• what would happen to Karen?
“You will come to the lab,” Kinneson said tone-lessly, “or I’ll kill you.”
It was the inflectionless voice of a computer, com-ing from the blankly merciless face of a man who suddenly didn’t seem human, not at all. “We know what you did here,” Steve spat. “We know all about your goddamn Trisquads, we know about the T-Virus, and if you want to get out of this without—“
“You will come to the lab or I’ll kill you.” Steve felt a helpless shudder run through his body. Kinneson’s tone hadn’t altered at all, his gaze as fixed and emotionless as his voice. Steve noticed the lines then, the deep, spidering lines that swept away from his cold brown eyes, sat at the corners of his slack and expressionless lips.
Oh my God—
“You will come to the lab or I’ll kill you,” he repeated, and this time, he raised both weapons—holding them inches away from Karen’s sagging head. Steve knew she was dying, knew that there was a good chance she’d lose against the virus and become a violent, insane creature before the night was through—
• but I have to protect her for as long as I can. If I sacrificed her to save myself and there was even a chance that she could’ve been cured. . . Steve wouldn’t, couldn’t do it. Even if it meant his own life.
Holding Karen tightly, he stepped ahead of the thing and started to walk.
Enough time had passed. If the intruders had done what they were supposed to do, they would have split up, some of them heading mistakenly for the pen, some accompanying the good doctor back to the lab. If Alan had failed, he’d at least have stalled the intruders long enough to keep them out in the open. Either way, it was time.
Griffith tapped the control panel for the Ma7 enclo-sure, thinking wistfully how much fun it would be to see the looks on their faces. The red light flashed to green, signifying that the gate was fully open. No matter, he supposed. So long as they died.
FlFtEEn
THE WINDING TUNNEL SEEMED TO GO ON
forever. Every time they rounded a turn, Rebecca expected to see a sealed door, a slot set next to it for the key card that David carried. As the corners continued, the hanging lights going on for another stretch of tunnel, each as empty and featureless as the stretch before, she stopped wishing for the door. A sign
would suffice, an arrow painted on the wall, a chalk mark—anything that would put to rest her growing suspicion that they’d been misled. Lied to by an Umbrella scientist? Perish the thought. . . .
Tired sarcasm aside, Kinneson had been weird, but had definitely seemed frightened to the point of hysteria. Could he have been confused in his panic, pointed to the wrong passage? Or was the lab just better hidden than they thought?
Or did he send us off on a snipe hunt, some dead-end cave—or even a trap, something dangerous, meant to keep us out of the way while he...
While he did something to Steve and Karen. The thought frightened her even more than the concept of walking into a trap. Karen was desperately ill, she wouldn’t be able to defend herself, and Steve—
No, Steve’s okay. He’d be able to take Kinneson in a heartbeat—
Except that Karen was with him. A very sick Karen, struggling just to stay upright.
Their jog had slowed to a shag, David and John both breathing heavily, frowns deepening across their exhausted faces. David held up a hand, stopping them.
“I don’t think it’s this way,” he panted. “We should have seen something by now. And the piece of paper with the key card said southwest, east—I’m not sure, but I think after that last turn, we’re heading west.” John bobbed his head, his short, tight hair glisten-ing with sweat. “I don’t know which way we’re going, but I know I think Kinneson’s full of shit. The guy works for Umbrella, for chrissake”
“I agree,” Rebecca said, breathing deeply. “I think we should go back. We have to get to the lab, soon. I don’t think—“ Clank!
They froze, staring at each other. From somewhere farther down the endless tunnel, something made of heavy metal had just been moved.
“The lab?” Rebecca said hopefully. “Could it—“ A low, strange sound cut her off, the words dying in her throat as the noise picked up strength. It was like nothing she’d ever heard before—a dog howling, combined with an off-key whistling whine and the sound of a newborn baby’s desperate cry. It was a lonely, terrible sound, rising and falling through the tunnel, finally building to a warbling, mournful shriek—
• then it was j oined by several others.
She was suddenly absolutely certain that she didn’t want to see what was making that sound, even as David started backing up, his face pale and eyes wide. “Run,” he said, training his Beretta on the empty passage ahead of them, waiting until they had stum-bled past before turning to follow.
Rebecca felt a burst of incredible energy as adrena-line gushed into her body, sent her sprinting through the shadowy tunnel to escape the rising shrieks of whatever was behind them. John was just in front of her, his muscled arms and legs pumping madly, and she could hear the clattering steps of David on her heels.
The howls were getting louder, and Rebecca could feel the stone vibrate beneath her flying feet, the heavy, galloping steps of the shrieking beasts thunder-ing after them.
• not gonna make it—
Even as she realized that they’d be overtaken, she
heard David gasp out, “Next turn—“
• and as they reached the end of the empty stretch where the tunnel curved again, Rebecca whirled around, raising the Beretta in her sweating, shaking hand, training it back on the last turn they’d taken. John and David flanked her, gasping, nine-milli-meters aimed alongside hers. Twenty meters of blank passage, filled with the now deafening cries of their unseen pursuers.
As the first of them tore into view, all three of them fired, slugs ripping into the creature that at first Rebecca thought was a lioness—then a giant lizard—then a dog. She caught only a mad, patchwork vision of the impossible thing, seeing parts of it that her mind fit into a whole—the slitted, cat-like pupils. The giant snake head, a gaping, slavering jaw filled with bladed teeth. The squat and powerful barrel-chested body, sand-colored, thick legs bowing in front, mus-cular, springing haunches propelling it toward them at an incredible speed—
• and even as the bullets found its strange, reptili-an flesh, there was another behind it—
• and the first explosive rounds that smacked into the thick body of the closest creature knocked it off of its clawed feet, staggered it backward as blooms of watery blood spattered the tunnel walls—
• and, shaking its head, screaming in ferocious sorrow, it launched itself at them again.
• oh shit—
Rebecca squeezed the trigger again, four, five, six, her mind screaming as loudly as the two monstrous animals that ran at them, eight, nine, ten—
• and the first went down, stayed down, but there was still the second and now a third, tearing down the tunnel, and the Beretta only held fifteen rounds—
We’re gonna die—
David jumped back, behind the line of thundering fire. An empty clip skittered across the floor, and then he was next to her again, aiming and squeezing, the Beretta jerking smoothly in his practiced hand. Rebecca counted her last round and stumbled back-ward, praying that she could do it as fast as David—
• and saw that the third animal was stumbling back, its wide chest gushing thin streamers of red. It collapsed into the puddle of watery fluid it created and stayed there.
Nothing in the tunnel moved, but there were at least two more around the corner. Their wailing cries continued to wax and wane through the tunnel, but they stayed back, out of sight—as if they knew what had happened to their siblings, and were too smart to charge into waiting death.
“Fall back,” David said hoarsely, and still aiming at the blind corner, they started to edge backward, the shrieks of the hybrid creatures rolling over them in lonely, terrible waves.
Griifith moved quickly away from the door when he heard the key in the lock, not wanting to be too close to whomever Alan had brought along. He had Thur-man already standing ready, just in case there were any sudden moves—but when he saw the young man and his passive partner step into the lab, he
doubted he’d have any trouble.
What’s this? A few too many drinks, perhaps? An unseen mortal wound?
Griffith smiled, waiting for him to speak or for the woman to move, his heart full and warm with good humor. It had been so long since he’d talked to someone who could respond without prompting, and the fact that his fine plan had worked made him all the merrier. Behind him, Alan sealed the door and stood blankly, holding two weapons on the unlikely pair.
The young man gazed wide-eyed around the labora-tory, his dark gaze settling on the wide airlock win-dow in something like awe. The woman’s head was down, rolling across her chest.