Nemesis: Resident Evil III

Chapter Thirty Five: Hunters

For a moment after the explosion, Carlos had thought that he had been hit by the shrapnel as he dove for cover behind the aisles of stacked patient records, but then he realized that it had just been a heavy book-end that had landed on his back when all of the nearby shelves collapsed. When the young man finally started moving again, digging his way out from underneath the scattered papers and folders like an earthworm trying to get to the surface to escape the rain, he saw that it was much darker now, as only one of the room's many fluorescent lights was still working.

Most of the storage racks had collapsed, while the walls were left cracked and blackened from the shrapnel that exploded outward from the wounded UBCS man in all directions. All that was left of him was a bloody mess that was splattered across the walls and floor, with the doctor's body now riddled with such wounds as well… not that she would have been able to survive Nikolai shooting her in the head like that… but what about Nikolai, himself?

All of the windows in the data room had been shattered, including the one that the Lieutenant had so desperately jumped out of, but when the young man looked outside, down toward the direction that he would have fallen… there was a tall flagpole just beneath the ledge, as well as several very thick hedges below… but with the limited illumination that came from the remaining streetlights, he couldn't see where Nikolai had landed. Oh well, no matter… the man was backstabbing puto who killed his own people and… who had tried to hurt Jill in the same way as that poor doctora.

Wherever the Lieutenant had landed, Carlos hoped that it was painful and that zombies were eating his brain at that very moment… but he had wasted enough time on that carbon, and at least now he knew that the vaccine Jill so desperately needed was downstairs in the basement. Thanks to Nikolai, it had been confirmed that Mikhail's groundbreaking vaccine was actually a cure for the T-Virus, so as soon as he was able to stand up, the young man collected his dropped weapons, and headed back for the elevator.

And what the hell was all that talk about being a Supervisor and tying up loose ends, he wondered while pushing the button to open the door? It almost sounded like the Lieutenant and a few others were on some private mission from the company, but to do what? The young man was still wondering about this when the elevator doors opened, but then he knew that it was much more important to remain focused on the task at hand once the car started moving down toward B1, especially after what Nikolai had said about it being very dangerous down there.

"Come on, Carlos, you got this, man." He said to himself, aiming the rifle just as the indicator light changed to the hospital's only basement level. "Jill needs you, and after you save her, you're gonna run off to some tropical island where they don't have zombies."

Ding, the bell went off just as the elevator doors opened, and while nothing jumped out at him right away, the young man saw that unlike the fourth floor, there was no light at all in this corridor, not even emergency lighting. The light inside the elevator car illuminated a small area of the concrete floor and walls, but that was gone as soon as he stepped out and the doors closed behind him, forcing Carlos to click on the flashlight that was mounted on his rifle as he looked both ways down the hallway.

The small light was good enough for him to see everything in the direction that it was pointed, just as it had been in the downtown sewers, but aside from using it to read the directory sign which said that an area marked LABORATORY was to the left, the young man knew that his ears were even more important to use in such a darkened place, especially after what had happened with those giant insects. Holding his breath, and straining his ears to listen, Carlos heard nothing but the soft movement of air as it was pumped out of the building's air conditioning vents.

A light switch was nearby on the wall, so he flipped it, but sighed when nothing happened, so he crouched down, and tried to make as little noise as possible while moving down the darkened corridor… not that the extremely bright light didn't immediately give his position away. There were several branching corridors that went off into the darkness, but figuring that a laboratory was the most likely place for an experimental vaccine to be stored, he simply followed each directory sign, while stopping at each corner to take a look down its connecting passage.

For the first several connecting hallways, there was nothing to be seen; no bodies, no zombies, no nothing, but this all changed in the amount of time that it took Carlos to step around the next corner. If he had not been aiming the flashlight, the young man certainly would have been killed by the creature's large claws when he nearly walked right into it, but instead it hissed at him while shielding its eyes with its big arms, stepping back as if having been just as surprised by the encounter as he was.

Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! Startled enough to stumble backwards into the wall and sink to the floor, Carlos pulled the trigger of his rifle, causing the creature to hiss and growl, now using its arms to shield itself from the bullets that were now tearing into its discolored red and green flesh. Sparks flew each time that a bullet bounced off one of its claws, instead damaging bits of concrete when they ricocheted into the walls, but most of them struck home, releasing a small spray of incredibly foul-smelling blood with each wound… but the creature wasn't going down.

Click… the young man's mouth ran dry when his weapon ran out of bullets, allowing the heavily wounded creature to lower its arms, before opening its large mouth and letting out a high pitch shriek as if it were about to attack. Instead of attacking, though, the creature simply fell on its face, no longer moving as the awful smell from its blood permeated the corridor, and now Carlos understood why there had been so many mangled bodies around the one that he had seen in the first floor lobby… my God, it took an entire magazine to kill one of them.

The 5.56 mm bullets for the M4 were not exactly magnum rounds, but there were thirty of them in each reload, so… so what was the young man supposed to do if there were more of them down there? Thankfully, he had been able to grab a whole bunch of extra magazines from that crate inside the clock tower storage room, one of which he quickly inserted into the rifle while watching for any more of those creatures… but so far nothing else was coming out of the shadows to attack him.

Regardless of whether or not any of those… clawed things were lurking down in the basement, Carlos still had to get that vaccine, so he scrambled to his feet, and started moving toward the laboratory at a much faster pace. Breathing heavily, and still stopping to check down each branching corridor, but for not as long as he went past, the young man finally reached the door that was marked Laboratory, having to shut his eyes for a second upon entering, since the lights in this place were still on.

Blinking several times to get used to the light, Carlos bumped into a table, nearly causing a series of glass beakers to fall onto the tile floor, if he hadn't caught them with his free hand at the last second. There were several tables in this room, as well as storage lockers and shelves like there had been up in the data room, although the young man didn't know what most of the machines or other pieces of equipment sitting on them were used for… but he did know that he was not alone in there.

Someone was crouched down at the end of the storage racks, a dark-skinned man in a UBCS uniform, who looked like he was trying to catch his breath while clutching his rifle tightly… and a really sturdy looking metal transport case was lying at his feet. The man struggled to reload his rifle, motioning urgently for Carlos to be quiet and get down as if there was some kind of imminent threat in the…

Suddenly there was a flash of movement as something behind the man leapt into the air with surprising grace and agility for its size, flying right toward him like a leaping frog… and neatly severing the man's head with those nasty looking claws. Everything seemed to slow down as the man's head flew off in one direction, and a lengthy spray of blood shot out of his severed neck while the green and red creature continued forward until landing just as gracefully… and then without even a moment's hesitation, the monster turned heel and leapt right toward Carlos.

There was no time to react, and if not for losing his balance and falling backwards after tripping over a table leg, the young man might have very well met the same fate as him comrade, instead feeling the air move as a very large claw passed only inches from his eyes. Landing just as gracefully on top of the table and turning around to make another attack, the clawed monster raised its arm for the kill, but hissed in surprise when the table it had landed on wasn't quite as stable as it thought.

Falling forward onto the ground while a whole bunch of glass shattered when the table tipped over backwards, the creature was quick to recover, jumping up to its feet, and swinging its claws, but Carlos had been using this time as well, getting his rifle ready, and opening fire. Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! The creature's long claws sunk deeply into the concrete wall next to his head just as the young man pulled the trigger, sending dozens of bullets right into its torso, since this time the monster couldn't get out of the way… until it shrieked after using its free arm to chop off its own hand, that is.

Unfortunately for the monster, this effort came just a little too late, and it only got as far as bringing its arm back for another slash, when it just kept leaning backwards until falling onto the floor. God, the smell from its blood was so unbearable that Carlos thought he was going to lose his lunch as he scrambled away from the creature's body, and ending up over toward where his comrade had been killed. Stealing the ammunition from the dead was becoming a normal practice by this point, and a necessary one since it took so many bullets to kill one of those things… and then there was the secured metal case.

There didn't appear to be any more of those creatures inside the room, so the young man opened the case, which was heavily padded on the inside to protect a vial of a strangely purple colored substance. There was no label with it, just the vial itself and a set of syringes, so… was this the cure? That would have been awesome if it was, but there was no way to know for sure, since there was only enough liquid in the vial for one dose… and Jill was running out of time, so… should he try searching more to make sure, or take this right to her and hope for the best?