She stopped as she touched the cold metal handle of the door, frowning. There was a small, inset control panel set at eye level to the right of the door, labeled spots. She punched one of the buttons and the room dimmed as a single directional light went out.
Several of the crows barked their disapproval, fluttering ebony wings, and Jill turned the light back on, thinking.
So if these are the light switches, what are the controls beneath the paintings for?
Perhaps there was more to the room than she'd thought. She walked to the first picture across from the door, a large painting of flying angels and clouds shot with sunbeams. The title was, From Cradle to Grave. There wasn't a switch below it, and Jill moved to the next.
It was a portrait of a middle-aged man, his lined features sagging with exhaustion, standing next to an elaborate fireplace. From the cut of his suit and his slicked back hair, it looked to have been painted in the late 1940s or early '50s. There was a simple on/off switch underneath, unlabeled. Jill flicked it from left to right and heard an electrical snap and behind her, the crows exploded into screaming motion, rising as one from their brooding perch.
All she could hear was the beat of their dark wings and the sudden, manic ferocity of their cries as they swarmed toward her and Jill ran, the door seeming a million miles away, her heart pounding. The first of the crows reached her as she grabbed for the handle, its claws finding the soft skin at the back of her neck. There was a sharp stab of pain just behind her right ear and Jill flailed at the rustling feathers that brushed her cheeks, moaning as the furious shrieks enveloped her. She slapped at the air behind her and was rewarded with a startled squawk of surprise. The bird let go of her, reeling away. -too many, out out OUTShe jerked the door open and fell into the hallway, kicking the door closed even as she hit the floor. She lay there a moment, catching her breath, relishing the cool silence of the corridor in spite of the zombie stench. None of the crows had gotten out.
As her heartbeat returned to something approaching normal, she sat up and carefully touched the wound behind her ear. Her fingers came away wet, but it wasn't too bad, the blood was already clotting; she'd been lucky. When she thought of what could have happened if she'd tripped and fallen…
Why had they attacked, what had the control switch done? She remembered the snap of electricity when she'd flipped it, the sound of a spark-the perch!
She felt a sudden rush of grudging admiration for whoever had set up the simple trap. When she'd hit the switch, she must have sent a current through the metal bar they'd been perched on. She'd never heard of attack-trained crows, but could think of no other explanation-which meant that someone had gone through a lot of trouble to keep whatever was in that room a secret. To get to the answer, she'd have to go back in.
I can stand in the doorway, take them out one at a time… She didn't much like the idea, she didn't trust her aim and would certainly waste a lot of ammunition.
Only fools accept the obvious and go no further; use your brain, Jilly.
Jill smiled a little; it was her father talking, reminding her of the training she'd had before the S.T.A.R.S.
One of her earliest memories was of hiding in the bushes outside the rickety old house in Massachusetts that her father had rented for them, studying the dark, empty windows as he explained how to properly case a prospect. Dick had made it into a game, teaching her over the next ten years all the finer points of breaking and entering, everything from how to remove panes of glass without damaging them to walking on stairs so they didn't creak and he'd also taught her, again and again, that every riddle had more than one answer.
Killing the birds was too obvious. She closed her eyes, concentrating.
Switches and portraits… a little boy, a toddler, a young man, a middle-aged man…
From Cradle to Grave. Cradle to grave…
Once the solution occurred to her, she was almost embarrassed by the simplicity of it. She stood up and dusted herself off, wondering how long it would take for the crows to return to their roost. Once they were settled, she shouldn't have any more problems uncovering the secret.
She cracked the door open and listened to the whispering beat of wings, promising herself to be more careful this time. Pushing the wrong button in this house could be deadly.
Rebecca? Let me in, it's Chris.
There was the sound of something heavy sliding against the wall and the door to the storage room creaked opened. Rebecca stepped away from the entrance as he hurried inside, already pulling the diary out of his vest.
I found this journal in one of the rooms, he said.
It looks like there was some kind of research going on here, I don't know what kind but…
Virology, Rebecca interrupted, and held up a stack of papers, grinning. You were right about there being something useful in here.
Chris took the papers from her and skimmed the first page. As far as he could tell, it was in a foreign language made out of numbers and letters.
What is all this stuff? DH5a-MCR…
You're looking at a strain chart, Rebecca said brightly. That one's a host for generating genomic libraries containing methylated cytosine or adenine residues, depending.
Chris cocked an eyebrow at her. Let's pretend that I have no idea what you're talking about and try again. What did you find?
Rebecca flushed slightly and took the papers back from him. Sorry. Basically, there's a lot of, uh, stuff in here on viral infection.
Chris nodded. That I understand; a virus…
He quickly flipped through the journal, counting the dates from the first report of the accident in the lab. On May eleventh, there was some kind of spill or outbreak in a laboratory on this estate. Within eight or nine days, whoever wrote this had turned into one of those creatures out there.
Rebecca's eyes widened. Does it say when the first symptoms appeared?
Looks like… within twenty-four hours, he or she was complaining of itchy skin. Swelling and blisters within forty-eight hours.
Rebecca paled. That's… wow.
Chris nodded. Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Is there any way to tell if we could be infected?
Not without more information. All of that…
Rebecca motioned at the trunk full of papers,…is pretty old, ten years plus, and there's nothing specific about application. Though an airborne with that kind of speed and toxicity… if it was still viable, all of Raccoon City would probably be infected by now. I can't be positive, but I doubt it's still contagious.
Chris was relieved for himself and the rest of the S.T.A.R.S., but the fact that the zombies were all victims of a disease – it was depressing, whether it was a disaster of their own making or not.
We have to find the others, he said. If one of them should stumble across the lab without knowing what's there…
Rebecca looked stricken at the thought, but nodded gamely and moved quickly toward the door. Chris decided that, with a little experience, she'd make a first-rate S.T.A.R.S. member; she obviously knew her chemistry, and even without a gun, she was willing to leave the relative safety of the storage room in order to help the rest of the team.
Together, they hurried through the dark, wooded hallway, Rebecca sticking close to his side. When they reached the door back to the first hallway, Chris checked his Beretta and then turned to Rebecca.