second year lit major, she liked dancing and motorcycles and a
good latte on a rainy day. She wanted Chris, and she wanted to go home… and since neither of those seemed likely at the moment, she decided she'd settle for a good, solid nervous breakdown, complete with screams and floor-pounding hysterics. It was almost tempting, but that would have to wait, too. She sighed inwardly. Alfred had gone upstairs, so she thought she'd better check out that other door she'd passed back near the bridge, see if she could find something for Rodrigo there. At least things probably won't get any worse, she thought dismally, feeling a strange sense of deja vu as she opened the front door. It felt so much like Raccoon City … but that had been a serious catastrophe, rather than an isolated disaster.
Big, fat difference. All of it bites.
Claire had no way of knowing that compared to what lay ahead, things hadn't even started to get bad.
FIVE
The alleged dock wasn't really a dock at all, much to Steve's disappointment, and there wasn't a boat in sight. He'd expected a long pier with pilings and seagulls, all that shit, and a half dozen ships to choose from, each of them stocked with full pantries and soft beds. Instead, he'd found a tiny, grungy platform that sat over an unpleasantly gray lagoonish area, protected from the ocean by a ridge of jagged rock that he could barely make out in the dark. There was a pulpit kind of thing with a ship's steering wheel stuck on it at the edge of the platform, probably some dumbass 'monument to the sea' or whatever, a decrepit table with some trash on it, and a ratty, moldy old life jacket heaped in a corner, the once bright orange stained to a murky mustard color. Nothing bigger than a canoe was ever going to dock at this particular pier; in a word, lame.
Great. So how did all those people get off the island, backstroke? And if there's an air strip, where the hell is it?
Bad enough that now he had to find another escape, he'd also told Claire that he'd meet her here. He couldn't just take off, but he didn't want to stand around waiting, either.
You could still ditch her.
Steve scowled, irritably kicking at a rusted-out hunk of random machinery. Maybe she was a little nosy, a little naive … but she'd saved his ass, no question, and her wanting to go back to help some wounded Umbrella hand just because he'd set her free that was … well, it was nice, it was a nice thing to do. Leaving her behind
didn't seem right. Not sure what to do next, he walked over to the mounted steering wheel (wasn't there some kind of sailor name for it, one of those port-starboard-ahoy words? He didn't know.) and gave it a spin, surprised at how smoothly it turned considering how crappy the rest of the 'dock' was… … and with a low mechanical hum, the platform beneath his feet abruptly detached from the rest and slid out over the water, as giant bubbles started to break the water's surface in front of him. Christ! Steve held on to the wheel with one hand, pointed one of the gold Lugers at the rising bubbles with the other. If it was one of Umbrella's creatures, it was about to be breathing hot lead… … and a small submarine rose up out of the water like a dark, metal fish, the hatch conveniently popping open directly in front of his feet. A runged ladder led down into the sub, which appeared to be empty. Unlike the worn-out surroundings, the little sub looked sturdy and well-maintained. Steve stared at it, astounded. What was this shit? It was like some theme park ride, so weird that he wasn't sure what to think.
Is it any weirder than anything else I've dealt with today?
Point taken. The map he'd looked at back at the mansion had been vague, just a couple of arrows and the words dock and airstrip … and apparently you had to take a submarine ride to get there. Umbrella was one messed up company. He stepped down onto the top rung and then hesitated, his skin still red from the last unknown he'd stepped into. He didn't want to drown any more than he'd wanted to get baked alive.
Ah, screw it, won't know 'til you try.
Again, point taken. Steve climbed down the ladder, and when he stepped off, he triggered a pressure plate in the floor of the sub. Above him, the hatch closed. He quickly stepped on it again, and the hatch reopened. It was good to know he wouldn't suffocate, at least. The interior of the submarine was very plain, maybe as big as a large bathroom, bisected by the narrow ladder. There was a small padded bench on one side, the rear of the sub, and a simple control console in front. 'Let's see what we got here,' Steve muttered, stepping up to the controls. They were ridiculously simple, a single lever with two settings the handle was currently next to the upper setting, marked 'main.' The lower setting was marked 'transport,' and Steve grinned, amazed that it could be this easy. Talk about user-friendly.
He tapped the pressure plate again, sealing the hatch, wondering if Claire would be impressed by his discovery as he pulled the lever down. He heard a soft metallic fhunk and then the submarine was moving, descending. There was a single porthole, but it was too dark to see anything besides a few rising bubbles. The anticlimactic ride was over in about ten seconds. The sub seemed to stop moving, and he heard a sharper metallic sound coming from the hatch, like it was brushing against something definitely not an underwater sound. Onward and upward. The hatch opened as he started to climb the ladder, gun firmly in hand … and he stepped out onto a metal platform walled in glass or plexi, surrounded by black water on either side. There were a few steps leading down to a well-lit hallway, where only the left-hand wall was made out of water. Yees. It was like the displays at some aquariums, where you could go through an underwater tunnel, look at the fish. He'd never liked those things, finding it way too easy to imagine the glass breaking just as a shark decided to cruise by … or something worse. Enough of that. Steve stepped down into the hall and followed it around two bends, deliberately staring straight ahead. It was the first time since the attack on the island that he'd felt really nervous not so much claustrophobia as a kind of primal fear, that something would come flashing out of the dark water toward the glass, an animal or something else a pale hand, perhaps, or maybe a dead, white face pressing against the window, smiling at him… He couldn't help it. He broke into a run, and when the corridor met a door that apparently led away from the water room, he called himself pussy but was vastly relieved, anyway. He pushed the door open and saw two, three… … four zombies in all, and all of them suddenly quite eager for his company. Each of them turned and began to limp or stagger toward him, the rags of their clothing Umbrella uniforms, no question hanging from their outstretched arms. There was a smell like dead fish. 'Unnnh,' one of them moaned, and the others chimed in, the wails strangely gentle in a way, kind of sad and lost-sounding. Considering what Umbrella had put him through, he didn't feel a whole lot of sympathy. None, in fact. The room was half-split by a wall, the three zombies on the left unable to see the lone ranger on the right … though maybe they could, he thought, peering closer. Each of the trio had eyes that seemed to glow, a strange dark red. They reminded him of a movie he'd
seen once, about a man with super X-ray vision, who saw all kinds of shit. Guess we'll never know what they see. Steve took aim at the nearest, closed one eye, and bam, right through the ol' frontal lobe, a clean hole appearing in its graygreen forehead like magic. The creature's red eyes seemed to fade and go out as it dropped, first to its knees, then flat down on its face, sploosh. Gross. The zombie's comrades took no notice, kept coming. The lone ranger's progress had been stopped by a desk; he continued to walk anyway, apparently not noticing that he wasn't going anywhere. Steve took out the next in line same as the first, a one shot kill, but for some reason, he didn't feel all that great about it. Shooting them down like that. It hadn't bothered him before, back at the prison then it had felt good, powerful even; he'd been stuck in that hellhole for long enough to be pretty righteously pissed, and having some control again had been like Christmas, like a great, big, Christmas present that some little kid had been waiting for all year, like he used to wait… Shut up. Steve didn't want to think about it, it was bullshit. So he didn't feel like clapping every time he wasted another one of them, so what? All it meant was that he was getting bored. He hurriedly shot the last two, the shots seeming louder than before, practically deafening. A quick look around for anything useful if paper clips and dirty old coffee mugs were useful, he was sitting pretty and he was ready to move on. There were two doors on the back wall, one on either side of the room; he picked left on general principles. He'd read somewhere that when given a choice, most people picked right. After checking his ammo, he walked past a big, empty fish tank that dominated the left side of the room and cautiously pushed the door open, taking in as much as he could in a single glance. Dark, cavernous, smells of salt water and oil, nothing moving. He stepped inside, sweeping with the Luger… … and laughed out loud, a rash of pure joy washing through his system as his laugh echoed back at him. It was a seaplane hangar, and there was one big-ass seaplane sitting right in front of him. Big to him, anyway, he'd mostly flown in a little twin-engine private plane. Thoroughly pleased, Steve walked toward the plane, which sat just below the mesh platform under his feet. He was an inexperienced pilot, but figured
