24: Deliverance
The creature – whatever it was – threw back its head and roared. At exactly the same time, Jack and Lisa screamed, and ran.
Get to the manhole, get to the manhole… get back underground. It can't get you underground… you'll be safe.
However, that would mean running the other way, towards the creature - and that was self-evidently a very bad idea. Whatever that thing was, it definitely wasn't a happy bunny.
The ground trembled beneath their feet as it gave chase, each giant lumbering step creating the sound of thunder and earthquakes. Jack and Lisa didn't dare look back. They didn't want to see if it was catching them up.
Lisa thought she couldn't possibly run any faster from this new horror than she'd run from the zombie dogs, but then she thought of what was just behind them, and an extra burst of speed came from nowhere.
She didn't scream. She didn't want to waste breath that might mean the difference between life and a gruesome death. If she stopped running, she would die. It was as simple as that.
Please, God, she begged silently. Get us out of this. I don't want to die – I don't want Jack to die. Please, God, don't let it get us!
Jack, on the other hand, was thinking:
Shit, shit, shit! I nearly kiss her an' now this happen! What I do to deserve this, for cryin' out loud? The whole universe got it in for me, I swear…
The sounds of pursuit behind them stopped abruptly. The earth no longer shook with the sound of heavy footfalls. No roars – nothing. Just an eerie silence.
Hardly daring to breathe, Jack and Lisa both stopped. They turned around, very slowly and deliberately, still poised to run if the need arose.
To their astonishment, the creature had disappeared. They looked up, down, and all around them, but their pursuer was nowhere in sight. There was no sign of it anywhere. It was as if the monster had never been there at all.
"It's – it's gone," said Lisa, stunned. "Where – how – Jack, it just disappeared… how is that possible?"
Jack shrugged.
"Where did it go?" said Lisa.
"You be askin' me?" said Jack. "I dunt know, Lise. All I know is, it be gone. An' I sure as hell ain't complainin'."
"It's gone," said Lisa again.
She started to laugh, out of sheer relief.
"It's gone," she repeated. "It's gone! Jack, we're saved! We're all right! It's gone, and we're okay, and we're going to -"
A thud behind them, and then Lisa was plucked right off the ground before she even had chance to scream.
"Lise!" yelled Jack, whirling round. He was instantly met with the sight of the very creature they thought had vanished without trace, one of its huge hands gripping the defenceless Lisa tightly by the neck and holding her at arm's length.
Lisa flailed helplessly as she tried to free herself, but the creature's iron grip tightened further, its fingers closing around her throat like the coils of a boa constrictor. She struggled to breathe as the air was forced right out of her.
"Kill," intoned the creature, in a deep bass grumble that sent a prickle of fear down her spine.
"No," choked Lisa. "No… please…"
Everything was starting to blur, and silver specked Lisa's vision as oxygen deprivation started to take effect. But a flicker of movement caught her eye; it was coming from the creature's free hand.
There were six fingers on the hand – six? No, that wasn't right, there were five fingers, and one long, thin purple tentacle coming from the palm of the hand, snaking towards her. She had no idea what the tentacle did, but instinct told her that she couldn't let it touch her.
One word popped into her head: death. You'll die if it touches you. But wasn't she dying anyway? She was being slowly strangled - and now she was being shaken like a little kitten, her head was swimming, her throat hurt...
Lisa could feel her consciousness slipping away, even as the tentacle got nearer. Through the dreamlike haze of terror and semi-consciousness, she became vaguely aware that someone was shouting.
"Let her go!" Jack bellowed, lashing out at the monster, trying to prise the enormous fingers away from Lisa's throat, forgetting all about fear for his own life. He didn't care if he got hurt. All that mattered was Lisa's safety. He had to get the monster to let go of her, or she'd die.
"Kill," the creature rumbled.
"No! Dunt you touch my Lise! Put her down!"
"Kill…"
"Let go of her, you son of a bitch!"
Why was he even bothering to hit the monster? It was clearly having no effect, and Lisa looked close to suffocation. Maybe if he shot at it…
One bullet buried itself in the creature's head, followed by a second. The creature absorbed both shots without even a shudder. Three bullets. Four. Then came the one sound that Jack would have given anything not to hear – the click which meant that the gun was empty.
"Oh no - "
With a snarl, the creature abruptly released Lisa; she fell to the ground, virtually unconscious. Jack's triumph, however, was extremely short-lived. For no sooner had Lisa hit the ground then the purple tentacle shot out of the monster's hand like a whip and caught him across the arm.
The shock and the sudden burst of pain made Jack cry out. He dropped his gun, and clutched at the wound that had just been inflicted on him – a deep gash across his forearm that was already oozing blood.
The tentacle shot out again, but this time it curled around Jack's ankle, lifted him right off the ground, and high into the air. Jack cried out as he saw the monstrous giant's face again -
"KILL!"
With that, it slammed Jack down onto the ground. It lifted him up high, and then slammed him back down again. The pain was overwhelming, so intense that Jack not only thought he'd pass out but sincerely hoped he would.
Just when he thought he couldn't possibly take any more punishment, the creature seemed to tire of the attack. It raised Jack high over its head and hurled him right across the street.
Lisa looked up, just in time to see Jack land in a heap of cardboard boxes with a howl.
"Jack!" she yelled.
On hearing her, the creature turned around to face her. It was then that Lisa saw their salvation…
----------
It was a long time before Amber stopped running. In the end fatigue forced her to stop and lean against a slime-covered wall. Still sobbing with fear, she struggled to regain breath and self-control.
No more spiders here. They were all gone; and so, realised Amber, were Jack and Lisa. She'd left them there, all alone, to face those horrible spiders. She hadn't done a thing to help. She'd just run away, like a coward, and now she hated herself for it.
Joseph would never have abandoned his friends when they were in danger. He would have stayed and fought, or at least helped them to escape. Even when he'd been scared, he'd never run away from the things he feared. He'd always been there for the people who needed him. It had been his undoing, in the end. His willingness to help rescue his friends from the STARS Bravo Team had killed him.
Blinking back tears, Amber forced the thought of Joseph out of her head. He was dead now. No use dwelling on the past; she needed to concentrate on the here and now if she was going to make it out of here in one piece.
Amber pushed some stray curls out of her eyes, and wondered what to do next. She should go back for Jack and Lisa. Could she pluck up the courage to go back and face the spiders again?
Well, she'd have to. If she didn't, she'd never forgive herself for leaving them. So Amber took a very deep breath to settle her nerves – and realised that she had no idea how to get back to the spiders' lair.
Like a fool, she'd run off blindly, not even thinking about which way she was going. Now she was lost. Lost and all alone, down here in the reeking darkness. That thought alone was enough to make Amber dissolve into tears again.
"I'm going to die…"
----------
"We shouldn't have left them."
"Shut up."
"No, I won't."
"That was an order, not a request. Shut up, Private."
"Hey, don't give me that. This time last month you couldn't order me around! And I'm nearly a Corporal too - Sarge said so! I'm due for promotion after this mission! So you won't be able to order me around then, either!"
"That may be so, Lavelle, but right here and now, you're a Private and I'm a Corporal. That means you do what I tell you."
"Even if it's against orders? What about our mission? What's Sarge going to say when he finds out we've lost them?"
"He won't say a thing. We'll find them again soon enough."
"But they could be anywhere in these sewers!"
"I know exactly where they are."
"How come?"
"Well, while you were occupied with finding a torch for the kids, I took the opportunity to plant a tracking device on the cop. Our means of finding the three is stuck on the back of her shirt, hidden underneath her collar. I hardly need to add that she didn't notice a thing."
"A tracking device? No way. You actually carry stuff like that around with you?"
"Like they say in the Army, Lavelle, "prior preparation prevents poor performance". A good mercenary should be prepared for every eventuality. I suspected that something might happen here in the sewers, so I took precautions in case we got separated from the civilians. We can't afford to lose them, Lavelle. There's too much at stake."
"I know. But a tracking device – whoo-ee! How did you get your hands on one of those? They're not standard-issue."
"I put in a special request. I figured we might need it for a mission like this."
"I didn't."
"That's why I got promoted first, Lavelle. So don't worry; we'll find them again. And with any luck, being lost in the sewers for a few hours will have scared some sense into them. When we find them again, they'll follow us like little lambs."
"So where are they?"
"Let's take a look…"
"Hey, they're not far away, are they?"
"Six point four-five metres. Not far at all."
"What's that sound?"
"I don't know. Maybe if you stopped talking for once in your life, I'd be able to hear it too."
"Sounds like someone crying."
"It must be them. Let's move."
"If one of them's dead, I'm blaming you..."
"Oh, shut up."
----------
Amber looked up sharply at the sound of muffled voices and splashes. Someone was coming…
"Hey!" she shouted out. "Hey, who's there?"
"It's us," called a familiar voice. "Renée and Christina."
"Renée? Oh, man, am I glad to see you two again," gasped Amber. "Please, you have to help me find Jack and Lisa!"
"What? You mean they're not with you?" said Renée. "Where are they? What happened?"
"We were in the tunnels, and then there were all these giant – giant spiders – we got separated," said Amber, carefully avoiding the exact details of their separation. "I don't know where they are – please, help me find them! We have to find them, they could be in real trouble!"
"I thought you were meant to be looking after them," said Christina.
"I was," protested Amber. "But then there were the spiders, and - "
"And you lost them," Christina finished. "Spiders or no spiders, you shouldn't have let those children out of your sight for a second. Giant spiders are no excuse for carelessness and irresponsibility. You should have run after them."
There was an awkward silence.
"Well?" said Christina. "Why didn't you? You can run pretty fast, from what I've seen. You would have been able to catch them up easily."
"They weren't running away from the spiders - I was," said Amber, feeling her cheeks burn with embarrassment. For the first time, she was glad of the lack of light in the sewers.
"So what you're telling us is that you took one look at the spiders and ran off screaming, abandoning young Jack and Lisa to an uncertain fate in the darkness," said Christina flatly. "Of all the cowardly, pathetic, spineless excuses for a human being that I've encountered in my career, you are by far the worst. You criticise us, but at least we mercenaries have backbones. We don't run away from a fight. We don't leave our comrades to die. And we don't ever let our fears get the better of us. We do our job no matter what. Your job, Lieutenant Bernstein, is to protect the innocent and to serve the public, and you failed to do that job. If I was the Chief of Police I would have you fired."
"I know," said Amber in a small voice. "I screwed up."
"Yes, you did. But there's nothing you can do about that now, so don't bother with self-pity. Our main concern now is to find Jack and Lisa before something else does."
----------
Lisa's mind raced. Basic thoughts emerged from the fog of primitive terror, like icebergs in the sea of her consciousness.
Red barrel. They explode. Explosions kill things – like monsters. Bullets make barrels explode… shoot the barrel! Shoot it! Blow it up, blow it all up!
The barrel was just behind the creature. Yes… if she could hit that barrel, she'd blow that overgrown zombie to kingdom come. And herself, too, come to think of it. But if she could get out of the way, and shoot before the monster could come after her…
Forcing herself to her feet, Lisa got up and ran. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the creature start moving, getting ready to chase her. She turned and fired a few wild shots in the direction of the barrel, praying that at least one would hit.
The world slowed down; or if it didn't, it seemed to. That horrible monster was just starting to run - but wait, yes, one of the bullets was about to hit the barrel…
Lisa flung herself to the ground, half-expecting to feel a rush of searing heat as the blast consumed her, but there was no heat. She heard the roar of an explosion behind her, drowning out the roar of the enraged creature - and then dead silence.
----------
There was a sudden boom, muffled by the thickness of the concrete and brickwork above their heads. Dust rained down from the ceiling as the explosion rocked the street above them.
"What was that?" exclaimed Amber.
"I don't know, but I think we'd better take a look," said Renée.
"You're hearing explosions and you want to find out what's making them?" said Amber, frowning. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Creatures don't blow things up. People do," said Christina.
"Yeah," said Renée. "Whoever's up there might need our help."
"Jack and Lisa?" said Amber.
"Could be," said Renée thoughtfully. "Or maybe it's the UBCS boys. Either way, we'd better go check it out. Come on! I'm sure there's a manhole around here somewhere…"
----------
After allowing several seconds to elapse, Lisa raised her head to take in the scene. Scorched concrete where the barrel had been. Thick smoke spiralling upwards. Smouldering fragments of metal. Flames licking at the still, silent body of the monster, lying face-down on the ground.
"Yes! Kill that, you freak!" said Lisa triumphantly, but the glee of her victory faded away when she saw that Jack hadn't moved from the spot where he'd been thrown. Was he stunned, unconscious, even - ? She didn't even dare think it. Jack had to be all right. He couldn't be dead - he just couldn't!
"Jack!" Lisa cried, hurrying to his side.
Just as she reached him, Jack opened his eyes. He sat up hurriedly and gasped:
"Lise, that thing! We gotta get outta here, now, b'fore it - "
"Jack, Jack, it's okay," Lisa reassured him. "It's dead. I shot that red barrel and blew it up. It won't be bothering us any more."
Jack sighed gratefully, and slumped back into the pile of boxes.
"That's not a good place to take a break, Jack," said Lisa severely. "Come on, we're not out of danger yet. We need to get out of here."
"Yeah," said Jack, sighing again. "You be right. Give me a hand, yeah?"
Lisa helped him to his feet, and Jack dusted himself off. As he brushed some dust off his cargo pants, Lisa saw blood on his shirt and a tear in his shirtsleeve. Somehow, possibly during the struggle with the monster, he'd acquired a nasty cut across his forearm.
"You're hurt," said Lisa, troubled.
"Ah, that? It dunt hurt," said Jack, smiling bravely, although he winced when she touched his arm.
Lisa felt like she was in a scene from a movie, the kind of clichéd affair in which the hero got hurt defending the girl – the girl would touch him tenderly on the arm, just like this, and then he'd smile and say it didn't hurt even though it did, because he was brave. What happened next? She wasn't sure exactly. Old movie scenes whirled through her head, an unending waltz of handsome heroes and beautiful heroines, pitched battles with terrifying monsters, cries of "My hero!" followed inevitably by passionate embraces –
"Lisa! Jack!"
- or almost-kisses rudely interrupted by the arrival of other characters, which was quite possibly the most annoying thing in the whole world, in real life as well as in the movies.
Hurrying towards them were Christina, Renée, and an anxious-looking Amber. Lisa sighed, and Jack tried to conceal his irritation. Of all the times those three had to reappear, they had to do it now. There really was no justice in the universe…
"Kids! Oh, thank goodness you're alive!" gasped Amber, throwing her arms around Lisa and Jack and squeezing them tightly. "I was so worried… are you two okay?"
Lisa didn't bother asking Amber what she was doing here, or how she'd found the mercenaries; she might wonder about it later, but right now she didn't really care. She was too pleased to see them all again.
"Jack's hurt," Lisa told them, when she and Jack had finally succeeded in disentangling themselves from Amber.
"Lise, I be okay," Jack argued. "Dunt fuss. It only be a little scratch."
Amber sucked in her breath sharply as she caught sight of the wound.
"Little scratch, my ass," she said, sounding even more alarmed than she looked. "You're practically bleeding dry. That needs looking at, Jack."
"Here, give me your arm," said Renée. "I just started training in field medicine, maybe I can help."
Reluctantly, Jack rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm for inspection. He tried not to yelp as Renée's cold hands gripped his arm, turning it slightly so that she could take a better look.
"This looks pretty deep," said Renée, concerned. "How did you get this, Jack?"
"See that big ugly dude over there?" said Jack, nodding towards the burning, motionless form of the monster.
"My God, what the hell is that?" exclaimed Amber.
Renée looked equally shaken by the sight of the fallen monster. Christina, however, didn't look surprised at all; instead she was frowning, as if she'd seen it before somewhere and was trying hard to recall where.
"Why you be askin' me what it be? I dunt know," said Jack, exasperated. "All I know is it be some giant super-zombie thing that shoot out tentacles, slap me 'cross the arm, then pick me up an' beat the livin' daylights outta me. What with all that, I dint really get chance to ask it to introduce itself."
"How did you kill it?" said Amber.
"I dint," said Jack. "Ask Lise, she kill it."
"I just saw a red barrel and I knew those things explode, so I waited till the monster got in front of it and shot it," said Lisa, with a shrug.
For once, Christina looked almost impressed.
"Not bad," she said, and there was the faintest hint of approval in her voice. "Quick thinking, good shot, good use of available resources. You could almost be a mercenary, girl. A pity you're so squeamish about dirt."
"I don't want to be a mercenary," said Lisa. "I just want to get out of here alive and in one piece."
"Don't we all," sighed Renée. "Well, Jack, we'll need to clean this up first. Do we still have that first aid kit, Christina?"
"No, I put it back into his backpack just before we left the car," said Christina.
"Okay. 'Scuse me, Jack…"
Renée turned Jack around, pulled the first aid kit out of his backpack, and started searching through it.
"Antibacterial wipes… First Aid spray… bandages. I can't sew it up for you, I'm afraid. I'm still learning how to do stitches," Renée apologised.
"Uh, okay," said Jack, trying not to look scared at the idea of being sewn up by an amateur doctor.
"Right," said Renée. "You might want to sit down, it'll be more comfortable for both of us."
Jack sat down obediently. Renée did the same, placing the first aid kit on the asphalt and the things she needed in her lap. She took one of the antibacterial wipes and began cleaning away the blood, as gently as possible.
Renée looked much calmer now that there was a task for her to concentrate on, thought Lisa. Having something to focus on seemed to have taken her mind away from the disquieting possibility of being killed and eaten.
Lisa wished she had something to do to distract her from all this. Almost any task would have done – she'd always whined when her parents asked her to wash the dishes or take out the trash, but at the moment she would gladly have done a whole mountain of dishes and taken out a hundred trashcans. Anything was better than being here in this necropolis, cold and frightened and forced to do battle with the stuff of nightmares, over and over again.
"Okay," said Renée, as she finished wiping the blood away. "That's done. Now I'm going to put some First Aid spray on this for you. This might sting a little, okay?"
She shook the can of First Aid spray, and sprayed the contents liberally over the cut. Jack stifled a yell – it stung, and rather more than "a little". It felt like she'd rubbed salt into the wound, and splashed it with acid for good measure.
"Sorry," said Renée quickly.
"'S okay," said Jack, gritting his teeth and trying to ignore the burning sensation as best he could.
He wished his aunt was here. She'd nursed him through countless injuries and illnesses, and he'd lost count of how many times she'd patched up all the cuts and bruises he'd acquired as a result of skateboarding accidents.
Watching Renée unroll some bandages reminded Jack of the time when he'd been beaten up after school by one of the older boys for the heinous crime of being a "pretty little white boy" in a school full of tough Hispanic kids. He'd stumbled through the front door, whimpering like a baby – even though he was nearly fifteen – and then he'd tripped over the edge of the carpet and caught his head on the coffee table. Blood everywhere, and he was sobbing by then, but Aunt Rosa hadn't even flinched. With patience and tenderness, she'd cleaned him up, tended to the wounds, and bandaged his head. Then she'd gone straight round to the bully's house and knocked on the door – when he answered, she punched him in the head so hard that he didn't regain consciousness until the next morning. Jack had been terrified that the boy would seize this as an excuse to torment him even more, but instead the boy went over to him just before the start of classes the next day and apologised profusely. After that, nobody had laid so much as a finger on Jack.
That had been a year ago, in Mexico. Now it seemed like a hundred years ago and half a world away.
As Renée started to wind a fresh bandage around his arm, Jack wondered what Aunt Rosa would have done if she'd seen what had just happened to him. She would probably have fixed him up first, and then given the monster hell: "You no touch my nephew again, pendejo, or I punch you inna head!"
He couldn't help smiling at the thought of his aunt berating the creature, then knocking it out with a vicious left hook. But of course that was never going to happen. Aunt Rosa wasn't here to take care of him any more. She was dead.
Or was she? She'd died from the virus, after all. Maybe she'd turned into a zombie too. Maybe she was walking around right now, lurching and groaning, feasting on human flesh. She wouldn't recognise him, wouldn't remember him. All her memories, all her knowledge, all her personality, all the things that made her her, would be gone forever.
In his mind's eye, Jack saw his aunt – pale and dead, her face and eyes blank, her mouth dripping with other people's blood. The vision was mercifully brief, but in those few seconds he'd realised that whatever she was now, she wasn't Aunt Rosa any more. The Aunt Rosa he knew and loved was gone. Her body might still be functioning on some basic level, but to all intents and purposes his aunt was dead. Worse than dead. She was undead.
"There," said Renée, tying the bandage and admiring her handiwork. "A pretty good job there, I think, even if I do say so myself. You – hey, Jack, are you okay?"
"Huh? What?"
"You're crying."
Jack raised his hand to his face. Renée was right. He hadn't even noticed the tears filling his eyes.
"Men. You're such babies," said Christina scornfully. "I'd hate to think how you'd react to real pain."
"Oh, leave him alone, will you?" snapped Amber. "He's only a kid. He's hurt and he's scared. Wouldn't you cry if you were in his place?"
"I have other ways of dealing with fear and pain."
"Like taking it out on other people?"
"Now listen, you - "
Jack had had enough.
"Shut up!" he yelled, so loudly that they all fell silent.
"Now this be how we get in trouble last time, 'cause we end up arguing!" Jack continued angrily, and stood up. "Christina, Amber, we all be in the same boat. You gotta stop rockin' it, or you gonna tip us all out."
"He's right," said Lisa. "Arguing was what split us up in the first place. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but Jack and I would actually like to leave the city alive and well. And much as I'd like to boast that we could easily manage on our own, we can't do it alone. We almost got killed because you three left us. We need your help."
"Well, at least somebody's prepared to admit it," said Christina, glaring at Amber, who scowled and turned away.
"No more arguing," said Lisa shortly. "That means everybody. We have to stick together. So, now that we're back together, what's the plan?"
"Stay out of the sewers," said Amber, without hesitating.
"I'm with Amber on this one," said Renée, as she repacked the first aid kit. "The sewers aren't looking like such a good idea any more. Too dark, too many monsters, too easy to get lost. And now that we've come out here, we're closer to Umbrella headquarters than we are to the sewage plant. No point heading there any more."
"Affirmative," said Christina. "I say we carry straight on from here, take a shortcut through the cemetery and the park to the old hospital, then go round to the front of the clock tower and take a right into Warren Street. Then we - "
"Wait a minute, did you say the cemetery?" said Amber, aghast.
"No way we be goin' through the cemetery! We seen enough dead people for one day," said Jack. "Right, Lise?"
Lisa didn't answer. She wasn't too worried about the cemetery – at least the people buried there really were dead. It was the idea of having to go through the park that bothered her. It reminded her of the terrible nightmare she'd had; she and Jack had been standing on the bridge in the park, at night, and the monster had come out of nowhere. What if that dream came true?
That's impossible. The creature's dead, Lisa told herself. Unless… no, there can't be more than one of those things, can there?
"Lise?" said Jack. "What be the matter?"
"I don't want to go through the park," Lisa said quietly.
"How come?" said Renée.
"I – I just don't, okay?" said Lisa.
"C'mon, Lise, what you be scared of?" said Jack. "Nobody gonna mug you or nothin'."
"It's not that," said Lisa. "It's just - oh, Jack, I really can't explain."
How can I explain to him that he might die if he goes into the park?
"Either give us a reason to avoid the park," said Christina frostily, "Or keep your irrational whims to yourself and stop interfering with the plan. Unless of course you can come up with a better plan?"
Defeated, Lisa shook her head.
"No," she said. "I can't."
"Well then," said Christina. "Let's get a move on. We don't have all night."
She turned on her heel and started walking briskly away, in the direction of the clock tower.
Renée scrambled to her feet, handed Jack the first aid kit with a rushed thank-you, and hurried after her fellow mercenary. Amber followed Renée and Christina at a sedate trot until she fell into step with the other two women.
Lisa waited as Jack put the first aid kit back into his backpack and retrieved his gun, and then they both started walking after the others. Unlike Renée and Amber, however, they didn't bother closing the gap.
Without a word, Lisa reached for Jack's hand. He took her hand in his and squeezed it tightly. They walked on in silence, hand in hand, sharing the same thought: Not alone. We're not alone any more.