"How did you plan on getting out of town?" Dr. Melinko asked me.
"Depending on were this place is, there's a multiple car pile-up beside the
police station blocking the highway out of this shit hole." The white shot
he gave me is starting to catch up. "I was going to use bleach to get some
plastic explosive and move the cars."
"Why were you at the gas station then?" Every move in my vision produces a
tracer.
"Molotov's as detonators." I don't how much longer I can keep this up.
The lanky man turns to the left and flips through a notebook. "Well you
should be glad that we got to you first."
"Why's that Melinko?"
"They would've killed you as soon as you got going down the highway."
"Fuck you talkin' about?" I ask angrily through a narcotic induced gaze.
"Back up plans, plan b's, things of that nature,"
I'm sitting in the same room. The lights are a little dimmer so my head doesn't feel like it's about to crack open. I am alone. I don't even remember the doctor leaving. Immediately, the bolt sound echoes again and Melinko reappears. "We have a job for you." Melinko tells me. "What makes you think that I'm just going to be your puppet?" "Well, you don't, then you will literally become our puppet." "What the hell are talkin' about?" "We can control generally anybody at anytime if we want." My response is to lay on a thick coat of arrogant laughter, "That's nice but mind control doesn't exist." "Do not forget who you're dealing with here," Melinko replies smugly. "We're Umbrella; we have more power than Microsoft." "If all this is true, why are you telling me?" I ask thinking I was about to gain some ground, "What makes you think that I won't leak this information?" "That's not really a concern of mine," Melinko says confidently. "You'll be dead in four hours."
Goddamn, this is a place I never figured I'd be. "The reconnaissance from the streets surrounding the Palaniuk-Welsh building, prove that the environment is extremely hostile." This guy has been droning on for fifteen minutes now and still hasn't got to the point. "We will go in through the roof, where the zombie threat is at a minimum." -"It's minimum" huh? My life literally is ending one minute at a time.
At about seventy-five feet above most of the buildings in town, the air is a little thinner than usual and cigarettes don't stay as well lit. There are six other men on this helicopter. Your usual cliché movie soldier bunch. Since my hearing was almost completely obstructed, I only caught parts of their conversations that made them sound like they talked in catch phrases. Those seemed to be the parts that were shouted the loudest anyway. The 'copter started to slow and turn right. We were hovering level with the Palaniuk-Welsh building. There were about nineteen figures staggering around on the roof. "Clark, get the .50 cal. up here," the captain shouted. A man carrying a ridiculously large sniper rifle stepped beside me. "Make this quick." Clark began by hitting two of the undead with one shot. A pretty impressive feat. About three clips into it, the situation got boring. Out of the left peripheral I thought I saw a window break out of one of the offices. I didn't even have time to ignore it before the rest of the office lit up a mad red color. "Ten o'clock!" I think that came from the captain. The helicopter cut right sharply, throwing me a few inches. Just enough for my head to turn and see the rocket come through the cabin, hitting one of the soldiers (McDaniel, I think) in the gut. It carried him about ten feet out of the 'copter before he was detonated along with the rocket. "Ahhh, fuck! We're goin' down!" I hear the pilot scream. He sounded more irritated than anything. "Jump ship," the captain shouted at those of us remaining. There are a few phrases no one ever wants to hear while in a vehicle floating about 1,400 feet in the air and a great deal of them had just been uttered within fifteen seconds of each other. The helicopter is starting over the helipad. It isn't far down to the helipad; about fifteen feet. I only had a second to judge before I jumped out. Falling through the early morning sky, I had flashbacks of all the visions I'd had. Until I heard something crack and I hit the ground. I hit a lot softer than I'd expected. Looking under me, the crushed remains of a human corpse were under me.
-Jesus fuckin Christ I hope I don't have any open wounds. What little bits I remember about heath care come rushing back to me. I hear the helicopter blades spinning over me and I look up. The pilot comes sailing out of the cabin on to the roof of the building just as I see it disappear from view. Only half of him makes it to the building and he's hanging off. One of the other soldiers (Jefferson) is headed his way. Three of the zombies where headed their way. "Fuck! Look out," the pilot shouts. I shoulder my AR-15 and decapitate two of the undead while walking towards them. Technically these things were supposed to be banned but Umbrella didn't seem to have a problem with it. I have something special planned for the third. I get a good sprint going and ram the other one off the edge of the building, right as the pilot is being hoisted onto the roof with the rest of us. He just saw me knocking the zombie off and let out a loud laugh followed by, "Howdy, I'm Markovich." I shook his hand.
"Get over here!" The captain shouts in our direction. He looks me in the face, "Get us in this shit-box." I start walking to the captain. This fucking gear is ridiculously heavy: extra ammo, various tools, all that I can understand but the bungee I don't get. I put my thumb in the print scan pad. As the light moves up then down reading my print I flash back to what Melinko told me before I went into debriefing. Some things are just better left unsaid.
"You where the head of the western R and D lab here in town. It's located under the Palaniuk-Welsh building, where you will me sent in the next forty- five minutes. Needless to say they're on Umbrella's pay role." Melinko must have had a great deal of confidence in my impending death. "Our lab here works mainly on manufacturing the virus, your lab does the testing." "What kind of testing?" I ask. "Human and animal mostly. Umbrella has more or less suspended testing on plants due to other circumstances from the past. However, an industrial spy from one of our competitors, BioTech, laced one of your cups of coffee with a massive amount Lysergic Acid Diethylamide or LSD for an easier why of putting it. Due to the amount we found in you it's a miracle that you ever came off of it. They're trying to pull some industrial espionage bullshit with us. This particular 'spy' was taken care of in the most brutal ways our people could think of." This man is starting to sound like he's the one the over dosed on acid. "What about these visions I've been having?" "I'm getting to that," he retorts impatiently. "After you drank the coffee, you went temporarily insane. From the surveillance footage we gathered you had fourteen canisters of the 'T' and 'G' viruses into a room and wired them with a small explosive of some kind. After puncturing the canisters, you let the viruses escape into the air ducts. We still can't figure out how you got out alive. Your co-workers went insane and destroyed the surveillance cameras. May of the, uh, experiments where also let go in the chaos." "I've said it once and I'll say it again, you've got to be fucking shitting me." Statements like this are the kind that makes you feel like you've just had an aneurysm and been conscious to experience the whole thing.
All that shit didn't really seem important by now when the lock clicked open. Two and a half hours left. Two of the soldiers moved in front of me, pushing the door open. There was nothing but blackness until the flashlight burned a hole in it. I stepped in between the first two and the last three. We moved through the narrow, dark stairwell until we got to the elevator. The captain hit the B3 button. After about fifteen minutes and 112 floors later we came out to the underground parking deck. "What the hell are we doing down here?" I asked really no one at all. "Our mission here is to rid of evidence." The captain replied. Moving through the deck, I started hearing clicking noises echo through the structure. I was the only one that heard it. These guys weren't shit for a military team. They had the lingo down though. "Stop," I whispered and everybody quit moving. "Listen." Many more clicking noises started to emerge. "Lickers." Jefferson muttered. "Gimme that fuckin' motion sensor," captain says angrily, with a little panic. I sure as hell hoped this shitbag wasn't starting to crack. "How many?" the pilot asked, revealing a Desert Eagle .50. It looked to be the only weapon he had. "Keep moving, stay close," the captain advised, not taking his eyes off the motion sensor. "What the hell is a 'Licker'?" I asked Jefferson. "Vaguely humanoid; looks like its been turned inside out; exposed brain tissue," he stops and looks me in the face. "The classic definition of a monster."
Low growls and the clicking noises became more and more apparent as we moved deeper and deeper. The sound of that inevitable entity creeping up. "How many are down here?" One of the soldiers [Monroe] asked Jefferson. "I'm not sure, I'm not picking up any movement but us." Down one more level to the support beams of the foundation. The soldiers panned out across the level strapping four-pound blocks of C-4 to the support pillars. "Why are we blowing up this building, if all the evidence is below here?" I asked the captain. "The guy who runs this place, Palaniuk, is mostly owned by Umbrella. He owns the bank here so he can has control over what the financial records say." "Where are Welsh and Palaniuk?" "Welsh perished in a unfortunate car bomb accident." the cap was interrupted by Monroe shouting, "Bombs are armed, sir!" "Good, lets get the fuck outta here," his vision shifts to me. "That zombie you knocked off the roof was Palaniuk." That was kind of funny until one of the Lickers dropped out of nowhere and cut the captain, head-to-balls, in half. -Police station. A great deal of cappo's blood splashed on me. My initial response was jumping backwards and falling on my ass. The Licker starts feasting on part of the captain. Then it noticed me. By this time, I already had my AR pointed at it. Just before I blew its ugly face out the back of its skull, I thought I saw it give me a look of terror. I made sure that I shut my mouth. Then, the blast blew most of its brain matter on to the pillar behind it. "Man down!" I shouted but the rest of the team was already there. -One down, five to go.
"Get the remote," Markovich ordered. Monroe checked the right half of the body and found the remote, "Got it." We started back up the ramp to the elevator. The sound of throaty breaths and clicking filled the cement area. "Seven o'clock!" Monroe shouted finishing off his shout with automatic fire from his MP5. After that there was a string of clock numbers following with the same thing; gun fire. Turning to my right one of the Lickers raised up on its hind legs, screeching. I pulled the AR and unleashed an overkill of gas-powered ammo into its face and upper torso, dropping it. Turning around, I see Monroe take the point of a claw through his face and out the back of his head. A section of his vertebrae hit me in the face. The Licker removes its claw from his head, letting his life-less corpse hit the ground. This sparks something inside of me. I don't even notice the gunshots and inhuman screams around me. It began to feast on Monroe's dead body. It doesn't notice me, so I take advantage. I run at and kick in half of its exposed brain. This drops it instantly but I put two rounds in the back of its head for good measure. I look down and see Clark lying dead. There's a huge gash in his chest exposing his cut up heart and lungs. I spot three starting to triangulate around Markovich. Shouldering the AR, I send five shots into the side of the one closest to me. -From hip, pretty good. After the other two turned their attention to me, Markovich had plenty of time to blast the one in front of him. I took the other out hearing my clip click dry after it fell to the ground a mangled, massive heap. The end of the assault was exclaimed with repeated fire of a M41A. Jefferson was standing over one of the Lickers going at it pretty hard. "Jefferson!" Markovich yelled over the automatic fire. Jefferson looked at him; his sanity slowly returned to his face. "Lets get the hell outta here." Jefferson pops one more in it.
We stood in front of the locked door. The keypad on the side of the door looked familiar. Its letters glowing angry red. They changed colors every time I tapped in the wrong code. I don't know how these motherfuckers expected me to know the code. I don't even remember this shit even going down. "Will you hurry the fuck up!?" This Jefferson asshole was starting to fuckin' bother me. I gave him the finger over my shoulder. I tried it a few more times, I was just guessing now. I went through colors on that keypad that I didn't even know existed and that Jefferson asshole kept fuckin' with me. -That's fuckin' it. I turned shoved him, "Why don't you get up here and try it dickhead?!" I shouted at him. He walked foreword and back handed me. "Shut up, bitch." I looked up and gave him an over hand to his nose. The satisfying crack let me know that I got my point across. "Fuck!" Jefferson shouted, looking at the blood oozing out of his nostrils. Apparently, my point got killed on the way over to him and he came with an upper cut. I guess he found my glass jaw, because not too much was clear after that. Just the blackness.
I'm in third person but I can still feel every move that I make and feel every breath I take. Looking around me I'm in a room that would be a white padded room but the walls have blood splashed on them. I turn right, taking in my surrounding. Three hundred and sixty degrees of being trapped. Then I get blind sided by something heavy. "You've been touched by God," is the only thing I hear until a deep laugh cuts in. Looking up I see the God figure standing over me. As soon as I look at him he kicks me in the face. I roll over and the Kool-Aid man is standing there. I pull my self to my hands and knees and that fat prick punches me in the face. I go down again but I get on my feet a little quicker. God runs up and pokes me in the throat. I start to gag from sudden loss of air and he gives me right uppercut. Now I'm back on the floor, covered in blood. I look up and they are both gone. I stand up and look at the floor. While God and the Kool Aid man had been fuckin' me up every time I hit the floor my body made a smear of a number in the blood. The number was 07853, the number.
I woke and my head hurt like a son of a bitch. I just lay there for a minute. "You shouldn't have knocked him out." I hear Markovich say to Jefferson. "Ah, fuck'em, he's an asshole any way." Jefferson retorts. "Yeah, but me can't get out of here with out him." Jefferson said not a thing after that. I sat up, "Holy fuck man, where'd you learn to hit like that?" I stood to my feet. Jefferson was standing in front of the keypad. -How the fuck couldn't I have remembered that. I stepped to ward the keypad and Jefferson went to a defensive stance. "Man, get the fuck outta my way," I say to him. He moves knowing that mean him no harm. I put in the code and the door slides up. "How did you remember the code?" Markovich asks me, "I thought people where supposed to forget things when knocked unconscious." I just shrugged and stepped inside.
Once inside I can already smell the stench of decayed flesh and the moan of the once living. We moved through the narrow hallways cautiously. The place looked like somebody vandalized it with blood. Bloody handprints, smears and footprints decorated the metal interior. This place was now starting to feel very familiar. A few feet ahead there was a foyer leading to the main labs. The entire floor, and a few feet up the walls, was covered with blood, entrails and miscellaneous body parts (arms, fingers, legs and a human penis). Jefferson turned and hurled in the hallway we'd just came through. -Goddamn.. I walked to the door and put my thumb into the print scan apparatus. When I looked up from the print scan a zombie stood glaring at me through fogged white eyes. When it lunged at me I was quick enough to slam my forearm into its throat and lift his head up a little. "Markovich!" Markovich stepped foreword placing the barrel of his gun in its mouth. The blast tore the top of the thing's head off. It jumped off, rolling down my arm and over my shoulder; some of its blood spattered on my face. Its limp body dropped down. Kicking its body out of the way I notice there are about five other of the undead wondering around the circular room. These guys were becoming more of an annoyance than a threat. Although that's the kind of thoughts than land you in their ranks.
The circular room had six doors not including the one we'd already come through. This is how you get lost. "Which one is it?" Markovich asks me. This is getting old, "How the fuck should I know, should you guys have a map or something?" "We did, but it got split in half along with the captain." -Fuck. I close my eyes and point at one. "I guess we'll check here." I walk foreword and push a button by the door. The door to its left opens up, revealing two six foot scaly creatures standing over a corpse ripping it apart. In unison they look over their slumped shoulders and let out ear piercing screams. -Fuck, wrong door. I see Markovich aim so I shoulder mine too and we unload unmercifully on the cornered creatures. I struck one in the right eye and then the throat, I think. It went down gurgling and convulsing. Leaving the room I lit a cigarette and hit the right button; the right door slid up. The room contained a large computer. This was the server that connected the two labs from across town. "Bing-fucking-o," Markovich muttered to himself. Jefferson moved in and sat at the computer. I sat and smoked cigarette after cigarette as he sat there tapping at the keyboard for about twenty minutes. Markovich sat on the floor with his eyes closed. I don't know why but I hit the door's button and it slid up. The circular room was now filled with God-knows how many zombies. The first one I saw let out a roar and dove on me, knocking my stupid ass down. It caught me off guard and I dropped my rifle. The zombie must have been decaying for a pretty long time. Wherever my hands went on it, its skin would fall off in clumps. The smell alone made surprised that I didn't choke on my own vomit. "Fuckin shit!" I shouted wrapping legs around its waist. I grabbed its head tight and pulled with all my strength. I heard bones cracking and the head came loose. The zombie's gripped loosened and his arms dropped. Looking at the body, I'd pulled its head almost completely off. The only thing that was connecting it to the body was about six inches of visible spinal cord. Looking around about ten of the deceased had wandered into the room. One of them fell to its knees intending to make me a meal. I gave it a right jab to its face. That put it down long enough for me to grab my AR and blast its head into the floor. Standing up I see there are three more standing outside. -Fuck em'. I turn and start firing on the zombies staggering towards Jefferson. He's still tapping away at the computer like he doesn't even notice anything is happening. I take down three of the zombies before the rifle jams up. I stepped quickly beside the dead guy on the left and crack open the side of his skull with the butt of the AR. I hear a four round automatic burst that blows the zombies head clean off. Looking down at Jefferson, he's got his rifle lying on his shoulder, the barrel pointing straight up. The last of the zombies falls to the floor in a heap. "You done yet?" Markovich asks holding his smoking Eagle.
Markovich, Jefferson and myself stepped up to the elevator. I scanned my thumb again and the doors opened. I could tell Jefferson was the most eager to get the fuck out of Dodge so he stepped in first. The very second he stepped in, there was a whining sound, but with a little ambience it turned into an inhuman scream. It was like a scene out of a movie. Something came crashing through the roof of the elevator, turning the roof into the floor. It hangs there for a half second and falls down the elevator shaft. "Fuck!" Markovich shouts. "How the fuck are we gonna get outta here?!" Markovich was wiggin' his shit about now. -Damn, I never saw that coming. I stuck my head into the elevator shaft looking from side to side. On the left side there is a service latter. -That's pretty funny. "In here," I say to him. We start up the latter. We climbed for almost an hour until we finally found a floor with an open elevator door. Due to looking down the endless black hole that is the elevator shaft, I'm guessing this is from where, whatever crashed into the elevator, made its death plunge. "Fuckin a', finally," I mutter with relief. I climb into the open door. Looking down the corridor, there are three of the scaly creatures at the end of it. I look around the corner, at Markovich. "There are more of those things we saw down there." "Hunters," he whispers. "I guess, fuck man, I don't know." More of those assumptions. "How did they not hear you climbing in?" "I don't know, if they're that stupid, they should be fuckin' greased." I pull my head back into the corridor. I aim closely and fire a two round burst into one of their asses. Its scream catches me off guard. In the hall it reverbs louder than the goddamned gunshots. My head suddenly feels like its about to fall apart. The others turn and scream but they're not as loud. All three of them charge down the hall. When they get about twelve feet away they spring all at the same time. I hit the deck listening to the ambience of their screams go over my head and into the elevator shaft. The sounds of their screams bend as they fall down the shaft to certain demise. "AH, HAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU FUCKIN' DUMBASSES!" I hear Markovich scream. Then he appears in the door of the elevator, quickly climbing through. "Damn, man, I would've never thought to do that." I shrug and we start down the hallway.
-Shit. Looking down the hole of what used to be the stairwell, we see the destroyed flights of steps. This situation is getting depressing. Looking at the walls there where larger than normal circular holes in the walls near the holes for the stair supports. "What the fuck is this shit?!" I shout. "Somebody has sabotaged this shit." "It was Palaniuk," Markovich muttered. "Palaniuk?" "Yeah, after the virus started to get to him, Umbrella sent a tem out here, like us, to take him out and cover all of this up. By the time the team got there he'd booby-trapped the stairs. Something they'd never expected him to do or even expected him to have time to do. Hell, they didn't even expect him to know how to do this, for that matter." I was now glad that I'd knocked the bastard off the roof. I sat down and lit a cigarette. This was becoming a fuckin' hassle. Markovich and I sat there for about twenty minutes telling jokes and talking shit until Markovich said he was going to the water jug we found earlier. He was gone for maybe five minutes when I hear him scream. Tossing my cigarette, I get up and run towards the screams, until I find him lying on the floor in one of the offices. He's still alive and doesn't appear to be hurt. "What the fuck?" I ask him. "Somethin' jumped up my ass." That would've been funny as hell if I didn't know him at all. "You mean literally?" I ask him, knowing the answer already. "Fuckin' of course literally!" I flip him over. There's a rip in the ass of his pants and they where soaked in blood. -Fuckin' shit. "You gotta kill me, man." Wouldn't be the first to ask me that. "Do you want me to flip you or not?" He doesn't answer; looking over I see he's lost consciousness. I put the gun barrel to his head. The blast is muffled by his skull caving in under the blast from the gunshot. I only have thirteen more rounds left and a Colt .45 pistol. There are loud screams that fill the empty air. I hear crashing sounds from all over this floor. -They're ripping the place apart. Then I heard a scream. A scream that made me realize, after the first time I heard it, I'd never want to hear it again. -Fuck.
Now, here I am, about to die in the executive lounge. Its funny how you can go over three days in just a few seconds. The screams and violent knocks at the door are only getting worse. I blasted a couple of those fuckers on my way in here. Who the fuck cares now though? I won't have to deal with it in a few seconds any way. Deep breath. Moment of truth. The gun jams. "Son of a bitch." I start shedding my heavy ass gear off. I might as well die in relative comfort. My bungee cord falls out. -No fuckin' way. I latch one end to the exposed support beam and another to my belt pack. This was supposed to be our great escape I guess. I kept the detonator in my left hand and the other hand on my belt latch. I hear to door brake open as I jump through the huge hole in the wall. -Goddamn I hope they measured this thing right. My thoughts seem to stretch with the air passing over as I rush towards the ground. I feel it start to catch and I slow down gradually until I'm about seven feet off the ground. I pull the buckle and fall. Hitting the ground from seven feet isn't nice but its better than 700. I get up and look around. There are some decaying corpses walking around but after that they don't seem like much of a problem. Behind me I hear loud thuds and screams. Turning around I see some of the hunters that broke the door down followed me, apparently. Then, I hear the side walk crack open. -Fuck. I turn seeing the same gray out line I did before. Since its invisibility never starts to fade, I make the assumption that it isn't dead and I take off running down the street. I run for about a mile and a half. I stop breathing hard; my lungs are burning like Satan was taking a big steamy piss on them. I look at the little yellow remote. I press the red button hard and the ground starts to rumble. The building starts to fall apart a little and starts the topple process. The huge building folds under itself and crashes with a deafening blast. I toss the remote and start running again. I don't want to be around when the debris starts this way.
I run for a half hour. I've already ran about a mile or two. I gotta find a car. There are plenty of them on the streets, since I'm now in a downtown residential area. Another thing is I can't just be running around out here unarmed. This was the first area that went under quarantine; fuck all only knows what's wandering around here. I run up to a white car parallel parked on the street. The driver's side window is smashed out and the seat is soaked in someone's bodily fluids. The seat is stained a reddish gray color. I think the bottom half of someone's body lying behind me, is the owner. I hadn't thought about it before, but the smell of dead flesh out here was starting to bother me. I get in the car and the keys are in the ignition. -Who says miracles don't happen everyday. I've got forty-five minutes to get back to the lab.
I don't know exactly where the lab is but I'll be damned if I won't find it. As it turns out I don't guess that I'll have to find it, when a huge black truck with the Umbrella logo tattooed on the side of it cuts me off and fifteen armed men jump out of it. They all surround the car and start pointing weapons. I stop the engine and get out. By now I don't really care if they shoot me or not. Fuck these Umbrella pricks. "Get in the truck," one of them barks at me. I step towards the truck. I clock all of them moving with me, their weapons still aimed at me like I'm carrying a nuclear device. I step into the truck and light a smoke. I take a long drag and savoir that swallowed-a-brick feeling of the smoke going down.
Being in the back of the black van I have no idea where I'm going the entire time. I'm just concentrating on getting back to that fucking lab to get a cure for whatever was injected into me during my lapse of consciousness. I know I'm going to have to make a back-up plan for that diseased foreskin, Melinko. The bastard isn't exactly trust-worthy. I still don't even know where we are until the van stops and then I can still on assume that we're at the lab. The soldiers pile out of the van and one of the miserable dumbasses pushes me out the back. He steps out of the van and looks at me. Even through the dark tent of his goggles I could tell me was sizing me up. I stood there for about two minutes when he finally thought that I wasn't going to do anything and I blind-sided him with a right hook. I felt one of my knuckles split open on the broken part of his goggles, but my adrenaline was to far up to realize it hurt like hell. I felt a sudden intense burn in my lower back and felt the wave of electricity flow through me. I'm on my knees instantly and then into the fetal position as the shock persists for another few seconds. Lying there on the ground I feel my muscles lock-up. I can't move for a minute or two. A couple of soldiers pick me up and start carting me off, I'm only half conscious, They're carrying me down a long hall, I let the blood drip from my mouth and hand. Now I lose consciousness.
I wake up on the same uncomfortable metal platform as before. The same lab to. I blink the world back into focus. I see Melinko's stupid face staring back at me. He smiles and tosses me a thick file folder. It has my name on it, under it says, "For our eyes only!" I look at Melinko, "What the fuck is this?" "Orders from Umbrella, they want you to leave for Prague ASAP," Melinko says plainly. I open the file folder and immediately see a plane ticket. The flight was leaving in two hours from LAX, first class. "You tell them, I've tenured my resignation." "Sorry, not a chance in hell." Melinko says calmly. "Ok, I'll do it myself." I say, immediately punching him in the throat. He makes a loud choking noise and falls over. I'm tired of his shit. I look in his lab coat; he's got a chest holster on with a Colt .45 pistol in it. I pull the pistol out. The damn thing is heavy as hell. The gun is made of chrome. -What the fuck is he doin' with this? This situation is kind of ridiculous. I pick the folder up off the ground and take the plane ticket. A large manila envelope slides out of the file folder and hits the floor. Now I'm starting to think this whole thing is a set-up. I pick up the folder and feel around on it. Its pretty thick, the impression is a long rectangle. -Bomb. I open carefully, making sure not to make any sudden movements. I pull up the flap and look inside. The long rectangle was a small stack of money. I dump it out on the table and stared at it. There were five one hundred thousand dollar bundles. I look at the front of the folder, "Start.. -Trent." -Whoever the hell this is from, thank you. I put my regular clothes back on. They feel pretty loose now, since wearing those battle fatigues. -I've got to do something with Melinko's body. As soon as the thought occurs I look at a locker. I push the locker shut again. I wait a second and it doesn't pop open. It appears Dr. Melinko's body isn't proportioned to the space of the locker. I can't very well have an open- eyed corpse lying around. The locker didn't pop, I'm not staying.
I move through the hallway quietly. I follow my blood trail through the metallic corridors. I peak around the corner at the end of the hallway; there are double doors. The words 'Motor pool' are painted in bold white on the doors. I walk carefully up to them, scanning the doors for wires. I haven't even seen any guards or soldiers wandering around. Paranoia can keep you alive. I pull the handles and the doors swing open. There are three guards inside. They've made a triangle around a zombie and are shocking it with their tazers. One of them starts shocking the zombie in its groin, until he notices me. I point and shoot before diving behind a car. I didn't see him go down but I hear him scream in pain and shock. -Good enough for me. I'm sitting behind the car waiting to hear something. I start to move foreword and a gunshot rings out over my head. "Shit," I shout, hitting the deck. I hear a loud scream followed by "You fuckin shot me in the foot, man!" I almost buckle with intense laughter. That's about as entertaining as the situation has been thus far. I start moving around the backs of the cars. I go two cars door and I'm now sitting right across from them, give or take a foot. I take careful aim and fire. The .45 slug hits the guy in his right eye. Blood, brain and skull are sprayed on the man behind him. I walk over to the soldiers. When I get there the one who was shot in the foot is passed out. I squat down and search the soldier's body. I clock something move and the wounded guy is sitting up screaming with his MP5 in hand. -Damn. The gun makes a loud click; I've almost shit my pants. I laugh in his face before I kiss him on the skull with the heavy ass pistol. I pick up the working MP5. There are no other clips on either of them so, fuck 'em they can rot here. I hear the whimper of a little girl somewhere in the garage. I look out and see the first guy I shot laying on the ground. I walk over to him and look over him. I shot him in the genital area. "Karmas a motherfucker ain't it?" I ask him. I find a car that's unlocked and throw all my shit in the passenger seat. I pull out my last cigarette and fire it up, driving out of the garage. -Gonna need another pack.
I'm sitting in the same room. The lights are a little dimmer so my head doesn't feel like it's about to crack open. I am alone. I don't even remember the doctor leaving. Immediately, the bolt sound echoes again and Melinko reappears. "We have a job for you." Melinko tells me. "What makes you think that I'm just going to be your puppet?" "Well, you don't, then you will literally become our puppet." "What the hell are talkin' about?" "We can control generally anybody at anytime if we want." My response is to lay on a thick coat of arrogant laughter, "That's nice but mind control doesn't exist." "Do not forget who you're dealing with here," Melinko replies smugly. "We're Umbrella; we have more power than Microsoft." "If all this is true, why are you telling me?" I ask thinking I was about to gain some ground, "What makes you think that I won't leak this information?" "That's not really a concern of mine," Melinko says confidently. "You'll be dead in four hours."
Goddamn, this is a place I never figured I'd be. "The reconnaissance from the streets surrounding the Palaniuk-Welsh building, prove that the environment is extremely hostile." This guy has been droning on for fifteen minutes now and still hasn't got to the point. "We will go in through the roof, where the zombie threat is at a minimum." -"It's minimum" huh? My life literally is ending one minute at a time.
At about seventy-five feet above most of the buildings in town, the air is a little thinner than usual and cigarettes don't stay as well lit. There are six other men on this helicopter. Your usual cliché movie soldier bunch. Since my hearing was almost completely obstructed, I only caught parts of their conversations that made them sound like they talked in catch phrases. Those seemed to be the parts that were shouted the loudest anyway. The 'copter started to slow and turn right. We were hovering level with the Palaniuk-Welsh building. There were about nineteen figures staggering around on the roof. "Clark, get the .50 cal. up here," the captain shouted. A man carrying a ridiculously large sniper rifle stepped beside me. "Make this quick." Clark began by hitting two of the undead with one shot. A pretty impressive feat. About three clips into it, the situation got boring. Out of the left peripheral I thought I saw a window break out of one of the offices. I didn't even have time to ignore it before the rest of the office lit up a mad red color. "Ten o'clock!" I think that came from the captain. The helicopter cut right sharply, throwing me a few inches. Just enough for my head to turn and see the rocket come through the cabin, hitting one of the soldiers (McDaniel, I think) in the gut. It carried him about ten feet out of the 'copter before he was detonated along with the rocket. "Ahhh, fuck! We're goin' down!" I hear the pilot scream. He sounded more irritated than anything. "Jump ship," the captain shouted at those of us remaining. There are a few phrases no one ever wants to hear while in a vehicle floating about 1,400 feet in the air and a great deal of them had just been uttered within fifteen seconds of each other. The helicopter is starting over the helipad. It isn't far down to the helipad; about fifteen feet. I only had a second to judge before I jumped out. Falling through the early morning sky, I had flashbacks of all the visions I'd had. Until I heard something crack and I hit the ground. I hit a lot softer than I'd expected. Looking under me, the crushed remains of a human corpse were under me.
-Jesus fuckin Christ I hope I don't have any open wounds. What little bits I remember about heath care come rushing back to me. I hear the helicopter blades spinning over me and I look up. The pilot comes sailing out of the cabin on to the roof of the building just as I see it disappear from view. Only half of him makes it to the building and he's hanging off. One of the other soldiers (Jefferson) is headed his way. Three of the zombies where headed their way. "Fuck! Look out," the pilot shouts. I shoulder my AR-15 and decapitate two of the undead while walking towards them. Technically these things were supposed to be banned but Umbrella didn't seem to have a problem with it. I have something special planned for the third. I get a good sprint going and ram the other one off the edge of the building, right as the pilot is being hoisted onto the roof with the rest of us. He just saw me knocking the zombie off and let out a loud laugh followed by, "Howdy, I'm Markovich." I shook his hand.
"Get over here!" The captain shouts in our direction. He looks me in the face, "Get us in this shit-box." I start walking to the captain. This fucking gear is ridiculously heavy: extra ammo, various tools, all that I can understand but the bungee I don't get. I put my thumb in the print scan pad. As the light moves up then down reading my print I flash back to what Melinko told me before I went into debriefing. Some things are just better left unsaid.
"You where the head of the western R and D lab here in town. It's located under the Palaniuk-Welsh building, where you will me sent in the next forty- five minutes. Needless to say they're on Umbrella's pay role." Melinko must have had a great deal of confidence in my impending death. "Our lab here works mainly on manufacturing the virus, your lab does the testing." "What kind of testing?" I ask. "Human and animal mostly. Umbrella has more or less suspended testing on plants due to other circumstances from the past. However, an industrial spy from one of our competitors, BioTech, laced one of your cups of coffee with a massive amount Lysergic Acid Diethylamide or LSD for an easier why of putting it. Due to the amount we found in you it's a miracle that you ever came off of it. They're trying to pull some industrial espionage bullshit with us. This particular 'spy' was taken care of in the most brutal ways our people could think of." This man is starting to sound like he's the one the over dosed on acid. "What about these visions I've been having?" "I'm getting to that," he retorts impatiently. "After you drank the coffee, you went temporarily insane. From the surveillance footage we gathered you had fourteen canisters of the 'T' and 'G' viruses into a room and wired them with a small explosive of some kind. After puncturing the canisters, you let the viruses escape into the air ducts. We still can't figure out how you got out alive. Your co-workers went insane and destroyed the surveillance cameras. May of the, uh, experiments where also let go in the chaos." "I've said it once and I'll say it again, you've got to be fucking shitting me." Statements like this are the kind that makes you feel like you've just had an aneurysm and been conscious to experience the whole thing.
All that shit didn't really seem important by now when the lock clicked open. Two and a half hours left. Two of the soldiers moved in front of me, pushing the door open. There was nothing but blackness until the flashlight burned a hole in it. I stepped in between the first two and the last three. We moved through the narrow, dark stairwell until we got to the elevator. The captain hit the B3 button. After about fifteen minutes and 112 floors later we came out to the underground parking deck. "What the hell are we doing down here?" I asked really no one at all. "Our mission here is to rid of evidence." The captain replied. Moving through the deck, I started hearing clicking noises echo through the structure. I was the only one that heard it. These guys weren't shit for a military team. They had the lingo down though. "Stop," I whispered and everybody quit moving. "Listen." Many more clicking noises started to emerge. "Lickers." Jefferson muttered. "Gimme that fuckin' motion sensor," captain says angrily, with a little panic. I sure as hell hoped this shitbag wasn't starting to crack. "How many?" the pilot asked, revealing a Desert Eagle .50. It looked to be the only weapon he had. "Keep moving, stay close," the captain advised, not taking his eyes off the motion sensor. "What the hell is a 'Licker'?" I asked Jefferson. "Vaguely humanoid; looks like its been turned inside out; exposed brain tissue," he stops and looks me in the face. "The classic definition of a monster."
Low growls and the clicking noises became more and more apparent as we moved deeper and deeper. The sound of that inevitable entity creeping up. "How many are down here?" One of the soldiers [Monroe] asked Jefferson. "I'm not sure, I'm not picking up any movement but us." Down one more level to the support beams of the foundation. The soldiers panned out across the level strapping four-pound blocks of C-4 to the support pillars. "Why are we blowing up this building, if all the evidence is below here?" I asked the captain. "The guy who runs this place, Palaniuk, is mostly owned by Umbrella. He owns the bank here so he can has control over what the financial records say." "Where are Welsh and Palaniuk?" "Welsh perished in a unfortunate car bomb accident." the cap was interrupted by Monroe shouting, "Bombs are armed, sir!" "Good, lets get the fuck outta here," his vision shifts to me. "That zombie you knocked off the roof was Palaniuk." That was kind of funny until one of the Lickers dropped out of nowhere and cut the captain, head-to-balls, in half. -Police station. A great deal of cappo's blood splashed on me. My initial response was jumping backwards and falling on my ass. The Licker starts feasting on part of the captain. Then it noticed me. By this time, I already had my AR pointed at it. Just before I blew its ugly face out the back of its skull, I thought I saw it give me a look of terror. I made sure that I shut my mouth. Then, the blast blew most of its brain matter on to the pillar behind it. "Man down!" I shouted but the rest of the team was already there. -One down, five to go.
"Get the remote," Markovich ordered. Monroe checked the right half of the body and found the remote, "Got it." We started back up the ramp to the elevator. The sound of throaty breaths and clicking filled the cement area. "Seven o'clock!" Monroe shouted finishing off his shout with automatic fire from his MP5. After that there was a string of clock numbers following with the same thing; gun fire. Turning to my right one of the Lickers raised up on its hind legs, screeching. I pulled the AR and unleashed an overkill of gas-powered ammo into its face and upper torso, dropping it. Turning around, I see Monroe take the point of a claw through his face and out the back of his head. A section of his vertebrae hit me in the face. The Licker removes its claw from his head, letting his life-less corpse hit the ground. This sparks something inside of me. I don't even notice the gunshots and inhuman screams around me. It began to feast on Monroe's dead body. It doesn't notice me, so I take advantage. I run at and kick in half of its exposed brain. This drops it instantly but I put two rounds in the back of its head for good measure. I look down and see Clark lying dead. There's a huge gash in his chest exposing his cut up heart and lungs. I spot three starting to triangulate around Markovich. Shouldering the AR, I send five shots into the side of the one closest to me. -From hip, pretty good. After the other two turned their attention to me, Markovich had plenty of time to blast the one in front of him. I took the other out hearing my clip click dry after it fell to the ground a mangled, massive heap. The end of the assault was exclaimed with repeated fire of a M41A. Jefferson was standing over one of the Lickers going at it pretty hard. "Jefferson!" Markovich yelled over the automatic fire. Jefferson looked at him; his sanity slowly returned to his face. "Lets get the hell outta here." Jefferson pops one more in it.
We stood in front of the locked door. The keypad on the side of the door looked familiar. Its letters glowing angry red. They changed colors every time I tapped in the wrong code. I don't know how these motherfuckers expected me to know the code. I don't even remember this shit even going down. "Will you hurry the fuck up!?" This Jefferson asshole was starting to fuckin' bother me. I gave him the finger over my shoulder. I tried it a few more times, I was just guessing now. I went through colors on that keypad that I didn't even know existed and that Jefferson asshole kept fuckin' with me. -That's fuckin' it. I turned shoved him, "Why don't you get up here and try it dickhead?!" I shouted at him. He walked foreword and back handed me. "Shut up, bitch." I looked up and gave him an over hand to his nose. The satisfying crack let me know that I got my point across. "Fuck!" Jefferson shouted, looking at the blood oozing out of his nostrils. Apparently, my point got killed on the way over to him and he came with an upper cut. I guess he found my glass jaw, because not too much was clear after that. Just the blackness.
I'm in third person but I can still feel every move that I make and feel every breath I take. Looking around me I'm in a room that would be a white padded room but the walls have blood splashed on them. I turn right, taking in my surrounding. Three hundred and sixty degrees of being trapped. Then I get blind sided by something heavy. "You've been touched by God," is the only thing I hear until a deep laugh cuts in. Looking up I see the God figure standing over me. As soon as I look at him he kicks me in the face. I roll over and the Kool-Aid man is standing there. I pull my self to my hands and knees and that fat prick punches me in the face. I go down again but I get on my feet a little quicker. God runs up and pokes me in the throat. I start to gag from sudden loss of air and he gives me right uppercut. Now I'm back on the floor, covered in blood. I look up and they are both gone. I stand up and look at the floor. While God and the Kool Aid man had been fuckin' me up every time I hit the floor my body made a smear of a number in the blood. The number was 07853, the number.
I woke and my head hurt like a son of a bitch. I just lay there for a minute. "You shouldn't have knocked him out." I hear Markovich say to Jefferson. "Ah, fuck'em, he's an asshole any way." Jefferson retorts. "Yeah, but me can't get out of here with out him." Jefferson said not a thing after that. I sat up, "Holy fuck man, where'd you learn to hit like that?" I stood to my feet. Jefferson was standing in front of the keypad. -How the fuck couldn't I have remembered that. I stepped to ward the keypad and Jefferson went to a defensive stance. "Man, get the fuck outta my way," I say to him. He moves knowing that mean him no harm. I put in the code and the door slides up. "How did you remember the code?" Markovich asks me, "I thought people where supposed to forget things when knocked unconscious." I just shrugged and stepped inside.
Once inside I can already smell the stench of decayed flesh and the moan of the once living. We moved through the narrow hallways cautiously. The place looked like somebody vandalized it with blood. Bloody handprints, smears and footprints decorated the metal interior. This place was now starting to feel very familiar. A few feet ahead there was a foyer leading to the main labs. The entire floor, and a few feet up the walls, was covered with blood, entrails and miscellaneous body parts (arms, fingers, legs and a human penis). Jefferson turned and hurled in the hallway we'd just came through. -Goddamn.. I walked to the door and put my thumb into the print scan apparatus. When I looked up from the print scan a zombie stood glaring at me through fogged white eyes. When it lunged at me I was quick enough to slam my forearm into its throat and lift his head up a little. "Markovich!" Markovich stepped foreword placing the barrel of his gun in its mouth. The blast tore the top of the thing's head off. It jumped off, rolling down my arm and over my shoulder; some of its blood spattered on my face. Its limp body dropped down. Kicking its body out of the way I notice there are about five other of the undead wondering around the circular room. These guys were becoming more of an annoyance than a threat. Although that's the kind of thoughts than land you in their ranks.
The circular room had six doors not including the one we'd already come through. This is how you get lost. "Which one is it?" Markovich asks me. This is getting old, "How the fuck should I know, should you guys have a map or something?" "We did, but it got split in half along with the captain." -Fuck. I close my eyes and point at one. "I guess we'll check here." I walk foreword and push a button by the door. The door to its left opens up, revealing two six foot scaly creatures standing over a corpse ripping it apart. In unison they look over their slumped shoulders and let out ear piercing screams. -Fuck, wrong door. I see Markovich aim so I shoulder mine too and we unload unmercifully on the cornered creatures. I struck one in the right eye and then the throat, I think. It went down gurgling and convulsing. Leaving the room I lit a cigarette and hit the right button; the right door slid up. The room contained a large computer. This was the server that connected the two labs from across town. "Bing-fucking-o," Markovich muttered to himself. Jefferson moved in and sat at the computer. I sat and smoked cigarette after cigarette as he sat there tapping at the keyboard for about twenty minutes. Markovich sat on the floor with his eyes closed. I don't know why but I hit the door's button and it slid up. The circular room was now filled with God-knows how many zombies. The first one I saw let out a roar and dove on me, knocking my stupid ass down. It caught me off guard and I dropped my rifle. The zombie must have been decaying for a pretty long time. Wherever my hands went on it, its skin would fall off in clumps. The smell alone made surprised that I didn't choke on my own vomit. "Fuckin shit!" I shouted wrapping legs around its waist. I grabbed its head tight and pulled with all my strength. I heard bones cracking and the head came loose. The zombie's gripped loosened and his arms dropped. Looking at the body, I'd pulled its head almost completely off. The only thing that was connecting it to the body was about six inches of visible spinal cord. Looking around about ten of the deceased had wandered into the room. One of them fell to its knees intending to make me a meal. I gave it a right jab to its face. That put it down long enough for me to grab my AR and blast its head into the floor. Standing up I see there are three more standing outside. -Fuck em'. I turn and start firing on the zombies staggering towards Jefferson. He's still tapping away at the computer like he doesn't even notice anything is happening. I take down three of the zombies before the rifle jams up. I stepped quickly beside the dead guy on the left and crack open the side of his skull with the butt of the AR. I hear a four round automatic burst that blows the zombies head clean off. Looking down at Jefferson, he's got his rifle lying on his shoulder, the barrel pointing straight up. The last of the zombies falls to the floor in a heap. "You done yet?" Markovich asks holding his smoking Eagle.
Markovich, Jefferson and myself stepped up to the elevator. I scanned my thumb again and the doors opened. I could tell Jefferson was the most eager to get the fuck out of Dodge so he stepped in first. The very second he stepped in, there was a whining sound, but with a little ambience it turned into an inhuman scream. It was like a scene out of a movie. Something came crashing through the roof of the elevator, turning the roof into the floor. It hangs there for a half second and falls down the elevator shaft. "Fuck!" Markovich shouts. "How the fuck are we gonna get outta here?!" Markovich was wiggin' his shit about now. -Damn, I never saw that coming. I stuck my head into the elevator shaft looking from side to side. On the left side there is a service latter. -That's pretty funny. "In here," I say to him. We start up the latter. We climbed for almost an hour until we finally found a floor with an open elevator door. Due to looking down the endless black hole that is the elevator shaft, I'm guessing this is from where, whatever crashed into the elevator, made its death plunge. "Fuckin a', finally," I mutter with relief. I climb into the open door. Looking down the corridor, there are three of the scaly creatures at the end of it. I look around the corner, at Markovich. "There are more of those things we saw down there." "Hunters," he whispers. "I guess, fuck man, I don't know." More of those assumptions. "How did they not hear you climbing in?" "I don't know, if they're that stupid, they should be fuckin' greased." I pull my head back into the corridor. I aim closely and fire a two round burst into one of their asses. Its scream catches me off guard. In the hall it reverbs louder than the goddamned gunshots. My head suddenly feels like its about to fall apart. The others turn and scream but they're not as loud. All three of them charge down the hall. When they get about twelve feet away they spring all at the same time. I hit the deck listening to the ambience of their screams go over my head and into the elevator shaft. The sounds of their screams bend as they fall down the shaft to certain demise. "AH, HAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU FUCKIN' DUMBASSES!" I hear Markovich scream. Then he appears in the door of the elevator, quickly climbing through. "Damn, man, I would've never thought to do that." I shrug and we start down the hallway.
-Shit. Looking down the hole of what used to be the stairwell, we see the destroyed flights of steps. This situation is getting depressing. Looking at the walls there where larger than normal circular holes in the walls near the holes for the stair supports. "What the fuck is this shit?!" I shout. "Somebody has sabotaged this shit." "It was Palaniuk," Markovich muttered. "Palaniuk?" "Yeah, after the virus started to get to him, Umbrella sent a tem out here, like us, to take him out and cover all of this up. By the time the team got there he'd booby-trapped the stairs. Something they'd never expected him to do or even expected him to have time to do. Hell, they didn't even expect him to know how to do this, for that matter." I was now glad that I'd knocked the bastard off the roof. I sat down and lit a cigarette. This was becoming a fuckin' hassle. Markovich and I sat there for about twenty minutes telling jokes and talking shit until Markovich said he was going to the water jug we found earlier. He was gone for maybe five minutes when I hear him scream. Tossing my cigarette, I get up and run towards the screams, until I find him lying on the floor in one of the offices. He's still alive and doesn't appear to be hurt. "What the fuck?" I ask him. "Somethin' jumped up my ass." That would've been funny as hell if I didn't know him at all. "You mean literally?" I ask him, knowing the answer already. "Fuckin' of course literally!" I flip him over. There's a rip in the ass of his pants and they where soaked in blood. -Fuckin' shit. "You gotta kill me, man." Wouldn't be the first to ask me that. "Do you want me to flip you or not?" He doesn't answer; looking over I see he's lost consciousness. I put the gun barrel to his head. The blast is muffled by his skull caving in under the blast from the gunshot. I only have thirteen more rounds left and a Colt .45 pistol. There are loud screams that fill the empty air. I hear crashing sounds from all over this floor. -They're ripping the place apart. Then I heard a scream. A scream that made me realize, after the first time I heard it, I'd never want to hear it again. -Fuck.
Now, here I am, about to die in the executive lounge. Its funny how you can go over three days in just a few seconds. The screams and violent knocks at the door are only getting worse. I blasted a couple of those fuckers on my way in here. Who the fuck cares now though? I won't have to deal with it in a few seconds any way. Deep breath. Moment of truth. The gun jams. "Son of a bitch." I start shedding my heavy ass gear off. I might as well die in relative comfort. My bungee cord falls out. -No fuckin' way. I latch one end to the exposed support beam and another to my belt pack. This was supposed to be our great escape I guess. I kept the detonator in my left hand and the other hand on my belt latch. I hear to door brake open as I jump through the huge hole in the wall. -Goddamn I hope they measured this thing right. My thoughts seem to stretch with the air passing over as I rush towards the ground. I feel it start to catch and I slow down gradually until I'm about seven feet off the ground. I pull the buckle and fall. Hitting the ground from seven feet isn't nice but its better than 700. I get up and look around. There are some decaying corpses walking around but after that they don't seem like much of a problem. Behind me I hear loud thuds and screams. Turning around I see some of the hunters that broke the door down followed me, apparently. Then, I hear the side walk crack open. -Fuck. I turn seeing the same gray out line I did before. Since its invisibility never starts to fade, I make the assumption that it isn't dead and I take off running down the street. I run for about a mile and a half. I stop breathing hard; my lungs are burning like Satan was taking a big steamy piss on them. I look at the little yellow remote. I press the red button hard and the ground starts to rumble. The building starts to fall apart a little and starts the topple process. The huge building folds under itself and crashes with a deafening blast. I toss the remote and start running again. I don't want to be around when the debris starts this way.
I run for a half hour. I've already ran about a mile or two. I gotta find a car. There are plenty of them on the streets, since I'm now in a downtown residential area. Another thing is I can't just be running around out here unarmed. This was the first area that went under quarantine; fuck all only knows what's wandering around here. I run up to a white car parallel parked on the street. The driver's side window is smashed out and the seat is soaked in someone's bodily fluids. The seat is stained a reddish gray color. I think the bottom half of someone's body lying behind me, is the owner. I hadn't thought about it before, but the smell of dead flesh out here was starting to bother me. I get in the car and the keys are in the ignition. -Who says miracles don't happen everyday. I've got forty-five minutes to get back to the lab.
I don't know exactly where the lab is but I'll be damned if I won't find it. As it turns out I don't guess that I'll have to find it, when a huge black truck with the Umbrella logo tattooed on the side of it cuts me off and fifteen armed men jump out of it. They all surround the car and start pointing weapons. I stop the engine and get out. By now I don't really care if they shoot me or not. Fuck these Umbrella pricks. "Get in the truck," one of them barks at me. I step towards the truck. I clock all of them moving with me, their weapons still aimed at me like I'm carrying a nuclear device. I step into the truck and light a smoke. I take a long drag and savoir that swallowed-a-brick feeling of the smoke going down.
Being in the back of the black van I have no idea where I'm going the entire time. I'm just concentrating on getting back to that fucking lab to get a cure for whatever was injected into me during my lapse of consciousness. I know I'm going to have to make a back-up plan for that diseased foreskin, Melinko. The bastard isn't exactly trust-worthy. I still don't even know where we are until the van stops and then I can still on assume that we're at the lab. The soldiers pile out of the van and one of the miserable dumbasses pushes me out the back. He steps out of the van and looks at me. Even through the dark tent of his goggles I could tell me was sizing me up. I stood there for about two minutes when he finally thought that I wasn't going to do anything and I blind-sided him with a right hook. I felt one of my knuckles split open on the broken part of his goggles, but my adrenaline was to far up to realize it hurt like hell. I felt a sudden intense burn in my lower back and felt the wave of electricity flow through me. I'm on my knees instantly and then into the fetal position as the shock persists for another few seconds. Lying there on the ground I feel my muscles lock-up. I can't move for a minute or two. A couple of soldiers pick me up and start carting me off, I'm only half conscious, They're carrying me down a long hall, I let the blood drip from my mouth and hand. Now I lose consciousness.
I wake up on the same uncomfortable metal platform as before. The same lab to. I blink the world back into focus. I see Melinko's stupid face staring back at me. He smiles and tosses me a thick file folder. It has my name on it, under it says, "For our eyes only!" I look at Melinko, "What the fuck is this?" "Orders from Umbrella, they want you to leave for Prague ASAP," Melinko says plainly. I open the file folder and immediately see a plane ticket. The flight was leaving in two hours from LAX, first class. "You tell them, I've tenured my resignation." "Sorry, not a chance in hell." Melinko says calmly. "Ok, I'll do it myself." I say, immediately punching him in the throat. He makes a loud choking noise and falls over. I'm tired of his shit. I look in his lab coat; he's got a chest holster on with a Colt .45 pistol in it. I pull the pistol out. The damn thing is heavy as hell. The gun is made of chrome. -What the fuck is he doin' with this? This situation is kind of ridiculous. I pick the folder up off the ground and take the plane ticket. A large manila envelope slides out of the file folder and hits the floor. Now I'm starting to think this whole thing is a set-up. I pick up the folder and feel around on it. Its pretty thick, the impression is a long rectangle. -Bomb. I open carefully, making sure not to make any sudden movements. I pull up the flap and look inside. The long rectangle was a small stack of money. I dump it out on the table and stared at it. There were five one hundred thousand dollar bundles. I look at the front of the folder, "Start.. -Trent." -Whoever the hell this is from, thank you. I put my regular clothes back on. They feel pretty loose now, since wearing those battle fatigues. -I've got to do something with Melinko's body. As soon as the thought occurs I look at a locker. I push the locker shut again. I wait a second and it doesn't pop open. It appears Dr. Melinko's body isn't proportioned to the space of the locker. I can't very well have an open- eyed corpse lying around. The locker didn't pop, I'm not staying.
I move through the hallway quietly. I follow my blood trail through the metallic corridors. I peak around the corner at the end of the hallway; there are double doors. The words 'Motor pool' are painted in bold white on the doors. I walk carefully up to them, scanning the doors for wires. I haven't even seen any guards or soldiers wandering around. Paranoia can keep you alive. I pull the handles and the doors swing open. There are three guards inside. They've made a triangle around a zombie and are shocking it with their tazers. One of them starts shocking the zombie in its groin, until he notices me. I point and shoot before diving behind a car. I didn't see him go down but I hear him scream in pain and shock. -Good enough for me. I'm sitting behind the car waiting to hear something. I start to move foreword and a gunshot rings out over my head. "Shit," I shout, hitting the deck. I hear a loud scream followed by "You fuckin shot me in the foot, man!" I almost buckle with intense laughter. That's about as entertaining as the situation has been thus far. I start moving around the backs of the cars. I go two cars door and I'm now sitting right across from them, give or take a foot. I take careful aim and fire. The .45 slug hits the guy in his right eye. Blood, brain and skull are sprayed on the man behind him. I walk over to the soldiers. When I get there the one who was shot in the foot is passed out. I squat down and search the soldier's body. I clock something move and the wounded guy is sitting up screaming with his MP5 in hand. -Damn. The gun makes a loud click; I've almost shit my pants. I laugh in his face before I kiss him on the skull with the heavy ass pistol. I pick up the working MP5. There are no other clips on either of them so, fuck 'em they can rot here. I hear the whimper of a little girl somewhere in the garage. I look out and see the first guy I shot laying on the ground. I walk over to him and look over him. I shot him in the genital area. "Karmas a motherfucker ain't it?" I ask him. I find a car that's unlocked and throw all my shit in the passenger seat. I pull out my last cigarette and fire it up, driving out of the garage. -Gonna need another pack.