Jill took in their new surroundings as she caught her breath, feeling like she was a character in a nightmare that had just taken a turn into grand fantasy. Wild, howling monsters, Joseph's sudden death, a terrifying run through the dark woods-and now this.

Deserted, huh?

It was a palace, pure and simple, what her father would have called a perfect score. The room they had escaped into was the epitome of lavish. It was huge, easily bigger than Jill's entire house, tiled in grayflecked marble and dominated by a wide, carpeted staircase that led to a second-floor balcony. Arched marble pillars lined the ornate hall, supporting the dark, heavy wood balustrade of the upper floor.

Fluted wall sconces cast funnels of light across walls of cream, trimmed in oak and offset by the deep burnt ocher of the carpeting. In short, it was magnificent.

What is this? Barry muttered. No one answered him.

Jill took a deep breath and decided immediately that she didn't like it. There was a sense of... wrongness to the vast room, an atmosphere of vague oppression. It felt haunted somehow, though by who or what, she couldn't say.

Beats the hell out of getting eaten by mutant dogs, though, gotta give it that much. And on the trail of that thought, God, poor Joseph! There hadn't been time to mourn him, and there wasn't time now-but he would be missed.

She walked toward the stairs clutching her handgun, her footsteps muffled by the plush carpet that led from the front door. There was an antique typewriter on a small table to the right of the steps, a blank sheet of paper spooled into the works. A strange bit of a decorum. The expansive hall was otherwise empty.

She turned back toward the others, wondering what their take on all this was. Barry and Chris both looked uncertain, their faces flushed and sweaty as they surveyed the room. Wesker was crouched by the front door, examining one of the latches.

He stood up, his dark shades still in place, seeming as detached as ever. The wood around the lock is splintered. Somebody broke this door open before we got here.

Chris looked hopeful. Maybe the Bravos?

Wesker nodded. That's what I'm thinking. Help should be on the way, assuming our 'friend' Mr.

Vickers bothers to call it in.

His voice dripped sarcasm, and Jill felt her own anger kindling. Brad had screwed up big time, had almost cost them their lives. There was no excuse for what he'd done.

Wesker continued, walking across the room toward one of the two doors on the west wall. He rattled the handle, but it didn't open. It's not safe to go back out. Until the cavalry shows up, we might as well take a look around. It's obvious that somebody's been keeping this place up, though why and for how long...

He trailed off, walking back toward the group.

How are we set for ammo?

Jill ejected the clip from her Beretta and counted: three rounds left, plus the two loaded magazines on her belt. Thirty-three shots. Chris had twenty-two left, Wesker, seventeen. Barry had two racked speed loaders for his Colt, plus an extra handful of loose cartridges tucked into a hip pouch, nineteen rounds in all.

Jill thought about all they'd left back on the helicopter and felt another rush of anger toward Brad.

Boxes of ammunition, flashlights, walkie-talkies, Shotguns - not to mention medical supplies. That Beretta that Joseph had found out in the field, the pale, blood-spattered fingers still wrapped around it - a S.T.A.R.S. team member dead or dying, and thanks to Brad, they didn't even have a band-aid to offer.

Thump!

A sound of something heavy sliding to the floor, somewhere close by. In unison, they turned toward the single door on the east wall. Jill was suddenly reminded of every horror movie she'd ever seen; a strange house, a strange noise... she shivered, and decided that she was most definitely going to kick Brad's narrow ass when they got out of here.

Chris, check it out and report back ASAP, Wesker said. We'll wait here in case the RPD comes knocking. You run into any trouble, fire your weapon and we'll find you.

Chris nodded and started toward the door, his boots clacking loudly against the marble floor.

Jill felt that sense of foreboding wash over her again. Chris?

His hand on the knob, he turned back, and she realized that there was nothing she could tell him that made any sense. Everything was happening so fast, there was so much wrong with this situation that she didn't know where to start.

And he's a trained professional, and so are you. Start acting like it.

Take care, she said finally. It wasn't what she wanted to say, but it'd have to be enough.

Chris gave her a lopsided grin, then raised his Beretta and stepped through the doorway. Jill heard the ticking of a clock and then he was gone, closing the door behind him.

Barry caught her gaze and smiled at her, a look that told her not to worry, but Jill couldn't shake the sudden certainty that Chris wouldn't be coming back.

Chris swept the room, taking in the stately elegance of the environment as he realized he was alone; whoever had made the noise, they weren't here.

The solemn ticking of a grandfather clock filled the cool air, echoing off of shining black and white tiles.

He was in a dining hall, the kind he'd only ever seen in movies about rich people. Like the front room, this one had an incredibly high ceiling and a second floor balcony, but it was also decorated with expensivelooking art and had an inset fireplace at the far end, complete with a coat of arms and crossed swords hung over the mantle. There didn't seem to be any way to get to the second floor, but there was a closed door to the right of the fireplace.

Chris lowered his weapon and started for the door, still awed by the wealth of the abandoned mansion that the S.T.A.R.S. had stumbled into. The dining room had polished red wood trim and expensive looking artwork on the beige stucco walls, surrounding a long wooden table that ran the length of the room. The table had to seat at least twenty, though it was only set for a handful of people. Judging from the dust on the lacy place mats, nothing had been served for weeks.

Except no one is supposed to have been here for thirty years, let alone hosted a formal dinner! Spencer had this place closed down before anyone ever stayed here.

Chris shook his head. Obviously someone had reopened it a long time ago... so how was it that everyone in Raccoon City believed the Spencer estate to be boarded up, a crumbling ruin out in the woods?

More importantly, why had Umbrella lied to Irons about its condition?

Murders, disappearances, Umbrella, Jill... It was frustrating; he felt like he had some of the answers, but wasn't sure what questions to ask.

He reached the door and turned the knob slowly, listening for any sound of movement on the other side. He couldn't hear anything over the ticking of the old clock; it was set against the wall and each movement of the second hand reverberated hollowly, amplified by the cavernous room.

The door opened into one side of a narrow corridor, dimly lit by antique light fixtures. Chris quickly checked both directions. To the right was maybe ten meters of hardwood hall, a couple of doors across from him and a door at the end of the corridor. To the left, the hallway took a sharp turn away from where he stood, widening out. He saw the edge of a patterned brown run on the floor there.

He wrinkled his nose, frowning. There was a vague odor in the air, a faint scent of something unpleasant, something familiar. He stood in the doorway another moment, trying to place the smell.

One summer when he was a kid, the chain had come off his bike when he'd been out on a ride with some friends. He'd ended up in a ditch about six inches away from a choice bit of roadkill, the driedup, pulpy remains of what once might have been a woodchuck. Time and the summer heat had dissipated the worst of the stink, though what had remained had been bad enough. Much to the amusement of his buddies, he'd vomited his lunch all over the carcass, taken a deep breath, then puked again. He still remembered the sun-baked scent of drying rot, like thickly soured milk and bile; the same smell that lingered in the corridor now like a bad dream.

Fummp.

A soft, shuffling noise from behind the first door to his right, like a padded fist sliding across a wall. There was someone on the other side.

Chris edged into the hallway and moved toward the door, careful not to turn his back to the unsecured area. As he got closer, the gentle sounds of movement stopped, and he could see that the door wasn't closed all the way.

No time like the present.

With an easy tap the door swung inward, into a dim hall with green flecked wallpaper. A broad-shouldered man was standing not twenty feet away, half-hidden in shadow, his back to Chris. He turned around slowly, the careful shuffling of someone drunk or injured, and the smell that Chris had noticed before came off of the man in thick, noxious waves. His clothes were tattered and stained, the back of his head patchy with sparse, scraggly hair.

Gotta be sick, dying maybe.

Whatever was wrong with him, Chris didn't like it; his instincts were screaming at him to do something.

He stepped into the corridor and trained his Beretta on the man's torso. Hold it, don't move!

The man completed his turn and started toward Chris, shambling forward into the light. His, its, face was deathly pale, except for the blood smeared around its rotting lips. Flaps of dried skin hung from its sunken cheeks, and the dark wells of the creature's eye sockets glittered with hunger as it reached out with skeletal hands.

Chris fired, three shots that smacked into the creature's upper chest in a fine spray of crimson. With a gasping moan, it crumpled to the floor, dead.

Chris staggered back, his thoughts racing in time with his hammering heart. He hit the door with one shoulder, was vaguely aware that it latched closed behind him as he stared at the fallen, stinking heap. -dead, that thing's the walking goddamn dead!

The cannibal attacks in Raccoon, all of them near the forest. He'd seen enough late-night movies to know what he was looking at, but he still couldn't believe it.

Zombies.

No, no way, that was fiction, but maybe some kind of a disease, mimicking the symptoms. He had to tell the others. He turned and grabbed at the handle, but the heavy door wouldn't move, it must have locked itself when he'd stumbled.

Behind him, a wet movement. Chris spun, eyes wide as the twitching creature clawed at the wooden floor, pulling itself toward him in an eager, singleminded silence. Chris realized that it was drooling, and the sight of the sticky pink rivulets pooling to the wood floor finally spurred him to action.

He fired again, two shots into the thing's decaying, upturned face. Dark holes opened up in its knobby skull, sending tiny rivers of fluid and fleshy tissue through its lower jaw. With a heavy sigh, the rotting thing settled to the floor in a spreading red lake.

Chris didn't want to make any bets on it staying down. He gave one more futile yank on the door and then stepped carefully past the body, moving down the corridor. He rattled the handle of a door on his left, but it was locked. There was a tiny etching in the key plate, what looked like a sword; he filed that bit of information into his confused, whirling thoughts and continued on, gripping the Beretta tightly.

There was an offshoot to his right with a single door, but he ignored it, wanting to find a way to circle back to the front hall. The others must have heard the shots, but he had to assume that there were more creatures running around here like the one he'd killed. The rest of the team might already have their hands full.

There was a door at the end of the hall on the left, where the corridor turned. Chris hurried toward it, the putrid scent of the creature - the zombie, call it what it is - - making him want to gag. As he neared the door, he realized that the smell was actually getting worse, intensifying with each step.

He heard the soft, hungry moan as his hand touched the knob, even as it registered that he only had two bullets left in his clip. In the shadows to his right, movement.

Gotta reload, get somewhere safe.

Chris jerked the door open and stepped into the arms of the shambling creature that waited on the other side, its peeling fingers grasping at him as it lunged for his throat.

Three shots. Seconds later, two more, the sounds distant but distinct in the palatial lobby.

Chris!

Jill, why don't you... Wesker started, but Barry didn't let him finish.

I'm going, too, he said, already starting for the door on the east wall. Chris wouldn't waste shots like that unless he had to; he needed help.

Wesker relented quickly, nodding. Go. I'll wait here.

Barry opened the door, Jill right behind. They walked into a huge dining room, not as wide as the front hall but at least as long. There was another door at the opposite end, past a grandfather clock that ticked loudly in the frigid, dusty air.

Barry jogged toward it, revolver in hand, feeling tense and worried. Christ, what a balls-up this operation was! S.T.A.R.S. teams were often sent into risky situations where the circumstances were unusual, but this was the first time since he'd been a rookie that Barry felt like things had gone totally out of control.

Joseph was dead, Chickenheart Vickers had left them to be eaten by dogs from hell, and now Chris was in trouble. Wesker shouldn't have sent him in alone.

Jill reached the door first, touching the handle with slim fingers and looking to him. Barry nodded and she pushed it open, going in low and left.

Barry took the other side, both of them sweeping an empty corridor.

Chris? Jill called out quietly, but there was no answer. Barry scowled, sniffing the air; something smelled like rotting fruit.

I'll check the doors, Barry said. Jill nodded and edged to the left, alert and focused.

Barry moved toward the first door, feeling good that Jill was at his back. He'd thought she was kind of bitchy when she'd first transferred, but she was proving to be a bright and capable soldier, a welcome addition to the Alphas.

Jill let out a high-pitched gasp of surprise and Barry spun, the scent of decay suddenly thick in the narrow hall.

Jill was backing away from an opening at the end of the corridor, her weapon trained on something Barry couldn't see.

Stop! Her voice was high and shaky, her expression horrified and she fired, once, twice, still backing toward Barry, her breathing fast and shallow.

Get clear, left! He raised the Colt as she moved out of the way, as a tall man stepped into view. The figure's arms were stretched out like a sleepwalker's, the hands frail and grasping.

Barry saw the creature's face then and didn't hesitate. He fired, a.357 round peeling the top of its ashen skull away in an explosive burst, blood coursing down its strange, terrible features and staining the cataracts of its pale, rolling eyes.

It pitched back, sprawling face-up at Jill's feet.

Barry hurried to her side, stunned.

What... he started, then saw what was on the carpet in front of them, laying in the small sitting area that marked the end of the corridor.

For a moment, Barry thought it was Chris, until he saw the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo insignia on the vest, and felt a different kind of horror set in as he struggled to recognize the features. The Bravo had been decapitated, the head laying a foot away from the corpse, the face completely covered in gore.

Oh jeez, it's Ken.

Kenneth Sullivan, one of the best field scouts Barry had ever known and a hell of a nice guy. There was a gaping, ragged wound in his chest, chunks of partly eaten tissue and gut strewn around the bloody hole.

His left hand was missing, and there was no weapon nearby; it must have been his gun that Joseph had found out in the woods.

Barry looked away, sickened. Ken had been a quiet, decent sort, did a lot of work in chemistry. He'd had a teen-aged son who lived with his ex in California.

Barry thought of his own girls at home, Moira and Poly, and felt a surge of helpless fear for them. He wasn't afraid of death, but the thought of them growing up without a father.

Jill dropped into a crouch next to his ravaged body and rifled quickly through the belt pack. She shot an apologetic look at Barry, but he gave her a slight nod.

They needed the ammo; Ken certainly didn't.

She came up with two clips for a nine-millimeter and tucked them into her hip pocket. Barry turned and stared down at Ken's murderer in disgust and wonder.

He had no doubt that he was looking at one of the cannibal killers that had been preying upon Raccoon City. It had a crusty scum of red around its mouth and gore-encrusted nails, as well as a ragged shirt that was stiff with dried blood. What was weird was how dead it looked.

Barry had once done a covert hostage rescue in Ecuador, where a group of farmers had been held for weeks by a band of insane guerrilla rebels. Several of the hostages had been killed early in the siege, and after the S.T.A.R.S. managed to capture the rebels, Barry had gone with one of the survivors to record the deaths. The four victims had been shot, their bodies dumped behind the small wooden shack that the rebels had taken over. After three weeks in the South American sun, the skin on their faces had shriveled, the cracking, lined flesh pulling away from sinew and bone. He still remembered those faces clearly, and saw them again now as he looked down at the fallen creature. It wore the face of death.

Besides which, it smells like a slaughterhouse on a hot day. Somebody forgot to tell this guy that dead people don't walk around.

He could see the same sickened confusion on Jill's face, the same questions in her eyes, but for now, there weren't any answers; they had to find Chris and regroup.

Together, they moved back down the corridor and checked all three doors, rattling handles and pushing at the heavy wood frames. All were securely locked.

But Chris had to have gone through one of them, there's nowhere else he could have gone.

It didn't make sense, and short of breaking the doors down, there was nothing they could do about it.

We should report this to Wesker, Jill said, and Barry nodded agreement. If they'd stumbled into the hiding place of the killers, they were going to need a plan of attack.

They ran back through the dining room, the stale air a relief after the corridor's reek of blood and decay. They reached the door back to the main hall and hurried through, Barry wondering what the captain would make of all this. It was downright.

Barry stopped short, searching the elegant, empty hall and feeling like the butt of some practical joke that simply wasn't funny.

Wesker was gone.