Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [52]
The ambulance pulled up behind the Humvee, and Betty got out. “Somebody need my help?” she asked, looking right at L.J.
“It’s nothing,” L.J. started, then cut himself off. What the fuck, he was wanting to be talking to this lady anyhow. “But if you insist,” he added with a smile. As long as she only looked at his wrist and throat.
“That’s right,” Betty said, walking over with her first-aid kit. “Now, sit back and relax. I’m here to help.”
She checked his throat, frowning at the bruises that L.J. could feel forming there after Officer Zombie’s attempt to choke L.J.’s ass.
“You like playing rough?” L.J. shrugged. “Had worse.”
“I’m sure,” Betty said with a smile.
Carlos, whose presence L.J. had temporarily forgotten, rolled his eyes and got up. “Oh, God, I gotta go.”
That was fine with L.J. He was just cramping his style.
She checked the wrist, and L.J. didn’t wince in pain at anything she did—not surprising, since there was nothing wrong with it—and then said, “You’ll live.” She put away the kit and fixed him with a dazzling smile. “So what do you say—dinner, my place, tonight?”
Before L.J. could answer, Chase called out, “Hey, Betty, over here!”
“It’s a date,” L.J. said.
Betty’s smile got more dazzling, then she gathered her stuff and ran off after Chase.
L.J. spent the next several seconds enjoying the fine booty view Betty’s retreating form gave him.
Once that magnificent ass was out of sight—and it was out of sight—L.J. let out a long breath.
Looking around to make sure nobody could see, he gently rolled up his sleeve.
His arm hadn’t buckled because of no sprained wrist.
It buckled because he’d been bit by one of them zombie-ass motherfuckers.
L.J. had seen this happen way too many times, starting with Dwayne back in Raccoon and as recently as Phil, the med tech who’d been with Betty, who got infected back in Salt Lake. He knew that he was done for. Once upon a time, there was an anti-virus, but those days was way past.
Only thing to do was to make sure he took out as many of them zombie-ass motherfuckers as he could before he became one.
THIRTEEN
BEFORE
“The city of Washington, D.C., has been quarantined, and it is unclear as to the whereabouts of the president, the vice president, and the cabinet, all of whom were last reported in the White House when it was crashed, about two hours before the quarantine order came. Whom that order came from is, as yet, undetermined. The speaker of the House, who was in O’Hare Airport on her way to attend the emergency session of Congress that had been called, said at a hastily called press conference at O’Hare’s Terminal 3 that she is ready to step into the breach to assume the duties of president, but she says she has yet to be informed of the status of either the president or the vice president, who, obviously, are ahead of her in the line of succession.
“In the meantime, more outbreaks of the so-calledT-virus have been reported in St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Brooklyn, New York. This is in addition to the outbreaks in Tulsa, Ann Arbor, Baltimore, Chicago, and Atlanta. A doctor from the Centers for Disease Control had this to say.”
Sitting in his office in Umbrella’s Detroit facility, Dr. Sam Isaacs had barely been paying attention to the news report, busy as he was finishing his report to the Committee. However, when the image switched from the concerned-looking anchor to a young dark-skinned woman wearing a lab coat, he looked up.
The title under the woman read DR. CHANDRA PATEL, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL. “The outbreaks we’ve seen aren’t following the vector that has been established on the West Coast and indicates that infected people are traveling by air. We’re recommending—strongly recommending—that all air traffic be suspended until further notice.”
Isaacs shook his head and went back to his report as the image went back to the anchor. “A spokesman for the FAA has said that no decision has been made regarding the CDC’s recommendation