39: Cure For The Itch

Lisa put down the hamster cage, very slowly, then flung herself under the desk, curling up into a ball and stuffing her fist in her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

It was right outside. That thing they called Lucifer, the thing that just wouldn't die, was right outside the room - and if it walked in, then she wouldn't walk out of here alive. What the hell was she going to do?

Keep walking, she silently implored. Just keep walking past. Keep walking past, and go away…

But the footsteps had stopped, a few feet from the door. It had paused outside, apparently to sniff the air.

Oh God. Could it smell her from in here? Was that how it had tracked her down?

"No, no, no," she mouthed, too terrified to make a sound. "Oh, no, please, not now! Not when I'm so close to saving Jack!"

Even the hamsters had stopped moving now. They were peering silently through the bars of the cage, looking every bit as fearful as Lisa felt. It was as if they somehow knew exactly what was beyond that door, and what the creature would do if it found them. They were trembling almost as much as she was.

"Kill…"

The hairs on the back of Lisa's neck stood on end as she heard Lucifer speak again. Her muscles were tense, and her breath was cold and sharp in her chest. Biting down on her knuckles, she stayed stock-still and waited, trying to keep her breathing as quiet and slow as she could. She felt certain that the creature could hear the pounding of her heart, even from outside the room.

She almost wished that the thing called Lucifer would smash its way into the room, if only to break the tension. It was taking every ounce of her self-control just to suppress the urge to whimper quietly. So much for survival instincts. Her body seemed hell-bent on its own destruction; only her higher brain functions were keeping her alive right now.

Lisa looked down at the weapons she was carrying. The handgun was no good. She doubted if the assault rifle would do much good either. The monster seemed impervious to bullets, not to mention fiery explosions and falls from great heights. There was nothing she could do to destroy it, and so many things it could do to destroy her; it could probably snap her like a twig if it wanted to.

No, there was no defeating the thing. She had to get out of here, or she'd die. But how? Her only possible escape routes were the door - no, scratch that, the door was an impossible escape route when there was a ten-foot monster standing right behind it. The only way out was through the air ducts.

The ventilation shaft looked big enough to fit through. However, it was on the other side of the room. She'd have to get out from under the desk, pick up the hamster cage, climb up onto the other desk, take the grille off, get the hamster cage in, push it along the inside of the air duct and then climb in herself - all without making a sound.

She couldn't do it. There was no way she'd be able to do all that quickly, and without making any noise at all. Then again, her only other option was running out of the door screaming blue murder and then being killed thirty seconds later by Lucifer. Thirty seconds was probably erring on the generous side, too. Compared to that, attempting to escape noiselessly into the ventilation system was a picnic.

What baffled her was why the creature was chasing her in the first place. Why her? What had she done to deserve being hounded to her death by this thing?

Well, her parents had created it, so maybe there was sort of a Frankenstein's monster motive there, with the creation returning to wreak revenge on its creators. Some mysterious animal instinct must be telling it that she shared the same DNA as the two people who had given it life, or what might just pass for life in a poor light.

Or maybe it had simply seen her somewhere and decided that she was its new prey? No, that wouldn't make sense. It was created to be a bioweapon, not an animal, so it wasn't designed to attack things at random. And of course, Dr Harlech had told them that it was after her too, hadn't she?

It must be hunting down anyone who had anything to do with the L-Project…

Sudden movement from outside the door told Lisa that Lucifer was on the move again. It was getting closer… closer still…

Lisa steeled herself to begin her frenzied last-ditch escape plan, but just as she crept out from under the desk, she heard the footsteps pass by the door. Freezing mid-movement, not daring to alter her position, she waited and hoped that - yes! It was actually going away. The footsteps were fading into the distance. Soon they were barely audible, and then they had gone completely.

Lisa waited until she was certain that the creature had gone, then she got up, picked up the hamster cage, and carried out her original escape plan. Out of earshot was not out of mind, and she wasn't sure if Lucifer really had gone, or whether it was simply standing further down the corridor, waiting patiently for her to leave the room and walk right into its clutches. At least if she escaped through the air ducts, it couldn't follow her inside even if it tried.

The screws on the grille covering the air duct stumped her at first. Her parents didn't keep screwdrivers in their desk drawers - she'd checked - but her father had been thoughtful enough to leave a letter-opener in the second drawer of his desk. It was sword-shaped; a souvenir from a long-ago family visit to a museum, where she dimly recalled some suits of armour and a vaguely medieval theme.

The letter-opener turned out to be just what she needed. She unscrewed each of the four screws, observing with quiet satisfaction that Christina had taken a lot longer to do the same thing, then she tucked the letter-opener into a spare pocket and lifted up the hamster cage.

"In you go, little ones," she said, pushing the cage into the air duct, then giving it a good shove so that there would be room for her to climb in.

For the second time in only a few hours, Lisa climbed up and into the ventilation shafts of the L-Project lab complex, and started to crawl through the dark ducts, her exact destination unknown.

It was a slow and painful process. Her back and shoulders were aching from the posture that she was being forced to adapt as she worked her way through the ventilation shaft, and every few feet, she had to stop crawling and push the hamster cage further ahead of her before she could move on.

She was on the right track, though - she was sure of it. Coming up on her right was a turning, and unless she was mistaken, that turning would lead back into the corridor, a few yards away from the entrance to the shelter.

Pushing the hamster cage further up the duct leading onwards gave her just enough room to manoeuvre herself round the corner. She was now facing the grille which, as she'd expected, overlooked the exact place that she'd been expecting to stop at. Further down the hall, though you couldn't really see it from this distance, was the entrance to the shelter - just as she remembered. Now, to unscrew the grille…

The screws were on the outside. Lisa groaned. She wasn't sure what she was going to do now. Still, she had to get out of here somehow.

She reached for the letter-opener and inserted the blade into the thin gap between the wall and the grille, hoping to separate the two. Metal creaked as she worked the letter-opener back and forth, using it to try and lever the grille out of the wall. The blade of the letter-opener was bending, but so was the metal of the grille; it was difficult to tell which was going to give way first.

In the end, it was the grille that gave way. The two screws attaching the top two corners to the wall popped out and flew across the corridor, landing on the floor with a ping, and then the grille simply dropped open.

Lisa tucked the letter-opener into the waistband of her jeans, then she crept backwards, turned herself right around and grabbed the hamster cage. Slowly and cautiously, she worked her way backwards towards the opening, dragging the hamster cage after her. It wasn't going to be the easiest of exits, and she hadn't given much thought to the drop down to the floor, but at least she'd make it back in one piece, even if that piece was going to end up rather bruised.

Her legs dangling from the opening, Lisa wriggled backwards until she was almost out, then she let herself drop out of the air duct, pulling the hamster cage with her as she fell.

She thought she'd been prepared for it, but the sudden drop still took her by surprise. With a little shriek, Lisa fell backwards, landing heavily on her rear end. The weight of the hamster cage landing straight in her arms forced her onto her back, and she hit the back of her head on the floor.

"Ugh… that's going to hurt in the morning," said Lisa to herself, rubbing the back of her head as she got to her feet. She picked up the hamster cage - the hamsters seemed a little shaken by their experience, but were otherwise fine - and walked straight into something solid and unyielding.

She looked up, and her eyes widened in horror as she saw what she'd walked into. It really was very clever…

"KILL!"

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Shuddering with disgust as cobwebs brushed her face, Amber made her way through the musty darkness. She'd wrongly thought that the shelter must have been the lowest level of the Umbrella building; in fact, there was a vast honeycomb of old forgotten rooms and passages beneath it, the very air inside them thick with the dust of decades.

The torch beam was getting fainter, she was sure of it. The strong beam of white light was now yellow and wavering, and it was growing progressively dimmer the further she walked. She wasn't sure what she would do if the battery suddenly ran out, leaving her in complete darkness, but she didn't want to find out. She started to walk a little faster.

In the deepening shadows she could see crates of wood and metal, some stamped with what appeared to be an early version of the Umbrella logo, but most of them left unmarked, their contents a mystery. She wondered what they contained, but wasn't particularly anxious to investigate. If they were Umbrella's property, they could contain absolutely anything.

The rooms she'd seen on her way through the main passage were huge, like darkened cathedrals stacked full of crates and old, rusting equipment. Nobody had been here for a long time, that was for certain. Amber guessed that these must have been storerooms for emergency supplies and equipment, built as part of long-ago contingency plans and later forgotten about.

But somebody hadn't forgotten about them…

Amber squinted down at the floor, turning the torch beam down towards her feet. She'd thought she was imagining things, but no, there were scuffed footprints in the thick dust, heading in the opposite direction. They were slightly fuzzy around the edges where the dust had begun to settle again, but they were still distinct enough to be fairly recent.

Now that she looked closer, she could see several sets of footprints, all leading in different directions. Some were from sneakers, some from boots, and there were even one or two sets of bare footprints. They were widely spaced, as if their owners had been running, and they led to the various rooms behind her.

And then there was the enormous set of footprints, so big that she thought they couldn't possibly be real. They reminded her of the time many years ago when she and her little brother Jason had bought a set of giant feet from the joke shop, just before Christmas, and used them to make prints in the snow. They'd claimed they were yeti tracks, and half the neighbourhood had come outside to look.

That had been funny, especially when old Mrs Buford had run back inside her house screaming that Bigfoot was coming to get them all. But the sight of these footprints wasn't funny at all. It terrified Amber, because she knew that whatever had made these footprints was no joke.

The big footprints had been following the other, smaller sets of footprints, as if the thing that had made them had been chasing their owners. Whatever the thing was, it had obviously caught up with the others; there were dark reddish-brown spots in the dust. Further down the corridor was a solitary brown shoe, lying forlornly in the dust. She could only guess what had happened to its original owner.

The weakening torch beam began to flicker. Amber panicked and started to shake it, in the vain hope that this would keep the battery alive for a little longer. The flickering stopped for a moment, then the dim light waned suddenly and faded to a pinprick and an afterglow. Seconds later, this vanished too, and Amber found herself standing in total darkness.

Panic surfaced, but Amber firmly pushed it back down into her mind and kept it there. This was probably an ideal opportunity to panic, but she wasn't going to do so. She needed to keep a clear head and decide what to do next. People who panicked made stupid mistakes.

Amber shook the torch one more time, but the battery had completely died. Sighing, she tucked it into her belt and reached for the lighter in her shirt pocket. After two attempts and some sparks, a flame rose up and brought light into Amber's life again. It was small, but it gave enough light for her to see by, and that was good enough for her.

Now… which way? She could go backwards, back up the stairs and into the safety of the underground shelter. They could fight their way out through the zombies, leave the lab and go back up to the lobby so they could leave the same way they came in. Or she could carry on through these dark catacombs, going wherever they led her. She might find freedom, or get eaten by something hiding down here, or discover that she'd come to a dead end and that there was no way out.

She knew which one she would end up doing, of course. This was one of those situations where you were seemingly given a choice, but the vote was rigged and you'd end up with the undesirable option regardless of which one you'd actually chosen. She just knew she'd end up carrying on, it being her unpleasant duty to investigate possible escape routes and make sure the way was clear for the others.

She was really wishing that she'd become an orthodontist now. Then again, if she'd trained as an orthodontist and not a police officer, she would be dead by now, having no survival skills, no weapons experience, no knowledge of Umbrella and the T-virus, and worst of all, no idea how to deal with the undead.

All right then, she thought, I wish I'd become an orthodontist who'd set up her orthodontic surgery a long, long way from Raccoon City. Like New York. Or Los Angeles. Or… or Siberia. Yeah, I wish I was a Siberian orthodontist who, if asked where Raccoon City was, would say "Raccoon where?" in Russian, then carry on fixing up Mr Njinsky's retainer and have no problems at all, except maybe frostbite.

But wishing wouldn't change the world. She wasn't a Siberian orthodontist, and never would be. Resigned to her fate, Amber walked on, holding the lighter aloft and letting the wavering flame light her way forward.

Some time later, her footsteps led her to a pair of large wooden doors at the end of the passage. From what she could see in the gloom, the double doors were old, dusty and covered in odd stains, and there were cracks where the wood had started to split. Anticipating that age and poor maintenance had made the doors fragile, Amber pushed down on one of the door handles very gently, then gave the door a gentle nudge.

It opened onto something that Amber hadn't been expecting at all. She'd expected another old and musty storeroom full of stacked crates and forgotten items. Instead she found herself looking at a spotlessly clean room the size of a basketball court. It had been divided into two equal sections by a vast floor-to-ceiling glass partition. One half was a laboratory/medical centre with an operating table and various pieces of medical equipment in the middle of the floor, and the other half…

The other half was a maze. This was no metaphor; it was a labyrinth with concrete walls, rather like the ones that scientists made laboratory rats navigate for the purposes of research, but built on a massive scale. When Amber approached it, she realised that the glass wasn't glass at all, but a two-way mirror rather like the one they'd had in the interrogation room back at the police station. The people in the laboratory half had been observing something - but what?

From the dim light given off by her meagre light-source, Amber couldn't really tell, but she could just make out some dark stains on the floor and walls. She suddenly decided that she didn't want to know what had been going on in there.

"What is this place?" she said aloud.

Whatever it was, she didn't like it. It made her uneasy. It was too big and too dark, and even though the air in the room was cold, the atmosphere was strangely oppressive. She felt as though she was being crushed by the sheer amount of menace in the room.

Suspecting the worst, she took a look around. Up in the rafters, down at her feet, all around her - especially behind - and even peering through the glass into the other half of the room, for as long as she dared. None of these basic checks revealed any monsters, or anything amiss. Despite this, Amber had no intention of hanging around a moment longer than she had to, and she was overwhelmed with a deep sense of relief when she finally spotted a door on the other side of the room.

Muttering "Please be the exit, please be the exit, please be the exit…", she crossed the room and took hold of the door handle. Still anticipating the worst, she listened at the door, then threw it open and flung herself to the side, flattening herself against the wall as the door swung back on its hinges. Hideous, deadly bioweapons failed to hurl themselves through the door and tear Amber limb from limb with razor-sharp teeth and eight-foot tentacles. Nothing escaped the door but a thin, cold draught that caught a few locks of Amber's hair and made the strands of ginger and gold drift momentarily in the breeze.

It took some minutes before she dared to peer round the edge of the open door. When she finally plucked up the courage to look, she saw only a short and dingy corridor with two doors - one at the end of the corridor, and another, heavier-looking on the right-hand side. It was illuminated weakly by a cobweb-bedecked light, and the cobwebs were casting odd shadows on the walls and floor. Amber didn't mind, though; any light was better than none. She blew out the lighter and stepped into the corridor, taking care to close the door behind her.

The door on the right was unlikely to lead to freedom, given its position, but anything was worth a try. Amber opened it and went through.

Being a police officer, the first thing she thought of when she entered the room was "cell". She'd seen enough of them in her time to recognise a cell when she saw it, and this was most definitely a room designed to keep someone in and to stop them from getting out again.

One thing that reinforced this impression was the weight of the door as she went in. It was thick steel, quite heavy to open, with sturdy locks on the outside. Another was the interior decoration - bare concrete floor, whitewashed walls and a naked light bulb. The furnishings consisted of a stainless steel table and chair, both bolted to the floor, and a bed made up with a thin blanket, a stained pillow and a mattress that looked positively unsanitary.

There were odd things about the cell, on the other hand, which made her wonder about the exact purpose of the room. For one thing, there were the walls. Over the top of the whitewash someone had drawn elaborate geometric patterns in what appeared to be felt pen; lines, circles and rectangles of all shapes and sizes, stretching from floor to ceiling. Another were the cell's peculiar dimensions. The room was far bigger than any cell she'd ever seen, and the ceiling was unusually high.

But what made her most curious were the bullet-ridden paper targets pinned to the far wall. There were no guns in sight, and they certainly wouldn't have kept weapons in a cell. What were they doing here?

There was no sign of the occupant. Whoever he - or she - was had long gone. Released, escaped or dead, she didn't know, but there were a few papers on the desk that Amber hoped might give her some clues.

She picked them up and riffled through them. Most of the pages were covered with childlike scribbles in graphite and crayon, but some typewritten sheets caught her eye.

FINAL L-VIRUS TEST NOTES

Taken by Dr Guy LeMarc, Head of BOW Training

August 21st

The subject codenamed "Lucifer" was delivered to us at 05.00 hours and analysis of its capabilities began straight away. We first subjected "Lucifer" to a series of medical tests, including tests for motor function, reflexes and response to external stimuli such as light and sound. Blood tests were also taken.

The subject showed no decrease in motor function or reaction times, and when we tentatively subjected "Lucifer" to IQ tests, he performed surprisingly well. It seems that the subject has become even more intelligent following the introduction of the L-Virus into his body. Testing will continue as planned.

August 22nd

The subject has apparently retained no memories of his previous life, which is unsurprising. We were not expecting him to remember anything that happened before the testing, although physically he is capable of making new memories. He is able to recognise words and pictures as well as the staff's faces, he is fully aware of his surroundings, and he knows how to use simple everyday objects like chairs and beds. We will continue observing the subject as he settles into his new environment.

August 23rd

Already the subject is making extraordinary progress. One of my colleagues has succeeded in teaching "Lucifer" to speak, although how much is being learned and how much is remembered, we may never know. His memories of people and events prior to the testing have seemingly been erased, yet the subject still knows how to open doors and recognises words and pictures that we have not previously shown him. The subject can also obey simple instructions, and his level of understanding is deepening quickly - it should not be long before he is able to carry out highly complex tasks without supervision.

August 24th

This morning the subject was given a pencil and paper, and allowed to draw. Most of the pictures that were drawn were simple in design and poor in execution, rather like a child's drawings. However, these improved after an hour or so and became ever more sophisticated. "Lucifer" became quite irate when we attempted to take away the drawing materials this afternoon for the next round of testing, but we were able to distract him by showing him more cue cards and continuing the speech therapy. "Lucifer" now has a vocabulary of one hundred and fifty-eight words, and this is increasing at a remarkable rate. Some of the staff observing him while drawing believe that he may even be attempting to write, although it's too early to ascertain whether or not this is true.

August 25th

"Lucifer" made his first clear attempts to write early this morning, producing recognisable words and even realising that he was making errors - he corrected the spelling of the largest word twice. We are all amazed by his progress.

August 26th

Today marked the start of the subject's more advanced training. "Lucifer" was placed in the maze and told to find his way to the centre and back again. He did so in 17 mins and 6 secs. The average live human subject can take up to twenty-five minutes to complete the maze. Astonishing…

August 27th

The subject's combat training began today, starting with basic firearms operation. The subject was surprisingly adept at handling weapons and completely shredded the targets placed in his cell. This afternoon "Lucifer" was again placed in the maze, but this time we sent in five UBCS mercenaries condemned to death for desertion, ordering them to take "Lucifer" out. They were, indeed, condemned to death. The subject found his way out of the maze in 9 mins and 55 secs.

August 28th

The maze experiment was repeated with five more mercenaries who had been sent here as punishment for insubordination. We brought one of the senior L-Project members (whose name was Dr J. Hartleigh, if I recall correctly) to observe the proceedings, but after the first two mercenaries were killed Dr Hartleigh promptly made his excuses and left. He seemed to have been almost overcome by the progress that the subject was making. The subject's maze completion time was 4 mins and 8 secs.

August 29th

On this occasion we decided to stretch the subject's capabilities by letting him out of the test zone and giving him the run of the passages and rooms in between his cell and the door to the underground bunker. An assorted group of condemned prisoners brought here from the Rockfort Island prison were told that they would be released if they could escape from the subject unharmed. Needless to say, none of the prisoners succeeded in escaping "Lucifer". Their bodies have been decontaminated and returned to Rockfort Island for disposal. Ashford should have no problem with carrying out this task, although I'm told that his behaviour has been a tad erratic as of late. Perhaps he should be relieved of command… but no, it's not my place to comment on these matters. The company knows what it's doing.

August 30th

We discovered today that "Lucifer" has been using the pen we gave to him as a reward for the successful completion of yesterday's task to draw detailed schematics of this level on the walls of his cell. His memory is quite incredible. Our next step will be to train him to recognise faces in photographs so that he can hunt down selected targets and kill them. It is the firm belief of everyone in this room that he will make a superb assassin, especially as the subject's favourite word appears to be "Kill". Dr Hazlitt and Dr Lampeter are most impressed with the subject's rate of development and have rewarded my colleagues and I with a substantial cash bonus.

August 31st

For some reason we received word from Dr Hartleigh that the subject is to be taken back upstairs and returned to the stasis tank in his laboratory immediately. He seemed very anxious that "Lucifer" be restrained, sedated and confined to the tank, even though I personally assured him that the subject will not kill unless told to do so. Despite this, he remained unconvinced, and we have just received word that "Lucifer" will taken back upstairs this evening and returned to the stasis tank, to be kept under heavy sedation at all times. No matter. The fact is that the "Lucifer Project" has been a complete success, and that the combined results of the staff of this laboratory complex have successfully produced the toughest Umbrella bioweapon to date.

The report was signed and dated "Dr Guy LeMarc, August 31st 1998". There was, however, one final page, dated August 25th. Amber turned to it, and gasped. Written in huge, rather wobbly pencil letters, the thick pencil lead pressed heavily into the paper as if engraving stone, were the words:

I AM L-U-S-I L-U-S-E-P-H LUCIFER

Amber shivered. "Lucifer", whatever it (or he?) was, was obviously a very dangerous thing to be around. She pitied the unfortunate individuals who had met their deaths in the maze and the passages at the hands of this bioweapon, but more importantly, she hoped she wouldn't join them.

Folding the sheaf of notes and other papers in two, she slipped them into the briefcase, then wondered what to do next. She looked up at the wall that Lucifer had drawn on, frowned very slightly, and made an effort to interpret the map. This would have been simple enough, as the drawings looked very precise, but there were no labels to show her where she was, which way was North, and which way she was meant to be going.

"Let's see," she said aloud, putting a finger in the centre of a large square with a thin rectangle joining onto the end of it. The square was divided in two by a thin line.

"So that has to be the room I just left," she said to herself. "And this rectangle must be the corridor, and that means the square joined onto the right is where I am now. So if I go back out, down the corridor and through the other door…"

Her finger traced the possible route down the long, thin rectangle that she'd taken to represent the corridor outside, and stopped at a very large square, even bigger than the one that represented the room she'd just left. There was a long, thin rectangle in the centre of this room, stretching from one side of the square to the other, and some perfectly rounded circles on either side. Some attempt had been made here to employ perspective, making the perfect circles look as though they were somehow located beneath the thin rectangle.

"What on earth are those?" she said to herself, letting her finger trace the outline of one of the circles.

Oh well. No time to worry about that now; she had to move on again, into the very large square that presumably represented a very large room. She hoped that Lucifer was still in that tank and not wandering around somewhere down here. She dreaded to think what might happen if she ran into it…

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Lisa knew it was too late to run, but she made a brave attempt at it, forcing her unwilling legs from a standing start into a dead run.

Lucifer watched her with something like amusement for a second or two, then reached out and plucked Lisa right off the ground with one enormous hand. As Lisa was lifted up by her hair and the scruff of her neck, the hamster cage fell from her fingers and landed heavily on the floor. The hamsters were going insane again, half-crazed with the fear that Lucifer's presence engendered in all living things.

Twisting and struggling to escape, Lisa knew that even if there were a dozen Lickers waiting further down the hall, she couldn't possibly be in any more trouble than she was now. She was in Lucifer's clutches yet again, with very little chance of survival and absolutely no chance of rescue.

Her right hand reached down surreptitiously towards her belt, fumbling for the one item that could buy her a few more precious seconds.

"Kill…" hissed her captor, lifting her higher into the air.

"No!" she screamed. "I don't want to die! Put me down! Let me go!"

"Kill…"

"No!"

Acting out of blind terror and a wild hope of escape, Lisa snatched the letter-opener out of her waistband and stabbed wildly in the direction of Lucifer's face. The blade scraped uselessly across the creature's leathery, rotting skin.

Exhausted, terrified and despairing of any future life that she might have had, Lisa desperately lashed out one last time in the hope of hitting a sensitive spot, and this time, the blade of the letter-opener plunged into the monster's right eye.

Shocked by what she'd just done, Lisa could only watch in horror as dark liquid gushed out of the wound. She hadn't meant to do that, sensitive spot or not. Incredibly, Lucifer didn't even cry out. It simply growled "Kill…!" again, and swung Lisa around by her hair, slamming her against the wall.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lisa could see the long purple tentacle snaking out of the creature's other hand, and she gulped. That tentacle meant a long, lingering and painful death, as Jack was finding out to his cost.

Her eyes narrowed suddenly. Jack wasn't going to die. He was going to get better because she was going to get that vaccine to him in time, no matter what.

Her gaze focused on the dagger-like letter-opener that was sticking out of Lucifer's eye, and an idea blossomed like a blood-red rose in the dark garden of her imagination.

"I am going to save Jack from the L-Virus," she told the monster, with a venomous edge in her voice that would have surprised anyone who knew her if they'd been present. "And nothing is going to stand in my way - not even you!"

With a shriek of rage she kicked out at Lucifer's face and forced her impromptu dagger even further into the creature's eye socket. There was a squelch and an unpleasant crack, and this now got a reaction; Lucifer staggered backwards, bellowing with rage and pain as it fumbled for the letter-opener, trying ineffectually to pull it back out of its skull.

Lisa dropped to the floor on all fours but didn't even stop to complain. She broke into a run, grabbing the hamster cage as she rushed past and then breaking into an even faster run. The entrance to the shelter was just a few yards away, and Lucifer didn't appear to be in a hurry to follow her just yet - if she could only get there in time and escape through the hatch before it even noticed that there was a hatch there, she'd be home and dry.

She didn't think she could run much further. Her chest was aching from the effort of breathing so hard, and her heart seemed ready to explode from overwork, but she was nearly there now. Just a few more yards…

There was an angry roar from behind her. Without warning, the bloodied letter-opener flashed past her head with a whistling noise and buried itself in the floor. Lisa didn't even bother looking back when she heard the series of loud tremors coming up behind her; she already knew what that meant. Lucifer was in hot pursuit, and if she didn't get that hatch open before it caught her, then she might as well be floating in a tank alongside Charlotte in the secret testing laboratory for all the good it would do her.

A nasty little noise behind her pushed a split-second premonition into the forefront of Lisa's brain, and she leapt out of the way, rolling as she landed on the floor. She caught a glimpse of the long purple tentacle scything above her head, then scrambled to her hands and knees and started searching for the join in the floor which marked the entrance to the shelter.

Lucifer was still several feet away - the reach of that tentacle was remarkable, and if she wasn't so frightened then she would have marvelled at it - but it was getting closer by the minute, and her time was running out.

"Come on!" she screeched, still feeling for the place where she knew the hatch had to be. She could feel her death drawing closer, and this was the one thing that could push it away, but she couldn't find it…

At last, when all hope seemed lost, she found the tiny little raised edge and pulled it upwards as hard as she could. The hatch opened, just in time for Lucifer to appear.

Lisa panicked, grabbed the hamster cage and almost threw herself into the opening as Lucifer made a grab for her. It snarled as its fingers snatched at nothing but air. Gasping as she tried to get her breath back from running, Lisa pulled the hatch down.

Lucifer made another attempt to grab her, but it was too late - the hatch slammed shut.

"KILL!" it bellowed, enraged that its prey had escaped its clutches again.

On the other side of the now-sealed hatch, Lisa froze as she heard the huge fingers scrabbling at the join in the floor. But as the noise went on and on, with no sign of the hatch lifting, Lisa grinned to herself in the darkness. The monster's fingers were too big and clumsy to find the tiny, barely visible raised edge of the hatch. It couldn't open it!

After a while, the noise stopped. Lucifer had obviously given up in frustration. She heard one final, furious roar, and then the thundering footsteps slowly faded away. There was a distant crash, and then nothing. The creature had gone. Once again, she'd survived.

Elated, Lisa climbed down the ladder as best she could while holding the hamster cage, then let herself drop onto the floor, landing in an untidy, gasping heap at the foot of the ladder.

Dr Harlech and Renée, who had both been sitting gloomily against one wall of the shelter, looked up sharply and saw Lisa sprawled face-down on the floor, inexplicably clutching a hamster cage in one hand. Two hamsters, one black-and-white and the other a sandy colour, stared out at them, looking just as bewildered as the two women felt.

"Lisa!" they both cried, rushing to the teenage girl's side and helping her up. Lisa found herself being hugged tightly by Dr Harlech.

"Oh, honey, you made it!" cried the scientist. "We were so worried… we thought you weren't coming back. Are you all right? What happened to you up there?"

"And what's with the hamsters?" said Renée, holding up the hamster cage.

Lisa breathlessly explained what had happened to her upstairs.

"I killed a bunch of zombies, and then I fought one of those Licker things with the long tongues all on my own, and then I found Dr Redmond's office and killed her zombie assistant and I found her diary and forwarded all her e-mails onto my address, and she was dead and wearing a necklace just like Amber's, and then I found these hamsters and decided to rescue them, and my parents created the L-Virus, I found their diaries, and they were forced to experiment on Joseph Frost and make him into a monster, and then Lucifer found me and he almost got me but then I stabbed him with a letter-opener and I managed to escape and - and - "

"Whoa, whoa… Joseph Frost? Lucifer? What are you talking about, Lisa?" said Dr Harlech, stunned.

"Lucifer's that monster that's been chasing us, Dr H!" gasped Lisa. "He used to be this guy from STARS called Joseph Frost, and he was Amber's boyfriend, but he died in the mansion incident, and when Umbrella found his body they sent him here for the L-Project and they tested the L-Virus on him, and he turned into that monster and they called him Lucifer!"

"That thing has a name?" said Dr Harlech. "Lucifer?"

"Yeah, and Dr Hazlitt and Dr Lampeter made my parents do this project, because they said they'd kill me if Mom and Dad didn't do it… but if Amber finds out my parents turned her dead boyfriend into a giant zombie, she won't rescue them - please don't tell her my parents did it!" begged Lisa.

Dr Harlech's mouth fell open.

"Uh… okay…" she said slowly. "I won't. I understand what people went through on this project. A lot of people were forced to do stuff they didn't want to, on pain of pain, myself included."

"These hamsters are kind of cute," said Renée, tickling one of them through the bars of the cage. "They're not infected, are they?"

"No, they used to be infected with the L-Virus but then Dr Redmond rescued them from an experiment and tested her vaccine on them and - oh! Dr H, Renée, I found it! I found the vaccine that Dr Redmond was working on!"

Lisa wrenched the backpack off her back, opened it and pulled out the bundled T-shirt. She unwrapped it hastily and handed the little black box to Dr Harlech.

"What's this?" said Dr Harlech, frowning.

"The L-Virus vaccine!" cried Lisa. "Janice did it! She found a cure for the L-Virus!"

Dr Harlech opened up the box, and her mouth fell open a second time.

"Well, I'll be…" she breathed, holding up one of the small glass phials. "She really did do it… quick, Lisa, come and help me!"

"We're not too late, are we?" said Lisa anxiously, as she and Dr Harlech knelt down beside Jack's unconscious form.

"I don't know," said Dr Harlech. "I don't know much more about this virus than you do. But he's still alive, if that's what you mean. And only just. He's hanging on by a fingertip. Another ten minutes and he'll be dead."

Jack already looked dead. His skin was pale and bloodless, his lips barely tinged with pink, and he didn't appear to be breathing at first. Only the very occasional laboured breath and the faintest beat of a pulse gave away the fact that he was still alive. As for his injured arm, Lisa couldn't even bear to look at it for fear of what she might see.

"Jack?" said Lisa, touching his clammy forehead. "Jack, I'm here. I found you a vaccine - it's going to be all right. You're going to make it after all. Just hold on a little longer, okay?"

"He can't hear you," said Dr Harlech. "He hasn't regained consciousness since you left."

"Never mind that," said Lisa, pointing to the box in Dr Harlech's hands. "Come on, we have to help him right now."

"Thank God you're back, Lisa," said Renée. "We were about to give you up for dead. And if Amber had come back to find you gone she would have kicked my ass through the wall for letting you go up there alone."

"Never mind that too," said Dr Harlech curtly, and handed the box to Renée. "Shut up and read out these instructions for us."

"Shut up and read out these instructions? How can I - " began Renée.

"Just do it!" yelled Dr Harlech and Lisa together.

"Okay, okay," said Renée, turning the paper the right way up. "All right. Uh… "These L-Virus vaccines are only to be used in case of accidental infection. Each phial contains one dose of L-Virus vaccine - "

"One dose of L-Virus vaccine, please," said Dr Harlech, holding out her hand.

Renée paused briefly to pass one of the glass phials to Dr Harlech, then continued reading. " - and can either be taken orally or injected into the bloodstream."

"We don't have any hypodermic needles," Dr Harlech groaned. "They were in Amber's briefcase, and Amber has Amber's briefcase. Blast it. Now what are we going to do?"

"And can EITHER BE TAKEN ORALLY," repeated Renée loudly, "or injected into the bloodstream."

"Oh - right. Thanks, Renée. Didn't catch that last time," said Dr Harlech, breathing out. "That's perfect. We just need to feed him this, then. Lisa, prop him up a bit so he doesn't choke. I'm going to have to pour this down his throat."

"Okay."

Lisa put one arm underneath Jack's head and then gently propped him up, so that he was in the sitting - or rather slumping but being supported by someone else - position.

Dr Harlech prised Jack's mouth open and tilted his head back.

"All right," she said, unscrewing the cap of the little glass phial and putting it to Jack's lips. "Bottoms up, Jack…"

The liquid trickled out of the little phial and down Jack's throat. When Dr Harlech was satisfied that the vaccine had been swallowed without incident, she allowed Jack's mouth to close and his head to fall forward.

"Right," she said solemnly. "That's that done. Now we wait and see if it works."

"It should do," put in Renée. "It says here that the vaccine starts working right away and will still work even during the final stages of the infection."

"I'm sure it does," said Dr Harlech evenly. "I also recall reading the Umbrella company charter, which clearly states that employees are not to be subjected to any form of abuse or discrimination on the grounds of gender, religion or ethnicity, and neither are they to be subjected to intimidation, harassment or any other forms of behaviour which they perceive to be abusive, threatening or otherwise inappropriate. Unsurprisingly, I don't put much trust in the written word of Umbrella or its employees any more."

"The closest the UBCS came to a disclaimer was "Don't sue"," said Renée. "Suited me fine. It's not like I could afford to sue anybody anyway, even if I wanted to."

"I can, and I am so going to sue Umbrella," said Dr Harlech grimly.

"You think they'd let you live long enough to see the court case if you tried to sue?" said Renée.

"That's a very good point, Renée," said Dr Harlech, after some thought. "You're quite right. I bet that's the reason why Umbrella's never been sued before. They'd probably have half the Death Squad waiting outside your attorney's office, and the minute you step outside, bam! You're a chalk outline with an incident report named after you."

"Damn straight. You'd never even make it to the witness stand," said Renée, nodding sagely.

Lisa let the conversation pass over her head as she held Jack in her arms. Watching his ashen face for any sign of movement or change, she reflected on how much things had changed in the past twenty-four hours. This time yesterday, they'd been the best of friends; Jack loved her, but love had been unrequited. Then the zombies had come for her, and even though she'd called her parents' work number for help, it had been Jack that she'd been most worried about, and she'd been so glad to see him when he came to save her.

Things had changed a great deal between them. For one thing, their quest to escape from Raccoon City had brought them a lot closer together; their friendship was now all but unbreakable. She remembered the irritation she'd felt whenever the others had unwittingly interrupted romantic moments, and finally the sudden realisation that she loved Jack, just as she seemed about to lose him forever. And now…

Now, finally, there was hope for them. When her parents found out that Jack had almost died to save her from their monstrous creation, they would almost certainly accept him as her best friend, boyfriend, or even - dare she think it? - future husband material. They knew they loved each other, and if they could both make it out of here alive, then they could be together at last. Future happiness beckoned.

If only he would wake up…

"Jack, I made it," she told him. "I went upstairs all on my own to find a cure for the L-Virus, and I came back in one piece. I fought zombies, a Licker and our very own nemesis, Lucifer, and I nearly died a couple of times. I crawled through air ducts and searched corpses, and I even rooted around in the bottom of a dirty hamster cage, all for you. I did it because I love you, and I want you to live. Please don't let me have gone through all this for nothing - don't die after all I went through to save you! Jack, mi querido, mi ángel, wake up! You have to wake up!"

A few muscles twitched in Jack's face. Slowly, his chest heaving with the effort, he took a great shuddering breath and held it; the air rushed out of his lungs again in a gasp, and then there was dead silence. Lisa held her own breath. So, too, did Dr Harlech and Renée, both waiting to see what happened next and hoping for a happy outcome.

Jack took another small, shallow breath. And another. And a third. Then two, three, four in quick succession as his breathing quickened.

"Is that meant to happen?" said Dr Harlech uncertainly.

"You tell me," said Renée, shrugging. "You're the doctor."

It certainly didn't sound right to Lisa. Jack's breathing sounded unnaturally fast and was definitely verging on hyperventilation. The pulse beneath her fingers was almost as fast, as if struggling to keep up with Jack's out-of-control lungs in the race to be the fastest.

Suddenly the hyperventilating stopped and Jack's whole body went rigid. His back arched, and his lips drew back from his clenched teeth in a silent cry of pain.

"Is this normal, do you think?" said Renée.

"Under normal circumstances, no. Considering he was infected with a deadly virus by a giant zombie, then yes, this probably is normal," said Dr Harlech. "It all depends on your definition of "normal", and at the moment, "normal" is all relative, really."

"I've got an Aunt Norma," said Renée thoughtfully, "But I don't think we have any relatives called Normal. Pity really. It's a nice name. Normal Lavelle. I quite like it. I think I'll call my kid that one day, if I ever find someone to settle down with."

"Renée, that's not quite what I meant - "

Dr Harlech was interrupted mid-sentence as Jack, still unconscious, took a deep breath and screamed.