TEN
CLAIRE'S HEAD HURT. AGAIN.
Something was on fire, she could smell smoke and she
was incredibly cold, and she suddenly remembered what
had happened - the snow, the building, the crash. Alfred.
She opened her eyes and lifted her head, the action awkward
and difficult because she was still strapped into her
chair, now tilted forward at about a 45 degree angle
and there was Steve in his chair, not moving.
"Steve! Steve, wake up!"
Steve groaned and mumbled something, and Claire
breathed easier. After a few tries she managed to get her
belt off and slid into a crouch, her feet on what had been
the instrument panel. She couldn't see much out of the
windshield with the angle they were at, but it appeared
that they were inside some big building. There was gray
metal siding some fifty or sixty feet in front of them,
and through the gaping hole on her side of the plane, she
could see a bit of walkway with a railing maybe eight or
nine feet below.
So where is everybody? Where is anybody? If it was
an Umbrella facility, why weren't there a dozen soldiers
dragging them out of the wreckage? Or at least a few
pissed off janitors...
Steve was coming around, though she could see a
nasty bump at the edge of his hairline. She reached up
and found that she had a matching bump just above her
right temple, about an inch higher than the one she'd
woken up with ... yesterday? The day before?
My, how time flies when you keep getting knocked unconscious.
"What's burning?" Steve asked, opening bleary eyes.
"I don't know," Claire said. There was just a trace of
smoke in the cabin, she figured it was coming from
some other part of the plane. In any case, she didn't
want to stick around, see if anything blew up. "But we
should get out of here. Do you think you can walk?"
"These boots were made for walking," Steve mumbled,
and Claire grinned, helping him with his belt.
They salvaged what they could from the weaponry
that was piled at their feet, Steve's machine pistol and
her 9mm. Unfortunately, they were low on ammo, and a
couple of clips had gone missing. She had twenty-seven
rounds, he had fifteen. They split them up, and with
nothing else to keep them aboard, Steve lowered himself
out over the walkway, dropping the last few feet.
"What's out there?" Claire asked, sitting on the edge
of the hole and tucking her gun in her belt. It was cold
enough for her to see her breath, but she thought she
could manage for a little while.
"Not a whole hell of a lot," Steve called back, looking
around. "We're in a big round building - I think it's built
around a mine shaft or something, there's a straight drop
through the middle. There's nobody here."
He looked up at her and raised his arms. "Come on
down, I gotcha."
Claire doubted it. He was in good shape but had a
runner's physique, not overly muscular. On the other
hand, she couldn't stay in the plane all day, and she
hated jumping off things higher than a few feet, she definitely
wanted a helping hand...
"Coming down," she said, and pushed herself off the
hole's edge, holding on as long she could -
- and then she was dropping, and Steve emitted an
oof sound, and then they were both on the ground, Steve
on his back with his arms around her, Claire on top of him.
"Nice catch," she said.
"Aw, 'twas nothin'," Steve said, smiling.
He was warm. And attractive, and sweet, and obviously
interested, and for a few seconds, neither of them
moved, Claire content to be held ... and Steve wanting
more, she could see it in the way he searched her face.
For Christ's sake, you're not on a vacation! Move!
"We should probably..."
"... figure out where we are," Steve finished, and
though she could see a flash of disappointment in his
eyes, he did his best to hide it, sighing melodramatically
as he dropped his arms in pretend surrender. Reluctantly,
she got to her feet and helped him to his.
It did seem to be a mine shaft, sixty feet across give or
take, the walkway they were on running about half way
around, in steps - there were a couple of ladders, and
she could see at least two doors from where they were,
all down and to their left. There was only one door on
their level, to the right, but Steve checked and it was
locked.
"So where do you think everybody is?" he asked,
keeping his voice low. There was a definite echo effect
probability, as massive and empty as the chamber was.
Claire shook her head. "Making snow angels?"
"Ha ha," Steve said. "Shouldn't Alfred be jumping out
right about now with a flame thrower or something?"
"Yeah, probably," Claire said. She'd been thinking that
herself. "Maybe he isn't here yet, or he didn't expect us to
crash, so he's in one of the other buildings where we were
supposed to land ... which means we should book. If we
can get to one of those other planes before he finds us..."
"Let's do it," Steve said. "Do you want to split up? We
could cover more ground that way, hurry things along."
"With Alfred running around somewhere? I vote no,"
Claire said, and Steve nodded, looking relieved.
"So ... thataway," Claire said, and started for the first
ladder, Steve right behind.
A short climb later and they were at the next door to
try, actually double doors set in a little ways from the
walkway. Also locked. Steve offered to try and kick it in,
but she suggested they try the others first. She was feeling
more and more uneasy about how quiet things were,
and didn't want the echoing thunder of a door being broken
down to announce their presence, though they'd
have to be comatose not to have heard or felt the
crash...
On to the next, the only other door before an opening
in the wall with a flight of stairs going down. Claire jiggled
the handle and it turned easily; she and Steve readied
their weapons just in case - and at a nod from Steve,
Claire pushed the door open -
- and felt her mouth drop open, totally shocked.
What are the odds on that?
It was a bunk room, dark and reeking, and at the
sound of the door opening, three, four zombies turned
and started for them, all of them freshly infected, most
of their skin still attached. At least one of them was
starting to go gangrenous, the noxious smell of hot, rotting
tissue heavy in the cold air.
Steve had gone pale, and as she slammed the door
closed, he swallowed, hard, looking and sounding kind
of sick. "One of those guys worked at Rockfort. He was
a cook."
Of course! She'd thought for a second that there'd
been a spill here, too, but that really was too giant of a
coincidence. At least one of those planes outside had
come from the island, probably a bunch of panicked employees
- presumably not scientists - who hadn't realized
they were carrying the infection with them.
More sick and dying viral cannibals ... and what
else? Claire shuddered, trying to imagine the kind of
soldier Umbrella would be trying to invent for an arctic
environment ... and what natural animals might have
been infected before their arrival.
"We definitely gotta get out of here," Steve said.
Well, maybe Alfred got eaten, anyway, Claire thought.
Wishful thinking, though they certainly deserved a
lucky break. "Let's go."
The last place to check, a set of winding stairs, marked
the end of the walkway, descending into a near total darkness.
Remembering the matches she'd found at Rockfort,
Claire handed Steve her gun and fished them out of her
pack, giving him half before taking her weapon back. He
took the lead, striking two of the matches about halfway
down the stairs and holding them up. They didn't give off
much light, but they were better than nothing.
They reached the bottom and started to edge forward
down a tight hall, Claire on high alert as the darkness
closed around them. Something smelled bad, like rotting
grain, and though she couldn't hear anything moving,
it didn't feel like they were alone. She was
generally big on trusting her instincts, but it was so still
and silent, not even a whisper of sound or movement...
Nerves, she thought hopefully.
They could only see about three feet in front of them,
but they moved as quickly as possible, the feeling of being
totally exposed and vulnerable pushing them forward.
A few steps more and she could see that the corridor
branched, they could keep going straight or turn left.
"What do you think?" Claire whispered - and the hall
suddenly exploded with movement, wings flapping, the
rotten smell gusting over them. Steve cursed as the
matches suddenly went out, completing the darkness.
Something brushed past Claire's face, feathery and light
and soundless, and she reflexively flailed at it in
loathing, skin crawling, not sure where or what to shoot.
"Come on!" Steve shouted, grabbing her upper arm
and yanking her forward. She stumbled after him
breathlessly, and again, something fluttering touched
her face, dry and dusty...
... and then Steve was pulling her through a doorway
and slamming it closed behind them, both of them sagging
against it, Claire shuddering, totally disgusted.
"Moths," Steve said, "Jesus, they were huge, did you
see them? Big as birds, like hawks..." She could hear
him spit, like he was trying to clear his mouth out.
Claire didn't answer, fumbling for a match. The room
was pitch dark and she wanted to make sure there
weren't more of them flapping around, moths, eeww!
They somehow seemed worse than any zombie, that
they could brush right up against you, flutter up against
your face - she shuddered again, and struck her match.
Steve had pulled them into an office, one apparently
free of giant moths and any other Umbrella unpleasantness.
She saw a pair of candlesticks on a trunk to her
right and immediately grabbed them up, lighting the
half burned tapers and handing one of them to Steve before
looking around, the soft candlelight illuminating
their sanctuary in flickering shadows. Wood desk,
shelves, a couple of framed paintings - the room was
surprisingly nice, considering the utilitarian feel of the
rest of the place. It wasn't as cold, either. They quickly
checked around for weapons or ammo, but came up
empty.
"Hey, maybe there's something we can use in these,"
Steve said, moving to the desk. There were a number of
papers, and what appeared to be a collection of maps
strewn across its top, but Claire was suddenly more interested
in the whitish lump stuck on the back of his
right shoulder.
"Hold still," she said, stepping up behind him.
There was some thick, web-like gunk holding the
thing on, the lump itself about six inches long and
kind of misshapen, like a chicken egg that had been
stretched out.
"What is it? Get it off," Steve said tensely, and Claire
held the candle closer, saw that the white form wasn't
entirely opaque. She could see inside, a little...
... to where a fat white grub was squirming around,
encased in translucent jelly. It was an egg case, the moth
had laid an egg case on him.
Claire wanted to vomit but held it together, looking
around for something to grab it with. There was some
crumpled paper in a wastebasket next to the trunk, and
she snatched up a piece.
"Hang on a sec," she said, amazed at how casual she
sounded as she pulled the case off his shoulder. It didn't
want to come, the wet webbing tenaciously holding on,
but she got it, instantly dropping it to the floor. "It's off."
Steve turned and crouched next to the paper, holding
his candle out - and stood up abruptly, looking as sickened
as she felt. He brought his boot down on it, hard,
and clear jelly squirted from beneath the sole.
"Oh, man," he said, his mouth turned down. "Remind
me to blow chunks later, after we've eaten. And next
time we go through there, no matches."
He checked her back - clean, thank God - and then
they split up the papers on the desk, Steve taking the
maps and sitting on the floor, Claire looking through the
rest of it at the desk.
Inventory list, bill, bill, list... Claire hoped Steve
was having better luck. From what she could gather,
they were in what Umbrella was calling a "transport terminal,"
whatever that was, and it had been built around
an abandoned mine - she wasn't clear on what had been
mined, exactly, but there were a number of receipts for
some newer spendy equipment and a shitload of construction
materials. Almost enough to build a small city.
She found a series of memos between two extremely
boring gentlemen, discussing Umbrella's budget allotments
for the coming year. It was all the more boring because
everything appeared to be perfectly legal. The office
they were in belonged to one of them, a Tomoko Oda, and
it was from Oda that she finally ran across something that
caught her eye, a postscript on one of his lengthy accounting
reports dated from only a week before.
PS - by the way, remember the story you told me
when I first got here, about the "monster" prisoner?
Don't laugh, but I finally heard him myself, two
nights ago, in this very office. It was just as frightening
as the stories say, a kind of angry, moaning
scream that echoed up from the lower levels. My foreman
tells me that workers have been hearing it for
something like 15 years, almost always late at
night - the most popular rumor has it that he screams
like that because someone missed his feeding time.
I've also heard that he's a ghost, a hoax, a scientific
experiment gone wrong, even a demon. I haven't
formed an opinion myself, and since none of us are
allowed down there, I suppose it will continue to be a
mystery. I have to tell you, though, after hearing that
horrible, insane howling, I have no interest in going
below B2.
Let me know about that stem bolt shipment.
Regards, Tom.
It seemed that the workers upstairs didn't know much
about what was going on downstairs. Probably better for
them, Claire thought ... although considering the current
situation, maybe not.
Steve laughed suddenly, a short bark of victory, and
stood up, grinning widely. He slapped an Antarctica political
map across the desk.
"We're here," Steve said, pointing to a red spot that
someone had penciled in, "about halfway in between
this Japanese outpost, Dome Fuji, and the Pole itself, in
the Australian territory. And right here is an Australian
research station - we're looking at ten or fifteen miles,
tops."
Claire felt her heart skip a beat. "That's great! Hell,
we could probably hike it if we could find some good
gear..."
... and if we can get out of this basement, she
thought, some of her enthusiasm dying down.
Steve unfolded a second map, spreading it out. "Wait,
that's not the good part. Check this out."
A photocopy of a blueprint. Claire studied the handdrawn
diagrams, side and top views of a tall building
and three of its floors, the levels and rooms neatly la-
Beled and stood up herself, too elated to stay still. It
was a comprehensive map of the building they were in,
not tall but deep.
"This is where we are at now," Steve said, pointing
to a small square labeled "manager's office," on level
B2. He traced his finger down and left and down again,
stopping at an oddly shaped area at the bottom of the
diagram, like a big quotation mark lying on its side.
The tiny black letters read "mining room," and there
was a lightly penciled tunnel extending out of it with
"to surface/unfinished" written next to it, also in pencil.
"And there's where we need to go," Claire finished,
shaking her head in disbelief. The map Steve had found
would probably save them hours of wandering around,
and with as little ammo as they had, it might also save
their lives.
"Yeah. If we run into any locked doors, we break 'em
down, or shoot the locks, maybe," Steve said happily.
"And it's like a one-minute walk from here. We'll be flying
the friendly skies in no time."
"It says the tunnel is unfinished..." Claire started, but
Steve cut her off.
"So? If they're still working on it, there'll be some
kind of equipment laying around," Steve said happily.
"I mean, it says mining room, right?"
She couldn't argue with his logic, and didn't want to.
It was almost too good to be true, and she was more than
ready for some good news ... and though it did mean
another run through mothville, this time, they'd be
ready.
"You win the prize," Claire said, giving in to her own
enthusiasm.
Steve raised his eyebrows innocently. "Oh, yeah?
What's the prize?"
She was about to answer that she was open to suggestions
when an unexpected and alarming noise stopped
her, coming into the office from nowhere and everywhere.
For a split second she thought it was some kind
of an air raid siren, it was so loud and penetrating, but
no siren started so deep and low, or kept rising like that,
or conjured up such feelings of dread. There was fury in
the sound, a blind rage so complete that it was incomprehensible.
Frozen, they listened as the incredible, grisly scream
stretched out and finally died away, Claire wondering
how long it had been since feeding time. She had no
doubt that it was one of Umbrella's creations. No ghost
could produce such a visceral sound, and no human soul
could encompass such rage.
"Let's go now," Claire said quietly, and Steve nodded,
his eyes wide and anxious as he folded the maps and
tucked them away.
They readied their weapons, laid out a quick plan,
and on the count of three, Steve shoved the door open.
As the monstrosity's roar echoed away, Alfred smiled
at it through the thick metal bars of its bare, dank cell,
admiring his sister's handiwork. He'd helped, of course,
but she was the genius who'd created the T-Veronica
virus, and at only ten years of age ... and though she
had considered her first experiment a failure, Alfred
thought not. The result was deeply gratifying on a personal
level.
Things were so much clearer, had been since the very
moment he'd left Rockfort. Memories had returned,
things he'd buried or lost, feelings he'd forgotten he had.
After fifteen years of gray area, of muddled confusion
and unstable fantasy, Alfred felt that his world was finally
drawing to order - and he understood now why
their home had been attacked, and how fortunate for
him that it had been.
"They knew that it was time, too, you see," Alfred
said. "If not for the strike, I might have continued to believe
that she was with me."
He watched with some amusement as the monstrosity
tilted its filthy head toward the door, listening. It was
chained to its chair, blindfolded, hands bound behind its
back ... and though it had been incapable of anything
like real thought for a decade and a half, it still responded
to the sound of words. Perhaps it even recognized
his voice on some animal instinctual level.
I should feed it, Alfred thought, not wanting it to die
before Alexia awoke ... but that would be soon, very
soon - perhaps the process had already begun. The
thought filled him with wonder, that he was to be present
for her miraculous rebirth.
"I missed her so," Alfred said, sighing. So much that
he'd created a reflection of her, to share the lonely years
of waiting. "But she's soon to emerge a reigning queen,
with me as her faithful soldier, and we'll never be apart
again."
Which reminded him of his final task, a last objective
to be met before he could comfortably begin the final
wait. His joy at discovering the crashed plane had been
short-lived when he'd found it empty, but upon refreshing
himself of the terminal's layout, he'd realized the
peasant couple could only be in one or two places. He'd
taken a sniper rifle from the armory at one of the other
buildings, a 30.06 bolt action Remington with a magnifying
scope, a delightful toy, and was determined to try
it out. He couldn't have Claire and her little friend
showing up at some inopportune moment, mangling the
celebration...
Suddenly, Alfred started to laugh, a gem of an idea
occurring to him. The monstrosity had to eat ... why
not bring it the two commoners? Claire Redfield had
brought destruction down upon Rockfort, had attempted
to soil the Ashford name, just as the monstrosity had, in
away.
It will consume the enemy agents, an observance in
honor of Alexia's return ... and then we'll have a private
family reunion, just the three of us.
At the sound of his laughter, the monstrosity became
agitated, pulling at its chains with such force that Alfred
stopped laughing. It let out another tremendous, lingering
roar, straining to be free, but Alfred thought the restraints
would hold a bit longer.
"I'll be back soon," Alfred promised, hefting his rifle
and walking away, wondering what Claire would think
about meeting his and Alexia's father under such unusual
circumstances - namely, her own bloody death.
The monstrosity was drawn to body heat and the smell
of terror, Alfred liked to believe, very much looking forward
to watching a helpless Claire stalked through the
dark.
As Alfred started up the stairs to the second basement
level, Alexander Ashford screamed again, as he'd done
fifteen years before when his own children had drugged
him and stolen his life.
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