by Tim Waggoner
Her thoughts were interrupted by a command from Wesker.
“Activate security measures now,” he said.
The Red Queen focused a greater portion of her consciousness on Central Control and manifested a holographic avatar near Wesker and responded to his command.
“Hive security fully activated and automated.”
Wesker paused a quarter second longer than he normally did when interacting with the Red Queen. An almost imperceptible difference to most humans, but it seemed like years to her.
“No. Disengage automation. I’ll handle the defense myself.”
Despite human brain patterns forming the core of her programming, the Red Queen wasn’t given to experiencing emotion, let alone displaying it. Despite that, a subtle note of surprise crept into her voice when she next spoke.
“The defenses would be more efficient if I retained control of them.”
“Really?” Wesker said, looking at her avatar for the first time since she manifested. “I seem to remember the last time Alice was here, you let her walk out alive. I don’t intend to make the same mistake.”
Wesker’s manner was, as usual, so controlled as to make him seem as if he too were a machine. But the Red Queen thought she detected the slightest edge of mockery in his voice. Perhaps he merely wished to indicate his dissatisfaction with how she’d dealt with Alice during her previous time in the Hive. Or perhaps he was beginning to suspect the Red Queen—the most valuable tool that Umbrella possessed—wasn’t quite as loyal to the corporation as she pretended.
“As you wish. Hive defenses are now in your hands.”
Wesker looked at her a moment longer before turning his attention back to the monitor displaying Alice’s progress. She and her companions were approaching the entrance to the interior of the Hive.
“Unleash the Cerberus,” Wesker said.
The Red Queen had no choice but to comply. She reached out to the control units surgically implanted at the base of the Cerberus’s skulls—implants with much more limited range than the ones Dania Cardoza had developed, but which were far more reliable—and directed the beasts toward Alice and her group.
“Cerberus are in play.”
Wesker smiled. “Let the games begin…”
Yes, the Red Queen thought. And although she was a rational being who didn’t believe in such concepts as luck, she nevertheless wished it for Alice and her friends.
* * *
Alice and her team jogged across the crater’s floor, going as fast as they dared, their flashlights doing little to cut through the mist and smoke. Doc glanced at Claire up ahead, obviously concerned.
“Don’t worry,” Alice said. “She can handle herself.”
“I know.” Doc turned to her. “You have someone?”
Alice shook her head.
“Before all this? A husband? A family?”
“I don’t remember.”
Doc frowned. “How is that possible?”
“I woke up as all this was starting. Don’t recall much before that. Sometimes it seems as if this has been my whole life. Running, killing. Never known anything else.”
She supposed this admission should’ve made her feel something: sorrow, loss, a deep longing for something that was missing… But she didn’t feel much of anything, really. There had been a time, years ago, when she’d recalled scattered bits and pieces of information that she’d thought had been memories of her life before the Outbreak. But they had never felt real, just simple facts without any accompanying sensory or emotional detail. Like data that you memorized before a test and which was soon forgotten. But those memories had all faded by now. She’d told herself that the experiments Umbrella had performed on her had somehow blocked her memories, or maybe even erased them entirely. But these days it often felt as if she didn’t recall any memories because they’d never existed in the first place.
She wasn’t sure what her last name was. At different times she’d thought it might be Abernathy, Parks, or even Prospero. Once she’d even thought she might’ve had a different first name. But while there was much about herself she didn’t know, there was one thing above all else that she was certain of by this point in her life. My name is Alice.
She felt a tingling sensation on the back of her neck then, and she stopped running and raised the Hydra.
“What is it?” Doc asked. He stopped running as well, as did the rest of the group when they realized Alice was on alert. She shone her flashlight into the deep shadows that cloaked the crater, searching for any sign of movement.
“There’s something stalking us,” she said.
Doc leaned forward and he shone his own light into the darkness. “Are you sure?”
“It’s what I do,” Alice said.
A second later, guttural howls began to echo around them, seeming to come from all directions. Claire, Christian, Michael, Abigail, Scars, and the Thin Man moved closer to Alice and Doc. Abigail kept swinging her flashlight beam around, her head darting back and forth like a frightened bird.
“What are they?” she asked, voice thick with fear.
Alice saw movement in the mist at last—half-glimpsed silhouettes circling them, huge four-legged creatures that moved with slinking, bestial grace. She wasn’t certain what they were, but she knew one thing: if the group stayed here, they were dead.
“Run!” she shouted. “Run fast!”
They did as she said, running all out. More of the four-legged silhouettes appeared, and Scars and Christian fired at the creatures as they fled.
“Save your ammo!” Alice yelled. “There’s too many!”
“Why don’t they attack?” Doc asked.
“Because they’re—”
The team rounded a corner and came face to face with six large monstrosities.
“—herding us,” Alice finished.
The creatures appeared to be oversized Dobermans, bodies partially eaten by necrosis, exposing patches of red raw muscle and white bone. Threads of bloody saliva stretched from the animals’ mouths, and hunger blazed through the cataracts covering their eyes.
Alice didn’t have to order the others to start firing. They leveled their weapons and began blasting away at the beasts, but two of the monster dogs managed to evade their fire and leaped at Scars. He screamed as the dogs sank their fangs into his flesh—one latching onto his chest, the other his leg—and then the beasts yanked their heads in opposite directions and tore him in half. Blood and viscera spilled from the two sections of his body, and his scream rose to an ear-splitting shriek before his voice cut off abruptly, as if a switch had been thrown somewhere inside him. The dogs shook their grisly prizes with violent motions, flinging blood and organs into the air.
Alice felt a rush of guilt at Scars’ death. It was her fault. She should’ve said no when he’d asked to join the rest of them in the attempt to enter the Hive and find the antivirus. He’d been too weak and hadn’t been able to react in time to defend himself when the dogs attacked. But he had wanted to feel useful, wanted to strike back at Umbrella for what they’d done to him. It was a motivation she understood well. She thrust Scars’ death from her mind then. Even though it had happened only seconds ago, it was in the past, and she’d learned long ago that dwelling on the past only distracted you from the present, and in this world, such distraction got you killed. The best she could do to honor Scars was keep going, keep fighting, find the antivirus, and release it.
Another monster dog leaped toward Claire then, but she stood her ground and blasted it in the head with her Beretta at point-blank range. The creature’s head exploded in a spray of blood, brain, and bone, and its lifeless body crashed to the ground.
Alice and the others moved into a circular formation, backs to each other, as they continued firing on the monster dogs. But regardless of how many of the creatures they killed, more bounded out of the mist to take their place. She knew she’d been right when she’d told Scars and Christian they didn’t have enough ammunition to kill all the mo
nster dogs. Once more, they had no choice. If they wanted to live, they had to get moving again. But more than that—they needed to put distance between them and the dogs. And there was only one way she knew to do that.
“This way!” she shouted, and started running once more, the others following her without question.
Alice remembered standing on the ruins of Raven’s Gate Bridge and getting her first good look at the crater, remembered how the river that had once flowed beneath the bridge had become a waterfall, which in turn had created a lake.
She led her people to the edge of a cliff and when they saw where they were heading, Claire shouted, “What’s the plan?”
You’re not going to like this, Alice thought. Out loud, she said, “We jump!”
The others exchanged worried glances, but they didn’t slow. The pack of monster dogs snarling and snapping at their heels probably had more to do with this than faith in her leadership, Alice thought. She didn’t blame them.
Then she reached the edge of the cliff and launched herself into the air, the others doing likewise. For a moment, Alice seemed suspended, and then she dropped, drew her legs together, let go of her flashlight, and gripped the Hydra tight with both hands so she wouldn’t lose it when she hit the water. There was a splash followed by bone-chilling cold, then absolute darkness. The lake at the base of the crater was deep enough to break their fall, just as Alice had hoped. She was aware of other bodies hitting the water’s surface and sinking around her—she heard the noise of the impact, felt the vibrations in the water—but it was too dark to determine who they were specifically or exactly how close they might be.
She couldn’t see, so she relaxed her body and began frog-kicking. She had managed to keep hold of the Hydra, and now she released her right-hand grip on it so she could use that arm to help her reach the surface. But as she swam, she suddenly experienced an alarming sense of disorientation. Without any visual input, she couldn’t tell for certain which way was up. For all she knew, she might be swimming toward the bottom instead of the surface, and if she went down too far, she might not be able to reverse course and reach the surface before she ran out of air. She felt a swell of panic at the thought, but she fought it down and kept kicking.
A few moments later, her head was out of the water and she drew in a welcome breath. She knew they couldn’t swim back toward the cliff. She’d gotten a glimpse of it on the way down, and its surface was too sheer for them to climb, but if there was a shore on the other side—and not another cliff—she couldn’t see it in the darkness. But then a beam of light appeared and weaved back and forth for a couple seconds until it fell on a craggy incline that, while not nearly as inviting as a sandy beach, looked fantastic to Alice right then. Someone, she couldn’t tell who, had obviously managed to hold onto their flashlight as they hit the water. Lucky for the rest of them.
Alice began swimming toward shore, and she heard others do the same. Soon they were dragging themselves from the lake and onto the rocky surface. Once she was out of the water, Alice did a check to see who had made it, and if anyone who had was injured. Michael stood holding the flashlight, and he looked okay, as did Claire, Doc, Christian, Abigail, and the Thin Man. She wished she’d asked Scars what his and his companion’s names had been before he’d died. Without a tongue, the Thin Man couldn’t very well tell her himself. Both Michael and Christian had lost their weapons when they’d jumped, but Claire still held hers, as did Doc, the Thin Man and Abigail.
The shore was cluttered with debris from when the other half of the bridge had collapsed a decade ago, and Christian, spitting and coughing up water, stood hunched over by a pile of broken concrete and rusty rebar, one hand pressed to the debris to steady himself. He didn’t look like he’d inhaled too much water, and Alice thought he’d recover in a minute or two, but he never got the chance. A monster dog lunged toward him from its hiding place within the debris, and before Christian or any of the others could react, the creature’s jaws parted, opening far wider than those of a regular dog ever could, and it clamped down on Christian’s head. Christian screamed as the monster’s teeth pierced flesh and bone, and he batted frantically at the thing in a futile attempt to force it to release him.
Claire leveled her Beretta and tried to fire at the beast, but her weapon was clogged with mud and water and refused to work.
Alice brought the Hydra around to fire, but before she could pull the trigger, the monster dog dragged Christian into the debris and was gone. A second later, Christian’s screaming stopped. Alice wanted to hunt down the monster dog that had killed their companion, but the air was filled with howls as other dogs—ones who’d followed them over the cliff edge, ones that had been waiting on this side, or both—began to close in.
“It’s too late!” Alice shouted. “Come on!”
The surviving members of the team ran, Michael illuminating their path with his flashlight.
Alice hadn’t liked Christian especially, but much of his animosity toward her had arisen from his concern for his friends and community, and she understood and respected that. And he’d clearly been devoted to Cobalt. He might’ve been a prick at times, but Alice was sorry he was gone.
Remnants of the Hive were scattered all along in this part of the crater, pieces of the facility’s underground architecture that had been exposed by the blast. Up ahead, Alice saw a circular structure—an entrance tunnel that looked as if it might lead deeper into the ground, the same one she’d seen earlier from the bridge. A flickering light shot from the tunnel high into the air, and she knew this was the source of the glimmer she’d seen from the surface several times before—and they were almost there.
Jackpot!
“Keep going!” she shouted.
* * *
Wesker watched the action on one of the monitors, the Red Queen’s avatar floating in the air beside him, patiently waiting for any orders he might have. Wesker knew the Queen only appeared to be in Central Control with him. In reality, her awareness was spread throughout the Hive, meaning that if she didn’t exactly see everything, she came damn close, so while she looked to be paying no attention to the monitor, Wesker knew she was as aware of Alice’s progress as he was.
“Two down…” Wesker said, the corners of his mouth ticking upward slightly. Then he turned to the Red Queen. “Seal the Hive,” he ordered.
He wondered if she was going to protest or perhaps suggest an alternative strategy, but she said nothing, merely did as he commanded. Maybe he’d been wrong in his suspicion of her. But maybe he hadn’t. It would be interesting to find out.
He returned his attention to the monitor and waited to see what would happen to Alice and her companions next. Whatever it was, he hoped it would prove to be both extremely painful and devastatingly fatal.
He sat back in his chair, steepled his fingers in front of his chest, and continued watching.
* * *
Alice and the others made it into the mouth of the tunnel just as an alarm began to sound. A pair of blast doors—thirty feet thick and made of solid steel—emerged from each side of the circular corridor and slowly began sliding toward the middle, where they would meet and seal tight.
Alice and her companions ran faster, the sounds of the pursuing pack spurring them on. Alice knew that if they didn’t make it into the corridor before those doors shut, the monster dogs would overwhelm them and tear them apart.
She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned in time to see a dog leaping toward Claire’s back, blood-flecked jaws open, discolored tongue lolling. Alice swung the Hydra around and hoped the weapon still worked after her plunge into the lake. She pulled the trigger, the Hydra boomed, and the hideous canine was blasted out of the air before it could reach Claire. Alice was relieved for her friend, but she knew if one dog had caught up to them, the rest were close behind.
“Get inside!” she shouted, and turned to cover their retreat. One by one, the others raced through the slowly diminishing space between the blast
doors. Alice stood in the middle of the corridor, blocking the monster dogs’ path. There were so many of the creatures, well over a dozen, and the Hydra had only one shell left. No way would that be enough to stop the pack. The best she could hope to do was to slow them down long enough for the doors to close so the others would be safe. After that, she’d do her best to take out as many of the dogs as she could before they ripped her apart.
But the dogs stopped when they were less than ten feet from where she stood, and while they growled softly, they made no further move toward her. It was as if they didn’t want to enter the Hive and be trapped inside. If these things were afraid to go in, Alice knew whatever waited for them there was going to be less than pleasant. But she’d deal with that when she had to. For now, she’d take advantage of the monster dogs’ reluctance and join her companions. She turned and started running toward the blast doors. They were only a few feet apart now, and the space between them was getting narrower by the second. If she got caught between them when they closed…
She ran like hell, but just as she was about to make it past the blast doors, something grabbed her from behind, spun her around, and pressed her up against one of the moving steel walls. Alice stared in shock as she found herself looking into the eyes of Christian. His scalp had been partially torn from his head, revealing a blood-slick patch of skull, and his face and neck had multiple tooth marks in them, and swaths of his flesh had been ripped away entirely, exposing the bone beneath. Alice understood immediately what had happened. The dog that had attacked Christian had infected him with the secondary form of the T-virus, reanimating his dead body. There was nothing left of the man called Christian in the Undead’s gaze. All sense of identity had been eradicated by the T-virus, leaving behind only mindless, savage hunger.
She remembered what Doc had said about some people wanting to become the thing they feared, remembered seeing Christian’s skeletal tattoos, remembered the death’s head emblazoned on the back of his leather jacket. It seemed that in death, Christian had finally achieved what he’d been striving for in life.
