Chapter 5: Once Bitten, Twice as Screwed
Yuri and Nicolai led the way, muzzles flashing as they fired on the infected that were still scattered about the alley from the soldiers' earlier flight. Behind Dannie, Carlos opened fire, and she risked a glance back to see yet another crowd of freaks following them from the massacre behind them. The numbers of infected were drastically rising in the alley, and she looked around them frantically for another way out. Yuri and Nicholai passed a side entrance, and without waiting to ask permission, she darted half way down it, on the look out for more infected, but thankfully finding none.
"This way!" Dannie called back, and she heard Carlos echoing her words to the others. She waited for them to catch up to her, her pistol not quite shaking in her hands as she realized how far away from the others she'd managed to get for that moment. Carlos gripped her shoulder as he passed her, and she nodded to him gratefully as she fell back into her now familiar position in the surviving soldiers' formation. She heard Nicholai and Yuri's heavy boot steps splashing through the water and muck on the street beneath them, and breathed out a sigh she hadn't realized she'd been holding in when neither of them opened fire. It looked like they'd managed to slip into the side street far enough ahead of the horde that they might actually manage to escape, at for least the moment.
Ahead of her, Carlos turned down now yet another side street, and she mused absently that she'd had no idea the city she'd lived in for most of her adult life was such a maze of thoroughfares. That was only for the good tonight; had they been forced to keep to the main drags, they likely would have been sitting ducks against all of the now infected populace. Raccoon City was not a small town; the sheer number of residents only meant a higher chance of the number of infected skyrocketing.
"This's Olivera, we've been overrun. Request immediate chopper evac. I repeat, request immediate chopper evac." Dannie was quietly impressed that Carlos managed to keep his voice relatively steady as he radioed in the call for help. Hell, she was impressed he managed to get the battered radio working at all. Between Phil's fall and Carlos throwing the both of them out of the way of the catwalk, she'd half figured it'd barely be useful beyond the staticy in-coming signal that had led them to the fallen rally point. Apparently she'd underestimated the military tech.
Or not, she thought bitterly. It wasn't like anyone was answering them now, and the incoming signal and calls for reinforcements had faded out into nothing. Either the radio was as dead as their fallen comrades, or everyone else was as un-dead as the infected they'd had to deal with this far. Neither option was the slightest bit encouraging. She found herself hoping the radio was just too fried to work, preferring that to the thought that the four of them alone had survived the infection thus far.
Well, three of the four, she thought worriedly. Yuri was faltering, the wound on his arm already dark and unhealthy looking, and he was getting weaker by the moment. Part of her wondered if they should just kill him now. It wasn't a happy thought, and most of her was sickened that it had even occurred to her, but really, what other choice would they have? He was infected; clearly Tess had been right about the infection transferring via bite or so Dannie judged from the way the soldiers had responded to her words. And if Yuri was infected, then it wasn't a matter of if he would turn, but when. Having him with them left all of them in even greater danger, and she wondered why neither Nicholai nor Carlos seemed to have realized it.
Oh hell, maybe they had and just couldn't bear to mention it. God knew, she wasn't going to come out and say it, and she didn't have the bond with the man that his comrades would. She shuddered, hating the thought of it. She made a quiet vow to herself that if she was bitten, she'd separate from the men and quietly eat one of the bullets in the 9mm. Dannie would not, could not, fathom harming anyone. Especially not the men who'd risked their lives for her.
Ahead of her, as if picking up the rapidly declining mood of Dannie and his men, Carlos tried to the radio again and again, his voice growing less calm and more agitated the longer his calls went without answer. Dannie was about to suggest he just give it up and they search for a way out of the city on their own, when the roar of a chopper broke the silence around them. Carlos broke into a grin of triumph.
"Come on, we have to get out in the open," he called back to the trio behind him, and he and Nicholai picked up the pace and jogged out of the alleyway to the main street ahead, popping flares and waving their arms like lunatics and yelling at the top of their lungs. Dannie held back as, despite her worry for her own safety, she was drawn to stay near Yuri who had fallen back a few steps behind the rest of them. She wasn't going to leave him behind if she didn't have to. He looked in even worse shape now, leaning against the building beside them as if it was the only thing keeping him standing.
"Hey, hang in there, alright?" she told him, moving to offer him her shoulder to lean on as well as the wall. He nodded to her, and she felt almost sick at the sheer painful gratitude on his face now, when before there had been only contempt. The fact that he could stand the civilian's assistance - let alone welcome it - could not be a good sign for how much longer he'd make it. They need to get him medical help now if there was any hope for him at all. She glanced back to the street and the pair of soldiers there, and was startled to see them coming back at a run.
"The chopper's heading that way – looks like they're aiming for one of the buildings," Nicholai told her as Carlos reached out to take Yuri's weight from her, muttering encouragement to his teammate. That left she and Nicholai to take guard for their leader and the wounded man he was more than half carrying, and she prayed silently that she'd be up to the task if needed. She followed the men out into the street and looked where Nicholai had pointed out the helicopter's direction. She recognized the building in question and hoped it was a good sign.
"That's the hospital – there's a Life-flight chopper pad up there. That should be where they land," she said. Carlos nodded, and this time she took the lead for once knowing exactly where they needed to be heading. It was an odd feeling, and one she was pretty damned sure she wasn't comfortable with. She hoped Carlos would be free to take charge again once Yuri was out of his hands. Dannie did not want to have to make any further choices in destination. She just wasn't equipped for that.
They'd almost reached the doors of the huge building when the chopper suddenly roared back overhead this time heading away from the hospital.
"What the fuck? Where are they going?" Dannie yelled, outrage making her forget to keep quiet. Nor was she the only one, Nicholai and Carlos cursed right along with her, all of them totally confused as to what the hell had just happened. After a second, Carlos seemed to remember something.
"They dropped something inside. Did anyone see it?" Dannie shook her head no, same as the other two. "Let's take a look. Might be something we can use."
"Like a radio that actually works," Nicholai said bitterly, taking the burden of Yuri from Carlos while their leader moved to check the doors. They were unlocked.
Of course they were unlocked, Dannie thought with a wry shake of her head as she held open the door for Nicholai and Yuri and then closed it quickly behind them. It was a hospital – in the midst of any kind of epidemic, this would be the one place that didn't close their doors to the sick and infected. She just hoped that those infected had left the building by now. It seemed fairly likely considering the quiet around them. Tiled halls like the one they were in didn't muffle sound all that much; she figured they'd have heard anyone else approaching them long before they could actually see them.
The quartet moved as quickly as they could down the hallway, but they were slowed by Yuri whose condition was declining even further, to the point that Nicholai was practically carrying him and having to stop every other step or so to hitch the shorter man back up higher on his shoulders. Dannie glanced back at the pair almost constantly, more worried for Nicholai at this point than Yuri. She highly doubted they were going to find anything that could help him now and she could only seem to care about the distance between his teeth and Nicholai's exposed throat only inches away.
She caught Carlos checking back over his shoulder as well, and they shared a worried look that Dannie hoped their injured companion couldn't see. It was getting frighteningly close to the inevitable now. She swallowed down the growing unease with every step, the fact that nothing had jumped out yet almost making her paranoia worse. This was the longest they'd gone yet without having to fight for their lives, and in every action or horror movie she'd ever seen, that tended to be a bad sign.
The building wasn't helping either. Like her office building and its parking garage, the power seemed to be out for the most part, with only a few random observation rooms seeming to still have any electricity at all. That or the equipment ran on some form of battery power; damned if she knew. Either way, she was grateful for the flashlights on the soldiers' weapons. It just seemed darker in the halls than it had out in the streets.
The group finally ventured out into an open atrium and there, surrounded by broken glass from the windows above, were a pair of massive metal trunks. Dannie vaguely heard Nicholai settling Yuri on a relatively glass free patch of floor, but she was too intrigued by the trunks to really pay attention. The damn things were huge. She flipped one open and frowned, recognizing the padded interior.
"It looks like weapon cases," Carlos said quietly from beside the other case, and Dannie nodded her agreement. They looked just like the case for her pistol, only on a much larger scale. She leaned in and picked up a short length of several really large caliber rounds.
"Is it just me or does this look like what you'd use in a chain gun?" she asked, almost under her breath. She was fairly sure she went unheard though, as Nicholai had burst into an angry rant and a minor moment of violence against the cases.
"These weren't meant for us," Carlos decided with a terrifying kind of finality. Dannie opened her moth to ask who they were for then, but she didn't get the chance to finish her question.
With a feral snarl and a blur of motion far too fast for the sick man he'd been just moments before, Yuri lunged in and bit Carlos on the arm. Dannie screamed and jumped back, slamming into the case and barely keeping her footing as her earlier fears were painfully realized. Carlos shook his now-turned comrade off of him and he and Nicholai both aimed at their former friend. What was left of Yuri gathered itself and Dannie felt everything in her screaming for the two men to fire. Why the hell were they hesitating? Then Yuri lunged for Nicholai, and the redhead fired point blank into the infected's mouth dropping him instantly.
In the moment after, Dannie's near-hyperventilation was the only sound in the room. She tried to quiet herself, but just couldn't. After a moment, she gave in and leaned over to put her head between her knees, trying to calm her breath. After her breathing had settled somewhat, a hand came down on her shoulder, and Carlos helped her straighten.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry- I just…" she trailed off, seeing understanding in the eyes of both of the surviving soldiers. There wasn't anything to say, really. Her eyes trailed down from Carlos's face to his arm and the ghastly wound, and she fought the urge to panic again. Three men down, and soon, unless they encountered a miracle, they'd lose Carlos, too.
She reached up to grip his hand still on her shoulder, and then closed her eyes and prayed.
