"Why should I tell you anything? You're going to kill me anyway," she said, as though there was something to tell. Nicholai's smile faltered, and then he brightened again, nodding. "You're right, I am." He aimed the rifle at her left knee and licked his lips. "But not before we get to know each other a little better, I think we have enough time…"
Crash! Jill fell backwards, sure she'd been hit, but he didn't fire, it was thunder -
– and the ceiling was falling, part of it, chunks of drywall and concrete raining down as Nicholai screamed, firing wildly…… and disappeared. Nicholai had her within his control, she was going to bleed and cry and he would be victorious, he had won…… and then the ceiling gave way, debris crashing over him and something giant and cold and hard wrapped around the back of his neck. Nicholai fired, screaming, A witch, she's…… and he was yanked up into the dark by the mas-sive, icy thing, a hand, Jill's shocked face the last thing he saw before the fingers tightened, before a cold and living rope coiled around his waist. The hand and rope pulled in opposite directions, and Nicholai felt his bones crack, skin and muscle stretching as blood filled his mouth, screaming -
– this is wrong I control stop
– and he was torn in half, and he knew no more. Jill could only see part of what happened, but it was enough. As a river of blood poured over the hole's ragged edge, splashing to the floor, she heard the rum-bling growl of the Nemesis and saw a tentacle snake down through the steaming red gush, searching… She didn't dare run beneath it. She turned and ran down the offshoot, scrabbling for the grenade gun, her only weapon…… bam, she hit the heavy door and was through, into a dark and echoing abyss, a wave of stench hitting her like a slap. She slammed the door closed and reached for the only light she could see, a glowing red square in a panel next to the entrance. It was a light switch, and as rows of fluorescent bars fluttered on, she saw and understood two things simulta-neously. The dead Umbrella workers had been dumped here in a huge pile, the source of the incredible odor and there were no other doors. She was trapped and had a single load of buckshot with which to defend herself.
Oh man, think, think…
Outside, she heard the Nemesis howl the only word it knew, the terrible cry encouraging her to move, to do something. She ran for the tremendous mound of corpses, the only thing in the giant U-shaped chamber that wasn't bolted to the floor. Maybe one of them had a weapon. The segmented metal floor rang hollowly beneath her feet, telling her where she was – some kind of garbage dumping room, the floor obviously capable of opening up to drop waste into some unknown below, vats of chemicals, a Dumpster, the sewers. Didn't mat-ter, because she had no idea how to operate such a sys-tem; all she cared about at the moment was finding something she could use against the Nemesis. The dead people were all in advanced stages of decay, thick, hot, gaseous waves of stink radiating from the darkening, bloated bodies, the pile almost as high as her chin. Jill couldn't afford to be particular; she dropped the grenade gun and immediately started to paw at the corpses, lifting sticky lab coats, jamming her hands into pockets that squished beneath her flying fin-gers. Pens and pencils, soggy packs of cigarettes, loose change – a key card, probably the very one she'd been looking for, Wonderful, isn't that just… BOOM! BOOM! Giant fists hammered at the door, echoing in the large chamber. The door was going to give in seconds, she'd have to go with what she had. No way she could kill it, but she could try to get around it. Tucking the key card into the top of her left boot, she grabbed the gun and ran back toward the door, thinking that Nicholai had at least left her with a good idea, least he could do, the crazy bastard…
Jill took a position next to the door, close to where it would swing back upon opening. She didn't stand di-rectly behind it, the plan kind of fell to shit if she ended up crushed. BOOM, and the door flew open, slamming into the wall inches from where she stood, the Nemesis storm-ing in, arms and tentacles spread wide as it howled for blood.
It's changing, getting bigger…
Jill aimed at its already mangled lower back and fired,the load tearing into its flesh from less than ten feet away.Screaming, the creature stumbled forward, and be-fore it could stand up straight again, Jill was throughthe door and gone, praying that she'd have time to callfor help and get away before it found her again. Shepounded through the corridor, snatched up the Beretta,and sped into the next room, out into the hallway.At least time to call; she may not survive to meet res-cue, but Carlos still could, God willing.
There was only one helicopter, but it was in excellentshape, fueled and ready to fly. If he could find Jill, Car-los thought they might make it after all.He sat in the pilot's seat, looking over the controls,running over the basics as best he could remember.He'd been taught by another mere with no formal train-ing, and it had been a while, but he was pretty sure hecould pull it off. The 'copter was an older two seaterwith a hover ceiling of about 4,000 feet, range, maybe200 miles. He still didn't know what some of theswitches and buttons did on the control panels, but hedidn't need to, to get the thing airborne. The cycliccontrol stick moved the bird forward, back, and side-ways. The collective control altered the thrust, control-ling height.Carlos checked his watch and was unhappily startled to
see mat twenty minutes had passed since he'd heard the announcement about the missiles. He'd spent a few min-utes checking the helicopter, and there'd been a couple of zombies roaming around in the yard he'd had to shoot… Didn't matter. They now had between twenty and forty minutes, tops. The facility compound was too big, he'd never be able to cover it all in time -
– so use the goddamn radio, dumbass!
Carlos reached for the headset, amazed that he hadn't thought of it, promising himself that he would smack himself silly for the oversight later, when he had time. Assuming there was a later.
"Hello, this is Carlos Oliveira with Umbrella, I am in Raccoon City, copy? There are still people alive here. If you can hear me, you have to stop the missile launch. Hello? Copy?"
No way to know if someone was getting his signal. Umbrella probably had a block on all outgoing trans-missions, he'd just have to try and…
"Carlos? Is that you, over?" Jill!