Resident Evil: 0-2
By Artemis of the Moon
The dancing lights of a few open businesses interrupted the dark streets of Victorville, California. Citizens walked silently, clad in dark sweatshirts. The night was cool, and like others before it, forced the population to find warm places for the night. The "one-horse" town was home to a tiny population, and was used mostly for it's wide-open desert scenes in movies. Now, however, the deserts were frozen over, and would be found covered in frozen over dew in the morning.
Rebecca Chambers covered her arms over her chest. She was freezing, and there was no way to convince her body otherwise. Her long woolen sweatshirt hung loosely as she walked slowly toward her destination. Pieces of upturned gravel crunched under her untied high-tops. She managed out a sigh, and then went back to shivering.
How long had it been since Raccoon? She was barely able to remember that long ago, yet somehow the events were burned into her brain. She was branded for life as an enemy of Umbrella now. She felt like an escaped convict.
As a young woman of 18, Rebecca had graduated college. She was something of a prodigy, something all her friends had marveled at since she was young. Her dream had always been to work in a lab, or something of the sort. However, after she had graduated, she was offered a position on Raccoon City's S.T.A.R.S Bravo Team. It was a simple medic position, however she had had to go through months of meaningless training and shooting exercises. Albert Wesker, her new commanding officer told her that accepting his officer would open up new career choices—even if she didn't stay. That was about the time things went awry.
Rebecca was thrown out of her train of thought when she stumbled on a piece of loose asphalt. She regained her balance, and managed to keep walking through the intense cold. The dark sidewalk was only illuminated by small patches of light widely spaced street lamps provided. She squinted and managed to see the cross street she was heading towards. Rebecca knew Barry Burton lived close, and was heading in that direction.
The Raccoon City S.T.A.R.S had been disbanded soon after Rebecca's fist mission. They faced horrible accusations, some of which said they had been on drugs, and they had imagined what they saw. Others thought they had murdered the rest of Bravo Team. The remaining members (except Jill Valentine and Brad Vickers) managed to make it out of the city, just before it was destroyed under government orders. At that time, they decided to take Umbrella down. Rebecca felt strongly about what they did to her Bravo teammates, and what they did to her. They had managed to take out a few Umbrella command centers, before there was another spill. The team (including Barry Burton, Chris and Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine, and of course, Rebecca) had recently moved to Victorville after finding what looked to be another cluster of Umbrella labs seemingly placed in the miles and miles of desert. Tonight was a meeting of all the members, to decide when they were going in and such.
Rebecca felt nervous butterflies arise in her stomach when she thought about this. A mission meant they were constantly in danger, and she was always nervous during a mission. She didn't want to die, and she didn't want to lose anyone from her beloved rebel S.T.A.R.S team. She pushed back the horrific thoughts and began to walk at a faster pace to keep her mind off of them.
She reached Barry's street, which was hardly lit at all. None of his neighboring houses had their lights on, which made Rebecca extremely impatient. The ill-lighted street seemed to stretch on forever and ever. She pulled a piece of paper with her own writing on it. Barry had given her directions "This is the place, I guess. Doesn't look like its Barry's, though." Rebecca thought and tilted her head to observe the house.
The small yellow house was strange. The driveway curved up in awkward angle, and the garage door was a deep maroon. The white trim was aged, but not so much that the house looked old. In front of the house was an ancient swing set that Rebecca wouldn't even touch if she were five. In front of the beautiful oak door, were two signs that said, "Kiss the Cook!" and another with a large bee that said "BEE Happy!". Rebecca chuckled. "I know Barry said be discrete, but geez, he really takes this whole "undercover" thing really seriously." Rebecca thought and was unable to suppress a gentle laugh.
Rebecca walked down the tilted driveway and realized how nice it would be to get of the cold. She walked up to the door and gave it a gentle knock. There were a few moments of silence and then she could see a form emerge on the other side of the French oak door. "Becks, is that you? You're alone, right?" queried the form. Rebecca cleared her throat and made sure the cold had done nothing to her voice box. "Yes, it's me. And I didn't bring a date this time" Rebecca replied. The door opened and Rebecca saw the smiling face of Barry Burton.
He was a big guy; Rebecca figured he worked out a lot before the Mansion incident. He had a strange affinity for guns, which Rebecca constantly teased him about. Usually, Barry was a jovial, all-around nice guy. Unless someone threatened his family, of course. Barry loved his family immensely, and would never let anything happen to them. Recently he had to be away from them for long periods of time, but Barry knew it was for their own good. Rebecca felt extremely bad for his daughters, who were growing up without such a wonderful father.
Barry managed to hug Rebecca, which rarely happened. "Hi, Barry" Rebecca smiled. "Hey" Barry smiled back "You're the last to show up, everyone else is here. I'll take your sweatshirt." Rebecca quickly unzipped the black sweatshirt and handed it to Barry. She walked into the living room, in which she found the rest of the team sitting, enjoying mugs of what looked to be coffee. Barry's living room was off white, and contained a white sofa, a white loveseat, and a small wicker chair. Chris and Claire occupied the loveseat, and Jill sat on the chair. On the glass coffee table in the middle of the room, proudly stood a large eagle statuette. The carpet had an odd maroon color that matched the garage door on the outside.
The gang looked up at Rebecca when she entered the room. Underneath her now absent sweatshirt she wore a green tank top with yellow stripes and charcoal gray sweatpants. "Hi everyone" she said with a sly smile. "I like the look of Barry's house. Very chic!". Barry entered scowling and pushed Rebecca onto the vacant seat of the sofa playfully. "Hi Rebecca, glad you could make it" Jill said. She was wearing a teal shirt with jeans. Her light brown boyish hair cut was pulled back behind her ears. "Hey." Chris said and pulled back another gulp of coffee. Claire merely smiled warmly at her.
Chris was undoubtedly the best marksman on the team, and Rebecca and he had shared a lot of time together in the Mansion. He had discovered after she had been lost in there for some time. She had been thankful, and she had spent a lot of time with him. Jill was stealthy and had a lot of experience with lock picks. She was an ex-thief herself and knew a lot about sneaking around. Barry kept most of the weapons for the team, and he had become the self-proclaimed leader as of recently. Everyone respected him greatly, and he was the oldest, so it made the most sense for him to direct him or her. Rebecca had enough medical experience to be a field medic, so she stayed on the team as a medic. She had been one on Bravo team, so everyone assumed she would fit best as one. She had minimal fire training, but she made due with what she had. Claire had no formal training at all; she had just been at the wrong place at the wrong time. She learned fast, and soon enough her aim was thirty times better than Rebecca's, much to her embarrassment.
"All right, down to business now, people" Barry said in a commanding tone. Everyone looked down slowly then up at Barry and nodded. "As y'all know, we've found a small cluster of Umbrella Labs about 60 miles east of this location thanks to Jill." Jill looked up and beamed, while Barry continued. "Well, the plan is we get in, we find the self destruct button, we press it, and get out. Not screwing around. If they know we're coming, we're screwed anyway. I've got a few maps, and enough weapons and ammo to blow into Fort Knox. Any Questions?" Rebecca raised her hand timidly. "Do we have any information on if there has been a spill yet? Because I think if there is one, this town might suffer just like Raccoon did." Everyone shuddered. "I doubt there has been. If there has been we'll have more problems than crazed Umbrella scientists running around." Everyone nodded communally. "Do we know exactly where the self destruct system is? I mean, Umbrella has hidden them pretty well sometimes. I also know we are working with more than one lab this time." Barry rubbed his temples and managed out a sigh. Rebecca could tell he hadn't wanted that question asked. "No, we can't know exactly where the system is located, but we know it's located in one of the central administration centers. There are three of them, and they're rather big, so we'll probably have to split up. But we'll go over that tomorrow." Everyone glanced at each other. Rebecca noticed they were all visibly shaken. No one really liked the idea of going into anything with an Umbrella Logo on it, but they knew whom they were doing this for.
Barry tried to comfort everyone. "Get some sleep, guys. We ship out tomorrow, as soon as it gets dark. This really isn't anything special. How many times have we done this?" Claire smiled warmly "Too many to count. We all work well together, we should be able to do this." Jill looked at the ground. Rebecca knew Jill had seen a lot, almost more than she had. But not that night. Not the night they all went into the Mansion.
Rebecca remembered seeing that overturned truck in the forest. It was covered in mud and slop, the drivers dead. She found a clipboard with the name of the prisoner the truck was carrying, a convict by the name of Billy Coen. Mr. Coen was supposed to be executed as soon as the truck arrived. Rebecca remembered praying for a dead body, but she couldn't find one. She reported to Enrico Marini, the Bravo squad leader. He told her to check things in and around, and to apprehend Coen if she found. Rebecca remembered having a titanic lump in her throat when she responded with a meek "Yes Sir".
She wandered around the woods for about 5 minutes, until she discovered an immense horizontal shadow. She walked closer to it, and found it was a long, stopped train. Rebecca slowly made her way towards one of the entrances to one of the passenger cars, her heart beating uncontrollably. She slid the door open, took a deep breath and dove in.
Rebecca found herself feeling strange as soon as she entered the train. The smell was horrible, almost intoxicating. She plugged her nose with her free hand, while letting her gun arm down, as it had been erect for the last three hours. She didn't want to breathe, because she found the smell eking into her body through her mouth. The smell was a mixture of corpses and of something else, something purely chemical. Feeling her heart drop, Rebecca knew she'd find a dead body. "Wait a minute." Rebecca thought, "This train looks like it hasn't stopped very long ago. The lights are still on, and it looks like the power hasn't faulted. Coen couldn't have killed these people long ago, at least not while the train was in these woods. The disintegration of the human body never works this fast without help."
Against her better judgment, she checked the doors to other rooms in the Main car. To her utter joy, they were all locked. She tried the end door, and the knob gave a freshly greased click and opened against her weight. Rebecca grabbed her gun and aimed it around the room in one swift motion. She walked towards the rows and rows of passenger seats around the car. The smell had grown so bad it was now making Rebecca nauseated. She let out a cry at what she saw. The passengers remained in their seats, pieces of their flesh tattered their laps and arms. It looked as if acid had fallen from the roof and struck the passengers. Pieces of pure bone stood out from what mangled flesh had stayed on their now dead bodies. They lay slumped of on each other, expressions of horror still on some faces. Rebecca remembered stifling a cry and making an inward decision to find survivors. "What kind of weapons does an escaped convict have!? Nothing I've ever seen can kill people like this. This is horrible, it can't be happening!" Rebecca remembered reaching for her radio when she heard something stir.
"Rebecca?" a voice asked concernedly. Rebecca awoke from her silent reverie to see the dramatic face of Barry Burton staring down at her. "You okay?" he asked again, his eyes now staring. "I-I'm fine. I was j-just thinking." Jill sighed. "What were you thinking about?" Rebecca hurriedly said, "I-I was just thinking about the Mansion" "I think we're all thinking about that right now, well, except for Claire" Chris said, pushing his sister playfully. Claire grinned, and socked her brother hard on the arm. "Which is exactly why we need to prevent it from happening again" Barry began to speak again, but Rebecca only half listened.
Rebecca's eyes widened when she saw what was moving. One of the dead bodies was getting up! Rebecca managed to draw her gun and point it, deciding whether or not to warn the walking corpse. It took tiny steps toward her; it's mouth open and uttering horrible noises. Rebecca uttered a tiny cry as she heard something stir behind her. "Damn, that's another one! What the hell is going on here! Zombies!? I know, the guys are just playing a trick on me. "Welcome to your first mission." They got real looking zombie masks and everything. They probably made the smell by mixing rotten ages and shoe polish. They probably rented out the train and the jeep and there's probably a party in the next car." Rebecca's thought and breath were snatched out of her, as one of the zombies places a nasty hand on her shoulder. She yelped, raised her Beretta high, and pulled the trigger. The zombie was blasted backwards, and she raised the Beretta 9mm again and fired 3 shots straight into the zombie's chest. It gave a gurgling scream as it fell to the ground. A small pool of blood began to flow from its side. Rebecca shuddered as another zombie jutted towards her. She aimed a little higher this time, and fired a few rounds. The zombie's neck gave a terrifying snap, and it's spinal cord deteriorated, leaving the walking corpse to collapse in a frozen, lifeless heap on the rich carpeting.
She remembered being nauseated, and wanting to throw up everywhere, but she knew she had to get out of there before more began to rise. She dashed to the next room, screaming "Hello? Please someone help!" The irony was that she was part of the Raccoon City Police Department and she was screaming for help. She felt as if she forgot how to use her gun. All the training she ever had was out of her mind, and it kept screaming, "Find some help! Find some help!"
She reached the last Cabin Car and stopped to catch her breath. In front of her was a wooden wall and to her right was a series of windows. She walked to the nearest one and began to look out it, making sure everything outside was more peaceful than it was on the inside. Suddenly, a figure came running toward the window. Rebecca stepped to the side as a figure crashed threw the window, spraying glass and a red substance all over the floor. The figure managed to stand for a moment, then relax and slump to the floor in a sitting position. She looked at the figure's face and found to her horror that it was Edward Dewey, one of her Bravo Team members. "Oh my God, Edward!" She began to check over his wounds and realized there was substantial areas on his legs in which missing flesh could be found. His arm was the same way; Rebecca guessed it was from blocking the countless blows from whatever gave to Edward. "Edward? What did this to you?" He had a lifeless expression in his eyes, which made Rebecca feel he was already gone. Edward turned his head slightly, and was able to whisper slowly and evenly "Re-becca? M-Monsters a-re in the f-forest-t. Be-Becareful, Re-bec-ca." Rebecca gasped as she watched Edward's head slump down in an unusual fashion. She put a hand on his shoulder but quickly removed it as she saw a crimson flash whiz past her. She raced to her feet to check out this new enemy, and only found two large Doberman circling her hungrily. She closely inspected them once again and found that large amount of its fun and skin had fallen off. Slick, red muscle lined the dog's sides, and parts of bone were exposed. The dog's rib cage was exposed, and parts of organs jumbled around in the yellow bone. They bared their teeth at her, and red-tinged saliva flew everywhere. Rebecca screamed and dashed to the door. The two dogs picked up on this and cut off her exit, a few feet away. Rebecca began to run down the hall, when she realized she had the 9mm hanging loosely in her grip. She fired a shot at one dog, and there was a sickening crunch. Another dog jumped at her, and she whirled around and fired five even shots, each hitting its target. She began to relax, when one of the dogs got up and began to pad quietly toward her. She reacted by pulling her Beretta's trigger and closing her eyes. The buck of the gun shook her up, and when she opened her eyes, the other monster had stopped moving.
"What is this?! Zombies and Zombie dogs? I guess this has been what's been causing the deaths in the forest. I bet there are others out there too. I better radio Enrico." Rebecca thought, feeling the panic die down again. She reloaded the 9mm Beretta with utter ease, but froze solid when she heard a footstep. She carefully walked toward the noise and found a man hunched over, examining something. "H-Hello?" Rebecca asked timidly. "I'm from Raccoon City S.T.A.R.S, and I'm inspecting what happened to this train." She said, trying to sound much more firm. The man whirled around, and Rebecca saw he was wearing a deep purple "wife-beater" which showed off his muscular arms and torso. He was wearing tight-fitted jeans, and his dark hair was slicked back. She clasped a hand over her mouth when she saw a pair of handcuffs dangling from his right wrist. "Y-You're Billy Coen!" Rebecca gasped. "In the flesh" Billy replied smoothly. Rebecca knew she had to take action. "You're under arrest for the murder of twenty-three people!" Rebecca shouted. Billy gave a sly grin, and waved her off. "Sorry babe, I'm already wearing handcuffs" With that, Billy walked off.
From then on, Rebecca had kept Billy a secret from everyone. They had wandered through the train together, through a training facility, through places that were too good to be called Hell. Billy saved her a number of times, from being locked in a kitchen, to being eaten by a giant T-Virus induced centipede. She found later that Billy was an ex-Navy SEAL, and had only killed those people under orders. Rebecca trusted Billy with her life, and he had trusted her with his safety a number of times.
"All right then, so I guess this meeting's adjourned. We ship out tomorrow at eight. I've got the guns, Jill, you bring the info, and Becky, you bring the medical stuff. See you tomorrow, everyone. Communally, everyone got up, and Rebecca remembered how much she didn't want to walk home. "Could someone give me a ride home? I kinda don't wanna walk." Chris thought about it for a moment before saying "Sure, I'll give you a ride." As Rebecca followed Chris and Claire slowly outside, she couldn't help but feel deathly nervous at their upcoming mission. The ride home was a quiet one, Claire ended up resting her head on Chris' shoulder. Rebecca knew the two siblings shared a very close relationship. Rebecca wondered how her family was doing. She hadn't seen them in so long.
She bid the brother and sister goodbye when they reached her apartment, and then made sure to wave them off as they drove into the dark. It had become much colder since Rebecca had entered Barry's house, and she knew it would be hours before it began to get warm for the morning sun. She hurried inside, the bitter cold freezing her from the inside out. She made it to her first floor light blue apartment and unlocked the door slowly. There was always a moment of wariness before going somewhere, she never knew if Umbrella had found them.
Rebecca stifled a yawn as she entered the plain apartment. She hadn't bothered to unpack, and she really didn't care if she ever did. The rebel S.T.A.R.S never stayed in anyone place for long, and all their money came from other rebel groups and unspoken relatives. Money was usually a problem, but somehow the group always seemed to make it out okay. She crashed on the couch, and sighed. She decided to get packed tonight, and have the rest of the next to be lazy. The white walls of her boring apartment danced and Rebecca rubbed her tired eyes to make it go away. She lazily got up and grabbed several Medic Packs that hung on her wall. She had three to go around, one for each of the groups that were to be arranged for tomorrow. Inside were the typical elements of a medic bag, from band-aids to tourniquets. Several colored syringes never proved to be of any use. Also inside was Morphine, something that worked well to relieve the pain of gunshots and head wounds. A thermometer was also in each bag, along with anti-bacterial ointments for cuts and scrapes. Rebecca's had a few more different types of medicine. She made sure each bag was about full, then grabbed a combat knife and put it in her own. She didn't like carrying a gun, and since Barry wanted to keep most of the guns for himself, Rebecca was fine. She went into the bathroom and changed into something she could sleep in, and gazed tiredly in the mirror. "Oh Billy, where are you? I wish you were here," she mumbled. Somewhere deep in her heart, Rebecca was sure she'd never see Billy again. He was an escaped convict; he couldn't show his face everywhere he went. She pushed light brown hair behind her eyes, and winked. She plopped into her bed, and went into silent, dreamless sleep.
The jeep rode in silence across the desert terrain, except for a few bumps from rocky boulders or tiny thick plants that were in the path. They had been riding in the black jeep for a little under an hour. The rebel S.T.A.R.S group transfixed their vision to the front of the black jeep. Rebecca Chambers was dressed in a black jogging suit and red sneakers. If she was standing on the harsh desert background, she could probably be seen with great difficulty. The other S.T.A.R.S members were dressed accordingly, with Barry in a navy Air Force shirt and black vest, Jill in a loose black tank top and uniform S.T.A.R.S pants, Chris in a dark red shirt and camouflage pants, and Claire in a light brown shirt and green pants she borrowed from Chris. In the back of the dark jeep was a large set of weapons (Rebecca didn't know exactly how many, she just knew there were a lot). The jeep hit another bump, which knocked Rebecca out of her seat in the back. She was wedged between Chris and Jill, who were both bigger than she was. Barry's driving was a bit extreme, but silent nonetheless.
At about three miles away, the labs were just barely visible. Barry stooped the jeep, and got out abruptly. He opened a large ebony chest in the back of the vehicle, and grabbed his favorite Colt Magnum out. He handed Jill her Grenade Launcher, which she hung steadily around her shoulders. Chris and Claire both got silenced Magnums as well. Rebecca was finally handed to twin 9mm Beretta's, which were of course silenced as well. Her weapon choice was used mainly because she was smaller and she could be stealthy. Jill used her Launcher to clear out large rooms and hallways. "All right, everyone covered with weapons?" Everyone nodded slowly, while making sure his or her weapons were loaded accurately. "Lets see" Barry began "I'll go alone into the first center, it's smaller and I can cover more ground on my own. " Chris shifted his weight uneasily. "You sure about that Bar? I mean, one of us can go with you or somethin'." Barry grinned, "I'll be fine. Claire and Chris, you two work best together, so you'll take the bigger command center. Jill and Rebecca, you two take the last one. It's pretty midsized." Barry stroked his chin "Rebecca give Claire and me a Med-Pack, that way, all of us have at least one. I have the map for each command center here, I'll give one to each of us." He handed Rebecca a map of the inside of her center. "We're gonna have to split up here. Everyone knows where to meet?" Everyone said "Yes" simultaneously. "Great, we've gone over this enough times people, you know what to do. Remember to get out of there once the red lights start flashing. Got it?" Everyone groaned. "Let's just go already, I can't stand waiting!" Jill voiced. Barry grunted. "All right All right. Move out, people."
Jill and Rebecca walked in silence for what felt like forever. They had to make the three-mile walk in utter silence, lest they be discovered. "Jill?" Rebecca asked, trying to break the quiet. "What?" Jill asked in concern. "Oh, I was just wondering if you were nervous?" Jill gave an almost invisible smile. "Yeah, I'm usually nervous doing this kind of thing. But I'll be a lot happier once this is all over." Rebecca put her head down. "Yeah, since we've been in the mansion, I've felt like I can never be happy or safe again." Jill gave a gentle laugh. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Once we shut Umbrella down, I think we'll all be able to settle down for good." Rebecca realized Jill's words were helping a lot. Deep down, she wondered if Jill really believed everything said. After walking with their own thoughts for a while, the two finally saw what they were going up against. A large block wall blocked most of the view of the center, except for a giant sea-green dome that protruded out of the ground. A yellow light reflected off the giant globe giving it an odd glow. Jill stopped for a moment to take it all in. Rebecca, who was looking at the map, kept walking until she noticed Jill had stopped. "Well, I guess this is it" Jill said, looking at the giant structure before her. Rebecca nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess it is."
A/N: Well how did you like the first chapter of the story? I promise I'll update soon, maybe with a bigger chapter. Read and Review, as always reviewing always makes me review more quickly! Thanks, and Happy Holidays.