by S. D. Perry
“Uunh,” a soft, feminine groan from behind him.
“Rebecca! Claire! Sound off!” He whispered harshly, still watching the pale, empty square of open door.
“Here. Claire, I mean, I’m okay but I think she’s hurt—”
Dammit!
David felt his heart skip a beat and he backed up a step, his thoughts racing, a knot of dread in his belly. It had been less than a half-minute since the first shot, but the Umbrella team would have already surrounded the building, if they were any good at all. They needed to get out before the attackers were firmly organized.
“Claire, come to me, follow my voice—I need you covering the door. You see anyone, even a shadow, shoot to kill. Understood?”
He heard her shuffling movements as he spoke and reached out for her as she came close, grabbing hold of her arm.
“Wait,” he said, and let another burst from the gun fly, hammering into the wall near the door. He immediately unslung the M-16 and handed it to Claire as the submachine gun returned fire, a rattle of bullets spraying directionless into the dark.
“You can use this?”
“Yeah—” She sounded anxious but steady enough.
“Good. As soon as I say, we’re going to start moving for the west door; you’ll be covering us.”
He was already turning toward the corner, where Rebecca would be. He heard another muffled murmur of pain and fixed on it, moving quickly, dropping to his knees and feeling for the injured girl. He felt silkiness beneath one hand, Rebecca’s hair, and ran both hands over her head, feeling for the sticky warmth of blood.
“Rebecca, can you speak? Do you know where you’re hurt?”
A cough—and then he felt her fingers touch his arm, and knew she was all right even before she spoke.
“Back of my head,” she said, softly but clearly. “Possible concussion, cracked hell on my tailbone, limbs seem okay…”
“I’m going to help you up. If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you, but we have to go now—”
As if to prove his words, there was another rattle from the gunman outside—
—and a shout that had him moving even before it was finished.
“Fire in the hole!”
David spun, leapt up from his crouch and tackled Claire from behind, calling out, “Close your eyes—” as he closed his own in case of incendiary, praying it wasn’t a shrapnel—
—and the whump of a grenade launcher, followed by a loud pop and hiss that told him it was gas. He moved off of Claire, felt her sit up beside him, heard her ragged, frightened breathing.
God, not sarin, soman, let them want us alive—
Within seconds, David’s nose and eyes started to water viciously and he felt a wave of relief. Not nerve gas; they’d used a CN or CS tear gas. The Umbrella team was going to smoke them out.
“West door,” David said, and Claire choked out an affirmative, the chemical compound disseminating quickly into the frigid air, an effective but thankfully non-lethal weapon.
He turned back and felt a hand brush across his chest.
“I can walk,” Rebecca said, coughing, and David threw her arm across his shoulders anyway and started for the door, moving as fast as he could through the black. He heard Claire gasping but holding her own, keeping up with them.
David hurried forward, planning as he went, trying not to breathe too deeply. There’d be people at both doors, waiting—
—but how close? They’ll want to be right there, waiting to subdue their choking victims…
He had it. As they came to the wall, David fished into his hip bag, pulling out the smooth, round antipersonnel grenade and pulling the pin.
“Claire, Rebecca, behind me!”
Already blind in the dark, the tears only hurt; they didn’t interfere with his aim as he pulled his nine-millimeter and swept it in front of him, finding the door.
BAM!
He blew a hole in the door’s edge, unlocking it, hearing the surprised cries of the men outside. With hardly a pause, David jerked the door open, how far to the fence, fifty, sixty meters—
—and lobbed the grenade, a gentle toss out the door, closing it just as fast as he could, throwing his weight against it and thanking God that it was so very durable—
—and KA-WHAM, the door fought with him as the impact fuse went, dirt and shrapnel slamming against it like a wild beast clawing for entrance. David held on, only a second’s war but a fierce one nonetheless. The thundering boom of the M68 gave way to moans and howls of pain, barely audible over the ringing in his ears and the screaming of his breathless lungs.
“Cover to the right and head left!” He shouted, and yanked the door open, whipping the H&K from side to side. The pallid moonlight showed him only three men, all down, all hurt and screaming and still alive beyond the veil of his tears.
Kevlar, full-body maybe—
They’d expect a run to the front, to their escape vehicle, so David turned left. He fixed his wet gaze on the dark fence as Claire and then Rebecca tumbled out behind him, coughing and crying.
“Fence,” he said, as loud as he dared, and reached back for Rebecca, sliding his arm around her waist. They stumbled over one of the fallen men, clutching at his bleeding face, and managed a shagging run toward escape, Claire right behind. She sidled quickly after them, the M-16 aimed back toward the front of the compound.
Good girl, we might make this, over the fence and circle away from the van, out into the desert—
They ran, closing the distance much faster than David could have hoped, the fence only ten yards behind the rear of the building they’d been in, the building he’d chosen because of it; the others angled toward the front, too much distance, and the first would have been too obvious—
—then they were almost to the fence when someone fired the machine gun from the darkness behind them, from the cover of the building’s other side. At least one of the Umbrella team had fought logic and come around by the unexpected route.
Claire was on it, returning fire, the rapid chatter of the two automatics merging into an explosive duo. The invisible shooter was either hit or ducking as the thundering song went solo, Claire peppering the darkness with the .223s.
Rebecca will need help.
“Claire! Up and over!” David shouted, reaching out for the M-16. She let it go and turned, scaling the fence easily.
“Rebecca, go!” David pulled the trigger and held it, spraying bullets across the cold night, hearing return fire from seemingly everywhere at once, three, maybe four shooters—
—and there was a cry from behind him, from Rebecca, only halfway up the metal grid. A few drops of warmth spattered across David’s face and he stopped firing, jumping to catch her before she could let go.
“Got it!” Claire shouted from the other side, and she fired through the mesh, the nine-millimeter rounds pounding and loud, David’s pulse even louder. Rebecca was pale, panting harshly, obviously in pain—but she managed to hang on to the fence, even to climb a little as David straddled the fence and lifted her up.
He half-carried her over the top, and as soon as Claire reached up to help, David turned and fired again at the oncoming attackers, still hidden in the shadows, his fury drying the last of the chemical tears.
Bloody bastards, she’s still just a girl—
The M-16 went dry and he jumped, then Rebecca was between them, leaning heavily on David’s shoulder, and they were staggering out into the freezing desert night.
THIRTEEN
Within minutes of the attack, Leon could see that Cole was in no shape to lead. The Umbrella worker was stumbling blind, headed only vaguely in the direction they needed to go and more from happenstance than by design.
And now that we know they can attack from the ground… he and John didn’t both need to be watching the skies, so to speak.
“Henry—why don’t you let me take over as guide for a few minutes?” Leon asked, glancing back at John. John nodded, not looking all that hot himself; he
seemed extremely tight, his gaze darting rapidly back and forth, his hands tight on the M-16.
Maybe he’s thinking about the others. About them being “taken.”
“Yeah, okay, that’d be—okay,” Cole nodded, his relief all too apparent. He wiped at his sweaty brown hair and hurried to get behind Leon, John still in back.
Leon was nervous, but not nearly as frightened as he had been, at least not for the three of them. The birds, Dacs, were unpleasant and dangerous, but it was a relief to have seen them; they weren’t as terrible as his imagination had led him to believe upon hearing those first savage cries. Monsters from the mind were always worse than the real thing, and the Dacs weren’t even all that durable. As long as he and John were on their guard, they should make it okay.
They were headed due south, so Leon angled them again, realizing that he was starting to catch glimpses of what might be the far wall. The setup was disorienting; the trees were not all that close together, but were scattered so that the woods seemed dense when you looked across it; the thick ground cover, some kind of molded plastic, didn’t move underfoot, but there were slopes and rises in the material that made it even harder to get a feel for the size of the chamber.
This is so weird, so over the top—so utterly like Umbrella.
It was like the vast laboratory facility beneath Raccoon, complete with its own foundry and private subway—unbelievable, except he’d seen it himself. And he knew from the ex-S.T.A.R.S. that there’d also been an isolated cove on the Maine coast guarded by teams of viral zombies, and a “deserted” mansion in the woods, the Spencer place—that one had been rigged with secrets, keys, codes, and passages, like the setting for a spy movie that no one would ever buy.
Now this—simulated environments beneath the barren Utah salt flats. What had Reston called it? The Planet. It was an extravagant, decadent, immoral waste; ridiculous, except—
—except we’re stuck in it, and God only knows what we’ll be up against next.
Leon kept moving, trying not to think about what Claire and the others might be going through. Reston had obviously assumed that the rest of the team had been nabbed, but he didn’t know. He also didn’t know how resourceful Claire and Rebecca were, or how brilliant David was as a strategist. They’d all slipped away from Umbrella before, and there was no reason to think that they wouldn’t do it again.
Leon was so intent on the private pep-talk that he didn’t see the clearing until they were practically on top of it, less than twenty feet away. He stopped, remembering the last attack—and chided himself for not paying attention.
“Let’s back up and go around,” he said—and then he heard the beat of wings, and knew it was already too late. In the wilted shadows above the open space, one, two, three of them were diving off perches, soaring down into the rounded clearing.
Shit!
One of them started to screech and then there were others nearby, overhead, hiding in the unlikely trees, who joined in the song, a deafening, horrendous cacophony of needle-sharp sound. Leon fell back, John suddenly at his side, aiming his rifle into the open space.
The first flew at the trees, twisting sideways as if to fly between them. It pulled up at the last second, so quickly that they didn’t get off a shot. As it soared up, Leon saw two on the ground, dragging their sinewy bodies eagerly forward on folded wings.
The noise! It was painful, as shrill and terrible as a thousand screaming infants, and Leon felt the nine-millimeter fire more than he heard it, the heavy metal jumping in his hands. The birds fell silent as the closer of the two took the shot in its curving throat. A ragged hole blew open just above its narrow chest, flaps of gray-brown skin blossoming out like some dark flower. Thin blood gushed from the wound, but the second was already climbing over its spasming body, single-minded in its attack. Leon took aim and—
“Hey hey oh shit—”
Cole’s hysterical cry distracted him, the shot jerking right, missing. John opened up on the second Dac, the clatter of automatic fire tearing into the animal. Leon spun and saw Cole stumbling backwards, another of the vicious birds lunging toward him.
How’d it get past us?
Leon aimed, the Dac no more than five feet away from Cole, and even as he pulled the trigger another of the creatures was swooping down from directly overhead. At such close range the nine-millimeter round punctured the bird’s chest and blew a fist-sized hole out its low back, the Dac dead before it crumpled to the ground. The newcomer gave one mighty flap, the tips of its huge wings brushing the floor, and flew back up and away.
“Henry, get behind me!” Leon shouted, glancing up—and seeing yet another Dac coming down from a series of perches directly above, tucking its wings in and diving straight for him.
He needed help. “John…!”
The diving bird spread its leathery wings only a few feet from the floor and touched down, surprisingly graceful in its landing. It turned toward Leon and lurched forward. Behind him, he heard the spatter of bullets—and heard it stop, heard John cursing, heard the M-16s aluminum alloy body clatter to the ground.
The Dac in front of Leon opened its long beak and squawked, a burst of angry, hungry sound, sidling forward on its bent wings as fast as Leon could back away. The creature was weaving back and forth and Leon didn’t have enough ammo to waste, he had to get a clear shot—
—and it jumped, a strange, sudden hop that put it only a foot away. With another shrill screech, it bobbed its head forward, its open beak closing on his ankle. Even through the thick boot leather, he could feel the pegs of its teeth, feel the power in its jaws—
—and before he could fire, John was there, he was stamping down on the Dac’s snaking neck and pointing his handgun—
—and bam, the round snapped its spine, a vertebral knob on its sleek back exploding, shards of pale bone and runny blood spraying outward. It let go of his ankle, and though its neck continued to twist its body was still, bleeding and still.
How many, how many left—
“Come on,” John called, scooping up the rifle and turning to run. “Get to the door, we have to get to the door!”
They ran. Through the clearing, Cole right behind, the beat of wings behind them, another shrill voice crying into the air. Back into the trees, the lifeless woods, stumbling over branches and veering around the gnarled plastic trunks.
The wall, there’s the wall!
And there was the door, a double-wide metal hatch, a deadbolt set low at the right side—
—and Leon heard the terrible screech in his ear, inches away, and felt the gust of air across the back of his neck—
—and he let his legs give, collapsing to the ground, and felt sudden pain as something snatched a chunk of hair and ripped it from his scalp, from the back of his head.
“Look out!” Leon screamed, looking up to see the massive bird swooping in on John, almost to the door, Cole beside him.
John turned, not a flinch, not a backward stumble. He raised the handgun and pulled the trigger, a dead shot, and the Dac dropped as if made of lead, its tiny brain suddenly liquid, blowing up and out.
Cole was fumbling with the door, John still aiming over Leon’s head, and Leon heard another one screaming as if in a fury, somewhere behind—
—and the door was open—Leon ran, John covering him as he stumbled after Cole, out of the cool, dark woods and into a blinding heat. John was right behind him, slamming the hatch closed—
—and they were in Phase Two.
* * *
Rebecca was running, out of breath and exhausted and unable to stop, to rest. David and Claire were running with her, holding her up, but she still felt that each step was an effort of pure will; her muscles didn’t want to cooperate, and she was disoriented, her equilibrium a mess, her ears ringing. She was hurt, and she didn’t know how bad—only that she’d been shot, that she’d hit her head at some point, and that they couldn’t stop until they were well away from the compound.
It was dark, to
o dark to see where the ground was, and cold; each breath was an iced dagger in her throat and lungs. Her thoughts were muddled, but she knew that she’d suffered some brain dysfunction, she wasn’t sure what exactly; as she staggered along, the possibilities haunted her. The bullet was easier, she knew by the hot and throbbing pain where it had gone. It hurt terribly, but she didn’t think she had a fracture and it wasn’t gushing; she was much more concerned about the loss of coherency.
Shot through left gluteal, lodged in ischium, lucky lucky lucky… shock or concussion? Concussion or shock?
She needed to stop, take a temporal pulse, check her ears for blood… or for CSF, which was something she didn’t even want to think about. Even in her confused state, she knew that bleeding cerebrospinal fluid was about the worst outcome for a blow to the head.
After what seemed like a very long time, and more twists and changes in direction than she could count, David slowed, telling Claire to slow down, and that they were going to sit Rebecca on the ground.
“On my side,” Rebecca panted, “bullet’s on the left.”
Carefully, David and Claire lowered her down to the cold flat earth, gasping, catching their breath, and Rebecca thought she’d never been more glad to lie down. She caught just a glimpse of the black sky as David rolled her over: the stars were amazing, clear and ice against the deep black sea…
“Flashlight,” she said, realizing again how strange her thoughts had become. “Gotta check.”
“Are we far enough?” Claire asked, and it took Rebecca a moment to understand that she was talking to David.
Oh, crap this is not good…
“Should be. And we’ll see them coming.” David said shortly, and he turned on his flashlight, the beam hitting the ground a few inches in front of Rebecca’s face.
“Rebecca, what can we do?” he asked, and she heard the worry in his voice and loved him for it. They were like family, had been ever since the cove, he was a good friend and a good man…
