The Long Dark
IV.
Predator
They tracked the sound of the music. It took them deeper into what was rapidly becoming clear was a temple of sorts—worshipping plagas? Why were these people always worshipping evil?
They kept as much light with them as they could manage. Rebecca stumbled, and Kevin caught her arm again as she laughed lightly, "I'm clumsy."
He gave her a look that made her skin flush as he returned, "Cute, though."
She gave him a thumbs up. Shenmei remarked, "Can the flirting, Casanova. We don't have time for it."
Kevin leaned down and mused to Rebecca, "There's always time for flirting."
She grinned. While pacing beside Leon, Jill complained, "Why is it always plagas?"
He glanced at her with a smear of something gross on her hair. Her bangs were plastered to her forehead. Her eyes looked tired but alert. "Just our kinda party, gorgeous. Why? Not having a good time?"
She chuckled.
The chamber before them opened to a throne room. It was expansive, enormous, and beautiful beneath the flickering lights and lit by something indefinable to shimmer blue, green, and purple to the naked eye. The walls were etched with drawings and backed by plagas frozen in time, waiting to kill them.
They split up to take photos as Rebecca used her little handheld machine to gather data.
Offhandedly, Leon mused, "Chambers - is there anything in development to offer vaccination from this shit?"
She sighed. "Without a sample to work with, we were limited in that lane."
Of course. Damn Ada Wong. She'd taken the sample and set back the timeline to develop the first line of defense. The lasers had gotten most of it out of him and Ashley, but what about stopping it before it infected a host?
He joined Jill, where she was studying some of the cave drawings on the ice. His eyes scanned the enormous mural, and she spoke quietly with a shiver of something he didn't like, "Look here."
She gestured with her hand at the image of a man with his arms lifted toward the...sun? How? The plagas were damaged by sunlight. Even if they emerged from the darkness, they would be limited in their capabilities. The people around the man were all gathered in reverence for him. He was mutated, and he was clearly drinking power from the sun.
Leon murmured, "There was a time when they could stand in the sunlight."
Jill nodded and returned, "Or...they were planning for the day they could."
Jill separated from him. She put her finger to her ear and spoke softly to whoever was on the other end. Redfield, no doubt, waiting to surge in to save the day. Leon joined Shenmei and Kevin and instructed, "We're gonna find this is bigger than we can handle. I'm gonna put a call into FOS and see about getting a bigger team out here."
Shenmei gave him a level look. Kevin nodded, "Good idea. We need to figure out how to contain this place. This is bad, Kennedy. And not just - oops, there's a handful of zombies bad. It's Raccoon City bad."
Leon blew out a hard breath. "Yeah. And what's worse? I think this place is just waiting for someone to get stupid enough to expose it to sunlight."
Kevin followed him to the wall with Shenmei as Leon showed them the cave drawings. "Logically, we could bring in UVGI to blast the hell out of this cave and kill the damn things in the walls."
Rebecca spoke from behind him, "Possibly. But ultraviolet germicidal irradiation only works with sustained use...and there's no guarantee that the ancient plagas hadn't already started to form a resistance to light. We're assuming they're like any other microorganism, and exposure generated by the electromagnetic radiation would be able to penetrate any armor they might have developed during evolution."
Leon sighed, "And the ice might act like a shield anyway."
Rebecca nodded, "Think...hitting the surface of a well with it. In theory, it would work if it could penetrate...but if it can't...?"
Leon clicked his tongue. "We'd have to do a test run on something smaller to determine if we could just zap the little bastards. Destroy the small ones, and they can't make more. Then we just...hope like hell we can take out the big ones."
Kevin snorted, "You saw that one back there, right? Moby Dicks bigger, uglier, meaner brother. You wanna fight that?"
"Not alone. But we get some UAVs out here and a goddamn B-52 and some Raptors...I think we could do it."
"What about loss of life?"
Leon rubbed his forehead. "The area of attack would be widespread." He glanced at Jill, "What's the population content in the area?"
She held his gaze, "About fifteen hundred locally in a thirty-mile radius."
Leon and Kevin shared a look. Shenmei was the one who said, "They'd consider that an acceptable loss."
Rebecca squeaked, "Wait...what? You would kill all those people?"
Leon stated quietly, "When the risk to loss of life is anticipated at greater than the risk of neutralization, sanitation is the standard course of action."
And just like that, she understood. The plan here? It was burn everything to the ground, just like Raccoon City.
People were expendable.
She'd failed once to save a soul but herself to sanitation...she'd be damned if she failed again.
Jill admonished harshly, "You son of a bitch...you think I'll let you murder all the people out there for the greater good?" She did air quotes while she vibrated with rage, "You don't even know that it would work!"
Rebecca whispered, "Easy, Jill. Take it easy."
Leon snatched her arm at the elbow and dragged her to the side as he hissed, "Number one - I didn't say I'd pull the trigger on it, so check yourself before you sling accusations and righteous wrath my way. B - there comes the point when I have to think about everybody, Jill. Every single person. If I can stop this from becoming a slaughter, I'll damn well do it. If I can't, I sure as hell won't allow what's in this cave to shake loose into the fucking Pacific."
She held his angry look with her own until she snapped, "Goddamn Russians. They knew. They knew and unloaded this fucking place like it was nothing to them."
He nodded, face set in lines of carefully harnessed rage, "Yeah, they did. My guess? They took what they wanted before they handed it over." He dragged her further from the group when she stared at him and hissed, "What's worse? The White House is gonna want what's in here. It's gonna want it preserved. Because in the right hands? There's power in this cave."
The horror on her face was hidden by his back, blocking her from the group as she accused, "...you knew you'd find something like this in this cave. You knew. And you came here to...what? Save it? Serve your goddamn master and present it with a big, fat, ugly gift of bioterror?"
His face flashed with insult as he spat, "I won't let that happen."
She jerked on her arm, and he held it, reiterating, "Look at me."
Jill snapped her gaze over his shoulder to his face as he vowed, "I came here to make damn sure that it didn't. You understand me?"
Her angry face relaxed. She nodded, holding his gaze. "Ok. Then we find a way to stop it."
He nodded and hissed, "Trust me...or go back. You hear me? This isn't like the last time, Jill. It's not you and me versus the world here. I'm not infected and in need of you to drag me on. I know what I'm doing. I know what to do if things go south. Work with me or go back. That's it. Your choice."
Jill soothed quietly, "You're right. I'm sorry. Ok?" When he just glared at her, she added, "I am. I'm sorry. I'm out of line. I heard-I don't know what I heard when you spoke. Rhetoric. Bullshit. I don't know."
Leon held her eyes until she breathed, "I'm with you, I swear."
After a moment of watching his jaw flex, he finally let go of her arm and nodded. Jill soothed again, "...breathe."
When he gave her a dirty look, she simply added, "This isn't on you."
He said nothing.
God, he was something else. He took each life in this cave and outside it on himself. He was a little harder, a little darker, and a little gruffer, but he was still the same guy she'd helped in Spain. He had the world on his shoulders. He was standing there trying like hell to figure out how to get everybody out of this alive.
A beard on his face couldn't hide the hero. She was sorry she'd cast him in the light of a villain so quickly. By way of apology, she prompted, "You're not alone."
He flicked a look over her face, and Jill nodded, "Yeah. This is a team, Kennedy. A team. We're in it together—all of us. Lead us; we'll follow. But trust us to get your back."
He finally nodded. Jill smiled gently. "Yeah. Breathe. That's how we get through this. We're not alone this time, ok? Do that thing you do where you dodge lasers and let us back you up."
In answer to that, Shenmei spoke, "The parameters of the mission don't change."
He glanced at her. Kevin did as well. She nodded. "No backup. Not until the threat is identified directly."
Jill gave her a long look. "I have the B.S.A.A. inbound."
Shenmei shook her head, "They won't get clearance for it."
The silence dragged out until Rebecca whispered, "...you don't want them here."
Shenmei lifted her hands in a shrug, "Not my call. I'm just telling you what the mission guidelines are. Just us. Just this. They won't allow support without direct identification. Too risky."
Kevin scoffed and paced away. Leon held Shenmei's eyes and clarified, "Too much potential for fall out."
Shenmei nodded, "It's just us. F.O.S. will deny your request. They'll waylay the B.S.A.A. support."
Kevin cursed. Jill looked at Leon as he finally nodded, "She's right. They have parameters in place for things like this. I can try, but they'll shut me down."
When Shenmei and Leon engaged in a battle of wills, she finally told him, "I'm sorry. I am. You know why I'm here."
With a grumble of rage, he returned, "To run herd on me."
She nodded, "You mouthed off one too many times about the risk of exposure to plagas, Kennedy. They knew you'd try to level the place. And they won't let you. Not yet."
He snarled, "...gutless bastards."
Shenmei held his eyes, "There's potential for weapons in these caves. You know it. I know it. I disagree, but this isn't my place to judge. I do what I'm told...and you should too."
By way of warning, he simply returned, "You get in my way; you become the enemy. I don't give a damn about protocol. You hear me?"
Shenmei winced, "I'm just doing my job. Same as you."
"Fuck you, Shenmei. Stuff the company line up your ass. You think you can stop me? Give it your best shot."
Jill laid a hand on his chest and invited, "Take a walk."
When he gave her a dirty look, she kept her face calm and reiterated, "Take a walk. I mean it. She's doing her job, Leon. It's not personal. You know that."
Quietly, he snapped, "Fuck the job."
Shenmei winced and murmured, "And that's exactly why they sent me, Kennedy. Do the job and stop being a liability."
When he surged forward like he'd argue with her, Jill kept that hand on his chest, "No." She warned, and he glanced down at her face as she cautioned, "No. Take a walk...please?"
Leon turned away to stalk to the far side of the cave. Jill looked at the pretty agent facing her and inquired, "How well do you know him?"
Shenmei furrowed her brow, "Not well. Not really. Why?"
"...this isn't him."
"You sure?" Shenmei inquired, "Last I heard...you'd only known him a handful of days yourself."
That was true. That was undeniable. But how to explain something she knew in her guts here? She'd seen him go down into the dark on that island after he'd battled Krauser. She'd watched him struggle with whatever looped in his guts that made him something to be feared instead of followed. He'd told her it was harder to come back from it.
Was he trapped somewhere close to that edge now? All the time? Was the plagas the reason?
Kevin intoned quietly, "Goddamn, Shenmei. You know this is stupid."
The pretty Asian blew a hard breath, "I don't make the rules, Ryman. I just do my job."
"That's generally what gets people killed, ya know."
Shenmei studied Leon as Jill crossed to his side, "Maybe...but the rules exist for a reason. You're no better than what you're fighting when you operate outside them."
Kevin gave her a stern look, "Look around us...and say that shit again."
She said nothing. But she turned away with a weight around her heart that hurt to bear.
Jill reached Leon's side and waited.
When he said nothing, she queried, "How bad?"
He shook his head. "Hard to tell what's me and what isn't sometimes. She's right...I've been a loose cannon lately. I'm generally good at keeping my cards close to my vest...but this...I can't always get back from the rage when it hits. It just rules me."
Jill scanned his face and urged, "If you think you might be out of line...or teetering or something, Leon...just say something. How did it go after you got back? Did you feel like you...when it was gone?"
Leon shrugged a shoulder, "As much as I ever did, I guess. The goddamn plagas...I don't know if it made it worse or just made it, so I can't turn it off sometimes, Jill. It's like there are only two speeds for me - kill or be killed. I can't stop."
She gave him a cool look and told him, "You can. You just need a goddamn vacation. When this is over? Take one."
He gave her a desperate glance, "They won't let me."
"Don't leave it up to them. Take it. You're not a fucking machine, Leon. You need a break."
He started to answer, and Rebecca touched the throne.
In hindsight, she probably shouldn't have.
But she had on the helmet and was as careful as one could be in a plagas infected ice cave.
The second her hand slid on the seat, a humming started. She backed up so rapidly that she almost tumbled down the stairs to her ass before Kevin caught her and carried her away from the humming dais.
The throne descended to the floor with a crack and snap of breaking ice. Rebecca scrambled to get her gun up while the rest stood in a semi-circle with raised weapons.
But nothing happened.
The hole in the center of the floor just waited patiently.
Softly, Rebecca breathed, "...did it just-"
The drip landed half an inch to the left of her right boot. She turned her head to the left, and the thermal imaging dropped over her eyes.
What had been empty a moment before wasn't empty now. The world was lit red with signature. The warbling noise was nearly mechanical. The image was humanoid? It had a head and arms and legs and swirling tentacles that emanated from its head. She jerked her gun up, and it grabbed her throat in one massive grip.
Time went so slow, impossibly slow, improbably slow.
She gurgled, it threw her, and guns went off around her. Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Rebecca went up, flipped in the air like a tyrant had tossed her, and came down. Around her, people scattered like a bowling ball thrown down the center of human pins.
It knocked Kevin up and out, throwing him to smash into a wall. It sent Shenmei to her back and kicked her into a slide along the floor. The gun in Jill's grip was whipped from her hands and hit her across the face while it simultaneously foot swept Leon, beat him twice across the face as it had done to Jill, and kicked him clean in the chest to send him rolling.
Jill swung back, it blocked her arm with her gun, and it gripped her throat as she reversed for another kick. It lifted her, tossed her like it had Rebecca, and she smashed through a wall of ice that shattered like glass around her as she flew. Her gear scattered, slapping and skidding over the ice.
They didn't hit it.
How?
All the bullets fired, and no one hit it.
How?
How!?
And it didn't kill them.
The question of why was lost beneath a low rumbling noise.
The wall Jill had been thrown through was scattered around her back as if it were pieces of a ruined window. She groaned. She half rolled to the side, and something flopped beside her face wetly. Her hand grabbed the knife on her thigh, she rolled at the exact moment, and it grabbed hold of her face.
A hand?
A spider?
A spider-hand?
The long tail whipped three times around her throat as the spindly bony protrusions of legs clenched around her face in a hug nobody ever wanted. It cocked her head back as she panicked, screaming on the ground as she grabbed wildly with her free hand and tried to figure out how to jab it with her knife bearing other without stabbing herself in the face. The second she felt the slimy thing wiggle at her lips, she clamped her jaw shut and stopped screaming.
It was trying to implant her.
Her back hit the wall as she flailed on the floor in desperation. Her teeth felt the jut of a stabbing appendage, and she thought - this was how it ended for her, impregnated by a fucking monster in an ice cave.
There was a metallic sound, and a blast of light hit her face. It was so bright she shut her eyes and still screamed with it behind her clenched teeth. The thing on her face made a scrambling keen, and it evicted its efforts to implant her. It scrambled away as a hand caught her throat to lift her to her feet.
She was jerked upright, her knife came surging for the ribs of her attacker, and it threw her again.
Jesus.
This was pointless.
She flew, shouted, and came down...down...and down.
She went right into the hole in the center of the room while someone roared her name.
Leon?
It sounded like Leon.
The fall was fast and easy. She hit an ice slide, spun in a circle, and dumped into freezing water.
Jill sank, lost her breath, and bobbed back up. The darkness surrounded her as she tried to find some kind of light and only had her communicator on her ear to offer a bobbing stream.
Her helmet - gone. Her gun - gone. Her sense of direction - gone.
Jill swam out of the way of any other potential cast-offs. She was just climbing out onto the flat surface when a splash behind her had her spinning in the cold wet, knife raised, eyes zigzagging through the dark like a desperate thing. The water rippled around her. The thick black ensconced her vision.
Jill grabbed for the edge of the iceberg she found and started out of the water.
Something looped at her ankle.
She spun, started to shout, and a hand pinned her mouth shut.
Kevin.
He tugged her around the iceberg with his big hand over her mouth. When she fell silent, he nodded and used his free hand to click off the light beside her ear. They were suddenly only seeing the whites of each other's eyes in the dark as Kevin slid her against his front and pinned her between the iceberg and the cracked wall beside it.
When his hand slid away, Jill nodded as he put a finger to his lips.
There was a scuffling noise, a snuffling like a pig seeking food, and a gust of warm air over their heads.
They kept looking at each other as something wet and warm dripped onto Jill's face. Saliva? It slid like snot down her cheek as Kevin kept that finger on his lips. She didn't move. Her belly seized, her breath held, and something snuffled close to her right shoulder.
It got within an inch of her face, and a splash sounded where they'd been.
The thing near them retreated with a whip of motion and a gurgling cry. It raced, making sounds like a scuffling thump and dragging tail. Jill sagged in the water, Kevin's hand caught her against him, and he floated further away, slowly, so slowly, as the sound of combat filled their ears.
Two roars. A squeal. A high-pitched, nearly metallic cry.
Jill ducked under an overhang of ice with Kevin behind her. They tread water carefully as they moved. A hand caught hers and gripped, and Jill turned her head to find Shenmei emerged from between two ice flows with a calm look on her gorgeous face.
Holding hands, the two women floated in front of Kevin's bobbing light on the water as he angled it carefully into the long dark.
When they reached a narrow outcropping, Shenmei slid through, pulled Jill with her, and a slight sound had them looking into Rebecca's face as the scientist nodded, gestured with her hand, and took Shenmei's other one.
Just like that - three girls holding hands in the water.
They floated quietly as the noise behind them became cacophonous. Jill felt a shiver of panic that Leon was missing. But it didn't become panic because somehow she knew he was out there. Safe. Ok.
He'd survived worse than a fall into a hole.
This wasn't how he died. Nope. It couldn't be.
They were all going to make it.
They were all going to make it.
She held onto that like a mantra as she swam into the black without any real hope that she was right.