Jill
awoke, suddenly and violently. Her heart stammered erratically against her
ribcage until she calmed it down. She had to reassure herself that she was
safe…momentarily.
She'd rather sleep than think about
her death. Of course, she could try to think of other things. All she could
turn her attentions to were how Carlos was out risking his life for her. Well,
he wasn't exactly risking his life-he was a trained soldier- yet he may have
run into Nemesis, or some demented new T-virus creation. Maybe something that
was made from what was pumping through her veins right now…
Jill caught herself staring at her
wrist and quickly looked away.
No, he could take care of himself;
she was just worried how he was going to handle having to kill her. Jesus,
Jill, aren't you worried how you're going to handle him having to kill you?
Well, she was handling it, wasn't she? She wasn't going all psycho, she wasn't
breaking down, she wasn't…anything.
Perhaps that was a particularly bad
thing.
It wasn't as if Jill was going to see
Carlos putting the barrel to her head and squeezing the trigger- that would
make her freak out.
Strangely, though, that was all she
could see.
God, Jill, you promised yourself
you wouldn't think about it.
Poor Carlos.
Stop it!
"Okay, alright," she said to
herself, attempting to sit up, instead, to occupy her time. It was so hot,
and before she last fell into ill slumber she had realized it was the virus.
The wound was finally content it caught her at her first wake and had mildly
subsided its wrath, allowing her singly mild winces as she rolled up.
Accomplishing that, Jill reached down and took up the water bottle Carlos had
left by her side and gave a content sigh as she unscrewed the top. Though she was
sure it was lukewarm- it wasn't as if the priest or whomever kept a fridge
around- it was a glacier to her desert of a throat. Thank God Carlos got it
from…wherever he did.
Jill limped around like an achy old
woman, surveying the cozy chapel. The beat of rain on the tall windows made her
nostalgic, and she could remember watching rain as a child, wondering where it
came from. Always liked the sound of water. She took the cloth from the smaller
altar as another pillow and found the rest of the stash of water in a screechy,
complaining old trunk by a typewriter. At sight of where Carlos had been
sleeping, Jill felt again the rise of sadness. He had spent two days on a hard
wooden pew with only one curtain from the next room. He had piled them on the
altar for her.
Self-sacrificing son of a bitch-
Maybe he was one of those kinds of people. He
had said the first time they met- a few hours ago- he and the
Umbrella Bio-hazard Countermeasure Service was there to rescue civilians. Well,
he at least was there to rescue the civilians. And since she was the
last one left, that meant her. Hmph. Jill hoped she wasn't just a job for him.
Didn't get through all that shit just to be a civilian to him. She wasn't
helpless. He took her grenade launcher, after all.
Jill smirked.
Carlos frowned grimly.
There was an insane amount of
buttons in the damn elevator. Oh, yeah, great. Get to the damn hospital but
have to go through five floors and three basements with a fine-toothed comb. As
if not finding anything useful in his search was enough.
"Health spray" my ass. I'll
believe it'll heal a bite wound the say I see the walking de -
He stopped in midthought and briefly
considered retrieving the green aerosol can.
"Nhah." Might as well start
somewhere, so might as well start anywhere, si? Carlos jabbed the fourth
floor button. The elevator doors hummed closed and he felt the jostle and
gravitational pull of the lift. He grasped the grip of the launcher, reader for
arrival. Good thing he had brought it with him. Who knew he needed that heavy
of firepower? Thank Jill for that.
It was taking an awfully long time
for the elevator to rise four levels. God forbid anyone with any
life-threatening injuries came to the hospital. He would've bled to death while
listening to the lounge music…Carlos then realized there was no elevator
music. That was sort of depressing. So he pursed his lips together and lightly
whistled something he heard Frank Sinatra sing once. First time he heard it was
on a drive from the U.B.C.S. building, on the highway with the car windows
down. Funny how he could remember that considering he never gave it a thought
while listening to it.
The ding resounded aplombly from the
panel above the door, probably deploring him for his being off-tune –
A bourgeoning roll of starving
groans pushed at him when the elevator doors slid open, and immediately onset
of him was a throng of severely rotten zombies. They were falling over
themselves groping for him, and it didn't help the ones in the back pushing
blindly forward added to the stumble speed of the front-runners.
Carlos nearly reacted by pulling the
trigger for the grenade launcher, but reason cut through his fright. If he
fired, there was no way to be sure it would either go over their heads or
through limb gaps – best bet it would come ricocheting back to him –
With one movement Carlos dropped the
launcher and shrugged his body to swing the assault rifle 'round. As it slapped
his stomach he yanked it forward and let it peal into the arm's-length
carriers. They sprattled, jerked crazily as the barrage of bullets peppered
their pasty, thin flesh that flew apart like wet paper. As the first two
dropped the ones behind increased their wild seizure. A light curtain of rosy
blood blew up and rained down in the elevator, lightly draping the pastel tiles
like spray paint. Not until the last felt floor did Carlos stop his locked hold
of the trigger- smart, wasting bullets- and he hear the thin ring fade
from his ears.
He stepped cautiously out into a
thin, yellow-tinted hallway. There were saturating shadows every yard, and the
hue seeped the area in a sick feel. At the end of the length there was a green
board on the wall and a door to the right, and a few paces from him was an
offshoot to the left. Had to secure the area…
There was an assurance he wouldn't
have to face any more zombies, since he pretty much wiped out the front at the
elevator. As he whipped the gun around the corner, Carlos thought that he would
have to move the corpses out of that area to allow the lift's doors to shut.
Just the mention made him visibly wince. One of those things had touched him
before – its skin felt like gel in a water balloon…and sticky-wet…covered in a
sheath of mucous decay…
Callate, Carlos. No esta aydando
– no piense de esto.
Unfortunately, both doors down the offshoot
were locked. The numbers over the lintel were filed away in his memory,
hopefully to be brought up soon. He sighed and moved on to the only other
option.
Carlos bashed the door open when he
heard a strangled cry of pain reach his ears. His eyes darted, quickly taking
in the haphazard disarray of bottles and papers on shelves and desks, a beam of
light illuminated an area behind a partition. If anyone was alive in the place
–
He stopped almost comically short
coming around the large brown bookcase as Nicholai turned around toward him.
The slick Russian scratched his gray fuzz of hair and looked sorrowfully at
Carlos. The scream, though- A U.B.C.S. member lay slumped against the back
wall. His chin lay on his chest, his own blood draining out. Carlos' eyes ran
down to a large bullet hole in his left pectoral and in the sternum, oily black
and glistening fresh. Why…?
" You saw what was happening,"
Nicholai said matter-of-factly. Carlos looked up to him, into those flat brown
eyes the platoon leader had. "He was turning into a zombie."
But zombies don't scream, he
thought. Nicholai's demeanor was making him uncomfortable with his words. The
guy was excusing himself- like a kid putting a soccer ball through a window, then
at lineup blurting out he didn't do it.
Carlos stepped back. "What's going
on here?" he asked hushly, eyebrow cocked at the Russian.
Nicholai's face snapped after half a
second, from horror fatigue to a creepy anger, mouth drawn tight and straight. Carlos
got a shock running up his spine and as soon as he twitched to, the other man
snapped a gun to his face.
Nicholai's eyes were wide and
positively burning in ambition. "I'm doing my job, Oliviera. Aren't you doing
yours?" His words were quipped and at mouthing each one, his body shook. Carlos
brought up his hands to be less of a threat. There was always that disturbed
air about him, and now, with his intense gaze and broiled, it was beyond any
doubt that the Russian was neurotic. "Hmm?!" he added loudly, flipping the
barrel at him.
Holy shit, this guy's
gonna kill me –
"Are you alright Nicholai? It's been
days since we've seen you," Carlos asked quickly. Talking would give him time.
Time to do what, he hadn't a fucking clue, but time nonetheless.
"We?" Nicholai's eyes sparked with
interest. "Is that bitch still with you?" he spat, flecks of froth flying from
his mouth.
"Mikhail's dead. That only leaves
you and me to find survivors and get out-"
"ANSWER my question!" Nicholai
roared, face flaming in anger. With each word, he poked the gun at Carlos. "I
don't CARE if Mikhail is dead! The citizens are not my responsibility!
However," – he moved up closer and lowered his tone – "not letting snitches go
is my own. So tell me where she is."
Carlos was sure as hell not going to
tell him.
"TELL me- You're DEAD anyway!"
As he was stumbling for words, there
was a shuffle of movement to their right and a light tink Carlos
recognized as the sound of a grenade pin being pulled –
There was a far greater danger of
shrapnel at that moment. Carlos bent and shoved off towards the door. Almost
too close together to separate, he heard a crash of breaking glass and the air
clap of the explosion. A wall of heat pressed on his back and a force pushed
him too hard into a roll. He smacked a corner of the desk and let out an
involuntary cry.
When he could move and sense time
again, Carlos tumbled onto his knees, waiting out the whine in his ears to
dissipate. Using the desktop to rise, he waddled around the bookcase, meeting
the splattered, gooey guts with a rise of stomach acid. He turned away from the
soldier's remains and vomited. Tasting a warm, chemical assortment of foods he
wiped the remaining from his chin, standing to look at the guy now. Nobody
would have guessed what was plastered in scorched concrete was once a man.
Carlos looked over his shoulder and saw the broken window…Nicholai's escape.
There was an initial swell of anger at him, but it was released. Useless to
think that, now.
He found the key to the rooms after
rummaging for a good long while. There were some slimy, plump, overgrown
leeches in one that he had to put down. Obviously they had been feeding on the
corpse of a doctor collapsed by the door. Carlos searched his pockets and found
only a scrap of paper with some digits on it. The next room over was devoid of
the worm-things but not promising. It was really dragging his spirit down- a
headache was arising between his brows and weariness was making itself known in
his limbs. God, and it was only one floor…
Considering it had been two days
since Jill had awoken and told him she was infected, Carlos supposed the virus
was a slower type. But still, it had been two days since she was
infected. Jill could be turning into a zombie at that very moment…
He didn't want to think about that
possibility. Of course he was going to continue his search. He couldn't take
defeat yet. He just had to rest a bit…
Letting his arms go lax, Carlos fell
against the wall of the second sick room. He was planning on staying there and
resting his eyes, but, scaring the bejesus out of him, the framed picture
beside him was knocked off the wall, careening to the floor in a crash. It
almost gave him a heart attack, damn loose shit –
He-llo, what's this?
A safe behind the painting. Carlos felt
curious and poked at the keys. What in God's name did they need hidden and
locked in a patient's room? They gave you bags for personal belongings…
All of a sudden, that doctor's
scribble became more precious to him that ammo. With the entry, a hiss emanated
from the safe. He yanked it open, a cloud of icy air spilling out - cold
seal, eh?
The only thing in the safe was a tiny vial,
barely his thumb's length. On its top was miniscule writing – that sloppy,
illegible scrawl of a doctor. Carlos squinted, trying to make it out.
What fucking luck.
"Vaccine base."
He let euphoric joy overcome him and
jumped into the air, letting out a silent cheer. The vial tipped from his fingers
in mid-leap, but Carlos snatched at it with such rapidity it never was in much
more danger evermore.
I don't give a flying shit if
it's only half. Goddammit, its half! Where a base is, a medium naturally
follows…
Halfway there. It was a far more auspicious
position than a minute ago.
Jill was halfway saved.
AUTHOR's
NOTE.
I
know what you were thinking as you read over the elevator 4thfloor zombie
pop-up: "SPRATTLED? …the hell? Is that even a word?" Mind you, Shakespeare made
of thousands of words and they're legit in the English language today. Besides,
it fit the situation appropriately.
On
another note, you think the title for the story should be changed to "What
fucking luck"? Carlos…um, I seem to be using that a lot. Oh, and I hope the kiddies
didn't read the chapter. There was a ludicrous amount of casual swearing and
forsaking God in it. If they did read it, well…their virgin ears have been
popped.
And
finally, you're wondering, mayhaps, why in hell I have taken it under my wing
to write a story about RE: Nemesis. You've already run through that lo-ve-ly
Hospital part- why are you reading it again? (And on that note, how did you
make it all the way through Section III to read the Author's Notes?) You're
waiting for what the title suggests…and no worries, faithful reader…I shall
deliver… ::evil, booming laugh::
