Resident Evil. Retribution Read Online Free Page B

scrambled up the stepladder, and Alice lifted her, gritting her teeth, shouting, “Climb!” though her daughter couldn’t hear it.
    Becky reached through the ceiling hole, grabbed the rafters, and Alice pushed her up, lifting her rump and the bottom of her feet. Becky vanished through the hole in the ceiling and Alice jumped up, grabbed a rafter, pulled herself up, feeling muscles beginning to tear with the effort.
    She lifted herself up off the stepladder, and kicked it down flat. The Undead were slow-witted, little more than sheer reflex, and clumsy in most things. They probably wouldn’t be intelligent enough to set the ladder up again.
    How do I know that?
    And then teeth snapped at her kicking feet. She lashed out, felt her shoe connect with a wet, gapemouthed face. She heard the thing stagger back from her, blundering into the others that were coming into the room.
    Alice pulled herself up further. Becky was kneeling near her on a rafter, trying to tug her mother up, her small hands of no real help. Alice’s legs flailed. She lost her grip, her fingers slick with sweat, and almost fell back through the hole—and felt an Undead clawing at her ankles, reaching its filthy, blood-caked hands to grab at her thighs, rake at her crotch…
    Spurred by a rush of fear she pulled herself up higher, almost halfway through the hole.
    She felt hands grasping and teeth gnawing at the shoe of her right foot, not yet breaking through— and she kicked out viciously, connecting with what felt like a jaw. The grip was gone and she heard the Undead stumble back into the washing machine.
    She could hear more Undead swarming into the laundry room—and knew she wouldn’t be able to fight off all of them. They’d pull her down if she didn’t get through— now, right now.
    With a Herculean effort she pulled herself up, shouting wordlessly with the strain, scratching her stomach and hips in several places. Something clutched at her heel—then she dragged her feet into the attic and crawled up onto a walkway of two unvarnished planks, beside Becky.
    Alice rolled, panting, onto her back, mouth dry, coughing up dust. Becky made her jump a little as she leaned over into her mother’s line of sight, her childish face taut, mouth quivering with sobs.
    Sitting up, trying not to focus on the sound of the frustrated, furious creatures scrabbling about beneath them she looked around, scanning for anything that could help them.
    There, at the other end of the planks—an old cardboard box of sporting equipment. A half-deflated basketball, a worn-out baseball glove, and a worn baseball bat.
    Alice gathered herself in a crouch and crept quickly over to the box, then plucked out the baseball bat.
    Becky was sitting on the planks, hugging herself, rocking in place, staring into space, making tiny little whimpering sounds in her throat.
    They couldn’t stay up here. Sooner or later the Undead would find a way up. And they’d be trapped.
    To one side was a hatch, set into a kind of shallow wooden box. That should go down into the main hallway, she thought. Laid over the rafters was a retracting aluminum ladder.
    Carrying the bat, Alice crept over to the hatch, carefully lifted it up, and looked down. She saw nothing but the floor below. She lowered her head enough to peer down the hallway—it was empty, as far as she could tell.
    She’d have to go down there and scout it out. They needed a way out of the house. Her heartbeat—which had just begun to calm down—resumed its feverish pounding, just at the thought.
    She thought about getting to a phone, to call for help—but her cell phone wasn’t charged, and Todd’s was on him. They didn’t have a landline.
    Just get out of the house.
    Moving as quietly as possible, she set the bat aside and took hold of the ladder. She tilted it up, and lowered it, slowly, on its hinges, down through the hatch to the hardwood floor.
    Alice looked at Becky, smiled reassuringly, and signed.
    Wait a