bad that he actually started to do it, lowering his mouth
toward hers...
"Mmmm," she murmured, still totally asleep, and he stopped, pulling back, his heart beating even faster. He
totally wanted to but not like that, not if she didn't want
him to. He thought she did, but she'd also told him a lit-
tle about her friend Leon, too, and he wasn't so sure that
they were just friends.
Feeling tortured, having her so close but not his, he
was relieved when she rolled away from him a few sec-
onds later. He stood up, stretching stiff legs, and walked
to the front of the plane, wondering if the reserve fuel
tank had been tapped yet, the thought of dealing with
that crazy Ashford asshole once again drying up the last
of his positive feelings. He hoped that Claire would
sleep awhile longer, she'd been so tired...
... until he saw what was outside, and read the head-
ing, and realized that their altitude had dropped consid-
erably. The plane was starting to pitch some, bucking,
and no wonder. On the map reader next to the compass
was an approximate latitude-longitude for their posi-
tion.
"Claire, wake up! You gotta come see this!"
A few seconds later she was at his side, rubbing her
eyes - which widened considerably when she looked
out the window. There was a near blizzard of ice and snow pounding down, extending as far as they could see.
"We're over the Antarctic," Steve said.
"As in the South Pole?" Claire asked, incredulous. She grabbed the back of the copilot seat as the plane
roller-coastered. "Penguins and killer whales, all that?"
"I don't know about the wildlife, but we're at a lati-
tude of 82.17 South," Steve said. "Definitely the bottom of the world. And I'm not positive, but I think we're
coming in for a landing. We're slowing down, anyway."
Maybe Alfred's plan was to drop them in the middle
of nowhere and let them freeze to death. Not flashy, but
it would certainly do the trick. Steve wished he could
get his bare hands on the guy for just a minute, just one.
He wasn't much of a fighter, but Alfred would melt like
a cream puff.
"We must be headed for that," Claire said, pointing right, and Steve squinted, barely able to see through the
storm ... and then he saw the other planes, and the
long, low buildings that she had spotted, only a few
minutes away.
"You think it's one of Umbrella's?" Steve asked, knowing before she nodded that it had to be. Where else?
The plane's nose continued to dip down, carrying
them to whatever Alfred had in mind, but Steve was ac-
tually a little relieved. Meeting up with Umbrella again
sucked, of course, but at least someone else would be in
charge, and not every Umbrella employee was as
shrink-wrapped as Alfred. He couldn't imagine that
everyone would drop what they were doing to kiss Al-
fred's ass, either. Maybe he and Claire could find some-
one to bargain with, or bribe somehow...
They were closing in for a first pass, the ride getting
squirrelly, the wings probably heavy with ice - when
Steve realized that they were way too low, too low and too
fast. The landing gear had dropped at some point, but there
was no way they could land at their speed and altitude.
"Pull up, pull up..." Steve said, watching the build- ings get big too quickly, feeling prickles of sweat break-
ing out all over. He slid into the pilot's chair, grabbing
the yoke and pulling back - and nothing happened.
Oh, man.
"Belt up, we're going to crash!" Steve shouted, grab- bing for his own belt as Claire jumped into her seat, the
buckles snapping shut just as they touched down
and alarms started shrieking as the landing gear
crumpled and tore away, the plane's belly slamming into
the ground. The cabin bounced wildly, the seat belts the
only thing keeping them from hitting the roof. Claire let
out a yelp as a wave of snow crashed into the wind-
shield, and there was a giant metal SCREECH behind
them as the tail or a wing ripped away - - and enough of the churning snow pack fell away
from the glass for them to see the building in front of
them, the out of control plane sliding for it, smoke com-
ing from somewhere, they were going to hit and...
TEN
CLAIRE'S HEAD HURT. AGAIN.
Something was on fire, she could smell smoke and she
was incredibly cold, and she suddenly remembered what
had happened - the snow, the building, the crash. Alfred.
She opened her eyes and lifted her head, the action awk-
ward and difficult because she was still strapped into her
chair, now tilted forward at about a 45 degree angle
and there was Steve in his chair, not moving.
"Steve! Steve, wake up!"
Steve groaned and mumbled something, and Claire
breathed easier. After a few tries she managed to get her
belt off and slid into a crouch, her feet on what had been
the instrument panel. She couldn't see much out of the
windshield with the angle they were at, but it appeared
that they were inside some big building. There was gray
metal siding some fifty or sixty feet in front of them,
and through the gaping hole on her side of the plane, she
could see a bit of walkway with a railing maybe eight or
nine feet below.
So where is everybody? Where is anybody? If it was an Umbrella facility, why weren't there a dozen soldiers
dragging them out of the wreckage? Or at least a few
pissed off janitors...
Steve was coming around, though she could see a
nasty bump at the edge of his hairline. She reached up
and found that she had a matching bump just above her
right temple, about an inch higher than the one she'd
woken up with ... yesterday? The day before?
My, how time flies when you keep getting knocked un- conscious.
"What's burning?" Steve asked, opening bleary eyes. "I don't know," Claire said. There was just a trace of smoke in the cabin, she figured it was coming from
some other part of the plane. In any case, she didn't
want to stick around, see if anything blew up. "But we should get out of here. Do you think you can walk?"
"These boots were made for walking," Steve mum- bled, and Claire grinned, helping him with his belt.
They salvaged what they could from the weaponry
that was piled at their feet, Steve's machine pistol and
her 9mm. Unfortunately, they were low on ammo, and a
couple of clips had gone missing. She had twenty-seven
rounds, he had fifteen. They split them up, and with
nothing else to keep them aboard, Steve lowered himself out over the walkway, dropping the last few feet.
"What's out there?" Claire asked, sitting on the edge of the hole and tucking her gun in her belt. It was cold
enough for her to see her breath, but she thought she
could manage for a little while.
"Not a whole hell of a lot," Steve called back, looking around. "We're in a big round building - I think it's built around a mine shaft or something, there's a straight drop
through the middle. There's nobody here."
He looked up at her and raised his arms. "Come on down, I gotcha."
Claire doubted it. He was in good shape but had a
runner's physique, not overly muscular. On the other
hand, she couldn't stay in the plane all day, and she
hated jumping off things higher than a few feet, she def-
initely wanted a helping hand...
"Coming down," she said, and pushed herself off the hole's edge, holding on as long she could -
- and then she was dropping, and Steve emitted an
oof sound, and then they were both on the ground, Steve
on his back with his arms around her, Claire on top of him.
"Nice catch," she said.
"Aw, 'twas nothin'," Steve said, smiling.
He was warm. And attractive, and sweet, and obvi-
ously interested, and for a few seconds, neither of them
moved, Claire content to be held ... and Steve wanting
more, she could see it in the way he searched her face.
For Christ's sake, you're not on a vacation! Move!
"We should probably..."
"... figure out where we are," Steve finished, and though she could see a flash of disappointment in his
eyes, he did his best to hide it, sighing melodramatically
as he dropped his arms in pretend surrender. Reluc-
tantly, she got to her feet and helped him to his.
It did seem to be a mine shaft, sixty feet across give or
take, the walkway they were on running about half way
around, in steps - there were a couple of ladders, and
she could see at least two doors from where they were,
all down and to their left. There was only one door on
their level, to the right, but Steve checked and it was
locked.
"So where do you think everybody is?" he asked, keeping his voice low. There was a definite echo effect
probability, as massive and empty as the chamber was.
Claire shook her head. "Making snow angels?"
"Ha ha," Steve said. "Shouldn't Alfred be jumping out right about now with a flame thrower or something?"
"Yeah, probably," Claire said. She'd been thinking that herself. "Maybe he isn't here yet, or he didn't expect us to crash, so he's in one of the other buildings where we were
supposed to land ... which means we should book. If we can get to one of those other planes before he finds us..."
"Let's do it," Steve said. "Do you want to split up? We could cover more ground that way, hurry things along."
"With Alfred running around somewhere? I vote no,"
Claire said, and Steve nodded, looking relieved.
"So ... thataway," Claire said, and started for the first ladder, Steve right behind.
A short climb later and they were at the next door to
try, actually double doors set in a little ways from the
walkway. Also locked. Steve offered to try and kick it in,
but she suggested they try the others first. She was feel-
ing more and more uneasy about how quiet things were,
and didn't want the echoing thunder of a door being bro-
ken down to announce their presence, though they'd have to be comatose not to have heard or felt the
crash...
On to the next, the only other door before an opening
in the wall with a flight of stairs going down. Claire jig-
gled the handle and it turned easily; she and Steve read-
ied their weapons just in case - and at a nod from Steve,
Claire pushed the door open -
- and felt her mouth drop open, totally shocked.
What are the odds on that?
It was a bunk room, dark and reeking, and at the
sound of the door opening, three, four zombies turned
and started for them, all of them freshly infected, most
of their skin still attached. At least one of them was
starting to go gangrenous, the noxious smell of hot, rot-
ting tissue heavy in the cold air.
Steve had gone pale, and as she slammed the door
closed, he swallowed, hard, looking and sounding kind
of sick. "One of those guys worked at Rockfort. He was a cook."
Of course! She'd thought for a second that there'd
been a spill here, too, but that really was too giant of a
coincidence. At least one of those planes outside had
come from the island, probably a bunch of panicked em-
ployees - presumably not scientists - who hadn't real-
ized they were carrying the infection with them.
More sick and dying viral cannibals ... and what
else? Claire shuddered, trying to imagine the kind of soldier Umbrella would be trying to invent for an arctic
environment ... and what natural animals might have
been infected before their arrival.
"We definitely gotta get out of here," Steve said. Well, maybe Alfred got eaten, anyway, Claire thought. Wishful thinking, though they certainly deserved a
lucky break. "Let's go."
The last place to check, a set of winding stairs, marked
the end of the walkway, descending into a near total dark-
ness. Remembering the matches she'd found at Rockfort, Claire handed Steve her gun and fished them out of her
pack, giving him half before taking her weapon back. He
took the lead, striking two of the matches about halfway
down the stairs and holding them up. They didn't give off
much light, but they were better than nothing.
They reached the bottom and started to edge forward
down a tight hall, Claire on high alert as the darkness
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