car, opened the door, and stepped into darkness.
Immediately, he raised the shotgun, all of his senses
telling him to run as the door slid shut behind him.
He reached back, slapping for a light switch. Dark-
ness, but there was a powerful smell like bleach or
chlorine, and there was the soft sound of wetness, of
movement...
A single bare bulb flickered on in the middle of the
car as he found a button, and he thought for just a
second that he'd lost his mind.
A thing. A creature that wasn't even vaguely hu-
manoid, except for a strange, pulsing tumor protrud-
ing from one side, a slick orb that looked very much
like an eye.
Birkin.
The creature was a giant, stretching blob of dark,
slimy matter, spanning the width of the car; Leon
couldn't tell how tall it was. The Birkin-thing had
thick streamers extended out, tentacles of wet and
elastic goo attached to every part of the space in
front of it - the ceiling, walls, and floor. And as Leon
watched, the alien beast pulled itself forward, the
dark limbs contracting, bringing the mass of the body
a few feet ahead of where it had been.
Not crazy. He was seeing it, seeing the brackish,
moving colors of black and green and purple in its
tentacles as it stretched out again, the viscous materi-
al latching to the metal of the car somehow, dragging
the blob a few more feet ahead. The body itself was
nothing so much as a gaping maw, a wet cave that still
had teeth...
... and that would reach him pretty soon if he didn't
snap out of his disgusted stupor.
Leon aimed into the giant hole of its mouth and
pulled the trigger, pumping in another round, firing,
pumping, firing...
... and then the shotgun was empty, and the giant
semi-liquid thing was still moving steadily forward.
He didn't know how to kill it, didn't know if the
rounds had even damaged it. His mind raced for an
answer, for a solution that would end the terrible life of the G-Virus monster. He could detach the last car,
fire through the pins and chains that held it together,
if he could find the locking mechanism...
... and it would still be alive. Still living and chang-
ing in the blackness of the tunnel, becoming something
new.
The stretching elastic of its nebulous form inched
forward, and Leon reached back for the door control.
He'd have to try unhooking the cars, there was no
other choice -
- unless -
He hesitated, then unholstered his Magnum and
pointed it at the impossible mass. At the strange
tumor that peered out of a slit in its rubber flesh, the
eye that had been in every form that Birkin had taken.
Careful aim, and...
...BAM!
The effect was immediate and total, the heavy
round piercing the rheumy sphere - and a hissing,
screaming whine or whistle pouring out of the toothed
maw, like nothing on Earth, like the howl of some-
thing mechanical and insane. The tendrils of un-
formed matter shrank inward, turning black, shriv-
eling...
... and the thing imploded, pulling in on itself,
withering into a steaming black mass less than a
quarter its original size. Like a deflated beachball, the
gelid blob wrinkled and shrank, collapsing into a
flattening thickness, drooling itself into a wide puddle
of bubbling slime.
"Suck on that," Leon said softly, the last bubbles popping, the pool a dead and inanimate thing. He
watched it for a few moments, thinking about nothing
at all and finally turned to join the others, to tell
them it was over.
First day on the job, he thought.
"I want a raise," Leon said, to no one at all, and couldn't help the grin that broke across his face, a
tired, sunny grin that faded quickly ... but for the
few seconds he wore it, Leon felt better than he had in
a very long time.
Leon was back, and had found a jumpsuit that he
tore into pieces and used to bind up Claire's leg. All
he'd said was that they were safe now, although
Sherry had seen him and Claire exchange a look -
- one of those "we-shouldn't-talk-about-it-right-now"
looks. Sherry was too tired to take offense.
She snuggled into Claire's arms, Claire stroking her
hair, the three of them not talking. There was nothing
to say, or at least not for a little while. They were alive,
on a train thundering through the dark - and from somewhere not far ahead, a soft light came filtering in,
coming through the window in the control booth, and
Sherry thought it looked very much like morning.
EPILOGUE
THEY SAW THE AFTERMATH OF THE EXPLO-
sion from ten miles outside the city, a black and
billowing cloud that rose up into the early morning
light and hung over Raccoon like a terrible storm
or a bad dream, Rebecca thought, a recurring
one. Umbrella.
She didn't say it aloud, because it wasn't necessary.
John and David hadn't gone through the Spencer
estate nightmare, but they'd been at the Cove facility,
witnesses to what Umbrella was capable of; they
knew.
Nobody spoke as David stepped up the speed, his
knuckles white on the wheel. For once, John didn't
crack any jokes about what might have happened.
They all knew that it was bad; before Jill, Chris, and
Barry had left for Europe, Jill had wired them with
her suspicions about another accident, and asked
them to keep tabs. When the phone lines had gone
down, they'd loaded up the SUV and left Maine to see
what could be done. The only question was how many
people had died this time.
Maybe this is the end, finally. A blast like that...
Umbrella can't cover this up so easily, not if it's as bad
as it looks.
John finally broke the silence, his deep, mellow
voice uncharacteristically subdued. "Fail-safe?" David sighed. "Probably. And if there was a spill, we're not going in; we'll circle the city and then call
for help from Latham. Umbrella is surely sending in
its cleanup staff already."
Rebecca nodded along with John. They weren't
technically part of the S.T.A.R.S. anymore, but David
had been a captain before, and with good reason.
They fell back into a tense silence, the dawn-touched
trees spinning past the utility vehicle, Rebecca won-
dering what they would find...
... when she saw the people, staggering up into the
road, waving their arms.
"Hey..." she started, but David was already hitting the brakes, slowing down as they neared the three-
some of ragged strangers. A cop with a bandaged arm
and a young woman in shorts, both of them holding
weapons, and a little girl in a pink vest that was much
too big for her. They weren't infected, or at least not
showing signs that Rebecca could see, but they looked like hell nonetheless. With their ripped clothes
and their faces pale and shocked beneath masks of
dirt, they certainly could have passed for walking
death.
"I'll talk," David said, his crisp British accent mild but firm, and then they were pulling up beside the
Raccoon survivors.
David opened his window and killed the engine,
the young cop stepping forward as the woman slipped
one grimy arm around the little girl's shoulders.
"There's been an accident, in Raccoon," he said, and although they were obviously tired and wounded
and badly in need of help, there was a wariness in the
cop's tone, a guarded, careful note that suggested just
how bad things had been. "A terrible accident. You don't want to go there, it's not safe."
David frowned. "What sort of accident, Officer?" The young woman spoke up, her mouth a set and
bitter line. "An Umbrella accident," she said, and the cop nodded, and the little blond girl buried her face
against the woman's hip.
John and Rebecca exchanged a look, and David hit
the switch to unlock the doors.
"Really? Those tend to be the worst kind," he said gently. "We'd be happy to help you, if you'd like, or we could call for help..."
It was a question. The cop glanced back at the
woman, then met David's gaze for several long beats.
He must have seen something in David's face that he
felt he could trust; he nodded slowly, then motioned
for the woman and girl to come forward.
"Thanks," he said, the exhaustion finally coming through. "If you could give us a ride, that'd be great." David smiled. "Please, get in. John, Rebecca - - would you assist... ?"
John grabbed a couple of blankets out of the back as
Rebecca reached for her medical kit, careful not to
uncover the rifles tucked next to the wheel well.
An Umbrella accident. . .
Rebecca wondered if they knew how lucky they
were to have survived it, but another look into those
three exhausted, shell-shocked faces told her that they
probably did.
They started talking even before David turned the
vehicle around and in a very short time, they dis-
covered that they had a lot in common, as the child
fell asleep and they drove back the way they'd come,
leaving the burning city behind.
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