Apocalypse - Keith R. A. DeCandido [75]
“Their mistake.”
Unlike last time, Jill now had evidence.
They couldn’t brush this under the rug.
“Yo, can we be gone?” L.J. said.
Jill looked over at L.J. She wondered how this asshole had managed to survive when Peyton hadn’t. L.J. was a cockroach.
But then, cockroaches had a way of surviving, too.
“Yeah, we need to get going. Besides, there’s a lot of dead people who need someone to speak for them. Peyton. Angie’s dad. Captain Henderson. Morales.”
“Yuri,” Carlos said quietly. “Nicholai. J.P. Jack. Sam. Jessica.”
“Rashonda,” L.J. added. “Dwayne.”
“And Alice. And even Nemesis.”
Angie spoke up then. “Alice isn’t dead.”
Jill and L.J. whirled on her, perched on Carlos’s shoulders. “What?”
“Alice isn’t dead.”
“Honey,” Jill said, “she was stabbed in the chest. I don’t think—”
“I know what you think,” Angie said emphatically, “but I know she’s not dead.”
Jill felt a shiver go up her spine. Partly at the notion that Alice had been so fucked with by Umbrella that even death couldn’t stop her.
Partly because, if she was alive, she was still in the wreck of the C89.
Which meant Umbrella was going to find her.
Thirty-Three
“…unconfirmed reports of disaster at Raccoon City…”
“…These shocking images just in of diseased people walking the streets…”
“…a mysterious plague or viral outbreak seems to have run rampant…”
“…In an echo of the SARS outbreak in Central Asia and Canada, there appears to have been some kind of disease spreading throughout the city…”
“…implicating the Umbrella Corporation in the death of innocent citizens as they attempted to escape the confines of the city over the Ravens’ Gate Bridge. It is unknown at this time why Umbrella, rather than government authorities, was handling the screening of personnel, and why they would open fire on people. Some are questioning why Umbrella even has an armed security force, while others feel that such questions are less relevant in light of subsequent events…”
“…tape apparently the work of former Raccoon 7 anchorwoman Terri Morales, who was moved to their meteorological department in recent months. The footage tells a grisly tale…”
“…new evidence which discredits earlier reports as nothing more than a sick joke…”
“…the fake videotape is now totally discredited. The woman responsible for filming the footage, Terri Morales, was removed from her anchor position at Raccoon 7 when she aired false footage of a city councilman, and it appears that this tendency of hers has continued…”
“…nothing more than an elaborate hoax, playing on the very real tragedy which overwhelmed Raccoon City earlier this week…”
“…the reactor of the nuclear power station went critical in the early hours…”
“…making this the worst atomic energy disaster since the Chernobyl incident in 1986…”
“…Umbrella Corporation personnel actually on hand to lend humanitarian assistance in the face of the overwhelming human tragedy, despite the fact that the corporation itself suffered huge losses. Umbrella’s primary corporate headquarters in Raccoon City were lost, as were almost a thousand employees…”
“…governor has personally extended his thanks to the Umbrella Corporation for their swift actions in aiding the FBI, the National Guard, and the Centers for Disease Control…”
“…this station would like to apologize for the distress that may have been caused by the earlier hoax reports of a viral outbreak…”
“…according to a spokesperson for the Umbrella Corporation, Terri Morales was within Raccoon City when the accident occurred, but the perpetrators of the hoax, Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera, are now being sought for questioning by the FBI. Valentine is a former Raccoon City Police Department officer—in fact, she was part of the elite Special Tactics and Rescue Squad, or S.T.A.R.S., before she was suspended. The details of the suspension are not known, but a source with the Umbrella Corporation has indicated that it had to do with a similar hoax perpetration. As for Olivera, he is a former Umbrella employee who was let go shortly before the accident, and was