Chapter 10: Cherry Bomb

The green mutants in the tanks were definitely starting to move slightly, a twitch of a claw, or an occasional shift of the snout was as far as it went. Still those claws looked to be about the same size and shape as whatever had done a number on the mansion's front door. Some of the tubes running into the creatures' skins must have been carrying a sedative to keep them under and something or someone, probably crazy intercom guy, had cut off the flow.

This isn't good. I really don't want to die by being ripped apart by these things.

They were moving more now. They were going to wake up any moment now. I pulled out the shotgun and began loading it quickly. The handgun I had just didn't have the sort of punch I would need and I had a feeling that I needed power, not accuracy when these things woke up. That green skin looked like it was tough enough to shrug off bullets like the alligator on the train had. Stuffing a few shotgun shells down my shirt, I mused on the fact that I would rather be back in West Africa than here right now.

Anything to keep those claws off of me. Even taking another boat ride down crocodile river would be better than this...Actually, screw that! At least this way I can see what's coming for me.

I pulled out three more of the grenades, clipping them to my belt. I kept scanning the tanks trying to figure out which one of the freaks would wake up first, keeping my finger close to the trigger on my shotgun. Suddenly, one of the mutants reared its arm back to break its way out of its tank.

"Albert! Take cover!"

The glass of the tank exploded outwards in a glittering spray that was soon drenched in red as my shotgun's payload hit its mark in the first mutant's face. The mutant dropped like a load of bricks, the face utterly obliterated from the blast. Two more tanks burst open on the far side of the room as their prisoners broke free with twin roars.

I took cover behind the nearest desk as I let off another blast from my shotgun dropping one of them and peppering the other with the spray as two more tanks burst open. Swearing like a sailor on shore leave inside my head, I took another shot only managing to wing one of them. I was stressing out, where the fuck was Albert?

Albert was still working on the door, furiously jiggling the hairpin around. I couldn't see his face but I could hear his mutters of frustration. I could empathize, that door looked like it was locked pretty tight. Hey, wanna know what else is frustrating? If you guessed 'fighting a horde of mutants while your zombie apocalypse buddy makes you do all the fighting while he tries to open a door with a hair accessory' you guessed right! You guessed very, very right.

I tossed a grenade at the three hunters charging at me, blowing a leg off of one on them and taking what looked like a lethal chunk out of the side of another. The remaining hunter was bleeding heavily from its face and chest.

Also, it's still running straight towards me. Fuck.

"Albert!"

I let off another blast into the face of the charging hunter, stopping it in its tracks permanently.

"If you haven't noticed, we are currently under attack," Another hunter broke free of its tank on the other side of the room as I furiously reloaded my shotgun, "Oh fuck fuck fuckity fuck!"

Two more hunters broke out as soon as I finished loading my gun, all three heading towards me, clustered together in a tight V formation. Taking advantage of their closeness to pitch another grenade right into their path. It went off with a deeply satisfying bang that managed to take all three of the scaly abominations out at the same time.

"Oh thank fuck, only four more to go."

Oh fuck, there are four more of them. Okay, let's not get cocky. Keep our guard up. Also, try to remember that we just got some more ammo for this bad boy earlier so try not to panic too much about running low on shells.

I had a full load in my shotgun and one more grenade left on my belt. If I had my way I wouldn't die here tonight, but if I did at least I would go out like a badass, shooting and exploding though any obstacle between me and safety.

Not to mention stabbing and smashing! Yay for adrenaline rushes that make us prone to massive acts of violence and moments of irreverence when we're in life and death situations!

Two of the tanks behind me broke apart with a tinkling crash that made me spin to face the scaly green monstrosities heading straight for me. Aiming my shotgun, I managed to get one of them point blank in the head. Sadly, the second one was too quick and backhanded me over the desk.

I hit the ground hard headfirst, somehow managing to keep a grip on the shotgun. I shakily looked for the hunter, not wanting to end up as its dinner. A low growling sound immediately caught my attention and I looked up to see the mutant staring straight at Albert.

Annnnd he's still trying to pick the damn lock. You know what? Fuck it! If Albert gets eaten, it's his own damn fault!

Thanking whatever powers that be for making the mutant forget that I was here, I aimed the shotgun as the mutant made a dash for my entirely unhelpful blonde companion. As soon as the green freak started to raise its claw, I fired a lethal round into its ugly mug.

My head was still pretty fuzzy from being hit over the desk, but I still managed to hear the breaking glass of another tank. There were only two of the freaks left for me to kill and there was about to be one less. Hopefully. I immediately turned to face one of the final two tanks and let off two consecutive sprays as soon as the glass broke. The remains of the mutant's head was comparable to a green and red salsa but I was satisfied, nothing could survive that. There was only one of the mutants left now.

The final mutant was definitely awake and had surprisingly not tried to escape from its tank yet. It had probably seen me take down the second to last one at least. So maybe I was intimidating to it? I don't know. All I knew was that I was a blonde who had made some slightly bad life choices armed with a shotgun and some explosives. Either that or it was trying to figure out which part of me to gnawing on first. Tomato Tomahto.

"Come on Ugly, it's going to happen anyway."

Fed up with waiting, I took a shot at the glass, peppering it with shot and broken glass, mainly on its arms and claws because it apparently had the foresight to cover its face. It suddenly charged me, and I barely managed to dodge out of its path. I took the chance to shoot it in the back but that apparently didn't do anything but focus its attention back onto where I was standing.

The hide on its back must be crazy tough like an elephant's. I need to finish this thing off with another headshot.

The last mutant stood there looking at me twitching its bleeding claws, growling under its breath. I stood there, swaying slightly, with my shotgun aimed straight at its face. It was a standoff between the two of us, neither wanting to make the first move or to back down. Suddenly the door Albert had been fiddling with clicked and swung open and the mutant made a break for him.

"Dammit! Get back here so I can kill you! Albert, look out!"

Yes, because that is totally going to make it hold still.

The hunter sped straight for Albert, arms outstretched, bloody claws aimed right for my unhelpful partner's head... Only to have Albert fire two fatal bullets right between the thing's eyes.

Well, that was anticlimactic.

Looking down at the final mutant's corpse, I finally felt free to let something off of my chest.

"What part of 'take cover' did you not hear?" I was fairly frustrated and my voice definitely conveyed that fact. "That thing almost got you! Also, thank you sooo much for helping with those things."

Albert merely looked at me and huffed. "I had the utmost faith that you could handle the Hunters for a while."

"What if I hadn't been able to kill them, Albert? What then? You would be dead and I wouldn't exactly be fine either! If they had been able to wake up and attack us all at once we would be monster chow right now." Something occurred to me then. "Hunters? Is that what those are? How would you even know that?"

"It was what we called them back in Raccoon City. They..." He paused. "They attacked the police station, on my last trip there, I tried to get my fellow officers to leave the city before it was too late but," His voice grew heavier as he kept talking, "We were separated in the fight. I never saw any of them again, and as far as I know, none of them made it out of the city."

Oh, fuck!

I sighed, partly in frustration and partly in exhaustion from fighting the monsters. "Look, just try not to leave me to do all the fighting next time. This isn't exactly the worst situation I've ever been in but" I held up a finger to make my point, "It definitely makes my top ten list." I rolled my shoulders trying to loosen them up from all the stress that had built up so far that day. "Meh, at least they're not shooting at me."

"Out of curiosity, what was the worst situation you have ever been in?"

"Look Albert, you wouldn't believe me if I told you, 'sides, I'm pretty sure that's a story for another time." I reattached my shotgun to my backpack after reloading it once more. "We should keep an eye out for more Hunters though. I'm pretty sure that they're what clawed up the front door to this place."

My handgun was in reach as I walked through the now unlocked door to the downward sloping hallway with Albert by my side. The place was a twisted labyrinth, seemingly no rhyme or reason to its layout. We came across more of the undead, all of them swiftly taken out by either Albert or I. It seemed less like a mad science lab in this new area of the facility, more like a hospital. We hit so many dead ends and had to turn back around so many times but we carried on.

The walls of the hallway were cleaner here. They were the same sterile white as the other parts of the underground facility but without the red and brown stains of fresh and dried blood. The open doors showed examination tables, albeit ones fitted with metal restraints and the floors had drains installed in slightly sunken areas. I could easily imagine the use for those, sending chills down my spine. I only darted in one once to grab some spare ammunition lying on a counter and another green herb like the one Albert had used to heal my acid burn back in the aquarium.

We eventually went down a corridor marked Storage. I expected it to be filled with medical supplies but instead the hall was lined with cells, as if we had suddenly wandered into Alcatraz.

I had thought that I had seen the worst the island had to offer back in the Hunter's Room. I had been wrong. I had been so very, very wrong.

The cells were the stuff of nightmares. Bodies were laid strewn about inside like torn rag dolls, as if a giant child, vicious or just plain uncaring, had thrown them about. The people who ran this place had seen these poor people as lab rats, mere test subjects. The medical charts hanging beside each cell was clear evidence to that fact. Picking one off of the wall, I began to gag as soon as I saw that there was no name on the chart, only an identification number.

Not as the people they were. Just lab rats to experiment on.

It was sick, sick and wrong and I had to go into the corner to lose what little food was in my stomach. I had been attacked by corpses, almost blown up, and nearly eaten by several overlarge predators that were also probably undead tonight and had kept my cool for the most part. This however, this was the tipping point. The people in charge of this place were the real monsters no matter how human they looked. To keep people imprisoned here, to experiment on them like this, it was inhuman.

Albert was noticeably not looking at the cells, but rather at me. I wished he wouldn't, I was still wiping the bile off of my chin. He tilted his head towards me, as if trying to figure out if I was going to be okay enough to go on. I nodded my head at him signaling that 'Yes I was over it for now' before walking on with him deeper into the bowels of the facility.

I didn't want to discuss what we had seen in the cells and Albert thankfully didn't want to either but still. Albert had survived Raccoon City so he had experience with this sort of thing. Experience that could help me make it off the island alive.

"Hey Albert? You survived Raccoon City so you probably saw this kind of situation before, but-" I paused, trying to find the words that wouldn't make me seem like an insensitive idiot. "What else happened? I'm not trying to dredge up bad memories on purpose, Albert but if there's any information you have that could help us, please. Feel free to share it."

"Anything in particular, Miss West?" His voice was terse, and I didn't blame him. I was still pretty tightly wound myself after the Hunters and Albert almost getting eaten.

"Was there any other sort of monster that was running loose in the city before you managed to escape? You know, that sort of thing? Do these zombies get stronger or weaker after a while? Do they eventually die on their own? How many species can this damn disease infect?"

"There were reports of giant spiders in the sewers-"

Lovely, now I can look forward to a bunch of eight legged freaks trying to bite my head off!

"And a giant crocodile in the sewers-"

Great! Just great! It's exactly what I always fucking wanted! Even more scaly, amphibious, hell beasts on steroids, because the last one didn't freak me out enough! Here's a crazy idea, let's stay out of the sewers!

"And the infected mutate further after some time has passed. Their heads turn red and they become stronger and faster."

Heads of red, shoot 'em dead. Got it.

"There were also other creatures running loose after the first few days. They were skinless and had very long tongues that they impaled people with. Some of the other officers believed they might have been human at one point."

Oh hey, I heard about those.

"And they crawled on the walls and ceilings with their freakishly huge claws" I interjected. "People called them 'lickers'? Yeah, my friend who escaped Raccoon almost got killed by one of those things. She said she only escaped because it ate her roommate instead of her. She cleared out of the city that night, said nothing was worth staying behind in Raccoon if monsters like that were running loose. She had to leave behind most of her stuff but considering what happened to the power plant, she made the right choice."

Wesker turned to look at me.

"Do you have any information to share yourself? She must have seen more that that."

I pushed my hair out of my sweaty, slightly blood-splattered face. "Trust me Albert, she did and almost no one believes her. She probably went through the same hell you did, but without your police training. She really hasn't been dealing well. If she hadn't met up with a group of military veterans fighting their way out the city... Well, I wouldn't have gotten her side of the story, now would've I?"

"So?"

"Well, if we see any giant moths, we need to take them out from a distance because they can spit poison. On the plus side, their weak, tiny moth wings can't support their overgrown bodies so we can outrun them easily. Oh and if you feel tremors in the ground, it's either something huge nearby, like a giant mutant elephant or something in the ground mutated like an earthworm or a centipede. Either way, stay away from uneven ground and bring out the heavy firepower."

"Anything else?"

"Well, she was talking about this thing in a black trenchcoat with tentacles that kept saying 'stars' but it left her and her group alone. Chased after some police officers though."

During our conversation we had passed through what had seemed like an endless amount of doors and hallways. The medical area had led us to a pair of double doors with a plaque simply stating "Morgue".

"You know, Albert? It's going to be pretty ironic if this is the only room in this place that doesn't have any dead people in it."

I actually got a small chuckle out of Albert that time, before he gently pushed the door open letting the stench of formaldehyde roll over us as we entered. I started gagging at the smell; formaldehyde always did that to me. Albert noticeably took a couple of steps away from me, apparently thinking that I was going to hurl again.

"Sorry Albert. Formaldehyde and some other chemicals just automatically trigger my gag reflex. I can't really help it."

Albert just lifted one of his blonde eyebrows sardonically with a remark of "We've been around dead bodies all day and this bothers you?"

"Albert, I told you I'm a reporter. I've covered wars y'know. I kind of got used to the smell of dead bodies after a while. At least these haven't been sitting out for a few days in the sun or some dank moldy place. Blagh!"

Letting the matter drop we took in the sight of the morgue. It was pretty standard, two metal tables with drains built in and three walls filled with body lockers. Making our to the next door I couldn't help but hear a thumping sound coming from some of the lockers. I shuddered. It looked like my prediction had been wrong. These things were everywhere. Exiting the doors, I grabbed a broom lying against the wall and jammed it through the door handles keeping them from swinging open.

"Sorry Albert, I just don't want to be ambushed from behind if I can help it."

Albert and I kept up the pace until I happened to glance up at the ceiling. Now I don't really know about you and your life, but there usually aren't bloody claw marks on the ceiling. Especially ones that look like the claws that made them were a foot long.

"Albert, I don't want to jump to conclusions but we might have lickers loose down here."

A rattling breath that didn't come from either of us wheezed out ominously from deeper in the hallway making our heads slowly turn in that direction. If I wasn't certain that this hallway led to the way out of this place I would have made a U-turn so damn fast, Albert's head would have spun. We kept making our way down the hallway, however, now we were keeping an eye on the ceiling.

I guess we could go back the way we came, but there was something loose on the grounds. I just hope it's not waiting for us when we leave the other entrance. It's probably a hunter, but if it isn't...

Our first encounter with the lickers isn't something I'm proud of. It basically consisted of one jumping out of an air vent at me, me freaking out, and then me unloading the rest of my handgun clip in its face. After it stopped twitching, I quickly began reloading my gun. I didn't want to be caught with an empty clip, especially if there were more of these things down here.

After that little encounter, we had encountered more undead and two more lickers. We had even found a lone hunter that had a nice conversation with my shotgun. I had no idea where Umbrella got the idea for these things but it was just more proof of the crazy that was rampant in this place. We had just been jumped unsuccessfully by a couple of undead, their white lab coats stained with entrails and other disturbing substances, when we saw the stairs.

Up. Up is good. Up is probably the way out. Alrighty then.

In contrast to the medical sterility that the facility had probably been before the entire island went to shit, the stairs were more spartan and industrial. The staircase was made of sturdy metal without even a trace of rust, the whole structure painted an eye searing yellow. We had barely started to climb the metal steps when we hear the irritating crackle of the PA system.

"Oh you're still alive? You have no idea how utterly disappointing it is to see that vermin such as yourselves still scurry around. You imbeciles have no idea what sort of groundbreaking work was undertaken here, the sheer artistry involved! You bottom feeding swine aren't worthy to even step foot in here."

It was the crazy intercom guy again. Of course.

"Hey, I double majored in college you condescending asshat."

They might not be the most impressive fields but hey, it's not like I don't use them on a regular basis.

"What!" He sounded incredulous.

My comment had seemed to catch Captain Crazy Ass off balance so I decided to keep up the attitude. Partially because I figured if I could get him angry enough I could get him to slip up and spill some information.

It's time for annoying cop and cop who doesn't talk much. Good cop, bad cop is overrated. Also I'm not a cop. Albert says he is but, meh.

"I. Double. Majored. In. College. You. Condescending. Asshat. Also if the people in the Storage area were any indication of you and your associates' skills, the only person who would be impressed would be Mengele or Unit 731."

"Hmph! You fools won't survive long enough to see the sun rise. This place, no this island has been overrun with the pinnacle of Umbrella's former crown jewel: the T-Virus. The same pathogen that destroyed those idiots in Raccoon City. The same pathogen that will destroy YOU!"

The PA crackled again then shut off completely. It looked like I had put a dent in Captain Crazy Ass's ego and he wasn't happy. I could live with that. What he had ranted about though, that was informative.

The T-Virus? It looked like I had gotten the name for what was going around the island now. In addition to that, I also had an admission that Umbrella was in fact responsible for the Raccoon City disaster.

Yay! I'm not just a conspiracy theory nut. I'm not crazy! I'm not! At least not about this. Still, yay!

"Well, I probably should have expected that. Okay Albert, it's time to get out of this freak show."

We had only gone up one story when we were ambushed by another Licker hanging off the underside on the next flight of stairs. The light from the florescent light bulbs in the ceiling made the red, wet-looking flesh of the Licker shine in an utterly sickening way. In all honesty, I was beginning to think that that wasn't its skin, but rather its skin had just sloughed off or rotted away somehow, leaving the muscle exposed. Either way, it was extremely disturbing. A precise shot from Albert's handgun stopped it in its tracks letting us go on our merry way.

We eventually made our way to the top floor, the only one that the stairs opened onto. Concrete walls and floors welcomed us, as well a lone zombie that I quickly dispatched.

"Hey Albert, I've got a pretty weird feeling about this place."

I waited a second before continuing, realizing how that statement had sounded.

"I mean, besides the dead people and various crimes against nature and god running loose in here. Not to mention the crazy guy who wants us dead for trespassing. Or maybe he just likes killing people. Ehhh, either or."

Albert hadn't made any signs of disapproval or annoyance, but instead was looking at me with, possibly, curiosity?

Turning my head slightly, I continued "Look, this place is pretty messed up right? Not in the dead walk the earth way, but the way we found our way in here. I'm not convinced that this was an accidental outbreak. I don't know the reasons but it looks like some of the people down here weren't bitten or scratched. Injection maybe?" I absentmindedly scratched the side of my face with the hand not holding a gun. The blood from the scratches I had gotten from the ferryboat explosion had dried and started to itch. Not too badly but just enough for me to be uncomfortable. Albert didn't make any noises of disagreement so I continued my rambling.

"Anyway, like I was saying, I don't think the fireplace entrance is the main one. I honestly don't know why you led us into the mansion, but the main entrance has to be somewhere else. The floors back there were dusty as fuck. There would have been less dust caked on the floor if the main door was there. No, somebody used that entrance recently, but the main entryway is somewhere else. Which is really starting to make me wonder why that entrance was used but then again, there's no way of finding out now."

"Miss West," Albert interjected when I paused to breathe. "Why did you come to Morris' Point? Wouldn't someone like you be more interested in a more, shall we say livelier, location?"

I snorted in amusement. "What is this place not lively enough for you, Albert? To be honest, I just wanted a quiet road trip after all that mayhem in Kijuju. I was planning on going to San Antonio after this but hey, I'll just be glad if I survive the night at this point."

By this time we had reached a dead end with what looked like an open elevator. There weren't any buttons that I could see or any other features except for something that looked like a credit card reader.

"Drat! We'll have to find another way. Unless your habit of grabbing random objects magically found us a way through."

"Actually, I found a keycard at the train station along with an employee ID. I figured it might come in handy with all the Umbrella stuff in this town so I grabbed it. It looked like it had a magnetic strip so it might just work here. If not, then we can try backtracking."

I took out the keycard I had gotten off of the zombie in the train station and ran it through the scanner. The elevator slowly closed its doors before starting to descend.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.

"Uh, why do I have a bad feeling about this now?"

And then I heard a thud as the elevator unexpectedly stopped.

Albert quickly yelled for me to grab ahold of something as I heard a snap and then we

Fell

Fell

Fell.

Author's Note: I'm still alive!