Carlos suspected two things: that he loved Jill, and that things would get worse.
Both made him afraid.
Carlos' nature — a nature of easiness and honesty, of rarely struggling with factors outside of his control — put him at odds with a world that had become more cruel, more strange, more dangerous by the minute. His life before was smooth, marked by a cheerful restlessness, free of introspection. Things were what they were, and they would be dealt with when they had to be.
That was, until last week.
If the situation worsened… worsened from the abject sorrow and senseless pain he'd witnessed in Raccoon City... he wasn't sure how to deal with that. He couldn't grasp how the situation could be worse. To secure their passage from that little slice of hell, Carlos had thrown everything he had against the wall, borrowed what he didn't, and still almost come up short. Fear of the unknown was an alien concept, uncomfortable and ill-fitting, like somebody else's clothes. So, Carlos did what he knew how to do, until he had to do the next thing. He flew.
Carlos moved one of his hands and checked the gas gauge of the helicopter. The fluorescent red needle rested a slight hair above the large printed E: their fuel reserves were almost depleted. He wasn't the greatest pilot his unit had - that man had wandered away in search of survivors, out onto black asphalt streets that glittered with rain and broken glass, never to return. But Carlos did in a pinch, knew enough, practiced enough to be dangerous. He'd nailed the takeoff; now to land this piece of crap and also not kill both himself and his passenger. He was halfway there.
Ahead of them was a great, yawning stretch of emerald green, at first hard to see against the slanted golden-orange light of mid-day. As they neared, the spreading green swallowed the horizon, stretched to fill his field of vision, edge to edge. Pockets of cinnamon red and flecks of greenish-gold dotted the landscape. Autumn was coming. Life was moving on.
They had flown South out of Raccoon, past brown and yellow patches of striped farmland, wide tan rivers that frothed and bucked against their shores, and a few city areas with skyscrapers that reached to the sky like needy, gleaming, grasping fingers. Carlos had no idea where they were; he was lost, and he was tired, a kind of exhaustion that grabbed onto you, wrung you out like a dishtowel. Bright lights became brighter and sounds became inescapable, loud, hyper-focused. His face hurt where his lip had been split, the skin around one of his eyes tingled and obscured half of his vision as it swelled shut. His bare arms were a patchwork of divots, slashes, huge criss-crossed scabs; he felt sore and pulled and tired everywhere, like a walking bruise. His head pounded and his stomach howled at him for food, food he had no interest in. He'd had enough eating for a lifetime. His hands, large and strong and heavily veined beneath tanned skin, gripped the controls hard enough for his knuckles to blanch white like bone.
For all of his injuries, Carlos was unconcerned about himself. He was concerned about his passenger. He did what he knew best to keep her with him: he talked to her.
"You still awake?" Carlos called back over his shoulder.
"Barely," Jill said, thick with fatigue. "But I'm here."
"So I got an idea," he said, "when we get out of all of this, I'm gonna take you out for dinner. What do you say? You an Italian or a Mexican kind of lady?"
"Wait," Jill said, a weak sound almost lost under the insistent whip of the blades overhead. "Are you asking me on a date?"
"Would you say no if I did?"
"Can't answer a question with a question."
Carlos shook his head. "Would you believe I keep forgettin' you're a cop?"
She was silent long enough for him to believe she'd slipped into sleep again, and he readied another question to rouse her, when she said: "Japanese."
Carlos turned his head, faced back to the window. "Say again? Didn't hear you."
"Japanese," Jill repeated, louder this time. "If someone was to take me on a date, Japanese is my favorite. Sushi. That kind of stuff."
"Japanese you want, Japanese you're gonna get - soon as we get this bird on the ground in the next ten or so," he said, fought to keep the nerves from his voice, "make sure you hold onto something." Behind him, Jill's boots scuffed on the floor, and she grunted, a soft, pained noise. She sat with one of the black canvas loops bolted to the helicopter's ceiling in her hand, her face turned away from her underarm.
They circled over a bare spot between two enormous hills lined with frothing crescents of multicolored trees. As Carlos lowered the craft, fields of grass and flowering plants blew and bent, tiny specks of tawny brown and white bounded in waves away from the boom of blades. Ahead, a campground came into view, a small clearing of dirt and gravel, maybe a space for trucks and campers. He aimed for it with the helicopter's landing gear, lowered them with gun-shy care; the craft stuttered and rocked under his inexperienced hands.
The blades kicked a cyclone of moist dirt, swirling leaves, and torn blades of grass into the chill October air. The craft landed with a ginger hesitance and took the last five feet hard; an angular metallic creak and a bang of something essential and expensive being broken. The engine ceased its rumble. The rotor beat its sonic tattoo and slowed to a stop. Motion was suspended and they were still, safe against the ground.
Carlos' heart thumped inside the cavern of his chest, the sound of blood swished and beat against his ears. The cabin was suddenly too close, too heavy, too hot, and he fought to strip off all he could; the heavy plates of his olive drab flak vest, his leather gloves, belts of pouches and heavy weaponry. He felt a simultaneous nakedness and freedom, stripped down to just his pants and t-shirt, damp with sweat that cooled almost instantaneously. When he was free, able to maneuver and breathe, Carlos stood and navigated over the center console, unsteady with nerves. He nearly tripped, and had to hop on one foot to keep his balance. Jill was turned, and watched him over the back of the bench. She smiled at him, made to stand and stopped herself, surprised by her own sudden wobble.
"Hey, take it easy," Carlos' hands darted out to Jill's sides to steady her. She lowered herself back down to the seat, slow and cautious.
"You did a great job," she said. "I'm really impressed."
"Huh. An attaboy?" Carlos sat beside her. The skin of their bare arms touched in the faintest of brushes, and he put a hand on her forehead. "You sure you're not sick?"
"Don't push it."
The radio on the dash crackled to life.
"This is Tower 4153, aircraft you are not authorized - repeat - not authorized to land in GWNF. Please state your name and the nature of your emergency landing. Over."
Like mirror reflections, their eyes flicked to one another before either moved.
"I can talk to them," Carlos said. "You stay here."
Jill shook her head. "I'll do it. I have some questions I want answered. What's the frequency?"
Carlos told her. Jill unhooked the radio attached to her hip, pushed a few buttons on its console, and waited for the controller's voice to sound over its grated transmitter.
"Repeat: this is Tower 4153, aircraft you are not authorized - repeat - not authorized to land in GWNF. Please state your name and the nature of your emergency landing. Over."
"This is Jillian Valentine, officer of the Raccoon City Police Department, Special Tactics and Rescue Service. There are two people aboard, myself and one other survivor. We departed Raccoon City southward via helicopter before the payload dropped. Neither of us are infected, no bites, but we are out of fuel and need medical attention. Over."
A pause.
"Aircraft this is Tower 4153 confirming southward route from Raccoon City Indiana on October 1, 1998. Over."
Jill pressed the button. "That's correct. Over."
There was a long, heavy silence that spanned into minutes. Carlos' eyes were distant, fixed on some unremarkable spot on the floor as he rubbed his beard, and listened.
Jill pushed the bright red button on the side of the radio. "Tower 4153, did you read? Over."
Immediate: "This is tower 4153, please stand by for further instruction. Over."
Their eyes met, a confirmation of concern and uncertainty. Neither spoke.
"Aircraft, this is tower 4153. Orders as follows: you are to remain sheltered in place. Lock the doors to the craft. Do not open the doors or windows to your craft. Do not exit the craft. Do not discard biological material outside the craft. Local authorities will notify you of further instruction. Until that point you are to remain inside at all times. Over."
"They think we're infected," Carlos said, with a slow, dawning sense of disbelief.
Jill's expression was serious, shot through with a vein of sympathy. "We can't be sure we're not," she said, pushed the button one last time. "Loud and clear Tower, we'll stay inside until we see you. Over and out."
"Guess we just wait," Carlos said, "maybe get some rest."
"I think that'd help," Jill said. She stunk like adrenaline sweat and death, but Carlos didn't care; he was enamored with her, and his want of closeness overpowered a startling number of ills. She had boarded the chopper only three hours ago with a pronounced limp but otherwise no worse for wear, but as the day had turned from the blaze of sunrise to the cold blue of mid morning, she too had changed, slumped by degrees in her seat.
"How are you feeling?" He asked, his voice quiet.
Jill shook her head; her intelligent, foxlike eyes were tired, drawn with puffy lines ringed by bruised purple.
"You ever…" she said, paused to wet her lips with her tongue, "you ever felt sort of weird and then gone to sleep and woken up with a full-blown cold and wonder how you took being not-sick for granted? Imagine that but instead of a sore throat, its basically your whole body." She shifted, grimaced, and it looked like the act of sitting upright and supporting her own weight was uncomfortable. "Everything hurts."
Carlos laughed. Jill looked at him, her expression defensive, and said, "What?"
"I just like the way you say things," he said, "that's real smart. I would have never thought of it that way."
"Oh," she said, and after a moment's consideration, the harsh lines of her expression softened, with a quiet, warm laugh that was almost a giggle. "I didn't think it was funny… but… I guess it is."
Carlos nudged her with his shoulder. "Should give yourself some more credit."
Jill cast her eyes down, then back up to him, the smile on her face still present. Even tired, even beat to shit, covered in blood with dirty, sweaty hair, she was beautiful.
From the dash, from the close proximity of Jill's radio, another sound screamed for their attention, squalled with a jarring metal-on-metal screech. A chill ran down Carlos' spine. Jill tensed, her shyness lost and her eyes sharp. A long beep sounded in a single note, as long as it was unpleasant.
Beeeeep
A muffled male voice.
"This is an announcement from Emergency Alert System. This is not a test. Civil authorities have announced an Emergency Action Notification. Civil authorities have received unconfirmed reports of hazardous biological material released within George Washington National Forest. A shelter-in-place order has been issued the following counties," the robotic voice went on to list six, "seek shelter immediately. Do not leave your home until the all-clear has been given. Do not use running water. Do not answer knocks on your door unless notified previously by authorities. If you are within the forest, seek shelter within a vehicle or building immediately. Details will be released as more information becomes available. Stay tuned to this radio frequency for further instruction. This is not a test."
Beeeeep
"Jesus," Jill said, and covered her face with her hands. "That scared the shit out of me."
"George Washington National Forest," Carlos said, his voice far away, thoughtful. "You know where that is?"
"Sounds like a long way from home." There was a note of defeat, of resignation, in her voice.
Carlos didn't know what to do. He had no idea what she was going through — though they'd suffered similar predicaments and losses in these last few violent days, he had no idea what it was like to lose everything, to have your True North blink out of existence. Without thinking about it, he slid his hand over her back, looped his arm around her shoulders. Jill watched him do it, and Carlos expected her to stop him in her pride, to push him away, maybe freeze up and tell him thanks but no thanks.
Instead, she shifted her hips towards him, and nestled against the crook between his neck and his collarbone. The way she settled against him, the soft brush of her breath against the hollow of his throat tied around something in his chest like a slip of warm ribbon, and he was anchored.
"You smell awful," she said, softly, and closed her eyes.
"That's the smell of manliness, lady."
There was no response, no witty rejoinder, no banter. The tense line of her shoulders softened in gradual comfort under his arm. After a few silent moments, one of her hands was on his thigh, the tips of her fingers a hair's breadth from his groin; he looked at it in confusion and the sound of quiet, musical snores gave Carlos his answer. He moved her hand, placed it by her side.
Carlos looked around the cabin, out into the woods that surrounded them, the cool autumn sunshine dappled against trees that exchanged their green finery for the shimmer of reds, oranges, yellows. Bird songs and the industrious trill of insects quivered on the wind. Body warmth and the cadence of quiet snores against the stillness amplified the seductive pull of sleep, his eyelids heavy and sore.
Carlos settled back against the thick pads of the helicopter's seat bench, Jill's weight leaned on his shoulder, and slept.
It was night time, Jill realized, in a slow, confused blink.
She awoke to a world of foggy layers of unfamiliarity. She didn't recognize anything, not immediately; dusky shadows of black and deep jeweled blue draped over the world, shadows that stretched and danced, concealed her surroundings and their meanings. The air, somehow chill on her back and warm against her chest, was gravid with the drone of insects and the throaty chirp of frogs.
That chill plucked at the downy hair on her arms, spread over the bare skin of her shoulders. A heartbeat, steady and deep, thumped against her ear, and she realized with momentary confusion that she was leaned sideways across the heavy animal warmth of another body, between a pair of strong legs and against the soft knit of a cotton t-shirt. Her brain, slow and encumbered from sleep, filled in the blanks with what made sense; she put down a hand, pushed herself back. Her understanding of the situation pitched, just then, turned on its side.
Beneath her Carlos slept with an undignified peace, his back propped against the wall. One of his hands rested on her shoulder, the other behind his head, which had sunk to a position that was sure to give him a sore neck when he awoke, his mouth slightly parted and his breaths heavy and regular, warm against her face. She wasn't sure how long she'd slept, but her body felt a little more solid, a little less treacherous in its sudden weakness. She sat up, carefully and slowly, so as to not disturb him.
Jill took an extra moment to think about just what had happened before she'd fallen asleep, the pit of her stomach hollow with dread; black pockets and hours had vanished from her memory, left with only snippets her brain had stored under its fog. They were huddled together against the cold but both were still clothed. The dark chunk of scab that knitted the two sides of Carlos' bottom lip together meant they probably hadn't…
Probably. Probably hadn't. She couldn't remember. In its post-rest clarity, her mind went with laser precision to another man: Chris, loyal and steadfast Chris, who these days was more of a promise of a future reward, and not a figure she interacted with. He had been gone for so long.
Not for the first time, she thought: There has to be some explanation for this. I wouldn't just… even if I was tired, I wouldn't, not while Chris is...
Jill tried to remember Chris' face, and returned with intellectual pieces of information that identified him; green eyes, brown hair clipped short, how he was fair but still managed to tan in patches and fits, which he blamed on his Scottish heritage (along with basically all else that was unflattering about him). The picture was foggy, overlaid with the dark, broad features of the man asleep before her, and the lack of precision frustrated her, made her frustrated at herself and her own memory's fickleness.
There has to be some explanation is where she settled, and slammed closed the topic for the moment.
Jill's torso moved just slightly askew, bent the wrong way by just a touch, and she faltered under a sharp, twisting pain on her right side that sucked the air from her lungs. She gasped in a quiet groan, a clutched hand on her ribs, the dirty shag of her brown hair fell across her eyes as she bowed her head. Carlos blinked awake with a sudden jolt; his eyes searched the cabin before they settled on her. He sat up, rubbed at his eyes with the heel of a palm, his dark, coarse hair mussed and tangled from sleep.
"You okay? What's wrong?"
"I — my side really fucking hurts," Jill pushed herself to a sit, her knees together. The stillness helped; the pain ebbed away from her into a low drone. "Fuck."
"Here. Lemme look at it," Carlos inched closer, hands held out to her.
Jill eyed him, and leaned away despite herself. The sudden concern in his face faltered.
"Ah, come on. You know that's not—"
"Look, Carlos, I'll be okay. It's just a bruise, or something. Really."
His eyebrows tilted up, and his expression confused. "You sure? I can—"
"I'll be fine." Jill's tone was stern and cold, sharp. His mouth was still open, parted slightly in his interrupted word, and his face, in its confusion, was edged with what
Jill thought was hurt. A sudden pang of regret plucked at her chest, the feeling of something that sounded so good and clear in your head that exited your mouth in a way that slashed and drew blood, unable to be recanted.
Carlos settled back to his seat. "You got it. Sorry. Was just tryin' to help."
Jill considered an apology, but it was too far gone now, and the more the seconds ticked by, the harder her pride pushed for her to just move on with life — he could deal with it. She glanced over to him; he sat in silence, picked at his fingernails. Over his shoulder, however, was a pin-prick of light. Then two, then three.
Jill sat up in a sudden rush, injury forgotten, ears and eyes sharp as a guard dog alerted to the presence of a stranger.
"I think they're here. I can see their lights." Jill climbed to her feet with some difficulty, arm looped around her injured torso. Carlos joined her in front of the closed bay window; their reflections against the dark glass like a funhouse mirror. He was man of intimidating physical size, the crown of Jill's brown hair barely brushed his chin, and beside her, he looked every part the behemoth, a solid pack of muscle that shifted under the dark fabric of his shirt. She hadn't noticed before he'd stood beside her how slight she'd become, how frail she looked, how easily the darkness settled into new gaunt curves under her eyes.
Out in the blackness of the forest, a line of lights wound into view, tangled and twirled through the trees like distant fireflies.
"Eight of 'em," Carlos said, "That your count?"
"I count eight. I'm gonna signal them." Jill felt his eyes on her, saw him move in the reflection against the window, and looked up at him in turn.
Carlos extended his fist, waited, his knuckles towards her. "We still good?"
Jill bumped her knuckles against his. "Always."
Carlos seemed satisfied by this, and crossed his arms returned his attention to the lights in the distance. Jill pushed the button on the side of the light looped over the strap of her shirt, clicked it four times and then a break. She repeated this until the line stopped, the flashlights focused in the direction of their craft, and the line proceeded in their direction.
The bobbing procession of lights closed on them. Someone too dark to see against the shadows stopped the line with a gesture of their flashlight, then approached. As he came into focus, he high-stepped over roots and brambles and folds of dirt, the moonlight pooled on his wide-brim hat, the dark brown sheriff's jacket with the fur trim zipped close to his neck. The intrusive headlight blare of a flashlight flickered around the cabin before it settled on them. They winced against it, bloodstained and streaked with dirt.
"Ya'll alright in there?" The Sheriff called. He tilted his face up to them, long and drawn in carved angles of age and stress. He looked at Jill, her wounded stance, and she watched his free hand drift to the waistband of his khaki pants, just above where a gun hung in a worn leather holster.
"We're fine," Jill said, "a little banged up but no serious injuries. Neither of us are infected, as far as we know. No bites."
As Jill spoke, the officer's light drifted over to Carlos, as if he'd lost interest somewhere in the middle of her sentence. "They said you're police?" He said to Carlos, unconvinced.
"That's her. I'm just a guy she picked up on her way out of the city."
"You don't much sound like you're from Indiana, son."
"New York. Was in Raccoon City on business."
The Sheriff tilted his flashlight down, examined Carlos' olive drab fatigue pants. He finally swiveled back to Jill. "What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Jill Valentine. Special Tactics and Rescue Service."
"You're a long way from home. Made it all the way to Virginia on one tank of gas?" The Sheriff's attention drifted, this time fixed on the aircraft, studied its carapace in an evaluative squint. His jaw worked in thought, muscles tensed under the skin. "Y'all didn't stop nowhere else?"
"We just flew in the first direction we saw. This is where we ran out."
"Mhm. Well, mighty sorry to hear what happened to your city. Been all over the news for the last week, what with the… fires and riots and all manner of unpleasantness."
Jill was silent for a long, pointed beat. "Right. Unpleasantness."
"Well, I don't gotta tell you. If you'll excuse me, I gotta go have a conversation with our friends back here. You two wait there. We'll come get you."
The Sheriff turned and walked back to the line of trees, his pace lackadaisical. Jill took a deep, steadying breath, released it in a slow sigh through her nose.
"What do you think, sweetheart?" Carlos asked, in a whisper.
"Shut up," Jill knocked one of her boots against his.
From the treeline, emerging in a cluster, were a group of people in bulky suits the color of a cloudless sky. The plastic shone and reflected the light, their heavy transparent face shields lit from behind, their faces visible. They moved like children in snow suits over the uneven terrain, limbs just too wide to allow them to walk at a normal clip.
One of the men in the space suits broke apart from the pack, walked to the helicopter, looked up into the window, still closed.
"Jill Valentine?" He said.
"That's me."
"Very nice to meet you, though I do wish it could have been under better circumstances. I'm doctor Raj Behara of the Federal Bioterror Commission." His voice jutted and clipped into the alien peaks and valleys of a nonnative speaker; Indian, perhaps. He held a clipboard in one of his bulky blue gloves, a pen in the other, and behind his mask, his skin was the color of wet sandpaper, eyes black as jet. "You said neither you nor your passenger are bitten?"
"That's right," Jill said, "no bites."
Beside her, Carlos' silence turned from placid to uncomfortable; the air around him grew heavy, as if he struggled to find the words to say something.
"She needs help first," Carlos added, in a tumble, "she got the worst of it. I can wait, but she's hurt bad."
Jill looked up at him. "What are you doing?" She whispered.
The doctor looked up from his clipboard, and scanned them both. His eyes were sympathetic, evaluative.
Carlos turned to her. "You're hurt."
"But so are you. I'll be fine."
"I know you're tough," Carlos said, his voice pitched low so it didn't carry, "but you gotta let other people be tough for you sometimes, too."
Jill wasn't a woman others could accuse of often being lost for words. She searched his face, opened her mouth to offer up a counter, and found nothing but silence.
"Thank you," she said, finally.
"We'll do a full physical, of course," Dr. Behara said, scribbled something on his clipboard, "you will both be taken care of. Give us a moment to set up, please."
They rolled out what looked like a massive pad that you'd use for training a dog; white and absorbent and edged with the same powder blue their suits were made of. They smoothed it, made sure there were no gaps between the craft and the edge, no tears. Two of the figures hauled what looked like a massive cooler you'd store beer in, white and plastic, by two handles on either side, and set it on the pad. They opened the container, freeing gadgets and shining tools that Jill couldn't even guess were used for. Moths fluttered and danced around the stark beams of their flashlights, and when they turned, gleaming sets of small animal eyes watched the scene from the distance of the tree line.
"Officer," Dr. Behara said, waving Jill forward, "this way, please. Stay on the mat."
They opened the door to the chopper, metal against metal, and the chill of the night flooded the cabin. Jill stared at the pad below, its perfect whiteness. Days ago, perhaps hours ago, she wouldn't have glanced at a five-foot drop twice; now it gave her vertigo, a phantom twinge pain in her leg. Jill hobbled to the edge of the floor and sat. Her legs dangled over the side, and the doctor offered her a hand; she took it and dropped. He steadied her, his clipboard under his arm.
"This way," the doctor said, gesturing to a group of them, "please."
Carlos' weight thumped down behind her, and the scientists separated them, three crowding Carlos to the right of the craft. The remaining four gathered around Jill like a race of interested aliens; they ran thermometers over her forehead, asked questions, wrote the the answers down on paper. Over their heads, Jill could see Carlos being poked and prodded at, the gashes on his arms being measured with paper tape and recorded, another one of them tipped onto their toes to run a thermometer over his forehead.
Someone beside Jill cleared their throat, and then a voice, timid and nasal. "Take off your clothes, please."
"Right here?" Jill asked. Jill looked around to the valley of prying eyes that surrounded her; blank stares were the response.
The man's sigh was audible at her hesitation, irritated. "Now, please? I need it all, clothes, boots, personal effects."
"Okay..." She grabbed the hem of her tank top, damp and crusted with God knows what, pulled it over her head. She dropped it into an outstretched plastic bag, then leaned over to work the laces free from her boots.
"It's routine," Jill heard someone tell Carlos in the distance, "she's totally safe. I still need your arm."
Distracted by the removal of her clothes, Jill didn't notice the scientist cut away the bandage on her left bicep until it was too late. Immediately, something in the air changed, darkened, became more panicked and unsure. One of the scientists cursed under her breath, shit, waved another over, who awkwardly crouched and shone a flashlight against Jill's arm. They called to Dr. Behara, who stopped his writing and jogged to them, an action his suit relegated to an awkward astronaut hobble. Jill stood stock-still; her eyes flicked back and forth between them. In habit, she looked over their heads at Carlos for confirmation, or reassurance, or safety. Maybe all three.
Something in her expression made Carlos' body move on its own. He shrugged off the lady scientist who was spoke at him, past him, called him "sir" and ordered him to stay put and used words that meant nothing to him like "protocol" and "restriction". Her body moved out of his way as easily as a child's, and he stalked to the group around Jill who gaggled and gasped and spoke in breathless shock, grouped around her like a huddle of football players. The Sheriff cut into Carlos' path like a skulking dance partner, a hand outstretched against Carlos' chest.
"Not a good idea, son," Jill heard the Sheriff say, "let them do their job and we won't have a problem."
"This wound," said the doctor, indicated the deep puncture wound on her arm, which still drizzled blood and clear fluid, "what did this come from?"
"I—" Jill stammered, "it's a long story. It…"
"Officer Valentine," the doctor repeated, "We do not have time for long stories. Yes or no. Did this puncture wound, on the bicep your left arm, come from any of the bioweapons in Raccoon City?"
Jill was silent. Then, with a note of defeat, "Yes. But—"
She continued to speak but it was lost under the rush of activity, the rabble of excitement, of fear. One of the scientists mumbled, "oh shit" and looked, helpless, at the doctor behind him.
"Yup - look at her," one of the scientists said to another, low and nervy, "look at her skin. Her fingers are hypoxic."
"Mucous membranes cracked and bleeding," another agreed, "fuck. Doctor?"
"You said you weren't bitten." The Sheriff rounded on Jill, this time. His hand didn't hover, instead rested on the pommel of his revolver. "On the radio. You said you had no infected. You got anything else you wanna tell me?"
"She's not infected," Carlos yelled over the crush, "there was a vaccine. I… I gave it to her."
The silence became its own living being; it grew, mutated, hulked, and as soon as they left his mouth, Carlos seemed to realize his words were a mistake. The doctor stood up and stalked to him, waved the Sheriff away with a testy gesture.
"You had a vaccine for the T-Virus and you used it?" Dr. Behara said, words like a hiss. "For one person? Am I hearing you correctly, Mr…"
"Oliveira," Carlos said, and though his voice shook, he projected it anyway. "Loud and clear, doc, and I'd do it again, every single fuckin' time, if it meant she made it out." Carlos' eyes flicked up to her, couldn't meet her gaze for an extended period, and he looked away.
Jill's chest was full to splitting of apologies and admonishments that didn't make it to her mouth.
"Unbelievable." The doctor whispered, voice full of venom and disbelief. "We're running a Code Yellow," he called to the rest of his crew, "call it in. You—" he said, turned back to Carlos, "I hope you can live with what you've done, Mr. Oliveira, because many others won't."
A pinch, long and knife-sharp and deep slid against Jill's throat with sudden, silvery malice. Her hand flew to where it entered her, and the world began to spin.
"Sorry," said a voice behind her, muffled behind plastic, "just protocol. Lay down and try to rest."
In the distance, Carlos' eyes went wide, his mouth dropped open; the world rolled onto its side and there were only sounds, sounds of a rush, of excited chatter, then what sounded like the breaking of something thick and heavy, of screams. Then a sharp, loud, electrical zap, twice, and a strangled cry — Carlos'. A series of heavy thumps, and then silence.
Jill tried to cry out, but her mouth wouldn't move.
She rolled her head to the side, the ragged sound of her own breaths echoed into eternity; four of them, four of them in their shining candy-blue outfits, hands under his arms, dragged Carlos' body away. The toes of his boots created divots in the soft dirt. Hands, countless and cold that moved with pitiless clinical precision, cut away her clothing, her boots, her necklace. She tried to move her hands, vaguely aware that this last should have sprung her into action, should have some sort of meaning, but under the weight against her brain, nothing mattered. It was ending. It was ending like this, and she couldn't stop it. After all of this... after...
Her breaths echoed against her ears.
There has to be some explanation, she thought, and a single bead of warmth trembled against the corner of her eye, fell down across her face, and everything faded out under the indifferent starlight.