once they got out of the city.
At the front doors of the clock tower they paused for
a moment, readying themselves, Jill feeling a strange mixture of happiness and anxiety. Rescue was coming,
but they were so close to getting out now that she was
afraid something would go wrong.
Maybe that's just because Umbrella is doing the res-
cuing, God knows they don't have a very good track
record for keeping their shit together...
"Jill? Before we leave, I want to tell you something,"
Carlos said, and for a few seconds, Jill thought her anx-
iety was about to be confirmed, that he was going to
tell her some terrible secret he'd been holding back,
but then she saw his careful, thoughtful expression and
thought different.
"Okay, shoot," she said neutrally, thinking about the way he'd looked at her out on the balcony. She'd seen
that look before, from other men - and she wasn't sure
how she felt about it from Carlos. Before he'd left for
Europe, Chris Redfield and she had been getting pretty
close...
"Before I came here, I was approached by this guy
about Raccoon, about what was going on here," Carlos started, and Jill had just enough time to feel stupid
about her assumption before-his words sank in.
Trent!
"He told me that we were in for a rough time, and
offered to help me out. I thought he was crazy at
first..."
"... but then you got here and found out he wasn't."
Carlos stared at her. "You know him or something?"
"Probably as well as you do. It was the same with
me, just before the estate mission, he gave me informa-
tion about the mansion and told me to be careful who
I trusted. Trent, right?"
Carlos nodded, and although they both opened their
mouths to speak, neither of them said a word. It was
the sound of the approaching helicopter that cut them
off, that made both of them grin and exchange looks of
joy and relief.
"Let's talk about him later," Carlos said, pushing open the front doors, the chop of the 'copter's blades
filling the tower's lobby as they both stepped out into
the yard.
Jill only saw one transport helicopter but didn't care,
there obviously wasn't anyone else to evacuate, and as
it swung over the crashed trolley, she and Carlos both
started to wave their arms and shout.
"Over here! We're over here!" Jill screamed, and she actually saw the clean-shaven face of the pilot, his
smile glowing by the lights in the cockpit as he flew
closer -
- close enough that she could see the smile disap-
pear hi the same instant that she heard the weapon dis-
charge to their right, a look of horror dawning on that
youthful face.
Shhhh...
A line of colored smoke, streaking toward the hover-
ing ship from someone on the roof of the tower's ad-
junct buildings, surface to air, bazooka or rocket launcher...
...BOOM!
"No," Jill whispered, but the sound was lost as the missile slammed into the 'copter and exploded, Jill
numbly thinking that it had to be a HEAT rocket to do
the damage it was doing as the airship spun toward
them, listing badly to one side, fire spouting from the
shattered cockpit.
Carlos grabbed her arm and yanked, almost jerking
her off her feet, pulling her out into the yard as a high,
climbing, whining noise blew over them, the burning
helicopter stuttering forward as they huddled behind
the fountain...
... and then it crashed into the clock tower. Flaming
chunks of metal and stone and wood showered down
upon them as the transport plunged through the roof of
the lobby, and like the voice of destruction, Jill heard
the Nemesis's triumphant scream rising above it all.
NINETEEN
CARLOS HEARD THE MONSTER'S SCREAMING
howl and started to get up, still holding Jill's arm. They
had to get away before it saw her...
... and the front of the building cracked open as
though it were made of balsa wood, wreckage from the
helicopter spewing out in a burst of smoking debris.
Before Carlos could get down, a large piece of
blackened rock from the building's outer wall smacked
into his left side. He heard and felt a rib give way as he
fell, the pain instant and intense.
"Carlos!"
Jill leaned over him, her gaze darting back and forth
between him and part of the tower he couldn't see, the
grenade launcher still clutched in her hands. The
Nemesis had stopped roaring; between that and the
sudden, brutal silencing of the bells, Carlos could hear
something thumping heavily to the ground, followed by
the crumble of powdering rock in a slow, even rhythm.
Crunch. Crunch.
It's coming, it jumped off the roof and it's coming... "Run," Carlos said, and he saw that she understood, a second before she took off, that she had no other
choice. Boots kicking the ground away, she left him
alone as fast as she could.
Carlos turned his head as he sat up, willing himself
not to feel pain, and saw the creature standing in a pile
of broken concrete and burning wood, unaware that the
hem of its leathery coat was on fire as its aberrant gaze
tracked Jill. As before, it didn't seem to see him.
As long as I don't get in its way, Carlos thought, propping himself against the cool stone of the fountain,
lifting his rifle. It doesn 't hurt, it doesn 't, doesn 't. In a single, powerful motion the Nemesis lifted a
rocket launcher to its giant shoulder and took aim, as
Carlos started firing.
Each chattering round from the Ml6 sent a fresh
pulse of muffled agony through his bones, but his aim
was good in spite of the pain. Tiny black holes ap-
peared on the creature's face, and Carlos could hear the
ping of ricochet off the battered launcher. The fleshy
tentacles that rose up from beneath the monster's long
jacket whipped around its upper body as if outraged,
coiling and uncoiling with incredible speed.
Carlos saw that it was swinging the bazooka toward
him, but he kept firing, knowing that he couldn't get up
in time to run. Get away, Jill, go!
It sighted Carlos and fired, and Carlos saw a burst of
light and motion coming at him, felt the heat of the
high-explosive anti-tank missile radiating against his
skin...
... and somehow, he wasn't dead, but something not
far behind him blew up. The force of the blast lifted
and threw him roughly against the side of the fountain;
the pain was spectacular but he raggedly held on to
consciousness, determined to buy Jill a few more sec-
onds.
Half laying across the lip of the fountain, Carlos
started firing again, shooting for its face, rounds
going everywhere as he struggled to control the
weapon.
Die, just die already... But it wasn't dying, it
wasn't even flinching, and Carlos knew he only had a
half second left before he was blown into a greasy stain
on the lawn.
The rocket launcher was pointed directly at Carlos's
face when it happened, a one in a million shot -
Carajo!
- as one of the metallic pings turned into an explo-
sion, a sudden white-hot light show. The monster
pitched backwards as its weapon disintegrated, drop-
ping out of sight.
Carlos's rifle went dry. He reached for a new maga-
zine, and there was new pain. He lost track of the light,
darkness pulling him down.
Jill saw Carlos collapse and made herself stay where she was, standing between the trolley and a hedge row.
She'd seen the Nemesis go down, thrown into the burn-
ing rubble by the misfire that had obliterated its
bazooka, but its confirmed ability to avoid death kept
her from going to Carlos. If it was still coming, she
wanted to keep it focused on her alone.
The grenade launcher felt light in her hands, high
adrenaline giving her a second wind with a ven-
geance and when the Nemesis rose up, one shoulder
burning, blistering black and red flesh visible beneath
its ruined clothing, Jill fired.
The buckshot-loaded "grenade," like a super shotgun
shell, sent a concentrated blast of thousands of pellets
across the yard, but she missed the howling Nemesis
entirely, the shot tearing new holes in what was left of
the tower's front wall.
The Nemesis stopped screaming even though its
chest was still burning, the skin crackling and black
now. It squared its body toward Jill as she broke open
the grenade launcher and snatched another load out of
her bag, praying that it was more seriously injured by
Carlos's lucky shot than it appeared.
It lowered its head and ran at her, its gigantic stride
carrying it toward her incredibly quickly. In a second it
was across the yard, its snaking appendages spread out
as if to grab her up.
Jill leaped to her left and took off at a dead run, still
holding the grenade, in between the row of hedges and
the undamaged west wall of the tower. She could hear it
enter the row behind her as she reached the end; it still
almost had her, its speed extraordinary, putting it an
arm's length away as she rounded the end of the row...
... and something struck her right shoulder as she
tore around the hedge, something solid and slick, bur-
rowing into her flesh like a giant, boneless finger. It
stung, a thousand hornets at once flooding her system
with poison, and she understood that one of the search-
ing tentacles had pierced her.
Oshitoshitoshit, she couldn't think about it, there wasn't time, but the Nemesis stopped suddenly, threw
its head back and bellowed its victory to the cold stars
above, and Jill stumbled to a halt, shoved the load into
the gun and snapped the breech closed...
... and fired as it lunged toward her again. The shot
clipped the howling Nemesis just below its right hip
and tore into the meat of its upper thigh, bits of skin
and muscle flying out behind it...
... and it crashed, a few more momentum strides and
it went down in a spray of ravaged tissue, monstrous and silent and suddenly still.
In a fever to reload, Jill dropped the second to last
buckshot grenade, and it rolled away. She managed to
get a firm grip on the fifth and was just snapping the
gun closed when the Nemesis sat up, facing away
from her.
Jill aimed for its lower back and fired, the thunder of
the weapon just another dull sound beneath the ringing
in her ears. The Nemesis was moving, standing up
when it was hit, and the pellets hit low and left, what
would be a lethal kidney shot for a human. Apparently
not for the S.T.A.R.S. killer. It stumbled, then stood up
and started to limp away, one giant hand clapped over
its new wound.
Leaving, it's leaving...
Her thoughts were slow and heavy. It took her a mo-
ment to understand that its departure wasn't good news.
She couldn't let it get away, let it repair itself and come
back - she had to try and kill it while it was weak
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