An elongated face with no eyes, and teeth that were now the size of Pennsylvania looked back at Kaplan.

After the day he'd had, Kaplan had thought he'd seen everything.

He was wrong.

His last thought as the creature ripped into him with its claws and teeth was anger that he'd never get to write that f.u.c.king report...

Twenty-Seven.

IT TOOK MATT A SECOND TO RECOVER FROM the shock of seeing Kaplan torn to pieces by the monster.

Then he shut the engineer's cabin door.

He'd already mourned Kaplan once. h.e.l.l, he had mourned all of them. The black guy and the others who died in the Red Queen's chamber. Kaplan. J.D. The employees of the Hive. Even Spence, the f.u.c.khead.

And Lisa.

Umbrella had done this. They created the virus, they let Spence into the top of their Security Division, and they created this thing, which was now running along the top of the train. It killed Spence, it killed Kaplan, it wounded Matt, and now it was well on its way to killing the remaining three of them.

Then Matt noticed that the door on the opposite end of the train was unlatched.

Alice had recovered Rain's Colt and was in a crouch in the center of the train, ready for anything. As time had gone by, Matt was seeing more and more of the formidable presence that Alice was, and was really grateful she was on his side-in more ways than one. Lisa had picked her contact well.

Running across the cab, Matt latched the other door, just as the monster tried to smash through it.

This held it back only temporarily. On its second punch, it knocked the door inward, hitting Matt full on and knocking him to the floor. He managed to get his hands up to keep the door from damaging his face, but it still hurt both when the door hit him and he hit the floor.

Alice shot it three times in the head, which, if nothing else, distracted it from Matt. Taking advantage, Matt clambered out from under the door and ran back to the other side of the cab where the bundled metal tubes hung.

Matt had noticed the tubes when they first rode down into the Hive. He wasn't in a position to ask what they were doing there then, and he didn't give a tinker's d.a.m.n what they were doing there now.

What did matter was that they could be used as a weapon.

The creature's impossibly long tongue came shooting out of its mouth and wrapped itself around Alice's left leg.

Then it pulled.

Alice fell on her back, dropping the Colt.

She tried to hang onto the gridwork of the trapdoors to keep from being pulled in even as Matt undid the cable that kept the tubes secured in the corner.

He then charged forward, using the tubes as a battering ram to slam into the monster's head.

The creature stumbled backward, not nearly as hurt as Matt hoped it would be, but, at least, it released its tongue's grip on Alice's leg. She quickly scrambled over toward the gun, but before she could, the tongue flew out again and literally slapped Alice down.

Oddly, she gave up on the gun, and instead grabbed two of the tubes, which had come out of the bundle.

With the first, she slammed it down horizontally onto the end of the monster's tongue, holding it secured to the floor.

With the second, she drove it down vertically like a spear, through both the tongue and the gridwork of the trapdoor, skewering it.

She had, in essence, nailed it to the floor.

"Open the door!" she yelled at Matt.

Matt turned to push the red b.u.t.ton that would open the trapdoor the monster was standing on-and couldn't move from, now that Alice had secured it-but there was someone standing between him and the b.u.t.ton.

Rain.

Her eyes were watery.

Her movements were sluggish.

Her mouth opened wide, showing blackening teeth.

She moved to bite him, just as Lisa had.

This time, Matt was ready, and he pushed her off. Reaching down, he picked up the Colt.

"Open the door now now!" Alice screamed.

With his sister, Matt hesitated. When Alice thought Rain was dead a few minutes ago, she hesitated.

Now, Matt unhesitatingly shot Rain in the head.

She fell backward, right onto the red b.u.t.ton.

The monster fell right into the undercarriage, slamming against the tracks while travelling at some sixty miles an hour or so.

The friction caused a huge conflagration that Matt could feel and smell even more than he could see. The heat was like an inferno, and the stench of burning flesh seared his nostrils, even as the fire climbed into the cab.

It wasn't pretty.

It was, however, deserved.

Matt then pushed the red b.u.t.ton again. It shut the door, slicing off the thing's tongue, and leaving it behind to burn on the tracks.

He and Alice exchanged glances. Matt felt more tired than he'd ever been in his life.

Alice looked more alive than she had since he first met her a couple of hours ago.

What a f.u.c.king day.

He opened the door to the engineer's cubbyhole. It didn't take too long to figure out how to slow the thing down-they made it fairly idiot-proof. He did so as the train pulled into the other terminus.

Terminus. What a f.u.c.king appropriate word.

In silence, they disembarked. Matt still carried Rain Melendez's Colt. Alice held the case with both virus and anti-virus.

They walked quickly amongst the crates and boxes, heading toward the giant staircase that would take them back to the lavish mansion.

At one point, they pa.s.sed the metal bar J.D. had placed by the blast doors. Its countdown was at less than ten seconds.

As they went up the staircase, the blast doors closed behind them.

Lisa and Matt's parents had raised their kids to be Catholic, but both of them had lapsed pretty thoroughly by the time they hit their teen years.

Nevertheless, Matt found himself praying for Lisa, for Kaplan, for Rain, and for all the others who died down there.

As they walked through the dining hall toward the front door, Matt noticed that Alice was starting to stumble.

By the time they reached the vestibule outside the door, she collapsed in a heap, dropping the case next to her.

Matt knelt down next to her, seeing that sobs were now wracking her body.

"I failed," she said, her voice catching. "All of them. I failed them."

Survivor's guilt. Matt knew way too much about that-h.e.l.l, he was experiencing it himself. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw his sister, face twisted, trying to bite his neck. You want to talk failure...

But that way lay madness.

"Listen," he said firmly, "there was nothing you could have done. The corporation is to blame here, not you." He indicated the case. "And we finally have the proof. That means Umbrella can't get awa-"

He cut himself off as a throb of pain shot through his left arm.

Shaking his head, he went on. "Get away with this. We can-"

The pain returned, much more than a throb this time, and focused on the three wounds the eyeless monster had given him on the train. At the same time, he lost all feeling in his arm below those wounds.

"What is it?" Alice asked.

A scream suddenly ripped from his mouth as the pain coursed throughout his body, and he fell onto his back.

"You're infected. You'll be okay-I'm not not losing you." losing you."

Matt barely heard Alice's words. He lay on the floor, twitching, writhing from the agony that flared through every joint, every muscle, every cell cell, and he screamed and screamed and screamed...

Then everything went white...

Twenty-Eight.

JUST AS ALICE WAS ABOUT TO MINISTER TO Matt, the door opened.

Shielding her eyes from the blinding white light, she saw at least half-a-dozen people in Hazmat suits.

"What's happening? What're you doing?"

One of them reached for her, while two others knelt down beside Matt.

"Stop!"

She fought off the one by her with a few well-placed punches. Then three more tried to grab her, even as others picked Matt up and carried him out into the hall.

It took her all of four seconds to subdue the three trying to hold her. h.e.l.l, after what she'd just faced, three bozos in Hazmat suits were not not going to be a challenge for her. going to be a challenge for her.

"Matt!"

The hall had been converted into a sterile zone of some kind, with some stuff that looked like hospital equipment, and a single examination table.

Several of the Hazmat-suited people were laying Matt on that table.

Small tentacles started to grow out of the three wounds on Matt's arm.

One of the Hazmats spoke. "He's mutating. I want him in the Nemesis Program."

Alice ran to grab Matt, but two more Hazmats grabbed her first, even as they strapped down Matt and started to wheel him outside.

Shattering the faceplate of one Hazmat with a single punch, and kicking another in the nuts, she again screamed, "Matt!"

For every two Hazmats she knocked down, though, three more seemed to take their place.

And she honestly was exhausted, mentally and physically. Even she had her limits, and she had finally reached them.

She felt a needle puncturing her thigh. Kicking with that leg, she cracked another faceplate, but even as she did so, her limbs stopped responding to her brain's commands.

Falling to the floor, a gray haze coming over her vision, she heard a voice that was maddeningly familiar.

"I want her quarantined. Close observation, and a full series of blood tests. Let's see if she's infected. Take her to the Racc.o.o.n City facility, then a.s.semble a team. We're reopening the Hive. I want to know what went on down there."

As she faded into oblivion, Alice finally recognized who it was talking.

Major Timothy "Able" Cain.

Vice President in Charge of Operations.

Her boss.