Carlos tried to think of something else it might be and came up blank, knowing only that it hadn't been there when he'd arrived; it was a bomb, Nicholai had put it there, and suddenly the frog monsters were a much smaller deal.
His mind was curiously blank as he pounded through the lobby, a thoughtless, wordless panic overtaking him, pushing him to run fast and far, to not waste time thinking. He tripped over a shredded couch and didn't notice whether or not he fell or felt pain, he was moving too fast, the glass doors at the front of the building all he could see.
Bam,through the doors, shining black asphalt splashing under his feet, rain misting on his sweaty face. Rows of smashed and abandoned cars, shining like wet jewels beneath a streetlight. The drum of his shuddering heart—
—and the explosion was so massive that his hearing couldn't encompass it all, a kind ofka-WHAMM that was as much motion as it was sound. His body was
thrown, a leaf in a hot and violent hurricane, the ground and sky becoming connected, interchangeable.
He was skidding across wet pavement, tumbling to a gritty stop against a fire hydrant, feeling the enormity of pain in his side and tasting salt from a nosebleed.
Barely a block away, the hospital had been reduced
to a smoking ruin, smaller pieces of it still coming down, cracking against the ground like deadly hail.
Parts were on fire, but a lot of it had just disintegrated, matter blown to dust, the dust settling and turning to mud as the skies continued to dump water on everything.
Jill.
Carlos pulled himself up and started to limp back to the clock tower.
Nicholai realized he'd lost the vaccine sample as he was running away from the hospital, when there was one minute left before all of it went sky high. When it was already too late.
There was no choice but to keep running, and he did, and when the hospital exploded, Nicholai paced back and forth in the street three blocks away, lost in anger. So lost that he didn't realize that the agonized moaning, whining noise he heard was coming from him, or that he'd clenched his jaw hard enough to crack two teeth.
After a long time, he remembered that he still had to kill two more people, and he started to calm down. Being able to express his anger would be constructive; it wasn't healthy to keep feelings bottled up.
The Watchdog operation was his interest. The vaccine had been an extra, a gift—so in a way, he hadn't reallylost anything.
Nicholai told himself that several times on his way to get Davis Chan; it made him feel better, though not as good as when he remembered that he'd had his hunting knife sharpened just before he'd come to Raccoon. He was sure Chan would appreciate it.
TWENTY-THREE
WHEN JILL WOKE UP, IT WAS STILL RAINING outside, and she felt like herself again. Weak, thirsty, and hungry, definitely in pain from her shoulder wound and about a thousand lesser aches—but herself. The sickness was gone.
Disoriented and a little confused, she sat up slowly and looked around, trying to piece together what had happened. She was still in the clock tower chapel, and
Carlos was crashed out on one of the front pews. She remembered telling him that she had the virus, and him saying that he was going to get something ...
... but I was sick, I had the disease... and I don't just feel better now, I absolutely don't have it anymore. How could—
"Oh my God," she whispered, seeing the syringe and empty vial on the organ bench next to the altar, suddenly understanding what had happened, if not how. Carlos had found an antidote.
Jill sat for a moment, slightly overwhelmed by the mix of emotions that hit her—shock, gratitude, a reluctance to believe she was actually okay. Her happiness at being alive and reasonably well was tempered by guilt, that she should have been cured when so many others had died. She wondered whether or not there was more of the antidote but found she couldn't consider that too carefully; the thought that there might be gallons of it lying around somewhere when tens of thousands had died was simply obscene.
Finally, she eased herself off her sickbed and stood, carefully stretching, checking herself over. Considering all that had happened, she was surprised at how well-off she was. Except for her right shoulder, she had no serious injuries, and after drinking some water, she actually felt awake and able to move around without any trouble.
Over the next couple of hours, Jill ate three cans of fruit cocktail, drank a half gallon of water, and reloaded and wiped down all of the weapons. She also cleaned herself up, as much as she could, with bottled water and a dirty sweatshirt. Carlos didn't stir once, deeply asleep—and from the way he was curled up and holding his left side, she thought that his trip to the hospital had probably been rough.
Jill also gave a great deal of thought to what they would do next. They couldn't stay. They didn't have the supplies or ammo to keep themselves alive indefinitely, and they had no way of knowing when—or even if, she didn't want to take it for granted anymore—rescue was
coming. As hard as it was to believe, it seemed that Umbrella had managed to keep a lid on what had happened, and if they could do it for this long, it might be
several more days before the story broke. To add to the pressure, she also couldn't convince herself that the Nemesis was dead; once it had recuperated, it would be coming back. They were incredibly lucky that it hadn't attacked already.
Before she'd hooked up with Carlos, she had tentatively planned to head for the abandoned Umbrella-owned plant north of the city. She'd come to believe that there was no such thing as a deserted Umbrella fa-cility—they loved their secret operations too much— and thought that they might have kept the roads clear around the plant so their employees could get out. It was still worth a shot, and it was also the best she could come up with. Besides, the fastest way out of town from their current position was straight past the facility.
Carlos continued to sleep, perfectly still except for the rise and fall of his chest, his face slack from exhaustion ... and once Jill had decided on a course of action, she watched him for a little while and realized that she had to leave him behind. It was a much harder decision to make, but only because she didn't want to be alone, a selfish reason at best. The truth of it was, he was hurting because he'd gotten in between her and the Nemesis, and she couldn't put him in that position again.
/'//go check out the plant, maybe find a radio and call for help. If things look good, safe, I can come back for him. If they look shitty... well, I guess I'll just come back if I can. The facility was barely a mile away if she remembered right, she could get there by cutting
through Memorial Park, just behind the clock tower, a very short trip. It was just after two in the morning, she'd be able to get there and back well before dawn.
With any luck, Carlos would still be asleep when she returned, perhaps bearing good news.
She decided to leave him a note in case something happened to her so he'd know the route, at least. She couldn't find a pen or pencil, but she uncovered an ancient manual typewriter, of all things, beneath a stack of hymnbooks. She used the back of a fruit cocktail label for paper. The soft clack of keys was as soothing to her as the rain that continued to patter down on the roof, sounds that made her very glad to be alive.
She took the grenade gun even though there was only one round left—Carlos must have found the one she'd dropped in the yard—remembering the damage it had in-
flicted on the S.T.A.R.S. killer. She also took the Beretta, but she left the revolver for Carlos so that he'd have something a little heavier than the assault rifle. Just in case.
Jill left the note on the altar, where Carlos would see it as soon as he woke up, and she crouched next to him, reaching out to touch his cool brow. He was definitely out, not even a twitch as she brushed his duty hair off his forehead, wondering how she could ever thank him for all he'd done.