of warmth spattered across David's face and he
stopped firing, jumping to catch her before she could
let go.
"Got it!" Claire shouted from the other side, and she fired through the mesh, the nine-millimeter
rounds pounding and loud, David's pulse even loud-
er. Rebecca was pale, panting harshly, obviously in
pain - but she managed to hang on to the fence, even
to climb a little as David straddled the fence and
lifted her up.
He half-carried her over the top, and as soon as
Claire reached up to help, David turned and fired
again at the oncoming attackers, still hidden in the
shadows, his fury drying the last of the chemical tears.
Bloody bastards, she's still just a girl...
The M-16 went dry and he jumped, then Rebecca
was between them, leaning heavily on David's shoul-
der, and they were staggering out into the freezing
desert night.
THIRTEEN
WITHIN MINUTES OF THE ATTACK, LEON
could see that Cole was in no shape to lead. The
Umbrella worker was stumbling blind, headed only
vaguely in the direction they needed to go and more
from happenstance than by design.
And now that we know they can attack from the
ground... he and John didn't both need to be watch- ing the skies, so to speak.
"Henry - why don't you let me take over as guide for a few minutes?" Leon asked, glancing back at John. John nodded, not looking all that hot himself;
he seemed extremely tight, his gaze darting rapidly
back and forth, his hands tight on the M-16.
Maybe he's thinking about the others. About them
being "taken."
"Yeah, okay, that'd be okay," Cole nodded, his relief all too apparent. He wiped at his sweaty brown
hair and hurried to get behind Leon, John still in
back.
Leon was nervous, but not nearly as frightened as
he had been, at least not for the three of them. The
birds, Dacs, were unpleasant and dangerous, but it
was a relief to have seen them; they weren't as terrible
as his imagination had led him to believe upon
hearing those first savage cries. Monsters from the
mind were always worse than the real thing, and the
Dacs weren't even all that durable. As long he and
John were on their guard, they should make it okay.
They were headed due south, so Leon angled them
again, realizing that he was starting to catch glimpses
of what might be the far wall. The setup was disori-
enting; the trees were not all that close together, but
were scattered so that the woods seemed dense when
you looked across it; the thick ground cover, some
kind of molded plastic, didn't move underfoot, but
there were slopes and rises in the material that made
it even harder to get a feel for the size of the chamber.
This is so weird, so over the top - so utterly like
Umbrella.
It was like the vast laboratory facility beneath
Raccoon, complete with its own foundry and private
subway - unbelievable, except he'd seen it himself.
And he knew from the ex-S.T.A.R.S. that there'd also
been an isolated cove on the Maine coast guarded by
teams of viral zombies, and a "deserted" mansion in
the woods, the Spencer place - that one had been
rigged with secrets, keys, codes, and passages, like the
setting for a spy movie that no one would ever buy.
Now this - simulated environments beneath the
barren Utah salt flats. What had Reston called it? The
Planet. It was an extravagant, decadent, immoral
waste; ridiculous, except -
- except we're stuck in it, and God only knows what
we'll be up against next.
Leon kept moving, trying not to think about what
Claire and the others might be going through. Reston
had obviously assumed that the rest of the team had
been nabbed, but he didn't know. He also didn't know
how resourceful Claire and Rebecca were, or how
brilliant David was as a strategist. They'd all slipped away from Umbrella before, and there was no reason
to think that they wouldn't do it again.
Leon was so intent on the private pep-talk that he
didn't see the clearing until they were practically on
top of it, less than twenty feet away. He stopped,
remembering the last attack and chided himself for
not paying attention.
"Let's back up and go around," he said and then he heard the beat of wings, and knew it was already
too late. In the wilted shadows above the open space,
one, two, three of them were diving off perches,
soaring down into the rounded clearing.
Shit!
One of them started to screech and then there were
others nearby, overhead, hiding in the unlikely trees,
who joined in the song, a deafening, horrendous
cacophony of needle-sharp sound. Leon fell back,
John suddenly at his side, aiming his rifle into the
open space.
The first flew at the trees, twisting sideways as if to
fly between them. It pulled up at the last second, so
quickly that they didn't get off a shot. As it soared up,
Leon saw two on the ground, dragging their sinewy
bodies eagerly forward on folded wings.
The noise! It was painful, as shrill and terrible as a
thousand screaming infants, and Leon felt the nine-
millimeter fire more than he heard it, the heavy metal
jumping in his hands. The birds fell silent as the
closer of the two took the shot in its curving throat. A
ragged hole blew open just above its narrow chest
flaps of gray-brown skin blossoming out like some
dark flower. Thin blood gushed from the wound, but
the second was already climbing over its spasming
body, single-minded in its attack. Leon took aim
and...
"Hey hey oh shit... "
Cole's hysterical cry distracted him, the shot jerk-
ing right, missing. John opened up on the second Dac,
the clatter of automatic fire tearing into the animal.
Leon spun and saw Cole stumbling backwards, anoth-
er of the vicious birds lunging toward him.
How'd it get past us?
Leon aimed, the Dac no more than five feet away
from Cole, and even as he pulled the trigger another
of the creatures was swooping down from directly
overhead. At such close range the nine-millimeter
round punctured the bird's chest and blew a fist-sized
hole out its low back, the Dac dead before it crumpled
to the ground. The newcomer gave one mighty flap,
the tips of its huge wings brushing the floor, and flew
back up and away.
"Henry, get behind me!" Leon shouted, glancing up and seeing yet another Dac coming down from a
series of perches directly above, tucking its wings in
and diving straight for him.
He needed help. "John ... !"
The diving bird spread its leathery wings only a few
feet from the floor and touched down, surprisingly
graceful in its landing. It turned toward Leon and
lurched forward. Behind him, he heard the spatter of
bullets - and heard it stop, heard John cursing, heard
the M-16s aluminum alloy body clatter to the ground.
The Dac in front of Leon opened its long beak and
squawked, a burst of angry, hungry sound, sidling
forward on its bent wings as fast as Leon could back
away. The creature was weaving back and forth and
Leon didn't have enough ammo to waste, he had to
get a clear shot -
- and it jumped, a strange, sudden hop that put it only a foot away. With another shrill screech, it
bobbed its head forward, its open beak closing on his
ankle. Even through the thick boot leather, he could
feel the pegs of its teeth, feel the power in its jaws -
- and before he could fire, John was there, he was
stamping down on the Dac's snaking neck and point-
ing his handgun -
- and bam, the round snapped its spine, a verte- bral knob on its sleek back exploding, shards of pale
bone and runny blood spraying outward. It let go of
his ankle, and though its neck continued to twist its
body was still, bleeding and still.
How many, how many left...
"Come on," John called, scooping up the rifle and turning to run. "Get to the door, we have to get to the door!"
They ran. Through the clearing, Cole right behind,
the beat of wings behind them, another shrill voice
crying into the air. Back into the trees, the lifeless
woods, stumbling over branches and veering around
the gnarled plastic trunks.
The wall, there's the wall!
And there was the door, a double-wide metal hatch,
a deadbolt set low at the right side -
- and Leon heard the terrible screech in his ear,
inches away, and felt the gust of air across the back of
his neck -
- and he let his legs give, collapsing to the ground,
and felt sudden pain as something snatched a chunk
of hair and ripped it from his scalp, from the back of
his head.
"Look out!" Leon screamed, looking up to see the massive bird swooping in on John, almost to the door, Cole beside him.
John turned, not a flinch, not a backward stumble.
He raised the handgun and pulled the trigger, a dead
shot, and the Dac dropped as if made of lead, its tiny
brain suddenly liquid, blowing up and out.
Cole was fumbling with the door, John still aiming
over Leon's head, and Leon heard another one
screaming as if in a fury, somewhere behind -
- and the door was open - Leon ran, John cover-
ing him as he stumbled after Cole, out of the cool,
dark woods and into a blinding heat. John was right
behind him, slamming the hatch closed...
... and they were in Phase Two.
Rebecca was running, out of breath and exhausted
and unable to stop, to rest. David and Claire were
running with her, holding her up, but she still felt that
each step was an effort of pure will; her muscles didn't
want to cooperate, and she was disoriented, her
equilibrium a mess, her ears ringing. She was hurt,
and she didn't know how bad - only that she'd been
shot, that she'd hit her head at some point, and that
they couldn't stop until they were well away from the
compound.
It was dark, too dark to see where the ground was,
and cold; each breath was an iced dagger in her throat
and lungs. Her thoughts were muddled, but she knew
that she'd suffered some brain dysfunction, she wasn't
sure what exactly; as she staggered along, the possibil-
ities haunted her. The bullet was easier; she knew by
the hot and throbbing pain where it had gone. It hurt
terribly, but she didn't think she had a fracture and it
wasn't gushing; she was much more concerned about
the loss of coherency.
Shot through left gluteal, lodged in ischium, lucky
lucky lucky ... shock or concussion? Concussion or
shock?
She needed to stop, take a temporal pulse, check
her ears for blood ... or for CSF, which was some-
thing she didn't even want to think about. Even in her
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