High color flared in her cheeks. “You'll do what I tell you, or I'll—”
Crash!
Windows breaking, in the upstairs compartment. Billy and Rebecca both looked up, then at each other. A few seconds later, they heard what sounded like heavy footsteps overhead, slow and even . . . Then nothing at all.
“Dining room,” Billy said. “And it was empty a few minutes ago.”
Rebecca studied him for a moment, then lowered her weapon slightly. She moved to the foot of the stairs and looked up, her youthful face set with a determined expression. “Wait here,” she said. “I'll check it out.”
Billy almost smiled. He'd been in Special Forces for seven years, had learned how to shoot quite probably before she was out of grade school—and she was going to protect him?
“I thought you didn't trust me,” he said. “What's to stop me from climbing out one of the windows, making my escape?”
The girl did smile, a small and cold affair. “It's dangerous, remember? You don't stand a chance of doing it alone.”
Before he could come up with something properly snappy, she had turned her back and walked up the stairs, apparently determined to prove to him that she was a competent authority figure. Dumb kid; with all that was going on, proving herself shouldn't have been her top priority. He knew he should probably follow her, keep her from getting herself killed, but he wanted a minute to think. He watched as she reached the top of the stairs and disappeared around a corner, not looking back.
Like the song says, should I stay or should I go? Rebecca wanted to arrest him, but that also meant she'd have to keep him alive. And she needed his help, no question; she was too inexperienced to be out here by herself.
So who died and appointed you her personal savior? When are you gonna get it? You 're not one ofthe good guys anymore, remember?
Running still wasn't out of the question, but he no longer felt so sure of his chances. If he'd needed more proof that the woods were hazardous, the notebook he'd found, the pocket journal of the man who'd attacked him, was more than enough. He pulled it out, flipping to the last few entries, the ones that had caught his eye.
July 14th. We heard today about the Arklay lab . . . and we 're being sent in to check it out next week. Some ofthe others are worried about the conditions, about what might be left, but like the boss says, someone's got to take the first look. Might as well be us...
The writer went on to talk about his girlfriend, who'd be angry that he was leaving town. Billy skipped ahead, skimming the pages for what he'd read before.
July 16th . . . There s still so much we don. 't know about responses to the T-virus. Depending on the species and environment, only minute doses of T bring about remarkable changes in size, aggressive behavior, and brain development. . . in animals, anyway Nothing's immune. But until the effects can be better controlled, the company's playing with fire.
Billy turned a page.
July 19th. The day is finally approaching. . . I'm more anxious than I thought I'd be. The Raccoon City newspapers and TV stations have been reporting bizarre murders in the suburbs. It can't be the virus. Can it? If it is . . . No. I can't think ofthat now. I have to concentrate on the investigation, make sure it goes smoothly.
Changes in size, aggressive behavior, brain development. Like, say, in a dog? And that bit about “in animals, anyway.” What did this T-virus to do humans? Billy was willing to bet he'd already seen the results.
“Turns 'em into zombies,” he muttered. Or as good as zombies, anyway. The one he'd shot had definitely been looking for lunch. What was it that cannibals called humans? Long pig, that was it. That walking mess had wanted some long pig, no question.
Woods full of cannibals and monsters . . . he'd take his chances with the girl. She'd held her own so far, had killed at least three of those passengers and had managed to hang on to her sanity. He'd stay with her until they got out of this—and then he'd work out an escape before the rest of her team moved in, assuming there was any of her team left—
A girl, the girl screamed from overhead, a sound of pure terror. Billy grabbed his weapon and bolted up the stairs, two at a time, hoping he hadn't waited too long to make up his mind.
At the top of the stairs was a slight curve, then a door. Rebecca opened it slowly, carefully, with the muzzle of the handgun, and stepped inside.
A thin, acrid haze of smoke greeted her, and the low flicker of fire, making shadows dance on the walls. It was a dining car, like Billy had said, and had once been beautiful, the tables covered in fine linen, the windows draped with cream-colored curtains. Now it was trashed, plates and broken glass everywhere, tables overturned, the linens soaked with spilled wine and blood . .. And near the back, a lone figure sat hunched over a table, the hem of the tablecloth burning, the flames licking upward.
Rebecca saw a small oil lamp smashed in front of the table, the cause of the fire. The fire was still small, but it might not be for long.
The man at the table was very still—and as Rebecca walked closer, she saw that he wasn't like the passengers below, wasn't infected by what Billy had suggested was the T-virus. He was an older, distinguished- looking man in a brown suit, his white hair slicked back, his head bent over his chest as though he'd nodded off during dinner.
Heart attack? Or had he passed out? It didn't seem likely that he'd broken a second-story window and climbed inside, but as far as she could tell, there was no one else in the room, no one else who could have made those heavy footsteps they'd heard.
Rebecca cleared her throat as she moved toward him. “Excuse me,” she said, stopping next to the table, noticing that his face and hands were wet, gleaming slightly in the firelight. “Sir?”
No response—but he was breathing; she could see his chest moving. She leaned in, put her hand on his shoulder. “Sir?”
He started to raise his head, turning his face toward her—and there was a sick, wet sound, like lips smacking over something slimy, and the man's head slid from his torso and toppled to the floor.
The wet sound got louder, the decapitated body starting to shake, to bubble with movement, as though filled with living things. Rebecca stumbled backward, letting out a scream as the man's body slid apart like badly stacked blocks, great pieces of it falling to the floor. When the pieces hit, they disintegrated, the cloth of the suit changing color, turning black, becoming many things, each the size of a fist.
Slugs they're like slugs—
Slugs with rows of tiny teeth, not slugs at all but leeches, fat and round and somehow able to mimic a man, even the man's clothes . . . Not possible, this can't be happening!
She stumbled back farther, sick with terror as the individual creatures came together once more, melding into one another, the mass of abnormal, bloated things growing into a glistening tower of darkness. They reformed, took shape and color—and again became the old man she'd seen sitting at the table. She stared in shock, in disbelief. Even knowing that he was made up of hundreds, perhaps thousands of the disgusting things, she couldn't see the spaces between them, wouldn't have known that it wasn't a man except that she'd seen it form for herself. The shade of the suit, the shape and color of the body— the only clue that it wasn't a man was the strangely shining quality of its skin and clothes.
It cocked its left arm back as though about to pitch a baseball, and then snapped it forward.
Thearm elongated, stretched impossibly. Rebecca was at least five meters away, but the glistening wet hand swatted at the air only centimeters from her face. She tripped over her own feet in her hurry to get away, falling to the floor as the arm snapped back into place—then cocked backward, ready to strike again.
Gun, stupid, shoot!
She jerked the weapon up and fired, the first two shots going wild, the third and fourth disappearing into the thing's lurching body. She could see the not-flesh ripple when the bullets hit, the suit and the body beneath it undulating slightly, as though she were seeing it through heat waves off of asphalt on a summer day. The creature barely hesitated before whipping its arm toward her once more. She dodged, but the hand made contact, slapping against her left cheek. She screamed again, more from the feel of the hand than the strength of the blow—it was cold and slimy and rough, like sharkskin dipped in pond scum—and before it withdrew, it slapped at her again, this time knocking the nine-millimeter from her hand. The weapon skittered across the floor, ending up beneath one of the tables. The old man-creature took another oddly lurching step, was now close enough that its next blow likely
