Zero Hour (resident evil)

by Стефани Данелл Перри Неизвестный Автор

  Oh, no.

  The first car had been bad, but here, there were people. Three, four—five that she could see from where she stood, and all of them obviously dead, faces ravaged by unknown claws, bodies drenched in dark wetness. A few were slumped in seats, as if they'd been brutally murdered where they'd been sitting. The smell of death was a palpable thing, like copper and feces, like rotting fruit on a hot day.

  The door automatically closed behind her and she started, her heart beating fast, faintly aware that she was way out of her league, she needed to call for help—and then she heard the whispering, and realized that she wasn't alone.

  She aimed her weapon at the empty aisle ahead, not sure where it was coming from, her heartbeat going double-time.

  “Identify yourself!” she said, her voice firmer and more authoritative than she expected. The whispering continued, choking and distant, strangely muted in the otherwise silent car, like she imagined a crazed killer might sound, sitting and whispering to himself after a murder spree.

  She was about to repeat herself when she saw the source of the whispering, halfway up the aisle on the floor. It was a tiny transistor radio, apparently tuned to an AM news station. She walked toward it, dazed by a sudden rush of relief; she was alone, after all.

  She stopped in front of the radio, lowering her semi-automatic. There was a body in the window seat to her left, and after an initial glance, she avoided looking at it; the man's throat had been slashed, and his eyes had rolled back into his head. His gray face and tattered clothes were shining with viscous-looking fluids, making him look like a zombie from a bad horror movie.

  She bent and picked the radio up, smirking at herself in spite of the fear that still coursed through her. Her “crazed killef’ was a woman delivering a news report. The reception was bad, the tiny unit hissing static at every other sentence.

  Okay, so she was an idiot. In any case, it was time to call Enrico, and Rebecca turned, thinking she'd get better reception if she stepped back outside, and the movement that came from the window seat was so slow and subtle that for a moment, she thought it was just the rain she was seeing. Then the movement groaned, a deep, low sound of misery, and she understood that it wasn't the rain at all.

  The corpse had risen from his seat, and was moving toward her. His misshapen head lolled back and to the side, cruelly exposing the mauled flesh of his throat, and the moaning grew deeper, more yearning, as he stretched his arms in front of him, his ruined face dripping blood and slime.

  She dropped the radio and took one stumbling step back, horrified. She'd been wrong, he wasn't dead, but he was obviously out of his mind with pain. She had to help him. Not much in the medkit, there's morphine, though, gotta get him to lay down, oh, God, what happened here—

  The man shuffled closer, reaching for her, his eyesockets filled with white, black drool spilling from his torn mouth—and in spite of what she knew was her duty, to do something to relieve his suffering, she reflexively took another step back. Duty was one thing, her instincts were telling her to run, to get away, that he meant to do her harm.

  She turned, not sure what to do—and there were two more people standing in the aisle behind her, both as slack-faced and damaged as the white-eyed man, both moving toward her with the steady, staggering movements of horror movie monsters. The man in front wore a uniform, he was some kind of train attendant, his face gaunt, skull-like, and gray. Behind him, a man whose face had been partly torn away, revealing too many teeth on the right side of his mouth.

  Rebecca shook her head, raising her weapon. Some kind of disease, a chemical spill, or something. They were sick, they had to be sick—except she knew better even as the three men moved closer, raising bony gray fingers, moaning with hunger. Maybe they were sick, but they were also about to attack her. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name.

  Shoot! Do it!

  “Stop!” she shouted, turning back to the white-eyed man, he was closer, too close, and if he was aware that she was pointing a handgun at him, he gave no sign. “I'll shoot!”

  “Aaaahh,” the monster rasped, grasping for her, baring dark teeth, and Rebecca fired.

  Two, three shots, the rounds tearing into the discolored flesh, the first two hitting his chest, the third blowing a hole just above his right eye. With the third shot, the creature let out a mindless squeal, a sound of frustration rather than pain, and fell to the floor.

  She spun again, praying that the sound of shots had stopped the other two, and saw that they were almost upon her, their eyes glazed, their moans eager. Her first shot hit the uniformed man in the throat, and as he reeled back, she aimed for the second man's leg. Maybe I can just wound him, get him down—

  The uniformed man started forward again, his throat gurgling blood.

  “God,” she said, her voice small with shock, but they were still coming, she didn't have time to wonder, to think. She raised her aim and fired two, three more times, all head shots. Blood and flesh sprayed, torn. The two men went down.

  Sudden silence, stillness, and Rebecca's wide gaze searched the car, her body thrumming with adrenaline. There were two, three more “corpses,” but none of them moved.

  What just happened? I thought they were dead.

  They w'ere dead. They were zombies. No, there was no such thing. Rebecca checked to be sure there was another round in the chamber, doing it automatically as she struggled to understand. They weren't zombies, not like in the movies. If they'd truly been dead, the shots wouldn't have made them bleed like that; blood didn't pump if the heart wasn't beating.

  But they only went down after the head shots. True. But that could still mean some sort of disease, maybe something that blocked pain receptors ...

  The forest murders. Rebecca felt her eyes widen even more, putting the pieces together. If there had been some kind of chemical spill or sickness, it might have affected any number of people up here in the woods, making them attack others. There'd been recent reports of wild, feral dogs, too—was it

  possible that the sickness was trans-species? Some of the victims had been partially eaten, bites made by human and animal jaws on at least two of the bodies.

  She heard a soft movement, and stopped breathing. Back by the door she'd come through, a seated corpse seemed to slump lower in its seat. She watched it for what seemed an eternity, but it didn't move again, the only sound that of the rain outside. Corpse, or victim of some tragic circumstance? She didn't want to find out.

  Rebecca backed away, stepping over the man with white eyes, now very much dead, deciding she'd try the door at the front of the car. She had to get off the train, tell the others what she'd found. Her head spun with what needed to happen next—the community would have to be alerted, a quarantine set up, right away. The federal government should get involved, too, the CDC or USAMRID or maybe the EPA, an agency with the power to close everything down, figure out what had happened. It would be a huge undertaking, but she could really contribute, really make a—

  The corpse at the back of the car shifted again, its head settling against its chest, and all thoughts of saving Raccoon fled from her shocked mind. Rebecca turned and ran to the connecting door, sick with fear. All she wanted was out.

  It didn't take too long to find a weapon, and as luck would have it, Billy was intimately familiar with the standard-issue MP handgun he found in a duffel bag stuffed under a seat. It was the same kind that his escort had carried. There was a spare clip and a half box of 9x19mm parabellum rounds, too, as well as a flip-top lighter, another handy device to have around; one never knew when fire might be necessary.

  He loaded up, stuffing the clip into his belt and the extra rounds into his front pockets, wishing he had his fatigues on instead of civvies. Blue jeans weren't the best for carrying shit around. He started to look for a jacket, then decided against it; even with the rain it was a warm night, and slogging around in wet denim would be bad enough. The small pockets would have to do.

  He stood at the do
or that led back into the woods, weapon in hand, telling himself that he needed to get gone—and yet not leaving. He hadn't heard anything from the S.T.A.R.S. kid since those seven shots. Only a few minutes had passed; if the kid was in trouble, it wasn't too late for him to step in and—

  Are you crazy? his brain shouted at him. Go! Run, you idiot!

  Right, of course. He had to leave. But he couldn't get the ring of those shots out of his head, and he'd spent too long as one of the good guys to turn his back on one of them, if they needed help.

  Besides, if the kid was dead, that would mean an extra weapon.

  “Yeah, that's it,” he mumbled, perfectly aware that he was searching for a more criminal-minded reason to justify his decision. There was no help for it; he had to go look.

  With an internal groan, Billy turned away from the door, from freedom, moving instead to the front of the car. He stepped through the first door, hesitating a beat in the connecting joint before grasping the handle to the second, into the next car. The only sound was the rain outside, working its way into a real storm. As quietly as he could, he slid the second door open and stepped through.

  The unmistakable smell hit him first. His jaw tightened as he surveyed the car, counting heads.

  Three in the aisle. Two up ahead on the right, and one directly to his left, slumped down in a seat. All of them dead.

  Billy frowned, realizing that any one of the corpses around him could have passed for the dork who'd stepped in front of the jeep, causing the crash. He'd only caught a glimpse of the guy, but remembered thinking that he'd looked sick. Maybe one of these people—but no, they'd been dead for days.

  So what was the kid shooting at?

  Billy moved closer to the nearest corpse, squatting next to it, taking in the wounds with a trained eye as he breathed shallowly through his mouth. The guy had been dead for awhile; part of his right cheek was missing, making him appear to grin widely up at Billy, and the edges of the torn tissue were rotting, black with decay. And yet there were one, two bullet holes in his brow, and a pool of very fresh blood surrounded his head and upper body like a red shadow. Billy touched the pool with the side of his hand, his frown deepening. It was warm. The next closest body, a train attendant, looked pretty much the same, only one of the wounds was in his throat. He was no Einstein, but he wasn't entirely incapable of logic, either. The fresh blood could only mean that these people just looked dead. And the fact that they were now full of holes suggested that they'd tried to attack the lone S.T.A.R.S. member.

  Which means I'd better be damned careful, he thought, rising to his feet. He looked back at the body in the seat now behind him, his gaze narrowing. Had the man moved, or was it a trick of the light? Either way, he'd just as soon be somewhere else.

  He hurried up the aisle, stepping over corpses, trying to watch all of them at once and cursing his need to find the S.T.A.R.S. kid. If only he didn't have a goddamned conscience, he'd be long gone by now.

  He slipped through the two doors, weapon ready as he entered the next car. It wasn't a passenger car, wasn't as nicely decorated; from the entrance, he could only see a short corridor that turned up ahead, and two closed doors to his right, a few windows opposite. He considered checking the rooms, aware that it would be the smartest move—turning your back to an unsecured area was a bad call—but he was starting to think that his conscience could go screw. He didn't want to secure the entire train, he just wanted to see that the kid was okay and then get the hell out. And ifsaid kid doesn't show up in the next couple of minutes, I'm deboarding anyhow. This sucks.

  “Sucks” wasn't the word, it didn't begin to describe the low terror he felt in his gut—but he'd seen fear cripple the strongest men, and knew better than to dwell on thoughts of monsters and darkness. Better to laugh it off as a bad dream and get on with things.

  He edged down the corridor, moving silently, sliding along the wall as the hall jagged right and then continued on, past an open door with a spill of cardboard boxes blocking the entrance. Storage room, probably. There were no bodies, at least, but a smell of rot hung in the air. The few unbroken windows he passed reflected a pale shadow of himself, only blackness and rain outside. He noted with dismay that some of the glass from the shattered panes was inside the car, scattered across the dark wood floor . . . Which suggested that someone had been trying to get in, not out. Creepy.

  It looked like the corridor jagged left again up ahead, just past another closed door labeled conductor's office. He had to be near the front by now—

  —and he saw a second pale shadow up ahead, reflected in a window, directly past the turn. He stopped, held very still, watched as the figure crouched down, his or her back to the corridor, oblivious to any threat from behind. If it was the S.T.A.R.S., he or she needed more training.

  Billy took the last few steps and raised his weapon, moving in behind the crouched figure. He knew he should avoid a confrontation—the kid was obviously fine and dandy, and he had other places to be—but he also wanted to know what was happening, and this might be his only chance for information.

  The S.T.A.R.S. member turned, saw Billy, and slowly, slowly stood up, facing him.

  “Kid“ isn't far off the mark, he thought, staring down into the wide, innocent eyes of a teenager, a girl. God, were they hiring out of high schools these days? She was small, at least a half foot shorter than he, and pretty—reddish-brown hair, slim, muscular build, even, delicate features. If she weighed more than a hundred pounds, he would have been surprised.

  She'd been crouching in front of a dead man, his savaged body slouched in the corner next to the car's exit, and if she was surprised to see him, she hid it well.

  “Billy,” she said, her young voice clear and melodic, her words making him grit his teeth. “Lieutenant Coen.”

  Shit. Someone had found the jeep, after all.

  He kept the gun raised, aimed directly at her right eye, playing it cool. “So. You seem to know me. Been fantasizing about me, have you?”

  “You were the prisoner being transferred for execution,” she said, her voice taking on a hard edge. “You were with those soldiers outside.”

  She thinks I did it, that I killed them, he thought. It was written all over her pixie face. He realized then that she probably didn't know a thing about what was going on, if she hadn't connected the walking-corpse-guys to what had happened to the jeep. And he saw no reason to disillusion her. She was trying to look tough, but he could see that he intimidated her. He could use it to get out of this.

  “Uh-huh, I see,” he said. “You're with S.T.A.R.S.... Well, no offense, honey, but your kind doesn't seem to want me around. So I'm afraid our little chat time is over.”

  He lowered his gun, then turned and walked away, his gait easy and unhurried—as though he wasn't the slightest bit concerned by her presence. He was counting on her obvious inexperience and fear of him to keep her from acting. It was a calculated risk, but he thought it would pay off.

  He tucked his weapon into his belt at the small of his back and was halfway back down the corridor when he heard her jogging to catch up. Shit shit.

  “Wait! You're under arrest!” she said firmly.

  He turned to face her, and saw that she hadn't even unholstered her weapon. She was doing her damnedest to look fierce, but she couldn't pull it off. If the situation had been less serious, any less bizarre, he would have smiled.

  “No thanks, dollface. I've already worn the handcuffs,” he said, holding up his left hand and jangling the hanging cuff. He turned and started away again.

  “I could shoot, you know!” she called after him, but now there was an edge of desperation to her voice; he kept walking. She didn't follow, and a few seconds later, he was back through the first connecting door.

  He opened the door to the car of dead passengers wearing a shaky grin, relieved. It was better this way, every man for himself, and all that—

  —and he saw that the dead man who'd been slumped in his seat at the ba
ck was now standing, swaying, his one remaining eye fixed on Billy's position. With a moan of hunger, the creature shambled forward, reaching out with shredded lingers as though to feel his way to where Billy stood.

  Three

  Rebecca watched as Billy stalked out of the train car, feeling impotent and very young. He didn't even look back, as though she wasn't worth worrying about.

  And apparently I'm not, she thought, her shoulders sagging. She hadn't expected him to be so— well, scary. Big, muscular, with dark steely eyes and an intricate tribal tattoo covering his entire right arm, both arms bared by a thin cotton undershirt. He looked tough, and after her terrifying run-in with the walking near-dead, she hadn't been up to the task of taking him into custody.

  Not to mention, he got the drop on you. She'd found a lone corpse at the front of the car, one of the train workers, and had seen what looked like a key grasped in one cold hand. Since the only other door out of the car was locked, she'd had to try for it—it was that, or go back through the passenger car. She'd been so involved in trying to retrieve the key without snapping the stiff fingers that she hadn't heard the convict approach, not until it was too late. Now, as she walked back to the front of the car, she saw that the locked door used a card reader, anyway. Great. So far, she was doing just great.

  She turned and reached for her radio, ready to admit defeat. If she could get the team in fast enough, they'd handle Billy. More important, she wouldn't be alone with the knowledge that some kind of plague had hit Raccoon. It was funny, that nabbing a convicted killer was suddenly lower on the list of priorities...

  Bam! Bam!

  Before she'd even touched the transmitter button, she heard two rounds fired in the next car, the direction Billy had gone. She hesitated, not sure what to do—and in that instant, a window exploded behind her.

  She spun, shards of glass flying, and saw a human figure falling to the floor.

  “Edward!”

  The mechanic didn't respond. Rebecca rushed to her teammate's side, quickly assessing his condition.