Nine
The baboon ran for them as soon as they stepped back into the hall—and it died spectacularly, the double- barreled shotgun blasting it to shreds with a deafening roar. Billy broke and reloaded with his one remaining shell. He thought he'd had more, but it seemed he'd lost them somewhere along the way. In any case, nothing else came at them, and they headed back out toward the main room, Billy feeling much lighter than he had in a long time. Besides the much-needed laugh, a break in the relentless chaos they'd both endured, it was the first time he'd told his story to anyone who was actually listening, who was willing to consider that he might be telling the truth. They stopped at the giant circle of stone statuary in the middle of the large chamber, looking it over. There were six carved animals spaced evenly around the circle, facing outward. Each had a small plaque in front of it, a small oil lamp positioned next to each plaque. The animals were expertly carved, but the whole thing was a monstrosity, a real eyesore.
The animal in front of him was an eagle in flight, a snake clutched in its talons. He read aloud from its plaque: “I DANCE FREELY THROUGH THE AIR, CAPTURING A LEGLESS PREY.” He frowned, moved to the next animal over, a deer, reading from its plaque. “I STAND TALL ON THE EARTH WITH HORNS PROUDLY DISPLAYED.”
Rebecca had walked around the unfortunate art piece, stopped at a steel gate set into the wall behind it. The gate blocked a short hall, two doors set into its walls. “There's a sign here, says”—she turned, studying the animals—“basically, go from weakest to strongest, using the lamps. It's some kind of puzzle.” She grabbed one of the metal bars of the gate, shook it. “Must be how we open the gate.”
“So you have to light the lamps in order, starting with the weakest animal,” Billy said. Dumb. Why someone would go through all the trouble ... He pulled the map out of his back pocket, studied it. “It just looks like a couple of rooms back there. I don't see an exit.”
Rebecca shrugged. “Yeah, but maybe there's something in there we can use. Can it hurt?”
“I don't know,” he said truthfully. “Maybe.” She smiled, turning to the stone animal nearest her, a tiger, reading from the plaque beneath it. “I AM THE KING OF ALL I SURVEY: NO CREATURE CAN ESCAPE MY GRASP.”
Billy moved to his left, to a carving of a snake coiled around a tree limb. “This one says, I CREEP UP ON MY VICTIMS IN LEGLESS SILENCE AND CONQUER EVEN THE MIGHTIEST OF KINGS WITH MY POISON.”
Rebecca read the last two aloud—the words beneath a wolf carving were, MY SHARP WIT ALLOWS ME TO BRING DOWN EVEN THE GREATEST HORNED BEAST.
The sixth animal was a horse, reared back on its hind legs. The legend beneath it was, NO AMOUNT OF CUNNING CAN MATCH THE SPEED OF MY SUPPLE LIMBS.
Horned beast. Billy walked back to the deer, read the part about “horns proudly displayed.”
“So, the wolf is stronger than the deer,” he said.
“And if cunning can't outrace a horse, the horse is stronger than the wolf,” she said. “What's stronger than the snake?”
“Gotta be the eagle, it's carrying a snake,” Billy said.
They each circled around the statue, calling out observations, working the puzzle. They finally agreed on a sequence, and Billy walked to each animal, lighting the appropriate oil lamp in the appropriate order—from weakest to strongest, at least according to the statue, the order was deer, wolf, horse, tiger, snake, and eagle.
As he lit the eagle's lamp, there was a heavy, mechanical sound from somewhere inside the statuary—and the steel gate behind them rose smoothly, sliding into a niche at the top of the archway.
Together, they moved down the hall. The first room, on their right, appeared to hold nothing of
value at first glance. There were a bunch of emptied packing crates, a few cluttered shelves. Billy was ready to move on when Rebecca stepped inside, heading for the crates. One of them was turned away from the door so they couldn't see what was in it— and when she stepped around it, she let out an excited laugh, crouching next to the crate, pushing it around so he could see. Billy hurried to her side, feeling like a kid at Christmas. Guess that damned puzzle was worth the effort, after all.
Two and a half boxes of nine-millimeter rounds. A half box of twenty-twos, which wouldn't do them much good, nor would the pair of speed loaders— Billy had to explain that the round metal gadgets were designed to quickly load revolvers—with the .50 rounds. But the box of shotgun shells, fourteen in all, would certainly help. Billy wouldn't have minded running across a bazooka, but all things considered, they couldn't have hoped for much better.
They spent a few minutes loading the clips theyhad. Rebecca found a fanny pack with a broken zipper on one of the shelves and they loaded it up, along with her utility belt; they agreed it was better to take it all, on the chance that they might discover more weapons. Billy rigged the zipper with a safety pin he found on the floor and donned the pack, comforted by the weight of so much ammo.
“I could kiss you,” he said, lifting the shotgun— and at her silence, he turned to look at her, saw that she'd flushed slightly. She looked away, adjusting her belt.
“I didn't mean literally,” he said. “I mean, not that you're not attractive, but you're—I'm—I meant—“
“Don't have kittens,” she said coolly. “I know what you meant.”
Billy nodded, relieved. They had enough to deal with without the male-female thing. Though she is pretty cute—
He shook it off, reminding himself that he'd just spent a year without any women around—and now was so not the time to address it.
They headed to the second door, found it unlocked. It was a bunk room, shabby and dirty, the bunks slapped together from plywood, the few blankets scattered around threadbare and dingy. Considering the poor accommodations and the locked steel gate down the hall, Billy thought it was safe to assume that the inhabitants hadn't been volunteers. Re-becca had told him what that diary had said, about testing human subjects ...
The whole facility gave him the creeps. The sooner they could get out, the better.
“Do we go down, or up?” Rebecca asked, as they moved back into the hall.
“There's an observatory upstairs, right?” Billy asked. Rebecca nodded. “So let's go observe.
Maybe we can signal for help or something.”
He realized that he'd just suggested they try and get rescued, but he didn't take it back, even understanding what it most likely meant for him. He knew that he'd rather die fighting for his life than be executed . . . But there was Rebecca to consider. She was a good person, honest and sincere, and he'd do what he could to get her out of this alive.
They moved out, Billy wondering where his criminal nature had gotten off to, quickly deciding that he was better off without it. For the first time since that terrible day in the jungle village, he felt like himself again.
He watched them stock up on ammunition, both impressed and disappointed by their fortitude. After another consultation with their maps, they started upstairs, presumably for the observatory; although the children could hear their voices, they could not make out their words.
He'd had the children search out the tablets that would be needed, had had the tablets taken to the doors that led to the observatory. Unless Billy and Rebecca were entirely moronic—which they'd already proven they were not—they would figure out how to trigger the structure's rotation, leading them closer to their escape. From there they would move on to the laboratory, hidden behind the chapel...
He wondered what they would find there, in Marcus's laboratories; more to steal, perhaps. He wanted them to uncover what they could about Umbrella's true nature, but was not pleased to see them picking through the sad remnants of Marcus's brilliant career.
He still thought of the laboratories as Marcus's, though Marcus had been gone for a decade. The entire complex had been shut down after the manager's “disappearance,” but recently, Umbrella had reopened it all—the labs, the treatment plant, the training center. None had been fully functional when the virus had hit; they were being run by skeleton crews of maintenance men, watched over by a handful of middle management hopefuls; nonetheless, the company had lost a number of loyal employees.
Billy and Rebecca moved through the east rooms on the first floor and back out into the lobby, then headed to the second floor. They found the door that would take them to the third easily enough, entering the stairwell with weapons drawn, their youthful faces determined and seemingly unafraid. He watched as they started up the stairs,
