Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [91]
“Climb!” he said before the gun’s blast finished echoing.
Nodding, Dorian climbed past him.
Chase tried to shoot the other two, but they moved too damn fast. He wasn’t used to that—the monsters were supposed to be slow!
One of them grabbed his leg and pulled, yanking Chase hard enough for him to lose his grip.
As he fell toward the ground, he decided that this was a shitty way to die.
Alice watched as Chase fell past her, then climbed faster. The final two undead were almost on top of Dorian, and Alice was determined to save somebody’s life today. She did a flying leap across the beams, slicing through one of the undead as she landed. The other one was grabbing a screaming Dorian, and Alice took care of him, too.
The four pieces of what was once two undead fell to the ground, landing right next to the three undead who were feasting on Chase’s corpse.
From her vantage point, Alice realized that these were the only three left.
Carlos and Claire ran out of their respective vehicles and took on those last three, blowing their heads off.
Too late, sadly, for Chase.
She looked around and saw thirty-five undead bodies around the Strip. There had been thirty-six, but she didn’t see any sign of the last one. Her view wasn’t complete—perhaps it was under a truck or a sand dune.
At least, she hoped so.
Turning to Dorian, Alice asked, “You okay?”
Dorian stared at her. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” She shook her head. “Shit, I’m alive. That’s as okay as I’m likely to fucking get. Jesus.”
“Come on, let’s get down.”
Slowly but surely—Alice could have gone faster, but she went at Dorian’s pace—they climbed down the Eiffel Tower.
Before she and Dorian even landed, Claire asked, “What the fuck were those?”
“There’s only one company depraved enough to experiment on the undead,” Alice said. “And they’re also the only company that can control me, even for a minute.”
“Control you?” Claire asked.
“Remember when I said they did something to me?” Alice asked, which got her a nod from Claire. “They can control my mind sometimes. They did it for a few minutes during the fight, but I managed to break it.” She looked around. “I might have been able to save Chase, Erica, and Peter-Michael if—”
Carlos held up his hand. “No. We’re not responsible. They are.” He shook his head. “Umbrella. The world’s gone to hell, and they find a way to make it worse.”
Alice tried to smile but couldn’t. “Should be the company slogan.”
“So now what?” Claire asked. She looked around. The ambulance’s engine had been smashed by the creatures, the news truck was a complete wreck, and the Hummer and 8x8 were in pretty bad shape. Even if there was gas in the Venetian Hotel, there wasn’t much left to put it in. The Enco tanker was the only vehicle that was still more or less intact.
Now Alice could smile, but it was a nasty one. “Oh, I have some thoughts in that regard. Give me a second.”
She concentrated, sending her mind outward. It wasn’t something she’d done very often, but luckily she knew what she was looking for, and there weren’t very many active minds in the area.
Then she found it. “Bingo.”
Running toward the Venetian’s parking garage, she said, “Follow me!”
Behind her, she heard Claire tell Dorian to go to the ambulance and help Joel watch the kids. Carlos, Claire, and Kmart followed her, though Alice put considerable distance between herself and them in short order. Eventually, she slowed down enough so that she stayed in eyesight of the other three.
She ran up the parking garage’s stairs on the far end, reached the roof, and ran across.
There it was.
An Umbrella tent and an Umbrella helicopter.
Just as she was about to jump down to the ground, she felt it.
They were trying to regain control.
Fuck that.
She gripped the Kukris by the blade, the edges slicing into her skin, the pain giving her more focus. There