Nemesis: Resident Evil III
Chapter Forty Three: Waste Disposal
With Carlos leading the Pursuer back toward the broken doors of the old water treatment plant, it only took Jill a moment to pick the lock on the door and get herself through, at least after her heart stopped racing and she was able to calm down enough to hold her hands steady enough to use the tools. After all, the monster had been literally two steps away from being able to see her from where it was standing, so if the young man hadn't distracted it when he did…
Best not to think about that, she decided after passing through the now unlocked door, and quietly pushing it shut again behind her. And Carlos would be fine once the Pursuer saw that the young woman wasn't with him… at least, as long as he didn't do anything stupid like attacking it… good thing he was smarter than that. Anyhow, the distraction was giving her time to search for the helicopter that the last surviving Supervisor had told them about, so she clicked on her rifle's flashlight, using it to see that there was a downward grated-metal staircase that was in front of her.
A broken lightbulb was set inside the single open-cage fixture mounted on the wall, but the flashlight's beam was more than enough for the young woman to see any possible threats as her feet made a hollow tink-tink-tink sound while descending. There were no visible threats, thankfully, but all that awaited her at the bottom of the stairs was another metal door. There was no audible shambling or clicking claws that could be heard when she put her ear up against the metal surface, but there was a curious kind of… bubbling?
Turning the latch and discovering that this one was unlocked, Jill pulled open the door just enough so that she could peek into the room beyond, but immediately had to pull back when there was a sudden burning sensation in her eyes, while at the same time it felt like someone had put smelling salts underneath her nose. Coughing and falling back onto the stairs, the young woman's eyes were watering really badly, and her nose was running as if she had been exposed to Tear Gas, but the feeling started to go away as soon as she backed off from the door… and now the bubbling sound was getting louder.
"Oh, God… ugh." She coughed, spitting out a bunch of mucus from her now sore throat. "Oh… ugh…
Once the coughing stopped, and she was able to rub most of the water from her eyes, the young woman looked up to see that there were visible fumes flowing into the air from behind the partially open door. They had no color, just kind of distorted like heat on a hot road, and the good news was that they were traveling upward, flowing up the stairs instead of simply filling the area where she was… so, was it possible to get through the next room if she stayed low enough?
It was either that or go back upstairs and risk being spotted by the Pursuer, so Jill got onto her hands and knees, before crawling back over to the door, and slowly pushing it open. Unlike what she had seen of the complex so far, the room beyond the door was illuminated by a series of those same open-cage fixtures running along the walls… walls which were covered by a dark green moldy substance, probably from years of neglect. There was also a lot more fumes in this place, filling the top half of the room, with a small trail heading out the open door… and all of it coming from some kind of… water tank?
The fumes stayed above her head, so long as the young woman stayed down on her hands and knees, which was painful because of all the partially rusted grated-metal, allowing her to see that the water tank was the dominant feature of the room, which was actually a vast, open chamber. Long forgotten machines and monitoring equipment were lined up along the edge of the room's only walkway, creating a kind of improvised safety barrier to keep people from falling into the liquid… which was definitely not water, when she got a closer look.
"What the hell is all this?" She whispered to herself, looking around.
As long and wide as an Olympic size swimming pool, but only maybe seven or eight feet deep, the hissing, bubbling substance had a slight purple color to it, and there was something inside… no lots of somethings inside, making the young woman gasp when she realized what it was. Bodies… there were human bodies sunk down into the bottom of the pool as if someone had just decided to dump dozens of infected people there for some reason and… hey, wait a second… after taking a closer look at one of the few bodies that hadn't sunk down yet, Jill noticed that this one didn't look infected.
It was hard to see clearly while looking into the purple liquid, but the young woman was starting to believe that the people in the tank weren't infected at all, so why… suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by a sound that was clearly the groan of a zombie, but it was coming from… upward? Looking up above the tank, she saw that the wall next to it was actually a large, grooved metal ramp, rusted and neglected like everything else, and above that was some kind of… grated metal platform… hard to see through the fumes.
Seeing got easier though when the infected man groaned again, this time while falling from the platform above… and then sliding down the grooved ramp right into the purple substance with a loud splash. Groaning and snarling as it tried awkwardly to stay afloat, Jill found herself staring wide-eyed at the monster as the parts of it that were submerged in the fluid literally started to melt away. Its clothes were untouched, but after its skin had evaporated, the muscle tissue and blood started falling off the bones like really well done ribs… yeah… never eating ribs again.
As more and more of the infected man sank into the purple liquid, its body was simply dissolved until there was nothing left, not even the bones, so… did that mean that this stuff in the tank specifically attacked tissue that was infected by the T-Virus? If so, great, but… why was it hidden in the back of a disused water treatment plant, and… why were there so many uninfected bodies inside? There were so many, as if this place had been used as a kind of dumping ground, but for what purpose? Clearly it belonged to Umbrella, especially if their Supervisors' escape helicopter was located there, but then again maybe the young woman didn't really want to know the facility's true purpose.
There was another door at the other end of the walkway, so Jill remained on her hands and knees while crawling all the way across the room, with her knees thanking her after she was finally able to stand back up once through. It seemed that this whole section of the water treatment plant was both unlocked and fully powered as if Umbrella had never expected anyone who wasn't supposed to be there to get that far… a security oversight that suited the young woman just fine as she closed the metal door again behind her to keep out the fumes, and got to her feet.
Another staircase was in front of her now, this time fully illuminated and going upward away from the… what should she call it, waste disposal room? It also went up a lot higher than the other one had taken her down, meaning that she had probably gone from the basement all the way up to the second floor of the facility by the time she had reached the top of the grated metal stairs. There was only a single door at the top, but unfortunately with as many separate buildings as there were to the plant, there was no way of knowing whether or not she was even going the right way to find the escape helicopter.
Of course, there was only one way to find out, so she turned the latch and pushed the door open, only to feel as if she had magically been transported to an entirely different facility. There was no mold, pipes, or processing equipment, and instead of the open-cage light fixtures, there were a series of long tubular florescent lights that clearly illuminated the equipment along the walls that was far more sophisticated than what she had seen down in the waste disposal room.
Darkened monitors and computers that almost looked brand new, metal light fixtures that weren't the slightest bit rusted, and the long open-bay window all made this area look more like an airport control tower than a water treatment plant or… wait a minute… airport control tower? Could it be? Rushing all the way into the room, and leaning over some of the monitors in order to look out the window, Jill was able to see that there was a huge open clearing that was completely surrounded by the different buildings that made up the facility… and the young woman's heart skipped a beat when she saw that there was a helicopter sitting in the very center of it, just waiting for…
Whack! Her vision went white for a second as something struck her in the back of the head, making her fall onto the console. Whack! Another blow across the side of her head when she tried to turn around and see what was there. Bang! There was a flash of light and noise that filled the tower, followed by the young woman letting out an agonized scream when a bullet slammed into the back of her leg, passing all the way through, and then chipping the concrete floor below while she had to hug the consoles to keep from collapsing onto the floor.
"I believe this belongs to me, you fucking thief." Nikolai said, pressing the barrel of his pistol into the back of Jill's neck while forcibly taking the rifle away from her. "I am, however, impressed that you are still alive… I see now why Umbrella put such big price on you… you are hard to kill, like cockroach, da?"
Oh God, the pain in her leg was excruciating… stupid, stupid, stupid, for not checking around the room before just barging in… the Lieutenant must have been behind the door or something. After slinging the rifle over his shoulder, Nikolai grabbed the wounded part of the young woman's leg, and squeezed, making her scream even louder as more of her blood flowed out onto the floor. He kept the pistol pressed into her neck, using his body to keep her pinned down on the console so that she couldn't move, not with only one usable leg, and her screams continued as he just kept squeezing her wound.
"I love how you scream, Jill Valentine!" He yelled over her, making her even louder when he changed his grip so that his thumb was digging into the bullet hole itself. "Dawn approaches, but there is plenty of time to make you pay for humiliating me in press building! Turn around, you fucking suka!"
The good news was that he had to let go of her leg in order to grab her by the hair and force her to turn around to face him, and although the young woman was relieved to have a break from her suffering, her eyes went wide when she saw, not the angry and psychotic face of Nikolai… but the terrifying figure standing behind him. Only now that her screaming had stopped, could the thud-thud-thud of its approaching footsteps be heard as it stepped through the open door into the control tower… and the Lieutenant's eyes got just as wide as hers when he realized what was going on.
"Sstarss." The Pursuer growled, its white eye narrowing when it made eye contact with her.