AN: Written with the best Alice writer out there, Kristin.

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PROLOGUE

Here was a minimal amount of trouble (a minimal amount of trouble for Alice would have been quite a bit of trouble for anyone else) which she took care of before she set herself up in the hotel's office. The computers were still online, which was a small miracle. An explosion outside, flames going up, caught her attention out the window she'd been half watching. She could see some movement, and she grabbed her gun before she crossed the hall to the front lobby. Through the windows she could see Rain. She checked her bullets - lower than she'd have liked - and moved to the front doors. Rain might need some cover fire if the crowd of zombies near the parking lot hadn't thinned out some.

It wasn't so far, wasn't so bad. Yet, tell that to J.D her only real friend that she had had since childhood and now he was nothing more than a dead corpse ...not even that once Raccoon had been sanitized. Pushing fear and emotions away had the young woman jogged to the front door. The parking lot had definitely thinned out a little. All it took was a good crack of someone's neck, and they dropped like flies.

Rain couldn't take them all out without being bitten but they tried her patience. Rolling those hazel hues into a glare she finally accepted that if she didn't get her stubborn Spanish ass inside, those things would probably detect her and that would be the end of that. Quickly, that same right hand covered in the old gauze from before had reached out for the metallic colored handle on the prestigious hotel lobby doors and gave it a good tug heading inside.

"Well, looks like our unwanted guests didn't want anything to do with us. Seems we're the unwelcome ones." Rain smirked, tossing a bag of cheetos she had gotten from the snack machine in the gas station to Alice's way. "Then again, who gives a fuck."

Alice shot one zombie before she could get the doors closed again, turning the lock with a slight grimace and backing up. She caught the Cheetos without even thinking about it, and grabbed Rain's arm. "Those doors are glass, and they probably aren't going to hold for very long," she said, and then moved back across the hall, gun aimed steady left and then right before she stepped back into the office

. "Oh, by the way. It's about time you got here." Her lips twisted a little bit, in a small smile, and she leaned back over the computer again, typing away. There had to be some way to know how far this outbreak had spread. There was no chance of containing this one. She frowned and clicked a few times before she gave up. Leaning back against a filing cabinet, she finally opened up that bag of Cheetos and took one.

"You need to eat." Rain replied, dismissing the doors. The bitch was always so stubborn, had to be right but she knew she was wrong. Who was she kidding, she herself needed to eat. The Spanish girl hadn't had anything more than a Twinkie at the most and maybe a potato chip that was stale. Anything she could grasp that wasn't part of the undead reign. "Luckily zombies can't really tell what's going on outside of the parking lot. I almost want to say they're stupid, but they're smart enough not to come here."

Those coral colored lips upturned into a smirk. "Least' we don't have bitch boy around..." a slight mutter about Matt. Though that wasn't her place to say and she immediately felt guilt afterwards starting into the office and watching the screen with fair interest.

Alice glanced up, and lifted her second Cheeto. "I'm eating," she said, faux-innocently, lips twitching just a little. What they needed was real food, which got her to thinking. As soon as she gave the computer one more try, and it was a no-go because there didn't seem to be any information anywhere she looked, she ate a few more Cheetos and handed the bag to Rain. "The kitchen is probably still open," Alice said, with little more than her gaze turning reproachful at Rain's comment about Matt. Alice had nothing but guilt about Matt. And the rest of the team they'd lost in the Hive. She should have saved them.

"Watch my back," she told Rain. There was a map of the hotel near the door, near the fire alarm, and she checked it out. Kitchen, lobby, office, pool, sauna, fitness center.

"We should make sure we're alone in here before we get too settled."

Staying alert had the woman parked herself right near a corner of the wall with that weapon in hand. Wasn't much, hell it wasn't a machine gun but it'd do for now. Olive colored finger on the trigger should any threat arise. Dark eyes trailing lower to Alice's backside when she tore herself away from the gaze in two seconds flat going back to being a soldier. Why a hotel? They had spent days looking for survivors. What could Umbrella say?

A power plant exploded again? Simple, but not likely. No one could believe it if it happened again, in a city not too far away from Raccoon. Why did everyone not notice how much this place was screwed? People disappearing...things being changed in laws and rules and no one even asked any questions about it. People just were so afraid of living in Raccoon, they'd take anything.