Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [49]
People were screaming and yelling, and Hoyt felt the world tilt around him, because this wasn’t supposed to happen. Sure, there was what happened in Raccoon, though Hoyt wasn’t present for it, and he knew there were problems in California, but it shouldn’t have affected him. He was just doing his job, and he was three thousand miles from where this mess started.
The report of a gunshot ripped through the chaos, silencing the room. The general fell forward on top of Love, who started screaming again.
Lowering his weapon, the muzzle still smoking, the Secret Service agent cried out, “Crash the building! Crash it!”
Hoyt knew that meant they would seal the building so no one could get in or out.
But he wondered if it would do any good.
The White House had been infected.
TWELVE
AFTER
L.J. looked up at the sign: DESERT TRAIL MOTEL. “Truer motherfuckin’ words…” he muttered as he and Carlos headed toward the motel’s entrance. On the sidewalk in front of the place—which looked like it used to be a truck stop of the type that L.J. wouldn’t have had his ass caught dead in for no-fuckin’-thing—was a big pole with signs pointing in different directions. Looked like that motherfuckin’ thing on M*A*S*H. It pointed to Alaska, Denver, Vegas, Rome, Paris, Mexico, Berlin, London, and a buncha other places L.J.’d rather be than here.
Well, except Vegas. Only motherfuckin’ fools went to Vegas.
The motel itself was half covered in sand, just like half the other places they went to. The desert was taking the city back. Well, the desert could have it, soon as they were done with it.
L.J. hated the desert. Raccoon City was a cool place, literally—never got too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter. Sure, they had a heat wave right before it went boom, but L.J. was okay with that.
But the desert was some crazy-ass shit. If it was up to L.J., they’d stay far away from it. He didn’t get a vote, though. It was Carlos and Claire, with L.J. just following orders, like usual. Not that L.J. minded—he’d never been much for doing that drill-sergeant shit. He just did his business.
Like now, when they walked into the Desert Trail Motel, Carlos going first. He had the training and shit. L.J. was schooled on the streets, and while he bowed to no one in his ability to take out zombie-ass motherfuckers, he still deferred right to Carlos. He had the skills for damn sure.
He grinned as they approached the front entrance. “I’m going to get me a room with a water bed, take a Jacuzzi, maybe check out the porn channel.”
Carlos chuckled and shook his head. For his part, mentioning the porn channel just reminded L.J. how long it had been since he had himself some snatch. Too fucking long, it came to that.
He thought about asking that paramedic when they finished checking out this joint. She was fine.
The lobby looked just like every other motel lobby in the world. He’d seen plenty back in Raccoon when he needed a place to take the ho’s—you didn’t take ho’s to your crib, that just wasn’t done—and plenty more lately, since they was good places to loot. There was a big poster that said NEVADA—LAND OF LEISURE. It was funny, but L.J. couldn’t bring himself to be laughing.
L.J. didn’t even need Carlos to give signals anymore, they just knew, like through telepathy or some shit: he’d go left while Carlos went right. He went down a corridor, but the sand was all piled up in back, and lights sure as shit wasn’t working, so he unhooked his flashlight.
For some reason, it amused the shit out of him that he had a flashlight to unhook. Back in the day, he just had his nickel-plated Uzis, a deck to deal three-card, and his lucky ring that said LOVE.
He lost the ring somewhere in that school back in Raccoon, when they were rescuing Angie.
Angie…
He shook it off. L.J. couldn’t afford to be dwelling on old shit. If he started thinking about all them people who died, he wouldn’t think about nothing else.
L.J. passed by eight rooms and didn’t hear