(The first chapter followed the movie except of course Alice's personal thoughts and feelings. Beginning with this chapter the story deviates to what I would have liked to have happened.)
Las Vegas was downright spooky, even for someone who had seen as much as Alice had. There was no sign of anyone living or dead. Or undead. No bodies, no living people, no zombies and no sign that any one had been to the sand-choked city in years. It should have been reassuring. It wasn't.
Regardless of the hair standing up on the back of her neck Alice knew the convoy needed, well, pretty much everything. Food was gone and the vehicles were on their last drops of gas. The smaller towns had been picked clean so a city was their only choice. They stopped where they spotted the first sign pointing towards a fuel point. There was sand in the way but it could be dealt with. The real obstacle was the large shipping container blocking the entrance.
After scanning the area carefully the survivors clambered from their vehicles. Claire briskly gave directions.
"Chase I need a lookout. Up there." The man indicated slung his assault rifle and started climbing the replica Eiffel Tower. Mikey started pulling the hook and cable from the winch on the front of his vehicle towards the container as Alice and Carlos approached. Alice checked over her shoulder to see where Kmart was. She smiled as she saw Carlos was checking on the teen girl too.
Her gaze swept over the group and her smile faded. What was wrong with LJ? He looked awful. She started towards him but then stopped as something tugged at her mind. She spun back around and approached the container.
"Something's wrong."
She didn't even realize she had said that out loud until Claire replied.
"What is it?"
"I don't know." She put the side of her head to the container door. But rather than listening with her ears she closed her eyes and felt with her mind. Near panic engulfed her as she sensed the imminent danger to her, to all of them. She sprang back, leveling her shotgun.
Claire and the others were seasoned veterans of the never-ending struggle to survive in this world gone amuck. Weapons were leveled at the container even before Alice could yell "Get back". The other adults rushed forward even as the children ran for the safety of the vehicles. Then the door opened. Not sideways like it should have but dropped with an evil thud like a Guillotine blade falling. There was a pause and then Hell erupted.
Even with Alice's warning the horde of zombies pouring from the container froze everyone for just a second. They were FAST and strong and the fresh clothing they wore resembled uniforms. It was a trap and they had fallen into it.
Things might have gone very, VERY bad but for the intervention of one person. As the creatures flooded through the opening a figure flung itself under their feet. The acceleration the undead had picked up from their rush out of the back of the container told against them now as they stumbled over LJ. Instead of a head-long rush that might have snowed the survivors under the creatures fell over and into each other, creating a kicking, squirming pile.
Alice dropped her shotgun and swept her blades from their sheaths. She leaped to the pile, separating heads from trunks over and over again. Methodically Claire, Mikey, Carlos and the others gunned down those who staggered free. There were no wasted shots.
Not all of the zombies had been caught up in the pile-up. Chase picked off at least half of the ones that got out of the melee but others scattered in pursuit of the fleeing younger survivors. Alice cut through the zombies like a harvester in a wheat field but was not so intent that she didn't hear Kmart scream. She took a frantic look over her shoulder to see the teen slip and fall as she ran towards what Alice already thought of as "their" truck. One of the new type zombies was nearly upon her. And Alice couldn't do anything from where she was.
"Carlos," she cried out in near terror. He had heard also the cry and was already spinning around. He tightened his finger on the trigger of his sub-machine gun and fired without even seeming to aim. The first round hit the creature in the lower back and Carlos walked the stream of bullets up until its head exploded. Kmart regained her feet and scrambled into the truck, slamming the reinforced door behind her. Carlos had already turned back to his original targets by the time the door clanged shut.
Some creatures had got past the initial confusion and hail of gunfire. A choked cry came from a man with a jammed pistol running up an inclined ramp, with several zombies right behind. Alice put one foot on the pile of dead for real bodies and jumped to the top of the container. She ran along it, springing up to the level the man and his pursuers had reached. Just as she started to engage them she felt her body quiver and she lost all ability to move.
"Not again," she screamed silently. Somehow Umbrella had found her. She had kept careful track of the satellites but somehow something had changed. She could FEEL the signal being beamed down to her, beamed into the subconscious programming that Isaacs had inserted into her brain. She watched helplessly while the other survivor was killed and the zombies turned their attention to her.
Suddenly Alice realized that the link worked both ways. She concentrated on it, sent her mind back up the data stream to the satellite. There was something that almost was a click in her mind and she was herself again. She neither knew nor cared that she had burned out a module in the far away object.
With several quick moves she avenged the person she couldn't save. The remaining zombies were meat on the floor and she sprang to the stone railing of the upper floor and looked around. Her eyes caught a shape and color that were out of place. Focusing she realized it was the tip of an Umbrella Corp helicopter on the top of a nearby building. This had indeed been a trap. A trap for her but one that would have slaughtered everyone else, including those two very special people. Giving a nearly feral growl Alice leaped down and stormed across the street.
She wrenched open a door and bounded up the stairway leading to the roof, taking the steps two and three at a time. As she made the last turn she felt something contacting her mind again, although this time she was immediately conscious of the touch. She kicked open the door and stormed on to the roof.
For a moment her body slowed. She closed her eyes and concentrated. She knew Umbrella was trying to take control of her again. She brought up the images of Carlos and Kmart and made them a shield for her mind. The attempt to control her clawed at her defense in vain. Then it disappeared as she entered the hastily erected tent and her pistols sprang into her hands.
Men in Umbrella uniforms fell as they tried to bring their weapons to bear. She almost ignored one man at a computer terminal but then he clawed a heavy automatic from a concealed holster and paid the price for it. An opening in the side of the tent fluttered and she spun to see the back of Dr Isaacs disappear. She leaped two bodies and followed.
Isaacs had almost reached the helicopter when a zombie sprang on him. The helo pilot twisted in his seat, a pistol rising in his hand. Then he screamed and vanished as a second zombie pulled him from his machine. Alice was closer to Isaacs and lifted a pistol before remembering the last exchange she had with Major Cain in Raccoon City.
"Killing me won't change things."
"No, but it's a start."
The decision was taken out of her hands as Isaacs slumped lifelessly to the roof while the pilot managed to wiggle free and rolled under the helo. Alice dropped both zombies with a head shot for each.
"Don't move," she instructed the Umbrella pilot who raised his empty hands and nodded. She kicked his pistol to the other side of the roof and lowered her guns. She looked over her shoulder as already familiar footsteps sounded on the gravel.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine." Alice holstered her pistols. She looked at Kmart. "Next time you stay in the truck though."
"Absolutely," came Carlos' voice as he emerged from the doorway. "I'm getting too old to chase you up stairways after a fight like that."
Kmart sighed and rolled her eyes in perfect teen fashion. "Yes Mother, yes Father. I'll behave." Underneath the teasing tone Alice caught the deep longing in the teen's voice. She hugged the young woman.
"I doubt that but thanks for pretending you're paying attention."
Carlos wrapped them both up in his arms. "I'm just glad you're both safe." He looked at the black machine. "Okay, so now we have ourselves a helicopter. What do we do with it?"
"I've got an idea."
(To Be Continued)