Only fools accept the obvious and go no further; use your brain, Jilly.
Jill smiled a little; it was her father talking, remind-ing her of the training she’d had before the S.T.A.R.S. One of her earliest memories was of hiding in the bushes outside the rickety old house in Massachusetts that her father had rented for them, studying the dark, empty windows as he explained how to properly “case a prospect.” Dick had made it into a game, teaching her over the next ten years all the finer points of breaking and entering, everything from how to re-move panes of glass without damaging them to walk-ing on stairs so they didn’t creak—and he’d also taught her, again and again, that every riddle had
Killing the birds was too obvious. She closed her eyes, concentrating.
Switches and portraits ... a little boy, a toddler, a young man, a middle-aged man . . .
“From Cradle to Grave.” Cradle to grave . . . Once the solution occurred to her, she was almost embarrassed by the simplicity of it. She stood up and dusted herself off, wondering how long it would take for the crows to return to their roost. Once they were settled, she shouldn’t have any more problems uncov-ering the secret.
She cracked the door open and listened to the whispering beat of wings, promising herself to be more careful this time. Pushing the wrong button in this house could be deadly.
“Rebecca? Let me in, it’s Chris.”
There was the sound of something heavy sliding against the wall and the door to the storage room creaked opened. Rebecca stepped away from the entrance as he hurried inside, already pulling the diary out of his vest.
“I found this journal in one of the rooms,” he said. “It looks like there was some kind of research going on here, I don’t know what kind but—“ “Virology,” Rebecca interrupted, and held up a stack of papers, grinning. “You were right about there being something useful in here.”
Chris took the papers from her and skimmed the first page. As far as he could tell, it was in a foreign language made out of numbers and letters. “What is all this stuff? DH5a-MCR . . ” “You’re looking at a strain chart,” Rebecca said brightly. “That one’s a host for generating genomic libraries containing methylated cytosine—or adenine residues, depending.”
Chris cocked an eyebrow at her. “Let’s pretend that I have no idea what you’re talking about and try again. What did you find?”
Rebecca flushed slightly and took the papers back from him. “Sorry. Basically, there’s a lot of, uh, stuff in here on viral infection.”
Chris nodded. “That I understand; a virus . . ” He quickly flipped through the journal, counting the dates from the first report of the accident in the lab. “On May eleventh, there was some kind of spill or outbreak in a laboratory on this estate. Within eight or nine days, whoever wrote this had turned into one of those creatures out there.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened. “Does it say when the first symptoms appeared?”
“Looks like . . . within twenty-four hours, he or she was complaining of itchy skin. Swelling and blisters within forty-eight hours.”
Rebecca paled. “That’s . . . wow.”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Is there any way to tell if we could be infected?” “Not without more information. All of that—“ Rebecca motioned at the trunk full of papers, “—is pretty old, ten years plus, and there’s nothing specific about application. Though an airborne with that kind of speed and toxicity ... if it was still viable, all of Raccoon City would probably be infected by now. I can’t be
positive, but I doubt it’s still contagious.” Chris was relieved for himself and the rest of the S.T.A.R.S., but the fact that the “zombies” were all victims of a disease—it was depressing, whether it was a disaster of their own making or not. “We have to find the others,” he said. “If one of them should stumble across the lab without knowing what’s there .. ”
Rebecca looked stricken at the thought, but nodded gamely and moved quickly toward the door. Chris decided that, with a little experience, she’d make a first-rate S.T.A.R.S. member; she obviously knew her chemistry, and even without a gun, she was willing to leave the relative safety of the storage room in order to help the rest of the team.
Together, they hurried through the dark, wooded hallway, Rebecca sticking close to his side. When they reached the door back to the first hallway, Chris checked his Beretta and then turned to Rebecca. “Stay close. The door we want is to the right and at the end of the hall. I’ll probably have to shoot the lock, and I’m pretty sure there’s a zombie or two wandering around, so I’ll need you to watch my back.”
“Yes, sir,” she said quietly, and Chris grinned in spite of the situation. Technically, he was her superior—still, it was weird to have it pointed out. He opened the door and stepped through, training his gun on the shadows straight ahead and then down the hall to the right. Nothing moved.
“Go,” he whispered, and they jogged down the corridor, quickly stepping over the fallen creature that blocked their path. Rebecca turned to face the open stretch behind them as Chris rattled the door knob, hoping vainly that it had unlocked itself. No such luck. He backed away from the door and took careful aim. Firing at a locked door wasn’t as easy or safe as it looked in the movies; a ricochet off of metal at such close range could kill the shooter—
“Chris!”
He glanced over his shoulder and saw a shambling figure at the other end of the hall, moving slowly toward them. Even in the dim light, Chris could see that one of its arms was missing. The distinctive odor of decay wafted toward them as the zombie moaned thickly, stumbling forward.
Chris turned back to the door and fired, twice. The frame splintered, the inset metal square of the lock revealed in a spray of wood chips. He jerked at the knob and the lock gave, the door swinging open. He turned and grabbed at Rebecca’s arm, hustling her through the doorway as he pointed the Beretta back down the hall. The creature had made it halfway, but was stopped at the lifeless body of the zombie that Chris had killed earlier. Even as Chris watched in horror and disgust, the one-armed zombie dropped to its knees and plunged its remaining hand into the other’s crushed skull. It moaned again, a wet, phlegmy sound, and brought a handful of slushy gray matter to its eager lips.
Oh, man—
Chris shuddered involuntarily and hurriedly step-ped through to join Rebecca, closing the door on the gruesome scene. Rebecca was pale but seemed com-posed, and again, Chris admired her courage; she was young but tough, tougher than he’d been at eigh-teen. . . .
He took in the hall at a glance, immediately notic-ing the changes. To their right about twenty feet away was a corpse of one of the creatures, the top of its head blown away. It lay face up, the deep sockets of its eyes filled with blood. To their left were the two doors that Chris hadn’t tried when he’d first come to investigate. The one at the very end of the hall was standing open, revealing deep shadows.
At least one of the S.T.A.R.S. came this way, proba-bly looking for me. . . .
“Follow me,” he said softly, and moved toward the open door, holding the Beretta tightly. He wanted to get back to the main hall with Rebecca, but the fact that one of his team must have gone through the opening deserved a quick look.
As they passed the closed door on the right, Rebecca hesitated. “There’s a picture of a sword next to the lock,” she whispered.
He kept his attention on the darkness just past the open door, but realized as she spoke that there were too many ways for them to get side-tracked. He didn’t think the rest of the team was still waiting for him, but his original orders had been to report back to the lobby; he shouldn’t be leading an unarmed rookie into unknown territory without at least checking. Chris sighed, lowering his weapon. “Let’s get back to the main hall,” he said. “We can come back and check it out later.”
Rebecca nodded and together they walked back toward the dining room, Chris hoping against hope that someone would be there to meet them. Barry pointed his Colt toward the crawling ghoul and fired, the heavy round splattering the thing’s mushy skull into liquid even as it reached for his boot. Tiny drops of wetness splashed his face as the zombie spasmed and died. Scowling, Barry wiped at his skin with the back of his hand. The tiny white tiles of the kitchen wall got it much worse, rivulets of red cours-ing down the grouted tracks and pooling to the faded brown linoleum. Still, it was pretty disgusting. Barry lowered the revolver, feeling the ache in his left shoulder. The door upstairs had been solidly locked, he had the bruises to prove it—and staring down at the zombie hash in front of him, he realized that he was going to have to go back up and break down another one. If he hadn’t been certain before, he was now—Chris hadn’t come this way. If he had, the crawling creature would already have been his-tory.
So where the hell are you, Chris?
Of the three locked doors, Barry had picked the one at the end of the hall on pure instinct. He’d ended up in a dark, silent hall that led past an empty elevator shaft and down a narrow set of stairs. The bare white kitchen at the bottom had seemed deserted, the counters thick with dust and corrosion stains on the walls—no sign of recent use, no sign of Chris, and the single door across from the sink had been locked. He’d been about to leave when he’d noticed the trails of disturbed dust on the floor and followed them. . . . Sighing heavily, Barry stepped over the stinking monster, a final check before he headed back up for door number two. There were some stacked crates and the same old-fashioned elevator shaft, also emp-ty. He didn’t bother with the call button since the one upstairs hadn’t worked. Besides, judging from the rust on the metal grate, no one had used it in quite awhile. He turned back the way he’d come, wondering how Jill was making out. The sooner they could get away, the better. Barry had never disliked any place as much as he did this mansion. It was cold, it was dangerous, and it smelled like a meat locker that had been unplugged for a week. He generally wasn’t the type to frighten easily or let his imagination get out of hand, but he half-expected to see some white-sheeted spook rattling chains every time he turned around—
There was a distant echoing clatter behind him. Barry spun, a knot of dread in his gut as he pointed his weapon randomly at the empty air, his eyes wide and mouth dry. There was another metallic clatter, followed by a low, throbbing hum of machinery. Barry took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, getting a hold of himself. Not a disembodied spirit, after all; someone was using the elevator. Who? Chris and Wesker are missing and Jill’s in the other wing. .. .
He stayed where he was, lowering the Colt slightly as he waited. He didn’t think the ghouls were smart enough to work the buttons, let alone open the gate, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He was a good twenty feet from where the booth would open, assum-ing it stopped in the basement, and would
have a clear shot at whoever stepped around the corner. A glim-mer of hope sparked through his confusion; maybe it was one of the Bravos, or someone who lived here and could tell them what had happened. . . . With a dull dang, the elevator stopped in the kitchen. There was a squeal of dry metal hinges and footsteps—
• and Captain Wesker stepped into view, his per-petual sunglasses propped on his tanned brow. Barry lowered the revolver, grinning as cool relief swept over him. Wesker stopped in his tracks and grinned back at him.
“Barry! Just the man I was looking for,” he said lightly.
“God, you gave me a scare! I heard the elevator start up and thought I was gonna have a heart attack ...” Barry trailed off, his grin faltering. “Captain,” he said slowly, “where did you go?
When we came back, you were gone.”
Wesker’s grin widened. “Sorry about that. I had some business to attend to—you know, call of na-ture?”
Barry smiled again, but was surprised by the con-fession; trapped in hostile territory, and the man had gone off to take a leak?
Wesker reached up and lowered his shades, break-ing their eye contact, and Barry suddenly felt a little nervous. Wesker’s grin, if anything, seemed to grow wider. It looked like every tooth was showing. “Barry, I need your help. Have you ever heard of White Umbrella?”
Barry shook his head, feeling more uncomfortable by the second.
“White Umbrella is a sector of Umbrella, Inc., a very important division. They specialize in ... bio-logical research, I guess you could say. The Spencer estate houses their research facilities, and recently, an accident occurred.”
Wesker brushed off a section of the kitchen’s center island and casually leaned against it, his tone almost conversational.
“This division of Umbrella has a few ties to the S.T.A.R.S. organization, and not long ago, I was asked to ... assist in their handling of this situation. It’s a very delicate situation, mind you, very hush-hush; White Umbrella doesn’t want a whisper of their involvement getting out.