And I was wrong, I was selfish and wrong and now it’s too late.
Not too late. Whatever waited beneath her, the decision was made.
“Leon—go down, west, and find the cargo room, past the—row of plastic chairs. You’ll need the disk, it’s in my—pouch—“ “Ada, I have it! Cargo disk, right, I have it, I found it—don’t talk, just hold on, let me help you!” He fumbled at the rail, trying to maintain his grip. Talking was a horrible effort, but she had to finish, had to tell him before time ran out.
“The code is 345. Get to the elevator, Leon. Take it down. The subway—tunnel leads out. Have to—run full throttle . . . and watch out for Birkin, the G-carrier, he—he’s changing by now. Got it?”
Leon nodded, his blazing blue eyes filling her up. “Live,” she said, and it was a good word, a word to go
out on. She was tired, and the mission was wrapped, and Leon would live.
She let go of the railing, and Leon screamed her name, and the sound of it followed her down into the dark like a bittersweet good-bye.
TwEnfY-ninE
SHERRY WAS SCARED, BUT MR. X WAS DEAD
and he must have been the monster all along, not the one at the station but the real monster, the one that had wanted to rip her apart all along—
• but she didn’t have time to think about it as Claire sprinted, jerking her along back the way they’d come, through the machine room, through the hall with the crawl space and around a corner—
• and Sherry screamed as a zombie reeled toward them, a dead white creature made of dusty bone, and Claire raised her gun and shot—
• bang, and the dry white head caved in, the moaning dead creature crumpled to the floor, and then Claire was dragging her over the body and running for the door at the end of the hall. It was an elevator, and Sherry collapsed against one wall after Claire pulled her inside, trying to catch her breath as Claire punched the controls. After the speed of their run from Mr. X, the elevator’s descent was a crawl, a softly humming crawl.
“We’re gonna make it,” Claire gasped, “just a little longer.”
Sherry nodded, her heart pounding even harder as the intercom voice told them that they had four minutes left to be safe.
Leon felt like he didn’t know how to stand up and walk away. The image of her composed, beautiful face in the second before she’d let go ... she’s gone. Ada’s dead.
He reached for the Beretta, fresh grief washing over him as he picked it up, the weapon still warm from her touch—and it was too light, too light by half because it wasn’t loaded. There wasn’t even a clip.
She’d never meant to hurt him; she’d lied, she’d lied all along, but she’d never meant to hurt him at all.
“... are four minutes to reach minimum safe dis-tance. All remaining personnel should evacuate im-mediately. Please report to the bottom platform . . ” Four minutes. He had four minutes to get far enough away to fulfill Ada’s last request. He stood up and turned for the door—and stopped, reaching into his pocket, pulling out the tiny glass tube full of purple fluid. He knew he didn’t have time to spare, but it only took a second to pull his arm back and throw the sample as hard as he could, wanting it as far away from him as possible.
If the laboratory responsible for so much death was going to burn, let the G-Virus burn with it. “Yes!”
The elevator door opened—and there was a train, a secret subway train in shining silver. It was silent and dark, not the powered-up, thrumming machine that Claire had hoped to see, but it was still the most beautiful escape vehicle that she’d ever laid eyes on, hands down.
Sherry holding on to her arm, they ran to the door at the front of the three-car subway, the bleating alarms still sounding, echoing through the concrete tunnel. The woman’s bland voice, the voice that Claire
had started to hate long moments ago, in-formed them that they had three minutes to get to the minimum safe distance.
They hurried aboard, Claire noticing and not car-ing that there weren’t any seats, just a wide, empty space for the passengers to stand in. The control booth was to the left.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Claire said, and the bright and radiant look of hope on Sherry’s dirty, tired face made Claire’s heart break, just a little. Oh, baby ...
Claire looked quickly away, hopping up the steps to the control room, making a silent promise to herself that if the train didn’t work, she’d carry Sherry through the tunnel herself. Whatever it took to see that the fragile hope in her eyes wasn’t broken.
* * *
The code and the verification disk he’d found in the operating room opened the door just as Ada had said, the broad hatch opening into a short hall. With three minutes left, Leon dashed down the cold corridor, through another overwide door, a biohazard symbol emblazoned across the front, and found himself in the cargo room.
He didn’t have time to stop and get a good look, his focus on getting to the elevator before the recording told him he couldn’t possibly get out of the facility alive. Leon ran to the back of the wide, strangely red-tinted room, found the controls for the large warehouse-type elevator, and slapped the button for down, ready to jump in and go—
• and nothing happened, except that a row of tiny lights—perhaps twenty tiny lights over the elevator door—started to flash in descending order. Slowly. Leon reached forward and slapped the button again, feeling something like numb disbelief as the elevator crept down, pausing for what seemed like minutes between floors, as the alarms blared and the countdown to the lab’s destruction ticked closer and closer to the end.
“Jesus!” He turned around, feeling like he’d scream if he had to wait much longer—
• and for the first time, got a clear look at the room he was in. The two tall, wide shelves that ran the length of the chamber held a very specific kind of “cargo”—and although the half-dozen giant glass containers that lined each shelf held nothing but clear red fluid, Leon felt a chill just looking at them. Each cylinder was large enough to hold a full-grown man, and it made him wonder what they’d been built for. Doesn’t matter, they’re gonna be blown to shit in a matter of minutes, and so am I if this goddamn thing doesn’t hurry UP—
He turned back to the elevator, almost glad to be angry, frustrated, to have something to feel besides loss—
• and the ceiling over the elevator started to shake and rattle ... Leon backed away, pointing his Mag-num at the solid metal ceiling panel as it crashed down and out—
• and the monster from the transport lift landed in front of him, the same demonic creature that had hurt Ada, that should have killed him—
Birkin—?
• and from the way it threw back its strange head and howled, the vicious, feral sound drowning out the buzz of the alarms, he could tell it had come to finish the job.
The subway was ready, it was powered up and ready to go—except it seemed that the tunnel gate release had malfunctioned; a console full of green lights, and a single red dot that insisted the gate needed to be opened manually.
Two minutes to safe minimum distance.
Won’t make it, we’ll never make it—
“Stay here,” Claire said, and went outside to find the release, praying that it was nothing.
* 2 *
Leon turned and ran as the monster started walking toward him, each powerful stride thundering through the chamber, the echoes of its terrible shriek still spinning through the room.
Think!
The powerful shotgun hadn’t been enough, he had to hit it someplace vulnerable, the eyes, use the Magnum—
2
and he jammed the barrel of the weapon against its drooling chin and pulled the trigger, screaming, emptying the heavy rounds into its thrashing head. The beast shrieked, flailing, falling sideways off Leon.
In a flash, he was up and running, straight for the open elevator. The enormous, freakish animal was still howling as Leon sprinted into the lift and turned, hitting the control marked down—