Chapter 24 - Escape
December 3rd, 2007
Santa Rosa, New Mexico
1:15 AM
Wesker didn't move too quickly as he got to the parking lot below. Instead, once he landed and looked up to see that he'd almost immediately gotten the attention of three nearby corpses, he pushed himself up and moved at a normal pace around them, then continued to simply run in order to grab the attention of as many of the zombies roaming about on purpose so he could draw them away from the store for Cecilia to start this whole operation off.
There were a few still standing inside of the establishment left over from Chris's retreat with the others earlier, one of which Wesker stopped long enough in order to take a single shot at, pulling the trigger of his handgun and nailing one of them in the head. That action got the rest to turn around and follow him outside. Wesker started moving away again afterward, zombies walking and stumbling in behind him now as he headed toward the hummer first, his run still at a normal rate of speed. Once he reached the stationary vehicle, he jumped up and onto the roof of the car and then turned to push himself up onto the RV where he settled the vest of grenades he'd carried with him.
Wesker looked down over the heads of the undead gathering below him at the side of the RV, their arms reaching up, then glanced back to see the same sight on the other side. From there, his slitted pupils glanced up toward the the rooftop, able to see the sniper settled on the edge and covering him.
"Time to get this proverbial party started," he spoke to no one more than himself and then turned to get going.
From the RV, he moved back to the roof of the hummer with his own gun still in hand incase a monster couldn't be avoided, or incase Regan might miss or not get a good shot. As he made it back to the shorter car, the zombies followed and tried to reach and climb on top of it with him. Regan had already managed to get a few shots in by then, and Wesker could barely hear the rifle going off due to the silencer it had built into it. But he easily saw the effect when one of the zombies nearby him went down quickly without a head, one that had started to get onto the roof successfully. He supposed in that moment that Regan's aim was sufficient enough, but he'd need more time to be convinced of that completely.
Without giving a single pause, Wesker ran across the roof of the vehicle and jumped, using the head of a zombie to push himself out further and landed in and empty space beyond the swarm where he finally began to run toward the bus, this time using more speed than he had beforehand, his eyes starting to glow.
Because the vehicle was settled on its side, it wasn't difficult to find a place to grab hold of, and as soon as Wesker reached the toppled over vehicle, he took a shaft of the metal lining the bottom into his gloved hands and began to lift it. For him, the weight was very heavy, but he got the side up, and then began to push with a grunt of effort. Metal started to scrape loudly across the pavement, and Wesker's eyes continually glowed as he exerted the strength it took to move the thing as he was now.
He heard the movement behind him though, and looked back briefly, seeing the zombie closest to him suddenly going down without a head, but the others were still too close. Letting the vehicle fall flat on its side again, Wesker grabbed his handgun from his inner coat and took three shots in a row with a single hand, killing the incoming creatures with splatters of blood erupting from the backs of their heads before he turned and then crouched down. Without waiting, he used his legs to propel himself up onto the side of the bus and out of reach momentarily, then began to walk across it so he could draw the swarm around in another direction and give himself some room, taking a few shots here and there along the way whenever he managed to get them.
A few minutes before then, Regan had taken out a zombies that was on the getting too close to Wesker on the roof of the hummer before he'd ran to the bus, and because of the silencer in her rifle, she didn't draw attention away from him. She waited until she realized that the majority of the zombies were following the blonde before she took two more shots and said, "Okay Shannon, go let Chris and Cecilia know it's now or never, Wesker's halfway to the bus and he's got them on his tail."
"Roger," Shannon replied and turned around, heading across the rooftop toward Chris and Cecilia as quickly as possible. Once she was there, she told them both, "Wesker has the monsters on his butt, and he's halfway there, so get a move on it."
Cecilia couldn't help a grin at how the girl had said that, turning to the ladder so she could climb down it. Chris watched her from over the edge of the roof above with his weapon aimed, focusing on covering the descending woman, though thankfully nothing ever showed up. He just watched Cecilia tugging out her weapon once she'd reached the ground before making her way through the back door of the shop silently. Once she was through the sturdy metal door, he knew it was all up to her and that she'd radio in if there was a problem, and turned around to head to the front.
"Come on, Shannon," he told the child while taking her hand as they went, crossing the roof and rounding the open-door chopper settled on it now. A moment later, he got up next to Regan so he could crouch down near her when she took another shot.
"Regan, Cecilia's inside, so watch for her. She has my radio, so I'm going to take yours for now." He reached and slipped her's off of her belt and then put it into his own.
"Got it," Regan said, taking another shot. "I'm going to have to reload."
"I can cover you," Chris told her, drawing up his own gun.
Hearing this, Regan got to work reloading, and while she did, she told Chris, "By the way, there's a vest of grenades on the roof of the RV. I think Wesker left them there in case he had to retreat back to it."
"Got it," Chris nodded, and even though all he had was a handgun, he was a good enough marksman that he managed to get a head shot where it counted, though he was a little slower with the distance and the lighting at that nighttime hour not being so great with only the dim streetlamps to guide him.
After his shot, Regan got her rifle reloaded and they could all hear a loud, distant scrape of metal, which was Wesker at the bus, pushing it out of the way. The screeching went on for a few moments before it stopped, and Shannon seemed completely confounded by it.
"I still can't believe he's pushing it by himself. Must have to do with those weird eyes. He looks like a monster too."
"It does, Squirt, and yeah, he is," Chris told her, staying focused however, and though his weapon made more noise than Regan's rifle, he took another shot at a zombie and managed to get the head taken off before it could reach Wesker.
The trouble was that sometimes too many would get near Wesker, and that would take away Regan's ability to shoot, or she'd possibly hit him. So Wesker would have to stop pushing on the vehicle momentarily in order to draw them all away by hopping onto the bus and moving around toward the back of it before jumping back to the road and moving to the hummer in order to gain a bit of space. The swarm would start ambling whenever he did, moving slowly enough back toward the hummer that it allowed him a few moments of rest while also allowing the sniper to get the upper hand in the situation when they became scattered once again.
But as soon as Wesker made it back to the bus, he lifted his arms and put all the strength he could muster into moving it. The thing would slide and scrape across the pavement, inch by inch, and inevitably, the zombies would get too close again, so this kind of cycle would continue.
Meanwhile, inside of the store, Cecilia snuck into the back quietly to see only two zombies still 'browsing the wares' for all it was worth, both of which had their backs turned to her, allowing her to use the element of surprise to her advantage. Quietly, she stepped up behind one of them while watching her footing because the floor's weren't completely clean, and slowly slipped her dagger off of her belt. Moving closer, the monster let a low moan as she got about three feet behind it, and she clenched her teeth in response and stopped moving, looking to make sure the other one didn't look back because of the sudden sound.
When both of them remained still after the sound was emitted, she focused her sights on the closest one again and took another step, quickly grabbing the front of it's head with her hand before jamming the blade she held into the base of it's skull at the top of the neck.
The man's body went limp, and she held onto it long enough to lower the corpse to his knees, then laid him over silently, all the while focusing her green eyes on the other that was standing a few feet ahead of her for movement. She stood back up and took a few more steps toward it quietly, aiming to repeat the process.
With another step onto the floor, a very small piece of broken glass scraped under her boot, cracking with the pressure, shard that was hard to see to begin with, and the sound made her freeze in place.
Automatically, the shorter female zombie turned around and reached for her, swinging her arms quickly.
Like Wesker had said, Cecilia felt better in knowing that she couldn't contract this illness if she were bitten or scratched, but even still, the zombie would kill her and she didn't just let the rotund, older woman grab her or hurt her, backing up quickly as the zombie reached with her arms and groaned. The quick swinging motion caused the short haired woman to fly forward in a somewhat wobbly fashion for a moment like most typical zombies were prone to doing, and the movement left her wide open.
Cecilia took the opportunity to grab the back of her head by the hair, holding it down and ignoring the undead hands that suddenly grabbed her sides while she brought her blade up and into the front of the woman's skull with the other hand, putting the lifeless monster down completely. The arms fell away from her sides without getting a chance to dig into her, and Cecilia allowed the body to slump onto the floor in a dirty, bloody mess without the care of sound it made when it landed.
She simply used the woman's dirty, torn shirt to wipe her blade on before slipping it back into her belt, and she looked up at the front of the store and around as she stood again to make sure she was, in fact, alone to work. But everyone was outside with the commotion, so she had her chance now.
From there, she did everything she could to grab as much as possible for them to use on the way to Dallas as quickly as possible, somehow reminded of a game show where you only had so much time to get as much as you could in order to win the prize. Hell, if the prize was a quarantined city, then Cecilia was all up for this challenge, and the first place she started was in the section where she stood, being canned goods. Cecilia didn't blindly grab though. She tried to put at least some thought into what she was doing while everyone else was keeping the swarm outside and off of her.
Above her on the roof, Regan was surprised to see a particular escape made by Wesker when confronted by an overwhelming group after she'd given Chris the exclamation, "There's too many piling up on him." It was in that moment when Wesker moved like lightening, and suddenly knocked the entire group backwards. Some flew away, others began to create a domino effect and fell over one another, landing on their backs and rolling onto their sides.
Regan blinked in response to the swift movement, asking, "What the hell did he just do?"
"Hell if I know," Chris muttered, then reminded her, "just remember not to waste shots on the ones that are down even if they are easy kills. Concentrate on the threats only."
"Got it," Regan replied, taking a shot at one trying to stumble through the mess, watching it falling over before she announced in addition, "I'm getting down to about fifteen rounds total now with seven shots left in her."
Chris pulled the trigger of his handgun after she informed him of this, and the loud scraping sounded again in the distance as Wesker muscled the bus further to the side, which was almost pushed far enough out of the way now that they could make a run to the hummer and get around it. That's when Chris's radio went off, Cecilia on the other end saying, "Chris, Regan, I've got the bags full of everything I could think of and then some. I'm heading out of the store now so try not to shoot me. Over."
Chris tugged his radio off of his belt and pulled it up to his mouth, saying, "Copy that, I'll make sure you're covered on the way to the RV. Wesker left the grenades on top of it, but he hasn't had a reason to use any yet. There's a hatch on the roof you can use in order to get up there and help kill these bastards. Over."
"Got it. Moving out."
Chris looked below when she said that, and finally spied her fairly easily because she was running instead of lumbering like the rest of the zombies around. "I see her now, Regan, stay on Wesker."
"On him," Regan replied, taking another shot to give Wesker more time to push on the bus. "Down to three rounds, but they're starting to thin out."
"I noticed that," Chris replied, taking another shot for Cecilia as the woman made it to the RV and opened the door, climbing inside and shutting it behind her. "Hopefully this will get a little easier now."
Shannon watched this going on between the two adults, though she couldn't see over the edge of the building, just waiting quietly as they were shooting at the zombies below. Chris looked back to check on her, and she looked around whenever he did as if his movements had reminded her to keep her eyes open. Seeing she was alright, Chris went back to aiming again, and told Regan she was fine since Regan had to concentrate on her scope.
Shannon had clutched the handle of the knife Cecilia had given her in her hand, though it was still in the leather sheath pinned by her belt, holding onto it just incase she might've needed it. As she watched Chris or Regan shooting at monster's below, behind her and over the edge of the building at the back not too far from where the ladder was positioned came some movement.
A clawed hand silently grabbed the edge of the rooftop while Shannon was focused ahead of herself and didn't notice it. A licker's head came over the edge, and it crawled onto the roof completely behind everyone, drawn by all of the sound they'd been making. Once on level ground, it started to creep across the area in their direction, claws lightly tapping on the rooftop as it went.
Shannon's brows narrowed when the sound hit her ears while the monster moved in closer behind her, it's long tongue slipping out of its mouth slowly. Since it had arrived on the roof, Chris and Regan had gotten silent, reloading in that moment and also conserving ammo when nothing was an immediate threat or Cecilia could see better than Chris from her new position on top of the RV where she'd moved to help keep the swarm contained and took shots for him. Her more distant gunfire left the licker somewhat confused and trying to find the ones on the roof again momentarily.
Shannon heard the clicking just before it had stopped however, and she slowly looked back to see the monster sitting there around ten feet behind her now, one of those lickers with the tongues she'd heard Chris mentioning earlier. Almost automatically, every muscle in her body froze up at once at the sight of the grotesque monster, its long tongue snaking out of its mouth, and she stepped back and opened her own. But thanks to her initially frozen body, she had the time to let the sudden thought hit her to be quiet instead of yelling for help. That was what Chris had said to Alonzo. They couldn't see, so don't call for help and take a shot when it doesn't know you're there.
Because Chris and Regan weren't taking shots repetitively, there was no sound for a few moments, and Shannon almost turned to run to them quietly and warn them, but then remembered that they had to keep covering Cecilia and Wesker otherwise this wouldn't work, right? Her heart pounded in fearful confusion as she tried to figure it all out.
Breathing heavily, Shannon stayed right where she was, slipping out her knife where she didn't have a gun and likewise, didn't know how to use one outside of 'aim barrel, pull trigger'. She looked at the blade in her hand then, and back to the currently unmoving monster in turn. Automatically, she shook her head as if she'd just told herself the phrase That's not happenin'. Realizing she wasn't going to be able to do anything about this threat by herself, she hesitated and silently stepped back again when gunfire was heard. It was Chris's gun, followed almost immediately by Regan's rifle, and like clockwork, the creature began to head toward the sound again.
Shannon took a breath, and then reacted quickly. She immediately turned when the licker began to approach, taking off into a sprint in a completely different direction than where Chris and Regan were in fear, heading to the helicopter instead. Without fail, the licker followed the closest sound, which was of her footfalls, and turned with her. It's tongue whipped around toward the noise sharply and swiftly in the process to lash at the moving object.
Shannon was swift as well since she was so small, but before she could even take more than three steps, it'd managed to drag it's sharp appendage up and through her empty backpack, narrowly missing her body altogether by a mere few inches.
Realizing this, and the fact that she'd barely moved at all and was already being attacked, Shannon yelled out, "Chris! Mama! Shoot it!"
Chris and Regan both looked back in time to see the licker following the direction of the closest sound, which was Shannon's voice and footsteps, and it reared back and leapt toward the little girl just after she'd yelled those words. Regan's heart nearly exploded in her chest when she saw the monster heading right toward her child, nearly making it before Shannon suddenly used her own momentum to jump up to the open door of the helicopter.
Shannon's body hit the corner of the floorboard in the aircraft hard, unable to jump high enough to completely get inside of it, which left her legs hanging out as the licker landed not too far away behind her. She had the wind knocked out of her with the landing as well, but she still struggled to pull herself up as fast as possible. Her plan was to get inside and try to shut the door on the monster now that Chris and Regan were aware of its presence, and she grabbed the leg of the chair right in front of her to help with that endeavor.
But before she could even attempt to pull herself in, she heard a good bit of gunfire behind her.
Shannon looked back over her shoulder at the sound to see that Chris and Regan were both unloading on the monster with their handguns, which Regan had tugged off of her hip to use instead of moving her rifle, and the licker didn't like all of the bullets. It let out a wailed screech and began to fall to the side, bullets tearing their way through it's body and it's head, blowing gore and blood all over the roof below it.
The two adults finished it off completely, their barrels smoking in the cold air around them as the creature fell still and lifeless while Shannon stayed right where she was, hanging from her arms halfway out of the helicopter. She didn't move, minutes feeling like hours to her just then, and vaguely heard her mother saying to Chris, "Take over," before she could get herself to move at all.
Shannon let go of the chair's leg finally as Regan headed toward her, quietly slipping back down onto the roof and stood there still. This allowed Regan to grab her and pull her away from the aircraft and the gory mess, moving back with her toward the front of the building while Chris took over the rifle, though he listened to what was said next in order to make sure Shannon was okay.
"Shannon!," Regan got out on an urgent voice while settling her down on her feet and kneeling before her quickly, looking her over everywhere. "Are you alright!"
Shannon was still silent and even a little wild eyed. Regan lifted her hands and put them on her cheeks when she saw the expression her daughter had, and she told her, "Say something, honey. Tell me you're okay!"
It took the girl a moment, but after she saw the body of the monster laying to the side several feet behind Regan, she looked back at her mother, then parted her lips and only exclaimed the words, "Holy shit!"
Regan's expression went a little flat in response. Typically she might've scolded the girl, but this was a time when she felt Shannon's exclamation had been completely warranted as her own heart was still thundering in her chest. She just pulled her in and kissed her cheek, hugging her tightly with the relief she felt. While she wasn't sure exactly what had happened with the licker and Shannon precisely or why Shannon hadn't run to them instead of running to the helicopter, she was just happy that her daughter was still alive.
Chris heard everything, but he stayed focused at the moment, looking through the scope of Regan's rifle and taking a shot. As he panned back up, he could see that the bus below was completely out of the way now, and Wesker was moving across the top of it again in order to get back to the hummer. Cecilia had managed to hold her position on top of the RV in the meantime where she'd been helping to cover the situation.
But now that Wesker was done moving the bus, she was pulling out the radio and said into it, "Chris, come on, Wesker's heading back now, the bus is out of the way. You'll have to be quick before they regroup out here. Over."
"We see it, and we're coming now," Chris replied as he stood up, turning around to face the other two people with him. "Come on," he started, grabbing Regan's rifle and handing it to her. "We don't have much time before more could arrive. I'll carry Shannon down the ladder with me and you go first Regan while I cover you. Reload now if you have to."
Chris felt that was the best way to go because of the licker they'd just killed. If more showed up then he could get down faster with Shannon's weight on him then Regan could probably, and watch for more threats as well while Regan went first.
Regan didn't hesitate and got the strap of her rifle over her shoulder, then reloaded her weapons just as Chris did for his handgun before they headed to the back of the roof. Once they were there, Regan told him to give her the weapons bag he'd been carrying from the school since he was going to carry Shannon, and once she had it, she turned to climb down the service ladder while Chris covered her from above.
It didn't take her too long to do, and once she was on the ground, Chris looked over at the little girl with him and told her as he knelt down, "Come on, Shannon."
Shannon didn't waste time and moved to climb up onto his back with her arms around his neck, holding onto the straps of the gun harness around his shoulders. Once she was there, he stood up without much of a problem and told her even as he turned to start climbing down, "Hold on as tight as you can and don't look down."
"Roger," she replied on a soft voice and shut her eyes tight.
Halfway down, Chris heard Regan saying up to him, "We've got company, Chris, three corpses moving in slow."
Only a moment later he set his feet on the ground and looked over, spying the three men wandering down the roadside toward them. They had plenty of space and time to get into the store however, so it wasn't an issue for the moment. Chris simply let Shannon down, who slipped off of his back and then went to take her mother's hand, while Regan let Chris lead the way to the back door. As he went, he holstered his handgun to switch it out with something that had a little more firepower, tugging his shotgun up from where it rested on the strap around his chest and grabbed the knob of the door.
Opening it, he slowly looked into the back and saw that the path was clear, so he motioned for Regan to follow and headed inside. Once Regan was in with Shannon, she shut the door behind them so the zombies were locked out, and then looked ahead to follow Chris who wasn't wasting any time. Chris made sure to check out everything as he moved, including the ceilings, and then glanced back after he'd made it so far through the isles to make sure Regan and Shannon were still with him.
As they began to emerge into the front of the store, surely enough another undead man was trying to walk in through the busted front windows, and Chris fired at him without question. The blast from his shotgun flew toward the zombie and knocked it backwards, some of the buck shot splintering through a window nearby, rupturing it and causing it to crash before Chris pumped the shotgun again and moved closer to the front.
As he made it to the open window, he scanned the lot outside with his eyes to try to find a good path through it and to the road, all the while able to hear banging at the back door now from the zombies who'd heard all of the commotion going on. He didn't pay the sound any attention though and noticed that Cecilia had just opened the door to the RV.
Cecilia had been watching the store from the roof of the RV after Chris and Regan disappeared to the back with Shannon. A moment later, when she noticed movement inside of the establishment, she hesitated until she knew for certain in the dark night that it was their companions. Once she could see that it was them due to Chris's careful movements, she reloaded her weapon and holstered it, then grabbed the vest of grenades. Turning, Cecilia climbed back down inside of the RV through the hatch on the roof, then moved to the door quickly once her feet had hit the floor. She knew they'd have a better shot if she got the door open ahead of time and tried to cover them all from there.
Once she'd grabbed the handle and made sure the coast was clear outside, at least in the general vicinity, she stepped back into the lot while taking her weapon from her belt and aiming. Chris saw this from the store when he'd scanned the lot, able to tell that she was going to cover them from where was. When he saw that they had a clear path as well, he knew then that now was their best chance to get moving.
"Come on, go ahead of me and watch for the bodies, I'll bring up the rear," he told Regan and Shannon, standing to the side as they ran through the open windows lined with the broken glass and past him. As they went, Shannon felt something against her right arm, which made her gasp, but she wasn't sure what it had been, and couldn't pay it too much attention because she was fearful with the zombies coming in around them when Regan had turned and lifted her up from the ground and started moving swiftly.
Like he'd said he would, Chris was moving in behind them, keeping their rear covered as they went. They all briefly noticed that Wesker was already in the driver's seat now that they were drawing the zombies away from him, the hummer on and ready to head off as soon as they made it to the RV. Cecilia took a few shots to keep approaching enemies off of Regan while she side stepped toward the hummer with the vest in hand, covering the three running for the RV for as long as she possibly could, working on her last clip of ammo now.
Thanks to the shots, Regan managed to get Shannon to the RV as quickly as possible, panting once she got there because of the weight she was carrying. But she ignored it for the moment and settled Shannon inside, then looked back quickly. Chris was about ten feet away as she pulled her handgun up from her belt, doing a good job of keeping the path cleared with his shotgun, but she had no idea how many rounds he had left in the weapon.
Chris turned around when he noticed that Regan had reached the RV to begin backing quickly toward it, and when he did, he saw a crimson head running in his direction—too close for him to do anything but drop his shotgun and reach up to grab its wrists just as the damned thing brought both sets of claws down at him in a swipe to try to slice him open. He managed to catch his arms though, and put some strength into pushing him backwards. The scent of death came off of the man in droves, enough to nauseate anyone no matter how many times they'd detected it before, and Chris grunted with the effort he was exerting as the crimson head continued to try to get to him, claws splayed and mouth open showing off two rows of sharp, yellowish-brown teeth with a line of drool slobbering out of them.
As Chris worked to get the hideous looking creature back, a sharp knife suddenly came down at its cranium and stabbed into it with a spurt of blood, causing the tension between the crimson head and Chris to go lax. As soon as it had, Chris shoved the monster's dead body backwards as hard as he could. The sudden shove made Regan, who'd just stabbed it, lose the knife in her hand completely, but she didn't think twice about it and only turned when Chris moved an arm in front of her to get them both going to the RV now that he'd been freed from the monster's grasp.
Almost as soon as Regan turned around to go with him though, there was a tall, skinny zombie at her side, startling her. She had no time to react at all however when she felt Chris tugging her back and away from it before he swung his fist to connect with the monster's temple, knocking his decayed, grimacing face to the side and decking him out on the cement completely.
When the man fell over, Chris told her, "Move!," as he continued to head with her back to the RV.
They reached the door just after that, and Regan threw it open again to try to climb inside after she'd taken the knife Shannon had offered her before to kill the crimson head and shut the door for her daughter. But she let out a sudden gasp when Chris, who was in escape mode, didn't waste the time waiting for that and leaned to put an arm around her upper legs and lifted her up into the vehicle himself. With everything else going on, the movement had scared her, but he didn't even notice as all the while, he'd taken his shotgun in the other hand and aimed it to fire the weapon at two lumbering corpses with his last shell he had loaded into it currently.
He yelled to the front of the hummer when the corpses fell down with the buck shot splintering into their heads, "We're inside, Wesker, go!," then turned to climb in.
With Regan in the RV and the closest threats down, Chris went to grab the door just as a woman missing half of her face closed in on him from out of nowhere, trying to climb up the steps of the RV toward him. Without thought, Chris reached up a leg and sent his work boot into the zombie's head to push her back while the RV started moving before he grabbed the door and shut it when she fell over onto the pavement and rolled, then locked it on the outside world altogether.
From there, Chris turned around and climbed up front, looking outside to see that Wesker was successfully navigating through their roadblocks—which included a number of bodies he was having to crush under the tires—and driving onward past the obstacle previously blocking their path now.
Wesker had said before that nothing much was past the bus, and thankfully, he'd been right. Maybe the bus had created a block for the zombies as well, held them back and they just didn't care to make it to the other side when there was no food over there, but either way, Chris was grateful for their movement out of the town now, and their current safety.
He took a deep breath, his head falling forward with the rush of adrenaline still roiling through him, and then lifted his radio and asked into it, "You alright up there? Over."
"I'm touched. But yes, things are fine. Over."
Chris thought Cecilia had the radio, and in response, he said, "I didn't mean you, jackass, I meant Cecilia. Over."
"She's low on ammo now, but fine."
Wesker didn't say over, and Chris didn't care to respond to him knowing that Cecilia was alright. For now, he just needed to get himself recovered from their literally death defying run just then.
In the hummer, Wesker settled the radio back onto the dashboard and glanced over at Cecilia, asking, "What did you manage to grab from the store?"
"A ton of stuff actually," she breathed out the words, still collecting herself just like the rest. "Including things we don't need specifically."
"Then it was a good run," he replied, hearing her slightly winded breathing from all of the work they'd just done where his was also a bit accelerated. Moving a bus took a lot of work after all, even for him. "I'm glad all of this effort wasn't wasted on nothing."
"Me too. I'm glad we're actually moving again, and that the roads look clear," Cecilia replied. "Actually, I'm glad we're just alive in general."
Wesker agreed, but he didn't say so. Instead, he listened when Cecilia looked over and asked him, "What about you? You didn't strain yourself or get a...hernia or something, did you?"
Somehow, the sudden thought of it made her tilt her head toward her hand where she had her elbow resting next to the dirty, smudged window, and cover her mouth with her fingers before she snickered a few times. Soon the snickers turned into chuckles over the ridiculous notion, and she glanced over to see that Wesker was also smirking, and he even looked amused, which surprised her.
"Laugh it up," he told her plainly. "The important thing is that my abilities got us moving again."
She knew he was right, all things considered, and attempted to ask him more seriously, "That didn't wear you out?"
"It took some of it out of me considering I haven't been able to eat recently, and I haven't rested in a few days now. I may have to let Chris take over the trek for a while after he's gotten his own sleep, but I should be find to drive until morning at least."
"Still no sign of the tyrant though. That's a good thing, isn't it?"
"Not always," Wesker informed her. "It may mean we've lost it, but it may also mean it could pop up anywhere unexpectedly. The stop in Santa Rosa just now will define whether or not that happens."
"Then we'll have to keep our eyes open, won't we?"
Wesker narrowed his brows and looked over at her. He wasn't completely used to anything completely agreeable coming out of her mouth toward him, and after a moment, he looked back at the road again and said, "Careful, dear heart. You almost sound as if you may be warming up to me a bit."
"I'm just trying to survive, Wesker, don't confuse the issue. Also, don't call me that. I have a name, and I don't call you sunshine, so use it."
"Straightforward and practical," he pointed out, smirking. "I like that."
Cecilia lifted a brow and glanced over at him, seeing that he was still amused at least slightly, and she shook her head. Deciding not to say anything further, she laid it back on the headrest of her seat and attempted to relax and think about where they were just then as far as ammo was concerned.
The hummer moved swiftly down the highway and beyond Santa Rosa into the darkness of the night, tugging the RV along behind it and through the flat lands and dusty plains. They'd managed to make it through, only the stars in the sky keeping them company for the most part, and a satellite traveling thousands of miles beyond the atmosphere of the Earth zoomed in and focused its lenses as it passed over.
Data was being received from the imagery it was gathering, though dark on this side of the planet for the moment with the distant sun's light coming around the blue globe while it slowly turned on its axis. That data was then sent to a location less than fifty miles away, traveling to it so quickly it only took a few seconds to be downloaded into the chip that was implanted into the tyrant who stood on a high hill not far from a roadway.
The being came to a stop when it received the data, then looked ahead, able to spy the dimly glowing streetlights of the town that Chris and Wesker were leaving now from where it stood.