41: Countdown To Destruction
"Self-destruct in twenty-three minutes."
"Well, it's been really nice knowing you all," said Dr Harlech, attempting to smile. "It's been a privilege to try and escape with you; I don't think I could have spent my last day on earth killing zombies with nicer people. I'm just sorry that it has to end like this."
"It doesn't - and it's not going to," said Lisa stubbornly. "What, after everything we've been through together, you're just going to give up? No way! Nobody's giving up! We're getting out of here!"
"Don't get me wrong, Lisa, you're a very brave girl, but even if we could defeat Lucifer, there's not enough time," said Dr Harlech hopelessly. "We can't kill something that can't die in twenty-three minutes. It's impossible."
"Defeating a Tyrant single-handedly is impossible," insisted Lisa. "Finding a cure for the L-Virus is impossible. Defying Umbrella and living to tell the tale - that's impossible too. But we've done all these things! We've survived impossible! And if we can all survive impossible situations on our own, then think what we can do together! Come on, Dr H, we can do this, but you have to help us!"
Dr Harlech looked uncertain. Amber and Jack watched, holding their breath as they waited for her reaction.
"Please, Dr H," said Lisa in a much smaller, quieter voice. "Please help us live. It's - it's better than just waiting here to die, right?"
"Self-destruct in twenty-two minutes."
Renée ducked as a huge fist slammed into the door from the other side, leaving a sizeable dent where her head had been just seconds earlier.
"Damn it, Dr H, just say yes already!" she hollered. "This door can't hold out much longer! Look, just think of it as a really, really big Tyrant! You can handle one of those, right?"
"Well, yes," said Dr Harlech, with considerable reluctance. "But I only have eight bullets left, and that won't be enough to take it down."
Jack made a sound that resembled a snort of derision.
"You crazy in the head, Dr H?" he said. "You be in a warehouse full of ammo an' you be complainin' 'bout no havin' enough bullets? What kind you need? I find 'em for you right now!"
".44 Magnum rounds," said Dr Harlech. "But - "
She didn't even have time to finish the sentence as Jack darted off towards a stack of crates, so fast that he was little more than a boy-shaped blur of blond hair and khaki pants and red-and-black lumberjack shirt.
"That's not normal," said Dr Harlech suspiciously. "I think the L-Virus must have changed him somehow."
"But he's cured," said Lisa, looking perplexed. "How is that possible?"
"When I was reading Dr Redmond's diary, I read something about how the hamsters' brainpower and speed was increased after they were cured," called Renée. "That must be what's happened to Jack!"
Jack reappeared again, with his arms full of Magnum rounds; Lisa noticed with amazement that he wasn't even out of breath.
"Here you go, Dr H," he said, and thrust the ammunition into the stunned scientist's arms.
"Thanks," said Dr Harlech, mentally shaking herself. She took out her Magnum and checked the number of bullets inside, putting her new ammunition in her overloaded lab coat pockets.
"Lisa! The door's going to come down any minute! I need my AK, now!" Renée bellowed, now struggling to keep the battered door closed.
Lisa hurriedly shrugged off the assault rifle strap and fished the spare clip out of her pocket, then passed them to Jack, who shot across the room like a teenage whirlwind and presented both items to Renée. Renée discarded the old ammunition clip, which was all but empty; as she snapped the fresh clip into place, she suddenly looked ready to take on the whole city's bioweapon population single-handed.
"Self-destruct in twenty-one minutes."
"Okay, here's the plan!" ordered Renée. "Dr H, you and I have the most firepower, so we open fire on Lucifer! The rest of you, spread out and find more weapons - shotguns, Magnums, AK-47s, M16s, RPG launchers, I don't even care if it's a Howitzer - just get whatever you can and use it against Lucifer! We have less than twenty minutes to kill this thing and get the hell out of here!"
"But Lucifer will go straight for you and Clarissa!" Amber objected. "We need something to distract it and draw it into your line of fire!"
"Like what?"
"Like me," said Jack grimly.
"What?" gasped Dr Harlech.
"Jack, no!" said Lisa, horrified.
"Absolutely not!" Amber warned him. "Not after what it did to you the first time! It almost killed you!"
"Yeah, an' that be why I wanna do this," said Jack. "I got a score to settle with that thing, an' I gonna make it pay for what it do to me."
"But you'll never beat it! Lucifer's huge!" exclaimed Dr Harlech. "It's, what, twice your size? It's also a lot stronger than you!"
"Yeah, true," said Jack, momentarily deep in thought, and then he smiled and produced his skateboard from his backpack. "But I bet it ain't as fast as me."
"Incoming!" yelled Renée, diving out of the way as the door came crashing down. She rolled as she hit the floor and sprang to her feet again, just in time to see Lucifer stride into the room.
It had seemed impossible, on their first meeting, that Lucifer could be any more hideous and terrifying, but now the creature was even more menacing than ever. Heavily scarred, missing one eye and now scalded by its corrosive chemical bath, steam was rising from Lucifer's seared and blistering skin.
"KILL!" it roared.
Instantly the others scattered; Lisa and Amber ran towards the crates in search of weapons, while Renée and Dr Harlech took up strategic positions among another group of crates, so that they could attack while remaining safely hidden from view.
All that now stood between the massive and intensely evil being and them was a solitary teenage boy with a backpack on his back, a skateboard under his arm and a look of defiance on his young face.
"Well, Lucifer, here I be," he said quietly, looking straight up at Lucifer's face, his bright blue eyes never leaving those of his adversary. "An' here you be."
"Attention all Umbrella employees," said the robotic voice, which had gradually lost its pleasant tone, and was now beginning to sound rather too pleased about the building's imminent destruction. "The emergency biohazard contamination prevention system has been activated - the building will automatically self-destruct in twenty minutes. All employees must proceed immediately to the nearest escape route and begin emergency evacuation procedures. This is not a drill. Repeat - this is not a drill. All employees must evacuate immediately. Self-destruct in twenty minutes."
"Kill…" hissed Lucifer.
Jack grinned.
"You gotta catch me first!"
He flung down the skateboard with a clatter. As Lucifer looked down to see what the noise was, Jack pulled out his gun and shot the monster twice in the head, then leapt onto his skateboard and sped away across the room. Bellowing with fury, Lucifer chased after him; Renée and Dr Harlech took this as their cue, and opened fire on the creature.
Bullets zinged everywhere. Some of them buried themselves in Lucifer's flesh, but to no effect; the rest just seemed to bounce off. Renée grunted in frustration, but didn't give up. Dr Harlech merely accepted that only some of the shots would hit home and kept firing away, regardless of the fact that Lucifer was ignoring the hail of bullets completely. The monster was so intent on catching Jack that it seemed oblivious to the fact that it was under attack from three different directions at once.
"Find anything?" said Lisa, as she and Amber searched the crates for more weapons. So far they'd found several dud smoke grenades, some throwing knives, which were of very little use, and some bazooka rounds, which were of no use at all.
"No, not yet…"
Jack swerved to avoid a stack of crates, and ducked as Lucifer's single, lethal tentacle scythed through the air, narrowly missing his head. His heart was racing, but he tried to ignore it; any distraction at this point would be the death of him.
Wall…
The word loomed large in his mind as the uncompromising expanse of wall filled his immediate vision. Behind him, Lucifer was slowing down, looking almost smug as it realised that its prey was about to run into a wall and knock itself out.
Dr Harlech paused in the middle of reloading her Magnum, and she watched helplessly as Jack hurtled towards impending disaster. Renée watched too, transfixed without really knowing why; Amber, however, was hiding her eyes.
"I can't look," she cried, covering her face with her hands. "He's going to run straight into that wall! That thing's going to get him! He'll be killed!"
But Lisa, glancing up after checking another crate, had noticed the subtle change in Jack's stance and the deepening concentration in his face, and she shook her head.
"No," she said, smiling. "He won't. Watch."
In a sudden blur of movement, Jack jumped. Amber uncovered her eyes just in time to see him rise up from the ground, and she gasped out loud. In blatant defiance of all the laws of gravity, Jack was riding the wall with a look of steely determination on his face.
"How is he doing that?" said Dr Harlech, amazed.
Lucifer was equally nonplussed, and angry about it too. Roaring and lashing out furiously in an attempt to knock Jack off the wall, its fists and tentacle gouged out lumps of plaster and brickwork, to no avail.
"Self-destruct in nineteen minutes."
Jack felt oddly serene as he rode the wall, emptying his gun into Lucifer's hide while he jumped from wall to wall to avoid hitting the corners. Though he didn't dare close his eyes and enjoy the feel of the artificial breeze ruffling his hair and clothes, as he normally would have, he was nevertheless filled with a deep sense of elation. The sheer joy of skating - of doing what he did best - was intoxicating, and even now, when he knew that he could be struck down and killed at any moment, he felt on top of the world.
But then he felt gravity starting to kick in and decided that he could push his luck no longer. He jumped off the wall and down onto a long row of stacked crates, bringing his thoughts down to earth with the rest of him. Splinters of wood flew everywhere as the wheels of Jack's skateboard ground the edges of the crates into sawdust. Jack seemed perfectly comfortable about teetering precariously on the edge; almost as an afterthought, he started unloading his gun into Lucifer again.
"Self-destruct in eighteen minutes."
Amber and Lisa were still searching desperately amongst the crates for weapons. Their fingers pulled at lids and scrabbled through drifts of Styrofoam pellets and useless bullets in search of anything that they could use to kill Lucifer.
"Hey, I've found something!" Amber cried at last.
"What? What is it?" said Lisa eagerly. "Is it any good?"
"Does an RPG launcher sound good to you?" said Amber triumphantly.
"I thought RPG stood for "role-playing games"?" said Lisa, frowning.
"It does. It also stands for "rocket-propelled grenades", which is a lot more useful in combat situations than a quick round of Dungeons and Dragons," said Amber. "Quick, help me get this thing out of the crate!"
Together they struggled to lift the rocket launcher out of the crate. It was the biggest piece of artillery that Lisa had ever seen, on or off television - hard-pushed to describe it, as she didn't know what any of the component parts were called, she thought it looked rather like an enormous metal box, with four large circular slots for ammunition. The rocket launcher was apparently a handheld weapon, although judging by the size of the thing, the hand in question was probably a gorilla's.
"I can't lift this," admitted Amber after a while.
"Me either," said Lisa. "It's too heavy. We need some help."
They were definitely in need of a weapons expert. Fortunately, they knew exactly who to consult.
"Renée!" they yelled.
"Yeah?" Renée shouted back, struggling to make herself heard over the noise of three lots of gunfire.
"We need a little help over here!" yelled Amber.
"Be with you in a minute…"
"No, not in a minute! We need you now!"
Renée looked at them again, and this time she took in the sight of the biggest rocket launcher that she'd ever seen. Her face lit up when she realised that they wanted her to help them with it.
"Coming!" she yelled, slinging her assault rifle onto her shoulder and rushing over to them, climbing up onto the crates and almost falling off them again in her hurry to get her hands on the rocket launcher. Dr Harlech, who suddenly felt very exposed now that she was on her own, scurried after the mercenary and climbed up onto the crates to join them.
"Self-destruct in seventeen minutes."
"Need some help?" said Renée brightly.
"Yeah, give us a hand with this rocket launcher - it's too heavy for us," said Amber.
"I'm on it!" said Renée, making a grab for the rocket launcher.
While Jack kept Lucifer occupied, evading the creature at every turn with the same grace and fluidity of movement that had kept Lisa spellbound when she had been treated to the Street Rats' skating display at Antonio's party, Lisa and the three other women lifted the rocket launcher up and onto their shoulders. Though young and slender, Renée was surprisingly strong and lifted her section of the rocket launcher with barely any effort. Amber was finding the operation much easier now that she had some help, although Dr Harlech, unused to a great deal of exertion and heavy lifting, was still struggling. Eventually, though, they managed to lift the rocket launcher and get to their feet.
"RPG launcher prepped and ready," announced Renée. "Target set?"
They swung the rocket launcher round until it was pointing in Lucifer's general direction. The creature was stubbornly refusing to stand completely still, but was in the same overall location; Jack was running rings around it, and it seemed unsure where to turn.
"Jack, we're ready! Stay out of the way!" called Amber.
Jack looked up at them, nodded, and darted away to the other side of the room. Lucifer looked around, saw its adversary retreating, and prepared to follow. However, four voices rang out:
"Hey, Lucifer!"
The creature stopped in its tracks and looked up. It saw, or at least perceived, four people standing atop a mountain of crates - two of its intended targets, one more that had previously been in its way and was to be killed, and an additional person that it hadn't encountered before.
"Kill!" it snarled.
"Well, Mr Kill's still not here, you know," Renée called out to the monster. "But don't worry, big guy, 'cause he left you a little present - courtesy of Mr Big-Ass Rocket Launcher! Let him have it, girls!"
They fired off the first rocket; it shot out with a whoosh and a puff of smoke and streaked away towards Lucifer.
"Look at it go! Look at it go!"
"Bye-bye, Lucifer!"
They ducked down ready to avoid the explosion, but there was nothing but an eerie silence. After a moment, they looked up, only to gasp with dismay. The unthinkable had happened. The rocket-propelled grenade, a sure-fire way to destroy almost anything, had stopped less than an inch from Lucifer's face; the creature had caught the rocket and was holding it between thumb and finger. Then, with a roar, it hurled the rocket straight back at them.
"KILL!"
It stole over them all that there was a rocket heading in their direction, which meant that they were in very big trouble.
"Get down!" screamed Amber.
They ducked just in time; Lisa and Dr Harlech felt the rocket skim past them, close enough to ruffle their hair, before hitting the wall behind them and exploding spectacularly.
"Self-destruct in sixteen minutes."
"Quick, try it again! It just got lucky! We can still kill it!" Renée yelled, as they scrambled to their feet again. "Fire!"
The second rocket shot out of the launcher and sped towards Lucifer. But once again the creature was ready for the attack, and it simply batted the rocket away like a cat playing with a ball of string. Once again the rocket had missed its target, hitting only a stack of crates, which exploded with even more force than the first rocket had done.
Flames rose from the burning crates, and the tongues of flame licking away at ammunition and wood bathed Lucifer in an infernal orange glow. It looked more than ever like a demon from the depths of Hell itself.
"Again, quickly!" Renée ordered. "Fire!"
Their hearts rose in their mouths as the third rocket curled away, only to sink again as Lucifer hurled away the rocket, narrowly missing Jack, who dived out of the way just in time to see the rocket blow a hole in the wall.
"This ain't workin'!" he yelled. "I think we oughta try somethin' else!"
"No! One more time!" Renée shrieked over the roar of flames. "Fire!"
Now feeling thoroughly dispirited, they fired off the fourth and final rocket, expecting Lucifer to merely toss it aside once again. But this time the attack had apparently caught the creature unprepared - watching the third rocket exploding, it looked around just slightly too late…
The resulting explosion rocked the entire room, and the five survivors saw their foe disappear right before their eyes, engulfed in a fiery explosion of orange and deepest black.
"YES!" Renée punched the air triumphantly. "Gotcha!"
Amber and Dr Harlech both shrieked with joy and hugged each other, then started dancing around crying "We did it! We beat Lucifer! We did it!". Lisa merely smiled, but inside she was dancing with delight.
The only person not celebrating was Jack, who was staring at the expanding cloud of black and orange with a troubled expression on his face.
"What's the matter, Jack?" called Amber.
"Yeah, what's wrong?" said Renée, laughing. "Cheer up! We beat that thing!"
"It ain't dead," said Jack hollowly.
"Attention all Umbrella employees," announced the robotic voice, rather smugly. "The emergency biohazard contamination prevention system has been activated - the building will automatically self-destruct in fifteen minutes. All employees must proceed immediately to the nearest escape route and begin emergency evacuation procedures. This is not a drill. Repeat - this is not a drill. All employees must evacuate immediately. Self-destruct in fifteen minutes."
The laughter faded.
"What?" said Renée. "What do you mean it's not dead?"
"Look," said Jack, pointing to the site of the explosion.
They looked. The explosion was starting to clear now, and a shape was begin to emerge from the expanding cloud of smoke and fire. Looming large amid the fading explosion, surrounded ominously by curls of smoke and wisps of dying flames, was the hulking figure of their mortal enemy.
"Oh, shit," whispered Renée. "It's still alive!"
Dr Harlech squeaked with terror and hid behind the others, while Lisa disappeared behind some more crates. Amber, however, was too angry to hide and chose to go ballistic instead.
"How the hell are you still alive?" she yelled. "How many more rockets and chemical baths and thirteen-storey drops does it take to make sure you don't come back? Why can't you just die?"
"What are we going to do?" said Dr Harlech, now clinging to Renée's legs for grim death.
"Die, I suppose," said Renée glumly. "I don't think there's much else you can do when your mortal enemy's immortal and you've only got fifteen minutes to escape."
"Do we have any rockets left?" said Dr Harlech hopefully.
"Nope," said Renée. "We're fresh out of rockets."
Dr Harlech whimpered softly and tried to curl up in a ball while still holding onto Renée's legs, which made her look rather like an abnormally large koala in a lab coat.
"So what are we going to do?" said Amber.
The voice came from behind them.
"Renée, Dr H, you get down off the crates and keep shooting Lucifer! Jack, carry on distracting it for us! Amber, help me with this!"
They obeyed the commands automatically; Jack was back on his skateboard at once, and Renée and Dr Harlech had jumped down off the crates and run halfway across the room before they realised that it had been Lisa telling them what to do.
Amber peered behind the crates and saw the younger girl plunging her arms deep into an open crate, rummaging around inside it for something right at the bottom.
"What is it, Lisa?" she said.
"I've found something that could save us!"
With great care, Lisa lifted out a long-barrelled rifle; Amber's first thought was that it was a sniper rifle of some sort, but then she let out a groan. She'd seen something much like it while investigating the disappearance of an animal at the Raccoon City zoo two years ago, and she knew exactly what it was.
"Lisa, that's not a sniper rifle, that's a tranquilliser gun," she said, sighing. "Those things are for taking down large animals! It's no good to us!"
"Self-destruct in fourteen minutes."
"No, you're wrong - it's exactly what we need!" argued Lisa. "If we can stun Lucifer for long enough, then maybe we can decapitate it or something. That'll kill it for sure!"
"What makes you think that?" said Amber.
"Basic biology," replied Lisa. "Decapitation severs the spinal cord and all connections between the brain and the rest of the body. The brain controls all vital functions - without it, the body can't survive, undead or not. My parents are doctors, remember? I used to read their medical textbooks when I was little!"
"Yeah, and that might stop it for a little while, but its entire body is riddled with a virus that mutates human cells - it'll probably just grow a new head or something," said Amber. "Besides, even if we do succeed in getting out of here, the explosion won't destroy it, and it'll just come after us again. I'm telling you, it's no good. And I don't think there's any tranquilliser on earth that's strong enough to work on that thing anyway."
"Well, I'm going to try it anyway," snapped Lisa. "At least it'll give me something to do with the last fourteen minutes of my life."
She delved deeper into the bottom of the crate, and brought out a small plastic box with "Tranquilliser Darts" stencilled on the lid in white. She fiddled with the catch for some moments before it came undone and the box popped open.
"Oh, no," said Lisa, her face falling. "Look…"
Amber picked up one of the darts and examined it. Lisa was right to look and sound dismayed; the liquid inside each of the five darts had long since dried up, and was no more than a faint discolouration on the inside of the glass container.
"Self-destruct in thirteen minutes."
"They're useless," Amber said, tossing away the dart. "The tranquilliser must have dried up years ago. Nice try though, Lisa," she added, seeing the disappointment on the girl's face. "It was a good idea."
Lisa turned her head away. Watching Renée and Dr Harlech trying and failing to shoot the monster dead was depressing, but not quite as depressing as having someone trying to cheer up when her great idea had turned out to be a big disappointment.
Jack was doing well, she thought. He'd been leading Lucifer a merry dance for some time now and was showing no signs of tiring or of failing to keep the creature's attention on him the whole time. Having realised that he'd gone off course to dodge another swipe of the monster's tentacle and was now heading straight towards Lucifer, he didn't panic - instead, as Lucifer reached out to grab him, he ducked down and skated right through its legs and out the other side, while its hands snatched uselessly at nothing but smoke-filled air.
"Wow!" yelled one of the others - it could have been Renée, but Lisa wasn't really listening any more. She was too deep in her own thoughts, trying to find a way out of the mess that they were in. They didn't have much time; she had to think of something else, and fast.
"If only those tranquilliser darts hadn't been empty," she said, mostly to herself. "We could have stunned Lucifer with a whole bunch of those things, then found a machete, or a hunting knife or something, and cut off its head with it. That would have done the trick."
She watched Lucifer again, chasing after her best friend and bellowing "KILL!" at the top of its voice, and suddenly she wasn't so sure if this would have worked.
"Well, maybe," Lisa added uncertainly. "It might have worked. But probably not."
She sighed.
"No. I'm fooling nobody but myself. It would never have worked."
That might stop it for a little while, agreed a memory of Amber, her words replaying inside Lisa's head, but its entire body is riddled with a virus that mutates human cells - it'll probably just grow a new head or something.
The word "virus" made her think once again of the L-Virus - her parents' creation, once an object of beauty and wonder, and now an agent of death and destruction. Her mother and father had made it what it was in order to protect her, but the cruel irony of fate had dictated that the things they had done to save her life would become the very same things that were putting her in mortal danger.
And then there was the matter of the necklace that Amber had been carrying; Dr Harlech had referred to it as "the sample". That necklace had been worn by her mother, and it had been a key to the L-Project laboratory, so presumably the "sample" was the L-Virus, contained within the pendant.
"Self-destruct in twelve minutes."
Lisa looked down at the necklace that she was wearing. Virtually identical to its twin in all but colour, it sparkled in the light. This had been Dr Redmond's necklace, as well as the other key to the L-Project laboratory. What secret was this one hiding?
Maybe it was hiding the same secret that its owner had tried to hide from the other participants of the L-Project…
I've kept some vaccine samples hidden in a safe place in my lab, and I keep a dose on my person at all times.
These words, suddenly remembered, set Lisa's train of thought rattling off in a whole new direction. She'd found several items on Dr Redmond's body, including this necklace, but no dose of vaccine -
Lisa smacked herself in the forehead. She was so stupid! Her mother's necklace contained the virus, so Dr Redmond's necklace had to contain the vaccine - it was even the same colour as the other vaccines! Why hadn't she figured it out before?
Virus in a necklace. Vaccine in another necklace. Lucifer's body, riddled with virus… and right there, in front of her, was the solution to their problem. Or, more correctly, behind her…
Lisa grabbed her backpack and wrenched it open, burrowing through it for the vaccines.
"What are you doing, Lisa?" said Amber, looking confused. "What are you looking for - the vaccines? What do you want those for?"
"Not now, Amber!" cried Lisa, opening up the box of vaccines and unfolding the piece of paper with trembling hands. Her eyes swept through the instructions until she found the words that she was looking for:
The vaccine can still counteract the virus posthumously, but this will not revive the patient and will only prevent them from turning into a monster after their death.
What if the patient had already turned into a monster? What then? Would the vaccine still work?
Lisa's eyes sparkled with excitement, and she was trembling even more now.
"Lisa, what is it?" said Amber, leaning over her. "Are you all right?"
"I'm more than all right!"
"What?"
"Amber, I know how to beat Lucifer!"
"You - "
Words completely failed Amber. She swallowed, took several deep breaths to calm herself enough to speak coherently, and tried again.
"You - you know - but how?" was all she could manage.
"When your boyfriend was brought in, they injected him with the L-Virus. The virus reanimated him and made him mutate into a monster. That means his body is riddled with L-Virus, just like you said. And we have a vaccine for the L-Virus."
"So?" said Amber belligerently. "What good will that do? Giving the monster the vaccine won't bring Joseph back!"
"Exactly my point!" said Lisa triumphantly. "Listen, if the L-Virus has completely taken over his body and it's the only thing keeping him alive, then what would happen if we administered the vaccine?"
"I - I don't know," said Amber, stammering slightly. "What would happen?"
"Self-destruct in eleven minutes."
"The vaccine wouldn't make Lucifer revert to its prior state, but it would neutralise the virus - and the virus is the only thing keeping Lucifer going. Take away the virus, and Lucifer dies. We have to give Lucifer the vaccine!"
"How?" said Amber, too stunned by the explanation to know what else to say.
"With these!" said Lisa, holding up a tranquilliser dart. "We can't pour the vaccine down Lucifer's throat because it'll tear off our arms and legs, so we'll inject it directly into the bloodstream - just like you'd use a tranquilliser to stun a wild animal!"
"Brilliant," said Amber hoarsely. "That's brilliant! Lisa, you're a genius! Quick, we have to put the vaccine in those darts!"
They set to work immediately, wrenching open the four empty tranquilliser darts and pouring the four remaining L-Virus vaccines into them, then sealing them again. Within seconds, they had four tranquilliser darts filled with the same clear liquid that had saved Jack's life.
Amber picked up the tranquilliser gun and loaded the four darts into the weapon.
"Shall I shoot it, or do you want to?" she asked the younger girl.
"No, you'd better do it," said Lisa. "You're a better shot than I am."
"Okay."
Amber shouldered the tranquilliser gun and took aim carefully.
"Attention all Umbrella employees," announced the disembodied robotic voice. Its pleasant tones had gradually vanished following the first announcement, and now it sounded as cold and harsh as an early morning wake-up call in a concentration camp. "The emergency biohazard contamination prevention system has been activated - the building will automatically self-destruct in ten minutes."
"Oh, shut up!" Amber yelled. "We know!"
"All employees must proceed immediately to the nearest escape route and begin emergency evacuation procedures. This is not a drill. Repeat - this is not a drill. All employees must evacuate immediately. Self-destruct in ten minutes."
"Heads up!" Amber called.
As Renée and Dr Harlech held their fire, Jack looked up and saw Amber, poised to fire off the tranquilliser darts. He wondered what they were doing -
Out of nowhere came Lucifer's tentacle, sweeping across and catching him in the stomach. The surprise attack sent him flying across the room with a yell.
"Whooaaaaaa…!"
Jack would probably have gone much further and faster, had it not been for the size of the room. As it was, he slammed into the wall and then dropped to the ground, winded by the blow to his stomach and slightly stunned by the impact.
"Jack!" cried the others.
"'m 'kay," he gasped, picking himself up and managing to fold himself into a sitting position. He couldn't stand up just yet, but it was a start. At least he hadn't been infected again, he decided, after a quick inspection revealed no flesh wounds. That would really have sucked.
Lucifer strode towards him, growling softly -
With a little whistling noise, something flew through the air and buried itself in Lucifer's back with a thunk. The creature didn't even seem to notice that Amber had fired a tranquilliser dart at it, and it kept going.
"Try it again!" yelled Lisa. "It's much bigger than normal human beings, so maybe it needs a bigger dose!"
Amber nodded, and fired off another dart. It landed just below Lucifer's right shoulder-blade, and this time the creature staggered slightly. However, it recovered itself and carried on.
The monster was getting even closer to Jack, and he was starting to panic. He'd used up all his remaining bullets on Lucifer, and there were no weapons conveniently within reach. All that he had to hand was his backpack - and, he noticed, his skateboard, lying about a foot away.
Watching Lucifer's ponderous footsteps draw nearer, he had a brilliant idea. Throwing himself clumsily in the direction of the skateboard, he grabbed it, then sat up and kicked it towards Lucifer.
The skateboard rolled across the floor, unmanned. Not noticing this, Lucifer stepped forward, and as its left foot came down, it trod on the skateboard.
Jack had been hoping that perhaps the skateboard would roll away backwards beneath its feet, sending the surprised Lucifer forwards and landing flat on its face with a crash - and this was exactly what happened.
With a terrible roar of anger and surprise, Lucifer fell forwards and landed face-down on the floor with a bone-shaking thud. As Jack struggled to his feet, he noticed that there were now three tranquilliser darts sticking out of Lucifer's back. Miraculously uninjured and, even more miraculously, able to straighten up fully again, he ran across the room to retrieve his skateboard.
"Kill…!"
Jack spun round, with his skateboard under his arm, and watched Lucifer rise up again. This time, however, it seemed rather unsteady on its feet, and it was trembling all over as if with cold or fright. Staggering wildly, it took several steps forwards -
Thunk.
The fourth and final tranquilliser dart hit Lucifer right in the chest. And, for a moment, nothing happened.
"Is it working?" said Lisa anxiously.
"I'm not sure," said Amber, biting her lip. "It staggered, but… I don't know…"
"Hey," said Renée, and she pointed towards the monster. "Look!"
Little wisps of steam were rising from Lucifer's skin. Not noticing this, the creature staggered on towards Jack.
"What's happening to it?" said Dr Harlech. "It looks like - oh, dear. I'm not sure if I can watch this…"
Lucifer's skin was shrivelling up and peeling away from the rest of its body, leaving raw red patches of flesh beneath. In the background, the robotic voice announced that there were only nine minutes remaining until the building self-destructed, but this went unnoticed. Lucifer struggled on, but it appeared to be having difficulty breathing.
"K-kill…" it gasped.
"I think it's working," said Amber. "You were right, Lisa!"
They weren't sure exactly what was happening to Lucifer, but the creature's flesh was starting to blacken, and it was beginning to leave a faint trail of blood and dark dust behind it as it lurched towards Jack, paying minimal attention to what was happening to it.
"Now what's happening?" said Dr Harlech, her hands firmly covering her eyes.
"Is it dissolving?" said Renée. "I think it's dissolving…"
Lucifer suddenly stopped in its tracks. With an unearthly moan, it fell to its knees. Its body ruptured in a dozen different places all at once, the wounds widening and becoming great holes as the L-Virus vaccine broke down the virus in every single cell of its body. Then, with one last moan, faint and oddly pathetic coming from the most terrifying creature ever to walk the earth, Lucifer fell to the ground, bleeding.
As the survivors watched, unable to take away their eyes despite the gruesome spectacle unfolding before them, the creature's body started to disintegrate, convulsing briefly and then lying still as the L-Virus antidote finally overcame it. In moments, Lucifer - their deadliest and most persistent foe, all their living nightmares personified - was little more than a large mound of dust.
"Oh my God," said Amber softly. "It's finally dead…"
"Can I look now?" said Dr Harlech, her hands still covering her eyes.
"If you want," said Renée, shrugging lightly. "It's just a big pile of dust now anyway. Nothing really frightening about it."
Dr Harlech uncovered her eyes. She flinched slightly at the sight of the large pile of greyish-black dust, then relaxed.
"I'm glad that's over," she said quietly.
"It's not over," said Lisa, picking up the hamster cage from its resting place, atop a large stack of crates.
"Lisa's right, we still have to get out of here," said Amber. "There's not much time left…"
"Come on then, let's go!" yelled Renée.
As they ran towards the other end of the room, there was a loud beep and a click; to their deep relief, the shutter began to open again.
"Attention - biohazard has been successfully eliminated. This area is now clear. Access to emergency escape route restored."
They ran gratefully through to the far end of the room. Renée was the first to get there, with Amber and Jack not far behind, and Lisa and Dr Harlech bringing up the rear, albeit at a dead run. They reached the wrought iron spiral staircase and clambered up it as fast as they could, their feet hitting each step with a loud clank.
"Self-destruct in eight minutes."
They reached the top of the staircase, out of breath, and found themselves in yet another stairwell with a second, identical spiral staircase, this one leading down. Renée, Jack and Dr Harlech headed straight for the stairs, but Lisa hesitated, and looked back at the room behind her. Amber saw the brief, regretful glance and knew in an instant what Lisa was thinking.
"Lisa, I'm sorry we couldn't find your parents, but there's no time to look for them now," she told her. "Right now we have to concentrate on getting ourselves out."
Lisa nodded weakly.
"I know," she said, swallowing. "I understand."
"You're a very brave girl, Lisa and a very smart one. I don't know if your mom and dad made it out of here, but I bet that wherever they are now, they're really proud of you," said Amber.
"Whoa!"
The others came rushing back up the stairs, looking shocked.
"I don't believe this!" Renée exclaimed, and she pointed down at the stairs. "How the hell did they make it all the way down here?"
"What? Who made it?" Amber wanted to know.
"Come and see," said Renée, dragging her by the arm and taking her down the stairs.
It was dark down here. The illumination was one faint low-wattage bulb hanging high above the stairs and accentuating the shadows. Amber could just make out two people standing with their backs to her. She couldn't see much in the way of detail, but one of the figures was tall, with short dark hair and broad shoulders that indicated a male; the other had shoulder-length dark hair and was, presumably, female. Both wore lab coats.
There was a series of clanks behind her as Jack, Lisa and Dr Harlech followed them downstairs and waited behind them.
Amber stepped forwards into the gloom and cleared her throat.
"Um - excuse me, sir?" she said hesitantly, not knowing what on earth this question would precede, having rejected the three statements that first sprang to mind - "Get out of the way, please, we're trying to escape and we don't have all day", "You're not infected, are you?" and "Die zombie scum", none of which seemed terribly appropriate.
There was a faint sound.
"Unnngh…"
Lisa froze. She recognised the backs of those heads.
"Oh, no," she breathed. "No… no, please…"
Very slowly, the figures turned around, and Lisa felt her breath catch in her throat as faint light fell on the faces of the two people standing before her.
She'd seen those faces before - so many times before. The last time she'd seen them, it had been in a photograph, taken some years ago in the back yard of her house, on a day bright with sunshine and blooming flowers. Those faces had been smiling and happy, alive with joy.
And now here they were in front of her again, their skin ghostly pale, scored with lines of rust-red drying blood, their lab coats bloodstained, their glasses shattered and knocked askew. The man's open-necked shirt had been torn open further, his jeans spattered with blood. The woman's cardigan was stained and full of gaping holes, torn open by clumsy fingers, and blood adorned the little flowers on her skirt.
Lisa would normally have run to their outstretched arms, but now she found herself backing away in terror.
"M-Mom…?" she whimpered. "Dad…?"