Get to cover, bar the door, regroup, get to the fence—
The ground rose steeply in front of them, the pier looming into view ahead. As they clambered up over rocks, David heard a muffled clatter of metal, saw Rebecca hugging the black, dripping shape of the ammo pack to her chest. He felt a wisp of new hope for their chances; if they could just make it inside, somewhere safe . . .
The building was ahead on their right, silent and dark, a closed door facing the wooden dock. There was no way to know if it was empty, and though barely ten meters away, the distance was open and flat, weathered planking, not even a pebble to block them from view.
No choice.
“Stay low,” he whispered, and then they were crouching their way to the structure, Karen reaching the door first, pushing it open. No light spilled out, no I alarm sounded. Steve and Rebecca piled in behind her, then John—then David, stumbling into the dark, closing the wooden door after him with a wet, cold shoulder.
“Stop where you are,” he said softly, fumbling for the halogen torch on his belt. Besides the gulping breaths of his team, the room was still—but there was a horrid smell in the close air, a fading stench of something long dead. . . .
The thin beam of light cut through the black, revealing a large and mostly empty windowless room.
Ropes and life preservers hung from wooden pegs, a workbench ran the length of one wall, a few saw horses, cluttered shelves—
my God—
The light froze on the room’s other door, directly across from the one they’d entered. The narrow beam played across the source of the smell, highlighting bare bone and a tattered, oily-stained lab coat. Dried strings of muscle dripped in streamers from a grin-ning face.
A corpse had been nailed to the door, one hand fixed in a welcoming wave. From the look, it had been dead for weeks.
Steve felt his gorge rise into his throat. He swal-lowed it down, looking away, but the grotesque image was already fixed in his mind—the eyeless face and peeling tissue, the carefully splayed fingers pinned into place.. . .
Jesus, is that some kind of a joke? Steve felt dizzy, still out of breath from the nightmarish swim, the sloshing climb over the rocks, the horror of the Umbrella sea monster. The dried, sour smell of rot wasn’t helping.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke. Then David cupped one hand over the light and started talking, his voice low but amazingly even.
“Check your belts and drop your clips. I want status, now, injuries then equipment. Take a deep breath, everyone. John?”
John’s solemn voice rumbled through the shadows to Steve’s left, accompanied by sounds of wet, fum-bling movement. Karen and Rebecca were to his right, David still by the door.
“I got fish slime on me, but I’m okay. I’ve got my weapon but my light’s gone. So are the radios.” “Rebecca?”
Her voice was wavering but quick. “I’m fine—uh, my weapon’s here, and the flashlight, the med kit... oh, and I’ve got the ammo.”
Steve checked himself out as she spoke, unholster-ing his Beretta and ejecting the wet mag, slipping it into a pocket. There was an empty spot on his belt where his light should have been.
“Steve?”
“Yeah, no injuries. Weapon but no light.”
“Karen?”
“Same.”
David’s fingers shifted over the muted beam, allow-ing a shallow glow to spill into the room. “No one’s hurt and we’re still armed; things could be a lot worse. Rebecca, pass out the clips, please. The fence can’t be more than fifty meters south from here, and there are enough trees for cover, provided no one has seen us yet. This operation is called, we’re getting out of here.”
Steve accepted three loaded magazines from Rebecca, nodding his thanks. He slapped one into the semi, chambering a round automatically. Great, fine, let’s blow. That insane creature nearly eating us,
now Mr. Death dropping a casual wave, like he was put there to say hello....
Steve wasn’t easily frightened, but he knew a bad situation when he saw it. He admired the S.T.A.R.S. deeply, had wanted to go in on the operation to help make things right—but with their boat gone and the initial plan shot to shit, nailing Umbrella could wait. David stepped closer to the decomposed figure, a look of disgust curling his features in the shadowy orange glow of the light. “Karen, Rebecca, come take a look at this. John, take Rebecca’s torch, you and Steve see if you can find anything useful.” Rebecca handed her flashlight to John, who nodded at Steve. The two men walked to one end of the long workbench, the soft voices of the others carrying across the still air.
“The T-Virus didn’t do this,” Rebecca said. “Pat-tern of decay’s all wrong.. . ”
Silence, then Karen spoke. “See that? David, give me the light for a sec—“ John hooded their flashlight with one large hand, playing the beam across the dirty planks of the counter. A broken coffee mug. A pile of greasy nuts and bolts on top of a laminated tide chart. An electric screwdriver, dusty and dented, a couple of bits on a stained rag.
Nothing, there’s nothing here. We should get out before someone comes looking...
John opened a drawer and rummaged through it while Steve tried to make out what was on an over-head shelf. Behind them, Karen spoke again. “He wasn’t dead when they nailed him up, though I’d say he was close. Definitely unconscious. There’s no smearing, suggesting he didn’t struggle ... and there are slide marks, here and here; I’d say he was shot by the back door and dragged over.” John had finished digging through the drawer and they moved on, boots squelching against the wood floor. A set of socket wrenches. A cheap radio. A crumpled paper bag next to a pencil nub. Something snagged at Steve’s thoughts and he stopped, looking at the paper bag. The pencil... He picked up the crunched ball, smoothing out the wrinkles and turning it over. There were several lines written near the bottom, scrawled and jerky. “Hey, we found something,” John called quietly, shining the light on the writing as the others hurried over. Steve read it aloud, squinting at the faintly penciled words under the wobbling beam. There was no punctuation; he did his best to work out the pauses as he went.
“. . . ‘July 20. Food was drugged, I’m sick—I hid the material for you, sent data. Boats are sunk and he let the Steve frowned, unable to make out the word. Tris . . . tri-squads?
“ ‘Boats are sunk and he let the Trisquads out—dark now, they’ll come, I think he killed the rest—stop him—
God knows what he means to do. Destroy the lab—find Krista, tell her I’m sorry, Lyle is sorry. I wish—‘” There was nothing more.
“Ammon’s message,” Karen said softly. “Lyle Ammon.”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who was hanging on the door. The sagging, seeping Mr. Death had an identity now, for what it was worth. And the message that Trent had given David was so weird because the poor guy had apparently been doped up when he sent it.
“Nice to put a face to the name, huh?” John cracked, but not even he smiled. The desperate little note had an ominous ring to it, with or without the brutal murder to back it up.
What’s a Trisquad? Who’s “he”?
“Maybe we should look around a little more—“ Rebecca began hesitantly, but David was shaking his head.
“I think it’s best if we leave this for now. We’ll—“ He broke off as heavy, plodding footsteps sounded across the wood deck, just outside the door they’d come through. Everyone froze, listening. More than one set, and whoever they were, they were making no effort to hide their approach. They stopped at the door—and stayed there, no rattling knob, no crashing kick, no other sound. Waiting.