Hearing his words, the two behind him immediately began to run.
The sound of boot soles pounding against the concrete floor echoed through the cavern, startling even more leeches.
Along the walls of the reservoirs on both sides, leeches surged upward at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The first batch to reach the top of the pool edges tumbled over the rims, landing on the walkway and wriggling toward the trio.
Leeches had an incredibly keen ability to sense living organisms.
Body heat, the vibrations of a heartbeat, and the scent of exhaled breath were all homing beacons to them.
To their senses, three running humans were three massive beacons of life.
About ten meters ahead, a vanguard of leeches that had already spilled out of the pools was scattered across the walkway.
They weren’t packed densely yet, but there were enough of them that stepping on them was unavoidable.
Lincoln didn’t slow down.
When his boots squashed them, he could feel the squishy sensation of the leeches bursting underfoot.
Several were crushed in half, dark bodily fluids splattering and making the ground even slicker.
But a few survived the stomping.
Carried up by his boot soles, they clung to his boots and began climbing up the shafts.
They moved fast—faster than Lincoln had imagined.
In less than two seconds, one leech had reached the middle of his calf, its sucker already clamping onto his pants fabric as it searched for exposed skin.
Without breaking stride, Lincoln tucked the M1911 under his right armpit, reached down with his left hand, grabbed the leech on his calf, and yanked it off.
The leech’s sucker held fast; ripping it away tore a tiny thread of fiber from his trousers.
He flung the leech aside and kept running.
“Don’t stop!” Lincoln shouted back.
Rebecca was two or three meters behind him.
She, too, had stepped on several leeches, and a few were clinging to her boots, crawling upward.
She tried to pull them off while running, but bending over mid-stride severely threw off her balance.
Her foot slipped, and she nearly went down.
Billy grabbed her arm from behind, steadying her and pulling her forward.
Fifteen meters ahead, an iron door appeared at the end of the walkway.
Above the door was a sign that read: “Drainage Tunnel • North Exit.”
The door was closed.
Lincoln rushed to the door, grabbed the handle, and pulled.
Fortunately, it swung open.
Behind the door lay a cylindrical concrete tunnel about 1.8 meters in diameter.
At the bottom ran a shallow channel with a few centimeters of flowing water.
There were no lights in the tunnel; their flashlights could only pierce about ten meters into the gloom.
But at least within their line of sight, the tunnel was free of leeches.
The drainage system had a continuous flow of water.
Flowing water made it difficult for leeches to attach; they preferred stagnant pools.
“Get in.”
Lincoln was the last to enter.
Before stepping through, he turned to glance back at the walkway.
The walkway between the reservoirs was now completely blanketed in a black, writhing mass of leeches, slowly creeping toward the tunnel entrance.
But they moved slower than a human walked; as long as they kept moving, they wouldn’t be caught.
Before leaving, Lincoln pulled the iron door shut.
The door had no lock, but closing it would at least block the majority of them.
He braced his foot against the frame and checked his boots and pants.
Two leeches were stuck to his left boot shaft, still crawling upward.
He reached down, ripped them off, threw them onto the tunnel floor, and crushed them under his heel.
Then he checked his trouser legs, waist, and arms to ensure no others had hitched a ride.
Rebecca leaned against the tunnel wall, panting, using her flashlight to inspect her legs.
Four or five leeches were stuck to her boots, and one had already wriggled into the gap between her boot collar and her pants.
“Don’t move,” Billy said.
He knelt, pinched the tail end of the leech, and pulled it out with a steady hand.
The leech’s sucker had bitten into the skin of Rebecca’s calf.
When it was pulled free, it left a red mark that welled with a few drops of blood.
Rebecca gasped but didn’t scream.
Billy flung the leech to the ground, crushed it, and then helped her inspect and clear off the remaining ones.
“I got bitten,” Rebecca said, looking down at the red mark on her calf, her voice tight.
“Will I get infected?”
Lincoln pondered the question.
These leeches carried the T-Leech Virus.
However, based on his current observations, he lacked precise data on whether a brief attachment and a single bite were enough to cause infection.
The infected staff members on the train had been host to far greater numbers of parasitic leeches.
“A single bite from a single leech shouldn’t have a high probability of infection,” Lincoln said.
“But treat the wound, apply some anti-inflammatory ointment, and tie your boot collars tight. Don’t let them touch your skin again.”
Rebecca retrieved anti-inflammatory ointment and bandages from her first-aid kit and knelt to treat the wound.
Lincoln leaned against the tunnel wall to wait, shining his flashlight deeper into the darkness.
The concrete cylinder stretched endlessly northward.
The water in the channel at the bottom also flowed north, sluggish but constant.
The outlet of the drainage tunnel should be somewhere on the northern side of the mountain, leading to a natural waterway.
Once they got out, they would still need to navigate the mountainous terrain to reach the rendezvous coordinates marked on their communicator.
It would make the journey longer, but at least it was a viable route.
Lincoln glanced down at the inner pocket of his tactical vest.
The silver vial was still there, empty.
Back in the water treatment area, leeches had been everywhere underfoot. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
The live T-Leech Virus samples that Umbrella wanted were right there in those creatures.
He could have easily scooped one up and stuffed it into the vial.
But he hadn’t.
With the three of them running for their lives, any unnecessary action would have drawn attention.
Moreover, Rebecca had just been bitten by a leech.
If he had knelt down to collect a sample right then, no excuse would have sounded plausible.
More importantly, the behavior of those leeches had made him realize something.
Their collective response had been too fast, too coordinated.
Within seconds of the flashlight beam hitting the water, the leeches across the entire area had acted in synchronization.
Leeches in every pool climbed out almost simultaneously, moving in the exact same direction, converging on the positions of the three humans.
This wasn’t a simple taxis response of an ordinary organism to heat or vibration.
This was organized behavior.
Something was controlling them, giving them commands.
Could it be…
Marcus?
Or rather, that entity existing in Marcus’s form.
Those leeches were its eyes and ears.
This meant that from the moment they stepped into the water treatment area, that entity already knew they were there.
It knew there were three living humans, it knew which way they were heading, and it knew they had entered the drainage tunnel.
As this thought crossed Lincoln’s mind, his expression grew very grim.
He said nothing.
Once Rebecca finished tending to her wound, he stood up straight.
“Let’s go. The water in the tunnel is moving, so it’s harder for leeches to latch on. It’s safer than outside.”
He adjusted his flashlight to a narrow beam, projecting it down the tunnel.
“But we can’t afford to be slow.”
The three of them began heading north along the drainage tunnel.
The concrete walls of the tunnel were rough, with water seeping from occasional cracks.
The water in the bottom channel was shallow, barely covering the soles of their boots.
The air was damp and cold.
The sound of their footsteps and the gentle murmur of flowing water echoed through the tunnel.
Lincoln walked in front, his M1911 held in his right hand, muzzle pointed down into the darkness ahead.
His pace was steady, but his mind was calculating far more than just the path before them.
The leech collection task was still hanging over his head.
The vial was empty.
Yet that entity already knew they had arrived.
From now on, they weren’t just finding a way out—that thing was watching exactly where they were going.