Resident Evil. Retribution

by John Shirley

  Now he just had to wait…

  Jack leaned against the bulkhead, shifting uncomfortably as the minutes passed. He’d been there nearly half an hour, and could feel the sub moving. They must’ve left the island some distance behind by now.

  There was no sound from the trap door so far, but the room felt as if it was waiting for something.

  He told himself it was foolish to feel spooked. There was no way the Las Plagas, even if they woke completely up, could get out through a locked trap door and past all that debris.

  He really had to pee. He couldn’t quite bring himself to pee on the floor, even though he knew the submarine was going to be scuttled soon, if all went well. The men’s head was down the corridor… he’d just make it quick.

  He hurried out through the hatch to the corridor, down to the head, rushed in and found a urinal. He got through it as quick as he could, and zipped up, picked up his rifle, stepped into the corridor—and then heard the banging from storage three.

  “Oh, shit!”

  Jack ran back—and looked through the hatch just in time to see the blockage they’d amassed, exploding upward, shelves and boxes and other debris flying as if a bomb had gone off under them. A plastic jug of engine cleaner rolled to his feet…

  The trap door was up, bent from its hinges—and a man was climbing out into view. Jack was amazed. Those things were way stronger than he’d thought.

  The man stepped onto the deck, kicked debris aside, and turned toward Jack. Its eyes glowed red, its body was swollen—just a little too big for its soldier’s clothing. Its face was veiny, its hands clawed…

  Jack found himself unable to move; staring with fascination into those gleaming red eyes. Then the thing started toward him.

  He raised the rifle, flicked off the safety, tucked the butt into his shoulder and fired. And fired again. And again…

  With each bullet the Las Plagas rocked back… but it didn’t stop.

  And another one came climbing up into view. He fired, emptying his clip—not seeming to have much effect, though he hit one of them right in the head.

  “Shit shit shit!”

  Jack looked down at the big bottle of cleanser, picked it up, then slammed the hatch shut on the hold. He spun the wheel—but didn’t know how to lock them in, if it could be done at all.

  He ran down the corridor, to the ladder. Encumbered by his rifle and the bottle of fluid, which was a full two gallons, he went clumsily up to the next deck. He heard the creak of a door opening, down below, and moved all the faster.

  When he got to the attack center, Tom was just coming out.

  “We’re on our way—whoa, what’s wrong, kid?”

  “They busted out,” Jack said. “I shot two of them, but it didn’t slow ’em down much.”

  “Yeah, you need a bigger caliber weapon than that to bring ’em down.” He looked at what Jack was carrying. “What’s with the jug there?”

  “I don’t know—it says ‘danger flammable.’ I just thought…”

  “Bring it!”

  They hurried to the ladder, climbed up, then up another, eventually emerging onto the deck below the conning tower.

  “Good thinking, bringing that stuff, Jack,” Tom said. “Open it up. I got a lighter, haven’t used it in a year, hope it’s still got some fluid in it.” He tore a piece of cloth from his already-torn trouser leg, stuffed it into the opening of the plastic bottle.

  They could hear the snarling Las Plagas coming up the ladder, from below.

  And the submarine, heading west, was beginning to go under. Water was washing around their ankles.

  Tom fumbled at the lighter.

  “Dammit!”

  He stumbled, and dropped it into the water.

  Frantically, Jack felt around under the surging, rising waters, hoping the lighter hadn’t already been washed overboard. His hand closed over it, and he gave it to Tom, who wiped it off. At that moment a Las Plagas reached the top of the ladder, moving into the entrance chamber just inside the hatch.

  Tom snapped the lighter, again, again—and finally it lit. He held the blue flame to the chemical-soaked cloth, and it caught instantly.

  “Ha!”

  He tossed the big plastic jug through the hatch— and it exploded, inside, almost instantly. The Las Plagas was covered in burning fluid, shrieking, falling back down the ladder onto his fellow. The fire dripped and spread…

  “Come on, Jack!” Tom splashed along the submerging deck, back to a line that was fixed to a cleat over the rudder. The submarine was going down faster now, and they untied the line. Tom took hold of it and Jack jumped into the water, swimming the few yards to the drifting cabin cruiser. He climbed up the rope ladder that hung over its side, and went forward, pulling the line in, helping Tom get aboard.

  “We got to get this thing out of here, so we don’t get sucked down with the sub!” Tom shouted.

  But Jack was already starting the engine, and he turned it back toward Catalina, tearing full throttle toward the island. He only looked back once, to see the submarine still heading out to sea, just the top of its conning tower showing.

  And then it vanished under the waves…

  That evening, the island of Catalina witnessed a small party. They used the old mansion’s solar power supply to rev up the sound system. Chung danced to an old Blue Oyster Cult song, “Dancing in the Ruins,” and Dori and Jack watched him, Jack a little embarrassed at the old man’s creaky dancing.

  “I like Chung,” Dori whispered. “He’s… the most gentle person I’ve ever met.” After a moment she added, “But then, I haven’t met that many people. I’m a… I should tell you about it, I guess…” She seemed uncomfortable, and he didn’t quite know what to do.

  “You want to take a walk with me—on the beach? You can tell me what you want, and leave out what you want. I’m just glad you’re here.”

  “Okay,” she said shyly.

  They went out the door. As they did, Jack noticed that Judy and Tom were dancing, now, too, Tom with his arms around her. Bim was on the deck, lying on a lounge chair, with Lony sitting beside him. They waved as Jack and Dori went out.

  They took a long, long walk, under the moonlight on the beach… and when they came back they were holding hands.

  30

  Alice, Ada, Becky, Jill Valentine, and Leon were led by Grady and two other guards, through the war torn White House. At times they heard explosions, some distant, others too close for comfort. The floor rocked, and the lights flickered. They walked past portraits of presidents and beautiful old furniture, their feet quiet on the carpet.

  Grady stopped at a door flanked by soldiers, knocked, listened, then opened it. Alice went in, but the guards kept the rest from following.

  She knew the room—the Oval Office. And sitting at the president’s desk, dressed in black leather from head to toe, hair slicked back, dark shades covering his eyes… was Albert Wesker.

  “Wesker,” Alice said, nodding once. “Making yourself at home?”

  Wesker rose from behind the presidential desk and came casually around toward her.

  “I must say, it does have a certain ease to it…”

  Then he struck.

  Lightning-fast, he stabbed Alice in the neck with a syringe. The high-tech device instantly injected her with a red fluid. Alice screamed in fury and frustration—she knocked his hand away, but it was too late. The infected fluid was traveling like a blinding flash of electricity through her nervous system, making her arch her back with agony.

  She trembled, and as the trembling became shaking, she fell to her knees, rocking back and forth as waves of pain and heat alternated when they swept through her.

  “What… was in there?” she demanded through gritted teeth.

  Wesker smiled down at her.

  “You were the only one to successfully bond with the T-virus. To fully realize your powers.” He gestured with a magisterial flourish. “Well, now I have need of you. The old you. You are the weapon…<
br />
  “Come with me,” he continued.

  He led the way to a stairs, and up. They climbed, floor after floor—Wesker, Alice, Becky, Ada, Leon, and Jill—until they reached a hallway just under the roof. They followed the hall to a door at the end, where they saw a sign.

  SECURITY/OBSERVATION

  Wesker nodded to the guard there, and they all went through, then up another set of steps, through a small structure on the roof of the building. Finally they were standing atop the White House roof, behind the barricades and razor wire, near gun emplacements and watchful guards.

  He led the way to the edge of the roof, where they commanded a good view of what had been the front lawn, and Pennsylvania Avenue.

  “A lot has changed in the past weeks,” Wesker said. “This is the last that remains of us… of the human race itself.”

  Alice could have argued with that. The world was a big place. There would be other survivors. But still— he wasn’t far wrong.

  “It seems we are bonded against a common foe,” Wesker continued. “This is why we needed you back. The ultimate weapon…”

  Alice stared at him.

  I’m the ultimate weapon? It was an impossible concept to grasp. He’s insane. But still she said nothing.

  At Wesker’s signal, the spotlights swung down to illuminate the streets. He gestured out toward the Avenue, and as Alice looked that way, her eyes adjusted. She felt a sick shock ripple through her…

  “This,” Wesker said, “is humanity’s last stand.”

  Thousands of them out there. No… there were hundreds of thousands of them.

  The Undead. Surging against the walls of the makeshift fortress around the White House. Troops on the barriers by the Avenue were using flamethrowers to try to keep them back. The creatures fell, burning and thrashing—but others clambered over their charred bodies and charged at the walls.

  Rocket launchers coughed, and shells exploded amongst the Undead. Their bodies flew to pieces, and yet more came to replace them, surging from the inky darkness that lay out past the lights. As if the darkness itself were spawning the endless horde.

  “…the final conflict…” Wesker said.

  A burst of lights came stabbing down from the circling choppers, and in it Alice saw that she’d been wrong in thinking that there were hundreds of thousands of Undead out there.

  There were millions of them.

  And there was every kind of Undead in the horde; every perversely transfigured mutation. There were Lickers, mutated dogs, Executioners, Giant Spiders, all the creatures of the apocalypse, joined together in a vast mindless army. It was an army without a commander—unless its commander was hunger itself, the mad rapacious furious unstoppable hunger to kill and consume that burned within each of the monsters.

  The millions of Undead surrounded the White House. The last bastion of civilization, under siege…

  “…the beginning of the end…” Wesker continued softly.

  And then, as a helicopter flew overhead, using a prow-mounted turret gun to strafe the mobs, to keep them back from the barricades, things Alice had never seen before began to rise up, flapping on leather wings from the shadowy corners of the restless crowd of zombies…

  Dark, winged creatures, they were, a cloud of them, rising up from the horde. A storm of fangs and claws, they swarmed over the helicopter, clustering on it, screeching in fury, tearing at its mechanisms… and the helicopter came tumbling down to crash in a ball of fire.

  Alice shuddered. But she also felt the new strength in her. She felt the promise of that strength, and the promise of battle. An epic battle to end this dark journey at last.

  It was coming, and she would be its spear point.

  It was all down to her…

  Alice.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With thanks to Steve Saffel, Cath Trechman, Nick Landau, Vivian Cheung, Tim Whale, Natalie Laverick and Elizabeth Bennett at Titan Books, and Johannes Schlichting, Franz Trosthammer and Kat Kleiner at Constantin Film Development.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  John Shirley’s novels include Everything is Broken, the A Song Called Youth cyberpunk trilogy (omnibus released in 2012), Bleak History, Demons, City Come A-Walkin’ and The Other End. His short story collection Black Butterflies won the Bram Stoker Award, and was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year. His new story collection is In Extremis: The Most Extreme Short Stories of John Shirley. His stories have been included in three Year’s Best anthologies.

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