mind that he might not be able to pull himself up. With a grant of exertion, he lifted his body through the hole, first scrabbling to his elbows, then getting one knee up.
He grabbed the shotgun and was on his feet in time to hear that animal scream again, a strange and unearthly sound, like a bird being shredded to pieces. He spent a half second orienting himself, finding the door, and then he was running.
He crashed through the door into a hall—and there was Rebecca backed against the wall opposite, one sleeve of her shirt torn, her arm scored with four deep scratches, pointing her weapon at—
—what the hell—
—at a monster, an immense, reptilian monster. It was humanoid, hugely muscled, its pebbled skin a dark, noxious green. Its arms were so long that its clawed hands almost touched the floor. When it saw Billy it dropped its thick jaw and screeched again, the small eyes in its flat, sloping skull practically glowing with malevolence. A thin stream of dark blood flowed from its upper chest, one of Rebecca's shots, but it didn't seem to be overly affected by the wound.
Try this, Billy thought, bringing the shotgun up as Rebecca opened fire again. He blasted the creature full in the face, pumped the weapon and fired again, not waiting to see what the first round had done—
—and the thing's face was gone, splashed across the wall and floor behind it, its heavy body toppling. A frothing river of blood poured from the shreds of its neck, from what little was left of its head—a bit ofjawbone, of teeth, tatters of dark flesh.
Billy didn't move for a few seconds, listening, searching for another sound, another movement, but there was nothing. He turned his attention to Rebecca, who was gripping her injured left shoulder with her right hand. Blood seeped from beneath her fingers.
“The pack on my belt,” she said. “There's a bottle of antiseptic wash in there, some bandages and tape ... It just clawed me. It didn't bite.”
She looked pale, wincing as Billy cleaned her wound and taped it, but she bore up well, taking the pain rather than giving in to it. It was bad, probably needed stitches, but it also could have been a lot worse. When he was finishing up, she nodded toward the half open door across from them.
“It was locked in there. The thing, I mean.”
She sounded shocked, dazed. Billy walked to the door, wanting to be in the way of anything else that might come popping out. He stopped at the headless monster, stood looking down at it.
“Kinda looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon on steroids,” Billy said, glancing back, hoping for a smile. He got one, shaky but real, and once again, was impressed with her fortitude. It was rare, to be able to recover so quickly from an unexpected attack, especially by a nightmare like the monster in front of him. Most people would be shaking for hours afterward.
Rebecca moved to stand beside him. She nudged one of the creature's bulky legs with her boot. “Amazing,” she said. “The things they were doing out here. Genetic engineering, recombinant viruses . . .“
“I think 'psychotic' is the word you're looking for,” Billy said.
She nodded. “Can't argue that. Let's see if it was guarding anything important.”
They stepped around the creature, Rebecca explaining what she'd found on the rest of the floor as they moved into the room. It was a kennel of some kind, but Billy was fairly certain it hadn't been used to board dogs; there were stacks of steel bar cages, many of them fitted with restraints, and the smell in the air was that of wild animals, a gamy, rank odor.
“. . . which is where I found the key to this room,” she was saying. “I was hoping that meant there'd be something useful here.”
The room was U-shaped, split by shelves. They moved around the shelves, Rebecca letting out a small sound of disgust. Heaped in the far corner was a heap of torn fur and gnawed bones, what appeared to be the remains of a few of those baboon creatures. There was a lot of feces scattered about, too, dense piles of a black, tarry substance that smelled like— well, like shit. It seemed the monster had been locked up for a while.
There was a small wood table between two of the cage stacks, a few papers scattered across the top. Billy walked over—stepping carefully—and picked up the page on top as Rebecca started poking through a few of the open cages. It appeared to be part of a report.
. . . and yet research to date has shown that when the Progenitor virus is administered to living organisms, violent cellular changes cause breakdowns in every major system, most consistently the CNS. Furthermore, no satisfactory method has been found to control the organisms for use as weapons. Clearly, greater coordination at the cellular level is essential to enable further growth.
Experiments on insecta, amphibia, mammalia (primate) have all fallen short of projected results. It appears that no further progress can be made without using humans as the base organism. Our recommendation at this time is that the experimental animals be kept alive for further study and as possible prey for field testing of newer suggested hybhd B.O.W.s, such as the upcoming Tyrant series.
Jesus. Billy rifled through the pages, looking for the rest of the report, but there were only a handful of coffee-stained feeding schedules.
Tyrant series. All the creatures we ve seen . . . And they were working on something that could conceivably kick said creatures' asses.
“Ha!”
Billy looked up, saw Rebecca holding something small up in the air, a triumphant grin on her face.
“Dial, anyone?”
He dropped the report back on the table. “You're kidding me.”
“Nope. It was in one of the cages.” She tossed the item to him. Billy caught it, felt his own grin surfacing. It was exactly what he'd been looking for, a rounded knob made to fit on the front of the
“Four eight six three?” Billy asked, and Rebecca nodded.
“Four eight six three,” she repeated, and held up her hand, showing him her crossed fingers. Billy crossed his own. It was dumb, a child's superstition, but he was long past the point of caring whether or not he appeared rational. Anything that could help, he'd give it a shot.
“Let's go see,” he said, feeling hope resurface yet again as they moved out of the monster's room, amazed at how resilient that particular feeling was. There was a quote somewhere, about how as long as there was life, there was hope. He'd heard it when he'd been on trial, had thought it obvious and stupid at the time. How strange and somehow marvelous, that he would discover the truth of that statement fighting for his life in such very different circumstances.
Together, they headed back for the lab. Billy kept his fingers crossed.
Twelve
He watched the young twosome crawl down from the hole, make their way back to the combination door. Finally, they'd found a way to get it open; he'd expected them to break the lock, but one of them had apparently found the leech growth records, had worked out the code.
It seemed a single Hunter, a lone knight, was no match for them. The young man was surprised, but not overly so, watching as they opened the locked door. They possessed some small animal cleverness, these two; how sad for the world that they had to be destroyed.
The young man smiled. Humanity would surely recover from the loss, in ample time to effect Umbrella's crucifixion. Besides, the children were already in place.
Billy pushed the door to the cable car hanger open, the two of them smiling, congratulating one another as they “discovered” their means of escaping the lab. The cable car was operational, although they wouldn't be operating it; their lives were mere seconds from ending. The children watched from the shadows beneath the car, from the half-drained sewers, gathering into humanoid form, one, two of them. With a thought, a sigh, the young man released them from harness, sent the two bishops lurching towards their prey.
A sound, a scream. He frowned, turned one of the false men to see what had cried out from the darkness behind them—and it was attacked by an Eliminator, the primate jumping on the humanoid collective from out of
