What you risk reveals what you value.

Jeanette Winterson

Chapter 25

Collision Course

"Clear that table!"

"Help me with him."

"Oh my God… all that blood…"

"Move away!"

"Here, grab his leg."

Footsteps… moving up and down… floating on air… am I flying?

Faces… fearful faces… gasping… screaming… crying…

"He's bleeding badly… it's pouring out of him for chrissake!"

"What are we gonna do?!"

"Make room for God's sake!"

"Put him down. Gently…"

Lying on hard surface… not floating… not flying…

Cold… so cold… and wet… cold and wet…

"Pat, hang in there…" a familiar voice whispered.

A hand grabbed his arm. It was warm, and it squeezed him gently.

He tried to speak, but only a soft squeak seemed to escape his throat.

Patrick looked up at the source of the familiar voice, but couldn't make out who it was. His vision was blurry and distorted as if he was looking through a glass of water.

He reached out to the man and tried to say something again, but the person just grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

"It's okay…" the voice said, calmly.

More people were around him, looking at him, but he didn't notice who they were either. They whispered and stared at him, like he was some kind of circus freak. For some reason he was the center of attention right now, but he couldn't figure out why.

He turned his head back to the man with the familiar voice. The face was still a blur, but he had the feeling that it was someone close to him. The voice made him feel safe somehow, but he still couldn't place who the voice belonged to.

The man leaned closer to him, and the face became clearer and clearer. It was a middle-aged man with short dark hair with a few hints of gray in it, and his eyes were warm and smiling through the glasses he wore.

"Dad?" Pat spoke, his voice miraculously returning as he recognized the man.

"Everything is going to be alright, Patty," his father ensured him, and smiled warmly at him. "I promise."

Pat wanted to sit up, but he couldn't. He couldn't move much at all, only enough to squeeze his father's hand back. And he managed to return a vague smile as well.

Suddenly he felt a warm hand on his forehead, and he turned his head to see who it was.

"Mom?" he said, even more surprised than before.

Both his parents had died in a tragic traffic accident 5 years ago and yet they were standing beside him, among all the other people. The two of them were the only one's he could make out who was, and the only two he could hear now, everything else was a blur of whispers and distorted faces.

"We're here now, Patty," his mother said, with a serene voice. Her smile melting his heart as it had always done when she had been alive. She stroked his hair and patted his arm. "Everything is going to be okay…"

Pat felt a warm teardrop run down his cheek. He had never felt happier in his entire life.

But suddenly his parents started backing away, waving him goodbye as they slowly disappeared into the crowd of anonymous faces.

"Wait…" he tried to say, but his voice was gone again.

"We love you, Patty," they whispered just before they vanished completely in the blur.

He bit down on his lip and let out a painful sigh. Something painful in his stomach, the pain jolting through his body.

Pat snapped back to reality and sat up, screaming in pain. "Aaaaaarrghh!"

xxxxxxxxxxx

One watched as the helicopter took off from the roof of the hospital, where he and his team had just been dropped off. The roar of the blades fading into the distance as it headed for its next mission.

The sun was setting and under normal circumstances it would've looked beautiful, but the light that was left lit up the grim reality that was Raccoon City. One turned away, realizing he looked like a sentimental fool standing there gawking at the sun. It wasn't a habit of his, but yet he had caught himself in a moment of serenity.

"Sir?" Three asked, his young voice now deeper because of the gasmask.

One cleared his throat and looked at them all.

"Let's move out," he then said, and started for the stairway door, leading the way for the others.

All four gathered around the door. Two and Four covering the roof as One and Three went for the door. One grabbed the handle and signaled to Three to be ready to take out anything that would be on the other side.

He pulled the handle down swiftly and pushed at the door. It didn't budge. It was locked.

"Want me to shoot out the lock, sir?" Four said over his shoulder, and started pulling out his short-barreled shotgun. It was one they had brought in case they needed to "unlock" a door quickly. Over the past days it had proved useful when the carriers had had them cornered in back alleys and they hadn't had the time to pick the locks on the doors accessible. One or two shots to the lock and the door would be open and they would be free to move again.

That was the only real threat about the carriers: their mass. If they were many in tight spaces like a narrow street or a hallway, they were impassable. There was no way to cut through them unless their numbers were low.

"No, I'll pick the lock," One said, and pulled out his kit. "We have plenty of time."

The lock was a regular cylinder lock with a pin tumbler mechanism, one that could easily be picked with a snap gun and a torsion wrench. He picked those tools out from the kit and started working on the lock. The torsion wrench went in first at the bottom of the lock and the snap gun's pick over the wrench. One then pulled the trigger and the second the pick snapped up and hit the pins of the lock, he turned the cylinder with the torsion wrench. The door was unlocked with a soft click.

"Smooth, sir," Four said, complimenting One's lock picking skills. They all knew how to pick a lock, but they also knew that unlocking a cylinder lock in the first try was a rarity. One smirked behind his mask.

He wrapped the tools back into the cloth he kept them in and put them in one of his many pockets on his combat vest. Now One and Three assumed the same positions as before and One pushed the door open, swiftly. Three pointed his P90 sub-machinegun inside the staircase and switched on the flashlight that was mounted on the side of it. The light exposed anything that might have been in the dark staircase, but it was empty of carriers or other creatures.

"Clear," he stated, and walked in.

One tapped Four on the back and went in, and Four did the same with Two who then entered the staircase as the last. He closed the door behind them and followed the rest of the team down the stairs. Power was out in the hospital apparently, so they all switched on their flashlights before moving on.

They reached the 3rd floor and One decided that they should start their search there. It was a fairly large hospital, so the subject could be anywhere. He didn't like the idea of splitting up, but if they were to have any hope of finishing the mission in time, it was probably a good idea to do so. They only had till midnight before extraction. 5 hours to find the subject, take a sample of his blood and dispose of him. Plenty of time most people would agree, but One had learned through experience that nothing ever goes completely as planned. He had to make room for error whenever possible. Especially under unpredictable circumstances as there were on this very mission. His team wasn't exactly trained for handling the creatures Umbrella had created, but it sure wasn't the first time they dealt with them. Experience was what counted on this mission, and his team had plenty of that.

The only other way One and his team could prepare for the encounters, was studying the files Umbrella had on their creations. Or "products" as the management liked to call them. They all had a specific product code, but somewhere along the way they had also been given nicknames to make it easier to tell the difference, One supposed. Every name described the creatures very well. The Licker: with its long tongue capable of piercing a man's torso. The Chimera: an abomination created by splicing human with fly. The Hunter: once it has your scent, it won't stop until you're dead. The Tyrant: tall, strong, mean and extremely volatile. And the list went on and on. One hadn't even come across half of the lists creatures before and there were still some creatures Umbrella hadn't accounted for. Unpredicted mutations could be found all over the city. That was the result of an unstable virus spread out into the population. Who knew what abominations could be waiting out there? Or even in this very hospital?

It didn't matter. Whatever creatures could be hiding out there could all die. Three shots between the eyes can kill anything. And he had faith in his men. He knew what they were capable of.

"Let's split up," One decided. "Three goes with me. Two and Four; you take the second floor."

Two nodded at Four and started down the stairs.

"Aw, man," Four muttered silently as he went down after him. "Why's it always me that gets stuck with him? He's always so silent. It creeps me out."

Sometimes One regretted ever letting his team speak freely. Maybe he should make an exception with Four. He talked too much, but he was a good soldier. No argument there.

Three waited for him at the door, ready to enter the hallway on the other side as soon as One would give the order. He took his position beside Three and then nodded at him. The door flew open and they both went inside, sweeping left and right. A single carrier was standing across the hallway. One quickly aimed at its head and pulled the trigger.

Snapsnapsnap!

Three rounds went straight into the skull of the used-to-be nurse and she collapsed onto the floor.

"Trouble?" Four asked over the radio a split second later.

"Negative. Stray carrier," One responded.

They were keeping tabs on each other just to make sure everything was alright. Maybe it was a little tedious to report over the radio everytime you ran into a carrier, but it was necessary when they were apart like now. If there was trouble then they should regroup instantly. They weren't going to take any chances.

They continued down the hallway as the echo of the three shots was still hanging in the air along with the smell of hot metal. He had fired in a three-round burst, because his previous experiences with carriers had proved that one shot to the head wasn't always enough. Even though the bullet enters the brain, it doesn't always mean that the target is dead. There's a certain area of the brain that needs to be hit. It would probably put a normal human being out of function, but these carriers could survive even with severe head trauma. He had seen carriers get up again after getting rounds straight through the forehead. That's why he fired three rounds, and also why they used hollow points. Three of that kind to the head and there wasn't much left of it.

They checked the first two rooms they came across, but found them empty. Nothing but surgical equipment and electronic devices. The hospital seemed oddly quiet and empty. Apart from the single carrier they had met out in the hallway, they hadn't found anything. Not even any dead bodies. Two and Four hadn't reported any findings either.

"Where's everybody at?" Three then asked, apparently speculating about the same thing.

"Beats me," One replied, just as puzzled by it.

"Maybe there was a sale at the Gap downtown," Three joked.

One ignored it.

"Anyway, I would've figured the place would be swarming with carriers," Three said, taking it more seriously. "The uptown hospital was full of them."

He made a good point, One thought. Lots of people would've died here in the early stages of the outbreak, so the hospital should be crawling with carriers. Instead it was empty as if they had all just vanished. There wasn't any blood to be found anywhere either. Apart from the trashed furniture and equipment, the place was spotless. Someone had been cleaning up. Or something…

One pressed the transmit button on his radio. "Two, Four. Any luck yet?"

"Negative," Two answered in his eastern-European accent.

"Carriers?"

"None," Four took over. "It's odd… there's no bodies either."

"Same here," One told him.

"What do you think it means?"

One didn't know what could've done it, but something had, so they had to be careful.

"I don't know, but keep your guard up and report anything out of the ordinary. Something isn't right about this."

"Affirmative."

One and Three left the room they were in and moved further down the hallway, even more aware of the paralyzing silence than before. At the end of the hallway, past two more rooms, there was a shutter blocking their access to the rest of the hospital. It was a grid-type shutter, so the light from the other side shone through it. Apparently the power was only out in half of the hospital.

"This is gonna slow us down," Three said, silently.

"We'll find a way around it," One assured him. "If not, Two can cut his way through with the bolt cutter."

"Yeah, chances are that the shutters are down on every floor," Three stated. "Makes you wonder if the subject is on our half or the other, huh?"

"It doesn't matter, because there's no way to tell," One said, looking at his teammate. "We'll have to search this half anyway."

"Yes, sir."

One pointed to the next door and Three went first in. Their flashlights revealed that the room was for patient recovery. Two hospital beds were placed parallel to each other on one side of the room; only a portable screen was in between them. A few dark stains were on it; blood.

They moved further into the room, but stopped when Three stepped on some glass. It made a loud crunching sound under his boot when he shifted his weight on top of it. One shone his flashlight on it to see, but Three kept his up. A few feet to the left a monitor had fallen to the floor and shattered its screen.

Suddenly they heard something move behind them. They both pivoted faster than lightning towards the sound, their cones of light shifting around, seeking out the source. But there was nothing there.

Again a shuffling sound, this time they could hear it coming from the ceiling. They searched the white plaster over their heads and found a ventilation shaft over the door.

One signaled Three to stay put, and he slowly started moving forward, keeping his P90 aimed at the shaft. He kept his breathing to a minimum, listening very carefully. His boots were moving silently over the floor as well. Not a sound escaped him.

One stopped a few feet away from the shaft and looked up into it at an angle. He then made a swift step so he was staring straight up into it. A second passed as he just stared up at the empty shaft, and then he lowered his weapon.

"Sir?" Four suddenly called over the radio, and Three jumped a little. One did not.

"Yes?"

"We've found something," Four explained. "The subject is a diabetic, right? There are insulin bottles just lying around here on the floor, and what looks like a used syringe."

"We'll be right there," One replied and nodded at Three.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Sean and Sabrina walked down the slope at the back entrance of the hospital. The same entrance they had both entered through earlier. The sun had gone down a few minutes ago, and the twilight had set in. The sky had taken on a grey-purplish color and the stars were visible along with the moon. Even with all the bad things happening in the city, Sean couldn't help but smile a little at the beauty of it. It was breathtaking.

"So, this mystery guy… he didn't by any chance say anything about where in the hospital the antidote is?" Sabrina said, not at all noticing Sean staring up at the sky.

Sean turned his attention to her, thinking.

"No… I guess he didn't know," he said, his smile from before fading.

"That's great," she said sarcastically. "We gotta search the entire hospital while our friend Mr. Leech is stalking us throughout the whole thing… and we only have one gun."

Sean grabbed her arm and stopped her. She turned around to face him.

"Hey," he spoke softly. "I didn't want to come here."

"I know, but we have to go in there," Sabrina told him firmly. "It's the only way."

"No, it's not," he said to her, shaking his head. "It's not worth the risk, Sabrina."

"How can you say that?!" Sabrina yelled at him, shaking his hand off her. "If you don't get that antidote you're going to die, Sean!"

He looked away from her, chewing on his lip.

"I feel fine," he then said, shrugging. "I'm fine…"

"No, you're not fine!" Sabrina insisted, her voice breaking. "I've happened to notice that you've been taking way more insulin shots than usual. Your consumption is sky-high, Sean. And it's escalading."

Sean scoffed and looked down.

"You've been throwing up, having cold sweat, itchiness. You're sick, Sean," she continued, her eyes starting to look teary. "And it's only gonna get worse until you… until you die…"

She slowly started sobbing and Sean wrapped himself around her. She was right and he knew it. He wasn't fine, and it scared him more than anything. Things hadn't been fine inside of him since he had been bitten, but part of him just wouldn't accept it. He couldn't accept it.

"You don't get to play the hero this time," she whispered to him, forcing a smile. "We're gonna find the antidote… I know it."

He looked her straight in the eyes as she said it. Her eyes red and wet from tears, but they were glowing with determination. She wasn't lying, she really did believe.

"Alright," he said, kissing her forehead. "But I'm taking the gun."

She looked down at the 9 mm, feeling the cold steel between her fingers. Then she handed it over to him. Sean accepted it with a smile and then pulled out the magazine, checking if it was fully loaded. Next he pulled back the slide just enough to see if there was a round in the chamber. Everything was in order.

"What? Don't you trust me with your gun?" she said, crossing her arms.

Sean laughed. "I'm just checking. I guess it's just sort of a habit, you know?"

She scoffed at him, and shook her head. "Men…"

Sean just shrugged and smiled at her. Just as he was about to head towards the ambulance entrance, Sabrina grabbed his arm lightly.

"Wait a second, Sean," she said and he then understood. He leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips, but she grabbed him around his neck and made him kiss her harder. It was long and passionate, one that almost seemed like a goodbye-kiss. A last kiss…

They separated and just stood there for a minute, looking deeply into eachothers eyes. Everything around them was gone. Right in those seconds they were somewhere else, somewhere peaceful, warm and safe.

"Wow…" Sean whispered to her, "What was that for?"

Sabrina closed her eyes. "That was because… I love you."

Sean felt a soft warmness fill up inside him hearing those three words. He wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her tightly.

"I love you too, Sabrina."

Beepbeep! Beepbeep!

They both flinched, startled by the sound of Sean's cellphone receiving a text message.

"God…" Sabrina whispered, and backed away from him so he could get the phone out of his pocket. Sean let out a nervous laugh and pulled it out, wondering who could be sending him a message. The number on the display wasn't in his phonebook, but it looked an awful lot like the one the Mystery Man had called him from before.

"Who's it from?" Sabrina asked, frowning.

"It's from our friend, Mr. X," Sean said, reading the message. "It says: Three three two seven, patient room, third floor."

"Is that some kind of code?" she asked. "To a door or a safe maybe?"

"Maybe," Sean said. "It sure would seem like a way to keep something as important as an antidote hidden."

Sabrina nodded. "Third floor, huh? That narrows it down."

"Yeah… Best get moving then, right?" he said.

"Yeah, let's go," she agreed.

They went in, but just before they got under the building Sean gave the sky one last glance. He wondered if anyone was watching them, but most of all who was watching them.

xxxxxxxxxxx

"So," Four said, looking down at One. "What do you think?"

One was kneeling down on floor in the Operating Room of the 2nd floor. He was holding the syringe that Two and Four had found among the insulin bottles.

"He was definitely here," he said, looking around the room, pointing the flashlight mounted P90 around to see. "Which means he found what he was looking for and that he's probably left again."

One dropped the syringe and got up again.

"Where to then?" Four asked.

"Good question," One said, thinking. "I guess our next move would be to contact HQ and tell them about our discoveries, and find out if they have any new leads on the subject's whereabouts. Their intel on this lead is over 10 hours old, so they weren't really counting on him being here. But he can't have gotten far."

"We'll continue on foot?"

"Yes, it will be easier to track the subject that way."

Suddenly Three came barging through the double doors out from the hallway. He looked straight to One.

"Sir? I think you should come take a look at this," he said, pointing out in the hallway.

One looked at Four who shrugged lightly and then went out to see what the fuzz was about. Two was standing further down the hallway, his bulky silhouette barely visible behind the blinding cone of light from his flashlight. He was pointing it at something on the floor.

As One came closer he could see a dark stain, no, more like a dark chunk of something on the hospital floor. It was about the size of a fist. His first guess would've been that it was just a chunk of flesh left behind by the carriers, leftovers from a meal. But then he thought about how spotless the rest of the hospital had been. Even with all that was going on in the city, a chunk of flesh in a clean hospital seemed out of place.

"What the hell is it?" Four asked from behind him, when they approached Two.

"It's not like anything I've ever seen before," Three said crouching down next to it along with One. "And that's saying something."

One pulled out his knife and used it to examine the black wad closer. It was wet with slime, a pool of it formed around it. The slime was also mixed with something red; blood presumably. He got his knife under the thing and flipped it over on its other side.

"Wow," Four said from over his shoulder. He was pointing his light so One could see. "Is that teeth?"

"Looks like it," Three said. "What do you think, sir?"

One sighed, still looking at the thing on the floor. "It's a leech."

"A leech?" Four asked. "Like the kind that suck your blood?"

"Yes, that's what leeches do, Four," Three said, rolling his eyes behind his mask.

"It's been infected with the T-virus as you can tell by the size of it," One explained, ignoring their comments. "That's usually what the virus does to insects and bugs; increase their size and often their aggressiveness. I'm guessing these came from the sewers below the hospital, so I'll bet we'll see more of these."

"Actually," Three said. "There are two more lying further down the hallway, both as dead as this one."

Three shone his light upon the two others so One could see them.

"They appear to have been shot as well," Three continued. "They're all ripped to pieces as this one."

"That means our subject is armed," One said firmly. "We're gonna have to be careful then."

"Yes, sir," they all said at the same time.

"Also keep your eyes peeled for those leeches," he added. "Three, come over here. We need to contact HQ to hear what our next move is."

Three jogged over to him and pulled out his long-distance radio. He was their designated com-man, since they only had that one radio. Anyone on the team knew how to use it though.

He was just about to hand it over to One when his leader suddenly caught the sight of something behind him. It was a small light at the elevator that had suddenly turned on. It was shaped like an arrow pointing upwards.

"Someone's using the elevator," One said and pulled out his gun.

xxxxxxxxxxx

"Over here, Sean!" Sabrina yelled from across the hallway.

Sean and her had taken the elevator directly to the 3rd floor and had begun their search for the antidote. As the text message had told them to, they had started by looking for the patient room. But there had turned out to be two of them, one opposite to the other. They had split up, although Sean wasn't fond of it since Sabrina would have no way to defend herself. Her rebuttal had been that they were only a hallway apart. So Sean had agreed as long as Sabrina would take the gun, and she had, but not without rolling her eyes at Sean's constant attempts to protect her.

"Comin'!" he yelled back at her, grabbing a steel pipe he had found whilst searching the room for the antidote. He had no idea where it had come from, but it had been lying in one of the beds as if someone had left it there. The dark stains at the end of it confirmed that it had been used for more sinister purposes than plumbing.

Sean ran out into the hallway and across to the second patient room where Sabrina was. She was standing by a wall with what appeared to be a built-in safe.

"Look what I found," she said, pointing at the safe and smiling. "It was hidden behind a painting."

"Wow," Sean chuckled and looked down at the painting which she had dropped below the safe. "Just like in the old spy movies."

"Yeah, what a cliché," she said, chuckling. "You got the code?"

"No, I deleted the message as soon as I had read it," Sean replied stone cold.

Sabrina looked at him with squinted eyes.

"I'm kidding!" he said and smiled nervously. "Jesus, how stupid do you think I am?"

"I'm not gonna answer that," she said, cocking her eyebrows.

"Ha ha," Sean said and smiled. "I'll get you your code."

Sean pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and read the code out loud. "Thirty-three twenty-seven. That's three three two seven."

"Got it," Sabrina said as she pressed the numbers on the keypad.

They heard a click and then a swish from the safe as it unlocked and popped open a few inches. Sabrina pulled the little door open and Sean stepped over to see what was inside. Just as the Mystery Man had told them, there was a vial in there, presumably the antidote.

"Just one?" Sean said, his smile from before fading.

Sabrina took it out for a closer look. It had a label on it with a lot of numbers along with an inscription saying "T-virus Antidote".

"T-virus, huh?" Sabrina said, looking at the label. "So that's what they're calling their little apocalyptic invention."

Sean put a hand on her shoulder, since he could see that she was upset. Finding out the name of the cause of all the pain and death that had happened over the last days made Sean's temper fire off too. He didn't know why, but just reading that label made him want to smash his fists into the wall until all his fingers were broken. To think that this devil's disease had a name, a name given by its proud creators.

"Come on, let's get out of here," Sean whispered to her. "We got what we came here for."

Sabrina wiped her eyes quickly. "Yeah, let's go."

They walked to the elevator, their free arms around each other, but nonetheless ready with their weapons. Sean wondered where the Leech Man had gone. They hadn't heard a single sound or seen anything for that matter since they got to the hospital. It was eerie and unsettling, but then again he was happy that it had all gone smoothly. All that worrying had been for nothing.

Just as he was about to call the elevator they both noticed that the arrow shaped lamp over the elevator doors was lit. Someone was riding the elevator up. Sean and Sabrina let go of each other and stepped back.

"What the hell?" Sean whispered. "What can be using the elevator? It can't be a zombie."

"No, and I don't think the leech thing can either," Sabrina said.

"Survivors?" Sean suggested.

"Maybe."

They could hear the soft hum of the elevator getting closer. It was almost at their floor now.

"Get ready," Sabrina said, raising her gun.

The elevator pinged as it reached the floor and the doors slowly slid apart. Four soldiers dressed in black from top to toe were standing there, their weapons fixed on both of them.

One of them looked directly at Sean and spoke to him through the gasmask he was wearing. "Mr. Hayter, I presume."

AN: Just wanted to let you know that I won't be updating in a long time from now on. I'm joining the Royal Danish Army, so I won't be able to write on regular week days, only weekends. I will try to write as much as possible in these weekends, but I can't promise you anything.
But I'm only gonna be in the army for about 4 months, so I guess the "regular" updates will return after that.