by John Shirley
Catalina. Once she cleaned up the island, they might be safe from the Undead for a long time. The zombies weren’t known to swim…
It was some kind of plan, anyway. So she decided to find Chris Redfield, ask him if he knew how to pilot this ship.
Alice glanced over her shoulder at the people she’d set free… and sighed. She felt responsible for them, now. Somehow, she kept falling into that role. She’d tried to avoid it, wandering in the deserts of the Southwest—and then she’d got drawn in again.
Life had been so much easier when all she had to worry about was security at one of the world’s most powerful corporations. She was exquisitely trained in martial arts, in the use of every weapon. She’d been a person of confidence and strength.
And then she’d seen what the Umbrella Corporation was doing, in the Hive. Her conscience had forced her to turn against Umbrella; against all that she had been. Maybe this new burden of responsibility was the karma, biting her on the ass for her time with Umbrella.
Still, she was still young and strong. Men found her beautiful. If she got everyone on the ship to safety, maybe she could settle down, even find a mate among the survivors. Chris seemed attracted to her. And he was a ruggedly good-looking guy. Impressive, if a bit grim. But… could she live like a normal human being, ever again? With a lover, a child—a family?
She had to believe there was a chance. Somewhere, someday, the dark journey had to come to an end.
“What’s that?” Claire said, as she walked up to Alice. She pointed at the sky.
With a stab of dread, Alice looked up.
“It’s trouble,” Alice said, dully. A fleet of flying vehicles was blotting the sky, bearing down on the Arcadia.
Of course. There was no end to the nightmare. Every time there seemed to be light at the end of the tunnel, it turned out to be a guttering, forgotten candle… a tiny flame that sputtered, and went out in a wisp of smoke.
Alice recognized the silhouettes against the northern sky.
“V-22s,” she said, her voice hoarse. Why couldn’t she have time to breathe, to think—just one real chance to help these people? “Umbrella’s version of V-22s, anyway,” she added, almost casually. “Based on the Marine Corps’ Ospreys—they’re helicopters and planes in one.”
“Oh, no…” Claire breathed. As she did, Alice checked to make certain her shotguns were secure in the holsters on her back, then began to move.
Umbrella’s V-22s were more advanced than the Corps’ Ospreys. The black choppers could tilt their rotors forward to fly like planes, or tilt them upward to hover, and were even more armored than Ospreys. There were auto-cannons mounted in the snouts.
And there was a whole aerial fleet of them coming her way, so many that they quickly darkened the sky. They were probably packed with Umbrella troopers, too.
Alice reached the survivors and started to shout.
“Move!” she said. “Head for cover!”
Had Wesker sent for those troopers, before he’d died?
Good chance he had, and the Corporation had responded instantly. Like any multinational, they wouldn’t want to surrender all the tech, the test data, and the experimental subjects on this ship.
She had to get them to safety.
But V-22s were fast. Seeing them head-on was deceptive, and before she knew it, the big black choppers came hurtling in, rotors roaring, gunners firing as they came. Shells burst on the decks, instantaneous blossoms of fire and shrapnel. Alice ran, shouting at the others to get back, get under cover, but the vast deck was like a football field, open and flat and broad, and there was no cover.
They’d tumbled from tranquility into chaos, in the space of a few heartbeats.
She scanned the area, looked for Chris, and Claire—and saw several of the white-garbed people they’d rescued, caught in a detonation and tossed into the air by shell blasts that made the deck ring like a sledgehammer on a giant bell.
She groaned at that, cursed in frustration, her stomach churning—then heard the drumming of the choppers steadying, felt the wind of their rotors as they hovered over the deck, and she skidded to a stop, near the rail.
Turning, she saw Umbrella troopers rappelling down from the V-22s. They were all in black, armored, faces covered in gas masks, weapons strapped to their backs—black to the white of the survivors she’d freed.
Not freed for long.
The first three troopers to hit the deck quickly unstrapped capture guns, non-lethal weapons looking like small bazookas, that fired compressed nets at their targets. The net capsules opened and engulfed a number of the survivors, as if in gigantic spider webs.
Alice looked up again, and saw a familiar face. Jill Valentine rappelled down, her face unmasked, her dark blond hair fluttering in the wind. She fired with a submachine gun as she came. Bullets strafed up the deck in Alice’s direction, whining off the metal, and she threw herself aside, the rounds narrowly missing her.
She came to her feet tugging the automatic pistol from her waistband, and returned fire. But she missed Jill—was it intentional? This was the woman who’d once fought beside her.
Alice thought she caught a glimpse of one of the mechanical scarabs, on Jill’s bosom.
Then she emptied the clip, tossed the pistol aside, and lost sight of Jill behind a cloud of smoke, She smelled engine exhaust, felt the rotor wind, and a shadow fell over her. Craning her neck, she realized she was being targeted by a V-22 that was tilting down to fire at her. She drew her sawed-off shotguns from the holsters. Pulling the triggers, she felt the weapons buck, and the silver quarters she’d packed into the shotgun rounds smashed through the windshield of the V-22. They blew the pilot’s head off.
But the V-22 was a little too close. Alice turned to run as, pilotless, the big chopper nosed down and crashed into the deck.
Cannon shells were packed into the front end of the V-22, and there was a fuel line not that far behind the shells. The impact of the chopper on the deck detonated a half-ton of explosives, ripping the V-22 apart from within, so that fifty-pound chunks of jagged metal, like fragments from a giant hand grenade, ricocheted across the deck. Flame gouted, consuming the remainder of the chopper, the blast tearing the rotors off so they spun through the air and sliced through another V-22.
And Alice just wasn’t fast enough. The shockwave from the explosion slapped her with punishing force, so that she thought her back might break. She was lifted off her feet and flipped bodily over the railing. Suddenly she was spinning end over end, down toward the sea, gasping—the shockwave had knocked the wind out of her.
Sky and sea changed places; sea and sky spun round again, and then, before she could take a breath, she was flung headlong into the face of a big, pretty, blue wave, while blazing debris hissed into the water all around her. The water closed over her as chunks of the V-22 rained down close by, helicopter parts plunging into the sea trailing streamers of bubbles.
The fuel sprayed by the spinning, falling fuel tank coated the waves, blazing up as it was struck by fiery debris.
Instantly Alice was sinking, seawater burning her lungs. She was in shock, stunned, maybe paralyzed— she didn’t know. She just knew that the thudding pulse she heard, her own pulse sounding in her ears, was slowing… slowing….
Above she could see the wrinkled, translucent surface burning, water seething as fuel burned off it. Darkness from below rose up to swallow her, as blue and orange flames consumed the rest of the world, overhead…
She was detached, fascinated by the sight, that ceiling of flames, even as her pulse became irregular, skipping a beat. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might have blurrily glimpsed a sling, dipping toward her, lowered from a hovering V-22
Were those arms, grabbing for her, to pull her to the sling?
She hoped not.
She’d rather die than be their prisoner. Their slave…
Delirium swept over her, and she seemed to see the mechanical scarab—the one that she’d taken off of Claire.
Something between jewelry and insect, the scarab was as big as her hand, climbing up her like a living thing, looking to sink its needle fangs into her; to numb her with the drug that had taken control of so many others…
No. It wasn’t really there. Just the cold wet darkness.
Her thoughts sank away, too. There was just one thought left.
I’ve failed.
She had failed to protect all those people who counted on her; all those dazed people she’d brought to the upper deck of the Arcadia, where they were shot or captured. She’d failed them.
It was too much to bear, that final, aching thought. Much easier to let her pulse slow, slow…
So much easier to just drift downward, downward…
My name is Alice. And this is my story…
…the story of how I died.
Alice woke. In a bedroom.
She was lying in a comfortable, rumpled double bed, in an ordinary middle-class American bedroom.
Someone was looking at her. She turned her head, and saw a handsome man smiling down at her—dark, Semitic, his hair as rumpled as the bedclothes—as he pulled on his boxer shorts. He gazed at her at her with a kind of wry familiarity, an intimacy. Like a husband.
He couldn’t be her husband… she had no husband.
But he had a wedding ring on—she looked at her own finger—one that matched hers.
Then it came to her—his name was… Todd. That was it.
Todd.
Looking at him, thinking that she’d known him by a different name, once, long ago… But that name fled from her. He was simply her husband, Todd. Nice that her husband was such a sexy guy.
Hadn’t she been on a ship, shooting at someone? She remembered an explosion. She’d been picked up by a shockwave, tossed like a discarded doll.
She’d drowned, hadn’t she?
No. That hadn’t been real. It couldn’t have been. She could still smell her husband’s sweat, his aftershave on her, other smells from last night, when they’d made love. She felt a little sore, between her legs. He was a vigorous guy…
This was what was real. This was… much better.
The other was just a dream. A bad dream.
Forget it, Alice.
“Come on,” Todd said, chuckling, pulling on his pants. “We’re late. Alarm didn’t go off. Becky isn’t up yet. Mrs. Henderson’s going to be pissed. You know how they get at school when we drop her off late.”
But the sea. The Arcadia. Those people needed her. They all needed her…
“Baby!” Todd stopped dressing, staring at her, a concerned look on his face.
Alice felt tired and disoriented. She should get up, she knew that, but…
“Baby?” He looked at her, lips pursed.
She cleared her throat, and sat up, still a bit dizzy.
The sea. The waves burning overhead…
Todd leaned toward her a little. “Baby—are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll get…” Becky. “… I’ll get Becky up.”
“You look tired. You didn’t sleep well?”
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t seem convinced. Neither was she, for that matter.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He stared at her, the way husbands stare at their wives.
“I’m okay—really,” she insisted.
“Well, in that case…” He whipped the bedclothes off her. “Get that cute ass out of bed.”
Alice smiled wanly, and did as he asked. She felt stiff. Her lungs seemed to hurt, when she took a deep breath.
Reaction to that bad dream…
She caught sight of herself in the bedroom mirror. Wait—that wasn’t right, was it? When did she get blond hair?
She shook herself. No wonder Todd was staring at her.
Sometimes dreams linger and confuse you.
Yeah, that’s what it was…
2
Alice put on a robe, and went down the hall to wake… Becky.
The seascape in the hallway was familiar to her; the scuffed hardwood floor was familiar; the smells were familiar. This was their home, hers and Todd’s, their one-story, old, suburban, ranch-style house.
So why was she so disoriented?
She went into Becky’s room, paused, and smiled, looking at the sleeping girl, seven years old, sprawled on her small bed with its flower crested headboard.
What a sweet face she had. She looked so peaceful, so adorable, Alice was reluctant to wake her. It felt good just to watch her sleep.
But she sighed and leaned over, gently shook Becky’s shoulder. Her daughter opened her eyes, and blinked. So like her mother’s, those eyes. The child didn’t say anything—she didn’t speak much, she’d only learned to do it by feel, and when she spoke her voice lacked pitch control. She had autosomal recessive deafness, an inherited birth defect that left her missing critical structures in the inner ear.
Both Alice and Todd could hear, so the defect was assumed to be the result of a recessive gene in one of them. Someday, if they planned to have another child, there would be a test to see whose genetics were the problem. Perhaps they’d resort to donated semen or an egg, for a second child. But Becky needed their full attention right now.
Alice kissed her good morning, and laid out her clothing.
Alice took a quick shower, dressed, and went to the kitchen. She was humming to herself, feeling a little better as she made fresh orange juice in the juicer. The coffee had just finished perking, the rich smell filling the room.
Alice poured the orange juice, put the glass in front of Becky and signed.
“You want eggs?” They signed to talk, using ASL.
Becky stuck out her lower lip and signed back.
“Pancakes?”
“Cereal?” Alice asked her. The girl needed something more substantial than pancakes.
“Pancakes,” Becky signed insistently. Alice pretended to think it over, as if she were engaged in a serious diplomatic negotiation. Finally she signed back.
“Cereal—then pancakes?”
Becky smiled.
“Deal.”
Todd came in, looking shaved and combed, pulling the jacket of his dark suit on over his crisp white shirt. She looked at him appreciatively. The man cleaned up good. Handsome and kind—and sexy. She was lucky to have him.
He poured himself a cup of coffee, filling the cup a little too much.
“We’re going to be late… again.”
Alice glanced at him as he swigged the coffee—and she saw two drops of coffee fall on his crisp white shirt.
“Shit!” Todd said.
Tom laughed as Becky and Alice both said, “Watch it!” Becky had read his lips.
Alice bent to examine the stain.
“There’s another shirt in your closet. I picked up the dry cleaning yesterday.”
Todd grinned. “You’re my angel.”
“Don’t you forget it.”
He leaned toward her. Alice smiled.
“Easy, tiger… we’re running late. Remember?”
Todd walked toward the living room, headed for the bedroom and that clean shirt. He was thinking that Alice probably didn’t want a weekend away from Becky, his parents babysitting or not. His mother didn’t know much about signing and seemed exasperated, at times, with Becky’s attempts at speaking.
He stopped, looking down the front hallway. Why was the front door open? And wide open, too…
He was about to call out, ask Alice if she’d left the door open—and that’s when the guy with blood on his face leapt at him, charging from the bathroom. The man snarled, fingers bent into claws as he came. He wore a bloodied, torn suit, as if he’d been on his way to work when this madness swept over him.
Todd reeled back, yelling incoherently, and then the guy—a complete stranger—bit his forearm. Hard. Tearing through fabric, through skin, sinking his teeth into Todd’s flesh. Blood splashed across his crisp white shirt. Todd wrenched his
arm away, then struck the stranger, making him stagger back a step.
But he wasn’t going to run away—Todd could see it in his milky-white eyes. He was going to finish what he started.
Who or what was this guy?
Alice and Becky ran into the hall gawking, Becky started making a high-pitched noise of fright, deep in her throat, seeing her father fight with the madman.
“Todd!” Alice shouted.
Alice knew, somehow, as she scooped up Becky in her arms, what the attacker was. Not a madman—nothing so simple. Not some drug-addled housebreaker, either. No.
This strange assailant was… undead?
How did she know that? She wasn’t sure…
Todd flung the Undead off him, so that the man stumbled back, crashing through a glass table in the front hall. Broken glass flew and tinkled. But the Undead was up on its feet almost instantly.
“Get Becky away!” Todd shouted, crouching to block his family from the creature.
Unsure of what to do, how to help Todd and protect Becky both, Alice stepped back—and heard a riotous smashing of glass behind her. She turned, looked through the archway into the kitchen, and saw another one, half lunged through the broken glass of the upper half of the kitchen screen door. He was caught in the window’s remains, the jagged edges in the frame ripping at his stomach, but didn’t seem to notice or care.
He clawed toward Alice and Becky, growling hungrily, heedlessly ripping his belly more as he tried to slither into the room.
She looked for Todd—and didn’t see him.
A third Undead came roaring through the front door—and straight at Alice.
Still carrying Becky, she ran down the hall, moving full tilt, and Becky somehow felt light in her arms. Adrenaline was singing through her veins, but it was as if she was running in slow motion, the hallway sliding slowly, slowly past her as she headed for the laundry room. She glanced over her shoulder, saw the Undead, a chunky white man in a blood-splashed green golf shirt, pursuing her from the living room
He seemed to move in slow motion, too.
Time sped up to normal as she darted into the laundry room. She lowered Becky with one arm, while with the other hand she slammed the door in her pursuer’s face. There was no lock on the door.
