Sherry was scared, but mr. x was dead and he must have been the monster all along, not the one at the station but the real monster, the one that had wanted to rip her apart all along...... but she didn't have time to think about it as Claire sprinted, jerking her along back the way they'd come, through the machine room, through the hall with the crawl space and around a corner...... and Sherry screamed as a zombie reeled toward them, a dead white creature made of dusty bone, and Claire raised her gun and shot...... bang, and the dry white head caved in, the moaning dead creature crumpled to the floor, and then Claire was dragging her over the body and running for the door at the end of the hall. It was an elevator, and Sherry collapsed against one wall after Claire pulled her inside, trying to catch her breath as Claire punched the controls. After the speed of their run from Mr. X, the elevator's descent was a crawl, a softly humming crawl. "We're gonna make it," Claire gasped, "just a little longer."

Sherry nodded, her heart pounding even harder as the intercom voice told them that they had four minutes left to be safe.

Leon felt like he didn't know how to stand up and walk away. The image of her composed, beautiful face in the second before she'd let go... she's gone. Ada's dead.

He reached for the Beretta, fresh grief washing over him as he picked it up, the weapon still warm from her touch - and it was too light, too light by half because it wasn't loaded. There wasn't even a clip. She'd never meant to hurt him; she'd lied, she'd lied all along, but she'd never meant to hurt him at all.

"... are four minutes to reach minimum safe dis-tance. All remaining personnel should evacuate im-mediately. Please report to the bottom platform..."

Four minutes. He had four minutes to get far enough away to fulfill Ada's last request. He stood up and turned for the door and stopped, reaching into his pocket, pulling out the tiny glass tube full of purple fluid. He knew he didn't have time to spare, but it only took a second to pull his arm back and throw the sample as hard as he could, wanting it as far away from him as possible.

If the laboratory responsible for so much death was

going to burn, let the G-Virus burn with it.

"Yes!"

The elevator door opened and there was a train, a secret subway train in shining silver. It was silent and dark, not the powered-up, thrumming machine that Claire had hoped to see, but it was still the most beautiful escape vehicle that she'd ever laid eyes on, hands down. Sherry holding on to her arm, they ran to the door at the front of the three-car subway, the bleating alarms still sounding, echoing through the concrete tunnel. The woman's bland voice, the voice that Claire had started to hate long moments ago, in- formed them that they had three minutes to get to the minimum safe distance. They hurried aboard, Claire noticing and not car- ing that there weren't any seats, just a wide, empty space for the passengers to stand in. The control booth was to the left. "Let's get this show on the road," Claire said, and the bright and radiant look of hope on Sherry's dirty, tired face made Claire's heart break, just a little.

Oh, baby...

Claire looked quickly away, hopping up the steps to the control room, making a silent promise to herself that if the train didn't work, she'd carry Sherry through the tunnel herself. Whatever it took to see that the fragile hope in her eyes wasn't broken. * * * The code and the verification disk he'd found in the operating room opened the door just as Ada had said, the broad hatch opening into a short hall. With three minutes left, Leon dashed down the cold corridor, through another overwide door, a biohazard symbol emblazoned across the front, and found himself in the cargo room. He didn't have time to stop and get a good look, his focus on getting to the elevator before the recording told him he couldn't possibly get out of the facility alive. Leon ran to the back of the wide, strangely red-tinted room, found the controls for the large warehouse-type elevator, and slapped the button for down, ready to jump in and go...... and nothing happened, except that a row of tiny lights... perhaps twenty tiny lights over the elevator door started to flash in descending order. Slowly. Leon reached forward and slapped the button again, feeling something like numb disbelief as the elevator crept down, pausing for what seemed like minutes between floors, as the alarms blared and the countdown to the lab's destruction ticked closer and closer to the end. "Jesus!" He turned around, feeling like he'd scream if he had to wait much longer...... and for the first time, got a clear look at the room he was in. The two tall, wide shelves that ran the length of the chamber held a very specific kind of "cargo" and although the half-dozen giant glass containers that lined each shelf held nothing but clear red fluid, Leon felt a chill just looking at them. Each cylinder was large enough to hold a full-grown man, and it made him wonder what they'd been built for. Doesn't matter, they're gonna be blown to shit in a matter of minutes, and so am I if this goddamn thing doesn't hurry UP... He turned back to the elevator, almost glad to be angry, frustrated, to have something to feel besides loss...... and the ceiling over the elevator started to shake and rattle. Leon backed away, pointing his Mag- num at the solid metal ceiling panel as it crashed down and out...... and the monster from the transport lift landed in front of him, the same demonic creature that had hurt Ada, that should have killed him...

Birkin?

... and from the way it threw back its strange head and howled, the vicious, feral sound drowning out the buzz of the alarms, he could tell it had come to finish the job.

The subway was ready, it was powered up and ready to go - except it seemed that the tunnel gate release had malfunctioned; a console full of green lights, and a single red dot that insisted the gate needed to be opened manually. Two minutes to safe minimum distance.

Won't make it, we'll never make it. "Stay here," Claire said, and went outside to find

the release, praying that it was nothing. * * * Leon turned and ran as the monster started walking toward him, each powerful stride thundering through the chamber, the echoes of its terrible shriek still spinning through the room.

Think!

The powerful shotgun hadn't been enough, he had to hit it someplace vulnerable, the eyes, use the Magnum... Leon was back at the door. He spun and fired, aiming the Magnum at the creature's face...... except that the face was changing again, the jaw dropping, falling away as it screamed. Great jagged spikes of tooth or claw slid out from what was left of the mouth, from out of the top of its pulsating chest and as another scream burst out of its mutating throat Leon saw two new arms unfurl from its sides. The limbs snapped into place, elbows locking, thick worms of taloned fingers growing from the tips. Bam-bam-bam! The shots grouped tight, blowing into the thin-stretched skin over its slitted left eye. The monster roared, this time in pain, and Leon saw shards of bone and pus-purple fluid splatter out, a small stream of dark blood obscuring the yellow ball of its eye. It shook its head back and forth, flinging more liquid, squatting down on its haunches like a mutant frog and leapt into the air, springing up and right, landing on one of the seven-foot-high shelves with an animal grunt.

Oh shit, how'd it do that.

He couldn't see its eyes, couldn't see anything but its back as it slumped down, but it was changing again, he could hear the wet snapping sounds and see the knobs of spine rising up through the purpled flesh of its back. He didn't want to see what it was becoming, but the elevator hadn't landed yet, and he had two goddamn minutes. Leon grabbed another clip and slapped it home, then fired at what he could see - a shape with six legs, a shape that no longer looked like anything human. The shot hit one of its muscular shoulders, and the creature jumped. Like some wild, spidering beast it leapt back to the floor, landing a few feet in front of him. Its chest had become a wall of strange teeth, of spikes that opened and closed as it panted - and when it screamed again, the sound was a demon cry, like nothing he'd ever heard, like the dying screams of a thousand damned souls.

Leon got two shots off into the cluster of moving teeth and stumbled away, and beneath the constant blare of the sirens, he heard the bright and cheery ping of the elevator's arrival.

Claire ran to the front of the train, looking at the series of levers and switches set into the tunnel wall, frowning, finding the red and white handle in less than ten seconds and slamming it down. She heard the grating of metal somewhere in front of the train and turned to run back to the door......when she heard metal again - the ripping, tear- ing sounds of steel being bent and hammered out of shape, coming from somewhere behind the subway, from somewhere in the back of the tunnel...

No, no way.

She stared toward the back of the train, past the metal bars of a closed gate that led back into shad- ows and heard a sound like bone on concrete, a grinding heavy noise that repeated, and again.

Footsteps.

Claire ran for the door, knowing that it couldn't be X, absolutely could not - he was melted, gone, and they didn't have the G-Virus anymore...... and she caught a glimpse of movement past the bars of shadow some thirty feet away. A glimpse of something tall, wisps of smoke curling through the darkness - and the bitter, choking stench of some- thing burned. It stepped out of shadow, stepped toward the back of the train car, raising charred, massive fists... BAM!... and the car actually rocked, as Claire realized that it was Mr. X, or what was left of him and that he was surely a demon straight from hell. She'd combined the clips on their elevator ride; eleven rounds left; there was no way it would be enough, but it was all they had. Claire raised Irons's gun, wondering if this was the end. Leon ran, around the shelf to his right, heading back for the elevator, and there were galloping, thun-dering footsteps right behind, he couldn't stop. Another turn, back through the middle of the room...... and he was hit in the back, propelled forward and down as the beast rammed him, hot, rubbery flesh slamming him into the floor. Leon rolled and it was on top of him, its dripping teeth poised to drive through his skull, its thick legs pinning him down. The tumor like an eye was still there, opening out of the shoulder, looking at him and he jammed the barrel of the weapon against its drooling chin and pulled the trigger, screaming, emptying the heavy rounds into its thrashing head. The beast shrieked, flailing, falling sideways off Leon. In a flash, he was up and running, straight for the open elevator. The enormous, freakish animal was still howling as Leon sprinted into the lift and turned, hitting the control marked down...... and saw the beast shuddering, changing, scream- ing, and spitting chunks of bone and flesh and blood as it also turned and started for the elevator. It picked up speed with each staggering step, the door closing slowly, the terrible creature almost flying now...... and Leon had the shotgun in his hands, pumped a shot and squeezed. The blast hit its barrel chest, knocking it back...... and the door closed, Leon was going down, and there was only one minute left.

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