FOUR
THEY REACHED THE CITY IN THE LATE AFTERNOON,
1650 by Carlos's check, and prepared to drop out
over a deserted lot. Apparently there was an underground
facility or somesuch nearby, owned by Umbrella;
at least that's what they had been told at the
briefing.
Carlos got in line with his squad, assault rifle slung
over his shoulder as he hooked himself to the drop line
and waited for Hirami to open the door. Directly in
front of Carlos was Randy Thomas, one of the friendlier
guys in A squad. Randy glanced back at him and
pretend-growled, pointing his forefinger and thumb at
Carlos, a mock-gun. Carlos grinned, then clutched his
gut as if shot. Stupid shit, but Carlos found himself relaxing
a little as their leader pulled the door open and
the roar of multiple choppers filled the cabin.
Two by two, the men in front of Carlos slid down the
dual rappelling lines anchored to the body of the helicopter.
Carlos stepped closer to the opening, squinting
against the whipping wind to see where they'd be landing.
Their 'copter cast a long shadow in the late-day
sun and he could see men from the other platoons on
the ground, lining up by squad. Then it was his turn; he
stepped out a second after Randy, the thrill of the practical
free fall sending his stomach into his chest. A blur
of passing sky, and he touched down, unhooking from
the line and hurrying to where Hirami stood.
A few minutes later, they were all down. Almost in
unison, the four transport 'copters swung west and
buzzed away, their noise fading as dust settled around
the assembled troops. Carlos felt alert and ready as the
squad and platoon leaders started to point in different
directions, assigning routes that had been plotted before
they'd left the field office.
Finally, as the helicopters grew smaller, they could
hear again - and Carlos was struck by the silence of
their surroundings. No cars, no industrial sounds at all,
and yet they were at the edge of a decent-sized city.
Weird, how one took those noises for granted, not
noticing them at all until they weren't there.
Mikhail Victor, platoon D's supervisor, stood quietly
with Hirami and his other two squad leaders, Cryan and
that creepy Russian, while the supervisors of A, B, and
C platoons gave directions, the squads moving out
briskly and with a minimum of noise. Their bootsteps
seemed overly loud in the still air, and Carlos saw
looks of vague unease on some of the passing faces, a
look he knew he wore. Probably it was so quiet 'cause
people were at home sick, or holed up somewhere, but
it was kind of eerie anyway, the stillness...
"A squad, double-time!" Hirami called, and even
his voice seemed oddly muted, but Carlos put it out of
his mind as they started jogging after him. If his memory
served from the briefing, they were all headed
roughly west, into the heart of Raccoon City, the platoons
fanning out to cover the greatest area. Within a
hundred yards, squad A was on its own, thirty soldiers
jogging through an industrial area not so different than
the one that their field office was in; run-down lots
strewn with trash, weedy patches of dirt, fenced storage
units.
Carlos scowled, unable to keep quiet. "Fuchi," he
said, half under his breath. Smelled like a fart in a bag
full of fish.
Randy lagged back a few steps to run alongside Carlos.
"You say something, bro?"
"I said something stinks," Carlos muttered. "You
smell that?"
Randy nodded. "Yeah. Thought it was you."
"Ha, ha, you kill me, cabraln." Carlos smiled
sweetly. "That means 'good friend,' by the way."
Randy grinned. "Yeah, I bet. And I bet..."
"Hold up! And shut up, back there!"
Hirami called a stop, holding one hand up to ensure
silence. Faintly, Carlos could hear another squad a
block or two north, the beat of their boots on pavement.
And after a second, he could hear something else.
Moans and groans, coming from somewhere ahead
of them, faint at first but getting louder. Like a hospital
population had been kicked out into the street. At the
same time, the bad smell was getting stronger, worse
and familiar, like ...
"Oh, shit," Randy whispered, his face paling, and
Carlos knew at once what the smell was, just as Randy
must know.
Not possible.
It was the smell of a human body rotting in the sun.
It was death. Carlos knew it well enough, but never had
it been so huge, so all-encompassing. In front of them,
Mitch Hirami was lowering his hand uncertainly, a look
of deep concern in his eyes. The distressed, wordless
sounds of people in pain were getting louder. Hirami
seemed about to speak...
... when gunfire erupted from nearby, from one of the
other squads, and in between the blasts of automatic
fire that ripped through the afternoon air, Carlos could
hear men screaming.
"Line!" Hirami shouted, holding up both hands with
the palms turned to the sky, his voice barely audible
over the stutter of bullets.
Straight line, five men facing front, five back the way
they'd come. Carlos ran to get in position, his mouth
suddenly dry, his hands damp. The short bursts of automatic
fire just north of their position were getting
longer, drowning out whatever else there was to hear,
but the stench was definitely getting worse. To cap his
worries, he could hear distant fire, soft, clattering pops
behind the closer blasts; whatever was going on, it
sounded like all of the U.B.C.S. was engaged.
Carlos faced front, rifle ready, searching the empty
street that stretched out in front of them and T-ed three
blocks ahead. An M16 loaded with a thirty-round mag
was nothing to scoff at, but he was afraid - of what, he
didn't know yet.
Why are they still firing over there, what takes that
many bullets? What is it...
Carlos saw the first one, then, a staggering figure
that half-fell from behind a building two blocks in front
of them. A second lurched out from across the street,
followed by a third, a fourth - suddenly, at least a
dozen plodding, stumbling people were in the street,
coming their way. They seemed to be drunk.
"Christ, what's wrong with them, why are they walking
like that?"
The speaker was next to Carlos, Olson his name was,
and he was facing the direction they'd come from. Carlos
shot a look back and saw at least ten more reeling
toward them, appearing as if out of nowhere, and he realized
in the same moment that the gunfire north of
them was dying out, the intermittent bursts fewer and
further apart.
Carlos faced front again and felt his jaw drop at what
he saw and heard; they were close enough that he could
make out individual features, their strange cries clearly
audible now. Tattered, blood-stained clothing, although
a few were partially naked; pallid faces stained red,
with eyes that saw nothing; the way that several held
their arms out, as if reaching for the line of soldiers,
still a block away. And the disfigurations - missing
limbs, great hunks of skin and muscle torn off, body
parts bloated and wet with putrefaction.
Carlos had seen the movies. These people weren't
sick. They were zombies, the walking dead, and for a
moment, all he could do was watch as they tottered
closer. Not possible, chale, and as his brain wrestled to
accept what he was seeing, he remembered what Trent
had said, about dark hours ahead.
"Fire, fire!..." Hirami was screaming as if from a
great distance, and the sudden, violent chatter of automatic
weapons to either side snapped Carlos back to reality.
He aimed at the swollen belly of a fat man
wearing ripped pajama bottoms, and he fired.
Three bursts, at least nine rounds smacked into the
man's corpulent gut, punching a rough line across his
lower belly. Dark blood splashed out, soaking the front
of his pants. The man staggered but didn't fall. If anything,
he seemed more eager to reach them, as if the
smell of his own blood incited him.
A few of the zombies had gone down, but they continued
to crawl forward on what was left of their stomachs,
scraping broken fingers across the asphalt in their
single-minded purpose.
The brain, gotta get the brain, in the movies shooting
them in the head is the only way...
The closest was perhaps twenty feet away now, a
gaunt woman who seemed untouched except for the
dull glint of bone beneath her matted hair. Carlos sited
the exposed skull and fired, feeling crazy relief when
she went down and stayed there.
"The head, aim for the head..." Carlos shouted, but
already, Hirami was screaming, wordless howls of terror
that were quickly joined by some of the others as
their line began to dissolve.
- oh, no -
From behind, the zombies had reached them.
Nicholai and Wersbowski were the only two from B
to make it, and only then because they'd both taken advantage
where they could - Nicholai had pushed Brett
Mathis into the arms of one of the creatures when it
had gotten too close, gaining a precious few seconds
that had allowed him to escape. He'd seen Wersbowski
shoot Li's left leg for the same reason, crippling the
soldier and leaving him to distract the closest virus carriers.
Together, they made it to an apartment building's fire
escape some two blocks from where the others had
fallen. Gunfire tatted erratically as they climbed the
rusty steps, but already the hoarse screams of dying
men were fading to silence, becoming lost in the cries
of the hungry damned.
Nicholai weighed his options carefully as they scaled
the fire escape. As he'd predicted, John Wersbowski
was a survivor and obviously had no problem doing
whatever was necessary to remain one; with as bad as
things were in Raccoon - worse, in fact, than Nicholai
had been led to believe - it might pay to have such a
man watching his back.
And if we're surrounded, there would be someone to
sacrifice so that I might get away...
Nicholai frowned as they reached the rooftop, as
Wersbowski stared out at what they could see from
three stories up. Unfortunately, the sacrifice element
worked both ways. Besides, Wersbowski wasn't an
idiot or as trusting as Mathis and Li had been; getting
the drop on him could be difficult.
"Zombies," Wersbowski muttered, clutching his rifle.
Standing beside him, Nicholai followed his gaze to
where squad B had made its last stand, at the broken
bodies that littered the pavement and the creatures that
continued to feed. Nicholai couldn't help feeling a bit
disappointed; they'd died in minutes, hardly putting up
a fight...
"So, what's the plan, sir?"
The sarcasm was obvious, both in tone and in the
half amused, half disgusted expression he turned to
Nicholai. Obviously, Wersbowski had seen him offer
up Mathis. Nicholai sighed, shaking his head, the M16
loose in his hands; he had no choice, really.
"I don't know," he said softly, and when Wersbowski
looked back at where they'd fought, Nicholai squeezed
the assault rifle's trigger.
A trio of rounds hammered Wersbowski's abdomen,
knocking him sprawling against the low cement ledge.
Nicholai immediately raised the weapon and aimed at
one of Wersbowski's shocked eyes, firing even as comprehension
flooded the soldier's flushed face, an awareness
that he'd made the fatal mistake of letting his
guard down.
In under a second it was over, and Nicholai was
alone on the rooftop. He stared blankly at the oozing
body, wondering - and not for the first time - why he
felt no guilt when he killed. He'd heard the term
sociopathic before and thought that it probably applied
... although why people continued to see that
as a negative, he didn't understand. It was the empathy
thing, he supposed, the bulk of humanity acting
as though the inability to "relate" was somehow
wrong.
But nothing bothers me, and I never hesitate to do
what needs to be done, no matter how it is perceived by
others; what's so terrible about that?
True, he was a man who knew how to control himself.
Discipline, that was the trick. Once he'd decided
to leave his homeland, within a year he didn't even
think in Russian anymore. When he'd become a mercenary,
he'd trained night and day with every manner of
weapon and tested his skills against the very best in the
field; he'd always won, because no matter how vicious
his opponent, Nicholai knew that having no conscience
set him free, just as having one hindered his enemies.
This was an asset, was it not?
Wersbowski's corpse had no answer. Nicholai
checked his watch, already bored with his philosophical
wanderings. The sun was low in the sky and it was
only 1700 hours; he still had much to do if he meant to
leave Raccoon with everything he needed. First, he
needed to pick up a laptop and access the files he'd created
only the night before, maps and names; there was
supposed to be one locked up and waiting for him in
the RPD building, although he'd have to be extremely
careful in the area, as the two new Tyrant seekers
would surely be there at some point. One was programmed
to find some chemical sample, and Nicholai
knew there was an Umbrella lab not far from the building.
The other unit, the more technologically advanced
creation, would be set to take out renegade S.T.A.R.S.,
assuming there were any still in Raccoon, and the
S.T.A.R.S. office was inside the RPD. He wouldn't be
in any danger as long as he stayed out of the way, but
he'd hate to get between any series of Tyrant and its
target if even half of what he'd heard was true. Umbrella
was taking full advantage of the Raccoon situation,
taking proactive steps - using the new Tyrant
models, if that's what they were, exactly - in addition
to data gathering; Nicholai admired their efficiency.
Nicholai heard a fresh burst of gunfire and reflexively
stepped back from the edge of the roof, looking
down to see two soldiers run past a moment later. One
was injured, a ripped, bloody patch near his right ankle,
and he leaned heavily against the other for support.
Nicholai couldn't identify the wounded man, but his
helper was the Hispanic who'd been watching him on
the helicopter.
Nicholai smiled as the two stumbled past and out of
sight; a few of the soldiers would have survived, of
course, but they would probably suffer the same fate as
the injured man, who'd almost certainly been bitten by
one of the diseased.
Or the fate that surely awaits the Hispanic. I wonder,
what will he do when his friend starts to get sick? When
he starts to change?
Probably try to save him in some pathetic tribute to
honor; it would be his undoing. Really, they were all as
good as dead. Amazed by how predictable they were,
Nicholai shook his head and went to get Wersbowski's
ammo pack.
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