Nemesis: Resident Evil III
Chapter Thirty Two: Infected
Nothing could have equaled the joy and relief that Carlos felt when the rocket launcher on the monster's arm exploded, and then it and everything around it just sort of vanished in an explosion that sent even more pieces of dirt and rubble flying in his direction. His plan in attacking the thing hadn't gone much farther than getting it to let go of Jill in order to focus on him instead, but apparently his plan to make it unable to use the rocket launcher by damaging it, had worked out even better than he hoped.
But no, just when the young man was trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his head enough to get up and go check on the young woman, the monster had reappeared, growling while trying to pick itself up off the burning ground like a demon struggling to return to the land of the living. Struggling to reload another magazine into his rifle, the young man was about to start shooting again, but then he realized that Jill's stalker didn't look so good anymore.
Not that it had ever looked good to begin with, but now the burned and scarred skin of its torso was exposed, and its first attempt to stand up didn't work out too well, ending with it falling back onto its knees as if all the injuries it had received over the past day were finally catching up to it… heh, and all it took was a direct hit from a God damn anti-aircraft missile. Well, good, if it couldn't move, that just meant that the thing would be easier to hit, so he was just starting to take aim after getting to his knees, when there was a small flash of blue light.
Thunk-boom! While her stalker was trying unsuccessfully to get back up, Jill had been readying her grenade launcher, and when she finally sent the small projectile toward its target, the monster roared when it exploded right in its exposed chest. However, instead of fire and smoke, there was an illuminated blast of what looked like a foggy winter mist while a large part of the monster's body was covered in ice. It broke free a few seconds later, but now there was a kind of discolored purplish blood coming out of multiple places in its body… as if the icy grenade had reopened several of its old wounds.
Thunk-boom! Slamming another of the blue-capped shells into the grenade launcher, the young woman fired at the monster again, this time hitting the ground between its feet just as it was forcing itself to stand, and making it fall down again when its entire lower body was caught in the ice-producing mist of the blue explosion. Thunk-boom! Thunk-boom! Not giving her ex-boyfriend even the slightest chance to recover, Carlos watched as the young woman shot the monster two more times, causing its whole body to be frozen in place, before loading one more shell… and firing this one upward.
This time when the nitrogen grenade exploded, it did so at the top of a very large piece of stone wreckage that was hanging off the second floor of the clock tower, and with a frozen crack, the ice holding it to the building shattered, causing the giant piece of stone to come crashing down right on top of the monster, cutting off its attempt to roar when all other sounds were drowned out by an echoing SLAM! The weapon fell out of Jill's hands as she leaned back against the wall, and now that the danger was over… Carlos keeping his rifle aimed at the rubble for a few moments just in case… the young man rushed over toward her.
Having taken a few hits himself, Carlos stumbled a bit, tripping over some rubble and having to lean on what was left of the decorative fountain to keep himself from falling… but then the pain in his head and all the fatigue was forgotten when he finally reached the young woman, and saw her current condition. Jill wasn't just leaning back against the stone rubble, she was coughing and drooling on herself; her body twitching violently while she cried out in pain.
"Jill, what's the matter?!" He exclaimed, kneeling down to hold her so she wouldn't hurt herself. "Jill, answer me!"
She wasn't able to respond, simply opening her mouth wide and screaming in agony while flailing around in his arms, but the young man's answer came when his hand went around the back of her leather jacket, and he felt what he thought at first was blood. Holding onto her tightly so that she wouldn't hit her head or anything, Carlos carefully removed her jacket, and discovered that it wasn't blood where the monster had harpooned her with its tentacle… but a foul-smelling, discolored purplish substance… that looked like it was starting to spread out from the wound.
"Oh no… oh no, Jill, no." He said, a tear running down his cheek as he held her. "Come on… come on, I gotta get you out of here."
It was a good thing that the young woman was so slender built, since with his own injuries, the young man didn't know if he could have lifted much more than her and the fallen grenade launcher while trying to stand up. But now that she was quieting down a little, as if starting to fall asleep while he carried her in his arms, Carlos couldn't help but wonder what the hell he was going to do. As much as he didn't want to admit it, that monster had infected Jill with that thing she had called the T-Virus, there was no denying it, but… but when Murphy had been infected back at the pharmacy, he had turned in a matter of minutes.
No… no, there had to be something that he could do for her, starting by getting the young woman somewhere safe in case her stalker was still alive underneath that rubble… he hoped that the damn thing was finally dead, but it was better to get away just in case… but where could he take her? The wall around the clock tower's courtyard was collapsed or on fire, so there was no going back into the city the way they came, and the clock tower wasn't much better, so… maybe… yeah, he would have to take her somewhere else… hopefully… hopefully the back door in the storage room was still accessible… it was their only chance.
"Hold on, Jill." The young man said, heading toward the front doors that had been destroyed. "I'm gonna take care of you, all right? Just stay with me."
The inside of the clock tower was no better than the rest, with the once elaborately carved stone walls of the main hall cracked and splintered, the carpeted staircase nothing but a memory, and a fire lapping at the door to the old dining room from underneath, meaning that the whole place beyond was probably ablaze. Okay, Carlos thought, so far the door to the library seemed intact, so he headed through, discovering that although the ransacked chamber was not burning, part of the ceiling had collapsed, blocking access to the old bedroom beyond… that's okay, he wasn't going that way, anyhow.
Once through the door into the storage room, the young man stopped long enough to grab all the ammunition for his rifle and pistol that he could carry… too bad there were no more grenades for the launcher… and then he held tightly onto Jill while turning the latch of the heavy wooden back door. With a stone scraping sound, the heavy door was slowly pulled open, allowing him access to the street behind the clock tower, but before he dared to explore any further, a safe place was needed for the young woman.
There didn't seem to be any zombies skulking around for the moment, which was great, but having never been to this part of Raccoon City before, and without the long lost city map or Jill being able to guide him, Carlos had no idea where he was supposed to go. There was a small building, looking like a tiny office or something, right across the street, so he decided to start there, and the good news was that there weren't any undead creatures inside when he looked in through the windows… but the door was locked.
Great, that meant that he was going to have to find somewhere else to hide Jill while he… did whatever the hell he thought he was going to do about her being infected. Oh, hey, wait… there was that thing in her pocket that she used to pick that other lock with. The young man knew damn well that he didn't know the first thing about picking locks, but this one wasn't exactly high security, so how hard could it be? Keys worked by pushing up a bunch of pins or something in a pattern as they went into the lock, so… if he could figure out the pattern, then the door would open, right?
"Sorry, novia, I gotta set you down a second." He said, gently setting the young woman down, and removing the tool from her pocket. "Just don't laugh too hard when I try to do this, okay?"
She wasn't responding, now lying still while breathing shallowly as if sleeping when he crouched down in front of the door that was made of metal and glass like an uptown shop, and Carlos took a deep breath before starting to use the tool. The individual pieces were kind of flimsy, so he figured that if there was resistance he was doing something wrong… man, Jill had made it look so easy when she just popped those other locks open before in no time at all, and they were a lot more complicated than this one… hey, something clicked inside the lock.
The door didn't open though, but the young man figured that he must have been on the right track, so he kept at it, spending a lot more time than he wanted to admit, before nearly crying out for joy when the lock finally opened. He didn't, though, needing to keep his voice down in case there were any zombies nearby, but at least he was finally able to pick the young woman back up, and take her into what looked like… hey, this looked like some kind of security station more than an office, especially when he saw the black letters on the door window that read:
RACCOON CITY PARKS AND RECREATION
CENTRAL PARK MANAGER'S OFFICE
Pretty nice setup for a park manager, the young man thought as he set Jill down on the leather couch that was underneath the windows. Besides the sofa, there was a large table with information pamphlets and paperwork spread out across, a series of deactivated security monitors along the back wall, a mini-fridge underneath the desk… not to mention a microwave oven, and a small television over in the corner that had a Sony PlayStation hooked up to it… man the Americanos were spoiled sometimes, even in the workplace.
Locking the door from the inside and pulling down the blinds on all the windows, the only thing that the young man could think to do was make Jill as comfortable as possible, but… hey, he could see the illuminated sign for the hospital right down the street… too bad there wasn't anything in the pharmacy there that could be used to help the young woman in her current condition…
"We will be evacuating civilians from downtown district." Mikhail said as they flew over the city. "Bravo unit will be securing extraction point at clock tower, while Charlie unit retrieves some kind of groundbreaking vaccine from hospital."
Was it possible… was there a snowball's chance in hell that the groundbreaking vaccine the Captain had mentioned during their mission briefing was… was a cure for the T-Virus? It didn't seem possible, kind of ridiculous actually, not to mention dangerous to explore such a place, but… as he looked at Jill over there, looking pale and sweating profusely as she slept on that couch… Carlos knew that he was about to try anyway.