by Tim Waggoner
Alice saw a metal handhold bolted to the concrete floor, probably put there to help steady maintenance personnel when they were servicing the turbine. Whatever the reason for the handhold’s existence, she was grateful to see it. The handhold rested several feet from where she stood, and she had to push against the gale-force wind to move toward it. Every inch was an effort, but she forced her body forward, and when she was within a foot of the handhold, she threw herself forward, reaching for it. The wind blew her backward, and she almost missed, but her fingers managed to get purchase on it, and—gritting her teeth—she pulled herself forward the last few inches she needed in order to get a firm grip on it. Anchored, she rose to a crouching position and reached her free hand back toward the others, helping them move forward one by one. First Claire, then Abigail, then Doc. She was reaching for the Thin Man when Abigail lost her footing on the concrete floor. Her legs went out from under her, and she was blown back toward the spinning blades.
Alice lunged for Abigail’s hand as the woman slid past her, and she grabbed it at the last instant. Alice tightened her grip on Abigail’s hand, and the woman tightened hers in response, her face a mask of mad terror. For a moment, Alice thought she’d saved Abigail, but then the wind tugged harder at the woman, pulling her off the ground.
“Hold on!” Alice shouted.
But Abigail grimaced in pain, and Alice felt the bones in the woman’s wrist begin to snap under the pressure. Abigail, unable to hold on any longer, let go, and without the woman’s help, Alice could no longer maintain her own grip, and Abigail’s hand slipped out of hers.
Abigail was pulled through the air toward the whirling blades, but Alice’s hand snatched out in one last desperate attempt, and she managed to snag hold of one of the straps of Abigail’s backpack, stopping her flight toward certain death.
Suddenly, Claire was there. She wrapped an arm around Alice’s waist to free up both of her friend’s hands, and when Alice let go of the handhold, Claire took hold of it to anchor them both. Alice still held onto Abigail’s backpack strap, and with the other hand she reached out toward the woman.
“Grab my hand! Reach for it!”
Abigail stretched her uninjured hand toward Alice’s outstretched one, grimacing as she strained, reaching, reaching, until their fingers almost touched—
And then the strap on Abigail’s backpack ripped apart, and her hand was snatched away from Alice’s. Abigail streaked through the air toward the blades, feet first. She was pulled into them and within a fraction of a second, she was gone, reduced to little more than red mist.
Alice could only stare in horror at the blades as the lights in this section snapped off. Now that the power was gone again, the turbine’s engine died and the blades began to slow. Soon they were moving slowly enough for Alice to see a trickle of blood slide along the edge of one of the blades.
* * *
Wesker watched the shocked expressions on the faces of Alice and her remaining companions. But as delicious as they were, the sight of Abigail’s blood on sharp metal made his throat feel dry, and his stomach twisted with hunger. He felt the T-virus threatening to overwhelm him, take control of his body, and transform him into a wild, ravening thing. But he closed his eyes, breathed regularly for a few moments—in, out, in, out—and when he opened his eyes, he was in control. He gazed upon the monitor once more with satisfaction.
“And then there were five.”
* * *
Alice crawled on her hands and knees through a tight, claustrophobic metal shaft—one of a labyrinth of ducts that fed air into the underground city that was the Hive. The others followed her, and as no air was flowing, sweat dripped from their bodies, and every breath felt as if they were sucking it through hot sand.
But as oppressive as the heat was, the mood was far worse. Abigail’s horrible death—coming so soon after Scars’ and Christian’s—had stunned and demoralized them. Even Alice, who’d seen more violent death than anyone should in a single lifetime. She had to push it out of her mind, though. She had to keep all of her focus on the mission. She told herself that when she released the antivirus, she’d do so in the name of her friends and allies who’d died or gone missing over the years. Abigail, Christian, Cobalt and Scars, but also Jill, Matt, Ada, Leon, Carlos, K-Mart, Chris, Luther, Rain, and all the clones of herself that she’d fought beside, who weren’t mindless robots but flesh-and-blood people—her sisters. All of them were the closest thing to family Alice had ever had—as far as she remembered, anyway—and she intended to save the world as much to honor their memories as for the five thousand survivors across the world.
She glanced at her watch.
00:30:01
00:30:00
00:29:59
She held the portable communication screen, consulting its digital map of the duct system as she crawled.
“Quick! This way!”
She led the others around a corner, and they followed through the darkened shaft, Michael’s flashlight continuing to provide their sole illumination. Soon, they heard the noise of machinery. This part of the Hive was receiving power, and it was beginning to come to life. Little pools of light started to filter into the air shaft vents from the rooms below. Alice paused, fearing they might’ve sprung another trap. But when nothing happened after several moments, she was relieved and pressed on, the others following.
* * *
Jeff Moran—who Alice thought of as the Thin Man—brought up the rear. Because of his emaciation, he had little trouble maneuvering through the air duct, but he was so malnourished that he was rapidly running out of energy. If it wasn’t for the adrenaline in his system—a result of being constantly terrified by this place—he might not have the strength to keep going.
When he’d volunteered to help Alice and the others, he hadn’t been sure what he had to offer. Yeah, he’d managed to survive since the Outbreak, but he’d accomplished that mostly through luck and being clever. He didn’t possess any real skill at fighting, and he could count the number of times he’d fired a gun on one hand, and the number of times he’d actually hit anything were fewer still. But after Isaacs’ troops had captured him in an abandoned grocery store where he’d been scavenging for canned food, he’d had his freedom, such as it was, taken from him. He’d traveled alone since the Outbreak, believing that other people were a liability. They’d compete with him for supplies at best, or worse, become infected and attack him. When you were alone, you could move faster, hide easier, and without anyone to look after, you could make life-or-death decisions without having to worry about how they would affect someone else. Before the Outbreak, having family and friends—a support system—was a strength. Afterward, it became a weakness.
But once imprisoned on the Umbrella transport, Jeff was no longer alone. He became part of a group for the first time since the Undead had taken over the world, and if they’d never become a family, they did form a bond based on their shared misery. They shared their stories of survival, spoke about their pasts, tried to bolster each other’s spirits when one of their number took his or her turn as bait for the Undead and never returned. He’d become especially close with the prisoners he’d been seated near—the man Alice thought of as Scars, and the woman she thought of as the Emaciated Woman. The woman’s name was Erin Fuller, and she’d been an elementary school teacher before the Outbreak. Scars’ real name was—had been—Randy Todd, and he’d been a chef hoping to own his own restaurant one day. Jeff had been a radio DJ, a man paid for talking, and it was his bad habit of shooting off his mouth that had led to Isaacs cutting out his tongue and throwing it out the transport for the Undead to fight over.
Jeff had protested the first time Isaacs had attempted to molest Erin, but after he lost his tongue, Erin had pleaded with him not to interfere with Isaacs if he tried to violate her again. She didn’t want to see Jeff hurt any more on her account. He hated just sitting and doing nothing every time Isaacs came to her—which he did often—but Jeff did as she asked, if f
or no other reason than to spare her the additional stress of having to worry about his safety. He told himself that he was doing what he could to alleviate her pain, at least a small portion of it, but it didn’t make him feel any better about it.
The three of them became closer than the others, and as if sensing this, Isaacs began punishing the prisoners for talking to each other, until they all sat in the hold, chained and silent. Weeks passed like that, maybe months, and then Alice was captured, although she didn’t stay a prisoner for long. Her escape gave them all hope that they might be able to one day get free from Isaacs, too. But then, as if to take out his frustration over losing Alice, Isaacs had entered the hold and began torturing prisoners, one at a time, until they died. When they were gone, Isaacs would release them from their chains and toss their bodies to the Undead to snack on.
Jeff, Erin, and Randy waited with fatalistic dread for their turn, but it never came. Isaacs put Erin on the tether to take a turn as Undead bait, and he’d brought in a portable monitor so Jeff and Randy could watch her try to keep moving fast enough to evade the Undead’s hungry reach.
“I know how close the three of you have become,” Isaacs had said. “I apologize for having to separate you, but this way you can at least keep an eye on her. Who knows? Maybe if you start praying, God might even spare her.” He’d paused then. “For a little while, at least.”
Now Erin was gone, as was Randy, and out of all the prisoners Isaacs had captured and used as his personal playthings, only Jeff remained. His time in the transport had taught him that while it might be possible to survive on your own, it was the bonds humans forged with one another that truly made them strong. And that was why he had volunteered to join Alice and the others on their mission. Not just to get revenge on Isaacs or even to get a shot at saving the whole damn planet. It was to add his strength, however much of it he had left, to theirs, so together they might have a greater chance at success. And even though he was terrified of what horrors might await them in this abandoned facility, he didn’t regret his choice. Right now he was living, not merely existing, and that meant more to him than—
His thoughts cut off without warning as a metal door opened beneath him onto a vertical shaft. He fell downward, head first, fingers scrabbling at the smooth sides for purchase, but he was unable to slow his descent. He continued falling until his face struck a metal grate, the impact bloodying his nose and stunning him. He feared that his neck might be broken, but he was able to wiggle his fingers and toes. It seemed he’d escaped serious injury. He felt an almost ecstatic sense of relief to still be alive, but it died away as he realized he was in the dark, upside down, and trapped. Not entirely in the dark, though. There was a small red light on the grating. Some kind of electronic locking mechanism. Panic blossomed within him, and he tried to twist his body, hoping to get at least one of his arms free so he might—what? Push himself back up the shaft one-handed? The idea was ludicrous, he knew that, but he had to do something. But his exertions only served to wedge his body more tightly in the shaft, and he soon stopped moving.
Before the Outbreak, he’d never suffered from claustrophobia, but in the years since, there had been numerous times when he’d been forced to take refuge in small spaces in order to avoid being captured and devoured by the Undead. He’d always been on the thin side, if not as thin as he was now, and he’d been able to squeeze himself into some pretty tight places. Sometimes he’d only have to wait a few moments for the Undead to move on, and then he could emerge. But other times the Undead—or maybe a mutation—would linger in the area, having caught his scent and hoping to ferret him out. Sometimes the monsters would stay for hours, and Jeff would have to remain hidden, muscles cramping, his own body hurting so bad it took everything he had not to cry out in agony. He’d dream about those times now and again, and when he did, he always woke up drenched in sweat.
Now here he was, literally living out his worst nightmare. Maybe the others would try to rescue him eventually, but he knew they couldn’t afford to take the time now. They had less than half an hour to find and release the antivirus. But after they succeeded—okay, if they succeeded—maybe they would come back and search for him. All he had to do was stay calm and wait, and try not to think what it would be like to remain here, wedged upside down, and slowly die from thirst while hoping for a rescue that might never come.
But Jeff had a more immediate problem. The electronic lock on the grating clicked to green, and the grate swung open.
He fell out of the shaft and into open air. As his body passed through, his hands made another frantic attempt to stop him from freefalling, and this time they succeeded. He managed to grab hold of the grate’s edge with both hands. He lost his left-hand grip, but his right held, and his legs swung downward, righting his body. He was then able to grab the ledge with his left hand once more, and he held on for dear life, body swinging wildly, legs kicking. A light on the bottom of the shaft snapped on then, illuminating the space below. Jeff looked down, and it felt like his heart seized in his chest. The shaft opened on a large natural cave, its walls glistening with moisture. It was so huge, Jeff thought a five-story building could fit inside with room to spare. Below him—one hundred feet or more, he judged—was a hard stone floor. He had to pull himself back into the shaft and then somehow make his way upward, because if he didn’t—
But before he could begin to climb, the grating began to close. All he could do was hold on as the grating swung toward the duct, knowing that he couldn’t let go, fearing that he wouldn’t have a choice.
The grating closed, trapping his fingers between it and the metal shaft. He felt pressure on his skin, followed by intense pain and the sound of snapping bone. Then the grating sealed tight, slicing his fingers in two. Jeff plummeted downward. He didn’t have time for regrets, didn’t have time for thoughts of any sort. All he felt was sheer, unreasoning terror as he fell.
His face contorted into a scream that would not come.
* * *
Over her shoulder, Alice stared with horror at the space where the Thin Man had been. Claire, Doc, and Michael did the same. Did they have time to try and rescue him? Alice checked her watch and saw the seconds tick away. She knew the others were running the same calculations in their heads: could they afford to go after him? But as much as it pained her, Alice knew they had to go on without him.
“We’re running out of—” Claire began, but her sentence was cut off as a second trap door opened beneath her, and she dropped out of sight.
Alice called her friend’s name and reached for her—although it was already too late—and then suddenly a third trap door opened beneath her, and she fell, too.
* * *
Claire tumbled down a vertical shaft, and although she tried to push out with her hands and feet to arrest her fall, the sides of the shaft were too slick, and she couldn’t get any purchase. The shaft took a forty-five-degree turn—which hurt like a bitch when her lower back hit the juncture, but it slowed her descent a little—and an instant later it opened onto a wider space, and she fell onto a concrete floor.
She landed on her right hip, and a bright burst of pain shot along the nerves in her leg. Wincing, she rolled onto her back, and her left hand smacked into something hard. A wall of some sort, she guessed. The smell hit her then, a rank odor like that of some large animal that had been held captive in this cage for years. It was the smell of old piss and shit, and underlying that, the dry coppery tang of blood. She didn’t want to think about what she might be lying in, so she got to her feet, ignoring the scream of protest from her hip, and looked around. Dim light filtered down from the open shaft above, enabling her to make out her surroundings. To a degree, at least. She could see that she was inside a column made from—she rapped the wall with a knuckle—plexiglass. But the glass wasn’t clear. It was streaked with grime, the inner surface scratched and marred, as if by knives… or claws. The base of the column was the worst, so caked with filth that she couldn’t see the plexi
glass beneath it.
Looking through the column’s grimy surface, she saw similar columns close by, all of them just as dirty as this one, and all of them empty. There wasn’t enough light for her to see very far into the chamber where the columns were housed, and she couldn’t tell how many more cages like this one—and it was a cage, she was certain of that—there were. She had no idea what this place was, but she was sure of one thing: terrible events had occurred here.
She pounded a fist on the plexiglass, called out, “Is anyone here?”
She received no response, and a moment later the shaft closed above her, plunging her into darkness.
* * *
Alice tumbled from a vent in the ceiling of a room and fell twenty feet before she hit the floor. An inferno of pain erupted in her already broken ribs, and she knew that she had at least cracked a few more, if not broken them as well. She couldn’t breathe at first, and she lay there, curled into a fetal position, in so much pain that she couldn’t move, could barely think. Why the hell had those trapdoors been there? Precautions in case any of Umbrella’s genetic experiments got loose and found their way into the air duct system? Maybe. Stupid, stupid, stupid! she thought. She should’ve been more cautious.
There was no natural light here—wherever here was—and she was surrounded by darkness. She’d lost her flashlight in the lake. She’d been holding onto the communication screen, but she’d dropped it when she landed. She had no idea if either were nearby, and if they were, if they were still functional. She might not have the Hydra anymore, but at least she still had her backup Glock, and luckily it hadn’t fallen out of her belt.
She began to breathe normally again—although doing so hurt like hell—and, moving slowly, teeth gritted against the fire blazing in her chest, she reached out with both hands and began feeling around for her lost objects. She found the flashlight first, and when she got a decent grip on it, she activated it. At first she was pleased, and more than a little surprised that the thing still worked, but then she saw that the beam illuminated a human skull that lay only inches from her face, its empty eye sockets staring at her, the shadows within seeming to say, What took you so long?
