Resident Evil: Exodus - The Tale of Elza Walker

Chapter 19 - Remedy

(AUTHOR'S NOTE - Updated to revised edition text on 18 August 2019)

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There were at least six dozen or so lickers of all kinds now present in the warehouse district of the Umbrella Factory Complex, crawling all over its Administration Building or in the immediate surrounding area. They had heard the imperative and they had responded. Surprise-fight-hurt-dying-protect-food-tasty-kill might be the closest thing to a human translation, if anyone had been able to understand it. The Regent was dead and it had issued the imperative even as it was dying, and from everywhere in the surrounding area they had come. It was not out of a sense of loyalty, or even a desire for revenge. They had sunk too low for that, leaving behind such complex philosophies along with their human minds once they had begun to evolve - or was that devolve? - into their new forms. They now operated purely on an animalistic level, responding primarily to animal instinct and secondarily to rudimentary animal logic and drives. Their hive-oriented minds, if Umbrella's theories were true, had been given an imperative and they had responded. It was as simple as that. This was the reason why Umbrella had eventually given up on developing anything useful based on the licker life form. It just didn't have enough intelligence to be controlled, only directed. In that sense, it wasn't much better than a common dog, save that it lacked a dog's sense of pack loyalty and rudimentary intelligence. All a licker knew, as far as anyone knew, was existence and needs, and how and to where to be directed in order to perform the simplest or most basic of tasks. For it, that was enough. It still had its uses, of course, insofar as Umbrella's scheme of T-virus mutations had developed. Lickers made good pack killers, for example. You could simply direct them into an area where they would register food, and let them proceed as came naturally. The only problem was getting them to know when to stop once the target or targets had been taken out. It had proven impossible to teach them any form of control. For that a Regent or Regis Licker was needed. Now the Regent was dead, and all of the lickers gathering and massing in this part of the Factory were on their own. Their last command from the Regent still burned in their simple minds. Protect-food-tasty-kill ... kill ... kill ... kill ....

With nowhere else to go, and with only the room behind the door in the alcove left to search, the group of survivors had fallen in behind Kevin in front of it. The door whoooshed up as soon as Kevin hit its control stud, and he found himself looking straight into the face of a Crimson Zombie. A split second later it staggered backwards, as a round from Kevin's SPAS-12 shotgun tore through its chest. Its head disintegrated from another blast a split second later. What was left of the now-headless body promptly flopped to the floor in a bloody heap. There was the sound of fast shuffling and a familiar whining moan as a second Crimson all but dashed around the corner, but it promptly staggered under two more shotgun blasts and a peppering of small arms fire from the others. It spun about, blood gushing from its mouth and spurting from multiple gunshot wounds, then its head jerked back and it gurgled helplessly as a final nine millimeter pistol shot destroyed its larynx and shattered its neck bone. It too fell in a heap beside its undead companion and moved no more.

While Kevin and John were busy dragging the remains out of the room and to the far end of the outer hallway, and while Kevin ensured they would never revive again thanks to the loan of Elza's knife, the others began to look around the room where they now found themselves. Kevin had mentioned that it looked a lot like many of the loading offices at some of the warehouses where he worked before joining the RPD, and John quickly agreed with him. The Loading Office it became in their minds from that point on, just for the sake of reference. It was shaped like the English letter U, with a long partition set up in the middle of the room lengthwise and running for about three-quarters of its length. On the front side of the partition, posted on the opposite wall, and also scattered on the floor was the usual industrial detria: cork boards, posted notices, company posters, the occasional site photo or picture, various memos and reports, and so on. There was a large industrial-type photocopier along the side wall, but it was apparently broken. It was unplugged and a sign reading OUT OF ORDER had been taped to it. Beyond that was a small table and chair, and on it sat a multi-line telephone and a smashed notebook computer. The telephone's receiver was missing, but a quick glance revealed it to be on the floor with its cord yanked in two. There was blood on one end and its cap piece there was cracked, as if it had been used for a crude cudgel. There were three large grey combination storage and shelving units lined along the far wall, with a large packing crate and several smaller cardboard shipping boxes on top filling out what would have been an empty corner on the far side. Around the turn and behind the partitions were several double-wide storage lockers and a single low filing cabinet. Lining the opposite wall were three desks with accompanying rolling office chairs. The back two of the three desks had computers on them, but only the one on the desk at the far end still seemed to be working. It was displaying an old-fashioned text-based spreadsheet of some kind, like that old program with the flower name that was so popular once upon a time. Above it and sitting on a shelf mounted to the the back wall was an intercom system control box, complete with an old-fashioned short stand microphone. The microphone was no longer on the shelf, but hanging by its cord down in front of a nearby wall vent. All three of the desks behind the partition, as well as the floor beneath, were covered in loose papers, and there were more than a few bloodstains to liven up the scene. These were concentrated at the first two desks and centered on the second desk. Its computer monitor was smashed. and the computer itself was covered in blood.