her and setting her on the metal floor. Sherry
turned and looked around, her eyes widening.
"Wow," she said, and the word whispered away
into the dim shadows and came whispering back,
reflected off" the strange walls.
"Yeah," Claire said. "Come on."
Claire started walking, her boots clanking out echoes,
and Sherry followed closely, still looking around
in amazement. It was like a bad guy's lair in a spy
movie, some factory passage inside of a mountain or
something. They were on a catwalk surrounded by
rails, a murky green light coming up through the grate
floor from somewhere far below and although there
was rough brick to their right, to the left was an actual
cave wall. She could see giant, dripping pillars of
stone that stretched off into the dark, natural formations
of rock that were stained green by the weak and
ghostly light.
Sherry wrinkled her nose. As interesting as it was, it
smelled pretty rotten. And she didn't like the way that
sound carried in the chill air, making everything seem
hollow.
"What do you think this place is?" she asked softly.
Claire shook her head. "I'm not sure. Between the
smell and the location, I'd say we're in part of a
sewage treatment plant."
Sherry nodded, glad to know and even more glad
to see the way out just ahead of them. The walkway
wasn't very long; it turned left, and there was another
ladder at the end, one that went up. When they got to
it, Claire hesitated, peering up at the opening overhead
and then back around at the dark and empty
cave.
"I should go up first . . . how 'bout you climb up
right behind, but stay on the ladder until I say it's
clear?"
Sherry nodded, relieved. For a second, she'd been
afraid that Claire was going to tell her to stay down
here and wait, like before.
No way. It's dark, stinky, and lonely. If I were a
monster, this is where I'd be. . .
Claire went up, boosting herself easily through the
hole, and Sherry clambered up just behind, holding
the cool metal of the rungs tightly. After a few
seconds, Claire's long, slender arms reached down to
help her out.
They were back on solid ground, a short cement
hallway that seemed incredibly bright after the cave.
Sherry figured they were still in the sewage plant; the
smell wasn't as bad, but the hall was bordered on the
left by a motionless river of sludge water, maybe a
foot deep and five or six feet across; the muddy water
ran off in either direction, one end through a low,
rounded tunnel, the other stopped by a big metal
door. It was all overlooked by a kind of balcony, but
Sherry didn't see any stairs.
Which means . . . oh, yuck.
"Do we have to?" she asked.
Claire sighed. '"Fraid so. But look at the bright
Side - no sane monster would follow us through
that."
Sherry smiled. It wasn't particularly funny, but she
appreciated what Claire was trying to do - it was the
same as covering up Mr. Irons's body, or telling her
that her parents were probably safe.
She's trying to shield me from how bad things really
are...
Sherry liked that, so much so that she was already
dreading the moment when Claire would leave her for
good. Eventually, she would; Claire had a whole life
somewhere else, her own friends and family, and once
they got out of Raccoon, she would go back to
wherever she came from and Sherry would be alone
again. Even if her parents were okay, she would be
alone ... and though she wanted very much for them
to be safe and well, she wasn't looking forward to the
end of her time with Claire.
She was only twelve, but she'd known for a couple
of years that her family was different from most. The
other kids at school had parents who spent time with
them, had birthday parties and went on camping
trips, and had brothers and sisters and pets. She'd
never had any of those things. She knew that her
parents meant well, and that they loved her, but
sometimes, she felt like no matter how quiet and good
and self-sufficient she was, she was still in their way...
"You ready for this?"
Claire's soft, pretty voice brought her back to the
situation, reminding her that she needed to be more
alert. Sherry nodded, and Claire stepped down into
the dark, dirty water, reaching back to help her.
The water was cold and greasy, and came up to
Sherry's knees; it was gross, but not puking bad.
Claire motioned toward the big metal door to their
left with her new gun, looking as disgusted as Sherry
felt.
"Looks like we're going to. . ."
A loud noise from the balcony cut her off, and they
both looked up, Sherry instinctively moving closer to
Claire as the noise came again. It sounded like footsteps,
but too slow and too loud to be normal...
... and Sherry saw a man in a long, dark coat walk
into view, and felt her mouth go dry with fear. He was
a giant, maybe as tall as ten feet, and his bald skull
gleamed as white as a dead fish belly. She couldn't see
him clearly because of the angle, but she could see
enough - and she could feel that he was bad, that
there was something very wrong and bad about him.
It radiated off of him like sickness.
"Claire?" she squeaked, her voice breaking as the
giant man stalked across the balcony, as he started to
turn toward them - slowly, so slowly, and Sherry
didn't want to see his face, didn't want to see the face
of a man that could frighten her so deeply by just
walking onto a balcony...
"Run!"
Claire grabbed her hand and the two of them ran,
splashing through the thick water toward the sealed
door. Sherry concentrated on not falling, on praying
that the door would open -
- don't be locked, don't be locked! -
- and on not looking back, not wanting to see what
the giant, bad man was doing. The door was close but
it seemed to take forever, each second stretched out as
they fought against the weight of the cold and oily
water.
They stumbled to the hatch and Claire found its
control, slamming at the button in a kind of panic
that made Sherry even more afraid. The door split in
the middle, one half sliding up into the ceiling and the
other slipping beneath the rippling waves.
Sherry didn't look back, but Claire did. Whatever
she saw made her leap through the door, pulling
Sherry off her feet and hurtling into the long, dark
tunnel that lay behind the hatch. As soon as they were
through, Claire fumbled at the wall and the door slid
closed behind them, sealing them into the dripping
darkness.
"Don't move and be quiet," Claire whispered, and
in the very dim light that came from somewhere up
ahead, Sherry could see that she was holding the gun
out in front of her, trying to search the heavy shadows
for any new threats. Sherry obeyed, her heart pounding,
wondering who, what that man had been - it was
the man Claire had asked her about before, that much
was obvious, but what was he? People didn't get that
big, and Claire had been scared, too...
Clink.
A metal noise, soft and muffled from the wall
behind her and Sherry felt the water around her feet
start to move suddenly, a swift rush of current that
pulled on her legs, pulled her off balance...
... and she stumbled, tripped, plunging face-first
into the cold and nasty water as the current got
stronger, sucking her backwards. Sherry reached out,
trying to find something, anything, to hold on to, and
felt slimy stone whip beneath her clutching fingers as
the waters rushed her away, away from Claire.
- can't breathe -
Sherry kicked wildly, twisting her body, her eyes
stinging from the bad water and managed to take a
breath as her head broke the surface, as she realized
that she was in a tunnel, a pitch black shaft no bigger
than the vents from the station. The swift waters
carried her along, Sherry taking deep gasps of the foul
air overhead, forcing herself not to struggle against
the relentless power of the hissing liquid. The tunnel
had to end somewhere and wherever it came out,
she had to be ready to run.
Claire, please find me, please don't give up on me...
She was lost, blind and deaf, sliding down through
the dark and farther ... and farther away from the only
person who could protect her from the nightmare
creatures that had taken over Raccoon.
Annette no longer doubted that her husband had
escaped the laboratory levels. Not only were half of
the facility entrances unsealed, the fences that surrounded
the factory had been breached and the
sewer tunnels, the tunnels that should have been
mostly empty, were crawling with human carriers that
had to have come from outside. Even as advanced as
they'd been in terms of cellular deterioration, she'd
had to shoot down five of them just to clear a path
from the tram to the sewage operations room.
After what seemed an eternity of trudging through
the semi-treated, inky waters of the labyrinthian
system, she came to the platform she'd been looking
for. Annette stepped up into the concrete tunnel,
gazing warily at the closed door a few meters in front
of her. Closed and undamaged, a good sign, but
what if he'd gone through before he'd lost all trace of
human intelligence, before he'd grown into an unthinking,
violent animal? Even now, he might still
retain something resembling memory; the truth was,
she didn't know. The G-Virus hadn't been tested on
humans yet. . .
. . . and if he did go through? If he made it to the
police station?
No. She couldn't, wouldn't entertain the possibility.
Considering what she did know about the progressive
chemophysiologic changes - what he would be
capable of doing if the virus worked the way it was
supposed to - the thought of him getting to an uninfected
population . . . well, it was unthinkable.
The station is safe, she thought firmly. Irons may be
an incompetent ass, but his cops aren't. Wherever
William is, he couldn't have gotten past them.
She couldn't afford to believe anything else; Sherry
was there, if she'd done what she was supposed to
do and besides being her own flesh and blood
(which, she reminded herself, was reason enough),
Sherry played a very important role in her future
plans.
Annette leaned against one cold and sweating wall,
aware that time was running out but simply unable to
go on without resting for a moment. She'd been
counting on the encoded territorial instinct to keep
him close to the lab, and had been so sure that she
would find him, that her live, human scent would lure
him to her ... but she was almost at the end of the
contained area, and all she'd found were a dozen ways
in which he could have escaped.
And Umbrella will be here soon. I have to get back, I
have to activate the fail-safe before they can stop me.
William deserved to be at peace, but beyond that,
destroying the creature that had once been her husband
would eradicate all of her doubts about the
success of her objective. What if she blew the lab and
escaped, only to find that Umbrella had captured
him? All of her struggles, all of his work, for
nothing. . .
Annette closed her eyes, wishing that there was an
easy way to make the decision that had to be made.
The fact was, William's death simply wasn't as crucial
as getting rid of the lab. And there was a good chance
that they wouldn't find him, that they weren't even
aware of his transformation...
... and it's not as though I have a choice. He's not
here, he's not anywhere.
She pushed away from the wall, walking slowly
toward the door. She would check the last few tunnels,
perhaps see if the conference rooms showed any
sign of damage and then she would go back. Go
back and finish what Umbrella had started.
Annette pushed the door open...
... and heard footsteps, echoing through the lonely
corridor from somewhere up ahead; the hall was
shaped like a "T," the sounds melting into themselves,
making it impossible to tell from which direction
they were coming, but they were the strong,
sure steps of an uninfected human, perhaps more
than one, and that could only mean one thing.
Umbrella. They've finally come.
Rage boiled up through her, making her hands
shake, her lips curl back from gritted teeth. It had to
be them, it had to be one of their murdering spies;
besides Irons and a few of the city officials, only
Umbrella knew that these tunnels were still in use
and that they led to the underground facility. The
possibility that it was some innocent survivor of the
spill didn't cross her mind, and neither did running;
she raised the handgun and waited for the heartless,
murdering bastard to appear.
A figure stepped into sight, a woman in red, and
Annette fired...
... bam, but she was trembling, screaming inside,
and the shot went high. It ricocheted off the cement
wall with a whining, zipping sound, and the woman
was raising a weapon of her own...
... and Annette fired again, barn-zip, but suddenly
there was another one, a blurred, flying shape that
leapt in front of the woman, knocking her out of the
way, all of it happening at once...
... and Annette heard the cry of pain, a man's cry,
and felt a burst of roaring triumph.
Got him, I got him...
But there could be more, she hadn't hit the
woman and they were trained killers.
Annette turned and ran, her dirty lab coat flying,
her wet shoes slapping against the cement. She had to
get back to the lab, fast.
Time had run out.
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