Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [86]
Even with most of his thoracic region gone, the undead got quickly to his feet.
“What the hell are these things?” Claire asked as she took aim.
But these undead were too damn fast.
They attacked.
Alice got one with a clothesline across his neck that snapped bone. This time, it didn’t get back up.
That was something: they had the same vulnerabilities.
Several convoy members took shots, but they weren’t all as good as Carlos or Alice herself—or Jill, whose marksmanship Alice found herself missing horribly right about now—and they couldn’t seem to make head shots.
“Run!” Alice screamed, not that she needed to tell anyone twice. Claire was heading for the Hummer, L.J. and Carlos covering her.
Alice ran and fought and shot, but there were so many of them. One literally ripped Morgan in half. Another punched Pablo, his fist going right through Pablo’s chest, thrusting his heart out through his back. Two more grabbed Cliff’s retreating form and pulled him to the ground, beating him into a bloody pulp.
L.J. barely made it into the 8x8 in time, slamming the door in an undead’s face. The monster kept pounding on the door, though, putting huge dents in it, then went for the window. As it shattered, L.J. screamed to the backseat, where Alice assumed Kmart still to be, “Get in the back!”
First Alice heard Kmart say, “Forget that.” Then she heard a distinctive pumping sound.
Then she saw the undead get blown back out the window following the report of a shotgun.
Looking over at the Piazza San Marco, Alice saw Joel and Peter-Michael being chased onto the Venetian bridge by two more undead. Alice ran after them, pulling out the Kukris she’d taken from the fuckers at KLKB.
She’d been looking forward to a chance to use these things.
Her first swing sliced open one undead’s arm. Her second, with the other one, carved into the other undead’s neck but wasn’t a fatal blow.
It was enough to get the undead to focus their attention on Alice instead of Peter-Michael and Joel, however. They ran. Alice stayed and smiled at the undead.
Carlos kept firing until both his. 45s dry-clicked. He made sure that Claire got into the Hummer and that Mikey got into the news truck. When Peter-Michael and Joel ran down from the Venetian Hotel, Carlos made sure they made it into the ambulance. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to help Pablo, Cliff, or Morgan, and he couldn’t see Dorian or Erica. Chase was still up the tower, and the occasional bullet from above meant that he was doing his part. The kids were all in the ambulance with Joel and Peter-Michael. They were all safe.
Carlos, however, wasn’t. The undead that had been blown out of the 8x8 was now on Carlos, and his .45s were both empty. With no time to reload, he instead dove to the ground and rolled under the 8x8.
Reaching into his ammo pouch with sweaty fingers, he kicked at the two undead who clawed at his boots. He let the empty clip fall to the ground and struggled to slam the full one into the barrel.
One was right near his calf, opening its mouth to bite.
Finally, Carlos slammed the clip in and fired on the undead, blowing his head off, then doing the same for the next a second later.
He let himself breathe a sigh of relief.
Turning his head, he saw another undead face snarling right at him, its decaying breath blowing right into his nose.
Then it moved to bite him…
Isaacs stood in the tent they’d set up in what used to be Las Vegas. A helicopter sat next to the tent, ready to evac at a moment’s notice in case things went wrong. The last few years had taught Sam Isaacs that it was best to assume that the worst would happen, because all too often it did.
With him were two of the people working under him whom Isaacs came closest to trusting, mostly by virtue of having overheard them say disparaging things about Slater. One was Kim Pinto, a technician who was adept with Umbrella’s satellite network, the other was Dr. Howard Margolin, who’d supervised the mass production of the serum that had made these new creatures and had also been aiding