Jill had started walking astride with Alice, with Peyton having insisted he could walk on his own. (Typical man!) Terri had silently volunteered to fall back to keep an eye on him. She turned to Alice and said, "Those were some pretty slick moves back there. I'm good, but I'm not that good."
"Just eatsk your spinach!" Alice said, contorting her face for a second to resemble Popeye. "But no, seriously, at least 40% of my badassery can be attributed to horrific medical experiments. Do not recommend. I mean, I'm not dissing the end results, and if they'd bothered with basic shit like 'asking my permission' I probably would have been onboard with becoming Wonder Woman." She stopped and scrutinized Jill. "You know, maybe Umbrella's willing to accept volunteers? I mean, chances are that the experiment will make your skin come right off, and I'm not even sure if that's intentional or not —"
"Hard pass," Jill said with a scowl. "Don't forget, I've had firsthand experience with what Umbrella's capable of too."
"Right, right," Alice nodded. "I'll be sure to let you know if I hear of any ethical human supersoldier programs."
"Can I… ask you a question?" Jill asked. Alice nodded. "You said you had to deal with an Umbrella facility similar to mine… did it have a bunch of weird keys and intricate puzzle traps and so forth too?"
Alice's eyebrows shot up. "What the fuck? No. Well…" She frowned. "There was this one hallway filled with deadly lasers. The solution to that puzzle ended up being 'Do not go into the fucking hallway filled with deadly lasers'."
Before the conversation could continue, a random payphone that just happened to be right there next to them started ringing. "Gee, I wonder who that could be!" Alice said airily, walking towards it.
"What, you're just going to answer it?" Jill asked.
"Come on — payphone starts ringing in the middle of Deadsville, and it just so happens to be right next to a group of survivors? Betcha a million bucks it's for us." Alice turned away from Jill, picked up the payphone, and answered. "Random payphone, this is Alice speaking."
"You answered faster than I anticipated," said a man's voice, speaking with a British accent.
"I was voted Most Likely To Undercut Everyone's Expectations by my senior class," Alice said. She turned to Jill and mouthed "You owe me a million bucks!" Jill rolled her eyes.
She heard the caller go 'hmph'. "Right. Look, I can get you out of the city, all four of you," he said, revealing he had eyes on them.
"Surveillance camera stalker, nice," Alice complimented.
"But first we have to come to an arrangement. Are you ready to make a deal?" he asked.
"Sure, Monty, I'll take door number 3," Alice said, her voice cooling. There was something damn familiar about this voice… something that made her skin crawl.
"My name is Dr. Ashford, and I run the Advanced Genetics and Viral Research division at Umbrella."
"Is that right," Alice said, her voice so cool you could store ground beef in her throat for several months until frostbite made it inedible.
Ashford didn't hear Alice's tonal shift. "My daughter Angela was meant to be evacced out of the city early this morning, but there was an accident, and she got lost in the city shortly before everything went to hell. If you can rescue her — and I have reason to believe she's still alive and well — then —"
"Dr. Ashford — you got a first name?" Alice said, cutting him off.
"Charles…" Ashford was wary, and he realized that this was an altogether different negotiation now.
"Okay, Chuck. Can you do me a favor?" Alice licked her lips. "Can you say the phrase 'Prepare for exposure' for me? Just, haha, just for fun. For no reason." There was silence on the other end of the line. "Come on, Chuck, you can say it. Three little words, 'Prepare for exposure'. Almost as easy as converting a human being into a porcupine, with all those fucking needles that were sticking out of me, am I right?"
"…Shit," Ashford finally grunted out. "Alright, what do you want me to say? I'm sorry?"
"Dr. Ashford, I want you to think about this question: What do you think I'm going to do when I find your little girl? What do you think the person you tortured and experimented on is going to do when she gets her hands on your daughter, an innocent life you value by sole virtue of half of it having come out of your stunted, malformed cock?"
"I… you…" Ashford stammered.
"Relax, Chuck," Alice said. "Of the two people in this conversation, only one of them believes in harming an innocent person for shits and giggles. I will find your daughter, and I will protect her with my life. And when you and I meet face to face, we are going to have a conversation, and…" Alice laughed. "I'm thinking that part of that conversation is going to entail me biting off one or more of your fingers. Maybe I'll make you swallow them."
"…But Angela will be safe? You promise?" Ashford said in a quiet voice.
"I promise, Dr. Ashford," Alice assured him. "Now, feed me the deets."
Ashford told her all the details — the name of the elementary school, along with directions to the place. Oh, and he also gave her a heads up about the small matter of the impending nuclear obliteration of the city. Afterwards, Alice hung up without so much as a goodbye.
"What was that all about?" Jill asked, eyes narrowed.
"Telemarketers," Alice said with a shrug. "You just can't get them to shut up!" She laughed. "But no, seriously, let's go hunker down somewhere and get our shit together, this merits a group discussion."
Rain hated to lie there as Claire screamed in terror at her apparent murder, but if Irons suspected she was alive (or 'alive'), he already had the drop on her, and he'd move to end her existence permanently.
"Now, now, Miss Redfield, no need to scream." He looked up from Rain's prone form and grinned. "Not like anyone can hear you down here anyway." A look of nostalgia waxed over his face. "Earlier, I entertained the mayor's daughter, Katherine Warren. I was there for her christening, you know, and as a baby she screamed like nobody's business." His eyelids grew heavy as his gaze unfocused. "Nothing like the way she screamed earlier today. Strapped to that very table, Miss Redfield, if you can believe it." He came back to himself and grinned at her. "At any rate, Miss Valentine's surprise appearance in my inner chambers means that you've been given a brief reprieve. After all, much like Katherine, I want to be able to enjoy Jill for a long, long time, and that means I have a lot of prep work to do and very little time to do it in."
"What do you mean, you have little time?" Claire asked.
"Hmm?" Irons looked surprised, as if he'd forgotten Claire was even capable of speech. "Oh, nothing that will ultimately concern you, but if you absolutely must know, Umbrella intends to flatten this town and all who remain within its borders in a few short hours. Dawn, if I'm not mistaken." He tapped his nose and winked. "They're not aware of this, but I know of a way out of town." He knelt down to unbutton Rain's body armor. "There's a hatch in the corner that leads to the sewers, and beyond them lay another one of Umbrella's dirty little secrets — an old lab that got shuttered a few years back." A sad look passed over his face. "Used to be run by friends of mine, the Birkins. Car accident, claimed the whole family. Oh well, time marches on… but not for all of us, eh, Valentine?" He finally removed Rain's helmet, and stopped short. "You… you're not Jill Valentine. How odd. I wonder who you used to be." He knelt down to get a closer look.
Rain lunged forward and tore his throat out with her teeth. He tried screaming in surprise, but instead found his airways quickly clogged with blood. He weakly tried raising the knife again, but she slapped it out of his hand. She spat the chunk of flesh out, but couldn't stop her tongue from running across her lips, or her throat from reflexively swallowing the blood that found its way into her mouth. The worst part was how delicious it tasted. Nothing in her memory could compare — gourmet chocolates, high-end whiskeys, even her grandmother's home cooking paled in comparison to murder. She managed to resist tearing another chunk of flesh from his neck, but couldn't stop herself from lapping at his severed artery like a dog. Finally, the flow of blood tapered off, and the light left Irons' eyes.
Sated (hopefully), she rose back up and slowly turned to Claire. The woman had a look of utter terror on her face, and flinched as Rain took one step towards her. "You… you're not Jill Valentine," she said in a low voice. "Chris showed me pictures. Claire, you fucking idiot, you should have asked to see her face, and now you're gonna get eaten!" she scolded herself.
Rain realized how frightening she must look — her graying flesh, her pale blue eyes, the blood congealing on her face and neck — and with great effort took a few steps back. She knelt down, put on the helmet, and felt a little better. Great, scent was a trigger for her animalistic impulses to feed on human beings. She made a mental note to find a tube of super glue and just clog the shit out of her sinuses. She buttoned up the jacket, stood once more, and returned to Claire. The woman still looked beyond frightened, but confusion and, dare we say it, hope? had dulled the fear. Rain freed her from her bondage and stepped back, allowing Claire to jump up off the table and put as much space between her and Rain.
"You're dead." Rain nodded. "A zombie." Rain nodded again. "But you're… different. Still have most of your mental faculties." Rain nodded again. "…How?"
Rain shrugged. She knelt down and dipped the tip of her finger into Irons' blood, then began to write on the surface of the table Claire had been bound to. She struggled mightily, but managed to eke out five letters and a punctuation mark.
"'Magic?' Claire read. "Are you fucking with me right now?" Rain shook her head. Claire let out a sigh. "Right, whatever. I guess twelve hours ago if you told me I'd be fighting zombies and monsters I would have said you were crazy, so I guess I can't really leave anything off the table anymore, can I?"
"Claire? Jill?" Leon's voice came through the door a moment before he did. "Oh, thank God," Leon said, the tension in his voice breaking when he saw Claire and Rain. "I thought Irons might have gotten both of you."
"He did," Claire said curtly. She gestured behind the table. "See for yourself."
Leon peeked around the table and his face paled at the sight of Irons' grisly fate. "My God, what happened to him? He —"
Irons sat up and lunged at Leon with a growl, the T-virus having already settled in and made itself home. He had the element of surprise, but Rain was quicker, snatching Irons' knife up off the floor and jamming it straight between his vertebrae. It didn't kill him outright, but the severed spinal cord meant that he was reduced to angrily biting in Leon's direction, and even that came to a halt once Rain brought her heel down on his temple four times, cracking his skull and scrambling the contents even beyond the burnt omelet they'd been in life.
Leon frowned looking at Rain. "Jill… what's with all the blood? When Irons shot you —" He'd started to walk towards her, but Claire stopped him.
"Wait, Leon. That's not Jill Valentine," Claire said. "I don't know who she is, but there's something else…" She shot a quick glance at Rain, asking for permission. Rain gave a brief nod. "I'm not sure entirely how, but she's an intelligent zombie. She tore out Irons' throat and… and saved me."
Leon narrowed his eyes. "Well, whoever you are, thank you, but why didn't you tell us about your… condition before?" Rain pointed to Leon and Claire, then mimed a gun blowing her brains out. Leon had to nod in agreement. "…Yeah, that's fair."
Rain again pointed at the two of them, then at the hatch in the corner that Irons had mentioned. Then she pointed at herself, and pointed towards the door that led back to the police station. "So you're saying we should part ways here?" Claire asked. Rain nodded. "…Thank you again," she said. "Do you have a name?" Rain nodded. Once again using Irons as an impromptu inkwell, she again laboriously sketched out the four letters of her first name on the table. "…Rain. Thank you, Rain," Claire said again. "…Are you sure you don't want to come with us? You heard what Irons said about the bomb." Rain removed the glove on her left hand and pointed to her engagement ring, then tapped the spot in her chest where her bisected heart lay still, then held her hand up to her forehead and craned her neck around in a brief searching motion.
"Huh, a zombie looking for her husband. Now I've heard of everything," Leon commented. Rain shook her head, formed her hands into two scissors shapes, and, well… "…What does that gesture mean?" Leon questioned.
Claire, more worldly than Mr. Scott Kennedy, felt a blush rise on her face. "I'll explain it to you when you're older, Leon," she said through gritted teeth, trying hard not to burst out laughing. "Good luck finding her, Rain," she said, forcibly dragging Leon to the hatch and bending down to open it.
As Rain left the room, she heard Leon exclaim: "Ohhhhh, I get it! That was two women!" The statement brought out a burst of laughter from Claire.
Okay, so, fun story: when I was watching Apocalypse for research, the scene in the thrift store where Alice has flashbacks to being experimented on, one of the bits of dialogue in the scene is "Prepare for exposure". And the fucking subtitle attributes it to Ashford! I was fucking stunned! That sick bastard had us thinking he was a sympathetic character this whole damn time! "Oh, please help me! My daughter's missing, I'm in a wheelchair, and my boss is mean!" When all this damn time, he was merrily injecting monster juice into people left and right! Fuck you, Chuck!
RIP Sherry, but this story already has one little girl in distress.
Leon is smart! Hahahahaha!
Next chapter, an old friend shows up! It's going to be fun, fun, fun! OH I CAN'T WAIT!