Nemesis: Resident Evil III

Chapter Forty: Gravedigger

Carlos wanted to yell at them to get their damn hands off of Jill while two of the Supervisors dragged her over toward Nikolai, but this turned out to be quite impossible once the others shoved a dirty rag into his mouth. Tying his wrists and ankles, and then kicking him in the stomach since there was nothing the young man could do to stop them, Carlos could only cough into the rag while yelling some muffled and unintelligible words into his gag.

"Nikolai, we don't have time for this." One of the ones in civilian clothes said as the young woman was brought forward. "If they are seriously going to nuke the city at dawn, then we need to get out of here because sunrise is… well, it isn't long from now."

"He's right, we need to head for the treatment plant right away." One of the UBCS men added. "Let's just shoot the girl, and then we can split the reward money after we report back."

"I know we need to leave." Nikolai snapped, before grabbing Jill by the hair and pulling her head roughly to the side. "But we can spare a few minutes to pay back little brat who humiliated me, and then left me in wrecked mini-van to die. Why so quiet, Jill? Not so smart-mouthed now without big monster to save you?"

Whack! Suddenly the Lieutenant slugged her in the stomach, making the young woman cough and start to fall down, but the two Supervisors holding her arms forced her to keep standing while Nikolai hit her again… and again… and again. As painful as this was to see and hear, Carlos was trying to keep his calm, focusing on freeing his wrists from the ropes, instead of flipping out each time that Jill let out a yelp after being punched in the face. Their weapons had been left on the table, right next to where the young man was restrained on the floor… and with everyone's attention on what was happening over there… he was unguarded.

"Special Tactics and Rescue Service." Nikolai said, scoffing as he walked away from her long enough to walk over to a small table, and rip the cord out of an old rotary telephone. "Your team of cowards and frail little girls was wiped out even faster than UBCS, and…

Not waiting for him to finish talking, Jill suddenly brought both her legs up and kicked the Lieutenant in the chest as hard as she could, giving him a turn to cry out when he tripped over the small table, and fell on his rear in front of everybody. Some of the Supervisors laughed, while others still insisted that it was time to forget all about this and just leave… all of which would have given Carlos plenty of time to free himself, if the floor of the cabin wasn't vibrating so much that it was hard to feel the ropes with his fingers.

There wasn't any time to worry about vibrations in the floor, even if they felt like they were getting more intense all the time… of course, that could have just been the young man's anxiety, since Nikolai was on his feet again, this time wrapping the phone cord around Jill's throat and then pulling it as tight as he could. She didn't stand a chance, not with the others holding her arms, so Carlos hooked his thumb around one of the ropes, and no matter how painful it was, he pulled and pulled until being able to slip the bonds.

Rat-a-tat! Scrambling to his feet and grabbing his rifle off the table, he aimed at the crowd and fired a burst of three rounds right into the back of one of the UBCS Supervisors. Honestly, he had wanted to aim for Nikolai, but the Lieutenant was too close to Jill for him to risk shooting… although this was not the case for the one who was farthest from her. It took the others a second to realize what had happened, seeming only then to notice how harshly the cabin was shaking, although these vibrations were secondary to the weapon being pointed at them.

"Quita tus manos de mi novia!" Carlos yelled, nearly losing his balance for a second as the shaking intensified. "All you putos get your damn hands up… Jill, get over here, we gotta go!"

The young woman was finally able to breathe again when Nikolai was forced to release her in order to put his hands up, allowing Jill to pull her leg back and slam her foot into his groin as hard as she could. The Lieutenant groaned in surprise and agony as he slumped against the nearby wall, and once the young woman moved away from the group of Supervisors and started grabbing her weapons, there was nothing left to stop Carlos from just gunning them down right there. The cabin was shaking so violently now that it was hard to aim his rifle, but he did his best to set his sights on Nikolai… when everything seemed to just explode upward from the ground.

Floorboards, furniture, everything was lost in a cloud of dust and rubble as something big tore its way through the small building from underneath, separating the two of them from the panicked Supervisors as everything started to collapse. Thankfully, while Umbrella's lackeys were thrown into the worst of it, Carlos and Jill had been pushed closer to the door, allowing them to crawl out the destroyed entranceway just as the remains of the floor were collapsing out from under them.

Unfortunately, even though they had managed to get back outside, the graveyard's light fixtures and tombstones were now shaking just as badly as the cabin had been… and then he saw it. Something was moving underneath the ground itself, allowing the cabin and everything else that fell into its path to collapse into a newly formed tunnel… and then it broke the surface as if trying to better survey the world around it, even though the monster had no eyes. What it had was a long tube-like body, big around as a train and just as long, and when it opened its mouth to produce an echoing roar, its jaws split into four separate segments, each with rows of huge, horrible teeth.

Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! One of the Supervisors in civilian clothes had managed to crawl back up out of the tunnel, and immediately started shooting at the tunneling beast, causing it to roar again as the small bullets tore into its discolored brown flesh. However, this appeared to be nothing more than an annoyance to the monster, as it turned its head toward the man, and lunged at him with jaws open wide. The Supervisor screamed, but it was cut off as the beast continued to tunnel onward, leaving nothing of its latest victim behind while it now began to circle, seemingly at random, through the cemetery.

"No!" Jill whispered urgently, grabbing Carlos's weapon when he started to aim it the next time the beast surfaced. "It's blind; it can't find us if we're quiet!"

It was true, the young man realized once he saw that the tunneling monster was now moving throughout the area, passing under each row of graves so that they each collapsed one at a time, and there was a slight pause that came with each one… the ground simply rumbling for a second before the beast moved on, as if it were tunneling underneath the graves in order to feed on the rotting corpses underneath. If so, then it must have been drawn to the sound that all of them had been making inside the cabin, so maybe if they were quiet, then the damn thing would just move on… right?

So far there was no sign of Nikolai or the other Supervisors, and there was nothing else inside of the graveyard that was moving, so the tunneling monster continued on its course of going through the graveyard row by row, causing the formation of long pits like what had happened in the downtown district when the area around the pharmacy had collapsed. However, when it had finally reached the end of the available graves and fed upon everything inside the old coffins below, instead of continuing on its way, the monster broke the surface once again, this time moving its head around in a slow circle as if looking for something.

Carlos started to say something, but Jill quickly put her finger to her lips, before pointing to the far side of the graveyard, opposite of the way they had come in from the park. That was the way to the old water treatment plant, where the two of them had originally planned to go in order to escape from Raccoon City, but the young man also remembered hearing one of the Supervisors mention that they were headed to that same place for evacuation. So long as they were quiet, this was probably the best opportunity to escape from the tunneling beast, and if the city really was going to be blown up at dawn, then the Supervisors' way out was their only hope.

The rain had just about stopped now, and the clouds had thinned out enough so that the full moon's light could at least partially illuminate the landscape. This helped as the two of them got up and carefully crept their way toward the far end of the cemetery, being careful not to fall into any of the recently collapsed pits or cause any unnecessary noises that might distract the monster. Past the remains of the cabin now, and still moving at a slow but steady pace, the young man was just beginning to relax as they put more distance between themselves and the monster… but then it happened.

A sound, a groan of pain and disorientation reached his ears just as the gate to the next path came into view, and when Carlos turned around, he saw one of the other Supervisors slowly dragging himself out of the collapsed wreckage of the small building. Both he and Jill tried to warn the wounded, disoriented man to keep quiet, but he just didn't seem to understand… until gasping loudly when he also turned around to see that the tunneling monster's head was now pointed right at him. Please be quiet, the young man thought, please, oh please be quiet, but then his heart sank when the Supervisor not only screamed in fear, but then also raised his rifle.

Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! Because of his wounds, the man's aim was horrific, with most of his shots missing the creature completely, not that it mattered. Upon detecting the noise, the tunneling beast roared, its four jaws opening as it tore another collapsing pit through the ground, heading right for the still firing Supervisor… and Jill and Carlos who were right behind him. With no other options left, the two of them took off running, hearing the scream of the man get cut off as he was overtaken by the monster, and then hearing it roar again, getting closer and closer as the two of them sprinted with all their might.

Even without looking back, the young man knew that the monster was gaining on them, but then at the last possible second Jill grabbed onto Carlos and pulled him off to the side, clamping her hand over his mouth as they both fell onto a really soft pile of leaves and hedge clipping that had probably been raked up by the graveyard's caretaker before the outbreak started. Next there was a rush of wind and a really foul smell as the gigantic worm-like creature's body passed less than three feet from where they had landed, creating another collapsed pit… but continuing on as if it still thought it was chasing them.

And better still, it was heading away from the way they needed to go. Not wanting to lose this opportunity, the two of them scrambled to their feet, and then very quietly passed through the small metal gate that was already open, heading down the start of a narrow, partially overgrown path that took them away from the cemetery while the tunneling monster continued on its useless path of destruction in search of them.