A/N

So I watched a movie that involved Milla Jovovich alone in a desert fighting monsters with everything from guns to a pair of blades, pulling off super-human stunts. If you're wondering whether that movie was Monster Hunter or Resident Evil: Extinction, the answer is yes.

Anyway, drabbled this up.


Monster Hunters

Florida, Alice reflected, had seen better days.

Because of course it had. Florida had seen better days, because the whole world had. And while it had seen bad days, it hadn't seen worse days. Mother Earth, if she was still alive, could take comfort in the knowledge that as bad as things were, they couldn't possibly get any worse.

She shook her head as she continued riding her bike into town, under evening's dim glow. Things couldn't get worse? Bullshit. Things could always get worse. Four years since the T-virus had leaked from the Hive, and things had gone from bad, to terrible, to apocalyptic.

They'd got worse, when the T-virus had escaped the Hive, infecting Raccoon City.

They'd got worse, when weeks later, an outbreak had been reported in San Francisco.

They'd got worse, when round about the same time, the virus had leaked in Tokyo.

Things had gone from bad to worse in the last few weeks of the United States, and the last few months of human civilization on Earth. Things had gone from bad to worse, as the planet died all around them. On one hand, billions of ghouls roamed the earth, yearning for the meat of the living, while having no need for it. And on the other, the living themselves, for whom food and water was in short supply.

Some might have called that irony, when they weren't running for their lives.

So now, four years after this nightmare had begun, here she was. Alone. Riding through Florida, past the decaying remnants of swamps and bayous, to a town on the coast called Maroon. Possibly a reference to the so-called Maroons who'd escaped slavery, possibly named because someone just liked the colour. Whatever the case, the town suited Alice perfectly. Big enough that there was a good chance for supplies, small enough that its population of undead couldn't be that high.

Not like New York. Not like Miami. Not like Raccoon…

She shuddered, as she drove under the welcoming billboard. The one peppered with bullet holes, and where some smartarse had changed the name from MAROON to MAROONED. According to the billboard, Maroon had a population of 3000, but now the 3 was scratched out.

Sure, the world had ended, but that didn't mean the survivours couldn't have some fun.

Checking the fuel gauge of her bike, she slowed down on the accelerator. If she couldn't find fuel here…well, it was a fair way to the next town, to say the least. And as she drove through the silent streets, she saw the same sights she had a hundred times in a hundred places.

Trash and newspaper sprawled everywhere. The headlines of the latter all saying the same thing, and none of them dated beyond November, 2002.

Cars, parked bumper to bumper in a vain attempt to escape, many of which had belongings hoisted on top of them. Some of it practical, some of it not. Some idiot had even tried taking a TV with them.

There were police cars parked at intersections, often aligned with barricades. Iron fences designed to keep rowdy individuals under control, not hordes of the undead.

There was no blood – time, wind, and rain had seen to that. And likewise, not as many bodies as you'd expect either, and what was left were little more than skeletons. No shortage of shell casings though, even if the guns that had fired them were long gone. Shaking her head, she slowed the bike down even further, as she wove in and out of the rusting vehicles.

She couldn't blame the police for failing. No doubt they'd made the mistake of treating the dead like the living. Poor individuals infected with some disease that deserved to be treated, not put down like mad dogs. And even when the penny had dropped, they'd gone for the chest rather than the head.

Across the country, she'd heard the same story from survivours told over and over. That at first, people hadn't known what was happening. Then when they did, they refused to believe what was happening. And when they believed it, it was too late, and half of them were zombie chow.

She continued to weave in and out of the cars. Some of them still had occupants. Crawling at the windows, hissing through rotten teeth. Perhaps they'd thought that if they holed up, the creatures banging on their doors would starve first. Perhaps they'd thought that help was on the way. Perhaps they had no choice. Though in the end, it didn't matter. She'd seen such sights countless times, and they no longer gave her pause.

Well, the zombie child strapped up in the baby seat did.

A bit.

Fighting the sensation in her throat and eyes, Sshe gave the bike a burst of speed and pulled up to the nearest gas station. Her bike had less than a quarter of fuel left, but here, it was the opposite story. Plenty of tanks, not a single vehicle parked at them. Frowning, she took off her helmet and took a breath of the air – regretting it instantly, as the stench of rotting flesh filled her nostrils.

And I thought the swamps were bad.

In spite of everything, she smirked as she remembered that incident with the crocodiles in Louisiana. How that Baker fellow had wrestled one to the ground right in front of her, snapping its jaw with his big, meaty hands. The world had ended, the "grubberment" had collapsed, and he was having the time of his life. As she dragged her bike to one of the fuel pumps, not for the first time, she wondered if she should have stayed there. As far as places of refuge went, you could do much worse than staying at a rundown farm with a group of survivalists.

If I'd stayed, I'd have made it worse.

She grit her teeth, as she made her way to one of the pumps, and began the process of siphoning it into her bike. She couldn't stay. People around her had a nasty habit of dying, and not just from the dead. Jill, Carlos, L.J….she didn't know where they were, or if they were even alive, but she couldn't imagine Umbrella having any interest in them. Whatever protection she could give her friends, however strong her abilities were, they weren't worth the price of attracting those bastards' attention.

Not after what had happened to Angie…

She began siphoning petrol, using a hose, a pump, and a telekinetic push. Enough to fill the bike, and beyond that, the quartet of plastic bottles that hung from its sides. Enough to get her a few hundred miles, to find another town, and repeat the whole process. As she leant against the pump, taking note of the 2c per litre discount so generously offered, she looked around the gas station and the surrounding roads. Her hand rubbing the Glock holstered in her belt.

Hello? Poor defenceless meat sack here. Open for business. Her eyes darted from the left to the right. Anyone?

Fuck it, there was always at least a dozen zombies in places like this. Four years since civilization had collapsed, zombies tended to congregate in the largest cities, or form herds that headed out into the open countryside. Like bison, if only they walked on two legs instead of four, and ate meat rather than grass. But there were always a few stragglers. Here, there, everywhere. Not that she had any trouble with them, but still, strange as it was, seeing a zombie trying to eat her brains would have been more comforting than a city without one.

Maybe I'm just lucky.

She wasn't. She knew that. And since karma was a bastard, the universe promptly delivered the punishment for her hubris.

She saw it out of the corner of her eye. On top the roof of a diner named Romero's. Frowning, she picked a pair of binoculars from the rucksack mounted on the bike, and looked up.

Shit.

A spider. A big, black spider. About as big as a car, and given the way it scuttled down onto the street, about as fast as one as well.

Shit.

A big black, mutated spider, which was promptly accompanied by a dozen other spiders. Spiders that looked at her with eight eyes each. Spiders that looked hungry. Or, maybe this was how they usually looked. With their hissing, and spitting, and screeching, and-

Shit!

Not bothering to check if the bike was full, Alice disconnected the hose, got on, and rode as fast as her wheels could take her. Not daring to look back as the spiders engaged in pursuit.

No zombies. No bodies. Could they have…

She looked back.

Shit!

There were stories she'd heard along the road. Of creatures that had come back to life, or been mutated beyond recognition. Dogs. Cats. Snakes. Birds, even. It wasn't just that the T-virus had wiped out Earth's original ecosystem, it was reconfiguring it into some macabre simulacrum. Same animals, same habits, but none of it natural.

And now, spiders. Spiders that were coming from all directions.

Spiders that were chasing her.

Spiders moving very, very fast.

Revving the bike, Alice did her best to move faster.


The sea.

It had likely been four minutes since this chase had begun, but to Alice, it felt like five hours. For half a decade, her life had been nothing but running from one place to the other. From the undead, to Umbrella, even the living. Being chased by a horde of angry spiders was, regrettably, neither the strangest situation she'd found herself in, nor the most dangerous.

But this chase had taken her to the sea. To the docks of Maroon. To a cluster of boats that has smashed against each other, left rotting in the evening air. When the outbreak had begun to consume the world, many had fled to the sea, while the world's navies had often tried to keep people on land, in a vain attempt to contain its spread. What resulted was just more death, more destruction, and ultimately, an achievement of nothing.

Alice had seen a few sights like this before, in the few times she'd risked heading to a coastal settlement. What she hadn't seen, however, was an old wooden sailing ship nestled among the larger steel ones.

"Turn around! Turn around!"

She frowned. What in the world?

Not only was there a wooden ship before her, but there were people on it. Waving at her to veer away. Screaming for her to not come any closer. Had her body not been augmented by the T-virus, she doubted she'd have even been able to hear them over the sound of the bike's engine, or the screeches of the arachnids.

"Go away! Go away!"

She glanced back at the arachnid horde chasing her, and returned her gaze to the ship, as she sped down the dock that led to it. Not a chance.

The people would be angry. They might even try to kill her. But dealing with the living was preferable to dealing with undead spiders.

Shots rang out through the night air, as some of the boat's crew took up positions on the deck. For a moment, Alice was afraid they were shooting at her. The moment after that, however, she realized that they were shooting at the spiders. Unlikely to be an act of mercy, more the grim realization that the spiders were already here, and no matter what they did to the person on the bike, they'd be coming for them next.

So she revved the bike's engine. Rode it not just down the dock, but up the gangplank as well, which was promptly removed by two of the sailors.

What?

Yes, sailors, she reflected. Men dressed up like something out of a 19th century navy, in their blues and whites, albeit stained by dirt and blood. Looking around at the panicked people on the deck, opening fire on the spiders coming their way, she realized that over half of them were dressed up sailors of old.

"Hey."

Including the man who tossed a rifle into her hands.

"I certainly hope you know how to use that thing."

She bit back the retort on the tip of her tongue. Why yes, she did know how to use the M231 firing port weapon variant of the M16 – that was just common sense. After all, if you didn't know your guns, how else did one survive this long?

Hard to say. But even before Umbrella's experiments, she was well versed in everything from pistols, to rifles, to explosives. Umbrella were bastards, but they didn't skimp on training for its operatives.

Funny how she remembered that, and so little else…

She rested the rifle on the top of the deck. Like a marine of old, aiming down his sights at an enemy ship. For a moment, she wondered if these people had cannons.

But the spiders were still coming. The gangplank had been removed, but these things could jump. As one did right at her…screeching, clawing…

Bam.

It dropped into the water, dead.

Bam. Bam. Rat-tat-tat. Bam.

More shots. More dead spiders.

Bam bam bam.

Every shot hit with precision. Her psychic abilities steadying her hand, and focusing her mind.

Bam. A spider screeched.

Bam. A spider fell.

There was more she could do. Cause their limbs to seize. Fry their brains. She could even try ripping the dock out from under them and drown the monsters like the itsy bitsy spiders they'd once been.

Bam.

But for now, the gun was her weapon, and her mind, the conductor rather than the player. At best, using her powers in front of all these people would arouse suspicion (well, more suspicion). At worst, it would bring Umbrella's attention to them. And if the history of those bastards had taught her anything, it was that when Umbrella got involved, people died.

Billions of them.

So she and the crew kept firing. The spiders kept dying. Had they been animals of the natural world, they would have surely retreated by now, Alice reflected. But they weren't. The "natural world" was long gone. The T-virus drove them to infect any creature they could, and if that meant throwing themselves blindly at the living, so be it.

So eventually, silence fell over the boat, and the docks, and the town of Maroon. The bodies of spiders littered the dock, and bobbed in the water. Slowly, Alice lowered her rifle, and looked at the men and women around her. Many of whom were looking back in disdain, others, in bemusement. Some of whom hadn't lowered their guns at all, but were pointing them at her.

"Um…" She chose her words carefully. "I-"

For a moment, she wondered why the deck of the ship was rushing up to meet her, and why the back of her head was hurting.

A moment after that?

Nothing.


As Alice slowly came to, her first thought was "I'm alive."

Her second thought, as vision returned to her eyes, was "that's nice, I guess."

Her third thought wasn't any one particular thing, but rather, a jumble of smaller thoughts combined as she took stock of the situation.

She was inside a wooden boat, no doubt the sailing ship she'd been on earlier. That she was somewhere below decks, which apart from a faded gift shop sign, looked like a perfect replica of something from the Age of Sail. And, most importantly of all, that her ankles were bound in rope, and her hands in handcuffs.

Not too difficult to get out of, I-

"Ah. You're awake."

Alice immediately reconsidered her priorities, as she looked up and saw a large man with a large smile, wearing a blue, large uniform, looking over her very…largely.

Please don't make me kill you.

"You feeling alright? Artemis has a way of knocking things out. Well, actually, usually making zombies' brains explode, but regretfully, every so often, we have to do the same to the living."

Alice raised an eyebrow.

"Bad people, I assure you. Every so often we get some bandits who come this way, and every so often, we have to fight them off."

Not knowing if she believed him (and not really interested either), Alice just nodded.

As civilization had collapsed, it had brought out the best in humanity, as well as the worst. More than once, she'd done what she'd could to save lives. And more than once, had taken them as well.

Usually without being captured.

"But back to what I was saying – are you alright? Are you cold? Are you hot? I mean, if you don't mind me saying so, you are pretty hot, and…oh dear, did I just…?"

She forced a smile. "I'm fine, thanks."

"Oh, that's good. I mean, it might not be good, since a lot of people are pissed at you over the whole spider thing, and I may be the captain, well, not really the captain, I mean, I was the captain, but I'm not the leader, Artemis is, and…"

He trailed off, looking sheepish. It wasn't the first time he'd mentioned this "Artemis" character, Alice noted. But people who shared the names of Greek goddesses could wait. Right now, only one person was before her. A person that, now that she looked at him, seemed a mite familiar.

"Have I seen you before?" She murmured.

"Um…well, that's a weird question. I mean, I've seen you before…or I think I have…I mean, you looked just like her, and-"

"I did see you before," Alice said, ignoring the man's ramblings.. "You're the one who chucked me that rifle."

"Ah, so you do remember."

The smile faded.

"Is something wrong?" The man asked.

"I…" She chose her words carefully, before making the choice to say nothing at all. She didn't want to discuss memory. Not when she had so little of it.

Instead, she raised her hands, and shook them. Or more specifically, the handcuffs.

"Yes, well, that." He rubbed the back of his head. "Well, funny thing that…since I'm the captain, but not really the captain, and Artemis is the leader, she thought that we should tie you up."

Alice rolled her eyes. It was a wonder this man was still alive. How he was still this heavily built, after four years of food being at a premium. She'd seen men who talked and weighed less been torn apart, how was this twat still standing?

"Ron," he said, extending a hand. "Captain of the Pearlman."

Alice jingled her handcuffs.

"Ah, yes. I suppose that makes things difficult."

"A bit."

An uneasy silence lingered between the two of them, and Ron looked at the stairs that led to the deck above. If this ship was called the Pearlman, and he was its 'captain,' it might explain the anachronistic clothing he was wearing. Navy blues and whites, stained with grime and dry blood, but still clearly not something of the 20th or 21st centuries. It might also explain why, despite his rank, he was playing second fiddle to this Artemis character.

He really had no idea how much danger he was in, Alice reflected. How, if his captive wanted to, she could fry his brain, or kill him through more conventional means.

"You hungry?" Ron asked.

Still, he seemed a decent fellow. And in a world where the decent tended to die first, she was loathe to add his numbers to the list of decent dead.

Like Matt. Like Angie…

"I mean, right now, the menu's rat, fish, and more rat," Ron said, still rambling. "Don't worry, they're not infected. Or, at least I don't think they are. We've lost a few people to zombification over the years, but only through bites." He laughed nervously. "I mean, we get the rules, y'know?"

"No."

"No, as in, you know, or no, as in the opposite of yes?"

"No," Alice repeated. "You die, you come back."

What little colour was left in Ron's face, she thought.

"T-virus is everywhere. Someone dies, you burn them, decapitate them, or put a bullet in their brain." She frowned. "How do you not know that?"

"Because he does," came a voice, followed by the sound of footsteps on stairs. "Or rather, he should."

Ron got even more pale. And seeing the thing walking down the stairs, Alice couldn't blame him. If she saw a human walk down the stairs of an 18th century sailing ship, wearing plate and armour that looked like it was of the 12th, she might have done a double take as well.

"You know the rules," said the woman to Ron, as she walked over the wooden floor. "Dead always come back."

"I…" He rubbed a hand down his head. "I guess, but we don't really know, and-"

"Go upstairs, Ron."

He looked at Alice, as if for help, but finding none, looked back at the woman, then headed for the stairs. Despite the helm that covered her head, Alice knew it was a woman because of the tone of her voice. Hard, but still feminine. Scarce different from her own.

But it wasn't just the helm she was wearing, but armour as well. Plate covered her chest, and iron covered her lower arms as well. The lower half of her body, however, just had tattered tan jeans.

"You might want to cover your legs," Alice said.

The woman looked at her.

"Zombies can still bite there. And one bite, it's all over."

"I cover my legs, my mobility goes down."

"So it's flight over fight?"

"Don't know if you've noticed, but the last half decade has been flight over fight. The 'fight' lasted months at the most."

Having lived through the collapse of the world, having seen its militaries overrun by millions of undead, Alice supposed she couldn't disagree.

"Half of the crew wants you dead," the woman murmured. "For leading the arachnids to us."

"And the other half?"

"They want to give you a medal for the same reason."

Alice stared at her, uncomprehending.

"The spiders have given us hell for years. They can't come out during the day because the sun burns them. Literally. Some quirk of the T-virus I guess. But at night…well, at night, we stay on the boat. Because if there's one thing the spiders like slightly less than the sun, it's water."

"And the undead?" Alice asked. "Where do they fit in?"

The woman snorted. "You drove through Maroon, didn't you see any?"

Alice shook her head.

"And why do you think that is?"

"You…killed them?"

"God, I wish. But no. The spiders did. Turns out that they'll feast on anything." The woman began pacing around. "So on one hand, you riled the spiders up. Reminded them that we're still here, and you put us all at risk, not to mention that we burnt through a third of our ammo in the fight."

"And on the other?" Alice asked.

"An opportunity," said the woman smugly. "You got a bunch of them to follow you, so that leaves us a chance to take out their nest, before they replenish their numbers."

Alice stared at her. "The spiders can reproduce?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I haven't seen any zombie babies, but if infected animals can lay infected eggs, and give birth to infected spiders, then I'm not waiting around to find out." The woman chuckled. "And since you been such good bait already, and I'm the leader of this sorry bunch…" The woman looked at Alice, who could just imagine the smile under that helm. "You know, I think I'm going to keep you alive."

"I'm flattered," Alice murmured.

"You're going to help us," the woman said. "You're going to answer all my questions. You're going to make Maroon safe for everyone after you put all our lives in danger. And once you've done all that, you'll get your bike back, and you can piss off to greener pastures."

Alice, knowing that pastures of any kind didn't exist anymore, remained silent. She helped these people, she got her bike, and did all that without getting Umbrella's attention? As deals went, that was…passable.

How long has it been since you had a better one?

"Deal?" The woman asked.

Alice extended her handcuffs hand. "Do you mind?" She whispered.

The woman knelt back down, taking a key out of her pocket. "I can let you out," she said. "But first, you have to answer a question."

"Ask away."

The woman took off her helm, and Alice's eyes widened. For the eyes that looked at hers were the same.

The entire visage was the same.

"I'm Natalie Artemis," the woman said. "And I want to know why the hell you have my face."


Come midday, Alice, Artemis, and Hunter were on the beach.

Beachbreak, scarce different from the rest of the beaches in Florida. About five klicks north from Maroon, where the harbour (such as it was) gave way to flat-lying sand. Sand that had extended further inland, as the trees on the shore were dead or dying, but sand nonetheless.

Artemis had put her plan into action immediately, and had given Alice the rundown. The spiders had made their nest on the beach – likely mutated as the T-virus had infected their environs, and had made it onto the beach as the trees died around them.

"How big is this nest, anyway?" Alice had asked.

Artemis, after a moment of silence, had murmured, "it'll be easier to show you."

It was clear that Natalie Artemis wasn't much on talking, which suited Alice just fine. She did this, she got her bike back, she could leave with the fuel she'd taken from the gas station, and never return. Whatever the feelings of the boat crew, Artemis was their leader, and faced with a woman who had her face, didn't want Alice around any longer than necessary.

And not that she'd admit it, but the sooner she was away from these people, the better for all of them. If Umbrella found her, if they landed in Maroon here and now, well, Alice wasn't counting on them to invite the crew of the Pearlman in for tea and cookies.

So the three of them continued to walk. The waves lapped with predictable rhythm, sand got in her shoes and hair, the sun burnt her skin. For a moment, she dared to imagine being on this beach in the world that had once existed. Tried to remember being on a beach. Because surely, she had been, at one point…she must have had parents, a family…she surely must have been on a beach at some point in her life.

Right?

As she continued to walk across the sand, her back weighed down with a rifle and explosives, Alice glanced back at the two survivours following her. Artemis, still wearing her plate armour, and Hunter – a silent man carrying an oversized bow and oversized sword. Fashioned out of bark and bone, it was a wonder he could carry either without stumbling into the sand.

"This is Hunter," Artemis had said. "He doesn't speak English, but he knows how to kill the undead."

Alice, who'd watched Hunter pray in the corner to a pair of figurines, asked, "so what language does he speak?"

"I don't know, and I don't care. He does his part, he kills monsters, and besides, we're all in this together."

"You can't understand him, but you know his name is Hunter?"

Artemis had given her a rare smile. "Gotta call him something, don't I? What else are you going to call someone who kills monsters?"

A killer? Alice had wondered. A predator? A slayer? She toyed with making suggestions, but decided against it. There was no reason to piss the bitch.

In the end, it was Ron who'd filled in the extra details. Hunter had turned up one day, staggering onto the shore. Who he was, where he'd come from, were questions that he couldn't (or wouldn't) answer, but he knew how to take out the zombies and defend against the spiders, fashioning weapons, traps, and even armour. If not for Hunter, Ron had said, his crew would have perished years ago.

"My crew," Artemis had corrected, as they walked down the gangplank. "You're just performers."

It wasn't an insult, but a statement of fact. As it turned out, Ron and many of the people who called the Pearlman home were historical re-enactors. The Pearlman hadn't founded Maroon (which as it turned out, was so-named because someone liked the colour of Floridan sunsets), but it had brought it wealth from trade in pearls. Brought in people, built up an economy, and while times had changed, memories hadn't. Before the T-virus, Ron and his crews had done everything from guided tours, to sailing the ship, to even posing for photos at the gift shop.

People had really liked the bobble heads.

But then the world had ended. Maroon had been spared the worst of the apocalypse. The TV stations and Internet had held up long enough for them to watch every city along the east coast and beyond succumb to the pandemic. To see the Army set up a safe zone on the grounds of the White House. To see the Navy take up positions around New York, to keep people in, as much as out. They'd seen Miami go up in flames as the Air Force bombed it with napalm. They'd watched, they'd denied, they'd learnt, so when the infection had finally reached Maroon, when the wounded showed up, when the dead rose from the graves, they'd been ready enough so that some of them had survived.

Others died screaming. Because even in deep red Florida, guns and God couldn't bring you glory against the Devil's army. There'd been a brief battle in the streets, when Ron's wife had died not from the undead, but a stray bullet…and risen on her own hours later. "The rules" had been established, even if Ron had seemed intent on ignoring them.

So the Pearlman had become the home of the survivours. Moored at the docks, but kept separate from it. What zombies came their way just went plop into the water. What zombies remained in town were eventually cleared out by the spiders. So for four years, the people of Maroon had survived on a single ship that lay moored at its dock. As stories of survival went, it…well, it wasn't the worst, Alice reflected.

So she'd let Artemis march her down the beach. She'd agreed to this plan of hers to destroy the spider nest. She'd even given the ship's resident feline a pet before heading off. And thankfully, unlike the Cheshire Cat, it wasn't into decapitation.

Or biting. She'd encountered some zombie cats before. The little bastards were vicious.

"We're nearly there," Artemis murmured.

Alice kept marching. There was no warmth in Artemis's voice, just cold statement of fact.

"You know, if you pull this off, I might even have a swim."

Alice doubted that, but nevertheless, looked east, to the endless blue beside them. While the land had been ravaged by the T-virus, with much of the planet turning to desert, the ocean seemed to have been spared its touch. No zombie sharks, no skeleton whales, no homicidal fish, nothing. While the land around her died, along with its inhabitants, it was as if the ocean had said "so long, we'll keep the fish."

But then, it wasn't that simple. Multiple people had taken to the sea as life on land became untenable. Everything from ferries to fishing trawlers, forming small flotillas to defend against the living as much as the dead. In the first year, there was plenty of radio contact, even from the Navy, but then, nothing. Fuel couldn't last forever. And there wasn't always plenty of fish in the sea. These days, if Alice saw a ship operating, she stayed clear. Because it wasn't just the dead that the T-virus brought back, but piracy as well.

"You don't talk much, do you?" Artemis asked.

Alice looked at her. "Not much to say."

"I'm looking at my doppelganger, there's plenty to say."

"I'm sure there is. But I can't say anything."

"Can't?" Artemis asked, frowning. "Or won't?"

Can't, Alice reflected. She quickened her pace along the sand.

"Fine, whatever. We'll both be dead someday, and when our faces are rotting with worms, the people who survive this clusterfuck won't be able to tell the difference."

Cute, Alice thought, as she continued walking up the beach. You actually think people are going to survive this.

The truth of the matter was, she had no idea why Natalie Artemis looked like her. That same blonde hair, those same blue eyes…Her face was 'harder,' she supposed. Sharper. Turned out that the training the Rangers provided was more intense than that of the Umbrella Security Service. But there was no mistaking the differences. There was no mistaking the uneasy glances the crew of the Pearlman gave her, that came from more than just rocking up onto their boat one night. Faced with Alice's lack of answers, Artemis had just given up asking.

Maybe she was her long lost sister, Alice reflected. Maybe it was some coincidence. Her memory had come and gone over the years, but everything before the mansion was a blur. Sometimes, at night, when she was between waking and fleeting sleep, she had flashes. People, events, before being assigned to the Hive's entrance, but it was as if her own mind was fighting against her. As if, she was remembering memories that weren't really memories. Like dreams, on the tips of her fingers, dissipating whenever she tried to grasp them…fighting her…

And then she'd wake up, beside a dim fire. She'd grip her pistol, and scan for hostiles. She'd tell herself that the memories were due to her bonding with the T-virus, that as her mental abilities had developed, her memories had taken a hit. She told herself this, and tried to take comfort…because the alternatives were too horrific to contemplate.

"We're here."

But, memories or not, the waking world had plenty of bullshit as well. Case in point, as Alice beheld the sight before her.

"What the fuck?"

And asked the only question that could be asked, in the only way she knew how. But alas, neither the world nor its inhabitants gave an answer.

Termite mounds. That's what they looked like. Big, black pillars extending from the sand. Like spikes extending from the earth itself.

She looked at Artemis. "I thought you said it was a nest."

"It is." She gestured to the mounds. "It's beneath us."

Alice stared at her. She wanted to make a comment about spiders, or webs, or flies, but no word reached her tongue.

"Weird, huh?" Artemis walked over, coming within ten metres of one of the protrusions. "They make their home underground. They're happy to tear us apart in the streets of Maroon, but a lot of the time, they pick us off instead. Drag us here, and into their nest underground." She walked up to the mound, and gave it a small nudge with her boot. Alice watched as she saw its material bend with it.

"The nest is easy to get into. But getting out is another matter."

Alice frowned. "So that's where I come in."

"Yep." Artemis gave her a wry smile. "But cheer up. You helped us wipe out half…okay, more likely a quarter…of the spiders last night, so when you descend into the nest, you've got an advantage."

Alice folded her arms. "And if I don't like this plan?"

"Then I find another use for you."

"And if I stop you from finding another use for me?"

Artemis nodded at Hunter. Hunter took out his oversized sword, and gave it a swing. And Alice, in that moment, understood completely.

"Time to get to work, muppet."

The two women knelt down in the sand as Artemis took off her rucksack. A grapple line, flares, and copious explosives.

"You go into the nest. You plant the bombs. You light the flare. You draw the spiders in, the bombs go off, and if you're really lucky, I wheel you back up."

Alice sighed. "You know I still don't like this plan, right?"

"Oh, but I think you do," Artemis said.

"Why?"

"Because," said the former ranger, "I know a killer when I see one."

Killer. The word washed over Alice as surely as the sand and surf did. She didn't think of herself as a killer. She'd killed hundreds of the living dead by now…had even killed the living. Even before the world had gone to hell, she'd killed Umbrella troopers in Raccoon City, and had killed people that she'd once dared to call her friend. People like Rain…people like Matt…

But not a killer, she told herself. Spence had been a killer, and 500 people had died. Umbrella was run by killers, and had directly killed 100,000 people. And while they hadn't intentionally released the T-virus into the wider world, their negligence and greed had caused the deaths of billions.

Compared to that, what was she?

And what, Alice wondered, as she looked at Artemis, are you?

She knew some of the answer. Natalie Artemis was a former US Army Ranger. Activated in Florida and not given orders beyond "shoot the dead, save the living." In the last few weeks of the US's existence, it had deployed its military, declared martial law, halted all plane and rail transport, and a thousand other things that had made no difference. That Artemis's orders had been so vague had come as no surprise, nor the outcome of throwing soldiers into the grinder.

So Artemis had survived while her team hadn't. She'd made it into Maroon, and instructed the survivours in the use of tactics and guns. She might have had her face, Alice reflected, but Artemis had at least stayed with this group of survivours. Not left them, in a bid to protect them. Natalie Artemis wasn't carrying the T-virus inside her body. She didn't have Umbrella hunting her for God knew what.

How perverse it was, that it was Umbrella of all people that still remained active. Back in the Hive, Rain had joked that Umbrella had the money to buy the Army outright, and pay them better as well. Based on everything she'd seen – the APCs, the VTOLs, military-grade equipment bearing the red and white like a bloody Swastika, Alice suspected that Rain hadn't known how right she was.

"They say that in the Army, the pay is mighty fine."

Alice blinked. Was Artemis…singing?

"They give you a hundred dollars, and take back ninety-nine."

Good grief, she was. Not very well, and out of tune, but she was bloody well singing.

"They say that in the Army, the coffee's mighty fine."

Singing, and not only that, but fingering something that hung around her neck.

"It looks like muddy water, and tastes like turpentine."

Dog tags, Alice wondered? Or something else?

"They say that in the army, the biscuits are mighty fine."

She couldn't tell. And it didn't matter anyway. The Army, the country Natalie Artemis had enlisted to serve no longer existed.

"One rolled off the table, and killed a friend of mine."

So she could sing all the songs she wanted, and it wouldn't make any difference.

It took about three minutes for them to finish priming the explosives. During which there was no shortage of claims as to how great the Army was, and how it treated its soldiers.

Rain was right. Umbrella would have paid them better.

"And we're done," Artemis said. "Ready?"

Alice looked at her rifle, the flares, and the explosives, before answering "ready as I'll ever be."

Artemis attached the grapple to her belt. The two women remained silent for a good minute, before the contraption was finished. Before Artemis kicked the top of the mound open, revealing an small tunnel wide enough for a human to fit through, and a void in the bowels of he earth beneath them.

"Just remember," Artemis said. "They're vulnerable to sunlight."

"I'm underground, how's that going to help me?"

Artemis shrugged, but despite the outward nonchalance, Alice could sense her unease. The way she moved. The way her voice cracked. The way she refused to make eye contact, if only for a moment.

"Listen…if you want to go over the plan again…"

"Just lower me," said Alice. "It won't be the first time I've entered a hive."


As Alice had said, it wasn't the first time she'd entered a hive. But as she was lowered into the gloom, she couldn't shake the gnawing fear that it would be the last time.

She'd been in a hive…the Hive, four years ago. An underground lab where Umbrella had created its bio-organic weapons. When a homicidal bastard named Spence had released the T-virus, and a homicidal bitch had killed everyone inside, only for the dead to rise and become veryhomicidal themselves. Cue the following four years of mass homicide through cannibalism.

This hive, however, was different. It was the domain of arachnid psychopaths rather than human ones, and its structure was made of some strange black chitin. Webs had been spun from wall to wall, and many of them had the remains of creatures in them, ranging from birds, to human skeletons. As she came to a stop upon the black, spongy surface, Alice looked around in the gloom.

Tunnels. Half a dozen of them. Leading left, right, down, but not up. Piercings of light shone down from the surface, courtesy of the hole Artemis had made, but otherwise, only darkness reigned. Nary a spider to be seen, however – assuming Artemis was right about the spiders being vulnerable to daylight (and she had no reason to doubt her at this point), their absence made sense.

And yet, this plan relied on her acting as bait. Lighting a flare, setting explosives, and hopefully, being wheeled up to watch the fireworks.

"You alright down there?"

Artemis's whisper reached her somehow. Echoing from wall to wall.

"Fine," Alice called back. "New place to add to my holiday scrapbook. One-hundred places to go if you want to die."

"Get on the job, and the dying part can be postponed."

Postponed. The word hung in the air like a foul odour. Mixing with the thick, pungent smell that surrounded her already, the air weighing down on her like the layers of rock above. Frowning, Alice knelt down and began setting the charges, muscle memory guiding her more than anything else. The USS, it seemed, wanted its soldiers to know how to blow shit up.

The dying part can be postponed. She shook her head. But not avoided.

One day, she'd die. In a world where the T-virus outbreak never occurred, that would still have been a certainty. There was even a strong likelihood that if Umbrella had kept its shit together, she'd have still died early thanks to Umbrella's goons, or even the US government. As Jill and Carlos had explained, Terri's recording of the events in Raccoon City had accomplished nothing. A disgraced reporter had given her account of events, Umbrella theirs, and of course, the masses had sided with the latter. Despite the fact that Umbrella itself had let out survivours from Raccoon City, despite the fact that nuclear meltdowns did not leave giant craters in place of cities, the public had lapped it up. And those who hadn't, well, they were dead now anyway.

And one day, she'd join them. Possibly very, very soon.

Shit.

Spiders. All around her. She hadn't even had to light the flare to lure them in. A fly had flown into their nest, and it was lunchtime.

Shit.

Half a dozen tunnels, and dozens of spiders coming out of them. Creatures of white eye and black, furry skin, their fangs sharpened through mutation, their flesh rotten and roar. Driven by the need to consume, there were more than they once were, and yet, less as well.

For a moment, Alice felt regret pierce her heart. The T-virus had taken everything. Twisted everything. If Mother Earth existed, she'd succumbed just as much as her bi-pedal, hairless children had.

But the moment after that, she yelled "pull me out," withdrew her rifle, and began to fire. Because tragedy or not, she had no intent of dying today. Not to these monsters.

Not to any kind of monster.

"Pull me out! Now!"

There was no tug on her grapple line. No ascension to the world above. Cursing, Alice kept firing. One burst after another, downing a spider with every shot. Killing them? She couldn't tell. But keeping them at bay.

"I've set the bombs, get me out!"

Perhaps they never intended to pull her up. Perhaps by telling them that she'd set the charges, they had the intention of getting out of dodge. Perhaps they were already dead.

I hope not.

She kept firing. The spiders kept coming. Closing in on their abandoned prey.

If they are, they deserve it.

More spiders, more fangs, more bullets, yet not enough. She was still down here, a fly in the web, and couldn't do anything.

A tide of fangs, hisses, screeches, clawing, gnawing, closing in from all sides, ready to strike and-

"No!"

The wave of telekinetic force extended out from all directions.

Spiders were sent flying. Screeching. Screaming.

Fear clutched her breast, and not because of the creatures around her. A psychic attack of that magnitude. If Umbrella hadn't known where she was, they did now.

And as she felt a pull at her waist, as she was suddenly, finally hoisted up to the surface, that fear extended to the people of Maroon as well.

People around her tended to die. There was no reason why the people of Maroon shouldn't be next.

Spiders crawled around the walls, desperate to get at her. Gripping the rifle, Alice opened fire.

She might die soon. But not here.

Not now.

She'd set the timers to three minutes. Right now, that had seemed grossly optimistic.

"Pull!" Alice yelled.

A spider leapt. A human shot. The spider fell.

The human who shot emerged into the sunlight, pulled to her feet by the man who couldn't speak English, and the woman who had her face. A trinity that was an odd-angled triangle.

"Took your time."

Artemis stared at her, her eyes wide. For a moment, Alice wondered if she'd seen what she'd done below.

But only for a moment. Because without a word spoken, yet with all the understanding in the world, the trio began to run towards the surf.

The bombs were ticking down. The tides were keeping their rhythm.

Like clockwork.

Not gonna die, not gonna die, not gonna-

The bombs went off.

A section of the beach collapsed into the ground, forming a pit.

The water didn't reach it, but it did reach the trio who'd thrown themselves down into the drenched sand. Wheezing. Breathing.

"Boom," whispered Hunter.

Alice, still lying on the ground, looked at him.

"Boom," he whispered, making a motion with his hands. "Boom."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's right." Alice extended a fist towards him. "Boom."

Hunter smiled, and knocked his fist against hers. "Boom."

Alice turned aside, and began to laugh. Laughed, and tried not to cry.

It had been so long since she'd laughed. So long since she'd even heard its sound.

She wasn't going to ruin the moment through tears.

"Nice show down there."

Artemis, however, had other plans, as she got to her feet.

"Good job, Bait."

"My name is…" Alice trailed off.

"But the job isn't done."

That she'd trailed off wasn't because of the spiders emerging to the surface. Burning from the sun and the explosives, but somehow, horribly, alive – mutated instinct directing them to take as many lives as possible, while their own came to an end.

They hadn't been the reason for her falling silent, but in fairness, it would have been a pretty good one.

She began to get to her feet. But Artemis pushed her down.

"Sit this one out, Bait. We've got this."

Her muscles throbbing, her heart aching, Alice didn't attempt to argue.

So many times, she'd stepped in to save people. Weaving a dance of death as people looked on in horror and awe. Usually they ended up dead regardless, be it on that day or the next, but still, the dance remained.

So to see it now. To see Hunter wield his giant blade, and Artemis a pair of twin-blades and gauntlet-gun…to see them dance, duck, and weave, taking unlife with every strike…it was exhilarating. It made her feel…safe.

But does she know?

Her eyes remained on Natalie Artemis as she killed yet another spider.

Did she see me?

It occurred to Alice that it was only after she launched her psychic attack that Artemis had pulled her to the surface. That perhaps where she once saw bait, now she saw an asset.

Maybe. Maybe not. Soon, perhaps, she'd find out.

But for now, she just lay on the sand, in the surf.

Enjoying the dance of death.


Poorly played instruments and overdone fish did not a party make, but the crew of the Pearlman were doing their best.

Sitting on the edge of the dock, the water lapping at her feet, Alice looked at the fish on her plate, gingerly poking it with a rusted fork. The people had assured her it wasn't infected, and that might have been the truth, but still, earlier today, she'd fought mutated spiders on these very shores. If fish were spared the ravages of the T-virus and nothing else, that revelation would have been…fishy.

Still, the T-virus had bonded with her. Changed her. For all she knew, she was now completely immune to its effects. So while she had no intention of inviting a zombie to dinner to test that idea, a little fish couldn't do too much, right?

She gave up on the fork assault, and instead, after a moment's hesitation, put some of the meat in her mouth. Then some more. And more. And more after that.

She'd gotten used to being hungry. She'd forgotten what it was like to eat well. She ate with her fork, then her hands, then her fingers. Even after half a decade of seeing human teeth tear into flesh, it gave her no pause, as she continued to devour the meat on her plate.

"Good stuff?"

She looked up, caught in the act.

"What I wouldn't give for chips though," said Artemis, as she walked up beside her. "You ever have fish and chips?"

Alice remained silent. There was an honest answer she could give to that, but she had no intention of sharing her amnesia with the woman beside her.

"Y'know, there's a fish and chip shop here," the ranger continued, as she sat down beside Alice. "Holy Mackerel. What a name, eh?"

Alice shrugged.

"Its owners locked themselves in the freezer, so when we raided it, we found two zombie popsicles, and no fish, and no chips. Selfish bastards had eaten everything they could rather than leave it to scavengers like us, can you believe it?"

Alice could. And despite the faux outrage, could tell that Artemis was just bullshitting.

"Yeah," said the ranger, as she looked out over the darkened sea. "What I wouldn't give for some good old fashioned chips."

The question then, was why she was bullshitting her. Artemis had uttered more words to her in the last minute than she had in the entire walk back to the Pearlman. And while there was a chance that she was just being friendly, or welcoming, or anything like that, Alice knew better than to count on it.

In this world, the cruel prospered, and the kind perished. The meek, as it turned out, were not destined to inherit the Earth.

You're here though.

She put the plate aside, as she watched Artemis take something out from under her shirt.

But then, Angie isn't.

She winced, rubbing her hands together, as a chill that came not from the evening pierced her heart. Even now, she remembered that day. What Isaacs had made her do.

"Still, I'm afraid she's not terrible useful."

The day when she truly, finally, understood what Umbrella was capable of.

"The form of the T-virus her late, lamented father infected her with bears very little resemblance to what's floating in the air right now. It's mutated far beyond her ability to be useful to us."

When she fully understood the danger she represented to those around her.

"So I'm afraid you're going to have to kill her."

How, in a world where the living could only survive by banding together, she could only do so by staying alone.

Which was why she would have to leave this place. Maybe Artemis would welcome it, maybe not. But in the meantime, she saw what the ranger had retrieved from amongst her dog tags.

A single gold ring. One that Artemis slowly turned in her fingers. Like something out of those books she'd uncovered in a public library. She'd managed to stay there a full month and read to her heart's content before a zombie herd had closed in, and she'd roared off in her bike. Eyes sharpened through everything from that reading to genetic manipulation, Alice made out the words engraved on the ring's interior.

"Forever," she whispered.

Artemis looked at her, almost embarrassed.

"I assume you tied the knot before…well, all this."

Artemis looked aside and put the ring back under her dog tags.

"Listen, I didn't mean to-"

"Yeah, well, you did."

Alice fell silent. She wanted to joke that "Forever" was a better engraving than "Property of the Umbrella Corporation." She wanted to tell Artemis that she was lucky to have found someone who loved her. How she'd left her ring on the platform of an underground lab complex, before the wheezing, rasping reanimate that had once been Percival Spencer Fucking Parks. She wanted to tell her everything.

But she held back. In part because it wouldn't change what had happened. In part, because she didn't want to broadcast her association with the company that had destroyed the world. And in part, because Artemis began to speak.

"We were married a year before this all started," she whispered. "Didn't take his name, but took his vows." She snorted. "Forever."

Alice remained silent.

"Little extra vow there," she added. "He knew I was a ranger. We knew that we'd spent months apart. But…well, that was how things used to be. Get married. Stay together. Have children. Live forever."

"Where…" Alice chose her words carefully. "Where is he?"

Artemis remained silent.

"Where was he?"

"San Francisco," Artemis whispered. "Right where this all began. Or second. I don't know if the Raccoon Tapes were legit, but it doesn't matter."

Alice knew the feeling.

"I wanted to strike out for San Fran," Artemis whispered, as she rubbed her eye. "Screw command, screw the Army, screw everything. I just…wanted to get home, y'know? When the outbreak started, when Washington went dark, whole swathes of the Army and National Guard deserted. Chain of command was gone, country was gone – if this was the end of the world, they wanted to be with their families."

"But you stayed," Alice said.

"I stayed," Artemis repeated. "Because I thought 'hey, we're all in this together.' I'm gonna to my part, I'm gonna beat this thing, and then, I'm going to make my way home in time for Christmas." She sighed, as she looked down at the window. "By Christmas, the country and most of its people were gone. And from what we heard, so had most of the world."

Alice remained silent. Artemis had her sympathy, but only to a point. Her story was the same as countless stories she'd heard over the years. The stories drying up as the suppliers of them died, and she found isolation on the road.

And it was a road she'd have to return to, eventually. Maroon might seem safe, for now. Zombies were gone, spiders were gone, they had a good location, and a safe supply of food and water. But sooner or later, the armies of the dead would turn up. Or worse, Umbrella.

Yet having eaten some fish…listening to the sound of clapping, and dancing, and violins…the thought of remaining here didn't seem so bad. Perhaps, this time, she could-

"But enough of me," Artemis said. "We need to discuss the matter of your departure."

Alice's head spun right back to her doppelganger. Neither mercy nor warmth greeted her gaze.

"I saw what you did," Artemis whispered. "Down there, in the tunnels. What happened to those spiders."

Alice opened her mouth, but stopped herself. Denial would do her no good. Not now.

"I don't know how you did it. I don't know what you are. But I do know that I don't want you here any longer than necessary."

Alice frowned. "I get rid of your insect problem, and this is how you thank me?"

"Spiders aren't insects. And yes. This is how I'm thanking you. I'm giving you the chance to slip away in the night, rather than me and my crew stringing you up."

"Ron's crew."

"Ron," Artemis scoffed. She looked at the man on the deck, dancing poorly, but still having fun. "He calls himself captain because he stumbled into cosplay that actually paid. If it was up to him, we'd be dead long ago. And the only reason we're not dead is because of people like me."

"People like you," Alice whispered. "Of course."

It was a statement, not an accusation. Of all the people Alice had encountered in the last four years, Natalie Artemis hardly counted among the worst. She was letting her go at least. Someone worse would have killed her outright. And people even worse than that wanted to do more than kill her. They wanted her alive.

"Your bike's at the end of the pier," Artemis said. "You have five minutes."

Alice couldn't help but ask, "and if I refuse?"

Artemis tapped the blade at her belt.

"You saw me display psychic powers, and you think that'll save you?"

"I think that you'll keep going," Artemis whispered. "Because you're that rare combination of being a freak and a good person. One who's going to leave, so to not put us in danger."

Alice frowned.

"Am I right?"

The living weapon got to her feet.

"I see that I am."

Alice began walking. The sound of music slowly faded into the distance. And unlike the film of the same name, there was no endless expanse of fields awaiting her, but rather, desert. Endless desert. Isolation, death, and those who had died and returned. It was the world that Artemi was sending her into, and damn well knew it.

She reached her bike, and clenched its bars. Glanced back up at the dock. At Artemis, standing in the gloom. Only a few metres away, having silently followed her.

"What about Hunter?" Alice whispered. "Does he know?"

"He has eyes."

"And?"

"And he can't say anything we understand, so what he thinks isn't relevant. All that matters is that he continues to wield that big sword of his, act as our monster hunter, and keep the rest of us safe in our beds."

Alice snorted, as she looked at the Pearlman. "You don't have beds."

"Not yet."

Alice looked at the town of Maroon. "Bit of shopping in the works?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. And maybe you're just stalling." Artemis nodded. "Highway's that way."

Indeed it was, Alice reflected, as she got on her bike. Indeed it was.

"Goodbye, Alice. We won't meet again."

Alice didn't say anything.

As she sped off into the night, there was nothing to add to that last piece of truth.


It was only at the welcoming billboard that she stopped.

Not in the streets. Not at any office or house. Not anywhere.

Only here. At this place.

For a moment, she parked her bike. Looked at the sign that said MAROONED. Looked across the town, struggling to make out its docks.

The sea was to the east, but another sea lay before her. One of sand, and dust, and death. A sea where she would remain cast adrift.

She didn't know who'd scratched those letters, and she never would. But here, now…she realized just how accurate they'd been. The writing of one long dead, forever serving as guidance to the living.

Some might call that poetic.

But it made no difference, as she roared off into the empty night. The wasteland before her.

And a bitter, salty breeze, forever at her back.