Escape From Raccoon City

Chapter Six

Ada Wong had no idea where she was headed, but she kept going anyway, since she had little choice in the matter. She hurried down the long, dimly-lit underground corridor, hoping that she was still following the other survivors, glancing over her shoulder regularly. She dared not slow down now, and could only hope that she found a staircase or a ladder that would take her to the surface.

She was loaded for bear, carrying a shotgun, two pistols, and a grenade launcher. In addition to her weapons, she also carried some other supplies she picked up in a storage room. A small oil lantern, a long coil of rope, and a heavy industrial razor knife. The rope and her grenade launcher thumped rhythmically against her shoulder as she ran down the hall.

For more than an hour now, she’d been traveling through dark hallways, musty corridors, and long-abandoned sewer tunnels. She kept a steady pace, but so far had not caught up with the other survivor, whatever his name was. She didn’t really want to catch up to him, if she had to be honest, since she already abandoned him once before and he might have taken it personally. He wasn’t alone, either, since Ada clearly saw the tracks of at least three people in the thick dust in some of the rooms she passed through. So the survivor must have found others as well.

Ada knew she had a decision to make. She wanted to avoid meeting up with other survivors, but at this point, she wondered if that was the best course of action. If she did happen to catch up with the others, she intended to stay with them. Maybe one of them knew a way out of the city, or knew of a safe place where they could find help. If things went from worse to worst, she could always ditch them and go off on her own.

But finding other survivors was a secondary concern just now. Just as Ada slowed her pace a little bit to catch her breath, she heard another inhuman scream coming from far behind her. The bestial cry echoed endlessly along the hallways, so Ada couldn’t be entirely sure exactly how far away it was. But she started running again just the same, desperate to stay far ahead of the monster that was following her.

She first heard it not long after she came down into the sewers, and had been running from it ever since. She hadn’t seen it, but by the terrible sounds it made, she knew it was the same creature that attacked her back at the police station. A grenade didn’t kill it the first time, and Ada didn’t want to try a second.

Up ahead, it looked like the corridor opened up into a larger area, and she quickened her pace, hoping maybe she’d found a way out. But before she reached the end of the long hallway, something emerged from around the corner and scurried toward her.

It was an enormous spider, as large as a person. It was black and green, and it ran forward on eight huge legs, its front mandibles clicking loudly, as if it was smacking its lips in hunger. Ada froze at first, unable to believe what she was seeing, and then she quickly raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger.

The spider shuddered and fell to the side, a huge chunk of its thorax blasting off, spurting green ooze. Its legs twitched in death throes before its body slumped to the dirty floor. And immediately afterward, three more huge spiders emerged from the end of the hallway. They bolted forward, legs moving in a blur, and Ada stepped backwards as she racked another shell into the gun.

She raised it to her shoulder and fired three times, shooting each of them. But two of the spiders kept coming and she fired again, blasting their chitinous hides, splattering the walls of the corridor with more thick green blood. The dead spiders slumped on the ground like huge puppets, clear venom dripping from their mandibles.

Carefully, Ada walked past the bodies and to the end of the hall, which ended in a wide open, square pit that reached down as far as she could see. Large open pipes poured water and untreated sewage into the bottomless pit, and the walls were coated with mildew and grime that seemed to glow in the soft blue light that filtered down from above. Ada looked directly upward and couldn’t see the top of the pit either, just a hazy blue light far above. She knew it was night time outside, so the source of the light was a mystery to her, since it certainly wasn’t daylight.

The only way to cross the abyss was by way of a rotten old wooden staircase that was attached to the walls, but Ada looked in despair as she saw that part of the staircase was gone, collapsed into the pit, leaving a twenty-foot gap between two separate sections.

Half a dozen more spiders were scattered across the section of wooden stairs directly in front of her, their bodies cracked open and full of holes. Someone had already been here, not very long ago, since the spiders still looked pretty fresh. It must have been the other survivors, and judging by the carnage they left behind them, they were as capable of taking care of themselves as Ada was.

She looked at the missing section of stairs. The whole thing seemed rotten and weak, so maybe it collapsed on its own. Or maybe they destroyed it for some reason. Probably to keep the spiders from coming after them, she guessed.

Of course, now she needed another way to get across. She took the dusty rope off her shoulder and tried to think of the best way to get to the other side.

Suddenly, there was another loud scream of rage, and she spun around to look down the long hallway. But this time, she saw something there.

“Oh, shit,” she whispered.

The creature was down at the other end, and it was coming. Its huge uneven body loped down the cramped corridor, scraping the walls with its massive shoulders. The remaining shreds of clothing hung on its twisted body like scraps of flesh, and its monstrous face bellowed a roar of hatred as it came after her.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” she muttered frantically, grasping for the end of the rope and quickly tying a loop on one end, her hands shaking.

She threw the looped end across the chasm, trying to catch the wooden railing on the far section. The rope missed the mark and she desperately pulled the rope back in, glancing over her shoulder to see that the monster had traversed half the length of the hall, picking up speed. The top of its head smacked across the light bulbs in the ceiling, breaking them one by one, casting the section of the hall behind it in darkness. It growled animalistically and surged forward.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Ada screamed, hurling the rope once again.

The loop slid across the wall and missed again, and she was forced to pull the rope back once more. She swung back and hurled the rope one final time. The looped end caught on the very edge of the railing, and Ada pulled forward, tightening the loop like a lasso.

She closed her eyes and leaped off the edge of the precipice.

As she swung across the pit, her body turned in mid-air and she slid down the rope, feeling it burn her hands. She opened her eyes in time to see the creature emerge from the hall and grab for her. It all happened in slow motion, her hair whipping past her face, her hands straining for a grip on the rope, her shotgun falling end over end into the darkness below.

The creature bellowed furiously as its huge, misshapen arm slashed through the air, missing Ada’s legs by inches. Its momentum coming out of the hallway pushed it over the end of the wooden platform, and it tipped over the edge, screaming in vain. It flailed its arms and snatched at Ada’s body as it fell past her. It thrashed madly as it hurtled down to the bottom of the pit. Its inhuman scream of rage echoed deafeningly up the huge chamber and then its body disappeared into the darkness like a penny dropped into a wishing well.

Ada’s body slammed hard into the wall on the other side and she slipped down the rope, almost losing her grip. The rope cut deeper into her hands and she cried out in pain, dangling at the end of the rope like a worm on a hook.

She couldn’t get a foothold on the wall because it was coated in slime, and her feet just kept slipping. She locked her hands on the rope and hung there for a moment, trying to catch her breath. Her shoulder and hip stung in pain from slamming into the wall and her hands stung terribly from rope burn.

After a few seconds, Ada pulled herself up. She climbed the rope an inch at a time, her arms burning with the strain. Back in another lifetime, Ada had climbed ropes like this during her extensive training, but she was sorely out of practice. But those times, letting go meant a short fall to the floor. This time, letting go of the rope meant death. So she gritted her teeth and fought for every inch upward. Once she got high enough that the rope hung below her legs, she swung it around her thighs to grip it, letting some of the pressure off her arms.

It took her fifteen minutes of nerve-wracking effort to make it to the top of the rope, and by then, she was at the very edge of her endurance, her arms trembling with weakness, her hands dripping with blood.

She pulled herself onto the stairs and curled up on the floor, gasping for breath. She risked a look at her hands and saw bloody gashes right across both of her palms. She sat up, cradling her hands, and then got to her feet, walking very slowly forward.

She barely noticed the spider until it was almost too late. She stumbled backward, pulling out one of her pistols, wincing in pain because her arms hurt so bad. The spider scurried forward and Ada pulled the trigger as fast as she could, pouring bullets into the gigantic arachnid’s head and face. The spider squealed and ran forward, but it flopped onto the floor and its legs twitched, green blood pooling out underneath its riddled head.

Panting for breath, Ada stood motionless as two more spiders came into view. She let out a whimpering sigh and drew her other pistol. She took careful aim and opened fire, her guns blazing, the sound of the gunfire pounding in her ears.

The two spiders fell dead only a few yards away from her, their heads a pulpy green mass. Ada lowered her arms and leaned over wearily, her arms weak and limp as wet noodles. One of the pistols was empty, so she discarded it, keeping the other in her hand.

She walked down the hall, knowing that she only had a few shots left. If another spider, or something even worse, attacked her, then she would not be able to defend herself. But there were no more spiders. The hallway split off to the left and right, and Ada looked in each direction, wondering which way the other survivors had gone. They must have made it past the spiders somehow. Ada saw a door at the end of the hall on the right, so she went for it.

The door handle was shot off, but Ada had to push hard on the door to open it because it was blocked with a metal shelf. She went inside and lit her lantern because there were no lights, and discovered a roughly-carved tunnel leading out of the room.

For a moment she considered going back the other way. She wanted to investigate the hallway to the left, but it was clear that the other survivors had gone to the right, so Ada decided to continue after them.

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