Thunk!
The door blew open, a square of pale light appear-
ing in the blackness. The bright beam of a flashlight
pierced the dark, flitting across a wall of boxes, then
turning back toward the door.
A soft click - and then a whispered curse.
"What?" A different voice, also whispering.
"Lights are out." A pause, and then, "Well, come on. They're probably in the other one anyway, they
didn't get all the way through the lock on this one."
Thank God. Way to go, David. The two were going to search, but they didn't suspect their presence.
A second beam appeared, and Claire could see the
vaguest human shapes silhouetted behind the two
powerful lights, both of them men by the voices. They
started to move forward, the beams dancing over the
stacks of boxes and crates.
Stay quiet, don't move, wait. Claire closed her eyes, not wanting for either of the men to feel watched;
she'd heard once that that was the trick to hiding. Not
to look.
"I'll take south," one of the voices whispered, and Claire wondered if they had any idea how well sound
carried in the open space.
We can hear you, numbnuts. A funny thought, but she was scared. At least the zombies hadn't had
guns...
The lights split, one heading away from them, the
other turning in their direction. It stayed low, at least;
whoever was holding the flashlight apparently didn't
realize that people could climb boxes.
Fine by me, just hurry up and get out of here, let us
sneak out of this without having to fight! David said that they'd come back for John and Leon when Um-
brella had cleared out; he said they'd probably post a guard, maybe two, but that taking out a guard would be
a lot easier than taking out an entire squad -
- and a light was shining in Claire's face, the
blinding beam hitting her eyes.
"Hey!" A surprised shout from below, and then bam, a shot fired, and she felt as much as heard
something beneath her give, as Rebecca gasped, as the
tower of boxes tipped backwards.
Claire's back hit the wall and she grabbed at the
shifting crate they'd been lying on, a chorus of shouts
coming from outside, the orange burst of thundering
muzzle fire coming from David's weapon...
... and with a shuddering crash, all the crates went
tumbling down, and Claire plummeted into the dark.
When he heard the mighty flap of wings and the
shrieking cries, John felt his skin go cold. He didn't
like birds, never had, and to run into a flock of
Umbrella birds, in a sterile, surreal forest...
"Balls," he said, and raised the M-16, pressing the plastic stock tight against his shoulder. Leon's was
also pointed up, the ceiling at least fifteen feet above
where the tallest trees stopped and painted a deep
twilight blue. The trees ranged in height from ten to
maybe twenty-five, thirty feet and at the very top,
John saw that there were perching "branches" grafted
on, each as big around as a basketball.
Bird's gotta have some pretty big goddamn feet to
need that to land on . . .
The piping screams had stopped, and John didn't
hear the beat of wings anymore, but he wondered
how long it would be before the birds decided to look
for prey.
"Pterodactyls, gotta be," Cole whispered, his voice cracking. "Dacs."
"You're kidding," John breathed, and could see the skinny Umbrella worker shake his head in his periph-
eral vision.
"Maybe not real ones, it's just a nickname I heard."
Cole sounded distinctly terrified.
"Let's head for that door," Leon said, already
edging into the false, shadowy woods.
Amen to that.
John started after him, ten, fifteen feet, trying to
look up and watch his step at the same time. He
tripped almost immediately, one boot kicking against
a molded plastic rock, and barely caught himself from
going into a full sprawl.
"This ain't gonna work," he said. "Cole, Henry?" He glanced back and saw that Cole was still hud-
dled against the hatch, his pale, weasely face turned up to the sky.
- ceiling, dammit -
Leon had stopped and was waiting, peering up into
the spaced branches. "Gotcha covered," he said. John walked back, angry and frustrated and seri-
ously uncomfortable; they were in a tight spot, David
and the girls could very well be fighting for their lives
on the surface, and he wasn't going to waste time
coddling some freaked-out Umbrella hump. Still, they
couldn't just leave him behind, at least not without
making an effort.
"Henry. Hey, Cole." John reached out and tapped his arm, and Cole finally looked at him. His mild
brown eyes were positively glassy with fear.
John sighed, feeling a little pity for the guy. He was
an electrician, for hell's sake, and it seemed that ignorance had been his only real crime.
"Look. I understand you're scared, but if you stay
here, you're going to get killed. Leon and I have both
had run-ins with Umbrella pets; your best chance is to
come with us - and besides, we could use your help,
you know more about this place than we do. Okay?"
Cole nodded shakily. "Yeah, okay. Sorry. I just - - I'm scared."
"Join the club. Birds give me the creeps. The flying
part's cool, but they're so weird, got those beady eyes
and scaly feet - and have you ever seen a buzzard?
They got scrotum heads." John mock-shivered, and saw Cole relax a little bit, even trying on a quivery
smile.
"Okay," Cole said again, more firmly. They walked back to where Leon was standing, still watching the
air above.
"Henry, since we got the guns, how 'bout you
lead?" John asked. "Leon and I will keep watch, and we'll need a clear route so we won't have to worry
about tripping over stuff. Think you can handle it?"
Cole nodded, and though he still looked too pale,
John could see that he would hold together. For a
while, anyway.
Their guide stepped in front of Leon and headed
roughly southwest, weaving a crooked path through
the strange forest. Leon and John followed, John
realizing pretty quick that having Cole lead didn't
make much of a difference.
If you don't look where you're going, you're going to
trip, John thought wearily, after the sixth time he ran into a fallen "log." No way around it.
The Dacs, as Cole called them, hadn't put in an
appearance or made any other sound. Just as well;
John thought walking through a plastic forest was enough for them to handle. It was a bizarre sensation,
seeing the realistic-looking trees and undergrowth,
feeling the moisture in the air, but also being aware
that there were no smells of earth or growing things,
no wind or tiny sounds of movement, no bugs. It was
a dream-like experience, and an unnerving one.
John was still edging forward, his gaze fixed on the
crisscross of branches overhead, when Cole stopped.
"We're ... there's kind of a clearing here," he said. Leon turned, frowning at John. "Should we skirt it?" John stepped forward, peering through the seem-
ingly random scatter of trees to the opening ahead. It
was at least fifty feet across, but John would rather
they go out of their way; being dive-bombed by a
pterodactyl didn't sound like fun at all.
"Yeah. Henry, veer right. We're going to..."
The rest of his words were lost as that high, war-
bling screech blasted through the unnatural forest,
and a brown-gray shape dove into the clearing and
flew at them, extending talons a foot across.
John saw a wingspan of eight or ten feet, the
leathery wings tipped with curved hooks. He saw a
screaming, toothed beak and a slender elongated
skull, flat black eyes the size of saucers, glittering -
- and he and Leon both opened fire as the creature
hit the line of artificial trees in front of them, its huge
claws gouging into the solid plastic. It held on, spread-
ing its vast membranous wings in a struggle to bal-
ance -
- and bambambam, holes punched through the thin flesh, streamers of watery blood trickling down
from the openings. The animal screamed, so close that John couldn't hear the bullets, couldn't hear anything
but that quavering, high-pitched shriek - and then it
dropped, landing on the dark floor, pulling its wings
in...
... and walking toward them on its elbows, like a bat,
moving jerkily through the shredded trees, shrieking
in short, sharp barks of sound. Behind it, another
dropped into the clearing, gusting odorless wind across
them as its wide wings folded closed, its long, pointed
beak opening and revealing nubs of grinding teeth.
This is bad, bad, bad...
The lurching animal was less than five feet away
when John drew a bead on the bobbing head, on the
shiny round eye, and pulled the trigger.
TWELVE
THE TALLER ONE, JOHN, POINTED HIS AUTO-
matic rifle at the Avi and let loose a hail of bullets.
Like a stream of destruction, they hit the Dac's
aquiline skull and blew out the other side, dark fluids
spattering across the freshly painted trees. Both eyes
popped like water balloons.
Damn. Low threshold; it's those hollow bones...
Reston watched as the other gunman pointed his
weapon at a second Dac that had landed in the
clearing. Even without sound, Reston could see the
handgun kick three, four times, hitting the specimen
in its narrow chest. The Dac's slender neck curved
wildly back and forth, a squiggling dance of death
before it sprawled, bleeding, against the ground.
He didn't see any more of the animals touch down,
but the three men were retreating, stumbling back
into the woods. Poor Cole seemed quite undone, his
mouth open in a silent howl, his lank brown hair
practically plastered to his head with sweat, his limbs
quaking.
Serves him right for not getting to the audio. The
lack of sound was annoying, although he supposed the
footage wouldn't suffer for it. People knew what
bullets and screams sounded like already.
The three were moving out of range, heading west
now. Reston switched cameras from the one in the
tree to a long shot from the north wall. It was clear
that Cole was trying to lead them to the connecting
door - although he obviously didn't remember that a
second, larger clearing was now in their path. For the
moment, though, the Dacs had also pulled back; they
generally gravitated toward open spaces. The gunmen
had only killed two, which meant that there would be
six healthy specimens to greet them in the "meadow."
Reston had released all of the creatures into their
habitats just after the call had come on the cell line
from a Sergeant Steve Hawkinson, the man who was
leading the surface effort. He had informed Reston
only that two Umbrella teams - nine men, including
himself - were starting a sweep of the compound, and
that the fugitives' transport had been spotted; the
three were still in the area unless they had a second
vehicle, a highly unlikely possibility. Reston told him
that the entry's camera had been covered by one of
them and asked for an update as soon as anything
turned up, then settled in to watch the show.
He poured himself another brandy as he watched
the three weave slowly through the trees, John with
his weapon pointed above, the other scanning the
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