Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [69]
Betty leaned over and rested her head on L.J.’s shoulder. It was the good one, thank God. He put his arm around her.
“Mom named me Elizabeth after the queen of England.”
L.J. looked down at the top of her head. “For real?”
She nodded. “She was watchin’ somethin’ on TV, and she thought she looked all nice and regal. And she thought the name sounded like someone important.” Snorting, she added, “That shit didn’t work too good. I hated the name from when I was five. Insisted on Betty. I don’t think anybody’s called me anything but that since Mom died.”
“How’d she die?”
“She was lucky—it was before this all happened. Cancer got her.” She looked up at him. “What about your momma?”
At first, L.J. didn’t want to talk about it. The fact that he and Carlos were survivors of Raccoon City wasn’t something they advertised—not for any good reason, they just didn’t like talking about it much. But he figured he wasn’t gonna be around much longer, so he said, “She got blowed up. I’m from Raccoon City, and Momma was there when they hit it with the nuke.”
Betty sat up. “That really happened? They really bombed it? It wasn’t a meltdown?”
“Girl, I was there. Trust me, wasn’t no nuclear fuckin’ meltdown. That was the Umbrella Corporation dropping a fuckin’ cruise missile or some shit on our asses.” He shook his head. “Me and Carlos were lucky.”
“Carlos is from Raccoon, too?”
He nodded.
“Shit.” She lay back down in L.J.’s arms. “I was gonna ask why you didn’t say, but I guess you had good reason, huh?”
“Yeah.” L.J. stared at the lightning from the storm, which was moving closer. “Yeah.”
She had been born Dahlia Julia Mancini, and there wasn’t a single one of those names she was willing to be called in public. Her friends mostly called her D.J., but she didn’t really like that, either, since it made her sound like she should be on a radio station or something stupid like that.
When everything went to hell, she’d been working in a Kmart, and eventually, she just holed up there, along with the other employees and most of the surviving citizenry of Athens.
At least, for a while.
Eventually, everyone died. There was one old guy who had a heart condition, and as soon as he died, he turned and started biting everyone else. It got worse and worse, but the survivors managed to get the upper hand, mostly thanks to the Kmart’s gun counter.
But when it was all over, there was just D.J. and four others. Before too long, they all died, too, and from stupid stuff. Charlie got a broken leg, Eileen got an abcessed tooth, and both Yvonne and Willie got the flu. None of those should’ve been fatal, but they were.
That left D.J. to fend for herself, living off whatever supplies were left in the giant store.
When Claire Redfield and her convoy showed up, it was a lifeline that D.J. clutched.
She refused to tell them her name. This was a new beginning for her, and it started in that Kmart. Besides, being called that reminded her of the rest of the people who’d died when she survived. They lasted longer than the rest of Athens, holed up in that Kmart, and she wanted to remember them a lot more than she wanted to remember that she was named Dahlia Julia Mancini.
So when L.J. started calling her Kmart, she decided to respond to that only.
Now she woke up in the front seat of the Hummer. Something was scratching the roof.
Clambering quietly across the front seat—Claire was still asleep in the back—Kmart slowly opened the door and peered up onto the roof.
Nothing.
Letting out a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding, Kmart started to climb back into the car when something landed on the roof, almost causing her to fall out of the Hummer.
Trying to get her heartbeat under control, she saw that it was a crow.
But it didn’t look like any crow Kmart had seen. And she’d seen plenty.
There was something in its eyes. Something deadly.
Or maybe it was just the poor light.
Instinctively, she shooed the crow away, and it flew off into the predawn sky. It went past a half buried car that Kmart didn’t remember