Thick tentacles pushed out from beneath the elephan-
tine mass, undulating like waves, spreading out across
the platform. Chris's back hit a wall, stopping him, and
the thing, the massive, tumorous thing suddenly rose up
as if unbending from some non-existent waist, spread-
ing giant wings, a dragonfly's wings, raising a contorted
and deformed half human face.
The face opened its mouth and a gigantic roaring shriek spilled out, the wings trembling from the raw
power of the sound - and then it spit at him, a thin
stream of yellow green bile that splashed on the plat-
form at his feet, and began to eat through the metal.
"Shit!" Chris shouted, and barely jumped out of the way as one of the tentacles slashed forward. He had to
watch the mouth and tentacles at the same time...
... and from rounded, quivering pink spheres that had
grown up around the base of the giant body, moving
things began to crawl out.
Chris ran to the farthest corner from the Alexia-thing
and raised the .357, not sure where to shoot. The small
subcreatures were landing on the platform, some like
flat, rounded rocks with tentacles, some like beetles,
some like nothing he'd ever seen before, and they were
all coming toward him, moving fast.
The eyes, if you can't kill it maybe you can blind it...
but the eyes were already blind, round gray holes with
darkness underneath, and he'd already seen how effec-
tive bullets were against her flesh.
That decided it for him. Chris took aim and fired...
... and the pulsating, bloated creature was screaming
again, this time in pain, one of her wings fluttering
down to the platform.
A few of the small organisms had reached him, one of
the beetle creatures leaping onto his leg, trying to climb
up. Disgusted, he brushed it off, but there was another to
take its place, and a third. A tentacle flew at his face,
shot from one of the rounded stone shapes. Chris
blocked it, but barely.
Move!
"You have three minutes thirty seconds to reach min-
imum safe distance."
Chris ran along the back wall, reached the other cor-
ner in front of the creature and targeted again, trying for
another wing. The shot went high, but the next one hit.
It howled, the broken wing hanging from shredded
connecting tissue, and then spit again, the stream of bile
missing his face by inches. The thing now had only its
two uppermost wings, and though he knew he'd hurt it,
it didn't seem to have suffered anything close to serious
injury.
And I have two rounds left.
There had to be something he could do, some way to
stop it, the self-destruct was going to blow all of them to
hell and it would be his fault. He leaped away as another
tentacle whipped out from the creature's base, trying to
think, this was a goddamn emergency and he had to
think...
... emergency release only.
The bloated monster shrieked. More of the beetles were jumping at him but he ignored them, having only
to turn his head to see the inset weapon next to the door,
the one with the lockdown bar. A grenade or rocket
launcher, whatever it was, it was beautiful, but the bar
was still down, it hadn't released.
"You have two minutes to reach minimum safe dis-
tance."
Ka-chunk.
The bar flipped up.
Chris snatched it out, lifting and aiming it at the crea-
ture's swollen guts. He didn't know what it would do
but he hoped it was good, he hoped it would shut that
bitch down.
There was no safety, nothing to chamber. Chris pulled
the trigger...
... and a fury of white light and heat leaped from the
barrel, blowing into the fat belly like an arrow into a bal-
loon. The effect was huge, the explosion monstrous.
A fountain of blood and gray jelly splatted out from
the gaping, ragged hole, backsplattering onto his face,
but he only had eyes for the screaming Alexia beast as
its flesh and bone form gave out, deflating...
The upper body of the creature was trying to pull free
from the dying mass, the two wings flailing frantically
at the air, but with only two, it couldn't free itself...
and so it was dying, he knew because he could see its
blood draining away, because the color of its horrid
flesh was changing, turning ashy, the subcreatures shriv-
eling, because of the absolute, complete hatred on its
face ... and the absolute surprise.
As the Alexia monster fell silent and began to sag, her
features dripping, Chris heard that he had one minute
left.
Claire.
He dropped the incendiary launcher and ran.
TWENTY
CLAIRE FELT LIKE SHIT, AND THERE WAS
nothing she could do about it. Steve was dead, and Chris
would either come or he wouldn't, and whatever hap-
pened, everything was going to blow up pretty soon, and
she had no say in any of it.
"You have two minutes to reach minimum safe dis-
tance," the computer politely informed her, and Claire extended her middle finger toward the closest speaker. If
there was a hell, she knew what they played in the ele-
vators instead of music.
There was only one jet where the elevator had let her
out, and Claire sat on the railing in front of it, her arms
tightly crossed, her stare fixed on the elevator doors. She watched and waited, her anxiety building, a part of her be-
lieving completely that he wasn't coming as alarms blared
through the mostly empty hanger, echoing back at her.
Don't leave me, Chris, she thought, clutching herself tighter. She thought of Steve, remembering the laugh at-
tack he'd inspired back on the island. How he'd looked
at her like she was crazy.
Come now, Chris, she thought, closing her eyes and wishing it as hard as she could. She couldn't lose him,
too, her heart wouldn't be able to stand it.
There was one minute to reach minimum safe distance.
When the building started to rumble beneath her feet,
she thought she might cry, but there were no tears. She
went back to watching the elevator door instead, certain
now that he was gone - so sure that when the door
opened, when he stepped out, she thought she might be
hallucinating.
"Chris?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper, and he was running toward her, splashes of blood and some-
thing else smeared across his face and arms, and that
was when she understood that he was real. She wouldn't
have hallucinated him with goop on his face.
"Chris!"
"Get in," he commanded, and Claire jumped into the second seat, happy and scared and anxious, lonely and
relieved, wishing that Steve was with them and sad that
he wasn't. There were more feelings, seeming dozens,
but at the moment, she couldn't handle any of them. She
pushed them aside and didn't think at all, didn't feel
anything but hope.
Chris tucked them in tight and started pushing but-
tons, the small jet roaring to life. Above them, the ceil-
ing slid apart, the storm clouds breaking up overhead as
he lifted them out of the hanger, smooth and easy. A few
seconds later, they were blasting away, leaving the
dying facility behind.
Chris's shoulders relaxed, and he wiped his hand
across his forehead, trying to rub off the sour-smelling
gunk.
"I could use a shower," he said lightly, and the tears finally welled up, spilling over her lower lashes.
Chris, I thought I'd lost you, too...
"Don't leave me alone again, okay?" she asked, doing what she could to keep the tears out of her voice.
Chris hesitated, and she instantly knew why, knew
that it wasn't over for either of them. That was too much
to ask.
"Umbrella," she said, and Chris was nodding.
"We have to settle this, once and for all," he said tightly. "We have to, Claire."
Claire didn't know what to say, finally opting not to say anything. When the explosion came a moment later,
she didn't look. She closed her eyes instead, leaning
back into her seat, and hoped that when she finally slept,
she wouldn't dream.
EPILOGUE
MILES AWAY, WESKER HEARD THE EXPLOSION,
and could see the smoke rising shortly afterward, thick
black plumes of it. He thought about circling the jet
back, but decided against it; there was no point. If
Alexia wasn't dead, his people would find out soon
enough; hell, the world would find out soon enough.
"I hope you were in there, Redfield," he said softly, smiling a little. Of course he was; Chris wasn't bright
enough or fast enough to have gotten out in time...
... although he might be lucky enough.
Wesker had to concede that much; Redfield had the
luck of the devil.
It was a shame about Alexia turning him down. She'd
been something, terrifying and evil, but definitely some-
thing. His employers weren't going to be happy when
he came back without her, and he couldn't blame them;
they'd shelled out plenty for the Rockfort attack, and
he'd practically promised them results.
They'll live. If they don't like it, they can find them-
selves a new boy. Trent, on the other hand...
Wesker grimaced, not looking forward to their next
meeting. He owed the man. After the Spencer fiasco,
Trent had - quite literally - pulled his ass out of the
fire, and arranged for him to be fixed up, better
than new. And he'd been responsible for Wesker's
introduction to his current employers, men with
real aspirations for power, and the means to ob-
tain it.
And...
And he'd never admit to it out loud, but Trent scared
him. He was so smooth, well-mannered and soft-spo-
ken, but with a glitter in his eyes that made him always
seem to be laughing, like everything was a joke and he
was the only one who got it. In Wesker's experience, the
ones who laughed were the most dangerous; they didn't
feel like they had anything to prove, and were usually at
least slightly insane.
I'm just glad we're on the same side, Wesker assured himself, believing it because he wanted to. Because
going up against someone like Trent was a bad, bad
plan.
Well. He could worry about Trent later, after he'd
made the proper apologies to the proper agents. At least
Boyscout Redfield was dead, and he was still alive and kicking, working for the side that was going to win
when all was said and done.
Wesker smiled, looking forward to the end. It was
going to be spectacular.
The sun had come out and was reflecting against the
snow, creating a brilliant radiance, blinding in its perfec-
tion. The small plane shot away, its shadow chasing it
across the sparkling plains
0 Comments