The heavy carved doors slammed shut behind them, completely cutting off the nightmare barking, wind, and rain outside.
Leon turned, dark-red blood still hanging from his black plate armor.
He kept hold of the handle, forced it down once more, then slid the thick brass bolt into place.
Metal locked against metal.
Jill panted as she hurried forward, grabbed the opposite handle with both hands, and yanked hard twice.
The door didn’t move.
“Jammed.” Jill released it and leaned back against the wood.
Mud covered her blue uniform, short hair stuck to her cheeks, and she bit her lip hard.
“We’re trapped inside.” There was no wind and no sound of insects.
A huge crystal chandelier cast yellow light across a polished mosaic marble floor, teak paneling, and antique oil paintings.
The mansion was a gilded cage cut off from the world—beautiful enough to hurt the eyes.
“Chris!
Jill!” Rebecca and Richard hurried over from beside the broad staircase leading to the second floor, weapons in hand.
At the sight of familiar faces, Rebecca’s shoulders finally sagged.
She walked directly to Leon’s rear flank and stopped there.
Her face was exhausted and her green vest dusty, but the Remington shotgun remained steady in her hands, muzzle lowered, trigger finger resting along the guard.
Richard rushed to Chris and began asking disjointed questions about what had happened outside and where Brad had gone.
Chris wiped rain from his face irritably, shook his head, and refused to answer.
Wesker stood in the center of the hall in his signature black tactical vest, blond hair perfectly arranged, crystal light reflecting from his sunglasses.
He raised one gloved hand and tapped his index finger twice against the tactical holster on his thigh.
“New guy.” Wesker turned toward Leon.
“You arrived before us.
Tell me what happened underground.” Leon walked to the middle of the hall and casually planted the broad black-steel greatsword on the marble floor.
He stood straight, broad shoulders giving the black armor an imposing silhouette.
Beneath his blond fringe, he met Wesker’s sunglasses without hesitation.
“Nothing special, Captain.” Leon shrugged.
“A few oversized bugs, some mutant monkeys…
oh, and a terrorist calling himself Marcus doing illegal construction underground.” He lifted his high-carbon-steel bracer and slapped the large dent in his chest plate.
“Good news is, I demolished the place.
Blew it so thoroughly there isn’t one intact brick left.” Leon pulled at the corner of his mouth.
“So can we process my permanent appointment now?
And does the department reimburse demolition bonuses for Umbrella code violations?” The hall went silent for a moment.
Chris and Barry exchanged looks, clearly unable to process the rookie’s style of report.
Wesker’s eyelid twitched faintly behind his sunglasses.
He frowned and even let out a small sigh, while the rational machinery beneath his expression began calculating.
He studied Leon’s black armor, smeared with blood and covered in impact dents and claw marks, then the crudely shaped, freshly sharpened greatsword built for nothing but destruction.
A perfect test instrument dropped right out of the sky.
If he can fight his way out of the underground facility, then let’s see whether that shell can survive the real “masterpieces” in this mansion.
Hunter claws.
The sleeping Tyrant.
One of them will pry open that tin can.
“You’ve done well, Leon.
You’ve proven what you can do.” Wesker adjusted his sunglasses.
“I’ll personally sign your permanent appointment when we return.
But right now…” He swept his gaze across everyone in the hall and raised his voice.
“We need to survive the night.” Wesker turned to Alpha Team.
“Everyone, inventory your weapons and ammunition.
We need to know exactly what we have left.” The atmosphere in the hall dropped to freezing.
Chris drew his Beretta and ejected the magazine.
Empty.
He pulled the slide back and checked the chamber.
One brass-cased round sat inside.
Cursing under his breath, he slapped the magazine back into the grip and searched every pocket on his tactical vest.
Nothing.
Not one spare magazine.
During the ambush and chase in the forest, he had burned through every round he carried.
Damn it.
Damn it!
Brad, that coward, took the spare supplies with him too!
Jill was in even worse shape.
She had lost her pistol when she fell in the forest.
She looked down at her empty hands, then touched the single tactical folding knife left at her waist.
Her face went pale.
“I…
I’m out of ammunition,” Jill said hoarsely.
Barry stepped back and leaned against the staircase railing.
He swung out the cylinder of his signature .44 Magnum.
Only three of the six chambers held rounds.
“I’m almost dry too.” Barry ran a finger along the revolver, brows knotted.
“This thing kicks hard, and it’s too loud.
Fire it in a closed house like this and we’ll invite every monster in the building.” Panic spread quickly through the team.
Trapped in a bizarre mansion deep in a monster-filled wilderness with the exits sealed, having no bullets was practically the same as losing the right to survive.
“Fuck!” Chris punched the teak paneling hard enough to split his knuckles.
“We’re live targets.
These few rounds wouldn’t even feed the mutts outside!” Rebecca said nothing.
She had Kenneth’s grenade launcher slung across her back and the shotgun in her hands.
Compared with the nearly dry Alpha Team, she was lavishly armed.
But she knew those weapons were useful only against ordinary zombies.
If they met something like the creatures underground that could smash through walls, her ammunition wouldn’t last long either.
Without realizing it, she edged closer to Leon.
While Chris raged and the others fought despair, Leon bent down, seized the greatsword’s hilt with one hand, and lifted it from the floor.
He rested it on his broad right shoulder, then clenched his left fist and struck the thick black chest plate twice.
The dull metallic knocks carried a reassuring hardness.
“Relax, seniors.” Leon gave Chris a faint smile.
“This is what happens when you depend too much on gunpowder.
Real security never came from a barrel.” He tapped his armored fist, then shifted the weight of the greatsword on his shoulder.
“You build it with your fists and a good piece of iron.” Jill looked at the black-armored man.
In the forest littered with zombie-dog corpses, that armor and greatsword had stopped the bite meant to kill her.
The savage violence that should have been frightening now felt like the safest wall in the building.
Just as the atmosphere eased slightly, something changed.
From the darkness deep in the second-floor corridor came that skin-crawling sound again.
Wet chewing, accompanied by something heavy dragging slowly across wooden boards.
Every muscle in the room tightened.
Chris, Rebecca, and Richard raised their weapons almost simultaneously toward the second-floor corner.
Barry thumbed back the hammer of his Magnum.
Wesker remained motionless.
Leon stood at the front and tilted his head, listening.
He rolled his neck hard.
“Judging by the way it’s dragging itself, it’s a big one.” Leon shouldered the sword and stepped onto the first stair.
“Come on, everyone.
Now that we’re inside, we should at least see what the owner of the house looks like.”