Chapter 31
Nicholai pressed a rag against his face to try to stop the bleeding. His entire shoulder and the front of his uniform were splattered with the blood pouring from his torn cheek. There was blood in his mouth as well, and all down his left arm from the pencil that Jill broke off in his forearm. He pulled the pencil fragment out and wrapped another rag around his arm, but the blood still seeped freely.
He staggered dizzily, light-headed from blood loss, and went down the hallway, his M4 Carbine held up with one arm, the handle slippery in his blood-smeared hand. He carried it with his right hand, as his left arm throbbed with fiery pain.
But the pain flaring in his face and arm was only a spark, barely noticeable, against the flaming, all-consuming hatred that Nicholai felt. His anger was like fuel, giving him a renewed sense of purpose.
He could have escaped by now. He knew where the helicopter was. It would only take a minute to leave this doomed place behind. But there was something he had to do before he left.
He kicked open the doors at the end of the hall and ran out into the next room. He knew where Jill was headed, and hoped to cut her off. Sadly, he would not get to enjoy her as he had planned, but he was not going to leave until he watched her die. If she had merely gotten away from him, he might have left her to her own fate. But he owed her now for the bloody gash across his face.
She would suffer before she died. Although there was not enough time to make her suffer as Nicholai hoped, there was still enough time to hear her beg.
At the other side of this room, there was a hallway that led into the central area of the facility. Jill did not know the building as Nicholai did, and she would be searching for a way out. Nicholai opened the doors, but the hallway was crowded with a horde of infected.
He raised the Carbine and braced himself as he pulled the trigger. The gun kicked hard, almost falling out of his hand. But he gritted his teeth against the pain and swung the gun in a wide arc to shoot all the zombies in the hall, leaving behind the stink of infection and death, and splattered gore across the yellow walls. He emptied an entire clip and fumbled with another as the last few zombies tried to reach him, tripping over the bodies of the dead. Nicholai snapped another clip into the gun and killed off the last of them.
He ran through the mass of corpses, his boots splashing through thick puddles of spilled blood. He waded through the piles of dead, as if immune to the disease which spawned them. In the back of his mind, he knew that if he got any of the infected blood onto his own wounds, he would become infected himself, but he ignored the danger.
Through the next door was another large production area with rows of metal vats. As soon as Nicholai entered, doors at the other side of the room came open, and two figures stumbled inside as well. One of them was Jill, unarmed and defenseless, but Nicholai realized with a shock of recognition that the other was the Mexican UBCF soldier named Carlos. How he managed to arrive here as well was a mystery to Nicholai, but that was okay. Carlos could die right next to Jill.
Nicholai opened fire with a shout, and his gun blazed with a roar. But he could not aim properly with one arm, and most of his bullets rattled along the ceiling as the gun kicked upwards.
Jill and Carlos jumped away from him and took shelter behind some thick pipes and other gleaming metal equipment. Nicholai took hold of the gun with his other hand, grimacing in pain, and took more careful aim. Bullets blasted across the wall and clanged over the pipes, and to his delight, he heard Jill screaming.
Carlos stuck his arm out, a pistol in his hand, and blindly returned fire, but his bullets went wide. Nicholai laughed, tearing open the gash on his cheek again, causing it to bleed once more. But he ignored the fresh blood dripping off his chin and squeezed off another few shots, aiming at the mass of pipes that his target was hiding behind.
“I should not have hesitated!” he shouted. “I see that now! You are too dangerous for me to let you live! I should have killed you right away!”
Jill screamed something at him, but he couldn’t make it out. He saw Carlos peek out from behind the pipes, but when he pulled the trigger again, the gun clicked empty. Before he had time to load another clip, Carlos leaned out and fired back with his pistol.
The first bullet shattered the plastic window on the door beside him, and the second shot struck him in the thigh. His leg seemed to kick out from under him and he fell back, a bolt of agonizing pain slicing up the side of his body. Blood sprayed out the back of his leg, and he lost his balance and fell down, hitting the floor with his wounded arm, sending another shock of pain through him.
Nicholai crawled into the hallway, letting the doors swing shut. He gritted his teeth, laughing amidst the unbearable pain erupting all over his body. His arms trembled as he got to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall to support him. Blood poured freely down his leg as if from a faucet, and he gripped the bullet wound, watching the blood seep through his fingers. He knew that the bullet had not severed his femoral artery, or else he’d have bled to death already. But he was losing too much blood and running out of time.
He fumbled with another clip, his last one, and lifted the gun, which seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. He took a deep breath and pulled back the bolt to load a shell into the chamber, but it slipped from his bloody hands. He tried again, and this time managed to snap back the bolt.
He didn’t hear anything behind him until it was far too late.
Turning, he tried to raise the gun, but he barely had the strength to hold it at all. Standing in the hallway, seeming to fill it with its inhuman bulk, was the creature that Wesker created. The creature in the long, tattered, black leather trenchcoat. The creature that Nicholai personally delivered to Raccoon City. The creature that Wesker called a Nemesis.
He tried to get away, but the creature reached out with one huge arm and grabbed Nicholai’s left shoulder. He feebly tried to escape the creature’s grip, but was lifted up into the air effortlessly, his legs dangling below him, blood dripping off the bottom of his boots. The creature’s hands were like a vise, and the thick fingers squeezed into his flesh, crushing the bones beneath.
Nicholai screamed. His arm swung up, still holding the Carbine, and he pulled the trigger. The gun blazed with fire, shooting into the monster’s massive torso at point blank range. The trenchcoat ripped apart where the bullets tore into it, and clear fluid spurted from the body. The bright muzzle flash lit across the monster’s distorted face like a strobe light. But it barely seemed to notice the gun at all, and only lifted Nicholai higher into the air as bullets ripped through its torso.
The Nemesis regarded him with one oblong yellow eye. Then, it grabbed onto Nicholai’s right arm, which was holding the Carbine, and held it out straight. The gun fell from his numb fingers, smoke drifting from the barrel.
With a sudden tug of effort, the creature tore Nicholai’s arm off. There was a sickening crunch of splintering bone and tearing muscle, and his arm went flopping to the floor. Nicholai’s endless scream of terror turned into a high-pitched keen of torturous pain, and his body thrashed madly against the creature. Blood sprayed from the ragged stump that used to be his shoulder, drenching the creature in a fountain of bright red blood.
As if to muffle Nicholai’s dying screams, the Nemesis placed its hand across his face and clamped bloody fingers over his mouth. And then it ripped Nicholai’s head off too.