And you’re how old now?
Chris shook off the case of nerves, embarrassed at his imaginative wanderings. He walked slowly around the room, looking for anything that might be helpful. There was no other door, no path back to the main hall, but maybe he could find a better weapon for Rebecca than a can of bug spray.
Besides an oak table and bookshelf, there was the small, unmade bed and a study desk in the room, nothing more. He quickly rifled through the books, then moved around the foot of the bed to the desk. There was a slim volume next to the desk lamp, the fabric cover untitled; a journal. And although the desktop was coated in dust, the diary had been moved recently.
Intrigued, Chris picked it up and flipped to the last few pages. Maybe there was a clue as to what the hell was going on. He sat on the edge of the cot and started to read.
May 9, 1998: Played poker tonight with Scott and Alias from Security, and Steve from Research. Steve was the big winner, but I think he was cheating. Scumbag. Chris smiled a little at that. He skipped down to the next entry and his smile froze, his heart seeming to pause in mid-beat.
May 10,1998: One of the higher-ups assigned me to take care of a new experiment. It looks like a skinned gorilla. Feeding instructions were to give it live animals. When I threw in a pig, the creature seemed to be play with it... tearing off the pig’s legs and pulling out the guts before it actually started eating.
Experiment? Could the writer be talking about the zombies? Chris read on, excited by the find. The diary obviously belonged to someone who worked here, had to be—meaning that the cover-up was even bigger than he’d suspected.
May 11, 1998: At around 5 A.M., Scott woke me up. Scared the shit out of me, too. He was wearing a protective garment that looked like a space suit. He handed me another one and told me to put it on.
Said there’d been an accident in the basement lab. I just knew something like this would happen. Those assholes in Research never rest, even at night.
May 12, 1998: I’ve been wearing the damn space suit since yesterday. My skin’s getting grimy and feels itchy all over. The goddamn dogs have been looking at me funny, so I decided not to feed them today. Screw ‘em. May 13,1998: Went to the Infirmary because my back is all swollen and feels itchy. They put a big bandage on it and told me I didn’t need to wear the suit any more. All I wanna do is sleep.
May 14, 1998: Found another blister on my foot this morning. I ended up dragging my foot all the way to the dogs’ pen. They were quiet all day, which is weird. Then I realized some of them had escaped. If anybody finds out, I’ll have my head handed to me.
May 15, 1998: My first day off in a long time and I feel like shit. Decided to go visit Nancy anyway, but when I tried to leave the estate, I was stopped by the guards. They said the company’s ordered that no one leave the grounds. I can’t even make a phone call—all the phones have been ripped out! What kind of bullshit is this?!
May 16, 1998: Rumor’s going around that a researcher who tried to escape the estate last night was shot. My entire body feels hot and itchy and I’m sweating all the time now. I scratched the swelling on my arm and a piece of rotten flesh just dropped off. Wasn’t until I realized the smell was making me hungry that I got violently sick. The writing had become shaky. Chris turned the page, and could barely read the last few lines, the words scrawled haphazardly across the paper. May 19. Fever gone but itchy. Hungry and eat doggie food. Itchy itchy Scott came ugly face so killed him. Tasty. 4 // Itchy. Tasty.
The rest of the pages were blank.
Chris stood up and slipped the journal inside his vest, his thoughts racing. Some of the pieces were finally fitting into place—secret research at a secretly kept estate, an accident in a hidden lab, an escaped
virus or infection of some kind that altered the people working here, changing them into ghouls......
and some of them got out.
The murders and attacks on Raccoon started in late May, coinciding with the effects of the “accident”; the chronology made sense. But exactly what kind of research was being done here, and how deeply in-volved was Umbrella?
How involved was Billy?
He didn’t want to think about that—but even as he tried to clear his mind of the thought, a new one occurred to him . . . what if it was still contagious? He hurried to the door, suddenly desperate to get back to Rebecca with the news. With her training, maybe she could figure out what had been unleashed in the secret lab on the estate.
Chris swallowed heavily. Even now, he and the other S.T.A.R.S. could be infected.
ElGHt
AFTER JILL AND BARRY WENT THEIR SEPArate ways, Wesker stayed crouched on the balcony in the main hall, thinking. He knew that time was of the essence, but he wanted to outline a few possible scenarios before he acted; he’d already made
mis-takes, and didn’t want to make any more of them. The Raccoon Alphas were a bright group, making his margin for error very slim indeed.
He’d received his orders a couple of days ago, but hadn’t expected to be in a position to carry them out so soon; the Bravo team’s ‘copter going down had been a fluke, as had Brad Vickers’s sudden display of cowardice. Still, he should have been more prepared. Being caught with his pants down like this went against his grain, it was so ... unprofessional. He sighed, putting the thoughts aside. There’d be time for self-recrimination later. He hadn’t expected to end up here, but here he was, and kicking himself for lack of foresight wasn’t going to change anything. Besides, there was too much to do.
He knew the grounds of the estate fairly well and the labs like the back of his hand, but he’d only been inside the mansion a few times—and not at all since he’d been “officially” transferred to Raccoon City. The place was a maze, designed by a genius architect at the bidding of a madman. Spencer was bats, no two ways about it, and he’d had the house built with all kinds of tricky little mechanisms, a lot of that silly spy crap that had been so popular in the late sixties. . . . Spy crap that’s going to make this job twice as hard as it needs to be. Hidden keys, secret tunnels—it’s like I’m trapped in an espionage thriller, complete with mad scientists and a ticking clock. . . . His original plan had been to lead both the Alpha and Bravo teams to the estate and clear the area before he proceeded to the lower labs and wrapped things up. He had the master keys and codes, of course; they had been sent along with his orders, and would open most of the doors on the estate. The problem was, there was no key to the door that led to the garden, it had a puzzle lock—and was currently the only way to get to the labs, outside of walking through the woods.
Which ain’t gonna happen. The dogs would be on me before I could take two steps, and if the 121s got out . . .
Wesker shuddered, remembering the incident with the rookie guard who’d gotten too close to one of the cages, a year or so back. The kid had been dead before he could even open his mouth to call for help. Wesker had no intention of going back outside without an army to back him up.
The last contact with the estate had been over six weeks ago, an hysterical call from Michael Dees to one of the suits in the White office. The doctor had sealed the mansion, hiding the four pieces of the puzzle lock in a fruitless effort to keep any more of the virus carriers from reaching the house. By then, they were all infected and suffering from a kind of para-noid mania, one of the more charming side effects of the virus. God only knew what tricks and traps the researchers down in the labs had screwed with as they slowly lost their minds. . . .
Dees had been no exception, although he had managed to hold out longer than most of the others; something to do with individual metabolism, or so Wesker’d been told. The company had already de-cided to call a complete wipe, though the babbling scientist had been assured that help was on the way. Wesker had enjoyed a good laugh over that one. There was no way the White boys would risk further infec-tion. They’d sat on their hands for almost two months while Raccoon suffered the consequences, letting the incompetent RPD investigate while the virus gradu-ally lost its punch—and then sent him in to clean up the mess. Which by now was considerable. The captain absently ran his fingers across the plush carpet, trying to remember details of the briefing about Dees’s call. Whether he liked it or not, every-thing had to be taken care of tonight. He had to collect the required evidence and get to the labs, and that meant finding the pieces of the puzzle lock. Dees had been mostly incoherent, ranting about murderous crows and giant spiders—but he had insisted that the crest-keys to the puzzle lock were “hidden where only Spencer could find them,” and that made sense. Everyone who worked in the house knew about Spencer’s penchant for cloak-and-dagger mecha-nisms. Unfortunately for Wesker, he hadn’t bothered learning much about the mansion, since he never thought he’d need the information. He
remembered a few of the more colorful hiding places—the statue of the tiger with mismatched eyes came to mind, as did the armor display room with the gas and the secret room in the library. . . .
But I don’t have time to go through all of them, not by myself. . . .
Wesker grinned suddenly and stood up, amazed that he hadn’t thought of it already. Who said he had to be by himself? He’d ditched the S.T.A.R.S. to map out a new plan and search for the crests, but there was no reason that he had to do everything. Chris wasn’t viable, he was too gung-ho, and Jill was still an unknown quantity . . . Barry, though . . . Barry Bur-ton was a family man. And both Jill and Chris trusted him.
And while they’re all still fumbling around in the house, I can get to the triggering system and then get the hell out, mission complete.
Still grinning, Wesker walked to the door that led to the dining room balcony, surprised to find that he was looking forward to his little adventure. It was a chance to test his skills against the rest of the team and against the accidental test subjects that were surely still lurching around—not to mention, oF Spencer himself. And if he pulled it off, he was going to be a very rich man.
This might actually turn out to be fun.
CAW!
Jill whipped her Beretta toward the sound, the mournful shriek echoing all around as the door slipped closed behind her. Then she saw the source of the noise and relaxed, smiling nervously. What the hell are they doing in here?
She was still in the back part of the house, and had decided to check out a few of the other rooms before heading back to the main hall. The first door she’d tried had been locked, a carving of a helmet on the key plate. Her picks had been useless, the lock a type she’d never encountered, so she’d decided to try her luck on the door across the hall. It had opened easily enough, and she’d gone in ready for anything—though about the last thing she’d expected to see was a riinE flock of crows, perched along the support bar for the track lighting that ran the length of the room. Another of the large black birds let out its morose shriek, and Jill shivered at the sound. There were at least a dozen of them, ruffling their shiny feathers and watching her with bright, beady eyes as she quickly surveyed the room for threats; it was clear. The U-shaped chamber she’d entered was as cold as the rest of the house, perhaps colder, and empty of furniture. It was a viewing hall, nothing but portraits and paintings lining the inner wall. Black feathers lay scattered across the worn wooden floor amidst dried mounds of bird droppings, and Jill wondered again how the crows had gotten inside, and how long they’d been there. There was definitely something strange about their appearance; they seemed much larger than normal crows, and they studied her with an intensity that seemed almost—unnatural. Jill shivered again, turning back toward the door. There wasn’t anything important in the room, and the birds were giving her the creeps. Time to move on. She glanced at a few of the paintings on her way out, mostly portraits, noticing that there were switches beneath the heavy frames—she assumed they were for the track lighting, though she couldn’t imagine why anyone had bothered setting up such an elaborate gallery for such mediocre art. A baby, a young man . . . the paintings weren’t awful, but they weren’t exactly inspired, either.
She stopped as she touched the cold metal handle of the door, frowning. There was a small, inset control panel set at eye level to the right of the door, labeled “spots.” She punched one of the buttons and the room dimmed as a single directional light went out. Several of the crows barked their disapproval, flutter-ing ebony wings, and Jill turned the light back on, thinking.
So if these are the light switches, what are the controls beneath the paintings for?
Perhaps there was more to the room than she’d thought. She walked to the first picture across from the door, a large painting of flying angels and clouds shot with sunbeams. The title was, From Cradle to Grave. There wasn’t a switch below it, and Jill moved to the next.
It was a portrait of a middle-aged man, his lined features sagging with exhaustion, standing next to an elaborate fireplace. From the cut of his suit and his slicked back hair, it looked to have been painted in the late 1940s or early ‘50s. There was a simple on/off switch underneath, unlabeled. Jill flicked it from left to right and heard an electrical snap—
• and behind her, the crows exploded into scream-ing motion, rising as one from their brooding perch. All she could hear was the beat of their dark wings and the sudden, manic ferocity of their cries as they swarmed toward her—
• and Jill ran, the door seeming a million miles away, her heart pounding. The first of the crows reached her as she grabbed for the handle, its claws finding the soft skin at the back of her neck. There was a sharp stab of pain just behind her right ear and Jill flailed at the rustling feathers that brushed her cheeks, moaning as the furious shrieks enveloped her. She slapped at the air behind her and was rewarded with a startled squawk of surprise. The bird let go of her, reeling away.
• too many, out out OUT—
She jerked the door open and fell into the hallway, kicking the door closed even as she hit the floor. She lay there a moment, catching her breath, relishing the cool silence of the corridor in spite of the zombie stench. None of the crows had gotten out. As her heartbeat returned to something approach-ing normal, she sat up and carefully touched the wound behind her ear. Her fingers came away wet, but it wasn’t too bad, the blood was already clotting; she’d been lucky. When she thought of what could have happened if she’d tripped and fallen . . . Why had they attacked, what had the control switch done? She remembered the snap of electricity when she’d flipped it, the sound of a spark—
• the perch!
She felt a sudden rush of grudging admiration for whoever had set up the simple trap. When she’d hit the switch, she must have sent a current through the metal bar they’d been perched on. She’d never heard of attack-trained crows, but could think of no other explanation—which meant that someone had gone through a lot of trouble to keep whatever was in that room a secret. To get to the answer, she’d have to go back in.