Chapter VIII

There was no sense in playing a game with bad cards.

You couldn't bluff against teeth and claws.

This round went to the Hunter. Jill let Chris pull her along as they ran, yanking her arm free when she had gathered enough speed.

From the underground torture tract they had fallen one level deeper; into some kind of sewers. The dirty water splashed as the two agents ran through it, soaking Jill's combat boots and trousers up to her knees. Still, she preferred sewer water to Hunters any day.

For most of the time they ran like rats in the maze, blind and disoriented, taking sharp corners and zig-zagging through the labyrinth in hopes of losing their follower. Having to tread through water didn't exactly help in stealth matters, so priority number one was to get as much distance as possible between them and the Hunter.

When she thought that they were far enough Jill slowed her pace until she came to a halt. Chris skidded in the filthy water almost slamming into a wall. Holding it for support he panted, catching his breath.

"Shit..." he muttered, and punched the palm of his hand into the wall with an angry gesture. "What a fucking mess."

Looking over at Jill, he frowned. "I'm sorry, ok?" he snapped, his temper getting the better of him, even though she hadn't even accused him of anything. "We should have gone for backup. You were right. Happy?"

Jill was perplexed for an instant, her mind refusing to believe that, of all the bad moments in the world, Chris had chosen this one to start an argument. She felt a pang of annoyance at his immaturity and opened her mouth to form a fitting retort. Halfway through she decided for the better and shut her mouth again, settling for a disdainful snort instead.

"Calm down, ok?" she said, brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face. "This isn't the first time we're up to our ears in shit. Get yourself together and let's figure out how to get out of here alive."

Chris' eyes fixated her with the intensity of a predator before his features relaxed and guilt replaced anger. "Sorry... are you all right?"

She followed his sight and drew her fingers over the ripped fabric covering her chest. The Hunter had swiped her a good one, eternalizing its claw-marks on her shirt. Her hand came back clean as she withdrew it and she held it up for Chris to see. "Kevlar."

Chris nodded relieved. "Don't suppose your radio survived the fall?"

Her hand went to the empty place at her hip, closing around thin air instead of her walkie-talkie. She couldn't remember when she had lost the radio, but there was no going back to search for it. She supposed Chris had lost his too, hence his initial questioning.

She sighed. "Can't be that easy."

"We'll have to find another way then."

That was easier said than done. In a maze with no sense of orientation and a lack of weapons to protect themselves, they were left with only mad courage and dwindling hope to go up against whatever monstrosities lurked down here.

"No more confrontations if avoidable," she said.

Chris nodded approvingly.

"Since the way back is no-go, be my guest and take the lead." Running her tongue across her lips, she gave a small smirk. "And don't even think about giving me that Ladies-first talk."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Chris quipped back, sauntering forward with a nonchalant air. They kept close to the wall, forcing their breathing to a slow and calm rhythm, as if they weren't basically walking to certain death. Chris' hand gripped the hilt of his knife ,holding it in front of him in a defensive stance.

There was something horribly primitive about only being armed with a blade. She wa reminded of her first encounters with Umbrella's creations. She had felled many a carrier with a knife at Arklay, after realizing that bullets were a luxury only more dangerous monsters had the privilege to get a taste of. Ever since the Mansion Incident, every spare moment was dedicated to training, fleshing out techniques and discovering new BOW weak-points.

Watching Chris ahead of her, she knew that it was no different for him. When he wasn't on active duty then he was bulking up in the gym. She would sometimes tease him about it, joke how Mr Universe would be no match against him if he kept up that schedule. But at the end of the day Jill agreed with his reasons.

After having witnessed what Wesker had become at Rockfort, Chris had started preparing for the inevitable square off against the man's unnatural strength.

Suddenly, her foot hit something in the shallow water, and she bent down to investigate. Her fingers closed around a long, metallic object.

"Hey Chris..." she whispered. "You're gonna love this..."

She held up a crank.

"You've got to be kidding me," he replied. "What is it with this guy and cranks?"

She shrugged her shoulders, and said in fake admiration, "He's a man of refined tastes."

"He's obsessed, that's what he is."

The crank had a hexagonal shape and reminded Jill about the underground complex under the Arklay Mansion. Back then it had unlocked a hidden path in the caves and helped her find a way back to the surface.

"Well, one thing is sure," she contemplated as she turned the crank in her hands. "We will certainly

need this."

She wondered exactly where the implement was designed to fit. And why, for that matter, was it lying in an underground sewer complex which was home to super-Hunters and God knew what else? Had some poor soul dropped it in their hurry to escape one of the monsters? Where there maybe more survivors down here?

Jill stowed the crank to the rest of her equipment as they set forth to continue. With only a machete and a combat knife they weren't exactly equipped to face more BOWs, so every wasted minute was a minute closer to death.

The sewers were a literal labyrinth. It was difficult to make a mental map of the place. Little corridors branched off to either side of the path they walked on and there was no telling where all of them led. Jill guessed that most would dead-end at one point or another and she didn't really want to risk finding herself in a Hunter nest, if such a place existed.

With the noise they caused by treading through the water it was necessary to stop at regular intervals to listen out for any give-away sounds. As it turned out, their opponent seemed to have lost their trail. She hoped that it hadn't just gone to fetch its siblings.

As they rounded the next corner luck sent them a message.. Jill had never been so glad to see a corpse. And not just any. It wasn't civilian, that was for sure. It was a man in his forties dressed in a suit. He had broken sunglasses hanging over his nose and a comms device in his ear. Slumped against the wall, only his upper body was visible.

That was enough to give Jill an impression of what had happened to him. The shirt that was once white now hung in crimson strips over his chest. Jill dared to bet her last penny that the reason for the man's death had been one of the massive axes wielded by those grotesque hulks.

"Seems we're not the only ones after Spencer," she said as she bent down, reaching under the suit to reveal a leather holster under the corpse's armpit. A Glock was still strapped inside.

"They killed him before he could even draw his weapon."

She took the gun and handed it to Chris, who shoved it into his holster with visible irritation. "Who is this guy? No way in Hell do I let some other unit get to Spencer before we do."

She unhooked the comms device from the corpse's ear and traced it back to a small radio at his waist. The thing was soaked, but whoever the man's employers were, they had invested into waterproof equipment.

Jill pressed the button on the radio, leaving the frequency as it was set. "Hello? Can somebody hear me? Over."

Chris snorted. "Waste of time."

"There might be survivors."

"Yeah, and if they still have their radios they know they're not alone any more. You can't know if it's friend or foe."

"Or monster-lunch," Jill suggested, the strain evident in her voice. She didn't know what was worse. BOWs or competing organizations. God knew, perhaps even other pharmaceutical companies wanting to tickle the secrets of bioweaponry from Spencer before he took his last breath.

"How many bullets do we have?"

Chris took out the weapon and ejected the clip. "Seven."

"Half a clip."

"Seven more than we had before. Where's your optimism, Valentine?"

"I don't know. I must have lost it along with my radio."

The joking tone was lost from Chris' face as he spoke. "You all right?"

She shook her head, sighing. "Yeah. Come on. I don't want to strike roots here."

She let Chris take the lead with their new handgun. If anything came their way, he had better chances at felling it than her. And somehow, Jill thought, she was sure that they would need the weapon before they found the right place to insert the crank in.

And unlock even more horrors with it.

As if it was on cue, splashing noises suddenly resounded in the corridor. But not because they moved.

Something else did.


Dun, dun dun! What is it? You know?