Maybe fifteen, maybe twenty…
Retching, Steve stumbled away and threw up, a harsh and helpless sound in the otherwise quiet room. David quickly took in the rest of the chamber, finding a door against the back wall, the letter A blocked across it in black. Without another look at the terrible mound, he hustled Rebecca toward the far door, grabbing Steve as they passed. Once they were through, the smell faded to barely tolerable. They were in a windowless corridor, and though there was a light switch next to the door, David ignored it for the moment, catching his breath, letting the two young team members collect themselves. Apparently, they'd found the Umbrella workers of Caliban Cove; all but at least one of them, anyway and David decided that if they ran across him, he'd shoot first and not bother with any questions at all.
Karen and John stood at the door for a full minute after the others had gone, cracked open just wide enough for them to listen. Cool air filtered through the opening, the far away hiss of waves, but no shots, no screams. Karen let the door close and looked at John, her pale features masked in the dim light. Her voice was low, even, and terribly serious. "They're in by now. You want to take lead, or would you prefer if I went first?" John couldn't help himself. "My women always go
first," he whispered. "Though I prefer it when we go together, if you know what I mean."
Karen sighed heavily, a sound of pure exasperation. John grinned, thinking about how easy she was. He knew he shouldn't devil her, but it was hard to resist. Karen Driver kicked ass with a weapon and she was sharp as a tack in the brains department, but she was also one of the most humorless people he'd ever known.
It's my duty to help her lighten up. If we're gonna die, might as well be laughing as crying… A simple philosophy, but one he held dear; it had gotten him through many an unpleasant situation in the past.
"John, just answer the goddamn question…" "I'll go," he said mildly. "Wait till I get through, then follow."
She nodded briskly, stepping back to let him by. He briefly considered telling her that he'd greet her at the door wearing nothing but a smile, but decided against it. They'd worked together for almost five years, and he knew from experience that he could only go so far before she got pissy. Besides, it was a good line, and he didn't want to waste it. As soon as his hand closed over the latch, he took a deep breath, letting his sparkling wit take a back seat to what he thought of as his "soldier mind." There was humor, and then there was conquering the enemy – and while he enjoyed both immensely, he'd learned long ago to keep them separate.
Gonna be a ghost now, gonna slide through the dark like a shadow…
He gently pushed the door open. No sound, no movement. Holding his Beretta loosely, he stepped away from the building and moved quickly through the silvery dark, fixing on the door that was scarcely twenty steps away. His soldier mind fed him the facts, the cool wind, the soft tread of boots against dirt, the smell and taste of the ocean, but his heart told him that he was a ghost, floating like an invisible shadow through the night. He reached the door, touching the clammy metal bar with steady fingers and it wouldn't move. The entrance was locked. No panic, no worry, he was a shade that no one could see; he'd find another way in. John held up a hand, telling Karen to wait, and edged smoothly to his right.
Silent and easy, shadow without form…
He reached the corner and slid around, letting his heightened senses continue to feed him information. No movement in the whispering night, the rough feel of concrete against his left shoulder and hip, the steady pump of exhilaration and fluidity in his muscles. There was another door, facing the broad, glimmering open– ness of the sea, cool light matte against metal. Rat-atat-atat-atat! Bullets hit the dirt at his feet. John spun and leaped backward, flattening himself against the wall as he grabbed for the latch. Walking from the direction of the boathouse, a line of three… and John tore the door open and jumped behind it, heard the clatter of.22 rounds smash into the metal, stopped inches from his body by the explosive ping-ping-ping that rattled the door. He held the door open with his foot, took a split-second look around the edge and targeted the flash of light, squeezing the trigger as chips of concrete and dust flew from the wall. The nine-millimeter jumped, a part of his hand, and he was an animal now, at one with the thundering rounds, the pull of his breath, the awareness of himself both as a man and a bringer of death. Another look and the line was closer now, the three dark figures taking shape. John got off another shot, ducked behind the open door… and when he looked again, there were only two standing. Snap. Behind him. John whirled around and saw them, two of them, ten feet away at the northeast corner of the building. Both held automatic rifles. But made no move to fire. He felt panic then, a screaming, whining beast in his gut that threatened to devour him from the inside out -
–holy shit.
The fusillade of the M-16s was still approaching, but he could see only the creatures that stood there, watching him with blank and rubbery eyes, wobbling on unsteady legs. The one on the left had only half a face; from the nose down was a liquid, pulpy mass of tissue, chunks of dark wetness hanging from strings of elastic flesh. The one on the right looked intact at first, if deathly white and dirty… until he saw the ex– ploded mass of its belly, the limp, dripping snake of intestine flopped out against his bloody shirt.
– won't engage until team A finishes -
John stepped backward into the warm dark of the building, using one distant arm to hold the door open against the pair that still fired. He leaned out and aimed as carefully as he could manage, squashing the panic as best he could. Neither of the creatures moved to defend themselves, only stood there, teetering on rotting legs, watching him. Bam! Bam! Two clean head shots, explosively loud over the continuing rattle of the M-16s. Before they'd even hit the ground, John heard another nine-millimeter thun– dering through the darkness, drowning the automatic fire.
Karen…
He shot another glance around the door and saw the crumpling figures of the engaged team a hundred feet away, one of them still firing as it fell, its rattling rifle aimed uselessly at the sky. Karen crouched out from between the buildings, handgun still pointed at the spasming shooter, her back to John.
– teams won't engage -
"Don't shoot him! Over here, leave him!"
She turned, a lithe and graceful spin, sprinting to meet him. As soon as she was through, he pulled the door closed, the crack of the automatic muted to a dull popping sound. John sagged against the door as Karen fumbled for the lock, his brain still screaming at him that he'd seen the impossible, that he'd just killed two dead men, that there was nowhere he could put that information that wouldn't drive him insane -
– can't be, didn't believe, didn't believe it before, didn 't know and they were DEAD they were ROTTING and they were -
Karen's ragged whisper broke the warm dark, broke through the cycling chain of his spinning, dizzying thoughts.
"Hey, John, was it good for you?"
He blinked, the words registering slowly. "Going first, I mean," she added. "Was it every-thing you hoped it would be?"
He felt a creeping amazement take the place of the whirling, terrible thoughts, the confusion ebbing, the waters of his mind becoming clear again. "That's not funny," he said. After a beat, they both started to laugh.
TEN
The farther away they got from the front of the concrete block, the less noxious the air, for which Rebecca was deeply grateful. She'd been seconds away from vomiting herself, the smell was that bad – a greasy, oily stench that seemed almost tangible, an entity in itself. As they moved quietly through the well-lit hall, she found herself thinking again about Nicolas Griffith, about the story of the Marburg victims and al– though there was no proof that he was behind the mass slaughter of the Umbrella people, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was responsible. The corridor led them past several open rooms, each as barren and sterile as the building they'd come from. They passed an exit at the far side of the block, and after another turn in the hall, finally came to a door marked again with the letter A, and below it, 1-4. There were three triangles beneath the numbers, each a different color – red, green, and blue. David opened the door, revealing a much shorter hall, stark fluorescent light spilling into the stale dark-ness; there were two doors, one on either side. Steve found the lights and turned them on, and Rebecca saw that there were more of the colored triangles on the door to their right. The other was blank. "I'll take the test," David said. "Steve, you and Rebecca check out the other room, we'll meet back here."