moaned, revealing blackened teeth, and then the doors were sliding closed, shutting out the zombie, shutting out the high frequency screech of the infected bat.
They both sagged, leaning against the walls of the small elevator. They could hear the female zombie's hungry cries through the doors, hear the sharp scratch of her bone fingertips against the metal doors. Within a few seconds, her low, gravelly moans were joined by another voice, then a third, all of them wailing in eagerness, in frustration.
There were only two choices, Bl or B2. Billy looked at Rebecca, who shook her head, her face pale. Outside, the zombies continued to claw for entry, and Billy pushed Bl. The elevator didn't move.“Okay, B2, then,” Billy said, hoping that they hadn't just trapped themselves. He punched the
button. The elevator started with a lurch, then descended smoothly. Billy edged slightly in front of Rebecca, readying the shotgun, hoping that the doors weren't about to open to a horde of infected creatures, all eager for a late-night snack.
The doors slid open without any sound, revealing a corridor littered with rubble, but otherwise empty. He pushed the button for B1 again, hoping for another option, but the elevator doors didn't even close. Apparently, they could either go back to the bat and the zombies or they could explore the second basement level. Billy opted for exploration.
He stepped out cautiously, Rebecca right behind. Like the training facility mansion, the decor, the architecture, was refined and probably priceless. The floor was marble, chipped but still polished to a high sheen, the hall lined with handsome support pillars, the entries high and arched. To their left was a stairwell that led up, choked with broken rock and shattered drywall. There was another door on the left up ahead, just before the corridor turned sharply to the right.
They paused at the stairwell but it was a lost cause, the debris piled floor to ceiling. If they wanted to go back up, it was the elevator or nothing .. . though at the moment, Billy did not want to go back up.
It seemed like the constant barrage of disgusting, dangerous, frightening creatures would never end, and he was more than ready for a break.
“All those in favor of no more monsters,” he said softly.
“Aye,” Rebecca answered, her tone just as soft. She shot him a smile, but it looked strained. They started forward, boots crunching as they waded through the rubble.
Rebecca stayed by the first door as Billy quickly checked the rest of the corridor. There was one other obvious door, set with a combination lock—and a third possible door: Billy wasn't sure, it looked very much like the corridor simply dead-ended in a blue wall, but there was an elaborate shrine set up there— twin statues bookended a profiled relief of someone who looked very much like James Marcus. There was no keyhole, but beneath the bust was an empty depression the size of a child's fist, as though it were missing a piece.
Lovely. Two more puzzle locks, Billy thought sourly, walking back to Rebecca. What was it with these people? If they needed to be so goddamn clever, why couldn't they just stick to crossword puzzles?
Thankfully, the first door was unlocked. They stepped inside, finding themselves in another shabbily elegant room, this one lined with bookshelves. A stained oriental rug lay on the floor in the room's first section. The room itself was vaguely U-shaped. There were several lamps on, making it the brightest room they'd been in all night, and besides the shelves, there were several low tables and a small desk with an antique typewriter. Billy walked to the nearest desk, picked up a scrap of paper.
“ 'Trouble is unlikely, but I've taken precautions,' “ he read. “ 'To hide a leaf, put it in the forest. To hide a key, make it look like a leaf.' “
“Gee, that clears things up,” Rebecca said, and Billy nodded. Again—what was it with these people?
Rebecca looked the shelves over while Billy walked the room, noting a large hole in the ceiling around the corner from the door. It was high, but using one of the tables . . .
“Most of these are biology,” Rebecca called. “Mammalian, insectile, amphibian ...“
“Come look at this,” Billy called back. As she stepped around the corner, Billy grabbed the nearest table, pushing it under the hole. He still wouldn't be able to reach ...
“I could go up,” Rebecca said. “Look around, find a rope or something for you to climb.”
Billy frowned. “I don't know. Last time you went looking...“
“Yeah,” she said, but her expression was set. She was willing, if not eager—and they had to do something.
Billy stepped on the table, interlacing his fingers to give her a boost. She climbed up after him, put her right boot in his hands, one hand on his shoulder. As before, she was light as a feather; Billy could probably bench press two of her without much trouble. He pushed her up easily, Rebecca disappearing from sight as she crawled through. A second later, she was back at the hole.
“Seems clear, but it's dark,” she said. “Looks like a lab room, lot of shelves, couple of desks ... Let me see what I can find.”
She disappeared again. Billy waited, staring up at the hole, reminding himself that she knew how to handle herself. She'd already proven herself stronger and more capable than any number of seasoned soldiers he'd known—and if there was trouble, she could just hop back down, nothing to worry about—
Rebecca let out a short, sharp scream and Billy's blood went cold.
“Rebecca!” he shouted, his gaze fixed helplessly on the dark hole overhead.
It looked like a lab, one that had only been used intermittently in the last decade, and hadn't been cleaned at all in that time. There was thick dust on the floor and shelves, but things had been moved at some point,leaving signs—tracks behind chairs, fingerprints on specimen bottles. Rebecca took a quick look at her immediate surroundings, then leaned back over the hole. Billy's expression was tense, expectant.
“Seems clear, but it's dark. Looks like a lab room, lot of shelves, couple of desks . .. Let me see what I can find.”
She turned, surveyed the small room again—and realized that it was bigger than she thought, part of it hidden behind a large shelf that bisected the area. She wouldn't have noticed if not for the faint, pale, bluish light that seemed to be emanating from the hidden section. Holding her nine-millimeter, she stepped around the corner —
—and yelped, almost firing at the glowing, floating monster in front of her before she realized that it wasn't alive.
“Rebecca!”
“I'm okay!” she called back, staring at the bizarre creature. “Got a surprise, is all. Hang on.”
She stepped closer to the human-sized specimen tube, filled with clear liquid, lit from inside. There were actually four of the tubes, all in a row, each containing a slightly different horror than the one before. The things inside had been human, once, but they had been surgically altered, and almost certainly infected with T-virus. She tried to think of some description to give Billy, but they defied description; grossly misshapen limbs hung from muscular, patchwork bodies, the nearly unrecognizable faces wearing bizarre expressions of anguish and bloodlust. They were horrifying.
Past the row of humanoid monstrosities was a specimen case, filled with much smaller tubes. Rebecca leaned in, saw that each tube had a dead leech inside. She grimaced, was about to turn away—when she realized that one of the tubes was different. The leech inside was ... not a leech.
She pushed the dusty glass door aside and pulled out the anomalous tube, holding it up to the faint light. The tube's cap was glued or soldered shut, and the thing inside was leech shaped, but was sculpted or carved, and a deep, cobalt blue.
Why would anyone make a fake leech and then put it—
She blinked, remembering that piece of paper Billy had read from—to hide a leaf, put it in the forest. To hide a key ...
Rebecca walked back to the hole, held the tube out for Billy to see. “I think I found the leaf key,” she said, and tossed it down. “Or I guess I should say leech key.”
Billy caught it neatly, peered at it. “I'm pretty sure it'll fit one of those doors,” he said. “Come back down, we can go check.”
“The cap won't come off—“ she started, stopping as Billy dropped the tube on the floor next to the table. He grinned up at her, then jumped down, stomping the tube with the heel of his boot. Glass crinkled and crunched, and a second later, he was holding the carving up.
