A Special Time of Year
A Silent Hill/Resident Evil Christmas crossover
December 25, 1994
Chapter 1: Christmas Wishes
Sherry Birkin opened her eyes slowly and looked at her clock briefly before staring at the ceiling. It was nine in the morning; if she went down now, she would find out exactly how this Christmas was going to be. Once, she had woken up as early as she could to run downstairs. She knew that the presents were sitting there under the tree, waiting for her.
But she had only put one thing on her Christmas list this year.
The other things would be nice, she knew. She always got nice toys and books, and there was a platter of cookies sitting on the counter. Yet all that had seemed meaningless on the last day of school before break, when the other kids had been talking about what Christmas was like at their houses. Relatives visiting, singing carols, building snowmen and having snowball fights…
She sat up with a sigh and swung her legs over the side of the bed, running her hands through her blonde hair to untangle it. Looking out the window, she could see flakes of snow falling gently down. She got up and stood there in her blue flannel pajamas, listening carefully. The house was not silent. Someone was downstairs in the kitchen, opening cabinets as if getting something ready. That meant it probably wouldn't be a Christmas like the one two years ago, when both of her parents had had to work, greeting her in the morning just to apologize for having to leave. The year before that, her mother had had to work. Last year, it had been her father. By the time the day was done, they only managed to spend an hour or so of the holiday together. With these things in mind, she braced herself and left her room to go downstairs. There was only one thing she had asked for.
Dear Santa Claus, her list had read,
I've been a very good girl this year. All I want for Christmas is for Mommy and Daddy to both be home with me.
Love, Sherry
When she got downstairs, she walked into the kitchen cautiously. Annette Birkin stood at the counter arranging the cookies on the platter, blonde hair pulled back away from her face and a white apron over her festive red sweater and green pants. Sherry thought the combination was awful, but she would never say so.
She turned away from the counter and pulled her daughter into a hug. "Merry Christmas!"
"Merry Christmas," Sherry responded, hope and worry fluttering inside of her. "Is Daddy home?"
Annette didn't answer, only tightened her hug.
Sherry slumped, hope dying. "Oh."
"I'm sorry, sweetie. He tried, he really did. They even wanted me to work today, but I convinced them that at least one of us needed to be here with you." She moved back to separate them and cupped her chin. "Do you understand?"
Sherry nodded, but tears filled her eyes. She tried to blink them away, not wanting to cry. Her parents' work called them away a lot. She knew she should be used to it by now. There was no reason Christmas should be any different. It was just that the way the other kids talked about it… She turned away, wiping her face and trying to stop the tears from coming. "I just wanted the three of us to have Christmas together!"
Her mother made a sad sound, but she didn't turn around. She heard her open another cabinet, and then Annette circled around her, holding a plate with three cookies on it. "Since it's Christmas, you can have cookies for breakfast. Isn't that neat?"
It wasn't as 'neat' as if both of her parents had been there for Christmas, but she forced a smile onto her face and took the plate into the living room. She sat down on the couch, staring at the tree as she ate. The tree was only partially decorated, as they all had been too busy to finish it. As it was, the lonely strand of lights lit up half of it, and a few sad ornaments hung here and there. The presents were piled beneath the tree, as she had expected, and the cookies were one of her favorite kinds, but neither thing made her feel happy. She swallowed hard, the chocolate feeling like a hard lump as it went down.
She set her plate down and wandered the living room until she found the remote for the TV. Then she turned it on, hoping that one of the special Christmas programs on today would be about some lonely person spending a lonely Christmas. She had found shows like that in the past years; they always made her feel better about what she did have, and they usually had a happy ending that made her smile.
This year, however, she seemed to be out of luck. Every show she saw featured smiling families, laughing children, and everyone celebrating Christmas together. She turned off the TV and stared at the dark screen, wondering if her mother would agree if she challenged her to a snowball fight. She had been going to ask her father about that; he seemed more the type. She had memories of being very small and playing out in the snow with him. They seemed so long ago.
The phone rang, and Annette answered it, poking her head into the room a moment later.
"Sherry, it's for you!"
"Who is it?" she asked, getting up.
"It's Father Vincent."
She walked over and took the phone nervously. Vincent was some sort of a priest, but he didn't act like any priest she had ever heard of. That included the other priests she had met from his religion, though, which was a good thing. He seemed a little crazy, but he wasn't as scary as some of the other people who lived in Silent Hill.
"Hi?"
"Merry Christmas!" Vincent shouted from the other end.
"Merry Christmas," she said back, surprised that he celebrated it.
"You don't sound very happy, Sherry. Come on, don't you know the song? Better not cry, better not pout? Santa isn't going to bring you anything if you don't stop pouting!"
"It's too late anyway." She turned away so that she could pretend she didn't see her mother shaking her head emphatically. "I didn't get the one thing I wanted…"
"Oh, one thing, and you're pouting. What was it? A train?"
"No," she said, starting to feel tired of talking to him. "I wanted Mommy and Daddy to both be here with me for Christmas, but Daddy had to work anyway."
"What? Well he—" She wasn't entirely sure how she expected him to finish that sentence, whether he was going to mock her or comfort her, but she never got to find out. "Ah, I have to go. Claudia is banging on the door and shouting. Bye!"
She hung up quickly, not wanting to think of Claudia. The priestess from Vincent's religion was one of the scariest people she had ever met. With a sigh, she returned to the living room.
xXx
Vincent hung up the phone, pushed off of the desk with his feet, and let the wheeled chair roll over to the door before finally opening it. Claudia Wolf stopped knocking as the door swung open, but she didn't look at all impressed by his method of opening it. She marched into the office, eyes blazing as she pointed her finger at him.
"You!"
He glanced down at himself, wondering if he had forgotten to take off his festive sweater. She hadn't been pleased with it when she saw it earlier that morning—since she always wore a dark dress that stood in stark contrast to her pale skin and hair, he supposed it just hadn't been austere enough. He hadn't forgotten, though, and he was wearing the white shirt and brown vest that he usually wore. Unless she had something against that now, it couldn't be about his clothes.
Her gaze had become increasingly livid as he inspected his clothes, so he looked up and offered her a smile. "Yes?"
"What did you do?" she snarled.
He considered the question for the moment. "Well, I fixed myself a cup of coffee… counted money… opened Christmas cards… decorated my office…" He held out his arms and spun around in the chair to indicate the sparkling garland, lights, and colored balls he had covered the walls with, jabbing a finger at the small Christmas tree in the corner before facing her again. She didn't look impressed by his decorating, so he smirked and continued, "Let's see… I called the Birkins…"
"Enough!" She folded her arms and stared down at him. "You know what I mean."
He thought he did, but instead of saying so, he continued to smile innocently at her.
Claudia slammed her hand down on his desk. "Vincent! You…" She spluttered, as if having difficulty getting the words out. "You… you put…alcohol…in the church's water supply!"
"Oh, that!" He laughed and smiled. She didn't return his smile, and he spread his arms out. "Claudia, Claudia, Claudia…it's Christmas! The Order needs to loosen up a bit, especially on a day like this."
"What has Christmas got to do with the Order?" she spat. "God will punish you for this, Vincent!"
"She'll probably punish me for my tree, too," he said with a smirk.
Her nostrils flared. "Will you never take this seriously?"
"I'm as serious as I can be on Christmas," he said. "It's a special time of year, Claudia. Maybe if you weren't so serious all the time, you'd see there is some good in the world."
"Who did you say you called?" she asked, apparently ignoring his suggestion.
"The Birkins," he said, thinking back to what Sherry had told him. William Birkin, now there was another guy who was too serious about some things—namely, work. He'd talked to him just the other day about lightening up the Christmas atmosphere at work, but he hadn't realized then that Sherry would want him at home.
"Hmm…" Claudia nodded and started to pace. "Yes, they have that little girl, don't they? A child like that shouldn't be left to the teachings of such heathens. I may have to pay her a visit."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Vincent jumped to his feet. "Didn't we talk about this? It's too risky to kidnap children for the Order, especially when they're old enough to understand! Besides, her parents work for Umbrella. You don't want to get on their bad side, Claudia; the people at Umbrella are all sorts of crazy." He waved his hands around for emphasis, but she just rolled her eyes at him.
"I wasn't thinking about kidnapping the girl, Vincent. I just thought someone should bring the light to her." She nodded, looking thoughtful. "On a 'holiday' such as today, perhaps that would be best…"
"Look, I have a better idea. If you don't want to celebrate Christmas, sure, go to Raccoon City, but leave the Birkins alone. Find Al, maybe the two of you can haunt a café together."
She raised her eyebrows and didn't say a word. As she swept her way out of the office, he shook his head. Leave it to Claudia to ruin the rest of Sherry's Christmas. Now he knew he had to do something. Vincent picked up the phone and began to dial.
xXx
"No!" William Birkin yelped at scientist standing out in the hallway. The other man had a huge grin on his face and a screwdriver in one hand. "I do not want to help you rewire the security system for the experimentation lab so that you can only get in by singing 'Feliz Navidad' in four-part harmony!" The phone began to ring then, and he took the excuse to slam shut the door before he could hear about any other hare-brained schemes. He should never have listened to Vincent.
Speak of the devil, as they say; it was Vincent's voice on the other end of the phone when he answered, wishing him a Merry Christmas.
"Oh, it's you."
"Now what did I do to deserve that?" Vincent asked, sounding almost innocent.
"What did you do? 'Liven up the atmosphere, Will,' 'Have a Christmas office party, Will,' 'Pass out some drinks at the office party, Will'! Do you know what it's like here right now? Everyone is acting completely insane, like they haven't got a care in the world!"
"Kind of like me?"
"Yes! And I'm here, afraid to leave the lab to seek out more sane people because of the sheer amount of insane people I'd have to pass on the way! Christmas atmosphere? This is a terrible atmosphere for a lab, Vincent!"
"It's not my fault," Vincent said. "My advice was thrown out there, free for the taking. I didn't force you to follow it."
"I can't even work in peace," he grumbled, thinking over how the morning had gone. After a few attempts to make it deeper into the complex, he had given up. "Every time I start to get into my notes, someone out in the hall bursts into song and scares me half to death."
"There's one clear solution."
"What's that?"
"Stop working."
It was official; Vincent was an utter loon. William glared at the phone before finally asking, "What?"
"I'm serious! That's actually why I called you. I was talking to Sherry on the phone. Don't you love Sherry?"
"Of course I love Sherry!" he snapped.
"Well, she's sad because you have to work. Today. Christmas."
"It's not my fault. I tried to get the day off like Annette!" Reading Sherry's Christmas list and then having to work anyway had just about broken his heart. It was one of the reasons he had actually gone along with the 'office party' idea. Unfortunately, instead of cheering himself up, he had created utter chaos. "It just didn't work."
"I don't think you tried hard enough."
"What do you want me to do?" he asked, irritated. "Ignore the fact that this is my job and just take a day off whenever I want?"
"No. Just for Christmas."
"Vincent!"
"To be with your wife and daughter," he continued on the other end as if he hadn't been interrupted. "You know, Annette and Sherry? Remember Sherry? The little girl who wants to spend Christmas with you? Remember how you said you loved your daughter?"
"Stop that. You're just going to make me feel guilty, and there's nothing I can do. If I could spend Christmas with my family, I would. What do you expect me to do, go to the head of the company and explain that I need to go home?"
"Come on, you're a brilliant man, Will! You can think of something. In fact, with me on your side, it'll be surprising if we don't get the entire Umbrella Corporation to close down in honor of Christmas!"
xXx
"Why don't we open some of these presents, Sherry?" Annette asked, sitting cross-legged by the tree.
Sherry sat down beside her. "Okay," she sighed.
"But not all of them. We'll save some of them for tonight, once your father gets home. How does that sound?"
She shrugged. "Fine." She opened the present that her mother handed to her, pulling off the blue wrapping paper. She took off the lid of the uncovered box and found a ragdoll, one with black hair hanging down in two braids. "Thank you," she said, dismally thinking that at least she would have the doll to keep her company the next time they both had to work.
"Sherry, you can't sulk all day…"
"I'm not sulking."
"Lots of children would be happy to have a Christmas as good as yours."
She couldn't think of anything good to say to that, so she just hugged her new doll and didn't say anything. Christmas. They all said it was a special time of year, but she didn't know what was so special about it. It just seemed like a lot of boxes and lights and broken hearts.
"Sherry… What would cheer you up?"
She thought about that for a minute. If her father couldn't be home, then she couldn't spend her Christmas with family, like other kids talked about. Some of them talked about going to church, but she wasn't quite sure what that entailed or what church her mother would want to go to. Of course, there was the snowball fight idea…
"Let's have a snowball fight!"
"A…what?"
She jumped up and looked out the window. It was still snowing steadily, and the ground was covered by at least a few inches. "It'll be perfect!" she cried. "Snowball fight!"
"Maybe we should wait until a little later," Annette said.
"That's what I thought you'd say," she sighed. It had been worth a try. Instead, Sherry opened another present and discovered a model train set, which entertained her for a while as she got it set up and laid out the track so that the train would go around and around the partially-decorated Christmas tree. She watched it travel in circles for a while, until Annette cleared her throat. She looked over.
"You could help me decorate the house…"
She jumped up. Maybe more decorations would help the house feel like it had the Christmas spirit. With only the sparse tree, it didn't seem very festive. It felt half-finished, like all of their Christmases. "All right!"
"Wait here while I go get the box of decorations."
She returned within minutes, set the box down on the table in the kitchen, and then left again. Sherry dug through the box until she found bundles of gold garland, which she nearly ran off with until she realized that she wasn't tall enough to hang it around the ceiling. Annette returned with a box of tacks and a stepladder, and they went around the house together hanging the garland.
"This all is for the tree, right?" Sherry asked, looking into the box and seeing another strand of lights, a pile of colorful balls, and packs of silver tinsel. She got the lights out and untangling the wires.
"That's right." Annette finished hanging a wreath on the door and looked around the kitchen. "Let me see here, where did I put that…"
"What are you looking for?"
"Aha!" She pulled a plant out from a pot sitting on the windowsill. "Mistletoe!"
"Mistletoe?" Sherry repeated, making a face. She knew about mistletoe. Everyone joked about it at school around this time. The day before Christmas break started, one silly boy in her class would always come in wearing a hat that had mistletoe attached to it and say that meant girls had to kiss him. She always avoided him that day as much as possible, and she wasn't pleased to see that dreaded plant in her own house.
Annette glanced at her and laughed. "You should see your face."
"Mistletoe is icky," she said, watching as she took the plant over to the doorframe and began to attach it above the door.
"Icky." She laughed again.
"It is icky!"
"You'll feel differently when you're older."
"No I won't," Sherry said, which made her mother laugh again, although she didn't know why. "I'm not going to get married, either."
She straightened the mistletoe and turned around. "Oh, you'll find a boy you like, and then—"
"No I won't. I know lots of boys, but they're all icky except for Daddy."
Annette's mouth twitched, as if she was trying hard not to laugh. "I'm sure he isn't the only non 'icky' guy out there."
Sherry thought for a minute and found she had to reluctantly agree. "Well, Mr. Wesker isn't icky, but I'm not kissing him under the mistletoe, either, even if he asks!"
Her mother opened her mouth as if to say something, but started laughing instead. She laughed so hard that tears came to her eyes, and as she was wiping them away, she shook her head. "Oh, Sherry, I never know what you're going to say."
She still didn't know what was so funny, but instead of asking, she grabbed the strand of lights from the table and took it over to the tree. She looked up at the tree for a moment, realizing again that she was too little to wrap it around the unlit section. She pulled out one of the wrapped boxes from beneath the tree and climbed onto it to reach higher. On her tiptoes, she was just about ready to start wrapping the wires around when Annette walked over and took it from her.
"Why don't you let me do this part?" she asked.
"All right," she sighed. She instead assigned herself to the important duty of making sure her mother didn't step on her train. As she guarded the train, she thought more about Christmas stories she had heard. "Sally says at her house, they string popcorn to decorate the tree with," she said.
"Do you want to do that?" Annette asked, walking in a circle around the tree as she carefully placed the lights over the branches.
"Yes!"
To her delight, that went over much better than the snowball fight idea had, and after the tree was all lit up, her mother went into the kitchen to start popping popcorn. Sherry grabbed a few of the Christmas balls from the box and hung them on the tree, leaving some there so that the higher parts of the tree would be decorated as well.
Over the sound of popping popcorn, another noise suddenly came, and she froze. It sounded like…someone outside, putting a key into the lock of the door. It couldn't be…she hardly dared to breathe as she looked out the window…and then she ran into the kitchen.
"It's Daddy!" she shouted, jumping up and down in front of Annette. "He's home, he's home, he's home! My Christmas wish is going to come true after all!"