Resident Evil: Exodus - The Tale of Elza Walker

Chapter 18 - Regicide

ASIDE - Download and read the complete novel at your leisure by cutting and pasting the link below in your Internet browser!
https://www.mediafire.com/file/f7o02jbrx2pszp6/exodus_revised_draft_v501.rar/file

--------------------

"Mr. Kendo! Here comes another one!" Sherry whispered.

John Kendo and Sherry Birkin, hiding as best as they could, watched as another licker appeared from over the roof of the Admin Building. This was the fourth licker they had seen come over the roof since the muffled gunfire and animal roars behind the building had died down. It was one of the big ones too. A stage five licker, if Miss Linda's description had been right. It was bigger and more muscled than the lickers they had first encountered in the Sewers and had longer claws, although it still had the same sick-looking inside-out pinkish-red skin and a head that looked like it was wearing its brain outside of its skull. It came vertically down the outside wall of the Admin Building like a spider, making the same peculiar asthmatic-like breathing noise that the others had, and occasionally stopping to turn its head and look around, if look was what you called a thing that didn't appear to have any eyes seemed to be doing. It took a few minutes, and then it reached the open transom window high above and to the north of the locked Lobby doors. It scampered inside, got into a bit of a hissing fit with the other three lickers already in there, two stage fours and another stage five, then apparently found its appointed place and sat on its haunches, staring up at that part of the inside wall above the windows over the Lobby doors that John and Sherry couldn't see. The sound it was making also changed, just like it had done with the others. Up there, as Sherry had seen and John now knew, was the Regent Licker. The newest member of the group of lickers now seemed to sway a bit back and forth as its raspy breathing evened out to almost a soft crooning noise. It sounded like a cross between a cat purring contendedly and the teeth of a large handsaw being dragged across a round file. As a matter of fact all of them were doing it, looking for all the world like a pack of hounds baying at the moon, save that the sounds they were each making were definitely not those of baying hounds.

"What are they doing, Uncle John?" a worried-looking Sherry whispered.

"Beats da hell outta me," John automatically replied, speaking quietly and looking just as amazed as Sherry. He then realized what he had just said. "Sorry, babe. I shouldn'a talk like dat to ya."

"That's okay," Sherry said. "Mom says dirty words all the time whenever she's mad, especially whenever Dad's not around. I've kinda gotten used to it."

"Well, people ain't s'pposed ta talk dat way," John said, still watching the lickers, "'specially ta nice little girls like youse. Miss Rita's alredah gotten on'ta me 'bout it. Ise sorry, Sherry, an' Ise try not ta do it again."

"Thank you," Sherry said. "I won't tell her."

John grinned. "Thanks."

Sherry turned back to the window and started watching the lickers again. "What do you think happened to the others?"

"Well, dey ain't called, so I dunno," John said. "Dat cud mean anything, dough. I mean—"

The radio Elza had loaned him suddenly chirped. He pulled it from his front pocket and then gave a worried look across the parking lot at the lickers in the Lobby. They apparently hadn't noticed or didn't care, and were still engaged in their bizzare behavior. He keyed the mike and whispered loudly. "John here. Keep it low. Dey is lickers nearby."

"Lickers?!" Kevin's exclaimed quietly over the radio. "How many?"

"Four so fer," John said, still using the same loud whisper as before. "Deys started comin' after you guys stopped shootin'. Deys been cumin' purty reg'lar 'bout ever few minutes or so."