And that meant that the wolf could be anywhere,
anywhere at all and that his chances of even getting
to the lab had just dropped down to somewhere near
zero.
Unable to control his fury, he snatched up the
medal and threw the book against the desk, knocking
the lamp over with a crash and plunging the room
into sudden blackness. There was no longer any point
in holding on to the wind crest; his perfect plan was
ruined. He'd have to give up his edge and hope that
one of the others would inadvertently stumble across
the wolf medal for him, secreted away somewhere on
the massive, sprawling estate.
Which means more risk, more searching and a
chance that one of them will reach the labs before I do.
Seething, Wesker stood in the dark silence with his
fists clenched, trying not to scream.
TWELVE
JILL HEARD SOMETHING LIKE BREAKING
glass and held perfectly still, listening. The acoustics
of the mansion were strange, the long corridors and
unusual floor plan making it hard to tell where sounds
were coming from.
Or if you even heard them at all. . .
She sighed, taking a last look around the quiet,
book-lined sitting room at the top of the stairs. She'd
already checked the three other rooms along the
gallery railing and found exactly nothing of interest:
a sparse bedroom with two bunks, an office, and an
unfinished den with a locked door and a fireplace
inside. The only switches she'd found were light
switches, though she had gotten excited over a rather
sinister-looking black button on the wall of the office
until she'd pushed it, and found that she'd
managed to discover the drainage control for an
empty fish tank in the corner.
She'd found some ammo for the Remington, she
supposed she should be grateful for that - a dozen
shells in a metal box underneath one of the bunks in
the bedroom. But if there'd been any hidden crests,
she'd missed them.
Jill took out Trent's computer and checked the
map, finding her position at the top of the stairs. Just
past the sitting room's second door was a wide,
U-shaped corridor that angled back around to the
front hall balcony. The corridor also connected to two
rooms, one a dead end and the other leading through
several more.
She put the computer away and drew her Beretta,
taking a moment to clear her mind before stepping
into the corridor. It wasn't easy. Between trying to
figure out what had happened in the house to create
monsters and her concerns for and about her team,
her thoughts were distinctly messy.
Should've looked closer at those papers. . .
The office had been simple, a desk, a bookshelf,
but there was a rack of lab coats by the door and the
papers strewn across the desk had mostly been lists of
numbers and letters. She knew just enough chemistry
to know that she was looking at chemistry, so she
didn't bother trying to read them, but since finding
the papers, she had begun to think of the zombies as
the result of a research accident. The mansion was too
well maintained to have come from private money,
and the fact that it had been kept a secret for so long
suggested a cover up. She guessed that there was a
couple of months worth of dust on almost every-
thing - which coincided with the first attacks in Rac-
coon. If the people in the house had been conducting some kind of an experiment and something had gone
wrong . . .
Something that transformed them into flesh-eating
ghouls? That's a bit far-fetched. . .
But it made more sense than anything else she
could come up with, although she'd keep her mind
open to other possibilities. As to her concerns about
the team - Barry was acting weird and Chris and
Wesker were still missing; no new developments
there.
And there won't be any if you don't get going.
Right. Jill put her musings on hold and stepped out
into the hall.
She noticed the smell before she actually saw the
zombie farther down the corridor, crumpled to the
floor. The small wall sconces cast an uneven glow over
the body, reflecting off of dark red trim and tinting
everything in the corridor a smoky crimson. She trained her weapon on the still body and heard a
door closing somewhere close by.
Barry?
He'd said he was going to be in the mansion's other
wing, but maybe he'd found something and had come
looking for her ... or maybe she was finally going to
meet up with someone else from the team.
Smiling at the thought she hurried down the
gloomy hall, eager to see another familiar face. As she
neared the corner, a fresh wave of decay washed over
her and the fallen creature at her feet grabbed at her
boot, clutching her ankle with surprising strength.
Startled, Jill flailed her arms to keep her balance,
crying out in disgust as the slobbering zombie inched
its rotting face toward her boot. Its peeling, skeletal
fingers scrabbled weakly at the thick leather, seeking a
firmer grip and Jill instinctively brought her other boot
down on the back of its head, the heavy treads sliding
across the skull with a sickening wet sound. A wide
piece of flaking scalp tore away, revealing glistening
bone. The creature kept clawing at her, oblivious to
pain.
The second and third kicks hit the back of its
neck and on the fourth, she felt as much as heard
the dull snap of vertebrae giving out, crushed beneath
her heel.
The pale hands fluttered and with a choking, liquid
sigh, the zombie settled to the musty carpet.
Jill stepped over the limp body and ran around the
corner, swallowing back bile. She was convinced that
the pitiful creatures roaming the halls were victims
somehow, just as much as Becky and Pris had been,
and releasing them to death was a kindness, but they
were also a menace, not to mention morbidly un-
wholesome. She had to be more cautious.
There was a door to her right, heavy wood overlaid
with twining metal designs. There was a picture of
armor over the key plate, but like the other doors
she'd come across upstairs, it was unlocked.
There was no one inside the well-lit room but she
hesitated, suddenly reluctant to continue her search
for whoever else was wandering the area. Two walls of
the large chamber were lined with full suits of armor,
eight to a side, and there was a small display case at
the back - not to mention a large red switch set into
the middle of the gray tiled floor.
Another trap? Or a puzzle. . .
Intrigued, she walked into the room and headed for
the glass fronted display, the silent, lifeless guards
seeming to watch her every move. There were a
couple of mysterious grated holes in the floor, one on either side of the red switch, for ventilation per-
haps and she felt her heart speed up a little, sud-
denly sure that she had found another of the
mansion's traps.
A quick inspection of the dusty display case de-
cided it for her; there wasn't any way that she could
see to open it, the glass front a single thick piece. And
something in one shadowy niche at the bottom
glinted like dull copper.
I'm supposed to push that button, thinking that it
will open the case and then what?
She had a sudden vivid image of the ventilation
holes sealing off and the door locking itself, a death by
slow suffocation in an airless tomb. The chamber
could fill with water, or some kind of poisonous gas.
She looked around the room, frowning, wondering if
she should try to block the door open or if perhaps
there was another switch hidden in one of the empty
suits. . .
. . . every riddle has more than one answer, Jilly, don't forget it.
Jill grinned suddenly. Why push the button at all?
She crouched down next to the case and took a firm
grip on the barrel of her handgun. With a single firm
tap, the glass cracked, thin lines spidering away from
the impact. She used the butt of the gun to knock out
a thick chunk and reached carefully inside.
She withdrew a hexagonal copper crest, engraved
with an archaic smiling sun. She smiled back at it,
pleased with her solution. Apparently some of the
house's tricks could be worked around, provided she
ignored a few rules of fair play. All the same, she
found herself hurrying back to the door, not wanting
to call it a win until she was clear of the solemn
chamber.
Stepping back into the blood-hued corridor, she
stood for a moment, holding the crest as she weighed
her options. She could continue to look for whoever
had closed that door, or head back to the puzzle lock
and place the crest. As much as she wanted to find her
team, Barry had been right about needing to get out of
the mansion. If any of the other S.T.A.R.S. were still
alive, they'd surely also be looking for an escape.
Her thoughtful gaze fell across the fetid, broken
creature that she'd killed, lingering on the slowly
spreading pool of dark fluids surrounding its scabby
head and she realized suddenly that she desperately
wanted to leave the house, to escape its tainted air and
the pestilent creatures that stalked its cold and dusty
halls. She wanted out, and as soon as was humanly
possible.
Her decision made, Jill hurried back the way she'd
come, gripping the heavy crest tightly. She'd already
uncovered two of the pieces that the S.T.A.R.S.
needed to escape the mansion. She didn't know what
they'd be escaping to, but anything had to be better
than what they would leave behind. . .
"Richard!" Rebecca immediately dropped to her knees next to the Bravo, feeling his throat for a pulse
with one trembling hand.
Chris stared mutely down at the torn body, already
knowing that she wouldn't find a heartbeat; the gap-
ing wound on Richard Aiken's right shoulder was
drying, no fresh blood seeping through the mutilated
tissue. He was dead.
He watched Rebecca's slender hand slowly drop
away from the Bravo's neck and then reach up to close
his glazed, unseeing eyes. Her shoulders slumped.
Chris felt sick over their discovery; the communica-
tions expert had been a positive, sweet guy, and only
twenty-three years old. . . .
He looked around the silent room, searching ran-
domly for some clue as to how Richard had died. The
room they'd entered just off the second-floor balcony
was undecorated and empty. Except for Richard,
