Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [41]
“That would be the Special Tactics and Rescue Squad?”
Jill nodded.
The door opened, and a young man wheeled in a large black stand on which was a large television and, on the shelf below it, a combination VCR/DVD player, as well as a projector. They were all plugged into a power strip, which the young man plugged into a socket in the wall.
After the young man left, the older man continued: “What happened to Sergeant Wells?”
“He was bitten by an old man who died of a heart attack on the Ravens’ Gate Bridge. After he died, he got up and bit Peyton on the leg. Peyton’s wound wouldn’t clot. It just got worse. Then he was killed by—by gunfire.” She didn’t get into that Nemesis creature that Alice fought—it would shoot them off on an unproductive tangent, and besides, Nemesis wasn’t a danger anymore, which was more than could be said for the T-virus. “A few minutes later, he was trying to chow down on me, and his eyes had gone milky.”
“And the footage on the tape you provided, these were examples of those infected people?”
“Yes.”
The old man leaned over to the stand and pulled a remote off the second shelf. He turned on the TV, which lit up with a solid blue screen and the number 3 on the upper-right-hand corner. Then he hit another button, and the blue switched to black.
A moment later, Jill saw the very familiar sight of zombies wandering down streets. Just like in the graveyard, just like at the school, just like at City Hall.
And just like in the Arklays.
Except that Jill recognized the street they were shambling down: Lombard Street. Located on a particularly steep hill in a city famous for them, the steepest section of Lombard twisted and turned, surrounded by beautiful flower beds.
Those flowers were now being overrun by the same zombie creatures that had run rampant through Raccoon and through the Arklays. The same creature that Peyton had turned into.
“Is this what they looked like, Officer Valentine?”
Jill found she couldn’t keep looking at the screen. She’d been a cop all her adult life, had seen things as a member of S.T.A.R.S. that would send most civilians hiding under their beds and not flinched, but this—
There was only so much of this she could take.
“Officer Valentine, what I’m about to tell you is something you are technically not cleared to know about—but I suspect that you actually know more than we do. You see, there has been an outbreak of some kind of virus in San Francisco that kills people, animates their corpses—as ridiculous as that sounds—and sends those corpses on a feeding frenzy. Everyone they bite is similarly infected. We have no means of stopping it.”
“You may not, but the Umbrella Corporation does. They created the virus. The section of the Arklays where I went hiking was owned by Umbrella.” She smiled sheepishly. “I only was there by accident. I got turned around on one of the rocks and went north when I should’ve gone south.”
The old man returned the smile. “That’s why you’re supposed to pack a compass, Officer Valentine.”
Jill wondered how much different her life would’ve been if she had packed that compass, then decided that she just would’ve gone about her duties and been nuked along with the rest of Raccoon. Her foreknowledge of the zombies was what had kept her alive long enough to be evacuated thanks to Dr. Ashford’s crazy plan.
“In any case,” Jill said, “Umbrella sealed off Raccoon City after the outbreak—put a big wall around the entire island, cutting off all the bridges and tunnels out of town. The only egress was Ravens’ Gate, and they had armed guards there who fired on the crowd. If I remember right, that’s on the tape, too—Morales was there when it happened.”
The older man made a few more notes, then stood up. “Officer Valentine, we will have more questions for you—and we may need to