The team reached an abandoned lab. The entire lab was flooded. Carl knew the Red Queen has used water to execute everyone in the lab. The door was opened when the AI was turned off, but the water level was still at the team’s knees.

Carl had more important things to worry about than some water. His entire body was starting to burn. He knew it was the virus affecting both his brain and his body. Yet he tried everything he could to take his attention away from himself. Laying the girl in her arms down on a dry table, he gently touched her face.

Jean coughed softly. “I’ll live.” She somehow managed to act tough and weak at the same time.

Carl smiled.

Jean looked at the assembled team. “You should go with them. After what happened to Shade…you are the best person to bring them to safety.” She gulped, exhausted. “I’ll be fine here.”

Carl did what he was told. He nodded and walked to Alice and the mercenaries. As he arrived, he noticed Alice was staring blankly at the lab. It was as if she was realizing something.

“What is it?” Carl asked before suddenly realizing something. It was a tiny part of the memory he received. In fact, it was so insignificant that he almost forgot about it.

At one point, Alice remembered everything she forgot before. She remembered who she was and how she was planning to work with outsiders to expose Umbrella’s direct secrets. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only person to recover the lost memories. Spence also did, and in the original history he would grab a gun and hold the rest of the team at gunpoint to escape.

Carl relaxed a bit. In the original world there was a total of three people left, Alice, Addison, and Rain. If he tried to hold a gun now, against five mercenaries, Alice, Addison, Carl, and Jean... well, good luck on that.

Unfortunately, he was still a bit too young and way too inexperienced. As someone who got into one of the top secret facilities of Umbrella, Spence was decisive and intelligent. As soon as he realized the situation, he knew he needed to get away quickly. Sooner or later Alice would realize he was the spy and, to a degree, the cause of everything. If that happened, he doubted the Umbrella Sanitation Team would just let him go.

The man went over his options. He had a gun, but trying to use one gun to best nine...not the brightest idea. Luckily he didn’t need to. All he needed was a hostage.

The poor soul set his eyes on the weakest and most vulnerable target.

Jean...

When Carl turned, he saw something that he really didn’t like. Spence has walked to Jean and was holding a pistol to her head. The girl was a mercenary capable of taking down zombies like they were flies, but the consequences of the drug she took made it impossible for her to fight back.

The entire team immediately assembled around the new foe with their weapons raised.

“Step back.“ Spence demanded as he dragged Jean back by her hair. His pistol rested on her head. “Step you back, or I will put a bullet in her pretty face.”

“Let me go, you bastard.” Jean cursed futilely.

“Let her go.” Carl’s voice was getting dangerously low. His gun steadily pointed at Spence. His finger trembled, but he couldn’t confidently say he could fire and kill Spence without hitting Jean.

“You stay back! All of you!” Spence ordered, gradually retreating out a door. Jean yelped slightly as she was dragged across the water on the ground.

Carl’s hands gripped to the handle of his gun so tightly that it was leaving a mark on his hands, but he did nothing. He wasn’t taking any risk. He merely watched as Spence dragged Jean out the door.

“Carl?” Rain looked at the recruit. “Let’s go waste that son of a bitch.”

“No.” Carl refused. He didn’t want to put anyone else in danger. The sight of Shade being ripped to pieces just minutes ago returned to his mind. ”You go. Find your way to the train we came here. I’ll go find Jean and meet you at the train.”

“You won’t make it.” Alice declared. The idea of Carl navigating through a world of zombies and rescuing an almost disabled girl from a weapon wielding spy was simply crazy. The possibility of him taking her back was already low. Having to carry her back to the train was even tougher. His chances were as low as chances get.

“I will not leave her behind. Jean saved us. That’s the only reason she is taken. If she didn’t take the adrenalin she would be more than capable to defend herself.” Carl tapped his watch. “If we don’t reach the train in ten minutes, leave without us.” Not giving the rest of the team a chance to object, he turned and left.

Jean didn’t know what to say as Spence pushed her forward. His gun was constantly on her back. He had seen what she could do, and despite knowing that she was done, a tiny bit of him was still afraid of her suddenly turning around and snapping his neck. He was doubting whether taking Jean hostage was the best choice, but what’s done is done, and he simply had to stick with the fact.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” He warned.

“I don’t need to. My friends will come for me.” Jean replied, her eyes slightly shining.

Spence smirked. “Do you really think anyone will take the risk and come after you? Tell me. Do you really think someone is foolish enough to risk his life to save someone he barely knew?”

Jean didn’t respond, but deep down she knew the answer. Yes. There was someone was foolish enough to do exactly that.

Suddenly, the two heard a growl. It was as if there was a beast of infinite terror lurking in the dark. Spence searched around with his weapon ready.

“What’s that?”

His question was immediately answered. An abomination crawled into the open. Its entire body was covered in red flesh. Its tongue stuck out of its mouth. Its brain was sticking out of its skull and in the open. It didn’t have eyes. Spence immediately felt his back covered in cold sweat. As soon as he saw the monster, he knew his pistol couldn’t save him.

It was a licker.

The licker looked at the two for a second, as if it was examining the situation and identifying the easier target. Every hunter knew to pick on the softer target.

Jean suddenly felt a push on her back and a pain in her left leg, and the next thing she knew she was staring down the eyeless face of a mutated undead.

Behind her, Spence turned and ran. He knew he couldn’t outrun the undead, so he chose an alternate way and try to outrun Jean instead. Just pushing her forward might not be enough, so he decided to send a pound of lead into her left leg, thus completely ending her ability to run.

He reached ten meters when he ran into a rather pissed off Carl.

The man had no hesitation as he smacked Spence in the head with the butt of his automatic rifle. He had never hurt any living human being before, but his anger was more than enough to persuade him to act without any doubt.

The strike knocked Spence on his feet. His nose was broken, and his eyes were almost blinded. Carl put his gun on Spence’s head, but instead of pulling the trigger, his logic overcame his anger. Turning his gun to Spence’s legs, he pulled the trigger twice, completely maiming him. In this situation, maimed almost meant certain death, but to Carl it still made quite the difference.

A scream came from beside, and Jean collapsed on her back. She had been holding the licker back with her arms, and by doing so she was able to save herself. The price was her arms. Both her arms were penetrated and pinned down by the licker’s claws. Since the creature’s claws were still in Jean, the entire weight of the beast brought quite the pain.

His lips tight, Carl raised his weapon and started unloading on the licker. He was still worried he might hit Jean, but the situation didn’t allow him to hesitate. Short, concise bursts of bullets flew by Jean and smashed into the beast. The licker pulled his claws out of Jean, earning a scream from the girl. Its muscles tensed up and projected its body toward Carl.

Carl kept on firing while moving. The first few bullets hit the licker’s body. To an undead, at least in most cases, hitting somewhere not the head meant missing. The undead could easily continue its attack with its lack of knowledge of pain and its rapid regeneration.

Carl watched as the licker’s figure got larger and larger as it got closer, yet he kept on moving back as fast as he could and pulling the trigger as hard as he could. His shots were no longer the precise, careful shots but were instead a continued volley.

Theoretically speaking if it was allowed to continue, if Carl could keep firing and thus always maintain a difference between the melee licker and him with the stopping power of the bullets, he could eventually kill the licker. But fate was unpredictable.

A quiet click sent shivers down Carl’s spines. He was out of ammo, and in this case, he would never get a chance to reload. Without his gun, he couldn’t melee a licker. In fact, he could barely last several seconds without the bullet to keep the licker back. Closing his eyes, he just hoped Jean could use the chance to escape. He was going to die anyway from the t-virus. He might as well die fighting,

What seemed to be a decade passed, and Carl realized he wasn’t in pieces. He opened his eyes and saw the licker laying on the ground. Random bullet wounds covered its body, but the killing blow was a hole in the head.

A bullet found its way into the licker’s brain.

How? If lickers could be killed by random bullets, then Umbrella couldn’t be treating it as a top biological weapon. True. A bullet in the brain could end the licker, but the speed and battle instinct of the licker was more than enough to make the seemingly easy process as difficult as possible.

That was a good question, but Carl quickly realized this was neither the time nor the place to ask questions. He ran to Jean and found her in a pool of her own blood.

“Oh no…” He knelt down beside Jean. “No no no no.” He whispered as he examined Jean.