29: Into The Fire
"What's wrong with him?" Lisa kept repeating, as Christina scooped up the unconscious Jack and flung him roughly over her shoulder.
"How on earth am I supposed to know?" said Christina irritably. "Here, take this. I can't carry it and him."
Lisa suddenly found herself holding the shotgun of disputed ownership; not wishing to become part of the argument, she handed it over to Amber.
"I think this is yours," she said hastily.
Amber nodded. "Thanks."
"We're getting out of here," announced Christina. "There are no other survivors, and there's nothing to suggest that the proposed escape plan will be enacted any time soon, so I see no real point in staying here."
She strode towards the door, Jack's limp arms swinging behind her like pendulums with every step. Renée followed dutifully behind her; Amber paused for a moment, then did the same.
Lisa remained behind. She stood in the centre of the room, a room filled with death and the lingering ambience of dread, and stared in silence at the floor beneath her.
Her eyes came to rest on Almond's diary, which had fallen from Jack's hands as he collapsed. She bent down to pick it up, and started flicking through the pages without really knowing why.
"Poor Almond," Lisa murmured. "This isn't fair. You shouldn't have died."
She sighed, and closed the book.
"Nobody should have died," she said to herself.
A scream from further down the corridor indicated that Amber had just entered the spider-infested library. Lisa's theory was confirmed when she heard Christina bellow:
"SHUT UP, YOU STUPID WOMAN! THEY'RE JUST SPIDERS, FOR GOD'S SAKE!"
Lisa decided that she had better rejoin the group before Amber lost her mind or Christina lost her temper. With one backwards glance at Almond and the mercenary, she hurried out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her.
xxxxxxxxxx
There was nobody in the library. Lisa ran through the room, following the sound of voices. Every now and then she dodged to avoid falling spiders.
She found the others in the foyer. Christina was watching Renée fiddle with the lock on the main doors. Amber was standing next to her, looking resentful and slightly traumatised, presumably because of the library incident.
Something clicked in the lock, and hinges creaked as Renée pulled open the massive doors. Cold night air rushed into the foyer, raising goosebumps on Lisa's bare arms. She shivered.
"Okay, let's blow this joint," said Renée, and she stepped out into the night.
Christina took a few steps towards the door, but then stopped in the doorway. When Amber and Lisa saw why Christina had stopped, they both stifled shrieks of panic. Renée was walking right out into the courtyard, completely oblivious to the huge flock of zombie crows circling overhead.
"Renée…" said Amber uneasily. "I think you should come back inside…"
"Why?" said Renée, turning around. "We're leaving, just like Christina said we should. Umbrella headquarters, here we come!"
"No, Renée, you don't understand - " said Lisa, eyes widening with fright. The crows had spotted Renée, and were already descending from the skies.
"I understand perfectly. We're leaving before anything bad happens to us," said Renée. "Now come on, let's get out of here!"
"Renée, no, you have to get back inside!" Amber urged her. "Quickly!"
"Why? What's the matter?" said Renée, frowning.
"Just get inside!"
"But I don't understand," said Renée. She looked puzzled. "Why - ?"
There was a squawk overhead, and a black feather wafted slowly down from the sky. Renée stared at it. Realisation dawned, and her puzzlement gave way to alarm.
Very slowly, she looked up and saw the flock of crows swooping down towards her en masse - shrieking like the damned, the bloodlust glinting in sixty crimson eyes, beaks and talons already preparing to tear at human flesh.
Renée screamed, already fumbling for her handgun as she started to run. She spun round and started shooting, trying to kill the closest crows and keep back the others. One or two birds fell dead from the sky, spiralling lifelessly to the ground in a flurry of black feathers, but the others just kept coming faster, far faster than Renée could shoot.
"Renée, no! Just run!" yelled Lisa. "They fly too fast, you can't take them all!"
Renée clearly agreed. Abandoning the fight, she ran, ducking and dodging as crows swooped and lunged at her - but it was too late to run now, and the crows engulfed her.
The scene was turmoil - Renée screaming, half-concealed in clouds of dark feathers, surrounded by a whirling, deadly mass of vicious birds. The air rang with squawks and gunshots and Renée's desperate cries for help.
"Renée!" screamed Lisa.
Christina threw Jack to the ground and took up her handgun.
"Get him inside," she ordered. "Now. I'll take care of this."
"But Renée - " protested Lisa.
"Now!"
"I'll get him inside," said Amber. "I can carry him alone. Lisa, help Renée."
"Okay," said Lisa, trying to conceal her rising panic. She didn't know how she could save Renée - her shooting skills, while adequate for killing zombies, were nowhere near as good as Amber or Christina's, and she had no idea how she'd manage to pick off so many small, fast-moving targets without hurting Renée in the process.
On the other hand, she had no other option. She got out her handgun, her hands shaking, and looked back helplessly at Amber, who picked up Jack and rushed him inside to safety.
Christina had already started to pick off the crows, one by one. Calm despite the crisis, her hand was steady, her aim careful and her timing precise.
The counterattack only seemed to stir the crows up even more. Screeching with outrage, they redoubled their efforts.
Renée, panicking, started shooting at the crows again. A few more burst out of the screeching flock and tumbled to the ground, blood spattering the flagstones.
Then came the dreaded click of an empty handgun.
"No!" yelled Renée. "No, no - no!"
This last word ended in a scream as a crow slashed at her face with its talons. She howled, and raised her hands to her face - they came away a second later, covered in blood - then she dropped to her knees and raised her arms above her head, trying to shield herself from the onslaught.
"Help me!"
"This isn't working," said Christina, through gritted teeth. "There's too many of them. We have to work out another way to - "
She gave a start as she noticed Lisa running over to the mêlée, with Amber's discarded shotgun raised above her head like a club.
"What are you doing? Get back here!" Christina yelled. "You'll get killed!"
Lisa ignored her, and beat her way through the birds, swatting them away with the shotgun as if they were particularly troublesome flies.
A screaming crow flew right into her face. Lisa screamed back at it, and sent it tumbling into oblivion with one swipe of the shotgun.
Renée was crouched amid the chaos, trying to fend off the birds as best she could with her fists and an empty handgun - the crows weren't even giving her chance to reach for her rifle. Blood was trickling down her face.
"Renée, quick," said Lisa, holding out her hand. Renée took it gratefully, and Lisa helped her to her feet.
"Now run!" said Lisa.
Renée didn't need to be told twice. She and Lisa broke into a run.
Behind them, the crows had just realised that their prey had gone missing - with indignant screeches, they swiftly broke formation and regrouped, chasing after Lisa and the hapless Renée.
They could hear the birds' awful cries; the sounds of flapping wings; an occasional gunshot from Christina's direction. The birds were close behind them, and drawing closer, they knew that; they could almost feel the rush of air and the touch of feathers. Terrified, too scared to scream, they tried to ignore the pain of aching muscles, the dryness in their throats and the unbearable pounding of their hearts, and concentrated all their efforts on reaching the doors of the clock tower - it was just a few feet away, but fear seemed to lend extra distance to the journey.
"Ahhh!"
Renée stumbled over the edge of a flagstone, and fell flat on her face. Lisa, almost out of her mind with panic, grabbed Renée and hauled her back up, dragging her by the hand towards the doors.
Nearly there… nearly there…
The crows were almost on top of them now, and Christina was going back inside. For one terrible moment, Lisa thought she was going to close the doors on them and leave them out here to die.
She was therefore surprised when the woman did no such thing; instead she held the doors open and called out:
"Come on! Quickly!"
With one final burst of speed, Lisa hurled herself in through the doors, dragging Renée with her. They landed in the foyer, flat on their faces; they both looked up just in time to see Christina slam the doors shut.
There was a series of rapid thuds, like small bodies hitting the doors, then all was quiet.
Renée took a deep breath.
"Goddamn it!" she yelled, scrambling to her feet and pounding on the doors. "Why are you doing this to us? Why? What did we do to deserve this?"
She sank to the floor.
"There's no way out… we're stuck here," she said hopelessly. "We're going to die."
"No, we're not," said Lisa, although secretly she thought Renée was right. The outlook was not good; there was no way they could escape, little or no possibility of rescue, and no chance whatsoever that the crows would just fly away. No, they'd wait outside until she and the others finally emerged, and then they'd strike… and it would be game over for the weary group of survivors.
"Yes, we are," said Renée gloomily. "Face it, Lisa. We're doomed."
Christina scowled. "We're not doomed until I say so, Private Lavelle. Now get up this instant!"
A morose Renée got to her feet.
"All right," she said. "What do you propose we do?"
"We find a safe location within the building and work out an escape plan," said Christina. "We're going to have to get out of this place at some point, crows or no crows."
They all jumped at the sound of screams and gunfire.
"Amber!" they cried in unison, and rushed towards the door leading to the library. At the same time, a dishevelled, flushed-looking Amber rushed out of the library and almost collided with them.
"GOD, I HATE SPIDERS!" she shrieked.
"Somebody needs some Prozac," muttered Renée.
Lisa had once seen the psychiatric ward of the hospital her parents had worked at; none of the people there had looked half as deranged as Amber did right now. She waited until Amber looked marginally less psychotic before addressing her.
"Amber… are you okay?"
"What?" Amber shook her head, and suddenly she looked her old self again, although she was still breathing harder than she normally did. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just kind of took everything out on a bunch of spiders back there."
"Feel better?"
"Much. What's the plan now?"
"Find someplace safe to sit, and work out our next move," said Renée. "As far as any place in this tower is safe, anyway."
"Where's Jack?" said Lisa, suddenly remembering him.
"I put him in the bedroom. I'll take you to him now," said Amber. To the others, she said:
"I suggest we hole up in the living room. We should be safe in there."
Lisa stared miserably at the figure lying outstretched in the centre of the bed. Pale, still and silent, Jack barely looked alive.
She could hear muffled voices from the next room. Amber and the mercenaries were in there, discussing how they were going to escape from the clock tower. This was punctuated with an occasional whimper as Renée tried to clean up her facial wounds with some First Aid spray.
Christina had made it quite plain to Lisa that she was not welcome at the meeting - she'd been told to "look after Jack", which Lisa had accurately translated to mean "We don't want you here asking stupid questions and generally getting in the way. Go and sit quietly with your unconscious friend in the next room and don't bother us."
Lisa hadn't really minded. She'd never been much good at strategising and wasn't sure how much use she would have been. Besides, she told herself, someone had to keep an eye on Jack.
Jack…
She returned her attention to her friend. Jack hadn't stirred or moved a muscle since they'd brought him here. She wished he would wake up, or make some kind of movement, just so that she knew he was okay. She was starting to worry that he wasn't going to wake up at all.
He was her best friend - her only friend, in fact. Possibly the only person she had left in the whole world. If anything happened to him, and her parents were dead too, what would she do?
Die. Lisa suddenly remembered her agreement with Jack. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea; though she'd been afraid, she'd naively, stupidly assumed that they'd be able to find her parents, and that nothing bad would happen to them. Now, though, there was a very real possibility that she'd be obliged to keep her end of the promise.
She wanted to cry. They'd been so close to their destination, and now here they were, trapped in this clock tower by birds - birds, for God's sake - with Jack unconscious, sick, maybe even dying. And now that they'd taken so long to get even this far, she wondered if there was any point in carrying on.
Lisa didn't want to believe that her parents were dead, but she'd seen the kind of creatures that were roaming the city; if Amber was right, and Umbrella was responsible for the virus which turned living things into undead monsters, then surely Umbrella's headquarters would be teeming with zombies of every description. If that was the case, then her parents were almost certainly dead. Unarmed and unskilled in any form of self-defence, her mother and father wouldn't have stood a chance against the undead. They might even have joined them by now.
And what about Jack? What was wrong with him? Had that creature done something to him when it shot out that tentacle and cut open his arm? If so, then what?
She didn't know. And that scared her.
What's wrong with you, Jack? Why did you pass out? And why won't you wake up?
Lisa sat down on the bed beside Jack, and watched him closely. Once or twice she checked to make sure that he was still breathing.
"Jack," she said after a while, "Come on, Jack… wake up."
She moved his fringe out of his eyes, and laid a hand against his cheek, stroking it gently.
"Please wake up," she whispered. "Don't leave me…"
Jack was dimly aware of being unconscious when he heard the voice in the darkness.
"… don't leave me…"
The pressure and blackness around him lessened gradually, and bit by bit, sleep relinquished its hold on him. No longer did he feel like a disembodied mind floating in the dark. Arms, legs, hands, feet - they were all there, and back under his control. He could feel the curtain of sleep lifting…
With an immense effort, Jack opened his eyes. He was rewarded with a dim blur of colour and some indistinct shapes. A few panic-filled seconds later, everything swam back into focus, and he could see where he was.
To his bewilderment, he hadn't come round in the same room that he'd passed out in - this was a bedroom, and an expensive-looking one at that, with wooden panelling and antique furniture and oil paintings hanging on the walls. The light was dim and the air smelled stale, as if the room hadn't been used in years.
He looked around quickly, searching for Lisa, then relaxed as he saw her sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Hey," she said, and her pretty face broke into a smile. "How are you feeling?"
"Lousy," said Jack, grimacing. He sat up slowly. "Where - ?"
"The clock tower bedroom," said Lisa instantly. She'd anticipated the question. "Amber and the others are next door," she added, as Jack opened his mouth. She'd guessed, correctly, that it would be Jack's next question.
"We still here?" said Jack, frowning. "Thought we woulda left by now."
"Unfortunately, no," said Lisa, with a sigh. "There's a big flock of zombie crows outside, and they almost tore us to pieces when we tried to leave. Christina and Amber and Renée are trying to work out an escape plan right now."
"Oh," said Jack. "Guess we ain't leavin' any time soon, huh."
Lisa shook her head.
"So now what?" said Jack.
"I don't know. We're stuck here. Nothing to do except wait for the others to come up with a plan, or for the crows to fly away."
"You think they will?"
"We should be so lucky," said Lisa. She sighed. "We're so close to Umbrella now, and we're stuck here. Nothing we can do to get out. God, I feel so helpless."
"Hey," said Jack, laying a hand on her shoulder. "It gonna be okay, Lise. You wait an' see. We gonna get rid of the crows, an' then we gonna get outta here. We find you parents an' escape from the city."
"But how?" said Lisa, burying her head in her hands. "Oh, Jack, it's hopeless. I don't think we're going to make it out of here alive. This was stupid. We should have just left as soon as we could. My parents are probably dead anyway."
"Lise - "
"Oh, come on. Look at the stuff that's out there. Zombies, crows, dogs, giant frogs, and those weird monsters with long tongues. Not to mention that thing we saw earlier that nearly killed us both. How could anybody survive all those?"
"We did," said Jack. "An' if a couple of kids like us can get past 'em, I bet you smart scientist parents survive 'em all too, no problem."
"Really?" said Lisa, looking up. "You think so?"
"Sure I do," said Jack. "I bet they be just fine, waitin' for you to come an' find 'em, an' then we all get outta town an' we can be happy. Hey, maybe if I tell 'em that I save you life, maybe they like me better after that, huh?"
Lisa smiled slightly.
"Maybe. Thanks, Jack."
"You welcome. But dunt worry 'bout anythin' right now. Get some rest. You look like you need it."
"No. No, I can't sleep. Not now," insisted Lisa. "I'm not sleepy anyway."
It was a lie, and Jack knew it. The dark circles under Lisa's eyes betrayed her need for rest.
"Lise, just sleep," he told her. "You look beat. An' dunt argue. I be tired, so I know you be tired too. Dunt bother tryin' to say you ain't, 'cause I know it ain't the truth."
Lisa opened her mouth to reply, but then closed it again. Jack was right; she was tired. The events of the day had taken their toll on her body, and she'd ignored it at first, but now the fatigue was starting to catch up with her.
She yawned. The warm, musty-smelling air in the room was starting to make her drowsy, and the bed looked comfortable. Sleep was starting to look more and more attractive by the second.
"See?" said Jack. "I tell you, you be tired. You need sleep."
Lisa gave in.
"Oh, all right," she said, swinging her legs onto the bed and lying down beside Jack. "But only five minutes," she added.
"Okay," said Jack.
"You'll wake me up, won't you?" Lisa asked him.
"Well, I dunt know," said Jack. "Sure I try, if I still be awake. Trouble is, I be tired too, an' I dunt care what anybody say, bein' unconscious ain't the same as sleepin'."
"That's all right. I'm sure they'll come and get us when they've thought of a plan," said Lisa, then stopped. "They will come and get us, won't they, Jack? I mean, they wouldn't just go off and leave us here, right?"
"Christina prob'ly would," said Jack. "Dunt know 'bout Renée."
"Amber wouldn't, though," said Lisa.
"Nah, she no would leave us," agreed Jack. "She be a real nice lady, for a cop."
Lisa was about to say that all cops were nice, before remembering what Amber had told them about the creepy Chief of Police, who took bribes, leered at policewomen, stuffed animals for a hobby and bought tasteless works of art. Perhaps they weren't all nice after all.
Lisa saw Jack yawn, and close his eyes. At least I know he's going to wake up again, she thought. He'll be okay.
Her eyelids were getting heavy - it was a relief to be able to close them, and allow herself to relax. Just for a few minutes, she told herself. No longer than that.
With that thought, she drifted off to sleep.
Lisa woke up suddenly. At first, she didn't understand why she'd woken up, when she still felt so tired. But as she lay there on the bed, trying to make sense of things, she gradually became aware of a rumbling noise in the distance.
"Jack?" she said, prodding her companion until he stirred. "What's that noise?"
Jack yawned, and opened his eyes. He listened for a moment, then mumbled, "Trolley goin' past," and turned over so that he could go back to sleep.
Lisa nodded, and was about to do the same when a thought struck her.
"Jack?"
"Mmm?" said Jack, half-asleep.
"Didn't they shut down the trolley system when they declared martial law?"
"Yeah…"
Jack abruptly raised his head from the pillow, and opened his eyes. He looked startled.
"Yeah," he repeated, but this time the information seemed to have sunk in. "Yeah, they shut it down. So how come it be runnin' again? Who be drivin' it?"
The sound was getting closer and louder; they could hear the rush and rumble of the trolley cars and the metallic screech of brakes. The latter was a long, drawn-out sound which lasted much longer than it should have done.
They exchanged a look.
"That dint sound good," said Jack.
As the roar of the approaching trolley cars grew still louder, it dawned on them that the trolley wasn't going to stop…
"Run!" they both yelled, launching themselves off the bed and towards the bedroom door, just as the trolley exploded through the wall in a shower of burning debris.
"Look out!" yelled Lisa.
Jack reacted instantly, ducking as a piece of flaming wreckage sailed over his head. However, he wasn't prepared for the body that flew out of the twisted, mangled heap of the front trolley car and landed face-down at his feet. He screamed in a pitch that quite surprised Lisa, and promptly fainted with shock.
"Men," said Lisa, rolling her eyes, and went to examine the body.
It was a young woman with short light-brown hair; she was dressed in a black leather miniskirt, brown boots and an iridescent blue tube-top, which vaguely reminded Lisa of some of the women she'd seen in downtown after it started to get dark. However, a grenade launcher lying by the woman's side indicated that there was more to this woman than a sexy outfit.
Lisa noticed something shining near her, and bent to pick it up. It was an identity card marked with the RPD's STARS unit emblem; on it was a picture of the woman, who was quite pretty, and her name.
"Jill Valentine," Lisa read aloud. She wondered if this was the woman that Amber had been talking about.
Beside her, Jack blinked a few times and then sat up.
"Hey, Lise, we oughta get outta here," he said. "Case the fire make that trolley blow up or somethin'."
"You're right," said Lisa, pocketing the card. "Come on, she's not moving. Probably dead. Let's go before she turns into a zombie - "
They both froze as they heard the woman groan. She started to stir. At once, Jack and Lisa leapt back, and scrambled towards the door, fighting to open it.
"Quick, open it, open it!"
"I'm trying!"
The door opened suddenly, and they both fell through into the living room. They looked back and saw the woman getting up, swaying a little. Panicking, they slammed the door shut.
Renée and Christina stared. Amber, however, got up from the armchair she'd been sitting in and rushed over to help, bumping into a coffee table on her way. Oblivious to the chessboard she'd knocked askew and the chess pieces scattered all over the floor, she bent down and helped Jack and Lisa up.
"Are you two all right?" she asked.
Lisa and Jack both nodded, too shocked to speak.
"What the hell just happened in there?" said Renée. "It sounded like the world was ending!"
"We thought it was," said Lisa. "A trolley car crashed right through the wall! If we hadn't got out of the way in time, we would have been crushed…"
"You weren't, though, so get over it," said Christina.
Amber stood up. "Come on, then. If we're all here and upright and armed, then I think we can take on those crows without too much difficulty."
"Are you crazy?" said Renée incredulously. "They'll kill us as soon as we step out of the door!"
"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not staying here to get squashed by wayward bits of public transport," said Lisa, wiping dust and flakes of plaster from her jeans. "I'm getting out of here, crows or no crows."
"Yeah," said Jack loyally.
"Uh, we're going to die," said Renée. "You know that, don't you?"
"Better than being besieged in here," said Amber. "There's five of us now, we can pick them off. If we're careful, I'm sure we can do this without too much trouble."
"Hmm," said Christina, who'd been present the whole time and didn't share Amber's confidence.
"We're agreed, then?" said Amber. "Okay."
She set off towards the door. Lisa was the first to join her - and wherever Lisa went, Jack was sure to follow. Christina shrugged, and made her way out of the room too, leaving Renée standing open-mouthed in the middle of the living room carpet.
"You're all mad!" she yelled after them.
However, Renée didn't particularly want to stay on her own either. When she realised that they were going to leave her behind, she called "Wait for me!" and hurried after them.
To their surprise, the crows were nowhere to be seen. They listened carefully, but there was no distant cawing, and not even the faintest sound of flapping wings - just roars and crackles as flames licked at the wreckage of the trolley.
"Guess the crash must've scared them off," said Amber.
They trod cautiously across the courtyard, looking for a way out of the clock tower. Infuriatingly, the burning ruins of the trolley were wedged tightly in between the clock tower and a courtyard wall, leaving them trapped.
"Great," said Jack, disgusted. "Just great. Now what?"
Christina was already deep in thought.
"I bet Corporal Clever-Clogs here is going to suggest tunnelling underneath it or something," said Renée, rolling her eyes.
"No, that would take too long," said Christina absent-mindedly. "But you're onto something, Lavelle."
Renée was taken aback.
"I am?"
"Clearly we can't go around it," continued her superior. "However, it might be possible to climb over it."
"Oh, great idea," said Amber, with mock enthusiasm. "Never mind that it's made of red-hot metal and it's structurally unsound, and quite frankly dangerous… that's only a very minor setback. Why, ignore the third-degree burns and it could be quite an adventure!"
Christina glared at her. She certainly didn't appreciate sarcasm from underlings; Lisa had found that out the hard way.
"Since you're so full of enthusiasm, Officer Bernstein, you can set us a good example by going first," she said tartly.
Amber narrowed her eyes.
"All right then," she said, pulling her shirt-sleeves down over her hands and reached up towards the top of a trolley car. Holding onto the edge of the roof, she hauled herself up, using an open window as a foothold. Even through the material of her shirt, the heat of the metal was intense - like touching a car that had been left in full sunshine on a hot day - and it was with relief that she succeeded in clambering onto the roof.
"There," she said triumphantly, standing up. "I did it, even though my hands are probably horribly burned and scarred for life."
"And your hair's on fire," Renée pointed out.
"What?"
Amber's hands flew to her head. Sure enough, a couple of curls had started to smoulder, and faint wisps of smoke were starting to curl upwards.
"Eeek!"
She frantically patted them out, and glared down at Christina, who was clearly amused by the mishap.
"Not funny," she snapped. "Now shut up before I arrest you."
"On what grounds?" said Christina, still smirking.
"Oh, I'll think of something," snarled Amber.
"Can she do that?" whispered Lisa to Jack.
"You'd be amazed," muttered Jack.
"Come on, come on, we haven't got all day," said Renée impatiently. "Quit bickering and get a move on. Lisa, you next. You want a boost?"
Lisa nodded. Renée knelt on the ground, and gestured for Lisa to stand on her back.
"Watch your hands, it's hot," warned Amber, as Lisa climbed onto the roof.
"Ow!" yelped Lisa, wincing as her bare hands touched red-hot metal. It was her only word of complaint, though; she joined Amber on the roof. Jack came after her, shuffling to one side to make room for Renée and Christina.
"Here goes," said Amber, pointing forwards, and the party moved off again.
It wasn't long before they reached the trolley's end. One by one, they jumped down from the roof of the trolley car and onto solid ground again. Now safely on the other side of the wall, with no creatures in sight and just two blocks away from Umbrella HQ, things were starting to look up again.
The mercenaries were on reconnaissance, further down the street; Amber, Lisa and Jack followed behind at a more sedate pace, though they were no less alert than the two soldiers, whisking round with guns at the ready every time they heard anything.
Despite the unrelenting tension, Lisa felt happy, for the first time since she and Jack first began their quest. Finally, the end was in sight - she could already see the top of the Umbrella building from here.
Almost there… just a few streets, Lisa thought, hardly daring to believe it. They'd been set back so many times, and she'd started thinking that they would never make it here alive. Yet here they were, walking down Warren Street, tantalisingly close to their destination.
"Second street on the left," said Amber.
"I know," said Lisa. "I've been here before."
First left. Then second.
And there it was, occupying an entire city block; a vast office block in chrome and glass and steel, dark and silent, towering far above the neighbouring buildings. The familiar red-and-white umbrella logo was displayed above the main doors, and below it were the letters:
UMBRELLA PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.
"This is it," breathed Lisa. "Umbrella headquarters… we made it! We finally made it!"
Jack looked round. In between here and announcing that they were going to check out the area, Christina and Renée had disappeared.
"Hey, where the mercs go?" he said, bewildered.
"Who cares?" said Lisa. "We're here! I'm going to find my parents! Come on!"
Without a backwards glance, she raced up the steps, her heart filled with joy.