Which means more risk, more searching—and a chance that one of them will reach the labs before I do. Seething, Wesker stood in the dark silence with his fists clenched, trying not to scream.
TWELVE
JILL HEARD SOMETHING LIKE BREAKING glass and held perfectly still, listening. The acoustics of the mansion were strange, the long corridors and unusual floor plan making it hard to tell where sounds were coming from.
Or if you even heard them at all. . . . She sighed, taking a last look around the quiet, book-lined sitting room at the top of the stairs. She’d already checked the three other rooms along the gallery railing and found exactly nothing of interest—a sparse bedroom with two bunks, an office, and an unfinished den with a locked door and a fireplace inside. The only switches she’d found were light switches, though she had gotten excited over a rather sinister-looking black button on the wall of the of-fice—until she’d pushed it, and found that she’d managed to discover the drainage control for an empty fish tank in the corner.
She’d found some ammo for the Remington, she supposed she should be grateful for that—a dozen shells in a metal box underneath one of the bunks in the bedroom. But if there’d been any hidden crests, she’d missed them.
Jill took out Trent’s computer and checked the map, finding her position at the top of the stairs. Just past the sitting room’s second door was a wide, U-shaped corridor that angled back around to the front hall balcony. The corridor also connected to two rooms, one a dead end and the other leading through several more. . . .
She put the computer away and drew her Beretta, taking a moment to clear her mind before stepping into the corridor. It wasn’t easy. Between trying to figure out what had happened in the house to create monsters and her concerns for and about her team, her thoughts were distinctly messy.
Should’ve looked closer at those papers. . . . The office had been simple, a desk, a bookshelf—but there was a rack of lab coats by the door and the papers strewn across the desk had mostly been lists of numbers and letters. She knew just enough chemistry to know that she was looking at chemistry, so she didn’t bother trying to read them—but since finding the papers, she had begun to think of the zombies as the result of a research accident. The mansion was too well maintained to have come from private money, and the fact that it had been kept a secret for so long suggested a cover up. She guessed that there was a couple of months worth of dust on almost every-thing—which coincided with the first attacks in Rac-coon. If the people in the house had been conducting some kind of an experiment and something had gone wrong . . .
Something that transformed them into flesh-eating ghouls? That’s a bit far-fetched. . . . But it made more sense than anything else she could come up with, although she’d keep her mind open to other possibilities. As to her concerns about the team—Barry was acting weird and Chris and Wesker were still missing; no new developments there.
And there won’t be any if you don’t get going. Right. Jill put her musings on hold and stepped out into the hall.
She noticed the smell before she actually saw the zombie farther down the corridor, crumpled to the floor. The small wall sconces cast an uneven glow over the body, reflecting off of dark red trim and tinting everything in the corridor a smoky crimson. She trained her weapon on the still body—and heard a door closing somewhere close by.
Barry?
He’d said he was going to be in the mansion’s other wing, but maybe he’d found something and had come looking for her ... or maybe she was finally going to meet up with someone else from the team. Smiling at the thought she hurried down the gloomy hall, eager to see another familiar face. As she neared the corner, a fresh wave of decay washed over her—
• and the fallen creature at her feet grabbed at her boot, clutching her ankle with surprising strength. Startled, Jill flailed her arms to keep her balance, crying out in disgust as the slobbering zombie inched its rotting face toward her boot. Its peeling, skeletal fingers scrabbled weakly at the thick leather, seeking a firmer grip—
• and Jill instinctively brought her other boot down on the back of its head, the heavy treads sliding across the skull with a sickening wet sound. A wide piece of flaking scalp tore away, revealing glistening bone. The creature kept clawing at her, oblivious to pain.
The second and third kicks hit the back of its neck—and on the fourth, she felt as much as heard the dull snap of vertebrae giving out, crushed beneath her heel.
The pale hands fluttered and with a choking, liquid sigh, the zombie settled to the musty carpet. Jill stepped over the limp body and ran around the corner, swallowing back bile. She was convinced that the pitiful creatures roaming the halls were victims somehow, just as much as Becky and Pris had been, and releasing them to death was a kindness—but they were also a menace, not to mention morbidly un-wholesome. She had to be more cautious. There was a door to her right, heavy wood overlaid with twining metal designs. There was a picture of armor over the key plate, but like the other doors she’d come across upstairs, it was unlocked. There was no one inside the well-lit room but she hesitated, suddenly reluctant to continue her search for whoever else was wandering the area. Two walls of the large chamber were lined with full suits of armor, eight to a side, and there was a small display case at the back—not to mention a large red switch set into the middle of the gray tiled floor.
Another trap? Or a puzzle. . . .
Intrigued, she walked into the room and headed for the glass fronted display, the silent, lifeless guards seeming to watch her every move. There were a couple of mysterious grated holes in the floor, one on either side of the red switch, for ventilation per-haps—and she felt her heart speed up a little, sud-denly sure that she had found another of the mansion’s traps.
A quick inspection of the dusty display case de-cided it for her; there wasn’t any way that she could see to open it, the glass front a single thick piece. And something in one shadowy niche at the bottom glinted like dull copper. . . .
I’m supposed to push that button, thinking that it will open the case—and then what?
She had a sudden vivid image of the ventilation holes sealing off and the door locking itself, a death by slow suffocation in an airless tomb. The chamber could fill with water, or some kind of poisonous gas.
She looked around the room, frowning, wondering if she should try to block the door open or if perhaps there was another switch hidden in one of the empty suits. . . .
. . . every riddle has more than one answer, Jilly, don’t forget it.
Jill grinned suddenly. Why push the button at all? She crouched down next to the case and took a firm grip on the barrel of her handgun. With a single firm tap, the glass cracked, thin lines spidering away from the impact. She used the butt of the gun to knock out a thick chunk and reached carefully inside. She withdrew a hexagonal copper crest, engraved with an archaic smiling sun. She smiled back at it, pleased with her solution. Apparently some of the house’s tricks could be worked around, provided she ignored a few rules of fair play. All the same, she found herself hurrying back to the door, not wanting to call it a win until she was clear of the solemn chamber.
Stepping back into the blood-hued corridor, she stood for a moment, holding the crest as she weighed her options. She could continue to look for whoever had closed that door, or head back to the puzzle lock and place the crest. As much as she wanted to find her team, Barry had been right about needing to get out of the mansion. If any of the other S.T.A.R.S. were still alive, they’d surely also be looking for an escape. . . . Her thoughtful gaze fell across the fetid, broken creature that she’d killed, lingering on the slowly spreading pool of dark fluids surrounding its scabby head—and she realized suddenly that she desperately wanted to leave the house, to escape its tainted air and the pestilent creatures that stalked its cold and dusty halls. She wanted out, and as soon as was humanly possible.
Her decision made, Jill hurried back the way she’d come, gripping the heavy crest tightly. She’d already uncovered two of the pieces that the S.T.A.R.S. needed to escape the mansion. She didn’t know what they’d be escaping to, but anything had to be better than what they would leave behind. . . . “Richard!” Rebecca immediately dropped to her knees next to the Bravo, feeling his throat for a pulse with one trembling hand.
Chris stared mutely down at the torn body, already knowing that she wouldn’t find a heartbeat; the gap-ing wound on Richard Aiken’s right shoulder was drying, no fresh blood seeping through the mutilated tissue. He was dead.
He watched Rebecca’s slender hand slowly drop away from the Brave’s neck and then reach up to close his glazed, unseeing eyes. Her shoulders slumped. Chris felt sick over their discovery; the communica-tions expert had been a positive, sweet guy, and only twenty-three years old. . . .
He looked around the silent room, searching ran-domly for some clue as to how Richard had died. The room they’d entered just off the second-floor balcony was undecorated and empty. Except for Richard, there was nothing—
Frowning, Chris took a few steps toward the room’s second entrance and crouched down, brushing at the dark tile floor. There was a dried crust of blood in the shape of a boot heel between Richard’s body and the plain wooden door ten feet away. He stared at the door thoughtfully, tightening his hold on the Beretta. Whatever killed him is on the other side, maybe waiting for more victims—
“Chris, take a look at this.”
Rebecca was still kneeling by Richard, her gaze fixed on the bloody mass of his torn shoulder. Chris joined her, not sure what he was supposed to be looking at. The wound was ragged and messy, the flesh discolored by trauma. Strange, though, how it didn’t seem very deep. . . .
“See those purple lines, radiating out from the cuts? And the way the muscle has been punctured, here and here?” She pointed out two dark holes about six inches apart, each surrounded by skin that had turned an infected-looking red.
Rebecca sat back on her heels, looking up at him. “I think he was poisoned. It looks like a snake bite.” Chris stared at her. “What snake gets that big?” She shook her head, standing. “Got me. Maybe it was something else. But that wound shouldn’t have killed him, it would have taken hours for him to bleed out. I’m pretty sure he was poisoned.”
Chris regarded her with new respect; she had a good eye for details and was handling herself remarkably well, considering.
He searched Richard’s body quickly, coming up with another full clip and a short-wave radio. He handed both to Rebecca, tucking Richard’s empty Beretta into his waistband.
He looked at the door again, then back at Rebecca.
“Whatever killed him might be back there. ...” “Then we’ll have to be careful,” she said. Without another word, she walked to the door and stood there, waiting for him.
I’ve gotta stop thinking of her as a kid. She’s outlived most of the rest of her team already, she doesn’t need me to patronize her or tell her to wait behind. He stepped up to the door and nodded at her. She turned the knob and pushed it open, both of them raising their weapons as they edged into a narrow hallway.
Straight ahead were a few wood steps leading to a closed door. To their left, an offshoot of the hall, another door at the end. There was blood smeared on the walls bordering the steps, and Chris was suddenly certain that it was Richard’s; his killer was behind that door.
He motioned down the offshoot, speaking quietly. “You take that room. You run into any trouble, come back here and wait. Check back in five minutes either way.”
Rebecca nodded and moved down the narrow hall. Chris waited until she’d gone into the room before climbing the steps, his heart already thudding solidly against his ribs.
The door was locked, but Chris saw that there was a tiny shield etched next to keyhole. Rebecca was turning out to be more useful than he could have possibly imagined. He took out the key she’d given him and unlocked the wide door, checking his Beretta before moving inside.
It was a large attic, as plain and unassuming as the rest of the mansion was ornate. Wooden support beams extended from the floor to the sloping ceiling, and other than a few boxes and barrels against the walls, it was empty.
Chris walked farther in, his guard up as he scanned for movement. At the other side of the long room was a partial wall, maybe four feet by nine, standing several feet from the back of the attic. It reminded him of a horse stall, and it was the only area that wasn’t open to view. Chris moved toward it slowly, his boots against the wood floor sending hollow echoes through the cool air.
He edged to the wall, training his Beretta over the top as he peered down, heart pounding.
No snake, but there was a jagged hole near the floorboards between the two walls, a foot high and a couple across—and a strange, acrid odor, musky, like the smell of some wild animal. Frowning at the scent, Chris started to back away—
• and stopped, leaning in closer. There was a rounded piece of metal next to the hole, like a penny the size of a small fist. There was something engraved on it, a crescent shape. . . .