Chapter Thirty
BAM!
Sherry felt the train rock violently all around her.
Claire!
She ran to the door, remembering that Claire said not to leave and not caring; she didn't know what it was or what she could do to help, but she couldn't just stand there. . . BAM!. . . and the car shifted again, another loud, banging crash blasting through the stale air, the floor trem- bling beneath her feet. Sherry reached the door and hit the open switch, her heart hammering, sweat dribbling through the dirt on her face. The door slid open and there was Claire, pointing her gun at something Sherry couldn't see, something at the back of the car. Claire's gaze flickered to her, and her shouted words quaked with fear and panic.
"Don't come out! Shut the door!"
Sherry reached for the controls and hesitated, terri- fied for Claire, wanting to see what it was -
- quick look -
-and she darted her head out, just for a second, searching for the source of Claire's fear, for whatever was slamming into the train car. A smell like chemi- cals and burnt meat had filled the dimly lit platform, coming from. . . Sherry screamed when she saw it, when she saw the tattered, charred monster that was rocking the sub- way, just past a wall of metal bars. She saw its giant fist pound the steel wall of the train, but it was the monster's face that she couldn't look away from.
Mr. X.
The skin was burnt away from his face, from his whole body. Smoke drifted up from the blackened, melted lump of his skull, but the eyes were still alive - red and black and steaming with acrid smoke, but still very much alive. "Sherry! Do it, now!" Claire screamed, not taking her gaze from the smoking monster, from its terrible, giant body coated with red, metallic muscle, as red and burnt as its awful eyes. Sherry hit the controls, the door closing as Claire started to fire. The elevator did go down, though not as Leon had expected, and not nearly as fast as he needed it to go. The wide platform slipped down an angled tunnel, like a slide, neon gridwork on black walls humming past. Slowly.
". . . now forty seconds to reach minimum safe distance. " "Go go go. . . " Leon breathed, every ache and pain in his body forgotten in the rising dread that beat at his brain. The voice had stopped telling him to report to the bottom platform, now only making announce- ments in ten-second increments. As much as he loathed the repeated instructions, it was much worse not hearing them; the silences between the statements were telling him not to bother trying.
To make it this far and then die because of a slow elevator. . . He couldn't accept that. He'd been through too much. The car crash, Claire, the running and the monsters and Ada and Birkin - he had to make it, or it was all for nothing. There didn't seem to be a real floor beneath the descending platform, or he would've tried it on foot, but the lift seemed to be lowering by grooves cut into either side of the darkness, by some mecha- nism that he couldn't begin to guess at.
". . . twenty seconds to reach. . . "
Leon started to shake, the tension running through his muscles, tightening them, making it hard to breathe. What was safe distance? When that cool, inhuman voice reached zero, how long before the explosion? Full throttle, she said full throttle. . .
The train would have to be fast. And he had ten seconds left to get to it, as the strange elevator continued its smooth, unhurried trek down into the dark.
The door slid shut and Sherry was safe. For the moment. Claire's thoughts had kicked into overdrive, spinning through her limited options in a flash.
Can't let him knock it off the tracks. . .
She knew she couldn't hope to injure the creature, but she might be able to distract it long enough for them to get away. She wished she'd bothered to show Sherry the simple controls for the train, wished that the train was already moving, taking Sherry to safety -
- but I didn't and we have to go NOW.
The recorded message was counting down the final ten seconds to reach a safe distance. As the smoking remains of Mr. X dealt another hammering blow to the dented subway wall, Claire aimed for its mutant head and fired. Five shots, four of them smacking into the bizarre material that made up its flesh, about where a hu- man's ear would be. The fifth went wide, and as the explosive thunder echoed through the shadows of the chill platform, the thing that she'd dubbed Mr. X turned slowly toward her.
Now what?
The recorded female voice distracted her for a split- second, as Mr. X took a single step toward her, a lumbering, monstrous step that pulled it out of the shadows.
". . . three. Two. One. Safe distance minimum now required. Self-destruct will occur in five minutes. There are now five minutes until detonation. "
The alarms still blared, but at least the voice had shut up. She wouldn't have noticed in any case, her wide-eyed gaze fixed on the creature. It was hideous, all the more so for its still humanoid shape, like a mockery of reality, of sanity. In spite of the charred, smoking patches that covered most of its body, its unnatural flesh hadn't lost its elasticity; the reddish matter beneath the burns flexed and contracted like real muscle. It looked like a skinned giant that had crawled from beneath a burning building - and if it had suffered from its molten metal bath, she couldn't see it. Another mighty step, and the arms rose, the barred gate was ripped down, the iron bars were crashing to the concrete.
Slow at least, at least there's still that. . .
It was the only thing she had going for her. Claire sprinted for the subway door, still afraid, but the smoking monster was slow, powerful but unable to really move. . . . . . and suddenly, Mr. X wasn't just walking anymore. The creature bent at the waist, bent its knees and pushed off the ground in a dynamic lunge that tore gouges in the concrete, its deformed feet propelling it toward her at a full run. Claire didn't think. She dodged right and took off past the hunched, loping monster, running as fast as she could. It almost got her anyway, its reflexes faster than fast - as if losing its facade of skin had freed it somehow, the liauid metal oaring it down to its core strength. As she leapt over the broken gate and into the shadows, she heard the screech of not-flesh fingers raking across the cement, saw that Mr. X had brought one mighty arm up, slashing through the air where she'd been only a second before. It meant to disem- bowel her -
- but why, no G-Virus, no reason -
Claire ran deeper into the echoing darkness as the intercom system calmly informed her that they had four minutes left.
"There are now four minutes until detonation. . . " Shit shit shit!
Just when he thought he might have a stroke from the frustration, the elevator had finally stopped. Leon jerked at the handle to a thick metal door, tensing himself to run. . . . . . and the door opened into one wall of a passage, a sterile concrete corridor lit by flickering overhead bars. And there were no signs telling him which way to go.
Left or right?
The few seconds that he hesitated could cost him his life - he still had any chance at all. He'd heard once that when faced with a choice, most people instinctively turned in the direction of their dominant hand. With the crappy luck he'd had throughout his long, long night in Raccoon, he de-cided to go the other way. Left. Leon ran, his boots pounding the floor, won-dering if he should even bother. * * * Not far past the broken gate, Claire saw a walkway that crossed over the train, the stairs hidden by deep shadow. . . . . . and she heard the pounding of Mr. X behind as it started after her, each running step a violent slap of mutant flesh against cement. The terror drove her on, her feet hardly touching the ground, not caring if she ran head-on into a wall in the deepening dark. Maybe that would be best, it was tremendously powerful, it was fast, it was impossible to kill - she didn't stand a chance if it caught her. . . . . . and the steps were getting louder, faster, she heard the ripping scrape of its clawed fingers plowing up concrete. She had maybe a second before that hand tore into her. . . . . . and she dodged right again, throwing herself into a well of darkness just past the stairs. Mr. X flew past, a mammoth, hulki
ng blur, and she actually felt the wind from his moving hand whisper against her leg as she hit the cold floor. Sharp pain shot up her arm, her elbow cracking hard against the cement. She ignored it, jumping to her feet, searching for the monster in the dark.
Can it see, does it see me?
Her hand found an angled wall to the right, cement against her back and on the left. She was in the space beneath the stairs, and she had no idea where the impossibly silent X was; the shadows wouldn't help her if it could see in the dark. She ran her hands over the walls, found a switch and punched it. The texture of shadow changed as dim light filtered down from somewhere above and she saw the monster less than fifty feet away just as it turned, its thick red gaze scanning evenly across the deserted platform. . . . . . and finding her. Marking her. The only sound was a soft crackling coming from its still-smoking flesh - until it took a step for the stairwell, and cement crunched beneath one purpled leg.
Six or seven shots left, get the eyes. . .
Claire stepped quickly out of the shadows and raised Irons's gun, squeezing the trigger, backing toward the stairs. Bam-bam-bam. . . . . . and X was positioning itself for another attack, the bullets smashing into its melted face, two of them ricocheting from the matter of its skull as it aligned to her position. . . bam-bam. . . She was at the stairs, sidling up a step, the rounds useless, Mr. X starting its lurching run. It would be on her before she could turn, before she could get up the steps.
- I'll die - but at least I'll hurt it first -
Mr. X took one - two powerful strides, halving the distance between them as Claire aimed, determined to make the last shots count. She would die, and her only regret was for Sherry, her only wish that she would be able to incapacitate the nightmare X before it killed her.
She fired, and the monster's left eye exploded, a burst of inky fluid splattering its wretched, inhuman face.
Yes!
Mr. X veered to its right, not stopping but not coming straight at her anymore - it would still hit the base of the stairs -too close! - she had to try for the other eye and she had about two seconds left. . . Claire aimed, found her mark, and. . . . . . click!. . . . . . there were no bullets left, and the monster was slamming into the base of the steps, the smell of roasted meat washing over her as it raised its giant hand up, and its giant, terrible body was all she could see. Claire rolled down the concrete stairs, hunching herself into a ball and screamed as Mr. X's ragged clawed fingers raked across her left thigh, and a distant voice told her that they had three minutes left.