The Arklay Outbreak

Chapter Forty-Eight

Rebecca carefully climbed down through the gaping hole in the floor and dropped down to the pile of rubble below. Billy caught her when she landed and to keep her from losing her balance and hurting herself. She stared out across the gulf of bodies before them, but did not get sick or look away in horror, as Billy thought she might. She took in the scene, as if forcing herself to remember it later, when and if they made it out alive.

“How many do you think there are?” she asked softly.

Billy leaned on the railing. “Hundreds. At least two, maybe three hundred.”

“How many places like this are on the map?”

“Three on this level. I haven’t checked the rest of map.”

“If there are two hundred here, that would be six hundred altogether.”

“So it would.”

Six hundred corpses, Billy thought. Six hundred people killed in some twisted experiment in that lab and just dumped in one of these enormous pits to rot. The bodies looked like they had been partially burned or treated with a corrosive substance, but they were still recognizable as human corpses. On some, nothing but bones and the rotted remains of their clothing was left, but most still possessed decayed flesh, mottled gray or green. Billy tried to just look at the bodies in a general manner and not study any individual corpse too closely, but he could not help but notice that some of them looked much more intact that he would have expected if this place had been abandoned for as long as the labs. Some of them looked very recent indeed.

After seeing the mansion and the labs underneath the astronomy tower, Billy assumed that the entire place was deserted. But what if there were other labs? Other areas that they hadn’t seen yet? Billy could not imagine experiments such as these going on unnoticed for so long, but what other explanation was there?

“How could this happen?” Rebecca asked. “Raccoon City isn’t a huge place, there’s no way this many people could go missing without someone getting suspicious.”

“Maybe they aren’t all from here.”

“They have to be. How else would they be here? Is Umbrella shipping people here for the scientists to do experiments on?”

Billy had no answer, so he just shrugged. Science labs usually tested on animals, and those animals would have to be shipped in, so why not human subjects as well? It would have to be more covert, but it could be done with the right bribes here and there. If Umbrella was doing this kind of work, they would be willing to spend as much money as possible to keep it secret. Billy wondered how many people had been paid to turn a blind eye to what was happening here.

“If people found out about this ...” Rebecca said to herself.

“It would be the biggest scandal in the history of the country,” Billy finished for her. “Umbrella would be finished. Not just here, but around the world. The entire corporation would be brought down in a controversy like this. It would shock the entire world.”

“Not just Umbrella,” Rebecca added. “Every company like them would suffer too. People would think that if Umbrella could do this, then other companies might do it too. It would give all of medical research a black eye.”

“Medical research? Is that what you’d call this?”

“What else could it be?”

“For all we know, these people were killed by some new chemical weapon made for the military. Who knows what Umbrella was researching here.”

Rebecca nodded. “I suppose that’s possible.”

Billy touched her arm. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

They went out the closest door, anxious to get away from the disposal pit. As soon as they were in the hallway, Billy felt better. Although the sight of all those corpses was no more terrifying or disgusting than the sight of the zombies back on the train, he knew that if anything could give him nightmares for the rest of his life, it was the images of the disposal area. It was like looking right into the very worst sickness and depravity of the human soul.

He checked the map to see where they were and how to get out. The whole plan had to be reworked. They could not get across to the other side of the disposal pit because of the pile of rubble from the collapsed floor, and the only way up from their current location was an elevator halfway across the map. They started walking, neither one in the mood for conversation.

Billy tried to put things together in his head. If they made it out alive, what would they do next? They had to expose this atrocity to the world, but how could they go about doing it? The fact remained that Billy was a convicted killer and the guards driving him to prison were dead. He doubted his version of events would be trusted by anyone.

Rebecca was a cop though, and she would vouch for him. He knew she would. She was willing to believe the truth about him. But even if she did back him up, it might not be enough.

If they escaped, maybe it would be better for him to just disappear. Rebecca would report back to her police station and tell them everything, and then they could take care of it from there. They wouldn’t need Billy by that point. And with all the death surrounding this place, who would really worry about one convicted killer? Even if there was no body, who would expend energy looking for him?

They came to an intersection in the hallway and Billy had to consult the map. They kept going straight, and then turned right at the next intersection. The elevator was at the end of the hallway, just like the map said it would be. Billy thanked God that they had an accurate map. Without it, they would be hopelessly lost.

Rebecca hesitated at the elevator door and glanced at Billy. He shrugged and pressed the elevator button. And to their surprise, they heard a thump and loud hum as the elevator activated, bringing it to their floor.

“This facility is still in use,” Rebecca said. “It must be if these elevators are still functional. Do you think we might run into the people who work here?”

“I hope not. If they find us trespassing, they might decide to add us to their ranks of experiment volunteers. We might find ourselves in one of those pits.”

The elevator doors opened with a musical ding that was completely out of place in a factory like this. Billy checked the map to see which floor to get off at, but Rebecca just pressed the top button on the panel. The doors closed and the elevator jerked upwards, momentarily making both of them nauseous.

Billy closed his eyes and sighed. If the elevator hadn’t been operational, they would have had problems. According to the map, the elevator went up four levels. Billy had not eaten since lunch the day before, and his body felt it. He wondered if he could climb up an elevator cable for four floors. How far would that be? Forty feet at a minimum? That would be quite a climb. And even if he was somehow able to manage it, could Rebecca?

He turned his head to say something to her when the elevator dinged again and the doors opened. Before the words even came out of his mouth, Rebecca screamed and waved her metal club defensively at the zombie stumbling into the elevator with them.

Billy held his crowbar up horizontally and pushed against the zombie’s chest as it grabbed at him. Its undead fingers reached around his neck and tried to pull him toward its gaping mouth. Like the zombies on the train, this one was ravaged and bloody. Its pale skin was torn and chewed up, its eyes pure white, and its mouth opening and closing reflexively as it tried to take a bite out of Billy’s neck. It wore dark blue clothing that somehow looked familiar, but Billy was too concerned with fighting it off to recognize what it wore.

Rebecca struck it in the back with her metal club frantically, and then switched to slashing at it with the sharp end, hacking at the zombie’s back like an explorer chopping up undergrowth with a machete. But nothing she did seemed to matter. The zombie pushed Billy back, grinding him into the wall until Billy lost his footing and staggered to his knees, the zombie moaning hungrily above him.

Rebecca screamed and struck the zombie over the head with the club, but it pushed Billy down until he was flat on the floor and the only thing keeping the zombie from mauling him was the crowbar that Billy managed to hold onto to push the zombie back.

Billy kicked with his legs, but he knew that it would do no good. He struggled and managed to turn his body sideways, so the zombie was no longer on top of him and instead was beside him on the ground, still desperately trying to pull Billy toward it. Rebecca stood above the zombie and stuck the sharp end of the metal club down right into the zombie’s head as if she was planting a flag. Billy pushed it away as blood and gray matter poured from the gory wound. The zombie twitched once and went still, blood dripping from its mouth and nose.

Billy pushed it away with the crowbar and sat up, breathing and gasping heavily. Rebecca immediately knelt down beside him, nervously checking him for injuries. He had none, and shook his head in an attempt to tell her not to worry, but she ran her hands across his arms and neck to make sure there were no bites or scratches.

“I guess we don’t have to worry about the people that work here,” Billy chuckled. It was a poor excuse for a joke and he knew it, but he needed to laugh at something or else he would freak out. “They have more important things to worry about.”

“I’m the one that’s worried,” Rebecca said. “I didn’t think about it before, but if some disease turned these people into zombies, then maybe they passed it on to us.”

Billy stopped laughing. He never even thought of that, when it should have been common sense to think a disease like that might spread. What if it was an airborne virus?

“We might already both be infected,” he said.

Rebecca paused, and then shook it off. “If we were infected, it would have shown itself by now, right? We were on the train what, twelve hours ago? The people on the train didn’t take that long to turn into zombies. If we were infected, we’d have turned already.”

“I don’t know. The people on the train were killed. Maybe we carry the disease, but it only turns us into zombies after we die.”

Rebecca helped Billy to his feet, shaking her head. “There’s no sense in us worrying about it then, is there? If we’re infected, then we’re already doomed. But if we aren’t, then let’s try to stay that way, all right?”

Billy was about to respond when something caught his eye down the hallway. He walked toward it, looking around as if expecting some kind of trap. Rebecca followed him, unsure what the object was until she was almost standing above it. Billy picked it up and it fit comfortably in his arms.

It was an assault rifle.

Rebecca looked back at the elevator and the dead zombie laying there. “It’s wearing a dark uniform. Like some kind of security guard.”

“I’d say it’s dressed like some kind of commando. Look in the corner, there’s its helmet.”

“No wonder it didn’t react when I hit it in the back. It was wearing body armor.”

Billy turned the gun over in his hands, getting the feel of it. “I kind of noticed that actually, but I was in no position to tell you.”

“Why would there be commandos down here?” Rebecca asked, although the answer was obvious.

“They tried to stop it,” Billy said distractedly, looking down at the gun, as if he was able to discern its purpose simply by touching it. “This gun isn’t government issue, but it isn’t a civilian weapon either. I’ve never seen one quite like it, but I’d be willing to bet it’s European-made. If I had to guess, I’d say these guys are a tactical combat team, privately owned and trained.”

“What do you mean?”

Billy ejected the clip and checked the ammo. Satisfied, he jammed the clip back in and pulled the bolt to rack a bullet into place. He looked at Rebecca. “Mercenaries.”

“Are you saying we’re up against trained soldiers?”

“No, we’re up against zombies.”

“Yeah, the same zombies that killed all the trained soldiers.”

Billy rested the gun against his shoulder, testing its weight and balance. He was getting comfortable with it, Rebecca realized. He would probably waste a few bullets to test its recoil. “Yes, but they didn’t know what they were up against. We do, and that gives us an edge,” he stated

Rebecca looked at him like he was crazy. “Billy, if a group of mercenaries couldn’t defeat the zombies, what chance do we have?”

“What chance have we had since the beginning?” he asked casually. “We’ve survived this long, haven’t we? And we’ve been up against more than just zombies. I mean, we killed the last one with a metal pipe. These guys couldn’t even kill them with assault rifles.”

“I don’t see what –”

“I know how soldiers think,” Billy interrupted. “They’re arrogant and cocky and they think they’re invincible. Trust me on this, I know what I’m talking about. They were sent in here, probably without any warning of what they were up against. But they’re trained mercenaries, and they expected to come in and just wipe out whatever was down here. And that’s when the first zombie showed up.” Billy took a moment to put the gun’s strap over his head and let it hang over his back.

He spoke very matter-of-factly, as if reciting a physics lecture. “These guys were probably trained as special ops. The thing about that kind of training is that its gives you very specific expectations. You’re trained to react in accordance with your enemy, but it divides the enemy into several neat categories. Guerrillas, terrorists, or militia, for example. Certain types of enemies behave certain ways in certain situations. That’s how they train you. That’s how they can come up with scenarios to deal with things like hostage-taking and anti-terrorism.”

Rebecca knew that police training went along similar lines, but it still sounded strange to her to think that way. Gradually, though, she caught on to what Billy was saying. “So they came in here expecting one thing, but the zombies surprised them.”

“Exactly. They probably didn’t even know what they were up against anyway, but as soon as they shot a zombie a dozen times and he came at them anyway, that shattered all their preconceived notions and rendered their training useless. Zombies aren’t terrorists or gang members, and its hard to predict what they’ll do. That’s hard for a soldier who’s trained to accurately predict his enemies actions.”

“You’re a soldier too, Billy. Or you used to be.”

“That’s true, but I didn’t know I was going into a hostile situation. I thought I was going to hitch a ride on a train. By the time I started thinking like a soldier, I had already killed a zombie. These guys didn’t get that chance. They went in relying on their guns and their training and it got them nowhere.”

“They probably tried to retreat or something once they figured it out,” Rebecca said.

Billy nodded. “Once the first guy ran, it was all over. We’ll probably find a few zombies dressed like that.”

“Do you think there might be some left alive?”

“It’s possible. We’ll have to keep an eye out. They might shoot us on sight, cause they’ll think we’re zombies.”

Rebecca could see the irony already. They survive hordes of zombies just to get shot and killed by a soldier right before they leave.

She walked back down toward the elevator to the dead zombie and saw what she had been hoping was there: another gun. Stowed in a holster around the zombie’s calf was a nine-millimeter Beretta. She pulled it out and found a spare clip in its belt.

Thus armed, she returned to Billy and they exchanged a glance before heading around the corner and down the next hall.

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