by Tim Waggoner
Come on, she urged mentally. Come on…
An instant later, Alice saw the trooper’s narrow face as he peered over the side of the transport. He had dark hair and several days’ worth of stubble. He didn’t see her at first, so he leaned over a bit more, bringing him within range. Alice delivered a savage kick to his face, knocking the man off balance and causing him to tumble over the railing and off the vehicle. He attempted to land on his feet, but he hit the road too hard, too off center, and there was a loud cracking sound as his right leg snapped. The man cried out in pain as he fell onto his side and rolled to a stop. A dozen Undead broke from the pack and ran toward him, picking up speed as their hunger kicked into overdrive at the sight of stationary prey. The man had managed to hold onto his gun as he’d fallen, and he raised the weapon and began firing, but it did no good. He didn’t land any headshots, and even if he had, there were far too many Undead for him to kill. He screamed as the rotting creatures fell upon him, but he didn’t scream for long.
At least it was fast, Alice thought. And then she put the dead trooper out of her mind as she righted herself and climbed up onto the transport’s roof. Step One was accomplished. Now for Step Two.
* * *
After dabbing away the blood from the cut on his cheek, Isaacs stood admiring his clean-shaven face in the mirror fragment when he heard the sound of gunfire coming from outside. He scowled. What was the man firing at? Had Alice been caught by the Undead and the fool had taken pity on the woman and put her out of her misery? If the trooper had done anything to lessen Alice’s pain by so much as a fraction of a second, Isaacs would bring the full force of his wrath down on the idiot until the man begged for death’s sweet release.
Isaacs turned to the closest trooper, the woman who’d held the bowl of water while he’d shaved.
“Get up there and check it out,” he said.
The woman gave him a quick nod, then headed to the access ladder that led to the roof. As she began to climb, Isaacs decided that if Alice was dead, he’d enjoy getting a chance to look at her corpse before the Undead completely consumed it. For old times’ sake, if nothing else.
He started toward the ladder.
* * *
Alice listened to the thump-thump-thump of heavy boots as another trooper emerged from the transport’s hatch and walked across the vehicle’s roof. When she judged the trooper had gone past the ladder, she climbed up slowly so her chains would make as little noise as possible.
Alice saw the woman peering over the back of the transport, and as she turned, Alice abandoned all attempt at stealth and ran toward her.
“Sir!” the woman shouted. “She’s—”
Alice reached the trooper and rammed both of her fists into the woman’s face. The trooper’s head snapped back. She staggered back two steps toward the rear railing, and tumbled over. Her left leg caught in the barrier, preventing her from hitting the ground. The woman had dropped her gun when she fell, and now she hung helpless as the front line of the Undead horde—emboldened by the sight of yet another easy meal—surged forward. The transport had yet to increase its speed after breaking through the obstacle on the highway, and the Undead had no trouble reaching the woman. She screamed as the Undead began to feed on her, and Alice turned away, having no desire to watch the trooper being torn apart.
Alice turned in the direction of the open hatch, mind in overdrive as she tried to formulate her next move. But when she turned all the way around, she was startled to see Isaacs coming at her, hunting knife gripped tight in his hand, features contorted into a mask of pure hatred. He didn’t hesitate. He moved in and attacked, swinging the blade with a skill and ease that Alice found surprising. She raised her manacled wrists and used the chain between them to catch his arm and prevent the knife from striking her. She intended to spin around and encircle his wrist with her chain, but he stepped back too quickly. Alice had already begun the maneuver, though, and as she pivoted, Isaacs slashed at her with the knife, managing to cut her across the right cheekbone. The wound wasn’t deep, but it burned like fire, and Alice drew in a hissing breath. She spun around to defend herself against Isaacs’ next attack, but the man moved too fast and, as exhausted as she was from running so long without food or water, she moved too slow.
Isaacs managed to cut her above her left breast and then followed this with a strike to her upper right arm. This last cut was deeper than the other two, and she gritted her teeth against the pain. Isaacs was proving to be a more formidable opponent than she’d expected, and she was beginning to think there was no way she could beat him as long as her hands were manacled. So, first things first.
She took a step back, pretending that the pain from the last cut was too much. Isaacs grinned and stepped forward, knife raised to finish her off. But as he brought the blade down, she once more attempted to catch his arm in her chain, and this time she succeeded, wrapping the chain around his wrist and jerking it tight. In response, his hand flew open and he let go of the knife. Alice quickly released Isaacs’ wrist, and snatched the knife out of the air before it could fall to the roof of the transport vehicle. Then, while Isaacs was still stunned by this sudden turn of events, she swiftly moved behind him, wrapped her manacle chain around his neck and pulled back hard. Not quite hard enough to snap his neck, but close.
“Open them!” she shouted.
Isaacs didn’t respond, so she pulled tighter. He made a wet clicking sound, and she eased up on the pressure just a bit.
“All right,” he said in a choking gasp.
He reached down toward his belt, and Alice increased the pressure on his neck once more—a warning in case he was reaching for a weapon. Instead he removed a small electronic key from a pouch there and raised it to the manacle around Alice’s right wrist. When the key touched the manacle, the device emitted a soft tone and both cuffs clicked open and fell from Alice’s wrists. In addition, the chain belted around her waist—along with the chain attached to it—also released and fell away. Now that she no longer had the manacle chain to control Isaacs, she quickly pressed the edge of the hunting knife to his neck. Isaacs stiffened, but he didn’t move.
Smart man, she thought.
She had Isaacs neutralized—at least for the moment—and now she needed to figure out how she was going to get away. Isaacs and his crew might be heading to Raccoon City, but she wasn’t about to hitch a ride with them. For one thing, they were moving too slow. For another, while she might have Isaacs at knifepoint, the transport was filled with more Umbrella troopers who’d like nothing better than to put several hundred rounds in her. And then there were the twin armies of the Undead—one following this transport, and one trailing behind the second vehicle on the other side of the highway. She didn’t particularly want to roll into town with several thousand ravenous walking corpses trailing behind.
She glanced over at the second transport, just as the gun turret atop it was swiveling in their direction.
Shit.
She grabbed hold of Isaacs’ arm and shoved him down onto the roof. She threw herself down next to him as the second transport unleashed a hail of fifty-caliber bullets at them. She dragged Isaacs in a belly crawl toward a metal air intake on the far side of the transport, pulled him behind it, and pressed the knife to his side so he wouldn’t be tempted to try anything. The intake was both large enough and sturdy enough to shield them from the fifty cals, but she knew it wouldn’t hold up forever. She wasn’t sure what had happened. Maybe the transport had security cameras on the roof, and the crew had radioed their sister vehicle and requested assistance. Or maybe the crew of the second transport had seen what was happening atop Isaacs’ vehicle and had decided to lend a helping hand. Whichever the case, Alice was pinned down, and if she didn’t think of something fast, she’d—
The gun turret of this transport now began to swivel around toward her and Isaacs. The air intake wouldn’t block the guns’ line of fire, and once Alice was in their sights, the fifty cals would tear her apart as i
f she were made of wet tissue paper.
Isaacs let out a joyous whoop.
“They have you now!” he crowed, his voice barely audible over the sound of fifty-caliber rounds striking the metal intake.
He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he’d end up just as dead as she would. Maybe he was too crazy to care. Or maybe he believed that when he died, God would personally appear to carry his spirit to Heaven. As much as the idea of Isaacs’ death appealed to her, she didn’t want to have to die herself to see it happen. She still had work to do.
The air intake was located on the right of the roof, and Alice had a decent view of the transport’s side. Four motorcycles exactly like the one that had zapped her hung mounted there. Who knows? One of them could’ve been the exact same bike.
Isaacs saw where she was looking.
“You can’t use them! You can’t escape!”
The second transport continued firing, and the turret of this transport had almost swung all the way around to bring its guns to bear on them. Alice knew she had only seconds before a hellstorm of fifty cals reduced her to splintered bone and shredded meat.
Time to leave.
She turned to Isaacs and raised her voice to be heard over the barrage of bullets coming from the second transport.
“Matthew 5:30—‘If thy right hand offend thee’…” When Isaacs gave her a blank look, she added, “It’s your own hand, asshole.”
She raised the hunting knife, and with one clean blow severed Isaacs’ right hand.
5
Isaacs cried out in pain as blood gushed from his newly created stump. Alice grabbed the hand before it could slide off the side of the truck, then she jammed the knife into her boot sheath, quickly hopped over the railing, and jumped down onto one of the motorcycles. She pressed the hand’s index finger to the ignition trigger, and this time, instead of receiving an electric shock, she was rewarded with the sound of the bike’s engine coming to life. Smiling grimly, she tossed the hand over her shoulder. Let the Undead have the damn thing. She didn’t need it any longer. Her only regret was that she couldn’t give them the rest of Isaacs as a main course to follow the appetizer she’d just lobbed to them.
At that moment, the transport’s guns began to fire. Alice hit the quick release switch, and the metal clamp holding the motorcycle to the vehicle’s side disengaged. The bike dropped and hit the ground hard, jarring Alice, but she managed to keep it upright. She gunned the engine, and the motorcycle leaped forward as if it were jet-propelled. Alice blew past the transport, and continued accelerating.
* * *
Isaacs sat with his back against the metal air intake, wrist stump pressed against his side in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. Both transports stopped firing, and a pair of troopers climbed up from the crew cabin and rushed toward Isaacs to offer him aid. But the pain of his injury was inconsequential compared to the inferno of rage that burned inside him.
“Kill her now!” he screamed. “I want her dead!”
* * *
Alice gunned the bike as the transport’s turret swiveled to point its weapons forward once more. Ahead of her, the road was blocked with wrecks of abandoned vehicles. Alice steered the bike toward the closest wreck, hoping to use it as cover. She managed to reach it as the transport began firing at her. Fifty cals blasted into the metal of the wreck, but Alice remained unharmed. She knew she wouldn’t stay that way unless she hauled ass, and so she kept the bike’s speed dangerously high as she weaved between the debris. The transport continued firing, not bothering to detour around the abandoned vehicles but ramming them aside as it surged forward in pursuit of Alice. But after a few moments of this, the transport crew decided to stop fucking around.
Alice heard the crack-whoosh of a small missile launching, and she had just enough time to jerk the bike to the left before the projectile shot through the space she’d been occupying a second before. She watched as the missile flew onward to slam into a burned-out car with a fiery explosion. The impact launched the vehicle skyward, and as it tumbled back toward earth, wreathed in flame, Alice raced beneath it. The wreckage crashed to the ground behind her, but she didn’t glance back to look at it. Instead, she leaned forward, face a mask of grim determination, and gave the bike everything the engine had. This section of highway was clear for the most part, and Alice raced on, soon outpacing the transport, leaving it and the Undead army it was leading far behind.
Next stop, Raccoon City.
* * *
Inside the transport’s crew cabin, Isaacs hissed as one of the troopers applied a patch of Nu-Skin to his wrist stump. The trooper had asked if he wanted something to ease the pain, but Isaacs had declined. He wanted the procedure to hurt. Pain was a gift from God, a holy fire that burned away one’s imperfections, cleansed the spirit, and purified the soul. It would fill his heart with molten fire, providing the necessary fuel to help him fulfill his final mission—and kill that fucking bitch Alice in the process.
The trooper finished applying the Nu-Skin and stepped back. Isaacs raised his stump close to his face so he could examine the repair. The Nu-Skin’s color didn’t match that of his own flesh, and it had the texture of old, worn leather. It wasn’t pleasant to look at, but then the substance hadn’t been created with aesthetics in mind.
Commander Chu turned away from the transport’s control panel to face Isaacs. Normally the man was unflappable, but now he looked concerned, as if he were unsure what to say—or perhaps how to say it.
“Sir…” He hesitated before going on. “We’ve lost her.”
Isaacs let Chu’s words further stoke the fire raging within him.
After a moment with no response from Isaacs, during which Chu exchanged uncertain glances with his crew, he spoke once more.
“I can order some of our people to pursue her on motorcycles. And I can contact the commander of the other transport and—”
Staring at the smooth section of artificial skin where his hand had been attached to his wrist, Isaacs said, “No.”
“No, sir?” Chu sounded more than surprised by Isaacs’ response. He sounded incredulous.
“Let her think that she’s beaten us,” Isaacs said, focusing on the pain radiating up his arm. He was rather coming to enjoy the sensation. “We’ll catch up to her in due course.” He thought of the twin armies of Undead the two transports were leading. “All of us.” He turned to Chu then, and smiled. “It’s God’s will. Can’t you see that?”
Chu looked at him for a moment, equal amounts of fear and disgust in his gaze. But his voice betrayed no sign of his feelings as he answered.
“Of course, sir.”
Chu turned back to the control panel, looking relieved to no longer be facing Isaacs, and ordered the driver to maintain their current speed and heading.
Isaacs was well aware of how Chu felt about him right now, but it didn’t matter. The man was but an instrument, useful only as long as he could help Isaacs do his holy work, and completely expendable once the job was complete.
Isaacs knew they had hours of travel still ahead of them, and he decided to pass the time by paying a return visit to the prisoners in the transport’s hold. It might be interesting to see just how much damage he could do to them with only one hand to work with. Isaacs thought he’d be up to the challenge.
Softly, he began to sing the lyrics to one of his favorite hymns, “I See a Colored Stream.”
“‘I see a crimson stream of blood, it flows to Calvary. Its waves which reach the throne of God are sweeping over me.’”
The crew studiously avoided looking at him as he went to his shaving station, picked up his straight razor from the small shelf where he’d left it, and headed for the hold.
* * *
Wesker watched Alice’s progress on a monitor via satellite feed. Out of all the problems he’d been forced to deal with over the last decade—Dania Cardoza being only the latest in a long line of them—Alice was the most persistent. He admired her, but in the way a
hunter admires the capabilities of highly dangerous prey. She was coming for him, he knew that, but he wasn’t afraid. He would bring her down, just as he had Dania and all the others. He was actually looking forward to a final reckoning with her. It was only a matter of time now.
As if reading his mind, the Red Queen appeared.
“Target is seventy-two miles and closing,” she said.
Wesker thought he detected a subtle hint of excitement in the Red Queen’s voice, but he knew that was impossible. She was an artificial intelligence, a staggeringly complex arrangement of hardware and software, one of the most advanced on the planet before the T-virus outbreak. But in the end, she was just a machine, and she possessed no true thoughts or feelings of her own.
Although sometimes he wondered…
“Lock down the Hive,” he ordered. “Prepare for defensive measures. And alert our operative in Raccoon City.”
* * *
Dania Cardoza walked toward Wesker, moving silently on the vari-rubber soles of her boots. She’d helped develop the material in her early days working for Umbrella, and while it ranked as one of her lesser achievements during her time in the corporation—it was hideously expensive to produce, so it never caught on—she was still proud of it. It adjusted to virtually any surface or temperature, providing steady footing at all times, and it made no sound, even if you stomped your feet as loudly as you could. It was this latter quality that she relied on now as she moved across the floor of Central Control toward where Wesker sat before a bank of monitor screens.
Dania was middle-aged, short, and on the stout side. Her black hair was threaded with gray, but she didn’t bother to color it. Umbrella didn’t care about gender, race, sexuality, appearance, or age. They only cared about one thing: results. In that sense, the corporation was the fairest organization she’d ever worked for—even if it was responsible for the destruction of the planet.
