City Of The Dead

• and a cool, clear voice suddenly blared from hidden speakers somewhere in the walls—female, calm, and punctuated by the rhythmic bleat of a honking alarm.

“The self-destruct sequence has been activated. This auto-destruct sequence cannot be aborted. All personnel should evacuate immediately. The self-destruct sequence has been activated. This program cannot be aborted. All personnel should evacuate immediately—“ Leon scrambled to his feet, took one running step toward the fallen woman—then reached down and plucked the glass cylinder from her outstretched hand, shoving it into his utility pack. He didn’t know who she was, but she was too crazy to

Ada—he had to get to Ada and they had to get out. The throbbing, screeching alarms blasted through the echoing halls, chasing him through the door to the catwalk along with the indifferent-sounding female’s repeating message of imminent destruction. The recorded voice didn’t say how long they had, but Leon felt quite certain he didn’t want to be around when the clock ran out.

TWEETY-SEVER

THE COOL, DARK RIDE DOWN THROUGH THE elevator shaft ended in a squeal of hydraulic brakes—and then silence, as the engines shut down and trapped them somewhere in the seemingly endless tunnel.

“Claire? What—“

Claire held a finger to her lips, hushing Sherry—and heard what sounded like an alarm from some-where outside, a repeating, muffled bleat of honking noise. There seemed to be talking, too, but Claire could only make out the faintest mumble.

“Come on, sweetie, I think the ride’s over. Let’s see where we ended up, okay? And stay close.” They moved out of the transport room and onto the platform, the distant sounds not so distant any-more—and there was light, coming from somewhere behind the lift. Claire took Sherry’s hand as they walked quickly around, not wanting to worry the girl but feeling pretty sure that it was an alarm they were hearing. There was definitely someone speaking over the rhythmic squeals, too, and Claire wanted to know what they were saying.

The lift had stopped only a few feet down from some kind of a service tunnel, the light she’d seen coming from a caged bulb that hung down from the tunnel’s ceiling. There wasn’t a door, but there was a decent-sized crawl space at the end of the short passage; it would have to do.

It’s either that or climb back to the surface, probably only a mile or so up. . . .

Not a chance. Claire boosted Sherry up and then climbed after her, moving to the front and then crouch-walking to the dark hole. The bleating sound got louder the closer she got to the crawl space, the mumble transforming into a woman’s voice. She strained to hear the words, hoping that she’d catch “elevator malfunction” and “temporary”—but she still couldn’t make it out. They’d have to abandon the lift and hope that they were leaving it for something better.

Claire swiveled around, sighing. “Looks like crawl time for me and thee, kiddo. I’ll go first, and then—“ SLAM!

Sherry shrieked as something landed on the roof of the transport behind them, crashing through the top in a thundering clap of rending metal. Claire grabbed her, pulling her close, her breath caught in her throat—

• and a hand, two hands appeared through the hole in the roof. Two thick arms, clad in shadow—

• and the gleaming white of Mr. X’s enormous skull rose up from the destroyed lift, like a dead moon on a starless night.

Claire turned and pushed Sherry toward the dark-ness of the crawl space, her heart hammering, her “Go! Go, I’m right behind you!”

Sherry disappeared into the curving black, darting out of sight like a frightened mouse, and Claire didn’t look back, was too scared shitless to look back as she followed Sherry into the hole, their relentless stalker surely climbing through the shattered elevator to continue his determined and unfathomable hunt. Ada had heard pieces of Annette’s screaming rant from the shadows of the catwalk hub, where the three metal spans joined. She’d forced herself not to rush to Leon’s aid, promising herself that if she heard shots, she’d reconsider—

• but then the laboratory facility had been vio-lently shaken, and the bland voice of the recording started its loop.

Shit!

Ada staggered to her feet, furious at the woman scientist, a part of her aching for Leon, knowing what this meant. Annette had triggered the fail-safe, which meant they probably had less than ten minutes to get the hell out of Dodge—

• and Leon doesn’t know the way.

No, not important. If she was going to collect the sample, which Annette surely had on her, she needed to do it now. Leon wasn’t her problem, he’d never been her problem, and she couldn’t quit now, not after the hell she’d been through to get Trent’s pre-cious virus.

Ada took a single step away from the main fuse panel that connected the three catwalks—and heard the pounding footsteps coming toward her, footsteps too heavy to be Annette’s. She slid back into the shadows and around to the span that led west, press-ing herself against the hub’s frame.

A second later, Leon went running past, probably back to where he thought she’d be waiting for him. Ada took a deep breath, blowing it out as she swept Leon from her mind, and hurried across the southern bridge to find Annette.

Ada was gone.

“—has been activated. This auto-destruct sequence—“

“Shut up, shut up—“ Leon hissed, standing help-lessly in the middle of the room, his stomach knotted, his hands balled into fists.

When she’d heard the alarm, she must have pan-icked and run. She was probably stumbling through the giant facility, lost and dazed, maybe looking for him as that infernally calm voice repeated, as the sirens blared and rang.

The transport lift!

Leon turned and ran back through the door—and saw that it was gone, a large empty hole a few feet deep where it had been. He’d been too intent on getting to Ada, he hadn’t even noticed that it wasn’t

• we have to find that tunnel, we have to! Without the lift, we’re trapped here!

With a silent howl of frustration, Leon turned and ran back toward the catwalks, praying that he would find her before it was too late.

The crawl space ended abruptly, stopping over at least a seven-foot drop to an empty tunnel. Her ears ringing, her mouth dry as dust, Sherry grabbed the edges of the square hole, closed her eyes, and jumped. She swung out over the hall and let go as soon as she was straight up and down, landing crooked and falling as her right leg crumpled. It hurt, but she hardly felt it, scrambling on hands and knees to get out of the way, staring up at the hole—

• and there was Claire, her head coming out, her wide, worried eyes taking in that she was okay, that the hall was empty and safe . . . except that there were bells ringing and a woman on an intercom was talking, and Mr. X was coming.

Claire stretched her arm down as far as she could with the gun. “Sherry, I need you to hold this, I can’t turn around.”

Sherry stood and reached up, grabbing the barrel, amazed at how heavy the gun was as Claire let go. “Don’t point it at anything,” Claire breathed, and then she actually dove out of the hole, curling her body and landing on her shoulder, her head tucked in tight. She did a half-somersault and then her legs banged into the concrete wall.

Before Sherry could even ask if she was all right, Claire was on her feet, taking the gun and pointing to the door at the end of the hall.

“Run!” she said, and started to run herself, one hand pushing on Sherry’s back as they sprinted for the door, as the intercom voice told them to get out, told them that a self-destruct sequence had been activated—

• and behind them, a sound of crashing metal tore through the blaring noise of the sirens, and Sherry ran faster, terrified.

TwEnfY-EiGHT

ANNETTE BIRKIN CRAWLED OUT FROM BEneath the crushing weight of the cold metal, still holding the gun, the G-Virus gone. As she opened her mouth to scream her fury, to rail to the Gods at the injustice of her terrible plight, blood dribbled out across her lips in a thick streamer of clotted drool.

• mine mine mine—

Somehow, she made it to her feet.

Ada told herself that she didn’t deserve Leon Ken-nedy’s good opinion anyway. She’d never deserved it. Forgive me . . .

As he ran back across the catwalk from the trans-port bay area and swung west, running blind with fear for her, she stepped out of the hub’s shadows and pointed the Beretta at his back.

“Leon!”

He spun around, and Ada felt her throat lock at the relief that spread across his face—and struggled not to feel anything more as the joy turned sour, his grin fading.

Oh, Jesus, forgive me!

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, and felt no pride at how smooth and steady her voice sounded. How very cold.

The alarms blared, the mechanical voice almost as icy as hers, telling them that the fail-safe couldn’t be shut down. She didn’t have time to let him get used to the idea, that she was as much a monster as the Birkin-thing or one of the soulless zombies. “The G-Virus,” she said. “Give it to me.” Leon didn’t move. “She was telling the truth,” he said, no anger but more pain than Ada wanted to hear. “You work for Umbrella.”

Ada shook her head. “No. Who I work for is no concern of yours. I—I—“ For the first time in years, since she’d been a very young girl, Ada felt the sting of tears—and suddenly she hated him for that, for making her hate herself. “I tried!” she wailed, her composure blown by the fierce torrent of anger that coursed through her. “I tried to leave you, back in the factory! And you had to take it from Birkin, didn’t you, you couldn’t just leave it alone!”

She saw pity on his face, and felt the fury pass, swept away on a wave of sorrow—for what she’d lost, with him; for the part of herself she’d lost a long, long time ago.

She wanted to tell him about Trent. About the missions in Europe and Japan, about how she’d become what she was, about every event in her miserable, successful life that had brought her to this place—holding a weapon on a man who’d saved her. A man she might have cared about, in a different time and place.

The clock was ticking.

“Hand it over,” she said. “Don’t make me kill you.”

Leon stared into her eyes, and said, simply, “No.”

A second gone, then another.

Ada lowered the Beretta.

Leon steeled himself for the shot, for the bullet from Ada’s gun that would kill him—

• and she slowly lowered the weapon, her shoul-ders sagging, a tear running down one porcelain cheek.

Leon blew out his held breath, feeling too many things, a jumble of sadness and betrayal—and pity, for the tortured struggle in her beautiful dark gaze—

“Ada, no!”

He ran and dove, and somehow she caught the rail as he grabbed her wrist, her body dangling over the bottomless dark, blood spouting from her hanging, shattered shoulder.

“Ada, hold on!”

* ¹ *

“Mine,” Annette whispered.

She raised the handgun again, intending to shoot the other, to take back what was hers, to make them all pay—

• and the gun was too heavy, it was falling, and she was falling with it. Together, they fell to the dark metal, the dark, the dark spinning up into her mind and finally taking her pain away.

William-

It was her very last thought before she went to sleep. The door opened into a room filled with screaming machines, the howls and hisses of the humming, rattling giants drowning out the shrill call of the alarm warning.

Claire ran, pulling and pushing Sherry along, look-ing desperately for a way out, knowing that the monster was close.

What does he want, why us?

There, a platform in the corner some six feet off the floor, a stack of crates pushed to one side just be-neath it.

“This way!” Claire screamed, and they ran, past the rows of shuddering metal consoles, heat pouring from the machines as Claire pushed Sherry up and then climbed after her.

Crash!

She turned, saw that the massive creature was ripping through the door across the room, striding into the screaming heat and searching, searching—

At the end of the platform, a double metal hatch. They dashed for it, Claire not thinking of anything but how to get away, how to destroy a thing that had survived all that it had—

• the door was unlocked, and they ran onto anoth-er platform; the heat in the shadowy chamber was searing, terrible—

She had twelve bullets, split between two guns. Claire stumbled to the edge of the platform, Sherry next to her, the electric orange of the molten metal bathing them in its fevered glow. Hot enough to burn anything. . . .

How? How do I make him jump?

“Sherry, go over there!”

She pointed to the farthest corner of the platform, and Sherry shook her head, her small face trembling with fear.

“Do it! Now!” Claire shouted, and with a cry of terror, Sherry ran, her locket banging against the open flaps of the denim vest—

• not a locket—

• and Sherry screamed, and Claire turned, and Mr. X was coming.

He walked into the chamber, as stiff and huge and impossible as when she’d first seen him, the eerie orange light turning him into even more of a night-mare. Claire stood her ground, jamming Irons’s gun into her shorts, the half-formed plan running through her frightened mind. It probably wouldn’t work but she had to try—

• he reaches for me, I jump over the railing, I grab on, he falls—

Mr. X turned his blank gaze toward her as he took his floor-shaking, measured steps, the black bullet holes in his face and throat just pockets of shadow in the smooth, terrible pumpkin light—

• and he turned toward Sherry, and raised his fists, and started for her.

“Hey! Hey, I’m here!” Claire screamed, and he didn’t hear her, didn’t see her, his entire monstrous being focused on the cowering, sobbing girl huddled against the far wall, clutching her locket—

• and Claire knew what he wanted. The half remembered phrases from both Sherry and Annette came together in a flash of awareness, forming the answer.

G-Virus, rip her apart, good luck charm—

Not a locket.

“Sherry, he wants the necklace! Throw it to me!” If she was wrong, they were both dead. Mr. X closed in on the girl, blocking her from Claire’s view—

• and the pendant, the G-Virus pendant that An-nette Birkin had inflicted on her young daughter came flying through the heated dark, hitting the floor in front of Claire’s feet.

Mr. X reeled around, following the path of the thrown pendant with his black eyes, forgetting Sherry the second the necklace left her grasp. It was true. Good girl!

Claire scooped it up, waving it at the monster, feeling a rush of incredible anger and malicious glee as the bloated giant started toward her with unwaver-ing intent, fists raising again, his lifeless features fixed on

“You want this?” Claire taunted, the words spilling out of the fury, for the wasted bullets, for the fear that she and Sherry had suffered. “Yeah? Then come and get it, you miserable, mindless freak!”

The monster was less than five feet away when Claire turned and threw it into the bubbling, burning hot pool, the necklace disappearing into the melted iron—

• and the superman creature that had terrorized them throughout the endless night walked straight into the rail, the metal bars snapping in his all-powerful wake—

• and plunged silently into the giant vat, a great wave of sizzling metal sloshing over the blackened sides, spontaneous eruptions of flame dancing up from the dark shape of his body as he disappeared beneath the surface of the molten lake.

Triumph, sweet and wonderful—and then the cool voice of the recording changed suddenly, wiping away the joy of seeing Mr. X take a lava bath. Over the shrill blasts of the mechanical sirens—

“There are five minutes to reach minimum safe distance. All remaining personnel should evacuate immediately. Please report to the bottom platform. Repeat, please report to the bottom platform.

Re-peat_” Sherry was at her side, and Claire grabbed her hand, and they ran.

The pain was incredible, and Ada closed her eyes, wondering if she would die from it.

“Ada, hang on! Just hang on, I’ll pull you up!” Through the throbbing, pounding sirens that as-saulted her ears, Ada heard the countdown for the fail-safe start to run. Five minutes.

He tries to save me, we both die.

Leon’s grip was strong, the determination in his panicked, pleading voice almost as strong as her own will. Almost, but not quite.

Ada turned her face up to his, saw that in spite of it all, he still wanted her to survive, he wanted to help her up and carry her away to the safety of escape. Not this time. Not for me. . . .

Her life had been about selfishness, about ego and greed. She’d seen a lot of good people die, and somewhere along the way, she’d lost the ability to care—telling herself that even the effort was a waste of time and a sign of weakness.

And I was wrong, I was selfish and wrong and now it’s too late.

Not too late. Whatever waited beneath her, the decision was made.

“Leon—go down, west, and find the cargo room, past the—row of plastic chairs. You’ll need the disk, it’s in my—pouch—“ “Ada, I have it! Cargo disk, right, I have it, I found it—don’t talk, just hold on, let me help you!” He fumbled at the rail, trying to maintain his grip. Talking was a horrible effort, but she had to finish, had to tell him before time ran out.

“The code is 345. Get to the elevator, Leon. Take it down. The subway—tunnel leads out. Have to—run full throttle . . . and watch out for Birkin, the G-carrier, he—he’s changing by now. Got it?”

Leon nodded, his blazing blue eyes filling her up. “Live,” she said, and it was a good word, a word to go

out on. She was tired, and the mission was wrapped, and Leon would live.

She let go of the railing, and Leon screamed her name, and the sound of it followed her down into the dark like a bittersweet good-bye.

TwEnfY-ninE

SHERRY WAS SCARED, BUT MR. X WAS DEAD

and he must have been the monster all along, not the one at the station but the real monster, the one that had wanted to rip her apart all along—

• but she didn’t have time to think about it as Claire sprinted, jerking her along back the way they’d come, through the machine room, through the hall with the crawl space and around a corner—

• and Sherry screamed as a zombie reeled toward them, a dead white creature made of dusty bone, and Claire raised her gun and shot—

• bang, and the dry white head caved in, the moaning dead creature crumpled to the floor, and then Claire was dragging her over the body and running for the door at the end of the hall. It was an elevator, and Sherry collapsed against one wall after Claire pulled her inside, trying to catch her breath as Claire punched the controls. After the speed of their run from Mr. X, the elevator’s descent was a crawl, a softly humming crawl.

“We’re gonna make it,” Claire gasped, “just a little longer.”

Sherry nodded, her heart pounding even harder as the intercom voice told them that they had four minutes left to be safe.

Leon felt like he didn’t know how to stand up and walk away. The image of her composed, beautiful face in the second before she’d let go ... she’s gone. Ada’s dead.

He reached for the Beretta, fresh grief washing over him as he picked it up, the weapon still warm from her touch—and it was too light, too light by half because it wasn’t loaded. There wasn’t even a clip.

She’d never meant to hurt him; she’d lied, she’d lied all along, but she’d never meant to hurt him at all.

“... are four minutes to reach minimum safe dis-tance. All remaining personnel should evacuate im-mediately. Please report to the bottom platform . . ” Four minutes. He had four minutes to get far enough away to fulfill Ada’s last request. He stood up and turned for the door—and stopped, reaching into his pocket, pulling out the tiny glass tube full of purple fluid. He knew he didn’t have time to spare, but it only took a second to pull his arm back and throw the sample as hard as he could, wanting it as far away from him as possible.

If the laboratory responsible for so much death was going to burn, let the G-Virus burn with it. “Yes!”

The elevator door opened—and there was a train, a secret subway train in shining silver. It was silent and dark, not the powered-up, thrumming machine that Claire had hoped to see, but it was still the most beautiful escape vehicle that she’d ever laid eyes on, hands down.

Sherry holding on to her arm, they ran to the door at the front of the three-car subway, the bleating alarms still sounding, echoing through the concrete tunnel. The woman’s bland voice, the voice that Claire

had started to hate long moments ago, in-formed them that they had three minutes to get to the minimum safe distance.

They hurried aboard, Claire noticing and not car-ing that there weren’t any seats, just a wide, empty space for the passengers to stand in. The control booth was to the left.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Claire said, and the bright and radiant look of hope on Sherry’s dirty, tired face made Claire’s heart break, just a little. Oh, baby ...

Claire looked quickly away, hopping up the steps to the control room, making a silent promise to herself that if the train didn’t work, she’d carry Sherry through the tunnel herself. Whatever it took to see that the fragile hope in her eyes wasn’t broken.

* * *

The code and the verification disk he’d found in the operating room opened the door just as Ada had said, the broad hatch opening into a short hall. With three minutes left, Leon dashed down the cold corridor, through another overwide door, a biohazard symbol emblazoned across the front, and found himself in the cargo room.

He didn’t have time to stop and get a good look, his focus on getting to the elevator before the recording told him he couldn’t possibly get out of the facility alive. Leon ran to the back of the wide, strangely red-tinted room, found the controls for the large warehouse-type elevator, and slapped the button for down, ready to jump in and go—

• and nothing happened, except that a row of tiny lights—perhaps twenty tiny lights over the elevator door—started to flash in descending order. Slowly. Leon reached forward and slapped the button again, feeling something like numb disbelief as the elevator crept down, pausing for what seemed like minutes between floors, as the alarms blared and the countdown to the lab’s destruction ticked closer and closer to the end.

“Jesus!” He turned around, feeling like he’d scream if he had to wait much longer—

• and for the first time, got a clear look at the room he was in. The two tall, wide shelves that ran the length of the chamber held a very specific kind of “cargo”—and although the half-dozen giant glass containers that lined each shelf held nothing but clear red fluid, Leon felt a chill just looking at them. Each cylinder was large enough to hold a full-grown man, and it made him wonder what they’d been built for. Doesn’t matter, they’re gonna be blown to shit in a matter of minutes, and so am I if this goddamn thing doesn’t hurry UP—

He turned back to the elevator, almost glad to be angry, frustrated, to have something to feel besides loss—

• and the ceiling over the elevator started to shake and rattle ... Leon backed away, pointing his Mag-num at the solid metal ceiling panel as it crashed down and out—

• and the monster from the transport lift landed in front of him, the same demonic creature that had hurt Ada, that should have killed him—

Birkin—?

• and from the way it threw back its strange head and howled, the vicious, feral sound drowning out the buzz of the alarms, he could tell it had come to finish the job.

The subway was ready, it was powered up and ready to go—except it seemed that the tunnel gate release had malfunctioned; a console full of green lights, and a single red dot that insisted the gate needed to be opened manually.

Two minutes to safe minimum distance.

Won’t make it, we’ll never make it—

“Stay here,” Claire said, and went outside to find the release, praying that it was nothing.

* ² *

Leon turned and ran as the monster started walking toward him, each powerful stride thundering through the chamber, the echoes of its terrible shriek still spinning through the room.

Think!

The powerful shotgun hadn’t been enough, he had to hit it someplace vulnerable, the eyes, use the Magnum—

Leon was back at the door. He spun and fired, aiming the Magnum at the creature’s face—

• except that the face was changing again, the j aw dropping, falling away as it screamed. Great j agged spikes of tooth or claw slid out from what was left of the mouth, from out of the top of its pulsating chest—and as another scream burst out of its mutating throat Leon saw two new arms unfurl from its sides. The limbs snapped into place, elbows locking, thick worms of taloned fingers growing from the tips. Bam-bam-bam!

The shots grouped tight, blowing into the thin-stretched skin over its slitted left eye. The monster roared, this time in pain, and Leon saw shards of bone and pus-purple fluid splatter out, a small stream of dark blood obscuring the yellow ball of its eye. It shook its head back and forth, flinging more liquid, squatting down on its haunches like a mutant frog—

• and leapt into the air, springing up and right, landing on one of the seven-foot-high shelves with an animal grunt.

Oh shit, how’d it do that—

He couldn’t see its eyes, couldn’t see anything but its back as it slumped down—but it was changing again, he could hear the wet snapping sounds and see the knobs of spine rising up through the purpled flesh of its back.

He didn’t want to see what it was becoming, but the elevator hadn’t landed yet, and he had two goddamn minutes.

Leon grabbed another clip and slapped it home, then fired at what he could see—a shape with six legs, a shape that no longer looked like anything human. The shot hit one of its muscular shoulders, and the creature jumped. Like some wild, spidering beast it leapt back to the floor, landing a few feet in front of

him. Its chest had become a wall of strange teeth, of spikes that opened and closed as it panted—and when it screamed again, the sound was a demon cry, like nothing he’d ever heard, like the dying screams of a thousand damned souls.

Leon got two shots off into the cluster of moving teeth and stumbled away, and beneath the constant blare of the sirens, he heard the bright and cheery ping of the elevator’s arrival.

Claire ran to the front of the train, looking at the series of levers and switches set into the tunnel wall, frowning, finding the red and white handle in less than ten seconds and slamming it down. She heard the grating of metal somewhere in front of the train and turned to run back to the door—

• when she heard metal again—the ripping, tear-ing sounds of steel being bent and hammered out of shape, coming from somewhere behind the subway, from somewhere in the back of the tunnel—

No, no way.

She stared toward the back of the train, past the metal bars of a closed gate that led back into shad-ows—and heard a sound like bone on concrete, a grinding heavy noise that repeated, and again. Footsteps.

Claire ran for the door, knowing that it couldn’t be X, absolutely could not—he was melted, gone, and they didn’t have the G-Virus anymore—

• and she caught a glimpse of movement past the bars of shadow some thirty feet away. A glimpse of something tall, wisps of smoke curling through the darkness—and the bitter, choking stench of some-thing burned. It stepped out of shadow, stepped toward the back of the train car, raising charred, massive fists—

BAM!

• and the car actually rocked, as Claire realized that it was Mr. X, or what was left of him—and that he was surely a demon straight from hell. She’d combined the clips on their elevator ride; eleven rounds left; there was no way it would be enough, but it was all they had.

Claire raised Irons’s gun, wondering if this was the end.

Leon ran, around the shelf to his right, heading back for the elevator, and there were galloping, thun-dering footsteps right behind, he couldn’t stop. Another turn, back through the middle of the room—

• and he was hit in the back, propelled forward and down as the beast rammed him, hot, rubbery flesh slamming him into the floor.

Leon rolled and it was on top of him, its dripping teeth poised to drive through his skull, its thick legs pinning him down. The tumor like an eye was still there, opening out of the shoulder, looking at him—

• and saw the beast shuddering, changing, scream-ing, and spitting chunks of bone and flesh and blood as it also turned and started for the elevator. It picked up speed with each staggering step, the door closing slowly, the terrible creature almost flying now—

• and Leon had the shotgun in his hands, pumped a shot and squeezed. The blast hit its barrel chest, knocking it back—

• and the door closed, Leon was going down, and there was only one minute left.

THIRJY BAM!

Sherry felt the train rock violently all around her.

Claire!

She ran to the door, remembering that Claire said not to leave and not caring; she didn’t know what it was or what she could do to help, but she couldn’t just stand there—

BAM!

• and the car shifted again, another loud, banging crash blasting through the stale air, the floor trem-bling beneath her feet. Sherry reached the door and hit the open switch, her heart hammering, sweat dribbling through the dirt on her face.

The door slid open—and there was Claire, pointing her gun at something Sherry couldn’t see, something at the back of the car.

Claire’s gaze flickered to her, and her shouted words quaked with fear and panic.

“Don’t come out! Shut the door!”

Sherry reached for the controls and hesitated, terri-fied for Claire, wanting to see what it was—

• quick look—

• and she darted her head out, just for a second, searching for the source of Claire’s fear, for whatever was slamming into the train car. A smell like chemi-cals and burnt meat had filled the dimly lit platform, coming from—

Sherry screamed when she saw it, when she saw the tattered, charred monster that was rocking the sub-way, just past a wall of metal bars. She saw its giant fist pound the steel wall of the train, but it was the monster’s face that she couldn’t look away from. Mr.X.

The skin was burnt away from his face, from his whole body. Smoke drifted up from the blackened, melted lump of his skull, but the eyes were still alive—red and black and steaming with acrid smoke, but still very much alive.

“Sherry! Do it, now!” Claire screamed, not taking her gaze from the smoking monster, from its terrible, giant body coated with red, metallic muscle, as red and burnt as its awful eyes.

Sherry hit the controls, the door closing as Claire started to fire.

The elevator did go down, though not as Leon had expected, and not nearly as fast as he needed it to go. The wide platform slipped down an angled tunnel, like a slide, neon gridwork on black walls humming past. Slowly.

“. .. now forty seconds to reach minimum safe distance.”

“Go go go—“ Leon breathed, every ache and pain in his body forgotten in the rising dread that beat at his brain. The voice had stopped telling him to report to the bottom platform, now only making announce-ments in ten-second increments. As much as he loathed the repeated instructions, it was much worse not hearing them; the silences between the statements were telling him not to bother trying.

To make it this far and then die because of a slow elevator. ... He couldn’t accept that. He’d been through too much. The car crash, Claire, the running and the monsters and Ada and Birkin—he had to make it, or it was all for nothing.

There didn’t seem to be a real floor beneath the descending platform, or he would’ve tried it on foot—but the lift seemed to be lowering by grooves cut into either side of the darkness, by some mecha-nism that he couldn’t begin to guess at.

“. .. twenty seconds to reach .. ”

Leon started to shake, the tension running through his muscles, tightening them, making it hard to breathe. What was safe distance? When that cool, inhuman voice reached zero, how long before the explosion?

Full throttle, she said full throttle—

The train would have to be fast. And he had ten seconds left to get to it, as the strange elevator continued its smooth, unhurried trek down into the dark.

The door slid shut and Sherry was safe. For the moment. Claire’s thoughts had kicked into overdrive, spinning through her limited options in a flash. Can’t let him knock it off the tracks—

She knew she couldn’t hope to injure the creature, but she might be able to distract it long enough for them to get away. She wished she’d bothered to show Sherry the simple controls for the train, wished that the train was already moving, taking Sherry to safety—

• but I didn’t and we have to go NOW.

The recorded message was counting down the final ten seconds to reach a safe distance. As the smoking remains of Mr. X dealt another hammering blow to the dented subway wall, Claire aimed for its mutant head and fired.

Five shots, four of them smacking into the bizarre material that made up its flesh, about where a hu-man’s ear would be. The fifth went wide, and as the explosive thunder echoed through the shadows of the chill platform, the thing that she’d dubbed Mr. X turned slowly toward her.

Now what?

The recorded female voice distracted her for a split-second, as Mr. X took a single step toward her, a lumbering, monstrous step that pulled it out of the shadows.

“. . . three. Two. One. Safe distance minimum now required. Self-destruct will occur in five minutes. There are now five minutes until detonation.” The alarms still blared, but at least the voice had shut up. She wouldn’t have noticed in any case, her wide-eyed gaze fixed on the creature. It was hideous, all the more so for its still humanoid shape, like a mockery of reality, of sanity. In spite of the charred, smoking patches that covered most of its body, its unnatural flesh hadn’t lost its elasticity; the reddish matter beneath the burns flexed and contracted like real muscle. It looked like a skinned giant that had crawled from beneath a burning building—and if it had suffered from its molten metal bath, she couldn’t see it. Another mighty step, and the arms rose, the barred gate was ripped down, the iron bars were crashing to the concrete.

Slow at least, at least there’s still that—

It was the only thing she had going for her. Claire sprinted for the subway door, still afraid, but the smoking monster was slow, powerful but unable to really move—

• and suddenly, Mr. X wasn’t just walking any-more. The creature bent at the waist, bent its knees—

• and pushed off the ground in a dynamic lunge that tore gouges in the concrete, its deformed feet propelling it toward her at a full run.

Claire didn’t think. She dodged right and took off past the hunched, loping monster, running as fast as she could. It almost got her anyway, its reflexes faster than fast—as if losing its facade of skin had freed it somehow, the liauid metal oaring it down to its core strength. As she leapt over the broken gate and into the shadows, she heard the screech of not-flesh fingers raking across the cement, saw that Mr. X had brought one mighty arm up, slashing through the air where she’d been only a second before. It meant to disem-bowel her—

• but why, no G-Virus, no reason—

Claire ran deeper into the echoing darkness as the intercom system calmly informed her that they had four minutes left.

“There are now four minutes until detonation. . .”

Shit shit shit!

Just when he thought he might have a stroke from the frustration, the elevator had finally stopped. Leon jerked at the handle to a thick metal door, tensing himself to run—

Left. Leon ran, his boots pounding the floor, won-dering if he should even bother.

* ³ *

Not far past the broken gate, Claire saw a walkway that crossed over the train, the stairs hidden by deep shadow—

• and she heard the pounding of Mr. X behind as it started after her, each running step a violent slap of mutant flesh against cement. The terror drove her on, her feet hardly touching the ground, not caring if she ran head-on into a wall in the deepening dark. Maybe that would be best, it was tremendously powerful, it was fast, it was impossible to kill—she didn’t stand a chance if it caught her—

• and the steps were getting louder, faster, she heard the ripping scrape of its clawed fingers plowing up concrete. She had maybe a second before that hand tore into her—

• and she dodged right again, throwing herself into a well of darkness just past the stairs. Mr. X flew past, a mammoth, hulking blur, and she actually felt the wind from his moving hand whisper against her leg as she hit the cold floor.

Sharp pain shot up her arm, her elbow cracking hard against the cement. She ignored it, jumping to her feet, searching for the monster in the dark. Can it see, does it see me?

Her hand found an angled wall to the right, cement against her back and on the left. She was in the space beneath the stairs, and she had no idea where the impossibly silent X was; the shadows wouldn’t help her if it could see in the dark.

She ran her hands over the walls, found a switch and punched it. The texture of shadow changed as dim light filtered down from somewhere above—and she saw the monster less than fifty feet away just as it turned, its thick red gaze scanning evenly across the deserted platform—

• and finding her. Marking her. The only sound was a soft crackling coming from its still-smoking flesh—until it took a step for the stairwell, and cement crunched beneath one purpled leg.

Six or seven shots left, get the eyes—

Claire stepped quickly out of the shadows and raised Irons’s gun, squeezing the trigger, backing toward the stairs.

Bam-bam-bam—

• and X was positioning itself for another attack, the bullets smashing into its melted face, two of them ricocheting from the matter of its skull as it aligned to her position.

• bam-bam—

She was at the stairs, sidling up a step, the rounds useless, Mr. X starting its lurching run. It would be on her before she could turn, before she could get up the steps.

I’ll di

Mr. X took one—two powerful strides, halving the distance between them as Claire aimed, determined to make the last shots count. She would die, and her only regret was for Sherry, her only wish that she would be able to incapacitate the nightmare X before it killed her.

She fired, and the monster’s left eye exploded, a burst of inky fluid splattering its wretched, inhuman face.

Yes!

Mr. X veered to its right, not stopping but not coming straight at her anymore—it would still hit the base of the stairs—too close!—she had to try for the other eye and she had about two seconds left—

Claire aimed, found her mark, and—

• click!

• there were no bullets left, and the monster was slamming into the base of the steps, the smell of roasted meat washing over her as it raised its giant hand up, and its giant, terrible body was all she could see.

Claire rolled down the concrete stairs, hunching herself into a ball—

• and screamed as Mr. X’s ragged clawed fingers raked across her left thigh, and a distant voice told her that they had three minutes left.

IHIRtY-OriE

HE’D GONE THE WRONG WAY. TWISTS AND

turns in the cold and empty hall had led him to a storage room—a dead end.

“There are now three minutes until detonation.” Leon turned back the way he’d come, and with what felt like the very last of his strength, forced himself into a stumbling run. He was too exhausted to feel disappointed, to worry about his impending death, to wish that things were different; it took all of his energy just to keep moving.

He’d make it or he wouldn’t; either way, he didn’t think he’d be surprised.

Claire hit the floor at the base of the stairs and leapt to her feet, blood running down her leg in a hot pulse of stinging pain. She staggered away, nothing broken—

• but she knew her clawed leg was just the begin-ning of what it would do to her, a prelude to the real pain.

Mr. X was still bent over the railing of the steps, but as she stumbled away, back toward the broken gate of the platform, the monster pushed itself off. It turned its immense body in her direction, the open blackness of its empty eye socket drooling out some dark and ichorous liquid. It would compensate for its altered senses, she was sure—it would compensate, realign, run at her again—and would slaughter her like the merciless machine it was, there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Claire tripped on the metal bars of the gate, barely catching herself, blood pattering to the ground as she staggered another step, please let it be quick—

“Here! Use this!”

Claire spun, saw that Mr. X was positioning itself for its killing strike—and saw the silhouette high above, on the walkway over the train. A woman’s voice, a woman’s shape, the shadowed figure throwing something—

• who—

• that clattered across the concrete, landing be-tween her and Mr. X. It was metal, it was silver—she’d seen them in movies, it was a machine gun—and Claire ran for it. Another final hope, another chance, however slim, that she and Sherry would survive.

She reached the weapon, dropped, saw X pushing itself toward her, the thunder of its steps shaking the ground—

• and she scooped up the heavy gun, kicking against the floor and rolling onto her back, her shaking hand finding the trigger, her body moving to accommodate the weapon. Stock on the ground, arms twisted around the cold metal, aiming—

• please please—

The monster was only a step away when the spray of bullets crashed out of the gun, a clattering, rattling string of tiny explosions that shook Claire’s entire body—and whammed into the gut of the beast, the sheer force of so many rounds stopping it in mid-stride—and pushing it back.

• tattatattatatta—

She felt the vibrating metal trying to shake itself free of her grip, so she held it tighter, the butt of the weapon tapping against the floor at a manic pace. The bullets were still pounding into the creature’s abdo-men, so fast and so many that she couldn’t hear her own gasping cries of fury and pain and exaltation—

• and Mr. X was trying to move forward, but a strange thing was happening, a strange and beautiful thing. Its gut was being shredded by the endless stream of rounds, its midsection gaining depth and texture, black fluids coursing down its lower half from the ragged, growing wound. X’s mouth was open, an empty hole like its eye socket—and like the socket, thick liquid was pouring out, obscuring its pitiless face.

• tattatattatat—

Claire held on, directing the hail, watching the creature try to stand against the pulsing, crashing spray. Watching it bleed. Watching as it seemed to—condense, its massive body crumpling, its torso sink-ing down.

The bullets still flying, Mr. X raised its arms—

• and split in two.

Claire took her finger off the trigger as X’s upper body toppled to the cement, a wet slap of heavy meat, and its legs collapsed, falling to one side, more strange blood gushing from both halves. Pools of shiny black grew around the massive pieces of its broken body, forming stinking puddles. The creature was dead—and even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter anymore. Unless it could pull itself across the floor as fast as she could run, her battle with the terrible mystery that had been Mr. X was finally through—

• hell with all that, no time, MOVE!

Claire was on her feet in a second, ignoring the squelch of blood in her boot and the pain that had caused it, her gaze searching the upper platform for her unknown savior. No one was there, and she didn’t know if another minute had ticked by, the warning lost in the gunfire.

“Hey!” Claire shouted, backing toward the subway car. “We have to go, now!”

No answer, no sound but the ringing in her ears and the echo of her trembling words. If she wanted to save Sherry . . .

Claire turned and ran.

• * *

“—two minutes until—“

Leon pushed himself to go faster, the twining tunnel a blur of gray that spun past his aching, breathless perception. He’d lost all track of the turns and twists of the corridor and was rapidly losing hope, a voice in the back of his mind telling him that maybe it would be best to stop, to sit and rest—

• and then he heard it, and that tiny, despairing whisper was obliterated by the sound.

The sound of heavy machinery stirring to life, somewhere up ahead. Not far ahead.

Train!

Faster, legs distant, rubbery, lungs working, heart pounding—one way or another, it was almost over. TelRjY-Two

CLAIRE BURST INTO THE TRAIN, HOLDING A

giant rifle and with one leg covered in blood, barely pausing to hit the controls to the door before running for the engineer’s booth. Sherry knew that they were in trouble, that it was going to be close, so she didn’t waste time asking questions; she followed, relieved beyond measure that Claire was okay but keeping it to herself.

Okay, she’s okay and we’re going now....

A small, tinny version of the intercom voice and alarms blared out of the tiny room’s control board. “There are two minutes until detonation.” Claire had dropped the oddly shaped rifle and was hitting buttons, throwing switches, her attention fixed on the console. A giant mechanical hum suddenly enveloped them, a growing, whining rumble that made Claire grit her teeth; Sherry couldn’t tell if it was a smile, but she smiled as she felt the train lurch—

• and start to move, taking them away from the platform.

Claire turned, saw Sherry standing behind her, and tried to smile. Claire rested one hand on Sherry’s shoulder, but didn’t say anything—so Sherry didn’t either, waiting to see what would happen. The train started to go faster, sliding past dimly lit halls and platforms, the tunnel in front of them dark and empty. Sherry let the warmth of Claire’s hand remind her that they were friends, that whatever happened, Claire was her friend—

• and she saw a man, a policeman, stumble into view ahead on the left, and then the train was gliding past him, his eyes wide and searching and desperate in his dirty face.

“Claire!”

“I see him—“

Claire turned and ran out of the booth, her foot-steps clattering through the metal train car, sprinting to the door. She hit the control and the door slid open, the booming, grinding sounds of the subway billowing into the closed space.

“Leon!” she screamed. “Hurry!”

She jerked back suddenly, a wall sliding by, and spun around looking as desperate as the man—

Leon—had. After another second she turned back and closed the door.

“Did he make it?” Sherry asked, realizing that Claire couldn’t possibly know, even as the words came out of her mouth.

Claire came to her and put an arm around her, as the train kept going faster and her face knotted with worry—

• and the voice in the intercom told them they had one minute left—

• and the door in the back of the car opened. In stumbled Leon, his arm wrapped with a shredded, stained bandage, his hair matted with dark, dried goo, his eyes bright and blue in the mask of dirt. “Full throttle!” he shouted; Claire nodded, and Leon blew out a heavy breath. He staggered toward them, the train shifting back and forth, speeding now, rocketing through the tunnel. He put his arm around Claire, and Claire hugged him tightly.

“Ada?” Claire whispered. “Ann—the scientist?” Leon shook his head, and Sherry saw that he might cry. “No. I didn’t—no.”

“. . . thirty seconds until detonation. Twenty-nine . . . twenty-eight. . ”

The woman’s voice kept counting down, the num-bers seeming to come twice as fast as they should, and Sherry buried her face in Claire’s warm side, thinking about her mom. Mom and Dad. She hoped that they’d gotten out, that they were safe somewhere—

• but they’re probably not. They’re probably dead.

Sherry could hear Claire’s heart pounding, and she hugged her friend tighter, thinking that she would think about it later.

“. . . five. Four. Three. Two. One. Sequence com-plete. Detonation.”

For a second, there was no sound at all. The alarms had finally stopped, and the clattering movement of the racing train was all there was to hear—

• and then there was an explosion, a muffled sound, a shoomp sound that kept going, growing, becoming huge.

Sherry closed her eyes and the train rocked sud-denly, horribly, and they were all thrown to the metal floor as bright, burning light flickered through the window, as the sounds of a car crash blasted all around them, heavy thumps raining over the roof—

• and the train kept going. It kept going, and the light went away, and they weren’t dead.

The blinding flash dissipated, faded, and Leon felt the tension leaking out of his body. He rolled onto his side, and saw Claire sitting up, reaching for the hand of the young girl next to her.

“Okay?” Claire asked the girl, and the child nod-ded. Both of them turned to him, their faces express-ing what he felt—shock, exhaustion, disbelief, hope. “Leon Kennedy, this is Sherry Birkin,” Claire said, saying the words carefully, the slightest accent on “Birkin.” He got the message even without the inten-sity of her gaze, nodding his understanding before smiling at the girl.

“Sherry, this is Leon,” Claire continued. “I met him when I had just gotten to Raccoon.”

Sherry returned his smile, a weary, too-adult smile that seemed out of place; she was too young to smile like that.

One more rotten deed to lay at Umbrella’s door, innocence stolen from a child. . . .

For a few seconds, they just sat there on the floor, staring at one another, smiles fading all around. Leon hardly dared to hope that it was really over, that they were leaving the terror behind. Again, he saw his feelings mirrored in front of him, in Sherry’s worried brow and Claire’s tired gray eyes—

• and when they heard the distant squeal of metal coming from somewhere at the back of the train, he didn’t see any surprise. A rending, tearing screech—followed by a heavy, somehow stealthy thump—and then nothing.

Should’ve known it isn’t over—

“Zombie?” Sherry whispered, the word almost lost in the gently clattering sound of the speeding train. “I don’t know, sweetie,” Claire said softly, and for the first time, Leon noticed that her left leg was ripped to shit, blood oozing from several ragged scratches; he’d been too amazed at his, at their narrow escape to see it before.

“How about I go take a look?” Leon said, taking his cue from Claire, keeping his voice mild and even;

no point in scaring Sherry any worse. He stood up, nodding toward Claire’s leg.

“Sherry, why don’t you stay here with Claire, keep an eye on that leg? I’ll see if I can find some bandages while I’m checking things out; don’t let her move, okay?”

Sherry nodded, her small face intent with purpose that again was too old for her years. “Got it.” “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, and turned toward the back of the swaying train, praying that it was nothing at all and knowing better, as he reached for the Remington and went to see.

Leon opened the door, the sounds of the rolling train amplified for a second before it closed behind him. Claire couldn’t see him enter the next car from her position on the floor, and wished she’d been in shape to go with him; if there was something else on the train, Sherry wasn’t safe, none of them were—

• don’t think like that, it’s nothing. It’s over—

• like it was over with Mr. X?

“What should I do?” Sherry asked, pulling Claire away from the disheartening thoughts. “Direct pres-sure, right?”

Claire nodded. “Yeah, except we’re both pretty grimy, and I think it’s starting to clot. Let’s see if Leon comes back with something clean ...”

She trailed off, her thoughts going back to Mr. X. There was something nagging at her but she was a little dizzy from the blood she’d lost—

• G-Virus. It wanted the G-Virus before.

Why had Mr. X come to the subway platform? Why had it been trying to get inside the train, unless—

Claire struggled to get up, fighting her swimming head and the throbbing pain in her leg.

“Hey, don’t move,” Sherry said, a look of deep distress in her eyes. “Leon said to stay still!” She might have been able to overcome her physical problems, but seeing Sherry on the edge of panic was too much; if there was some G-Virus creature on board, if that was why Mr. X had come, Leon would have to face it alone. She couldn’t leave Sherry. If Leon didn’t come back, she’d have to figure out how to detach their train car, or stop the train so they could get off before the creature could get to them—

Claire shut the thoughts off, forcing a smile for Sherry. “Yes ma’am. I just wanted to make sure he got through the second car. . .”

She could see the relief sweep across Sherry’s face. “Oh. Well, forget it, I’m taking care of you now, and I say you stay still.”

Claire nodded absently, hoping that she was wrong, hoping that Leon would be back any second—

• Sam! Bam! Bam!

The thunder of the Remington was loud and clear. Sherry grabbed her hand as two more shots blasted the hope from Claire’s fuzzy mind, as the train sped through the dark.

The second car was clear, the same wide-open space that Leon had entered the train by, all dusty steel and not much else. Whoever had designed the escape vehicle had obviously figured the Umbrella employ-ees would have to be packed in like sardines. Just us three, though—and our stowaway.. .. There was nothing to see, but Leon moved slowly nonetheless, carefully scanning the shadowy corners and steeling himself for whatever was in the last car. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be as bad as the thing that had jumped him in the cargo room, the Birkin-thing, if that was what it was. The thought that the creature had anything at all to do with Claire’s young friend was deeply unsettling, even obscene. A monster and a madwoman, both destroyed, both parents of the little girl. . . .

He reached the back of the dim and rocking train car and peered through the door, pushing all other thoughts aside as he tried to make out anything at all in the last car. Darkness, and nothing else. Hell.

Maybe there wasn’t anything to see, but he had to look. He felt his heart start to pound fresh adrenaline through his body, felt his weariness fall away. Noth-ing, it was surely nothing, but it felt bad. Wrong. Last thing, very last thing. . . .

He took a deep breath and opened the door, step-ping into the loud, whipping breeze of the outside, holding on to the rail. The rattle of the train drowned out the thumping of his heart as he moved to the last car, opened the door, and stepped into darkness. Immediately, he raised the shotgun, all of his senses telling him to run as the door slid shut behind him. He reached back, slapping for a light switch. Dark-ness, but there was a powerful smell like bleach or chlorine, and there was the soft sound of wetness, of movement—

A single bare bulb flickered on in the middle of the car as he found a button, and he thought for just a second that he’d lost his mind.

A thing. A creature that wasn’t even vaguely hu-manoid, except for a strange, pulsing tumor protrud-ing from one side, a slick orb that looked very much like an eye.

Birkin.

The creature was a giant, stretching blob of dark, slimy matter, spanning the width of the car; Leon couldn’t tell how tall it was. The Birkin-thing had thick streamers extended out, tentacles of wet and elastic goo attached to every part of the space in front of it—the ceiling, walls, and floor. And as Leon watched, the alien beast pulled itself forward, the dark limbs contracting, bringing the mass of the body a few feet ahead of where it had been.

Not crazy. He was seeing it, seeing the brackish, moving colors of black and green and purple in its tentacles as it stretched out again, the viscous materi-al latching to the metal of the car somehow, dragging the blob a few more feet ahead. The body itself was nothing so much as a gaping maw, a wet cave that still had teeth—

• and that would reach him pretty soon if he didn’t snap out of his disgusted stupor.

Leon aimed into the giant hole of its mouth and pulled the trigger, pumping in another round, firing, pumping, firing—

• and then the shotgun was empty, and the giant semi-liquid thing was still moving steadily forward. He didn’t know how to kill it, didn’t know if the rounds had even damaged it. His mind raced for an answer, for a solution that would end the terrible life of the G-Virus monster. He could detach the last car, fire through the pins and chains that held it together, //he could find the locking mechanism—

• and it would still be alive. Still living and chang-ing in the blackness of the tunnel, becoming something new—

The stretching elastic of its nebulous form inched forward, and Leon reached back for the door control. He’d have to try unhooking the cars, there was no other choice—

• unless—

He hesitated, then unholstered his Magnum and pointed it at the impossible mass. At the strange tumor that peered out of a slit in its rubber flesh, the eye that had been in every form that Birkin had taken. Careful aim, and—

• BAM!

The effect was immediate and total, the heavy round piercing the rheumy sphere—and a hissing, screaming whine or whistle pouring out of the toothed maw, like nothing on Earth, like the howl of some-thing mechanical and insane. The tendrils of un-formed matter shrank inward, turning black, shriv-eling—

• and the thing imploded, pulling in on itself, withering into a steaming black mass less than a quarter its original size. Like a deflated beachball, the gelid blob wrinkled and shrank, collapsing into a flattening thickness, drooling itself into a wide puddle of bubbling slime.

“Suck on that,” Leon said softly, the last bubbles popping, the pool a dead and inanimate thing. He watched it for a few moments, thinking about nothing at all—and finally turned to join the others, to tell them it was over.

First day on the job, he thought.

“I want a raise,” Leon said, to no one at all, and couldn’t help the grin that broke across his face, a tired, sunny grin that faded quickly ... but for the few seconds he wore it, Leon felt better than he had in a very long time.

Leon was back, and had found a jumpsuit that he tore into pieces and used to bind up Claire’s leg. All he’d said was that they were safe now, although Sherry had seen him and Claire exchange a look—one of those “we-shouldn’t-talk-about-it-right-now” looks. Sherry was too tired to take offense. She snuggled into Claire’s arms, Claire stroking her hair, the three of them not talking. There was nothing to say, or at least not for a little while. They were alive, on a train thundering through the dark—and from somewhere not far ahead, a soft light came filtering in, coming through the window in the control booth, and Sherry thought it looked very much like morning.

EPILOGUE

THEY SAW THE AFTERMATH OF THE EXPLO-sion from ten miles outside the city, a black and billowing cloud that rose up into the early morning light and hung over Raccoon like a terrible storm—

• or a bad dream, Rebecca thought, a recurring one. Umbrella.

She didn’t say it aloud, because it wasn’t necessary. John and David hadn’t gone through the Spencer estate nightmare, but they’d been at the Cove facility, witnesses to what Umbrella was capable of; they

knew.

Nobody spoke as David stepped up the speed, his knuckles white on the wheel. For once, John didn’t crack any jokes about what might have happened. They all knew that it was bad; before Jill, Chris, and Barry had left for Europe, Jill had wired them with her suspicions about another accident, and asked them to keep tabs. When the phone lines had gone down, they’d loaded up the SUV and left Maine to see what could be done. The only question was how many people had died this time.

Maybe this is the end, finally. A blast like that... Umbrella can’t cover this up so easily, not if it’s as bad as it looks.

John finally broke the silence, his deep, mellow voice uncharacteristically subdued. “Fail-safe?” David sighed. “Probably. And if there was a spill, we’re not going in; we’ll circle the city and then call for help from Latham. Umbrella is surely sending in its cleanup staff already.”

Rebecca nodded along with John. They weren’t technically part of the S.T.A.R.S. anymore, but David had been a captain before, and with good reason. They fell back into a tense silence, the dawn-touched trees spinning past the utility vehicle, Rebecca won-dering what they would find—

• when she saw the people, staggering up into the road, waving their arms.

“Hey—“ she started, but David was already hitting the brakes, slowing down as they neared the three-some of ragged strangers. A cop with a bandaged arm and a young woman in shorts, both of them holding weapons, and a little girl in a pink vest that was much too big for her. They weren’t infected, or at least not showing signs that Rebecca could see—but they looked like hell nonetheless. With their ripped clothes and their faces pale and shocked beneath masks of dirt, they certainly could have passed for walking death.

“I’ll talk,” David said, his crisp British accent mild but firm, and then they were pulling up beside the Raccoon survivors.

David opened his window and killed the engine, the young cop stepping forward as the woman slipped one grimy arm around the little girl’s shoulders. “There’s been an accident, in Raccoon,” he said, and although they were obviously tired and wounded and badly in need of help, there was a wariness in the cop’s tone, a guarded, careful note that suggested just how bad things had been. “A terrible accident. You don’t want to go there, it’s not safe.”

David frowned. “What sort of accident, Officer?” The young woman spoke up, her mouth a set and bitter line. “An Umbrella accident,” she said, and the cop nodded, and the little blond girl buried her face against the woman’s hip.

John and Rebecca exchanged a look, and David hit the switch to unlock the doors.

“Really? Those tend to be the worst kind,” he said gently. “We’d be happy to help you, if you’d like, or we could call for help. . ..”

It was a question. The cop glanced back at the woman, then met David’s gaze for several long beats.

He must have seen something in David’s face that he felt he could trust; he nodded slowly, then motioned for the woman and girl to come forward.

“Thanks,” he said, the exhaustion finally coming through. “If you could give us a ride, that’d be great.”

David smiled. “Please, get in. John, Rebecca—would you assist.. . ?”

John grabbed a couple of blankets out of the back as Rebecca reached for her medical kit, careful not to uncover the rifles tucked next to the wheel well. An Umbrella accident. . .

Rebecca wondered if they knew how lucky they were to have survived it—but another look into those three exhausted, shell-shocked faces told her that they probably did.

They started talking even before David turned the vehicle around—and in a very short time, they dis-covered that they had a lot in common, as the child fell asleep and they drove back the way they’d come, leaving the burning city behind.