[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 613 - Blizzard

The armored off-road vehicle sat parked in the open lot of the derelict processing plant.

Several heavy trucks reversed in sequence, fanning out into formation, their massive rear cargo doors swung wide.

A handful of large-bodied Lickers lay on the muddy ground with perfect obedience, their exposed brains twitching faintly in the night breeze, waiting on their controller's next command.

James Shade led the special ops team down underground, hauling hydraulic jacks and cutting equipment.

These men, mercenaries who normally walked around with guns in hand, had been transformed, to a man, into foremen for a demolition crew.

Chad Kaplan led the way, that enormous toolbox strapped across his back.

Chris Redfield leaned against the car door and watched the whole scene, shaking his head over and over.

"What in the actual hell."

"Sending weapons built to kill people to do manual labor — this is absolutely a scene Umbrella's executives could never have dreamed up in their sleep."

Leon smiled.

"They're strong, fast, not picky, and they follow orders absolutely."

"Top-tier free labor like this? If we didn't squeeze every drop out of it, we'd be spitting in the face of everything Umbrella invested."

About 10 minutes later.

Heavy footsteps rumbled up from the underground corridor.

The first batch of supplies came out.

The sight stopped you cold.

3 Lickers dragged independent generator units weighing 2 to 3 tons apiece, their massively thick hind limbs gripping the metal staircase as they hauled the iron hulks to the surface without the slightest effort.

The special ops team only had to stand to the side and direct the placement angle. Nobody needed to lift a hand.

Chris watched one of the generators get set down steadily into a truck bed. His jaw nearly hit the floor.

"Good God — that's faster than running two heavy cranes." He swallowed hard.

Chad Kaplan jogged up to Leon.

"Boss, the server matrix and liquid cooling equipment on sublevel two are fully dismantled."

His face was lit up.

He had just watched with his own eyes as the Lickers' razor claws snapped straight through massive high-tensile load-bearing steel cables like they were twine.

"Those monsters are practically perfect disassembly machines," Kaplan added.

Leon nodded.

"Get all the core hardware packed up. Especially the high-precision instruments storing experimental data. Not a single piece gets left behind."

"Understood!" Kaplan spun and sprinted back toward the corridor.

Alice stood at Leon's side, watching the busy, deeply bizarre relocation scene.

The new power she had acquired had fully stabilized inside her. She could even sense the faint movement of creatures deep underground, the tiniest shift in their trajectories, like a murmur through the rock.

"This feeling is truly strange," she murmured.

Leon glanced at her.

"Get used to it. You'll have plenty of chances to put it to work."

At the same time.

On the other side of the globe — the Arctic ice sheet.

A ferocious wind tore across the perfectly flat expanse of ice.

Simon stood on the sled runners, the reins pulled taut in his fists.

"Hiya! Come on, boys! Run! Yeehaw!" He bellowed it at the top of his lungs.

The polar wind shredded his voice to nothing the instant it left his mouth.

The Alaskan Malamute ran at the front, its massive body carving a path through the thick packed snow. The Samoyed and Husky followed close behind. All three had their tongues lolling out, the white vapor of their breath freezing into icicles on their whiskers the moment it hit the air.

Simon glanced down at the GPS locator strapped to his wrist.

The red dot marking the target coordinates was inching closer. Slowly.

Less than 10 kilometers out.

He rubbed his face, cheeks going numb, the fur trim on his cold-weather gear completely caked with ice and snow.

The second he lifted his head to look at the path ahead, Simon's pupils snapped tight.

The horizon was gone.

In its place — a gray-white wall, pressing down from the edge of the sky.

The sheer weight of it made his heart clench.

Blizzard.

Damn it.

The most unreasonable, most lethal natural disaster the polar regions had to offer. No warning. Not even 30 seconds.

Wind speed spiked to an absurd level in the span of a few breaths. The temperature around him dropped off a cliff.

"Damn it! Stop! Everyone stop! Turn back!" Simon yanked frantically on the reins.

But the wind was too powerful, carrying massive chunks of ice that slammed directly into his goggles.

Visibility hit zero.

The Husky veered off course in the panic and dragged the whole team with it.

The sled left its original path and plunged toward a stretch of jagged, broken ice.

BANG!

A deep, muffled impact.

The bottom runner slammed hard into a protruding chunk of black ice. The speed was too much. The entire sled flipped over in midair.

The supply crate lashed to it exploded apart.

Simon didn't even get the curse out before the momentum flung him into the air.

He traced an arc through the sky and crashed hard into a snow pit several meters deep.

The instant his back hit the ground, the jagged ice sliced a long, gaping tear straight through his cold-weather gear.

Cold air poured in through the rip like something unhinged.

Simon gasped and tried to push himself upright.

A savage, bone-drilling pain detonated through his left shin. No strength there at all.

Probably broken.

The wind and snow grew worse. No sign of letting up.

He tore off his caked-over goggles. Ice formed on his eyelashes instantly.

Then he saw it, and despair hit him like a wall.

The GPS locator strapped to his wrist had been smashed to pieces in the crash. Completely gone.

They didn't even have a direction anymore.

"Damn," Simon laughed through gritted teeth, voice raw. "So this is what a vacation gets you."

He knew exactly what staying in place meant out here. Injured, unable to walk, in weather like this, freezing to death was the only option on the table.

He was dragging his broken leg toward a nearby ice ridge, each movement costing him everything, when several urgent barks cut through the howl of the storm.

The black-and-white Alaskan Malamute reached the edge of the snow pit first and jumped straight in.

The Samoyed and Husky slid down after it.

They hadn't run. They had come back.

The 3 dogs spotted Simon lying in the snow and closed in immediately. The Husky licked his ice-covered cheeks with its warm tongue. The Alaskan Malamute and the Samoyed pressed in from either side, their thick, densely furred bodies clamping against his flanks.

They were using their own warmth, trying to wall off the killing cold.

Simon reached out with stiff, rigid fingers and wrapped his arms around the two dogs on either side.

"Good boys... good friends..." His voice was shaking.

He buried his face in the Alaskan Malamute's neck and drank in that small, feeble heat, the warmth of something alive.

But this was a polar blizzard.

Dozens of degrees below zero. Cold enough to make steel brittle.

3 dogs' body heat against that. A cup of water thrown at a burning house.

A few minutes later, Simon's fingers went completely numb.

Then his toes. Then both legs.

It was a strange process. The pain disappeared entirely. In its place came a lukewarm drowsiness, heavy and soft, the kind that told you to close your eyes and rest.

Simon's eyelids grew heavier and heavier. He recognized it for what it was, the sign that came when the body's core temperature had been critically depleted. The threshold before death.

Boss... I'm afraid this time it's going to count as dying in the line of duty...

That was the last thought that moved through his mind.

Then everything went dark.

The wind and snow buried the snow pit, one man, three dogs, without pause, without ceremony.

No one knew how much time passed after that.

Hours, maybe. Could have been days.

Simon's senses began to return, one by one, slow and uncertain.

The first thing that came through was sound. A perfectly rhythmic crackle of wood.

Snap. Snap.

Fire.

Then smell.

Faint woodsmoke, and underneath it, the scent of a woman. A stranger. Something he didn't recognize.

But what hit him hardest was touch.

He wasn't cold.

Not only was he not cold, his entire body was warm.

He could feel it clearly: he was lying on something soft, some kind of fur pad, thick and yielding beneath him.

And pressed against his chest, something intensely warm.

It rose and fell in a steady, even rhythm. The skin beneath his hands was smooth. Fine-grained.

Simon's eyes snapped open.

Blurry at first. Then the firelight pulled everything into focus.

A ceiling of rough-hewn logs above him. An old cabin, small and ancient, walls close on all sides.

Thick logs burned in the fireplace, pushing heat out into the room.

Simon lowered his head with great effort and looked down at his chest.

His brain stopped.

He wasn't wearing any clothes.

Bare. Not even underwear.

And in his arms.

A woman, equally bare, had her cheek resting quietly against his chest. Her arms were wrapped around his waist. One long, slender leg was draped across his thigh, easy and natural, like she'd been there a while.

Skin to skin. Nothing between them.

By the firelight, Simon got a clear look at her face.

Eyes shut tight. Eyelashes long.

He froze completely, not daring to breathe too hard.

He stared at the ceiling.

His pupils were shaking.

What the hell was going on?

Was he in heaven?

...Actually, that tracked. He had guided so many people through the apocalypse. He'd earned this.

The thought put some nerve back into him.

➤ Next: A Little Disappointed