Chapter 4 - Clean Slate

Around me, chaos ruled. Enormous chunks of concrete with rebar sticking out surrounded me. The crowd above was buried in the mess, poor K-mart was curled up, her arms over her head. I raced to the top of the rubble heap and wrapped my arms around her. She shrieked in surprise, flailing at me. "Stop, it's me." I soothed, rubbing her arms as she calmed, clinging to me.

K-mart jerked back, hurting me more than I would ever admit. "You were bitten, s-so many times." She clutched at my aching shoulder with blunt nails, trying to find the damage the dogs had left. "Wh-where are they? I saw you get bitten. The horde, they…" She was starting to hyperventilate, trying to find any sign that I'd ever been injured. The tears and rips in my clothing were all there, but only clean, smooth skin met her eyes.

"Shhh, it's okay. It's okay K-mart. Look at me." I cupped her cheeks and lifted her face until her panicked eyes met mine, "We need to get out of here. Once we're safe, I will answer all of your questions, I promise." I needed her to let me explain in a safe place. If she decided to leave... I need to know she's safe first.

She nodded, her hands trembling where they rested on my shoulders. "The others?" She asked softly.

I looked over my shoulder at the carnage I'd wrecked. The bars that had kept me trapped were bent out of shape, "Maybe. I don't know." I bit my lip and looked back at K-mart, gauging her devotion to this plan. She looked ashamed of herself for even asking. It didn't matter that every bone ached. "What's a few more minutes right? I'll go look. Come on, stay right by my side." I offered her my hand.

K-mart look at it for a moment before taking it, following me down the pile of rubble, back into the basement. She trusted me enough to lead her into a dark hole, the kid is insane. I glanced over my shoulder at her trusting face as I pushed through the iron bars. The best kind of insanity. I tightened my grip on her small hand as I led her back to where that man was. I won't let you go K-mart. "You still alive down here?" I hissed into the darkness.

The man scrambled back to the wall of his cage, "How the fuck are you alive? What happened? I heard an explosion and-" He shut up when I ripped the heavy iron padlock off his cage. "Holy fuck." He mumbled. He stepped out, and finally was able to stand at his full height, a good head taller than me, and muscles packed onto his body in a way that only the military manage. His hair was a sandy blonde, military cut.

"Come with us or hit the road." I instructed before turning around. His cage was a dead end, but there was another hallway, one that the two guards came down, and I wanted to check it out. I started walking but a hand latched onto my shoulder.

"Where are you going?" He asked, and I got the feeling he wasn't talking about our direction so much as our destination.

"Anywhere." I replied, shrugging off his hand and walking with K-mart. She stuck close by my side, our footsteps in near unison, making the third set the joined us feel particularly disjointed. We turned right at the iron bars that led to destruction and down another hallway into darkness, though not so dark that I couldn't see. "Is anyone down here?" I asked, my voice traveling further than I would like.

"Prison break?" A man called out in a familiar voice, "Fuck yeah mutha fuckers! Get me outta here!"

I ran over and broke his cage open, ripping him out by the collar and holding him high enough that his legs dangled, "Shut the fuck up before you get us all killed. Last I saw there were over thirty infected swarming around this place."

He put his hands up, his brown cheeks pale and his eyes wide with fear, "Whatever you say man, ma'am. No disrespect… Could you, could you let me down now, uh, ma'am?" I set LJ down, my hands trembling with rage. He obviously couldn't see me in the darkness, and I decided to leave it that way. I couldn't risk K getting caught in the middle of a fight. Not now.

As soon as I let him go he ran up towards the unexplored end of the hallway, and he called back as softly as his idiocy could manage, "This is where they keep all the confiscated shit. You wanna give a brother a hand? I want my pieces back."

I sighed, and shook my head. He really has only two things on his mind, cussing and getting his 'motha fucking guns' out for any asshole who wants to see them. "K go he- K?" I spun around, realizing my hands were empty.

"Over here." She called, her voice emanating from the other end of the hall. Damn ninjas, all of them. At least Army boy had stayed by my side. Apparently he'd taken my threat seriously about leaving him behind. "Alice there's one more person in here. Help me get her out? I think she's unconscious."

I trotted over to see the door was open, the padlock undone and hanging from the gate. I'd have to ask K-mart where she'd gotten her picks. She couldn't have undone such a heavy duty lock so quickly without a quality set. Inside was the one person I wanted to see the least. "Jill!" Army boy rushed past me and scooped her up, carrying her out of the cramped cage with an impressive amount of strength.

"Perfect. Anyone else we need to pick up?" I asked sarcastically, why not Dr. Isaacs, Raine maybe, oh how about my ex-husband. Let's just bring back the worst damn people in my fucked up life.

"No I think that's everyone. We should help the loud guy get everyone's weapons though, then I can take us to Monster." She said it quietly, and I stared at her, hard. What happened after I passed out in that horde? Obviously someone dragged me out of there, but K-mart had been on the overpass. They had approached her from a range.

"Did they hurt you?" I asked softly, my mouth next to her ear. She shook her head, but I couldn't help thinking that more happened. She didn't speak again as we gathered up all the weapons and ammunition that we could find. Obviously this armory was stocked in case of a break-out, but the sheer quantity spoke less of how many people lived here, and far more about the quantity they had captured here.

K-mart led us through the motel, past maybe thirty rooms that reeked. It looked like instead of cleaning, they lived in a pigsty until they couldn't stand it, and then would move to the next door down. Army boy began to lag behind, he was carrying a large duffel full of weapons as well as Ms. Valentine, and it was proving too much, though the fact that he could carry it all even for a few minutes was impressive. "Here." I took the weapon bag off his shoulder, and slung it over mine, alongside the other two. He shot me a look like he was going to protest, but K-mart interrupted all our thoughts.

"The garage is through here." She pointed to a heavily re-inforced doorway with a few extra locks added on. Apparently these slobs were intelligent, despite being bastards. I removed all the locks I could, but the final one required a key, so I kicked the damn thing in, splitting the shitty wood in half. K-mart raced for the Hummer and for the first time I noticed she had a hint of a limp. It made me want to go back and kill every one of those men again.

K opened the door of the Hummer, and jumped into the driver's seat, then she poked her head out, her face pale, "Alice we can't hold everyone AND the supplies." I'd forgotten about the huge supply of food and water we already had in the back of the Hummer. I peered in and saw that most of it was still there.

I looked around, "K see if you can't find keys for one of those jeeps." I jerked my head at a pair of open top Jeeps that could hold enough to make room in the Hummer. "You." I looked at the one holding Jill, "You and your friend get in the Hummer. I'll work on getting things moved over." I dropped the bags of weapons on the ground by the Jeeps and got to work moving food and water from the back to sit by the weapons.

"Victory!" K-mart called, running over with two sets of keys.

I looked at them and back to Army boy who was setting Jill into the newly emptied back seat carefully. Whatever they'd done had knocked her out cold. "Get that Jeep running." I didn't want them running off with our rations and weapons, and a part of me wanted to see the look on Jill's face when she realized that I lived, and that I had saved her self-righteous ass. I loaded up the Jeep with everything that it could safely carry, and fixed a spare bit of tarp over the top so K could be protected from the sun. "K." I murmured to her while she worked on getting the engine to start, "If anything happens to the Hummer, you get the hell out of dodge. Trade weapons for food if you need to, but keep moving okay?" She frowned and me and opened her mouth to protest. I lifted her chin gently, "You leave. I don't know these people, and I'm not risking letting you ride with them. Promise me that if worst case scenario happens, you'll get out of dodge."

She nodded sullenly, "Promise." I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding and finished throwing everything into the Jeep. I estimated about a month's worth of food, and maybe the same in water if she rationed well. I also tossed in the three bags of munitions, explosives and guns. She could do a lot with that much available to her.

The other survivors were getting antsy in the hummer. Every minute we wasted was a chance to get caught by infected, or inhabitants. For all we knew, there were more of those men waking up from hangovers while we packed up. I gave K a quick hug and then threw myself into Monster, putting the car into gear. I glanced over at K and she gave me the thumbs up. I nodded and revved the engine once, listening to it roar before I drove straight through the make-shift doors of the garage.

The men flinched, and LJ cussed, his fists pressed into his eyes like he could hide from the wood splintering around the nose of the yellow hummer, and the blinding light that streamed in afterwards. I grinned at them and whipped into a hard left turn, the car's right side slamming into five or six bodies as we skidded out and caught on the road to the overpass. I checked my mirror and saw that K had followed in the clear path I left for her, though at a far less reckless speed, and together we drove over the familiar overpass. I saw a few bodies on the side that hadn't been there before, more men from that damn motel. Good riddance.

"You mutha fuckers is crazy." LJ muttered to himself, shaking his head. At least I don't abandon my friends. I thought so hard about saying it, about ripping him a new one, but I couldn't. I just grabbed a ballcap from the door that K-mart liked to use and pulled it on to hide my face. I could rip him a new one later, like when Jill finally woke up.

Jill began to stir around dusk. We'd made it a good hundred miles from the motel, and I'd just pulled onto the shoulder. I guess the rough ride off-road was enough to shake off the sleep. I parked, took the keys and got out in one smooth motion, "Get out." I ordered, not wanting the hummer to get damaged. K moved to get out of her Jeep but I shook my head. She took the hint and pretended to be settling in for a nap.

Army boy hopped on the other side of the car, helping Jill get out. On my side, LJ got out and I slammed my fist into his face. "MUTHA FUCKER!" He howled, hopping back out of the way, holding his bleeding nose. It felt good. Really, really fucking good. Jill was a bitch, but for LJ to encourage her to leave so eagerly, that little coward deserved more than what I'd given him.

Army boy came running around the car to see what was wrong, "What happened?" He looked between LJ holding his nose, and me shaking out my fist with a grin that was probably more than a little sadistic. "Are you crazy?" He snapped, running over to see if LJ was okay.

I laughed, "Only a little. Being left by your friends to be eaten alive does that to you. Tell him LJ, tell him how you left me." I wanted to hear his excuse, I wanted to see that fear in his eyes again. I hungered for it. I wanted- The click of the hammer being pulled back stopped everything.

"Jill what the hell are YOU doing?" Army boy stared at his friend, probably girlfriend by the way he'd kept her close in the car.

I turned to face Jill, her attempt was amusing. K-mart had her rifle drawn and pointed at Jill, but no one was paying attention to her. I smirked and blew a kiss at Jill, which only made her face twist in anger and fear as she pressed the barrel to my head. "I'm putting down a monster."

I laughed, grabbing the barrel and pushing it aside as Jill pulled the trigger too late, shooting the sand a yard from my right foot. I smirked, "I just saved your life Jill." I didn't recognize my voice, but the pure power I felt pushed the concern aside. I felt like I could take that bullet to the head and keep walking. "This monster has saved your life three times now. Four if you count the fact that I haven't snapped your neck for pointing a gun at me." I can't believe I denied this feeling for so long. "You only get to shoot me if you're planning on putting a bullet in your own brain too."

She tried to pull the gun from my hand, but I didn't even budge. Fear and helplessness grew on her face and she released it, backing away. "You're not human." She accused weakly.

"It didn't bother you while I was saving your ass. The only time you cared about me was that rooftop in Raccoon City. You and LJ left me, like the little spineless bitches you are." I growled, "So you can suck it up, and move on, or you two better start walking."

LJ came up behind me, his arms up, trying to reason with me, "Come on Alice, you know we was only tryin to watch out for Angie. You were actin crazy. You killed that bigass mutha fucker, and you was followin Umbrella orders. We couldn't just let you on the chopper with the kid."

I drew my gun and pointed it at him, "And where is Angie now?" I asked, knowing the answer. She died of the virus, there was no way they could keep a steady supply of the antidote. Four years is a lot of time to sustain a cripple, let alone an infected cripple.

His face twisted in sadness, and to my surprise, Army boy stepped between my gun and LJ, his arms raised, "Hey, hey, since everybody here knows each other, let me introduce myself. I'm Chris Redfield, S.T.A.R.S. captain. Let's start with everyone's names before we get into past deeds and dicey decisions."

He was amusing at the very least. I put my gun away with a smirk, and tossed Jill back her gun. I could see in her eyes, she was too scared of me to use it, no one should have been able to survive what happened to Raccoon City. "I'm Alice, my girl over there is K-mart." K waved, her gun still aimed right at Jill, who suddenly realized how close to dead she had been.

Chris nodded, relaxing a little, "Nice to meet you Alice. Now that introductions are over, I'd like to talk about the history going on here. It looks like we all made some regrettable choices, but now we need to work together. You said you didn't have any plans, but it seems like you want to keep your girl K-mart safe. You have some impressive firepower, and Jill and I have been planning an assault that could help make all the world a little safer." He paused, gauging my reaction. I shrugged, and waved K-mart over, now that the immediate danger was over, I wanted her close. Chris took that as permission to go on and continued as K joined us. "Jill and I found the location of Umbrella headquarters, the central hub of all Umbrella activity, and a potential stockpile of the antivirus."

AN: To those who have reviewed, you put a smile on my face, and encourage me to write more. I have a lot of this written out already, but I really do write more when I think someone else cares about it too.

Guest: This Alice is a little bit Darker, but on the other hand, she's also really the same, you just see more of the bitterness. In the movies she is going through the motions when she saves people. They all know that it's futile to save people, but they still try. With this Alice, she's more afraid of what she can do, and her survival instinct is a lot stronger. She sees herself as a monster, but by no means does she feel expendable, and with K-mart depending on her, the need to protect K overrides anything else.

As for the timeline... *Scratches head* if you twist my arm, then I'd say it's post extinction, that's where the year marks match up, but there are some things that uh uhm *Beats around the spoiler bush* things that are more like pre extinction in that lost four years that no one mentions. I also am assuming that since 98% of the population went down in the first year, and that the remaining population couldn't be centered in the biggest/initial outbreak AKA the USA where no one was prepared, that there are a lot more supplies in certain areas. Refuelling centers, and gunshops, the obvious targets are flat out empty, but everything else is pretty well stocked. I dunno, I just see a lot of stupid people dying early.