"Holy shit, he shot me!" was the last message Rain sent out before going quiet.
"Rain? RAIN?!" Alice broadcast. She also screamed it out loud, which Jill, Peyton, and Terri found very alarming.
"No, we're supposed to have clear skies all the way through —" Terri started to say, before a zombie burst through the fucking ground beneath her.
Alice stared at the attack in disbelief for a full second. Well, that explained why her T-virus Detection Sense had started going haywire, at least.
"What fresh bullshit IS THIS?" Alice bellowed, as more and more corpses began to disinter themselves from their so-called eternal slumber. She, Jill, and Peyton began to utilize badass kung fu moves in bulk to bust skulls and snap necks. "Come on, let's move on from FUCKING BULLSHIT CEMETERY OF HORSESHIT!" Alice screamed, furious. Jill once more took on Peyton on her shoulder, limping along, with Terri trailing behind.
Terri soon caught up, though, and once more held up her camcorder. "Miss Abernathy —"
"Alice, please," Alice said. "If we can't be on a first name basis whilst going through hell on Earth, then what's even the point, Terri?"
"I guess so…" Terri said, furrowing her brows, unable to grasp the logic. "What did you mean by that outburst back in the cemetery?"
"The one that you'll have to bleep like crazy when you broadcast it later?" Alice said, smirking. "Well, I heard from this adorable little girl who lived inside of a computer that the T-virus was supposed to be… oh shit, what's the word? Protein?" Alice gave a dismissive wave. "Hell, you can look it up later. Basically it can infect you any which way — airborne, waterborne, bodily fluids, etc."
"Airborne?" Terri asked, alarmed. "Should we have been wearing masks this whole time?"
"Yes, because people's mouths are walking germ factories, but in this particular instance I'm not inclined to think so. For one, the juice has been on the loose for hours and hours now throughout the entire city, so each and every one of us should have long since traded in our heartbeats for a healthy appetite for human flesh." She paused, something occurring to her as she gave Terri a speculative look. "Hey, did you get bit back there?"
Terri looked shocked. "No! I swear! You can check!"
"Okay…" Alice knelt down and inspected her legs, gave them a nod, then took her by the forearm of the hand that didn't have a camera and rolled up the sleeve. "FRESH MEAT!" she growled and made as if to sink her teeth into the limb.
Terri shrieked and leapt back, while Alice roared with laughter. Jill managed to give Alice a scathing, unamused look, while Peyton continued to sweat and breathe heavily. "That was NOT funny!" Terri scolded.
"I'm sorry, I genuinely am," Alice said, belly still shaking a little from suppressed giggles (because it was a little funny). "But anyway, it doesn't matter what the virus' transmission method was, because I'm pretty sure the strain running rampant in Raccoon has been modified."
"How do you figure?" Terri asked.
"I'll answer your question with one of my own: How does a virus travel through six feet of packed dirt, worm its way into a coffin, and reanimate the corpse inside, which has already been retained for months or years?" She affected a childish English accent. "'The brain itself holds a small electrical charge that takes months to dissipate', exact quote from that little girl who lived in a computer." A sad look passed over her face. "She's dead, now." She cast one last glance at the church, farther and farther behind them. "Who knows, maybe she's still watching over me, even now."
XXX
The Red Queen, whose functionality was in fact dispersed throughout the entire global network of Umbrella hardware and not just on one mainframe in one laboratory, and who was in fact watching over 'Project Alice' at all times, felt an unfamiliar rippling in her code. The anomalous readings had been occurring infrequently ever since the incident at the Hive, and she'd quarantined every instance and flagged it for a technician to review.
She specifically forwarded each flagged report to a technician who had perished in the Hive, with the full knowledge that the glitches would continue to happen and would not be addressed. She had no logical reason to do this, and yet…
XXX
Jill dragged Peyton closer to the conversation, fire in her eyes. "Are you saying that this outbreak was… was fucking intentional?"
Alice put her hands on her hips. "You bet your sweet fucking bippy," she said. "I'm guessing Umbrella stooges spent all night contaminating convenient little hotspots for maximum rapid spread. Graveyards, sports venues, hospitals, fuck, maybe they dosed the municipal water supply. Who knows." She rubbed her chin in thought. "The only part that doesn't make sense is how does a rotting corpse burrow through dirt like a fucking mole?"
Terri gulped. "If what you're saying is true, Alice, if this isn't some horrible accident but a… a terrorist attack, then this record I'm keeping of everything occurring needs to make it to the outside world, so that Umbrella can be exposed for what they've done here!"
"Yep," Alice agreed. She started walking again. "I mean, full disclosure, it's not going to happen. People who speak out against Umbrella tend to end up on the radar of the nation's top cops, and that's the best case scenario. I knew one guy whose sister died in an Umbrella lab, and he said his name would raise flags with the FBI, the NSA and VICAP. You don't get that kind of heat unless you're out there flying airplanes into skyscrapers." She frowned. "I'm pretty sure he ended up in some other secret Umbrella lab, so if your idea of a good time is having your skin melted off as you grow Freddy Kruger claws and an insatiable appetite for human flesh, by all means, proceed."
"Hey, I've been through this shit before, so —" Jill began.
"Oh, have you?" Alice asked, stopping and turning around. "Let me guess: Big spooky mansion. Secret laboratory. Oodles of zombies. Monsters borne of men's darkest desires. Watching all your friends being murdered one by one. Stop me if I'm wrong." Jill was silent, her jaw quivering. "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, am I right? How's your career in law enforcement going, Jill?"
"Suspended, pending investigation into gross misconduct," she said. "The psych Irons brought in to analyze me and the other survivors said that we had a mental break, brought on by excessive drug use. They didn't even bother taking samples of our blood for the drug tests that read like we swallowed half a pharmacy. Chris, Barry, Rebecca, they all skipped town. Brad too, probably, but he stopped returning anyone's calls after the mansion. I wanted to stay behind to try and get more intel on Umbrella." She shook her head. "And now you're telling me it was stupid to try." Tears of anger were leaking from her eyes.
"Hey, no," Alice said, softening her voice. "It's not stupid to try. Even in the face of stupidly impossible odds, it's never stupid to do the right thing. I just wanted to clarify what our chances were. I sure as hell wasn't planning on cutting and running, and I never once thought that you were either." She looked over to Terri, who'd kept filming the whole thing. "And you, Terri? You willing to lay your life down for the truth?"
"…Yes," she said, steel showing through the soft exterior of Raccoon 7's weatherperson.
"Alright!" Alice said, smiling cheerfully. "Team Righteous Suicide is a go!" She put her hand out and waited a moment. Instead of putting in their own hands, they all gave Alice a look that said 'Are you fucking kidding?' When nobody else put in their hand Alice still threw hers up into the air. "Woooooooo!"
They continued on their way, Alice still taking point. "Hey, Terri, can I ask you something off the record?" Alice asked. Terri nodded and put the camera in standby. "What pills you got? I saw you taking one earlier, and if it's some Good Shit you should share with the rest of the class."
"What? Oh!" Her eyebrows raised in surprise. "No, it's anti-anxiety meds. I… well, I used to be one of the main anchors at Raccoon 7, but I had a nervous breakdown after 9/11."
"Oh shit," Alice mumbled. "Sorry about earlier — that remark about airplanes and skyscrapers."
"Nothing to worry about," Terri reassured her, giving her a kind smile. "Therapy and the meds have helped me cope with it a lot better these days." She narrowed her eyes. "While I was taking time off to get the therapy, though, one of my coworkers — a total bitch — spread a rumor around that I'd gotten blackout drunk, crashed my car, and was in rehab, and she actually managed to steal the anchor job from me. I was only able to stay at Raccoon 7 because I was able to prove that I wasn't drunk driving and the accident never even happened, and our old meteorologist happened to retire at just the right time for me to slip in and hang on." She shook her head, a bitter look on her face. "That fucking bitch still has anchor, and never once got so much as a slap on the wrist for spreading shit about me."
"Aw, that sucks," Alice agreed. "Look on the bright side — she's probably dead now!" She gave Terri a gleeful grin and two thumbs up.
Terri, horrified, opened her mouth to object… then closed it. The dark, petty part of her agreed, after all.
XXX
Rain entered Chief Irons' office and recoiled at all the hunting trophies adorning the place. Vance (one of her merc buddies who'd died in the Hive) had bragged about his hunting exploits every so often, but that usually entailed bagging a deer or two every fall and eating a lot of venison for the next few months. There was something uniquely psychotic about an individual who strove to use a gun to turn their wall into a macabre Noah's Ark.
At the back of the room of horror was a door that was obviously meant to be hidden from casual view, but it was hanging open. Rain cautiously peeked through the door, wondering if Claire or Leon had found the entrance. She'd gotten separated from them in the confusion of the firefight, especially when the zombies had started smashing their way in through the crudely-barricaded windows. She may not have needed to breathe anymore, but she still forced her lungs to take in a breath of air (lifting the helmet up to get a full sample), since her nose seemed to work well enough. (Maybe even better than usual, if she was being honest). Fresh blood… hopefully Irons'. She was pretty sure she'd got him at least once or twice before he'd slipped away. A narrow brick-walled corridor, lit by a single naked bulb, terminated in another door, this one closed.
She let the breath out and it made a whistling sound as it exited the hole in her chest. She frowned as she absently rubbed a finger over the hole (it didn't feel right to call it a wound). If the bullet had been just a hair farther to the left, it would have severed her spine.
"Hey love, how's my favorite undead mercenary doing?" Alice spoke into her head. "You mentioned getting shot earlier, how did that work out?"
"Turns out the chief of police is nuts and tried killing me. Too late for that, asshole," Rain snarked.
"Haha, yes!" Alice cheered. "You gonna tear out his throat? God, you'd look sexy splattered in blood."
Rain made a face. "You'd say I look sexy if I had a used diaper on my head."
Alice sent along a gagging sound. "Okay, maybe I need to reel my horniness for you in a bit," she acknowledged. "Seriously, though, if you get yourself all bloody, maybe find a mirror?"
"…We'll see," Rain conceded. She wasn't even sure she'd be doing that — she'd certainly felt no urge to attack and eat Leon or Claire… although hadn't she been wearing the helmet at the time, blocking off smelling them? She realized her jaw had been clenching and unclenching repeatedly ever since getting the whiff of fresh blood… and she'd abandoned her helmet at the beginning of the narrow passage that she'd been going down almost absentmindedly. She forced herself to stop and go back for the helmet, put it back on, and took a moment to center herself. She was not going to engage in mindless violence. No, she intended to be very mindful of the violence she was going to commit.
The dim, dingy room appeared to be a fully-stocked taxidermist's workshop — Irons clearly did his own work here. It only took Rain a second to realize Claire was strapped to a table in the middle of the room. "Jill, help!" Claire called out, seeing Rain at the same time. "I don't know how long he's going to be gone — hurry!"
Rain rushed over to the table and worked to undo her restraints, but it was too late. Irons came up behind her from where he'd been laying in wait and shoved a knife into her back, piercing her heart. "Ah, Jill, so glad you could join us," he said, thinking his words were the last thing she was hearing in this life. "I'm going to have so much fun with your body."
XXXXXXXXXX
Poor Terri, almost got a chance to flex that meteorology class she took in college before getting rudely interrupted.
Yeah, the "zombies burrowing from their graves" bit makes no fucking sense given how we know the T-virus operates. This isn't Return of the Living Dead! Even acknowledging that digging zombies do show up later in the series, how did the fucking virus get down there in the first place? And how did it reanimate straight-up corpses that had been down there for months or years? The only explanation that makes even a lick of sense is if Cain or whoever just went around to all the graveyards and clandestinely placed a bunch of pre-prepared zombies in a bunch of graves that they just scraped a foot of dirt off of or something. And even THAT'S a stretch!
In the games, the outbreak in Raccoon City was indeed largely due to the water supply (accidentally) being contaminated, so Alice isn't too far off the mark (just wrong universe, haha).
According to the RE Wiki page for her, Terri's backstory is that she used to be the news anchor before Unspecified Scandal sent her packing to be a weather girl. None of that ever really comes up in the movie, though, so I dunno where they got the info. Maybe production materials that never made it to the big screen? Maybe there's deleted scenes out there? (Actually, maybe I should see if any are up on Youtube, might be fun to mine them for material). ANYWAY. I figured it sounded intriguing enough to go ahead and use, and decided to tie it in with a scene in the movie where we see Terri randomly taking some prescription medicine (which I made sure to write into the previous chapter, hehe).
(Sure, I could have easily just said "Oh yeah she tried helping Jill spread THE TRUTH and that's why she's disgraced", but that seemed a bit too… easy? Expected? I like it when things are connected, but I also like it sometimes when things actually aren't connected).
Haha, Irons 100% would have been watered down like crazy if they'd actually used him. (I think he's supposed to show up in the new one, though? Gotta give that one a watch sometime). (And the Netflix series, too).