Chapter 3: Ticking Time Bomb
An hour past midnight Alice's sensitive ears picked up whimpering coming from behind the counter where Claire and K-mart had both been sleeping. The noises were soft, almost as if the crier was still in the throes of a terrifying dream, but Alice couldn't tell who it was. The blonde heard a few of the mattress springs compress as others expanded, and Claire began to whisper.
"Shh, it's ok."
So it's K-mart, Alice thought and the redhead continued.
"It's ok, K-mart. It's alright. I've got you."
Claire's soothing tones began to infiltrate her consciousness, sending her into a trance and bringing with it a memory Alice had kept long tucked into the recesses of her mind.
She hardly remembered where they had just been. Carlos, Jill, LJ, Angie and Alice were all sitting in an SUV driving endlessly into the night. Jill was saying something to her, asking her about a surgery or some other procedure, but Alice couldn't be sure. Her head was so fuzzy.
The blonde lost herself for a moment, and when she came to she realized that everyone in the vehicle besides herself and Angie was dressed in black.
Angie asked one of the men a question from the far back seat. "What time is it?"
The time? What's so important about the time? Alice wondered, and then realized that she was curious as well. She strained to hear the reply, but her mind clouded over. The blonde could feel her head begin to pitch forward.
"Alice, look at me," Jill said, but she couldn't comply. The woman put her hands on Alice's shoulders to steady her. "Carlos, something's wrong."
The ex-soldier glanced backwards and asked, "what? What is it?"
"I don't know, she just -"
Alice was only able to catch a part of Jill's answer before she fell into the woman's lap and finally blacked out. When she woke everyone was positioned around her on the side of the empty highway. Carlos knelt in the grass next to her. The dew on the ground was beginning to seep through her lab coat and chill her back. She brought her hand up to touch her forehead and tried to rub away the fog that had been so prevalent in her consciousness before.
As Carlos spoke her mind cleared at last.
"Hey, glad you're back," he smiled and Alice returned it.
It unsettled her to see the Umbrella pin attached to his suit; she was reminded of the trauma she'd been put through in the labs, but she was grateful for what her friends went through to get her. Friends – I can't believe I can actually say that I have friends, Alice thought and her smile grew wider.
Carlos asked, "do you think you can stand?"
Alice nodded and the ex-soldier guided her to her feet. Jill was instantly at her side to help support her. The strength in her muscles waivered and she commanded them to hold firm; they did so, but only for a moment. Suddenly, Alice felt her eyes contract and somehow she knew control was no longer hers.
The blonde jerked away from Carlos and reached across to un-holster Jill's handgun. What am I doing? Her finger curled around the metal trigger as she elbowed Carlos in the face with her right arm. He staggered backwards and Alice aimed the firearm at Jill's chest. The woman had only a second to be surprised because the blonde shot it her directly in the heart. Carlos cried out, but Alice was already turning to shoot LJ.
"Alice – no!"
I can't stop! She tried to desperately to keep from pulling the trigger again, but it was to no avail. I'm sorry, the blonde thought as she turned her head to sight in the ex-soldier. She could hear Angie screaming to the left of her. Alice watched as her arm reached backwards, lined up with her gaze, and fired at Carlos who was drawing his pistol. He dropped dead onto the grass, and Angie's cries turned into whimpers.
All my friends…It seemed like it took ages for her body to acknowledge Angie, but just like before the gun in her hand moved towards her. She's just a little girl. The blonde's mind couldn't handle the strain any longer; she'd tried to fight every single one of her actions up until this point, but she couldn't do it anymore. She couldn't think about it; couldn't feel anything – not if she wanted to survive this horror with some amount of sanity.
The gun became lighter in her grip, and squeezing a trigger had never been easier. The bullet found its mark in the center of Angie's skull and the girl fell on top of LJ's corpse, adding her innocent blood to the mix. Alice stepped right over their cooling bodies as she walked around to the driver's side of the vehicle. She dropped Jill's gun and opened the door to climb inside. With the keys still in the ignition she started the engine, and turned the vehicle around to head back to Detroit.
One thought plagued her as her possessed body drove. What time is it? However, she couldn't peal her eyes from the road to look at the clock above the silent radio, and she hated it. Her knuckles began to grow white around the steering wheel and the muscles in her jaw clenched with exertion. She was getting back control – through anger.
Alice began to think back to what Umbrella had done to her. The tests, the painful procedures; every needled that was slipped into her sensitive skin - every strap that held her down. They hadn't used anesthetics or painkillers – not when they tore away her flesh to measure the speed of her skin's re-growth, not when they pierced her heart with a lancet to see if she would survive, not even when they sawed off her right pinky to witness the extent of regenerative powers.
The blonde finally looked at the green numbers on the dashboard. 10:07.
Hell help her if even a single lab-coat survived the massacre she was planning.
"Shh, it's ok."
Claire's calming voice drifted back, and Alice found herself quivering beneath the fleece blanket. She had to know the time; her wrist shook as she pushed the button to illuminate it. 1:13:34. She watched the seconds tick by until the numbers grew dim again. Alice took a long breath and her body stilled.
No sleep tonight, she thought and continued to listen to Claire.
"Come on K, wake up." There was a pause before she spoke again. "I know – I know…"
What could she possibly know? Does she know of K-mart's pain? Is she holding the girl in her arms, trying to soothe the frantic thoughts she suffers through alone because she won't speak about them? For a mere moment Alice wondered what it would be like to have that attention directed to her. No one would ever do that for me, she concluded and dropped the idea from her mind.
"You're safe now," was the last thing Alice heard said to the teen.
No you aren't, little girl. You will never be safe, the blonde thought and then with an uncharacteristic amount of concern and self-pity added, not with me around…
The one aspect of time Alice favored above all was its consistency. Sure, sometimes it felt that is passed slowly but every second was never longer than the one before, every minute did not stretch past sixty seconds, and every hour finished with sixty minutes. Morning came as the hours went uniformly into the night.
This time when Claire went to move the shelf from the door, Alice did nothing. She simply watched as K-mart and Claire struggled to unblock the exit.
As the pair left for the bathroom she played with the bracelet the teen had given her. The craftsmanship was actually quite good; the primary and secondary colored wires meshed together in a pattern. She opened it up and contemplated putting it on; black had become a little dull. Before she could connect the velcro together on her right wrist Alice heard gunshots coming from outside; then her blood began to hum and she was tempted to smile.
She shoved the bracelet into her pants pocket and un-holstered both of her Tactical Supergrade pistols. The two survivors burst unceremoniously into the store.
"Alice!" Claire yelled but the blonde was already at attention. The redhead slammed her back against the door and gave the teen a command. "Grab those bags, K, and my rifle!"
K-mart followed the orders, and Alice's blood suddenly went from humming to screaming. It made her heart pound and she was thrilled to be in her element.
"How many are there?" she questioned Claire.
"Too many."
No such thing. Alice rotated her shoulders in preparation as Claire started to explain her plan.
"We've only got one option – run for the hummer."
"Run?" Alice said skeptically, the thought was foreign to her. K-mart handed Claire a backpack and the rifle.
"There are no other exits! We have to go now or we'll be trapped in here!"
Now, the blonde saw the dilemma. She really didn't like not knowing what she was up against. Strategy had saved her skin more than once, but it was too late to form a better plan so Alice quickly holstered a pistol, unclasped the saddlebags from her bike and threw them over her shoulder.
Claire opened the door and fired upon the horde with her repeating rifle. K-mart kept close to her as she cleared the front of the store. Alice went after the pair and was struck by the size of the undead group that had massed. Infected poured onto the street from alleyways between the derelict buildings as others approached from both sides of the street almost as far as the eye could see. There were hundreds, and she couldn't help but laugh.
Alice had never stayed in one place for very long, but if this was what awaited the people who did then the blonde would have to rethink her tactics. This was a much more efficient way to attract the infected to her for annihilation.
The very immediate area had yet to be overrun, but if the two survivors didn't get into the hummer soon – they would not being leaving whole.
Now that Alice could see what faced her she had a decision to make. She could stay behind and take to her trade with unbridled passion – leaving the survivors to their fate – or she could get in the hummer. For once, Alice didn't have enough time. She couldn't settle fast enough so she started to unload her magazine, deliberately killing the undead blocking her path to the vehicle, but when she got there she paused.
Claire was already in the driver's side with the engine running and K-mart had left the passenger-side door open for the blonde before she climbed into the back seat. Alice was standing next to the armored hummer, she looked at the empty seat; at Claire who was remarkably silent, her green eyes held regret as if she already knew the outcome of Alice's thoughts. In another life…The blonde turned her gaze on the teen and K-mart's eyebrows knitted together in worry.
"You're n-not coming?"
The words were rough and a bit malformed, but K-mart had just spoken to her. Alice was about to shake her head in response, but first she glanced at Claire. The woman had a tear on her cheek in reaction to the teen's voice though she kept her gaze fiercely on road in front of her, and Alice changed her mind.
She holstered the other handgun as she threw her saddlebags into the vehicle, grabbed Claire's rifle and slammed the door. Alice slid the strap of the nickel-finished gun over her arm, and scaled the side of the hummer. She barely made it to the roof before Claire hit the gas. The blonde bent at one knee and strengthened her position, setting the laminated, wooden stock of the rifle against her shoulder. It took her little time to line up the silver sight and aim for the closest undead in the way of the moving vehicle.
Alice fired methodically until the box magazine was empty and began to pull out single cartridges fastened to the gun-strap. She reloaded, aimed, and shot repetitively until their route was clear. Claire sped the vehicle up, topping almost forty miles an hour to try and liberate them from the infested town. The exaggerated wind blurred Alice's eyes and blew her hood back.
The redhead took a fast turn, and was forced to compensate when they crested a corner building and saw that the road in front of them was filled with the undead. The blonde was thrown to the roof when Claire slammed the breaks and took a sharp left to avoid them. Didn't learn a damn thing from blowing that first tire, Alice thought as she grabbed onto a rail with one hand to keep herself from rolling off.
After the last turn, Alice saw that they were home free and crawled to the edge of the hummer, reached down to grab the passenger-side handle and opened the door. She swung her legs over and lowered herself into the vehicle. As she made it into the leather seat, she closed the door and pulled off Claire's silver rifle to set it back in between herself and the redhead.
"Next time – I drive," Alice said.
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