Resident Evil Rebirth Ch. 02

In desperation, she moved without restraint or caution and paid mind only to the protruding roots of trees which stretched up from the earth like the arms of hell, reaching up to claim her and drag her down to that fiery underworld. High above, dying branches plumed by dry brown foliage formed a dense canopy that blotted out the sun's waning light, casting her into an eerie gloom which only grew worse as she pressed on at speeds that were unwise. She didn't care about the danger, or the thorny shrubbery plucking at her clothes; all she cared about was reaching whoever it was. After being alone for so long, she couldn't afford to let this chance slip through her fingers.

It was getting harder to see in the gloom but with her chances of catching the fleeting shadow already dropping, she didn't dare slow. Instead, she ran and ran, until the dense wall of trees all around her suddenly fell away and she was thrust into a blinding well of light. Blinded by the brightness as her eyes struggled to adjust, Alice almost fell head over heels in her rush to stop and narrowly missed colliding with an abandoned land cruiser.

Coming to a halt and using a raised arm for cover, she gave her eyes a moment to become accustom to the painful glare before lowering the limb to find that she had emerged from the trees at the edge of the graveyard. To her dismay, there was no trace of her quarry and, to make matters worse, she didn't recognise the part of the site she'd emerged on. It was going to take some time for her to work her way back to her plane and it was unlikely she'd do so before dark.

Aggravated by this cruel twist of fate, Alice couldn't resist giving the discarded truck she had nearly crashed into a good kick. A dent appeared in the side of the door as the sole of her boot hit it with a satisfying clunk, yet the blow caused her foot to explode with a painful sensation and she couldn't help cursing under her breath as she limped back a step. Clearly, she was still trying to come to terms with her renewed human limitations.

After her bitter disappointment on the beach and then to come so close, only to have her hopes dashed once again, well this fresh anti-climax was hard to swallow and she thought she might just slip into a great black well of despair. To console herself, she tried to make herself believe that she had heard was probably just the wind in the trees or the overcurious nature of a skittish deer, anything to keep her from believing the obvious truth that whispered in the dark corners of her mind; she was an outcast, a shunned freak of humanity...

In her distressed state, she almost didn't hear a fallen twig snapping underfoot and wheeled about just in time to see something exploding out of the undergrowth. It was huge, whatever it was, and barrelling towards her with such haste that Alice scarcely had a moment before it was upon her. She tried to dive out of its path but it was too fast and hit her head on, knocking the breath from her as she was pitched back and together they went flying.

She wasn't sure how far she went but to say her landing was rough would have been the understatement of the century and she did cartwheels across the stone laden ground before rising up with both hands poised over her guns. Infected or not, her reflexes were sharper than any knife and she tugged both of her magnum revolvers from their leather confines before whirling around to face her new adversary with both pistols drawn and levelled. Only when she saw it, she was sure she was going to need something bigger, 'Like a Bazooka...'

It was a bear, but not just any bear; it was the largest fucking Kodiak bear she'd ever seen. Already up and standing high on its hind legs, it towered over her like the biblical character goliath and she didn't need the likes of Sir David Attenborough to tell her that this large male was in his prime. With a thick brown pelt and paws that were larger than sledge hammers, even the obvious signs of malnutrition couldn't shatter this leviathan's air of invincibility. But maybe a couple of her Magnum shells could get the job done.

The guns were heavy under the weight of the fully loaded cylinder so to lighten the load; she fired a quick volley that exploded into the creature's hide. There was no point trying to negotiate, like the lions of the Salvo River, Kodiaks were very dangerous beasts at the best of times but a hungry bear would eat anything it could find and last she looked, she was the only thing in the area that was on the menu. However the shots seemed not to register with the bear as it gave a bellowing roar before swiping at her with its massive paw.

It was swifter than something of its size should have been and eyes coming alive with the danger, she only just lurched backward in time to avoid the bear's bone shattering left hook. Passing within millimetres of her, the claw appendage narrowly missed taking her eye out and she only had time enough to fire off a shot that passed harmlessly over its shoulder before she was forced to move. Crashing down on all fours, it came after her with a thunderous fury that made the ground shake and she had just enough time to dive under the nearby truck before it was upon her.

Looking back frantically as she crawled into the semi darkness and took shelter beneath the derelict 4X4, Alice watched as the frenzied bear flattened itself to the ground before it began pawing the earth in an attempt to reach her. Its immense claws tearing great trenches through the layers of leaves and dirt until the task appeared to grow too strenuous for the starving beast and it gave up, favouring instead to smash the truck with its heavy hide in an ill-conceived attempt to tip the vehicle over.

Unfortunately the math of the matter wasn't on her side, so with both .44s still clasped tight, she began to shuffle through the crawl space towards the light. It was a tight squeeze but as it was still furiously pounding against the stubbornly rooted truck, the bear failed to notice her leaving so she scurried beneath the automobile like a mouse in its tunnel. Immerging in the dirt on the far side, she took a quick nerve steadying breath before darting up and in one smooth motion; she turned and levelled her guns at the beast's bared flank while firing a blazing salvo of hot lead. As the revolvers jumped in grasp, the rounds slammed loudly into the animal's side, penetrating what should have been its heart and lungs.

Yet again the beast seemed not to feel her assault, in fact the blasts seemed only to invigorate the raging Kodiak as it turned towards her and lashed out with a sweeping blow of its paw that caught her in the chest before she could react and sent her hurtling through the air once more. For a horrifying moment she was trapped in free fall, scarcely conscious, it was an effort for her just to keep a firm grasp on her arsenal but when she crashed into something hard, her mind went blank and she let go of the magnums whilst being sucked into an impenetrable abyss.

It must have been the pain that caused her to awaken, for as she blinked past the first wave of nauseating sickness she became aware of a very pronounced stabbing pain in her side and realised that the bear's oversized paw must have bruised a few of her ribs. A resounding thud announced approaching danger and she looked up to find to her horror that the massive beast was coming towards her, and that she was unarmed.

Half dazed, she whipped her head around and began looking drunkenly for her revolvers. Only one was still loaded and what good that would do her was debateable, but she wasn't about to die while there was still a chance.

She didn't need to see it to know the bear was coming closer; its heavy bulking was all but shaking the ground with every foot fall and its musky odder of death and dirt was infecting her every breath like a sensory toxin. There could be no escape now; if she failed to find her loaded weapon then the beast would devour her, she'd have to kill it or die trying; those were her only options.

Then she saw it, one of her magnums laying not a metre from her at the base of a dead tree. She couldn't tell if it was the one she needed or not but the odds were even, it was a chance she'd have to take. So she reached out.

The gun was just out of reach and seemed to be taunting her limited reach with a dazzling shine that gleamed bright against the dark soil. With her heart racing, she could almost feel the bear's weight bearing down on her but she would not give up and so she began to crawl. It was only a small gap between her and it but the effort it cost her was gargantuan and she felt as if she had in fact struggled for over a mile before the chilled metal touched her fingertips.

The Magnum felt heavy in her hands as she grappled for it but her dazed memory couldn't recall if it was the weight of a gun that was loaded or not. It was hard to so she used both hands to scoop the revolver up before whirling about to level the gun at the beast. And there the bear was. It stood at her feet, impossibly large and ferocious as it bared its yellow fangs and roared a terrible sound of coming death.

"Eat this!" She cried angrily before pulling her finger tight around the trigger. The hammer fell and a plume of smoke burst from the silver barrel as it bucked in her grasp, a heavy calibre round exploding forth to slam into the back of the Bear's throat. Tearing through flesh and bone, an explosion of bloody gore erupted from the back of its skull as the bullet destroyed the bear's brains and then it fell dead at her feet with nothing but a weak grunt escaping its gapping muzzle.

Watching as the once mighty beast crashed to the ground, Alice felt a feeling of momentous relief swell up inside her and she stared down grimly at the animal's decapitated corpse. Yet death seemed to have robed the beast of its majesty and she couldn't help but note the great clumps of fur that were missing from its blood matted pelt. Her curiosity got the better of her.

Crouching over the remains, she contemplated the corpse for a moment before reaching down and running her fingers through its coarse fur. Like much that her life had become, killing the bear had brought Alice no pleasure but doing so was a grim necessity. She'd had no choice so now looked on the task the same way she had done when putting down the infected or eliminating Umbrella's pawns; unpleasant but vital. To her surprise, the fur came away at her fingers to reveal the black skin beneath and at least a half a dozen open wounds that had not been made by gunshots. The injuries weren't fresh but they were still weeping gore and at a closer look, she could clearly see that the blood was coagulated. This bear had been dead long before it found Alice.

'Free of Infection huh...' She thought bitterly before recoiling from the infected corpse. After so much disappointment, she shouldn't have been surprised that another of the recordings claims had been proven false. Everywhere had once been free of the T-Virus, but time had seen to changing that and now the entire earth was slowly dying under its influence. Yet the discovery still brought a bitter taste to her mouth and she knew immediately that the time to leave this place had come. The bear was only the first, more and more infected would be coming here over the next few days and she had no desire to be around when they arrived.

Quickly collecting her lost magnum and shoving them both back into their holsters, she was about to head back to her plane when she caught sight of something shining bright on the 4X4'S dashboard. She knew it would be stupid to delay, there was still much she had to do before take-off and now there wasn't a moment too lose. Yet whatever it was inflamed her curiosity and she couldn't resist the mystery of discovery as she walked over to the truck to find it was nothing but a cup filled with small change for meters and the likes.

Alice couldn't help smiling as she scooped up a handful of coins and then let them slip through the gaps and rain back down into the cup. This was the best piece of news she'd had all day and she didn't hesitate to pick the container up and pour its contents into another of her jacket pockets. She then discarded the polystyrene cup and turned just in time to catch sight of the fist that slammed into her face.

Maybe she was still dazed; maybe it was because she hadn't had a decent meal in over a fortnight, either way this new assailant's blow cracked against her jaw before she could evade it and was so powerful she was thrown off her feet. Clattering to the ground, she narrowly missed cracking her head on the truck's axle but before she had a chance to gather her wits, her attacker was on her. The flash of steel was her only warning, a dagger, an axe, a sword; her mind couldn't discern the danger's nature, all she knew was it had a point that was hurtling towards her throat. In desperation she does the first thing that comes to mind and thrusts her hands up, catching the assailant's wrists just before the weapon could open her jugular.

It took all her strength to hold the blade at bay, the steel's sharpened tooth hanging over the soft skin of her throat with a thirst for blood that could rival even the hunger of the infected. Still weak from the bear attack, it was only Alice's will to survive that gave her the strength to keep fighting. And what will she had, for despite the overwhelming might behind the cold blade, she began to push up, forcing her adversary back and she seized the moment to look passed the tooth of steel to her assailant. The figure, despite all evidence to the contrary, was surprisingly skinny but cloaked in shadow as they were, it was impossible for her to make out anything distinctive except an unrecognisably feral pair of pale blue eyes.

She needed to end this and seizing her chance, Alice gave a deafening roar of pain before curling her lower back forward and kicking the shadowy figure in the side. There was a loud crack as the tip of her boot connected with ribs and in a mix of surprise and pain; it abandoned its attack to tumble back.

Rolling to her feet, her hand was halfway to the holstered magnum before she remembered that she had decided against reloading the revolvers, a decision she was already regretting, and so was forced to remain unarmed when her aggressor came at her again. Fast and light, the figure circled her once before exploding forward in an explosion of rage. The blade shimmered bright silver in the darkening twilight and Alice only had a moment to step aside before would have been plunged into her gut. Whirling, she countered with a right hook that slammed hard against her assailant's jaw.

Stumbling back, it lost its footing and collided with the truck, hitting their head on the side mirror as they went, before collapsing to the ground; unconscious and down for the count.

With her muscles aflame from exhaustion, there was nothing Alice would have liked more than to curl into a ball and rest however she wanted to know what, or indeed who, had attacked her. Grimly staring down at the dirty, rag clad figure, she was surprised to find that her assailant was actually a woman but a mane of tangled lustreless brown hair hid her face. Half expecting the woman to suddenly awake and attack her again at her moment, Alice took in a quick breath before kicking the wickedly curved knife from the savage's grasp and then bowed over the sleeping form to brush aside the matted locks and reveal the peacefully sleeping face of Claire Redfield.

Her breath catching at the sight of her friend's dirty face, Alice fell to her knees and began to silently weep with joy. Despite the outlandishness of the circumstances, she couldn't help but a feel an overwhelming sense of relief for having found the convoy leader; at last she wasn't alone.

The shrill song of a raven rang out in the distance, awakening her from the pool of emotion and bringing her back to the present. Remembering where she was, she took one last lingering look at the darkening horizon and then dropped her sights back to the still sleeping Claire; trying to estimate just how long it would take her to carry the unconscious woman back to her plane. It would be a hard journey and she'd have to move fast if she wanted to have any light left to search by, so bending down, she hooked her arms beneath Claire's and began to lift; only to catch sight of something beneath the folds of her dirty rags.

It wasn't much, merely a red tinge beneath the remnants of her tank top, but against her pale skin it glowed like a scarlet ruby on a snow blanketed field. However, before she could investigate further, the peacefully sleeping Claire jerked against her touch and the tattered garments fell open slightly to reveal what lay beneath. Alice felt a sickening lurch in her stomach as she took the sight in; there was a device which reminded her of the mythological Scarab bugs of Ancient Egypt stapled to the centre of her chest. Barely larger than a man's hand and held in place by six wickedly sharp talons that had bored beneath her skin, the device had a bright red casing that did nothing to hide the inner mechanics of a vile, filled with a pale blue liquid, being injected into its host's veins.

Recalling a similar set of operations performed by Umbrella Scientists, Alice had no trouble concluding that this evil looking machine was the cause of her friend's potently lethal hostility and accelerated strength and that it needed to be removed before she did anything else. The only question was how?

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With a scrutinizing gaze that missed nothing, Alice studied the bug shaped injector to the point of delirium. It was dark now and she only had the flickering light of her camp's fire to aid her, but her curiosity was insatiable and this device was fascinating. It reminded her vaguely of the face hugging life forms from the horror film series Alien that would infect a victim with the Alien's embryo while feeding him whatever he needed to stay alive. Unfortunately it seemed that unlike the face hugger, this device was not designed to deactivate once it had made first impregnation and had only shut off once she had managed to remove it from the sleeping Claire. To her annoyance, its deactivation had somehow neutralised whatever was inside the vile, preventing her from discovering whatever it was that had been poisoning Claire. She could only hope that the effects would wear off now that the injector had been removed.

Compelled by interest, she never looked up from the gadget in her hands until she heard the faint rustle of movement above the fire's crackling song and immediately turned her attention across the camp to where she'd chained the sleeping Claire. Having not been interested in another fight after carrying the unconscious woman over her shoulder for what felt like miles, she'd taken advantage of her complacency to securely tie her to the landing gear of her plane. It may have been somewhat unconventional, but Alice liked it much better than the alternative and at least this way she didn't have to worry about her throat being slit while she slept.

There was a moment of tense anticipation as the infected woman's dozy eyes flickered open and Alice felt her heart flutter with delight when she thought she saw a spark of recognition light up her pale blue irises; but then it was lost in a flood of feral emotions and she began tugging at her chains with an urgent frenzy in a desperate bid to get free.

Alice watched her friend's struggles with a pitying gaze, wondering as she did what could have happened to her friend? What could turn a person as decisive and action orientated as Claire Redfield, into a wild savage; it shouldn't have been possible and yet her they were. She only hoped there was enough of who she used to be left to save.