The shot clipped the howling Nemesis just below its right hip and tore into the meat of its upper thigh, bits of skin and muscle flying out behind it…… and it crashed, a few more momentum strides and it went down in a spray of ravaged tissue, monstrous and silent and suddenly still. In a fever to reload, Jill dropped the second to last buckshot grenade, and it rolled away. She managed to get a firm grip on the fifth and was just snapping the gun closed when the Nemesis sat up, facing away from her. Jill aimed for its lower back and fired, the thunder of the weapon just another dull sound beneath the ringing in her ears. The Nemesis was moving, standing up when it was hit, and the pellets hit low and left, what would be a lethal kidney shot for a human. Apparently not for the S.T.A.R.S. killer. It stumbled, then stood up and started to limp away, one giant hand clapped over its new wound.
Leaving, it's leaving…
Her thoughts were slow and heavy. It took her a mo-ment to understand that its departure wasn't good news. She couldn't let it get away, let it repair itself and come back – she had to try and kill it while it was weak. Jill drew the Python and tried to take aim, but her vi-sion doubled suddenly and she couldn't focus on the receding figure as it dragged itself through the fiery wreckage. She felt light-headed and flushed and thought it very likely that she'd been infected by the T-virus. She didn't have to see the shoulder wound to know it was bad, she could feel hot blood coursing down her side, soaking into the waistband of her skirt. She wished she could believe that the virus was being washed out of her system, but she couldn't kid herself, even so direly injured. For a few seconds she considered the loaded.357 she still held – and then thought of Carlos and knew she had to wait. She had to help him if she could, she owed him that much. Summoning the last of her rapidly draining strength, Jill started toward Carlos. He lay by the fountain, groaning and half conscious, hurt, but at least she couldn't see any blood, maybe he's okay… It was her last thought before she felt her body be-tray her by giving up, dropping her to the ground and putting her into a very deep sleep.
Dark, elsewhere ringing and escape, fire and darkand bullets, can't hear, Jill running from the fire andthe thing firing, high-explosive missile aimed… aimed at my… face.
Carlos came to in a rush, confused and hurting and looking for the fight, for the Nemesis and Jill. She was in trouble if that thing got hold of her… It was a quiet, still night, and low fires burned all around, providing a dancing orange light and enough heat to make him sweat. Carlos forced himself to move, crawling to his feet and holding his ribs tightly, jaw clenched from the pain. Fractured or broken, maybe two of them, but he had to think about Jill now, had to shake off the effects of the multiple blasts and… "Oh, no," he said, forgetting about his aching ex-haustion as he hurried toward her. Jill was lying on a patch of burnt grass, perfectly still except for the steady ooze of blood from her right shoulder. Still alive, but maybe not for much longer. Carlos swallowed his pain and picked her up, the dead weight of her body making him want to scream in anger, at the insanity that had unfolded and grown in Raccoon, that had imposed its merciless grasp on Jill and on himself. Umbrella, monsters, spies, even Trent – all of it was crazy, it was a nightmare fairy tale… but the blood was real enough. He held her close, turning, searching. He had to get her inside, safe, somewhere he could dress her wounds, where they could both rest for a little while. There was the chapel in the mostly undamaged west wing; there were no windows and good locks on the door. "Don't die, Jill," he said, and hoped she was listen-ing as he carried her across the burning yard.
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.
I'll go out front and head west, see if I can find a sign or something… Trent had also said something about the hospital not being there for much longer; Carlos hoped he wasn't too late. "Try and get back to sleep," Carlos said. "I'm going to take off for a while, to try and find something that might help you. I won't be gone long."
Jill already seemed to be half asleep, but she raised her head and made an effort to be clear, enunciating carefully. "If you come back and I'm – sicker, I want you to help me. I'm asking you now, I may not be able to ask you later. Do you understand?"
Carlos wanted to protest but knew that he'd want the same thing if he had the disease. Being dead sucked, but Raccoon was proof that there were worse things.
Like having to shoot someone you care about."I understand," he said. "You rest now. I'll be backsoon."
Jill slept, and Carlos started to load up. Just before he left, he gazed into her sleeping face for a long mo-ment, silently praying that she'd still be Jill when he got back. The hospital turned out to be much closer than he thought, less than two blocks away. Nicholai waited for Ken Franklin eagerly, knowing that the Watchdog's death would mark the beginning of the end game. Nicholai's growing frustration was about to come to an end. If the bastard ever shows up… But no, he was com-ing, and then Nicholai would be on track again. He checked the corner window of the office he'd chosen, overlooking the dark, empty street – also his escape route, if the sergeant turned out to be troublesome – fra-me tenth time in half as many minutes, willing the er-rant Watchdog to hurry. Nothing had gone as he'd planned, and although he'd made the best of it, Nicholai was losing his patience. The search for Davis Chan had been spectacularly un-successful; Nicholai hadn't even caught a glimpse of him during the two days he'd stayed in the city – and twice more the elusive soldier had managed to avoid a confrontation after filing his reports, sending Nicholai running all over town. Nicholai had also been planning to head to Um-brella's "water treatment" facility to get rid of Terence Foster earlier in the day, but he'd been further side-tracked in a wild-goose chase – he'd seen an uninfected woman near the RPD building, a tall, Asian-American woman wearing a tight, sleeveless red dress and hold-ing a gun like she knew what to do with it. She'd slipped into the building and was gone. Nicholai had searched for nearly four hours but hadn't seen the mys-tery woman again. So, all three of his targets, still alive. He'd been able to collect some Watchdog information, at least, uncov-ering a couple of private lab reports on the strength of the average zombie, but he'd had enough, enough eat-ing cold beans out of cans, enough sleeping with one eye open, enough playing big game hunter. By his count, he'd killed four Beta Hunters, three giant spi-ders, and three brain suckers. And dozens of zombies, of course, although he didn't really count those as wor-thy of note, not anymore. They just kept getting slower and stickier; Raccoon already smelled like a giant cesspool, and it was only going to get worse as the virus carriers continued to decay, turning into great sludgy piles of malodorous stew.
I'll be gone by then. After all, Franklin will be here any minute.
After two days of unmet objectives, Nicholai had come to see Franklin's appointment at the hospital as something solid, something he could hold on to – a sure kill. And as he'd passed long, solitary hours im-mersed in the growing chaos of uncertainty, the death of Ken Franklin had become extremely important. Once he was dead, Nicholai could blow up the hospital; once the hospital was destroyed, Nicholai could hunt down Chan and Foster, and then he could leave. Every-thing would fall into place as soon as he killed Franklin. Even as Nicholai embraced that thought, he heard footsteps out in the hall. Heart swelling with pleasure, Nicholai took his position by the window and waited for Franklin to find him. The cluttered office/supply room was on the fourth floor, not far from where he'd killed and hidden Dr. Aquino.
Come along, Sergeant…
When the Watchdog opened the door, Nicholai was leaning casually in the corner, arms folded. Franklin was carrying top of the line, a 9mm VP70, and he had it trained on Nicholai's face in the blink of an eye. Nicholai didn't move. "You're not supposed to be here," Franklin said coolly, his voice deep and deadly. He stepped further into the room, not taking his gaze – or the semiauto-matic – off of Nicholai. Time for him to find out who's smarter. Anyone could stage an ambush, but it took a certain amount of intelligence and skill to make one's opponent willingly walk into one. Nicholai feigned a mildly surly nervous-ness.
"You're right, I'm not. Aquino should be here, but he stopped filing reports yesterday. They thought he was too busy, working on the antiviral, but I've been looking since last night and can't find him." Nicholai had actu-ally filed several status reports with Dr. Aquino's name on them since killing him, to keep up appearances. "Who are you?" Franklin asked. He was tall and well muscled, with very dark skin and rather delicate-look-ing wire rimmed glasses. There was nothing delicate in the way he looked at Nicholai, however. Nicholai uncrossed his arms and lowered them very slowly. "Nicholai Ginovaef, U.B.C.S… and Watch-dog. I was tapped to check things out when the doctor went AWOL. You're Franklin, right? Have you had any contact with Aquino since your arrival? Did he talk to you about where he was going to secure the sample, or give you a combination, or a key?"
Franklin didn't lower his weapon, but he was obvi-ously confused. "Nobody told me about any change in plans. Who did you say sent you?"
This part was a risk. Nicholai knew the names of four men important enough to have made changes to Umbrella's agenda, and chances were good that one of them was Franklin's contact and would already have
informed Franklin."I didn't say," Nicholai said. "But I guess it's okay totell you… Trent called me in on this."
He'd chosen the man he knew least about, even after all of his careful research, in the hope that Franklin wouldn't know anything about him, either. Trent was an enigma, skulking around the other top brass like some cryptic shadow. Nicholai didn't even know his first name. It worked for the sergeant. Franklin lowered his weapon, still wary but obviously willing to believe.
"So, you couldn't find Aquino? What about the vac-cine?"
Nicholai sighed, shaking his head and then deliber-ately looking to his left, a space hidden from Franklin's view by an overstuffed shelf. "No sign of the doc… but this was his office, and there's a wall safe back here. Do you know anything about getting one of these things open?"
Nicholai knew that Franklin did – on his personnel file, safecracking was listed among his skills. Nicholai didn't give a shit whether or not Franklin could open the safe; what mattered was that to get to the safe, the sergeant would have to turn his back on Nicholai.
I'm better, better at this than Aquino or Chan or this fool, and this will prove it. I'd never turn my back on anyone, ever. Yes, that would be unworthy of him… Franklin nodded, bolstering the VP70 and walking toward the corner where Nicholai stood. "Yeah, I know a little. I can take a look at it, anyway." Nicholai nodded briskly. "Good. I was starting to think that I was going to be stuck here for a while." "Maybe that's for the best," Franklin said, stepping past Nicholai to a small safe inset behind the shelf.
"With the way things are going out there, I've been thinking about holing up someplace for a while, wait-ing until things die down a little."
Nicholai took a silent step closer to Franklin, eyeingthe VP70's unsnapped holster. "Not a bad idea."Franklin nodded, frowning at the keypad. "Chan isdoing it, he says the info will still be there tomorrow sowhy not, right?"Davis Chan!
Nicholai held very still, deciding – and then he darted forward and snatched up the 9mm, not willing to dance for what he wanted. He shoved Franklin at the same time, pushing him off balance, using the split sec-ond of his recovery time to sight the heavy handgun.
"Chan – tell me where he is, and you live,"
Nicholai barked. With his free hand, he reached into his pocket and touched the vaccine case, for luck. It had become something of a talisman for him, a re-minder of how good he was – and it was lucky, he knew it.
Franklin and now Chan, the only two Watchdogs with no assigned filing locale. Incredible. Franklin backed up a step, hands up. "Hey, take it easy…" "Where is he?" Franklin was sweating. "At the radio setup, okay? At the cemetery. Look, I don't know you, and I don't care what you're doing…" "Terrific," Nicholai said, and shot Franklin in the ab-domen, twice. "Uuh!" Franklin grunted heavily as blood splattered the wall behind him. The sergeant fell backwards and landed on his butt, arms still outspread, an expression of surprise on his dark features. Nicholai was a little surprised himself; he'd expected better from one of the soldier dogs. Nicholai raised the weapon, aiming it at Franklin's forehead…… when he heard the door open, boot steps jogging into the room. Handgun still pointed at the dying Franklin, Nicholai ducked down and peered through an opening in the shelf…… and saw Carlos Oliveira standing there, staring around wildly and hefting a.357 revolver, obviously trying to figure out where the shots had come from. It was a gift from the fates. Nicholai stepped into view, Carlos's stupid face targeted before the soldier even realized that there was somebody else in the room. "Gotcha," Nicholai whispered.
TWENTY-TWO
NICHOLAI HAD HIM, DEAD TO RIGHTS. CAR-los dropped the revolver and raised his hands. He had to buy some time.
Talk to him, get his attention. Jill needs you to comeback, with or without the vaccine."Hola, dickhead," Carlos said lightly. "I wondered ifI was going to see you again, after our ride out of towngot blown to shit. A monster did it, believe it or not. So,what's your story? Kill anything interesting lately?"
From behind the tall shelf unit jutting out from one wall, somebody groaned in pain. Nicholai didn't look away, and Carlos could see that he'd taken the right tact. Nicholai was smug, irritated… and intrigued.
"I'm about to kill you – so no, nothing interesting. Tell me, has Mikhail died yet? And how is your bitch friend, Ms. Valentine?" Carlos glared at him. "Both dead. Mikhail died on the trolley, and Jill contracted the virus. I… I had to put her down just a few hours ago." He probably wasn't going to walk away from this, and he didn't want Nicholai going after Jill; he quickly changed the sub-ject. "You shot Mikhail, didn't you?" "I did." Nicholai's eyes sparkled. He reached into his front pocket as he spoke, pulling out what looked like a metal cigar holder. "And as luck would have it, this is the cure to what killed your other friend. If only you'd come sooner… in a way, I suppose you could say I'm at least partly responsible in both deaths, couldn't you?"
The sample. The only thing that could save Jill now, and Carlos was being held at gunpoint by the madman who had it.
Think! Think of something!
There was another gruff wail of pain from behind the shelf. Carlos tilted his head and could see a man slumped in the back corner of the room, just visible be-tween two stacks of files. Carlos couldn't see his face, but the man's lower half was drenched with blood. "And that guy makes three," Carlos said, desperately trying to keep the conversation going, trying not to stare at the silver case that Nicholai held up. "Aren't you a go-getter? Tell me, is this a means to an end, or do you like killing people?" "I enjoy killing people who are as useless as you,"
Nicholai said, slipping the vaccine into an open pocket.
"Can you think of one reason you deserve to live?"
Another moan came from the dying man behind theshelf. Carlos glanced between the stacks again and sawan impact grenade clenched in shaking hands, the ringalready pulled; Carlos realized that the man must havegroaned to cover the sound, and some part of him ad-mired the clear thinking, all in the instant before hestarted to back up, hands still raised. The grenade wasan RG34, the same kind that Carlos had tucked in hisvest, and he wanted as much distance as he could get.
Make it look good…"I'm an excellent shot, I have a generous nature, andI floss every day," Carlos said, backing up another step,trying to appear that he was deeply afraid and coveringit up with bravado."Such a waste this will be," Nicholai said, smiling,extending his arm.
Throw the goddamn thing!
"Why?" Carlos asked quickly. "Why are you doing this?"
Nicholai's smile stretched into a grin, the same predatorial grin that Carlos had seen him wearing on the transport, what felt like a million years before. "I possess leadership qualities," Nicholai said, and for the first time, Carlos could see the insanity in his murky eyes. "That's all you need to know…" "Die!" the bleeding man screamed. Carlos caught a flicker of motion behind the shelf, and then Carlos was diving sideways, trying to get behind a table as a win-dow broke and…… BOOM, folders and books were airborne and ex-ploded materials rained down, wood and paper and chips of metal, the heavy shelf tipping over with a thundering creak. It slammed to the floor with a tremendous crash, and then everything was quiet, and shit was everywhere. Carlos sat up, one arm wrapped around his throbbing rib cage, tears of pain in his eyes. He blinked them away and got to his feet, grabbing the revolver he'd dropped as he stood up. Nicholai was gone. Carlos kicked his way through the debris to the corner, remembering that a window had shattered before the grenade exploded. Although it was dark and rainy outside, Carlos could see the roof of an adjacent building one floor below. Bam! Bam! Carlos jumped back as two rounds hit the outer wall, hardly a hand's width from his face. He silently berated himself for sticking his head out the window, like some half-witted baboso. He backed away from the window and turned, only to find himself staring at the burnt, bloody remains of the grenade thrower. "Gracias," Carlos said quietly. He wished he could think of something else to say, but then he decided it would only be useless symbolism; the guy was dead, he wasn't hearing shit. Carlos walked back across the room, thinking, won-dering how he was going to catch up with Nicholai. It wasn't going to be easy, but there was no other choice…… and he saw the glint of metal from the corner of his eye, and stopped. He blinked, feeling a kind of awe as he realized what he was looking at – and then scooped it up, a giant weight lifting from his shoulders and from around his heart. He was going to be able to save Jill. The crazy pen-dejo had dropped the vaccine.
Nicholai moved quickly through the rain toward the front of the hospital. Everything is fine, he's dead at the
push of a button and I control it, I can shut down the power and trap him…
He laughed out loud suddenly, thinking about the containment tubes in the basement where the Hunter Gammas were stored, each floating in its own see-through womb. Shut down the power and there was au-tomatic drainage so they wouldn't drown in the unaerated fluid. Die, or fight and die, Carlos. Nicholai had been smart, he'd thought ahead and now all he had to do was hit a few switches and Carlos would be in the dark and the amphibious Hunters would be squelching toward him, and maybe Carlos would actually be dead before the hos-pital was blown apart, but he was dead no matter what. Jill was sleeping again, and she was sick. Hot and achy, and her dreams were gone, pulsing, squirming shadows in their place. Shadows with textures, rough and wet. Nausea warred with an unfulfilled emptiness, with a dying thirst and a growing heat. She rolled to one side and then the other, trying to find relief from the crawling itch that had embedded it-self in every part of her, that made the ugly shadows get bigger as she slept on. Carlos found needles, syringes, and a half bottle of Betadine in a doctor's office on the third floor. He also found a cabinet full of drug company samples and was trying to decipher the labels, looking for a mild painkiller, when the lights when out. "Shit." He put down the sample, trying to get his bearings in the sudden dark. It took him about a sec-ond and a half to decide it was Nicholai, and a sec-ond longer to decide he needed to get out, and get out fast. Nicholai probably hadn't shut down the power just to make him stub his toe in the dark. Whatever Nicholai was planning, Carlos thought he'd take a rain check. He edged out of the room and into the hall, moving slowly, his hands out in front of him. Just as he reached the stairwell, the hospital's emergency backup lights hummed into soft red life. The effect was otherworldly, the light just bright enough to see by, casting every-thing in murky shadow. Carlos started down the stairs, taking them two at a time, thumb on the hammer of the Python. He ignored his aching side, deciding that he'd collapse later, when he wasn't in such a hurry. He only knew of two options for getting out of the hospital – the window Nicholai had jumped from and the front door. There were cer-tainly more, but he didn't want to waste time trying to find them; in his experience, most hospitals were mazes.
The front door was his best bet. Nicholai probably didn't think Carlos had the nerve to charge straight out of the most obvious exit, or so Carlos hoped. He'd reached the landing between the first and sec-ond floors when he heard a door crash open somewhere far below, echoing up the stairwell, making him freeze. The sound that followed – the furious, piglike battle cry of some distinctly mutant creature -got him moving again. His feet hardly touched the steps, but he still wasn't fast enough; just as he was bounding down the last flight, a monstrous figure leaped in front of the exit to the ground floor. It was giant, humanoid, tall and wide and dripping slime. Its body was a dark blue-green, almost black in the dim red light. With its webbed oversized hands and feet and its huge rounded head and mouth, it resembled nothing so much as a mammoth, hideously squashed frog. Its powerful lower jaw dropped open, and another piercing, squealing screech filled the stairwell, re-bounding throughout. Carlos heard at least three more answer the first, a fierce and freakish chorus erupting from somewhere down below. Carlos opened fire, the first round hitting the metal door and creating a deafening tornado of sound. Before he could squeeze the trigger again, the amphibious creature was springing, squealing as it leaped toward Carlos, stretching its muscular arms wide. Carlos reflexively dropped, firing as he slid down several steps, rolling to his uninjured side so he could follow the creature's descent.
