NINETEEN
CARLOS HEARD THE MONSTER'S SCREAMING
howl and started to get up, still holding Jill's arm. They
had to get away before it saw her...
... and the front of the building cracked open as
though it were made of balsa wood, wreckage from the
helicopter spewing out in a burst of smoking debris.
Before Carlos could get down, a large piece of
blackened rock from the building's outer wall smacked
into his left side. He heard and felt a rib give way as he
fell, the pain instant and intense.
"Carlos!"
Jill leaned over him, her gaze darting back and forth
between him and part of the tower he couldn't see, the
grenade launcher still clutched in her hands. The
Nemesis had stopped roaring; between that and the
sudden, brutal silencing of the bells, Carlos could hear
something thumping heavily to the ground, followed by
the crumble of powdering rock in a slow, even rhythm.
Crunch. Crunch.
It's coming, it jumped off the roof and it's coming...
"Run," Carlos said, and he saw that she understood,
a second before she took off, that she had no other
choice. Boots kicking the ground away, she left him
alone as fast as she could.
Carlos turned his head as he sat up, willing himself
not to feel pain, and saw the creature standing in a pile
of broken concrete and burning wood, unaware that the
hem of its leathery coat was on fire as its aberrant gaze
tracked Jill. As before, it didn't seem to see him.
As long as I don't get in its way, Carlos thought,
propping himself against the cool stone of the fountain,
lifting his rifle. It doesn 't hurt, it doesn 't, doesn 't.
In a single, powerful motion the Nemesis lifted a
rocket launcher to its giant shoulder and took aim, as
Carlos started firing.
Each chattering round from the Ml6 sent a fresh
pulse of muffled agony through his bones, but his aim
was good in spite of the pain. Tiny black holes appeared
on the creature's face, and Carlos could hear the
ping of ricochet off the battered launcher. The fleshy
tentacles that rose up from beneath the monster's long
jacket whipped around its upper body as if outraged,
coiling and uncoiling with incredible speed.
Carlos saw that it was swinging the bazooka toward
him, but he kept firing, knowing that he couldn't get up
in time to run. Get away, Jill, go!
It sighted Carlos and fired, and Carlos saw a burst of
light and motion coming at him, felt the heat of the
high-explosive anti-tank missile radiating against his
skin...
... and somehow, he wasn't dead, but something not
far behind him blew up. The force of the blast lifted
and threw him roughly against the side of the fountain;
the pain was spectacular but he raggedly held on to
consciousness, determined to buy Jill a few more seconds.
Half laying across the lip of the fountain, Carlos
started firing again, shooting for its face, rounds
going everywhere as he struggled to control the
weapon.
Die, just die already... But it wasn't dying, it
wasn't even flinching, and Carlos knew he only had a
half second left before he was blown into a greasy stain
on the lawn.
The rocket launcher was pointed directly at Carlos's
face when it happened, a one in a million shot -
Carajo!
- as one of the metallic pings turned into an explosion,
a sudden white-hot light show. The monster
pitched backwards as its weapon disintegrated, dropping
out of sight.
Carlos's rifle went dry. He reached for a new magazine,
and there was new pain. He lost track of the light,
darkness pulling him down.
Jill saw Carlos collapse and made herself stay where
she was, standing between the trolley and a hedge row.
She'd seen the Nemesis go down, thrown into the burning
rubble by the misfire that had obliterated its
bazooka, but its confirmed ability to avoid death kept
her from going to Carlos. If it was still coming, she
wanted to keep it focused on her alone.
The grenade launcher felt light in her hands, high
adrenaline giving her a second wind with a vengeance
and when the Nemesis rose up, one shoulder
burning, blistering black and red flesh visible beneath
its ruined clothing, Jill fired.
The buckshot-loaded "grenade," like a super shotgun
shell, sent a concentrated blast of thousands of pellets
across the yard, but she missed the howling Nemesis
entirely, the shot tearing new holes in what was left of
the tower's front wall.
The Nemesis stopped screaming even though its
chest was still burning, the skin crackling and black
now. It squared its body toward Jill as she broke open
the grenade launcher and snatched another load out of
her bag, praying that it was more seriously injured by
Carlos's lucky shot than it appeared.
It lowered its head and ran at her, its gigantic stride
carrying it toward her incredibly quickly. In a second it
was across the yard, its snaking appendages spread out
as if to grab her up.
Jill leaped to her left and took off at a dead run, still
holding the grenade, in between the row of hedges and
the undamaged west wall of the tower. She could hear it
enter the row behind her as she reached the end; it still
almost had her, its speed extraordinary, putting it an
arm's length away as she rounded the end of the row...
... and something struck her right shoulder as she
tore around the hedge, something solid and slick, burrowing
into her flesh like a giant, boneless finger. It
stung, a thousand hornets at once flooding her system
with poison, and she understood that one of the searching
tentacles had pierced her.
Oshitoshitoshit, she couldn't think about it, there
wasn't time, but the Nemesis stopped suddenly, threw
its head back and bellowed its victory to the cold stars
above, and Jill stumbled to a halt, shoved the load into
the gun and snapped the breech closed...
... and fired as it lunged toward her again. The shot
clipped the howling Nemesis just below its right hip
and tore into the meat of its upper thigh, bits of skin
and muscle flying out behind it...
... and it crashed, a few more momentum strides and
it went down in a spray of ravaged tissue, monstrous
and silent and suddenly still.
In a fever to reload, Jill dropped the second to last
buckshot grenade, and it rolled away. She managed to
get a firm grip on the fifth and was just snapping the
gun closed when the Nemesis sat up, facing away
from her.
Jill aimed for its lower back and fired, the thunder of
the weapon just another dull sound beneath the ringing
in her ears. The Nemesis was moving, standing up
when it was hit, and the pellets hit low and left, what
would be a lethal kidney shot for a human. Apparently
not for the S.T.A.R.S. killer. It stumbled, then stood up
and started to limp away, one giant hand clapped over
its new wound.
Leaving, it's leaving...
Her thoughts were slow and heavy. It took her a moment
to understand that its departure wasn't good news.
She couldn't let it get away, let it repair itself and come
back - she had to try and kill it while it was weak.
Jill drew the Python and tried to take aim, but her vision
doubled suddenly and she couldn't focus on the
receding figure as it dragged itself through the fiery
wreckage. She felt light-headed and flushed and
thought it very likely that she'd been infected by the Tvirus.
She didn't have to see the shoulder wound to know it
was bad, she could feel hot blood coursing down her
side, soaking into the waistband of her skirt. She
wished she could believe that the virus was being
washed out of her system, but she couldn't kid herself,
even so direly injured.
For a few seconds she considered the loaded .357
she still held - and then thought of Carlos and knew
she had to wait. She had to help him if she could, she
owed him that much.
Summoning the last of her rapidly draining strength,
Jill started toward Carlos. He lay by the fountain,
groaning and half conscious, hurt, but at least she
couldn't see any blood, maybe he's okay...
It was her last thought before she felt her body betray
her by giving up, dropping her to the ground and
putting her into a very deep sleep.
Dark, elsewhere ringing and escape, fire and dark
and bullets, can't hear, Jill running from the fire and
the thing firing, high-explosive missile aimed...
... aimed at my...
... face.
Carlos came to in a rush, confused and hurting and
looking for the fight, for the Nemesis and Jill. She was
in trouble if that thing got hold of her...
It was a quiet, still night, and low fires burned all
around, providing a dancing orange light and enough
heat to make him sweat. Carlos forced himself to move,
crawling to his feet and holding his ribs tightly, jaw
clenched from the pain. Fractured or broken, maybe
two of them, but he had to think about Jill now, had to
shake off the effects of the multiple blasts and...
"Oh, no," he said, forgetting about his aching exhaustion
as he hurried toward her. Jill was lying on a
patch of burnt grass, perfectly still except for the steady
ooze of blood from her right shoulder. Still alive, but
maybe not for much longer.
Carlos swallowed his pain and picked her up, the
dead weight of her body making him want to scream in
anger, at the insanity that had unfolded and grown in
Raccoon, that had imposed its merciless grasp on Jill
and on himself. Umbrella, monsters, spies, even
Trent - all of it was crazy, it was a nightmare fairy
tale ... but the blood was real enough.
He held her close, turning, searching. He had to get
her inside, safe, somewhere he could dress her wounds,
where they could both rest for a little while. There was
the chapel in the mostly undamaged west wing; there
were no windows and good locks on the door.
"Don't die, Jill," he said, and hoped she was listening
as he carried her across the burning yard.
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