Mother Russia

Chapter Ten

“All right,” Arkady said, gripping the steering wheel tightly, keeping his eyes focused on the busy street in front of them. “What’s going on? Who are you?”

“Who I am doesn’t matter,” Ada said. She sat sideways in the passenger seat, one hand on the dashboard and the pistol in her other hand, but she made sure to point it away from Arkady. “What you need to do right now is tell me about the viral research you’re doing at Umbrella.”

“Wh – what?” Arkady stuttered. “What are you …?”

“The waiter!” Ada shouted. “The waiter at the restaurant! He was infected, Arkady! How did he get infected with one of your viruses?”

“No,” Arkady said, shaking his head. “No, that’s impossible. I don’t … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you’re doing viral research,” Ada said forcefully. “I know all about the Progenitor. And that waiter was infected! You saw him!”

“He wasn’t … he wasn’t … I don’t believe this ...”

“How did he get infected, Arkady?”

“It’s not possible!” Arkady said, looking at her with terrified eyes, his voice pinched and fragile, like he was about to have a nervous breakdown. “We haven’t even started working with the viruses yet! We’ve barely begun documenting them!”

“Then one of them must have gotten loose!” Ada snapped. “The man having a heart attack was infected too! How could two people already be infected?”

“How do you know about this?” Arkady asked frantically. “The viruses, how can you know about them? How can you know what … what they do?”

“I was in Raccoon City,” Ada said, and this time she did point her pistol back at him. “Trust me, I know exactly what those viruses can do. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Now you’re going to tell me exactly what you’ve done!”

“Nothing! We haven’t done anything yet! We only received the shipment a week ago!”

Ada was about to ask another question when Arkady suddenly slammed on the brakes. The cars in front of them all stopped as well, their bright red brake lights glowing like rows of demonic eyes. Ada glanced ahead of the line of cars and saw a crowd of people standing in the middle of the intersection. Police lights flashed farther down the street.

“I’m telling you we just got the delivery last week,” Arkady said, trying to remain calm and failing miserably. “We’ve barely begun to organize the samples. There is no way that any of the samples could have infected anyone!”

“Did you work with the samples today?”

“What? No, not today. I was in meetings.”

“Then who was?”

“There’s only two other scientists allowed in the department.”

“Then one of them got infected,” Ada said. “Somehow he infected other people too.”

“I’m telling you it’s not possible!”

“There were two infected people at that restaurant,” Ada reminded him. “Who knows how many more people in this city have been exposed. You have to call Umbrella right now and tell them there’s a Level One outbreak!”

“That’s crazy!” Arkady insisted defiantly. “There’s got to be some other explanation for this!”

“There is no other explanation,” Ada said in disgust. “I know what I saw back there.”

She looked down the street again in frustration, her anger threatening to boil over. It wasn’t fair! This mission was supposed to be easy! She decided that she must have done something terribly wrong in a past life to get caught up in two different outbreaks in one year on different sides of the planet.

The light ahead was green, but the cars in front of them weren’t moving. There was still a crowd of people standing in the intersection, clustering in groups. On the corner was a large building lit up with neon lights, and more people were pouring out of the building like a huge crowd. Some of them were running.

“What in the hell’s going on?” Ada hissed.

“I don’t … I don’t know ...” Arkady said pathetically. He let go of the steering wheel with one hand, but the hand shook so bad that he immediately clamped it back on to steady it.

Ada opened the door and took one step out of the car. Around her, other cars were hoking their horns and people were shouting in Russian. One brave driver drove his car onto the sidewalk and turned right at the intersection as the crowd of people shouted and yelled.

Ada looked at the crowd more closely. They were all young people, dressed for a party. Young women were crying and holding onto their boyfriends. Half the people in the crowd seemed to be talking excitedly into their phones.

“What is that place?” Ada asked Arkady, pointing at the building. “That building, what is it?”

Arkady shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know … Some kind of bar or club or something ...”

A woman screamed. Suddenly the crowd seemed to move as one huge organism, sliding away from the building as more and more screams erupted, and then it broke apart as people began moving off and running in every direction. Police sirens were closer now, and Ada spotted at least three police cars stopped about half a block down, their lights flashing.

“A nightclub,” Ada said to herself. “Oh, shit ...”

And then she saw it. Something burst through the nightclub’s door and leaped out into the lot, a creature that looked like it might have been a human except that it was as red as the devil, and not just because it was absolutely slathered in blood. Immediately a chorus of screams rose up from the remains of the crowd, and then complete pandemonium broke loose. Everyone was running for their lives, pushing and shoving to get away, and some got knocked to the ground and trampled as the screaming mob tried to escape. In the midst of the screams, Ada heard a hideous growl that sent chills up her spine, and then the creature dove into the retreating party-goers like a cheetah running down a herd of wounded gazelles. Even from a distance, Ada saw splashes of blood.

“We have to get out of here.”

Arkady looked utterly lost. “What?”

She hurried around to the other side and ordered Arkady to open his door. He hesitated until Ada pointed her gun at him again. “Now! We have to go!”

He obeyed her with a whimper and she dragged him from the vehicle. “I can’t just leave my car here!” he complained.

“Look!” Ada shouted at him, pointing. “Goddamn it! Look!”

Arkady followed her gaze and his face went white. “Oh my God,” he gasped.

“Come on!” She grabbed his arm and took off, darting in between the other cars as their drivers also began to realize something was going on. Behind them, more screams erupted. Then Ada heard the familiar pop of gunshots. Someone was shooting at it.

“My God,” Arkady moaned. “What is going on? How could this be happening?”

“It’s happening because Umbrella experiments with viruses that turn people into monsters!” Ada yelled at him. They ran down the sidewalk and across the front lawn of a line of businesses, all of which were closed.

“Where are we going?” Arkady asked.

“Anywhere away from here,” Ada said. There was no way they were going to make it to Arkady’s house, it was too far. It was possible they might be able to get to Ada’s rented apartment, but even that was a few kilometers away.

She swore to herself and pushed Arkady away. She took her purse, shook out its few contents, and tossed it away. Inside was a small black cellphone.

“I should have done this in the first damn place,” she muttered, pressing a button to auto-dial and putting the phone to her ear.

Arkady stared at her. “Who … who are you calling?”

She waved him to silence as the phone clicked and someone picked up.

“Ada. How nice of you to call. It’s late.”

“There’s a Level One outbreak here!” she shouted, her voice verging on hysteria. “One of the viruses is loose! You have to send someone to get me the hell out of here!”

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