Belize

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Chapter Fifteen

The commander of the UBCF team, a man named Heinrich, had a special security card that allowed him to override the elevator’s control panel. There was no way all of them could fit in the elevator, so he and five soldiers went down first and he told the remaining four soldiers to take Rebecca, Billy, and Antonio down with them once the elevator came back up.

They tried to argue – Antonio, most of all – but the commander would not change his mind. He said he had to stick to protocol and follow the orders he was given. No one was to leave the facility until the threat had been handled. The fact that Antonio had already been away from the lab for more than an hour was deemed irrelevant. They practically had to handcuff Antonio and drag him into the elevator kicking and screaming.

Rebecca and Billy resisted at first, but they could see it was hopeless. They couldn’t possibly try to fight the soldiers. The only thing fighting would accomplish would be getting assaulted and handcuffed and forced to get into the elevator anyway. Rebecca honestly didn’t think the soldiers would shoot them if they disobeyed orders, but she couldn’t be sure.

In a strange way, she could understand their point of view, especially considering what had taken place in Raccoon City. Umbrella’s number one priority was to make sure that no trace of the infection ever left the lab. She understood that, she agreed with it, it made perfect sense to her, and yet she hated them for it. The soldiers were actually taking three uninfected people who were perfectly safe and out of danger, and taking them back where the infection was still loose.

She sensed that Billy understood their point of view as well. He had been a soldier once, and he knew the desire to follow orders and maintain a clear chain of command in situations like this. But he stared daggers at the UBCF soldiers the entire time, and always placed himself in between Rebecca and the soldiers, as if he was prepared to use himself as a human shield if they opened fire. Under different circumstances, Rebecca would have found that incredibly brave and even romantic. But at the moment, she was afraid for him and hoped he didn’t do anything to antagonize them.

When the elevator returned, the soldiers herded the three of them inside and then got in with them. One of them hit the button for the lab and the doors began to close.

“This is insane,” Antonio protested weakly for the hundredth time. “This is insane, I can’t believe you’re taking us back down there. Aren’t you here to protect us?”

One of the soldiers looked at him. “No, we’re not. We’re here to fix your mistakes.”

“Quiet,” another soldier said. “You civilians just keep behind us and stay out of our way. If we have to start shooting, keep your heads down.”

They’ll have to start shooting, Rebecca thought. She hoped they brought enough bullets.

The elevator doors opened and immediately the soldiers in front of them sucked in their breath and tensed up. Looking in between them, Rebecca caught glimpses of red smeared on white walls. Then she could smell it, a familiar scent to a nurse and probably to the soldiers as well. It was the smell of blood and death. Antonio moaned pathetically and cowered in the corner.

The elevator was at the end of a short hallway. About twenty feet ahead of them, the hallway split to the left and right. After a moment’s hesitation, the soldiers stalked out of the elevator and made their way forward, their guns raised and ready to open fire. Their teammates were already up ahead where the hallway branched off. One of the soldiers waved demandingly at Rebecca and the others to come out.

Antonio shook his head and refused, but Billy grabbed his arm and hauled him out. When he tried to whimper in protest, Rebecca hissed at him to be quiet.

The once pristine white hallway was now splashed with blood and gore, but less than Rebecca had expected. Calmly, she studied the scene before them. A few bloody hand prints smeared the walls. The floor had a few pools of sticky, drying blood. Some of the pools of blood faded into bloody footprints going back down the hall. Rebecca could far-too-easily imagine what had happened here. She’d seen it before. Innocent people struggling on the ground against their attackers, and then getting up and walking away long after they had died.

She looked back at Antonio, who was still whimpering to himself and refusing to look at the bloody scene. The realization of what Antonio had done struck her. He’d taken the elevator by himself, leaving his coworkers behind.

She shook her head and turned away from him in disgust. Then she noticed one of the UBCF soldiers looking at her. Maybe he was expecting her to scream or freak out, or even vomit or faint. The last thing he probably expected was for her to simply look around and accept it without comment. But she had seen far worse than this. After what she had been through in the Arklay Mountains, a few zombies was barely a blip on her radar.

“Oh God,” Antonio moaned once he saw the blood.

The soldier flicked his head sideways. “Come on.”

They silently crept down the hall, careful not to step in any blood, although it was hard not to. Heinrich and the rest of the UBCF team stood at the end of the hall. Three of his men faced to the right, and two faced left. He made a quick hand signal for the others to split up.

Rebecca got close enough to peek down the connecting hall. To the right, the hallway split in another T intersection about forty feet down, and to the left, the hallway turned left again about the same distance away. The wall had blue letters A and B pointing right, and C and D going left, which she guessed indicated the separate labs within the complex. She remembered the other lab – the one hidden in the Arklay Mountains – had arrows on the walls pointing to places like Sigma or Gamma Lab. Apparently, Umbrella didn’t use the same organization system in all their facilities.

This lab was older though, she could tell. The slight discoloration of the floor tiles, the faint smudges on the corners from people brushing against the wall over years and years, told her this place was not a recent facility. This lab had been here for years, maybe decades.

Everyone stood still, just listening. The Umbrella soldiers stole nervous glances at each other, waiting for Heinrich to issue an order. The lab had a faint mechanical sound underneath the silence, the hum of air ventilation systems and buzz of the overhead lights. Rebecca realized she was holding her breath, and let it out in a slow exhale.

Heinrich finally nodded at his men and gestured for his men to proceed. The two soldiers facing left walked down the hall and reached the corner where it turned left again. They glanced back and signaled that it was okay. The other three soldiers went to the right, walking shoulder to shoulder so each man had a free field of fire in front of them, and made it to the next intersection.

Immediately, two of them flinched and backed away. The third soldier’s face paled, but he said in a steady voice, “Sir. We have hosts, sir. Second-stage hosts.”

“How many,” Heinrich said.

“Two, sir! Two!”

Heinrich’s face contorted into an unpleasant grimace. “Confirm,” he said.

The soldier called out, “Stop right there! Stay where you are!”

They backpedaled cautiously as two figures came from around the corner. One man and one woman, dressed in lab coats, now half-coated in a sheen of blood. Half of the woman’s face was gone. The man’s throat had been chewed away.

“No way,” one of the soldiers said, his voice quavering unsteadily. “They’re dead, sir.”

“Confirm!” Heinrich repeated.

“Stop or I will open fire! Do not take another step!”

Rebecca spoke up, loud enough for the men to hear her. “It’s too late, can’t you see that? They’re dead already.”

Heinrich turned and looked at her, and then nodded grimly. In that moment, Rebecca gained respect for the man. Even when it was obvious that these people were infected, when they had already come back to life as zombies, he did not want to shoot them until he was absolutely certain that there was no alternative.

He turned back to his men. “Open fire.”

The hallway erupted in a brief spurt of gunfire as the soldiers took down the zombies with shots to the head and chest. Antonio cowered against the wall, his hands tightly clapped over his ears, but Rebecca and Billy simply watched, feeling helpless and miserable.

They had killed more than their share of zombies. Rebecca didn’t even remember how many they had encountered during the outbreak, but she still remembered the very first one she had been forced to kill. On the train, moments after she first discovered the mutilated bodies of the doomed passengers, she killed a zombie in a brown suit.

These Umbrella soldiers were experiencing the same thing she had felt at that time. A sense of terror, and an overwhelming sense of guilt. She never forgot that these creatures used to be living human beings with lives and families and hopes and dreams. She only felt the slightest bit of relief knowing that she had never encountered the zombie of someone she knew. Her S.T.A.R.S. teammate Chris Redfield had been forced to shoot one of their other fellow officers, a man named Forest Speyer. Rebecca, at least, had been spared that terrible experience.

A scream from behind her jolted her back into the present and she spun around just as one of the soldiers down at the other end of the hall opened fire at something around the corner. His gun was on full auto and he squeezed the trigger, rattling off a deafening barrage of bullets.

“Report!” Heinrich shouted, hurrying forward. “Lucas! Report!”

Something flew out of the hall, something almost the size of a man, and slammed into the Umbrella soldier with bone-breaking force and smashed him into the wall. Four huge serrated claws impaled him through the chest and blood gushed from his mouth as his scream died on his lips. The creature hissed and leaped at them.

Heinrich braced himself and opened fire along with two of his men. The others could not get a clean shot with them in the way. The entire hallway flashed with the flickering bursts from their guns like a frantic strobe light. Rebecca crouched down as if the weight of their gunfire pushed her like a physical force. She put her hands over her ears and watched in stunned disbelief as the creature in the hall flipped over backwards and scrambled away as bullets tore into his segmented body. It was like a mutated cross between a spider and a carpenter ant, but it was four feet long and a sickly green-orange color.

After what seemed like ten minutes of sustained gunfire, the creature finally fell to the ground and spasmed one last time, translucent slime dripping from its insectoid body.

“Jesus Christ,” one of the solders gasped. “What is that thing?”

Rebecca looked at Antonio, who cowered with his face in his hands. “It’s one of their experiments,” she said, knowing he could hear her.

“It killed … It killed Lucas ...” one soldier muttered.

Another spoke up. “What if there are there more of those things? It took like a hundred rounds to bring it down.”

And another. “Sir? We have to get out of here, sir.”

Heinrich lowered his gun and mechanically ejected the magazine to replace it with a fresh one. “We are not leaving. Our orders are to search this facility, find any survivors, eliminate any infected hosts, and quarantine the facility until reinforcements can arrive to begin decontamination.” He slapped the new magazine into place and looked at the other soldiers. “Is that understood?”

No one argued with him.

Rebecca stood back up and met his gaze. “And what about us? Do you expect us to be able to fight one of those things if they come back?”

“We’ll protect you,” Heinrich said.

Deep down, Rebecca knew that he was being sincere. He intended to protect them. But it was a promise he couldn’t possibly keep.

“God,” Antonio groaned. “We’re all going to die down here ...”

One of the soldiers pointed his gun at Antonio for just a moment before pulling it away. “Shut that asshole up or I’m going to.”

“Let’s go,” Heinrich snapped. “This way. If you encounter anyone, confirm infection before you open fire. If you see another one of these things,” he added, kicking one of the insect creature’s legs, “Do not wait for confirmation. Shoot on sight.”

Heinrich went in front with most of his soldiers close behind. Rebecca, Billy, and Antonio went after them with two more soldiers bringing up the rear. They stopped briefly at the dead body of the soldier named Lucas, and Heinrich took a moment to close his eyes and take out the identification tags on a chain around his neck, just like the dog tags the military used.

“Come on,” he ordered.

As they made their way deeper into the lab, one of the Umbrella soldiers behind Rebecca said to her, “Hey, you said something about experiments? What were you talking about?” It was the same soldier who had pointed his gun at Antonio.

“Umbrella does experiments on animals with their viruses,” Rebecca said in a low voice, not looking at him. “They infect them and turn them into monsters like that.”

“How do you know anything about that? You said you don’t even work here.”

“I saw the outbreak in America. I saw the things that happened there, the things that the news doesn’t talk about.”

“You kidding me? You were there?”

Rebecca was going to reply, but she stopped when Heinrich suddenly halted the team. Two more zombies emerged from a nearby room. One of them was a woman scientist and the other was dressed like a security guard. The soldiers confirmed the people were infected before shooting them. After a moment, the group continued down the hall.

Antonio was sobbing to himself. “Linda … That woman’s name was Linda ...”

The soldier looked back to make sure no zombies or anything else were coming up behind them. He shrugged to the other soldier and shook his head. “Man, this is a mistake. You think there’s any living people down here, with monsters like that running around?”

Rebecca tried to ignore them, and focused on what was in front of her. She and Billy held hands fiercely, comforted by each others’ presence. They didn’t speak because there was nothing for them to say. They just had to hope that the soldiers really could protect them if they ran into more mutated creatures.

The hallway ahead ended in a pair of double doors, which the soldiers carefully pushed open with the barrels of their guns so they could peer inside. Heinrich urged them forward and everyone made their way into the room beyond. It was a large circular room like a central hub, with doors on four sides going in all directions. There were lines of computer consoles and monitors, many of which were still on, showing digital images of cellular compounds or lines of code or a dozen other things Rebecca couldn’t understand. The room had microscopes and other chemical equipment along the wall or at one of the many work stations.

It also held two zombies, lurching towards them with outstretched arms. The soldiers once again called out to the zombies in a futile attempt to communicate, and then gunned them down with accurate shots to the head.

Heinrich lowered his gun for a moment and then handed it to one of the other soldiers. Rebecca watched as he pulled up one of his sleeves to reveal a small computer strapped to his arm. She couldn’t see the screen clearly, but it appeared to show a layout of the lab.

He covered it up again and took his gun. “Let’s keep going. The central lab area is that way. We can find the security office and check their cameras to look for –”

Suddenly, they all heard a scratching noise coming from one of the adjacent hallways, and the soldiers instinctively raised their weapons. It was the rapid scraping sound of claws on tile. Rebecca couldn’t help but be reminded once more of her experience in the Arklay Forest, when she and Chris Redfield had heard a frightening sound ahead of them and drawn their guns in response, only to find themselves against a huge monster like a skinned tiger. But this time, she knew what they were about to go up against.

“We have to go,” she said urgently, grabbing the Umbrella soldier’s arm. “There’s nowhere to hide in this room –”

The doors smashed open with a shuddering bang, and two hideous green-orange blurs flew into the room, bolting across the floor on six clawed legs.

The soldiers opened up with their guns even as Heinrich yelled to open fire. The entire room exploded in a hail of bullets as the creatures leaped around with incredible speed, from the floor to the ceiling and off the walls.

Billy pulled her away and they ran for it as screams erupted behind them. But one of the monstrous insects flashed across the other set of doors, leaping into the crowd of soldiers shooting in all directions, and both Billy and Rebecca had to hit the floor. The walls burst apart with bullet holes, the computer monitors exploded in sparks and bits of broken glass, some of the overhead lights were shot out. It was like being in the middle of a war zone. The roar of gunfire went on forever, and when Rebecca dared look up, she saw at least three soldiers down on the ground in pools of spreading blood. Both of the insect creatures were still in the room, leaping back and forth, slashing at the soldiers and jumping away as bullets tore into their disfigured hides. All the while, the creatures let out a terrifying rattling screech that felt like someone scraping a knife against her spine.

“Go! Go!” Heinrich screamed.

The soldiers backed up as a group, keeping up their gunfire, trying in vain to take down the huge leaping insects. Rebecca and Billy got up and tried to hurry over to the soldiers.

One of the insects suddenly leaped into the middle of the crowd of soldiers and slammed its claws right into one of them. The man’s gun clattered from his hands and the insect howled victoriously, hurling the body sideways so it smashed limply into the row of computers. The others scattered, shooting wildly.

Billy and Rebecca made their way to the nearest doorway, trying to keep their heads down. A plaintive wail came from behind them.

“Please don’t leave me!” Antonio sobbed as he crawled on his hands and knees.

“Come on!” Billy shouted.

The soldiers grouped together once more, but only two of them were still shooting. The others were frantically trying to reload their guns. Heinrich ordered them to retreat back into the next hallway and they backed up, some of them still shooting to keep the creatures at bay.

It was no use. Rebecca screamed as one of them leaped up onto the ceiling and clawed its way across like a spider before dropping back down. It slashed its claws and Antonio screamed, falling forward. Billy reached out and grabbed his hand and pulled him to the doors as he thrashed and squirmed in pain.

The creature barreled into the soldiers, knocking one of them down. Heinrich once more ordered them to retreat and they hurried backwards. One of the men was fumbling at his waist for something. Billy pulled Antonio through the doorway, his body leaving a bloody streak on the floor.

The other creature flew at the soldiers from the other side and this time, Heinrich cried out and fell to his knees. One of the soldiers grabbed him by the collar and hauled him backwards as the other continued firing.

They finally reached the doorway and Rebecca scrambled backwards. Heinrich’s hands were clamped over his stomach and he gasped an order to one of the men. A soldier waved Rebecca and the others back and they all retreated down the hall as the last two soldiers sprayed the doorway with bullets.

The other soldier pulled out three grenades attached together with webbing. Rebecca heard Billy swear, and he grabbed her and covered her with his body as the soldier hurled the grenades through the bullet-riddled doorway. With an incredible explosion that rattled Rebecca’s teeth, the entire room and connecting hallway burst into a wave of debris and thick black smoke. The doorway collapsed like a mine shaft caving in, and all of them were pelted with bits of plaster and tile as the cloud of debris rolled down the hall.

In the haunted silence that followed, Rebecca rolled onto her side and touched Billy’s face as he hung over her. She looked into his eyes and touched his arm.

“Are you … are you okay?” he said, too loudly. Like her, his ears were ringing, nearly deafened by the blast.

“I think so,” she said. “I think so.”

To her right, the soldiers were getting to their feet, or trying to. Billy looked up and crawled past her, to where he had dropped Antonio. Rebecca got up onto her knees and looked back at the remains of the doorway, which was now completely blocked off with broken beams and a huge chunk of ceiling.

“Rebecca,” Billy said.

She turned and went over to Antonio. He was slouched against the wall, his hands over his stomach, which was red with blood. More blood was on the floor from when Billy had dragged him. A trickle of blood came from the side of his mouth as he looked up at them.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Sorry ...”

“Don’t be sorry,” Rebecca said. She didn’t dare touch his hands, which were slick with blood, but she crawled next to him and cradled his head against her chest. Billy could only kneel beside them and put his hand on Antonio’s shoulder. “This isn’t your fault. They shouldn’t have brought us down here.”

“I let them die ...” he said softly. “My … my friends. I left them down here.”

“Don’t blame yourself.”

“I hope … I hope you can save …” Antonio breathed. “Can save them ...”

And then he was gone.

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