Chapter 3: "My name is Alice…"
In the earliest hour of daylight when Claire woke up, Alice untied her from the plane but made sure her hands were still securely bound together. She chose to continue to face the woman afraid of what Claire would do if she turned her back again. Her mind chastised herself for being so distrustful of the redhead, so she tried to offer Claire a hand up but the woman wouldn't take it. She rose on her own and took an apprehensive step away from Alice to retrieve the knife lost in the grass. Claire didn't remember that it was the knife from the day before when she attacked Alice, but she knew she needed it. Alice witnessed the redhead's intent and snatched it up first.
"That's MY knife!" Claire demanded.
"You remember it?" The brunette asked in surprise. Claire nodded, suddenly surprised herself. "I'm just going to hold onto this a while, until we get to know each other a little better," she explained. The redhead narrowed her eyes, and for a second Alice thought she was going to be attacked again, but when no assault came she felt relief.
"What happens now?"
"I suppose you have a choice. You can leave – or you can stay with me," Alice swallowed and fiddled with the knife afraid of the answer, but trying not to let it show. She examined the silver hook-point at the end of the blade and followed it down until the sawing edge took over, and finished with a worn faux-wooden handle. It was a fine weapon that showed obvious signs of use. Just what have you been cutting Claire, for these past long months, Alice thought, other survivors? The second that thought crossed the taller woman's mind she mentally shuddered.
They'd all done terrible things since the outbreak, and some before Alice noted, but whatever Claire had done while she was under the influence of that spider was not her fault. Alice believed her reasoning was sound, but she also believed blindly that the redhead could never be like the monster she saw inside herself.
"You might even get your knife back," Alice continued.
Claire scowled at the mention of her lack of weapons. She didn't like feeling so defenseless and vulnerable, especially since Alice looked like a walking armory ready for a fight around every corner.
"How do I know I can trust you?" The younger woman asked.
"You don't, but I'm the best chance you've got if you want to survive." Honestly, Alice would've said anything to convince Claire to stay, but that just so happened to be a fact. No one knew the virus like she did.
"Survive? Survive what?"
"If you really want to know, there are tapes you can watch. But I left them at the beach," Alice started off towards the trees, but only made it about five feet before she realized Claire wasn't following. "Are you coming?"
"It seems I don't really have a choice after all."
Despite the pessimistic way Claire said it, Alice was overjoyed. The walk to the beach was quite; broken only by the sound of the coming and going of waves. Both of the girls were timid, and careful enough to keep each other in their peripheral vision.
When they came to the water Alice saw that her camera was sitting on the log exactly where she'd left it. She surmised that the tape-recorder's battery was probably dead, but that didn't matter much because she had an adequate supply of replacements. The women passed the helicopter to reach the shore, and Alice was sad to see Claire's non-reaction to the piece of machinery and the faded but recognizable Umbrella logo.
"Hold on, I'll set it up for you." Alice exchanged the spent tape with the first of the series that was recorded five years ago, and inserted a fresh battery. When the camera came to life she hit play and handed it to Claire.
Clair sat on the drift wood as static occupied the screen, within seconds Alice's face materialized. She studied the old Alice, she was clearly someone who'd experienced horror but this Alice seemed disconnected, almost callous which was nothing like the woman before her now who was restlessly pacing a few yards away. Sure Alice's face showed the tension of living with fear, but it also held compassion…and sadness.
"My name is Alice. I worked for the Umbrella Corporation, the largest, most powerful commercial entity in the world. I was head of security at a secret hi-tech facility called the Hive, a giant underground laboratory developing experimental viral weaponry, but there was an incident. The virus escaped and…everybody died. The trouble was – they didn't stay dead."
There was a reason Alice never watched these tapes. She couldn't help but think of all the people she'd lost. Their names danced in her head often, but their deaths shadowed her nightmares. Rain, Matt, Carlos…those were the ones that haunted her the most.
To Claire the video was a complete shock, but even she had to admit that the fear they instilled in her felt familiar. There was a pause in the film but before the redhead had enough time to think, Alice was back talking into the camera, this time looking a little older, her hair a curly mess. Behind Alice was a BMW motorcycle, and behind that nothing but desert and sky. Suddenly Claire was filled with the sense of a glaring sun, wind-blown sand, and the sound of birds.
"Raccoon city was just the beginning. The Umbrella Corporation thought they had contained the infection, well they were wrong. Within weeks the T-virus had consumed the United States, within months – the world. The virus didn't just wipe out human life. Lakes and rivers dried up, forest became deserts, and whole continents were reduced to nothing more than barren wastelands. Slowly but surely, the earth began to wither and die. What few survivors there were learned to keep on the move. We avoided major cities. If we stopped any place too long they would be drawn to us. A few at first, but then more and more, a never ending army of undead. For those of us left, staying on the road seemed the only way to stay alive."
That first video was a short one, but also the most gruesome. The shots of the people panicking outside Umbrella's barricaded walls, of bloody mutations climbing on the ceiling of a church, of corpses emerging from their graves; even the newscaster's horrific death at the hands of the undead children was on that tape. So when Alice realized Claire wasn't watching it any more, that she was just staring at the camera, she walked back over to the redhead and took it from her shaking hands.
"I'm sorry you had to watch that."
"God, everyone I know must be dead." Claire stated her voice emotional.
"Who do you remember?" Alice asked, trying desperately not to get her hopes up that the redhead's memories were returning.
"I can just see faces. I don't know their names."
"That's great!" Claire looked at Alice in bewilderment until the brunette realized what she had just implied. "I-I meant it's good that you are getting your memories back."
"Something tells me I don't want to get my memories back."
It hurt Alice to hear that, but of course she understood how Claire felt. Who would want to remember everyone they ever loved; then remember a few seconds later that they're all dead?