Nemesis: Resident Evil III

Chapter Thirty One: No Escape

Even though Jill was running at full speed back down the carpeted stairs of the clock tower, headed toward the front door, it felt like she was moving in slow motion the entire time like in one of those dreams where the sleeper never gets anywhere no matter how hard they try. By the time the young woman actually reached the massive double doors of the building and pushed them open, though, the large transport helicopter's rotors could clearly be heard as the aircraft was starting to come into view.

We're saved, she thought to herself, standing in the courtyard as the helicopter flew toward them from somewhere back toward the downtown district, and Carlos was all smiles when he finally caught up with her, although out of breath. He said something about never seeing a woman run that fast before, or something like that since she could barely hear him over the ringing bells and the approaching rotors, and then he hugged her, both of them nearly jumping for joy with each passing second.

"We did it, Jill!" The young man had to yell over the noise. "I told you we were gonna make it!"

"It's finally over!" Jill yelled back, shedding a couple tears. "It's over!"

The two of them hugged again just as the helicopter got close enough for the pilot to use their high-powered searchlight, casting a brilliant light on Jill and Carlos like they were in the spotlight during a stage performance, and now the young man was staring into her eyes while slowly pulling the young woman closer. Oh hell, why not? Closing her eyes, the two of them kissed; arms going around each other, and Carlos lifting her just a little bit off the ground like what usually happened in the end of old disaster movies, and…

Thunk… fwoosh!

Breaking the kiss as a sharp, almost whistling sound reached her ears, and then she looked up just in time to see a trail of white smoke being given off as something flew right toward the helicopter. There was no time to gasp or even blink when the young woman realized what it was, because by then the projectile slammed into the bottom of the approaching craft, and then the whole rear section of it simply vanished in a flash of light and noise that lit up the night sky like thunder at high-noon.

Now Jill just stood there, watching as the helicopter, now without the aid of its stabilizing rotors, pitched forward into a kind of sideways roll before slamming right into the neck of the giant clock of the tower. BOOM! Another explosion as the damaged craft went up in flames, enough to completely shatter the stone walls just beneath the clock itself, and now the young woman found her voice again… in the form of a scream as she and Carlos dove for cover.

The entire top half of the tower's neck had been turned into a hailstorm of large boulders that rained down in all directions. One of the smaller pieces struck her in the shoulder, making the young woman cry out as she fell to the ground after stumbling forward, now forced to crawl underneath the bowl of the large decorative fountain for shelter, while the young man had no choice but to run for shelter underneath the building itself, since there was no more room where she was. Fire was raining down with the stones now, causing some of the grass and hedges to ignite as burning pieces of the helicopter landed on the ground, and then it all stopped as quickly as it had begun.

Except for the cut on her shoulder, Jill was mostly unharmed, unlike the fountain that had been pulverized and deformed while shielding her, and the young woman was about to call for Carlos to see if he was okay… when the next thing she saw made her freeze in place. There was a large figure standing on top of the ruined cable car that had brought them to the clock tower, roaring with its head thrown back as if triumphant over an enemy… it was the Pursuer, clearly not as dead as the young woman had hoped… with a very big, and familiar looking rocket launcher resting on its left arm.

"Sstarss!" It growled, easily heard now that the bells and chopper had been silenced.

Was this really happening, Jill found herself wondering? At the moment the young woman didn't know what was more frightening, the fact that the STARS hunting monster was intelligent enough to use such weapons… or the fact that it knew shooting down the helicopter would keep her from getting away. The answer to this question was neither, with both options being dethroned when the monster suddenly jumped down from the cable car's roof, making the ground shake a little when it landed less than ten feet away from her.

Her paralysis broken, Jill knew that the nitrogen shells in the grenade launcher were her only chance, but first she had to both ready the weapon, and also put some distance between herself and the Pursuer. Scrambling out from under what was left of the once beautiful fountain, she had to turn her back to the monster in order to get back far enough to use the weapon, when the young woman gasped as she felt something stab her in the back. Not only was it hooked deeply into her skin, and burning as if it were red-hot, but it also pulled her backwards so hard that she was knocked off her feet a second later.

"No!" Jill screamed when she was able to see what it was. "No! Carlos! Help me!"

The knife that had stabbed her in the back turned out to not be a knife at all, but the pointed end of a long purple tentacle that had shot out from underneath the Pursuer's sleeve like a harpoon, and now it was slowly retracting… pulling her across the ground along with it. The young woman screamed in agony each time it pulled her in another couple inches, feeling like it was going to rip off her entire shoulder as she kicked and struggled to get away.

"Get away from her!" The young man's voice yelled. "Dije que te alejes!"

Ratta-tatta! Ratta-tatta! The monster's arm and torso twitched a little as a dozen bullets slammed into it, courtesy of Carlos's rifle as soon as he had been able to come out of hiding again. The young man had taken a position behind one of the nearby hedges, firing short controlled bursts at the Pursuer's arm and torso, most likely in an effort to hit the tentacle and free her… if only the M4 was that accurate during automatic fire. The monster growled as if irritated by this attack… and then it crossed its left arm over the right one, which was still reeling in Jill, in order to aim its rocket launcher.

Thunk… fwoosh-BOOM! Thanks to it having to cross its arm over in order to keep a hold on Jill, the monster had been unable to aim its weapon properly, with the good news being that the large projectile missed Carlos completely. The bad news, however, was that the projectile struck the wall behind him, and even though it was a good distance away, the force of the blast was still enough to send the young man flying forward as a large part of the courtyard's wall simply vanished.

Carlos hit the ground face first, thankfully sliding across grass instead of the stone walkway that he had missed by less than two feet, but this distraction had also allowed the Pursuer to return its attention to Jill, who screamed again when its tentacle dragged her even closer to her inevitable doom. Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! The monster had almost seemed to be grinning at her, apparently enjoying the suffering it was causing the young woman each time she was pulled, but then it growled when Carlos started shooting it again, this time screaming as he emptied his whole magazine into its massive upper body from a sitting position.

Shrieking with even worse pain as the tentacle was ripped from her back, allowing her to fall forward onto the hard stone walkway, Jill turned her head back toward them to see that the young man and the Pursuer were now both racing to be the first to reload their weapons while she tried to crawl away. Carlos finished first, opening fire again, but once again doing short controlled bursts directly at the monster's head while it slowly took aim at him after finishing reloading the rocket launcher.

"Sstarss." It growled, seemingly unaffected by the bullets that were hitting its head.

Well, it tried to aim at him, but most of the bullets were sparking as they impacted against the weapon, causing the Pursuer to let out a frustrated growl as it kept trying to target him. Wait a minute, Jill thought, the young man was a far better shot than that, especially when he was aiming, and then she gasped, trying to crawl away faster when she realized that the young man wasn't aiming for the monster's head… he was aiming for the weapon.

BOOM! It was a one in a million shot, with maybe even worse odds, but Carlos must have done something right, since when the rocket launcher's trigger was pulled, it was the weapon and the Pursuer itself that vanished in a flash of light and noise. Jill had managed to get out of the blast radius, and it was probably because she was already flat on the ground that she wasn't sent flying like Carlos had been. When the smoke cleared, the whole area was on fire, grass and hedges all orange and smoking, while most of the wrecked cable car that had been sticking through the wall was just gone.

Was that it? Had it taken a damn anti-aircraft missile to finally destroy the STARS hunting monster? So far there was no sign of it, and even though the young woman's back felt like it was on fire as she propped herself up against a large piece of stone rubble, she felt relief as well since the thing was finally gone… even if it had trashed their only way out of the city. Jesus, the Pursuer made getting rid of Tyrant back at the Spencer Estate seem easy, but now that it was gone, maybe there… and then she heard it.

A low, inhuman growling sound was coming from over where the cable car used to be… no, it was more off to the side, near one of the more heavily damaged parts of the clock tower, and then she saw it. With a roar that sounded almost like it was in pain, the monster's arms appeared above the fire, slowly pushing its massive body up onto its hands and knees, most of its leather overcoat burnt off and smoldering, leaving just the pants and boots as it struggled up to a kneeling position… and growled when it looked right at her.

"Sss… sssta… sstarrs!" It struggled to say, falling forward onto its arms and growling again.