Chapter 33
Rebecca opened the office door a crack, and when the dog tried to push its way through, Billy stuck a shotgun through the opening and blew its head off. The body tumbled backwards and thumped against the wall, blood oozing from the fresh stump at the end of its neck. Billy thrust the gun to the left and right, expecting another dog to come running for them, but none came. He pushed the door open all the way and crept into the hallway. Rebecca followed close behind. She now had a fully-loaded pistol in her hand and another in her holster, both of them standard nine-millimeter Glocks. Billy had the shotgun and a Glock of his own shoved in his belt.
“Do you think we should go back outside?” she whispered over his shoulder.
“I would love to,” Billy said. “How about you go first and tell me if it’s safe?”
“You don’t have to be a jerk.”
“Hey, if you want to go outside, be my guest. But I like the idea of having doors to hide behind if we run into any more monsters.”
“We need to find somewhere safe, Billy, and it isn’t safe in here.”
“Safer in here than out there.”
Rebecca had nothing to say to that. Staying in this mysterious, abandoned mansion was a bad idea; who knew what could be lurking around the next corner? They’d already run into zombies and now mutated dogs, and she did not doubt for a moment that they would only find worse monsters the farther they went. This building was haunted.
But outside ... she did not even want to imagine trying to run through the woods in total darkness, not even knowing what might be just steps behind her. At least in here, they had light and could see what they were up against. And now they were armed. Maybe they had a fighting chance.
“So what do you think is causing all this?” Billy asked as they headed down the next hallway.
“What do you mean? How would I know?” Rebecca looked over her shoulder, nervous that something might be sneaking up behind them. For all she knew, something might come through the wall at any moment.
“I’m just wondering about this mansion. Why do you think it’s deserted?”
“I have no idea.”
“I wonder if it has anything to do with the zombies.”
“How could there be a connection? This place has been empty for years, and I never saw a zombie in my entire life until an hour ago.”
“Well, Umbrella makes chemicals and medicines and things, right? Maybe they were working on some formula and something went wrong. Instead of curing a disease, it turns people into zombies.”
Rebecca shook her head. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. There’s no way they could accidentally make something like that.”
“Maybe that’s why they closed this place up. Maybe they had some kind of accident.”
“I don't believe that.”
“All the scientists here probably turned into zombies and they've been haunting the place ever since.”
“Shut up.”
They turned another corner and found a dead end. The hallway ended with a small table with an ornate lamp on top. A painting of some anonymous countryside hung on the wall. On their left were two doors side by side, and on the right was a window looking out toward the back of the property. Billy went to the window, pressing his hands on the glass.
“Just more trees,” he said quietly. “I can’t see anything out there.”
Rebecca went to the doors. One had a small emblem of a man and the other had an emblem of a woman. Rest rooms.
“Thank God for that,” she muttered. “Listen, I’ll be just a minute,” she said to Billy, before carefully pushing the women’s door open and flipping on the light switch inside. Billy didn’t expect there to be any zombies in the bathroom, but Rebecca looked around inside thoroughly before closing the door behind her.
Billy stood at the window and crossed his arms. He didn’t really believe any of that nonsense about Umbrella. Rebecca was handling herself pretty well, better than Billy would have expected from a young girl like her, but she was nearing the end of her rope. She might be a cop, but she wasn’t a soldier. Billy was a soldier, and he knew that keeping your head in a dangerous situation was half the battle. Talking to her, making her think about something other than what might be around the next corner, was the best way to keep her steady. Keeping silent just allowed your thoughts to run wild, and he needed her to remain focused.
Regardless, it would be easier for two people to make it out of here alive than just one, even if one of them was an inexperienced young girl who could just barely keep her fear in check. She did seem to be a pretty good shot, but she was still scared. Billy was scared too, he couldn’t deny that, but he had been dealing with fear for half his life. Zombies, as terrifying as they might seem to be, were nowhere near as frightening as trained guerrilla soldiers stalking you in the middle of the jungle. Zombies were stupid and unarmed, and that made them a walk in the park compared to what he had faced in the past.
He glanced back at the rest room door, getting impatient. He didn’t like being cornered at the end of the hallway, if something came after them, he would be stuck.
And then something flashed by the window. Billy backed up immediately and raised the shotgun to his shoulder, holding his breath expectantly. He only saw a glimpse, but it looked like a person wearing something white, just barely illuminated by the light coming through the window. Billy took another two steps back but heard and saw nothing. He let out his breath slowly.
The window exploded in a rush of breaking glass and Billy pulled the trigger. The glittering bits of glass, combined with the shotgun’s bright muzzle flash, were like a blast of fireworks in the narrow hallway. The boom of the gun was like a gigantic bass drum thundering in his ears.
Before Billy even could pump another shell in, something hit him squarely in the chest and lifted him off the floor. He held his breath again as he hit the ground and did a backward somersault, winding up on his knees. He racked another shell and pulled the trigger again, blowing a hole the size of a dinner plate in the wall.
It wasn’t a zombie, but it wasn’t a man either. Or rather, it was a man but it wasn’t human. It was like a blurred photograph, the figure of a man wearing black pants and a white lab coat, but his features smudged and unrecognizable. His skin rippled and bulged like something was inside and trying to get out. And it moved faster than anything Billy had ever seen.
He got one foot under him before the creature swung an arm and knocked him off his feet again. The arm stretched out like a rubber band, swatting him down the hallway like a lizard’s tail striking an insect. Billy grimaced and got onto his hands and knees, the shotgun far out of reach. Nothing was broken, but the blow knocked the wind out of him.
The creature turned the corner and came for him again. It was like watching a movie in fast forward; the creature was a blur from one spot to the next, and then Billy would see it clearly for a split second before the creature moved again. He reached behind him and pulled out the pistol. The creature screamed something unintelligible and shifted location again like some kind of static teleportation. Billy raised the gun and fired.
He didn’t even know if he hit it, but the creature screamed again and jerked sideways, its whole body quivering and rippling. Billy braced himself and fired again, this time seeing a burst of watery blood squirt from the creature’s shoulder and a chunk of flesh fly away.
And then more gun shots, but not from Billy. Rebecca was behind it, firing bullet after bullet into its squirming torso. The beast roared and spun around, bits of it being shot off each time Rebecca pulled the trigger. It reared back and swung its arm at her, the limb stretching twenty feet down the hallway like a whip. Rebecca jumped away as the arm smashed into the wall behind her, leaving a raw imprint raining plaster and broken drywall.
Billy shot it twice more and the creature roared, slamming the walls to its left and right, caving them in as if they w
ere made of wet clay. It jumped forward and smashed right through a door to Billy’s left, screaming so loud that his ears rang. There was another loud crash of breaking glass and wood and then nothing.
He grabbed his shotgun off the floor and staggered to the dark room, but he could see that it was empty. Instead of a wall, there was just a large hole at the other end of the room, leading out into the night. Billy limped toward it and looked outside. Nothing was there, not even a path of destruction to follow.
He went back out into the hallway and saw Rebecca come for him. Just as she reached him, he fell to his knees and the shotgun fell from his hand. She knelt down, grabbed his shoulders, and looked into his eyes.
“Look at me, Billy. Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Billy’s head slumped forward but he nodded, even though his ears were still ringing from the monster’s inhuman screams. He had never felt more weak in his life. “Yes, I can hear you.”
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Sit for a minute and catch your breath, okay?”
“Sure.”
Rebecca left him for just a second to run to the room and see for herself that the beast was gone. Now that they were safe, Billy took a moment to see the damage. The walls looked as if they had been smashed by a wrecking ball. There was no way a living creature could have done that; even a raging elephant could not have just crushed the walls like that.
Rebecca helped Billy to his feet. He rubbed the side of his head and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, Rebecca was staring directly at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“That thing. It was him.”
“Who?”
“The man on the train. That thing we just fought was the man I saw jump off the train.”