Belize

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Chapter Eighteen

Serena had crawled around in the strange narrow ceiling ducts for half an hour before she became hopelessly lost. She didn’t even know if she could find her way back to the room she originally started in, not that she wanted to go back there anyway. Her hands, elbows, and knees were all scratched and bloody from the sharp metal edges of the frame that held the ceiling tiles together, and everything was dusty and dirty up there. She shuddered to think about how caked with dirt all of her cuts probably were, but getting an infection was not very high on her list of priorities.

Well, not that kind of infection, anyway.

Not long after she began her desperate crawl across the ceiling to avoid the mutated insect things, she found some kind of maintenance duct and made her way inside it. It was completely dark inside, and the narrow shafts seemed to stretch all over, criss-crossing above the entire lab facility. There were pipes and valves running the length of the ducts, and she banged her head on some of them as she crawled. At first, she assumed they were water pipes, but now she wasn’t sure. They might be some kind of emergency fire extinguisher system, but she didn’t really care what they were at this point, she just wanted to find her way out. She felt like she was crawling through air ducts in some kind of movie, but in the movies there was always enough light for the characters to see what they were doing. Serena was in complete darkness.

She stopped crawling when she heard a rapid thumping noise somewhere nearby. She scooted sideways and tried to tilt her head back down the pitch-black tunnel, trying to listen. The sound might have come from behind her or in front of her, she couldn’t tell. It wasn’t an infected person or one of the monsters, she was sure of that.

As she listened, the noise happened again. It was like a loud banging noise, like someone hammering on a table very quickly. Then again, a few seconds later. She peered into the darkness in front of her. The noise was not behind her, which was good since it would be almost impossible to crawl backwards. She made her way forward until she found herself at another intersection where two shafts crossed each other. She heard the noise again, louder this time, and tried to figure out what it was. It sounded like a popping noise, like firecrackers, or –

It was gunshots! Someone was shooting a gun! Serena shrieked, half in surprise and half in elation, and scrambled down another shaft as fast as she could manage.

“Help!” she shouted, her voice echoing down the shaft. “Help me! I’m trapped up here! Please help me!”

She had no idea where she was going, and when the shooting noise stopped, she couldn’t tell where it had come from. But she was sure it wasn’t one of the security guards shooting a pistol, it was too fast for that. It was some kind of machine gun, and that meant soldiers. Umbrella must have sent soldiers to rescue the people in the lab! And Serena was stuck in the maintenance ducts and couldn’t reach them!

“Help! Help me! I’m up here! I’m up here!” she screamed as loud as she could. She started crying, the tears smearing the dust on her face. “God, please get me out of here!”

She heard a muffled noise somewhere nearby and stopped. After a few tense moments of silence, she cried out again, “I’m stuck in the ceiling! I’m up here! Please help me! Someone help me!”

More thumping nearby, but not gunshots this time. She imagined it was someone hitting the ceiling tiles to knock them loose. She shouted some more and kept crawling, praying that she was going in the right direction.

She heard a faint, “... you hear us ...”

“Yes!” she screamed. “Yes! I can hear you!”

Moments later, there was a clang of metal, unbearably loud in the confined space, and a beam of light pierced the darkness behind her, illuminating the shaft around her.

“I’m here!” she cried, sobbing. “Oh God!”

“Okay, lady,” came a male voice. “I see you, all right? I see you, you’re fine. You’re gonna have to back up, can you do that?”

“Yes, yes,” she said, relief flooding through her. “I thought … I thought I was going to be trapped up here forever!”

“Well, you’re safe … I mean, we found you, at least. We had to pry this door cover off. How the hell did you even get up here?”

She scooted backwards for what felt like fifty feet, but she guessed it was only ten or fifteen. It was awkward and exhausting, and by the time she finally reached the soldier, she was panting for breath, and her legs and arms were aching. Her skirt rode up almost around her hips, but she didn’t even care about that. She blinked against the light and let the soldier take her arms and gently ease her out of the shaft.

“Hold on,” he said suddenly, and then craned his neck to look down. “Hey, you holding that thing steady?”

“We got it, Marco. Just ease yourself down and I’ll grab your foot.”

“I can’t ease myself down, man,” the soldier snapped. “I’m holding her, but as soon as she’s loose, this thing ain’t gonna hold our weight. We’re both gonna fall and break our necks.”

“You’ll be fine. Just take it slow and we’ll help you down.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I can … I can climb out myself,” Serena said. She tried to look at the soldier holding her, but her eyes were still wet with tears that blurred the light from below, and she could barely see anything. “You can get down first if you have to.”

“You sure, lady?”

“Yes, but you’ll have to catch me if I fall.”

“All right,” the soldier said. He called down again, “Everything still safe down there?”

“If it wasn’t,” came the other soldier’s voice, “I think you’d know by now.”

Serena held onto the edge of the shaft cover panel as the soldier roughly lowered himself down. He had come up through the ceiling tiles and wedged himself in place in order to get the cover loose, but it looked like his legs were dangling free beneath him. He grunted and let himself drop, and Serena glimpsed at least two other people grab his legs and get him onto a stool that they’d placed on top of a lab table. Now that she could see somewhat clearly, she saw he was dressed in a green camouflage military uniform with an Umbrella logo on his shoulder.

Once he was safely down, Serena followed after him. She dragged herself clear of the maintenance tunnel and held onto the ceiling frame until she could get her legs underneath her. She nearly lost her balance and placed her hand right on a ceiling tile, which broke loose and fell, nearly taking her with it.

The soldiers stood on the lab table. One of them said, “Just go ahead and let yourself drop. We’ll catch you. It’s going to be okay.”

“Thank you, thank you,” she said. “Okay, here I come.”

She dropped through the opening and the soldiers grabbed her, although it was hardly a graceful landing. The soldier named Marco caught her by the waist, while another grabbed her leg. The third man, who wasn’t dressed in a military uniform like the others, caught her shoulder and their heads clunked together.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said. “Thank you, thank you so much.”

When they finally lowered her to the floor, she found that she couldn’t stand. She was too tired and too worn out. She slumped onto her knees just as another person grabbed her and gently helped her into a sitting position on the floor. It was a woman with reddish hair, and she appeared to be wearing some kind of nurse’s uniform.

“Listen, you’re bleeding,” the woman said. “We don’t have anything to clean your cuts, but we can try to wrap them up.”

“Yes,” Serena said, barely listening. “Yes, okay. Thank you.”

One of the soldiers hopped down from the table and walked over to the door. Serena noticed they were in a basic lab room, but one she didn’t recognize. There were five people in the room with her: three soldiers, the redheaded nurse, and the other man, who looked like he might be a soldier too, even though he was wearing jeans.

One of the soldiers stood in the doorway, looking into the hall with his gun in his hands. One of the other soldiers hopped down from the table and went over to him, peeking into the hallway as well.

“I don’t think we should stay here,” the one in the doorway said.

“We’re not. Soon as she’s ready to go, we’re going.”

Marco stood next to her as the nurse used a rag to wipe dirt from her knees. “Okay, lady,” he said, “It’s a good thing we found you. But the fact is we got ourselves a bit of a problem. We need you to help us out.”

The nurse looked at him. “Can you give her a minute, please? Look at her, she’s practically in shock.”

“We don’t have a minute,” Marco said angrily.

“Give it a rest,” the other soldier said, walking back over to her. “I know we’re short on time, but we’re not that short.”

“Pretty damn short,” Marco said tensely. “How long do we have? Half an hour? Less?”

The other soldier held out a hand. “Just relax. I know. But we found her, and she can lead us out of here. Just let her catch her breath.”

The nurse carefully wiped off as much dirt as she could, but Serena noticed she didn’t wet the rag with water or anything first. She examined Serena’s knees and said, “I wish we had something to disinfect these cuts, but it will have to wait. They don’t look too bad.”

“Can I have something to drink?” Serena asked.

The nurse said, “Um, I’m afraid we don’t have anything to drink right now.”

“What’s going on?” Serena asked. “Why are there so few of you?”

The nurse touched her shoulder. “What’s your name?”

“Serena. My name’s Serena.”

“Okay, Serena. These men are UBCF. Their names are Shen, Marco, and Njabulo, and they’re here to help us. I’m Rebecca, and I work in the hospital.”

“The hospital? You mean …?”

“Yes, I don’t work for Umbrella at all. Can you try to stand up?”

Serena looked at the nurse and then up at the men surrounding her. They all had expectant, nervous expressions. No one said anything. The soldier in the doorway looked over as well, but then quickly returned his gaze to the hallway. Serena felt a surge of panic rising in her chest, and had the horrible feeling that something was incredibly wrong with the whole situation. Her initial relief and thrill at being rescued had given way to exhaustion and numbness, but now that she was finally noticing her surroundings, the fear began to rise once more.

“Yes,” she said in a shaky voice. “Yes, I can get up.”

Rebecca helped her to her feet. To do something with her hands, Serena smoothed the front of her blouse, which had once been white and was now a filthy gray.

“Ma’am,” one of the soldiers said. He was a middle-aged Asian man. Serena knew one of their names was Marco, but she had already forgotten the other names Rebecca told her. “I know you’re scared. I know you’re confused. And I’m sorry, but I have something difficult to tell you. The truth is, we need your help. Our squad has lost several men. One of those men had the map layout of this facility, but the map was destroyed. Right now, we’re trying to find our way back to the elevators to the surface. We need you to take us there. Do you understand?”

Serena just stared at him. “What? You … you mean you don’t know how to get there?”

“That’s correct. We need you to lead us to the elevator.”

“Can’t you ...” she took a few breaths and said, “Can’t you just go back the way you came?”

“No, we can’t. We had to use explosives to fight some creatures that are loose in the facility, and the hallway is now blocked.”

“I can’t … I don’t know how ...” She shook her head and began to feel dizzy.

Rebecca held onto her arm. “Serena? Serena, it’s going to be okay. Just breathe. Just breathe and try to stay calm.”

Marco was suddenly was in front of her. He looked angry, and Serena shied backwards as if he was about to hit her. “Wait a minute,” he said. “What did you just say? You don’t know how? What does that mean?”

“Back off,” Rebecca said. “Give her some room.”

“Shut up,” he said, ignoring her. “What do you mean, you don’t know how? When the hell are you talking about?”

“I’ve only been here a few months,” Serena whimpered, raising her hands defensively. She started to cry again. “I’m still new, I’m only allowed in Blue Lab. I’ve never even been to the other labs. I don’t know where we are. I don’t know, I don’t know ...”

Marco glared at her and spun away in a fury, kicking at a nearby stool. It went flying in to the wall, and Serena shrieked in fear as Rebecca held onto her. She fell into Rebecca’s arms and sobbed uncontrollably, burying her face in Rebecca’s chest.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Rebecca said, stroking her hair. “It’s not your fault. We’re all scared right now, but we’re going to make it out of here. It’s going to be okay.”

“God damn it!” Marco shouted. He smashed a computer monitor with the butt of his gun, shattering the screen.

The Asian soldier yelled at him. “Hey! Cool it!”

“She doesn’t know how to get out of here either!” Marco shouted back, pointing accusingly at her. “We found the one God damn scientist here that can’t help us!”

“Then we’ll find another one! Just calm down, right now!”

Suddenly, the third soldier, the one who had been guarding the door, called out, “Hey! There’s hosts coming down the hall! We have to go!”

The other soldiers instantly raised their guns and hurried to the door. Rebecca grabbed Serena and pulled her along as supportively as possible. The other man in the room, who had stood back and not said anything so far, rushed ahead of them with a pistol in his hands. The soldiers waved him forward and he went into the hall with two of them, as the third soldier held back and let Rebecca and Serena pass in front of him.

“Rebecca, let’s go,” the man in jeans said.

Serena tried not to look, but she couldn’t help herself. She glimpsed over Rebecca’s shoulder and saw the people at the other end of the hall. Their faces were deranged and bloody, and they shuffled their feet and reached out their arms. Serena let out a despairing whimper and felt her legs about to give way.

“No, no,” Rebecca urged. “Stay with me, Serena.”

The man in jeans came forward. “I’ve got her. Let’s go.” He quickly handed his pistol to Rebecca and then bent down to lift Serena off the floor, one arm around her shoulders and the other tucked under her legs, cradling her against his chest. She resisted at first and then just slumped in his arms, as if the stress of the last couple of hours had finally drained all reserves of energy right out of her. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” he said in her ear.

“Come on!” the soldier in charge yelled. “Move it!”

They all hurried down the hallway, running away from the infected scientists coming after them. Serena looked over the man’s shoulder as he carried her away from them. She didn’t know them, didn’t recognize them. They were complete strangers, both in life and in death.

“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered helplessly. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right,” the man said. “You’re doing great.”

“You … you haven’t found any else? There’s no other survivors?”

He nodded, his voice pained. “You’re the only one we found so far.”

“Oh God,” she moaned.

The Asian soldier suddenly shouted “Stop! Back, go back!”

“We can’t go back!” the angry soldier yelled.

They all started yelling and Serena tried to close her eyes as tightly as she could to shut it all away. She heard Rebecca yell, “Billy, keep her safe!”

One of the soldiers started shooting and Serena tried to cover her ears. The man carrying her – Billy, she realized, his name was Billy – backed into a wall and ducked down as the soldiers opened fire. One of them screamed in anger, his voice rising up above the rattle of gunfire. Serena could only wail in despair and pray that they didn’t drop her or leave her behind.

“Please, please, please,” she begged.

“It’s okay,” Billy said. “Just hold on.”

The shooting stopped and the Asian soldier yelled desperately. “Okay, let’s go! Let’s get out of here!”

And then they were running again, running for their lives. Serena could only keep her hands around Billy’s neck and he ran, bouncing in his arms like a rag doll. Her eyes opened up for just a second and she saw more dead bodies on the floor, more infected scientists, more of her coworkers. She couldn’t tell if she recognized them, as their faces were gone, reduced to nothing but ragged bullet holes. She closed her eyes once more and didn’t open them again until they had stopped running and Billy told her she was safe.

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