 
Resident Evil Legends Part Three: The Mansion Incident

By Andreas Leachim

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016 Andreas Leachim

Cover art and design by Andreas Leachim

This is a work of fan fiction based on the Resident Evil video game series. All characters and names and related trademarks are the property of Capcom. The author of this work receives no financial compensation from it and does not seek to infringe upon Capcom's copyrights in any way.
Chapter 1

Jill slammed the car door and ran across the parking lot to the police station's side entrance, her holster and supply belt bouncing against her hip. Uniform-clad officers greeted her at the doors, looking edgy and anxious. It did not take long for word of Bravo's disappearance to spread throughout the station, although thankfully no one alerted the press or the public at large. But Bravo team's families needed to be informed, and sooner or later the news would reach a journalist or television station.

Officers loitering in the hallways or working at their desks watched her as she made her way through the station. On most days, she ignored the attention. For a long time, she'd been the only female S.T.A.R.S. member, and even though she was no supermodel, most of her male coworkers found her fairly attractive, so she was accustomed to the attention they sometimes gave her. When Rebecca Chambers joined Bravo team, she began to attract some of the stares. Today, however, the attention had nothing to do with Jill. The entire police station seemed tense about Bravo's disappearance, and everyone knew that Alpha planned to go after them.

She ran up the east wing stairway and down the long hallway to the S.T.A.R.S. offices, stopping first at the armory to get another pistol. She already carried her trusty nine-millimeter Glock snugly in her holster, the same gun she carried since her days as a rookie. But this time, she felt the need to carry an extra weapon, just in case. She donned a shoulder holster similar to the one Barry wore, and stashed the gun there. Her belt also contained a leather sheath for her combat knife.

Her uniform, like all the S.T.A.R.S. members' uniforms, was not a standard police uniform. Black boots, dark blue cargo pants, a long-sleeved blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and fingerless black gloves. Under her shirt she wore a layer of protective kevlar body armor. Like a bullet-proof vest, it covered her entire chest and back, but did not restrict her movement or weigh her down too much. Additional kevlar pads were strapped on her shoulders like bulky shoulder pads. The finishing touch to her uniform was a beret atop her head emblazoned with the S.T.A.R.S logo.

Almost twenty-four hours had passed since Bravo team deployed, enough time to officially declare an emergency and send in Alpha team to investigate. Chief Irons blockaded himself in his office early in the morning and refused to see anyone. Jill left two increasingly-angry messages on his voice mail to complain about the situation and criticize his judgment, and at least a dozen other people did so as well. But Irons would not explain his actions to anyone, even Wesker or the other police captains. It didn't matter now, though. Police protocol and S.T.A.R.S. directives stated clearly that any team gone for more than twenty-four hours without contact was officially in danger. For Irons to contradict that kind of order would completely ruin his authority and certainly lead to his dismissal. His reputation in the department, previously spotless, took a huge hit due to the situation with Bravo. Jill could not fathom why Irons did not take more direct action to bring them back.

Jill pushed open the door to the command center and found all the other members of Alpha team waiting for her. She felt embarrassed, but she was there an hour early. The others must have all come to the station even earlier than that.

Wesker leaned against his desk, his arms crossed. His ever-present sunglasses were on, reflecting the room in his eyes. He wore black boots, dark blue jeans, a gray jacket with a black bulletproof vest over it. He didn't look happy, but that was nothing uncommon. In all her years at the RCPD, Jill didn't think she'd ever seen him smile.

Barry nodded toward her in greeting, standing by the computer consoles. Like Wesker, his arms were crossed and he looked particularly unhappy. He wore his usual red vest with holster on the front, containing his massive .44 Colt Anaconda revolver. He was the only member of S.T.A.R.S. that used a gun like that. The rest of Alpha team used standard nine-millimeters, while Barry's hand cannon fired Magnum rounds.

Chris was standing beside his desk, looking at the floor. He glanced up when Jill entered and gave her a quick, forced smile. He wore his usual black high-tops, black cargo pants, and a white short-sleeved shirt. Over the shirt was a green military vest similar to Barry's, with a combat knife prominently sheathed across his shoulder. From his belt hung two holsters and a pair of spare clips. In his hands, he twisted a red strip of cloth that he would tie around his head right before they got off the chopper. It was his lucky headband, or so he claimed. His pistol, a nine-millimeter like Jill's, was a Beretta instead of a Glock. The Air Force, which Chris was a former member of, used a Beretta as their regulation sidearm instead of a Glock, and Chris preferred to keep his when he joined S.T.A.R.S.

Joseph was in the corner, sitting on the edge of Barry's desk, dressed in flamboyant camouflage pants and a black sleeveless t-shirt to display his tattooed arms. An assault rifle was propped up in front of him and he leaned on it like a cane. His short black hair was spiked up, and an unlit cigarette dangled from his lips.

Brad stood in front of Enrico's desk, close to Wesker. As usual, he looked out of place. As the team's pilot, Brad usually did not feel comfortable discussing strategy. He liked to be in the chopper, flying the rest of the team into and out of danger. Being put in danger himself, however, was something he tried to avoid at all costs. He wore black jeans, and orange jacket with bulletproof vest underneath, and a black baseball cap turned backwards.

"Jill, how nice of you to come," Wesker said. He had a way of saying sarcastic statements like that with a completely straight face, making many wonder if he possessed even the merest shred of a sense of humor.

"I guess I'm late," Jill said.

"You're early," Wesker said, "but the rest of us were earlier than you. I've been here for three hours, trying to contact Irons."

"He won't talk to anyone," Chris said.

Barry grunted disapprovingly. "He's hiding from us, locked in his office. He's got something to hide, I can smell it."

"He's scared," Wesker said, his calm voice somehow carrying more weight than Barry's angry tone. "We've never dealt with a situation like this. Irons had no choice but to authorize Bravo's mission, but that was clearly a mistake. He regrets letting them go."

"Then he should tell us himself," Barry said. "You aren't his spokesperson."

"I'm just putting things in perspective. If something happened to Bravo, he'll ultimately face responsibility for it. If they've come to harm, he feels that he's to blame. How would you like something like that on your conscience?"

That silenced Barry, for the moment. Wesker could always be counted on to see the other side of any situation, to justify what seemed to be unjustifiable actions. It was a skill that Jill wasn't sure she liked.

"When are we leaving?" Chris asked.

Wesker checked his watch. "Forty-three minutes."

"We should go now," Barry said.

"We've discussed this," Wesker said. "We probably should have gone after them last night, but we have to wait twenty-four hours. That's just the way it is, and I can't do anything about it."

"So we haven't heard anything from them at all?" Jill asked, speaking up.

The silence that greeted her was enough of an answer. Wesker and Barry said nothing and just stared at the floor. Brad changed his stance uncomfortably, probably wishing he was preparing the helicopter. Joseph took the cigarette out of his mouth and studied it. Chris looked at Jill and simply shook his head.

"They haven't reported in since last night," Wesker said. "And all of our attempts to contact the government facility have come up empty. They simply aren't talking to us. We don't even know what Bravo was sent there for in the first place and we have no information about their current status. We're going in there effectively blind."

"Where, exactly?" Joseph asked, talking for the first time since Jill arrived. He held his cigarette in his hand, pointing with it as he talked. "How do we know where they are if they couldn't give us a location?"

"We have the transponder coordinates from their helicopter," Wesker said.

"Okay, so where is this place?"

Wesker went to the large map on the side wall and took a red pin off a tray underneath. He stuck it into the map and stepped away so the others could see. "It's fifteen miles from the city limits, in the west valley beneath Arklay Ridge. The closest paved road is Highway 88, but even that is four miles away."

"Looks like it's smack dab in the middle of nowhere," Joseph said.

Wesker agreed. "Well, if I was going to build a secret government base, that's where I would put it."

"You still think this is a government facility?" Barry asked.

"I'm just telling you what I was told," Wesker said, frustration entering his voice. "They identified themselves as a government agency and Irons verified it. What else do you want?"

"I don't believe them," Barry stated forcefully. "A government facility would never call for help from a local police department."

"We're a S.T.A.R.S. unit, Barry. We're not exactly beat cops."

"We're still a local police force. They'd call the National Guard before they'd call us. And even if they did, they wouldn't keep it under wraps like this. I'm telling you this entire thing stinks."

"And I agree," Wesker said. "So let's drop it, okay? I don't care who they are, all I know is that Bravo got sent there last night and never came back."

"They should never have gone in the first place."

"Drop it!" Wesker shouted suddenly, stunning them all into silence. He pointed his finger at Barry and clenched his teeth in anger. "Do not start on me again, cause I am done arguing with you! We got a call and they took it, all right? What were we supposed to do, just tell them we didn't believe their story and ignore the call? We don't have that option, Barry. If someone calls us and says they're in trouble, we go help them. That's our job. Bravo did their job, and now we're doing ours. If you don't like it, feel free to request a transfer."

Jill stared in shock at Wesker and then at Barry. Somehow, Wesker managed to put Barry in his place. Wesker, despite normally keeping his emotions firmly in check, still lost his temper occasionally. That was nothing new. He yelled at Jill sometimes when she screwed up, he yelled at Brad and Joseph, and he even yelled at Chris sometimes.

But Wesker never yelled at Barry. No one ever yelled at Barry.

Barry might have been the oldest and most experienced member of the team, but Wesker was still the commander. Jill looked at Barry's face and saw anger and surprise on his features. Even he could not believe Wesker's outburst.

And for Wesker to imply that Barry was unwilling to go after Bravo was simply unbelievable. Everyone knew that no one wanted to go after them more than Barry did. But Wesker needed to make his point, and even though Jill didn't agree with Wesker a lot of the time, she admitted to herself that he was in the right this time. It was too late to complain about what happened last night. The mission today was to fix that mistake, not to point fingers and lay blame. Wesker didn't have a choice, and Jill knew it. Barry knew it too, but Barry was stubborn, so Wesker was forced to drop him down a little.

"Brad," Wesker said, his voice still angry. "Get the chopper prepped. You have half an hour. Joseph and Jill, you two get down to the armory and supply depot and get everything you can think of. Machine guns, medical packs, night-vision equipment, anything that might come in handy. We don't know what we're going to face, so get creative. Chris, come over here and take a look at this map, you know the woods better than I do. Give me an idea of the surroundings in this area."

Finally, he looked back at Barry. "Get out of here. I don't want to see you again until we board the chopper."

Jill and Joseph bolted from the command center before Barry could respond. They headed down the hall, walking fast until they were out of ear shot.

"Jesus H. Christ," Joseph said, looking back over his shoulder. "I have never seen anything like that in my entire life. Barry looked like Wesker punched him in the stomach."

"He's furious," Jill said. "I'm just glad he's not mad at me."

"I know one thing," Joseph said, leaning over to speak confidentially. "After this is over, Barry and Wesker are gonna have some words, I guarantee it. I wonder if they'll be able to work together after this."

"I don't know. I really don't."
Chapter 2

Wesker walked to the edge of the roof and looked out across Raccoon City. The chilly autumn wind ruffled his jacket and hair, and quickly scattered the smoke from his cigarette. It was early evening, not quite late, but the sky was still dark. Below him, millions of lights glowed. Car head lights and tail lights, street lights, bright windows, too many glowing spots to keep track of. The city was still very much alive.

Wesker took the cigarette from his mouth and flipped it out into the night. It was almost time now. He glanced back at the helicopter, blades rotating slowly, engine idling. Brad was already strapped in the pilot's seat, anxious to get going. Barry was beside him in the co-pilot's seat, adjusting his helmet microphone. Chris came out of the station through the roof exit, a black duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He trotted over to the chopper, nodding at Wesker, and boarded.

Wesker casually walked around the side of the helicopter so that none of the people aboard could see him. He lit another cigarette and fished his cell phone out of his pocket. He dialed the number again.

"Yes?" the man with the Russian accent answered.

"You're in position?"

"Yes, for most of day."

"We're leaving here in a few minutes. The targets are in the house?"

"Yes. The large man left for work some time ago, but wife and girls are still here."

"Go ahead then. Don't get ahead of yourself, though. I'll call you again in an hour or two. Keep them alive until I tell you different."

"I will. But wife is very pretty and I lack self-control, yes?"

"I'm sure you can hold on until I call."

The man laughed. "You lack sense of humor, Mister Wesker. Talk to you soon."

Wesker snapped the phone shut. He hated keeping that man around, but unfortunately, he required his services longer than anticipated. Hopefully, when everything was complete, Wesker could give the Russian his final payment by way of a bullet to the head. He'd probably have to, because the man was obviously only loyal as long as the money kept coming. Wesker bought his assistance for over two hundred-thousand dollars from an Umbrella bank account. The same bank account Chief Irons' payments came from.

Jill and Joseph appeared at the door, hauling more duffel bags. Wesker tossed away his cigarette and ran over to help them carry the equipment to the chopper. Brad must have seen them, because the blades began to pick up speed, battering them with wind.

"Did you have any problems with acquisitions?" Wesker asked.

Jill just shook her head. "They know what we're about to do. They gave us everything we asked for."

"You asked for quite a lot."

"Well, you told us to be creative."

They stashed the duffel bags in the helicopter's rear cargo compartment and then climbed inside. Jill and Joseph sat down in the rear seats and buckled themselves in. Wesker got inside and slid the door closed. He leaned into the pilot's cab and yelled in Brad's ear over the growing roar of the spinning blades.

"Okay, let's go!"

He sat down beside Chris, facing Jill and Joseph. As he put on a flight helmet, the helicopter rose into the air and drifted away from the building.

"Brad, you've got the transponder locked?" he said into the mike.

"Yes," came Brad's reply.

"Get there as fast as you can. Let me know when we're a mile out."

"Yes, sir. Sure thing."

Wesker sat back and sighed, mentally preparing himself for the mission ahead. Around him, the other members of Alpha did the same thing, but unlike them, Wesker knew for certain what they were getting themselves into. Chris and the rest of them didn't have a clue what they were about to go up against. They thought they were heading to a secret government location. Maybe something out of a science-fiction movie, or a secret base like Area 51. They probably expected underground bunkers and secret biological laboratories. Wesker thought it was funny. That wasn't too far off the mark.

His plan, or at least what he considered a plan, was so simple that it was sure to go wrong. Brad would land the helicopter close to the mansion, regardless of where Bravo's helicopter was. They would enter the mansion together and then split up to cover more ground. Wesker would then take a moment to sabotage the helicopter to prevent it from leaving, and then make his way back to his lab to watch things unfold on the security cameras.

Of course, there was still the matter of the surviving Bravo members. Enrico was still alive and running around in the Gamma and Delta labs. Edward disappeared not long after they first arrived on the scene, but the possibility existed that he was alive and hiding somewhere.

And once again, the surprisingly talented Rebecca. Most of the remaining cameras in the upper levels of the chemical treatment plant went blank early in the afternoon, and not long afterward, Wesker noticed smoke in the sky. It scared him at first, because if anyone else noticed it, they might call the fire department or something. Thankfully, the treatment plant was far enough from the city that nobody noticed the smoke, and the wind dispersed it before it attracted unwanted attention.

Cameras spotted Rebecca sometime later, walking along the old dirt road to the scenic area above the Gamma lab. Her partner was gone, so Wesker figured he was dead. The last time Wesker checked, Rebecca made it all the way to the Outlook. He wasn't sure where she was now.

A certain resurrected mystery man was also currently missing, but Wesker was not optimistic enough to believe for a second that he was dead. He probably followed Rebecca and her partner to the treatment plant, and with the plant's likely destruction early that morning, Wesker was tempted to think that maybe he burned up with the rest of it. But he didn't think he was going to be that lucky. The mystery man was probably still lurking around the treatment plant or the surrounding area, but what he was up to or what he was planning, Wesker couldn't even hazard a guess. He would worry about it later.

No one said anything in the chopper. Usually, he could rely on Joseph to make a bizarre joke or two to keep the mood light, or on Barry to give the team some helpful advice. But not this time. The mission was too important, the unknown fate of Bravo too much to think about. And the argument in the command center killed the mood pretty effectively. Wesker rarely lost his temper, and the fact that he blew up at Barry of all people put everyone on edge. Which was Wesker's intention to begin with.

He wanted Barry to be angry at him. When the time came, it would make betraying him easier.

He could not help but make guesses about Alpha's chances of survival. His own guesses about Bravo were half right. He expected Enrico to outlast them all, but then again, he expected Rebecca to freak out and get herself killed pretty early on.

As for Alpha, he expected that Brad and Joseph would be the first to go. Brad was a coward at heart and everyone knew it, and in a dangerous situation he could always be relied on to panic and make things worse. Joseph was almost the opposite. He usually ran in head first without thinking things through. In this situation, that would get him killed pretty quick.

Jill was a competent officer, but she had no stomach for this kind of thing. She might be able to hold herself together for a little while, but eventually she would probably have some kind of nervous breakdown and wind up cowering in a corner like Kenneth. Which would be a shame, because he kind of liked Jill.

In a normal situation, Barry would be the last one left. Like Enrico, he was smart and tough and stubborn. But Wesker already predicted his future, and it ended badly. He would not live to see the morning.

That left Chris, the most naturally talented member of Alpha. Except for Wesker himself, of course. Chris was definitely the officer most capable of making it through the mansion alive. He was smart and brave like Barry, but he was also clever and resourceful and even his most daring ideas were laced with caution. Wesker believed that Chris could have succeeded at any level of law enforcement if he wanted to. He could have been an undercover cop, a detective, a S.W.A.T. officer, or even a forensics investigator if he felt the urge to do so. He joined S.T.A.R.S. probably because he felt it was the most difficult assignment. Wesker would be sorry to see him go, but it would be entertaining to see how far he made it.

Brad's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Wesker, we're a mile from the target."

"Okay," Wesker said, speaking to everyone. "Let's get ready."
Chapter 3

Lisa heard a noise in the sky and left the safety of her little hut. Her chains dragged on the ground through mud and wet leaves, clinking together softly like a wind chime. She turned her gaze to the sky and watched in amazement as a vehicle flew through the air right over her head. It had small wings with a long tail and a twirling circle on top. Was it some kind of metal bird? Lisa remembered birds from her life long before the time under the ground. When she found the surface once more, she saw birds again and was happy because she knew what they were. She tried to catch some, but they always flew away before she got there.

The sun was gone, leaving her in darkness. But it was okay, because there were tiny lights in the sky for her to look at. Still, she hoped that the sun would come back soon. She liked the sun.

She even found some new friends since she left the place under the ground. Unlike many of her other friends, these ones did not try to run away. They actually came right to her, but something was wrong with them that she couldn't understand. Sometimes, they were bleeding from injuries and she didn't know why. But they were better than her other friends.

When she took their faces, they did not stop moving like the others. They kept moving and remained to keep her company. She kept their faces anyway. Some of them left without their faces and she missed them, but there were always more friends running around. Some of the friends tried to bite her, and she crushed their heads in her hands, taking their faces afterward if they weren't ruined. Even if they tried to bite her, they were still her friends

Maybe the metal bird would have new friends she could meet. She walked away from the hut and headed in the direction the metal bird was going. It was a very loud bird, and she heard it in the distance quite clearly.

Even with the sun and birds and new friends, Lisa was getting bored. Now that she was not stuck to the wall and was free to move wherever she wanted to, she wanted to adventure everywhere she could. She desired new sights and new smells. She wanted to make even more new friends.

Maybe when the sun returned, she would start looking around for new things. She would leave her nice little hut in the woods and go far away from here. She didn't know how, but she remembered places where lots and lots of people could be found, lots of potential friends. She believed that there was a place like that nearby, at the other side of the forest.

Lisa wanted to go to the city.
Chapter 4

The helicopter hovered fifty feet off the ground above a clearing, battering the trees around them with wind from the spinning blades. The forest swayed back and forth like a crowd at a rock concert. Below the chopper was another one just like it, smashed into the ground, front end crumpled like a tin can, blades snapped off like weak tree branches.

"Jesus," Brad mumbled. "No wonder they didn't come back."

"Land this thing," Wesker ordered, looking at the wreckage from a side window. "Someone might be down there."

"I thought they said they reached their destination," Barry said. "So how did their chopper get destroyed?"

"How the hell should I know?" Wesker snapped. "Maybe they were coming back. But if they were in the chopper, why didn't they radio in?"

"Nothing's moving down there," Brad said nervously, keeping the helicopter steady.

"I said get on the ground!" Wesker shouted. "Right now! Someone might be hurt down there!"

Brad, sweat breaking out on his forehead, lowered the helicopter into the clearing until the landing gear rested on the ground. The blades continued to spin, ready to lift the chopper back into the air at the slightest twitch of the control stick.

Chris slid the door open and jumped out, followed by Jill and Joseph. Chris ran immediately to the downed helicopter, peering into the cabin. Jill drew her pistol and looked into the trees. Joseph shouldered his assault rifle and crept to the edge of the clearing, aiming out into the darkness. The helicopter blades continued to spin rapidly, causing all the vegetation to move and making so much noise that Jill couldn't hear anything clearly. Trying to look into the forest, she might as well have been blind and deaf.

Wesker hopped out of the helicopter and smacked the front windshield with his hand, looking into the cockpit. "Turn those rotors off and get out here!" he shouted.

Brad shook his head fiercely. "I'll keep it running in case we need to get out of here fast!"

"There's nothing out here! We all need to start looking for Bravo!"

Barry unbuckled himself and climbed out. He pulled out his Colt, ignored both Wesker and Brad, and walked straight to Bravo's wrecked helicopter. Chris stood up and looked around.

"No one's here," he said, putting his hands on his hips. "Doesn't look like anyone was injured in the crash, either. No blood or anything."

"Any idea where they went?" Barry asked, looking inside.

"No clue. It rained last night and covered up any tracks they might have made." Chris looked over Barry's shoulder at Wesker, who was still yelling at Brad. "What's he doing?"

Barry glanced back. "Brad's too scared to cut the engine. I don't know what's got him so spooked. He should be out here helping us look."

Barry looked over at the chopper and then scanned the swaying trees. With all the noise the chopper was making, if there really was anyone or anything in the forest preparing to attack them, they could probably get all the way to the edge of the trees without being noticed. Right off the bat, the whole mission was going sour.

Jill walked over to them. "I can't see or hear anything in those trees. Tell Brad to turn the stupid thing off," she said.

Wesker was still arguing with Brad. "Turn the engine off and get out here! That's an order! You're giving away our position!"

"We should search from the air!" Brad shouted back. "It's safer that way!"

Chris ran up to the helicopter and joined Wesker. "Brad, what are you doing? Cut the engine! We can't see anything with the wind making the trees move!"

"Let me take off, then! I'll search from the air and pick you up when you need me!"

"Shut the damn chopper down!" Wesker shouted.

Jill turned back to the forest, her breath coming faster, the hair on the back of her neck beginning to stand up. She did not like how this was going. Bravo was gone, their transport destroyed, and now Alpha was standing around like a bunch of fools without a clue. This was not how it was supposed to happen. Wesker told them that once they reached the target, they would land and debark at once. All of them, including Brad, would spread out in a search pattern. But the sight of the crashed helicopter changed their plans, and now Brad was screwing up the mission.

Joseph stood at the other side of the clearing, staring into the trees even though Jill doubted that he could see anything. He hefted his rifle higher on his shoulder and started walking toward Jill. She sighed and looked at the helicopter, which was still barely touching the ground, despite Wesker, Chris, and even Barry ordering Brad to turn it off. When she looked back at Joseph, she saw something out of the corner of her eye.

"Joseph!" she screamed, raising her pistol.

The dark shape bolted from the trees and came right at him. He spun around and opened fire, the roar of the rifle reaching her ears, the bright muzzle flash illuminating the clearing like a chain of firecrackers. Jill squeezed off two shots at the running creature.

It was a dog. Or at least it used to be ...

Joseph sprayed it with bullets and it jerked into the air, hitting the ground with blood squirting from its hide. But before Joseph could even lower the gun, another hound came out of the forest and jumped on him. Jill screamed and fired again, but the animal struck Joseph right in the chest and knocked him to the grass. He swung his arm up but the dog was already at his throat.

And then everything went to hell.

She heard Wesker shouting furiously as the helicopter rose into the air, lifting up above their heads. The unmistakable sound of Barry's Colt rang out, and the dog mauling Joseph snapped back and crumpled to the ground. Chris shouted something but she couldn't understand what he said. She ran to Joseph's side and cried out at the sight of his throat, which was ripped open, blood splattering his body and the surrounding grass.

His hand still held his rifle, his finger on the trigger. His dead eyes stared straight into the dark night sky.

The chopper was in the air, high above them. Barry and Wesker were screaming into the air, waving their arms. Chris came over and grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet.

"Come on!" he shouted.

Two more shapes came out of the forest, right at them. Dogs like the others, glistening and bloody, their skin missing, their eyes burning red. Chris raised his pistol and hit one right between the eyes. It fell on its face and rolled to a stop, while the other one jumped past them and headed for Barry and Wesker. Jill pulled free of Chris's grasp and fell to her knees.

Wesker saw it first and whipped out his gun. Just as it jumped, Barry fell to the side and Wesker fired, his pistol flashing orange in the gloom. The dog sailed right over his shoulder and stopped moving. Barry got to his feet, glanced at Wesker once, and ran over to Jill and Chris. Wesker looked back into the sky once more and joined him.

"What are they!?" Jill screamed. "They killed Joseph!"

"We have to get out of here!" Wesker shouted. "We aren't safe out here!"

"Tell Brad to get down here and pick us up!" Chris yelled.

Barry shouldered past them. "Brad ain't gonna come down here for all the money in the world. He's gonna stay up there where it's safe."

"Come on!" Wesker shouted, ignoring Barry. "We have to get moving before more of them come after us!"

"But what are they?" Jill cried, staring at Joseph's mauled body.

"Who cares?" Chris snapped. "I'm with Wesker. Let's get out of here."

"Where?" Barry asked. "Where do we go?"

"I saw a building in the forest when we flew over," Wesker said quickly, pointing into the trees. "That way. Maybe that's where Bravo went."

"I didn't see any building," Jill said, her voice quaking in fear.

"Anywhere is better than out here," Chris said, grabbing Jill again and pulling her to her feet. "Now let's go."

They headed off into the trees, following Wesker. Jill could not stop shaking. Her gun rattled in her hands. The thing that attacked them was a dog, but not a dog. It was like some kind of hellhound. Not a creature that belonged in this world. She gripped her pistol even tighter and stared out nervously into the woods as they ran.

"Next time I see Brad, I'm going to kill him," Barry muttered. "He abandoned us down here. The coward deserted us."

"I won't kill him," Wesker said, "but if I have my way, I'll see him arrested and thrown in jail."

"Can we worry about him later?" Chris said. "What were those things? They looked like dogs, but they didn't have any skin."

"They killed Joseph," Jill whimpered.

Before Wesker could respond, they heard something. It was another dog, barking from somewhere nearby. Jill's blood froze in her veins. The sound was like a choking roar rising up from a pit to the underworld.

"Run!" Wesker cried out, taking off.

And so they ran. In the darkness, it was nearly impossible to see where they were going, but they ran through knee-high weeds and between the trees as fast as they could. Branches snagged on their clothing like skeletal hands, and the wet, muddy ground sucked at their boots, trying to pull them under. The demonic barking got closer and closer, until Jill was sure the dogs were right behind them. She ran even faster, running blind through a pervasive wall of shadowy black. And then, incredibly, she saw spots of light in the distance through the branches.

"It's the building!' Wesker shouted triumphantly. "Come on!"

They ran through a line of trees and found themselves in a wide, well-maintained lawn. A huge Victorian mansion loomed in front of them like a beacon of order in them middle of a chaotic wasteland. Seeing the building made tears appear in Jill's eyes, she was so relieved to see a place of refuge out here in the wilderness. Lights burned behind most of the windows, and decorative pillars stood tall on each side of the wide front porch. Off to their left, there was a paved parking lot lined with large potted plants. Jill didn't look too closely, she just kept running. The promise of safety called out to her, just a few hundred feet away.

She heard a strangled cry and a crash and looked briefly over her shoulder. Chris was on the ground, rolling onto his side. Jill stopped and called his name, but then the dogs were upon them. Three of the glistening beasts emerged from the woods and Jill turned and ran before she realized what she was doing. Wesker and Barry were far in front of her. She thought she heard a gun shot from behind her, but the horrible sound of the dogs chasing her drowned out any other noise.

They reached the porch and ran up the steps to the huge front door. Wesker pushed it open and ran inside, followed closely by Barry. Jill, completely out of breath, made it up the steps and through the door, and then her legs went out from under her. She tumbled to the hardwood floor, gasping for air and quaking with fear.

Wesker slammed the door and pressed his hands against it, as if the dogs were strong enough knock it down. Outside, they scratched and pawed furiously at the door, barking those horrible, hacking barks. Wesker backed away from the door, his hands shaking, his breath ragged. Jill scrambled onto her back and sat up, scooting away from the door.

Large bay windows were on either side of the door. Suddenly, one of the dogs jumped up and pressed its paws against the glass, barking at them. Blood from its snout spattered across the glass. Barry raised his gun, but Wesker grabbed his arm.

"Don't waste your ammo. I don't think they can get in."

"What if they break the glass?"

"Shooting them would break the glass just as quickly."

Just then, the dog reared back and leaped at the window. It struck the glass and fell back down, streaking the glass with blood. Jill screamed at the sight, fumbling with her pistol. But the glass didn't break.

"My God," Barry said, "Where's Chris?"

Jill gasped a sob, feeling the tears on her face. "He ... he fell when we were running. I tried to go back ... but then the dogs came after us ... and ... and ..."

"We have to go after him," Barry said, reaching for the door.

Wesker pushed him back. "Don't be stupid! We don't know what else is out there!"

"Are you just going to leave him out there?" Barry demanded, shoving Wesker away.

Wesker shoved Barry right back. "If the dogs got him then he's already dead. There's nothing we can do, Barry. It's too late to go back and save him."

"So we just abandon him, like Brad abandoned us?" Barry snapped.

"Yeah, and just like we abandoned Joseph," Wesker snapped back. "We can't help him now, Barry. If he was still alive, he'd already be here with us."

"I think ... I think I saw one of the dogs attack him," Jill whimpered, trying not to break down into tears. She tried to stand up but her legs would not hold her.

Barry put his hands to his head and turned away, stepping into the middle of the room. Jill realized that it was actually a large lobby with a huge chandelier above their heads. The floor was shining hardwood and a red carpet lined the center of the floor. Right behind them was a carpeted stairway splitting to the right and left, heading up to the second floor. The entire lobby was ringed with an interior mezzanine on the second floor. Jill did not have time to take in the sights, but she could not help but notice their lavish surroundings.

Wesker pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Brad, this is Wesker. Respond." The fury in his voice was unmistakable. There was no response. "Brad, if you don't respond right now, I'll see to it that you're thrown off the police force! Chris is dead because of you! Now respond!" There was nothing but the quiet crackle of static. Wesker stared at the walkie-talkie for a second, and then hurled it against the wall. The case cracked open and it fell to the floor, broken.

Jill wiped her face and caught her breath. Her heart still pounded in her chest like a machine gun, but she forced herself upright. Carefully, she got her legs under her and stood up. Her pistol remained firmly in her hand. She didn't intend to holster it until they were back in Raccoon City.

If they ever got back to Raccoon City, she thought with a sense of impending dread.

"Listen," Wesker said after a few seconds, regaining his calm. He ran a hand through his short blond hair. "I think it's possible that Bravo came here after the crash. This is probably the government facility they told us about. It must be the only building for miles."

"But there's no one here," Jill said. "They must have heard us shooting. They must know we're here, so where is everybody?"

"I don't know, okay? I'm just as freaked out as you are, trust me."

"There's got to be someone here," Barry said, turning around to face them. His eyes were red and puffy, and he wiped them with the back of his hand. "This place can't be empty. There are lights on all over the place."

"Right," Wesker said. "There must be someone here. We just have to find them. Maybe they're hiding or something."

"From what?" Jill asked, her panic threatening to return.

"I have no idea. But we've got to assume something happened here. The fact that we haven't seen anyone tells me it's more than just the dogs outside."

"Those aren't dogs," Barry muttered. "They're monsters."

"Whatever they are, I don't think they're the only thing we have to worry about. I don't know what's going on here, but I don't think Bravo completed their mission. Maybe they were trying to edcape this place when the chopper crashed."

"Then where are they?" Jill asked.

Wesker could only shrug. "I have no idea."

"What do you think we should do?" Jill asked. As far as she was concerned, Wesker was still her commander and she was prepared to follow his orders. "Maybe we can find a phone and call for help?"

"That's a good idea," Barry said.

"I agree," Wesker said. Jill knew that Wesker owned a cell phone, but he didn't take it out or look at it. They probably had no cell signal out here in the mountains. She was about to ask him to check his cell phone anyway when Barry spoke again.

"Should we split up?" he asked. "Maybe we'll find someone who knows what in the hell is going on here."

Wesker shrugged again. It was a odd gesture from someone who usually knew exactly what he wanted. "If you want to. You know I would prefer to cover as much ground as possible, but I understand if you don't want to be alone."

"I can handle myself," Barry said. "What about you, Jill?"

Jill took account of her unsteady legs and trembling hands, and shook her head. "No, I don't want to go off by myself. I'm sorry, but not now. I just can't."

"It's okay," Wesker said. "I know how you feel. So let's keep it simple. Check out the first floor only. Be careful when you open any doors. Who knows if any of those dogs are inside. If you find a phone, call for help. We meet back here in the lobby in ten minutes."

Barry nodded his consent. "Okay, ten minutes."

"Ten minutes. Then we meet back here and decide what to do next."

He gave them a nervous smile, touched Jill's shoulder in a surprisingly reassuring way, and walked over to right side of the lobby. There were two doors, both solid oak, and he waited by the first one. Barry and Jill went to the left side of the lobby with its single door.

Barry tried the handle and found it unlocked. He gently pushed it open and poked his gun through the opening. Jill stood just beside the door, acting as backup. It was dark in the room beyond, but they could see inside. They both glanced back at Wesker, who nodded and carefully opened his own door. After a moment, he crept through.

Jill returned her focus to the door in front of her. Barry walked through the doorway and Jill followed him inside, her gun aimed in front of her. Whatever the room was, it was huge. Hazy twilight shone through at least a dozen windows running down the left side of the room. Barry found a light switch and turned it on.

The room exploded in light. Both of them were stunned momentarily by the grandeur of it. The center of the room was taken up by an incredibly long dining table covered in a lace table cloth. Half a dozen silver candlesticks decorated the table, along with a large flowery centerpiece in the middle. The floor was white marble tile waxed to a perfect shine. Like the lobby, there was an inner mezzanine running around the entire circumference of the room at the second floor.

"What a spread," Barry muttered. He pointed to one side of the dining table and then walked along the other. Jill, trying to remain calm, walked slowly along the other side. She looked through the windows to the front yard and forest beyond, bathed in gray twilight. They walked the length of the room, making their way to the other end of the long dining table. An empty fire place took up most of the far wall. An elaborate coat of arms decorated the wall above it.

On the floor in front of it, a mass of blood stained the white tile floor.

Jill gripped her gun tighter. "Is that blood?" she whispered.

Barry knelt down but did not touch it. He looked closely and nodded. "Looks like it. Looks like its been here awhile, too."

"There's no body."

Barry looked at the floor around the blood stain. There was no sign of anything being dragged through it, and no bloody footprints that either of them could see. Usually, in a case like this, there was some sign of where the owner of the blood was. Either a long smear indicating the body was dragged away, or a trail of blood or bloody footprints indicating that the victim got up and left under his own power.

"What do you think –" Jill started to say.

And then a terrible scream shattered the calm like a sudden explosion, nearly scaring them both out of their skins. Barry leaped back to his feet, and Jill almost fired off a round in fright.

And then, before either of them could speak, a single gunshot rang out, so close it might have been in the next room. Jill's heart pounded in her chest like a jackhammer and she breathed quickly, gun raised. To their right was a door. The sounds came from right behind it.
Chapter 5

Wesker ran through the room as fast as caution allowed and went to a large mahogany bookshelf against the far wall. He nervously looked down the dark hallway at the back of the room, listening for any sound. He reached up and pressed a switch at the top of the bookshelf and it moved away from the wall, revealing a narrow staircase. He snuck inside and the bookshelf returned to its former location, clicking into place.

The staircase was just wide enough for someone to walk down, as long as that someone wasn't too fat. Wesker's shoulders brushed the walls as he descended. The lights overhead were bright white fluorescent bulbs.

In retrospect, Wesker had lied to Barry and the others. If he ever saw Brad again, he would definitely kill him. The stupid coward single-handedly ruined the entire plan. Not only did he stay inside the chopper and then fly away at the worst possible moment, all the noise attracted the dogs long before Wesker intended. Instead of heading to the mansion with all of Alpha team, only three of them even made it that far. Wesker felt lucky that he made it himself. If he had tripped and fallen in the woods like Chris did, then he'd be dead too, and all of his careful planning would have been for nothing.

Of course, the real problem was Bravo's helicopter. How it crashed was a mystery to him. He didn't even want to land near it because it was farther from the mansion that he would have liked, but to do otherwise would have been suspicious. The sight of the wrecked chopper spooked Brad, and then he took off as soon as the dogs arrived. Who knows where he was now, probably flying in circles above the mansion. Wesker disabled the radio long before they left, which was why he got no response on the walkie-talkie. Brad didn't even hear him, and was probably freaking out because of the lack of radio contact. Wesker hoped against reason that Brad did not turn around and go back to Raccoon City. If he did that, then even Wesker didn't know what would happen.

Everything was ruined thanks to Brad and his stupid cowardice. Even Barry and Chris backed him up there, thankfully. Wesker only hoped that he didn't seem too panicked in the woods. He knew that something might come after them, but hopefully the others thought he was only being extra careful. Running through the woods with a pack of undead dogs on his heels was undoubtedly the most terrifying moment of his entire life.

He expected Alpha team to get to the mansion alive, giving the numerous monsters running loose plenty of prey to go after. But now it was just Barry and Jill. Joseph and Chris were dead, and Brad was gone. It wasn't what Wesker wanted at all. He even went out of his way to ensure Barry's complicity when he needed it, and now that would probably be pointless. If Jill was the only other one left alive, what good would Barry's help be? Wesker wanted them all there to fight, not just two of them. The entire thing now didn't seem like it was even worth the effort.

He came to a long white hallway under the mansion, which led to a private lab in the small Beta complex. An elevator there would take him to the lowest level of the labs, three stories underground. There was never anyone in the basement, since there was nothing there but two boilers and the original power generator, so Wesker felt safe going through that area to get to his labs in Sigma. He needed to get somewhere safe so he could relax and try to calm down.

He needed a stiff drink. That would help too.
Chapter 6

Chris collapsed onto the concrete balcony, gasping for breath. Below him, two of the monstrous dogs barked frantically and jumped up, unable to reach him. They knew he was there, though, and wanted him for dinner.

Somehow, he managed to kill the first one. When he tripped over a stray branch, he thought that was the end. He turned onto his back just in time to grab the dog that jumped on top of him and hold its mouth away from his neck. The dog scratched madly at his chest and growled and snapped furiously at him, but he somehow grabbed its throat and pushed it away. By some miracle, the other two dogs continued after the others. He rolled over until the dog was under him, and then he pinned it with one arm while fumbling for his gun with the other. He pressed the barrel of his Beretta right under the dog's chin and blew its brains out.

By the time he reached the mansion, everyone else was already inside. The other two dogs saw him immediately and came running, so he went around the side of the mansion, running as fast as he could. There was a small, fenced-off area along the side of the mansion, and Chris climbed the thick, black iron fence, balanced on top, and jumped to the second-floor balcony. With the dogs jumping up and biting at his dangling legs, he managed to pull himself up, and there he was.

He laid on his back and caught his breath. The dogs, getting bored or finding something else to go after, left him alone. He patted his vest and belt to see if he dropped anything. His Beretta was back in its holster, but the clip for his walkie-talkie was empty. It must have snapped off when he was rolling around on the ground. He wouldn't be making any calls for help.

He touched his forehead and discovered that his lucky red bandana was gone as well. It probably came off during the struggle with the dog.

Well, that's just great, he thought. Now I'm really in trouble.

He knew that Wesker, Barry, and Jill made it inside the mansion. All he needed to do was go inside and find them. One of them must still have a walkie-talkie. They could call Brad and have him come down and pick them up.

That is, if Brad was willing to do it. He abandoned them back in the woods and he certainly knew it. They would never forgive him for that. If Chris made it out of here alive, he was going to beat the crap out of Brad until there was none left. Of course, Chris knew that Barry and Wesker were probably thinking the same thing. They would take turns, then.

There were some large windows and a glass door on the other end of the balcony. Chris didn't see any lights on. He got to his feet and glanced over the balcony to the ground below. The dogs were gone, but Chris didn't like the looks of those woods. Who knew what else might be lurking around out there?

He went to the door and shook the handle. It was locked, so he used his gun as a hammer and smashed the glass right above the handle and reached inside to unlock it. Inside, the room smelled like stale cigarette smoke and air freshener trying to cover it up. Chris snuck to the other end of the room in the dark and found a light switch by the door.

With the light on, the room looked pretty impressive. It was full of expensive-looking wooden furniture, and an ornate colored rug decorated the floor. A large antique globe dominated the center of the room, surrounded by several plush seats and some coffee tables. The walls were lined with bookshelves stuffed full of old hardcovers with scientific titles. Chris browsed the selection, but didn't find any murder mysteries.

Whoever lived or worked there, they lived in style. The room looked like some kind of recreation or reading room, and would not look out of place at an old-fashioned wealthy gentleman's club, the kind of upper class social club that went out of fashion more than fifty years before. But one thing was certain, it was not something the government would set up.

Something made noise out in the hall. A quiet thump, like someone bumping the wall gently with their fist.

Chris went to the door and put his hand on the door handle. He thought a moment and then pulled out his pistol, deciding that it was better safe than sorry. It was entirely possible that one of the diseased dogs was in the building. Chris opened the door a crack and peered out into the hallway.

Immediately, he raised his gun, leaving the safety on. It wasn't a dog, but a man standing down the hallway, his back turned. Chris stood up straight and returned the gun to his holster. No sense in scaring a civilian unnecessarily.

"Sir?" Chris said.

The man wavered on his feet as if he was drunk, and turned around to face Chris, who flinched when he saw the man's face. His skin was so pale it looked gray, and his eyes were so bloodshot they looked completely red in the dim hallway light. He wore a rumpled blue suit and slacks, with expensive looking shoes and a gold watch glittering on his wrist. He opened his mouth and groaned, taking an unsteady step forward.

Chris's gun was back in his hand in an instant. "Sir?" he said again. "Are you all right? I'm a police officer."

The man groaned again, the sound making Chris's stomach turn. He staggered forward, raising his arms robotically, walking with his knees stiff like a parody of Frankenstein. As he walked forward, he passed under the ceiling light and Chris saw that his eyes were not just bloodshot, they really were almost completely red, filled with blood. His skin was a sickening pallor.

"Don't move," Chris ordered, raising the gun. "Don't take another step."

But the man took another step, and another, and another until he was only a few yards away, and the closer he got, the faster he moved. Finally, Chris had no choice but to fire or get out of the way, and he chose the latter. He jumped back into the room and slammed the door shut.

Immediately, the man outside began groaning loudly and banging on the door. Chris looked for a way to lock it, but it locked with a key and he didn't have one. He leaned on the door to keep it closed as the man pounded against it. It didn't have a doorknob, just a simple handle that even a child could push down. But the man didn't seem to know how to open it, so he just banged on it with increasing fury, groaning like a wild animal.

Chris's heart hammered in his chest, but he remained calm. The man in the hall was obviously very sick, but what could cause something like that? Some kind of drug? Certainly no disease Chris ever heard of made people behave that way. The man acted like ... well, he acted like some kind of zombie.

Suddenly, the door handle went down and the door pushed inward. Chris had to brace himself to shove it back closed. The man groaned even louder, and Chris pushed with all his might.

"Stop!" he shouted. "Step away from the door! That's an order! I'm a police officer!"

The man ignored him. He moaned horribly and slammed the door so hard it buckled open a few inches, nearly knocking Chris back. A hand stuck through the opening, clawing at the doorway, and Chris pushed the door closed right on the man's hand. But the man didn't even seem to notice. He just kept banging and pushing and moaning a sickening, hungry moan.

Chris couldn't hold the door closed forever. He was already getting tired, and the man on the other side showed no signs of stopping. Finally, Chris jumped away from the door, drawing his gun as he retreated back against the globe. The door swung open and the man almost fell over when he staggered inside, his awful red eyes looking around blindly.

"Freeze!" Chris shouted. "Don't come any closer!"

The man headed right for him. Chris braced himself and aimed low. He squeezed the trigger, hitting the man squarely in the thigh, intentionally missing the femur, shooting to wound only.

Normally, a bullet to the meaty part of the thigh was more than enough to drop someone. But the man was delayed for only a second before he took another step. Chris stared in disbelief and ducked around a chair as the man reached for him, grabbing nothing but empty air. He groaned hungrily and stumbled right into the chair, knocking it to the ground.

Chris ran to the other end of the room as the man regained his footing and turned around to come after him a second time. Chris automatically raised his gun and fired again, striking the man squarely in the center of the chest. At such close range, the bullet easily shattered the breastbone. Anyone, no matter how strong or drugged up or insane they were, would drop immediately with a bullet to the chest like that.

But the man barely seemed to notice. The impact disrupted his balance, but he came forward without even blinking, his mouth open and arms reaching desperately for Chris.

Chris pulled the trigger twice more, hitting the man once in the right shoulder and once right in the heart. The bullets knocked him backwards, threatening to knock him completely off his feet, but they did not quite do the job. The man stumbled at Chris until he was barely an arm's length away. Chris's back was to the wall.

His arm and hand acted independently of his brain, aiming higher and pulling the trigger to bury a bullet in the man's eye socket at almost point blank range. His head jerked back, his arms dropped, and he fell to the floor like a bag of rocks.

Chris slid to the floor as well, his gun resting in his lap. He clicked the safety back on.
Chapter 7

Jill and Barry did not hear the shots because the dozens of walls between them and Chris absorbed the noise. And at the moment, they were too concerned with the other gunshot they heard, the one that sounded no more than a few feet away. That, and the blood-curdling scream that preceded it.

Barry stood by the side of the door. It was unlocked, so Jill pushed it open to reveal a hallway on the other side of the door, heading to the left and right. She braced herself in the left side of the doorway, aiming to the right, seeing nothing but two a pair of doors at that end. She switched positions and aimed to the left, seeing what appeared to be part of a room at the end of the hall. She saw a chair and an end table, and blueish twilight coming through a window.

But she heard something. She couldn't exactly place it, but it was a wet, squishing noise, almost like the sound of someone chewing with their mouth open. Jill walked out into the hall and took a step to the left, Barry right behind her. As she approached the corner room, the sound got louder, and was accompanied by a muffled humming noise.

A man was lying on the floor flat on his back. Another man hunched over his chest, making the chewing noises. Jill felt her stomach turn upside down as her brain recognized exactly what was happening right in front of her.

"Freeze!" she suddenly screamed.

The man started at the noise and got to his feet. He was wearing a fashionable brown suit, and in the light from the window, the skin on his hands and face looked light blue. His brown hair stuck out in every direction, and when he turned to face Jill, her breath stopped cold in her chest.

Blood was smeared all across the man's face and chest, ruining his expensive suit. His eyes were wide open and extremely bloodshot, his bloody teeth bared like a cornered wolf. He groaned and staggered forward, reaching for Jill.

She screamed and pulled the trigger, the gun almost kicking right out of her hands. The bullet hit the man right in the throat and the impact spun him around, knocking him into the wall. Jill screamed again and stumbled backwards, running right into Barry.

But the man was still standing. Even with a chunk of his neck missing, he staggered forward clumsily, arms outstretched, his ghostly moan turned into a sickening gurgle.

Barry did not hesitate. He fired his gun, the boom from the Colt almost deafening them in the enclosed space. The top of the man's head disappeared in a sudden red mist, and he fell over backward, landing on the floor with a thud, his brains spilling out onto the tile like spilled tapioca pudding.

Jill tried to scream again, but there was no air left in her lungs. Sliding to the floor, she dropped her gun and lifted her hands to her face, gasping for breath to scream with.

"He was eating him!" she shrieked. "He was eating ... oh, Jesus!" She pointed at the other corpse on the ground.

Barry stepped over to the other body. It was a young black man wearing a heavy metal t-shirt and a red bandana on his head. Kenneth Sullivan, the point man for Bravo. His dead eyes stared at the ceiling, a terrified expression frozen on his face. His pistol lay on the floor just a foot away.

Jill stared at the body, horror gripping her heart as she realized what happened. How long had Ken been hiding in this room? Ever since last night? He must have heard Jill and Barry talking, or maybe heard the noise outside from before, and came out of hiding only to find the man waiting for him. He screamed and got a single shot off before he died.

Jill stared at the gun in her hand. She shot the man right in the throat and he kept coming. She shot him and he didn't even seem to notice. He killed Ken, tore out his throat, and was eating his flesh. She felt bile rise in her throat and had the urge to puke her guts out. Her eyes drifted to the body of the dead man. He wore expensive leather shoes. What kind of psychotic maniac wore shoes like that?

Barry flipped open the man's suit and pulled a wallet from his inside pocket. Jill could barely think clearly, but Barry followed procedure. A police officer was dead, and the first officers on the scene shot and killed the murderer in self-defense. It was time to establish the murderer's identity.

"Harold Murphy," Barry said in a flat voice, studying the man's driver's license. "Age fifty-one. Resident of Raccoon City." He pulled out another card from the wallet. "He was an employee of the Umbrella Corporation."

"What?" Jill managed to ask, her voice a pathetic squeak. She couldn't seem to focus. The man work for Umbrella? That didn't make any sense. She thought this place was supposed to be a government facility.

"This is a security key card," Barry said, holding it up. It looked like nothing more than a credit card with a black magnetic stripe on the back. Except that instead of a Visa or Mastercard logo, there was the red and white octagon of the Umbrella Corporation decorating the front. Barry put the card in his pocket. For evidence? He tossed the wallet back into the corpse's chest.

"Barry ..." Jill managed say. "He ... he was eating ... Ken's face ..."

Barry knelt down and a perplexed look came over his face. "This man was dead."

"We ... we shot him, Barry."

"No, I mean this man's been dead for hours. Days, maybe. Look at the wound here, there's no blood."

Still sitting on the floor, Jill craned her neck to see across the dead man's body to the chunk of his neck her bullet took out. Then she saw what Barry meant. There was no blood pooling around the wound, nothing on the wound itself except for ragged flesh. There should have been blood, and a lot of it. The bullet must have hit a major artery or vein, even if it wasn't the jugular. Even after Barry killed him, there should have been blood pouring from the wound.

"It looks like his blood is coagulated in his veins," Barry said, looking closely. He pulled out his knife and cut away the man's pants leg to look at his lower legs. Jill saw that they were a bruised blue color and horribly swollen. "Yes, the blood pooled in his legs. This guy has been dead a while, Jill."

"But he was alive," Jill said weakly. "I mean, he was moving. He ... Jesus, Barry, he killed Ken just a few minutes ago."

"Yeah, I see that."

"So how could he have been dead?"

"Well, he wasn't alive. That much I can tell you."

Arguing somehow made Jill feel better. It gave her something to focus on, something to talk about. She didn't have to just stare at the two bodies on the floor and imagine the sight of the man coming for her with blood and gore dripping from his chin. She braced herself against the wall and pushed to her feet.

"Any coroner in the world would tell you that this man died yesterday, maybe even the day before yesterday," Barry said. "I don't know exactly."

"That's ... that's just impossible," Jill blurted out, pointing at the corpse. "He was standing and moving around! He was going to kill us, just like he killed Ken! Dead people don't do that!"

"What about the dogs outside?" Barry asked, glancing to the window. "They weren't exactly normal dogs, now were they? They didn't have any skin," he said, as if Jill needed a reminder.

"That was different! This is a person we're talking about!"

"What do you think happened here?" Barry asked, rising to his feet. He crossed his thick arms, using his best authoritarian voice. "This is supposed to be government installation, right? But this guy worked for Umbrella."

"So? What does Umbrella have to do with this?"

"You've only lived here a couple of years, Jill. But I've lived here my whole life, and Umbrella is a huge part of Raccoon City. They paid for half of the community service projects done here since I was a kid. They have a park named after them. At least two of our city councilmen used to work for them. Maybe they still do."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"They're a pharmaceutical company, Jill. They have a huge lab right in the center of town that's supposed to be a secret even though everyone knows about it. They do experiments there, chemical and biological things. I don't know what, exactly, but I've been around and I've heard plenty of rumors."

Suddenly, Jill found herself interested, and a little scared. "Like what?"

"Like the kind of tests on animals that scientists swear they don't do anymore. Developing vaccines and medicines, dealing with some serious viruses and things. I've even heard they make chemical weapons for the military."

"That's absurd," Jill said, more for her own benefit than Barry's.

"Well, whatever they do there, they keep a lid on it. Like I said, everyone knows that they have the lab in town, but no one knows what they do there. What if they have a lab out here in the woods too? What if they were working on something and it got loose?"

Jill shook her head and waved her hand as if to dispel the words. "That's crazy, Barry. It sounds like some wacko conspiracy theory. You can't believe that, can you?"

"I've suspected it for years," Barry said. "Remember when Wesker first told us where Bravo was, and you asked if it was a secret lab or something? I've been thinking about that a lot, and it's the only thing that makes sense."

"It doesn't make any sense, Barry."

"I've been saying all along that there is no way they would call in the local cops. Unless it was something so dangerous that they were desperate and needed a fast response. A terrorist attack, maybe? A natural disaster?"

"There's an army base half an hour from here, right across the mountains," Jill said, shaking her head as she realized how illogical it all sounded. "Why did they call us instead of the army?"

"Exactly. I don't think that this is a government lab. This has Umbrella written all over it. They probably have half the city in their pocket, and that's how they were able to manipulate Chief Irons into letting Bravo go to clean up their mess."

"But Barry," Jill said, but could not find the words to finish the sentence. It sounded completely ridiculous to her, and she couldn't believe that Barry of all people was saying it. This was the same man who didn't watch network television police dramas because he thought the plot lines were too farfetched. And now he was spouting an insane conspiracy and cover-up by a local company.

But the evidence was right on the floor in front of her. He was right about the body, she knew. She was no expert in forensics or biology, but he must have been dead for quite awhile for his body to look the way it did. And the dogs outside. Something melted their skin away and made their eyes seem to glow red. What could do that? What could make a dead man walk and turn a dog into a skinless monster? Some kind of new disease? Something that the Umbrella company created?

"I don't believe it," Jill said, even though she was beginning to.

"You don't have to," Barry said.

He looked down at Ken's body and Jill could almost hear this thoughts. There was nothing they could do for him. No amount of medical attention could save him. Brad didn't respond on the radio, so for now, they didn't even have hope of getting Ken's body out of here. All they could do was leave him. He was more than just a coworker, he was a friend, and he was murdered almost right in front of their eyes. And there was nothing they could do about it.

"Come on," Barry said. "We have to get Wesker. It's been ten minutes."

They left the room and walked back through the dining room to the lobby without speaking. There was nothing to be said, really. Barry was too angry to speak, and Jill was too afraid. She didn't know how they were going to tell Wesker about what they'd seen.

But they wouldn't get the chance. The lobby was empty. Wesker was gone.
Chapter 8

Chris stood up and very calmly slid his pistol back into the holster. He took deep breaths to slow his heartbeat, to ease himself back into a relaxed state. It was like meditation. He'd been using it to calm himself down since he first joined the Air Force after high school. It didn't always work, and it wasn't about to work right now, but it made him feel better. That was something.

One bullet to the thigh. Two in the chest, one in the shoulder. One in the head. It took five shots to bring the man down. It was possible to survive several gunshots, Chris knew. There were numerous cases of people surviving a dozen shots or more if they all missed vital areas. But Chris's shots did not miss vital areas. And the man not only survived them, he barely seemed to notice them.

Chris shot him right in the center of the chest. Right in the heart. And the man kept coming. He wouldn't believe it if he didn't see it with his own eyes. It was straight out of a horror movie. How could anyone keep moving with a bullet through their heart?

Chris used his boot to nudge the body onto its back. The man was certainly dead, but he looked like he'd been dead for days. His skin was pale and dry, his eyes filled with blood and dry around the edges. And he didn't smell too good either.

Chris methodically reloaded his pistol. His belt pouch contained a spare clip, and a pack of twenty extra bullets was in his pocket. He used the bullets to refill the clip and loaded it back into the gun.

There was no way he could deny his own eyes. The man lying dead on the floor in front of him was a zombie. There was no other word for it. He was dead but walked like he was alive, and only a bullet to the brain was enough to stop him. If the man succeeded in grabbing Chris and taking a bite out him ... well, Chris didn't want to think about that.

He read enough books and watched enough low-budget horror movies to know a zombie when he saw one. Until now, he always kind of liked zombie flicks. Things like vampires and werewolves he always thought were silly, because they were so different from humans and obviously supernatural in nature. But zombies were just like humans, except they were dead. Take a dead body and perform some mysterious medical procedure, and you've got yourself a zombie. He could actually imagine zombies existing in the real world. And now, it seemed that they did.

If this was some kind of secret government installation, then it seemed obvious what must have gone on here. Secret genetic or medical research, the kind that was popular with conspiracy theorists and associated nut jobs, the illegal and unethical kind. They must have created some new drug or some terrible disease and were dumb enough to let it get loose. And it infected everyone there. And instead of calling in the national guard, they called the local cops.

That was the part that made no sense. Government employees never trusted local law enforcement. Chris had been in the Air Force for ten years and knew that like he knew his own name. Even rookie FBI agents tried to create an air of importance and mystery by withholding "need to know" information and "top secret" information as if it was the meaning of life. If a disaster like this occurred, there is no way they'd just call the local cops. They couldn't trust them to keep quiet about it. They'd bring in some special ops or black ops commandos to deal with the situation.

So why call S.T.A.R.S. in? Chris would have to figure that out eventually, but not right now. His first order of business was to get out of this room with the zombie, just in case it rose from the dead again. Second order of business was to find Wesker and the others and find out a way out of here.

The hallway was empty. Chris walked out very cautiously, testing the floor to make sure no old boards squeaked and gave away his position. He edged his way down the hall, ignoring the fancy paintings on the wall and delicate, expensive-looking vases and figurines on the ornate mahogany end tables all over the place.

The hallway was in the shape of a squared-off U. He went down the right side of the hall, passing two doors until he came to the door at the end. He tried the doorknob and found it locked. Why should it be locked? Were they trying to keep someone out or keep someone in? Chris debated on whether to just shoot the lock but decided not to waste bullets, and thought about kicking the door open but doubted he was strong enough. Besides, better not to make noise if he didn't have to. His gunshots from before probably alerted every zombie in the whole place.

He tried one of the other doors and found it conveniently unlocked. He eased the door open and peered inside, gun ready. He tapped on the doorframe with the gun and nothing came after him, so he carefully reached inside and turned on the light. It was a small office with some more fancy furniture and a big desk. Chris turned the light back off and went to the next door.

It was open as well, but the light was already on inside. It was a small office like the other room, but with a door to his right and three small chairs against the wall. The nameplate on the desk said "M. Thompkins." There was a large calendar on the desk covered in notes, and a personal planner as well, filled with lists of appointments and names of visitors. Chris flipped through it, not intending to discover anything important, and was stunned to find the name "M. Warren" scrawled on one of the pages. Michael Warren was the name of the governor of Raccoon City. It seemed like an awfully strange coincidence. The appointment log ended two days ago.

He looked at the door and saw a shining brass nameplate attached to it. It said "Ozwell Spencer." The name sounded vaguely familiar. Chris ran it around in his head but couldn't quite place it. Ozwell Spencer. He couldn't decide where he remembered it from.

He opened the door and found a much larger office beyond, like what he imagined a famous CEO's personal office might look like. Bookcases lined each wall, covered in thick hard covers and expensive-looking antiques and trinkets. Forty feet away was a humongous wooden desk behind two chairs. Against the wall beside the desk was an open cabinet with a television screen built in. It was turned on, but there was no sound and no picture except static.

The desk was a mess. Drawers pulled out and dumped, papers and office supplies scattered everywhere. Someone had ransacked the desk looking for something. Chris doubted a zombie could do something this deliberate, so it must have been a living person.

Whoever Ozwell Spencer was, he must have been important around here to get his own personal secretary and a big office like this. But where was he now? Was he some management bigshot who took off as soon as everything hit the fan? Chris felt a curious need to know why the desk was ransacked. What were they looking for?

He picked up a piece of paper and saw the Umbrella Corporation letterhead printed on top. That was a disturbing surprise.

Chris was born and raised in Virginia, and only moved to Raccoon City after his hasty retirement from the Air Force, when Barry Burton offered him a job with the S.T.A.R.S. team. He guessed that longtime residents might be so used to the presence of Umbrella that they didn't actively notice it anymore. But Chris noticed it. Every day he saw their logo splashed on some new product or their name mentioned in a news broadcast. Everyone knew there was an underground medical laboratory in town, although no one seemed to know exactly where it was located. A couple of public parks were named after the company. Barry once told him once that some members of the city council used to be on their payroll. It was rumored that the company owned huge portions of the city, and owned controlling interest of any number of businesses and industries within the city limits.

Chris, as an outsider even though he'd lived there for years, noticed all of this and was mildly disturbed by it. There were probably hundreds of towns across the country that were still thriving because of some local business or company kept them afloat, such as steel mining around Pittsburgh and the automotive industry around Detroit. But Chris never heard of a town so deeply ingrained with a faceless, multinational corporation. It was almost like Umbrella owned the whole town.

And they owned this strange mansion in the middle of the Arklay Mountains as well, it seemed. And since Umbrella was mostly known for their medical and pharmaceutical research, Chris found it terribly easy to imagine them accidentally creating some horrific plague at a secret lab here in the mountains and having it get loose.

But the big question still remained. Why did they call S.T.A.R.S. in to clean up the mess? How could they possibly be prepared for a catastrophe like this? How could anyone?

Most of the papers and junk was scattered behind the desk, since whoever dumped the drawers out just pulled them out and flipped them over, but one stray piece of paper was on the floor in front of the desk, lying face up. Chris saw something written on it.

He picked it up and read the note in a glance. If the thought of Umbrella being involved in this made him concerned, what he saw on the paper outright frightened him. If the mayor of Raccoon City could have been a visitor in this office, anyone could have been here. It was simply too much of a coincidence for him to disregard.

The note was addressed to someone called Wesker.
Chapter 9

"Where is he?" Jill asked. "It's been more than ten minutes."

"Maybe he lost track of time," Barry said, but it sounded like a hollow excuse. He flipped open the chamber of his Colt and took out two empty shells almost absent-mindedly. He fired once outside when the dogs attacked, and once at the man who killed Kenneth. He fished two bullets from a pocket on his vest and stuck them in place, then snapped the chamber back in place with a flick of his wrist.

"If he heard the gunshots, don't you think he'd have come to investigate?"

"Maybe he didn't hear them. This is an old building, the walls are pretty thick."

Jill shook her head. Things were bad enough now, they didn't need another of their team members disappearing or getting killed. "I don't like it, Barry. We should go after him."

Barry nodded. "Let's do it, then." He walked off toward the door that Wesker used, and Jill realized belatedly that Barry intended to go after Wesker right away, but he waited for her to suggest it. She didn't know how she felt about that.

Barry pushed open the thick oak door and aimed his gun inside. The room was fairly large, maybe fifty feet to a side, and was illuminated by dimmed lights. Right in the center of the room was a marble statue of a woman carrying the scales of justice, and large paintings covered all the walls. At the back of the room was a large bookcase lined with smaller sculptures, and to the right of that was an open doorway that appeared to lead to a dark hallway heading off to the left.

Barry went forward fearlessly toward the hallway, with Jill following behind. He braced himself against the side wall and aimed down the hall. There was nothing there but another bookshelf covered in dusty sculptures and at least a dozen more paintings just leaning against the wall.

"He's not here," Jill said unnecessarily. "But he went in this room."

"He must have come back out and went to the other door," Barry said.

Jill looked up at the statue and then around at the paintings. "What kind of place is this anyway? It looks more like an art museum than a secret lab."

"Umbrella has plenty of money," Barry said disdainfully. "Let's go check out the other door."

They left the room and went to the second door at the right side of the lobby. This time, just to show Barry that she wasn't completely afraid, Jill opened the door and went through first. The door led to a long hallway that went off to the left, the walls done in a faintly tacky flowered wallpaper. Large windows were to the right, looking out toward the mansion's front yard. Jill didn't look out the windows for fear she'd see the skinless dogs again.

The carpet softened her hesitant footsteps. She walked with a sideways stance, her arms close to her chest and the gun pointed at the ceiling. If anything came for them, the sideways stance made it easier to brace her feet and steady her aim. It also helped her handle the gun's sometimes erratic recoil if she needed to fire more than one shot.

Barry was about five paces behind her. She wanted to just call out Wesker's name and hope that he responded, but knew that was a bad idea. There was no telling what might be waiting for them around the corner.

With a high-pitched crash, the window right behind her shattered, spraying her in shards of broken glass. She screamed and spun around to see one of the skinless dogs land deftly on the carpet, surrounded in a cloud of raining glass. A few shards were stuck in its body. Even as she stumbled backwards and pointed her gun at the horrible beast, the next window closest to her exploded as another dog came flying through, and she had to turn her face away to avoid getting cut by the flying glass.

Barry staggered back in retreat, gun drawn, and pulled the trigger. Jill didn't see what happened next. She turned the other way and ran.

The first dog came after her, barking frantically. Another boom from Barry's Colt echoed down the hall. Jill turned left down the hall and ran as fast as she could. There were two doors, one at the end of the hall and a closer one to the right. Jill went to the first door and turned the handle just as she hit it with her shoulder, knocking it open. She turned around quickly and slammed the door, stopping the dog before it got through.

She gasped for breath and burst into panicked sobs. The dog scrabbled and scratched at the door, growling deeply, and Jill backed away, her hands trembling. She felt terrified and ashamed of herself. She ran away and left Barry behind. She could have shot the dog if she had reacted quicker, killed it before it could have come after her.

But she was too afraid. And she left Barry to handle the other dog by himself. She prayed that he managed to kill it, and that he would come after her and kill the other one scratching at her door.

She was so focused on the door that she didn't look around the room to make sure it was safe, and she didn't hear the raspy groan behind her until it was almost too late. She heard a bump and spun around in fright, raising her gun as her blood ran cold.

The room was dimly lit by a single lamp and lined with bookshelves like a small library. She was not alone. There were two others in the room. It took her only a split-second to see that they were like the man who killed Kenneth. Their skin was pale and dry, their eyes wide open and vacant, their mouths open and hungry. One of them was only a few steps away, reaching for her

Jill screamed and pulled the trigger. The gun hopped up as the bullet hit the man in the shoulder, knocking him off balance. He stumbled sideways and hit one of the bookshelves, breaking the shelf and knocking a row of books to the floor. Jill stumbled backwards until her back hit the wall and she swung her arms up, gripping her gun in both hands.

The man got back to his feet and surged forward. With a scream, she just mindlessly squeezed the trigger. The gun spat out four shots in succession, striking the man four times in the chest. The shots blew him back and he crashed into a chair, falling backwards over it and slumping to the floor.

The other man was at the other end of the room, standing behind a small couch. He stared at her blindly, blood drooling from his ears and mouth, but did not come forward. He just stood in the corner and swayed unsteadily on his feet.

The first man regained his footing and Jill cried out in frustration, the gun shaking in her hands, tears streaming down her face. The man climbed over the chair and staggered for her again.

She shot him twice more, once hitting him in the chest and once in the neck. A chunk of flesh broke away from his throat and black ooze dripped from the wound. But he stayed upright and took another step.

"I shot you!" she screamed. "You're dead! I shot you!"

She pulled the trigger once more. And heard it click empty.

The man lunged at her and she dropped her gun, holding her hands up to push him away. She grabbed the front of his business suit and held him back as he grabbed for her with bloody hands, his teeth clacking as his mouth snapped open and shut in a grotesque attempt to bite her. Back to the wall, she held him off, screaming for help, screaming for Barry to come and save her. But Barry didn't come.

The man was stronger than she was. He pressed closer, mouth coming within inches of her neck, hands feebly scratching at her clothing. She lifted one leg up and pressed her knee against his stomach, pushing with all her might. She shoved him back and then lifted her leg up to kick him squarely in the chest, knocking him backwards. He fell against the end table with the lamp on it and nearly knocked it over. But he stayed on his feet and quickly got up to come at her again.

Jill reached up and grabbed the top edge of the bookshelf closest to her. She braced her foot against the wall and pulled as hard as she could, tipping the bookshelf right over. It crashed on top of the man like an avalanche, burying him in thick hard covers. Flat on his back, he could not lift up the bookcase to free himself.

Jill gasped for breath, still crying, although now half the tears were in relief. She picked up her gun and slid the empty clip out with shaking hands.

Slowly, the second man in the room stumbled around the side of the couch and shambled toward her. He did not move as fast as the other, and his arms were limp at his sides. Jill shook her head as if she could deny his existence. The empty clip slipped from her fingers.

There was another door in the room, directly across from the one she'd entered from. She went to it and pulled it open. Beyond was another hallway. She went through the door and closed it behind her. She could hear the desperate moans of the man trapped under the bookcase as the door clicked shut.

She fell to one knee and forced herself to look up and down the hallway. Nothing was there, no dogs and no walking dead men. She tried to catch her breath while loading her second clip into her pistol. She slid the chamber back, racking a shell into position.

Down the hall to her left was an open door. Jill crept forward and saw that it was a small restroom. She went inside and closed the door behind her, shivering as she breathed out, much-needed relief washing over her. Her legs gave way and she slid to the white linoleum floor, her back against the door. After a moment, she let the gun fall from her hand and she broke down in tears once more, her whole body shaking with the force of her sobs.
Chapter 10

Barry's first shot missed wide. The first dog ran after Jill as she took off down the hallway, but the second dog came at him. He ran back the other way and went through the door to the lobby, swinging it closed as hard as he could. The dog got its head through the doorway just as the door slammed shut, and he heard a sickening crunch as the door crushed the dog's neck. It flopped to the floor, a gurgling growl escaping its lips, but Barry held the door shut. The dog was already dead, so breaking its neck didn't kill it. But after a moment, he realized that it couldn't move. It might be dead, but a severed spinal cord still rendered it paralyzed. He eased the door open a bit but the dog just laid on the floor, growling and snapping its jaws open and shut while its body lay motionless.

He pointed his gun at the dog's head to put it out of its misery, but he didn't want to waste a bullet. However, for all he knew, the dog's spine would heal up and it would be able to move again. Better to kill it for good and then go after Jill to make sure she was okay.

But before Barry could pull the trigger, he heard a thumping noise above him, and the sound of a door swing shut. Something was up on the second floor directly overhead, on the inner mezzanine balcony overlooking the lobby. He heard another thump like a footstep, and the unmistakable sound of chains dragging on the ground. His breath caught in his throat and his heart seemed to stop beating.

Another thump. Whatever it was, it was walking toward the steps. Barry made up his mind instantly. Better to show himself first and open fire before whatever it was could get to the steps and down to the ground floor.

He bolted out into the middle of the lobby and stared up at the creature above him. It was a person, but it walked like a gorilla with its back hunched over and hands dragging on the ground. Large manacles attached to its wrists trailed heavy chains behind them. It wore a raggedy blue shirt and filthy brown slacks, and its long hair concealed its face.

Barry did not ask it to freeze. It was not a person, it was another creature, like the skinless dogs and the walking dead man who murdered Kenneth. It was just another monster as far as he was concerned, and he wasn't taking any chances.

He pulled the trigger just as the creature noticed he was there. The Colt roared and the creature jerked backwards, the bullet hitting it right in the chest, right where Barry intended. A dark jet of blood squirted up and stained the wall behind it, but the creature did not go down. Barry braced himself and fired again, aiming for the head this time.

The creature dodged sideways and the bullet struck the railing, splintering the wood. It grabbed the railing in dirty hands and vaulted right over it, leaping off the ledge and sailing right over Barry's head. He ran forward and spun around, firing once more.

The creature took the shot right in the chest and flailed backwards, arms swinging wildly, the chains whipping around violently. It cried out an ear-piercing shriek that sounded almost human, like a woman screaming in agony. Barry winced at the sound and pulled the trigger again, aiming for its head. The creature flew at him, swinging each chain like a mace. Barry jumped to his right as the creature leaped past him, and he ran up the stairs as it regained its footing and came after him again.

For just a moment, its filthy hair waved away and Barry saw its face. He hesitated for only a second and fired once more, the bullet striking the creature right in the side of the head. It shrieked and fell sideways, breaking through the end of the railing at the foot of the stairs, its arm splintering the heavy wood like an axe.

Barry knew his gun like it was an extension of his own body, and he didn't need to pull the trigger once more to know out that he was out of bullets. He ran the rest of the way up the stairs and went to the door on the left side of the lobby on the second floor as the creature howled in anger and ran after him.

He went through the door and slammed it closed. He was above the dining room, on the inner balcony on the second floor. He ran down the right side of the balcony, spying a door down at the other end. He barely made it five steps before the door behind him crashed inward and the creature broke through. The door came right off its hinges and spun over the railing, crashing down to the dining room below.

Barry turned around and instead of running away, he rushed straight at the creature. Swinging his arms up, he landed a powerful haymaker right across the side of its face, stunning it momentarily. It swung its arm down and Barry ducked as the chain whipped over his head and broke the railing to his right. He kicked hard right into the monster's stomach and hit it with an uppercut. Its head snapped back and it grumbled something that might have been a word.

It fumbled for him, grabbing at his face, but he pulled his arm back and punched it right between the eyes as hard as he could without breaking his hand. The creature moaned in pain, staggering back, and he grabbed a tuft of hair in each hand and yanked. The creature screamed and lunged for him again.

Barry shouldered the creature past him and knocked it right over the railing. It flipped in the air once and crashed on top of the dining table below, landing right on its back. The table broke like a twig underfoot and the end tilted up like a teeter-totter, launching silverware and dishes into the air like a catapult. The creature moaned sadly, tangling itself in the linen tablecloth.

Barry did not wait for it to get up. He ran along the balcony to the door and went through, closing it after him. It led into another hallway branching straight ahead and to his left where it ended in a downward staircase. Barry took out his gun and reloaded it as he walked.

Hopefully, the creature wouldn't come after him. Maybe hurting it would scare it off, or maybe it wasn't intelligent enough to figure out how to follow him. But Barry knew not to expect anything that convenient. It was probably rushing back up the stairs right now to chase him down. It took four bullets from his Colt and barely slowed down. Maybe if he could get a clean head shot, but he doubted he'd be that lucky.

So he kept moving. Get ahead of it and stay ahead of it. Barry hated himself for it, but Jill would have to make it on her own for now. Maybe he could find a way around to the other side of the mansion and get back to her, but he doubted that too. The place was built like a maze. He prayed that Jill was still alive and was somewhere safe. He couldn't risk coming after her.

As he headed down the hallway, he allowed himself to think of the creature's face. He only glimpsed it, but he could not imagine what kind of sick experiment could create a beast like that with the face of a pretty young woman.
Chapter 11

Lisa got to her feet and shrugged away the white tablecloth draped over her shoulder. Her back hurt from her fall and her head hurt immensely from the loud weapon the man used against her. He hurt her a few times with it and she didn't even know why. She didn't do anything to hurt him, but why did he hurt her? She only wanted to be friends. Once he hurt her, she wanted to hurt him back, but even now that desire was fading. Maybe she could follow him and make him her friend.

But her head hurt too much. She didn't want to be friends with that man. Her hands were wet with blood but it didn't bother her. She saw blood all the time when she took her friends' faces, but this time the blood was hers.

She tore away part of her shirt and wiped her chest where the man hurt her. There was blood, but nothing else. She wasn't wounded, even though she faintly thought that she should have been. The pain was fading rapidly already. The man's loud weapon didn't hurt her too badly. Even her head was beginning to feel better.

She headed to the back of the room and went through a door to a little hallway, forgetting about the man for the moment, intent on exploring the rest of this place. On the ground near the door were two people, but they were not alive. They were dead, and could not be her friends, so she left their faces. She would just have to find someone else to be her friend.
Chapter 12

Wesker watched the monitors in growing despair as Lisa showed up suddenly and attacked Barry in the lobby. He never intended for Lisa to get that far. He expected her to roam the lab hallways, but he never thought she was smart enough to get up to the surface. The only reason he let her loose in the first place was because he felt sorry for her, as strange as it sounded. And now she was about to kill off the member of Alpha that Wesker pinned all his hopes on. Things were just not going well tonight.

But Barry miraculously fought her off and escaped. Wesker collapsed into a chair and let out a big sigh of relief. If Barry was able to survive an encounter with Lisa, he could certainly make it through the rest of the mansion. The hunters might give him some trouble, but they were pretty weak in comparison to Lisa. If Barry shot them in the head at close range, it would definitely kill them, where it barely even slowed Lisa down.

Jill was missing, maybe dead already. Wesker lost her when she ran into a room with no surveillance camera. She bolted as soon as the dogs showed up, which didn't really surprise him. Jill was performing to expectations as well.

And then the real shocker. Wesker almost fell out of the chair when the security system detected gunshots on the second floor and showed him one of the upstairs hallways. Chris was alive, although Wesker couldn't even fathom how that was possible. He might have killed the first dog that attacked him, but how did he get away from the others and make it to the second floor? There was a small balcony adjoining the northwest lounge with the fenced-off maintenance area directly underneath, so Chris might have climbed the fence to get to the balcony, but that was a stretch. Wesker resisted the urge to clap out loud and applaud Chris's ability to stay alive.

That made things a little more interesting. Barry and Chris were alive and separated. Jill was probably still alive, but Wesker didn't see her doing much. That made three members of the team still alive. Not to mention Enrico, and even Rebecca if she was still wandering around. There were still plenty of people around to fight off the various monsters lurking the mansion grounds.

This evening might not be a total waste after all.
Chapter 13

Chris's first order of business was to find Barry, Jill, and Wesker. They must think he was dead already, and he couldn't blame them for that. But if they thought he was dead, they might leave the mansion or have Brad come pick them up before Chris could get to them. That is, of course, if they could get Brad to land the helicopter at all.

But they came here for a reason – to find Bravo team – and Chris was not going to abandon their mission just yet. They came to rescue Bravo and any other civilians they could find. The others would not call Brad until they searched this mansion and found out what was going on. And so Chris was not in a hurry to find them just yet. Knowing Barry and Wesker, they would split up to cover the most ground. For now, Chris decided he might as well just keep investigating and he would find the others eventually.

He left Ozwell Spencer's office and went back into the hallway. He already checked out the right end of the hallway, so he walked back past the room with the dead zombie and went to the left end. On his right were two doors leading to restrooms, according to the little icons of a man and woman on them. He tried the only door on his left and found it locked.

The door at the end of the hall was not locked, however. Chris turned the knob and pushed the door open, backing away with his gun drawn, but there was no one on the other side. The door led to another hallway, brightly lit by fluorescent bulbs, with a hardwood floor and simple white wallpaper on the blank walls. The hallway he was in now, by contrast, was carpeted, dimly lit by lamps instead of overhead lights, and the walls were maroon and covered in paintings. Chris could not help but wonder about the interior decoration choices.

He went through the doorway and looked to the left and right. This hallway, like the other one, was in the shape of a squared-off U, only much longer. What crazy architect designed a mansion like this?

At the end of the hall to his right, he saw a glass door at the corner where the hallway turned left. He walked toward it, not liking the way his boots stepped loudly on the hardwood floor, and saw that it appeared to lead to another balcony outside that overlooked the rear yard of the mansion. When the hallway turned to the left, Chris saw that it was a staircase heading down to the first floor. He decided against it for the moment, wanting to explore the rest of the second floor before going downstairs to find the others.

He opened the glass door and looked expectantly up into the night sky. No sign of a helicopter. He should have at least heard it flying above if Brad was anywhere near the mansion. That meant Brad either landed the chopper, which was highly unlikely given Brad's record, or he completely left the area. Chris had a nagging feeling it was the latter.

The balcony stretched off to his right to an area with some patio tables and chairs with large umbrellas above them. Perfect for spending a leisurely lunch break during the summer, Chris thought. Down below he saw a gravel path heading into the back yard, which stretched off as far as he could see. Down the center of it was a wide cement courtyard with large potted plants and a small fountain. It reminded Chris of images of lavish courtyards during the middle ages, where kings and queens and lords and ladies mingled and danced while the royal court gathered. This whole mansion was like an artifact from another era.

To his left along the balcony was a small corner with a single table and two chairs. One of the chairs contained a body. Chris let the door close and raised his gun immediately, not expecting any corpse to stay that way after his experience earlier. The body was draped in shadow from the corner of the building and Chris eased forward to see it more clearly in the dim moonlight.

The body was dressed in dark cargo pants and what appeared to be a padded yellow vest. From its belt hung a holster and a walkie-talkie. A Glock was on the cement ground beside the chair. And on the front of the vest was a shining metal badge.

Chris's hands trembled and the gun lowered on its own.

"Jesus," he whispered. "Forest ..."

At the sound of his voice, the body of Forest Speyer jerked up like an animated robot. It staggered up out of the chair and took a shaky step forward, emerging from the shadows. Chris felt his stomach churn and bile rise in the back of his throat. Forest's face was almost completely gone, ripped or chewed away by something Chris couldn't even guess. All that was left was a bloody, eyeless skull.

Chris stepped backward, his throat tightening so that he could barely breath. He tried to speak and found his voice was gone. Forest had been a member of S.T.A.R.S. far longer than Chris, and he was one of the members who helped train Chris when he first joined. Chris worked with him during his short time as a member of Bravo, and he went bar hopping with Forest and Kenneth Sullivan dozens of times. He knew Forest's his wife and son. Forest wasn't just a fellow police officer, he was a friend.

He was dead. Whatever happened at this mansion, whatever fate befell Bravo, Forest was now another victim. Like the man in the rec room, something infected him and brought him back from death. The body staggered forward like a poorly controlled marionette, mouth open, empty eye sockets facing nothing, arms outstretched in a desperate reach for the source of the sounds.

He was less than three feet away when Chris squeezed the trigger, putting a bullet right in the center of Forest's head. The zombie groaned and fell over backward.

Chris stumbled to the railing and leaned over it, closing his eyes tight as his dinner came back up. He vomited twice over the railing and then dry heaved so forcefully his legs went weak and he slipped to the ground next to Forest's body.

It took him several minutes to regain his composure. He put his gun back in its holster and got to his feet, spitting a few times to get the foul taste out of his mouth. He ran a hand through his hair and stared out into the darkness, taking a few deep breaths in meditation again.

He reached down and pulled Forest's walkie-talkie off the belt clip. "This is Chris, can anyone hear me?" he asked. "Is anyone there? This is Chris Redfield of S.T.A.R.S. Alpha. Come in, over."

He pressed the button again and shook the walkie-talkie. The red receiver light would not come on. The walkie-talkie was dead. Just like Forest. Chris tossed it over the railing.

He knelt down and fished Forest's wallet out of his back pocket, and unpinned his badge from the vest. Putting them both in his own pants pocket, he walked over and retrieved Forest's gun off the ground. He tucked it in the back of his belt and walked back to the glass door.

There was nothing else he could really do. When he found the others, he would tell them, but until then he planned to keep it from his mind. He took some more deep breaths and went back inside, leaving Forest's body where it fell.

He walked past the stairs and went back down the hallway. There was a door on his left, but it was locked. Chris considered that for a moment, and decided that he really didn't care about making noise or being careful. He wanted to break something, he wanted to find something to take his anger out on. And this door was it.

He raised his gun and fired twice, blowing the doorknob clean off. The door broke open when he kicked it. Inside was a small anteroom that came into view when he turned the lights on. Built into the wall was a honeycomb of slots and spaces filled with folders and assorted papers, like an office mail room with slots for each staff member. A table beside it was also covered in papers. There was another door in the room which led back to the U-shaped hallway Chris started in.

Chris ran his hand along the stacks of print outs and folders and pushed them to the ground in an avalanche of paper. He didn't have the time or the interest to try to read through them. He was looking for some kind of useful evidence to use against Umbrella to prove what must have happened here, but he didn't even know what to look for.

He saw Forest's eyeless skull coming for him every time he closed his eyes. The man in the rec room was bad, but seeing a friend of his become a creature like that was a thousand times worse. Forest was alive and healthy just the day before. Now, all Chris could think of was the dead body shambling toward the sound of his voice, something terrible and inhuman.

He left the room and headed to the end opposite the stairs. There was another locked door on the right, which Chris ignored, but the door at the end of the hall opened easily.

Chris went through and found himself overlooking a huge, sparkling lobby complete with an enormous chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a red-carpeted staircase leading up to the second floor's inner balcony. The sight stunned him for a moment, even though he should have expected a mansion like this to have an elegantly decorated lobby.

He looked around and noticed that the bottom of the stairway bannister was shattered on one side. And looking more closely, he saw what appeared to be splattered blood here and there on the shining marble floor.

He was about to take a closer look when he heard something back the way he came. A loud, muffled thump or boom. It might have been anything, but Chris spent most of his adult life around guns and he knew a shotgun when he heard one.
Chapter 14

After a time, Jill managed to get to her feet. Strands of hair slipped into her eyes and she wiped them back with surprisingly steady hands. She believed she could still feel the touch of the dead man as it pressed against her, straining to bite her.

He was a zombie, she thought. They weren't just dead men, they were undead men. A science-fiction horror come to life.

Some blood, not hers, was smeared on her arms and chest. She stared at it, not noticing it before now. In the back of her mind, she wondered if she could become infected with the same disease that turned those men into walking corpses, but the thoughts stayed in her subconscious. If she thought too much about them and allowed them to occupy the forefront of her mind, she might lose all control completely.

She stepped over to the bathroom sink and mechanically washed her hands and exposed arms, unable to do anything about the blood on her clothing. Then she picked her gun up off the floor and looked at it before sliding it into its holster.

Almost reluctantly, she looked in the mirror above the sink. The woman who looked back at her was unfamiliar. She had a haunted, terrified look in her eyes, an almost imperceptible tremor in her stance, ready to flinch at the slightest sound. There were bloody streaks across the front of her blue shirt. She didn't look like a real police officer, she looked like a coward at a costume party.

She could stay in the bathroom, she thought. It was safe there, or as safe as she could expect to be anywhere in this death trap of a mansion. Maybe she could just stay there a little while in the hopes she might hear someone looking for her. If she just stayed put, maybe she'd remain safe.

Just like Kenneth. He cornered himself in that small room for hours, probably, until he heard Jill and Barry in the dining room. And then a zombie got him anyway.

She could still see the zombie, reaching for her, clawing at her, its teeth snapping shut inches from her throat. Its dead eyes gazing hungrily at her. If she didn't face that horrifying image and conquer it, she would never be able to leave this room. Barry was gone now, separated from her, maybe dead. Jill wondered if she should go back and try to find him.

If Barry could come after her, he would. Of course, he wouldn't know which door she went through. Maybe he came looking for her but went to the door at the end of the hall instead of the one to the right. Maybe Barry ran all the way back to the dining room to escape the dog. Maybe he went upstairs. Maybe he thought Jill was dead and went on without her. Maybe he found something else, something even worse than the zombies or the dogs.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Jill swallowed hard and forced herself to believe that he was still alive but just could not come after her. She needed to believe that.

Staying in the bathroom was not an option. She wasn't going to cower in fear all night while Barry and Wesker were gone, maybe fighting for their lives. Some of the members of Bravo might still be alive as well. She took a deep breath, drew her gun once more, and went out into the hall. Her hands only shook a little bit.

The door leading back to the zombies was across the hall to her left, and there was another door directly across the hall from her. To her right was the door to the mens' room. A heavy metal door at the end of the hall was slightly ajar, which bothered her. To her left, the hallway branched to the left out of sight farther down, with one door on the right near the corner. Too many choices. Where should she go first?

She tried the door right across from her. It led to another hallway going straight ahead, with two more doors on the right side and another on the left. There must be a million rooms in this place with all the doors. She tried to keep track of where she was. She might need a map to get back out.

She touched the door on the left and flinched when something scratched the door from the other side. She heard more scratching and a wet, gurgling growl. She realized that the hallway went in a circle. This door led back to the hallway where the dogs attacked her and Barry. She wouldn't be going in there, then.

She looked down the hall and froze when she saw a foot sticking out from around the corner. A human foot, wearing a black boot.

It wasn't moving, but that didn't mean anything anymore. Jill swallowed her fear and crept down the hallway, gun drawn, slowly approaching the body sitting in the corner. She saw that the hallway ended here and turned around to a staircase heading up to the second floor. She glanced up at the stairs and then back down at the body as she came past the corner.

It was Edward Dewey, the helicopter pilot for Bravo. He was slumped over, asleep or unconscious, his chin resting on his chest. His right leg below the knee was wounded somehow, his pants soaked with blood from his knee to the top of his boot. Blood was pooled on the floor. His shotgun was laying on the floor beside him.

"Edward!" Jill blurted, trying to whisper but almost screaming anyway. She stuck her pistol into its holster and knelt beside him, touching his shoulder hesitantly. His head lolled back and he gazed up at her with glassy, half-open eyes. His face was covered in a thin layer of sweat. He breathed heavily for a second and then smiled weakly, blinking in a comically slow way.

"Sarah?" he mumbled. "Where are we?"

Sarah was Edward's wife, Jill remembered. She met Sarah once at a Christmas party, but Sarah looked nothing like her. How could Edward confuse them? What was wrong with him?

"Edward," Jill said, trying to keep her voice steady this time. "It's Jill. Jill Valentine. From Alpha team."

Ed's smile faded and he tilted his head forward, as if to get a closer look at her. Sweat dripped from his eyebrows and chin, and his collar was soaked with it. She touched his forehead and it felt incredibly hot.

"Jill, you shouldn't be here," he said slowly.

"We came to find you," Jill said. "To find Bravo. Ed, what happened to the rest of the team? How did you get injured?" There were so many questions she wanted to ask that she couldn't even think of them all. Edward was sick, some kind of infection probably, and was burning up with a fever. He needed medical attention and he needed it fast.

"They brought them back from the dead," he said.

"Yes," Jill said, an image of zombies reaching for her flashing in her mind. She shook it away. "But where are the others? Where are Enrico and Kenneth and the rest?"

"Don't know. I came here with Ken. Don't know where he went."

"You're hurt, Ed. We need to get you out of here." But how exactly was she going to get him out of there if he couldn't walk? The only way she knew to get back to the lobby meant going through more zombies or dogs, and she couldn't do either if she had to carry Ed the whole way. And besides, how could she get Brad to even land the helicopter if he wouldn't answer the radio?

"Can't get out," Ed said, pointing feebly at his bloody leg. "The snake in there bit me."

"A snake?" Jill asked, suddenly feeling even more scared. Snake bites, to her knowledge, did not result in massive blood loss. She pulled out her combat knife and cut away Edward's pants leg to reveal a large puncture wound right in the meat of his calf. It looked like someone jammed an ice pick in his leg. "A snake did this to you?" she asked, her voice quavering.

"Big snake. Monster, like the others. Poisonous. I tried to kill it, but it bit me."

"Where is it now?"

Ed gestured at the room next to them. "In there. Came in through the window, I think. Maybe it left."

Jill tried to imagine what size a snake would have to be for one its fangs to inflict puncture wounds of that size. It would have to be as big around as a dinner plate, and who knows how long. A snake that large didn't exist, except for maybe pythons or boa constrictors, but they didn't bite their prey. And Jill was sure no snake like that existed in the Arklay Mountains. Edward was definitely hallucinating, but the venom was probably causing the hallucinations. Could he have imagined it? If so, what caused the wound in his leg?

"I think everyone is dead," Ed mumbled, his head drooping. "I think they killed everyone ..."

"Who killed everyone?" Jill asked, touching Ed's cheek to prop his head up.

"It's a big snake," Ed whispered, and he lapsed into silence. His chest rose and lowered with each rasping breath he took, but Jill doubted he would say anything else. She was amazed he remained lucid this long. The wound on his leg was scabbed over and surrounded in dry blood. The snake probably bit him hours ago.

Jill picked up the shotgun and stood. Could he really have been bitten by an enormous snake? On any other day, Jill would have chalked it up to hallucinations caused by the fever, but after seeing mutated dogs and the living dead already this evening, she was ready to accept anything. And on any other day, she might not have cared, because her primary concern would be getting him to safety and to medical attention. But in this mansion, nowhere was safe, and there was no ambulance coming to get him.

Jill knew some first aid, but she didn't know how to treat snake bites. Working on his leg served no purpose, since it stopped bleeding long ago. Whatever damage the snake venom did, it was too late to fix now. Maybe if she found a first aid kit she could get something to lower his fever, but she didn't know if it might react with the snake venom. There was simply nothing she could do for him.

She went to the door and turned the knob with one hand, holding the shotgun firmly against her shoulder with the other, her finger on the trigger. She cast a nervous glance at Ed, wondering if she was doing the right thing. The door squeaked gently as she pushed it open. She half-expected something to come out and attack her, but nothing happened.

Two small lamps in opposite corners provided the only light, spreading dark shadows in every direction. The room appeared to be some sort of storage room, with built-in shelves on the left wall holding dozens of cardboard boxes and other things like coiled garden hose and metal gasoline cans. At least half a dozen large wooden crates took up space haphazardly on the floor, some with their lids pried off, but they all seemed to contain metal objects packed in sawdust. Two windows were on the back wall, and sure enough, one of them was broken. There was also an open door in the back right corner, presumably leading to another storage room.

Jill's breath seemed to catch in her throat as she scanned the room. The room was too large for her taste, with too many places for a snake, even a large one, to stay hidden. She closed the door behind her to make sure nothing snuck out, effectively trapping herself alone with it.

She stepped around some burlap bags dumped on the floor and looked around some of the crates. She wished there was an overhead light so she could see better, because the lamps practically made things worse. The shotgun felt heavy in her hands, as if it was made of solid concrete.

And then she heard it. A low, shuffling sound came from across the room, making the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. She gripped the gun tighter, taking another step to her right, trying to get a look at whatever was there. More boxes stacked up near the wall made it hard to see anything, but she caught a glimpse of movement between some boxes. She backed up almost involuntarily, the shotgun's stock pressed tight into her shoulder, heart pounding intensely.

The slithering noises seemed to come from every direction. Jill saw a greenish-gold blur move behind a crate back to her left and her finger pulled back. The boom almost deafened her and the bright muzzle flash brightened the room for a split-second, but she held her ground as the powerful recoil slammed into her shoulder. One of the cardboard boxes stacked against the wall blew apart like a party favor and something flashed toward the back of the room. Jill barely reacted in time to pump the shotgun, racking a new shell into the chamber, before the snake slithered between two crates straight ahead and came right at her.

She shrieked loudly and pulled the trigger again. The snake's body was as big around as a bike tire and probably thirty feet long. The shotgun missed, but some of the shot must have hit the snake, because it hissed like a ruptured air hose and slithered frantically to the door in the back corner. Jill racked another shell in, the spent cartridge flipping up over her shoulder with a trail of smoke behind it. The snake's tail whipped back and forth, smashing one of the crates open. She fired again, hitting its tail and taking a chunk of scaled flesh off. It thrashed madly as it slithered into the adjacent room, splattering blood across the wall.

Jill circumnavigated the room until the door was directly across the room from her. She walked forward until she was halfway to the door when the snake rushed out at her. Its head lifted off the floor until it was over her own head, and its mouth opened wide, fangs pointing down like two enormous steak knives.

Jill pulled the trigger once more and the snake's head disintegrated. The body lurched forward and crashed to the floor like a downed tree, a sickening gush of blood erupting from the neck.

Jill did not waste any more time. She staggered over the body, a wave of vomit rising in her throat, and ran back through the door to the hallway. She slammed it after her and tossed the shotgun to the ground. She thought her encounter with the zombies was bad, but that was nothing. She pressed her hands against her sides to keep them still.

Ed was slumped over on his side. Jill went over to him and froze. Ed's eyes were wide open, staring at the wall, and his chest was not moving.

"Ed! Oh, Jesus!" she cried, kneeling beside him. She got him onto his back and prepared to give him CPR, but after a moment, she just placed her hands on his chest and lowered her head in defeat. What was the use? The snake's venom killed him, and no amount of CPR or mouth-to-mouth would bring him back now. He stayed alive just long enough to talk to her.

She didn't know how long she sat there. No longer than a few seconds, probably, but it felt like hours. She got to her feet and pushed her hair out of her face, looking sadly at Edward's body. There was nothing she could do for him, she told herself again, but she still hated herself for it. Edward would remain there until they came back for him. Just like Kenneth. And Joseph and Chris. Four members of S.T.A.R.S. dead, and maybe more. Jill wondered about the rest of them, about Enrico and Richard, and the young girl Rebecca. Would they find the rest of them dead as well?

Feeling terrible about it, she rummaged in Edward's cargo pants pockets for more shells for the shotgun and refilled it, putting the extra shells in her own pocket.

She did not want to go up the stairs, she was sure of that. So instead, she walked back the way she came, back through the door at the end of the hall to the adjacent hallway where the bathroom was. Facing the bathroom, the door immediately to her right led back to the small library where the zombies were. Down the hall to her right, the hallway turned a corner, and something made her uncomfortable about going that way. To her left was the metal door, which remained ajar. Some light shone through from the other side.

Jill went to the door and debated whether or not to hold the shotgun. If she encountered another zombie, she did not want to waste shells that she might need later on, if she ran into another enormous snake. She slung the shotgun over her shoulder and drew her Glock instead.

She nudged the door open with her boot and braced herself for anything that might come at her. The room was lit by a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, and Jill caught an unpleasant whiff of gasoline and mildew. The room looked like some kind of gardener's supply shed, with bags of mulch and fertilizer on the dirty floor, along with cans of gasoline and a weed-whacker hanging from a hook on the wall. Another door was right across the room.

And laying in the middle of the floor was a dead body, wearing what appeared to be a white lab coat. Jill swallowed hard and tiptoed forward, aiming her gun at the body until she noticed that it was no longer a threat. The back of its head was missing, and the splatter of gore on the far wall told her what must have happened. Someone shot it in the head.

Beside the body was a pistol just like Jill's, but it was empty. She picked it up, but it could have been anyone's. Maybe even Edward's, but she doubted that, since he carried the shotgun. Jill already carried two pistols herself, so she left it on the floor.

She cautiously opened the next door and was stunned to find that it led outside. She almost tripped over the dead body in her haste to get through the door, fumbling with her walkie-talkie as she ran into the moonlight. There was no one outside that she could see, and she was too excited about finding her way out to look very hard.

Calling Brad proved fruitless, as she feared. He didn't answer her any more than he answered Wesker back in the lobby. Dejected, she stuck her walkie-talkie back onto her belt and looked around the huge back yard. She saw a wide cement courtyard with woods on either side, outlined in pale blue.

Where should she go? She didn't want to go back into the mansion, but being outside made her nervous. She expected to hear dogs coming at her any moment. Outside or inside, it really made no difference. There were dangers either way.

She heard something from the mansion, a muffled thump, and decided to go back inside to investigate when she heard a cry and jerked around. Someone came running at her from the left, from another door leading out of the mansion. Jill raised her gun instinctively, even as she realized that zombies could not run, but before she could decide whether or not to fire, the person was upon her. She dove to the ground and rolled onto her back as the person jumped past her.

At least she thought it was a person. It didn't move like a zombie, and it cried out like a human. Only it moved like a gorilla, running on all fours and dragging its arms along the ground. Long dirty hair whipped around its face and it wore a filthy blue shirt and brown pants. Long, broken chains hung from its wrists.

It sailed over Jill and skidded to a halt in the damp grass as Jill got to her feet and aimed her gun unsteadily. "Don't move!" she screamed, but the person came right at her like a wild animal. She fired three times, her gunshots sounding incredibly loud in the quiet twilight, the muzzle flashes like fireworks in the pale gloom. The person, or creature, or whatever it was, jerked and staggered with the shots but did not fall down.

Jill saw its face for just a split-second, but that was more than enough. She turned and away as fast as she could, sprinting across the courtyard and running desperately for the woods. She could hear the creature coming after her, shrieking like an animal, the chains rattling terribly like the sounds of a ghost.

Jill didn't know if she screamed or not, but she dropped her gun along the way. She didn't even make it to the trees before something struck her in the back of the head and darkness descended completely.
Chapter 15

Chris left the lobby and walked back into the hall. The thick mansion walls muffled the gunshots, but they must have been close. He encountered a locked door right before the door to the lobby, and not wanting to waste bullets this time, he simply kicked it open.

The doorframe splintered and the door swung open easily, revealing a supply room of some kind with another door on the opposite wall. The floor and walls were spotlessly white, and everything was arranged meticulously. Glass shelves full of jars and bottles lined one wall, with their colored labels facing outward. Another shelf beside the door contained boxes full of blue rubber gloves and breathing masks like a doctor might wear. Dozens of white lab coats hung from a metal bar on the far wall, each with a name tag above the front pocket. And in the corner, there was a narrow elevator. Chris approached it and noticed dirt on the floor leading from the elevator, standing out when the rest of the floor was so clean. He decided not to use it, since there was only one unmarked button inside and there was no telling where it would lead.

The other door led to a similar storage room with boxes of supplies, mostly medical or scientific in nature. More lab coats and gloves, along with boxes of paper and various printed forms. A door on the left side of the room led back to the lobby, leading Chris in a circle. He went back to where he started from and headed down the hallway toward the balcony.

The only place left to go was down the stairs. He doubted he could have heard the gunshots from the first floor, considering how thick the walls seemed to be, but he looked everywhere else and he knew that the shots must have come from this general direction. Gun drawn, he carefully walked down the steps.

He was halfway down when he found Edward's body. He jumped over the railing and landed beside the body, immediately reaching down to take a pulse. Edward was still warm, but Chris didn't feel anything. He must have just died no more than a few minutes ago. Chris remembered that Ed usually carried a shotgun, but where was it now?

He heard a scream and jumped up, forgetting about Edward for the moment. Three quick gunshots, this time from a pistol, followed a few seconds later. Chris went down the hall and quickly checked the two doors on the left, but they were just more storage. He went through the door at the end of the hall and turned left straight through the metal doors at the end of the next hall. He nearly tripped over the body laying in the middle of the floor, but he paid it no mind as long as he didn't recognize it and it didn't get up and attack him. The next door led outside to the back yard.

He stopped and looked around, but no one was there. He knew the scream and gunshots must have come from out here, but now there was nothing. He wanted to shout out for anyone, but didn't know what might come after him. Confused, he lowered his head and tried to clear his thoughts. Maybe he missed something. Then he noticed the faint footsteps in the grass, outlined in dew.

Looking more closely, he saw footsteps from at least two people. One came from the same door as him, and the other from another door farther to his left. He followed them until the courtyard, where they disappeared. A Glock lay abandoned on the cement and Chris stuck it in his belt beside Forest's.

Chris looked around and followed the courtyard away from the mansion, hoping that he was going the right direction. He didn't even know who he was following. The Glock could be anyone's, except for Barry, who used a Colt Anaconda. And although the scream sounded female, Chris did not think it was Jill who made it.

The courtyard eventually split up into cement paths through the woods. Chris shook his head and debated returning to the mansion, when he saw something on the ground a few yards ahead. Another body, and like the last one, it remained dead. He examined it until he saw the stab wound in the temple, and then continued on down the path.

He found the guard house a few seconds later.
Chapter 16

Barry casually flipped open the chamber on his Colt. He dropped two empty casings on the floor beside the two dead zombies. One wore a white lab coat now smeared with blood, and the other was a young woman in a professional business suit. He tried not to think about who they were before they became infected with whatever disease created this nightmare.

Barry did not give in to fear very easily. In place of fear, he felt only anger. Anger that he and his fellow officers were lied to and anger that some of them died because of it. He kept a list of the casualties in his head.

Joseph. Kenneth. Chris.

And the three innocent people turned into monsters by whatever biological research done here. Harold Murphy was downstairs. According to their identification badges, the two bodies on the floor were Margaret Hastings and Steven Thorpe. Barry did not doubt that there were many more zombies to be found. Just more victims.

He snapped the chamber closed and pulled the hammer back. Clipped to the front of Steven Thorpe's lab coat was a security card with a magnetic strip like the one he took from Harold Murphy. Somehow, thinking of the zombies as people made him feel more comfortable.

He walked through the next door to a white hallway going to the left and right. Two doors to his left had restroom icons. Barry checked them just in case.

He headed to the right and went around a corner, finding two doors. They were locked, but each had a card reader beside the handle. Barry took out the security card and slid it through the first reader and opened the door.

Inside was a clean white lab room with assorted shelves and countertops filled with beakers and test tubes. There were a pair of refrigerators and an oven as well. Taped to the wall were half a dozen folders with numbers on them, each stuffed with papers. Barry pulled out the papers from the first folder and flipped through them. They were schedules of some kind, listing dates and times along with long identification numbers. He tossed the papers into a waste basket and ran his hand along the edge of the counter, scanning the labels on all the beakers.

He didn't know what he expected to find. Beakers containing samples of anthrax and the black plague? Cages full of failed experiments? A typed report conveniently laying around that would explain everything that happened here? What he really wanted was a name. He wanted to know who was in charge here, who allowed something like this to happen. He wanted to know who was responsible. And then he wanted to find that person before anyone else did and beat them until he was convinced that they properly regretted their involvement.

He used the security card at the next door and entered a smaller room with a one-person elevator taking up most of the space. One bookshelf against the wall was full of thick books and instruction manuals, most of them with the Umbrella logo on the cover.

Barry got into the elevator and saw that there were only two buttons, an up arrow and a down arrow. If there were any answers to be found, they would not be out in the open here in the mansion. He tapped the up button without pressing it. He didn't think the mansion was more than two stories tall, but he didn't really have time to look when they first entered. Maybe three stories, but how about basements?

Barry told Jill about the Umbrella lab in the center of town. Even though its existence was technically a secret, everyone knew or at least believed that it extended quite a distance under the streets of Raccoon City, a huge underground lab complex. Could they have the same thing here? Could Umbrella have built a gigantic scientific lab under the Arklay Mountains, out where no one would find it?

Barry decided to find out. He pressed the down button and took a deep breath as the elevator doors hissed shut. He felt his stomach shift and remembered why he disliked elevators.

The doors opened to a small white cafeteria with some vending machines and a coffee machine against the wall, and a few scattered tables with plastic chairs. On one of the tables was a newspaper several days old and a half-empty cup of coffee long gone cold. Barry held his gun in front of him as he walked out the open door and into the hallway.

The hall was thirty feet wide and at probably two hundred feet long, with bright white fluorescent lighting and white tiles on the floor, and only four doors. Two on the right, one far down on the left, and a set of open double doors at the end of the huge hall. Barry realized that the elevator must have skipped the first floor of the mansion completely and gone right underground, because this hallway was twice as long as the dining room and his sense of direction told him that the lobby would be right in the middle of it.

His boots echoed uncomfortably on the floor, announcing his presence to anyone listening. He glanced at the door to his right but there was no light on inside, so he passed it. At the end of the long hallway, he saw what appeared to be a large lab room through the open double doors. He listened intently for any sound other than his own footsteps, and stopped in his tracks when he heard something. A low moan, coming from the lab at the end of the hall.

A few heartbeats later, a zombie shambled into the doorway and looked toward Barry. Like all the others, its skin was pasty white and its mouth was hanging open. It moaned once more and took a step forward. Barry was only halfway to the end of the hall. There was plenty of time to take aim before he pulled the trigger.

But before he did, something in the lab room flew past the open doorway in a blur, and the zombie's head slipped off its shoulders and thumped to the ground, decapitated completely. Its arms fell to its sides and the zombie collapsed in a heap right in the doorway. Barry froze in place, his gun still aimed at the doorway.

Faintly, he heard a steady clicking noise, like claws on concrete. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Something was in the room with the zombie. Something with very sharp claws. Even as Barry imagined what it might be, the creature sauntered into the doorway and stared right at him.

It was about four feet tall, with slick green, reptilian skin and a small, squat head with bright yellow eyes and a wide mouth. Most of its height was torso, as its legs could not have been more than a foot and a half long. But its real feature were its arms, which were incredibly muscled and reached right to the floor like a gorilla's. Its large hands ended in long yellow claws like butcher knives.

The creature jumped into the air and sailed through the doorway as if shot from a cannon, making up half the distance between it and Barry in the blink of an eye. It was readying for the next leap when Barry pulled the trigger. The Colt boomed in the confined hallway and the creature spun over backwards, the bullet striking it right in the center of its chest. It spasmed once and sprawled on the floor, thick red blood staining the white tiles.

Barry resumed breathing and lowered his gun. He walked up to the creature and began to comprehend exactly what he was up against. Umbrella created some sort of plague that brought the dead back to life, but they did much more than that. They created actual monsters right in the lab. Barry didn't believe for a second that this beast was some kind of accidental result, some kind of unintentional side project that escaped by accident. This monster, this mutated lizard, must have been created with a purpose in mind. A very obvious purpose. They intentionally mutated and bred it, and they did so right here in this lab. He wondered if there were any more of them running around.

It didn't take long for his question to be answered. Just as he heard the telltale clicking on the floor from the creature's massive claws, the second one launched itself from the lab room and right at him. It landed right on top of its dead brother and swung its arm up, knocking Barry's Colt right out of his hand. He backed away as the creature made a second swipe at him, tearing a long gash in his red vest but somehow not penetrating the bulletproof kevlar underneath.

The creature lunged at him and Barry grabbed both its wrists in his hands, holding it at arms' length. He outweighed it by probably seventy pounds and stood two feet taller, so overpowering it was surprisingly easy. But he backed away as it pressed him forward, struggling to get loose of his grip. Its wide mouth snapped open and closed, showing off long rows of razor-sharp teeth, spraying drool as it screeched its frustration.

Barry's gun was on the floor a few feet away. He grunted in exertion and began to turn himself in a circle. The creature's legs were so short that it could not keep up with him, and soon, Barry was dragging the creature as he turned in a circle, faster and faster. Without its legs to brace itself on the floor, the creature was unable to successfully struggle in his grip, and instead simply shrieked at him frantically as he sped up until its legs left the floor completely.

The hallway was wide enough that he had plenty of room to spin it around. He had played airplane with his daughters hundreds of times when they were little, so he had lots of practice.

He let go suddenly, feeling so dizzy he could barely stand. The creature flew away from him and crashed to the floor, trying to scramble to its feet on the slippery tile. Barry lost his balance and fell to the floor as well, crawling to where his gun lay. He turned onto his back, his head still spinning so fast he could barely see straight.

The creature jumped at him as he pulled the trigger, hitting it square in the stomach. It screamed and feel to the floor a few feet short of him, a bloody stain marking the wall behind it. It staggered upright and raised its arms to stab down at him, and then he pulled the trigger once more and the top of its flat head disappeared. It fell over backward and went still.

Barry's arms dropped to his sides in relief, and he breathed heavily, trying to stop his head from spinning. He kept his eyes on the door to the lab, though, just in case there were even more of them. Thankfully, there were only the two, and a minute later, Barry felt well enough to stand.

He reloaded his gun again and looked down at the two mutated creations on the floor, wondering what other twisted genetic nightmares might be lurking down these hallways, and if he would be unlucky enough to run into them.
Chapter 17

Lisa's new friend owned a loud weapon as well, but it didn't hurt as much as the man's weapon did. Lisa decided that she simply scared the woman, and didn't blame her for using her weapon in self-defense the way she did. Lisa did not mean to scare her, but she was so surprised to see someone outside the big house that she could not help but yell and run to meet her. And then the woman ran away, but Lisa could run much faster. She only meant to grab the woman, but she hit her so hard that she stopped moving. That was okay too, because some of Lisa's other friends stopped moving when she hit them and took their faces. Lisa wanted to take her new friend's face as well, but she wanted to take her to the little hut in the forest first. Lisa's new friend would be a guest at her home and then Lisa would take her face.

She dragged the woman through the woods to her hut and pulled her inside. She was very excited about having a woman be her friend. When she was kept in the room under the ground for so long, all her friends were men. And even since she came to the surface, she only met men. They were her friends, and she always kept their faces to remind herself of them, but she knew that they were different from her. Lisa was a woman, even though she didn't know what that meant. And this new friend was a woman too, and Lisa was going to be friends with her.

The last woman that Lisa really remembered was the person she called her mother. But that was a very long time ago, so long that Lisa barely remembered her at all. She was gone, but now Lisa found a new woman to be her friend. Maybe that's what a mother was, she thought. Maybe a mother was just a female friend. Maybe this new friend could be her new mother as well.

Sometimes Lisa remembered strange things. When she found the little shack in the woods and made it her new home, she remembered that the space in the wall was for fire. She didn't know why she remembered it and why she couldn't remember other more important things, but it didn't matter. She found gasoline and she found matches, and she remembered that gasoline and matches made fire. It took her several tries to make fire, and when she finally succeeded, she caught her arm on fire by accident. It hurt at the time, but it was better now, even though the sleeve of her shirt was burned away. She remembered to put wood on the fire, and now her little shack was bright and warm.

Two other friends were in the shack, but they didn't move any more. They tried to bite Lisa, so she crushed their heads. She still took their faces, though. She propped their bodies up against the wall and let them stay.

She let her new friend rest on the floor in front of the fire and looked down at her, unsure what she should do next. She knew that her new friend was different because her eyes were closed and her chest moved up and down. Her other friends' eyes were always open and their chests didn't move, even before she crushed their heads and took their faces. Her new friend was still alive.

Lisa sat down and tried hard to remember the woman she called her mother. Her memories were like images viewed through deep water. Everything was hazy and indistinct, and Lisa didn't know if her memories really happened or if they were simply things she imagined over the years. Maybe she never really had a mother at all.

But in her mind, her mother's hair was long and brown. She was also very tall, or maybe Lisa had been smaller then. Lisa, her mother, and the other man she couldn't recall came to the big house. Lisa remembered running around in the grass and pulling flowers. She remembered giving them to her mother. She didn't remember why.

Should she get flowers for this new friend as well? Maybe she was supposed to give flowers to her mother. Lisa didn't know. She wanted to do the right thing, but didn't know what the right thing was. She wanted her mother, but she didn't know if the woman on the floor was supposed to be her mother or not. She didn't know what to do.

She felt scared. At first, the emotion confused her because it was so unfamiliar. Being scared felt very strange. But slowly, she realized that it was not the first time she was scared. A very long time ago, she felt scared as well. The memories were like smoke, visions of being separated from her mother and taken to the rooms under the ground. She remembered her mother yelling something and water dripping down her face. She remembered the other man, the one who stayed with her mother. Her father? Was that his name? She felt scared then, very scared. And then she stayed in the rooms under the ground for so long that she forgot about being scared, forgot about her mother and father. She forgot so much.

She was confused and afraid and didn't know what she should do. And so she walked out of the hut to look for some flowers. Maybe her new friend would like them.
Chapter 18

Jill heard the crackling of a fire nearby and opened her eyes. Attempting to roll over, she winced at the pounding in her head and coughed weakly. Where in the world was she? And then she remembered what happened.

She sat up too quickly, the pain in her head threatening to split it in two, and saw two zombies sitting not five feet from her. She scrambled backwards, frantically reaching for her gun, but it wasn't in her holster. She must have dropped it when she was knocked out.

She tore her other Glock from the shoulder holster, but the zombies remained motionless, not moving an inch. They were both dead, truly dead this time. And in the flickering fire light, she saw what she failed to notice at first.

Their faces were gone. Something had ripped them off. All that was left was a bloody skull. Jill felt her stomach lurch, but she had not thrown up yet tonight, even with everything that happened so far, and she was not about to start now. They weren't zombies, they were just dead bodies now, and dead bodies were nothing to be afraid of.

Shakily, she got to her feet and examined her surroundings. It was a cramped little room with wooden walls, a dirty throw rug on the floor, and a warm fire burning in the fireplace. Behind her was a small kitchen table and two rickety chairs. There were two windows that looked out into trees, and two doors. The place reminded her of the hunting camp her family owned up in the mountains.

She didn't understand how she was even still alive. She touched her head and realized her beret was missing too, probably lost out there somewhere. Her walkie-talkie was gone too, as well as the shotgun, she realized with dismay. They must have fallen off when she was brought to the cabin.

The last thing she remembered was being chased by the person, or creature, with the chains on its wrists. If the creature caught her, why didn't it just kill her? Why would it bring her to this little house and then leave her here?

She didn't want to stay and find out. Maybe she was destined to join the two zombies there and get her face peeled off. She went to the first door and tried the rusty doorknob. It wasn't even closed all the way, and it swung open instantly.

Jill stepped onto the small front porch and looked out into the forest surrounding her. She didn't see any kind of path nearby and the thought of being lost in the middle of the woods terrified her. How could she find the others, and how could they find her? Gun still in hand, she stepped off the porch and her boots crunched lightly on the gravel spread around the front door.

She looked up and suddenly saw the creature standing no more than twenty yards away, at the edge of the tree line. Jill flinched and swung her gun up, but the creature didn't move. Her heart pounded in her chest and her breath came quickly as she stood there, gun drawn. The creature made no move to attack. It just stood there like a statue.

Jill got a better look at it. She saw now that it was definitely a human being, not some other kind of creature. A woman, actually, even though it was hard to tell. Her hair, perhaps blonde once, hung down almost to her waist in dirty strands that concealed her face. She wore a ragged blue shirt with one sleeve missing, and a filthy pair of brown slacks. Her feet were bare and caked with mud. She stood with a hunched back like a gorilla, and her arms, which appeared to be too long, hung almost to the ground. Broken chains dangled from her wrists, which looked rubbed raw.

And in one of her large hands was a bunch of mangled flowers. The woman shifted her stance and took a hesitant step forward.

"Don't move," Jill said quickly, although she doubted that the woman could understand her. It was easy to see that the woman had been neglected and abused, probably for years. She looked like she grew up in a cave. Jill wondered if she knew how to speak at all. But what bothered her most was the fact that the woman seemed relatively uninjured, despite the fact that Jill clearly remembered shooting her at least three times.

The woman said nothing, but lifted her arm and held up the flowers, as if showing them to Jill. Was this some kind of peace offering? Jill very slowly returned her pistol to the shoulder holster, but left it unclipped in case she needed to draw quickly. She held out her hands, hoping the woman would understand that she was now unarmed, and carefully backed up through the door. She let it swing closed in front of her.

What could she do now? She went to the other door and pushed it open, finding that it led to a narrow staircase leading down into a dark cellar. The last thing she wanted to trap herself in the basement, but she didn't like the idea of staying in the living room either. Maybe the basement was more defensible. She closed the door behind her and locked it, although she doubted that would make any difference.

She descended into the cellar, expecting to find a mildewy, rat-infested pit full of shelves of canned goods and smelling of compost. She was surprised when her feet touched a solid floor and the air smelled clean. When she turned on the light, she discovered another surprise.

The basement was about fifteen feet square, with a solid cement floor and clean white walls. Nothing was stored there. The basement's sole function seemed to be an entrance to the metal door across from the stairs. There was no door handle, only a card reader built into the wall.

Except that Jill didn't have a security card. If Barry was there, he would have one. He took one from the zombie that killed Kenneth. Jill turned around and ran back up the steps, an idea in her head. She unlocked and opened the door and stepped through.

The woman stood in the doorway. Jill froze and reached for her gun, but the woman only looked at her, as if unsure how to react. Her large blue eyes peered out from her mask of dirty hair. Jill drew her gun when the woman bent over, but she only opened her hand to drop her bouquet of crumpled flowers to the floor. She looked back up at Jill and took a few steps back. She looked for all the world like a scared little girl seeking acceptance from an uncaring parent.

Jill was completely floored. She kept her gun in hand, aiming it at the woman, but slowly moved forward until she could bend down and reach the flowers. The woman was clearly offering them as some kind of gift. Maybe by accepting them, she could earn the woman's trust. Or at least make her hesitate before attacking again.

She picked up a crushed dandelion and looked back at the woman, who didn't seem to react. She stood up and paused a moment, thinking maybe some kind of exchange was in order. She didn't have anything that she wanted to give up, but she unpinned her police badge from her belt and gently set it on the floor.

Jill backed away as the woman reached forward and scooped up the badge. She held it in her large hands and shrieked joyously before turning and running out the door and into the forest. In spite of everything that Jill witnessed so far this night, she could not help but think that she had just experienced the weirdest thing in her entire life.

She dropped the dandelion and frisked the two dead zombies, finding what she was looking for with a great sigh of relief. A security card was hooked onto the second zombie's belt. Jill yanked it off and ran back down the stairs to the door. She slid the card through and the door unlocked immediately. On the other side was another staircase heading down. Jill ran down the steps two at a time, letting the door swing shut behind her, hoping to get as far away from the woman as she could.

But when the door closed behind her, it did not lock.
Chapter 19

Chris didn't know who went through guardhouse before him, but it was obvious that he wasn't the first. A dead zombie right in the front hallway, another one in the rec room along with a humongous dead spider, and two more dead zombies in rooms down the hall was more than enough evidence of another survivor running loose. It could not have been someone from Alpha, because Chris doubted they could have gotten that far ahead of him already, but he supposed that someone from Bravo could have gotten this far. Of course, it was totally plausible that one of the mansion's own security guards avoided the disease and was fighting his way out, but the path of destruction looked more like someone fighting his way in.

Forest and Edward were both dead, so it must have been one of the others. Enrico, Richard, Kenneth, or the new girl Rebecca. Chris would have been ecstatic to discover any of them walking around. To be honest, he would be happy to see another living human. He would even be happy to see Brad again.

He found the concealed elevator inside a closet in one of the back rooms, but only because the closet doors were already swung open. Chris's predecessor through the guardhouse discovered it as well, apparently. Chris pressed the call button and a few seconds later, the elevator arrived from below. He got inside and did not debate whether or not to follow his predecessor down. At this point, there was no sense in getting cold feet. He hit the button with his elbow and descended underground.

It occurred to Chris, perhaps belatedly, that he wasn't just searching for his comrades anymore. He was investigating the mystery of this place, searching for the key to understanding this whole impossible scenario. He could understand a secret mansion out in the mountains, but a hidden elevator inside a closet was getting too much to bear. It was clear that the elevator led to a place that wasn't just hidden from Raccoon City. It was designed to be secret from the very people who lived in the guard house. It was a secret location within a secret location. Not only was Umbrella keeping secrets from the citizens of Raccoon City, they were essentially keeping secrets from their very own employees. Chris began to wonder exactly what they must be keeping down there, and he wondered if he should have used the elevator after all.

The doors slid open without sound and Chris found himself in a small white room with some tables and a few gray lockers against one wall and a rack of plain white lab coats against the other. He couldn't hear any sound at all, not even the low hum of an air ventilation system.

He cautiously went out into the hallway and saw that it split in three directions. On the wall in large red letters were the words "Gamma Labs" with an arrow pointing right, "Delta Labs" with an arrow pointing forward, and "Theta Labs" with an arrow pointing left. Three labs, three choices.

Chris lowered his gun and frowned. There were three separate laboratory complexes? If that was the case, this place was much larger than Chris anticipated. He could wander around for hours and never find whoever it was he followed. How large were the labs? There might even be more than three. A depressing vision crept into his mind of twenty different lab areas spread out across five square miles and descending ten stories underground. The entire Arklay Mountain region might be tunneled out with labs like a giant ant farm.

There was no sign at all where Chris's predecessor went. He would just have to guess. He closed his eyes for a moment and chose to go forward to Delta lab. It was the logical choice. Someone trying to go through the labs wouldn't take a detour to the left or right, he would go straight ahead. Or at least Chris hoped so.

He went down the wide hallway at a brisk pace, keeping his gun drawn, listening intently to any sounds other than his own. His boots made soft bumping noises on the tile floor, but they didn't echo, and he didn't carry anything loose on his person like car keys or change in his pocket that would jingle around. For the most part, his travel was quiet.

There were lab rooms here and there, some of them with locked doors, some without doors at all, just connecting to the hallway. Chris surveyed them quickly and kept moving. He wasn't interested in studying scientific leftovers, he was looking for survivors, preferably people he knew. Most of the labs looked the same anyway. A few long tables and counters, a few computer monitors, racks of test tubes and beakers, sometimes a chemical apparatus or some examination cages.

The size and scope of the labs amazed him, though. How long did it take to build this place? It must have been in operation for years. And who built it, exactly? Chris was fairly sure that no local construction crews or building contractors ever worked out in the mountains, or else people would have found out. That meant Umbrella brought in people from outside just to do the construction. But the place was gigantic. They must have used bulldozers and backhoes and dump trucks by the dozen to haul out all the dirt excavated to make these labs. And yet, Chris doubted that anyone in Raccoon City ever realized construction was going on.

But the city council must have known. Umbrella might have been conducting secret, illegal experiments here, but even international corporations have to follow zoning and property laws. They must have obtained legal permission to build these labs, and that meant dealing with the local government to get the forms and proper authorizations. And still, no one in Raccoon City knew about this place.

Just how much of Raccoon City did Umbrella own? Did it own not only land and buildings, but people too? Was the city council on their payroll? Chris remembered the name "M. Warren" scribbled in Ozwell Spencer's appointment book, and wondered if Umbrella's influence went even beyond the city council. Was the entire city government in their pocket?

The mayor, the city council, the zoning boards, and Chris could only guess who else. The city treasurer too, because someone controlled all the money. The utilities department, because Umbrella needed electricity and water just like everyone else. The tax and employment boards, because all of Umbrella's employees, the scientists and security guards and janitors, filed local income tax.

Chris slowed down as his mind continued to make connections. If Umbrella was so thoroughly established in city government, what else did they have their hands in? Who else was on their payroll? Local hospitals, to help Umbrella test new drugs on unwitting patients? Local news media, to help Umbrella keep their illegal business secret?

The local police force?

Chris stopped dead in the hallway when the realization hit him. It felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. It all fell into place in his head like a crossword puzzle with all the answers suddenly visible.

From the very beginning, the entire mission was all wrong. The way Bravo was kept incommunicado, the fact that no one really knew that the call was about, the fact that a local police force was being dispatched to a federal installation, and most obviously, the peculiar way Chief Irons stonewalled their inquiries and washed his hands of the whole thing before sending them off without even a plan of action. Chris was amazed he didn't suspect it sooner. But how could he imagine something like that?

"Jesus," he muttered softly. "They set us up."
Chapter 20

As it turned out, Wesker forgot one very important detail when he made his plans. Since he first decided to use the S.T.A.R.S. teams as a diversion to fight off the zombies and give him time to complete his work at the lab, he thought of them only as expendable tools. His former fellow police officers were just pieces on a chess board for him to move around and sacrifice at will. But he failed to take one crucial fact into account.

The S.T.A.R.S. members were police officers, and they weren't entirely stupid. In fact, some of them were fairly good detectives when they wanted to be. Wesker never realized that one or more of them could easily figure out his involvement if they were even marginally observant.

He played back a recording from a security camera the day before. It was from the control room of the aquatic lab in Delta labs, and it showed Enrico flipping through stacks of reports. At first, Wesker thought nothing of it, until he realized that his name was probably on every single report Enrico looked at. And the fact that Enrico seemed to stare intently at the papers was pretty convincing evidence that he recognized those signatures.

Wesker was the head researcher and supervisor at the lab after all, and he personally signed off on every single project and experiment done there. And since even he was not paranoid enough to think of doing otherwise, he simply used the exact same signature on those reports as he did on the police reports back at the RCPD.

So that meant there were probably hundreds of thousands of papers lying around the labs with his signature on them. If anyone paid attention to the name at the bottom, that would effectively spoil Wesker's surprise. That wasn't even all of it. Company group photos hung on the walls of many of the conference rooms in the mansion and elsewhere, and most of them featured Wesker right in the front row. In some of his secondary offices, there was a nameplate right on his desk.

Enrico surely knew the truth by now. Wesker scanned some security video of Barry and the others and wasn't sure how much they knew. Barry passed through some labs awhile ago and searched some paperwork, but he didn't act as if he saw something important. Chris visited Spencer's office earlier, but Wesker didn't think anything in there had his name on it. Jill was in Delta labs now, having entered by way of the cabin in the woods. How she made it out there was anyone's guess, but Wesker was confident that nothing in the cabin implicated him. Jill probably had no idea he was involved. If anyone else from Bravo was still alive, Wesker could not speculate what they might have discovered.

What if someone from Alpha found Enrico and he told them what he knew? Wesker's plans for the evening were already ruined by Brad's cowardice, but that would annihilate any possible chance of success. If they found out Wesker was involved, his final plans would be for nothing.

Everything was going wrong now. Enrico probably knew the truth, and if he didn't tell someone from Alpha, they might figure it out on their own anyway. Brad was still airborne in the helicopter when he was supposed to be dead in the mansion. And there were too many people still unaccounted for, such as Rebecca and Richard. Wesker preferred to think they were already dead, but without verification, he took the chance that they might actually make it out of the Arklay Mountains alive.

That was the real fear. If anyone learned of Wesker's involvement and made it out alive, then he was done for. He naturally assumed that he could get away while everyone else was killed, and there would be no witnesses left to contradict the belief that no one survived the outbreak. Wesker would be assumed dead, even if no body was ever recovered. But if anyone survived the massacre, and they knew Wesker arranged the whole thing, then they would have to assume he made it out alive. His continued survival afterward depended on people thinking he was dead.

Wesker considered just getting out now while he still had the chance, taking anything he could grab and to hell with all his plans. But that would solve nothing. In fact, it would probably guarantee his eventual failure. He needed to stay and finish it, despite the risks.

He needed one of two things to happen. The preferred outcome was for every member of S.T.A.R.S. to die in the labs. But if they escaped and returned to Raccoon City, they absolutely must believe that Wesker was dead. Either they die, or they live to report Wesker's death.

Actually, the more he thought about it, maybe the second option was even better than the first. If someone made it out who could positively say that they saw Wesker dead, that would be perfect. Even if they told the world that Wesker was behind the whole outbreak, it wouldn't matter by that point. The world would believe he was dead. If no one made it out alive, the world could only assume that he was dead, but at this point, Wesker did not want to trust an assumption.

Enrico would have to die before he told anyone what he knew. And Barry's forced assistance would be necessary now, to make sure at least someone made it to the final lab. As soon as it all fell apart, everything seemed to slide back into place as Wesker's new plan formed in his mind.

He let his thoughts wander back to the lab where the Tyrant was waiting for the S.T.A.R.S. members. There was a case of test tubes there, some of the last to be packed away, that contained Wesker's most private experiment. If worse came to worst, that little test tube might come in handy. But could he risk it? They never tested it on a human subject.

But if it came to that, did he really have a choice?
Chapter 21

No one ever accused Barry Burton of being unprepared, but as he navigated the labyrinthine hallways of the underground scientific labs, he wondered if he brought enough bullets. He came to the mansion carrying two full reloads and ten extra bullets, in addition to the bullets already loaded in his gun. That made twenty-eight bullets, plenty for any normal police situation. Gunfights and shoot-outs rarely lasted as long as they did in the movies. And usually in those situations, there were ways to get more bullets if he needed them.

But he was down to half of his available bullets. Including the zombie he just killed in the last room, he used fourteen shots so far. Fourteen bullets remained. Six in the chamber, one full reload, and two extras. And no way for him to get any more.

How many more zombies would he to find? He felt confident that he could kill them all with one shot to the head, but he did not think he was even close to making his way through all of the labs. What if he encountered more than fourteen zombies before he got out? And even more worrisome, what if he ran into something that required more than a few shots to kill? What if he ran into that woman from the mansion lobby again?

He made his way down another identical hallway. He wondered how the people who worked here ever made their way around without getting lost. What he really needed was a map of the place.

Suddenly, he heard a slamming noise and a gunshot. He ran off in the direction of the noise, turned a corner, and saw an open door leading to another lab. From inside, he heard someone ruffling around papers.

He drew his gun instinctively, but wondered who could possibly be in that room that he would need to shoot. It must be another member S.T.A.R.S. He supposed it might be a living security guard who worked here, but Barry didn't think anyone who worked here was still alive.

He moved into the doorway and aimed his gun.

And found Wesker standing there, aiming his gun back at Barry. He lowered it immediately and took a deep breath. In his other hand were some sheets of paper from one of the lab tables, papers he'd apparently been sorting through when Barry entered. "Barry ... Jesus, I thought you were another zombie ..."

"Where the hell have you been?" Barry shouted, coming into the room. There was a dead zombie lying against the wall, the reason for Wesker's gunshot a few moments ago. "I thought we were going to meet in the lobby in ten minutes? What happened to you?"

Wesker slid his pistol back into the holster at his hip with an exasperated sigh. "Did you go into the same room I went into?"

"Yes, when you never showed up. You weren't there."

"When I went inside, one of the bookcases was pulled away from the wall. There was some kind of hidden staircase behind it. I went inside and the bookcase closed after me, and then I couldn't get the stupid thing to open back up."

"Why didn't you wait for us?"

"I was going to, but then I heard some strange noises down the stairs. I investigated and ... and I ran into some ..." Wesker motioned feebly toward the dead zombie. "I must have gotten turned around or something. I decided to just keep going and maybe find another way to get back to you and ..." He paused then, as if just realizing something. "Wait, where's Jill at?" he asked, stunning Barry by the genuine concern in his voice.

"We got separated," Barry said. "We had troubles of our own."

Wesker leaned his back against the lab table and took another deep breath. He glanced at the papers in his hand and then angrily threw them into the air. They scattered and floated to the floor like feathers. Wesker turned around and put his elbows on the table, leaning forward to put his head in his hands.

"Have you seen anyone else? Anyone from Bravo?"

Barry hesitated for a moment, and then said, "Yes. I found Kenneth." He left it at that, letting Wesker decide if he wanted more information or not.

"I think they're all dead," Wesker said abruptly, staring at the wall. "And I think we're next. I don't think we're going to get out of here alive, Barry."

Barry was stunned speechless. Never in the entire time he worked with Wesker did he hear him say something so negative. Wesker was not exactly an optimist, he was always a realist. But he never betrayed his fears or concerns when on a job. He was always professional and straightforward, focusing on the goal at hand and ignoring or minimizing the difficulties. One of Wesker's great strengths as a police officer was his unwavering confidence and inner resolve.

To see Wesker just giving up hope and surrendering to despair was the last thing Barry expected to see. Barry saw some terrifying things already tonight, but what did Wesker witness to make him act this way? Barry knew that everyone has their emotional breaking point, but he always believed Wesker's was even above his own.

"We can get out of here, Wesker," he said, trying to sound supportive. "Listen, I know how to get back upstairs to the mansion."

"You do?" Wesker asked, his head jerking up.

"I took an elevator to get down here. I can retrace my steps back to it and we can use it to get back upstairs."

Wesker clearly liked the idea, but he remained pessimistic. "But how will we get away from here? I mean, Brad never answered on the walkie-talkie."

"We wait for daylight," Barry said. "We haven't radioed in since we got here. They'll come looking for us. Besides, Brad has to go somewhere. He's probably hiding out right now, but he has to return to the station eventually. Maybe he'll come back when the sun comes up."

"Yeah," Wesker said. "That's a good idea. Maybe we should try that."

In a strange way, Barry felt sorry for Wesker. Somehow, in the past hour or two, his entire demeanor changed. He saw or witnessed something so traumatic that it erased any sense of confidence or self-assurance. The last time Barry saw him, he was his normal authoritative, no-nonsense self. But now, he was like a scared child.

"Come on, then," Barry said.

They went back out into the hallway and Barry led the way back in the direction he came from. He preferred to move forward, but at the moment, he felt that helping Wesker was more important than satisfying his own curiosity and learning the truth about this place. It was an unlikely coincidence that he found Wesker at all, but it was a fortunate one.

An incredible coincidence, really. What were the odds that they would make it to the same place in the labs by completely different routes and meet each other there? As they walked, Barry tried to visualize how Wesker made it there before he did. He had a very precise sense of direction, which was how he knew the way back to the elevator, and it just seemed totally unlikely that he and Wesker would have just bumped into each other like that.

He replayed the scene in his head. Something about Wesker's behavior just seemed inconsistent. Wesker had experience in dangerous situations, just like Barry did, and he never lost his cool. Granted, this was unlike anything they saw before, but Barry gave Wesker a lot of credit. He could imagine Jill freaking out and losing it, but not Wesker.

Barry slowed his pace as they walked. Suddenly, he heard the sound of metal sliding against leather. For a career police officer, it was the unmistakable sound of a gun being pulled from a holster.

Acting on instinct, he yanked his own gun out and spun around. Wesker grabbed his arm and pushed it away, at the same time jamming his own pistol directly under Barry's chin. Barry grabbed Wesker's arm but Wesker got him off balance and pushed him into the wall. Despite Barry's advantage in size and strength, Wesker effectively pinned him. He held Barry's arm against the wall and pressed own gun right into Barry's neck.

"Drop it," Wesker said calmly.

Barry stared at him for just a moment before complying. The Colt clattered to the floor at their feet.

"I'm sorry about the act back there, but I wasn't sure how to go about doing this. I couldn't afford to underestimate you. You're not an easy man to fool, Barry."

"You did a pretty good job," Barry grunted, holding back his anger. Wesker held him for the moment, but Barry would not let Wesker keep that advantage for long. The second Wesker let his guard down, Barry was going to shove that gun right down his throat. "I guess you fooled just about everybody."

"Don't take it personally."

"I won't."

"Good. And while you're at it, don't make any assumptions about our friendship."

Barry smiled a brutal, vicious smile. "I don't make friends with traitors."

"That's exactly what I mean," Wesker said. "You think I'm a traitor, but you have it backwards. I'm not breaking any loyalties, because I was never loyal to the police in the first place."

"You've worked there for ten years."

"Yes, and I've worked for Umbrella for fifteen. So let's get all these silly feelings of betrayal out of the way. Because I want you to know that it's about to get much, much worse."

"Oh, really? If you were going to kill me, you already would have."

"True. But you aren't the person I'm threatening to kill."

Wesker kicked the Colt away from them, far out of Barry's reach. And then he quickly let go of Barry's arm and stepped back, keeping the gun aimed directly at his head. Without glancing away from Barry for even an instant, he removed a cell phone from his pocket and dialed. He held the phone to his ear for a second and said, "It's me. Are you ready?"

He tossed the phone to Barry, who looked at it for a second, and then reluctantly put it to his own ear. "Who is this?" he said.

The voice on the other end spoke in a heavy accent, but Barry could not place it. Russian, possibly. "Hello, Mister Burton. Right now, I am holding a knife against your beautiful wife's throat."

Barry felt his entire body go cold. His breath seemed to freeze in his chest and his eyes went blurry. Jennifer?

"Here, I will even let you talk to her. I am sure you have much to ask, but you can direct your questions to Mister Wesker. Here now, you may say hello."

There was silence on the line for a moment, and then, "Barry? Oh, Barry ... why is this happening?"

"Jennifer?" he whispered. "Are you okay?"

"What's going on, Barry? He ... he tied us up and he said he'll kill us ... Barry, I'm so scared ..."

"It's going to be okay. I'm going to do whatever they want ..."

"I love you, Barry –" The phone was jerked away from her and the Russian voice returned. "Okay, Mister Burton. I think we now have an understanding, yes? Your beautiful wife and pretty little girls will remain safe as long as you do everything you are told. I am hanging up now."

The phone went dead. "I love you, Jenny ..." Barry said weakly, and let his arm fall to his side, dropping the phone. He lifted his head and looked at Wesker, unable to feel any hate or anger to compete with the utter fear and sadness he was now overwhelmed by.

For the first time that night, Barry felt fear.
Chapter 22

Lisa did not remember feeling so happy in her entire life. Even when she escaped the rooms underground, she felt happy with the thrill of discovery, but this was a different kind of happy. This was the happiness of having a real friend. Out of all the other friends she ever met, none of them ever gave her a present. But her new friend gave her one! She accepted the flowers and gave Lisa a shiny metal toy!

Lisa stood out among the trees and moved the metal toy back and forth, watching the moonlight twist and reflect off the surface. She could not remember clearly, but she knew that her mother gave her presents sometimes. If her new friend gave her presents as well, did that mean her new friend was her new mother? Lisa hoped so. She wanted the woman to be her new mother very much.

She didn't know how long she spent outside playing with her new toy, but she eventually realized that her new friend might still be waiting for her. Lisa tucked the metal toy in her pocket and ran back to the little house.

Her friend was no longer there. That didn't bother Lisa. Maybe her friend needed to go somewhere else. Forcing her new friend to stay with her all the time would be selfish, and Lisa desperately wanted to be a good friend. In fact, she wondered about all her other friends, the friends whose faces she took. Was she a good friend to them?

Maybe she was a bad friend. Maybe that was why they did not give her presents like her new friend did. She decided that when she found the woman again, she would not take the woman's face, just to be sure. She did not want to be a bad friend.

Lisa went through the door to the stairs and walked down into the small underground room. There was a large metal door there, left slightly open, and Lisa knew that her friend went this way because the door had been closed before.

The door led to more underground rooms like the ones that Lisa escaped from. She didn't know if she wanted to go back down there. She spent a very long time underground and just rediscovered the surface. She didn't want to go back. But her new friend went down there, and Lisa wanted to follow her very badly.

She sat in the doorway, trying to decide what to do. Deep down, she didn't want her new friend to go to the rooms underground. She was afraid, and didn't know why. Once more, blurry memories seemed to drift up from the back of her mind. Very long ago, so long ago that Lisa didn't even know if she had been alive then, her mother went to the rooms underground and never came back. And the man with her mother, the man Lisa thought might have been her father, went there as well and never returned. And then Lisa went there too.

What happened to her mother and father? Lisa didn't know, but she believed that the rooms underground had something to do with it. For the first time, she began to wonder exactly when she first went to the rooms underground. Her mother and father did not put her there, the caretakers did. Lisa was sure of that.

The rooms underground were a bad place. Her mother and father were gone now, and Lisa suddenly felt very angry about it. She was mad at the caretakers for making her parents go away, and mad at them for keeping her there for so long.

And then she was scared again. If her new friend went to the rooms underground, maybe they would take her away too! Lisa did not know if the woman was her new mother or not, but she did know that the woman was her best friend. And Lisa wanted to protect her. She wanted to help her.

And so Lisa made up her mind. She went through the door and back to the rooms underground.
Chapter 23

Wesker took no enjoyment from what he had to do. It was much easier for him to betray his former coworkers and send them to their deaths if he did so from a distance. It was easier to treat them like expendable tools while looking at them through a security camera. But doing it up close made him feel sick to his stomach. This little meeting with Barry proved to be just as difficult and unpleasant as he had expected it to be.

Barry Burton was a broken man. Wesker knew that threatening Barry's family would be the only sure way to guarantee his complicity, but it broke Barry's spirit completely. He didn't even look like the same person anymore; his shoulders were slumped, his eyes cast downward, his entire posture crumbling so that he looked a foot shorter than he really was. Wesker felt relieved that he had no family of his own. It would only make him as vulnerable as Barry.

"Barry," he said. "Are you listening to me?"

Barry nodded weakly and looked up. "If anything happens to them, I swear to God ... words don't exist to describe what I will do to you."

"Nothing will happen to them as long as you do what I say."

"I should just kill you now."

"Go ahead and try," Wesker said, waving the gun for effect. "You're smarter than that. If I don't call that man every half hour, your family dies. And if I don't tell him a special code word when I call, your family dies."

"How do I know he won't kill them anyway?" Barry asked, his voice wavering.

"You'll just have to trust me. I don't murder innocent people, Barry. I know you won't believe me, but I didn't want any of this to happen. I'm doing what I have to do, but I need your help, and I knew you wouldn't help me of your own free will."

"Help you with what?"

It was time for the pitch. Wesker knew that even with Barry's family hostage, he would not cooperate fully without good reason. If he bought Wesker's story, things would go much more smoothly. "Do you have any idea what would happen if those zombies made it to Raccoon City?" Wesker asked rhetorically. "This is the plague to end all plagues. If it spreads to the city, then it's all over. Say goodbye to civilization."

"And you created it," Barry snapped.

"It was discovered in 1962," Wesker snapped back. "No one made it. And despite the evidence you've seen tonight, when they first discovered it, they didn't know it was a disease. It was supposed to be a cure. Umbrella's been experimenting with it for forty years trying to make it into one."

"What does this have to do with us?" Barry asked, losing patience.

"I had to bring you here, I didn't have a choice. I couldn't fight this on my own. But you would never have believed me if I told you what we were up against. I hoped that Bravo could handle the situation, but it was much worse than I thought. So I had to bring Alpha here too."

"What did you think was going to happen, Wesker?" Barry said, barely keeping his voice down. "You sent them here without telling them anything! You kept all of us in the dark!"

"I didn't have a choice! No one can find out about this place, Barry. The work they did at this lab is too important to throw away. If the police or the government found out about it, they'll shut the lab down in a heartbeat. I had to keep it a secret until we got here. I know you don't understand, but the virus that made those zombies has the ability to cure cancer. I couldn't risk throwing all the research away."

"So the ends justifies the means?"

"Something like that. My plan was to bring you all here and lead you through the mansion and the labs myself. But then everything went wrong. Bravo's helicopter crashed and I lost contact with them. And when we got here, Brad freaked out and flew away. I wanted to tell you and Jill what was going on when we made it inside the mansion, but to be honest, I was afraid you might try something against me."

"You were right about that."

Wesker ignored the comment and continued. "When we split up, I went to a hidden security room and checked the monitors. I found out something you might be interested in. Chris is still alive. He made it to the mansion."

Barry's head jerked up as if he'd been slapped in the face. It had the desired effect. For the moment, Barry's anger was derailed. The thought of Chris being alive tipped the scales in Wesker's favor. "But ... how?"

"Somehow, he outran those dogs and came in through a side door. I think Enrico and Rebecca might be alive as well. It took me a little while to go through the security videos. By the time I got back to the lobby, you and Jill were gone."

Barry didn't say anything for a second, but Wesker knew that the wheels were turning. He was probably trying to determine if Wesker was lying or not, and if it even mattered. He was looking at the positive side, which Wesker knew he would. Barry, Jill, Chris, Enrico, and Rebecca might make it out of this nightmare alive, and all Barry needed to do to save his family was ...

"So what do you want from me?" he asked.

Wesker pulled a folded up sheet of large paper from his back pocket and tossed it to Barry. He unfolded it suspiciously and saw that it was a map of the lab area. Wesker already highlighted some locations on it.

"I marked the last place I saw Jill and the others. I want you to find them and direct them to the emergency elevator I circled. Just tell them you found the map somewhere. Do not tell them about this little conversation."

"What if I can't find them?"

"Use that cell phone," Wesker said. "My number is saved on it. Just make sure no one is around when you call. And don't bother trying to make any other calls. I programmed it only to accept the numbers in the address book."

Barry folded the map back up and put it in his vest. He picked up the cell phone and studied it before putting it in his pocket as well. Then he looked back up at Wesker. "I don't understand. You didn't have to bring my family into this. What's really going on here? This can't be all you want me to do. You could have done this yourself."

"I'm busy doing other things," Wesker said. "But I'll meet you at the elevator. All you have to do is bring find anyone who is still alive and bring them there with you. But don't tell anyone about me."

"But why did you have to threaten my family? You could have found another way. You didn't have to bring them into this."

Wesker sighed. "Barry, you weren't listening carefully enough. I promised not to kill your family. But I never promised that you were going to get out of here alive. You, or anyone else for that matter. You and Chris and everyone else will probably die tonight. I might not even survive. The only thing I can promise is that your wife and daughters will not be harmed. Now, do we have a deal?"

Barry stared at him and stuck out his hand, as Wesker knew he would. It wasn't much of a deal, since Barry already knew that he might die before the night was through. But as long as his family was okay, then he didn't care.

As Wesker shook his hand, he felt another slight twinge of guilt. All he had to do was keep one little promise, and he couldn't even do that.
Chapter 24

There was a large sign on the wall, with two arrows. To the left, it said, "Sigma Labs." To the right, it said, "Theta Labs." Chris sighed deeply and looked down each hallway, wishing that one of the arrows pointed to "Exit" instead. He'd been wandering around the hallways of this underground complex for how long now? Two hours?

The first half hour or so had been kind of tense. He expected to run into a zombie every time he turned a corner or opened a door. But he saw nothing. The mansion was populated with zombies, but the labs seemed pretty empty by comparison.

And then, right when he started to get bored, he checked into a lab room like a dozen others and ran into two zombies. After his initial fright, he put them down easily, but it reminded him not to get too sloppy.

All he found after that were more white hallways and empty lab rooms. Chris found plenty of evidence that the labs were in use until just recently, but there was no one there, undead or otherwise. He also found a few staircases leading downstairs, but none going up. At one point he discovered an elevator but was dismayed to find that it was out of service.

But still no exit in sight. And now another crossroads, but this time it was a choice between two more labs, better than his original choice of three, but still not very good. Theta was one of his choices at the first crossroads. No sense in going there, since he chose not to the first time. That left Sigma labs.

He turned left and started walking. The hallway turned right again and ended in a set of double doors. The doors had small glazed windows on them, and in a change from the ordinary, Chris saw lights flickering in the room beyond. And not just one or two of the fluorescent ceiling lights, it looked like some kind of electrical short affected the entire lab room, causing the lights to flash on an off rapidly.

Chris didn't see anything suspicious through the windows, so he very carefully pushed one of the doors open and snuck inside. He could hear electronics sizzling and sparking somewhere, and smell the unmistakable odor of burning circuits. The lights above flashed randomly on and off like a strobe light, almost making the lab seem like an empty dance club. Like all the other labs, there were computer consoles, lab tables, and scientific hardware lying around.

But this lab room was much bigger than the others. It was probably fifty feet wide and at least that long, but it was in the shape of an L and Chris could not see around the curve to the other side. He walked slowly, keeping his gun out front, making as little noise as possible.

Suddenly, his foot crunched loudly on something and he froze. He glanced down to see shards of broken glass all over the floor. He cursed himself for not being more careful, and then spun to his left when he heard something.

A zombie rose from behind one of the lab tables. Like the other two zombies Chris shot earlier, it wore a standard white lab coat with an Umbrella ID card attached to the breast pocket. But unlike the others, this one did not die quietly.

Half of its face was stripped or chewed away, and a sickening amount of blood and gore spilled down the side of its body, soaking almost its entire arm in red. Most of its jaw was ripped away as well, leaving a hideous, gaping hole. Chris choked back vomit at the sight of the zombie, reminded of how Forest looked.

The zombie lurched around the table and Chris tightened his grip on his pistol, preparing to put a bullet in the zombie's skull. The zombie gazed at him and grumbled sickeningly, more blood oozing down the front of its lab coat. And then it coughed, or at least that's what it sounded like.

And then a burst of liquid spurted from its mouth, splashing onto the tabletop and spilling over onto the floor. Chris immediately put his hand over his mouth and gagged, about to imitate the zombie and vomit himself. And then he noticed the smoke rising from the lab table.

It wasn't just liquid, it was corrosive acid. The table sizzled and smoked, as did the floor. Even the zombie's face burned from where the acid touched it. That explained what happened to its jaw; the acid burned it away.

Chris closed his mouth tight and fired, striking the zombie right between the eyes. It tilted over backward and barfed up another gush of acidic vomit, and it all splashed down right over its own body as it hit the ground. Chris stumbled away, the stink from the smoke making his stomach twist and churn even more. He walked past the curve to the other half of the room and once again stopped cold.

At the far end of the room were three large glass water tanks. Built into the wall was a very complex computer console, with tubes and wires connecting to the base of each tank, presumably to extract a variety of information from the residents of the tanks. And the residents of the tanks were not pretty.

They looked like a cross between a miniature gorilla and a salamander. About four feet tall, with muscular arms that hung almost to their feet, slick green skin, and a wide reptilian mouth. Two of the tanks contained the creatures suspended in water, but the third tank was ominously empty.

Chris ejected the clip in his Beretta and replaced it with a full one. He did not want to run out of bullets at the wrong time. As he approached the tanks, the sound of sizzling electronics got louder. Directly behind the tanks was a wide metal grill with wisps of smoke and tiny sparks shooting out from under it.

As Chris feared, the third tank was not empty because it was not in use. The entire back side of the tank was shattered away, and chunks of thick glass covered the floor behind the tanks. Water from the tank splashed onto the electric panels, causing the shortage. The third creature was loose.

It was time to go. There were two other doors, one to the left and one to the right. The one to the right led to another hallway, while the one to the left probably led to a supply room. He headed to the right and stopped when he heard a tapping noise. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the creature in one of the tanks was awake, tapping on the front of its glass prison with long claws and a hungry look in its yellow eyes.

Yes, it was definitely time to get out of there.

Chris went through the door into the hallway, where the lights weren't flickering. There were doors on each side, some of them open, but Chris was not concerned with checking out any more lab rooms. He was going to stick with hallways from now on. But before he even got to the end of the hall, a zombie came out of one of the open doors.

Chris put it down with one shot, which was immediately followed by an ear-piercing shriek from down the hall ahead of him. The doors crashed open and the third lizard creature, the escaped one from its tank, came through and charged right at him. Chris braced himself and squeezed the trigger.

He missed once, then hit the creature twice in the upper chest. It did not stop, but it slowed down, screeching its pain. Spittle sprayed from its mouth as it flashed its razor-sharp teeth. It jumped up and Chris followed it with his gun, firing again. One bullet struck the center of its chest and the other hit it right in its open mouth, splattering blood onto the ceiling. The monster crashed to the floor five feet away from him and made one final desperate grab before Chris fired right at its head, killing it for good.

A loud crash came from behind him, the sound of exploding glass and rushing water. A heartbeat later, the doors burst open and another creature ran out into the hallway, dripping wet and shrieking madly. Chris turned and opened fire once more, hitting it four times right in the chest. It screeched pathetically and collapsed to the floor.

Chris took a deep breath and lowered the gun. And then a zombie that silently crept out of the room next to him groaned loudly and made a grab for his arm.

Chris jumped back and pulled the trigger by accident, shooting the floor. He swung his arm up and emptied the gun into the zombie, hitting it in the chest and face. It fell over backward in the doorway, right on top of its dead companion.

"Take that!" Chris screamed. He leaned against the wall and let his arms fall to his sides, suddenly exhausted. He looked up and down the hall to make sure nothing was trying to sneak up on him, and took a few more deep breaths.

At least zombies were slow. It was relatively easy to take them down with one shot. But these things were much faster and harder to shoot. Not harder to kill, just harder to hit. It didn't even take a shot to the head to bring them down, which Chris found surprising. And they certainly weren't just undead creatures, like the zombies or the dogs. These were something else entirely, some kind of genetically mutated lizard.

Chris wondered what other monsters might be lurking down here, and if he was destined to run into any of them. He wondered what sort of creatures Barry and the others might have discovered so far.

It also occurred to him that the first zombie in this hallway actually saved his life. Chris might have walked all the way to the end of the hall and opened the doors to discover the lizard monster there. He probably wouldn't have been able to shoot it before it attacked him.

He ejected the empty clip and fished into his pocket for his extra bullets. He snapped the bullets into the clip one at a time and let his mind wander. And then he heard the familiar sound of shattering glass and splashing water. The monster in the last tank.

Chris went to the closest door and opened it. He flipped the light on to make sure the room was empty, which it was, and then went inside, closing the door after him. Silently putting the extra bullets and clip back into his pocket, he snuck behind a filing cabinet, just in case the creature was smart enough to look into the rooms.

He took out the half-full clip he replaced earlier and slid it into the pistol as quietly as possible. Out in the hallway, he could hear the creature moving around. It was probably investigating the dead bodies of its companions. Chris was okay with that, since it was about to join them.

It was only then that he looked up and noticed the dry erase board on the wall next to him. Notes and equations scribbled across its surface in a variety of marker colors, along with crudely-drawn diagrams of the lizard monsters. Chris skimmed the notations and tried to get an idea what they all meant.

The lizard monsters were labeled "hunters," which Chris felt was a pretty accurate description of their appearance, with the note "Rana clamitans" below it. He didn't know what that meant, but he guessed it might be a scientific name. But the hunters weren't the only ones shown. There were drawings of two other creatures as well, and if anything, they looked even more dangerous than the hunters.

There was a drawing of a larger animal with four legs and a thick body, with a short tail and what Chris guessed was a long tongue. It was called a licker (Felis catus). There was a strange insect-looking creature with six legs and a pointed tail. It was a stinger (Apis mellifera). What friendly-sounding names, he thought. Hunters, lickers, and stingers, oh my.

Next to each drawing, there were several notes with arrows pointing to parts of the body. Surprisingly, there was no drawing of a gigantic spider like the dead one he saw back in the guard house. Maybe that wasn't even one of their projects, maybe it mutated on its own. There was also no diagram of the zombie dogs.

Absentmindedly, Chris flipped the catch and the Beretta's slide clicked loudly back into place, chambering the first bullet. Almost immediately, the hunter out in the hallway shrieked and slammed into the door, knocking it right off its hinges. It smashed to the floor and the hunter leaped into the center of the room.

Chris ducked out from behind the filing cabinet and fired two precise shots, hitting the hunter in the head both times. The creature howled and keeled over, dead before it hit the ground.

Chris took the time to refill each clip with bullets before he left the room. He considered retracing his steps and checking out Theta labs instead, but he kept going forward. The hunters, despite their speed, were about as hard to kill as a zombie. Shoot them once in the head and they would probably go down. So hopefully, Sigma labs did the work on hunters. If he investigated the other labs, he might just run into the lickers or the stingers, and they might be harder to kill.

Besides, he just killed three zombies and three hunters, and he didn't want all that effort to go to waste.
Chapter 25

The empty hallways never seemed to end. Traversing the underground lab was like searching for a way out of a sterile, white labyrinth. At times, Jill felt that she was walking through a brand new hospital after all the doctors went home. Since she made her way down to the labs, she didn't see a single zombie, or anything else for that matter. There was no evidence of what happened in the mansion. All the labs and rooms looked as if the people who worked there simply finished their work and went home.

But despite the silence and solitude, Jill felt sure that a zombie or other monster was sure to leap at her from every opened door and turned corner. In some of the labs, Jill saw what were obviously experiment cages and isolation chambers. She saw notes scribbled on dry erase boards listing failed experiments and specimen numbers. Something that appeared to be dried blood was spilled all over the floor inside one of the sealed-off chambers. And so, despite the signs that this place was completely empty, Jill remained tense.

Jill felt sure that the zombies and dogs were just the beginnings of the experiments done here. And the woman from the cabin, the poor creature who looked as if she grew up in one of these cages, was proof of Jill's suspicion. Someone kept her a prisoner for years, experimenting on like a lab rat.

She could not get the woman out of her mind. Who knew what tortures and torments the poor woman endured? She looked older than Jill and yet she couldn't even speak. Her body was malformed and misshapen, probably due to years of imprisonment and systematic biological manipulation. And the manacles on her wrists ....

Jill felt sure she would never know what thoughts must have been going through the woman's head. She didn't even know why the woman let her live. The two dead zombies in the cabin with her made Jill suspect the woman was surely not harmless. Jill shot at her, hitting her at least once. And yet, the woman let her live, tried to befriend her, and even gave her a peace offering. Jill could not believe she got out of that cabin alive.

Of course, if she ever wanted to get back to Raccoon City, she would have to get out of this lab alive, and then out of the Arklay Mountains alive. She doubted she would get lucky two more times in a row. Even if she didn't run into any more zombies, she wondered if she would ever find her way out of there. There were no exit signs.

Besides, even if she found an exit, that didn't necessarily mean she was safe, because without Brad and the helicopter, she would have to make her way out of the woods on foot. The highway might be two miles away for all she knew, and she didn't know which direction it was in anyway. Plus, she'd have to make the trip in the dark.

The skinless dogs would probably find her long before she made it to the highway. Or maybe another gigantic snake. Or something else even more horrible.

Earlier, she found a telephone in one of the labs rooms and was almost overcome with joy, until she picked up the receiver and discovered that the phone was dead. There was just no good news.

She didn't know how long she walked through in the labs, and she was too depressed to check her watch to find out. But it must have been over an hour, when suddenly, she heard a voice and it stopped her in her tracks.

"Hello?" someone shouted from somewhere nearby. A deep, male voice.

She couldn't believe it. Barry!

Jill took off down the hall and through a set of doors. She went through a corner lab to another hallway and burst through the doors to see Barry standing in a hallway intersection, gun drawn. He heard her running footsteps, but didn't know what was coming toward him. As soon as he saw her, he lowered the gun as relief washed over his face.

Jill ran to Barry and hit him so hard when she embraced him that they almost fell over. She laughed and cried at the same time, holding him tightly, as if afraid he wasn't really there, and would disappear if she didn't hold on.

"Oh God, I didn't think I'd ever see you again," she gasped through tears of joy.

"Jill, are you okay?" Barry asked in stunned surprise. "How in the world did you get down here?"

"It's a long story," Jill laughed. She pulled away and looked up at him, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. "God, I am so glad to see you. When we got separated earlier, I was so scared."

"Yeah, so was I," Barry said. "I wanted to come after you, but I guess you could say I ran into some trouble. I found an elevator that brought me down here, and I've been looking around ever since."

"Have you found anything?" Jill asked, sounding sarcastic. She felt so happy and giddy that she almost couldn't contain it. Everything she said came out light-hearted and silly.

"Not a thing," Barry said, and then he smiled back. He hugged her and she embraced him again, just happy that she wasn't alone anymore. Somehow, just the fact that she and Barry found each other in this maze made Jill believe that they would make it out alive after all. Barry would get them out of there, he would figure out a way to get back to the city. Jill might not have made it on her own, but there was no way that Barry would let her down.

"Have you found anyone else?" she asked him.

He paused a second. "No. No, I haven't seen anyone else. No one alive, anyway."

"Edward was in the mansion," Jill said. "He was alive when I found him, but ... but he died. I couldn't do anything."

Barry closed his eyes and sighed. "I believe you, Jill. Was it like what happened to Kenneth?" he asked gently.

Jill shook her head. "No, it was something else. There's more than just zombies in this place, Barry." It was then that she noticed the long slash across the front of his red vest. She ran her finger across it. The deep cut went right through his vest and actually gouged into the kevlar vest underneath.

"Yeah," he said. "There's a lot more than just zombies here."

"What are we going to do?" she asked. "We can't keep fighting off monsters forever. How are we ever going to get out of this place?"

Barry reached into his pocket and took out a folded up sheet of large paper. "We're going to use a map," he said casually, unfolding it for her. "I found this in a supply room a little while ago. I figure we can use it to find our way out of here."

Jill laughed again, almost overcome by all the good news at once. "That's great! So where do have to go?"

"We're right here," Barry said, tapping a location on the map. "Or pretty close to here, as far as I can tell. There's at least three separate lab complexes, according to the map." He slid his finger to another location. "This here is an emergency elevator. We can take it to the surface. At least I hope we can."

Jill didn't look too closely at the map. She would let Barry lead the way, so it didn't matter that much. "How long will it take to get there? Do you think we could use the map to get back to the mansion instead?"

"Probably Do you really want to go back there?"

"Well, not really," Jill admitted. "I was just thinking out loud."

"It says that this elevator leads to a place called the Outlook. I'm guessing it's some scenic point where you can look out at the Arklays. If we go there, I might be able to get my bearings and figure out where in the mountains we are. Maybe the highway or another road is close by."

"You've sold me," Jill said. "Lead the way."

The two of them headed off down another hallway. Barry folded the map back up and stuck it in his back pocket. "To get there, we have to take a detour through one of the other lab areas. I'm not sure how long it will take to walk there. Half an hour, maybe."

"That's okay, as long as we get out of here," Jill said. "I just want to stay alive. I want to go home and see my family."

"Yeah," Barry said softly. "Me too."

"How are you on ammo?"

"Not too great. I've got a full chamber and eight more shots."

"Okay. My gun's full now, and I have one more full clip."

"I guess you'll be doing the shooting then, huh?"

"If you want," Jill chuckled. Barry was a much better shot than her, and they both knew it. If anything, they should just switch guns, but Jill knew that Barry trusted his Colt above all others.

"Why were you calling out back there?" she asked Barry. "I mean, weren't you worried that you would just attract any zombies near you?"

"I had to take that chance. I called out a bunch of times since I made it down here, just to see if anyone was alive who could hear me. I didn't want to risk not finding a survivor. I wanted to find someone who worked here, but I was hoping to find you or Wesker, or even someone from Bravo."

"I didn't even think of that. I was being as quiet as possible."

"I figured that if anyone was left alive, they would be hiding, and I wasn't about to search every single room looking for survivors that might not exist. So if I was pretty sure there were no zombies around, I called out and waited to see if anyone called back."

Jill knew that no one had. "I don't think anyone's left alive here, Barry," she said, trying to sound apologetic about it. The people here didn't die because the S.T.A.R.S. unit didn't arrive fast enough. They were all long dead by the time S.T.A.R.S. even knew something was wrong.

"I know," he said. "But I had to make sure."

As they continued down one identical hallway after another, Jill could not help but feel vastly inferior to Barry. In the back of her mind, she always knew that he was a better police officer than her, and it never really bothered her to admit it. There was no shame in admitting she wasn't as good as someone else. But Barry was more skilled because he had so much more experience. Barry was a better officer because he'd been doing it so much longer than her. Jill always believed that when she reached his level of experience, she would be as good as he was.

But now she didn't believe that quite as strongly. Jill had seen some horrific things this night, and until Barry arrived, she had been absolutely terrified. Looking for survivors was the last thing on her mind. She would never call out the way Barry did, for fear of attracting more zombies or something even worse.

But Barry saw the same things she did, maybe even more frightening horrors, and he was still concerned with finding survivors down here. Even when a zombie or some mutated monster might be around every corner, he was willing to call out and risk his safety, just in case there was someone else alive down here. He was willing to risk his life to find people that might not even exist.

Jill didn't know if she would call that brave, because it really wasn't very smart. But it was completely selfless. The odds of an Umbrella employee being alive down here were too low to even consider. And it would have been easy for Barry to stay quiet as he made his way through the lab. But he called out anyway, just in case.

Jill would never have done that. And when she realized that, she knew that she would never be as good a police officer as Barry was. In a normal situation, where zombies and giant snakes did not exist, she would risk her life to save someone if they were in danger. She was a S.T.A.R.S. member after all, and it was part of her job. But in an out of control situation like this, her responsibilities went right out the window.

Honestly, she was too scared to be a good cop. She was too scared to be as good as Barry. She was too scared to save someone else.
Chapter 26

Brad Vickers was painfully aware that his less-than-stellar career as a S.T.A.R.S. member was pretty much over. He only became a cop because his father was a cop, which might not be the very worst reason to be a cop, but it was surely up there. He actually liked flying helicopters, which was a good thing, because as the chopper pilot for Alpha, he rarely engaged in actual combat. He was the backup, the rescue guy. He flew in, dropped people off, flew away again, and when the people wanted picked up, he would come back and get them. All the while keeping himself out of danger.

Whatever feelings of guilt or cowardice he felt were soothed by the fact that he was actually an important member of the team. They needed a chopper pilot. They needed a guy to fly back and forth, to be the rescue guy. So he got to do something he liked, he got to remain safe, and he got to do an important job. It was actually a pretty sweet deal.

Until tonight, that is. Tonight, his pretty sweet deal turned into a complete nightmare. And it wasn't getting any better as time went on.

Currently, Brad was sitting in the helicopter about a mile and a half from the Bravo team's crash site. He circled the site for a few minutes when everything went to hell, hoping that he would get a radio call telling him where to drop down and pick the team back up. But no radio call came. He waited for ten minutes, hovering a hundred feet in the air, waiting for someone to call him. But no one did.

They all carried walkie-talkies, so it didn't make sense that they didn't call. Unless, of course, they were all dead already, which Brad stubbornly refused to believe. He discovered the mansion when he circled around to look for them, which was a futile exercise because it was so dark. But the sight of the mansion filled him with a little hope. It wasn't too far from the crash site. Maybe the team made it there okay. He wanted to land in the large back yard, but saw dark shapes running around underneath him and got scared.

The team still remained silent. Brad finally gave in and called them over the radio, but got no response. And when he tried to call headquarters to ask for guidance, he mysteriously could not reach them either.

He landed the helicopter in a clearing at the edge of a low cliff, far enough away from the crash site that he felt safe, but close enough that he would surely receive any radio calls. It also gave him a decent view of the area.

After he landed, he checked the radio to make sure it was functioning properly. It didn't make sense that he couldn't communicate with police headquarters. Almost immediately, he saw a fistful of wires under the console were cut clean through. He wasn't an electrician, but it didn't take a genius to see that he could not receive or send any messages at all. That explained a lot, but how in the world did the wires get cut?

Brad was completely unsure what to do. He was just the pilot, he never needed to make his own decisions the entire time he'd been on the force. If he couldn't call anyone by radio, he needed to return to headquarters to tell them what happened. But he couldn't just leave the team behind. They couldn't call him by radio, but maybe they would signal him some other way?

Besides, if he went back to headquarters alone, they would surely ask exactly why he dropped the team off and flew away in the first place. Telling them the truth probably would not do wonders for his employment. Besides, what could they do even if he went back to tell them? None of the other officers working the night shift were trained for this kind of mission, and even if they managed to get a makeshift team together to come to Alpha's rescue, it would take time. Time that they probably didn't have.

And so he stayed put. The chopper had a limited amount of fuel, but every half hour he made a wide pass around the mansion and surrounding area, hoping to see something. Earlier, he thought he heard some gunshots, and flew immediately to the mansion, but there was no one outside when he got there. He was too worried about fuel to stay there long, so he flew back to the clearing and kept waiting.

But he didn't know how much longer he could just wait. Eventually, he would have to make a decision and do something.
Chapter 27

Rebecca Chambers opened her eyes and when she realized she was awake, she immediately reached for her pistol. There wasn't a single ray of light for her to see by, but she aimed her gun into the complete darkness anyway, trying to hold her breath and listen for any noise at all. She didn't know how long she'd been sleeping, but she was terrified to think something or someone was in the room with her. But after a few tense moments, she heard nothing, and felt relatively safe. She must have just woken up on her own, because if anything was in the room with her, it would have heard her rustling around and attacked her by now. She knew the room was empty when she went to sleep, and she made sure to block the door securely, but she took no chances.

She didn't even want to risk sleeping at all, but she had no choice. She was completely exhausted after the events of the last day, and simply needed to take time to rest or she would collapse. If being unconscious counted as rest, then she rested twice last night. Once when the train crashed, and once more after pulling Billy out of the underground river. But she didn't think that counted for much.

She walked through the woods for most of the day. She must have followed the old dirt road for miles, but in the end she made it nowhere. The road ended at a small lake in the middle of nowhere, and Rebecca was forced to retrace her steps and go back. She saw a plane fly overhead a few times, but other than that, saw no signs of civilization.

Leaving the dirt road was not an option, as it was the only thing keeping her from being completely lost. If she took a chance and walked out into the woods, she might never get out of there. She had no compass and no knowledge of the surrounding area. She could have used the sun to figure out which way was north, but that wouldn't have helped her at all. She didn't know which way the nearest road was, so knowing which way was north didn't really help.

She desperately wished she had just followed Billy. Why in the world did she just let him walk into the forest like that? He must have known exactly where he was going, because he headed straight into the woods. If he knew which direction the nearest road was in, Rebecca could have followed him. Why did they split up at all? They should have just stayed together until they made it completely to safety. Once they reached the nearest road, Billy could have just gone in one direction, and the Rebecca could have gone in the other. They could have stayed together until then.

But she knew why Billy walked off. The longer they stayed together, the harder it would be to leave. He let Rebecca take the dirt road to safety, but he didn't want to still be with her when they made it back to civilization. Rebecca could not blame him for that. He wanted to make a clean break from her, and going off on his own was the best way to do it. And now he was too far away for her to find him.

Of course, if either of them knew that the dirt road led nowhere, he might have opted to stay a little longer. The dirt road should have lead to somewhere useful. It didn't make sense for the only road leading away from the treatment plant to go directly to a lake. Rebecca wound up walking all the way back to the treatment plant and found that a second road led in a different direction. She took that road, and after another few hours of walking, finally found something.

The dirt road led to some kind of recreational area. There were three small buildings, a few tables on a concrete patio, and a large fountain right in the middle of the area. Rebecca was thrilled to find the place, but soon discovered there was nothing there she could really use. The first building contained nothing except a few more tables and chairs and some empty vending machines. The second building was some kind of supply shed, but the doors would not open and she could find no way to unlock them. The last building was locked as well, but a simple card reader was on the door.

Rebecca still possessed the security card she took from one of the dead zombies back in the treatment plant, and was almost surprised to see that it worked. The door unlocked and Rebecca found a wide staircase leading underground. After spending most of the last night underground, she was not thrilled with the idea of going back. But it was either that, or more wasted time wandering through the Arklay Mountains. Plus, the sun was already starting to go down, and she didn't want to be stuck out here when night came

As Rebecca expected, the staircase led down into another underground laboratory, but this one seemed as if it was still in use. Rebecca did not spend long looking around before she found a supply room that suited her needs. She blocked the door with a table and stacked some boxes on it to cover the window on the door. Then she broke down some cardboard boxes and put them on the floor to serve as a bed of sorts. She didn't have a blanket, but she wasn't going to be picky. She turned off the light, laid down on the flattened boxes, and fell asleep almost immediately.

She didn't know how long ago that was, but she was awake now. She felt a little bit better, but her legs felt sore after walking for so long. Plus, she was hungry and needed to use the restroom. Luckily, she knew that there was a restroom right down the hall from her, because she passed it when she first entered the labs.

She fumbled in the dark and found the light switch. Then, she very carefully moved one of the boxes so she could see out the window. There did not seem to be anyone or anything in the hallway, so she proceeded to move the other boxes and slide the table out of the way. The hallway proved to be just as empty as before. She snuck to the bathroom with her gun in her hand, not taking any chances.

When she was finished, she went back in the hallway and tried to decide what she should do next. She could try to investigate this underground lab, but she didn't think that was a good idea. If she made her way farther into the lab, she would probably get lost and her investigation would inevitably turn into a desperate search for a way out. Right now, she knew the way out.

Of course, going back outside wasn't a much better option. She walked along the dirt roads all day and never found a major road, and she doubted her luck would get better this time. She didn't even know what time it was. It might still be dark out. For the moment, she felt safer inside than outside.

She walked down the hall, trying to come up with a plan. By now, some kind of search party or rescue mission must be going on, since Bravo never returned from their mission the night before. If there was a rescue mission, then they would have activated the transponder in Bravo's helicopter and certainly found it by now. They would also look for the train, since it was the source of the original distress call. All they needed to do was follow the train tracks for a few miles and they would certainly find it. Which meant they would hopefully find the training center too.

Rebecca wondered if they would be able to figure out that she and Billy went to the astronomy tower. She remembered that most of the building was dusty, so it was possible that investigators could follow footprints or other signs and figure out where they went. Of course, even if they did, once they reached the underground river, they would be at a dead end. They would have no way to get to the treatment plant, since Rebecca crashed the rail car. Unless they wanted to swim there, which she doubted.

If they just flew over the area and searched that way, they might find the treatment plant on their own. Since it just burned down, they would have to investigate further. They could follow the roads and find the recreational area. For all Rebecca knew, there were police outside right now.

She considered turning around and going back, but stopped when she heard a noise down the hallway and around a corner. She froze momentarily and listened again, hearing a quiet squeak and a bumping noise. The sound of a door being opened.

She backed up against the wall and tip-toed down the hallway until she was only a few yards from the corner. She heard a door swing shut and the sound of quiet footsteps coming in her direction.

She raised her gun and prepared to take a peek into the hallway. But the safety on her gun was still on, so she held her breath and slowly pressed the button. It made a click, not a very loud one, muffled even more by her hand covering the button. But it must have been loud enough, because the footsteps around the corner immediately stopped.

For a few moments, there was silence. Rebecca could hear her own breath, and when she listened carefully enough, she could hear the breath of someone else. It wasn't a zombie, at least. That much was a relief.

But who was it, then? If it was just an Umbrella employee, they would not have quieted the moment they heard the safety click. They would have just wandered around the corner to see what the noise was. And if it was security guard or maybe a mercenary like the ones at the treatment plant, they would probably have announced their presence and ordered her to identify herself.

Rebecca made up her mind and jumped out around the corner, gun drawn. As soon as she did so, the person in the hall swung up a gun as well and the two of them stood there for half a second in a stand-off, fingers tensed on triggers. And then the other person lowered the gun.

And Rebecca found herself foolishly pointing her gun at Christopher Redfield.
Chapter 28

Lisa did not want her best friend to know that she followed her into the rooms underground. Her best friend might be upset, or might try to run away, and Lisa didn't want that. So she stayed far away, always waiting for awhile before going through the same door the woman went through. Lisa listened carefully to make sure her best friend left each long room before Lisa entered it. She always knew where her friend went because she could hear her moving. Lisa had very good ears.

So far, nothing bad happened to the woman. Lisa still could not decide what to think of her as. Her best friend or her mother? Lisa remembered that her mother was her friend, so she thought of the woman as a friend even though she might also be her mother. Lisa went down the same long white rooms and tried not to think about the bad things that happened there.

She remembered lots of bad things. She remembered, almost clearly now, when the caretakers took her mother and father away. It seemed that the more she thought about the memories, the clearer they became. She remembered her mother and father. She remembered when she first came to the rooms underground. She could remember all the things that they did to her.

Her family came to the big house once, very long ago. Lisa was small then, she remembered, not big like she was now. Her father did something. She remembered that her father was angry, and then the caretakers were angry as well. Lisa recalled a vision of her father yelling at the caretakers, but she did not know why he was yelling. And then the caretakers made Lisa, her mother, and her father all come to the rooms underground.

Lisa remembered the needles. As her memories slowly bubbled to the surface of her mind, she remembered the needles, and the pain, and the sickness. She remembered being so sick that she could hardly move. And then they put her in the room that she lived in for most of her life, the room where she was chained to the wall. Even with her uncertain understanding of time, she knew that she lived in that room for a very, very long time. She was small when they put her there, and that was where she grew up.

When did her memories go away? She knew that when she was in that room, she did not remember all the things she remembered now. She forgot about her father, forgot about her mother. She forgot everything while in that room. When she thought about her life in that small room, she realized some of the things she did.

Lisa remembered killing people. Sometimes, the caretakers entered the room and she would hurt them and take their faces. She realized now that she killed those people, although she did not feel bad about it. The caretakers were bad people, and she was happy she killed some of them.

But most of the faces she took did not belong to caretakers. They belonged to the other people she thought of as her friends. The people who tried to bite her and did not die when she took their faces. Those people were already dead when Lisa met them, but they did not act like they were dead. They acted like they were alive. Lisa saw hundreds of people like that even before the man with the dark glasses released her.

So much lost information and so many recovered memories came to Lisa that she had trouble keeping them straight. It was wonderful to finally remember all these things, even if they made her angry and sad. The one thing she wanted to remember, however, did not come to her. She wanted to remember what really happened to her mother and father.
Chapter 29

"I swear, Barry. I think she was trying to be friends with me," Jill said, explaining her experiences with the mysterious woman.

Barry shook his head in disbelief. "That's crazy. She certainly didn't try to be friends with me. She came at me like a wild animal."

"Did you shoot her?"

"Of course I did. At least four times, and it barely slowed her down."

"I shot her twice, I think. Then she knocked me out and took me to that cabin."

"You're lucky to be alive," Barry said, somewhat reproachfully. "More than lucky. I can't believe she didn't just kill you. She certainly wanted to kill me."

"I can't explain it," Jill said. "I just wish she could have said something. I don't think she even knew how to speak."

"Whoever she is, Umbrella sure did a number on her," Barry said. "They probably had her locked up in a cage her whole life. She had those chains on her arms for a reason. I don't even want to know what kind of experiments they performed on her."

Jill didn't really want to know either. It was a tragedy what happened to the people who worked here, but at least they chose how to live their lives. They chose to work here at the lab and chose to work on whatever disease caused this atrocity. Jill didn't think that the woman was given any choice at all. She was only a victim, while Jill could not help but feel that the scientists who worked here got what they deserved. It was awful to think that the scientists deserved to be turned into undead zombies, but they created the disease and been party to the terrible experiments that took place here. They were the ones responsible.

Thankfully, Jill and Barry did not run into any new monsters since reuniting with each other. The hallways were blessedly empty. They followed Barry's map and encountered no resistance as they made their way to the elevator. Jill didn't bother to look closely at the map itself, letting Barry serve as the navigator. Gradually, they made their way through the labyrinth of hallways and corridors. Barry still insisted on checking every door and lab room though, to check for possible survivors. But they would just glance inside and then move on. There was no need for careful investigation at this point.

They came to the end of yet another blank white hallway and saw a large sign posted on the wall in red letters. According to the arrows, to their left were the Sigma labs and to the right were the Theta labs.

Jill glanced down the hallway to the left and right. "Which way?" she asked.

Barry examined the map for a moment. "Sigma labs, I guess," he said, pointing at it. He dragged his finger across the map. "Looks like we can get to that elevator either way. We're pretty close now."

"That's the best thing I've heard all day," Jill said with a grin.

Barry smiled back, but it seemed forced. Jill did not fail to notice that since their reunion, Barry was somehow distracted. He seemed happy to have found her and excited that they were able to escape, but there was something else behind his eyes that Jill could not quite understand. Barry was usually honest and up front about his feelings, so it was strange to see him trying to hide his emotions so unsuccessfully. Something serious was bothering him, but he was trying to act normal.

Jill said nothing about it, though. If Barry was upset or nervous about something that he didn't want to share, then Jill would not pry into his business. The events of the past few hours were enough to make anyone act strangely. Jill guessed that maybe she was acting a bit weird herself, and Barry was merely concerned for her.

"Come on, then," Jill said. "Let's get out of here."

They turned left toward the Sigma labs and began walking, but Jill stopped when she thought she heard something behind her. She put her hand on Barry's arm and he stopped as well, looking at her curiously.

"Did you hear that?" she said.

"I didn't hear anything."

There was silence for a few moments, and Jill shrugged and shook her head. "I guess I was just imagining –"

And then she heard it again, and by the look on Barry's face, he definitely heard it as well. It was a very muffled popping noise, very far away from the sound of it. Jill guessed that a loud sound could echo for quite a distance in these empty hallways. But the sound they heard was almost unmistakable, even far away.

It was gunshots.

Barry pulled out his Colt and led the way toward Theta labs. He didn't have to say anything. He broke into a jog with Jill right behind him, heading down the hallway and through the doors at the end. They continued down another hall and came to a set of doors with warning signs plastered up everywhere.

"What in the world?" Barry muttered.

There were red and yellow signs warning of "Construction Ahead." Signs announced "Construction Personnel Only" and "Hard Hats and Protection Equipment Required Ahead." There was a plastic case on the wall full of pairs of safety glasses and hooks for hard hats. Jill and Barry looked at each other and Jill just shrugged.

They continued cautiously through the doors and found that the signs were not for decoration. Just beyond the doors, sheets of plastic stretched from the ceiling to the floor, and beyond them, the hallway disappeared.

Instead of the sterile white hallways they were accustomed to by now, Jill and Barry discovered dark, dust-filled tunnels supported by wooden beams, like the inside of a mine shaft. Single incandescent light bulbs hung from wires stuck to the beams with metal staples, and the floor was composed of wooden two-by-fours bridged between the wooden floor beams. Dust and bits of dirt trickled down from the uncovered roof of the tunnel.

"I don't believe it," Jill said softly. "This place isn't even finished."

"They were making more labs," Barry replied with a grunt of disapproval. "They didn't have enough already, so they were making more."

"Is this on the map?"

"Yes, but it doesn't say it's under construction."

"Maybe we should get hard hats."

The unfinished tunnel split off to the left and right. Barry pushed the plastic sheet aside and glared down the dim tunnel. There were long extension cords bunched up along the floor, and a few crudely constructed tables covered in blueprints and tools.

"Which way should we go?" Jill asked.

"I'll go this way. Yell for me if you find anything. If you get scared, come back here and wait for me. Okay?"

The last thing Jill wanted to do was go off on her own again. After finding Barry, she hoped to stay with him until they got out of the labs. But she just nodded and pulled out her pistol. Barry knew she was afraid, but she didn't want him to worry about her. She forced herself to be confident and brave, even if it was difficult for her. She survived the dogs, the zombies, a huge snake, and the woman in the cabin. Walking down a tunnel should be a piece of cake.

She pushed the sheet out of the way and stepped into the tunnel. The wooden boards creaked under her weight and the dim lights and dust in the air made it hard to see very far ahead of her. Holding her gun out, she walked cautiously forward. She wished that she thought to look at the map before heading off, but she didn't want to go back and ask Barry. Hopefully, the tunnel ended soon and she could go back.

For a moment, Jill relived an unwelcome memory of her battle with the gigantic snake in the dark storage room. She tried hard not to imagine something even more terrifying coming out of the darkness of the tunnel ahead of her. For all she knew, there was an entire crowd of zombies lurking right around the corner. Or maybe something worse, some other mutated monster like the snake, or another wild experiment like the woman from the cabin.

Jill paused in the tunnel and forced herself to take a deep breath. There was no reason to believe that this empty, unfinished tunnel held any new dangers for her. Besides, if there were zombies here, they would probably stumble off the uneven boards and fall down, or trip on the numerous extension cords and wires lying everywhere. Jill felt sure she could take care of them before they could get to her.

Suddenly, another gunshot rang out, very close by. Jill tensed up nervously and then hurried down the tunnel, gun aimed forward, stepping as lightly as she could on the wooden boards. She was pretty sure that the shot came from up ahead, although it was possible that it came from the other end of the tunnel, where Barry went.

The tunnel turned sharply to the left and then split again, one way going to the right, and the other ending in a larger area far to Jill's left. She heard a scraping noise to the left and carefully snuck forward. The larger area was apparently an unfinished room, illuminated dimly by more plain light bulbs, and slumped in the far corner of the room was a body. It was wearing dark pants and an orange vest with white sleeves, an outfit that seemed oddly familiar to Jill. The person was holding a gun as well, aiming it unsteadily into the darkness at the other side of the room, which Jill could not see.

"Who's in there?" Jill called, keeping her voice steady. "This is the RCPD. Identify yourself!"

The person on the floor swung the gun in her direction, but then shuddered and immediately aimed it back in the other direction, into the darkness Jill flinched as he fired twice more into the shadow at the other side of the room. Jill could not see what he was shooting at because the room extended past the edge of the tunnel.

"Freeze!" Jill shouted. "Drop the gun!"

The man fumbled at his chest with his free hand and flung something out into the center of the room. For a split second, Jill thought he threw something like a grenade at her, and she prepared to duck for cover. But the light glinting off the shiny metal surface of the object revealed it as a police badge. Jill was almost too confused to react.

A badge? But who else ...?

Then the realization struck her right in the face.

"Enrico!" she cried, and ran into the room. She turned instantly and aimed her gun where Enrico was aiming his. The room extended for a space and then ended in a wide hallway heading to the right, and another room parallel to the one they were in. The other room, however, was completely dark.

Jill knelt down next to Enrico and lifted her hand to her mouth in shock. He was smeared with blood from his neck to his waist on the left side of his body. Looking closely, Jill saw how pale his skin looked. He stared up at her helplessly with wide, frantic eyes, his forehead dotted with sweat and his teeth firmly clenched against the pain. Enrico was slowly bleeding to death.

"Jesus," she whispered, glancing nervously back into the darkness. "What happened?"

Blood trickled from the edge of Enrico's mouth when he tried to speak. The words came out as stifled grunts. "Shot me ... traitor ... shot ..."

Enrico fired once more into the dark room beyond and Jill spun around, gun drawn. She didn't know where to aim but she opened fire anyway. She just fired randomly into the darkness, squeezing the trigger five times. The flashes from the guns burst erratic light into the darkness, but she saw nothing there.

Enrico gasped and his arm slumped down. He touched Jill arm feebly and mumbled, "Careful ... Traitor ..."

"Who?" Jill cried. "Who's a traitor?"

Suddenly, there was a small thud above her head and dirt rained down on top of her. Two more sounds and the dirt wall right next to her burst apart in tiny explosions. Handfuls of dirt burst away from the wall each time. She could just faintly hear a clipped whistle coming from the dark room.

Jill fell backwards, swinging her gun up once more. Someone was shooting at her with a silenced weapon! She fired twice more and scrambled for the cover of the tunnel. Enrico lifted his gun and fired once as well, but the effort seemed too much and his arm fell back down right away. Jill cowered in the tunnel for a moment, torn between her desire to help Enrico and her fear of getting shot herself.

She could not stay there, she had to do something. She had to save Enrico.

Jill ran back into the room and stood right in the center, firing her gun into the other room until it clicked empty. She still could not tell where the other shooter was hiding, but if she fired randomly, they would have to take cover. It would give her a few seconds to grab Enrico and drag him into the tunnel to safety.

She hurried to Enrico and tucked one arm under him, grabbing the front of his vest in her other hand. "Come on, Enrico," she gasped, so scared that she was out of breath. "Come on, I'm going to get you out of here. Come on!"

But Enrico didn't move. It wasn't until Jill caught a glimpse of the red smear on the side of his head that she realized she was already too late.

Enrico was dead.
Chapter 30

Wesker leaned against the wall and let his hands drop to his sides, breathing heavily. That had been far too close for comfort. Jill didn't even see him and was just firing blind, but two of her shots came within inches of hitting him. He unscrewed the silencer from his pistol and tossed it onto the dirt floor, then returned his gun to its holster. He could hear Jill screaming for Barry through the fake wall. He felt confident that they would never find the hidden switch to reveal the concealed hallway he was now in, but after the disastrous attempt on Enrico's life, he was not going to take any chances.

He tracked Enrico's progress using the security cameras and followed him down to the unfinished section of Theta lab. Apparently, Enrico spent the night there, getting some sleep in a cramped supply closet. Knowing that Barry and Jill were not very far away and might discover Enrico by accident, Wesker wanted to get there first.

The plan was fairly straightforward, if a little messy. Find Enrico and kill him silently, then drag the body where Barry and Jill would not find it. Wesker didn't know just how much Enrico knew or suspected about Wesker's involvement, but he didn't want him giving that information to Barry and Jill. The whole thing seemed stupidly complicated and counter-productive, since Wesker already revealed the truth to Barry. Basically, he needed to get rid of Enrico to keep Jill in the dark.

Things did not go as planned. Somehow, Enrico heard him coming, or seen him out of the corner of his eye, or maybe he possessed a magical sixth sense. He dodged at the last moment, getting shot in the shoulder instead of the back of his head. And then he opened fire himself and Wesker was forced to take cover. All the shooting alerted Barry and Jill. In a panic, Wesker almost shot Jill in his haste to kill Enrico. The only thing that went right was that Enrico did not have time to tell Jill what he knew. Wesker managed to shoot him in the head right before Jill tried to drag him to safety.

Wesker never intended to kill anyone himself, because he didn't think he'd have to. He thought the zombies and other roaming monsters would do the job for him. But once it seemed possible that the Alpha could survive the labs, Wesker realized he would have to take care of it personally. But that part of his plan hinged on the rest of the team still trusting him. Barry knew the truth, or some of it anyway, but with his family threatened he would go along with it. Wesker boasted no such leverage over Jill and Chris.

If Enrico lived to tell Jill or Chris what he knew, that would ruin everything. Barry would lead them to the final lab, but Wesker needed them to be unaware of his involvement when they arrived. If they knew he betrayed them, they would come in with guns drawn and probably shoot him down before he could activate the last part of his plan.

At this point, his success rode on a very narrow probability scale. Everything needed to go just right if he wanted to get out of this mess. All the work he did, all the sacrifices he made, all the deaths and betrayals, all of them led down to one final act. He finally realized that even after all his planning, his chances of success were extremely low.

Enrico was dead, but did that even matter now? Wesker heard Jill ask Enrico who the traitor was, and even though Enrico didn't live to tell her, now Jill knew that a traitor existed. She would be on her guard. And when Barry saw that Enrico was murdered, that might push him too far. He would know who the traitor was, and Wesker said nothing to him about killing Enrico.

God, everything was screwed up now. Wesker gritted his teeth and pressed his palms against the side of his head. He wanted to scream in frustration at how everything went wrong. But he had to keep it together for a bit longer. It would not be long until Barry and Jill made their way to the final lab room, and if Barry could still be counted on, Chris would be with them and neither he nor Jill would be expecting anything. But there was so much Wesker still couldn't be sure of, so many variables he could not take into account.

It was too late to back out now, though. He had to see it through at this point. At the very least, he had to kill Barry. The other team members might survive, but they had to believe Wesker himself was dead as well. He planned for it, but hoped it was unnecessary to take such a huge risk. He had no choice now.

He didn't even expect it all to work out anymore. Wesker was the last person in the world deserving of divine intervention, but it would take nothing short of a miracle for him to get out of this lab alive.
Chapter 31

"I didn't know what else I could do," Rebecca said apologetically, sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. "I had no radio, and didn't know the way back. I just kept walking until I found this place."

"I can't believe you're still alive at all," Chris said, shaking his head in amazement. "I didn't think I would find anyone else alive down here." He knelt next to her and looked up and down the empty hall. "You didn't find any other survivors at all, then?"

"No," she said quickly. "The last living people I saw were Enrico and Richard, when we split up at the train tracks. I've been on my own since then."

"Jesus, that's incredible," Chris said. Rebecca glanced at him curiously and then looked away again, but Chris didn't seem to notice.

"You haven't seen them, then?" she asked sadly.

"No," Chris said. "Just ... just Forest and Edward. I'm sorry, Rebecca."

"I'm sorry about Joseph," she replied. "But you said that the others made it to that house? They might still be alive." She tried to sound optimistic, but she knew it sounded hollow. It was hard to be optimistic about anything when she just learned how some of her teammates died. Chris told her how he found Forest and Edward, but she guessed he left out some details. She left some major information from him as well, but for a much different reason, she suspected.

"They might be," Chris said, "but I don't know. I heard a scream that might have been Jill, but I never found a body. And I think that someone from Bravo went through one of the other buildings I found, because there were several dead zombies. But I haven't seen anyone since I got separated from the others."

"Do you think Brad is still out there somewhere?"

Chris just shrugged bitterly. "Who knows? We've been here for hours now, and the chopper doesn't have enough fuel for him to fly around this long. But he knows what he did. He abandoned us here. He'd be afraid to go back to the station and admit that he left us here, but he'd also be too afraid to stay. I have no idea what that coward would do."

"If he's still here, do you think he would pick us up if he saw us?"

"Maybe. Probably, I guess," Chris said, unsure. "Do you have something in mind?"

Rebecca set her hands on her knees and glanced up and down the hallway, as Chris did a minute earlier. They both kept expecting something to show up and attack them. It was hard to think they were actually safe here in the hallway, but Chris told her he had not seen any zombies for awhile, and the place seemed empty when she first got there.

"I was thinking about it when I walked around today. I knew I was lost, and I thought if I made some kind of signal, then someone might find me. We could light a big fire outside or something. At night, anyone could see it, even from far away. If Brad is still in the area, he would have to come and check it out."

"It might work," Chris agreed. "I mean, it would definitely work."

Rebecca waited, but Chris said nothing more. "But you don't want to try it," she said, guessing at what he wanted to say.

"No, I think it's a great idea," he replied, shaking his head. "But I want to try to find the others first. I don't want to leave without them."

Rebecca understood Chris's feelings, but at the same time, she knew how foolish he was being. She didn't want to just abandon her teammates either, but what were the chances that they could find anyone else in this place? It seemed like a miracle that they even found each other. If there was a chance that they could contact Brad and get out, they had to take it. As much as it sounded like they were deserting the others, it was time to face reality. Their chances of getting out seemed pretty slim, and they needed to take whatever chances they could.

But she didn't say any of that. She knew what Chris felt, because she felt it herself. She wanted to get out of this place very badly. After thirty or so hours of fighting monsters and running for her life, she would give just about anything to escape and return to Raccoon City. But she wasn't going to earn her freedom by possibly leaving her teammates there to die.

"We should still check to see if he's even out there, though," she said. "He might give up and fly back to the city in five minutes for all we know."

"Good," Chris said. "Then they'll bring back up."

"Do you think that's a good idea though?"

"Not really," Chris said right away. "I don't want them sending anyone else to this place. We've lost enough people already." He stood up and took a deep breath, running his hand through his hair.

It was a hard decision to make. Should they stay and keep looking for the others? Should they just leave now while they might have the chance? Should they send Brad for back up? It might have been a moot point, since there was no real reason to think Brad was even still around. For all they knew, he might be dead too. Maybe he landed the helicopter somewhere only to be attacked by zombies or dogs, or who knows what else.

"Okay," Chris said, making up his mind. "You're right. Let's see if we can contact Brad. If he's out there, we'll get his attention. We'll just tell him to –"

Chris was interrupted by a crunching noise coming from far down the other end of the hallway. Rebecca immediately scrambled to her feet and yanked her gun from her holster. Chris drew his gun as well and they both aimed down where the sounds came from. The sound was like a slimy crunching, like the sound of an animal chewing. But it was louder than that and more sickening, and they could tell it was getting closer. It sounded like the amplified sound of bones grinding.

"I went that way earlier," Rebecca whispered, her voice panicked. "There was nothing down there, I swear there wasn't."

"Well, it must have come from somewhere. It doesn't matter," Chris said. "But I don't think a zombie would make noises like that."

"Then what is it?"

"We're about to find out."

When the creature appeared at the end of the hallway, Rebecca's heart froze solid in her chest. Her hand froze as well, and she was suddenly too scared to even pull the trigger. It was another monster, but not like the ones she saw before. It was worse. Much, much worse. It was the size of a tiger, all bloody muscle and sinew, and when it turned to look at them ...

Chris grabbed Rebecca's arm and shook her awake. "Come on!" he shouted, pulling her away. She stumbled at first but soon regained her footing and raced after Chris.

Behind them, they heard the creature's terrible roar, and then the crunching sound came after them, louder and faster than before. It was the awful sound of the creature's own body as it moved, the sound of its exposed muscles and bones.

"Why didn't we shoot it?" Rebecca gasped as they ran.

"Do you really think our bullets would hurt that thing?" Chris shouted back. He grabbed her arm again and pulled her along with him, as she was already falling behind.

Behind them, the hallway doors exploded inward, smashed off their hinges and ripped apart like they were made of cardboard. The beast landed on the floor among raining debris and howled again, shaking its disgusting body and turning to chase after them. Its open mouth revealed rows of glistening teeth like shards of glass, and a long, swirling tongue that thrashed about as it howled. Its four feet ended in jagged claws that made gouges in the linoleum as it ran, and the whole body seemed to pulse as its muscles and tendons writhed with movement.

Rebecca screamed at the sight and shook loose of Chris's grip as she ran faster.

They came to a hallway crossing and Chris immediately turned right, pulling Rebecca with him. They bolted down the hallway and she shouted, "Do you know where you're going?"

"I think so," he shouted back as they quickly approached the doors at the end. They read "Power Generator Room – Authorized Maintenance Personnel Only" in bold red letters.

Chris and Rebecca burst through the doors and found themselves in a small anteroom with a series of dials and digital read-outs on the wall. There were also two small tables with old computer monitors on them, and a couple of chairs. To the right were a set of double doors so old that the plastic windows were smeared and glazed with age. The flat metal push handles, once silver in color, were dull black from millions of hands pushing the doors open over the years. Chris's boots clanked on the metal grating on the floor as they ran through the doors into the power generator room.

The creature was right behind them. Almost as soon as they entered the generator room, the creature crashed into the anteroom, not able to stop its forward charge before it crashed into the tables and slammed headfirst into the wall. It shrieked horribly and thrashed around, its bulky body smashing the furniture to pieces and breaking most of the dials on the wall.

The generator room was hot and humid, a maze of rusty metal pipes going in every direction and loud, humming engines surrounded by puddles of stagnant oil on the floor. Old yellow light bulbs danged from wires in the ceiling, glowing dimly. The dark industrial setting was in jarring contrast to the bright medical setting of the rest of the labs. It was like Rebecca found herself suddenly returned to the treatment plant again.

They hurried through the gauntlet of twisting pipes and metal fixtures as the creature charged furiously into the room, coming right after them. Chris pulled Rebecca through a gap in the pipes barely a foot wide and pushed her roughly into a narrow space in between two dirty machines. He backed up until he was against the wall, about six feet from the gap in the pipes. He quickly pried a metal safety panel off a nearby machine and held it in front of him.

The creature came at them in an instant and slammed into the impenetrable gridwork of pipes and metal beams, roaring ferociously, flinging spittle at them from its thrashing tongue. It thrust its clawed arm through the gap, coming within inches of cutting Chris right in half. The metal panel would have served little protection against the razor-sharp claws, but that's not what Chris was trying to protect himself from

Rebecca saw it coming. She immediately covered her face as Chris raised his gun and opened fire at the pipes directly against the creature's writhing body. The pipes burst and then exploded in a blast of burning hot steam. Chris held the metal panel up in front of his chest and face to protect himself from the scalding heat, and Rebecca was protected by the side of the machine.

The creature's terrifying scream of pain was loud enough to deafen them in the narrow space. It howled in unbearable agony as the steam blasted into it point blank at full force, scorching its entire body in a split second. It seared the monster's muscle and tissue like a blowtorch, burning it at more than two hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

The creature flailed backwards, its entire body now a scorched ruin, and crashed into a row of digital read-out panels against the side of the next generator. It swung its massive arm in a pain-driven rage and ripped open the row of panels, causing the circuitry to spark and sizzle.

Chris dropped the metal panel, which was now so hot that it almost burned his hands. The area was still full of steam, but it cooled quickly once released into the air, and now it was no more hot that it would have been in a regular steam room. Rebecca got to her feet and Chris helped her climb up on top of the machine next to them. They used the pipes like ladder rungs and climbed up until they were on top of the wide generator, the creature still howling and thrashing around a few feet below them.

When it saw them, it screeched and leaped up into the air, trying to grab them. But the machine was blocked by support beams and more pipes. Chris and Rebecca ran along the top of the machine and stopped at the edge. There was no way for them to get down, since the creature was waiting for them.

"I think we're stuck," Rebecca muttered.

"We don't have much choice now," Chris replied, taking out his pistol.

They both aimed down at the monster and opened fire. It roared and made another frantic grab for them as bullets rained down on its head and torso, blasting apart the skull and fragile flesh of the face and neck. Blood spurted and splattered across the side of the generator, and finally the creature jumped away, crashing sideways into the next row of computer panels. It swung around in a mad fury, smashing the panels and ripping through the circuit boards and wires underneath, causing them to burst with sparks and acrid smoke.

"Keep shooting!" Chris yelled.

Rebecca did as she was instructed, emptying the entire clip into the creature's head. When it clicked empty, she slid the empty clip out and immediately pulled the other one from her pocket. Both the gun and clip were taken from a dead commando at the treatment plant, and it was the only weapon she had left. She slid the clip into place and pulled the barrel back to load a bullet into the chamber.

She didn't have to fire it though. As Chris continued to shoot, the creature finally crashed backwards in a death howl and stopped moving. Its claws twitched and went still, blood pooling quickly around its head, which was now a bullet-riddled ruin. Its long tongue hung out of its mouth limply. The burnt flesh still smoked, and the odor was enough to make them want to retch.

Rebecca swallowed hard and lowered the gun. Chris snickered to himself and did the same, sticking his gun back in the holster. They both breathed heavily for a few moments, despite the horrible smell, and just stared at the body.

"That thing is a lot stronger than a zombie," Chris quipped.

"What do you think it is?" Rebecca asked, staring down at the hideous body.

"I think it's called a licker. I saw a diagram of one earlier."

"I can't believe it took us so many bullets to kill it."

Chris chuckled again and said, "Well, hopefully, we don't run into any more of them. I don't think we have enough ammo to do that again."

Rebecca never told Chris the details of her encounters with the creature that used to be James Marcus, because to do so, she would have to mention Billy as well, and she wanted to keep him a secret if she could. Eventually, the military or the police would come looking for him, and Rebecca could only hope that they would assume he died somewhere in the labs or treatment plant.

But she realized that they only survived because Billy found that lighter and threw it at the leaking oil drums. If not for that, they'd almost certainly be dead. Shooting Marcus was completely ineffective, so their guns were useless. What if they ran into something else like that? What if they encountered a new kind of creature that bullets did not harm at all? She could only hope they didn't.

"That was a pretty clever move with the steam," Rebecca said as they climbed down off the generator.

"It just kind of came to me," Chris said with a shrug. "I figured this would be a good place to hold it off. I walked by here right before I found you."

They stepped past the licker, making plenty of room, just in case of a muscle spasm or one desperate final grab for them. They were sure it was dead, but still didn't want to get too close to its razor sharp claws. As they left the room, Rebecca glanced at one of the digital readouts along the wall.

She paused and took a closer look. There were half a dozen smell red lights above the panel, and all of them were blinking rapidly. She looked at the numbers on the readout and saw that they were climbing slowly.

"Um, Chris?" she asked.

He looked at the readouts as well and then looked around. The two computers out in the anteroom were smashed to pieces from when the licker ran headfirst into them, but there was another computer set up inside the generator room. Chris wiggled the mouse and the screen slowly came into view.

There was a menu for different controls and power settings, but Chris ignored them. In the top of the screen was a flashing red window. When he clicked on it, a warning sign flashed onto the screen.

"Interesting," Chris said, with Rebecca looking over his shoulder. "Looks like the generators are overloading."

"What?" Rebecca asked. "How?"

"How do you think?" Chris said, motioning toward the licker. All the control panels it destroyed were still smoking and sizzling. They could only guess what damage it did to the system.

"What can we do about it?"

"Nothing, unless you know how these things work."

"I don't."

"Well, neither do I," Chris said, stepping away from the computer. "So I guess we better get going."

"Will it explode or something?" Rebecca asked, looking at the screen. There were columns of numbers all labeled with different abbreviations, but she didn't know what the abbreviations stood for. Some of the numbers were slowly going up and others were going down. She noticed that it was only the data for one of the generators. One of the other generators might be the one that was overloading. "How long do you think we have?"

"I have no idea," Chris said.

Rebecca thought about how the treatment plant burned down, and wondered if they could do the same thing here. What if they triggered the generators to explode and burn this lab down as well? It seemed like a long shot, because according to Chris, the labs covered a huge area. Rebecca doubted that these generators could explode with enough force to destroy this entire lab. But the explosion might start a fire that could potentially burn down the lab, and that would be just as good. If a creature like Marcus could be destroyed by fire, then Rebecca was sure that the zombies would be destroyed as well.

She told this to Chris, and almost to her surprise, he seemed to like the idea. She expected him to be reluctant to destroy the labs, just in case there were still survivors remaining. But just because he liked the idea, didn't mean they could pull it off.

"Causing an explosion like that would be just the thing to get Brad's attention," he said. "But I don't think we can just program it to explode faster."

"We could damage more of those computer panels," Rebecca suggested.

"That might make the whole thing just shut off. At some point, the generators will just stop working at all. Right now they still work, but they're damaged enough to cause a problem. We should probably just leave it alone."

"I suppose so," Rebecca said.

"Besides, they'll probably explode on their own without us having to help them along," Chris said. "And just in case, I'd like to be far away when they do explode."

They left the generator room and headed back down the hall. Rebecca glanced down at the tile floor, which showed deep gashes from the licker's claws. She could not believe they managed to escape it, much less kill it. Of course, what would happen now if they ran into another one? Would the same trick work twice?

The main hallway intersected with another corridor, giving them four directions to choose from. One direction led to the generators, one led back to the exit where Rebecca re-entered the labs, and one led back to the labs Chris came from. Rebecca started walking back down the hall leading to the exit, when Chris stopped suddenly.

He turned around, facing the fourth hallway. "Did you hear that?" he asked.

Rebecca froze at the thought of something else coming after them. She looked down the hall and drew her gun. "I didn't hear anything."

"No," Chris said, gesturing toward her gun. "I think I heard voices."

"Voices?"

Chris headed down the hall at a walk and then increased his pace, with Rebecca following right behind him. She didn't hear any voices, but she'd been lost in her thoughts and really wasn't listening, if she was being honest with herself.

The hallway split to the left and right. There was a large sign that read, "Theta Labs," and other sign that said "Construction Ahead," with an arrow pointing to the right. Chris paused at the intersection and waited. Rebecca, her gun still drawn, looked nervously down the hall in each direction.

"I could swear I heard something," Chris said softly.

Rebecca said nothing. It was entirely possible that Chris heard something, but did they really want to find out what it was? After their encounter with the licker, she didn't want to stay down in the labs any longer. She was not interested in doing any more searching or investigating. She just wanted out.

And then she did hear a noise, and before she could even react, Chris was already halfway down the hall in that direction. It wasn't a voice she heard, or a growl or a moan, or any other sound a monster might conceivably make. It was the sound of a door banging open, and a clatter of hurried footsteps coming their way.
Chapter 32

Jill knelt helplessly by Enrico's body and sobbed to herself, her head in her hands. Too late again, she cursed herself. She was too slow. She failed Enrico just like she failed Kenneth. If she reacted faster, if she was more careful, if she was a better police officer, then maybe Enrico would still be alive. She sat on the floor and blamed herself, tears dripping down her cheeks.

Barry, meanwhile, took his anger out on the wall. He kicked the unfinished wall so hard that clumps of dirt trickled down like a miniature avalanche. "There's no one else here!" he roared. He checked out the other room completely and found it empty. Granted, there were several pieces of machinery to hide behind, but Barry was certain that no one was in the other room. Whoever shot at Enrico and Jill was gone now, completely disappeared.

Jill wiped her face and stared down at Enrico's body. When she first realized that someone was shooting at her, she ran back to the safety of the tunnel. She abandoned Enrico there to be killed, and she hated herself for it. She practically forced herself to come back into the room to help him. Her first reaction was to save herself. And now he was dead, shot in the few moments that Jill was too scared to defend him.

"I'm so sorry," she whimpered pathetically.

"You had to have seen something," Barry urged, standing over her. "You must have seen the shooter. Just a glimpse. You must have seen him."

"I already told you," Jill said weakly, shaking her head. "I didn't see anything. I couldn't even tell where the shots were coming from."

"You didn't see anything?" he asked. It wasn't just a question, it was more like an accusation.

"No," Jill said for what felt like the hundredth time. "I just tried to shoot where Rico was shooting. I couldn't see anything in there."

"The room is empty, Jill. There is no one there."

"Well, someone was there!" she shouted defensively. "Someone shot him! There must be a hidden door or something!"

Barry clenched his fists and bit back another comment. He glared down at Enrico and then turned away, his whole body seeming to tremble with rage. Jill closed her eyes and fought back the tears still flowing down her face. Deep down, she knew that Barry was not mad at her, could not be mad at her. Barry took his grief over Enrico's death and channeled it into fury over the fact that the killer escaped. But Jill blamed herself for it, and directed Barry's anger squarely at herself.

Suddenly, Barry was lifting her up onto her feet. "Come on," he said, his voice more steady, but still with the undercurrent of anger and grief tinging his words. "We have to get out of here. We have to keep moving."

"What about Enrico?" Jill asked weakly.

"We can't do anything for him," Barry said, his voice restrained. "We'll have to leave him here."

"Just like Kenneth. And Edward."

"Just like everyone else," Barry said. Jill gazed down once more at the body, and Barry shook her shoulders a little to make her look away. "We can't do anything right now. We'll just stick to the plan. We can get to that elevator and get the hell out of here."

"And then what?"

"We find a way back to Raccoon. We tell everyone what happened here. We make sure that the people responsible for this pay for it. But we can't do any of that until we get out ourselves. Now, come on."

He took a hold of her arm and began to walk out of the room, back down the tunnel. Jill hesitated at first, and then wrenched her arm and shook free of Barry's grip. Frustrated, he reached for her again, but she avoided his grasp.

"That's not what I'm talking about," she said. "I'm talking about the traitor. Enrico said there was a traitor. He wasn't just killed by someone who worked for Umbrella. Someone we know did that, someone we trusted!"

"You think I don't realize that?" Barry snapped. "All the more reason for us to get out of here as fast we can, before the traitor comes after us as well."

"But who could it be?" Jill asked desperately.

"Put it together, Jill. Who's left alive?"

Jill was stunned at the directness of Barry's question. Who was left alive? Kenneth and Edward were both dead, and now Enrico as well. Joseph was dead, as well as Chris. Who did that leave?

Wesker? Her boss might not be the most friendly or sociable person in the world, but Jill did not believe for a second that he could be responsible for something like this. He was a ten-year veteran of the S.T.A.R.S. team. The entire police force respected him. He was one of the most decorated officers in the entire department. He might be rude and humorless and unforgiving, but he was one of the most hardworking and dedicated police officers in the entire RCPD. There was no way he was involved.

Brad? At first, Jill discarded him immediately. Brad was a nice guy, but more importantly, he was clumsy and foolish and rather cowardly. She simply could not see him being a traitor, because he didn't seem smart enough. But he was the one who abandoned them in the woods when those dogs attacked. Did he know about it in advance? Did someone pay him off? Could Brad be a traitor?

Jill switched over to the remaining members of Bravo. Forest, Richard, and the new girl Rebecca were still unaccounted for. Forest was everyone's friend. He had a wife and a son who Jill met on several occasions. He could not be involved, Jill was sure of it. Neither could Richard, because Jill knew that he become a police officer right out of college and had been a member of S.T.A.R.S. since its inception. Only Barry and Wesker had the experience and seniority that Richard had. He could never have betray them.

But what about Rebecca? Jill wanted to discount her as well because she was so young, but what did she really know about Rebecca? The new recruit had only been with Bravo for a little over a week. She seemed quiet and shy, but Jill expected her to warm to her new comrades and open up soon. Could she be involved? Jill had to admit that of all the remaining S.T.A.R.S. members, Rebecca seemed the most likely suspect. She was new to the force, and could have been planted there by Umbrella to work as a spy. She was also in Bravo, which may explain their mysterious chopper crash. But if Rebecca was the traitor, why would she crash the helicopter she was riding in? That didn't make any sense.

And Jill didn't even know if any of those people were still alive at all. Forest, Richard, and Rebecca could all be dead. Even Brad could be dead by now.

All of this flowed through Jill's mind in a few seconds. She stared at Barry and saw something strange in his eyes. He was angry, that was obvious, but it was more than that. He looked like he was waiting for her to say something that he wanted to hear. Did he already know who the traitor was? Did he suspect someone?

For a moment, Jill had the paranoid thought that Barry suspected her. Did he think she might be the guilty one? But she was with him when they first heard Enrico's gunshots, so there was surely no way he could think she was involved. Could he?

"Let's just go," Barry said suddenly. There was a strange tone in his voice, like he was pleading with her to go.

"What's going on, Barry?" Jill asked, her heart racing.

Suddenly, panic gripped her like a vise. When she faced off against the zombies, it terrified her, but the fear she felt now was even worse. She saw Enrico get murdered right in front of her eyes, and the knowledge that perhaps one of her own teammates betrayed them made her too scared to even think straight. A million terrifying possibilities opened up before her, and she suddenly felt that she could not trust anyone. Even Barry.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked warily.

"I told you. There's an elevator marked on the map."

"Where did you get that map, anyway?"

"I found it."

"You found it? Or did someone give it to you?"

"I found it," Barry repeated, more clearly.

Jill stared at him, unsure of what to believe. It was hard for her to think that any member of S.T.A.R.S. could even be a traitor at all, much less imagine that Barry could ever betray her. She trusted Barry like he was her own father, but now she was practically accusing him of lying to her. She felt ashamed.

Her suspicions slowly faded as she realized how she was behaving. Was she just sensing Barry's fear, and letting her own uncertainty twist her judgment? Was she so afraid about the identity of the traitor that she doubted the one man on the police force that she knew she could trust? If Barry was the traitor, or was in league with the traitor, then Jill would already be dead. She knew for a fact that he could not have been the one who killed Enrico. Was she just being paranoid?

"Please, Jill," Barry said, his voice much softer. "I want to get out of here. I just ... I just want to see my family again."

There was such pained sadness and fear in his voice that she could not argue with him. Obviously, he wanted to be reunited with his family. Every cop on the force knew how devoted Barry was to his wife and two daughters. The look in his eyes was a look of a man afraid that he would never see the people he loved again. How could Jill have ever doubted him?

"Okay," she said finally. "I'm sorry, it's just that ..." She looked over her shoulder and gestured feebly at Enrico's body.

Barry gently touched her arm. "I know, Jill."

"How could someone do this? How could anyone do this to us?"

Barry shook his head wearily and shrugged. "I couldn't tell you. Maybe they were promised money. Maybe they just knew what went on here and want to keep it a secret."

"Who do you think it is, Barry?"

"I don't think we should try to figure that out," Barry said. "We don't know enough to start accusing anyone. We can't even be sure that it's a S.T.A.R.S. member. It might be a regular cop, or even someone else who works in the department. It could be anyone. There's no point in speculating until we know more."

Jill hadn't thought about that. Enrico said it was a traitor, not that it was someone from Alpha or Bravo. It could be anyone in the entire RCPD. It might be Chief Irons himself for all they knew.

Jill allowed herself to be led from the unfinished lab back to the regular hallways. She didn't want to think about it anymore, she just wanted to get out. After four or five hours of wandering aimlessly through identical hallways, Jill didn't have much strength left, and the episode with Enrico drained what little stamina remained. She felt suddenly, thoroughly exhausted.

They went back to the wide hallway where they first heard Enrico's gunshots, and followed the sign toward the Sigma labs. Jill wanted to know how far they were from the emergency elevator, but didn't want to ask again. She probably asked him twenty times already, and for now did not want to bother him again. She still felt bad about doubting him earlier, and wanted to stay quiet for a little while.

She didn't even know what they were going to do once they made it outside. Neither of them carried a working walkie-talkie. Barry said he might be able to figure out where in the mountains they were once he got his bearings, but Jill doubted that he could get his bearings this late at night. It would be too dark to see where they were. And even if Barry knew exactly where they were, would they just try to hike out of the mountains on foot? What if they ran into more of those skinless dogs?

And even beyond that, Jill did not know how they were going to tell everyone what happened. How could they expect anyone to believe them? The whole thing sounded insane, like some bad ghost story told around a campfire. If Jill and Barry went to Chief Irons and told him that zombies and mutated monsters from a secret science lab killed the rest of the team, would Irons believe them for even a minute? Would anyone? Jill didn't even know if she would believe it herself, in their situation.

And what if they didn't believe? What then?

They would have to come back to the mansion and investigate the deaths of so many police officers. Jill felt sure of that. Even if they threw Jill and Barry into a mental institution, they would have to come back to the mansion to see for themselves what occurred. And they would learn for themselves that Jill and Barry weren't crazy after all. But how many more police officers would die there before they figured it out?

And what of the dead S.T.A.R.S. members? A terrifying vision entered her mind of the police descending on the mansion, only for Chris and Joseph to come back to life as zombies and attack them. Would they be able to shoot and kill a former police officer, even if they were now one of the undead? Jill didn't even want to know how they might handle a situation like that.

They walked in silence for awhile, each lost in their own thoughts. They approached an intersection and Barry stopped to pull out the map. He inspected it for a moment and looked down the hallway in front of them and the other going to the left and right. Jill came up beside him and glanced at the map herself.

"Which way?" she asked softly.

"Give me a second," Barry muttered, tracing his finger along the hallways on the map. Jill wondered vaguely how Barry figured out his own position on the map in the first place. After all, having a map would not be very useful if you could not find your own location on it. Did it have a red arrow marking "You Are Here"?

"This way," Barry said, pointing to the left.

Jill smiled wearily. "Lead the way."

Suddenly, both of them froze when a faint sound echoed down the hall. Not gunshots like before, not anything that sounded human.

"Jesus," Barry whispered, pulling out his Colt and looking around. "What was that?"

"Sounded like a scream or something," Jill said, drawing her own weapon. She held her breath, resisting the urge to cry out in despair. There was no way she could not handle another fight again, not now. She was too tired to battle for her life once more. She barely managed to keep it together this long, but now she was officially at the end of her rope. She couldn't take any more.

The sound came again, but they could not even tell what direction it came from. It was surely a scream, but it didn't sound like it could have come from a human throat. They could not even tell if it was a cry of anger, or of pain. Just a wailing, inhuman scream coming from somewhere nearby, echoing down the empty corridors until it faded into disturbing silence.

With Barry leading the way, they went down one of the other hallways, and found that it ended in three large lab rooms, all of which were empty. They retraced their steps and tried another direction, but did not find anything there either.

"Let it go, Barry," Jill suggested. "I don't think I want to find whatever made that noise. Let's just keep going."

"I don't want to find it either," Barry said. "But it has to be screaming for a reason. Maybe it found someone alive and is trying to get them. Someone might be in danger."

They kept going down the hall, but did not encounter anyone. They thought they heard the scream once more, much fainter than before, but Jill wasn't sure. Another minute later, they thought they heard gunshots, which only increased Barry's pace. A scream might mean a monster, but gunshots definitely meant survivors. Jill secretly wished otherwise. The last time they heard gunshots, things turned out very badly.

"Let's try the other way," Barry said, turning around.

Jill sighed and lowered her shoulders, exasperated. "The noise could be coming from anywhere. The sound echoes so much in these halls, we might never find it."

Barry stopped at another intersection. "You're right," he said. "Maybe we need to make some noise of our own. Maybe they can find us."

"You can't be serious. If it is a monster, then we'll be drawing it right to us."

Barry took a moment and checked his map once more. He seemed sure of something, and stuck it back in his pocket. "We're pretty close to the elevator right now. If something does come after us, we could probably outrun it. I know you don't want to bring any monsters down on us, but we can't just give up."

"I don't even think we heard gunshots at all. Maybe that thing was screaming because it was hungry."

Barry looked Jill right in the eye and tried to sound understanding. "Listen, I know you're scared. But we can't stop looking for survivors now. And I know you're upset about Enrico, but if anything, that only means we should try even harder. If we were two minutes faster, maybe we could have rescued him."

"I know that. But if we're not careful, we're going to get ourselves killed. We won't be much good if we don't survive ourselves."

"I'm sorry, Jill. But I'm not giving up just yet." Barry took a few steps away, so that he was right in the middle of the intersection.

He took a deep breath and shouted loudly, "Can anyone hear me?"

Jill closed her eyes and waited for the worst. She expected to hear the scream right away, just moments before some new abomination attacked them. But she heard nothing.

Clearly disappointed, Barry tried once more. "Can anyone hear me?" he shouted, his deep voice reverberating down all the hallways.

"Happy now?" Jill said quietly. "Can we just get out of here?"

Barry looked down each hallway for another moment and shook his head. It was as if he was seriously expecting some other result, like he thought that everyone who was still alive would just materialize at the sound of his voice.

"Just be glad we didn't attract any monsters," Jill said.

"Had to take the risk," Barry said. "Don't forget that you found me because I yelled for survivors."

"Actually, I did forget that."

"Come on, then," Barry said. "If there was anyone within earshot, we would have heard them by now."

Jill could not shake the feeling that Barry somehow expected to find another survivor, like he knew someone was hiding and was trying to track them down. She wondered why he checked the map again before calling out. In the back of her mind, she recalled asking Barry if someone gave him the map, and now she wondered if maybe someone did. She said nothing about it though.

As they made their way down the hallway, Jill wanted to hurry. The elevator was not far according to Barry, and Jill could not wait to get there and get out of the lab. She finally gave into her need to rush, and went past Barry at a light jog. He looked at her funny, but she shrugged at him and pushed her way through the doors at the end of the hall. However, almost as soon as she did so, she heard other footsteps in the hallway. The hall split off to the left, and someone on that side of the hall was coming their way.

Jill back-pedaled and pulled out her gun out of habit. But she realized immediately that the footsteps were not the aimless shuffling of zombies, or the clicking claws of dogs. They were the sounds of a person running toward them.

Jill almost fainted in shock when, against all logic and belief, none other than Chris Redfield magically appeared at the end of the hall. Chris stopped in his tracks and stared in outright amazement at Jill. Her breath caught in her chest, and she stumbled backwards into Barry, who barreled his way through the doors.

"Chris!" Barry shouted enthusiastically, almost knocking Jill off her feet. He rushed forward and wrapped Chris in a mighty bear hug, practically lifting him off his feet. Chris whooped for joy and returned the hug. It was like watching two long-lost brothers reunited for the first time in years. They laughed and shouted clapped each other on the shoulder like two fraternity jocks during homecoming celebrations.

But how could Chris still be alive? Jill's mind reeled at the sight. She saw him fall to the ground and get attacked by the dogs. How could he possibly have escaped?

And then an even bigger surprise. From around the corner emerged Rebecca Chambers, staring in shock at Barry, just as Jill stared in shock at Chris. They looked at each other in complete and total disbelief.

Somehow, despite the immense size and mazelike quality of the lab complex, they managed to all find each other there. They were reunited now, four survivors instead of just one or two. And with the end in sight, the emergency elevator so close by, Jill almost allowed herself to feel optimistic about their chances of making it out alive.

But there was still the traitor to worry about. And for all Jill knew, the traitor might be one of the three people with her.
Chapter 33

Lisa knew she must be very careful now. She followed her friend all through the rooms underground, making sure to stay far enough behind that her presence was not noticed. She figured out how to hold her chains so that they did not drag on the ground or make any noise.

When her friend met the big man who fought Lisa back in the big house above ground, Lisa had to be even more careful. The man hurt her before, but Lisa did not hold that against him. She was beginning to understand now why the man behaved that way. But she stayed quiet and careful, and so far her friend and the big man still did not know she was there.

Lisa kept her distance when they heard the loud noises and went to investigate them. She crept all the way to the long rooms with dirt walls to hear what was happening, just in case her new friend needed her help. She did not want her friend to know she was there, but if her friend was in danger, Lisa wanted to save her. But then she to retreat back in a hurry when her friend and the big man returned.

The entire time she followed them, she listened to them talk. Lisa wished that she could she could talk to them, but she could not talk at all. She didn't know why, because she could think in words, but for some reason, she could not say them out loud. But as she listened, she learned new words and began to figure some things out.

Once or twice, she heard them say the word "traitor." Lisa knew what the word meant, but she didn't know who they were talking about. A traitor was sort of like a liar. It was someone who promised to help you and then hurt you instead.

The people who imprisoned her underground were traitors, she realized sadly. They promised to help her father, and then they broke that promise. Lisa regained her memories at a faster rate now, things that she once forgot came back into her mind constantly. Her father was an important man, she remembered. He helped the caretakers and they promised to help him in return. But something bad happened, and the caretakers betrayed her father. Lisa did not know exactly what happened, but she did not think that she forgot it. Most likely, she never knew in the first place.

After that, her family was taken to the rooms underground. Lisa was sure now that her mother and father were dead. Lisa knew that they injected her with diseases to make her sick, but she believed that the diseases usually killed people. For some reason, the diseases did not kill Lisa. That was why the caretakers locked her in that room for so long. But her parents surely died from the diseases. It made Lisa sad, but there was nothing to be done.

Lisa remembered the man with dark glasses, the man who freed her. He was a traitor too, even though Lisa was happy that he let her go free. Lisa knew that the other caretakers did not want Lisa to ever be free, and so the man with the dark glasses betrayed them. She guessed that maybe someone was only a traitor if they hurt you. There could be good traitors as well as bad ones.

Lisa also figured out something else. Somehow, the other caretakers all got infected with the diseases that Lisa was given, because she saw many of them moving around like they were alive, even though they were dead. As far as Lisa knew, the man with dark glasses was still alive. She wondered if she would ever see him again.

As Lisa followed her friend and the big man, two more people suddenly showed up. Lisa was very surprised to see more living people in the rooms underground, since she thought that they were all dead. But her friend seemed happy to see them, so Lisa guessed they must be good people. One of them was another woman, which also made Lisa happy. She liked seeing other women, since they reminded her of her mother.

Another thing Lisa learned was that her friend's name was Jill. She almost forgot that people had names at all, since no one ever called her by her own name. And as she thought about names, she suddenly remembered that she had two names. Lisa was only her first name.

What was her second name? Lisa thought about it and then remembered. Her last name was Trevor. Her full name was Lisa Trevor. And she remembered her parents' names too. Jennifer Trevor was her mother and George Trevor was her father.
Chapter 34

After finding Rebecca, Chris hoped that maybe he would get lucky once more and find more members of the team. He could not believe his eyes when he not only found Barry, but Jill with him as well. He laughed in surprise and relief when Barry hugged him, too stunned to stop Barry from picking him up in an overjoyed bear hug. He dropped Chris back to his feet and tried to compose himself, a wide smile still on his bearded face.

"God, Chris. Boy is it good to see you."

"Same here, buddy," Chris said, smacking Barry on the shoulder.

Rebecca appeared beside Chris and waved meekly at Barry. "Hi, there," she said. Barry laughed and embraced Rebecca in his big arms as well. Rebecca giggled and pushed Barry away before he smothered her. "I'm happy to see you too, Barry," she said.

Jill approached them, still shaking her head in disbelief. "How in the world did you get away from the dogs?" she asked, her voice low, as if she was only talking to herself. "I saw one of them knock you to the ground."

"I shot it," Chris said simply. "The other dogs went after you guys. I ran around to the side of the mansion and came in another way."

"I don't believe it," Jill said, amazed.

Chris shrugged. "Believe it, baby."

"I knew you couldn't be dead," Barry said, gripping Chris's shoulder as if touching him to make sure he was real. "I just knew it. I knew you must have escaped."

"It wasn't easy," Chris clarified. "Once I got into the mansion, I ran into some problems, if you know what I mean."

"We ran into problems of our own," Barry said, his voice more calm now.

There was a long pause as they all looked at each other, momentarily silenced by the thoughts of what they had seen so far that night. Chris didn't know what problems Barry and Jill encountered, but he could not help but notice the large slash on the front of Barry's vest. He ran into more than just zombies as well. There was a splatter of dried blood on the front of Jill's uniform, and the exhausted look on her face told Chris all he needed to know.

Chris understood why Jill was so shocked to see him. After all, in those terrifying moments when they were chased by the skinless dogs, she saw him fall down with one of the dogs on top of him. He could not blame her for believing the dogs killed him the same way they killed Joseph. But she looked at him with more than just surprise. There was a strange hint of fear, maybe even suspicion, in her tired eyes. But Jill looked the worst out of all of them, so Chris was willing to disregard it. She looked on the verge of a complete breakdown.

Barry's reaction kind of surprised him, though. Barry really did not seem surprised to find out Chris survived, he was just overjoyed to find him. It was almost like he knew that Chris was alive and was intentionally looking for him.

Rebecca broke the quiet introspection. "Have you seen anyone else in Bravo?" she asked, her voice low but hopeful. It was a foolish question, of course, but Chris knew why she asked it. If Barry and Jill found any Bravo members alive, they would be with them. But Rebecca needed to know for sure.

"We found Kenneth," Barry said. "I'm sorry, Rebecca. We got there too late."

"Edward, too," Jill said. She seemed about to say something else, but then stopped.

Chris nodded sadly. "I saw Edward too. And I found Forest as well." Like Jill, he did not bother to explain the details. He already told Rebecca everything, and he didn't think Barry or Jill really wanted to know.

Rebecca held her breath as they told her, and she let it out in a long sigh. "Okay, what about Richard or Enrico? I haven't seen anyone from Bravo since right after our helicopter crashed."

Jill looked at Barry uncomfortably, and there was another long pause. Finally Barry nodded, and said, "Go ahead, Jill. You can tell them." He glanced at Chris and then turned away.

"We found Enrico," Jill said hesitantly. She tried to look Chris and Rebecca in the eye, but her gaze kept dropping to the floor. "He was alive when we found him, but he was ... he'd been shot. Someone shot him, and ..."

"What?" Chris asked. "What are you talking about?"

Jill closed her eyes tightly and whispered, "He was murdered right in front of me, Chris. I was right there, and he ... he said ..."

Rebecca's hand lifted to her mouth and her eyes seemed to grow to twice their size, glistening with tears. Chris could not believe what he was hearing, but he touched Jill's arm to urge her to continue.

"What did he say, Jill?"

Jill took a breath and looked up at Chris, that strange look still in her eyes. But then her face softened, and the suspicious look disappeared. "He said ... that there was a traitor."

At first, Chris did not seem to comprehend. Traitor? What was Jill talking about? He almost could not form the words himself. "A traitor?"

"Someone murdered him. Someone that he knew. And then they killed him before he could tell me who it was."

"Jesus ..."

Barry turned back toward them, his smile completely gone now. "Yeah, it looks like someone on the police force is a traitor. Whoever it was, they killed Enrico and escaped through some hidden door or something. Jill didn't get a good look at them." He said it calmly, as if reading it off a police report, but Chris could sense the repressed emotion seeping into the words. Barry was holding it together far better than Chris would have.

"I think it goes farther than that," Chris said. "I think this whole mission was a set up. We were led right into a trap."

"What do you mean?" Jill asked, staring up at him.

"I mean that this lab, this whole place, is way too big to have been a secret." He tried to quickly sum up the ideas lingering in the back of his head. "Think of all the construction that must have been done to build this place. That's a lot of workers, and they must have been legally allowed to build here. That means the Zoning Board knew about it. And this place has to be connected to the Raccoon City utilities. Electricity, water, heat, all of them. That means people on the Utility Commission knew about it."

"That doesn't mean we were set up," Barry said, but the look on his face made it clear that he agreed with Chris's line of reasoning.

"But it has to go farther than that. All the illegal experiments that must have gone on here could not have been kept secret for long. Umbrella must have bribed the officials in Raccoon City to keep this place under wraps. And that means that at some level, the police department must have been compromised. There's no way they could protect this place without having some control over the police."

"Irons," Barry muttered.

Chris nodded. "You have to admit, he acted pretty strangely about this whole thing. I don't know exactly, but I think he must have known something was going to happen. That's why he shut himself away and didn't tell us anything."

"But he let us go," Jill said. "If he wanted to keep this place a secret, he would have refused ..."

"He didn't have a choice," Chris said. "Bravo was gone for 24 hours. He had to okay the mission."

"But why would he let Bravo go in the first place?" Barry asked.

Rebecca spoke up suddenly. "Because we weren't sent to the mansion or the lab. We were sent to investigate a train accident."

"What?" Barry, Jill, and Chris all seemed to say at once.

Rebecca looked at them strangely, and then said, "The call. We were sent to check out a train mayday. That's what the actual call was about. The train just happened to be close to the mansion, and that's how we found it."

"That's not what Wesker told us," Chris said. "He said the call was from a government agency asking for help. It was supposed to be some kind of undercover mission."

"That's just what Irons must have told him," Jill said. "He was confused about the whole thing too, remember?"

"That doesn't make sense, either," Barry said. "Why tell Bravo it was a train, and then tell us it was some secret government location?"

"There was a train accident, though," Rebecca said, trying not to get sidetracked. "But when I got there, it was already full of zombies. Somehow, the people all got infected."

"You told me about the train," Chris said. "But I didn't know that's what you were actually sent to investigate. How could the whole train have been infected, though?"

"They were all infected at once," Rebecca said. "Something got into the train and killed everyone in a few minutes. I don't think I can even explain how it must have happened. But someone must have hit the emergency stop."

"So maybe it's just a coincidence," Barry said. "Irons must have figured out afterward that the train was right next to the mansion. That's why he lied to us about Bravo's call. But why ..."

Jill put her hands to her head and shook it. "This is too confusing for me," she said. "I don't understand it. My brain is just too fried right now."

"Listen," Rebecca said. "What I'm trying to say is that whoever made the emergency call must have known about the zombies. There was no one on the train alive to make the call. So that means that they sent us there, knowing that we'd discover the zombies."

"But who could have done that?" Barry asked.

"Someone who worked for Umbrella," Rebecca said. "That's the only possibility. Someone who worked here and knew about the infection. But whoever it was called us directly, because Enrico took the call himself. They didn't call Chief Irons, they called us."

"That doesn't make sense," Chris said. "Because that would mean ..."

"They wanted to expose it," Rebecca said. "Or maybe try to fight it off. We were brought in to fight the zombies, I'm sure of it. But our helicopter crashed, and we couldn't radio in."

"Wait a minute," Chris said. "You never did call in, did you?"

"No, the radio was broken in the crash."

Jill lifted her head back up. "But Wesker said you called in through a private band. He said you arrived and were being briefed by whatever agency called you there."

"No," Rebecca repeated. "We never called in."

"But Wesker said he talked to Bravo himself ..." Jill said, her voice trailing off. For a few moments, she just looked from Rebecca to Barry and then back to Rebecca.

Chris reached into one of his cargo pockets and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He unfolded it and sighed. "I thought this was just a coincidence or something. I found it in one of the offices in the mansion." He handed the note to Barry, who held it so Jill could see.

"Wesker," Jill said, reading the name at the top.

Rebecca, as if suddenly remembering something important, quickly took some sheets of paper out of her pocket. "I found this as well," she said, holding it out. It was the list of names from the chemical treatment plant, with the name "A. Wesker" at the bottom.

"But ... but how?" Jill managed to ask. "How could he be involved?"

"I don't think he's just involved," Chris said. "I found that note in a huge, fancy office that belonged to some guy named Spencer. He must have been a major supervisor here, and he wrote that note specifically for Wesker. And left it in his office for Wesker to find. That means he knew Wesker personally, and it means that Wesker must have been at the mansion before we ever came here."

"And this sheet is pretty old," Rebecca said. "I found it with a bunch of old files and things in an abandoned store room. It's probably from the eighties, at least."

"Maybe it's just someone with the same last name?" Jill suggested, not very seriously.

"Maybe, I guess. But it's the same first initial too, and 'Wesker' isn't a very common last name."

Chris looked at Barry, who said nothing for a few minutes. Chris knew that if Barry disagreed with their conclusions, he would say so. Barry was not the kind of person to hold back his opinions. But he said nothing now. He just stared at the pieces of paper with a cold, harsh expression on his face.

He could overlook one coincidence, maybe even two. But there were too many inconsistencies and coincidences here to ignore.

"So what do you think?" he asked Barry.

There was a short pause, as if the rest of them were waiting to hear Barry's opinion before forming their own. Jill clearly did not want to accept the fact that Wesker was a traitor, but she looked anxiously at Barry, waiting for confirmation or dismissal.

Barry's voice was flat and robotic. "I think you're right," he said.

"But he's been with S.T.A.R.S. for years," Jill said. "You've known him for like ten years, Barry."

"I've worked with him for years, that's true," Barry corrected slowly. "But I don't think I've ever really known him. I don't think any of us really know him."

Jill still didn't want to accept it. Chris understood how she felt, because he felt it as well. He worked side by side with Wesker for years. He respected and trusted him not only as a fellow police officer, but as a commander as well. Wesker went headfirst into danger with the rest of them on dozens of drug busts and murder investigations and rescue missions throughout the years. He even probably saved Chris's life once or twice in that time. Wesker was his partner, his comrade, his commander, his leader.

But was he Chris's friend? Did Wesker, who lacked humor, empathy, and even emotion most of the time, have any actual friends in the entire police force? Chris knew that every officer in the force respected Wesker, even begrudgingly, but he doubted that any of them would call Wesker their friend. Above all, Wesker was a successful commander because he treated everyone completely equally. That is, he treated them all with a professional detachment that bordered on actual contempt. It was hard to be friends with someone like that.

Chris knew nothing about Wesker as a person, and no one else on the S.T.A.R.S. did either. They knew he was single, but that was it. He never came to any company parties or to the Alpha's weekly card game. If anyone asked him a question about himself, he gave a vague, noncommittal answer. Family life, personal politics, religion, interests and hobbies, all of them were subjects that remained practically off-limits. Wesker always worked very hard to keep his entire life outside the police station a complete secret.

When Chris looked at Wesker in that light, he was surprised that no one suspected him of treachery or betrayal long ago. Given his secretive behavior and cold demeanor, he was the only person capable of pulling off such deception for so long.

"I think it's time we should get out of here," Rebecca said, once again breaking their introspective silence. "I know a way out of the labs. I can lead us right to the exit."

"Where does the exit lead?" Barry asked.

"To some little recreation area," Rebecca said.

"Was there a road or anything? Some way we can get back to Raccoon?"

Rebecca shook her head regrettably. "No, the only road I found leads to the industrial site I came from."

Barry seemed somehow pleased by this information. He took out a large, folded up sheet of paper. "I found this map," he explained. "Jill and I were heading to an elevator when we ran into you guys. It says it's an emergency elevator. I'm guessing it should take us right to some kind of road out of here."

"Does the elevator work?" Rebecca asked.

"I don't see why not," Barry said. "But if not, then we can use the other exit. We might as well try this one first to see where it goes."

"Sounds good to me," Chris said.

Barry folded the map back up. "Then let's get going."
Chapter 35

The lab room was silent except for Wesker's slow breathing. A computer monitor on the table in front of him showed a hallway not far from where he was. Unlike most of the other security videos he watched in the past few days, this one was not a recording. It was a live view of the hallway currently occupied by the remaining four members of S.T.A.R.S. Wesker watched silently as the four of them talked together, and although he didn't know exactly what they were saying since the cameras did not record sound, it was not difficult to figure out what the topic of conversation was.

Rebecca and Chris both produced papers for Barry and Jill to look at. Wesker had no choice but to assume they held his signature or some other unmistakable evidence. The quality of the video was far from perfect, but it seemed like they were arguing about something, or at least discussing something serious. Wesker knew it concerned the murder of Enrico and the identity of the traitor.

He never really considered the possibility that any member of Bravo would survive to be reunited with Alpha. But Rebecca was there now, and Wesker wondered what information she could give the others to implicate him. She knew that Bravo was sent to investigate a train crash, but Wesker told Alpha that they were sent to a government facility. He couldn't even think of the number of inconsistencies between what he told Alpha and what Rebecca might be telling them now. They would have no choice but to assume that Wesker lied.

Wesker clicked off the monitor and closed his eyes, leaning heavily on the table. They would be here soon, and he would find out what they knew or suspected. His original plan to lure them into the lab to be killed might not be feasible now, since they might not trust him. And if they didn't get trapped in the lab, Wesker could not be sure that they would be killed. And if any of them escaped to tell others what happened ...

Wesker didn't even know what might happen. Irons might panic and lose control of the situation. Umbrella might learn everything. Wesker might not be able to get away for long. If Umbrella suspected he was alive, they would track him down.

Wesker stepped away from the table and walked slowly through the small lab, running his hands absentmindedly along the machines and lab equipment. He did so much great work there, so much revolutionary science, so much progress. Few people on Earth knew more about the extremes of biological and genetic science than Wesker. Birkin might be one, perhaps some other high level researcher at one of the other Umbrella laboratories. But Wesker felt, rightfully so, that he personally made some of the most revolutionary and important discoveries in the history of science. He did not just participate in the research at the lab, he practically created it. Truthfully, much of his research was built upon the work of others, most notably the late James Marcus. But Wesker believed that other scientists would never make the connections he made, or take the risks he took to achieve so much.

And he might lose it all. The world could lose it all.

Wesker's mind went back to his very first day at Umbrella, all those years ago, when he was still young and confident and hopelessly naive. Back then, he thought that he was the most brilliant scientist in the world. And Umbrella seemed to agree most of the time. They promoted him early, along with Birkin, his only real peer, and put him on the fast track to management and senior researcher status at the lab. That was more than fifteen years ago. Wesker looked around the lab now, wondering about the final result of all his work. Had it all been for nothing? After fifteen years of amazing scientific achievement, was he about to lose it all in a storm of gunfire?

He wondered what would have happened if he could go back in time and warn his younger self what was going to happen in the future. If he could warn that cocky nineteen-year-old that all his hard work and dedication would end in a devastating plague and destruction of his life's work. He wondered what would happen. Would he have chosen the same path? Would he have done anything different?

He didn't even need to go back that far. He wondered what would happen if he could tell himself just a week ago what was going to happen. If one week ago, he could have known ahead of time about the infection at the lab and his plan to betray the S.T.A.R.S. team, would he have done anything different? Would he have made better plans? Would he have just followed Spencer's advice and gotten away as quickly as possible? Would he have sacrificed his freedom for the greater good? Would it even have mattered?

Wesker's aimless stroll around the lab led him to a silver briefcase lying on one of the large lab tables. Wesker flipped the latch and lifted the lid. Inside was a series of capsules and test tubes, and a single injection gun.

If he had known ahead of time, he would have spent more time on one side project in particular. For years, he fiddled around with the idea of an antidote for infection. He even mentioned it once to Birkin way back when Marcus was still alive. But little progress had ever been made, since the time from infection to death was under two hours. Even if there was an antidote, it would have to be administered almost immediately to be any good at all. Once the first symptoms of infection appeared, it would already be too late.

Plus, to make things even more difficult, the nature of the virus was such that no antidote could ever cure someone completely, since the virus itself was resilient to most biological attempts to destroy it. Anything strong enough to kill the virus would kill the host as well. The best they could hope for was some way to restrict it or contain it within the host. That meant that even if an infected person was saved, they would still be a carrier for the virus. An antidote would essentially turn someone into the most dangerous Typhoid Mary of all time.

But for years, Wesker worked on it a little bit at a time. It was never an important project, never a priority. It was the sort of wildly speculative project that could only be done in his spare time. He never even told Spencer about it. But now, he desperately wished that he had worked on it more thoroughly, done more tests and refined the process better.

Lisa was the key, of course. Poor old Lisa, somehow immune to the more devastating effects of the virus, and therefore doomed to a life of experimentation and torture. In all their years of testing and studying, no one at the lab ever figured out why Lisa was not killed by the virus. All they could hypothesize was that somehow, her unique DNA gave her some sort of resistance. She wasn't exactly immune, because she did suffer from some physical deformities and went completely insane very early in life. But Wesker always believed that with some careful genetic altering, they might be able to make a real cure.

Inside the capsules were specially altered variations of Lisa's blood. By itself, the blood was no use as a cure, or even a treatment. Once someone was infected with the virus, it was too late. But it seemed possible that if someone was given a dose of Lisa's blood prior to infection, they could develop a resistance much as Lisa had. It seemed possible, but they never took the time to study it fully. It was a long shot, and any projects of that nature always took a back seat to more important research.

Of course, the obvious problem with this experiment was that Lisa's blood already contained the virus. Over the years, Spencer infected her with almost every variation of the Progenitor that Umbrella ever created. By injecting the capsule, Wesker would basically be given himself a loaded dose of the virus itself, tempered with Lisa's unique DNA.

It had never been tested on a human subject before. Wesker never imagined that he would be the first.

Wesker's eyes traveled along the edge of the table and across the lab equipment to the person sharing the lab room with him. Although calling it a person was a stretch. Encased in a huge glass growth tank was an eight-foot tall Tyrant, one of the largest specimens the lab had ever created. It was still in stasis, but Wesker had already disconnected the sedative drips and other connections to keep the monster unresponsive. Right now, the Tyrant was essentially asleep, and it would not take much to awaken it.

He gently touched the injection gun. Fifteen years of hard work, and it all boiled down to this untested experiment as a last resort.

He knew that he was going to die sooner or later. If the S.T.A.R.S. members didn't kill him then the Tyrant would. Or Umbrella's commandos once they tracked him down. Or the man he'd hired to take Barry's family hostage would try to kill him when he got his money. Or for all Wesker knew, a random zombie might get him when the epidemic finally struck the city. It was inevitable. At some point or another, Wesker was going to face death. So he chose to face it now.

He lifted the injection gun out and carefully placed one of the capsules in the chamber. It worked like any other gun, but the end of the barrel was a long syringe. One pull of the trigger forced the contents of the capsule right into the subject's blood stream.

Wesker knew the time frame of infection better than anyone. In a normal test, he would not succumb to the virus for close to an hour. He would not even show symptoms of infection for twenty minutes. But his former coworkers would be here much sooner than that. Wesker needed to make sure he had no choice, but by that point, the virus would barely have any effect on him. In all their years of testing, they never thought to kill a test subject manually soon after infection, to see if it would still come back as a second stage host. Wesker didn't even know what would happen if he got killed in the next few minutes.

He held the gun and slid his finger onto the trigger. He placed the needle against his other arm without breaking the skin. His breathing and heartbeat remained stable. At this point, he was not even scared. It was too late for that.

He pulled the trigger and barely flinched when the needle stabbed through his skin and injected the dose of blood into his body. He held the gun there for a few moments and then slowly returned it to the silver briefcase. He then closed the lid and locked it.

Nothing, he thought idly. I don't feel anything. No fear, no pain, no regret. It's like all my emotions have just been washed away. I don't even care if I survive. I'm about as human as the creature in that tank.

He rubbed his arm where the needle punctured his skin, wiping away the tiny drop of blood that formed there. Strangely, he did feel something now. Just a slight tickle under the skin of his arm. It must be some unconscious mental reaction, because he knew that he would not physically be able to feel the presence of the virus in his bloodstream. But it did feel like he could sense the virus as it flowed through his body. It started as a strange tickle, and grew to an annoying itchiness, like a rash in his blood. He started to sweat.

And then a dagger of pain shot into his chest. He gasped for breath and fell to his knees, grasping his chest with curled fingers, scratching feebly at his shirt. It felt like someone jammed a red hot poker into his heart and started twisting it. Wesker doubled over, his whole body trembling, and his sunglasses fell off his face, clattering to the floor. He grunted painfully and tried to gasp for air, but his lungs felt like they were compressed in a vice. He couldn't breathe.

This can't be happening. The virus takes over an hour to inflict death. Loss of motor control doesn't start for half an hour. The virus isn't supposed to work this fast. Is Lisa's blood somehow acting as a catalyst? There's no way it should cause a reaction like this. This can't be happening!

Wesker's body shook as if trapped in a seizure. He forced himself down and held his arms in place to keep them from flailing around. He could taste bile in his mouth, and feel the sweat pouring out of his body. His blood pounded in his ears and his teeth clenched so hard he felt his jaw go numb.

He forced his eyes open. His sunglasses landed backwards, so that now the mirrored lenses faced back at him. Wracked with pain, he looked at his own twisted reflection.

What is happening to me? What have I done?
Chapter 36

The hardest thing that Barry Burton ever did in his entire life was keep calm during the short trip to the emergency elevator. His emotions raged under the surface, and keeping his voice steady when he talked took an inhuman amount of effort. He forced himself to walk at a casual pace, and to keep from acting too anxious or impatient, or else the others might suspect something.

Jill already did, Barry was sure of it. But he had a feeling that Jill suffered more emotional trauma than the others, and she would probably be doubting her own suspicions at this point. From the moment they entered the mansion, Jill was in way over her head. Finding Kenneth's body, the episode with the chained woman, watching Enrico die right in front of her ...

Barry's anger threatened to overwhelm him. Wesker said nothing to him about murdering Enrico. He mentioned that Enrico might still be alive, but why on Earth would he have any reason to kill him? Barry could not understand why Wesker killed him, and it must have been Wesker, because there was no one else. His confusion over the murder only made him more furious, and that made it even harder to maintain his composure around the others.

Barry knew where he was leading his teammates. Wesker would surely be waiting for them, but to what end? Barry had no idea. He fought the urge to simply stop and confess what he knew. He knew that Wesker betrayed them, he knew Wesker murdered Enrico, and he knew that they were headed straight for a trap.

But what difference did it make now? Barry might have felt shame and guilt for leading his friends into certain death, but he knew that it made no difference whether he led them to the elevator or not. Wesker was not about to let them escape this lab with their lives. He brought them here to be killed. They were all going to die anyway, so why try to run from it? He felt that it was better for them to make a stand, and face whatever Wesker planned for them, as a group, rather than be tracked down and killed one by one. Better to face their fate together.

In that sense, Barry didn't feel that he was betraying his teammates at all. He was lying to them, that was undeniable. But he wasn't just leading them to die, he was leading them to fight the person who truly betrayed them. Wesker's orders were to find the other members of the team and take them to the emergency elevator, and that was exactly what Barry was going to do, just not for the reasons that Wesker had in mind.

"Barry?" Chris asked. "You're pretty quiet. Is something up?"

Barry did not reveal anything in his expression. He smiled wanly and shrugged. "Just tired, man. Just thinking about getting out of here."

"Yeah," Chris said. "Me too." He glanced back at Rebecca and Jill, who were walking a few paces behind them, talking to each other. "I still can't believe we all found each other like that. Talk about crazy luck."

"You got that right," Barry said. "But we haven't found everyone. We don't know what happened to Richard."

"I wonder if he's still alive somewhere down here."

Barry shrugged. If Richard was still alive, Wesker probably would have told him, so he assumed that Richard was dead as well. "Maybe. He might be hiding anywhere. But I think we have to assume he's gone."

"You're right," Chris said. "We certainly can't go looking for him. Rebecca said that Enrico and Richard were together last time she saw them. They must have gotten separated as well."

"Exactly where has Rebecca been?" Barry asked, honestly curious. "She said she entered this lab from outside?"

Chris chuckled and said, "Yeah, she told me what happened to her. It was pretty crazy, but I think she left out a lot of details. After we get out of here, she can tell you herself."

Barry didn't think he would get to hear that story. "I suppose we'll all have some incredible stories to tell," he said. "But I wonder if anyone will want to hear them."

"Don't worry, man. This whole place will be exposed now. There's no way they can keep it a secret."

"They kept it a secret for this long, didn't they?"

"That was before half a dozen police officers died here," Chris reminded him. "The department has to investigate this. Umbrella can't cover it up, not when the entire city will be demanding answers. Most of the things they did here fall under federal jurisdiction, so that means the Feds will take over, and you can't screw with the Feds."

"If they want to investigate this place, they better bring the National Guard," Barry said. "They better come here with an entire army."

Chris patted Barry on the shoulder. "They'll do whatever is necessary. As soon as we get back to Raccoon, we'll raise the alarm. In two days, this lab will be all over the newspapers. Umbrella will be finished."

"I wish I was as sure of that as you are," Barry said. "You were in the military, you know how the government keeps a lid on things that it doesn't want the people to find out about. Do you really think that the government would want people to learn what happened here? That scientists invented some horrible disease that turns people into zombies? They can't let people find out about this. It would cause anarchy. If news of this gets out, the entire country will be in an uproar."

"They can't keep it a secret, Barry. There's too many people involved. Not just us, but all the people who worked here. How many people do you think have died at this lab already? I've seen at least fifteen zombies tonight already. Rebecca told me that the entire train was full of them. There's probably a hundred bodies here that need to be identified, a hundred people with families and friends who want to know the truth. Do you think that the government could keep that many deaths a secret?"

Barry wished he could be as optimistic about it as Chris was. But despite Chris's arguments, Barry didn't think that news of this atrocity would ever be released to the public. It was just too dangerous to be widely known. The government would step in to do the investigation, but they would cover it up afterwards under the guise of public safety. The truth was just too explosive.

All the families of those who died would receive financial settlements with the condition that they would never talk about it. Barry felt certain that the entire grisly episode would eventually be swept under the rug. In a few years, people would have mostly forgotten about it, and any research would turn up vague references to a chemical spill, or a biological contaminant, or some other sugar-coated phrase to hide the reality of what truly took place. The public would be given a handful of convenient lies, and they would go on living their lives, none the wiser.

And the people who died would be erased from history, their deaths made meaningless and without repercussion. So many deaths, and all for nothing. Perhaps Umbrella would pay for their crimes in the long run, but it would never be tied to the events in the Arklay Mountains.

"The truth will come out in the end, Barry," Chris promised. "And maybe when this is all over, we can all get back to our lives."

Barry nodded, but did not reply. He would never get back to his life. Even if they managed to avoid whatever trap Wesker planned for them, Barry did not think he would escape with the others. Because he already knew there was no life for him to return to.

Wesker slipped up, and if Barry had been thinking more clearly at the time, he would have realized it right away. But the knowledge that his family was held hostage shocked him so much that he couldn't think straight. He was too stunned to carefully study what Wesker told him. Now, looking back on what Wesker told him, he knew that Wesker lied.

Wesker said that Barry's family would be killed if he didn't make a phone call every half hour and use a special code word. But then he said that everyone would all probably die there in the labs. Wesker claimed that even he might be killed. If that was the case, then how could he call the man holding Barry's family hostage? Wesker promised that Barry's family would be safe, but Barry now realized that Wesker could not promise that, if everything else he said was true.

Wesker had no reason to keep his word. If he could murder Enrico in cold blood, why would he let Barry's family live? They might know of knowledge of Wesker's involvement, since the man on the phone used Wesker's name. Barry's family was a liability, and that meant that they were probably already dead.
Chapter 37

"How far is it, Barry?" Jill asked.

Barry examined the map once last time. "Not far," he said with a sigh. "Looks like it's just around this next corner."

Jill broke into her first smile in hours. Granted, they weren't exactly out of the fire yet, because Raccoon City was still a long way away. But getting out of the labs was the first step. If a road led away from the elevator entrance, and it seemed likely that one would, they could use it to get back to a main road that would take them back to the city. They would probably still have a few hours to go until they were completely safe, but the hard part was nearly over.

Jill, Barry, Chris, and Rebecca went down the hall and around the corner. A short way down the hall was another corner, but before they even reached it, Jill got the sudden feeling that something was wrong. It seemed kind of odd to put an elevator way at the end of a hallway like this. If there was an actual emergency, it would be best to put an emergency exit where everyone could get to it easily. It didn't make sense for the emergency elevator to be in a location like this. And as they approached the doorway, she saw that it wasn't an elevator at all.

Barry carefully arranged to be walking behind the others, and as they reached the door, he ushered them all through and paused right in the doorway.

"Wait a minute ..." Jill started to say.

It was just another lab room like all the others, if smaller and more crowded than most. The room was roughly square, and each side wall was lined with rows of machines and tables set up with chemical apparatus. The center of the room was also stacked with machines and various other devices. The far wall held a growth tank, and within the tank ...

"Oh my God," Jill whispered.

Suddenly, a figure rose from behind some of the machines at the other side of the room. It was as if he had been lying on the floor and now stood up casually, one of his hands adjusting the mirrored sunglasses that were always on his face. He looked the same as he always did, but there was something different, something wrong.

"Good job, Barry," Wesker said.

Before anyone could react, Barry jumped forward and pulled out his gun.

But Wesker moved faster, his arm moving too fast for the eye to follow. In the blink of an eye, he drew his own gun and opened fire. He moved faster than anything Jill had ever seen. She screamed and ducked for cover, as did Chris and Rebecca.

Barry's gun boomed once and then he staggered back, blood erupting from his upper chest. Wesker's bullets rang out like machine gun fire, striking the wall behind him as he tumbled to the floor, his body falling limp.

"Rebecca!" Chris shouted.

But she was already at Barry's side, scrambling to pull her equipment from her pockets. Medical patches, packets of clotting material. She went to her knees beside Barry and ripped open a packet of clotting powder, spreading it all over the gunshot wound, her hands moving quickly. In another second, she pressed a patch against the wound.

Chris stuck his arm above the machinery and fired blindly in Wesker's direction. The bullets all missed their mark. Wesker returned fire, his bullets shattering glass beakers and test tubes lined up on the tables. Broken glass rained down on Chris.

Jill drew her gun and turned to look at Barry, and saw the electric door to the lab was sliding shut. She dove forward and stuck her arm into the closing gap, and the door closed right on her upper arm. She panicked for a moment, thinking the door would cut her arm right off, but the motor was not that powerful. The door simply stopped on her arm and continued to push, trying to close all the way.

"I need something to block the door!" she cried.

Chris reached up and swept his arm along the top of the table nearest him. Beakers, metal cups, and other equipment crashed to the floor, and he tossed one of the metal cups to Jill. She wedged it into the gap in the door and pried her arm free, setting the cup in place to keep the door from closing completely.

As soon as she was done, she crawled over to Barry. He grunted in pain as Rebecca forced down on the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. The bullet passed directly above the bulletproof vest and blown clean through Barry's collarbone. His entire neck was sprayed with blood, making it look much worse than it was. But in Jill's mind, all she saw was Enrico with a much similar injury, gradually bleeding to death.

"Sorry ...I lied to you ... he took my family ..." he gasped.

"Your family?" Jill said in shock.

"Took them hostage ... threatened to ... kill them if I ... didn't help him ... I had no choice ... didn't want it to ... end like this ..."

Jill grabbed Barry's hand and he squeezed back, gritting his teeth against the pain. "You should have told us," Jill said. "We could have come up with something."

"Just kill him," Barry said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Wesker's voice suddenly came from the other side of the room. "Is that you, Barry? Are you still alive? I thought for sure that I killed you with that shot. Guess my aim is off."

"Wesker!" Chris screamed furiously. "You're out of your mind! You're a traitor! How could you betray us like that?! How could you?!"

"Didn't Barry tell you?" Wesker asked, his voice sounding strange. "Oh, I guess he must not have, or else you wouldn't even be here."

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

"I've worked for Umbrella since I was nineteen. I'm the research supervisor for this entire lab complex. I joined the police ten years ago to spy on them."

Wesker's strange, unexpected confession stunned the others into silence. Chris just stared at the floor in disbelief, and Jill glanced at Barry for some kind of response. The only one who remained focused was Rebecca, who concentrated on stopping Barry's bleeding.

Wesker used the lull to get up and open fire once more. His arm jerked around robotically, spraying bullets all over the other end of the room. Jill ducked down and covered her head as more broken glass and equipment crashed down. The metal door clanged loudly as bullets struck it. But somehow, no one was hit in Wesker's outburst.

Jill leaned out from around some machines and pulled the trigger. Her shots missed, but they at least made Wesker duck for cover. Chris stuck his arm up again and fired once more, his shots also going wide. He quickly reloaded and peeked above the table. Wesker saw him and fired, and Chris ducked down once more as the bullet clanged into the metal tabletop.

Jill had a clean shot, but her hand was not steady enough. She pulled the trigger, but instead of hitting Wesker in the chest, the bullet struck him in the forearm. He howled in pain and went to the ground.

"You shot me! I don't believe it!" he shouted, his voice once more sounding very strange. His voice quavered unsteadily, as if he was trying not to laugh. "Jill, was that you?"

Jill braced herself behind the machine and swallowed nervously. She glanced at Chris, who was moving carefully around the edge of the machine. She wondered how many bullets remained among them.

"I know it was you, Jill!" Wesker shouted when she didn't respond. "Hey, I just want you to know that I'm sorry about that thing with Enrico. You weren't supposed to be there. You actually almost shot me when I was hiding in that room."

Jill could not believe her ears. Was Wesker completely out of his mind? He killed Enrico, shot Barry, and was trying to shoot the rest of them. And he was actually apologizing for Jill being there to witness Enrico's death! Had Wesker lost all hold on reality?

Chris jumped up and shot at Wesker again. His bullets struck the machines Wesker was hiding behind, causing them to spark and smoke. Wesker's arm stuck out and he fired back, making Chris take cover once more. Wesker got out and casually walked across his side of the lab, firing as he went. Jill fired at him, but he barely reacted.

Chris stuck his arm up and fired blindly again. Jill wanted to shout at him angrily not to waste his ammunition, but her voice froze as one of Chris bullets struck the huge glass tank. The glass cracked, and water sprayed from the hole. Jill stared in horror as the creature inside the tank stirred and started to move.

"Chris!" she shrieked.

"Good one, Chris!" Wesker laughed. "Now you've really done it!"

The giant creature in the tank began to move around, its thick arms bumping into the glass. Independent sensors must have noticed the hole in the glass, because in a few seconds, the water drained completely out of the tank. The creature gradually seemed to awaken and started pushing harder against the inside of the tank. Jill noticed with growing fear that one of the monster's hands was nothing more than a misshapen club.

"What is that thing?" Chris shouted. "Another one of your experiments?"

"It's called a Tyrant!" Wesker cried triumphantly. "I wish I had more time to tell you about it, but I don't think you'll live that long! You woke it up, and it probably isn't very happy with you!"

With a loud crack, the glass tank seemed to split in two. Jill and Chris watched in descending terror as the albino giant reared back and swung its massive arm into the glass, shattering right through it. The glass exploded outward at first, and then the entire tank seemed to topple over. The Tyrant barely seemed to notice as the tank shattered around it, crashing to the floor.

The Tyrant examined its newfound freedom and stepped down off the base of the tank. Its movements were slow and methodical, not like the wild movements of the woman in chains, or the frenzied speed of the lizardlike hunters. Jill could not help but compare it to the staggering movements of Frankenstein's monster. But there was no hint of clumsiness or poor motor control in the Tyrant. It moved slowly because its body was not built for speed, not because it could not control itself. It did not walk in a jerky, robotic motion at all, as Jill first expected. Its movements were sure and determined, but very slow due to the creature's size and stature.

Chris grabbed Jill's arm, forcing her to look away. "We have to get out of here," he said. "Help me get that door open."

Chris grabbed the door edge and pulled, while Jill braced herself against the frame and pushed. The electric motor whined, but slowly, the door eased itself open. When there was enough room, Jill stuck her body in the door and pushed with her feet.

The Tyrant seemed not to notice them at first, but soon began to walk forward, one slow step at a time, its feet crunching on the broken glass all over the floor. Its legs were so long that each step spanned five feet. It would only take it five or six steps to reach the other side of the room.

"You'd better hurry up!" Wesker laughed. "I don't think it's coming over to say hello!"

Suddenly, the Tyrant stopped in mid-stride. It turned its massive body to look at Wesker, and then took a step in his direction. Jill and Chris watched in sudden elation as the Tyrant began walking away from them.

Wesker, on the other hand, panicked and scrambled into the corner of the room as soon as the Tyrant noticed he was there. He pulled out his gun and frantically opened fire, pulling the trigger until the gun was empty. The loud gunshots only seemed to enrage the Tyrant more, and the bullets barely even made an impact on its body. In two steps, the Tyrant made it to the corner.

"No! Not me! You're supposed to kill them! Not me! Them!" Wesker screamed in terror. "You're supposed to kill them!"

Wesker made a desperate lunge behind the machinery at the back of the room as the Tyrant reached him. But the Tyrant moved surprisingly quickly, and grabbed Wesker's arm in its huge fist. Even from the other end of the room, Jill clearly heard the sickening crunch as the Tyrant broke Wesker's arm with no effort at all.

Wesker screamed in pain as the Tyrant lifted him into the air. Wesker tried to struggle, but the Tyrant held him up as if he weighed nothing, and with a broken arm, Wesker could only dangle there helplessly. He feebly struck the Tyrant's arm with his fist, crying and screaming incoherently, his whole body shaking in tortured pain.

"No!" he screamed. "I made you! I made you! You can't kill me!"

The Tyrant raised its club hand and seemed to flex the muscles in its arm. There was a sudden ripping noise, and a foot-long spike of bone jutted suddenly from the stump of its hand. A clear fluid squirted from the base of the spike, and dripped disgustingly to the floor.

Wesker's screams increased and he maniacally tried to wrench himself free of the Tyrant's grip, even with his arm crushed in its viselike hand. Throughout all of it, the Tyrant's face remained completely still, as if it was incapable of showing any emotion, even anger.

The four S.T.A.R.S. members watched in sick fascination and horror as the Tyrant reared its spike back and thrust it directly into Wesker's chest in one clean movement. The spike burst out Wesker's back, smeared with blood. Wesker screamed one last time and thrashed about, and then his scream went to a gurgle and he went completely still. Blood gushed from his torso, splashing onto the Tyrant's body. Jill felt bile rising in her stomach, sickened by the hideous scene in front of her. But at the same time, she felt a twisted sense of satisfaction at Wesker's horrible death.

He got exactly what he deserved.

The Tyrant let go of Wesker's arm and let his bloody body hang from the spike for a few moments, as if getting a closer look at him. Then the Tyrant merely swung its arm and hurled Wesker's limp body to the other side of the room. It spun in the air and slammed into a tall metal shelf covered in more metal trays and glass beakers. His body tumbled to the floor like a rag doll, the entire shelf coming down with him.

The Tyrant stared at Wesker's body for a moment, and then resumed its original course. It began walking toward Jill and the others, who were so transfixed by Wesker's death that they almost forgot about trying to escape.

"Come on!" Chris shouted. Together, they managed to get the door completely open. Jill stuck her pistol into the bottom of the door frame, jamming the door so it would not close.

Rebecca kept pressure on the gunshot wound the entire time, and now she tried to get Barry into a sitting position. He pushed her away gently, and Chris knelt by his side.

"Come on, Barry. Time to get out of here," he said urgently.

"Can't," Barry grunted, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "... Never get out of here ... can barely move ..."

"No, we can get you out of here. We'll carry you if we have to –"

"Too late for me ... Get out while you can ..."

Chris shook his head emphatically. "No, we're not leaving you here."

"Please, Barry," Jill urged.

Barry coughed up more blood. "I know my family is dead ... I have nothing to ... go back to ..."

"No," Chris whispered, leaning closer. "You can't mean that, you can't expect me to just leave you here."

Barry smiled weakly. "You have to ... get Jill and Rebecca out of here ... You have to ... tell everyone what happened ... Just promise me something ..."

"Anything," Chris said, taking hold of Barry's hand.

"Don't let them ... cover it up ... Don't let Umbrella get away with it ..." Barry's face hardened and he clenched his teeth in pain. "Promise me ... that you'll make them pay ... for everything they've done."

Tears were already streaming down Chris's face. "I promise," he whispered, squeezing Barry's hand. "I promise ..."

Barry handed his map to Jill and jabbed his finger at it, leaving a bloody fingerprint. "There's the elevator ... not too far from here ... you can make it ..."

The Tyrant was already halfway across the room. Chris gave Barry his pistol and stood up on shaking legs. Rebecca looked down at Barry but said nothing, and then headed out the door. Jill took the map and leaned forward to kiss Barry's forehead. "We won't let you down," she said. "I promise, we'll make Umbrella pay for this."

There was no time to say their final goodbyes. The Tyrant was almost upon them. Jill pulled Chris away and forced him out the door, where they ran to catch up with Rebecca.

Barry watched them go, tears dripping down his own face. He could only pray that they would make it out alive. If they died, then it had truly all been for nothing. But if they made it, he knew that Chris would keep his word. They would make Umbrella pay for this, pay for all the senseless death and misery. That small fact made him feel better.

He thought about his wife and daughters. He would be with them soon.

Turning his attention back to the Tyrant, who was only a few feet away, Barry raised his Colt in one hand and Chris's Beretta in the other. As the Tyrant reached down toward him, he began pulling the triggers.

But he only got a few shots out before it was all over.
Chapter 38

Chris heard the loud volley of gunshots coming from the lab room, but when they suddenly stopped, he forced himself not to look back. He could grieve for Barry at a later time. Right now, the only thought in his head was to find a way to escape.

Rebecca was already at the end of the hall, at the first intersection. "Which way do we go?" she called to Jill.

Jill shook the map open as she ran, and frantically tried to figure out where they were. She put her finger on the circled area of the map where the lab room was located, and then traced along the hallways toward the actual location of the elevator. "Give me a second, I think it's right here. Left, we go left."

"It's coming!" Rebecca screamed, pointing over their shoulders.

The Tyrant came down the hallway after them, moving much faster than it moved back in the lab. It seemed to gain confidence the more it moved, and was now coming at almost a slow jog. Its face remained completely impassive, but the blood splattered all over its chest and spiked hand was intimidating enough.

"Come on!" Chris shouted, grabbing Jill's arm.

They ran down the hallway to the left and ran forward as fast as they could. Incredibly, the Tyrant came right around the corner and gained on them, slowly picking up speed. One of the Tyrant's strides equaled two of theirs, and it came after them like a bloodhound on the trail of a fugitive. Its head frequently hit the ceiling because it was so tall, but it barely seemed to notice, and it left visible dented footprints in the tile floor. A trail of broken ceiling tiles and shattered fluorescent lights lay behind it.

Jill stopped momentarily to get a better look at the map. "We go this way!" she shouted, starting to run again. "It's not very far –"

She was interrupted by a deafening boom that seemed to come from all around them, and then the floor was pulled out from under them. She hit the ground as the lights flickered and then turned off, leaving them in complete and total darkness. Just as Jill began to freak out, red light bulbs popped out of spaces in the ceiling and turned on, bathing them all in creepy red light. There was another muffled boom and a ceiling tile crashed to the floor just a few inches from Jill's head.

Chris was the only one to remain on his feet when the entire hallway shook. Even the Tyrant fell off balance and smashed into a nearby wall, which broke apart like a sheet of styrofoam with the heavy impact. The Tyrant crashed right through, its legs hanging out of the hole in the wall.

"What was that?!" Jill cried, pulling herself to her feet. The eerie red lights made it look like the entire hallway was slick with blood.

"The generator!" Rebecca shouted.

Chris completely forgot about the power generator. It must have overloaded after all, and the resulting explosion rattled the entire lab. It was enough to slow the Tyrant down, but Chris realized that it was even more urgent that they get away. An explosion in an underground complex could bring the entire thing down like a collapsed mine shaft.

They continued down the hall, and once more Jill examined the map to figure out which way to go. Chris looked back behind them and saw that the Tyrant crawled out of the hole in the wall and was back on its feet. It seemed disoriented by the red lighting, but once it saw them, it started coming once more.

"This way!" Jill shouted, and they were off.

Another blast made the hallway shake, knocking Jill off her feet again. A nearby door crashed completely off its hinges when a heavy shelf inside the room fell sideways and crashed into it.

Rebecca scrambled to her feet and kept running. "Come on!" she yelled.

Chris looked up and saw the ceiling begin to collapse. "Look out!" he screamed, but it was too late for Rebecca to stop.

A huge chuck of the ceiling broke loose and fell down right on top of her, knocking her right to the ground. Half a dozen ceiling tiles caved in around her, along with a huge amount of insulation and paneling. Dust and dirt trickled down from the hole, and electrical wiring hung down like old cobwebs.

Chris ran to Rebecca and pulled her free from the debris. Jill pushed some metal panels off her legs and helped Chris pull her upright. Rebecca was completely motionless, and Jill thought she saw blood smeared across her face, but she could not be sure because of the red emergency lights.

"Oh my God, is she okay?"

"I don't know," Chris grunted, hefting Rebecca up to carry her over his shoulder. "I think she's only unconscious. We have to take her with us."

"The elevator is this way," Jill said, checking the map again.

Behind them, the Tyrant was smashing its way through another collapsed section of hallway. It stepped through the broken ceiling panels and kicked them out of its way, walking steadily toward them. Its whole body seemed to glow red under the emergency lights, as if something stripped its skin away completely, leaving bloody muscle and sinew beneath. Chris immediately thought of the licker that he and Rebecca defeated earlier. But this time, they didn't even have any guns to shoot it with. They could only run or die.

Jill followed the hallway on the map and stopped where Barry left his bloody fingerprint. "Down this hallway and to the right! It should be right there!" she cried. The Tyrant was pretty far down the hall, and would not catch them before they made it to the elevator.

"What if it doesn't work?" Chris asked, panting heavily. Rebecca's limp body was a heavy weight, but he was energized by fear and barely slowed down.

"It's an emergency elevator! If this doesn't count as an emergency, I don't know what does!"

They turned the corner, and as promised, the elevator was right there. More like a freight elevator then a regular elevator, it was framed in a massive metal box with a thick metal grating on the door. A huge sign above it labeled it for emergencies only, and orange warning stripes on each side marked it as such. Jill hit the red button with her palm, and the doors immediately opened with the sound of metal scraping on metal.

They rushed inside and Jill hit the button again as Chris set Rebecca's body on the floor. The metal doors scraped closed and the elevator grumbled as the motor came to life. Through the grating, Jill saw more pieces of ceiling tile tumble to the floor as the lab trembled under the force of another small explosion. Even the red lights began to flicker, which meant even the emergency power generators were having trouble.

"She's breathing," Chris said, leaning over Rebecca's body. "She's unconscious, but she's alive."

"Is she bleeding anywhere? I thought I saw blood."

"I don't think so. I think she's going to be okay."

Jill felt as if she should be relieved that Rebecca was still alive, but to be happy about anything right now felt wrong. She was glad that Rebecca was okay, but at the same time, she was still saddened and heartbroken that Barry was not with them.

As the elevator started to rise, Jill went down on one knee and closed her eyes, lowering her head solemnly. She let out a long, tired sigh, and shrugged away the urge to cry. There was no point in crying now. Too many deaths already, too many lives lost. She could not focus on one death in the middle of so many. At least Barry's death was voluntary, Jill reasoned. If they tried to carry him to safety, they would never have escaped the Tyrant. He willingly chose to remain behind, rather than slow the rest of them down.

But that was little consolation. Barry was dead, and they had left him to die.

Chris said nothing. After checking to make sure Rebecca was okay, he sat back and stayed lost in his own thoughts. He probably felt the exact same way that Jill felt, or at least she hoped he did. She didn't want to be the only one.

Below them, Jill heard the screeching sound of metal ripping apart, and then the elevator abruptly jerked to a halt so suddenly that she almost lost her footing. The motor squealed in protest and the elevator started to rise again after only a second or two.

"What was that? Did it lose power?"

"I don't know," Chris said. "Maybe –"

The elevator jerked again, harder this time, and the floor underneath Jill's feet buckled upward. With a groan, the metal bent up and split apart like a banana peel, and a huge spike burst through the floor.

"Jesus Christ!" Jill screamed, scrambling away.

The spike pulled back out and then burst through the floor again in another spot. Chris pulled Rebecca's body closer to the edge of the elevator and stared at the spike in disbelief. The Tyrant punched through the floor again, perforating the thick metal panels like they were made of cardboard. The entire elevator rumbled and jerked with the extra weight, and they could hear the motor grinding in vain. The lights flickered randomly, turning the elevator into a claustrophobic box with a strobe light in it.

"We're trapped!" Jill screamed. "What are we going to do?!"

"We don't have any guns! We can't do anything!" Chris shouted, holding Rebecca's body out of reach of the Tyrant. "We weren't more than a story or two underground! We have to reach the surface soon!"

"And then what?!"

The Tyrant's spike hand burst through the floor again, only a few inches from Jill's leg. The elevator rocked back and forth, and she braced herself in the corner to keep from falling over. She could feel the entire compartment grind and scrape against the inside of the elevator shaft. It jerked hard again and she had the terrifying thought that the cables would snap under the weight and send them plummeting to their death.

But as soon as the thought passed, the elevator finally slammed into place with a groan and the doors began to open. Chris got to his feet and pulled Rebecca back over his shoulder. Jill jumped over the holes in the floor and helped him walk around the edge of the elevator compartment and get through the doors. Almost as soon as they were out, the Tyrant smashed its arm into the floor, breaking it upward like a box lid. Through the gaping hole, Jill saw the giant albino hanging underneath the compartment by one arm. It stared right at her.

Huge metal doors opened and led them outside. It was still the middle of the night, and the moon gave faint silver illumination to their new surroundings. The emergency elevator led to an area with a wide concrete patio and a few small buildings, surrounded on all sides by trees. But the road they expected to find was nowhere to be seen. They ran to the center of the concrete patio and Chris dropped to one knee, sliding Rebecca's body off his shoulder to set her on the ground.

"There's nowhere to go!" he shouted angrily, looking at the forest around them. "There's no road! Where are we supposed to go?!"

"Well, we have to go somewhere!" Jill shouted back. "We sure as hell can't stay here!"

"I don't know how much longer I can carry her," Chris said. "And there's no way I can carry her through the woods."

"Maybe ..." Jill said, her mind racing, "Maybe you can just leave her in the woods for now. That monster probably won't even notice her, or it'll think she's dead. It will focus on chasing us instead."

"I can't just leave her, Jill," Chris said. "And it doesn't even matter, cause there is no way that we can outrun that thing. It will track us down and kill us in five minutes, and then come back to kill Rebecca as well."

"We have to try!" Jill shouted. "We don't have anything to fight it with! And I'm not just going to stand here and let it kill us!"

Behind them, the Tyrant smashed its way through the wreckage of the elevator compartment and climbed out. The doors began to close, but it pushed them back open effortlessly, and began walking toward them. It did not even seem tired, or even bothered by its exertion. There were still smears of red blood all down its spike hand, as well as blood splattered all over its torso, mixed now with oil and grease from the elevator cables. It came at them like some unstoppable robot, a soulless killing machine.

Jill froze in place, suddenly unable to move at all. She desperately wanted to run away, but she could not leave Chris and Rebecca there, no matter how much she wanted to. Overcome both by blood-chilling terror and personal responsibility, she could do nothing but stand there as the Tyrant walked toward them.

In the midst of her own panic, Jill could hear Chris whispering to himself. "I'm sorry, Barry. Sorry, but we won't get out of here after all. I won't be able to keep my promise ..."

Jill and Chris felt the concrete tremble underneath their feet, and then the ground jumped under the force of another tremendous explosion in the labs below. The Tyrant almost fell over, but remained standing.

And then one of the small buildings nearby burst into flames and exploded. The ground underneath the building burst apart and a tower of fire shot into the air like an erupting volcano. The building was blown to pieces in an instant, blasting a wall of debris across the entire area, and the shockwave knocked the Tyrant off its feet. Jill and Chris crouched over Rebecca's body as flaming chunks of wood and other wreckage landed around them.

The Tyrant stood back up and looked at the fiery remains of the building, as if hypnotized by the flames. The entire area glowed seemed to glow orange, illuminated by the bright column of fire rising from what was left of the building. After a few moments of watching the flames, the Tyrant seemed to remember its purpose, and turned to face Jill and Chris. It started walking toward them as if nothing had interrupted it. Surrounded by burning rubble and silhouetted against the bright flames, the Tyrant seemed like a demon rising from the underworld.

Jill knew they could never escape it. If they tried to run away, it would never stop chasing them, and it would never get tired, and it would never lose track of them, and it would never give up. She could have tried to run into the woods, but in the dark, she would not make it very far. A stray branch or root would cause her to trip and slow her down, while the Tyrant would walk through such obstacles like a tank. Chris was right, the Tyrant would catch them in less than five minutes.

The Tyrant halved the distance between them in a few steps. But then, a strangled cry bellowed from the direction of the elevator doors. There was a crash, and a body suddenly launched up through the trashed elevator. Flames flickered on the edges of its clothing and long brown hair as it crashed into the solid metal doors, knocking one completely off its hinges in a screech of shattered metal. The figure sailed into the air and landed on all fours, shaking like a wet dog to try to extinguish the bits of flame. It wore a ripped up blue shirt and brown slacks, and two long lengths of chain were manacled to its wrists.

"What in the hell is that?!" Chris shouted.

"It's the woman! I don't believe it!" Jill blurted in shock.

At the sound of their voices, the woman hunched up and looked quickly from Jill to the Tyrant. There was a moment of indecision, and then the woman's eyes opened wide. With a howl, she suddenly launched herself up and slammed right into the Tyrant's back, swinging her chains like whips. She wrapped her arms around the Tyrant's head and screamed in fury, pulling back on its neck, knocking the creature off balance.

"She's fighting it!" Jill cried. "She's trying to help us!"

The Tyrant shrugged the woman off, but she jumped back up and swung her long arms at its face, slamming into his white flesh with a sickening thud. The chains whipped across its impassive face and left long gouges in the flesh. The Tyrant swung back, but the woman leaped straight into the air and crashed down on top of it, pummeling the back of its head with her fists. The Tyrant reach up and grabbed her neck in its hand and wrenched forward, pulling the woman off and body slamming her into the concrete.

As she got up, the Tyrant reared back and thrust its spike into her chest. Jill almost screamed in fear, but the spike barely slowed the woman down. She knocked the spike aside and leaped once again at the Tyrant's head. She scrambled up onto his back like a monkey and wrapped her arms around his head, pulling and twisting as if trying to tear the Tyrant's head clean off its shoulders. The entire time, she screamed and howled manically, as the Tyrant stumbled around and tried to pull her away.

"Wait!" Chris shouted, looking up into the night sky. "Do you hear that?"

Jill looked up as well and could suddenly make out a loud, thrumming sound in the sky above them. A steady pounding noise, and the sound almost brought tears to her eyes. From the darkness emerged a large black helicopter, hovering in the air almost directly above them.

"It's Brad!" she screamed. "He came back!"
Chapter 39

For two hours, Brad tried unsuccessfully to remain awake. Occasionally, he thought he heard noises coming from the dark forest below, but could not be sure if they were his imagination. Or maybe they were just animals making noise.

And then there was a huge, deafening boom and, a bright, fiery explosion lit up the entire forest in an orange halo. Brad immediately started the chopper, almost too shocked to think straight. He cranked the engine and the rotor blades became a blur above the cockpit. He lifted the helicopter into the air and flew straight for the huge inferno now burning almost two miles away. He prayed that the explosion was meant as a signal of some kind, but he feared he would arrive to discover that he was already too late.

As he approached the fire, he saw that there was a small clearing with few small buildings around a large landing area. His heart jumped when he saw figures moving around, lit by the huge fire. He tilted the chopper down and lowered it to the ground.

"I'm sorry!" he screamed as the figures came running at him. He didn't even know what to say to them. Would an apology ever make it go away? Would they ever trust him again after what he'd done?

Honestly, he didn't even care. All that mattered was that they were alive. He found them again, and now he was here to take them back to safety. He was going to do his job, and he could only pray that they could forgive him for what he had already done.

"I was scared! I'm so sorry!"

"Brad!" the first person screamed, her voice carrying over the roar of the spinning rotors. Brad recognized Jill's face in the firelight and felt relief wash over him. Jill was his friend, if no one else forgave him, maybe she would. Maybe she would understand.

"We need weapons!" she shouted as she got to the chopper. "Open the weapon compartment!"

"What do you mean? Just get inside and we can get out of here!"

"We need to destroy that thing!" she screamed, pointing in the direction of the other figures moving around on the concrete landing pad. Brad didn't look at them closely at first, but now he saw that they weren't members of the team at all.

Suddenly, Chris was at the side of the chopper. He reached in through the small window and grabbed Brad's arm, pulling him forward.

"Open the goddamn weapons hold!" he roared.

Brad fumbled at the control panel to his right and flipped the unlock switches. Chris let go and hurried around to the back of the chopper. He popped open the hatch and hurriedly pulled out a couple of assault rifles and combat shotguns, letting them clatter to the ground at his feet. He found the plain black case he was looking for and slammed the hatch shut, leaving the other weapons where they lay.

He ran back around to the front of the chopper and opened the black case, dropping it on the ground. Inside was a long silver tube with a small handle and a flimsy flip sight. He pressed one of the switches on the side and slid the tube extension out so that it was almost three feet long. He flipped up the sight and rested the tube on his shoulder, taking a wide stance.

The woman in chains was still wrestling with the Tyrant. Chris readied himself to just fire the rocket and blow them both up, but Jill stopped him.

"Not yet!" She ran forward and screamed at the woman, "Get out of the way!"

The woman looked up at Jill and then saw Chris with the rocket launcher. She jerked her head in what might have been a nod of understanding, and then placed her feet on the Tyrant's shoulder and leaped up into the air, landing solidly on the ground twenty yards away. The Tyrant staggered for a moment and then took a step toward Jill. Clear white ooze dripped from its battered and beaten face, and large gray splotches like bruises dotted its shoulders and chest from the woman's relentless attack.

Chris took aim and squeezed the trigger. The rocket launcher barely even recoiled as a flash of fire shot from the barrel and smoke burst from the back end. The tiny rocket whistled forward like an ordinary bottle rocket.

The Tyrant turned its head, but did not even react when the rocket struck it right in the center of the chest. There was a solid whump, and then a grisly explosion of black smoke and charred flesh. The Tyrant's body fell over like a downed tree, missing its head and most of the right side of its torso and arm. Bits of flesh rained down around it.

Chris threw the used launcher to the ground and ran to retrieve Rebecca. Jill helped carry her to the chopper and they both climbed inside. Brad tried to babble apologies mixed with terrified questions, but Chris cut him off.

"Just get us the hell out of here!" he shouted.

The helicopter lifted off the ground and slowly rose into the air.
Chapter 40

Lisa watched as the metal flying machine went up into the air. She smiled to herself, happy that her friend Jill was still alive, and even more happy that she helped Jill get away. The white monster would have killed Jill and the others, so Lisa fought it to give them a chance to escape. She knew that the white monster really could not harm her, so she was not worried about dying herself, but she did not want her friend Jill to be harmed.

She looked up and saw Jill staring at her from a window on the flying machine. Lisa smiled again, and lifted her arm. She shook her hand in the air, knowing that the gesture was a way to say goodbye to someone. And then, to her delight, Jill lifted her hand and shook it as well. She was saying goodbye to Lisa.

As the machine flew away, Lisa sat down on the ground and wondered what she was supposed to do next. Her friend Jill was gone now, and Lisa knew sadly that she would never see her again. Lisa could not go back into the rooms underground either, because now most of them were destroyed and many of them were full of fire. She was happy about that as well, since the rooms underground were bad places.

Lisa had learned a lot about her life in the past few hours. She knew that she was alone in the world, because she could not be killed by all the diseases the caretakers gave her. She could not be killed by guns or knives or even the white monsters. She wondered if she could be killed at all. All of the other people in the rooms underground and at the big house were all dead, and Lisa didn't want to spend her time with dead people.

The flying machine was out of sight now, but Lisa knew what direction it flew in. The city must be in that direction, and she truly wanted to see the city. She wanted to be with living people, and the city would be full of living people that Lisa could be friends with. But she also knew that the living people would never let her stay with them. Lisa had all the bad diseases, it was probably a bad idea to go where other living people were, because they might get them too, and become dead people. Lisa was too different from them, too dangerous. They would never accept her.

That made her sad, but not for long. Lisa had figured out much of her life, and maybe she could figure out even more. She was going to go to the city, and maybe she could remember more about how to be normal again. Maybe she could learn to be like a regular person.

Lisa knew that she might never really be normal again, but it was worth the risk of disappointment. She also knew the people of the city might not like her, but that was worth the risk as well. Lisa wanted to be a normal person again, more than anything else in the world. And so she started walking into the trees, the beginning of her journey to the city.

She just wanted to be a regular person. She wanted to be human.
Chapter 41

Fire raged out in the hallway, spilling into the lab room. The red emergency lights were off now, since the emergency generators went the same way as the regular ones. But the fire was more than enough light to see by. It was so hot that the walls seemed ready to melt, and the entire room was packed with thick smoke, but the room was still contained a living occupant.

Wesker pushed the collapsed shelf off of him and brushed away bits of broken glass. He sat up and managed to get to his feet, coughing slightly from the thick smoke everywhere. He almost had to laugh at that. Smoke, of all things, gave him trouble.

Other than that minor irritation, he was much better than expected. Even his most optimistic theories on what would happen once he injected himself with Lisa's blood had not been quite this positive. He pulled open his shirt and felt the front of his chest. His entire body was smeared with blood and gore, but all he could feel was unbroken skin. The wound was already healed completely. The bullet wound on his arm took only a minute or two to heal, but this one took a little bit longer. His body healed miraculously from an otherwise fatal injury, leaving him intact and alive, leaving no trace of the wound.

The pain, however, was very real. He felt real pain when he'd been shot, unbearable pain when the Tyrant broke his arm, and complete agony when the Tyrant impaled him. The pain was so overwhelming that he actually lost consciousness. But the injury was completely gone, as if he merely dreamed it.

Once he had a functioning laboratory again, he planned to do some experiments and tests on his own blood. But that was in the future, and right now he needed to deal with the present. The lab was in ruins, and the explosions surely did a huge amount of damage to Sigma labs. The fires would probably burn out before they reached the other labs, but it didn't matter either way. Wesker already had everything he needed from this place. The fires were actually a blessing, because it would take longer for the authorities to examine the remains if it was all burned beyond recognition.

He walked through the smoke and felt along the wall for the switch that would open the hidden door. It slid open with a hiss, and Wesker walked through as smoke billowed through the doorway. His white SUV was still there, waiting for him. Thankfully, this secret room was not damaged by the explosions. Although Wesker could just walk home if that was the case. The truck was just his method of escape now. Everything that remained at the labs was unimportant. Even the briefcase he left in the lab, the one containing other capsules of Lisa's blood, was disposable, since more samples were already in storage at his new location.

He quickly discarded his bloody clothes and dressed in a clean shirt and pants. He got in the truck and started the engine, and then tapped a button on the remote control stuck to the dash. The horizontal doors at the end of the ramp opened upward and Wesker drove out.

He was glad it was finally over. Now he would have some time to plan his next move. Because one thing, at least, had not changed about his situation. Even with all of his scheming and plotting, one inevitable event still hovered over his head.

The virus was still going to hit Raccoon City sooner or later, and when it did, he had to be ready. There was still a lot of work to do.
A note from the author

Resident Evil Legends is a seven-part series that was originally posted online from 2007 to 2012 on Fanfiction.net. The entire series has been completely revised and edited for this new Smashwords Edition. The author would like to thank all of the readers on Fanfiction.net who posted comments and feedback. Without their help and support, this series would never have been completed. The author would also like to thank Capcom for creating such wonderful and memorable characters and making such entertaining games.

Resident Evil Legends

Part One: Welcome to the Umbrella Corporation

Part Two: The Arklay Outbreak

Part Three: The Mansion Incident

COMING SOON
Part Four: Calm Before the Storm

Part Five: City of the Dead

Part Six: Escape from Raccoon City

Part Seven: Aftermath
