Spencer's Mansion – East Wing Corridor
"Jack, Jill — I need your help! Can you hear me?!"
Rebecca's voice cracked through the radio as she dragged Richard down the corridor, his dead weight tugging on her arm like an anchor. His vest strap bit into her palms, her boots slipping on broken tile. The only answer was the chorus of groans behind her — the infected, their staggered footsteps echoing through the hall.
Richard wheezed, his head lolling. "Leave… me…"
"Not happening," Rebecca snapped, more to keep herself moving than to argue. She hauled him upright and shoved her shoulder under his arm. "You're not dying here."
Her pistol barked. The closest zombie crumpled, but two more shouldered past it, arms reaching. Rebecca fired again, the slide slamming back with an empty click.
"Dammit—!"
She dragged Richard toward a side alcove, nearly falling with the effort. Her belt cinched tight against his wound, blood seeping warm through her gloves. She propped him against the wall, fumbling for another mag. Her hands shook as she slammed it in, racking the slide with a metallic snap.
The door ahead burst inward. Rotten hands clawed through the frame.
Rebecca raised her pistol, jaw set. "Come on, then."
The first zombie stumbled forward. She put a round through its face, the muzzle flash blinding in the dark. Another fell with a shot through the chest. But more kept coming, pressing forward in a tide of rotting flesh.
Her radio crackled. Through the static, Jill's voice broke through, faint but urgent: "Rebecca — hold on! We're on our way!"
Rebecca exhaled sharply, relief flickering in her chest — but the infected didn't stop. She fired, again and again, until her mag ran dry. She slammed her back against the wall, heart hammering, the last zombie staggering closer.
Her pistol clicked empty.
The creature lunged.
A thunderclap split the hall.
The zombie's head vanished in a spray of bone and gore, its body collapsing into a twitching heap. The blast was so loud it rattled the glass in the windows. Smoke curled in the stagnant air.
Rebecca blinked through the haze, ears ringing. A massive silhouette stepped into the corridor, a revolver gleaming in his hands.
"Looks like you could use a hand," Barry Burton said, his voice steady as stone.
Rebecca nearly sagged with relief. "Barry!"
He nodded once, already thumbing another round into the .44 Magnum's cylinder. "Stay behind me. I'll clear the path — you keep Richard moving."
Rebecca swallowed hard, forcing her legs to move. She slipped back under Richard's arm, dragging him upright. Her arms trembled, but her grip was steady on her pistol.
She wasn't the same rookie who froze back on the train. She had survived too much to cower now.
Barry leveled his revolver. Another thunderous boom filled the hall as the infected closed in — and together, they pushed forward into the dark.
Spencer's Mansion – East Wing, Upper Corridor
Jack's boots pounded against the wooden floorboards, Jill's lighter steps just ahead of him.
"She should be in the east wing," Jill muttered, breath sharp, pistol clutched in a white-knuckled grip. "If we cut through here, it'll take us straight to her."
Jack's Viral Sense spiked. His head throbbed as a wave of dread pressed down on him. Something massive was moving ahead.
"Wait," he said, slowing.
Jill stiffened. "What is it?"
Jack's eyes narrowed on the shadows ahead. Heavy footsteps rumbled faintly through the hall — too steady, too deliberate to be shambling infected. His gut twisted, his pulse drumming. "It's here. That giant monster that's been chasing us."
Jill eased up beside him, pistol tracking the corner. Slowly, the figure emerged — massive, pale, clad in a tattered medical gown. The T-Aegis Tyrant. Its glowing eyes swept the hall, scanning, searching.
Jack's grip tightened on his pistol. He knew it wasn't enough. He could unload every round he had and it still wouldn't bring that thing down. Jill saw it too, and her training took over. She pressed close, her whisper sharp but calm.
"It hasn't noticed us. Don't engage. We'll find another way around the mansion — maybe we can circle to Rebecca."
Jack's jaw flexed. He whispered back, "Then we go outside. Better to move in the open than get boxed in with that thing."
Jill thought for a moment, recalling the map Rebecca had shown them. Her voice was quiet, decisive. "There's a service door near here. It leads outside — into the greenhouse. Umbrella used it for plant testing."
Jack gave a humorless smirk. "Figures."
They slipped back, careful not to make a sound. The Tyrant's footsteps boomed down the corridor as it lumbered deeper into the mansion, hunting. Jill led Jack to the rusted service door, forcing it open with her shoulder. Cold night air and the smell of damp earth spilled out.
Moonlight bled through shattered glass panes. The air inside was heavy, damp, sour with the stench of rot and fertilizer. Vines crept across broken stone tiles, curling up shattered benches and dangling from rusted pipes overhead.
Jack stopped dead. His head throbbed like someone had struck him with a hammer. Viral Sense lit up in his skull, pulsing in jagged bursts. Too many signals. Dozens.
His breath grew shallow. "We're surrounded."
Jill whipped her pistol up, scanning the rows of foliage. "Where?"
Jack turned in a circle, eyes darting. Every nerve screamed danger, but all he saw were plants — leaves drooping in the moonlight, roots cracking the tile. Nothing human. Nothing infected. And yet his body burned as if the walls themselves were closing in.
"It's everywhere," he muttered, his voice raw. "I can feel them… but there's no one here."
A drop of water splashed from above, startling in the silence. Then another, sliding down a thick vine overhead. The vine twitched.
Jack's eyes narrowed. His Viral Sense spiked white-hot. "Jill… it's not people."
The floor shuddered beneath their boots.
A planter exploded in front of them, shards of stone flying as a massive tendril whipped free, slamming into the tiles with bone-breaking force. Another lashed out from the shadows, curling around a rusted pipe and tearing it in two.
From the center of the greenhouse, something rose.
The stalk was grotesque, swollen with pulsing veins of green light. A bulbous core split open with a wet crack, revealing a fleshy, twitching maw lined with snapping fronds. Dozens of vines writhed outward, tearing glass from the ceiling, slapping against the walls like chains.
The air itself seemed to scream.
Jill's breath hitched. "What the hell is that…?"
Jack's Viral Sense burned like fire in his skull. His jaw tightened, eyes fixed on the writhing mass. "They got the plants too."
The monster shrieked, vines lashing out with bone-cracking force as the greenhouse came alive around them.