Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [93]
Apparently, they were. Perroneau moved Isaacs’s own hand to the pressure bandage. Then she reached down under one of the seats to pull out an emergency first-aid kit. She pulled a hypo filled with the beautiful green of the anti-virus and injected Isaacs with it.
As Kistler took off, Perroneau moved to the front of the helicopter.
Once she was out of sight, Isaacs lifted the pressure bandage.
The bleeding had stopped—far sooner than it should have, given the severity of the injury—and the wound was already starting to itch, indicating the healing process.
Isaacs smiled.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Alice watched as the helicopter took off. She jumped up in the hopes of nabbing the landing struts, but it was too far in the air for even her to reach, and she came crashing to the ground, rolling with the impact.
Dusting herself off and cursing not so silently, she ran back into the tent.
Kmart, Carlos, and Claire had caught up and were entering the tent just as Alice got back. To Kmart, Alice said, “See if any of these computers still work. I want to know where that chopper’s headed.”
Nodding, Kmart ran over to the computer.
Claire looked around at the four corpses that littered the tent. Then she looked up at Alice. “You weren’t kidding.”
“About what?” Alice asked.
“That death follows you around like a lost puppy.”
“Claire,” Carlos said in a stern tone.
Alice, however, waved Carlos off. “No, she’s right.” Alice shook her head. “I never should have come to you.”
“Damn right, you shouldn’t have. If you hadn’t shown up with your fucking journal and your fucking Alaska pipe dreams, we wouldn’t have come to Vegas. These assholes set this ambush up for you, didn’t they?”
Alice said nothing.
“Didn’t they?”
Finally, Alice nodded. Claire was absolutely right.
Carlos, gripping his wounded shoulder tightly, said, “And if she hadn’t shown up, we’d all be dead.”
Angrily, Claire whirled on Carlos. “On what planet? She—”
“She didn’t send those crows.”
That brought Claire up short. Alice, too, as she’d temporarily forgotten about the mutated birds.
“They were literally eating us alive. If Alice hadn’t shown up when she did, everyone—not just the ones who died today but everyone—would’ve been killed by those things!”
The tent got quiet after that. Claire was fuming, and Alice couldn’t blame her. She was lashing out at Alice because the vast majority of the convoy for which she had taken on responsibility was dead, and Alice was a convenient target—and not an entirely illegitimate one, Carlos’s protestations notwithstanding. Carlos just stared at Claire, blood dripping down his arm from where he’d been injured.
In a small voice, Kmart said, “Uh, excuse me?”
Alice looked over at the teenager. The monitor in front of her was active.
“Sorry to interrupt your bickering, but that chopper’s headed for a weather station in the salt flats. I can print out the map.”
“Good,” Alice said. “That’s where I’m heading.”
“That’s where we’re heading,” Claire said.
“Claire, no,” Alice said. “Carlos was right, but so were you. I can’t ask you to follow me.”
“It’s not your choice.” She held up her hands, indicating the tent. “If this is just what they have for a little outdoor excursion, that base probably has equipment up the wazoo. This is the best resupply possibility we’ve found. Shit, they’ve got a helicopter. Maybe more than one.” She smirked in a frightening impersonation of Alice’s own facial expression. “That’d get us to Alaska in a heartbeat.”
“It’s Umbrella,” Carlos said. “They’ll have security.”
“I can take care of their security,” Alice said.
“Not by yourself,” Carlos said.
Before Alice could respond, Claire said, “She won’t be by herself.” Then she turned to Kmart. “Salvage anything from here that we can use, and print out the schematics of that Umbrella base. We’re heading back to the convoy. We’re gonna bury our dead, salvage what we can from here, and then we’re going Umbrella hunting.”
Hours later, after they’d picked the tent apart and gathered fuel from as many valet parking