Claire despaired watching the members of her convoy slaughtered left and right by the superzombies. Goddamn Umbrella. Goddamn her for being so fucking stupid. Why hadn't she considered why a random shipping container would be plopped on top of the sand that had buried everything else? Thinking about it for two seconds would have had her come to the same conclusion Rain had frantically tapped out over the radio, but no, she'd been lost in the Alaska dream like everybody else, and they'd all paid the price.
Where the hell was Rain, anyway? She'd started blasting the superzombies pouring from the container, but had stopped almost as soon as she'd started. She wasn't sure, but she'd heard a loud report echoing through the canyon of derelict hotels, distinct from Rain's own rifle and the various small arms employed by the people of the convoy. Did Umbrella bring their own sniper to play? Of course, that begged the question, why wasn't he targeting the people in the convoy?
This was a combat field test, of course. Umbrella had created a new, deadlier strain of zombie and wanted to see how they performed in a mass melee. Well, congratulations, you fucking monsters, they were performing pretty fucking well!
A duo of the jumpsuit-wearing bastards had zeroed in on her and charged, screeching the whole time. She raised her pistols, dry-fired, swore, and drew her combat knife. She was about to die, but she wasn't going alone.
A mass of black feathers and beady eyes abruptly appeared before her and Claire lashed out unthinkingly, slicing through two of the infected birds before she saw Rain stepping out of the dark cloud like a goddamn witch or something, kukris in hand, superzombie heads on sand. She turned to Claire, a look of primal rage on her rotting face, and Claire had never been so terrified, never been so relieved to see someone before.
Rain raced around on the desert floor, eviscerating superzombie after superzombie. She tentatively reached out that psychic muscle to touch one of their minds —
"HATEKILLHATEKILLHATEKILLHATEKILL"
And just as abruptly slammed shut the connection with the superzombies. They charged her with just as much malice in their unbeating hearts as they did their live human prey, but it didn't matter, since Rain's hatred was much more calculated, much more efficient at dispatching her prey.
As she dealt out death to Umbrella's latest monstrosities, her will still crackled through the crowd of crows, who'd dive down and, say, pluck out a superzombie's eye, for example, or harry a trio of them trying to claw their way into the truck where the kids were hiding and lure them away. Many of them she sent farther afield, sent higher and wider, casting her own umbrella over the entombed city. She could actually see through the crows' eyes, and even as she fought below she scanned above, looking for a physical sign of Umbrella's presence.
There. Rooftop nearby. Helicopter, dome tent, and that motherfucking sniper. She ordered all birds to change course and converge onto the rooftop, targeting the sniper first and foremost. Motherfucker thought he could shoot her, destroy her sniper rifle? Good luck with destroying the flock of angry infected crows converging onto your position, you piece of shit. She relished the look of terror on his face as he turned and saw the murder far too late, swarming him, panicking him, forcing him to leap to his death.
"Ring the dinner bell," Rain muttered under her breath, and a great mass of the birds began orbiting just above the tent and loudly cawing, their calls sending out tiny little psychic shockwaves to any zombies in the area telling them that fresh live meat was available. More of the birds swooped down, tearing at the tent, pouring into the holes made by their brethren, and harassing the Umbrella dickheads inside. They pulled out their guns and shot at the birds, but always more were forthcoming. Would they survive? Well, friends, you and Poe can both guess the answer to that one.
Rain watched one of them flee from the tent, make for the helicopter, and get tackled by a superzombie just as he was about to clamber in, the monster taking a chunk out of his arm. Good, asshole, have fun seeing how the other half lives. Or doesn't live. Whatever.
The pilot shot the superzombie, the injured man finished climbing inside, and the helicopter took flight, the blades shredding a number of crows as it ascended through their numbers. Not nearly all of them, though, and even so, Rain only needed one to follow along and track where it went. If Ada Wong was telling the truth, she could be again in Alice's arms in a matter of hours.
K-Mart ran up to Rain where she stood on the ground, amid the last of the superzombies that she'd slain. "Hey, that helicopter's getting away!" she pointed out.
Rain nodded. "Mmmeeeaannnt ttooooo," she rumbled out. "Fffooolllloooowww. Fffiiinnnddd bbaaassseee. Ffffiiinnnddd Aaalllliiicccee."
K-Mart's eyebrows shot up. "That's your superhero girlfriend? Wow! True love!" She smiled with typical teenage googly eyes.
XXX
The situation was pretty fucked. The kids were all alright, but a lot of the adults had died. Chase had died (disappointing his millions of fans, hahaha). Claire was fine. Rebecca was fine. Betty and LJ were fine. Kaplan was fine.
Carlos had been bitten by one of the superzombies.
Rebecca watched through the microscope as the supercharged T-virus Carlos had been infected with ate the anti-T for breakfast and… shit, evolved? Some of the monsters that had crawled out of Umbrella's labs had a bit of a reputation for evolving, so it made a twisted kind of sense that the microbe itself had the capability.
"Useless piece of shit!" she screamed, taking the petri dish and hurling it against the side of the hotel they were still parked by.
"I'm guessing the outlook isn't good," Carlos said, ghost of a smile on his face. Kaplan was clutching him, eyes ringed red, already having gone through one crying fit, trying not to go through another.
Rebecca ran her hands through her hair. "I guess you could say that. As it stands, we can let the infection run its course, at which point you'll turn into one of those bald bastards and attempt to murder us. Or I could try dosing you with anti-T, the virus will mutate, and you'll turn into God knows what. When you try to murder us then, it'll likely be a lot harder for us to take you down." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "If I had… if I had a fucking month or something, I might be able to whip up a batch of anti-T that could counter super-T. Not that that'd help you."
Carlos gave a small nod. "So, I'm going to die," he said, calm.
Kaplan began to weep again. "I… I don't want to lose you, Carlos."
Tears began to fall from Carlos' eyes. "Hey, you've still got me, for a few hours, at least." He turned to Rebecca. "Right?"
Rebecca sighed. "I think so. Rate of replication seems to be unchanged from regular T. So you've got a few hours before we have to put you on watch."
Rain finally made her way to the party after poking around in Umbrella's tent and salvaging the rifle from the dead sniper. (She had also sent K-Mart on the way first, then salvaged a bit of flesh from the dead Umbrella goons while she was absent. Starry-eyed with hero worship as she was, even the teenager would likely take a dim view of watching Rain consume human flesh). "Umbrella base nearby," she signed. "Few hours drive, straight shot across desert."
LJ perked up. "Hey, yeah, those mad scientist bastards cooked up these roided-out motherfuckers, maybe they got a cure and shit!"
Claire perked up. "And they'd still have the helicopter there, right? Maybe we could top off the tank and fly straight on to Alaska."
Rebecca pounded her chin with the knuckles. "It's… possible… that Umbrella might have anti-super T on hand," she admitted. "It's equally possible that they made a souped-up version of the T-virus and forgot to develop a counter-agent for it. Stupid bastards."
"Half a hope's better than nothing," Betty shrugged.
"So, we're all in agreement, then? We try for the Umbrella base?" Carlos asked. Kaplan squeezed him once again and simply nodded, not trusting his voice to not break once again.
XXX
"Stop," Rain signed. "Drive up this path."
Claire nodded and did as she was told. When Rain told her they were navigating via the psychic connection she had with the zombie birds, it honestly wigged Claire out a little, even after all she'd seen in the past few years. Even after all she'd seen in the past few days. It reminded her of driving around with her brother, and the strange "GPS" device he had in his car. He'd told her that in a few years everyone would have one; that, obviously, hadn't panned out, but psychic birds were apparently almost as good for getting you to your destination.
Or maybe not. "Hey, this is a dead end," Claire pointed out, gesturing to the dropoff a few yards ahead. "Unless those birds are gonna fly us down the cliff like they did with you —"
Rain shook her head and signed "Recon. Big swarm outside base." They all climbed out and crawled to the dropoff. Rain passed her binoculars off to Carlos (she had no need, since she had birdvision). The others didn't really need binoculars, since the hundreds upon hundreds of zombies enclosing the chain-link fence on all sides was kind of hard to miss.
"Well, hell, can't we just steamroll through those assholes with our fuel truck?" LJ suggested. "Just fuckin' floor it and blow right through them?"
Claire shook her head. "They're too tightly packed in, especially close to the fence. There's no guarantee we'd be able to make it that far, or that one of them wouldn't get wedged in the axle and stall us, or something."
"Besides, plowing a narrow path through them is meaningless when it'd simply close up again within moments of making it," Rebecca pointed out. "Any cars that followed behind the fuel truck would get bogged down and everyone inside would be quickly annihilated. Even tailgating wouldn't help — if something happened to stop the fuel truck, then the cars following it would crash into it." She scowled. "Might even set off the fuel in the tanks."
"I can just walk right on past them," Rain pointed out.
"It already took us a few hours to get here," Carlos also pointed out. "How long do you think it'd take to ransack the lab and return?" He tilted his head down and coughed up a blood clot.
"Oh shit," Rebecca muttered, drawing her pistol.
"Hey, how about fucking don't?" Kaplan snapped, drawing his own pistol.
"Always my guardian angel," Carlos murmured, reaching out a hand and putting it over Kaplan's, pushing the gun down. "It's too late for me, and you know it." He glanced at Rebecca. "Rebecca gave me an idea, though — a way for the rest of you to get in there."
Kaplan cottoned on to what he meant. "No!" he hissed. "I won't let you! Or… or I'll come with you!"
Carlos caressed his cheek. "Chad, I'm not letting you throw your life away meaninglessly. I'm doing this for everyone, but mainly for you. It would be cruel of you to reject that. Okay?" Kaplan thought he was all teared out, but once more found himself sobbing as he buried his face into Carlos' chest. "It'll be alright, angel," Carlos said reassuringly as he ran his hand up and down Kaplan's back. "Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but someday, it'll be alright."
XXX
They took all the explosives left in the convoy and placed them in the passenger seat of the fuel truck. Carlos' friends were gathered around him, a wake before the funeral. K-Mart hugged him while crying; Claire tried to keep a stoic face while shaking Carlos' hand. "You keep them safe, huh?" he asked her.
"You got it," she confirmed.
He walked up to Rain. "You get your girl, okay?" Carlos told her. Rain nodded. "And the two of you keep an eye on Chad. He's stronger than he thinks, but he'll need support in the coming weeks." Rain nodded again.
LJ walked up to him, rubbing the back of his head. "Hey man," he muttered, voice low. "Shit sucks, huh?"
"Yeah," Carlos agreed. "Shit does suck."
He looked around, making sure no-one could overhear him. "Look, when you get into the cab of that truck… check under the visor."
"What's under —" Carlos started.
LJ held up his hands. "Man, keep it down!" he hissed. "Just a… a little somethin' somethin' I was saving for a special occasion, if you catch my meaning." He refused to meet Carlos' gaze.
Carlos slowly broke into a grin. "LJ… you sneaky son of a bitch."
LJ grinned back at him. "You know it, baby!" They gave one another a very manly hug, with pats on the back and everything.
He made his way to the truck, where Kaplan was waiting for him. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," Kaplan replied.
Carlos narrowed his eyes. "I'll know if you try to stow away," he warned.
Kaplan rolled his eyes at the teasing. "You know I'm not going to do that."
"Yeah, I know." Carlos just stood there for a second, drinking him in one last time.
"I just…" Kaplan bit his lip. "I wanted to say that, before I met you, I never thought I'd meet… anybody, you know? Especially with the way things used to be."
"Yeah," Carlos agreed. "Definitely one thing I don't miss."
"But then I met you, and you saved me —" Kaplan began.
Carlos interrupted him. "But you saved me, remember? That night in Raccoon, you pulled my ass out of the fire more times than I can count."
"But you saved me first," Kaplan said. "I never told you this, but after the Hive… I'd just watched all my teammates die horribly, and Alice and Matt were whisked off to God knew where for God knew what. They'd just transferred me to your barracks, and… and I was thinking about going to the shooting range and just ending it all, you know? And then you walked in, with Nicolai and the rest, laughing and joking, and… for a second, I was just in hell, thinking about my dead friends. And then you introduced yourself, and in… thirty seconds, you had me laughing and joking with everyone else. I felt like I was part of a team again, and I felt stupid for even feeling that way, but I'd also fallen hard for you. Sure, I saved you, but you saved me first." Once more, he wept. "I just wish I could have saved you one more time."
"Hey, none of that now," Carlos murmured, wiping away Kaplan's tears. "Maybe it was all meant to be. Maybe I'm meant to die today… but I'm going out on my own terms, to help those I love. And if I'm meant to die today, then I was also meant to have you these past five years, and I'll forever be grateful for that."
"I didn't want just five years, though," Kaplan said, sullen.
"Same here, angel," Carlos said. "But I'd have taken five minutes with you over dying an old man without ever having had you in my life." He leaned in and captured Kaplan's lips in a desperate kiss of parting lovers.
Hey.
Y'all know what time it is?
IT'S MOTHERFUCKING MAGICAL SOUL BOND KISS EXPLOSION TIME! FUUUUUUUCK YESSSSS!
The wind intensified out of nowhere, a veritable cyclone stirring up great gouts of sand. Everyone shouted in surprise, pulling on goggles, face masks, or just hopping into vehicles for protection against the grit. Bolts of chromatic energy rippled all throughout the storm, with Carlos and Kaplan's kiss at the epicenter.
Claire gaped in wonder at the sight. All the years she'd known Rain, she'd had serious doubts about the story of her origin. Even her mysterious ability to control zombie animals could be chalked up to Weird T-Virus Shit. But this… there was no explanation for this that was remotely rational. For the first time since seeing Rain struggle to spell "Magic?" out on the table in Chief Irons' blood, Claire was a believer.
K-Mart was transfixed on the sight. She was transported back to when she was a little girl named Elizabeth, watching the prince rouse Snow White with a kiss, watching another prince rouse Sleeping Beauty with a kiss. Maybe Carlos would be okay now? Maybe he and Kaplan could have their happily ever after?
Rebecca stared in utter befuddlement. "You've gotta be shitting me," she uttered. Transfixed, she began to walk forward, hoping to reach them, to see if it was all, somehow, an act. She made it halfway across the eye of the storm (all the sand being pushed to the periphery of the event) before one of the bolts of rainbow light struck her dead-on in the chest. She was thrown back several feet, physically unharmed, but mentally she was reeling. When the bolt had struck her, for one fleeting moment she had actually seen Billy Coen's smiling face beaming down at her, could actually feel his thumb as he rubbed it across her cheek. "BILLY!" she shrieked, begging him to return. But Billy was dead-dead, shot in the head and buried somewhere a thousand or so miles back east, and her scream was lost in the buffeting of the winds.
Rain just stared and smiled wistfully. The sight reminded her of Alice, who (God willing) she'd be seeing again soon. She was genuinely happy that Carlos and Kaplan were able to form a connection like the one she shared. And… well, it felt a little good knowing she'd be able to have someone besides herself and Alice to point to the next time she got into a philosophical debate with Rebecca "You scare the shit out of me" Chambers.
Fucking nerd.
XXXXXXXXXX
"Whom the Angels Name" is from 'The Raven', in reference to the narrator's lost love Lenore. Felt quite fitting, given the tragedy playing out.
Your periodic reminder that RE1 was set in 2002, when GPS devices were still fairly rare, hahaha.
I always feel bad when these notes come up short like this, haha. Almost like there was some point I forgot to make! Oh well.