Disclaimer: see part 1 for disclaimer.
The More Things Change…
By Random1377
Part 6 – Into the Fire
The bottom dropped out, the lights went down… Hell broke loose.
Rebecca could not keep from screaming as her stomach jumped into her throat. All around her, the sounds of other cries and gunfire erupted.
"It's moving, I can't-"
"Fan out, everyone fan out!"
Bang. Bang. Bangbangbang.
"Secure your fire, goddamn it! We're too clo-"
"Scree!"
Through muzzle flashes, Rebecca could see the monster that had been disguised as Sherry scrambling through their midst, its eyes wild and hungry as it toyed with them – heightening their fear in anticipation of the kill.
"Damn it," a voice very close to her cried, "I'm HIT!"
Rebecca shook herself, seizing Carlos's arm and yanking him backward as the creature sprang at him, seemingly driven into a frenzy by the sight of the blood pouring from his shoulder.
"Over here," she screamed, hauling the man to the ground and rolling on top of him, "Follow my voice, she's over here!"
Pain erupted in her back as sharp claws shredded her shirt and dug into her skin.
Infected, she thought immediately, holding Carlos tighter as he began to struggle, Oh God, I'm infected!
She arched her back, pressing her stomach almost intimately up against Carlos's, trying to escape the agony as the scrapes began to howl with pain.
The sane part of her mind told her that unless the creature was bleeding or oozing or otherwise secreting some type of fluid, a simple clawing would not let the T-virus into her system… but the sane part of her was not in control, and though she was still shielding Carlos's body with her own, she tried to crawl across the floor, tears spilling from her eyes as she imagined all of the zombies and other undead monsters she had encountered in her time as a S.T.A.R.S. member.
No, she begged, sobbing as the creature's claws found her once more, no, I don't want to die like that! Not like that!
"Becca," Barry's powerful voice shouted. "Hold still, I can't get a bead!"
Rebecca could not obey. All that mattered to her was to flee – to escape the horrible certainty that, live or die, she was now condemned to rise from her eternal slumber and stagger mindlessly around in search of human flesh until someone or something finally put her out of her senseless misery.
"Fire," Chris screamed, "just open fire, damn it!"
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Barry's huge handgun thundered, the flash casting his face into stark relief as he pumped three rounds into the Sherry-creature's shoulders and back.
"Get her out of there!" he shouted, bracing his gun in both hands as the creature staggered and whirled around to face him.
"SCRE-"
Boom.
Rebecca screamed as she felt the creature's blood splatter all over her back.
If she wasn't infected before… she definitely would be now.
"No," she sobbed, "Oh no… no nonononononnooooo!"
"Hold her," Chris's voice barked, "Olivera, hold her tight."
"Sorry, chica"
Rebecca fought as Carlos's arms wrapped around her shoulders. Gun, she thought desperately, someone give me a gun, someone-
"Kill me!" she shrieked, unable to contain her terror, "God, kill me, please! I don't want- HAHHHHH!"
Pain, unlike any she had imagined, flared on her back as someone – her frazzled mind could not grasp who… upended a bottle of alcohol, pouring it slowly and methodically over her injuries.
"Hold her," Rebecca could someone saying as the pain rose higher and higher, "hold her as tight as you can…"
Her back felt as if someone had lit a torch and was holding it against her skin. Black spots danced in her vision as her body convulsed, her feet beating against the floor until someone held them fast.
Anything would be better – death would be better – than this.
With a final, weak sob, Rebecca passed out, slumping against Carlos's chest as the dark oblivion of unconsciousness finally took the pain away.
( 0 0 0 )
Rebecca woke to the sharp, acrid stench of smelling salts.
"Wha- OW!"
"Easy," Billy said, grabbing her arms as she winced in pain. "Easy there, killer… you'll pull your bandages off."
"How long?" Rebecca managed.
It felt like she had been out for days, so her eyes widened as Billy replied, "Four minutes."
"Four… minutes?"
"Yup," Billy nodded. "Redfield – Chris – slapped a field dressing on you as fast as he could and we hustled out of there. Now we're in some kind of storeroom or something – and that table over there is like an all-you-can-eat buffet of bullets."
Rebecca followed his pointing finger, finding a large steel table piled high with what seemed like an endless supply of bullets and clips in every caliber. "Too bad we don't have a fifty-cal," she said, her face twisting up in pain as she pushed up to her feet.
"Burton's is a fifty," Billy pointed out, slipping an arm around the small of her back to help support her. "Sure put a big hole in that monster back there."
"Monster," Rebecca echoed, her eyes widening as she remembered the feel of blood hitting her open wounds. "Billy, you have to-"
Billy raised a hand, cutting her off in mid-sentence. "We think we got it in time," he said softly. "Chris used an entire bottle of pure isopropyl on your back less than five seconds after contact. Even if that thing was a carrier, alcohol kills anything if you get it on fast enough."
"If," Rebecca said quickly, "but-"
"Hey," Billy interrupted. "'If' is good enough for right now."
"But-"
"Hey," again, she was cut off, "you can't worry about it – it's too late to do anything about it, ok? If… you know, if it turns out we were too slow… I'll take care of you, ok?"
Rebecca clenched her eyes closed, knowing all too well what 'take care of' really meant. "If I don't get my hands on one of you first," she whispered.
"Too much if," Carlos said, slapping a clip into his M-16 and taking a step closer to the wounded woman. "That was dangerous, chica," he said softly. "Saved my life… but you almost lost yours. Why'd you do all that for someone you hardly know?"
"Combat medic," Rebecca explained softly. "Standard CPET procedure – Cover… Protect… Evacuate… Treat." She gave him a weak smile. "I was just doing my job…"
Carlos put his hand out. "I'm glad you did," he said seriously, "I never even saw that thing coming."
Rebecca shook his hand, glancing at his shoulder. "Someone patch you up already?"
"Yeah," Carlos shrugged, "couldn't get the bullet out, but oh well. I'll live with it until we get out of this dump."
Rebecca noticed that the man favored his injured arm as he hefted his rifle up and turned away from her… but there was nothing to do but deal with it – for all of them. It's not like I can just have him lie down and take it easy until help comes, she thought darkly, WE were supposed to be the help!
"Hey," she said suddenly, "why doesn't it hurt?"
It was a testament to her scattered state of mind that it didn't occur to her to ask this question sooner, but her back felt surprisingly cool and pain free.
"Lydocane," Chris said, glancing up from where he was stuffing a satchel full of clips. "Shot you up good, Chambers… but it won't last forever."
That was for sure, Rebecca mused. Lydocane was only a mild pain killer, and even if he used a fairly healthy dose, she would only have a few hours. Then again, they all only had a few hours, so the return of pain was pretty far down at the bottom of her priority list.
Abruptly, a certain sense of… freedom came to Rebecca's attention.
"Billy?"
"Hmm?"
"…where's my bra?"
Billy shrugged, glancing up at the ceiling as he replied, "Straps were torn up… it was useless. Wow, look at the architecture in this place."
"Useless, right," Rebecca said dryly, pulling away from him and walking over to see if she could find more clips for her handgun.
"Hey, it's not like I haven't seen them before," Billy pointed out. "I'll pick you out something pretty as soon as we're out."
Rebecca was about to point out that this was another 'if' when she noticed that they were one person short. "Where's Jill?" she wondered, running her fingers over a collection of clips as she suddenly looked up at Barry. "And why did you have live rounds? I thought we agreed on tranqs?"
Barry and Chris exchanged a sideways glance.
"Jill's not here," Chris replied quietly, "and… each of us brought a clip of live rounds with us – in case of… well, something like this."
Rebecca frowned. "When were you planning to tell me?" she demanded. "And if Jill's not here, where is she?"
"We weren't planning to tell you," Chris said bluntly, "and she wasn't in the room when it dropped. Now can we go to one question at a time, please? And pick up the pace? We're kind of trying to beat the clock here."
"The knife."
"Huh?"
Rebecca turned to Claire.
"Jill's knife," Claire clarified. "I was looking around for a way to get behind Wesker and the other woman, so I wasn't looking directly at them. The knife came from outside the room. Jill's still on the floor we started on."
"Perfect," Chris declared. "Once we gear up, we can contact her on her walkie-talkie." He frowned suddenly. "She… does have one, right? Please, God, someone tell me we gave her a walkie-talkie."
"Relax, chief," Carlos said, making soothing gestures with his hands. "It's under her suit at the small of her back, remember? We gave her the small one with the earpiece, comprende? Still don't know if we can reach her through all the hardening this place has, though."
Chris visibly relaxed. "Guess we'll find out," he said firmly. "Ok, everyone get as much as you can carry and still be able to run. What you see is what you get, according to Wesker… so once this stuff is gone, we'll be down to knives and bad words."
"Yo mama is mine," Billy said easily, "you can have son-of-a-bitch."
This garnered a small laugh from everyone.
"Alright," Chris said, gesturing for everyone to gather into a semicircle around him. "As the old saying goes, this is the shit, and we're in it. Fifteen levels deep, if Wesker was telling the truth… which means we should count on being down twenty or more. We have limited ammo – but we are the best, so this little game? No sweat. Everyone in?"
He thrust his fist forward, looking around as everyone followed suit.
Not that anyone had any other options, of course, but morale was important.
"S.T.A.R.S. Omega," Chris said formally, sidestepping the lengthy speech in consideration of the decreasing time, "moving out."
"Hooah!"
Moving quickly, everyone gathered up their ammo, securing it around themselves as best they could before lining up by the room's only other door.
"Burton, point," Chris barked, "Olivera, Kennedy, take the rear… wait, Kennedy, how are you at shooting lefty?" He sighed as Leon admitted that he could shoot with his left hand, but not very accurately. "Alright," Chris modified, "Olivera and Cohen in back, Kennedy, Chambers and… Redfield," he gave his sister a wry smile, "watch the sides. I'll be up front with Barry. Our destination, kids, is the exit. All other destination and goals are now considered null."
Claire opened her mouth to protest, but reminded herself that Sherry was probably miles from here. Fool's errand, she thought bitterly, nothing but a waste of time…! Sherry, as God is my witness I WILL find you.
"Let's see if we can get in touch with Valentine before we roll."
"Hey," Billy murmured as Chris pulled out his walkie-talkie, "sorry I plugged you, man."
Carlos snorted. "Only reason you don't have a hole in you is that you hit me first. Don't sweat it," he held out a hand, "just don't nail me again, and I'll try to make sure you're out of the way before I start blasting."
"Deal."
As the two shook on this agreement, Chris lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth. "Jill, Jill do you read?" he said, raising his voice to hear himself over the chatter behind him. "Jill, this is Redfield, over."
He let his finger off the send button, and immediately several sounds burst through the walkie-talkie.
Ksht"-ck!" Ksht "Valentine!" Ksht "Motherf-"
Silence.
Chris lowered the walkie-talkie. "God," he whispered, "Oh God, Jill…"
"Was that…?"
Lifting his head, Chris looked into Barry's concerned eyes. "Yeah…" he whispered.
Everyone paled as he completed his sentence.
"…that was Wesker."
Continued…
Author's notes: not as long as last chapter, but good wholesome family fun nonetheless, eh? EH?
I actually managed to find Adiabatik and sent her this chapter to pre-read… but it seems she has one of those newfangled 'real' lives, and didn't seem to have the time to get back to me. Again, I'm flying solo. Sigh.