CHAPTER 6

Trapov Village, Edonia

2:40 pm September 19th, 2010

"Did you get a chance to go over everything?" Thom asked Karina. When she nodded he said, "So we can all sit down and you can tell us what the hell is going on then?"

She nodded again.

Marcos walked back into the kitchen from changing in the bathroom and stacked his peasant garb on top of Nick's pile on the table. He wore black cargo pants and a black t-shirt with a white Navy Seal BUDs trident on the left side of the chest. He looked at the others and finally turned to Thom.

"Think we can get some lunch first?" Marcos asked.

"You want to cook us something?" Thom asked.

Marcos shrugged helplessly and Karina said, "Please, let's talk downstairs."

Once again, they followed her lead as she walked down the flight of stairs and into the room she had stayed in, across the way from the wood burning stove. Inside was a simple cot along the left wall with a few blankets stretched over it. A laptop was open on a small table against the back wall with a short stool beside it. Next to that was a black rolling duffel bag, not unlike Nick's own deployment bag, that was full of more of Karina's clothing and gear. Sitting on the duffel was the small backpack she had been carrying the previous night.

The right side of the room was lined with more barrels and boxes that were piled with full canvas sacks and other odd furniture. The men all crammed into the small open area inside and shut the door while Karina turned on the laptop to let it boot up while she pulled the metallic case out of the bag. She bent over to log into the operating system and the men couldn't help but appreciate her backside.

She stood up and faced them, saying, "The organization I work for is the Bio-terror Security Assessment Alliance. Its purpose is to track down the sale or use of biological weapons and bring those responsible to justice, and our jurisdiction is international."

Marcos shifted uncomfortably at the mention of bio-weapons as she continued, "We tracked a former Umbrella Corporation researcher to Warsaw, but he'd already arranged to have a new weapon delivered to Andru Urchenko. My partner and I followed the lead here to try and stop the transaction.

"While we were able to locate the man making the delivery we could not intercept him before he met with Urchenko's men. If he would have stopped somewhere we could have delayed him until our tactical Special Operations Unit could meet us and assist, but he kept moving. We barely caught up to him ourselves and were forced to act alone.

"When he finally stopped at the meet site in the forest, we had very little time to try and intervene, but there were many of Urchenko's men. Levi, my partner, snuck up to the delivery vehicle and managed to get this," she said picking up the case and opening it, "There were two more cases that he couldn't get to before he was spotted. We tried to prevent them from following us by destroying their vehicle, but there were just too many. They followed us, shot Levi, and then we crashed where you found me."

She blinked away forming tears and the team stared at the vials in the metal case. The liquid in the helical glass tubes was blue and cloudy and Nick could have sworn that he saw it moving in the tubes. Either that or something in the strange, viscous liquid was moving.

Carter spoke, asking, "Umbrella was supposedly responsible for the destruction of Raccoon City. A story broke out about a zombie virus that turned out to be a hoax. Are you saying that it wasn't? That this virus here turns people into actual, undead zombies?"

"Yes," she answered flatly, "but it's not just that. That was one of the first biological weapons of its kind and was uncontrollable. This virus is a combination of what destroyed Raccoon city, known as the T-Virus, and another bio-weapon, an ancient parasite called Las Plagas."

"The Plagues?" Marcos asked.

She closed the lid of the case and set it down on the table before she turned the laptop so that they could all see the screen. She double clicked a file and started a slide show of pictures, starting with a microscopic image of a strange organism that resembled a crayfish without legs. It then proceeded to show a series of pictures of simple villagers in some third world region, not unlike Edonia. All of the people looked pale and sick, but they appeared to be living normal lives, farming and performing normal chores.

Karina spoke as the images continued to cycle, "A U.S. Government Agent took these pictures while searching for the president's kidnapped daughter in 2003. The region was under the dominion of a religious cult leader."

As the slide show continued they showed the villagers mutilating the body of a local police officer. Then they showed a series of mutated humans with large tentacles growing out of their necks in place of their head. There were giant hulking beasts bound in chains, deformed humanoids without any features that had spikes protruding out from all over their body, and even overgrown insect-like creatures, straight out of a science fiction movie.

"These creatures are all results of Las Plagas. The cult leader had total control over them using a version of the parasite which allowed him to dominate anything that was infected with Las Plagas. He plotted to subjugate the U.S. with it.

"Shortly afterwards, the B.S.A.A. was created. Then, a few years ago, two of our agents tracked a sale in the West African country of Kijuju. It involved a mutation of Las Plagas that was used by a former Umbrella researcher with the intentions of covering the globe with it. Since his death we have been keeping tabs on all of the researchers who worked on projects like these, from Umbrella, Tricell, and Willpharma. That's how we got onto Dr. Leukin's trail."

After a few moments, Marcos asked, "So this virus will do what, exactly?"

"According to the documents Levi and I found in the laboratory in Warsaw, this is a highly refined viral parasite," she began, holding up a thick folder, "Each of the vials contains a Plagas Major that uses elements of the T-Virus to allow that individual to infect others with Plagas Minor. All they would need to do is bite or transfer the virus through bodily fluids and the infected would become their undead slave. It can then be passed by that slave and on and on, creating more slaves as they kill, all under control of the individual infected by the Plagas Major."

"So Andru wants to use this to subjugate the government forces and take over," Carter said, pausing before he added, "If he even stops there. If this thing works like you say it does he could go anywhere he wants, really."

"Is there a way to stop this?" Thom asked, "To kill these things?"

"I don't know for sure," Karina answered, "Destroying the brain stopped those infected with the T-Virus, but the Plagas parasite itself needed to be destroyed to stop those infected with it. The longer they were infected, the harder it became to do, according to the reports."

"Have you contacted your people?" Carter asked.

She nodded, saying, "Yes. One of our S.O.U. teams is en route to the airfield outside of Antrusia already with more to follow in the next few weeks. They will bring as much manpower as it takes to stop Urchenko, but we need to get this container back to our headquarters so they can develop a serum or an anti-virus."

Thom rubbed the back of his neck and said, "So we've got to move fast or this is going to become nearly unstoppable."

"I'm afraid so," she said.

"I guess we should find a truck and get on the road," Nick said.

"As soon as Father Mikhail comes back we can see if he can help us out or at least point us in the right direction," Thom said, "In the meantime, get your shit together and be ready to roll."

The men filed out to the furnace room to get their things together. Nick sat at the foot of the stairs to put on his boots while Thom and Carter were getting their armor on and stuffing ammo back into the pouches when they all heard yelling, coming from outside of the house. Before they could react Karina was running up the stairs with her Beretta in hand. Nick sprinted up after her while the rest of the team hurried to get their gear put back together.

As Nick burst into the kitchen right behind Karina they heard a door slam in the hallway and a panicked wail born of sheer terror. They rushed around the corner and found Father Mikhail pushing against the door at the end of the hall past the bathroom. He was struggling to fit a beam into brackets on either side of the door to barricade it closed. Someone was pounding on the other side of the door and trying to shove it open. Blood was smeared all over the inside of the door as the priest kept pushing his arm against it.

Nick ran past Karina and violently push kicked the door closed, pressing with all his weight to hold it shut while Father Mikhail slid the beam into the brackets. Karina held her pistol up, ready to take aim if need be. She looked at the priest who was clutching his left arm, the blood seeping out between his fingers, covering right hand. His face was pale and his breathing rapid and erratic.

"What the hell happened?" Nick shouted as the pounding on the door grew more consistent.

Karina led the priest into the kitchen as he said, "Some of the farmers came in from the fields. They were hurt, attacked by someone."

Nick quickly scanned out the windows, seeing several villagers striding towards the small house. He drew the curtains shut as Father Mikhail winced in pain and continued, "Suddenly they got much worse, like something was killing them, from inside."

Thom came bounding up the stairs, wearing his body armor, with his M4 in hand and his go bag slung loosely over one shoulder, saying, "What the fuck happened?"

Karina looked at him and said, "I think it's here."

Thom looked at Nick and said, "Go get your shit; I've got a feeling we've worn out our welcome."

Nick ran down the flight of stairs past Marcos and Carter on their way up to the kitchen with their weapons ready. He started grabbing his gear and quickly refilled the pouches with the radio, frags, and his medical supplies. He could hear the raised voices of his teammates upstairs, in the kitchen, trying to figure out what the hell was happening as he was getting it all put on as quickly as he could.

He threaded his Rigger's belt through the belt loops of his pants and his first line gear, which he tried to keep below his belt line by using a sub loads. On his right thigh was his drop leg holster and on his left was a custom made drop leg panel with a pistol magazine pouch with three full mags. Behind the pistol mag pouch was his Gerber LMFII fixed blade knife, which he wore more for utility and survival than any delusions he had of knife fighting. That's what he had guns for.

His sidearm was his Para Ordnance high capacity 1911, which had fourteen round magazines, tritium night sights, and an integral light rail. Attached to the rail was an Insight M6 pistol light. Nick only loaded thirteen rounds in the mags to keep pressure off the springs and ensure his ammo fed reliably. It was a heavy sidearm, but Nick had put more rounds through that platform than any other gun and he felt like carrying a lot of the heavy .45 caliber rounds would serve him well since all he normally had was a long range bolt gun. He pulled back the slide just enough to confirm that there was still a round in the chamber, let it go, and flipped the safety up. He holstered it and snapped the lock over the holster, securing it in place.

Next he put on his plate carrier which had a wide pouch centered on his chest that was filled with twenty rounds of ammo for his bolt gun. Below it, on the Velcro flap that secured the cummerbund that wrapped around his sides, was a similar looking pouch holding twelve rounds of 12gauge 00 buckshot. To the right side of the shotshell pouch was a small utility pouch containing his trauma kit. On the left side was a radio pouch for his MBITR radio, a very portable, easy to use, secure communications system. Just under his kidneys were two frag grenade pouches. On his back was a hydration bladder, still full of water.

Nick put in his Peltor earpro, which were designed to protect against harmful levels of noise, like gunfire, while allowing safe decibel levels to be heard clearly. He turned the knobs on each earmuff and plugged the cord into the Push to Talk box on his vest, which was plugged into his radio. He also put on his pair of hard-knuckled shooting gloves. They were a little stiff from getting soaked and then drying them out near a fire, but they would soften back up in no time.

As the shouting upstairs got louder and more urgent the pounding on the door and walls intensified, like the entire house was being barraged. He picked up the Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun and checked to make sure he still had a shell in the chamber and that it was still on safe. The magazine tube of the shotgun held five more shells and it had a side saddle on the receiver loaded with six more 00 Buckshot. He'd replaced the standard stock with a pistol grip and gotten a heat shield to cover the eighteen and a half inch barrel. The quick adjust sling was attached to the grip and a sling point on the side. He swung it over his shoulder and slung it so that it was pointed at the ground to his left side.

He reached down to pick up his sniper rifle and heard gunshots from upstairs, followed by more shouting and then more shooting. He'd left the rifle in the same condition as it was in when they were moving to the village, which meant that the internal mag was filled with five rounds and an expended casing was still in the chamber. The five loops on the cheekpad were still empty and he was pissed at himself for not re-filling them before he'd gone to sleep. He shouldered his go bag and got up to join the others upstairs.

As Nick stepped into the dark cellar hallway, he was startled by movement off to his left, causing him to step back slightly. In the shadows of the basement, Nick saw a man slowly coming out of the storeroom door, where the sewer hatch was located. The stench of waste and filth hit him and Nick noticed the erratic, unnatural way his body moved as he limped and stepped forward, his arms hanging down at his sides. Light glistened off something that was on the side of the man's neck and he croaked out what might have been a word, but it gurgled in his throat and was lost in the darkness.

Suddenly the man lurched forward, reaching out with both hands to grab at Nick, snarling as he lunged with his rotting, blood covered teeth barred like some kind of animal. Nick swept the barrel of his sniper rifle across, knocking the assailant's arms to the side, then reversed and smashed the heavy stock into his jaw. The force of the blow sent the man backwards off his feet, slamming into the door and breaking it off of its hinges. The flimsy wooden door fell against the inside wall of the storeroom and the man clumsily went down with it, rolling to the floor limply.

From upstairs Nick heard glass shattering and more shooting, this time from three or four guns at the same time, all over the little house. He set down the go bag and rifle and drew his pistol as the man he'd struck got back up and turned to come at him again. He flicked on the pistol light and got a good look at the man as he stumbled over the edge of the door and into the hall once more.

The hands that reached out towards Nick were mangled, several of the fingers broken and bent at odd angles. Open wounds were packed with grime and the skin of his forearms and elbows were all torn apart and shredded. His face was pale and drawn, smeared with muck and shit from the sewer and his jaw was crooked, jutting at an odd angle to the right side of his face. His neck was ripped open and hunks of coagulated blood hung from the edges of the gruesome wound. His eyes were a sick shade of yellow with pin-prick pupils that seemed to ooze blood. They never shifted, didn't react to the light at all. They were completely devoid of any spark of intelligence or sign of life. He was infected; one of the monsters Karina was talking about.

Nick lined up the front sight and pressed the trigger, shooting it in the forehead from three feet away. As the solid bullet passed through its skull blood, brains, and bits of bone sprayed the doorway and the man's head jerked back sharply. He fell backwards onto the wooden door, completely still. Nick kept his pistol aimed at the body and waited a few seconds to make sure that he was completely dead.

Through the shouting and sporadic gunfire coming from the kitchen, Nick could hear Karina's voice over the others but couldn't make out what she said. He was about to grab the rest of his gear and head upstairs when a hand reached around the doorway. Another filth covered man stumbled into the light from his gun light, dressed in peasant garbs similar to what they had spent the morning in, except this man's were soaked, torn, and reeked. The second zombie shakily stepped over the body and came into full view in the hallway.

Nick quickly fired at his head just as he was stepping forward, lazily swaying as he walked. The round slammed into the side of his face, next to his left eye and blood and skin from the side of his head sprayed the wall. His ear hung loosely from the top of his jaw and his scalp was flopping a little below the path along his skull where the round ripped through skin, but not bone. The man barely flinched as half his head was torn open, stepping up and raising his arms to lunge.

Nick fired a rapid pair of shots, striking the man between the eyes and in the middle of his left eyebrow. His skull blew apart and the top of his head hung by the scalp off the right side of his head. Blood and brain matter exploded out the back all over the hallway walls and the body fell backwards, limp and still. The carnage was as bad as Nick had ever seen, since he'd never had to shoot anyone that close to him before.

He took a deep breath of putrid air and was about to holster his pistol when he was startled by Karina, who ran down the stairs and dashed into the room with her gear in it, shouting, "We can't leave this behind!"

While she packed the black bag with the documents, metal case and some other necessities, Nick focused his gun light on the blood splattered hall once again. Crawling over the two bodies lying in the doorway was a third infected villager. The left side of his face below his eye was a torn and bloody mess and his left forearm looked like chunks of flesh and meat were bitten and ripped off. Thick clumps of blood oozed from the wounds and plopped onto the floor in chunky coagulated piles. He clawed at the floor to pull himself over the bodies, his eyes locked on Nick with a vacant yet violent desperation.

Nick aimed at his eyes and fired two rounds through his skull watching with some satisfaction as the creature fall flat on its face, his head now a misshapen orb of destroyed bone and gore. He heard Karina run up the stairs behind him as he flicked the safety up and switched off the gun light before he holstered his pistol, securing the snap over the hammer instinctively. In one motion he scooped up his rifle and bag, the MICH still attached to the outside of it, and then followed her up to the kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time.

Thom was piling chairs against the table, which was turned up on its end with the flat surface pushed up against the window on the left wall. He could see shards of shattered glass on the floor, sticking to dozens of clumps of thick blood below the window. Fists or farm tools pounded against the table, shaking the makeshift barricade. He heard Carter fire a rapid series of rounds in the hallway and saw the back of his tan body armor vest through the doorway on the right. He was facing the window at the opposite end of the hallway from the front door, locking it down from more undead villagers with well aimed shots from his M4A1 Carbine. Nick could still hear the pounding on the front door of the little house and realized that someone was hacking at it with an axe.

On the floor of the kitchen lay Father Mikhail, barely breathing, his eyes fluttering but nearly shut. He was moaning weakly and his skin was colorless as Marcos tried to treat him. The wound on his arm was bandaged tightly and the bleeding seemed to be controlled, but his vitals just kept on getting weaker and weaker. Marcos was desperately trying to save him but he was at a loss, there was nothing else that could be done.

"He's fucking dying, man! I can't help him!" Marcos yelled.

"Get away from him!" Karina screamed as she drew her Beretta once more and aimed it at the dying priest.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Thom shouted.

"He's going to turn!" she stated coldly, "He'll be one of them and then he'll infect you, now get away!"

Marcos stood up, taking a couple steps back as he shouldered his aid bag, saying, "This is fucked!"

"I think they're in the bathroom!" Carter yelled urgently as he changed mags, "I could use some help here!"

Marcos ran into the hall and saw a hole in the top half of the front door with blood covered arms reaching through. He saw one of them halfway inside the house, pinned against what was left of the door by other infected villagers pushing to try and get through. He brought up his MP5A2 and started shooting, killing the villager stuck halfway in first, then taking shots at whatever else he could see through the door. There seemed to be no end of them, like the entire village was clustered around the house, trying to get in.

"We can get to the attic from the bedroom across the hall!" Karina shouted.

Thom, still holding the table barricade against the kitchen window, looked at Nick and jerked his head towards the hall, yelling, "Go!"

As Nick came up behind Marcos the bathroom door burst open, slamming into Marcos and knocking him back into Nick. As they both recovered from nearly falling, a pair of villagers lunged out of the bathroom towards them. Marcos instantly reacted, punching the lead man squarely in the chest, stopping the undead man in mid step, and then followed it up with a powerful round kick that sent it flying back into the zombie woman following him. Both of them fell to the tile floor of the bathroom clumsily, a tangle of arms and legs.

Marcos started pumping rounds into the pair as Nick yelled, "You need to shoot them in the head!"

He carefully aimed and disposed of the pair when he saw another through the bathroom door. He sidestepped and fired quickly while Nick opened the door to the bedroom and stepped inside. Marcos finished off his mag and glanced behind him, seeing Carter firing out the window with his back to the bedroom door. He swapped his empty mag with a fresh one and heard Karina fire her pistol seconds before she and Thom ran past into the bedroom.

"Let's go!" Thom yelled to Marcos and Carter.

They rushed inside the little room and slammed the door shut. Thom slid a modest desk against the door while Nick pushed a heavy wardrobe in front of the window on the back side of the house, just as a pair of zombies started beating on the glass. Karina pulled a nightstand under a small hatch in the ceiling and Carter jumped on, slinging his rifle and drawing his Sig P220. He flung open the hatch and shined his pistol light up into the attic. Seeing nothing he signaled the others and Thom and Marcos boosted him up.

As he disappeared into the dark attic they heard the window shatter and pounding on the wardrobe, followed by the sounds of fists slamming against the door. The knob turned and the door opened and inch, slamming into the desk that Thom and Marcos were pushing against the door. Carter appeared in the opening in the ceiling and flashed a thumbs-up and Karina climbed up on the nightstand. Nick boosted her up while Carter helped lift her into the attic.

There was a loud crashing sound from in the kitchen as the table barricade was broken down and splintering wood as the brackets holding what was left of the front door shut were torn from the wall. Suddenly, the entire wall was being beaten on by dozens of fists, tools, and broken hands. The wall trembled, paint chips falling off as it cracked near the ceiling.

"Give me your bags!" Nick shouted.

Thom and Marcos each took off their packs and gave them to Nick to hand up to Carter, then he turned and said, "Thom, you've got to go next. It's going to take both of us to lift you."

He growled but relented and they heaved the huge man up to squeeze through the hatch. Marcos kept one foot pressed against the desk, but it was being pushed, inch by inch, as the zombies in the hall pounded and beat on the door to get at the cornered prey. As soon as Thom was up in the attic, Marcos handed Nick all his gear and focused on pushing the desk against the door, fighting a losing battle to regain inches lost to the zombies. Nick passed Marcos's aid bag and grenade launcher up into the hatch along with his own sniper rifle and go bag.

He turned to look at Marcos just as an arm broke through the wooden door and snagged the shoulder strap of Marcos's gear. Another arm shot through the hole and started trying to claw at the former Seal, who was trying to yank his gear free, giving up more ground to the zombies. He drew his sidearm and started blasting at the arms and through the wooden door. Nick drew his pistol and fired a series of five rounds through the door and wall at eye level, the rounds smashing easily through the plaster walls and flimsy wood door.

Marcos jerked his gear free and stumbled back a step, letting up pressure on the desk altogether. It slid towards the two men as the door was forced open so violently that its hinges were ripped out of the door frame. As the first row of undead tried to force their way in through the door, others were smashing holes in the walls, reaching in and tearing at the interior to create a hole big enough to crawl through. Marcos fired the last four rounds and was surprised when his slide locked back on the empty magazine. He reached for another when Nick pushed him back.

"Go!" Nick yelled, taking well aimed shots with his pistol at any head he saw through the door and walls, "I'm right behind you!"

Marcos stepped on the nightstand and jumped straight up, where he was caught by Thom and Carter who yanked him up into the attic before turning to wait for Nick to do the same. Below, Nick fired his last rounds and just holstered his handgun before turning and picking up the little nightstand. He swung it over his head and smashed it down onto the wave of zombies trying to push into the room and over the desk. It broke into pieces, crushing the afterlife out of one of the zombies as more fought to get past it. The tangled mass of bloody and broken hands and arms stretched, reaching out to try and snag anything they could get a hold of. Nick just stepped under the hatch and jumped straight up into the arms of his waiting teammates who hauled him up into the attic. As soon as his feet were clear they slammed the hatch shut and sat in the darkness for a moment, trying to catch their breath.