TWENTY
TIME PASSING. DARK AND DARK, AND FRAG-ments of a thousand dreams, spinning into focus for a brief glimpse before spinning away. She was a child at the beach with her father, the taste of salt on the wind. She was a gawky teenager, in love for the first time; a thief, stealing from wealthy strangers as her father had taught her to do; a student, training for the S.T.A.R.S., learning to apply her skills to help people. Darker. The day her father went to prison for grand larceny. Lovers she had betrayed, or who had betrayed her. Feelings of loneliness. And her life in Raccoon City, the very death of light. Becky and Priscilla McGee, ages seven and nine, the first victims. Eviscerated, parts of them eaten. Finding the crashed Bravo team helicopter outside of the man-sion; the smell inside, of dust and rot. Learning about Umbrella's conspiracy and the corruption and collabo-ration of at least a few S.T.A.R.S. members. The death of the traitorous team leader, Albert Wesker, and the Nemesis's final attack. Several times, half awake, she swallowed cool water and then slept again, more recent memories taking over. The lost survivors, the people she'd tried to save, the faces of the children, mostly. All of them, gone. Brad Vickers's brutal death. Carlos. Nicholai's flat, emotionless gaze, and Mikhail's sacrifice. And reigning over it all like the demonic epitome of evil, the beyond Tyrant monster, the Nemesis, its terrible voice calling for her, its terrible eyes seeking her wherever she went, whatever she did. The most troubling thing, though, was that there was something happening to her – a distant feeling, because it was happening to her body and she was very much asleep, but no less unpleasant for that. It felt like her veins were heating up and expanding. Like her every cell was becoming thick and heavy with strange spices, sticking to the cells around it, all of them boiling gently. Like her whole body was a vessel filled with moving wet heat. Finally, the gentle sound of falling rain lapped at the edges of her awareness and she yearned to see it, feel its coolness on her skin, but it was a long, tiring strug-gle to leave the dark behind. Her body didn't want to, protesting louder the closer she got to the surface of gray, the twilight between the dreams and the rain, but determined, she won out. After deciding that she was alive, Jill opened her eyes.
TWENTY-ONE
CARLOS WAS SITTING WITH HIS BACK TO THE door eating fruit cocktail out of a can when he heard Jill stir, the regular, consistent sound of her deep breathing becoming lighter. She turned her head from side to side, still asleep, but the movement was the most deliberate action he'd seen in forty-eight hours. He stood as quickly as he could, forced to be careful by the pinch of his tightly taped ribs, and hurried to the raised altar where she lay. He picked up the bottle of water at the base of the dais, and when he stood up again, she opened her eyes.
"Jill? I'm going to give you some water now. Try and help me out, okay?"
She nodded, and Carlos felt sappy with relief, hold-ing her head up while she drank a few swallows from the bottle. It was the first time she had responded clearly to anything, and her color looked good. For two days she had drunk when he'd pushed it on her, swal-lowing at least but white as a ghost and completely out of it otherwise. "Where… are we?" Jill asked weakly, closing her eyes as she lay her head back down on the makeshift pillow, a piece of rolled-up carpet. Her blanket was made from unburned drapes he'd salvaged from the
foyer."The chapel of the clock tower," he said softly, stillsmiling. "We've been here since – since the helicoptercrashed."
Jill opened her eyes again, obviously aware and rea-sonably focused. She wasn't infected, he'd been so afraid for a while, but she was okay, she had to be.
"How long?"
Talking seemed to be tiring for her, so Carlos tried to summarize everything that had happened, to save her the questions. "The Nemesis shot down the helicopter, and you and I were both wounded. Your shoulder was… injured, but I've been changing the dressings and it doesn't seem to be infected. We've been here two days, recuperating, you've been sleeping mostly. It's October first, I think, the sun set an hour ago and it's been raining off and on since last night…"
He trailed off, not sure what else he could tell her but not wanting her to fall asleep again, not right away. He'd been stuck with his own thoughts for long enough.
"Oh, I found a case of fruit cocktail, of all things, in the trunk in that one sitting room – the one with the chessboard, remember? Water, too, someone was hoarding, I guess, lucky for us. I didn't want to leave you alone, I've been, ah, taking care of you." He didn't add that he'd been cleaning her up, changing the drapes she lay upon when it was necessary; he didn't want her to feel embarrassed. "You're hurt?" she asked, frowning, blinking slowly. "Couple of fractured ribs, no big deal. Well, maybe when I have to pull the tape off, that's gonna hurt like a son of a bitch. All I could find was duct tape."
She smiled faintly, and Carlos softened his tone, al-most afraid to ask. "How are you doin'?" "Two days? No more helicopters?" she asked, look-ing away, and he felt himself tense slightly. She hadn't answered his question. "No more helicopters," he said and noticed for the first time that the color in her cheeks was overly red. He touched the side of her neck, and his tension grew; fever, not too bad, but she hadn't had it the last time he'd checked, an hour before. "Jill, how do you feel?" "Not bad. Not bad at all, hardly any pain." Her voice was flat, inflectionless. Carlos smiled crookedly. "Bien, si? That's good news, that means we can pack up and get out of here soon…" "I'm infected with the virus," she said, and Carlos froze, his smile fading.
No. No, she's wrong, it's not possible."It's been two days, you can't be," he said firmly,telling her what he'd been telling himself since he firstwoke up. "I saw one of the other soldiers turn into azombie, couldn't have been more than two hours fromthe time Randy was bit until he changed. If you have it,something would have happened by now."
Jill carefully rolled onto her side, wincing a little, closing her eyes again. She sounded incredibly tired.
"I'm not going to argue with you, Carlos. Maybe it's a different mutation because it came from the Nemesis, or maybe I picked up some kind of immunity, from being at the Spencer estate. I don't know, but I have it." Her voice shook. "I can feel it, I can feel myself getting worse!" "Okay, okay, shhh," Carlos said, deciding that he would leave immediately. He'd take Jill's revolver in addition to the assault rifle, and definitely a couple of hand grenades. The hospital was close, and there was at least one vaccine sample there, that's what Trent had said. Carlos had wanted to find the hospital earlier, for supplies, but he'd been too exhausted and hurt to go looking, at first – and then he hadn't wanted to risk leaving Jill alone and unconscious, dangerous for several reasons.