Chapter 76: The Cost of Protection

The sound of something very heavy hitting the thick metallic door in front of them, covered the one of the chains blocking it. Whatever was behind it was not the run out of the mill Ooze the group had countered so far.

They had already put down a new variant of the ones they knew a few minutes earlier and from the banging sound alone it was clear it wasn’t the same one. The variant had been taller, thinner, with a tricorn head and stayed at distance to shoot projectiles. When Rick had killed one with his axe while being really close, thanks to Rachel and Jill distracting it, he had felt the new enemy not being as strong as the others. It definitely didn’t have the strength to hit the door that way without breaking a bone or two.

“I guess we finally got our nasty variant.” Rachel remarked, aiming at the door. She was ready to unload her MP5 the moment the chain broke and the door opened.

Rick had his eyes closed and was focusing on his hearing. It was something that Chaser taught him early during his stint in the Unit. How to use your ears to determine many things. The location of your target and its relative weight. From what he could tell, the thing was utterly massive. Its stomps on the floor sounded like a small car hitting the ground. The quick and repeated hit against the door revealed that despite the heavy weight, the creature was also fast.

That could be a problem. A very dangerous problem.

“Can I be untied and armed?” Raymond broke Rick’s focus and caught everyone’s attention.

“No.” Rachel was categoric about it.

The redhead insisted however. “Whatever is behind that door—”

“Can be dealt with, without you.” Rick interjected and walked away from the door to the exit of the small room they were gathered in.

“Are you sure?” Jill’s worry didn’t bleed into her voice.

Rick didn’t change his mind. “Yes. We need to prepare though.”

Both female agents exchanged a look, Rachel shrugging her shoulders to indicate she had no idea what was going through Rick’s head while he disappeared beyond the door frame. She kept an eye on Raymond as Jill went to see what her partner was concocting. Nearly bumping into him, she took a few steps back to let him pass.

Rick was carrying on his shoulder a huge, red propane tank. One of the a few they had passed by when they made their way here after crossing almost the whole promenade area.

“What are you going to do with this?”

Despite his words, Raymond was more disturbed by the fact that Rick was moving the tank as if it was a bag of rice. It shouldn’t be possible. Not by one person, definitely not like this and definitely not as easily. Nobody could blame him really. The container may have been relatively thin but it was long. Around six feet from the comparison with the people present’s height. From the label on it, it was 200 gallons of propane making the weight around 1000 lbs.

Absolutely no one had the physical strength to carry that.

“Jill is going to shoot that lock, I’m going to hurl that tank right onto the B.O.W. and Rachel is going to shoot at it to make it explode.” Rick placed his feet into a throwing position.

“What if that’s not enough?” Jill asked, skeptical about the plan.

Rachel’s answer came sweetly. “Molotovs.”

Raymond took more than a few steps back. He simply moved toward the room’s exit. He wasn’t the only one. Jill went over a broken window to position herself onto the small open balcony behind it. Rachel put herself in the corner, far enough to not be hindered by the explosion’s radius.

Rick called out to everyone. “Ready?”

“I still think—”

Raymond’s voice was drowned by Jill using her Beretta to shoot the lock off. It opened and the tension it put on the chains while being locked vanished. The chains fell to the ground. The door, not hindered anymore, burst open at the next hit from the monster behind it.

‘Monster’ was an understatement. Neither Rick, Rachel or Jill had ever seen something as disgusting as what barrelled through the now open door. Not even a heavily mutated William Birkin was as vomit-enducing.

The creature was a grotesque fusion of a mutated, bloated sailor and the very machinery of the ship. Its torso was massively swollen, with pallid, waxy skin stretched tight over a distended abdomen. From the center of its bulk, the upper body of its original human form jutted out at a sickening angle, limp and puppet-like, still clad in the tattered remains of a white naval uniform.

Its right arm had mutated into a huge, clawed appendage, while the left terminated in a writhing, tentacular mass. Exposed muscle and pulsating organs were visible through tears in its flesh, and its movements were accompanied by the wet, tearing sounds of straining ligaments and a low, guttural moan that seemed to come from both the beast and the trapped man within it. A man who was probably already gone.

“WHAT THE F—”

Rick recovered quickly from the reveal and threw the propane tank right into the thing’s gargantuan mouth, interrupting Jill thanks to his faster perception of everything. Almost all of it went inside and the bits that were out were being swallowed.

Without needing a signal and without hesitation, Rachel shot at the tank twice making it explode. Raymond ducked beyond the door to use the wall as cover, while Jill crouched down for the same thing. Rick moves as fast as he could to push down his ex-partner and protect her with his own body.

Blood, bones and rotten flesh went everywhere and redecorated the whole room from top to bottom. No wall was spared.

It would have been alright if not for the fact that the bio-weapon wasn’t dead. Heavily damaged, yes but not dead. The whole right side of its body was gone yet it still tried to get up from the ground. Rick was faster than it was. Getting off the blonde, he rushed toward their enemy, axe in hand. With his foot, he pinned down what was left of the bloated torso and with his hand swung the tomahawk onto the human head, again and again.

He only stopped when the creatures didn’t move anymore. Using the body for his footing he tugged the axe away and swung it up and down a few times to get rid of the filth coating it.

“It’s dead.” He called out.

Jill popped her head from her position, while Rachel stood back up. Raymond was looking inside the room while hiding most of his body by the door frame.

“That thing is the worst thing I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen some shit.” Rachel’s frown suited her disgust well.

Rick gave her a sick look. “It’s nothing compared to the smell.”

The blonde felt sympathetic. She knew how developed his nose was and he was standing right on top of the dead creature. She already wanted to gag from where she stood, ten feet away, she couldn’t imagine how bad it was for him.

The smell didn’t stop her from walking to him, grabbed him by his tactical vest and pulled him down for a thank you kiss. If she was unarmed or at the very least not covered in B.O.W. body fluid, marring her very skin and perhaps infecting her, it was because of him.

Jill had gotten back inside the room and went inside the one where the thing used to be locked in to search for the key they needed. She found ammunition, a Communication Officer’s journal in which he wrote during his mutation but found nothing else. That meant only one thing.

When her eyes found Rick’s, he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t frown. He didn’t grunt, nor did he grimace. His face stayed blank and he crouched down to search the gory remains of the monster.

“Wait!”

Jill calling him out made him freeze on the spot. Genesis in hand she began to scan the pile of flesh, hoping to find the key. She was right to do so, the key was nowhere to be seen. It was quite an issue.

“Maybe the key was… flung away with the explosion?” Raymond suggested.

Jill considered the possibility and nodded. “It means it’s either still in this room or went—”

“Found it!”

Rachel walked to Rick who arched a brow quizzingly. With her hand, she signaled for him to turn around which he did without protest. Right there buried inside his tactical vest on his back was the key. From the position of the impact, she would have definitely died if not for Rick’s interference, struck right in the face.

‘I’m definitely rocking his world once we’re out of here.’

She grabbed the key and started to pull it out. Inwardly she couldn’t help but hope more than before. No matter how dangerous and hopeless the situation was, with Rick by her side, she knew she’d make it. No matter what. It wasn’t the first time he had saved her life when odds were against her and she knew it wouldn’t be the last.

‘Once Lansdale is taken down, I’m transferring to the BSAA. It’s time that I get back my part—Oh, shit!’

Pulling out the key, a very coated key with B.O.W’s fluids, she noticed it had pierced the tactical vest and buried itself a little inside Rick’s body. Meaning Rick was probably infected. As she watched his slight wound immediately healed as if nothing happened she worried greatly.

Rick was immune to all known viruses so to speak. At least it was speculated but who knew if one day his body wouldn’t be able to devour one of them? That he might be infected, whether he could handle the virus or not was a secondary problem. In the short term, his body will start to fight the infection and Rick may not be able to do anything. The T-Virus had left him capacitated for two days from what she knew.

Wisely she decided to keep what the knowledge she just got to herself for now. One look into Rick’s eyes, told her he had realized it too. There was no way he wasn’t able to, now that the adrenaline coursing his body was gone and he felt the pain of removing the key from his body.

That would be a talk for the latter, when Raymond would be out of earshot.

Their silent conversation was interrupted by Jill firing her gun at something right at the entrance of the room, behind the redhead. The man quickly rolled forward, while Rick and Rachel took a shooting stance. The explosion had attracted more Oozes and Rick cursed himself for letting his emotions about being possibly infected break his focus and drop his guard down.

They had some surviving to do and now wasn’t the time to be sentimental.