Resident Evil Rebirth Ch 02

Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil Afterlife and I am not profiting from this work.

...Six months later

In the late hours of the Alaskan afternoon, the rolling waters of the Bering Sea were reflected as a deep Carolina blue. A marginal sea in the northern Pacific Ocean, the Bering stretched for over 770000 square miles from the northern borders of Asia all the way up to the costs of Northern Alaska and had been considered by many to be some of the most traitorous waters on the planet. Ravaged by impossibly strong currents that were made permanently ferocious by washing through its sixteen submarine canyons, the waters of this dreadful expanse of ocean had tossed and turned many of the floating wind-ships which had drifted into its tides over the centuries and the seasonal arrival of pack ice and bergs in autumn had made it a constant danger for any vessel carless enough to run astray.

Squinting through the clear fibreglass, Alice watched bemusedly as far below walls of white capped water rocked the sea. It was only May but already the approaching summer tides were rolling the sea to a violent shade of grey and she couldn't help but be thankful she'd decided to make the journey to Arcadia by air instead of sea. After all the trouble she'd gone through to take revenge on Umbrella, it just wouldn't do for her to drown in a summer storm.

A metallic sputtering that sounded ominously like bolts falling into a blender suddenly roared over the bellowing wind, draw her attention back to the plane's controls, to her dismay the needle on fuel gauge was poised over Empty. With a minor note of irritation, she took one had off the stick and reached back to the rear of the cabin where a pair of auxiliary fuel tanks had been jerry rigged to the engine. After a moment spent twisting the valves, the reserve aviation fuel flowed into the injection system and it hummed into life.

With the engine now purring like a kitten, she turned back to the instrument panel, her gaze lingering for a moment on the compass and directional Gyro before she checked her position on the set of navigational charts and maps she had arranged around the cabin.

'Not long now...' She thought, more than a little relieved by the dwindling distance, before looking to the video camera which had been mounted on the top of the panel. The light on its side was blinking and instead of green, it was showing up as a danger orange, the battery was almost dead and had switched to standby mode to conserve power. 'Better make this short.' With a sigh, she activated the flight recorder.

"May 3rd, 1600 hours. It has now been A hundred and seventy-seven days without any signs of life. I'm at 58.37 degrees north, 134.58 degrees west and am now closing in on the coordinates for Arcadia, but there are no signs of it on any of the maps..." She hesitated; afraid to continue for fear that her doubts might be given life by her words. "Something doesn't feel right, but I don't know what and I can only hope that Claire and the others made it."

Turning the camera off with a hint of apprehension darkening her features, Alice cast her gaze up at the cockpit's screens to watch as the distant white-capped peaks of the Alaskan mountains darkened the horizon. Already clumps of thick ice had begun to appear dotted about the Bering and as she drew nearer the cost, great bergs rose up from the sea's depths to form unbreakable roofs above the rolling tides that survived both Alaskan summer and winter.

For over 500miles, the untamed wilderness of Alaska's south western region was a combination of thick boreal forests, steep outcroppings and deep water lakes. Forever in the shadow of the great mountain chains which encircled the state, it was scarcely populated and offered few sanctuaries to travellers from the dangers of its hollowing northern winds and hungry bear population.

Trying to conserve the little fuel she had left, Alice flew the Fuji T-7 up at such an angle that it could be caught and carried by the passing thermals while she observed the varied geography of the world beneath her. She kept going along the coast until mathematically she would have been on top of the coordinates the recording gave, but there was just one problem...

There wasn't any sign of Arcadia.

Cursing under her breath; she pulled back on the stick and brought the plane around in a curving arc before taking it down for a closer look. The terrain here was rugged with little to see but brown grassland and an occasional clumping of dead trees, but holding steady at 50metres, she could now make out an unusual cluster of landmarks that were gathered together about half a mile from the oceans lapping grey waters. Curious, she circled the site once before taking the plane in for landing.

Keeping the wings level, she lined the aircraft up for her angle of approach and began her descent. Rocked by suddenly fierce winds, the plane began to shake violently as it cut across the airwaves and with her heart aflutter, it took all of Alice's efforts to maintain the correct airspeed and keep the Fuji levelled out. It was a hair-raising experience and despite her naturally stock expression, inside her mind was abuzz with panic as she desperately tried to calculate these new developments into her timing.

Feeling her stomach lurch as the ground hurried up to meet her, she lowered the flaps before jerking the controls back to compensate for the added drag. The engine stalled when the wheels touched down, the reassuring jolt of touchdown throwing her back into her seat and she couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief. Far from a seasoned pilot, she had only attempted a hand full of landing and this was certainly the first without a tarmacked road or runway to great her approach. It was an invigorating feeling to know her skills were improving.

She let the plane roll to a stop before unbuckling her pilot's harness and pushing back the fiberglass canopy. A cold breeze howled overhead but she ignored it as she swung her leg over the canopy and stepped on the wing. Dressed in a battered brown leather flyer's jacket with a fur trimmed collar and matching set of cowgirl boots and trousers, she was relatively well protected against the cold as the wind's cold tendrils people whipped locks of her auburn hair across her face. Yet as relieved as she was to be out of the insufferably cramped cockpit, her pretty face remain contorted with a look of scorn as she took in the space around her with adamant distaste.

Everywhere she looked, there was aircraft. Aligned all around her as if they were children's toys, the randomised mix of planes and helicopters stretched almost as far inland as her eyes could see. If it were not for their varying states of disrepair, Alice might have thought she had landed in the heart of some great, but primitive, airfield. Yet as it was, the open stretch of grassland appeared more befitting of the term junkyard, or a graveyard.

"So this is Arcadia?" She observed, her eyebrow rising with as she looked from one beaten up wreck to the next and tried to calculate just how many people had beaten her to what they hoped would be their last chance for salvation. There had to of been many, hundreds, maybe even thousands of refugees. But what could have happened to of made them all disappear? Had something dreadful happened, or perhaps they had grown tired of waiting for a hope that would never come and returned to the nomadic life of survivors on the run.

A frown formed across her lips as with a resigning shrug, she jumped down from the plane's wing and began to scout the area for signs which might tell her what had happened here. There wasn't much, aside from the occasional discarded food wrapper the vehicles' interiors had been picked clean and Alice was left to wander the deserted grasslands in silent contemplation until she heard a frenzy of whispered mutterings on the wind.

"Hello..." She called out, her hand immediately reaching beneath her jack for the holstered gun on her belt as she awaited the reply. Although she didn't particularly want to shoot any survivors, since the decay of civilization, banditry had become as common a danger along the road as that posed by the infected and she couldn't help noticing how perfect this place was for an ambush. With so much cover to hide behind, even a half-witted gang could set up an effective enough ambush for whoever came to answer the radio message and she had no intention of being caught unawares like that time back in Nevada.

Her voice carried well on the wind, but there was no answer to be heard as the whispers continued. Although little more than murmurs, she could make out snippets of what was being said and thought it might have been a man's voice, strangely he seemed to repeating himself and Alice, growing concerned, drew the heavy barrel of her 44.Magnum from its holster before following the murmuring.

Keeping her eyes peeled for any signs of movement as she progressed cautiously through the maze of Aircrafts, Alice did her best to remain cool despite the erratic dumbing of her heart. She was getting close, so close in fact that the voice almost seemed to be whispering in her ear and as she passed a crack in the wrecked hull of a weather beaten DC-3 Transport plane, it bellowed out at her in a way that made her heart miss a beat. Whirling about, she thrust the revolver through the crack, her finger perched on the tightly wound trigger as if she were expecting something horrible to lurch out of the darkness to claim her life at any moment.

There was nothing there however and she gave her heart a moment to calm before lowering the heavy side-arm as she bent forward and climbed carefully through the crevice and into the blackness of the plane's interior. It was dark inside and her eyes struggled to adjust to the low light and could only just make out the metal ribcage of the roof above.

She must have entered the cargo hold because she could just make out a flight of steps ascending to the cockpit. The voice was coming from there so, aided only by the intricate web of light that filtered in through the tiny cracks in the transport plane's hull; she made straight for the source of the continued muttering and ran up the stairs with one hand on the railing, the other holding the magnum before her. The stairwell had grown flimsy with rust and her heavy footfalls made it shake violently as she took the footing two at time. Fortunately for her, the door to the control room had been left ajar so she needn't worry about the structure collapsing as she delivered a forward kicked to the barrier and burst inside.

The words were blaring out inaudibly now but the cockpit was empty and judging by the thick sheet of dust covering the monitors and control panels, it had been for some time. The windows were dirty but they gave her just enough light to see that A digital recorder had been set up across the instrument panels, its display blinking in an attempt to bypass its remaining power to whatever systems were still running. Her brow furrowing in confusion, Alice lowered her gun and gave the recorder the once over before idly pushing buttons until she found what she was looking for. With a low whistle, the device began refining its audio until it reached a level she could understand and then began to play.

"This is Arcadia, broadcasting on the emergency frequency at location, 114.08 degrees longitude, 51.08 degrees latitude. There is no infection. We offer safety and security, food and shelter. I Repeat...there is no infection. You are not alone."

Realisation struck Alice like a bolt of lightning and a look of undisguised horror masked her features as stepped back, visibly stricken. This was it, this was what had brought so many people to one of the farthest corners of the world, this is what had given all her friends hope and then ad revealed them to be a hollow shell.

She didn't bother to wonder who had put it there or why. As far as she was concerned, whatever it had sought to offer had expired long ago, there was no point keeping it active and in her rage, she raised the gun and squeezed the trigger. The recorder exploded but she didn't stop there and Alice kept firing until the wheel had run dry and the instrument panel resembled a slab of Swiss cheese.

**********************

Exiting the plane, Alice continued her search until she reached what looked like the edge of the graveyard and heard the gentile lapping of waves on a beach bank.

After the ominous quite of the Aircraft graveyard, the rolling grey waters of the Bering were a welcoming sight and Alice felt her heart jump as walking through a clumping of dead conifers, she spotted an all too familiar Umbrella helicopter perched in the dirty brown sand.

With its black armour marred by a score of dents and scratches and a thick inlay of rust covering its rotors, the Helicopter looked considerably more beaten than she remembered. She walked around the aircraft once, scrutinizing it closely before climbing through the open cabin door. She'd hoped to find a clue to the disappearance of her friends but tight confines of the ships inner belly were reluctant to give her anything other than the long dried bloodstains left by Dr Isaacs during his escape from the Las Vegas ruin just eighteen months before.

The rear of the cabin was empty, even the cushions from the seats had been removed, so she leaned through the void between the pilots' chairs in search of the flight recorder. It was gone, ripped from the control panel along with anything else that might have given her the clues she needed. Dismayed, she drew back and was about to leave the derelict aircraft when she caught sight of something lying half hidden beneath the co-pilot's chair.

It looked like a book and curious, she reached down carefully to retrieve it, being mindful as she did of any indications that it might be rigged or booby-trapped. Nothing seemed odd so she brought it into the light and found, to her surprise, that it was the notebook she'd handed to the girl K-mart at the end of their last meeting. Bringing the heavy tome up to eyelevel, she remembered the distressed look that had flooded the teen's pretty face as she jammed the book into her hands. The truth was always hard on the young and she'd asked hopefully for Alice to come with them, after seeing how card it had been for K-mart to bear, she hadn't had the heart to tell her they'd probably never see each other again.

Feeling her heart start to race, she began flicking through the familiar pages of the journal that had been taken over by newspaper cuttings and geographical mappings until she finally came to a handful of pages towards the back which had been taken over by scribbled scriptures that she recognised as being K-mart's writing.

The girl had documented the journey in impressive detail. It had been dangerous; they'd had to stop many times in search of fuel and supplies and as a result, a trip which should have taken just a few weeks had been stretched into months. Yet as she drew to the end, something about the inscriptions began to change and she could almost hear K-mart's cheery voice whispering the last sentence on the page.

'We are here, Arcadia...at last...' Smiling a bemused smile as she imagined the charismatically cheery girl's delight at the thought of their journey being over, Alice turned the page expectantly; only to find it blank, except for a hurried scribble in the lowest corner. '...Something's not right.'

Unsatisfied, she thumbed through the remaining pagers but found them to be completely blank. No messages detailing where they might have gone or clues for to piece together, it was as if they had simply vanished into thin air like everyone else who had come to Arcadia in search of salvation.

Growling in frustration, she slammed the book shut and shoved it inside one of the inside pockets of her jacket before jumping down from the helicopter and made her way across the beach to the sea's rolling grey bank. Even in spring, the waters of the Bering were freezing and she could feel the chill of the surf rolling over her boots as she walked heatedly through the sloshing tide until finally she came to the decaying remnants of a water-soaked log which must have been washed up on the stronger winter tides that had been battering the Alaskan coast.

The sky was darkening, the setting sun turning the sky an ominous slate grey as immense clouds blotted out its weak light. It wouldn't be long before night set in and feeling her anger ebb like the waves at her feet, Alice decided to take care of the last bit of business and reached into one of the larger of her flight jacket's pockets to pull out a small digital recorder.

Balancing the recorder on a thick branch, she flicked through the settings before setting it to record. As the small red light flicked to life, she scouted down to sit atop the damp bark and began to recite the words which had been weighing so heavily on her heart.

"May 3rd, 19.30 hours, Arcadia. I have followed the recording's direction north to the shores of Alaska and found that no such place exists. There is just a field crowded with ghosts, and a beach." She exhaled deeply, her eyes drifting back across the beach to the helicopter and then to the graveyard. "I have found Claire's helicopter but there is no sign of her or the others. I have no idea what they found here but we all heard the transmissions and I have found the source of the message. Someone must have sent them. Someone must have wanted to bring all these people here for a reason. But why? And where did they all go?"

The question echoed in the air, taunting her mercilessly before mingling with the drumming of the tide on the shore and evaporating into nothing. This place reeked of death; there was nothing left for her here except the howl of the whistling wind and the whispers of long dead ghosts. With her hear sinking, Alice rose up from her perch on the damp and gave the darkening one last contemplating stare before turning back to the recorder. "Day 177...signing off." But as she reached for the terminating switch, her fingers slipped and thoughts she'd tried so hard to suppress suddenly spilled from her lips in a rush of hidden emotion. "And...I don't know if I can do this much longer."

It was hard to deny she was growing tired, tired of being alone, tired of never having anyone to confide in, and tired of always being the sole survivor. In those few invigorating months of hunting for and purging Umbrella's compounds, when she'd been surrounded by her clones, she had never had to suffer the bitter taste of solitude and she'd grown to enjoy the sense of companionship she shared with Gama, Beta and all the rest. But now they were all dead and even the solitude she'd once enjoyed seemed to have abandoned her.

"What if I'm the last? What if there is no one left? No one left to watch these tapes and learn from my mistakes?" The words were as frightening to her as the judging silence and she felt hot tears welling up inside before she could stop herself. "Is this my punishment for letting all this happen when I could have stopped it so long ago?" Overwhelmed, a single tear began to roll down her check, just as she a faint prickling sensation cropping across her shoulders. Recognising the feeling, she swung around and looked across the beach in time to see an illusive figure disappearing into the undergrowth.

Forgetting the camera, Alice jumped to her feet and took off at a run. Not daring to believe her eyes, she charged full out across the surf battered beach, her heavy boots splashing loudly in the rolling surf before she ascend to the drier sands and then to the dead, brown grass at the mouth of the trees. Clouded in shadow, she could just make out the fleeting figure darting between the trees like some elusive forest spirit and didn't give a moment's pause before plunging into the trees.