SIX
TED MARTIN, A THIN MAN IN HIS LATE 30s,
had been shot several times in the head. Nicholai
couldn't tell if he'd been murdered or if he'd been put
down after contracting the virus, and he didn't care;
what mattered was that Martin, whose official title was
Personal and Political Liaison to the Chief of Police,
had saved Nicholai the time it would have taken to
track him down.
"Most kind of you," Nicholai said, smiling down at
the very dead Watchdog. He'd also had the courtesy to
die near where he was supposed to be, in the detective
squadroom's office of the RPD's east wing.
An excellent start to my adventure; if they're all this
easy, it will be a very short night.
Nicholai stepped over the body and crouched down
next to the floor safe in the corner, quickly dialing in
the simple four-digit combination given to him by his
Umbrella contact: 2236. The steel door swung open, revealing
a few papers - one looked like a map for the
police station - a box of shotgun shells, and what
would surely become Nicholai's best friend until he left
Raccoon: a state-of-the-art cellular modem, designed to
look like a piece of shit but more advanced than anything
on the market. Grinning, he lifted out the PC laptop
and carried it to the desk, the safe door closing
itself behind him.
His trip to the station had been reasonably uneventful,
except for the seven undead he'd dispatched point-blank
to avoid too much noise; they were embarrassingly easy
to kill, as long as one paid attention to one's surroundings.
He hadn't yet come across any of Umbrella's pets,
the only real challenge he expected to face; there was
one nicknamed "brain sucker" that he was very much
looking forward to meeting, a multi-legged crawler with
killing claws...
One thing at a time; right now, you need information.
He'd already committed the names and faces of his
victims to memory and had a general idea of where
each one was supposed to make contact, if not necessarily
when; all of the Watchdogs were on different
schedules, subject to change but mostly accurate. Martin,
for instance, was due to report to Umbrella from a
computer terminal at the RPD building's front desk at
1750 hours, about twenty minutes from now; his last
report should have been just after noon.
"Let's see if you succeeded, Officer Martin,"
Nicholai said, quickly punching in the codes he'd acquired
to access Umbrella's updated progress reports.
"Martin, Martin ... ah, there you are!"
The policeman had missed his last two assigned windows,
suggesting that he'd been dead or incapacitated
for at least nine hours now. No information to collect
there. Nicholai carefully read the numbers on the other
Watchdogs, pleased with what he saw. Of the eight
Watchdogs left after Martin, three others had failed to
make their last assigned reports - one of the scientists,
one Umbrella worker, and the woman who worked for
the city's water department. Assuming they were
dead - and Nicholai was willing to bet that they were -
- that left only five.
Two soldiers, two scientists, and the other Umbrella
man...
Nicholai frowned, looking at the designated contact
points for each of them. One scientist, Janice Thomlmson,
would be in the underground laboratory facility,
the other at the hospital near the city park; the Umbrella
worker was to report in from an allegedly abandoned
water treatment facility on the outskirts of town,
a cover for its use as an Umbrella chemical testing site.
Nicholai didn't foresee any problems finding them,
but both of the soldier Watchdogs had been taken off
the map.
"Where are you going to be, men ...," Nicholai said
absently, tapping at the keys, his frustration growing.
At his last check only the night before, they had both
been assigned to call in from the St. Michael Clock
Tower...
Shit!
There they were, their names listed next to his; both
men had been moved to portable status, just like him.
They'd report in from Umbrella laptops or wherever
was most convenient, and were only required to file
once a day - which meant that they could be anywhere
in Raccoon City, anywhere at all.
A seething haze of red enveloped him, tearing at
him. Without thinking, Nicholai charged across the office
and kicked Martin's body as hard as he could,
once, twice, venting his rage, feeling a deep satisfaction
at the wet sounds his boot made, the jerking movement
of the body and the crunch of ribs giving way -
- and then it was over, and he was himself once
again, still frustrated but in control. He exhaled sharply
and moved back to the desk, ready to revise his plans.
It was simply going to take longer to find them, that
was all; it wasn't the end of the world. And perhaps
they would fail to report in, conveniently dying just like
Martin and the other three.
He could hope but wouldn't count on it. What he
could count on was his own perseverance and skill.
Umbrella wouldn't send in their pickup for nearly a
week - the longest, they believed, that they could keep
the disaster quiet - unless the Watchdogs called in with
complete results, unlikely at best. With six days to find
only five people, Nicholai was certain that he would be
the only one left to pick up.
"I won't even need all six," Nicholai said, nodding
firmly at Martin's sprawled, lumpy corpse. "Three
days, I'm sure I can do it in three."
With that, Nicholai leaned forward and started to call
up the maps he would need, happy again.
Jill hadn't been able to find any shells for the 12-gauge,
but she took it anyway, aware that her ammo
wouldn't last forever; it would make a good club, and
she might find shells for it later. She'd just about decided
to try climbing over one of the western blockades
when she saw something that changed her mind, something
she had fervently hoped never to see again.
A Hunter. Like the ones at the estate, in the tunnels.
She'd stood on the fire escape outside of an uptown
boutique, seen it in the street just past one of the vans
that blocked the fire escape's alley. It didn't see her;
she watched it lope by and out of sight, a little different
than the ones from before, but close enough - the same
strangely graceful, malignant carriage, the heavy,
curved talons, the dark mud green color. She held her
breath, her stomach in knots, remembering...
... hunched over so that its impossibly long arms almost
touched the stone floor of the tunnel, both its
hands and feet tipped with thick, brutal claws. Tiny,
light-colored eyes peering out at her from aflat reptilian
skull, its tremendous, high-pitched screech echoing
through the dark underground just before it sprang...
She'd killed it, but it had taken her fifteen 9mm
rounds to do it, an entire magazine. Later, Barry had
told her that he'd heard them referred to as Hunters,
one of Umbrella's bio-organic weapons. There had
been other kinds on the estate - feral, skinned-looking
dogs; a kind of giant, flesh-eating plant that Chris and
Rebecca had destroyed; spiders the size of small cattle;
and the dark, mutant things with bladed hooks for
hands, the ones that hung from the ceiling of the estate's
boiler room, skittering overhead like spined monkeys.
And the Tyrant, somehow the worst because you
could see that it had been human once; before the surgeries,
before the genetic tampering and the T-virus.
So it wasn't just the T-virus loose in Raccoon. As
awful as the realization was, it wasn't exactly shocking;
Umbrella had been messing around with some very
dangerous stuff, breeding slaughtering, nightmare children
like some aberrant God without preparing for the
inevitable consequences; sometimes, nightmares didn't
just go away.
Unless ... unless they did this on purpose.
No. If they'd meant to destroy Raccoon City, they
would have evacuated their own people ... wouldn't
they?
It was a question that haunted her on her journey to
the police station. Seeing the Hunter had made up her
mind for her about what to do next; she simply had to
have more ammo, and she knew there'd be some in the
S.T.A.R.S. office, in the gun safe - 9mm, probably
shotgun shells, maybe even one of Barry's old revolvers.
The station wasn't too far away, at least. She stuck
to the growing shadows, easily dodging the few zombies
she passed; many of them had decayed too much
to move any faster than a slow walk. One of the
gates she had to pass through to get to the station had
been heavily roped and knotted, the knots soaked
with oil. She gave herself a mental kick for forgetting
to bring a knife; lucky for her she'd picked up a
lighter at the Bar Jack, although she worried some
about the smoke drawing attention to her position
until she got through the gate and saw the heap of
burning debris farther ahead, just in front of Umbrella's
medical sales offices. Damage left over from
the riots, she guessed. She thought about stopping to
put out the flames, but there didn't seem to be any
danger of their spreading in the cement and brick alleyway.
So, here she was, standing at the gates to the RPD
courtyard. The rioting had been bad here. Trashed
cars, broken barricades, and orange emergency cones
littered the street, though there were no bodies amidst
the rubble. To her right, a fire hydrant spewed a fountain
of hissing water into the air. The gentle sound of
splashing water might even have been pleasant in another
circumstance - a hot summer day, children
laughing and playing. Knowing that no fireman or city
worker would be coming to fix the gushing
hydrant made her ache inside, and the thought of children
... it was too much; she blocked it out, determined
not to let herself start thinking about things she
couldn't fix. She had enough to worry about.
Such as stocking up on supplies ... so what are you
waiting for, anyway? A written invitation?
Jill took a deep breath and pushed the gates open,
wincing at the squeal of rusty metal. A quick scan told
her the small, fenced yard was empty; she lowered her
weapon, relieved, and carefully closed the gates before
moving toward the heavy wooden doors of the RPD
building. A lot of cops had died out in the streets,
which would make this easier for her, as terrible as that
was; not as many carriers to deal with once she got inside...
Sqreeak!
Behind her, the gates swung open. Jill spun, almost
firing at the figure that crashed into the yard, until she
realized who it was.
"Brad!"
He stumbled toward the sound of her voice, and she
saw that he was badly wounded. He clutched his right
side, blood dripping over his fingers, a look of complete
terror on his face as he reached toward her with
his free hand, gasping.
"juh ... Jill!"
She stepped toward him, so focused on him that
when he suddenly disappeared, she didn't understand
what had happened. A wall of black had sprung up between
them, a blackness that emitted a deep, rumbling
howl of fury, that started toward Brad and shook the
ground with each massive step.
"Sstaarrss," it clearly said, the word nearly hidden
beneath a wavering growl like that of a wild animal,
and Jill knew what it was without seeing its face; she
knew it like she knew her own dreams.
Tyrant.
Brad fell backwards, shaking his head as if to deny
the approaching creature, staggering in a half circle and
stopping when his back hit brick. In the split second
before it reached him, Jill could see it in profile; time
seemed to stop for that instant, allowing her to really
see it, to see that it wasn't her nightmare Tyrant, but no
less horrible for that; in fact, it was worse.
Between seven and eight feet tall, humanoid, its
shoulders impossibly broad, its arms longer than they
should have been. Only its hands and head were visible,
the rest of its strangely proportioned body clothed
in black, except for what appeared to be tentacles,
slightly pulsing ropes of flesh that were only half
tucked under its collar, their points of origin unseen. Its
hairless skin was the color and texture of badly healed
scar tissue, and its face looked as though whoever had
designed the creature had decided not to bother, instead
pulling a too-tight sack of torn leather over its rudimentary
skull. Misshapen white slits for eyes were set too
low and separated by an irregular line of thick surgical
staples. Its nose was barely formed, but the dominant
feature by far was its mouth, or lack thereof; the lower
half of its face was teeth, giant and square, lipless, set
against dark red gums.
Time started again when the creature reached out
and covered Brad's entire face with one hand, still
growling as Brad tried to say something, panting in
high, wheezing gasps beneath its palm...
... and there was an awful, wet squishing sound,
heavy but slick, like someone punching a hole in meat.
Jill saw a flesh tentacle sticking out from the back of
Brad's neck and understood that he was dead, that he
would bleed out in seconds. Numbly, she saw that the
ropelike appendage was moving, swaying like a blind
snake, droplets of blood falling from its muscular
length. The Tyrant-thing grasped Brad's skull, and in a
single, fluid motion, it lifted the dead pilot and tossed
him aside, retracting the killing tentacle back into its
sleeve before Brad hit the ground.
"Sstaarrss," it said again, turning to face her, and as
it focused its attention to her, Jill felt a fear greater than
any she'd ever known.
The Beretta would be useless. She turned and
sprinted, barreling through the doors to the RPD, slamming
and dead-bolting them behind her, all on instinct;
she was too frightened to think about what she was
doing, too frightened to do anything but back away
from the double doors as the monster slammed into
them, rattling them on their hinges.
They held. Jill was very still, listening to the pound
of blood in her ears, waiting for the next blow. Long
seconds dragged by, and nothing happened, but full
minutes passed before she dared to look away, and even
the realization that it had stopped for the moment
brought her no relief.
Brad had been right, it was coming for them and
now that he was dead, it would be coming for her.
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